My friends, I am trying to write this early so I can go to sleep at 10. There is a meeting of Asian nonprofit directors tomorrow at 7:30am. These other nonprofit directors are all morning people, who, along with Tea Party Republicans and hipsters, are ridiculous. They have unexplainable, weird behaviors. For example they wake [...]
Abandonment can happen to anyone. You can be single, married, divorced, come from a nurturing home or a dysfunctional one. The key issue in abandonment is honestly looking at loss. It can be a traumatic event like the death of a parent or a cumulative one such as the loss of a connection with your [...]
In China, people eat dogs. Yes, unfortunately, the stereotype of the Chinese eating, well…everything, is somewhat true even in the context of what we consider a household pet. Earlier this month, CNN published a video covering the dog meat market in Guangzhou, China. I cringed at the thought of my own family’s black lab and [...]
Dear everyone, Tomorrow my little nonprofit will be putting on a community forum to ask people what they hope to see in the community 10 years from now. Already some rumors are swirling around about an epic power play, about our organization trying to grab leadership. I might be called a communist, and I’m sure [...]
Dear everyone, Buying a house is like slapping yourself repeatedly in the face with a sock full of melting chocolate: sure, it sounds like a good idea at the time, but once it stops, you just end up sweaty, sticky, and people think you have something else all over your face. It has been a [...]
Dear everyone, Yesterday, I soaked morel mushrooms in water and salt, hoping to drive away gross, horrible creatures that tend to make homes in them. No, not Tea Party Republicans, but little bugs and insect. We were saving them to eat in celebration when our offer on the house is accepted, but hearing no such [...]
The wedding is the first big project that a loving, committed couple tackles together. It is a test of how well they can work as a team. All that said, most guys would rather poke ourselves in the eye with a plastic fork and run screaming into the wilderness than to go through with planning [...]
It’s estimated that as many as 10 million women and 1 million men are battling with an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia, according to the National Eating Disorder Association. Millions more are struggling with binge eating or compulsive over-eating. Prior to my work in Seattle, I worked as a counselor at a community [...]
Dear everyone, Jameelah and I bought some morel mushrooms! Half a pound’s worth! And we might have also bought a house. All these months of house hunting have been fun, and exhausting, and heartbreaking, honestly. After we withdrew the offer on the last house, the listing agent called back, begging us to resubmit the same [...]
Dear everyone, Today is my birthday, and this post will probably be depressing and rambling and unedited, as usual for the annual birthday post. I find writing can be very therapeutic, like acupuncture, with words as needles. A month ago, my friend, “Flora,” committed suicide. She was an eccentric writer with six dogs, two turtledoves, [...]
My friends, Buying a house is like slapping yourself repeatedly in the face with a sock full of Jell-O: It’s messy, but kind of fun. Try it. This week has been eventful for Jameelah and me. We found this cool little house on a hill in a neighborhood we like, filled with light, with a [...]
Healthy self-esteem is sorely lacking among many Asian Americans. While some can try and hide behind their careers, wealth, beauty, family connections, or accomplishments, its become apparent that our culture has done a poor job in building self-esteem. Healthy self-esteem is rooted in our uniqueness as human beings and not on what we can do [...]
Dear everyone, Jeeze, I’ve never had writer’s block this bad before, if you can consider blogging writing. It’s like my sense of humor has been drained by a…by a…damn, something funny should go here. By a Dyson vacuum cleaner? See what I mean? It’s awful. I blame it on stress. And Netflix. But mainly stress. [...]
You may be married. You may have kids. You may have been together for some time. In any case, you can’t seem to find the fire in your romance anymore. What can you do? No amount of inspiration works. You know that flowers, chocolates, exotic trips, and dinner dates all seem to come up empty [...]
You might say my years at Microsoft were my formative years. In the first three years with the company, I was working 100-hour weeks and I never took a day off. Well, that’s not entirely true – I took one day off. That discipline continued during my remaining years with the company, but a lot [...]
Hi everyone,
Some people are getting angry at M. Night Shyamalan, who made “The Sixth Sense” which is an awesome movie. Why are they mad, you ask? Because he’s casting all White people in his next movie, The Last Airbender, which is a popular animated show where the characters are mostly Asian. They think he’s racist. [...]
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies. – Aristotle Dating is hard enough as it is but dating in an Asian American context is made even more difficult because of our culture. Asians pride themselves on their marriages, families, children, and continuation of the family lineage. Despite this obsession on fostering marriage, [...]
My friends, I chaired my first neighborhood council meeting today, attended by about 25 people in the neighborhood, and I think I might have offended an elected official by telling him, in so many words, that his time was up and I needed to get back to my agenda. If I’m giving up American Idol [...]
Dear everyone,
These days, it’s been easy to get irritated. I realized I have gotten more jaded and impatient than usual, even at work. “What? Little Kenny is crying at our after-school program because his grandpa is ill? Argh! If only these kids would think about the inevitable progression of age before they bond with their [...]
Over the MLK Jr. Day weekend, I watched Cary Fukunaga’s 2009 film, “Sin Nombre”, meaning “Without a Name”. The film is unique in that it depicts the current perilous and epic journey immigrants from South America and Mexico take to reach the U.S. In this case, a Honduran teen travels with her father and male [...]
“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.” -Soren Kierkegaard/Danish Philosopher The challenge of life is in the hard work of discovering ourselves. The question, “Who am I?” usually crops up after someone encounters a major crisis such as a job loss, divorce, or death of a loved [...]
Dear everyone,
Jameelah and placed another offer on a house, this time for an extreme fixer upper. I mean extreme. In fact, it’s threatening to dissolve right now due to rain. And ironically, it’s only ten blocks away from the house we got outbid on. This way, we can always drive past the beautiful house we [...]
Dear everyone,
On Christmas night, when the world was rejoicing at the birth of baby Jesus and families gathered around the fireplaces in the spirit of love and togetherness, Jameelah’s car got broken into, and they took her backpack, which had my camera. But even worse, Jameelah is a teacher, and her backpack contained 28 fourth [...]
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.” — Theodore Roosevelt Authenticity is defined as being genuine or real. When [...]
Now I’m not saying he did, and I’m not saying he didn’t, but I do know that quite possibly, the biggest fight in the history of boxing is being held up by a few drops of blood. In the past few weeks, Filipino boxing sensation Manny Pacquiao and his team have effectively halted all further [...]
To the Editor, We watched with repulsion the return of the “Bodies” exhibit to Seattle this fall. We are offended and disgusted at the disingenuous attempt to disguise the commercial displaying of human bodies as “education.” There are ways to educate the general public about the human body and disease without mining dead bodies for [...]
My friends,
This week is Christmas, a time for us to celebrate the birth of Jesus by giving and receiving gifts. And if you’re anything like me, you haven’t started shopping yet. Of course, if you’re anything like me, then you should congratulate yourself for undeniable sexiness. I’m just saying; it comes with the territory.
Gift giving is [...]
To the Editor: We are dismayed that the organizers of the “Bodies: The Exhibition” have chosen to bring their exhibit back to Seattle. There are ways to educate the general public about the human body and disease without resorting to the mining of dead bodies from overseas for their prurient shock value. We are offended [...]
My dearest friends, and the Obnoxious Republican,
Before I begin this week’s ramblings, I want to say that I hate, hate, HATE that STUPID Levi Jeans commercial where the idiot narrator says, “Pioneers, oh, pioneers” repeatedly while a bunch of moronic half-naked young people parade about, drenched by rain and living life. You haven’t seen it? [...]
The holidays are upon us and it’s my first holiday season back in Seattle where I can celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year with my family since I left more than 12 years ago. As with most Asian families, our holidays and celebrations revolve around some aspect of eating. It’s part of our cultural [...]
