The Other Blog

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

--Lewis Carroll

Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There 

1872 

I am a terrible correspondant.  I don't journal (having two grandparents, a mom, 4 aunties, 3 uncles, 4 cousins, an older brother & sister that have converging living arrangements kinda ruins it for you early on).  I infrequently facebook (it's a verb now).  And I am a luddite when it comes to the rest of social media and its etiquette (or lack thereof).

But, I do eat.  Every day as a matter of fact, three times at least, sometimes, 6 times a day.  And because I am frugal, and want to be self sufficient and healthy, I cook.  And occasionally, I write about it.  Every once in a while, I'll remember to take myself out of the moment of consumption and I take a picture.  Usually there are already several bites missing, but who cares?

So without further ado, I introduce my other blog.  Real Food, Real Phở.  I--I'm sorry you had to find out about it this way.  It's not you.  It's me.  Can we still be friends?  Maybe meet for drinks and rediscover our connection.  Do you like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain?

This explains it better than I could... http://www.workingmomsbreak.com/2012/01/31/advice-you-will-never-hear-from-a-career-counselor/

resume

I've lead an eclectic, esoteric, mercurial journey through life and as I reach my reflective midlife, sometimes I wish my life-resume showed a little more... direction. Meandering is just another way of not planning.

And then sometimes, I look over everything I've experienced in my late-blooming adulthood--speed reading teacher, mariachi band, poetess, martial artist, self-defense instructor, youth organizer, crafter/artisan, ballroom dancer, teacher sometime write of poetry and prosery, procrastinator, anthropologist (all the former while being in a doctoral program and being a terrible student, obviously), CBO researcher/info activist, trainer, facilitator, interviewer, popular educator, screenwriter & production designer, midwifery student, doula, gala planner, blogger, itinerant CSA heritage pork dealer, homesteader, priestess, bellydancer, mother ( I actually became a goddess but folks have issue with honoring the sacred feminine...), working mother, finance director, communicator, campaign researcher, union elected, negotiator--and I have enjoyed the journey, friends gained and the myriad life lessons earned, even those steeped in sorrow and inscribed in ink.

While I'll always wish I made more of the opportunities (should have traveled more, should have found a new Wing Chun dojo), I'll never wish that I made less.

Is it just the third decade that thinned out my creativity or is it birthing myself as mother? Working mother is another way of being absent for the hours that matter most to my daughter.

As I prepare to embark on a sabbatical, I anticipate the prospect of being without boundaries and a safe job to define myself and my time.  I am trepidatious.  I want to make the best of this breathing period. I want to find my calling, pursue my dreams and passion. I want to be a mother whose absences do not define the week.

Checkmate, Mama

After watching the movie Black Swan, I don't do the "If you don't do XYZ, I will throw it away" consequences anymore. And also because 2 weeks ago, my daughter called me out on the bluff. She didn't want to clean up her kitchen toys and so I gave the usual consequence that I would throw them away. And she said OKAY! and then helped me to put them in the recycle bin that I pulled out in my attempt to escalate. Finally I tried saying I would give the toys to her baby cousin K8 (archnemisis) and she said OKAY.

Checkmate, momma.

Fortunately the next day, I asked her to make me something to eat and when she had no toys to do so, I reminded her that we were giving it all to K8 and of course she flipped out. So after age 3, don't say "I will throw it away" unless you mean it mean it.

neow

yesterday I did something I haven't done voluntarily in over a decade. While VL napped, I went to the drugstore, got supplies, locked myself in the bathroom, and enacted the profession of my people--I painted my nails. And for the first time in my life, I like it. It's not the color per se (I wanted a dove gray but settled for gunmetal. and the violet on my toes is almost black, not plum) nor the nail polish (the smell still nauseates me) nor is it perfect having instantly ruined them trying to button up a jumper & onesie on a wiggly toddler. I still prefer my nails short and plain. And yet, I like them.

It is the ritual I spose, the ritual of carving out a space for myself that is completely selfish and indulges my vanity all for $7. And every time I see my busy hands doing busy things, my 'tips gladly remind me that I'm still me.

It is not quite a room of one's own, but it is enough. for now.

motherhood is the new irony

my baby, oh my baby,

she is the sun, the moon, the stars,
the universe, the ancestors, the future.
miss her, love her

and when i'm with her,
i wish for 15 goddamn minutes to myself.

red elephant

calling out the (red) elephant in the room.

i was beginning to feel like i was the only one that remembers that white suffragettes successfully campaigned to get the vote to maintain white supremacy after black men were enfranchised.

Belle Kearney, “The South and Woman Suffrage,” Woman’s Journal, 4 April 1903

"The enfranchisement of women would insure immediate and durable white supremacy . . .The South is slow to grasp the great fact that the enfranchisement of women would settle the race question in politics. The civilization of the North is threatened by the influx of foreigners with their imported customs; by the greed of monopolistic wealth, and the unrest among the working classes; by the strength of the liquor traffic, and by encroachments upon religious belief. Some day the North will be compelled to look to the South for redemption from these evils, on account of the purity of its Anglo-Saxon blood, the simplicity of its social and economic structure, the great advance in prohibitory law, and the maintenance of the sanctity of its faith, which has been kept inviolate. Just as surely as the North will be forced to turn to the South for the nation’s salvation, just so surely will the South be compelled to look to its Anglo-Saxon women as the medium through which to retain the supremacy of the white race over the African. . . ."

one hundred years later, the narrative doesn't sound much different.

salt fiend

it's my kryptonite.

for those of you who met my brother in 200X you already know that i used to drink soy sauce. more accurately, Maggi. the saltier french version. used to swig it straight from the bottle.

magic powers

so i hung out with my mom and Bà Tiến yesterday who my mom tricked into going up to North County and having dinner with my sister for the whole afternoon and evening. Like most Vinamese people, she prefers the xe máy|moped to the xe hơi|auto as a form of transportation. at least she doesn't get sooo carsick that she's vomiting all the time like most Vinamese people. she's here visiting my Bà Ngoại from Thử Đức, outside Sài Gòn. she has the same country accent as Bà Ngoại; says an emphatic không with that voiceless nasal release at the end that makes many people think that most vinamese words end in a p/b because the lips come together and the sound is unvoiced, and retroflexes all her voiced alveolar fricatives. so dì|maternal aunty sounds almost like rì and dễ thương|cute, loveable sounds like rễ thương.

so in addition to Bà Tiến giving me a nickname based on my condition Bầu (the equivalent of calling me "Preggie". oh, this is where i get that reductive nickname tendency from!*) she also said i have healing powers. so vinamese folks believe a first-time pregnant mom has the ability to heal people by massaging or squeezing or pressing the painful area according to how many vitalities they have (men have 7; women have 9). so she had me acupressure a spot at the top of her head where she had previously given herself a goose-egg/concussion. what could i do but comply. i don't know if her head pain has gone. my mom and dad who don't "believe" nevertheless had me squeeze their painful elbow, wrist as well as Bà Ngoại's more paralyzed right arm. who knows if it'll work. i mean if i can generate Life cell-by-cell, then it stands to reason. what can't i do?

i have healing powers. cool.

oh, and how happy am i that Henry's (the local more natural grocery store now operated by Wild Oats) has bulk mexican candies? i can have my tejocote and be lead-free... mom is under strict orders to memorize the location & serpentina candy appearance so she can keep me well-supplied. i'm already running out and am awaiting my next shipment along with my maternity áo dài.

*it could also be that she finds my Hawaiian name a pain to pronounce since its three syllables. remember its a monosyllabic language.

grade school blues

in grade school, back in my day, when we would get report cards, the teacher would handwrite your grades in scholarship and citizenship and then, make an earnest snippet of character appraisal of each pupil in neat, post-WWII babymaking boom-era cursive penmanship.

stylized pigeonhole judgements--made when you were 9-years-old and your personality was emerging into its destined formation while you played Foursquare, Dodgeball, and Unicorns with reckless abandon on the liminal cusp of tween-hood, a blink before adolescence and a semi-forgotten dream away from childhood--those reportcard judgements contain raw truths waiting to be unhusked and polished into a pearlescent grain of rice with your name improbably imprinted on it.

is one's destiny written in the stars by celestial beings and ancestral spirits? or is your destiny sincerely scripted on canary cardstock by pretty Mrs. O'Neill of the overflowing sympathy and coiffed ringlet mullet while you sat with your desk facing the wall on Movie Friday puzzling over a weeks' worth of overdue homework?

[Mrs. O'Neill if ever you come across this, i own up to being a delinquent GATE kid. as my sister said, it was challenging carrying around that big brain o'mine. so i have to admit to the petty theft of books. The Yearling and Professor Diggin's Dragons, i believe. i spose i ought to feel remorseful and ought to send you a copy, wherever you are, but ehhh, i don't and i won't.]

sigh. as ever...

Bright, but does not apply herself.

of innocence and dogshit: A Parable

when i was a kid, i would jackrabbit and cavort everywhere with sheer innocence and delight in life. out of the car. across the yard. on the sidewalk. on the playground. y'know, human kid places.

in time, as i segued to adolescence, i began to notice a pattern and a certain mmm je ne sais quoi, shall we say, capricious humor from the Heavens Above. because it seemed everywhere i would jackrabbit and cavort with innocence and delight, my waterbuffalo-ish peds would land squarely in a pile of DogShit. now this may be cosmic retribution for our childish games inflicted on the string of dogs we had that all seemed to mysteriously disappear. but that is another scooby story for another day.

now DogCrap, as it is well known, is nigh impossible to remove from the treads of one's shoes. wiping the soles of one's sneakers on grass or concrete does not suffice and point of fact only serves to streak the shit and work it in deeper. grinding your shoe soles in a puddle while hoping you don't backsplash any sludge on yourself is equally ineffective.

while the labyrinthine tread of your shoes is great for say running on asphalt and skidmarking wood floors, it is the cu chi tunnels for doggy doo. the festering substance is well and good squished up in the intricate crevices requiring a toothpick or some such to diligently furrow it out while freaking out about having to be millimeters away from bane fecal matter expurgated from the anus of a foul omnivorous slavering beastie, gagging from the offensive malodorous goo, and wretchedly indignant from the whole experience and now everyone's looking at my feet and knows i wear pro-wings. if the free lunch pass hadnt already given it away. damn. entire psychotherapy sessions could be based on such a thing.

while divested of my innocent delight and seeking preventative measures, i prevailed upon myself to develop my own defensive strategy which entailed diligent observance of where i set foot since the sneaks had to last til my next growth spurt. this preoccupation-from-necessity of mine in time became a subconscious habit of mine like a virus software unobtrusively scanning one's hardware for imminent threat. having this in the startup files of my operating system efficiently diverted me (and my companions) from further crapulent contamination. and the fortuitous incidental side effect of shit-radar is finding wadded up money in random places where some foolish wallet-luddite had creased their hip pocket just so like manna falling from heaven into my deprived little hands thus rectifying adolescent cosmic imbalance.

ah, but a lifetime of looking out for shit is just that. a lifetime of seeing shit. i literally see (and avoid) shit everywhere i go, because dogs, being dogs, shit everywhere their cussed owners let them. ("walking the dog" really just means befouling someone else's yard/public space. a selfish transference of responsibility. it is the American Way.) i oftimes don't notice the wildflowers or breathtaking horizon because i'm holding my breath scrupulously avoiding the fetid mound despoiling the earth (because when you smell something you are actually ingesting particulate molecules of that substance. shudder.) and simultaneously derailing my companion from meeting that fate with a luchador-worthy fullbody check. and if its not Feces, then it's its nasty cousin Vomit or Gum or anything Undesirable to get on One's Sole.

so here we come to the Moral of the Parable:

• if you look for Shit, inevitably, you will find it.

• concurrently, if you traipse about Life Unaware, you will step in Shit and defile yourself.

• penultimately, Shit Happens.

• and lastly, i'm a great person to walk with when you have Shiny New Kicks.

Choose-Your-Own-Moral (CYOM)™. multiple contradictory truths coexisting simultaneously. thus spake feralnative.

weo, this aint jonathan livingston seagull's blog.

shrimpy says "truuue story."

big brother

once upon a time, bro and i had lunch--rather, like the gourmand foodie he has become after decades of waiting tables in high end establishments, (heo, they got megastars in the michelin guide for service) he ate raw oysters with a clean melon finish while i stole complimentary matchboxes and dipped sourdough in extra-spicy tabasco--has just informed me that financial institutions don't care what your signature looks (gasp) and they will do NOTHING about janky simulacra signatures other than cut the payouts and charge you interest, unless you complain about the matter pugnaciously--i was nano-indignant--therefore with the desultory insolence of the disenfranchised, he periodically changes his signature. without telling anyone. scandalous!

his newest signature which could pass for nk spy hangul chicken scratch, when held up to the refracted light from a chain restaurant window in a freeway-side suburb and glimpsed in reverse reads, "FUCK YOU".

in the words of the Shark Tale shrimpy shrimp with five shrimp legs (do these appendages have a scientific classification?) crossed earnestly over shrimpy heart while the other five shrimp legs held palm-errr, first joint up in the scout's pledge with a shrimpy castrato sotto voce, proclaim "Truuue Story".

do you think i have a shot of getting a segment produced for "This American Life"?