The Not-So-Secret Diary of a Bad Luck Girl

So it’s been about six months since I started ingesting lots of Get Gorgeous tea, at least three, sometimes four cups almost every day.

And you know what? I can’t remember the last time I had a pimple.

The main ingredient of Get Gorgeous is the rooibos herb, which has lots of antioxidants and boosts the immune system.

Also, I’ve been using Philosophy’s Pigment of Your Imagination SPF 18, which contains kojic acid, a natual pigment inhibitor with antibacterial properties.

But who knows? Maybe my hormones are changing gears once again as I approach the big 3-5. Yikes!

1) Read this blog. It’s funny.

2) Check out Zydecofish’s post on a homophobic freak with too much time on his hands.

So far I’ve gotten just one hate comment. I’ve since deleted that post but it was basically from some chick with questionable English who a) called me old, and b) questioned the title of my blog (“pissed off” was in there at the time) because that particular post was happy.

What’s with the haters? It’s all about the love here.

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Last night YP and I went to a talk on graffiti. It was pretty interesting though like on any panel, some of the speakers were more articulate than others. Two guys were in total disguise, one in a long ZZ Top beard, sunglasses, and hoodie (he was sweating bullets) and the other with a cap and scarf tied around his face train robber style.

Whenever I go to one of these things, I always think how graffiti is somewhat like blogging. There’s this wide open space and anyone can throw up tags, monikers, etc. Some become well known; some put up a piece of shit and move on. Sometimes you get caught and have to change your name.

Also, the impermanence of it. With graffiti you have to accept that your stuff’s going to get painted over, whether by the vandal squad or by other writers. With blogging sometimes you just need to delete stuff, whether it’s individual posts or an entire blog, for whatever reason. You could keep everything in draft or copy and paste in a Word document, but I’ve always felt it’s better just to let it go.

One of the artists likened graffiti to a butter statue. Now I’ve never heard of a butter statue before but I think I know what he means. I’d have thought sandpainting first but to each his own.

It’s not going very well.

Two instances. One: on the train back from NJ yesterday afternoon, this older man got on around Newark and sat next to me. Not right next to me but in the end seat of a three-seater, thank goodness because he reeked of cigarette smoke. REEKED. The negativitiy begins.

At that moment I was listening to Joan Osborne’s One of Us. You know: What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us, and I actually thought, What if every annoying person put in my path was a test? If not God then at least some sort of message and I’ve failed miserably again and again? What if this smelly guy next to me is God?

Nearing New York, I took off my iPod and heard music. Staticky loud music. U2 and Cher, again and again. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from at first. Then I realized: it was “God” next to me, playing the same two staticky snippets of U2 and Cher over and over on his cell phone. Do we seriously want to hear your music? Um, NO. And I thought that God couldn’t possibly be so annoying.

Then again, maybe I just failed another test.

Instance 2: on the subway up to my apartment. A seat opened up so I sat. The batty older woman (okay, so now I’m not even trying) next to me said, “Do you want to switch?” I looked at her like she was nuts. Then she pointed at the Chinese guy on her other side.

“Do you want to sit together?” she asked.

Oh no she didn’t. He and I had been nowhere NEAR each other before we sat. In fact I had my back to him. The whole “nice” scenario played through my head. “Oh, no, that’s okay,” smile smile. Instead?

“I don’t know who that is,” I said. No smile.

Then she couldn’t leave it alone. She had to laugh and say, “I thought you two were together.”

Apparently. I didn’t answer her and stared icily ahead. I looked for someone who could be her race – which I couldn’t tell what with her giant sunglasses – to point at and say, “Are you with them?”

Two white women across from me smiled but I knew it was because the woman had laughed at her “mistake.”

Racism’s funny.

And the dude was a total FOB too.

NJ was the usual. Had lunch at home, then went shopping in the afternoon. I actually felt in the mood and bought a few shirts (one of which I’ll probably return), a Coldplay CD for $8, and some camisoles.

I wanted to take my parents out to dinner, but I think they’re still feeling guilty from what they think are the big bucks I spent at Christmas and would only let me treat them to Wendy’s and Sabarro’s at the food court.

“You guys are cheap dates,” I told them.

That night they watched some bizarre Korean television. First off this variety show with a smorgasborg of entertainers, from an apparently half black-half Korean woman who belted a song an English, to a Korean woman who attempted to sing the same song in English but which didn’t really sound like English, just an approximation of sounds, to an opera singer, to an ‘N Sync like boy band, to a, I have to admit, kinda rockin’ guitar band.

I had a bunch of late nights last week so I went to bed ridiculously early on Saturday, and got a big honkin’ 12 hours of sleep. Sunday morning I worked on the piece I’m handing in to class, and which I’m still working on now. I didn’t expect to have so much trouble with the structure. The beginning especially is very clunky.

Had class last night and the woman I hate had her piece workshopped.

Why do I hate her? Let’s count the ways.

She constantly engages with the teacher as though the rest of us aren’t there. It’s like she has this one on one conversation with him that locks the rest of us out.

When someone asks the teacher something, she often jumps in first.

She says “graph” instead of paragraph.

She says again and again, “I need to write this, I have to write this.” Join the fucking club.

First class she wanted assurance that what she wrote about and said never went outside the classroom. “I’m writing about a very sensitive subject matter,” she said. Like the rest of us give that much of a fuck about your story.

And lemme tell ya, her story’s really not that tragic. Our class has got divorce, mental illness, racism, adultery, spousal abuse, child abuse, incest, potentially life threatening illnesses, alcoholism, drug use.

I’m not saying these things automatically equal a good story, but the way she went on the first day of class – “My entire life changed last year!” – made me think she had far more going on. Not.

First class she was hesitant about giving out her email because she was afraid it would get past the classroom. Like what the fuck are we gonna do with your email? You’re so frigging special that your email’s gonna get out to the spammers?

While her piece was being workshopped, she was defensive at every piece of feedback she got.

“Well, I know I have to fill in those parts. I just didn’t have time.”

“Oh, I can write very succintly. I write for magazines. This is just an experiment. This is very much for myself.”

“Oh, I know. I know. I know.”

Of our feedback, she said it was all stuff she already knew. Again, this was something she just had to write, that it was for herself, that it was an experiment. Then why waste our time and workshop it in class? When I read a piece for class, I assume it’s wanting to be a finished story, not a dumping ground of thoughts. Leave that for your journal.

Or your blog, for that matter.

The teacher asked if the feedback was helpful at all. She said, “Yeah. Kind of.”

She’s such a fucking know-it-all. The teacher recommended a few spiritual memoirs – she’s all into that yoga mumbo jumbo – and then someone else mentioned some others, and she said, “Oh, I read all those.”

Even if ya did, be gracious and SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT IT!

I could go on and on.

Occasionally though, I have to admit, she gives some good feedback on other people’s pieces. If only she’d shut the fuck up about herself.

Had one of those mornings when I woke up at 5 and couldn’t sleep anymore. And I went to bed kinda late too, after 11.

Tried catching up on Heroes online last night. In the middle of the latest episode, the website froze for some reason. So annoying.

Had dinner with H. on Monday. We ate at this place I like in Chinatown. Pork and crab xiao long bao, shredded pork in garlic sauce, and baby bok choy with mushrooms. Yum!

My favorite dish at that restaurant is the lion’s head. I guess you could say it’s the red variety which they serve with bok choy. I wasn’t sure if H. would like it so I refrained from ordering it, but afterwards when I described it to him, he said it sounded good. They also almost always have chou dofu, which I have yet to be brave enough to try.

For some reason I’m in the mood for shopping. Maybe cuz spring is in the air though there’s still some snow on the ground. I may hit some stores after work. I’d really like some nice high heeled brown leather boots, which you’d think would be easy to find but so far are not. Either they reach practically up the thigh, or they have 5 inch stiletto heels, or they’re too chunky. Will have to continue my search.

I love to bitch.

Having a low tolerance for stupidity, I love calling out the idiots of the world, whether it’s the person standing at the top (or bottom) of the subway stairs, reading her Blackberry, blocking the rush hour crowd; the tourists who feel they must walk five across the sidewalk; or the taxi driver who thinks I give a crap about his theories of when he has better business.

But does this negativity eat away at me?

Overall I think I’m a positive person. I don’t think bad things happen to me despite everything that’s happened. I’m quite lucky because of lessons learned. I’m healthy (knock wood), financially comfortable, I know what I love to do, I have friends and family who care about me, and I’m pretty.

Haha, just kidding.

What gall would I have to have to complain about my life? I’m not a child prostitute in Bangkok, nor a war widow in Iraq. I’m not an oppressed woman living in mainland China or Japan. I have all my limbs.

In high school I developed this persona as an angry girl. I was angry, especially when people were jerks to me for no reason, but it was a defense mechanism as well. I was so shy, I could barely talk to people. But I didn’t like coming off as shy so I decided to come off as angry instead.

As I got older, I honed this anger into a pseudo-toughness that only in a blue moon transformed into real courage. I loved cursing in front of people who found it shocking, telling off assholes who said rude things to me on the street, not caring what people thought.

I’m a petite woman who looks younger than she is. As kids my brother and I were called chink and chingchong every day. My mother bosses me around. And so how do I make up for all these things? I’m tough with the idiot strangers on the street. I don’t hide my disdain for their inane cell phone conversations, roll my eyes when they bump into me, sigh audibly when they take forever at the subway turnstile.

Also, hey, it’s New York.

But maybe it’s not necessary for me to be so impatient, so negative about these little things. My reactions don’t make the situations any better. I don’t get worked up over the super crowded subway anymore. I’ve accepted it and push right into the middle of train. True, I totally bump into people – it’s the Chinese in me – but I do say sorry in a sincere way.

I was talking to YP about this, and after we agreed it’s probably better not to be quite so negative, I bitched about this group on Flickr called Happy Couples.

I mean, c’mon! Blech.

Only the recap is long, not the weekend unfortunately.

With the ice storm on Friday, the office closed at 2:30. But since it’s not a big deal for me to get home, I stayed till 4, finishing up a few things I’ve been putting off.

Just as I walked in the door, my cell phone rang, a number I didn’t recognize. Turned out to be a childhood friend I’ve been out of touch with for some time. Our parents have known each other since Taiwan, and W. and I have known each other since we were 3 and 4. We grew up together basically, our folks getting together on the weekends to play mah-jongg.

We’re quite different, W. and I. She was always part of that more traditional crowd in which everyone is a young Chinese professional while the people I’ve hung out with has been more mixed.

The last time I saw W. was at her dad’s funeral in February 2005. Of course we couldn’t talk then. I’ve known her dad since I was little and so my parents and I were a MESS, just like everyone else, especially when W.’s brother, who is 7 years younger, got up there and talked about how he was sorry his dad couldn’t see him get married. Oh my God, I just want to cry right now.

Anyway, so I was glad that she called. Normally she lives in Europe with her European husband, but on Friday she was in the city not far from me for a wedding at which she didn’t really know anybody. The reception wasn’t till 7 so we thought that would be a good time to grab a cup of coffee.

Luckily she was in my area because it was really slippery out. We chatted and chatted at a Starbuck’s. I updated her on my whole story, and she was shocked. Her expressions were priceless. She was also very supportive and glad to see that I was okay now.

I held off for so long telling W. because we’ve been out of touch and also because my mother wasn’t ready for her friends to know. Before I went to meet W., I called my mother to warn her that I’d be telling W., but that I’d ask her not to say anything to her mother. But then later I found out my mother told W.’s mother anyway. Her mom is apparently a clam so no one else will know till my mom’s ready.

And what was one of the first things W.’s mom said? “Maybe W. knows someone we can set Anna May up with.”

Great.

Anyway, no catch-up would be complete without some gossip. It’s so funny: W., who went to school upstate, is now friends with a bunch of my former friends from my college. I was very good friends with one guy, who I had the biggest crush on for the longest time. We stopped being friends basically cuz he’s a dick, but by then W. was good friends with one of his friends and so she’s stayed in touch with them over the years.

The last time I saw this guy was at W.’s wedding, during which he said hello with an expression like, “How come you didn’t come up to say hi to me?” Um, because you totally dissed me after I was out of the country for six months. I was totally snotty to him the rest of the time.

Anyway, so W. told me that he’s really cocky now. I don’t remember him being that way before, but that could have been an act for my sake. He was basically a liar, so much so that he couldn’t even keep track of his own lies. I believe I wasn’t a true friend to him but someone he kept around to boost his ego.

W. is not judgemental like I am. She generally gives people the benefit of the doubt. But there she was saying that this dude is now such a big talker, constantly bragging about his job, and how annoying that was.

I found that SO satisfying.

Saw Zodiac, which was really good. It was quite long but I wanted it to go on and on. It was a scary movie, but there is one thing that makes me laugh. There was a very suspenseful scene involving squirrels, and one of the squirrels jumps suddenly onto a screen door. And this girl behind me was so startled, she made the most ridiculous noise: “Ohhh!”

It’s not coming across in text. If only I had recorded it. I couldn’t stop laughing after that, also because she herself and her friends were all laughing. It still cracks me up now.

Sunday I got home in the afternoon and was a bum. I did a little more writing, finished Angela’s Ashes, and watched some of season 4 of the Gilmore Girls.

This week at work should be quiet. Almost everyone is away at a sales conference.