Since Kaia is going to school in Manhattan Chinatown, it means I have more reasons to be down there and explore new cafes, bakeries, and restaurants. And since I have a work perk that enables me access to coworking spaces throughout the city four times a month, my goal is to work in the area about once a week to get some space from the apartment, and also explore the area. It’s also a good opportunity for me to catch up with friends who have flexible schedules and could meet for a coffee or lunch during the week.

Paper Sons Cafe opened last summer. I came here this afternoon for matcha lattes and a catchup with a friend. The name of the cafe immediately brought a smile to my face when I found out about them via the Welcome to Chinatown Instagram handle because it reminded me of all the stories of “paper sons” in my childhood. My uncles, aunts, and grandma would talk about how they needed someone to come to the U.S. from China, so they’d pretend that so-and-so was their “paper son” or “paper daughter,” and then they’d have the ability to come over. Back when I was a young child, I had no idea about the complexities of immigration, nor did I understand the need to fake one’s family lineage for the sake of immigration. But now as an adult, I do enjoy hearing these stories of sacrifices that families made for their other loved one’s families in hopes of giving the next generation a better life.

The sad thing, though, about a “better life” in the U.S. today, is that I am honestly not quite so sure it really is a better life anymore. The cost of living is rising like crazy, where even a household of two working professionals cannot seem to afford a home easily without their parents’ help. The quality of schools here is poor when you compare our achievements stats to other westernized countries. The sheer intelligence of our population is declining, as made evident when you hear how few people here can read beyond a sixth grade level. And that’s before you even mention the normalizing of gun violence and prioritizing gun ownership over the safety of children. I am not sure that the country the U.S. today is the same country my paternal grandparents would have been happy to immigrate to.

Last week, we had an incident where the fridge just stopped working. Luckily, we were home and caught it in time, so none of our food went bad. We live in a luxury rental building, so they replaced the fridge with a spare within the same day. Unfortunately, these refrigerators are so heavy that when the handyman and the porter were moving it, they lost balance and a corner of the fridge slammed down pretty hard on our kitchen floor, resulting in a big hole in one of the bamboo floor boards. They told us they would replace it. Well… they definitely took their time on this. They said someone would come today, and alas, the handyman never showed up. The hole is in a really awkward area where we’d inevitably need to step while getting in and out of the kitchen.

The great thing about renting and not owning is that we aren’t responsible for sourcing or paying for help ourselves directly, nor are we responsible for the costs or replacements of things like the fridge or bamboo floor boards. The annoying thing about renting is that you are really operating at the whim of your landlord or building management, and when they drag their feet on things, you literally just have to wait.

Pretty much everything about work has been annoying me. Sometimes, I am sitting there doing work, wondering why no one is responding to me when something has been declared “urgent.” I have some difficult customers who seem to think they are the perfect customers and that nothing should change (you’ve really gotta love the growth mindset there). I also have some colleagues that have been really making work unpleasant, from the suck-ups to the full-blown gaslighting assholes. So in general, once I can sign off for the day the last two weeks, I’ve been pretty happy. It’s in these moments of frustration that I am so, so grateful that I am 100 percent remote, that I don’t have to go to an office every day and see people I generally dislike.

In the evenings once Kaia has gone to bed, I’ve been escaping the current annoying work world to read a book. This week, I finally started my much awaited (and very long – over 700 pages!) book by Abraham Verghese called The Covenant of Water; the book was released last year, and I immediately knew I wanted to read it because Verghese’s first and only other book, Cutting for Stone, is likely one of my all time favorite books. There is something really satisfying about setting aside the annoying world around you, as in, one’s reality, and just living inside a really well read book with complex characters and interesting challenges. I read a lot as a child because frankly, it’s not like my parents gave me much else to do. But now as an adult, I read for fun, for education, and for another-world adventure. And I’m so happy that Kaia has still been embracing reading as she’s gotten older.