4/30/2011 - quality, immersive bonding time. . .

Though not nearly as biblical in length as the last time, Sam and I are returning to my parents' house for an extended stay today.  Because Sam is off to yet another business trip, where last time I luxuriated in the subsequent solitude, silence, the spaciousness of our bed, I now have to consider how Grr fits in with all of that.

And after some thought: not well.  He has some separation anxiety; everywhere I go in the house, I hear his two little tags clanging against each other.  If I can't see him, I immediately wonder what kind of trouble he could get into.  And he's a total bed hog.

At first, I thought I would take Monday off from work in order to stay home with him and mitigate any of his loneliness and bodily function disasters, but my big project launches early next week, so my presence, though probably not critical, is likely much appreciated, at the very least to the same extent my absence would be noted.

I also have my Rapid Transit rehearsal Monday night in Oakland (i.e., across the pond), so Grr would essentially be left to his own devices all day.  His own devices terrify me.

I considered the doggy hotel down the street, but like a parent sending his children off to their first day at preschool, I just can't imagine how Grr would fare without a familiar face for such an extended amount of time.

So what better opportunity, then, to bring him to my mom and dad's for some quality, immersive bonding time?  It certainly worked when I brought Sam home while we renovated our loft.

Like I said in a previous post (which, as of yesterday, is also posted here [today's post is not a shameless plug for that, by the way <a shameful one, maybe>]), the 40 days and nights we stayed with them were really quite wonderful, if for no other reason other than the better understanding of each other we all left with afterwards--a greater appreciation, at least from my perspective, for the relationships, romantic and familial, I shared with each of them.  And of course, we were also very pampered, treated like adults, but cared for like children, with the perfect balance of attention and independence.  During, I was completely embroiled in construction drama so I couldn't take the time to think of much else, but afterwards, I really do think back and consider it to be one of the greatest few weeks in recent years.

I don't need my parents to bond with Grr the same way they did with Sam, but I do need to know that someone will look after him in my absence, and I'm certain that my parents will bestow upon Grr the same amount of care they did with me and Sam.  Yes, it will only be for one day, but why send Grr off to strangers when I know there are two people who will bathe him in affection for the duration of his stay?

I won't have to worry about Grr sleeping on the cold, unforgiving ground in a cage of a kennel.  If my mom had her say, Grr's feet would never touch the ground, ridiculous as it may seem given his size:

When Sam and I left their house late last year and moved back to our newly renovated home, we both said that it was so much better staying with mom and dad.  If our feelings were any indication, I suspect Grr may never want to come back to the City either.

4/29/2011 - old Bollywood movies and a Backstreet Boys video. . .

Last night, in honor of National Dance Week, Sam and I attended a free bhangra class at the Oberlin Dance Collective studios just down the street from our house. 

Bhangra is an Indian-style of dancing traditionally done in the fields to celebrate the harvest season.  Of course, on its way to the western world, it picked up various influences, most prominently pop and hip-hop.  It now resembles something like a hybrid of old Bollywood movies and a Backstreet Boys video circa 1999.

(Two of my favorite things, of course.)

The room was packed when we arrived, and we managed to squeeze ourselves into a little space in the back corner.  I wondered how I would be able to throw my arms around and twist and turn like the dancers I've seen on TV screens at my favorite Indian buffet in Fremont.

Luckily, I didn't have to worry about it, because the choreography was hard enough just standing still.  When the class began, I realized that this was everything I wanted it to be and more: a lot of cupped hands, twisting wrists, and shoulder shrugs, all done to music that had a similar east-meets-west aesthetic.  From the back, I could see the entire room moving in convincing unison.  As expected, some moved with more of a fluid grace, but overall, we all shrugged when we should, threw our arms up together, and generally aped the lust for life the instructor tried to show us.

Toward the end, we were put in lines and led across the floor with repeated phrases of movement.  During this exercise, I got to watch Sam, who found himself further back in line behind me.  For the most part, he understood the moves; cerebrally, he knew to kick his left foot out after extending his right arm into the air, that he had to throw his shoulders back as his feet inched forward.  I could tell.  But something was just kind of off, kind of white, about it.

I found myself rushing to complete my movements so I could stand to the side and watch him.  Not to criticize, not to laugh, not even to compare how we were doing relative to each other (as we can be competitive).  Really, I just wanted a moment to take in the sight of him dancing, something I had seen him do countless times before at home (he can do a robot that I will never get tired of watching), but never to an organized set of choreography.  He stumbled some, rushed to make up for missed moves, put his hands up when they should have gone down.  But he never stopped trying.

Every so often, though, he'd get it, hit the beat at exactly the right time, throw his head up to the ceiling in just the way we were shown.  If he knew I was watching, he'd look over at me with a smile, and I wished that I had more time to do just that--stand there and watch him dance and struggle and express--with a camera to immortalize what I saw when I stood in that corner and asked myself: could I possibly love this person any harder?

4/28/2011 - a vortex of sound and fury. . .

As I ate my breakfast this morning, Sam told me the best story, a victorious saga that began with: "Grr faced down his nemesis today."

I mean, really, don't you just love it already?  Seven AM, and I had already missed a showdown.

Apparently, Sam had taken Grr out earlier to do his business, and from afar, Sam saw the street sweeper round a corner and barrel toward them.  Grr cowers from many things, from the innocuous (a paper bag) to the slightly less innocuous (motorcycles and busses), but one of the things that strikes fear in his little heart like no other is the street sweeper.

He's probably only seen one a handful of times, but they left quite the impression.  On some mornings, he will growl and bark into the darkness of the loft when he hears the rumble and swish of the vehicle pass by our window.  Unlike his other phobias which baffle me (a door stop--really?), I can understand this one.  To a puppy, the street sweeper, a giant tank of a vehicle with various brushes and appendages attached to it, must seem like quite the behemoth.  Couple the relative size of it with the flood of noise it generates, I imagine Grr must drown in sensory overload.

When Sam saw one heading their way this morning, he hoped that they could finish up and be home by the time it got too close.  But Grr, still blissfully unaware, wanted to poop, started zigging around a patch of grass with his nose to the ground, searching for whatever sign he needed in order to find that perfect spot.

Then he saw it.  He wanted to get away, but Sam and I were told by our dog trainer to keep him as calm as possible at times like these without coddling him or enabling his fear.  We needed to teach Grr that as long as he was at our side, we would not let anything harm him.  Grr tugged, tucked his tail in preparation for flight, but Sam stood firm, gripped the leash harder and sent a little prayer of bravery out into the air between them.

The sweeper swirled closer, a vortex of sound and fury.  Grr sat on the frigid sidewalk, wide-eyed and trembling before his greatest fear, like Robin Williams in The Fisher King, when the Red Knight would materialize and beat him down.  The sweeper crawled toward them slowly.  Grr sat frozen, ears pinned back.  As the sweeper approached, Grr lifted his head to it.  They were face to face; it could have swept him up and swallowed him whole.

But it didn't, just moved on and continued sweeping down the street, around the corner and down that street until the drone of its vacuum, the hiss of its bristles disappeared and left Grr alone, intact and unharmed. 

Now, I don't know how any of it actually happened; I was sound asleep upstairs fighting my own battle of deciding whether or not to go to the gym.  Sam's account of this modern day David-and-Goliath story was sparsely decorated and much, much briefer, but I took some creative liberties, filled in the blanks for myself, and swooned.  I couldn't help it.  I pictured my little pup as a lowly warrior who went to battle against his greatest enemy, maybe with an Ennio Morricone score swelling in the background, faced annihilation itself and came out triumphant.

4/27/2011 - a $6 burrito and a $100 phone. . .

To save money, I usually bring my lunch to work.  Sometimes, I get lazy and just can't be bothered to slap together two slices of bread with whatever meat product I have in the refrigerator at the time. 

Yesterday was one of those days, so I ventured out into the Financial District to my favorite burrito place.  For $6, they hand over an overstuffed burrito with rice, beans, chicken, and pico de gallo.  Nothing compares to that first bite after painstakingly unwrapping it from its multi-layered tin foil.  Sure, all subsequent bites taste just as delicious, but that first one, even after having quite a few of their burritos over the years, is incomparable, like the overture to a best-loved symphony--simply the beginning of something you know will be wonderful.

After my burrito was made and I pulled out my credit card, the cashier told me that their machine went down earlier, and they could only accept cash in the meantime.  Which, of course, I did not have.  The cashier, a woman with a sweet smile even in the chaos of the lunch rush, pointed to an ATM in the dining room, the kind that levies a charge just for looking at it.  I told her that I'd run to an actual ATM down the street and be right back.

"Just pay later," she said.

"Yea, I'll be right back.  My bank is just around the corner."

"No, mijo, the burrito will get cold!"  She had meant for me to take it and just come back in the afternoon.

"Are you sure?" I asked, almost apologetic.  With a smile, she gave me my burrito in a brown paper bag and waved me off. 

Though I was hungry when I walked in, starving after the restaurant's aromas wafted over me, I didn't want to leave this debt unpaid, leave the woman, likely an owner or stakeholder in the store, wondering for long if she had misjudged me.

"Ay, mijo!" she said when I walked back in five minutes later with an uneaten burrito and a crisp twenty.  Still, I felt much better.

You'd think that this would be the end of this post, that I would be grateful for her faith in me, a virtual stranger, and that I walked away believing that people still trusted one another.  And while those things might be true, the story itself didn't exactly end there.

Later that afternoon, Sam and I took Grr to the park (the same one just a week ago he loved, but now inexplicably finds foreign and terrifying).  As we walked back to our car, a woman in a beat-up sedan going in the opposite direction stopped in the middle of the road, rolled her window down a sliver, and beckoned for us.  Sam ignored her like a good, hardened urbanite, but I handed him Grr's leash and approached the car.

She was supposed to meet her friend on Diamond, but she forgot the cross street and left her phone at home; could she use mine?

In the split second I had to respond, I surveyed this scene as best I could: a disheveled woman in a still-running car; a sullen and aloof man slouched in the passenger seat; a car that had seen better days with a window that she apparently could not (or just would not) open more than she already had, which conveniently was just the right amount of room for me to slide my phone through.

"Sorry, I don't have mine with me."  God, I was a horrible liar, worse since I was fairly certain she could see a phone-shaped bulge in my pocket.

"What about your friend?  Does he have his?"

Who, Sam?  The one who is pretending that you and I aren't even having this conversation right now?  "Sorry, I don't think he can help either."  Not exactly a lie.

"Alright then, nevermind," she said as she sped off to her still-unknown intersection.

When I got back on the sidewalk, Sam handed me the leash.  "So what did Crazy want?"

I told him.

"Oh yea, as if she doesn't already have a glove compartment full of other people's phones!" he said.

Maybe, but what if not?  I couldn't help but think back to my lunch, to the woman's face as she handed me my burrito and encouraged me to eat it first while it was still warm, full of faith that I would return with payment.

"But a $6 burrito and a $100 phone are not the same," Sam retorted.

True, but maybe she really just needed to make a quick call, fell victim to Murphy's Law when she thought that she probably wouldn't need her phone this afternoon.  I guess I'll never know now, but what I am still sure of was that I had been presented with an opportunity to help this woman, lost on Diamond Street, but I failed to give her the chance to prove my doubts about her wrong.  Even worse, just five hours prior, the tables were turned, and I had been shown exactly how to give her that chance.

4/26/2011 - a very tumultuous time in our lives. . .

On paper, Scott and I were an odd couple.  We met when I had just started college; he was already established as a junior high school teacher (clarification: not one of mine).  I was just beginning to enjoy the freedom of living on my own away from parental supervision; he was the father to a three-year-old boy.  Though I only possessed a fledgling concept of politics at the time, I identified as a liberal on account of the 'openly gay' thing; Scott was a staunch conservative, an out and proud Republican, and somewhat of a closeted homosexual.

Yet we were together for over five happy years, and prior to this weekend, we had not spoken for about the same amount of time thereafter.  I believe the last exchange we shared began with him telling me that clementines were in season, and how he remembered that they were my favorite.  For some reason which escapes me now, I felt assaulted by this information, told him that I just didn't know how to respond when he appears out of nowhere with something like this, something that I interpreted as a way to make me feel guilty about breaking up with him.

It made little to no sense, even to me now, but the only way I can explain it, other than saying I had a terribly off day, is that Scott and I were together during a very tumultuous time in our lives (as the less angry, more zen-ny Alanis Morissette would say).  This tumult carried itself forward even after we ended the relationship, and the easiest, most humane thing we could do for each other was to cease contact. 

I received a text message early Sunday morning from his phone number, a number that at once was familiar and foreign, almost like an image out of a dream.  I read it to myself a few times, felt the sequence of digits ignite a few neurons that had lain dormant for many years.

(Sidenote: I didn't have a cell phone all through college, convinced that it was a fad--why would I want people to call me when I am not at home??  Of course, cut to 10 years in the future, as I sit in the cafeteria finishing this post with my phone on the table and within my peripheral field of view.  Anyway, in order for me to call Scott, I actually had to dial his number on my $10 Wal-Mart phone at home, and I did it enough times to permanently (I think) wire it into my synapses, even if it took a few minutes to reactivate them.) 

By the time we volleyed a few messages back and forth, I learned that he had injured himself in a skiing accident and severed his left patellar tendon just about clean through.  Eventually, I called him in his room, and we talked for about half an hour. 

And here, I originally wanted to spend a good amount of words describing my relationship with Scott, the things we used to do, how I learned to be in an adult relationship by making all of the rookie mistakes (silent treatments, ultimatums, breaking up just to get attention) and coming out with a better understanding of what makes love work.  But when I wrote it all out, the details seemed quite irrelevant to what I really wanted to say, which is simply that I was glad to have heard the voice of someone whom I had once known so well and loved so long ago.  All of those memories, those times we've shared, good and bad, would not have changed or enhanced this very basic fact.

We are different people now, in very different places in our lives, and I wouldn't want it any other way.  Still, I always considered the radio silence between us to be wrong, a mistake, and even if we never speak again after Sunday, I'm glad we did this once; the mistake had been corrected.  Of course, it sucks that it took a near inadvertent amputation to do so.  Probably sucks more from his vantage point, I imagine.  So I guess in this one post, I can be grateful for two things--the other being all of my intact appendages.

4/25/2011 - as if I had won an Academy Award. . .

I keep my emotions out of my corporate, 9-to-5 job.  I know some people invest their emotions deeply into their careers, some even define themselves by what they do, but as long as I have worked, jobs have merely existed as a means to an end--a way for me to live my life the way I want when I am away from it. 

Other than sometimes feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work or relief on Friday afternoons when I can be away from it for a couple of days, I generally stay very neutral throughout my work life, somewhere between Jim Halpert and a complete automaton.  A prior boss used to say that I was unshakeable in the face of chaos.  He treated it as a great asset; I wouldn't know how to be otherwise.

This stoicism stems not from an iron will or a steely composition, as I am a pretty emotional guy in my personal life.  Instead, I'm pretty sure it's apathy.  I mean, I try to do a good job at work, care enough about it to try (sometimes even succeed), and I always work hard (at least I tell myself that this is what 'working hard' looks like), but I just can't get emotionally involved in work that goes through countless levels of bureaucratic approval until it ultimately gets revised, pared down, and often completely transformed altogether.  All of my corporate experience has been like this; my work is not me.

This morning, I unveiled a major new feature on my company's website to the internal marketing department.  This project has been incubating and developing for over a year, involving several departments and countless hours of work, all of which resulted in a highly visible, dare I say cool, web presence that is unlike anything we currently have.  Though not all of the ideas were mine, I was the project manager (which, admittedly, means I did very little of the actual work, just oversaw the progress of said work), so my name is prominently attached to this project like a designer label.

So rarely do I get to actually produce something tangible in this (insurance) industry.  Even more rare is the development of something, at least in my company, that does not go through seemingly endless bureaucracy.  Because of this freedom, the team and I created something unique, collaborative; I would even go as far as to say with love.  I think everyone recognized this.  During my presentation to a room of about 60 people, I consistently saw smiles from the audience, every so often a look of awe as I clicked through the site demonstration.  I couldn't have been more excited to show everyone what months and months of effort have led to. 

At the end of my presentation, I stood in front of everyone and thanked all the people involved, all of whom played a critical role in giving this project life.  I even said something to the effect of, "I didn't prepare a thank you list, so I'm sure I'll leave some people out. . ." as if I had won an Academy Award.  And that's when I knew, that moment where I started rattling off names--I was grateful to everyone who helped me, was actually proud of what I had led to completion.  It was unbelievable: pride in one's work--who knew it could feel so good? 

4/24/2011 - good or bad, like or dislike. . .

The decision to enroll Grr in puppy training was not as easy to make as one might think.  Obviously, he could benefit from some discipline and guidance in his life, some help in replenishing his dwindling courage, but I couldn't help but think of the dogs my parents have had and how neither of them went to training.  Why should ours, then?

Of course, given the opportunity, Elliot, their rambunctious lab, would eat the veneer off the cabinets if it remotely tasted like anything.  Or, as was the case last fall, an entire bag of hot Cheetos and a box of peppermint bark.  My sister can probably testify to how vital training could have been after repeated cleanings of Elliot's brown-and-orange, ultra-pungent regurgitant.

So maybe Grr does need training, (and Elliot too, for that matter), but as most things go with him, the training is costly.  Our session with the trainer, in all, subtracted another $600 from our emergency/vacation/fun stuff fund and essentially pushed the expenses of owning Grr into the thousands (plural)--thousands that we could have spent on a nice suite on the main Waikiki strip, a new TV, a little pied-à-terre for a week in Paris, two tickets for a flight to Thailand, a bender in Vegas, a weekend in Portland, just an amazing dinner downtown, even.

But obviously, I try not to dwell on these things too much.

The trainer stayed with us for over three hours, testing Grr's limits, stressing him out with his loud and foreign presence, all while breaking down for us what he believes to be the basic foundation of communicating with animals: know your subject.

He believes that dogs, while highly intelligent, also exist in a world of simplistic polarity: good or bad, like or dislike, and nothing in between.  Communicating with them, then, needs to mirror this thought process.  Where I had been saying, "Hey!  Grr, you better cut that out!  Do not take one more step!  Grr, no!  Bad!  Drop it!  Why do you hate me so???" now becomes a very simple, "No!" to stop the offending behavior, "Sit!" to reshift his focus, and an enthusiastic, "Goooooood boy!" to praise and affirm what I do want from him.

Grr does not need nuance, does not need inference.  Just two commands, two opposite ideas: positive, and negative.  Just, "No!" and "Goooooood boy!"

I've always considered myself to be a good communicator.  I was, after all, a psychology major with a focus on social psych, volunteered as a peer counselor in college, and even took a "Crucial Conversations" training at work that specialized in tackling sensitive subjects.  And all of those skills I acquired have worked pretty well with people, all of whom are complicated and nuanced and interpolative.  With people, the basic tenet of the 'know your subject' philosophy seems obvious--I would never talk to my boss in the same way I talk to my friends, or in the same way I talk to my mom.  So why, then, have I been treating Grr as if he was a person, insisting on communicating with him in the same way I do with Sam and expecting Grr to respond in kind?

I reached this epiphany late in the session.  Was it worth $600?  Well, I think I'll just have to find a way to convince myself, hopefully with a successfully trained pup as Exhibit A.

4/23/2011 - where the chick just stands there and sings stuff. . .

Concerts are not usually my thing.  I've been to a handful of them, and while I always have fun during, the hassle of getting there, the massive crowds, and the interminable amount of time spent waiting for the show to begin has successfully deterred me from attending more.  But tonight, on kind of a whim, Sam and I are going to see Linda Eder, a Broadway veteran probably best known for her role as Lucy the prostitute in Jekyll and Hyde.

Thanks to my dictatorial seizure of radio control when I ride shotgun in Sam's car, he has been exposed to enough of Linda Eder's voice on XM Radio's Broadway channel to consistently mistake her for Barbra Streisand, and can even hum a few bars of "Someone Like You" if coerced.  Despite this, I was surprised when Sam said that he was looking forward to the concert tonight, even after I calibrated his expectations accordingly--no drum machines, no pyrotechnics, and likely no back-up dancers.

"Wow, how PBS of us," he said, "you know, those concerts they show where the chick just stands there and sings stuff."

Which is really just how I like my concerts, actually.  Though I had a great time last year at Lady Gaga's spectacle of a Monster's Ball, I am not really a dance diva at heart.  As embarrassing as this is to admit, I went to my very first concert in high school, when my mom and I (yes, you read that right) went to see Jewel at an old theater in Berkeley.  I was obsessed about her at the time, basically put her Pieces of You CD on endless repeat, learned how to play "You Were Meant for Me" on the guitar.  She was a great, if not somnolent, performer, and I think it kind of set me down this path where I feel most comfortable at great but somnolent performances.

I, of course, have my own expectations of the concert tonight.  I can leave completely satisfied if she just belted out a couple of tunes (I have a soft spot for belters; I blame Idina Menzel), maybe my favorite song from Jekyll and Hyde.

Really, though, I just want Sam and I to have some time to ourselves, remind ourselves that we are a couple, not just two people who exist together merely to take care of a neurotic and needy puppy.  Sometimes, we forget; often, we don't have time to remember.  What better chance to think about it than a night of ballads, vibrato, and Broadway music?  I'm sure Sam can't think of one; I certainly can't!

4/22/2011 - not an invitation for a threesome. . .

In all of my romantic relationships, I've struggled alongside my partner to develop mutual friendships.  Sure, we would befriend each other's friends to varying degrees of success, but we rarely make new friends together, if ever.

I could spend the next 500 words exploring the various facets of the 'whos' and 'whys,' but I've actually already done that, and the answers are quite simple:

Who? Me.
Why?  I'm introverted.

So imagine my surprise when I met Brad at the dog park earlier this week.  He had come up to me and started chatting in the same way anyone starts chatting with anyone else at the dog park: "This one yours?"  And by 'this one,' he meant the dingo-looking puppy getting trampled over by an overly friendly, goofy poodle.  So yes, that one was mine.

We continued talking about dogs, parks, and the potpourri of topics one rattles through with a stranger.  Meanwhile, Sam was off to the side with a work acquaintance, talking about hair (which is Sam's industry, in case this topic seemed random).  Eventually, without transition or seams, Brad and I began talking about other things, less obvious things.  I told him my name, and he said that Austin, TX is one of his favorite cities, a blue rescue boat in a treacherous sea of red.  He blazed through a rapid summary of Ender's Game, shocked that I, an English major, had never read any of Orson Scott Card's work (who, as an aside, is a rabid homophobe, but I thought it too early to bring politics into the conversation).  He described some of his experiences working for bigmuscle.com, an internet dating-ish kind of site for, well, big and muscly men.

Everything flowed smoothly, like we had known each other for quite some time already.  I did not feel the usual self-consciousness or pregnant pauses when meeting someone for the first time.  This was fun, light-hearted and meaningful at the same time, and I started wondering if Brad could be that elusive mutual friend I had been wanting.  Sam and I had just had a conversation the other day about how we hardly ever go out anymore (mostly on account of Grr, but also because we are us) and we never meet new people together. 

Right as I was telling Brad about my failed attempt last year at starting a book club with some friends, Sam sidled over, and Brad immediately turned to him and asked what kind of books he reads.  Well, I thought, here's the dealbreaker; I'll hear from Sam later about how it was so pretentious to ask someone about literature right off the bat.

"Comic books, mostly," Sam replied.

"Oh cool!  I love comics!"  Brad said, and right as I expected to hear a recount of some Marmaduke antic or Garfield strip, he asked, "Marvel or DC?"

And off they went into their respective universes, babbling about the Incredible Hulk, Wonder Woman, Superman and some other Adjective+Noun heroes of the illustrated world.  They also shared an interest in science fiction, something about a Dr. Who, and right when I felt like Brad could not be more perfect for us, he turned to me and said, "Now what are your feelings about Battlestar Galactica?"  I just about died.

After staying at the park for over an hour, after even Grr wanted to go home, we got back in the car.  I told Sam that we should try and be friends with Brad, whatever that means.  (Hang out?  Talk?  Play?  It seems so much easier as a kid, when those were essentially the only options available amongst friends.  Can you imagine the awkwardness now when I ask Brad to come over to our house and "play?")

"Just make sure he's clear that this is not an invitation for a threesome," Sam instructed.

So no threesome.  Got it. 

But I could tell that Sam enjoyed talking with Brad, wouldn't mind seeing him in a context outside of pee-stained sand on which unruly pups abound.  Same for me.  Maybe this can be the beginning of something. 

4/21/2011 - fake-shopping, fake-interacting, fake-cleaning the rickshaw. . .

Now that I've slept on the whole movie-extra experience, I've conclusively decided that it was an amazing little adventure.  I felt pretty sure of it last night, but with my body completely exhausted and my feet throbbing, I couldn't really tell.

Would I run back at the next opportunity?  Probably not, as I think a certain element of movie magic gets lost the further back I pull the curtain.  But was I grateful for the experience?  Without a doubt, and in unexpected ways.

From the moment I finished wardrobe, make-up and hair, at which point I looked like this:

I felt like a different person.  Not that I felt more Chinese, even though I was dressed in Asian-style clothes and shoes that my grandpa used to wear around the house, nor did I feel more like a rickshaw driver, who I was supposed to portray.  I just felt less like Austin, whom Jenn in make-up bured in layers of fake grime and dirt.  I understood then how some could enjoy performing in drag so much.  Flamboyance and exhibitionism aside, it was a chance to hide in plain sight.

On set, I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Nicole Kidman, said hi to her as she walked by.  During one take, as I wiped my brow after setting my rickshaw down, Clive Owen looked directly at me as he delivered his lines.  I watched Joan Chen play ping pong in the rec room of the Chinatown YMCA, which served as base camp for the shoot.  I caught up with her afterwards and told her that she was great in Mao's Last Dancer, which is one my parents' favorite movie of late.  (Truthfully, I had never seen it and only knew that she starred in it thanks to IMDB.  What a brown-noser.)

Sure, I was a little starstruck, but mostly in the sense that I felt an obligation to feel starstruck.  These were some famous people, after all.  Really, the people I enjoyed meeting the most were fellow extras who woke up at the same time I did that morning, who felt similarly tired from pacing up and down the same alley 30 or 40 times (literally), who stood with me in the cold in our threadbare peasant outfits as the fog rolled in.

The truth was, I got a little bored after a while.  The excitement wore off soon after I realized that being an extra was essentially like being a robot: perform the same tasks, on command, as many times as necessary without calling attention to yourself.  I mean, really, there was only so much fake-shopping, fake-interacting, fake-cleaning the rickshaw I could do before I wished I actually was a 1930s Chinese peasant, just so I could get on with my life and out of the endless loop I had trapped myself in.  And the weather, which had bestowed some sun and warmth in the morning, grew bitter and unkind as the day wore on.

In all, it was a lot of "hurry up and wait," and I learned to hate the word "reset."  Once the director calls "Cut!" which the production assistants would echo up and down the alley through megaphones, the next word we would most likely hear, the one we would learn to dread, was "Reset!" which meant for us to go back to our original starting positions for take 'x+1:' more fake cleaning, more fake shopping.  I started wondering if the hourly minimum wage they paid us all was even worth the tedium, because the "fun" certainly wasn't. 

During one painstaking hiatus in which the film crew broke down one set and erected another, all while the extras just stood around doing nothing besides shiver, I began talking to Li, an older woman and fellow fake marketplace shopper.  Earlier, I had bashed my knee against my rickshaw as I fake-cleaned, and for every take thereafter, Li ensured that I would not again, reminding me with a maternal smile to avoid the random (and stealthy) rod jutting out from the wheels.

She had done several of these background gigs and wished there were more of them.

"Really?"  I asked.  "This is getting kinda boring."

She agreed that it can be tiresome and physically painful at the end of a marathon day, but since she had fallen victim to the recent economic bust, random jobs like this one, jobs that did not require a fluent command of the English language, were a godsend.  Sure, it was only about $100, less after taxes, but spend it wisely, she said, and you can cook healthy meals for yourself for a whole week.

And there I was, completely nonchalant about the money because I was just there to have fun, not to mention using paid time off from my regular job to be there.  I chose to be there, and I could just as easily have chosen otherwise without consequence.  Li would have had to find another way to feed herself for a week.

All of a sudden, I didn't feel so cold, so tired, my corporate job didn't seem so bad.  Today, I returned to my warm cubicle, sat in a comfortable corporate chair that gets ergonomically evaluated annually, and probably spent more money on snacks and lunch than what Li sometimes makes in a week.  Mind-numbing meetings and busy work never seemed more like a blessing.

So yes, I had an amazing adventure yesterday; I learned something, took away a new appreciation for my life.  While I was a little starstruck at seeing Nicole Kidman, I was just plain struck by Li.

4/20/2011 - much less time to write. . .

There was much to be thankful for in my 14-hour work day today as an extra on a movie shoot (standing for 12 of those hours with zero-support "kung fu-style" shoes in the brisk San Francisco air not being one of them), but much less time to write about them all.  So today will be my first official no-post day (even though this is a post, so maybe my official-official one is yet to come); but I'll say this much: this experience, and the people I met, one woman in particular named Li, helped me appreciate my regular job, and the fact that I have one, so much.

More tomorrow.

4/19/2011 - then to a fitting. . .

My dreams of playing a Chinese gangster went kurplutz this morning when I received a call from the agency telling me that I have been cast as a rickshaw driver (carrier?  operator?  chauffeur?) instead.  Sam said I've been demoted to a coolie.

I'm a little disappointed, but not horribly so.  I mean, the bright, shining truth is that come tomorrow morning, I will be walking onto the set of an actual movie with actual movie stars, and last I checked, this is not something that happens to me every day.  Of course, I may not actually share any screen time with these stars, or even see any of them on set, but I do know that Parker Posey is in the same movie I'm extraing in.  To this day, Linda and I can still rattle off lines from her all-too-brief cameos on Will and Grace as Jack's nightmare boss, Dorlene, at Barney's New York, New York.  Our favorite: "Not only will I fire you, I will rehire you, pull your hair, and fire you again."

I have already decided that if she graces me with her presence, I will discard all dignity and tell her why I loved her so on Will and Grace, why she was my favorite character in Best in Show, and how she was the only memorable thing in Superman Returns.

But before any of that can happen, I had to run to the costume shop during my lunch today to take care of some logistics.  I filled out some paperwork, including my non-union worker's voucher (minimum wage, whoo-hoo!), and proved to them that I am eligible to work in the United States.  Afterwards, I was whisked off to "hair" (no other descriptions or words needed, apparently), where I got a minimal, but coolie-appropriate trimming, then to a fitting, where I surreptitiously took this:

Stardom begins with a single step (and a rickshaw in my grip).

4/18/2011 - bodyguard or Chinese gangster. . .

My aunt, whom I have affectionately dubbed "The Real Housewife of Taipei," lives an enviable life.  Married to a successful textiles business owner (at least I think that's what he does), she has not worked since, whiling away her days at the gym doing aerobics, having brunch with her girlfriends, and shopping.  She was, and probably still is, a marathon shopper.  She used to make annual trips to America during the summer, bringing my cousins with her, and she would take us to the mall weekly, letting us loose for a couple of hours while she parks at a cosmetics counter.  The women working there would know her by name within a few weeks, be her best friends by the end of the summer.

I always enjoyed her visits; they symbolized "summer vacation" for me.  Anyway, she visits less now, and not always during the summer, but each time, she shares with me the same two pieces of information:

1. I can't understand why you don't have a girlfriend!!  Come back with me to Taiwan, and I'll have your cousin introduce you to a slew of girls you would love.  And they would just love you!
2. Come back with me to Taiwan, and we could put your good looks to use.  Turn you into a model!  Or a pop star!

Obviously, I have yet to take her up on this offer.  I figure, if she has yet to figure out why a 30-year-old man has never had a girlfriend or shown any interest in romantic female companionship, she could very well be wrong about #2 as well.

Not that fame and fortune in Taiwan hasn't been a nice thought to daydream to.  Sam gets a good laugh about it but is also ready to pack and move tomorrow if it could happen, eager to become a "Real Housewife" himself.  I told him that he'd likely have to go back in the closet and become my bodyguard or personal trainer or accountant or something.  "Fine," he said, "as long as I get a hefty allowance and have full oversight on hiring the help."

As it turns out, this Thursday may be the beginning of these dreams coming true.  (Not really, but it's fun to think about.)  Late last week, I received a casting call opportunity from a Facebook friend asking for local San Francisco Asian actors to apply for extra work on a 1930s movie shooting this week.  Some "parts" include: pedestrians, hotel guests, and opium addicts (no joke).  When I told Sam about the last role, his eyes widened and said, "Oh my god, how cool!  I'll get my sticky buns!!"

Since the casting office sits right down the block from my office, I thought, "What the hell," submitted my information, a photo, and hoped for the best.

This morning, a woman from the agency called and told me that instead of an opium addict (sorry, Sam), I was being considered for the role of a bodyguard or Chinese gangster (her words).  I would be in scenes that call for fewer extras (and presumably more screen time).  My first thought: "It's not exactly a Taiwanese pop star, but it'll do. . ."

I hope I get to be a Chinese gangster.  I should ask makeup to give me a goatee.  Chinese gangsters sport goatees, don't they?  I have always wanted one.

4/17/2011 - living up to our fullest potential. . .

I am not the most organized person there ever could be.  I am, frankly, a slob.  I have always been this way, and I exacerbate the problem by not really even recognizing just how messy I am.  For example, Sam complains that I leave cups everywhere after I use them, or used napkins, or my toothbrush dangling on the edge of the sink, or water splashed all over the countertops.  I'm not about to deny these very astute accusations, but I barely give them a second thought until he mentions something, usually in a huff.

My slobbery goes back throughout time with examples of varying severity.  The worst: when I was in college, I could transport no more than two people, including myself, in my four-door, five-seater Toyota sedan; the back seat was so full of junk that I could see the slush pile in the rearview mirror.

Of course, the back seat was not always this way.  I'm sure the entropy began slowly, crept up from behind and attacked when my defenses were down.  It probably began with a jacket or shirt that I had brought with me somewhere but then didn't need, which I subsequently forgot about when I got home.  It ended with a backseat crammed with clothes, books, CDs, canned goods (seriously, but no can opener, so go figure), and anything else shiny enough to have grabbed my attention, but that I did not actually want enough to do anything with other than add to the growing collection.

Did I want to have a clean car?  Of course I did!  But how was I to clean it when I was fairly certain that all the stuff in there was already growing new stuff?  By the time I finally got around to it, I basically threw everything into a bag, which now sits in a box somewhere in my parents' garage.

This morning, as I got dressed, I realized that my side of the closet was slowly succumbing to the same conditions as the back seat of my car so many years ago.  No canned goods, but I piled enough unfolded clothes onto the shelves that it looked like the bargain bin at the Salvation Army.

And of course, my side of the closet was not always this way either.  When Sam and I first moved in, we spent a whole day reconfiguring the expansive and modular closet-shelving system that came with the loft.  By the time we finished, we created an arrangement I'm sure Martha Stewart would approve.  My shirts were neatly folded in stacks, organized by type (tee, collared, long-sleeved, etc.), and my jeans were tucked away in drawers.  I could hardly believe I was responsible for this level of order.

When I looked at it this morning, and I mean really looked at it (because it had been this way for months), I felt so disappointed in myself and the closet.  Neither of us were living up to our fullest potential.  So with a cloudy day outside and a sleepy pup in, I devoted a couple of hours to turn this:

into this:

Yes, it may seem like a small job for a normal person, just some laundry and folding some clothes, but not for me: the perennial college-student/slacker type who does not have the proclivity to pick a shirt up from the ground unless he plans on wearing it right then.  This was a major accomplishment, months in the making.

4/16/2011 - a better boyfriend. . .

Sam usually gets up in the morning to take Grr out.  Often, I sleep right through it.  Sometimes, I have the potential, the opportunity to wake up if I really tried, but I don't, and I more or less sleep right through it.

I know that it is unfair to always make Sam get up, even though I never directly make him.  He just does it, keeps his ever-vigilant watch over Grr's activities, even in sleep.  He is a true mother, the kind who says she has eyes on the back of her head, and then actually seems to.  He sleeps with one eye open and is always aware of Grr's potential for trouble.

I, on the other hand, have quickly learned to tune out everything that stands between my waking hours and my non-waking ones.  Everything, that is, but guilt.  On the nights when I do hear Grr land softly on the hardwood and I feel Sam get out of bed, I always know that I should get up and at least offer to be the one to carry our 30-pound dog out to the sidewalk.  (Ridiculous as it may seem, he just can't be trusted to not pee in the hallway in an effort to avoid going outside.)  Even if Sam is still ultimately the one who does it, at least I should offer, right?

This morning around five o'clock, I felt Grr lift his head.  I opened my eyes just slightly and saw him looking out over the railing and through the window onto the street.  At any minute, then, I knew he would make a fuss, jump off the bed, wake Sam and they'd both go out.

Though I was aware of this, I was hardly alert, much less awake, but I did have enough wits gathered about me to debate whether I should get up or not.  This morning, after all, was the first morning of a long-awaited weekend (as they all are, I guess), and though I could (and definitely would) come right back to bed after Grr was done, there was just something great about staying in bed, not moving, being lazy.

But then I felt Grr stand up.  (The debate raged on: should I abandon my warm spot, the one I had incubated all night?)  He started scratching himself.  (And what a comfortable position I found, with my neck nestled in the pillow just right, and my hand resting on my chest like so!)  And finally, he walked to the edge of the bed and hopped off.  (Could I give all of this up in exchange for a cold, harsh morning on the sidewalk?)

Then Sam lifted his head.  I was completely 50/50 on whether I should get up, or if I could feign sleep and just let him do it.  He does it every other morning anyway; why not today?

But then I got this random (and inspired, if I do say so) idea: if I get up and take him out, I will feel like a better pet owner, and certainly a better boyfriend for letting Sam sleep.  This will be a good feeling to write about today on the blog, for which I had no other topic in mind.

So with resolve and intent, I put my glasses on, said, "I got him" with the most authoritative voice I could muster.  You know, the one that wants to be recognized for the effort but also downplay the fact that this is the first time I've exhibited this effort all week.

The whole thing took all of five minutes, and we were back in bed.  My spot was still warm, and the morning not nearly as harsh.  The last thought to flash through my head before falling asleep again was, "Whew!  Not only am I a good boyfriend today, but the blog is all but written!"

(Though I did accidentally slam the door on our way out, something Sam never does.  And I also forgot to bring my keys, so as soon as we left the main building's front door, we were locked out, necessitating a call to Sam from the call box, which meant that he had to get up and find his phone.  

So maybe I'm just an alright boyfriend then, but the blog still only took 25 minutes.  Win!)

4/15/2011 - dirty analogies and learn life lessons. . .

Grr plays at a dog park almost every day.  Since he abhors walking on the noisy sidewalks by our house, just refuses to do it, he ends up with an abundance of pent-up energy, which he usually takes out on Sam by nipping at him while they sit on the couch together.  At the park, he can run around, free from the noisy streets and the 'urbanness' of the City, and take his squirelliness out on other dogs.  Better them than us.

(Sidenote:  I've come to associate dogs and their behaviors at the dog park with gays and their behaviors at a bathhouse.  Consider: most dogs just want to wrestle and wedge their noses in each others' nether regions.  When a new dog walks in, all eyes turn, but only a few brave pups actually run up to make contact.  There is always one dog that every other dog wants, and another that just wants to mount whomever is nearby.  Sometimes, a group of dogs will collide at the center of the field into a orgy of fur and teeth, but usually, the park is much more sedated with dogs coupling or tripling up quietly in corners or along the fences.  Throw in some poppers and a closed-circuit TV and I think that just about does it.)

Grr loves the park.  As soon as I unclick his leash from his collar, he bolts for the nearest dog, sniffing and slapping his feet on the ground as an invitation to run around and pounce on each other.  Sometimes, the other dog responds, sometimes not.  If not, Grr moves on to the next one until he finds a taker, at which point he would bare his fangs, raise his front paws, and inevitably end up pinned to the ground.  His coordination needs refining.

And sometimes, if a group of dogs are already playing but outrank him in size, he will run alongside them in their outer orbit, poke his head in closer when he feels safe, dash away when the growling grows fierce.  Though he has quickly bolstered his self-confidence in the last few weeks, bigger dogs, even docile ones, still tower menacingly over him.

Yesterday, he must have eaten an extra Scooby Snack because he spent 15 or 20 minutes chasing and wrestling with a vizsla mix who was about one-and-a-half times his size.  He ran so hard, he repeatedly slipped on the grass, but still managed to get a few good body blows in.  Grr had more fun with him than I had ever seen him have.

Seeing this taught me a lesson.  (I don't have much else to do at the dog park but pick up poop, think of dirty analogies and learn life lessons.)  I often have a hard time meeting new people and making friends.  I don't know how to be like Grr; I can't just walk up to somebody, sniff their butt, and then run off playing for the next 20 minutes.  Well, I could, and in the City, it might just work with the right audience, but I'm not sure how deep that friendship would be.  Well, in the City, it could be plenty deep. . .  OK, I'll stop.

If Grr were more like me, he would not have met Lambchop yesterday and had what seemed to be the time of his life.  Or at least the time of his day.  If I were more like Grr, I couldn't even say how many people I could have met, how many friends, or the fun I could have had growing up.  I remember an incident in my parents' garage one afternoon when I was probably no more than seven or eight.  A girl from the house across the street, maybe a few years older, walked over and asked me if I would like to join her and a group of neighborhood kids; they were all just running around and playing tag.  I had seen them before, watched them that afternoon, and as much as I know now that I had wanted to, I declined.  Just flat out said, "No, I'm OK," and stayed with my grandpa as he organized the shelves.  Doing nothing.

I wish I could remember my thinking back then, because I am convinced that I was not OK, that I wanted to go play with them but just didn't know how, even with a direct invitation.  Even my grandpa asked me why I didn't go off, but I can't remember what I said.  Sad thing is, I can still be like that, refusing an invitation despite my contradictory desires.  Watching Grr, as skittish as he can be sometimes, act so brave with other dogs, especially one outside of his comfort zone, was a simple, shining example for me to follow.

4/14/2011 - be a writer. . .

As an aspiring writer in grad school, professors encouraged me, as they did with all students, to submit pieces to publications.  As writers, we were taught to be comfortable with the idea of others reading our work and be familiar with the submission process.  I remember one particularly ethereal-minded professor said that we should think of our poems as little fairies we send out into the universe and hope that they become what we had loved about them enough to have sent them off in the first place.  Something like that; she was very mystical woo-woo.

I tried to heed this advice, and I even knew that submitting for publication was a very critical piece of the writing process, but I found the whole thing to be very daunting.  Was I good enough to get published?  Where would I send my poems?  Magazines?  Poetry compilations?  Book publishers??

More importantly, though, I was worried about publication rights; I wanted to ensure that if a magazine printed one of my poems, I would not lose all ownership of it.  I ultimately decided on one submission to one magazine, and I aimed high: The New Yorker.  I poured through its submission guidelines to find out about publication rights and who owns the poem afterwards and whether I could still publish it elsewhere later.  Because in my head, the goal was to publish a book, and I did not want a poem to be locked in a mere magazine, even one with such a dominating stature. 

I obviously failed to consider the major logistical flaw in my reasoning: that I would even get published by The New Yorker, a haughty potpourri of news, commentary, politics, and creative writing.   Had they printed the poem I sent (SPOILER ALERT: they didn't), I would have been in the company of Robert Pinsky, Billy Collins, Lucille Clifton, and an array of other poets with significant clout.  Now that I think about it more, maybe this wasn't so much a logistical flaw as it was an egotistical one.

But, still, ownership of my poems was a real concern because each poem I wrote, each piece of completed writing represented a monumental accomplishment, an aligning of planets, and I never knew when or how the next one would come.  I convinced myself that I had a limited supply of good ideas, and an even more limited capacity for good execution.  What if my only good idea, my golden poem, was the one that could have made me millions and famous (wow, ego flaws everywhere!), but instead, I sent it for free to a magazine or minor poetry publication (as if there are any other kind in the poetry world, honestly) and then never had another one again? 

Cut to present day, seven years later, where I am prepping one of my previous blog posts for submission to another blog that focuses on telling worldwide stories of the gay community.  Submitting my piece affords me no rights, no royalties, nothing much, really, other than potential publication on a blog with much higher traffic than mine.

And I have no reservations about it.  I came to learn of a second flaw in my old reasoning, taught to me as I have moved through this year and this blog: that I will continue to have ideas, good ones and bad, with continuing execution, also good and bad.  Giving up a piece shouldn't matter when I am, hopefully, training myself to develop an endless supply of them.  I should get exposure, send these little fairies out into the world, as Brenda Hillman used to say, hone my craft, experience rejection, feel the privilege of reaching an audience.

In other words, you know, be a writer.

4/13/2011 - like an old friend. . .

I more or less floated through my day yesterday in anticipation of my evening with Sam at Quidam, the Cirque du Soleil show I impulsively bought tickets for last week.  When it last came around in 1998, my parents, Linda, and I caught it under Cirque's custom-designed blue and yellow tent in the parking lot of the San Jose Water Company, and it immediately became one of my favorite traveling Cirque shows--a story of imagination, faceless strangers on the street, and the specialness within all of us.

The individual acts were enough to take my breath away, but it was this central message of Quidam that moved me most.  Throughout the show, stagehands dressed completely in white from head to toe, including a white face mask, would assist with prop pieces, serve as spotters, and perform otherwise ancillary (and necessary) chores, but they were never given their moment to shine.  At the very end, all the stagehands marched out, took off their masks, and revealed to the audience who they really were underneath: the jugglers, the contortionist, the gymnasts, all the ones who did something truly amazing in the show. 

As a teenager struggling with self-esteem and identity and worth and feeling, on most days, like a stagehand, I almost cried at the revelation Quidam showed me.

There was no crying last night.  Sam and I walked into the Cow Palace, a large arena mostly devoted nowadays to trade shows and flea markets.  It was a different experience than walking through Cirque's 'Grand Chapiteau' and actually feeling the very presence of the circus in the air.  A lesser experience, truthfully.

While waiting for the show to begin, I remembered all I could from my first Quidam experience: the excitement, the awe, the culmination of months of anticipation.  I even recalled the seat I had 15 years ago and the angle from which I viewed the stage.  I was 17 at the time, I think, and I could barely contain myself when the soprano sang through a lilting lullabye, heralding the beginning of a haunting opening sequence.  Thinking about this made me smile, and I turned to Sam and told him about how excited I used to be before Cirque shows. 

Then our iteration of Quidam began with the same soprano, the same opening.  And then something happened.  Or maybe nothing happened.  Either way, my mind started wandering.  I wondered if Grr was asleep or causing trouble, what I should do for lunch the next day.  I noticed the exit signs across from me and wished they could disappear, how if I moved ever so slightly, my chair would creak like in a horror movie.   I thought of some friends, soon-to-be flying off to Paris for a week, and how Sam and I had also planned for a vacation around this time, how I could really use one soon. 

It's not that the show wasn't good.  It was good, more or less what I remembered from years ago, but something was missing.  I spent the next hour or so trying to figure out what it was.

And then the show was over.  I clapped, turned to Sam and said, "We have a pup at home.  Let's cheese it!"

And we did.  In the car, I didn't want to admit to him that I was disappointed, couldn't even explain why, so instead, I told him how I wish I could go back to that time in my life when I would leave shows completely amazed, where I could not have clapped hard enough, where I felt sad afterwards, knowing that I had just played a finite role in witnessing an infinite miracle.  Something like that.  How I felt lost afterwards, not knowing what to look forward to when a Cirque show was over.

"Maybe you've just outgrown it," he said.  "No rule saying you have to love something for the rest of your life."

Maybe not, but I think I like loving things for the rest of my life.  Seeing Quidam made me wonder what ever happened to that Cirque du Soleil from years ago, the one who produced CDs I bought the day they were released, the one I spent hours listening to, thinking about, wanting to see.  Just like an old friend.  Last night felt a bit like getting back in touch with this old friend, arranging to meet up and hang out like we used to, only to find that he is not who I remember anymore, and me a different person as well.  It was kind of sad, really.

But still, like a good friend should, Quidam reminded of all the good times Cirque du Soleil and I have had together, even if we were not able to replicate them for each other.  They were still some great times.

4/12/2011 - Chinese drama. . .

Sam first watched The Joy Luck Club a few years ago, before he and I had ever met.  It is a sprawling movie based on Amy Tan's book of the same name, an homage to Chinese-American daughters, their mothers, and often, their mothers' mothers, and how the histories of all these women shape the friendships they developed over a lifetime.  Oh, and mah jong. 

Yet I'm pretty sure out of all this, Sam really only took away two things:

• He learned to put his hand on my shoulder, look me square in the eyes and say, "Yes, sweetheart, I see you," when I annoy him while he sits enraptured by the latest made-for-TV masterpiece on the Syfy Channel.  For dramatic effect, he'd often repeat it in a whisper: "I see you."
• Also, he discovered what he thinks is the epitome of Chinese drama: committing suicide by overdosing on opium-filled sticky buns, but leaving a half-eaten one on the bedside table just like one of the characters did in order to give a better life to her daughter.  If he feels like I am overreacting to something (which, for the record, I would never), he'd say, "Could you please tone it down a notch?  I'm out of sticky buns."

Similarly, I watched The Joy Luck Club in high schol when it first came out, and I only took away two things as well: it was melodramatic, and completely overwrought with the kind of Chinese parental passive-aggression that I was already all too familiar with, as if there was nothing more to being Chinese than to perfect the art of suffering.  All of a sudden, critics hailed this sensitive portrayal of Chinese-Americans, and it was nothing more than my teenage life on a Sunday afternoon.  Rubbish!

However, I was reminded of it by a friend's post on Facebook, so Sam and I decided to rewatch it.  Yes, the drama factor was still high, and I still cringe at some of the characters' mannerisms--so accurate that I'd swear my mom was brought in as a creative consultant.  But otherwise, I couldn't remember why I disliked it so much back in high school.  It was actually pretty great and so much more nuanced than I remember it being.  When June, the main character who struggled in her relationship with her mother, finally receives the validation she craves when her mother tells her that she sees her "best-quality heart," I imagine countless daughters out there who ever had complicated relationships with their mothers simultaneously feel their hearts break at this scene.

I felt almost embarassed by how much I saw myself in all those Joy Luck daughters: the submissive one, the bitchy and competitive one, the one who, after years in adulthood, still wants to make her parents proud.  Amazing how universal some experiences can be, like growing up Chinese in America, as if led by a cultural DNA that grabs a hold of us shortly after birth and takes us through our own rites of passage.

And the more I thought about it, the more I suspected that a major reason for my dislike of this movie, and my change of heart watching it as an adult, was because it reminded me so much of home and myself.  Here is a story of parents wanting the best for their children and learning how to adapt as best they can when those children, so carefully raised with the highest hopes and expectations, turn out to be defiantly different.  Throw my mom and dad in front of a mah jong table and they could have been in this movie. 

But also, a theme that eluded me as a teenager was the idea of parents who found themselves caught between cultures: one of Chinese tradition, and another of American progression.  As a child, I was taught to speak Mandarin at home, go to Chinese school on Saturdays, grow up and marry a Chinese girl.  I now speak a mish-mash of Ch-English, didn't learn a thing during all those Saturdays, and regularly bring home my white boyfriend on the weekends.  My parents took these developments and rolled with it, as best they could. 

And really, that's what The Joy Luck Club was all about, I think--taking what is available to you and making the best of it.  Not passive-aggression, not suffering.  Just optimism, selflessness, and stoicism in the face of adversity.  What's not to like about that?

4/11/2011 - a beautiful day. . .

Yesterday morning, after I finished posting to the blog and Sam finished watching Run Fat Boy Run, we decided to take Grr out to Fort Funston, which, according to our neighbors and other dog parents we've met, is like the Cadillac of dog parks.  How can we deny Grr the experience of the Cadillac of anything?

So we set out on a windy Sunday morning and headed westward to the ocean. 

(An interesting "encounter" on our way: we drove past a funeral procession, a cavalcade of stony-faced men rolling down the freeway in matching SUVs.  Similarly somber women and children sat in the passenger and back seats, all of their eyes shaded by sunglasses.  We passed countless cars, one after the other with the same FUNERAL sticker on the back and the same grief-stricken faces inside.  Their leader, a pristine, ebony hearse, followed two police escorts on motorcycles.  They all charged down Highway 280 like soldiers toward their next assignment.  I don't know why, but I was particularly moved by the sight of them, all those cars.  In their multitude, I saw bravery, even though I had no idea who any of them were, whose body led the way in that hearse.)

When we got to Fort Funston, the wind had died down, a surprising treat given San Francisco's blustery coastline.  We faced a beautiful day of blue skies and clear horizons.  I opened the back door and, as is our usual routine, carried Grr out of the car.  (Yes, we had become one of those Best in Show, embarassing dog parents who insist on carrying their dogs no matter how ridiculous it looks.  My excuse, though, is that I usually have to, as Grr takes a few minutes to warm up to new situations.  He also likes it, I swear.)

But when I picked him up and closed the car door, he was so eager to explore that he wriggled like an earthworm to get free.  Dogs of all kinds littered the landscape, and I imagined Grr was thinking, "Dad!  Let me down, you're embarassing me!"

Turns out that Fort Funston was less of a dog park and more of an intricate maze of walking trails abutted against a cliffside, overlooking the ocean.  Hanggliders floated above, but Grr was already too busy to pay them any attention.  Between all the dogs, the open field, and the myriad of new smells that greeted him in the air, he could hardly tear his nose away from the sand and ice vines to even look at us, much less lift his head to watch what looked like giant, prehistoric birds looming overhead.

It felt good to get some sun on my face, breathe in the sharp sea air, but the best part was seeing Grr adjust so well to the outdoors.  Though it may just be a factor of his youth and puppyhood, I have come to learn that he is quite the skittish pup, scared of everything from an umbrella in the hallway to a leaf in the wind.  Fort Funston, however, seemed to have brought out his courage.  Sam and I walked wordlessly as Grr traipsed a few steps ahead, turning back every so often to make sure he had not lost us. 

For a while, I have been afraid that Sam and I were falling into a rut of sorts and running out of things to say to each other.  So many of our conversations are about Grr nowadays, and we rarely get time alone.  True, Grr is a dog, not a person, but a presence is a presence, an easy conversation topic if there are few others to be found.

I began to wonder if we have become one of those couples with nothing to talk about, and in the great expanse of Fort Funston's paths and fields, it became all I could think about.  I felt sand begin to seep into my shoes, my socks, between my toes.  Sam was never great with conversation, and I can only be as good as the people I converse with, not like some I've known in my life who can work with anyone to create a rich and meaningful dialogue.  They are the Macgyvers of repartée, and we are no Macgyvers.  Sam was a few paces behind me now, and Grr a few paces ahead.  It really was a beautiful day, and though I could say just that, in those words, what would Sam say in response?  What could he?  "Yup."  "Totally."  What was there to converse about?

Then Sam caught up with me and quietly took my hand, interlocked his fingers with mine for a few seconds as we walked along.  Then he let go, called for Grr, and did a little football shuffle as Grr pinned his ears back and ran towards us.  They walked further along as I hung back.  The ocean's faint percussion played off in the distance in step with the singing of various insects in the bushes.  The sun assumed its high noon position.  It really was a beautiful day.

4/10/2011 - positive thinking and such. . .

Today is Sunday, which means I begin dreading the work week to come.  This cycle of mourning happens every Sunday at the passing of every weekend.  This morning, I woke up with the tragic realization that I have worked nine five-day workweeks in a row without a vacation day, and I have seven more to go before Memorial Day.

What a way to wake up.  I don't know why I do this to myself.

But, as I laid there contemplating life and shunning the call of day, I tried to reroute the train of thought I was on.  You know, in the spirit of gratitude and positive thinking and such. . .  So I compiled a list of the things I have to look forward in the next week, which would include:

• Sam and I are going to see Quidam, one of my favorite travelling Cirque du Soleil shows, which is making an appearance here in the City.  I know I spent a post here berating Cirque's fall from grace some time ago, but I think they gave birth to this show near the apex of their creative output.  The individual acts challenge the realm of possibility while the theme of the entire show highlights the commonality we all share with each other, yet simultaneously celebrates our individuality, the rare and necessary pieces of our humanity.
• My Rapid Transit a cappella rehearsal is in San Francisco this Monday.  After last week's, which was held in Oakland (or about an hour away by BART and bike), I have much to be thankful for when I only have to bike 10 minutes to get there this week.
• Tax day is coming, which, despite its negative connotations, actually is something of a windfall this year for us, if we could just get our act together and file.
• The sun is forecast to be out all week, which means pleasant biking weather for me and great park-going weather for Grr.

And finally, on April 19th, Lady Gaga will release the second single off of her yet-to-be-released Born This Way album; it will be called "Judas."

In talking to Gordon about her the other night, he said that he has high hopes for "Judas."  While he certainly can appreciate the spirit in which the song "Born This Way" was delivered, he didn't feel like it was Gaga enough.  I'm not sure if I agree, as I do like the song, but I also know that hearing it for the first time did not make me feel the same way I did when I first heard "Bad Romance," the opening chant of, "Rah-rah ah-ah-ah, roma rama-ma . ."  It felt like a call to action, even if I had no idea how I was supposed to act.

I, too, have high hopes for "Judas."  And it may seem strange, even a little sad, I know, but as we get closer to next week, all I will be able to think about is how I can't wait to hear what Lady Gaga has done.

At the very least, it will make the drone of my workweek seem that much more bearable.

4/9/2011 - Isle of Misfit Paragraphs. . .

In grad school, a classmate introduced me to the phrase, "Kill your darlings."  Vaguely attributed to William Faulkner, this general guideline for writing is akin to Coco Chanel's famous advice to take one thing off before you leave the house.  In other words, edit.

I have this problem when it comes to writing.  I want to keep everything.  I sometimes write over a thousand words for a post before paring it down to half that, but I still save the bits and pieces I discard, compiling them in a Word document, kind of like an Isle of Misfit Paragraphs.  While this eases the pain of editing, I always wonder if these would ever be read.

Well, today is their lucky day.  Dave Eggers, in his manic but brilliant A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, devoted an entire section of the book to passages that he ultimately removed from the body of the book.  I guess this sort of nullifies the whole editing process, but if Dave Eggers can do it, I can too.  I promise that this will not be nearly as interesting as his, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to write about today, so I am thankful that these scraps were here, begging for an audience.  

Won't you indulge them?

1/22/2011

I have had one particular number from Hair stuck in my head for the last week or so: the closing song of the first act where the main character has something of an existential crisis and sings, “Where is the something / where is the someone / that tells me why I live and die?”  Its repetition in my head is not unusual, as I operate a mental revolving door that leads to brainspace reserved exclusively for musicals.  But this line in particular got me thinking.

Which, actually, is also not unusual, as I find that I am often paralyzed by being too thoughtful.  And not even in that selfless, looking-out-for-others kind of way, either, which would actually be a worthwhile result of my efforts.  Instead, I concoct imaginary worlds to live in, ones that would have emerged had I made a different decision, turned down a different street, or worlds that no longer exist, or worlds that never existed at all.  Sometimes, the pathway leading out into actual reality, the real world, can be overgrown.    

3/13/2011

The debate began as soon as my alarm went off.  By the third time I hit the snooze button, I had already calculated how many hours must elapse before I could find myself back asleep, how comfortable it felt to sprawl across the bed with Sam gone, how cold the world must be outside.  I regretted telling Kevin that I'd see him at the gym this morning.  Still, I summoned all of my willpower, threw my legs off of the bed with a groan, and got dressed.  Even then, as I brushed my teeth, I knew there was still time to change my mind.  All I needed to do was tuck myself back under the covers, close my eyes, and remember to send Kevin a text message later, something along the lines of, "Argh!  Overslept!" thus implying the choice was never mine to make.  No one would ever know.

1/7/2011

The other day while brushing my teeth, I noticed that there is not as much hair between my scalp and the world as there used to be.  I’ve had stray gray hairs here and there ever since I was in my early 20s.  I have yet to make my peace with that, but this was a curveball I did not see coming.  As quickly as I discovered the thinning, I began sprinting through my Kubler-Ross stages:

I’ll be OK if I don’t lose any more hair.

I’ll be OK if it still looks like I have a full head of hair.

I’ll be OK if I go completely gray, but just let me keep it, dear God.

3/10/2011

Everything Grr did began to annoy me tenfold.  I even yelled at him one night in my big-boy voice (turns out that I actually one) to stop biting at the shag rug.  I could tell I scared him because he jumped, yet he still nipped at it one more time before laying on his side and sighing.  Attitude.  Where does he pick this up??  My head wanted to explode.

2/18/2011

I once had a theory about dating and relationships: all we ever really do is make the other person a better partner for someone else.  I don't know if I came up with it or if I stole it from someone else.  Mostly likely the latter since it carries with it a certain amount of cleverness, but I do have my moments, so who knows?

4/8/2011 - a deeply philosophical musing. . .

I originally had this whole post planned out for today, a deeply philosophical musing on time, birthdays, the difference in distance between 11:59 to midnight versus 12:01 to midnight.  It was going to be great stuff; you would have loved it, thought I was a genius.  Some book publisher would have stumbled upon this blog, read my dissertation, and offered me a book deal right on the spot.  The post was going to be that good.

Instead, I had lunch with my friend Oliver yesterday, and our conversation drifted toward his relationship with an ex-boyfriend he still sees and fights with regularly.  The phrase, "I wish I knew how to quit you," never seemed more applicable.  I asked him how long they were together before they broke up. 

"I couldn't say," he said.  "If you ask him, he would say that we were brothers.  We were best friends.  We were fuck buddies and worthy adversaries.  But no, we were never boyfriends."

I'm not even being facetious when I say this, nor am I unsubtly trying to slip in a musical theater reference, but seriously, say that soft and it's almost like praying.  Maybe it's been a long time since I've read a good poem, even longer since I've written one, but hell if this weren't one of the most poetic things I've ever heard.

4/7/2011 - this is about me. . .

It's been a few days since I've put up a post about Grr, so I figure it's OK to do so again.  After a few successive posts about him some time ago (last week?  It all runs together now.), Jason suggested that I just go ahead and rename this blog: "One Grr-ateful Year."  Clever, that one.

So anyway, previously on "One Grr-ateful Year," Sam and I had gone ahead and committed a grave sin in the doggy-training bible: we relented to Grr's crying and just let him sleep in the bed with us.  Since then, no more crying, certainly no more crate-rattling, and we've even noticed a decreased need to get up in the middle of the night.  All he wanted was to sleep with his pack; it's kind of sweet if you think about it.

It actually seems like he has become a different pup altogether, and it seems to have happened quite suddenly.  I'm not sure if it is directly related to sleeping with us, but the timing of it is certainly correlated.  He sleeps through the night now, and no longer has accidents in the house.  And the creme de la creme: he pees and poops outside (not the garage, but outside), albeit with hesitation.  But he does it.  No more puppy pads for him.

So it seems that I was right all along--he would eventually grow to become the dog that I want.  And while he is certainly making awesome progress in doing so, this isn't really about him.

When things were bad, Sam and I had a serious conversation, one of those rare exchanges between us where we put all joking and flippancy aside, and really listened.  Of all the days he decided to read the blog (which is next to never), he picked this one, which subsequently freaked him out.  And of course, Sam is very much male when it comes to problem resolution, so he was far less interested in hearing about my feelings than he was in finding a solution.

So he proposed (with enough bravado as I walked through the door that I think I heard a trumpet fanfare) that we would give him back post haste.  There was little fear between us that he would linger at the pound for long because, well, seriously, who can resist those satellite-dishes he uses for ears?

I certainly couldn't, but I couldn't give him back.  The decision would have haunted me forever, and I knew that Sam and I would not find our way out of it.  Though we could return to our lives pre-Grr, we would not be the same two people; we would always be a couple who tried and failed to own a pet, to learn how to grow outside of ourselves.  But even more than that, I couldn't imagine the house without the jingling of Grr's dog tags, the annoying way he would follow us around the house.  Who would play with all of his toys?  And what if he thought of us, wondered what he ever did that made us disappear?

I couldn't bear that.

But then he changed, like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.  He had somehow transformed overnight into a more-or-less well-behaved pup and learned how to adapt to living in a big city amongst its associated sights, sounds, and smells.

The other day, he and I walked three long South of Market blocks to get to the park he usually gets chauffeured to.  Sam was working later than usual, I left work earlier than usual, so what better day could there be for Grr and I to embark on this little adventure?  He struggled valiantly.  I could see it in his eyes.  He was reluctant, scared, constantly fighting the urge to turn back and go home.  But he did it.  I didn't even have to help him much.  He made it to the park in spite of rushing cars and hissing busses, with his tail tucked tight and galloping at an urgent pace.

At the park, he found his friends--the little shiba inu who enjoys chasing him in short spurts and a little chihuahua mix that plays rougher.  As minutes passed, Grr's tail lifted higher and higher, a testament to his bravery.  It was like the raising of the victory flag at Iwo Jima, and he was my little Marine.

But again, this isn't about him; I keep forgetting.  This is about me (isn't everything?).

I have learned much about myself in the last six weeks--some good, some less so, but the most important lesson has been that I might have the capacity to love after all, even when it is difficult and inconvenient.

There was some doubt.

Of course, I still have my moments, and Grr has his: the way he applies all four claws to the concrete when he does not want to continue walking, his obsession with our dirty clothes, why he insists on sleeping perpendicular to our parallel bodies in bed, thus giving me and Sam only a sliver of the bed to ourselves, one whole dog-length apart.

Last night as I prepared to take a shower, I left my dirty clothes on the floor of the bathroom.  As I lathered up, I saw, through the translucent shower curtain, Grr practically tiptoe across the tile, grab my socks in his mouth, and saunter out the door.  A few minutes later, he returned for my underwear, then my T-shirt.

After drying off, I went in search of my laundry and found them strewn about in the closet.  Grr stared at me, frozen, with a sock dangling off of his left canine, as if stillness would make him invisible.

What a fool, I thought, as I wrestled the sock from his mouth.  I knew that he knew that he should not be playing with our clothes, but he willfully defies us around every corner.  And then it hit me: would I be happier with a perfect dog, one just short of behaving like a service pet?  I didn't know, but as I gathered the rest of my dirty clothes while Grr circled around me nipping at any exposed fabric he could reach, I didn't even know if I would be interested in finding out.

Grr is our dog.  There could be no other, whether he fetches us our slippers or chews up our shoes.  I wouldn't want any other.

I think I have grown.  And I do have the capacity for love.

4/6/2011 - the dark cloud of perfection. . .

When Sam and I first moved into our loft, we immediately launched into renovations.  We built a new bathroom upstairs, tore down and reinstalled the ceiling, and painted all of the walls.  Well, we hired people to do all of this stuff, and because of it, we were uprooted for two months, two simultaneously stressful and pampered months.  We stayed with friends and family, learned what it felt like to live with roommates (pretty fun) and doting parents who cooked for us every night like we were children, yet gave us our adult freedoms (pretty awesome).

When we moved back home, we beheld an incredible transformation.  Where there used to be mysterious scuff marks and dents in the ceiling now hung one smooth sheet of drywall with the barest of ripples, like the surface of a pond on a still afternoon.  Walls that were marred from the previous owner now were painted a sleek grey, and the new bathroom had hints of an upscale boutique hotel.  This was like our baby, gestating for two months, and now that it was out in the world, we could not have loved it more.

With this love, however, came great responsibility: Sam wanted to preserve the newness, the perfection, of it all, and while I felt similarly (who doesn't want to keep something in pristine condition for as long as possible?), he took it to a bad place.  We held caucuses before nailing any holes into the walls; he asked that I wipe down all shower fixtures after each use.  One afternoon, I walked in on him as he was hunched over in the new shower stall.  I thought he was sick, or fell.

"No," he said, pushing himself to his feet.  "I was just looking for cracks in the tile.  Don't you do this?"

No.

Perfection had become a curse, driving us to abnormal lengths to preserve it.  After he discovered a couple of minor, barely noticeable scratches on the new sink, he was convinced I was at fault and "requested" that I take off my ring when I wash my hands or brush my teeth or stand anywhere near it.  I held firm and refused.  "But we have to live!!" I implored.

On Monday, the delivery guys came and installed our new bedframe upstairs.  This final piece of furniture completes our major purchases, and it is beautiful, a low platform bedframe that sits in the designated "bed space" as if built in.

It was perfect until I saw a few noticeable scratches and dents on the wall next to the bed, presumably due to whatever the installers were doing.  It's not horrible, certainly not the end of the world.  Not for me, anyway.

I told Sam while bating my breath for the torrent of wrath that I expected to rain down on me.  Fortunately, he was riding a high on seeing the new bed, so he just shrugged it off, saying damage to the walls was bound to happen; we have touch up paint for such occasions. 

I had to hide my surprise at his nonchalance.  Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I interpreted it as the lifting of the curse; the dark cloud of perfection has been banished.  Now we really can live like normal people: the sink is scratched, the walls are marred, and the house no longer has to act as if it is constantly prepping for an Elle Decor photoshoot.

Halleloo!