Lazy Racist Friday

I have a post in me regarding men in relation to stocks, but it’s Friday, and it’s my last day of work, and I hate all of you. Especially you.

So, I’ll save it until Monday.

Anyway, here’s some bullshit for your reading pleasure:

1) Re: Comments
I don’t respond to them. Don’t get me wrong, I love getting them, but I’m not good at responding to them. People sometimes ask questions and/or make suggestions and might feel a little insulted that I have not addressed them, but it’s just something I don’t do. Not because I don’t want to or I think you’re stupid, but because (in case you haven’t already noticed) I’m really fucking lazy. I have emails in my inbox from friends in Ireland and London from months ago that I have yet to respond to. But please continue to leave comments. I assure you they are all momentarily taken into consideration before I get too lazy to remember them.

2) Re: Response to a comment
Someone left a comment a while ago asking if I/we have ever experienced racism. Racism has never been much of an issue for us, seeing as white people are the minority in New York City, but there are a few funny stories/dynamics of racism that I would like to point out.

a) People from "Out of Town":
When B still lived with the fam in Queens, I came home very late/early one night/day to find him outside with Dog. As I approached, he burst into laughter.
“What? What’s so funny?”
“This guy, this trucker,” he gasped in between laughs.
“What? What did he do!?”
“He-he called me a chink!”
“Huh?”
Apparently, a trucker drove past the house and saw B sitting in front letting Dog out for a piss. At this, the trucker pulled over momentarily in front of him, scowled at him, pointed and screamed, “Chink!” before peeling away.
“Was he kidding? Was he fucking with you?” Now I’m laughing.
“No! That’s the funny part. He was dead-serious. He looked at me with this absolute...hatred!”
In conclusion, if you’re racist in New York, we laugh at you ‘cause you is dumb.

b) People who fight:
Without fail, there is always one situation in which a person who would otherwise never be racist suddenly morphs into a bigot. The New York City Drunken Fight. If you ever happen to be out and about on a Friday or Saturday evening and are unfortunate enough to find yourself witness to an inter-racial outside-the-club/bar/lounge drunken brawl, undoubtedly, you’ll observe that racial slurs will be thrown much more than actual punches. When people begin to engage in “beef” or “throwing down” or whatever manner of idiotic drunken debauchery involving inflicting physical harm upon another, the obligatory “poppin’ shit” must occur first. Drunk people find it difficult to dig into the recesses of their mind for clever and offensive verbal slings often resulting in such gems as “Whatchu say muthafukka?” and “I’ll fuckin’ keel you!” and “Youse a punk-ass bitch!” As this back-and-forth escalates, they begin to grasp blindly for something more offensive. Often, once someone has successfully dragged race into the dialogue with a random shout of “Chink!” or “N*gger!” actual physical contact will commence. It’s a pretty sad state of affairs, especially when they undoubtedly go home to their yellow/white/black/brown/blue girlfriends later and recount the tale sans, “and then I told that motherfucker to go back to China!”

c) Curious people:
This isn’t actually racism, but I still found it rather amusing. During my stint in Ireland, I went to the middle-of-bumblefuck-nowhere (aka Longford) to visit my Dublin Ex’s family. This was a part of Ireland that consisted primarily of farmers and towns with populations of no more than 2,000. We went out to a local bar one night to have a few drinks and I noticed that he kept looking around uncomfortably. I finally turned around to find that everyone in the bar was staring at me.
“Why are they looking at me?” I lean in and whisper.
“They’ve never seen an Asian person before.”
“Seriously?”
“Maybe on TV.”

------------------------------------

By the way, this girl made my day. Note the title of the chapter she took her excerpt from "Braun and Blood." Also note this definition of the word "braun." Oh you silly models!

-L

The Juicehead Mating Ritual Revisited

In response to this, I present the female perspective.

------------------------------------

It's been a long week. Every week is long when the majority of it is spent on the subway, on the bus, confined within a cubicle, so when the weekend rolls around, it's a welcome relief from the daily grind. A Saturday afternoon free to sleep in, lounge on the couch unshowered, in your pajamas watching HBO On-Demand, order Chinese food, take naps at your leisure. Sometimes, after such a Saturday, where the only time your feet touch the ground is to use the bathroom or look for the remote control, you feel a surge of energy. The sun sets on a day of productive absolutelynothingness, and you pick up your phone, give Fun Friend a call and say, "let's go dancing."

Fun Friend comes over, a shopping bag filled with tank tops, skirts, earrings, shoes, and other assorted "going out" paraphernalia, and you spend the next hour or two threading belts through denim belt loops, tying halter top strings, jangling chunky beaded necklaces, hair-up, hair-down, red lips, pink lips until you have each assessed the other's appearance, nodded in approval, and pronounced the words, "you look cute" with a satisfactory level of conviction.

Now you're ready. Hop on the Williamsburg bridge, the Midtown Tunnel, the 59th Street Bridge, the Lincoln Tunnel, hail a cab, hop a subway, pregame on the LIRR, and you're thrust into the Mecca of urban chic pretty people party fun known as Manhattan. Strut to the line, past the velvet rope, thank the bouncer, step in the door, grab a drink, make a round, check out the guys, stand around.

Fun Friend leans in, "wanna dance?"

"Sure!"

So you do. Big smiles all around.

Suddenly, a shadow crosses Fun Friend's face. The shadow digs lines into her brow, the lines form a grimace. Before you can turn and see what she is looking at, before she can grab your wrist and pull you away, you feel it. Softly at first, a tap. Then a poke. A nudge matures into a full-on thrust. You turn in slow motion, bottom jaw hanging in confusion.

THE JUICEHEAD COME-HITHER CALL

When a Juicehead finds a dance partner, albeit involuntary dance partner, for the evening, his "dance" evolves to accommodate for a second party. The wild foot spasms and flared elbows pose too much risk of unintentional bodily harm to a piece of ass to allow for them to get close enough for the groping that Juicehead pair dancing involves. His sudden break from routine might offer some justification for the bizarre spectacle that is about to take place, but he often pushes it to a level beyond the realms of exoneration.

Surprisingly, a Juicehead, while unintelligent and uncouth, still possesses some basic knowledge of social decency. He will not begin to pound his crotch fervently into your asscrack without first making a half-assed attempt at testing the waters. This, as well as the fact that Juiceheads ambush their prey from behind, is why his actions will not be immediately discernable without the aide of horrified facial expressions from Fun Friend. Once he is satisfied that you are not tearing through the dance floor in a wild attempt to create distance from him, he will become more aggressive. This is a good time to turn and take a look at his actions and emit a hearty belly chuckle.

The Juicehead's stance will resemble that of an overweight, inflexible man attempting to mosey under a limbo stick. His crotch will be thrust out in front of him so that his torso is leaning back at a 45 degree angle. His heels will be raised off the ground in such a manner that he is standing primarily on the balls of his feet. His shoulders will be cocked back, but his head will be upright, facing straight forward, or more likely, angled down toward your buttocks. The most important thing to note are the arms. They will be held out in front of him in such a way that it looks like he is attempting to do the robot. While Juicehead singles dancing requires an array of complicated arm work, Juicehead pairs dancing requires none. The arms remain stiffly in this position until he feels that you have given him consent to place them on your hips and/or stomach.

The actual movement involved is very basic. It entails wildly pumping his hips in the general direction of your ass while slowly stepping forward on the balls of his feet and licking his lips. Once his crotch has made contact, his thrusts will increase in speed and vigor until you are stumbling forward, arms flailing wildly to keep your balance. Often he will accept this as an invitation to grab you and steady you, leaving his unwelcome sweaty hands on your body.

Once Fun Friend has successfully grabbed your arm and pried you from his muscle-inflated, vein-streaked clutches, he will stop mid-pump. His limbo stance still intact, he will raise his arms in a half-shrug of protest.

The look of fear and disgust painting both your faces as you cling dearly to one-another will be enough. He will straighten out and glare. "Youse a wack bitch anyway," he'll say amidst a gentle spray of spittle. With a dismissive wave of his hand, he will disappear back into the crowd in search of someone drunker than you are.

-L

Billboard's Top Ten - Volume 1

I love music. I hate what has happened to music. People are generally stupid, and they listen to stupid tripe on the radio, thus propelling a lot of God-awful shit up the charts and sealing crap musicians' names into music history.

In the spirit of pointing out the idiocy of contemporary pop culture and the moronic society that hungrily devours it, I am going to post an excerpt of the lyrics to one of this week's Billboard Top Ten. I'd like to say that this song reached solely on musical quality and merit, but it's pretty obvious that it reached based on the sheer retardation of America's impressionable youth.

Snap Ya Fingers - Lil’ Jon & the East Side Boyz feat. Sean Paul (Billboard Ranking - 10)

I haven't actually heard this song. Actually, I probably have, spewing from some commercial or NYC club's speakers, but attempted to block the memory out. Nonetheless, as soon as I saw that it was written and performed by Lil' Jon and Sean Paul, there was no doubt in my mind that the lyrics would simply ooze class.

Snap ya fingers and then rock wit it
Do it, do it, do it, do it, gon drop wit it
All my ladies let me see ya put a twist wit it
You can't do like me, I'm by myself
I do it so good, I don't need nobody else (This line sounds remeniscent of "I Touch Myself")
What's happenin', what's up
Got da purk fired up (Someone tell me what "purk" is please)
What's happenin', what's up
Got Patrone in my cup
I pop, I drank
I'm on Patrone and purk, I can't thank
I'm blowed, to tha do' (I can't thank the blow do neither)
Don't know how tha hell I'm gettin home

Discuss.

-L

Corporate Literature

Often, when I venture into the unexplored piles of crap blanketing my bedroom floor and stacked haphazardly in my shelves and closets, I find papers scribbled with beginnings. Usually these beginnings come to me just as I’m about to go to bed. My eyes are closed, I’m drifting, and my mind, hell-bent on making sure I don’t get my necessary six or seven hours of sleep, decides to spew ideas, seemingly intelligible ideas at the time, that I must write down lest I forget them in the morning. Sometimes, I repeat them over in my head, tell myself I’ll remember them so that I don’t have to get out of bed, and in the morning I forget, and I regret. Sometimes, I pull a Mitch Hedberg and convince myself they weren’t good ideas, and I fall into a restless sleep, brain still pumping streams of thought. Usually I get up, scribble them down, wake up, look, and think, “What in the fuck possessed me to think that this was actually a good idea?” Sometimes, rarely, I think, “I can do something with this.”

Even then, these workable thoughts rarely come into fruition. They remain floating, obscure ideas that existed solely to keep me awake on any given night when all I really wanted to do was just fucking sleep so I could wake up and drag myself to work and sit in a cubicle and stare at a computer screen and drink a gallon of black coffee and eat lunch at my desk and smile and nod in response to my supervisor’s questions and leave at five and get on the subway and go home and eat dinner and watch television and lie in bed and hope my brain will cut me a break and let me sleep so I can do it all again the next day.

On job interviews, I tell them I want to be a writer. It seems to work pretty well because everyone thinks that writing is a quaint little hobby that makes you seem somewhat interesting and possess a semblance of a soul. Unless you are interviewing on Wall Street. Then they look at you like you just told them you don’t like money. They are insulted because you just blasphemed their god. But they’ll smile like a dinner guest who doesn’t eat fish smiles at their plate of grilled tuna because they have been professionally trained in diplomacy.

I tell interviewers that I like writing because it is something I can do even with a full-time day job. I can sit in my cubicle by day and stare blankly at my computer screen, and in the evening I can write a book or a collection of short stories about flan. I can tailor my writing schedule around my “legitimate money life stuffs” schedule. This works out well.

Except it doesn’t.

Because when you’re working on a strict schedule of waking up, going to work, coming home, eating, and hating your life, you find that there aren’t enough hours in the day or juices in your brain to put together that Pulitzer Prize-winner that’s written on scraps of paper littering your bedroom floor.

-L

The Supposed Golden Path or Adventures in Interviewing

It’s hot. It’s very fucking hot. The hottest day of the week, and I’m dragging my sweaty ass, in full corporate attire plus pantyhose plus suit jacket plus torturous black pumps, down to Wall Street, the land of the dead, for a job interview.

Why? Why in the fuck of all fucks would I, a recent refugee of CorporateBitchLand, return to its Mecca in search of new employment?

It all started with a stupid recruiter and a compensation package.

“Hi L, this is N from XYZ Recruiting and I have an exciting job opportunity as a Conference Coordinator for our largest client, Goldman Sachs. Please call me at 212-123-4567 to discuss.”

Oh, why the fuck not? So I call, so we meet, so the job seems somewhat interesting, despite most of his responses to job description queries being, “You’ll find out more from K when you meet him for your first interview.” The kicker: it pays a lot. The ultimate kicker: four weeks paid time off.

And here I am, on the hottest and most humid day this year, trudging through a sea of suits and ties and Starbucks coffee cups somewhere downtown downtown, near Wall Street, passing JPMCs and HSBCs and CSFBs and UBSs as I go. A quick stop in Au Bon Pain to mop away the sweat dripping down the bridge of my nose and I’m signing in at the reception desk of a large building made entirely of glass. They hand me a visitor’s pass and tell me to join the line of corporate drones putting their laptop bags through an airport x-ray machine. I start to walk up the stairs to the elevator, when a security guard stops me to take my pass. He notes the look of confusion on my face. “You need to go to the Goldman Sachs desk and sign-in again. This is just a temporary pass.”

“I needed a pass to go the twenty feet from the front desk, through the security check, and towards the elevator?”

“Yes.”

“And now I need another one?”

“Yes.”

I’m tempted to scream, “Bomb,” at the top of my lungs and send swarms of pressed collar shirts and striped ties squawking around the lobby, fighting to get through the revolving doors, but I figure that won’t get me any closer to un-unemployment.

I sign-in again, shoot up thirty-one flights and sit on a plush leather chair, struggling to keep my back straight as a board against the mooshy leather so as not to wrinkle my suit, while I wait for my interviewer. I read the Goldman Sachs annual report they conveniently have laid out on the coffee table. “We made a lot of money this year. We made a bunch of rich people richer this year. We kick ass.”

The interview is pretty standard. He asks me about my goals, my past work experience, why I want to leave my current job. I answer, I smile, I laugh at his jokes, I cross my hands across my lap.

“Do you have any questions?”

This is my favorite part (that's sarcasm).

“What exactly are the day-to-day requirements of this position?”

He’s taken aback. He looks at me incredulously. “You didn’t get a job description?”

“Er, ehm, uh, er….(thinking, thinking, thinking, did I get a job description? Was I too lazy to read it? He’s looking at me like I’m mentally disabled. Quick! Say something!) Well, uh, N er, told me, uh, that you would be able to, like, describe the job in, like, detail because he, like, didn’t know all the, uh, details.”

I am extremely eloquent when I’m nervous.

“He should have sent you a very detailed job description. It would take me hours to describe the job to you.”

“Uh, okay, well, like, er…he told me, that I would like, be planning the events, bu—“

“There’s no planning involved in this job. The conferences are already planned. You would be executing.”

This is awesome.

“Oh, er, okay, well, like, I uh…”

“What you have to do is email N, ask him for a detailed job description, and get back to me. You can’t apply for a position when you don’t know what you’re applying for.”

“Yeah, uh, okay, I will.”

He laughs heartily, “Usually I send applicants to meet the manager immediately, but they would ask you technical questions, so I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Me, drooling, in fetal position.

So, that was the end of it. We shook hands, I shrugged a lot. I made a weird little noise because I couldn’t actually remember whether or not I had gotten a job description (I did, but it was very basic, not the 2-3 page detailed description I should have gotten), and I got into the elevator and shwooped back to ground level. My ears popped as I walked through the revolving doors, back into the sweatbox of downtown downtown Manhattan.

The song “Golden Path” by the Chemical Brothers was playing in my head over and over as I slithered back to the train station passing suits on cigarette breaks as I went (if you don’t understand this, click the link).

In conclusion: The job pays significantly less than what I was told. I would be a glorified hostess. I definitely would have screamed “Bomb!” one day during work and gotten shot. People on Wall Street do not sweat despite how much clothes they are wearing in 90 degree heat because they do not have souls. It’s hot in hell.

-L

People Who Should Die (Very Violently)

Now I'm not a violent guy (unless you're a little girl. If you're a little girl, I'm gonna kick your fucking ass), but there are some people in the world who I seriously believe should die very violent deaths. I hate wishing ill on others but, I'm just kidding, I love wishing ill on others. I'm not even sure if that's a grammatically correct sentence. Which leads me to my first pet peeve. Well not exactly a pet peeve since it's more extreme than that so let me rephrase: which leads me to my first mind numbingly, suicide inducing, observed life inconvenience. Strangers who correct your grammar. Some people like sounding uneducated in blogs, and some people really are just that stupid. Let them/us be.

I hate people who repeat words in order to express degrees of severity. Case in point, a lot of people write or say the word "really" multiple times just to get a point across. "I'm really really really really pissed off." or "I'm really really really really horny." Why not use another word instead of wasting your breath and my time? Say, "I'm vehemently pissed off" or "I'm voraciously horny". I'm willing to bet that the words "vehement" and "voracious" don't even have any latin roots tied to them, rather they were created because it's just plain hard to say them 4 times quickly. And when did 4 "really's" become the cutoff? Why not five? Oh I know, it's because that would just sound really really really really really stupid.

Why do people write "haha" in blogs? Are they trying to cue laughter? Are we supposed to read the words, "haha" and suddenly burst out laughing really really really really hard? I admit, I write the words "haha" in instant messages and in e-mails but it's always in response to something. Who the fuck responds to their own blog with laughter? How narcissistic can you get? And why the hell do I ask so many questions? Haha. I've read these ridiculously lame blogs that keep laughing after every sentence. Haha. it's kind of annoying. Haha. I wish they'd die. Haha. Very violently. Haha.

Vegetarians should die. They're too peaceful. I don't trust that. Vegetarians are, without fail, some of the most high maintenance people in the world. 90% of the restaurants in the world become off limits as soon as you decide to become a vegetarian and are still desirous of a decent meal. If you're a vegan (a word that I for some reason associate with Vulcans in StarTrek, who by the way I would much rather befriend before a vegan) then you're suddenly down to .001% of that remaining 10%. That's math that I can't even fucking do. Yeah, I know, it's simple, but then again, so am I.

Bitter little Korean guys who sit in offices all day and bitch and complain about other people who should die. Can someone really really really really throw me out window haha?

-B

I ain't no whore!

On the way home from Shea, I don’t remember how it comes up, but we’re talking about stripping, strippers, people who frequent strip clubs. What else is there to talk about, really, when you’ve just been to your ninth game of the season, you're stuck in traffic, it's ninety degrees outside and the air conditioning in the car's not working?

“It doesn’t make any sense if you think about it,” Z says, “going to a strip club and calling a stripper a ‘whore.’ Whoa! Wait-wait-wait a minute, you’re telling me the girls here aren’t innocent and virtuous?”

“But at the same time, it doesn’t make sense, a stripper getting offended when a guy calls her a ‘whore,” I stick my arm out the window, hoping to catch a breeze somehow snaking its way through the bumper-to-bumper traffic. “Oh, naw yew di’int, mothafucker! I ain’t no whore! I is puttin’ mah clothes back awn until you stop disrespectin' me!”

We erupt into laughter.

“I dunno man,” I shake my head. “Yeah, some chicks have kids to support and shit, but if you have to resort to stripping in order to support them, you probably shouldn’a had them in the first place,” I shrug. “And a lot of people caught in dire circumstances don't resort to stripping. You don’t see any Mexican immigrants coming to America saying, ‘I’ma start waving my exposed penis around for a living!’”

“My grandfather sure as hell didn’t become a stripper when he came to America.”

I guess I shouldn't really be talking. After a few weeks of unemployment, maybe I'll be paying a visit to Scores with sparkly thong and stilettos in hand.

-L

Sex & Socks or I'm too lazy to write a post

From 100 Things You Need to Know About Women - Maxim, November 2005:

"95. The sight of you in your socks and underwear is the biggest turnoff in the world."

The sight of you in your socks and naked isn't any better.

The age old question:

When/how do you remove your socks when you are about to get busy without killing the mood?

How come there's never an awkward "removal of socks" pause when two people are having sex in the movies?

-------------------------------------

On a side note, this is our 100th post. That doesn't actually mean anything, but I thought I would point it out.

-L

Capitalist Dating

When it comes to relationships, I am not a jealous person.

“So we were at a bar, and he fuckin’ turned to check out some bimbo with big boobs when she walked by! What the fuck is that about?”

“Iunno. He likes boobs I guess.”

“He went out to lunch with some bitch who sits in the cubicle next to him!”

“Meh…she’s a coworker.”

“He went to a strip club without asking me!”

“He should have at least invited you along.”

Most of my friends, while intrigued and sometimes envious of my disinterest and lax take on relationships, have pegged me “extreme.” They are all positively foaming at the mouths waiting for “that guy” to come along, hook me fins-a-flappin’ and leave me to dry. I have cool friends.

Surely, there must be some middle ground. That razor-thin line between green-eyed beastliness and lazy idiocy where you can maintain your sanity whilst keeping your significant other tethered to your hip. Many seem to opt for the tether. Many Asian people seem to opt for the choke chain (Note: I’ve definitely noticed a pattern in regards to race and possessiveness levels, but I won’t get into that here).

I chose to venture into the unknown depths of “who-gives-a-fuck-dom” and “do-what-you-gotta-do-land” and picked the less physically and emotionally taxing of the two. Those who know me would credit this almost entirely to my sheer laziness, but I would like to believe there’s some rationale behind it. The gears in my head, while rusty and a little cobwebby, are still running. The way I see it, if I need to concern myself with every situation my significant other finds himself in where he is in the presence of an attractive female, there’s something wrong with the larger scale of things. There’s something bigger, indicative of his lack of interest in me or of his untrustworthiness. In which case, it’s time to cut your losses and go. This often leads to the “I’ll be better” conversation.

Good dog.

I guess it isn’t that simple when you’re “in love” or “having good sex” or whatever nonsense it is that keeps people slobbering over each other for extended periods of time, but so far, this mentality has led to generally stress-free relationshits. And that is a good thing.

Interestingly, or perhaps predictably, I love being jealous.

I actually enjoy it when a significant other acts in such a way that garners a green-eyed response from me. I guess that’s the Korean in me. The “anything you can do, I can do better” school of thought. Or possibly the sudden presence of emotion jolts the stone in my chest sending a rush of endorphins to the brain. Whatever it is, if you want me to stick around, show me I can be disposed of at any time.

I’m a little masochistic, eh?

I should probably clarify. Cheating is not cool. If a guy cheats, he is permanently on the Shit List. There is nothing a person can do to rectify such a manner of betrayal. I have told people that if they cheat on me, I would quite possibly Lorena Bobbit their ass, so it’s inadvisable. Dump me, I can take it. Don’t cheat.

However, while most of the people I know are infuriated by other women hitting on their boyfriends or wanting them, I enjoy it. I encourage it. To the point that I made the Dublin Ex hit on other girls in front of me when he came to visit me (fish in a barrel thanks to his Irish accent). I’m a female New Yorker—competitive, materialistic, overly ambitious, a little crazy—I like the idea of someone else wanting what I have. I like the fact that I have to inch around on my toes every now and then to keep someone around. I like the idea that I might have to do battle to defend my coveted prize from the STD-ridden mass of women who comprise the hormonal New York dating pool. I like it when the man I’m dating shows me that he is a hot item. I want to see the hint of interest in his eyes that sparks the jealous rage in me. It’s a rush, a big fat, shallow rush.

We live in a capitalist society defined by the haves and have-nots. The main quality that sets these two groups apart is that the have-nots want what the haves have. People drive Lamborghinis because other people want them and can’t have them. I WANT TO DRIVE A FUCKING LAMBORGHINI!

Is that too much to ask?

It might sound as if I’m setting the feminist movement back a notch or two—requiring a variant of the typical "shit treatment" from a man in order to retain interest. But tell me, who’s worse? The girl who screams and breaks things because her boyfriend is out with other girls, or the one who gloats because at the end of the day, no matter what gorgeous girl throws herself at him, that hot piece of ass is coming home to her?

And besides, angry sex is good sex.

-L

I Smell

Still sick, but I managed to drag my sick-ass to work and sit in front of my computer, sick, and leave the sick voicemails and cough cough very loudly and give the sick watery-eyed look to everyone around me and hope that my boss lets me go home early. But no such luck thus far. Because here I am writing this entry, still at work, still sick.

-------------------------------------------

“You’re late.”

“Huh?”

“You’re late, and now I smell.”

“What?”

“You’ll see. Just remember, it’s all your fault.”

“Uh-“

I hang up my cell phone with what I call the “Hollywood flip,” that way that celebrities like Paris Hilton snap their flip phones shut with one hand so it makes a satisfying slap, and head out the door towards the Gas-Guzzler pulled at the curb. I slam the door with a dull thud.

We’re halfway down the block before he cocks his head, wrinkles his nose and turns to me with a look of disgust.

“What is that smell?”

“I told you! I told you! It’s your fault!”

He pauses to sniff the air surrounding me. “It’s like, some strange food.”

“Is it that bad?” I stick my nose into the collar of my shirt and take a whiff.

“Er, no. It just…smells like food,” he says, the wrinkle not ironing out of his forehead. What is it?”

“That,” I poke my finger at him, “is what you’re gonna have to get used to if you plan on hanging out with me, or any Korean person for that matter,” a smug smile spreads across my face.

“What is it?”

“It’s kimchi jjigae.”

“Huh?”

“You were late! I was hungry! My mom was making kimchi jjigae, so I had some! Now shut up!”

Apparently it’s not just the kimchi jjigae because the next time I got into a “white” car, despite a lack of kimchi jjigae in my immediate vicinity for weeks, my friends sniffed at me quizzically.

“You smell Korean.”

The more seasoned “Asian infiltrators” can identify the scent with ease.

Last night, I’m slurping down some sort of strange fish soup concoction my mother had brewed in a vain attempt to cure whatever it is that is ailing me. I pause in between slurps.

“You know, it’s not just the kimchi. Sluuuurp. My friends say I smell even when I haven’t eaten any kimchi.”

“Which friends?”

“My white friends.”

My mother sits back, draws a long sigh and loses herself for a moment in deep thought that draws lines across her brow. “Korean people just smell,” she concludes. She shrugs and continues into her meal.

I guess that’s that then.

-L

Green

I'm very sick. Bear with me.

-L

Language Barriers

“Nee-hao-ma.”

My heels click click click along the concrete sidewalk without missing a beat.

Louder. “Nee-hao-ma!” He twists his face towards me as he yells it.

“I heard you motherfucker! I’m not Chinese!”

“Konichiwa!”

I throw my hands up in exasperation and click click click faster.

“Ahn-young?”

In case some people aren’t aware, chances are, an Asian person in New York (or anywhere in America for that matter) has a pretty good handle on the English language. Therefore, it is not necessary to attempt to greet them in their native tongue.

1) It’s obnoxious
2) In a city where a significant percentage of the population is of East Asian descent, your mastery of three whole words, horribly mispronounced, will not impress anyone
3) You’ll probably pick the wrong language (as illustrated above) and accomplish little else than prove the extent of your ignorance

“I can’t stand that shit. When those fucking construction workers start yelling, ‘nee-hao-ma, nee-hao-ma!’ at me. Fucking ridiculous. You don’t see us screaming ‘Hello! Look, I can speak English! Hello!’ at anyone.”

“But we’re in America, everyone speaks English, so they’d expect that we know it.”

“True...but we’re in Queens. Everyone speaks Chinese or Korean. I’d expect that they would know it.”

-L

No Limits

My boy from work and I were walking through City Hall Park when he realized he needed to stop by New York Sports Club. He lost his wallet a couple of weeks ago along with his NYSC card. After we were done with the errand, we took a walk along ground zero. As we walked along construction workers frantically trying to rebuild what was once symbolic of one of the greatest economies in the world, I felt a pain in my arm. I was sore as hell from the workout I had the previous day, so I began massaging my arm and complaining.

“Dang, I really killed myself at the gym yesterday.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Some dude was spotting me, so I decided to take advantage and do as much as I could. I overworked myself. I love that shit.”

“No I mean, why would you do that? Like, what’s the point? When I go to the gym, I never overwork myself because I know I can only get so big. So it’s pointless to overexert myself.”

“That’s bullshit. Fine, maybe based on your body type, you can only get so big. But why would you use that as a reason to curb your workout?”

“What’s the point of overexerting yourself?”

“To see what you’re capable of! To see what your limits are, because once you’ve reached your limit you’ll realize, there is no limit. The human body is capable of so much man, I mean, the human body is amazing and God made it that way for a reason. I’m not a fan of David Blaine, but he’s got the right idea. The guy tests the limits of the human body and proves every day that we’re capable of so much more than we think. We’re built for greatness man. Do you remember telling me about how you feel like you’re not motivated at work at all?”

“Yeah.”

“Well it’s the same thing. I mean fine, we’re doing something we don’t like, but that’s no excuse to do it half assed. No matter what we’re doing, if we’re doing it, we should strive for greatness. We should overexert ourselves. We should test our limits.”

A long time ago, my dad sat me down and had a talk with me. It came out of nowhere and during a time when I had grown distant to my father, so I was taken aback. I was even more shocked at what he said. This lecture took place a little bit after I dropped out of high school, and I had been hanging out with a very wrong crowd. My father, the devout Catholic, the perpetual pacifist, looked me in the eyes and said:

“Whatever you do in life, do it the best you can. If you’re going to be a business man, be the best business man. If you’re going to be a gangster, be the best gangster you can be.”

I sat there with my entirely black wardrobe, my orange hair, a butterfly knife in my back pocket and a pack of cigarettes protruding from my front pocket as he said a couple more things that only reiterated his belief that I should go to extremes in whatever road I chose. So here was my religious father, telling me to be a hard hitter. I picked my jaw up off of the floor and walked away with a shattered image of exactly who my father really was. But I get you dad. I know what you mean. The passionate person knows no limits.

So I'm still a bit sore from the gym, but manage to make it to the bar later on and end up drinking like 8 beers and 2 jack and cokes. Well at least that’s all I can remember. I stumble outside to go home and she asks me:

“B, why do you drink so much? What’s the point?”

And I slur back:

“I lunnow man. I gless is to zee wet I’m capabababble of…”

-B

Thursdayisms

I haven’t been doing my customary “Mondayisms,” and I’ve got a lot on my mind, so I’m pleased to present the debut of “Thursdayisms.” Enjoy, kiddies.

1) Phone call I received yesterday:

“Did you check ESPN.com today?”

“Nope. Why?”

“Jason Grimsley got caught getting growth hormone delivered to his house and now he’s squealing on everyone who’s done steroids.”

“Wow. That sucks.”

Note to self: If I ever become a professional athlete, do not have performance enhancing drugs delivered to my home.
Note to self #2: Do not enter draft straight out of high school.

2) Ann Coulter is a wackjob.

3) I’m wearing jeans at work today, and so far, four people have pointed them out.

“It’s Thursday.”

“Yup.”

“You’re wearing jeans.”

“Yup.”

“But it’s not Friday.”

“What are they gonna do? Fire me?”

Lighten up, people! Are the people I speak to on the phone going to somehow detect that I am not properly attired in my place of employ and refuse to speak at the events I invite them to? No. They’re going to refuse to speak because the events are retarded.

4) The food in Midtown is really expensive, and doesn’t taste that great.

5) Peter Luger’s steak is very good. But the sides at Sparks are much better.

6) I have an interview on Monday at (insert name of large, pretentious investment bank here) for another conference coordination position. Bleh. The pay and benefits are awesome, but I’m weighing whether or not it’ll be worth it when I kill myself. Decisions, decisions. I’m pretty sure the interviewer will take one look at my nose ring and throw me out the window anyway, so no worries.

7) Blogger lags and gets shut down quite frequently.

8) Does anyone want to find me a job in editing/publishing? The first person to get me an interview at a cool job (i.e. Book/Magazine Editor, Psychic, Rock Star, Rodeo Clown, Naked Cowboy in Times Square) will receive a lock of my hair so that once science perfects cloning, they can have their very own replica of me! Don’t all email at once now…

-L

PSA

To all the ladies:

If you feel compelled to take a shit in a work or otherwise public/shared bathroom, please, please do not spray perfume afterwards. The only thing worse than a bathroom that smells like shit is a bathroom that smells like shit and sunshine vanilla apricot flowers.

Thank you.

-L

Typecast

“You know, you’re not going to get any attention from publishers if you only post twice a week,” he* says between gulps of beer. And as an afterthought, “You’ve been good the past couple of days though.” His version of moral support. Like the elementary school teacher who cushions criticism with compliments to soften the blow.

I snort into my glass and roll my eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you? I didn’t start the site to fish for a book deal.” Another snort. “I started it so I could talk shit about the world without anyone knowing who I am.”

Since the advent of the blog-to-book phenomenon, everyone who thinks they can write has started a website in the hopes of snagging a check with a dizzying number of zeros in exchange for 100,000 words of bullshit. More specifically, their bullshit. I won’t go so far as to say the thought never crossed my mind. Sure, I’ve fantasized about it, entertained the notion of clicking on my inbox and finding an email from a literary agent or editor interested in meeting me—at the very least getting a free lunch or dinner. But the fact of the matter is, bloggers are the literary equivalent of Asian chicks. A novelty—exotic, mysterious, intriguing—and then one day they fart while you’re engaging in pillow talk, and just like that poof the novelty’s gone.

How many of these blogger-cum-authors will actually stand the test of time?

Some have already begun their steady decline into obscurity. Their creative juice unable to hold its own once the blog identity fades. The Bitch image might have worked to get you publicity as a contestant on Survivor, but will get you nowhere as an actress. Similarly, people might want to read about the Anonymous Angry Sanitation Worker’s opinions, but how will the image hold when you’re trying to be taken seriously for your words? Actors and writers work to avoid typecasts. They strive towards versatility. Therefore, a label that worked as an effective marketing tool in the superficial internet or reality TV celebrity sense will ultimately stunt your ability to get legitimate work.

What happens when the Circus Clown gets the book deal and tells his publisher he wants to write a romance drama for his second book? He’s going to be running away to join the circus again mighty fast.

So, no. I don’t write this site for a book deal. Will I pass the link out as a sample of my work (with the proper disclaimer that it’s “just for fun”)? Yes. Do I expect publishers to notice me because of it? No. Will I feel incredibly fortunate if a publisher were to notice me because of it? Yes. Will I cry and stamp my feet when they don’t? No.

At the end of the day, this site is just a load of steaming bullshit streaming out of my ears and onto the screen for your reading pleasure. It helps me as a writer because it lets me flex my creative muscle regularly with the comfort of knowing that these are not the words that define my ability. It helps me as a writer because when I check my site meter and I see that of the 200 or so hits I got that day, 50 people actually stayed for more than five minutes to browse the archives, it offers me encouragement. It helps me because every now and then someone leaves a nice or nasty comment, agrees or disagrees with one of my views, and the simple fact that something I wrote can garner a response is enough motivation for me to continue doing it.

Thanks for reading.

-L

------------------------------------------
*"He" is not B. I have no idea why people decided to assume that.

Lecture

I screw up. A lot. I’m convinced more so than most “normal” people.

Consequently, I get lectured a lot. Teachers, parents, siblings, coworkers, supervisors, friends, acquaintances, strangers—few have any qualms about pointing out these flaws and missteps no matter the scale. Sometimes they’re condescending and their words offer no reward other than to assert their dominance over me. Sometimes they simply reassert something I’ve already acknowledged as a fault because they have nothing better to do. Sometimes their words offer a new vista of wisdom I have yet to attain and I graciously take heed.

Sometimes it’s difficult to weed out the good advice from the bad. Often, people feel the need to toss their two cents into the jar when you never jingle-jangled the thing under their nose in the first place.

B called me yesterday.

“You quit your job?”

“Yep.”

“And I have to read the site to find this out?”

At this point I mumbled an incoherent string of vowels.

“Why’d you quit?”

“I don’t like my job.”

“There’s gotta be more. People never quit just because they don’t like their job. There’s always some other factor.”

“Not for me. I didn’t like it. So I quit. I can’t be wasting my time at a job that I don’t like. I have to start making moves towards a career I actually like before I get saddled with a bunch of responsibilities and get stuck in a dead-end job because of them.”

Pause for a dramatic moment of introspection.

“I was thinking of looking for a new job too.”

“Cool.”

I knew B wouldn’t give a shit either way, but when Gloria asked me if I had told my mother yet, I froze. My mother, who raised me to believe that what you want is not as important as what you get, would surely give me an earful about how I was planning to pay my bills and find a new job and support my lavish drinking habit and and and…

I figured I’d avoid the situation until it actually came to pass and she inevitably started asking me why I wasn’t waking up in the morning to get ready for work.

This morning, my mother decided to take the same bus with me to work.

“I’m leaving my job,” I blurted as I skipped, huffing and puffing, next to her to keep up with her constantly hurried, I’m-going-to-miss-the-bus, Korean lady scurry.

“Cool,” she says (or at least the Korean equivalent) without slowing her pace.

“Eh?”

“You seemed to have a lot of stress.” She pronounces it stless.

“Uh, yeah, I did.”

“When are you quitting?”

“End of the month.”

“So right now? Today’s your last day?”

“No, no. End of June.”

“Oh, well, there’s no use wasting your time there. You still live at home, you don’t have too many responsibilities. You should focus on something you want to do long term.”

“Er, yeah.”

“So what are you planning to do?”

“Well, I sent my résumé to some friends who have publishing connections.”

“You want to do the editing, right?” Ed-ee-teen.

“Uh, yeah.”

She nods.

A short burst of air exits my lips with a little “poo” sound.

And that’s that.

-L