After watching President Obama address the Democratic National Convention tonight, we received the sad news that my mother-in-law’s cousin’s son had suddenly died in a car accident in Nashville. It’s hard to imagine the shock and anguish that his family must be going through right now.

When my brother died, I used to wonder what could make me feel worse about his death, if there were any other cause that would have made me feel more useless. The only thing that came to mind was if he were murdered by someone or killed in some reckless accident that someone else caused. But it’s hard to imagine how I would have reacted if he died in this way. Grief is grief at the end of the day, but some things have the capacity to haunt you for far longer, if not forever.

Father’s Day. It’s one of those holidays that has never really meant much in our family because the act of giving gifts isn’t something that either of my parents really care about. They expect gifts, yes, but more just the thought than the actual gift. One time, my mom just assumed (wrongly) that I hadn’t sent anything to my dad, so she preemptively decided to lecture me about everything my dad has done for me and how I should be grateful. I told her to zip the lip and stop babbling because we were still days away from actual Father’s Day.

I still remember one year, I got my dad a healthy cooking recipes book, and the store offered free gift wrapping, so I had it wrapped. I presented it to my dad on Father’s Day, and he said thanks… then didn’t open the gift until eight months later.

I used to call for Father’s Day, but I realized my dad didn’t really appreciate it. Whenever I send him any gift, instead of calling me to thank me, he emails me a single one liner email: “Hi Yvonne, Thank you for the (fill in the blank). -Daddy.” Calling is hard for someone who is anti social, even when it’s your own daughter.

I’m pretty certain that no matter what I do, no matter how satisfied or unsatisfied I am with the state of my life, I will always be plagued with really bad dreams. Unfortunately, they usually come in a string, so I will be annoyed waking up many many mornings in my future forever. Maybe this is just a sign that my subconscious needs to be cleared and that I need to see some medium who can clear my head completely.

In one dream over the weekend, someone was plotting to kill my brother. Ed knew this, so to prevent this man from killing him, he beat him to the punch and jumped off the bridge. This didn’t really make me happy.

In another dream, two of my best friends are gossiping about me, and I am overhearing their bad words about me when I’m not supposed to. I’m conflicted about what to say, so instead, I pretend I hear nothing and come meet them. I want to gauge their eyes out, though.

Then last night, I dreamt that Chris bought an old fixer-upper house that I did not approve of without letting me know, and he hoped that it would be our primary residence. The house is a three-story, one family home, and there’s no other way I could describe it other than that it looked eerie and seemed like the classic haunted house. Oh, and when I opened the front door, my parents were there. Somehow, they found out Chris had purchased this property and decided they would move right in and make themselves right at home. We’re living with my parents?!

Tomorrow night: what’s it gonna be?

My mom is wallowing in the post wedding period, grieving the fact that her daughter is now officially married off and part of another family. That sounds very gendered to say that the daughter gets “married off,” but hey, wouldn’t you want to be married off into another family if your family were as dysfunctional as mine? I’d say that for a guy or a gal.

She finally launched in a tirade against my mum-in-law, stating that she’s a cheap, ill-mannered “statue” who has no emotions and doesn’t want to spend a dime on me, and apparently wants to take me for everything I’m worth every time I see her. The assumption here is that every time I see my in-laws that they “force” me to pay for everything. This really couldn’t be any further from the truth. She’s angry that the last two times she’s had meals with my in-laws that they didn’t pay the bill. Well, they never had the chance to because my mom instructed my dad to secretly pre-pay the bill while pretending to go to the restroom. No one even gets to see the bill. So, she’s angry she’s paid, yet she never gave them the chance to pay. She created a no-win situation and has made herself out to be a “victim.”

There are a lot of stupid things about Chinese culture, but one of the dumbest and most frustrating ‘traditions’ is fighting over the bill at the end of a meal. My mom is short-sighted and has no knowledge of any culture outside of her own and my dad’s, but she doesn’t realize that people do not do this in every other culture; it looks embarrassing for people on the outside, and it’s just a ridiculous act. If you want to pay the bill, pay the bill. If you don’t want to pay the bill, then don’t. It’s really that simple. Don’t pay the bill and then get angry about paying it later. Also, don’t pay the bill and just “expect” the other person to pay the bill the next time. You’ll probably be disappointed. None of this does anyone any good. She made herself into a ‘victim’ when there’s no victims in this situation.

This reminds me of the time when years ago, my mom made a black friend in her JW congregation. She gave this friend a gift. The friend was happy and said thank you, then proceeded to open the gift in front of her. My mom was angrier than angry. She came home and yelled about it, saying this person had no manners and embarrassed her. I explained to her that in Asian culture, you typically don’t open the gift in front of the giver, but in Western culture, many people do this. She ignored me, insisted I was defending this friend, and said I was wrong. Well, the same thing happened in this case with my mother-in-law. She’s always right. Everyone else is always wrong.

I don’t know how anyone gets enough energy to have so much hate against everyone. I just cannot fathom it.

In addition to following a handful of food blogs, I also follow a couple of fashion blogs for inspiration. One of these blogs specializes in fashion for petite women like myself, so I’ve actually gotten a lot of good tips regarding petite-friendly brands, how to wear certain pieces I never thought a small person could wear, etc. One of the latest posts from this blog was about purse organizers for large totes. Most large totes, if you are lucky, have the main compartment, maybe one zip compartment, and two pockets.. at most. This has always been a huge gripe of mine regarding hand bags and purses; why do they make it so difficult for you to organize all of the belongings that you need to carry with you? Why won’t they just factor these compartments into the overall design, especially given how expensive women’s purses can be?  And the bigger the bag, the more pockets and compartments you’d typically need, but no, these handbag companies do not care. They are sticking with their one-main-compartment schtick, and they don’t care what you want. Because of that, all these companies are coming out with “hand bag organizers” like this in an effort to cash in on the areas that these hand bag companies won’t help you with. Yes, I can see that these things are necessary, but my point is that it is frustrating that the handbag companies don’t take care of this on their own and require external companies to charge us even more money for dumb organizers like this.

I just started reading Elon Musk’s book, and it really pained me to learn how he was bullied through his school years. The worst incident happened when he was sitting on a stairway, and some kid who decided he didn’t like him pushed him down the stairs and smashed his face repeatedly into the ground. Elon ended up needing to be hospitalized for over a week, and in the end, he required plastic surgery to repair his nose.

It’s hard for me to understand bullying of that severity, or the type of bullying that makes children scared of going to school. I was bullied for minor things like my then tall height, my name, and of course, being terrible at kickball in elementary school, but it was never to a point where I feared for my security or my life. What is so stunning is how people like Elon move forward in their lives in spite of these setbacks and horrible life experiences with other people; it’s inspiring, but at the same time it infuriates me that this type of treatment of others is condoned and tolerated in schools around the world. And it also reminds me of how my own brother was bullied and got to a point where he just didn’t want to go to school anymore. Unfortunately, Ed wasn’t as strong or persevering as Elon.

I usually don’t tell my mom when Chris goes on work trips. The main reason for this is that she worries when she knows I am by myself in the apartment, and she gets paranoid that someone will break in and kill me. So she also tells me that when Chris takes trips that I shouldn’t go anywhere after work, that I should go straight home, double lock the door, and stay there until it’s time to go to work the next morning. Yep, that’s a fun idea.

The other reason I don’t like to tell her he goes away is that she thinks that when he’s away, it means she gets extra phone time with me. I’ve gradually cut down the phone calls from every single day (really) to about three to four times a week now in an effort to keep my sanity, but she always ends up calling in the evening when she knows he’s away, as she says that “since Chris is away, we have more time to talk.” That’s never a good thing. Why? Because what inevitably happens is that she ends up nitpicking me for some senseless thing (which likely happened months and months ago that I can barely remember even happening), and I tell her she’s being too sensitive or irrational or looking for something to get mad about, and then she yells. Then I yell, then we both yell, and it’s never a good thing.

It happened again last night. She asked me to write her a check a few weeks ago and said it could wait until late May. I asked her what the check was for. She did not appreciate the question. Apparently, questions are not allowed from me. She accused me of being reluctant to give her money when she has raised me and paid for my schooling and that I was ungrateful and “you’ve changed!” “How can you be reluctant when your own mother asks you? I do everything for you!” I never realized that asking what she’s planning to do with the money is another way of saying, “I’m reluctant and I don’t want to give you the money.” Isn’t asking why simply asking why?!

Yes, I’ve changed. I don’t take s*** from her anymore. The way I think hasn’t changed. The way I respond has.

I was on the phone with my mother the other day, and she let me know that my aunt told her that my cousin in Brooklyn just got laid off. That’s sad news, I responded, but I’m sure he’ll find a new job soon if he looks hard enough. She then added he was given six months’ severance paid at 100%. Okay, I said, if I felt sorry for him at all, all of that has now quickly dissipated. Who gets six months 100% paid severance after getting laid off?

She suggested I call him “to comfort him,” and I balked and told her the idea was ridiculous. When the entire country was in a recession in early 2009 when I got laid off and stayed unemployed for almost three months, where was my cousin to “comfort” me? He never called once, and at the wedding of his brother that I flew to attend, he barely said one word to me because he was angry I told him to stop complaining so much. That was a cue to him to stop calling or reaching out to me at all.

I told her I don’t want to spend any time on my ungrateful cousins or my psychotic aunt anymore. No more unneeded family dysfunction; the wedding was the end of the “optional” contact. The most I’m willing to tolerate at this point is just the dysfunction of my parents, and even that, I can only take in small doses.