Category Archives: Conflict

Mom’s take on terrorism

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I talked to my mom on the phone today, and she asked me if I was aware of the attacks that happened in Paris last week. Of course I know, I said. Everyone knows.

“You’re really lucky that it didn’t happen while you were there,” she said in an admonishing tone. “I’m telling you right now. It’s dangerous to be traveling.”

I reassured her that it didn’t matter where in the world I was because terrorism could happen anywhere, at any time and any place. And lo and behold, New York City has just received ISIS death threats! I had to add in that last part because, well, how can I not be where I live and work?!

“Yes, I know about New York,” she said. “That’s why I told you not to go anywhere at night! It’s dangerous! Just stay home!”

Yes, because terrorists would never think to be out and about, bombing and shooting random people in the morning or during business hours Monday through Friday. They have to wait until the evening when it is dark to start shooting and killing people.

I stopped responding. I need to get better at not responding and just nodding my head.

#PrayForParis

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I was working from home yesterday afternoon when I found out that Paris was experiencing terrorist attacks in the very neighborhoods that we walked through just weeks ago. Innocent people going to sporting events, concerts, eating at restaurants were dying, and for those who were lucky enough to survive, they are likely to live with the intensity and paranoia of post-traumatic stress for the rest of their lives. We contacted Navine and her family to see if everyone she knew was all right, and luckily, they were. The saddest thing about doing that is that sure, perhaps Navine’s family and friends in Paris were fine, but that would mean that someone else’s family and friends were not fine and were dead or injured.

It was sickening to read the reports and see photos from the scenes. Every time a tragedy like this has happened, I get knots in my stomach. My insides feel hurt. I have moments when my eyes water, and I don’t really know what I am feeling. My sensitivity to pain, death, and loss has only intensified since losing Ed. Every time a shooting has happened, a terrorist attack, or a plane has unfortunately gone down in the last two years and I find out about it, the first thing I imagine is the reactions of the people who have died or lost the ones they love. How will they cope with this? How do you really go on with your life when such horrid tragedy so closely affects you? Life is hard, unfair, and cruel so many times. It’s a challenge to move forward some days.

I am sad and scared for the future sometimes. With the whole recent talks I’ve been having on children and procreation in general, I think that all of us (who’d like to be, anyway) as future potential parents want to bring children into a world of love and hope and safety. It is terrifying to think and see that this could potentially be their future, a world of terrorism, killings of innocent people in the supposed name of God, and random mass shootings everywhere.

Gynecologist visit

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I went to see my gynecologist this afternoon for my dreaded annual exam. I feel like in the last several years that I’ve gone to see her, she’s been waiting for me to tell her that I am either trying to get pregnant or want to get pregnant, or maybe am pregnant!

“So, thinking about babies soon?” She asks, smiling warmly with eager eyes.

“No, not yet,” I said, smiling even more warmly back, thinking, thank God I don’t have any brats screaming around yet to ruin my peace of mind.

“I’m sure your parents must be asking or wondering,” she said. My gynecologist is Chinese American. “Asian moms always love to put the pressure on!”

“Yes, they certainly do, and she does do that quite a bit,” I responded. And what I didn’t reply with and was thinking was, and so do Asian gynecologists!

It’s like the world is waiting for me to announce I am pregnant or want to be pregnant. I’m turning 30 in about two months, and they all want to remind me in some way or another. Why don’t men have to get this type of pressure?

 

Vegetarian

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This Sunday, we’re inviting Chris’s cousin’s friend over for dinner. She recently moved to New York City from Melbourne to do a masters in journalism at NYU, and I’ve seen her twice since she has moved here. She’s very friendly and we’ve gotten along quite well, but the one thing that is a bit different that we have to deal with in hosting her for dinner is that she is vegetarian. She’s not pescatarian — she really is vegetarian. So she won’t eat any seafood or meat, or their products (so fish sauce, oyster sauce, and kimchi are all out). At least she can eat eggs and have milk. So yesterday, I was trying to brainstorm things to make in the Thai and Vietnamese categories, and I realized that everything I could think up would violate one of her food restrictions (hello, fish sauce everywhere!). I eventually settled on a chickpea spinach curry (channa saag) with rice. I told Chris this, and he was very displeased.

“Why can’t you just give her a head of iceberg lettuce to eat while we eat the real food?” he whined.

It’s not a big deal to me if we have a chickpea curry. I really like channa masala and all forms of vegetarian Indian curries I’ve had in the past.

“I’m not eating bullshit food,” Chris insists. “I will get fried rice.” That is, fried rice with some meat in it via delivery.com. There is no way I’m letting him order a side of fried rice while the rest of us eat food I have cooked. No way.

So the compromise is that I’ll make another curry with chicken in it. This is what happens when you have a meat-eating and stubborn life partner and a vegetarian house guest.

Thanksgiving after thoughts

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I grew up with Thanksgiving as a tradition and greatly anticipated it every year in November. Granted, we never had the most gourmet of meals, as I would always expect Stovetop stuffing and gravy from a packet to be served, but it was still a meal that Ed and I loved and looked forward to.

After everyone left last night and we were cleaning up the apartment, I suddenly started to feel sad about the future and my own kids. They’re never going to know what it’s like to have a big family all together at a table here, enjoying Thanksgiving food every year on the same day. At most, they’ll see me scrambling to get all this food together and not really understand what the big deal is. My parents will never be involved. Ed isn’t here anymore. And it’s highly unlikely any of my cousins will be there. Chris doesn’t care about Thanksgiving since he didn’t grow up with it, and he doesn’t embrace it and could care less if we had a Thanksgiving meal to begin with.

“Unnecessary”

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I let my dad know yesterday that we’re going to Australia for Christmas this year. He didn’t seem mind; in fact, he sounded like he was expecting it. I knew he’d tell my mom, who would get mad about it, so I was waiting for the point in our conversation tonight when she’d bring it up and demonstrate her frustration.

“You know, you can do what you want to do (that’s code for: you shouldn’t do what you want to do because it’s always a bad decision), but why are you spending all that money to go to Australia again this year? You’ve already seen Chris’s parents four times this year (that’s not even true; I saw them in the spring when they visited New York, and in October at Andy and Navine’s wedding in France). Why do you need to see them a fifth time this year? It’s unnecessary. I can see if you hadn’t seen them even once this year, but already four times! This is just not necessary. And then you are going to see them again in March!”

This is what I do. I try to respond calmly and rationally. It never works because she never actually hears anything I am saying. I told her that I’d only seen them twice this year, and the second time was for a wedding, which is a big deal even if it isn’t to her (because when I told her earlier this year we were going to the France wedding, she again said it was unnecessary and it was just spending money and wasting it… yes, wasting money to go to a close family member’s wedding. A waste). We’re going to Australia to spend Christmas with them. Christmas is a big deal in their family. My parents don’t give a crap about Christmas. Therefore, she will never understand.

In my mom’s world, spending money, airplane travel, and having fun seem to all be unnecessary. “Chris doesn’t care about us. He just wants you to spend time with his parents and his family. Do you really think he cares about us? I had (hand) surgery last week, and he didn’t even call to see how I was doing!” That’s because I told him it was minor and that you were fine. But she doesn’t care.

“Airplanes are dangerous. They crash. If your plane crashes, he is responsible for my daughter,” her voice getting louder at this point.

Time to end the call. The jealousy and absurdity were just getting to be too much.

Bullying

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This afternoon, we went to see Hasan Minhaj’s show Homecoming King at the Cherry Lane Theater in the West Village. The show goes through his immigrant family’s path to coming to America, how he met the sister he didn’t realize he had, and the bullying he faced because of his Indian heritage in school. During the talk back session after the show, he and a film director are discussing bullying in schools in general and why they both think institutions and people in general need to acknowledge it more and do something about it.

It made me sad to remember how Ed used to be bullied. He was a pretty easy target since he wasn’t particularly athletic, was skinny and not that tall, and of course, he wasn’t confident. He was bullied by classmates, even by a teacher at his elementary school who used to hit him. He was defenseless and didn’t know that it was wrong and that it shouldn’t have happened. And even if he did tell our parents, what would they have done? Would they have even defended him and went to the school to have it addressed given that our own father bullied him?

Every day there’s something to remind me about Ed and the injustices he faced. The question now is, what can be done to change similar situations for kids who might face a life just like his?

Wedding guest anxiety

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It has to be because I went to what was arguably the best wedding of my life this past weekend that I am now having wedding anxiety. Last night, I dreamt that I met all three of my bridesmaids for lunch. While we’re sitting around a table and eating, I announce to them that I’ve decided to call the wedding off. As their faces change from smiles to total confusion, I take out a sheet of paper with a list of at least ten to fifteen different reasons for why we’re no longer getting married. A few reasons on this list include that we’re no longer communicating, we’re not open about our feelings, Chris is having an affair with some woman in Sydney, and we’re no longer having sexual relations with one another. My friends have no verbal response, but their faces say it all.

I woke up and told Chris about my dream, and he said my subconscious is going crazy. Yes, it certainly is.

Abandoned in Paris

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I am having Paris and wedding anxiety. In a few days, we will be leaving for Paris for Chris’s cousin’s wedding. I had a dream last night that I had packed everything for the wedding and our trip… except for my DSLR. That would be so upsetting since the last time I was in Paris, I had a silly point-and-shoot camera, and the quality of the photos was nowhere as good as my basic DSLR’s photos. I can’t imagine going anywhere for a trip and not bringing my DSLR. All other photos just seem so inferior since I got this camera.

Then, I saw myself at a zoo in Paris with Chris and all the people on our food tour from Sunday. Somewhere along the route, we ran into Chris’s ex-girlfriend, who is Eastern European. They chatted on their own for a while, and suddenly, they left all of us and went off on their own hand in hand. I was abandoned in Paris with a group of people I just met because my fiance decided to leave me for his ex. One person in the food tour commented that maybe after going to the Georgian restaurant on the food tour, Chris realized how much he missed the ex and decided to act on his impulses then and there.