mood: >:[ angry
music: Place for My Head – Linkin Park

If there’s one thing I hate about the world other than war and prejudice, it’s how much our lives are shaped by money.

Just had an argument with my parents about the furniture for my new apartment. You’d think most parents would be proud of their kids learning to be frugal and finding good deals and trying to save money. Especially if it’s the parents’ money. Not my parents; they get mad at me for being too thrifty. It seriously infuriates me.

I’d figured out a plan for my bedroom furniture: a bed, mattress, and desk from Ikea along with some stackable drawers from Target. Simple. Cheap. Practical. Even cute. Would probably be under $500. Pretty good, considering that all the rest of the furniture is already accounted for (my housemate Katie’s mom has a friend who left the country and gave them all of his stuff), right? Yeah, no, apparently not. My dad flipped a bitch about having to assemble the furniture. I was like, “DAD. You see my desk here in my room at home? And my bedside table? And my bookcase? Yeah, um, I ASSEMBLED THAT ALL BY MYSELF. WHEN I WAS NINE.” What the fuck is the big deal? He was like, “What if you assemble it wrong? No.” And I was like, “Are you serious? THEN YOU TEAR IT APART AND FIX THE MISTAKE.” What the hell? And then he tells me to look up furniture stores in Berkeley. No, that is freaking ridiculous! I’ll have to pay a gazillion dollars for the furniture, pay a ton for delivery, and then not be able to lift it myself. And it probably won’t be as cute as Ikea furniture anyway. GOD. And Ikea furniture is GREAT. I don’t care how shitty the make is, it lasts years upon years. And it’s SO CHEAP. It’s not like I’m moving into a fucking house with a family or some bullshit! It’s just a freaking college apartment. I am SO pissed. Can you tell?

My father is such a fucking snob. He wouldn’t even believe me when I said that my friends were taking secondhand beds up.

Who the fuck do you think you are? Believe me, I am more than grateful for how much bank he makes, but it gives him NO RIGHT to be ridiculous like this. It makes me so fucking angry. And of course my mother just sees it as him having the right to make the decisions regarding this kind of thing because the money that he wants us to splurge with is the money that he makes.

And all of this just makes me look like this stupid, cheapass, stingy bitch.

Jesus, sorry if there are things I’d much rather spend my money on. Like, um, FOOD. Or like, ELECTRONICS. Or BOOKS. Not fucking FURNITURE.

And trust me, this is not a one-time thing.

GAHHHHH SO MUCH RAGE

mood: thoughtful
music: Dynamite – Taio Cruz

Today is Father’s Day. I woke up to a household of people angry at me because I’d gone to bed late.

They were mad because I hadn’t woken up in the morning. But I’d told them to wake me up. But they didn’t want to disrupt my sleep. But they were still mad.

Why does my mother not understand that when I ask to be woken up at a certain hour, I want her to at least TRY to wake me up, no matter what time I went to sleep? If I were concerned about being tired, obviously I would just sleep more and not ask to be woken up!

But that’s not the point. After I showered, I went downstairs, where my parents were watching TV. I asked my mom why she didn’t wake me up, I fixed myself some cereal and milk, and then I told my dad “Happy Father’s Day.”

You know what he said?

“Huh?”

My mom had to remind him that today was Father’s Day. He still didn’t say anything.

My relationship with my father is difficult to put in words. I know I’ve made him proud in my life, even though that’s really only regarding how I’ve done in academics. (I think my mother is a lot more proud of the person that I am (or what she knows of her, anyway), which is actually kind of interesting.) I suppose it’s not like he really knows much else about me. Not sure if he doesn’t care or doesn’t have time to care or some combination of both. He was a really good dad when I was younger. I remember he really adored me when I was little. We used to read together all the time. My mom taught me how to read, my dad taught me how to write. I remember he taught me how to write in cursive when I was five years old. I thought I was the shit, haha. He used to teach me Chinese and Taiwanese children’s songs while my mom would teach me English ones.

They always said that I was going to turn out like him.

That used to just mean that I’d be studious, scholarly, hard-working, and successful. Now, I ponder the way that I can have hermit-ish tendencies like him, the way I get things done in a stubbornly honest manner and hate the unfairness of cheaters triumphing over me, the way I always want to help people who don’t necessarily deserve it (and who certainly would not do the same back), the way I sometimes prefer a good story more than company, the way I’m a perfectionist about my work. And I worry that I’ll also inherit his tendency to be aloof, his workaholicism, his insensitivity. Who knows?

Anyone who knows me knows that my dad isn’t home very often. A few weeks a year, maybe. And when he is home, he’s not exactly here. He keeps ridiculous hours, for no reason. (Another inherited tendency?) His job is one that could be the 9 to 5 kind, but instead he makes it more of a 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. one. The only reason I ever run into him during the weekday is because I keep some pretty bizarre hours myself. So what’s our relationship like? I don’t honestly know, because it’s so…miniscule. I love the guy, I do. He does a lot for us. I definitely have him to thank for this lifestyle that we’re fortunate enough to have.

But there’s always the other side to the coin there — because the question is, how much of how hard he works is to provide for his family, and how much of it is just because it’s all he knows how to do anymore?

I could talk about how he was absent for a lot of my childhood after he became a businessman. I could talk about how he never came to my concerts, never was here for my birthdays, never was around for emotional support or even just some meaningful conversation. Never was around for freaking anything. I could talk about how upset I felt whenever he came back from his constant business trips with expensive gifts and seemed so proud when we were delighted by them. I could talk about how those gifts were nothing compared to the gift that his presence in my life would have been.

But I’m too old for that now.

As you age, you realize how little a lot of things matter. Life is the wind that tears at the unblemished stone that is the young human spirit. After enough time, everyone starts to feel jaded. When you’re young, you believe in everything.

As you grow older, each one of your beliefs will slowly escape from your grasp. Disproven. Torn away.

For me, one of those beliefs is the one that making a fuss and being upset about my father’s absence in my life would actually make a difference in anything.

All I can do now is be proud that he is such a successful man and be grateful that because of him, I don’t have to take out loans, or do work-study, or deal with financial aid. All I can do now is thank him profusely and exaggerate my awe and glee when he brings gifts home. All I can do now is find it darling that he brings me ducks and currency of all kinds from all around the world to add to my rubber ducky and foreign money collections. All I can do now is imagine how he must tell his colleagues with pride that his oldest daughter goes to Berkeley.

My relationship with my father is not a strong one, or a rocky one, or a nonexistent one. It’s not filled with love, or loyalty, or disappointment, or bitterness, or anger. It’s colored more by some mix of resignation, gratefulness, and…well, acceptance.

I’m resigned that we’re never going to have that Daddy-Daughter relationship ever again. (Sometimes I tear up when we talk on the phone, because the distance between us is wide and gaping and irreparable, and way beyond physical distance.) I’m grateful for everything he has given us. I’ve accepted that even if he wasn’t the parent that I wanted him to be… Well, I didn’t turn out too badly, so I can’t really blame him for much, can I?

So. Happy Father’s Day, Dad. You’ve done a lot of things right in my life, a lot of things wrong, and a lot of things that can’t be put in such black-and-white categories. But despite all that, and despite the way that I think unconditional familial love is so illogical… Well. I can’t really put my finger on why, but I love you.

And I hope that’s enough. It’s just gonna have to be.

mood: chill
music: Clocks – Coldplay

On January 6th, Mark came over and we just hung out all day. I made dinner but it turned out badly and I was disappointed but Mark was really nice about it and said it smelled really good, I just didn’t have flour on hand so the texture wasn’t right at all. We also made lemon cheesecake bars together, which was fun. Except that we were kinda n00bs about it, but they still tasted good, haha. Oh, and I conquered my fear of the oven! (C.J. says it’s more like paranoia than fear, but still.) I just put on that damn oven mitten and stuck my hand in the oven and pulled that container outta there. It made me feel pretty awesome, hahaha. You know what this means, though? It means that I can start baking! I’m excited. Must learn how to master a bunch of baked goods this summer. Hopefully I won’t fail too horribly.

That day served as kind of a reality check for me. It brought to surface a lot of emotions that I thought were long gone. I thought really hard for the next few days, and I sorted everything out in my head (as well as possible, anyway), so that’s good. I’m not going to pretend that everything is fine and dandy now that I’ve learned that everything isn’t, but facing your problems head on is definitely healthier than whatever was happening in my head before when I didn’t even realize this was really a problem. I understand myself a lot better, now, so I’m glad for that, but I definitely could’ve done without the agonizing nightmares. They were pretty tragic; I’m glad that they were only dreams.

It also served as a reality check in another way. For one, circumstances made me realize again how lucky I am to go to school in Berkeley, where nobody blinks an eye when I announce my bisexuality. I’m not saying that everyone’s like WOOHOO AWESOME but it’s definitely different from things at home, where it’s not necessarily the end of the world but it’s definitely far from awesome. I dunno. It’s been a long time since I had to feel defensive about it, I guess? :\

Went to work on the 7th and was very productive since there was like almost no business. Yay, writing! Then, I went home to eat stir-fried crab for dinner (mmm!) and then headed over to UTC, where I met with Mag for some Cha for Tea. We had a good time talking for hours, and it made me feel just…really happy to be friends with her. Mag and I definitely have one of those friendships where it’s like… No matter how frequently or infrequently we talk when we’re away from each other, we can always just pick up where we left off and it’s never awkward or anything, and it’s always fun. I’m so grateful for her. She’s gone through so much with me, and she’s put up with so much of my shit, and she’s always ready to be a good friend and to speak her mind whenever I go to her for anything, whether it be advice on decisions, opinions on my feelings, or even just book recommendations.

The first half of Friday the 8th was full of errand-running. Stopped by the bank, Target, Office Max, Barnes & Noble (talked to an awesome store rep about books and ended up getting some recs, which was pretty awesome; I want to work there so badly!), and GameStop. Had to go to multiple Targets and GameStops before I found freaking Wii remotes… It was ridiculous, but I got them in the end. And then Mark came over and played the new Super Mario Bros. game that I bought with Jess and me, which was a lot of fun (yet very frustrating for him, I’m sure, seeing as the two of us veer on the pathetic side in that game, haha).

I spent a lot of time in the next few days watching The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Justice League, and Yu-Gi-Oh! while working on the coasters that I was making my friends for Christmas (late presents since I got back so late and then had to go to Vegas). I really enjoy doing crafts, and I really liked catching up on those shows while doing something productive as well, so that was cool. I was a little emotionally unstable, too, for a few days, so it felt good to just keep myself busy. Reading and writing also helped for sure. I was really excited to start working on stuff again. I really hope that I can keep it up, now that I have school and socializing to worry about as well.

On Tuesday the 12th, Katie came over and we went to Pinkberry and just sat and talked about random stuff for a long time. It was laid back and nice. I always have a good time just talking with Katie, since we never seem to run out of things to say and stories to share with each other. She invited me to sushi with her friend at UCI but I had dinner plans so I took a raincheck. Went to Buca with Mark and my sister, and I stupidly was unaware that the coupon I’d been intending to use had expired and felt like a dumbass. Things seemed kind of really tense between Mark and me but I think he was just stressed out… I don’t know. We ended up going back to my place to play more Super Mario Bros, yay.

I spent the next few days mostly just working and spending time to myself. On Wednesday, Mark and I went to dinner at Veggie Grill and got some Cha. He convinced me to try Jade Green Milk Tea, which I really liked, hooray! We had good, long talks that made me very happy, and just chilled in general. The next day, we got Pinkberry and talked some more, and he asked me to accompany him on some errand running the next morning, but I had work. I’d traded shifts with someone so that I could spend time with Katie on Tuesday. But Mark seemed REALLY bummed so I tried reaching my mom unsuccessfully (she was sleeping)… The next morning I asked if I could switch shifts to the night one. She said no because the night person had school during the day. I told her I just wasn’t going to go because if I hadn’t been home, they would just have had to deal with not having a sub anyway. She freaked out and kept asking why I would not go and I just said that something came up; didn’t want to give her details because it would just be Thanksgiving all over again. I went to my room and called my aunt to tell her I wasn’t going to go in. But she said they were really desperate for help that day especially (since it was Friday) and I said fine and told my mom I was just going to go.

But then she went fucking NUTS over the fact that I wouldn’t tell her why I didn’t want to go. Like screaming nuts. Like ranting about how she could’ve raised two such horrible daughters nuts. She was absofucking RAVING. Venting much? She even brought up that Monday, when I had been in the middle of a bad argument and had been really upset and feeling like there was no point of doing anything anymore — and my dad had heard me crying and stormed in and acted like a fucking douchebag and then announced the fact to the whole house. My mom had come in and I had told her I didn’t want to talk about it but she wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone so I had to just kind of ignore her. Anyway, as she was going nuts, she kept asking really annoying questions about that night and why I had been crying and this SERIOUSLY pissed me off. Serious pet peeve = people who pry you and refuse to mind their own business. I told her that I had just been arguing with a friend, which happened regularly, she just wasn’t ever home to see it, which was not a bitter statement wanting her to be home more because I certainly don’t, but more like a “Bitch, do you seriously believe that my life stops when you’re not around?” Anyway, I was really effing pissed off. She kept talking about how I was “so different” now and never told her anything and more and all this fucking bullshit. I have no obligation to tell you everything that goes on in my life. I NEVER HAVE. You just can’t handle that instead of just not mentioning things, I actually straight up tell you that I’m not going to tell you things. Dumbshit. As you can see, I’m still pissed off about it. But whatever. I’m not going to cave into her demands. Pathetic.

Thank god for Mark, who said it was fine that I couldn’t go. I still really bad and disappointed, though.

Anyway. On Saturday, I had lunch with Mag, Kell, Manda, and Erin at Spectrum. Kell left because she was sick and didn’t want to walk around. After some satisfactory shopping, Mag had to leave because a family friend was having a baby or something. Manda, Erin, and I chilled at Barnes for a while, reading silly books and just talking. That was cool. Then, we were going to go to Erin’s to play RockBand, but Di called and said she wanted to play Super Mario Bros. and that Matt could help us, haha. After I got there with my game, she realized that she didn’t have the two controllers that she told me she had, so I had to drive home and pick up two more. Then, I tried to go to Target to trade one in for the super Wii remote thing, but they were sold out, so then I got annoyed that I had just wasted all that time. And then when I got back to Di’s, they were just watching a movie and not even playing so I was like WTF did I just do all that for nothing? But then later we did end up playing so that was a relief. Erin went home around seven, but Di, Matt, Amanda, and I went to eat dinner at Buca di Beppo, which was relatively fun. I like Matt a lot.

So yeah. The next morning, Mark picked me up at like ten to go to the airport to head to another home.

mood: confident
music: Ke$ha – Tik Tok

My family spent Christmas in Vegas again, surprise surprise. Don’t get me wrong, I love Sin City, but we go there twice a year, do essentially the same things, and get in essentially the same arguments. It gets kind of repetitive. But I guess going anywhere else would induce complaining from Jess (who doesn’t think that vacation is good for anything other than shopping), and if we stayed home, it would induce complaining from Jess that we were being boring (it happened a couple of years ago). The “real” reason we go so much, though, is that my dad has VIP membership to the Venetian, which generously invites him to its resort with complimentary housing. Like, this trip we only paid the Venetian $120 for food and board (well, no board, I suppose). So that’s pretty cool, especially since Vegas boarding is so expensive (I freaking love the hotels, though).

I told myself that I had to enjoy the trip this time. My family is not a lot of fun to be around (the good, laughing times are always punctured by arguments and irritating comments and criticism and awkwardness) and vacation always results in a lot of grumpiness from every corner. I’m definitely not exempt. So I decided this time that I would actively stop myself from getting too grumpy or pissy and just have a good time, because it’s about time to shed the moody teenager act and act in uncomfortable or undesired situations like a damn adult. I’m lucky to be able to go on these vacations, especially if we’re being given complimentary housing, so why waste it being in a bad mood? It kind of worked. My family still kind of got on my nerves pretty frequently, but I tried to just let it slide. I need to do this more often in my life anyway. A lot of times, things that should get to me don’t so I come across relatively good-tempered, but when things do piss me off, I sometimes don’t really know how to deal with it. I think learning when to confront problems and the people causing them versus when to just let them slide is a vital part of growing up. I’m definitely still learning.

Anyway, the drive was relatively calm and devoid of arguments, which was a relief. I worked on my new superhero story and read a YGO! manga. When we arrived at the Palazzo, they told us that they had no more rooms with two beds. Which was ridiculous because we’d already called to confirm before we left that there would be rooms for us. So my parents complained to the manager and he told us he could get us some but it would take a couple of hours. So we just had a late lunch at the Cafe and they had a room for us by the time we finished, yay. Later that night, went to have midnight dinner at a yummy Asian noodle place at the Venetian. Jess was grumpy but the food was good so that’s okay.

The next day, we went to the Mirage to have their international buffet, which is always very good. Enjoyed the snow crab legs, mmm. At night, we went to go see the O Show at Bellagio, which was trippy and pretty…eccentric but featured some amazing acrobats, dancers, and musicians. Was inspired to make one of the characters in my superhero story an acrobat! The next day, we went to the new City Center to check it out and had lunch at the Aria. I really liked all the contemporary architecture! It was really creative and cool looking. Had lunch at a cafe there, and it was overpriced and took forever and the portions were tiny, but the corn chowder was good, I guess. We spent the rest of the day just chilling in the hotel room and I read My Sister’s Keeper, which was…super intense.

When I finish a book, I like to let it sink in. I just finished Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper, which was very good, but also really heavy. The subject matter is one of those really controversial ones. Can you imagine losing your sibling? Your child?

I can’t. I often consider the possibility of losing friends, but I always take my sister for granted. I speculate on my parents’ deaths much more often, between my father’s frequent flights and my mother’s dependence on us. I dreamt once, though, many years ago of Jess dying and me screaming, screaming to go back and save her.

I am whizzing through books, searching for release. Release, relief in the form of a fight against Medusa, in the form of Malik’s revenge, in the form of Gogol’s failed marriage, in the form of Moushimi’s affair, in Anna’s inner conflict, in Campell’s convoluted love. To remind myself that there are problems bigger than mine. But is it wrong that these are fictional? But then again — to what degree are they fictional? Marriages fail every day, and people always have to choose between two people or things they love. We may not all be swordwielders bent on traveling to the Underworld, but we all doubt ourselves, we all think we’re doing the right thing for the people we love when really all we’re doing is hurting them. We all think that we are the center of the universe when there are so many things bigger than us, we all think that we are suffering unjustly when there are so many people suffering more than we are. We all make choices each day to try to take control of our lives, and many times, those decisions are ones that we regret.

I love the holiday season. I love the music, the decorations, the the atmosphere, the gift shopping, the gift receiving, the food. This past weekend, when I went home for Thanksgiving, I bought decorations: a garland, mini ornaments, a string of lights, and really cute mini bows. I draped the garland and the lights on my dorm room wall, and I’m in the process of hanging up ornaments along its length. I put the bows on our door (Sandia and I have red and green name tags, respectively, so I put gold and silver, which looks so seasonal and awesome. Sandia got us a wreath that we have hanging up on the window between our desks (with a big ribbon of my favorite color! which everyone has noticed, hahaha) and a…jingly thing of a poinsettia attached to some gold bells that we put on our door handle. It all makes me so happy!

On some deep level, it’s because it reminds me of childhood, when the holiday season was definitely my favorite of the entire year. In Virginia, we’d have quiet but wonderful family Christmases; my favorite part was definitely putting up all the decorations. Mom was a homemaker back then, and we would go around picking up pinecones around the neighborhood and then we would spray paint them and decorate them with ribbons and bells. We would buy ornaments and put glitter on them in what I thought were the most ingenious designs at the time. Every year, I would fascinated by the tree stand and have a grand ol’ time putting the tree together.

When we moved to California, we started having huge family Christmases. A bunch of relatives would come over, and there would be a ridiculous abundance of toys, and there would be so much holiday cheer and fun and wonderfulness.

But year by year, family feuds began to slowly tear those family gatherings apart, and Christmases began to get drearier and drearier, until it got to the point where there wasn’t really much to be excited about anymore, in regards to actual Christmas. Instead, I got excited about present shopping for my friends. And as my family became less and less cohesive, that became what Christmas was to me. No longer about decorations or family, it became a time to show my friends how much I cared about them by organizing gift giving, shopping for perfect presents, and spending a ridiculous amount of money on them.