She wondered if anybody understood, if anybody knew.
She wondered if anybody else felt this way. Was she the only one?
She wondered if anybody else shared these thoughts. Was she going crazy?
Everything was wrong. Everything was out of place. Everything mattered. Nothing mattered.
The face in the mirror stared blankly at her. She hated what she saw. The hair, the skin, the eyes, the teeth, the lips, the arms, the body, the color, the dullness, the bulge here, the drooping there, the crookedness here, the lopsidedness there, the imperfections,...everywhere. Everywhere. It was everywhere. It surrounded her, enveloped her, overwhelmed her, swallowed her alive and spit out her remains. When she brushed her teeth, she walked all around the house, up and down the stairs, room to room, until she had to rinse. When she combed her hair, she scanned the imperfections of the oatmeal colored bathroom walls. When she applied her make-up, she stood at just the right distance and just the right angle. Any closer, she might see too much; any farther, she might see it all. She was so observant.
She was too observant.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Epic Fail: The Story of How A Mother's Good Intentions Almost Destroyed the Universe
Y’know how, in movies or dramas, blind dates usually have this delightful little twist? Like, maybe the female protagonist and male lead initially want to gouge the other person’s eyeballs out and serve said eyeballs on a stick to party with now emptied eye sockets, until female protagonist is wooed by her discovery that the male lead is actually a deeply sensitive man and male lead is inexplicably drawn to her adorkable klutziness and both eventually fall head over heels in happily-ever-after-in- love land? Or maybe after the chance meeting, the two leads discover that they are fated lovers-to-be, the manifest promise of a centuries-old pact between two war-torn countries, and that their intertwined destinies and the subsequent consummation of these destinies via marriage will lead to the unification of their home countries, ultimate prosperity, and the freeing of a gajillion unjustly imprisoned civilians (including their long lost siblings)?
Yeah. That s@#$ doesn’t happen in real life.
Like a good Asian daughter, I decided to honor my mother’s request to go on a blind date. I’ve blown off her previous matchmaking attempts and I was starting to feel a little of that Asian guilt. Plus, I figured, if this blind date was a complete failure, I would have ammunition to refuse future requests. Either that or, if I scared the bejesus outta this guy, word would spread like a wild brush fire, fanned by Asian Old Lady Gossip (it’s a powerful inflammatory agent, in case you didn’t know), throughout the local Asian American community and my mom would never ever again be able to set up her unruly, Americanized daughter on a blind date. SCORE.
Let me just start by saying that I am not hating on the guy. To be fair, I sat and chatted with the guy for an hour. And I know it was an hour, because I kept staring at the clock on my cell phone.
But, mom. Really? Really?! Seriously?! Did you genuinely believe that I could be happy with a guy who looks like he is 40-going-on-60? A guy whose waist size is the circumference of one of my thighs? A guy whose glasses are a throwback to the 70s and not in the Super Freak kind of way, but more like the Super Geek “I-work-at-IBM-check- out-my-pocket-protector” kind of way? A guy whose pants were hiked-up so high that I could tell he was wearing white knee high socks? A guy who is straight-up from The Motherland and is not even a US citizen?!?
MOM. DID YOU SELL ME OUT FOR A GREEN CARD? HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN THAT I AM YOUR DAUGHTER, YOUR ONLY DAUGHTER, YOUR OWN FLESH AND BLOOD?? DO YOU EVEN LOVE ME ANYMORE?!?
Like I said, I’m not hating on the guy. After all, there was one good thing that came out of this. I had a moment of enlightenment, a brief pit stop on the fifth floor of Maslow’s hierarchy. At the end of the date, I silently mused, “Would it have been any different if the guy was loaded?” NO. That day, my friends, I learned that I am not as materialistic as I once believed I was; rather, I am actually much more shallow and superficial than I am materialistic. [KIDDING.]
What this boils down to is pure mathematics. We are NOT compatible. Y is not the complement of X, and vice versa. Y does not equal X, and vice versa. X AND Y is not a logical operation. Y is not some function of X. If Y were added to X, the result would be the complete structural and functional breakdown of X and Y, whereby Armageddon would immediately ensue, a cosmic explosion would occur, all living organisms on the planet Earth would immediately be consumed by an influx of gamma rays, some other scientific theory of catastrophic proportions would take place, and you would never forgive me because, well – you like living on planet Earth and you don’t wanna die yet.
Anyway. You get the point. Blind date FAIL. Of EPIC proportions. Of course, I didn’t expect any different. For all of y’all who thought this might be a “good idea” or “romantic,” I got three words for you: TOLD YOU SO. I can honestly say that this is probably the first time I’ve ever wished - and wishedreally hard - that a guy would find me utterly repulsive and entirely undesirable. Well, I am pretty sure he wasn’t into me. If he was into me, despite the obvious “B!#CH” in CAPS stamped on my forehead, he truly deserves a swift kick in the nuts. No joke.
Forgive me if I am being unnecessarily harsh and just plain rude. I wish the guy well. I really do. I hope he finds a woman who will appreciate his petite waistline and khaki highwaters, a woman who will love him as his hair turns gray (oh wait, his hair is already gray) - well, a woman who will love him as his hair turns white and his 70s frames are exchanged for bifocals. But, most importantly, I hope he finds a good woman who will love him well and who will love him just as he is, because everybody needs a lil’ love….including shallow, superficial, materialistic Queen Bees like me. Sigh. God, help me.
In the meantime, I’m working on how to forgive my mother. Double sigh.
Yeah. That s@#$ doesn’t happen in real life.
Like a good Asian daughter, I decided to honor my mother’s request to go on a blind date. I’ve blown off her previous matchmaking attempts and I was starting to feel a little of that Asian guilt. Plus, I figured, if this blind date was a complete failure, I would have ammunition to refuse future requests. Either that or, if I scared the bejesus outta this guy, word would spread like a wild brush fire, fanned by Asian Old Lady Gossip (it’s a powerful inflammatory agent, in case you didn’t know), throughout the local Asian American community and my mom would never ever again be able to set up her unruly, Americanized daughter on a blind date. SCORE.
Let me just start by saying that I am not hating on the guy. To be fair, I sat and chatted with the guy for an hour. And I know it was an hour, because I kept staring at the clock on my cell phone.
But, mom. Really? Really?! Seriously?! Did you genuinely believe that I could be happy with a guy who looks like he is 40-going-on-60? A guy whose waist size is the circumference of one of my thighs? A guy whose glasses are a throwback to the 70s and not in the Super Freak kind of way, but more like the Super Geek “I-work-at-IBM-check- out-my-pocket-protector” kind of way? A guy whose pants were hiked-up so high that I could tell he was wearing white knee high socks? A guy who is straight-up from The Motherland and is not even a US citizen?!?
MOM. DID YOU SELL ME OUT FOR A GREEN CARD? HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN THAT I AM YOUR DAUGHTER, YOUR ONLY DAUGHTER, YOUR OWN FLESH AND BLOOD?? DO YOU EVEN LOVE ME ANYMORE?!?
Like I said, I’m not hating on the guy. After all, there was one good thing that came out of this. I had a moment of enlightenment, a brief pit stop on the fifth floor of Maslow’s hierarchy. At the end of the date, I silently mused, “Would it have been any different if the guy was loaded?” NO. That day, my friends, I learned that I am not as materialistic as I once believed I was; rather, I am actually much more shallow and superficial than I am materialistic. [KIDDING.]
What this boils down to is pure mathematics. We are NOT compatible. Y is not the complement of X, and vice versa. Y does not equal X, and vice versa. X AND Y is not a logical operation. Y is not some function of X. If Y were added to X, the result would be the complete structural and functional breakdown of X and Y, whereby Armageddon would immediately ensue, a cosmic explosion would occur, all living organisms on the planet Earth would immediately be consumed by an influx of gamma rays, some other scientific theory of catastrophic proportions would take place, and you would never forgive me because, well – you like living on planet Earth and you don’t wanna die yet.
Anyway. You get the point. Blind date FAIL. Of EPIC proportions. Of course, I didn’t expect any different. For all of y’all who thought this might be a “good idea” or “romantic,” I got three words for you: TOLD YOU SO. I can honestly say that this is probably the first time I’ve ever wished - and wishedreally hard - that a guy would find me utterly repulsive and entirely undesirable. Well, I am pretty sure he wasn’t into me. If he was into me, despite the obvious “B!#CH” in CAPS stamped on my forehead, he truly deserves a swift kick in the nuts. No joke.
Forgive me if I am being unnecessarily harsh and just plain rude. I wish the guy well. I really do. I hope he finds a woman who will appreciate his petite waistline and khaki highwaters, a woman who will love him as his hair turns gray (oh wait, his hair is already gray) - well, a woman who will love him as his hair turns white and his 70s frames are exchanged for bifocals. But, most importantly, I hope he finds a good woman who will love him well and who will love him just as he is, because everybody needs a lil’ love….including shallow, superficial, materialistic Queen Bees like me. Sigh. God, help me.
In the meantime, I’m working on how to forgive my mother. Double sigh.
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