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| MOVING
I'm moving to L.A.
How's that for breaking the four month ice? Kink kink.
Sadly, will also be moving to Wordpress. I think I've had enough of the banner up top.
Visit devurb.wordpress.com for future updates and hot dates.
Jumpa lagi.
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| I got my feet on the ground
And I don't go to sleep to dream
- Fiona Apple, Sleep to Dream
It happens sometimes, dreaming on the road.
I'd walk from A to D, only to arrive at D without a clue that I'd blown by B and C. Sometimes it's a good book. Other times it's an inspired story idea, pong-pong-pong-ing furiously behind my eyes. I think and dream, and have no idea what I encountered along the way.
But what's a little more cause for concern, is how I drive and dream.
Quite a few times, I'd drive from A to L, only to stop at the red light at L and wonder--hard--if I had stopped at the lights back at E, G, H, and K.
It seems that familiarity breeds the autopilot in me. There is space for me to, well, space out, think about weekends, think about naps, think about everything else other than the road. My eyes glassy, my legs no less jaded. And yet I cruise and inch along just fine, not scoring points on bicyclists or encouraging fender benders. It's just the jolt at L, and sometimes the chill running down the spine, that overcomes me. I get distracted easily. (It remains to be seen if I distract easily.)
Other people do it too, thankfully. Feffer drove me home this evening.
He almost didn't. He made to go straight at the traffic light outside my block.
"I think you turn here," I said.
"Oh!" And he promptly turned a sharp right. "Sorry, spaced out a little there. Was just gonna keep going down Forbes."
"So'right."
"Shoot. I was supposed to turn left, wasn't I?
Ah, God is funny. I know what dejavus are, but what to describe these spacing outs? Dejas?
What is a little more freaky than autopilot driving, is recommending Bowling for Columbine to Amy's friend the night before the Virginia Tech massacre.
I was driving from A to L that day, fully aware of every point in between. 22? Must be dreaming. 33? Bloody hell. It's no dream.
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| Hard to find space and thoughts to blog these days.
Part of it is because I'm not very writer-ly. Writers are
those disciplined bots who make time to blog at least one post a day, at most
five blogs at one time. No wait -- writers are those who simply love seeing words
printed on any surface. Or those fail at life when compared by their parents to
their siblings in corporate law, medicine, or a Korean pastoral position. I've
too much ebb and flow in my spirit to be properly bloggerly.
The other part is that change is in the air. It may still be
many months and a thousand miles away (bugger, winter is still here), but think of me as a gopher standing
very, very still in the prairie, feeling tiny ripples in the air as a baby
sneezes softly in China.
Trying to work on some personal writings, as well as a website for my church.
Easter came and went without much fanfare. No
public holiday either, which made me pine for home. In Malaysia, we
get nearly 15 holidays, depending whether you live in KL or not. Here in the
States, there's a barren stretch between New Year's Day and Memorial Day (May
30). Nations could fall and Web 3.0 could be here before I see the end of May. Another plus in a Malaysian holiday is that I could be
gorging myself with muruku, kuih raya, or pineapple tarts. Here, I pick
delicately at a slice of Easter Ham. Yay. Salted meat. But it was very
gracious of Karen and Tom to spontaneously invite me to their family dinner in
the first place; a last-minute guest could make things no worse if you already
have three kids and a baby at (and under) the table.
Other than the remarkable nature of Easter Sunday itself,
another thing I found equally remarkable are the hairdo's on every other black
girl in church.
I used to think Chinese girls back home were serious
about their hair. Straighten lah, layer lah, color lah, shea butter lah, etc.
O-oh no. Black girls blow them away.
Not only are they serious about the audacity and awe-factor
of their hair styles, but also in the frequency at which they switch from one
do to another.
For example, I came into youth group one day and saw that
Gica had short hair in place of her usual ponytail.
"Nice cut," I said. She smiled at me and said
nothing.
Next week, same time same place, and her hair had
resurrected into a frumpy phoenix.
Crystal, a smart girl in her senior year, had her hair in a bun one day, a frizzy
'Starship trooper helmet' look the next, and -- hey, surprise -- the day after, she
had sculptured it into something I can best describe as a volatile bird nest.
I've learned not to compliment them on their hair again, because
I've lost all sense of what is real and what is not. There's some wicked styling (and maybe some wig action) going on around here, and they start young. African American women are
proud of their hair, and go through ingenious ways of making art out them, instead of resorting to haircuts. I think they look gorgeous. I've not done anything to my hair since the New Year. Should I exercise my ownership over it and go for a Son Goku look?
Maybe when Memorial Day swings around. If ever.
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| I took a half-day at work today to drive out to Lancaster. It's been a while since I was last here, but I didn't protest when Amy greeted me warmly with a 'welcome home'. Beautiful day, beautiful turnpike, beautiful lady.
Voluntary mush-factor aside, as I was saying, I took a half-day. I celebrated coming back to bustling Oakland by aching to both live AND work within the city--and buying my first lunch food in a while. (I don't believe in driving a total of 6-miles at lunchtime to get an Arby's Melt.)
I got one of my favorite comfort foods: General Tso's chicken.
Comfort in the sense that you eat it when you're really really sad--or when you leave work early on Friday to shove all the mess to the unsuspecting dude in the cube next door.
I ate half of it; portions of 'Chinese' food in the US are generally such that you can eat till you're full and yet give away enough to relieve world hunger in 12 nations. Orient Express has the best General Tso's in Oakland. I felt gross and happy.
I thought of bagging it for the 4-hour drive. But General Tso's came with rice, not in a wrap.
Oh my. A General Tso's burrito. What am I doing in a cube?
I figured it would be tricky to manoveur chicken and rice into my mouth even with cruise control. Not to mention dangerous.
So I ate it all in one sitting. I devoured the entire box. I was horrified.
I felt like I had eaten General Tso himself.
It probably raised my heart terror level to RED, compared to an estimated YELLOW for eating with two hands on the road.
Saturday plans changed from Philly, to DC, to NYC. I'll be watching the Lion King show. If I do 20,000 stomach crunches during the show, I might be able to lower the threat level down to ORANGE.
And then wait to be king.
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| You know it's spring when:
Doors to coffeeshops are wide open and the clientele spills out obstrusively onto the sidewalk.
It's warm outside, and freezing inside the house.
You bump into some 'toddlers on church' jokes on someone's blog (in this case, Maria).
~
3-year-old Reese:
"Our Father, Who does art in heaven,*
Harold is His name.
Amen."
~
After the christening of his baby brother in church, Jason sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car. His father asked him three times what was wrong. Finally, the boy replied:
"That preacher said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, and I wanted to stay with you guys."
~
One particular four-year-old prayed, "And forgive us our trash baskets, as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets."
~
A Sunday school teacher asked her children as they were on the way to church service, "And why is it necessary to be quiet in church?"
One bright little girl replied, "Because people are sleeping."
~
A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin 5, and Ryan 3. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson.
"If Jesus were sitting here, He would say, 'Let my brother have the first pancake, I can wait.'
Kevin turned to his younger brother and said:
"Ryan, you be Jesus!"
~
A father was at the beach with his children when the four-year-old son ran up to him, grabbed his hand, and led him to the shore where a seagull lay dead in the sand.
"Daddy, what happened to him?" the son asked.
"He died and went to Heaven," the Dad replied.
The boy thought a moment and then said:
"Did God throw him back down?"
~
A wife invited some people to dinner. At the table, she turned to their six-year-old daughter and said,
"Would you like to say the blessing?"
"I wouldn't know what to say," the girl replied.
"Just say what you hear Mommy say," the wife answered.
The daughter bowed her head and said:
"Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?"
~
I don't know if these were all authentically or fictionally composed, but here are some real-life funnies with some local Pittsburgh moms:
MAYA: [very seriously] Mommy, I think I know what I'm going to give up for Lent.
SERINA: [surprised] What's that, honey?
MAYA: Salt. I'm going to give up salt.
SERINA: Wow. I know how much you love salt. Sounds like you thought about that for awhile.
MAYA: Yes, I did. But this means I can't have eggs, because I can't eat eggs without salt.
SERINA: Well, suppose you tried eggs with just pepper and herbs? It would still taste yummy.
MAYA: [thinks and thinks and thinks]
MAYA: Yeah. Lots of pepper, though. But not cayenne. Just black.
SERINA: [nods solemnly]
And,
Jonathan: "I know why Isaac died."
Heather [thinking she'd like to know]: "You do? "
Jonathan: "It's because his body stopped working." Directly after the above: Jonathan: "If Jesus didn't die on the cross..."
Mommy thinks: we'd still be dead in our sins...we wouldn't be reconciled to God...
Jonathan: "...then he could die on the ground." <melts>
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