Tonight, we went to the Manhattan Theatre Club to see The Niceties, a play about a young liberal black student and her well respected liberal white professor at an elite East Coast university. Although they both on the surface seem as though they stand for the same values, their conversations quickly reveal that their thoughts on race and reputation do not match and actually clash quite heavily.

I spent most of the play going back and forth regarding who I agreed with. When it came to understanding race at a deeper level and not glorifying politicians like Washington and Jefferson, especially given they were slave owners and did not really want “rights” for anyone other than property-owning white men, I agreed with the black student. When it came to the oversensitivity of today’s generation and the constant need for “trigger warnings” and incessantly requiring people to be politically correct in everything they say,  I agreed with the white professor. But it was like a tennis match, constantly watching the ball go back and forth and not being sure where we would land. It reminded me of the Bernie supporters vs. the Hillary supporters in the 2016 election, or the third-party voters vs. the Hillary supporters.

I really liked the author’s note that came with the play’s Playbill, as it very succinctly summed up the goal of the play, as well as the general sentiments in today’s heated political climate which stare us in the face, which said:

“I’ve always been fascinated when good people fight.

Conflicts between good and evil can be fun fodder for action films. But I’m more intrigued by the times when smart, well-meaning people, with great values and the best intention, fundamentally can’t agree on the right way to behave.

Kindness or honesty? Idealism or caution? Forgiveness or punishment?

We all have natural instincts in one direction or another. We can all justify our instincts with logic, examples, and appeals. But do we really know for certain that our beliefs about the world, and about how we ought to behave in it, are right? And how should we respond to someone who tells us when we’re wrong?”

I always feel conflicted. I felt angry when I had friends who didn’t vote in the 2016 presidential election. I got pissed at my friend who voted for Jill Stein, a third-party candidate. I get infuriated when I still hear people today say that Bernie Sanders should run again in 2020 because this time, “he’d definitely win.” Okay, if you think that, you seriously did NOT understand 2016 at all. None of us really do, but you’re even further from comprehension of that. For those on the “right” side of progress, we don’t agree; the Democratic Party has no unity, no real unifying message. That’s one of many reasons things fell apart in 2016. We’re all trying to be good, but it’s not clear who is the “worst” of the “good” and the “best” of the “good.”

I am anal retentive about cleaning. I’ve always been this way. I’m 100% certain it was a learned trait that I got from my mother, who used to have a very calibrated routine for cleaning: all parts of the bathroom had to be cleaned every single week, usually Wednesday. The kitchen floor was swept weekly and mopped at least every other week. The bathtub was thoroughly washed after every single bath. The sinks were cleaned once a week. She usually did all of this, but my dad occasionally would help with sweeping and mopping the kitchen. When she cleaned the toilet, every single surface would get disinfected, even the sides of the tank, which most people don’t even think to clean.

I really do not enjoy cleaning at all, but I do love the feeling of being done cleaning and knowing that I am standing in a spick and span apartment. I’ve occasionally thought about what it would be like to have someone professionally clean my apartment, but there are two things going against this: a) I’m too cheap, and b) my standard of “clean” is really high, so the chances are also very high of my hating the job of whoever did the cleaning and never wanting to hire them again.

So on my local college’s alumnae Facebook page, someone recently asked for “reasonably priced” cleaning services that others would recommend. A women’s cooperative based in Brooklyn was recommended by a number of alumnae, and I looked at their website. On average for a 1 bedroom/1 bath apartment, they charge about $120, and it’s not by the hour (that sounded suspect, especially since they said on average the cleaner will spend about 4-6 hours cleaning. When broken down by the hour, that seems a bit too cheap to be true. It’s for “everything” – sweeping, mopping, dusting, cleaning countertops, disinfecting toilets. But when I looked at the details of how they define “cleaning toilet,” it simply says “clean toilet bowl.” Eh. That’s not the entire toilet. What about the seat – the top and the bottom? What about the handle, or the base of the bowl, where all kinds of nasty fecal matter accumulates? It says on their site that you can make specific requests or ask for “deep cleaning,” and after visiting your apartment, they would then adjust their quote based on your specifications.

At some point, I will succumb, maybe when my life circumstances change, but for now, I will pass.

Two years ago, and pretty much since I realized I needed glasses when I was about 16, my eyes have been a -1.50. For those who do not know what eye prescriptions mean, that means that I am slightly near-sighted. If you are standing in front of me or a few feet away from me, I can see you pretty clearly. But once you are about 30-50 feet away, I won’t be able to make out your face’s details, but I’ll still be able to tell it is you. That means that if I actually drove a car, I’d need to wear corrective lenses to legally drive. I wouldn’t be able to read street signs.

Last year, my vision worsened and became -1.75. Today, I told my optometrist that I felt like when I wore my contacts that things were a bit too fuzzy when I would try to look at my phone or a computer. I described using my glasses more while watching TV to see all the details, and after some further examination, he decided that perhaps I am straining my eyes too much. I’m trying too hard? Sounds like the typical Asian kid. So he is having me test out -1.00 contact lenses for the next week to see if these are enough for me.

Does this actually mean that my vision has improved?? I couldn’t believe it. He laughed at how astounded I was. “Just because you are slowly getting older doesn’t always mean that everything gets worse!” he exclaimed, smiling.

Growing up, I always look back on my childhood as though I was waiting for people to die. That sounds really odd, but until my late twenties, I could truly say that I had been to more funerals than weddings. I was aware from a very young age that death was inevitable and could happen at any time to any of us. I still remember when I first learned this when I was about four years old, and I would cry myself to sleep thinking that one day, I’d lose my parents and Ed. I was absolutely petrified.

When I was four, I just didn’t think that I’d lose Ed as early as I did.

I know some people and some cultures try to be positive. They say that in some cultures, supposedly there is no real word for “grief.” I guess I have been brainwashed because this is the only country where I’ve ever lived, but I have a hard time understanding how you could not cry at the idea of someone you love dying. The idea of going to a funeral and not seeing anyone cry is so odd to me. I’m too American.

I thought about this today as we had dinner at an obscure Japanese restaurant that was situated on Mulberry Street, right in between two funeral homes. It’s so strange to see funeral homes in Manhattan, this teeny tiny island that somehow manages to squeeze over 1.66 million people into it, a place where it’s common to meet people who not only do not own a car, but have never even driven one. Growing up and attending funerals, I’d always see a caravan of cars following a hearse that transported the casket in preparation for burial, cremation, or whatever the last resting place was. But here, when I see “No Parking – Funeral” signs, the small ones in front of funeral homes, I think, Who is going to park there anyway? Who even has a car to park when they attend a funeral here? Then, I think.. when a burial happens, how do people even get there? Do they take the subway? Or nowadays, do they take an Uber or a Lyft? I wonder how often Uber and Lyft drivers get requests to or from a funeral home or cemetery.

Funeral logistics just seem so different here to what I grew up with in San Francisco. I hope I don’t get to have first hand experience of what it’s like here anytime soon.

Tonight, we went to Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater to see Freaknomics Radio Live with Stephen Dubner, with the specific live journalism game show “Tell me Something I Don’t Know.” About five pre-selected contestants come on stage before a live audience and try to wow Stephen and his co-hosting guest with a fascinating fact on a specific topic. Then, a live fact-checker ensures that this is real. The audience (that’s us) gets to vote for the winner.

This was especially exciting because I’ve read three of the Freaknomics books that Dubner has cowritten, and I regularly listen to his Freakonomics podcast. I love that he has made economics something that is tangible to everyday people who are not obsessed academics or intense mathematicians, especially as I was an economics major myself.

And tonight’s theme was food! It’s as though they knew I was coming. Dubner’s co-host tonight was the Food TV personality and celebrity chef Alex Guarnaschelli. I had previously watched her on the food competition show Chopped, but I never actually enjoyed her as a judge. To me, she always came off as a bit snobby, stand-off-ish, as though she knew everything about food and all the possible flavor combinations that could work as though she were a food god (then again, I suppose a lot of professional chefs are like this…). But tonight during Tell Me Something I Don’t Know, I actually found her a bit more down-to-earth. She was definitely trying to be funny and charismatic and many times succeeded, but she just seemed more relaxed and natural on this show. Chris likes to make fun of me and say that my mind was really changed about her when she was asked what she believed to be the best cuisine in the world, and she responded Chinese, particularly noting that although both her parents are Italian, her parents both were highly fascinated by Chinese cooking and oftentimes made the family Cantonese and Sichuanese dishes. I screamed out “Yeah!” quite loudly, which took Dubner and Guarnaschelli off guard and they stopped to make some side comments.

If they end up not editing that out in the final podcast they will air in December, then this will be my little moment of fame when you can hear my voice in a publicly available podcast that is widely listened to by thousands, if not millions of people – moment of joy here.