Gone.
11/28/01
Boy I’ve been gone too long.
Yup, it’s been over a week since I was blessed with regular online connectivity, freedom to be the utter glorious dork that I am, and to pick at my toe jam in private without concern from interruption or parental lecture.
I am back from the holidays and I’m not quite sure where to begin but I’ll try my best.
Well I recovered rather nicely from the party and am almost quite done basking in the blushable embarrassment of incidences that happened that evening. Still, it’s rather fascinating to learn who hooked up with who.And exactly who is the person referred to in *this* post?
Rumor has it that there are even some Craigslist Missed Connections missives up regarding folks at the party. Woot. Woot. Woot.
Anyways,to catch you up on my latest.
I flew back to Michigan last Monday, recovered from lag on tuesday, ate an obscene amount of Korean home cooking on Tuesday and tried not to be bored silly by the lack of television, trash talking friends, or freedom of mobility or internet connectivity. Desperate to manage my addiction for the internet, I went to the library and nearly got kicked out for laughing too loud from reading various accounts from the party. My favorite involves Ernie offering the e to Evan.
Wednsday evening, I got a few of the bloggers in MI that I knew together for a dinner out. That’s right. All three of them. Dave(zilla), Scott (studly man with his bride Amy), and Amy.
So out of the group of us, there was 3.5 Koreans and 1.5 White boys. I rather like how Dave put it. Amy had some rather nice pix here as well. And just as she predicted, we all had digital cameras. Scott is an extremely nice hug and I’m glad to hear that he’s getting help for his hug aversion. His incredibly radiant and lovely bride Amy was unbelievably tolerant of our dorkdom geeking out in reference to dish on online personalities that we all know, love, or hate. Dorks we all be.
The company, conversation, and chuckles were a total delight and Dave was kind enough to walk me back to the Catholic-Mobile as I affectionately refer to my Dad’s cherry red blazer which sports 3 rosaries, a medalian, a “God is Pro Life bumber sticker” and a decanter which I suspect carries holy water. I’m not kidding.
And no, it was relatively mild inspite of expected rumours.
Thursday of course, means Turkey.
Dad and my step mother Monica were up at an awful hour of the morning preparing a 22 pound turkey, 11 pound ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing (sans kimchi like made by yours trully) ham sauce, gravy, steamed broccoli
From scratch.
The onus was placed upon my father to introduce two newly-fob families to the tradition of Thanksgiving. Two families with a total of five gangly Korean kids ranging in age from 8 to 16 invaded the home. I’m still not sure which kid belonged to which pair of parents but I do recall their names quite fondly.
Jake, Abe, Dustin, Annie, And Roy.
Yup, 5 Korean kids who are named after cowboys and cowgirls. Brilliant.
My father, with much flourish, carved the turkey, gave precise cooking instructions to the ladies of the two families, and demonstrated the precise way an American thanksgiving meal should be presented. There was a chorus of “ooohs” and “ahhhhs” as my dad created a piquant valley with his gravy ladel in the mashed potatos and poured his incredible home made gravy into the fluffy golden puffs.
Of course no meal is complete with a small pile of Kimchi on the side.
Trully.
The parental units started breaking out into the scotch and Karaoke.Dustin’s reaction pretty well resonates my own though I was reasonably polite at the time. (the scrapper to the right looking like he’s going to have his ears start bleeding any second now)
The rest of the kids also looked bored silly since the primary TV was occupied by the karaoke fools.
I pulled out my comic books (X-Men, X-Factor, Gen 13, WildCats, Spawn, Punisher, and the Amazing Spider Man … issues ranging from 1986 - 94 when I stopped collecting if you must know.. and yes they were all boarded and bagged) for entertainment and later took them out to see a movie.Alas, their choice in films led us to see Martin Lawrence in Black Night.
My ultimate thoughts regarding thanksgiving?
If it weren’t for the mashed potatoes, I don’t know if I would have made it through.
Friday & Saturday
Mostly preocuppied with wedding madness including going to pick up an emergency kit for the bride, my best friend of over 20 years.
Heres the MJ Wedding Veteran Recipe for the
MUST HAVE EMERGENCY KIT THAT EVERY BRIDE SHOULD HAVE.
* A great gift idea if you are the maid of honor or bridesmaid *
One large lovely sewing kit basket with some sort of froufy design and compartments if you can get em.
Extended visit to the dollar or local drugstore to find the following
Sewing Kit
Safety Pins
Hair Pins
Mints
Gum
Chalk (easier to white over skuffs on dresses or shoes than trying to clean em)
Scotch Tape (emergency hemming, posting signs, who knows)
Krazy Glue (broken nails or anything else)
Pen & Paper
Straws (so that bridal party can drink something without messing up their makeup)
Kleenex lots of the little purse side packets
Anti Bacterial Wipes
Aspirin/Advil
Bandaids
Lip Balm
Shoe Stuff (grips for the bottom of heels, cushion support, etc. Dr. Scholls crap)
Tampons & Pantiliners
Static guard
Lint brush
Extra pairs of panty hose
Clear Nail Polish
Nail File
Nail polish remover wipes
Any non crumbly munchy ie: gummy worms
Juice Boxes
Touch up makeup for bride/bridesmaids
Oil/Shine blotter papers
Razer (No bridesmaid should have hairy pits if their dress looks like it might show)
Saline Solution
Contact Eye Drops/Mini bottle of saline
Extra Contact Case
Q Tips
AA batteries (for film & digital cameras)
Extra camera film
Traveler Size
Hair Spray
Deoderant
Mouth Wash
Tooth brush & Tooth Paste
Dental Floss
This wedding was a unique experience for me to say the least as this was the first time I was an actual maid of honor, and that it was a unitarian/buddhist ceremony.
Yeah, Jen, the Irish Italian princess, is Buddhist. If you’re a long time reader, you may recall the time I mentioned our trip together to a Zen Buddhist Center here in the bay area. My legs still cramp up at the memory of sitting on my butt cross legged for an hour at a time and damnit, shouldn’t that tolerance be in my genetics or something?
Anyways, the wedding was beautiful and I was most struck by the lovely and earnest spirit in the vows. I don’t recall them exactly but I do recall a few of the following statments which included
“May I be as clear as a mirror so that I may always reflect your beauty to you. May I be as wide and spacious as the sky so that you can always grow…”
I considered it pretty refreshing compared to the Song of Solomon that I’ve heard more times than I can tap a toe to.
I think that they make a gorgeous couple. Don’t you?
And I promised the groom that I would not refer to the wedding as a big honky cracker affair. But, well. Puah ha ha ha. Kidding.
Trying not to piss of my dad by runnign around late with the Catholic-Mobile after the reception, I called my father at 11 to tell him I’d be running late.
After coming home at 2 AM, my dad was waiting up for me.
And *gasp* I had the splendiferous perfume of one to many gin & tonics on my breath. And then he grounded me. My priviliges with the catholic-mobile were revoked for the rest of my visit in michigan and I wound up stranded at home, reading old history text books in desperation for intellectual stimulation. Failing that, I turned to my stash of Bloom County that I had buried in the basement.
Remind me again how old I am? Oy veh.
Of interesting note to some careful readers, I’m feeling rather conflicted.
You see, I’ve always been rather, well, intolerant, biased, indifferent, and dismissive to white guys hitting on me. Perhaps it’s been in hyper reaction to feeling biased against them while growing up, that I wasn’t white enough to date by some of the guys I knew and had crushes on while growing up.
Perhaps it’s because my mother would say things like “you know, you should not datuh the white boy becausuh, you know, they not want to marry you. They justuh think dat you some oriental girl they can play with and then not marry. You don’t want that. No. Not good. Only Korean boy.”
And then it’s that whole Asian pride thing and getting pissed off any white guy fool who considers me an exoticized prize or expects some sort of subservient ultra-femnized yada yada yada yada. Right?
And then there is the whole hairy ass thing. I’m pretty partial to men without hairy asses and the liklihood of finding that within the Asian ethnic community tends to be a bit higher than in the Anglo community.
This month has left me rather conflicted. I’ve got Jahbohm’s on the hoof and
The other night marked the first incredibly detailed crush day dreaming that I’ve had about a white guy since, oh… 1991 or so. I’m bloody serious.
Must now flagelate myself with old copies of Strangers From A Different Shore
Poetica Spontenaum
11/28/01
Weary heavy head
Drooping like a swans neck
Curved warmly in yours
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