Chris has been attempting to put YmF branding on everything. We have shirts and now we even have masks with my logo on them. In addition to this mask, I also have a mask that a colleague gifted to me, but outside of that, I really don’t have any others that I would regularly want to use. We temporarily used airplane eye-masks for sleeping as “masks,” but they were hard to breathe in, so we eventually stopped. But now, knowing that masks will be our new normal, I figured I would get some new interesting ones to have some variety and also to accept that this is our new normal moving forward… until probably forever.

I ordered some masks that are locally designed and made here in New York City, and some of the proceeds go to the nonprofit Color of Change. One of the masks has different Asian sauce bottles on it, and the second is pink with dragon fruit on them. It had to be food related for me, right?

One of the biggest things that companies have had to change during a time of COVID-19 is in-person meetings. When I say that they have needed to change it, what I mean is that in-person meetings are now finito – they no longer exist, and ALL meetings are now virtual. Since it’s not considered safe to be in an office, this also means that if you are interviewing for a new job, no more in-person marathon meetings where you have to meet one person after a next for 3-5 hours. This also means that for once in your entire life, it’s acceptable to come to an interview wearing a T-shirt and shorts — yes, really. I’ve been doing this for the last two months. It’s been a little weird, but also quite liberating at the same time. Who wants to wear stuffy clothes anyway?

What is strange, though, is that while companies have shifted in this sense out of necessity during a global pandemic, they still insist on having “virtual onsite” meetings for interviews, meaning… you no longer have to come in for your interview, but you DO have to meet one person one after the next in a single time block. What ever happened to… I don’t know, being creative and breaking up these 1:1 meetings throughout a few days so that we could potentially prevent Zoom fatigue and eye tiredness? I literally spent 3.5 hours on Zooms back to back meeting with about six different people. I had one 15-minute break. The Zoom fatigue — that is real. I was also trying to time this so that my laptop battery didn’t run out since my plug was not nearby.

Can companies please look to be a little MORE nimble and evolve as time is evolving, please?

I woke up this morning to a text message from Chris’s brother. I don’t remember what it was about, as it probably was inconsequential, but the text conversation randomly took a turn for worse when he brought up that he was still upset from our family chat last Friday. For a second, I had no idea what he was referring to, as the conversation seemed quite innocuous and didn’t really cover any serious ground. But then I remembered the conversation bits I overheard before I joined, when Chris was loudly berating his brother for traveling via plane this past weekend for a long-weekend vacation and actively planning holidays during a period of a global pandemic.

I’m not sure what he was seeking from me when he shared that with me, but my first thought was: why do people focus so much on their own hurt feelings being the main issue as opposed to the actual content of what was actually said to them? If someone says something to criticize you that you find hurtful, isn’t it normal to stop and wonder why they would say that about you and whether any of it could potentially be true? Or is that just me, someone who grew up constantly getting criticized, who would think that way? It’s human nature to be defensive, but to focus on their own feelings as opposed to the content of the conversation seems childish, dismissive, and sadly, just plain selfish. Should anyone at this point in time be traveling for leisure while hundreds of thousands of people are literally contracting COVID-19 and dying from it every single day, especially when they are not even sure if they could be carriers themselves? This is even worsened by the fact that in many cases where COVID-19 cases have dropped, resurgences have been seen… 100 percent due to outsiders who have come from out of state or out of the country just for vacation — so in other words, for their own selfish benefit. I pointed all this out to him, and he simply responded, “Rehashing the conversation doesn’t help.”

Perhaps it doesn’t help to someone who cannot see outside their own bubble, who likely knows no one who has contracted COVID-19 or died from COVID-19, who merely sees COVID-19 as an inconvenience to his leisurely life instead of as a deadly pandemic that is causing global mass deaths, recessions, joblessness, and unrest. He’s still healthy, is gainfully employed. No big deal to him, right? The worst thing that has happened, as he complained about early on after only a week of lockdown in Australia, was not being able to socialize with his friends and being lonely.

Boo. Hoo.

I know people who have contracted COVID-19. I know a former classmate from college who has now died from COVID-19, and she had just entered her 30s. Our doorman’s brother was hospitalized for COVID-19 in his twenties for over three months, at the worst point on a feeding tube. I have a friend whose father died from suicide because he couldn’t get the medical help he needed from his opioid addictions he suffered due to a language barrier in Georgia… and the reason he was denied medical treatment was due to the local hospitals all being overwhelmed from COVID-19 cases and being forced to triage.

So, yes — maybe rehashing the conversation, the facts, the diagnoses, the deaths, will not help him understand why he’s being selfish, and instead he will continue to focus on his own hurt and pain at being accused of being “selfish” instead of thinking about the potential harm he could be causing to others. How would he feel if he knew he was responsible for someone contracting COVID-19 and dying? Would that even matter to him, especially if he didn’t even know the person? It’s unclear based on his defensiveness, his decision to shut down and not respond and speak for his actions. And honestly, I don’t really care if he’s hurt because his hurt is insignificant and meaningless next to all the people in the world today who have suffered or died from COVID-19 or been impacted by COVID-19 in a tangible way — like all the medical professionals who cannot even treat these patients and cannot even be with their own families at night; the essential workers, not to mention all the people who have lost their jobs due to this global pandemic.

This is not about choosing to live one’s life in their own way anymore, as he’s constantly arguing with his brother about. “I disagree with lots of things Chris does, and I know he disagrees with me, but we live our own lives, and not everything is black and white.” Actually, in this case, it really is black and white because this could potentially be life or death. This is about — do you give a shit about other people, or do you not?

After the grueling hike up the mountain on Friday morning, we visited a winery for wine tasting and lunch. Because we’re not allowed to be indoors due to COVID-19, the winery has set up lots of outdoor tables for wine tastings as well as lunch (provided by seemingly another local restaurant with wood-fired ovens just steps away). The seating overlooks vineyards as well as the water. While we did our wine tasting outdoors, ate the local pizza and enjoyed a cheese plate, I thought a lot about all the travel that we had to give up this year: Hawaii, Cabo San Lucas, Ecuador, Kerala, Sri Lanka…. and I thought, well, none of those places are going anywhere. They all have their own COVID-19 restrictions. Everyone is trying to manage with this virus in every way they can. So if that means we need to explore more locally and enjoy what’s in our backyard like beautiful places like this, then that’s not a problem. These are the new local pleasures we will have to pursue until the world opens up to us.

When we planned our trip to the Hudson River Valley for the day yesterday, one of the things I really wanted to do was pick up some fresh, local produce grown in the area. Since it’s summer time, stone fruit, berries, and tomatoes would be at their peak, and I was hoping we’d stop by a stand or two. We drove by a spot that had a good variety of produce, but the local fruit was the cheapest and juiciest: I don’t even know how many pounds each basket was, but we got at least 5-6 lb. each of “drip down your arms” peaches and perfume-like, deep red tomatoes for $5 per basket, and they were some of the juiciest and most fragrant fruit we’d ever bought. The sheer amount was hilarious, as we’d never purchased this much fruit before. Chris looked at the fruit, puzzled over what I’d do with it. “What are you going to do with all these?” he asked.

“Lots of things!” I exclaimed back. “For tomatoes, we can just eat them! Put them in salads! Make fresh tomato sauce! Tomato onion masala! And for the peaches, eat them! Make peach syrup and soda! Smoothies!”

There’s something about fresh, local, (and cheap!) produce that makes me so excited and happy. Even if I have no idea what I’m going to be doing with all of them, I will find uses for them since no food goes to waste in our home.

After sucking up the fact that we’re likely not going to be doing any travel out of the state or country this year due to COVID-19, we decided to rent a car today for a day trip to the Hudson River Valley for some hiking, nature, local fruit, and local wineries and distilleries. We started the day with a short hike up Mount Beacon, the highest peak in the Hudson Highlands and the highest point between the Catskills and the Atlantic coast. Although the description said the hike was only 1 mile each way, what it doesn’t tell you is exactly how steep that one mile is and how you better get ready for a truly uphill climb. After only about five minutes climbing up on a very rocky, uneven surface, I could already feel myself huffing and puffing. How much longer to go? Although I’d been doing HIIT workouts that are intensive with cardio as well as plenty of strength training on my mat in my room given COVID-19 no-gym conditions, clearly I was unprepared for this extreme uphill hike, as my breathing kept getting heavier and I felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest at any point. Stopping didn’t even help, as it just made me feel like the air was heavier. Why do I feel so out of shape?!

We finally got to the top after what felt like forever, but my Garmin said we had hiked up only about 5,000 steps (could have fooled me). The view was worth the hike, though, as well as the odd ruins up top. It also felt so good to breathe in really fresh air amidst all the green and woods. These are the moments that make it worth it to leave the concrete jungle of New York City… but also make me miss traveling further away…. Hopefully, that will happen in a distant future for us.

When I went to see my dentists at their Yonkers location yesterday, it was actually my very first time ever on Metro North. I’d been to Grand Central Station so many times taking the east side trains and also just as a tourist stop for photos, but never to actually take a train out of the city until yesterday. It was… completely underwhelming. Just to take an old, crappy train to a destination that would take about 20 minutes to drive out of the city, it cost me $17.50 for the round-trip ticket. Yonkers really isn’t that far away; if I were to go during peak hours when the trains would have limited stops, it could take as little as 15 minutes from Grand Central. Not to mention that because I went early in the afternoon during “non-peak” hours, the trains were running only once each hour, so if I were to miss a train, I’d have to wait an entire 60 minutes for the next one to leave, which is pretty terrible.

This evening, we had a family chat with Chris’s parents and brother, and his dad said that they had seen my Instagram stories noting that I visited Yonkers the previous day. So they asked what the highlights were. Well, I got picked up and dropped off right at the Yonkers train station, and the area where it was… I wouldn’t even say it was a real town. There was nothing even remotely exciting about the area. It just seemed like an average, working class town. There were a couple of chain restaurants, a local library, two banks, a few shops, and that was really it. Even though my dentists have an office they actually own in Yonkers, they themselves have never really explored the town at all; they even got lost on their way back to the office from the train station picking me up, and they’ve owned this office for nearly two decades! If they don’t even care to explore it after all this time, I guess that means I’ll never really see it myself, either.

In the U.S., it’s not uncommon to hear about people griping about their dentists — the out-of-pocket costs for this, the pain from that; why so many recommended procedures? Is this suggested treatment really necessary? And it’s all with some warranted suspicion: dentists are known in the U.S. to try to get every last dollar out of their patients and their dental insurance plans as possible. That’s why some even force you to get X-Rays or CT scans just to get a basic dental cleaning; hey, that’s another line item to bill your insurance for, so why not “require” it?

It’s easy to not feel sorry for them during the pandemic, as it’s pretty likely your dentist has been screwing you (and/or your dental insurance) for as long as they could. But today, for a moment, I actually did: after about 9 months of not seeing my dentist, I texted them a week ago to see if they were open now and if I could come in for a cleaning and to get a new mouth guard. They called me, explaining that their Manhattan office actually had to close, as they could not renew their lease under the current circumstances, and once the city had opened more, they would then look into a new Manhattan lease. In the meantime, they were operating out of their Yonkers dental office, which they own, and so they asked if I could come see them there. They would even pick me up and drop me back off at the train station! I hesitated, thinking about how atrocious it would be to find a new dentist who would probably force me into treatments I didn’t need or convince me I needed jaw surgery, another coat of braces, or even root canals…. fine. I’d go. So I went today and made a half-day trip of it.

For months, no dental office could operate here. They received warnings that randomized inspections would occur, and if they were caught working, their license to operate could be permanently taken away. And when they received word of “essential” treatments they could operate for, it was a very narrow list that was extremely restrictive: gum bleeding, multiple abscesses (yes, multiple, not just one!), implant replacement for rupture (not usually done by a regular dentist), and emergency oral surgery (they’re dentists, not oral surgeons). Nothing else. Wait, what – that’s it? That explains why my colleague told me that she chipped her tooth about a month ago, and when she called her dentist, the dentist said she couldn’t see her because repairing a chipped tooth wasn’t “essential service.”

I felt bad.. for my colleague, the dentists, the dental industry in general, as weird as that sounds. If no patient visits happen, they don’t see any money at all. No money means no income, which means nothing to pay rent with other than savings, so it’s no wonder they shut down their Manhattan operation. The Manhattan office was actually shared by other dentists, and those dentists also did not renew their leases, either. And what’s worse is that the entire building they were operating in had shut down during quarantine, so the landlord shut down all gas and electricity! My dentist even said that many of the labs he relied on shut down operation completely, so even something like a mouth guard or X-rays could not be created or processed. He ended up buying his own machine during this time since mouth guards are in high demand, and I waited to have mine made, finished, and fitted.

Everyone was hit by the pandemic, even those who we think have glitzy lives and endless money coming in.

We spent our Saturday afternoon wandering through Astoria today, creating a mini food-tour of sorts with stops at Venezuelan, Vietnamese, and Chinese-ish spots. It’s crazy to see how much this neighborhood had changed since the last time I had visited; a corner produce market that I remember buying vegetables at had changed quite a bit. Its prices had risen, and the clientele was completely different. The area overall has become a lot more trendy and… well, White for lack of better words. The area used to have lots of Greeks, Egyptians, Middle Eastern restaurants, bakeries, delis, and grocery stores. They still exist, but it seems like their influence is less obvious now. Now, it’s a lot more brunch, fusion, and expensive bars and eateries with flashy signs, single menus that have a mind-boggling variety of dishes from bibimbap to al pastor tacos to grain bowls (talk about trying to appeal to EVERYONE), and brand-new condo buildings.

It’s not all necessarily a bad thing. There are a number of great places that have opened in this area. The arepas we enjoyed were hearty and delicious, and the Vietnamese place that was on my list had the most unique and creative version of pho I’d ever tasted. On the menu, it was called herb and wood-smoked brisket pho. When it came to the table, it was piping hot, revealing a crystal clear, pristine broth that my mom would have been proud to drink (she hates the floating fat that is oftentimes found in broths served at restaurants and assiduously removes them all before digging in). The first thing I always do when I am ordering a noodle soup at any restaurant is to take a taste of the broth. I took my soup soon, dipped it into the soup, and slurped. And inhaled it. It was exactly what the description said: it tasted herby, smokey, woody, in addition to all the complexities you expect when you have a truly delicious, multifaceted beef-based pho: beef, coriander, charred onions, star anise, cloves, LOVE. And the cuts of brisket were like the brisket you’d get at the most delicious barbecue house, just with a hint of Vietnamese flair. Every last bit of that bowl, we devoured until we couldn’t stomach any more liquid. It was so delicious.

If more places like this opened in Astoria, or in any neighborhood for that matter, I’d be really excited about it and happy to support them. It’s the generic places that try to cater themselves to yupsters and Gen Z people that I cannot stand — the ones that want to have Korean AND Thai AND Japanese AND Chinese AND… hey, let’s throw in some fish tacos, too! Those are the ones I despise and want to leave. Specialize in a certain area and go with it. Don’t be a generalist with food at a restaurant — it just makes you forgettable.

I think I need to take a break from all of the anti-racism education I’ve been doing for myself over the last two months in the form of books. It’s been educational, enlightening, upsetting, infuriating, and freeing in many ways to read all of these resources and books in an effort to understand racism better and be able to respond to ignorant comments (such as… racism doesn’t exist anymore/we live in a post-racist society/racism against Whites is the biggest issue now), but it’s been emotionally exhausting to have this on my mind throughout the day, nonstop. I recognize that there can be some criticism here from Black and Brown people of color, that it’s a luxury to not have to think about this every single day on the top of their minds… but I’d turn that question back to them and say… Are they reading all these books and resources, too?

I also fear that in most cases as with most issues, the people who need to hear these responses and rebuttals will never be open to hearing them. I still have a long list of other race-related books I want to tackle, but I’ve decided that for my sanity’s sake, I will need to space them out. In the meantime, I am reading Colson Whitehead’s 2020 Pulitzer Prize winning The Nickel Boys (okay, so maybe it’s not REALLY a departure from reading about race given it’s based on the true story of the Dozier School, a reform school in Florida (read: reform school for black boys) that operated for 111 years and abused black children, but you know what? There’s no wait list for Kindle borrowing on it right now given it’s a Book of the Month through New York Public Library, so I’ll take advantage of no wait lists for an in-demand book!).

These are the books I’ve read thus far this year on race and would definitely recommend for different reasons:

1. How to be an Anti-Racist – Ibram. X. Kendi: Provides a historical lens as well as personal anecdotes shared by the author/historian/educator Ibram X. Kendi. Examines how many quotes/phrases from famous anti-racist/anti-segregation advocates such as MLK have been twisted by conservatives who believe we live in a post-racist world. Seeks to provide definitions of what racist vs. not racist vs. anti-racist are, as well as many other terms and concepts that oftentimes get misused by the media and thus misunderstood by the American public. This book is pretty U.S.-centric, so be aware of that.
2. White Fragility – Robin DiAngelo: Provides viewpoints from an antiracism educator over 25+ years of anti-racism classes and workshops done by a wide spectrum of age groups, corporate for- and not-for-profit organizations in an attempt to increase diversity and inclusion in schools, organizations, and corporations. Acknowledges my most often-thought of point, which is that it is nearly impossible to have a discussion about racism that will leave everyone feeling comfortable, included, or welcome, and that is exactly the point of addressing racism: to be brought to a state of discomfort to then be propelled into real action.
3. Me and White Supremacy – Layla Saad: Based on a month-long Instagram challenge to examine how the concept of white supremacy has been drilled into each and every one of us since birth, and what we can personally do to dismantle it. Oftentimes, when people think about “white supremacists,” they think of David Duke, the KKK, when in reality, we actually adhere to a white supremacist society because of what we considered normal: normal is white, “other” or “abnormal” is seeing Chinese, Persian, Black, etc., people on TV, in Congress, in the White House, etc. That is just one example. This book helps people examine their own white supremacist notions and how to challenge them. A painful book, but a necessary read.
4. So You Want to Talk about Race – Ijeoma Oluo: A compelling and concise read that walks through various race-related subjects, such as intersectionality, why you should not touch a Black woman’s hair, affirmative action, and the concept of the “model minority,” which many Asian Americans sadly embrace but really should be doing the opposite. The best part about this book is that Oluo acknowledges the fact that in the U.S., the unfortunate discussion about race tends to always be black and white with some brown occasionally, but the general discourse completely ignores the various groups that make up Asian Americans and Native Americans. An entire chapter is devoted to the model minority myth, which was really refreshing for me to read. It illuminates on why and how the Asian American community has been pitted against the Black American community in this country and how this was a construction basically created by those in power (read: White people).

Racism and anti-racism education does not have a beginning or and end. It should always be ongoing for each and every one of us. And for those who deny that racism still persists and is going strong in society, well…. you are the kind of people I don’t want to have any discussion with because you are just goners in my mind.