Anonymous donor

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In the last month, I’ve managed to raise $3,170 for my AFSP donor drive. A match donation from Chris’s company is still pending, but that would increase the total amount of money raised to $3,470. That’s way more money than I thought I would raise, especially in the second year I’ve done this community walk. Two strangers have donated to my drive, including my cousin’s friend and Chris’s colleague. And a third person, who will remain unknown, donated $50 to my drive and has not revealed his or her identity to me. I e-mailed this person to say thank you and asked if s/he could let me know who s/he was, and there was no response.

Maybe sometimes, it’s not always a bad thing to be the anonymous charitable person. It keeps the hope alive when there seems to be little to none.

Pumpkin spice season

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There are lots of opportunities to hate in life, and one of the seemingly “trendy” things to hate on is the beginning of pumpkin spice season during the autumn every year. Every year as September nears, there’s a large group of people across this country who get really excited that their beloved “PSL” (also known as Starbucks’s pumpkin spice latte) will be available at their nearest Starbucks location. Trader Joe’s restocks their shelves with what seems to be over one hundred different “pumpkin spice” flavored items. And as all these events start happening as the temperatures cool and the winds grow a bit stronger, the hate begins yet again.

In my Facebook feed, Twitter feed, and in the Wellesley Alums Foodies group I belong to on Facebook, there will be at least one person every year for the last several years who will slam pumpkin spice and pumpkin everything, claiming they are sick of it, hate it, can’t stand it, and “can’t wait for this season to be over.” I don’t really get it. It’s not as though the people who love it are forcing it down the throats of people who do not. Where does all this anger originate from? How does one person’s craving or love for a certain flavor affect the haters out there? Can’t we all just like what we like and let go what others love? I can’t remember the last time I hated on someone’s love for ketchup, as this person even enjoyed slathering it on his white rice (yes, this person does exist).

Autumn has come

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This morning, I stepped out of the apartment at about 9am, and with just a shirt and a thin cardigan on, I actually felt cold. Oh, dear. That’s a sign that autumn has finally come to New York. It’s late September now, so I shouldn’t be surprised. Lucky for me, I brought a thin scarf to keep light and warm. Walking the streets of Manhattan, I noticed that so many people had even broken out their boots, scarves, and even peacoats. I saw more browns and deep reds and other dark colors than I’d seen since last winter. The sheer sight of all this was borderline depressing.

While I do like fall fashions and the coziness of scarves and big oversized turtlenecks, cold weather is so depressing to me. I like walking around the city without multiple layers and scarves and hats that weigh me down. I just want to feel light and airy and free. That’s not how autumn and winter clothing feels — it’s restricting and even stifling at times.

This is why I need summer again.

Entitlement

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My aunt, who hasn’t showed up to any out of town (as in, outside of San Francisco) wedding in our family, has told me that she is likely bringing her boyfriend of the last few years to my wedding next March. One of my bridesmaids, who is casually dating someone now but doesn’t seem to care much about him, says that if she’s not in a relationship by the time March rolls around, she wants to bring her mom to the wedding as her plus one (mostly because she doesn’t drive, so her mom can act as her LA/Orange County area chauffeur). While I can kind of understand the bridesmaid assuming she has the right to a plus-one since she is in the wedding party, I’m not a huge fan of the idea of her mother coming to my wedding. What is she supposed to do there? Who would I sit her with? I don’t really have friends or family that she’d readily be seated with or even get along with. And with my aunt, I’ve never even met her boyfriend. Not only that, but she hasn’t seen or been in contact with her son, my cousin, since her late husband’s funeral because of a falling out, and to make matters worse, she doesn’t even realize her son has a baby — yes, her own grandchild.

I don’t really get the sense of entitlement here. But I also don’t really know how to say “no” because a negative response will only get a negative reaction. These are the sticky wedding and “big event” problems that I have to deal with now.

Sex and the City over a decade later

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After over ten years of first seeing Sex and the City on DVD, I’ve been watching (and/or just listening to) Sex and the City on HBO in the background as I’ve been working on my crafts projects, researching travel, and reading. I was addicted to this show after I watched just two episodes. I’ve never been a big TV person, but I have never been addicted to any TV show like this one and watched it and known the episodes by heart since Saved by the Bell (the original class). But now that I’m watching it in the year 2015 instead of 2004 when I first watched it, I feel like the characters are annoying me even more than they annoyed me then. Then, I at least found them tolerable and humorous. Now, they just piss me off.

Charlotte was always my least favorite, and I guess from her general description, it would surprise no one: she’s a “rich bitch” who grew up with a lot of privilege, believes strongly in gender roles and is an old-fashioned traditionalist. She, along with Carrie, probably piss me off the most now. I think their selfishness is shining through even more glaringly now than they had when I first watched these episodes over ten years ago. In Charlotte’s worst moments that made me want to grind my teeth, she was having fertility issues and got angry when she found out Miranda accidentally got pregnant. “How could you do this to me?” she yelled at Miranda in the coffee shop. Um, no. No one did anything to you. The world doesn’t revolve around you. In another scene, she and her husband are having sexual intimacy issues because her first husband can’t “get it up,” so she snaps at Samantha for having sex with strangers and asks her when she is going to recognize that sex is more than just sex; it’s supposed to be “sacred.” Carrie annoys me with her own selfishness. She knows Aidan is moving in with her, but refuses to make space in her closet for his belongings. He buys her a brand new Mac when hers has a melt down, and she is totally ungrateful for it and says she doesn’t need it and has her own backing up method (she doesn’t).

I guess the more I think about it, the more I realize why women relate to these women — it’s because we see our own selfish selves reflected in the Sex and the City women, and thus we relate. We’re all selfish witches ourselves.

Hopeless hope

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I met with my therapist yesterday after not seeing her for about four months. She was busy sunbathing in the Hamptons while I was occupied with busy Mondays filled with revenue reports. We spent some time discussing my series of bad dreams of betrayal, my time in San Francisco, fights with my mom, and my friend who failed to be a part of my bachelorette weekend.

We spent the most time discussing why I always feel the need to defend the people my mother puts down. “If you know based on history that she will never see your point of view and will always use this as the beginning point of a fight, then why do you keep defending them?” she asked me.

Well, there are several answers to this. First is that I hate it when things are unjust, and I cannot stand people being attacked without any valid reason. Second, I am kind of deluded myself because I hopelessly hope that one day, she may actually listen to what I am saying and realize there are other perspectives other than her own. Third, it’s a lose-lose situation for me regardless of what I respond with because no response satisfies her, and she will find some way to turn the attack on me. If it’s not this conversation, it will be in the next conversation.

So at the end of the day, I just become more self-ingratiating by believing that I am standing up for what’s right when it actually causes even more agony for me. Maybe I can be just as deluded as my mother.

Emotionless

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Today was fairly uneventful, and the usual people I chat with at work were not available, so I decided to message one of my long-time friends from middle school. We have been friends since I was in eighth grade and she was in seventh. She’s one of the small handful of people I actually still keep in touch with from San Francisco. The more I think about it, though, the more I think we don’t have that much in common other than the fact that we are both Asian American women who grew up in San Francisco with overbearing mothers and moved to the Northeast for college. I’m very expressive; she is one of the hardest to read people I know. I’m more or less an open book, which is why this blog is public; it’s like pulling teeth to get information from her about her life. I am very affectionate; she is like a brick. I like to socialize; she hates it unless she already knows and likes the people there. We’ve remained friends, though. I thought about it the other day, and I really think it’s because I value her honesty… when she is willing to share it.

But sometimes, it’s exhausting, especially when things are always answered in the negative.

Me: Did you enjoy the trip?

Friend: It was better than I expected.

Me: How’s the first day of work going?

Friend: I don’t hate it.

Me: How’s your project going?

Friend: Not awful

Me: Are you going to say after my wedding when people ask you how it was, “Well, it wasn’t awful.”

Friend: Not to your face.

What I really wonder in these exchanges that I know will never be answered is — what really makes this friend happy, or excited, or actually like she has feelings and real emotions? Where did all those feelings and emotions go, or did she really ever have them? Do I need to buy this friend the same book I bought my other friend’s daughter, The Book of Feelings, to get her to engage with me like a real human being with actual emotions? What does she get out of human interactions with people who she doesn’t “hate” or doesn’t find “awful” or finds tolerable? If I died tomorrow, would she actually feel anything or even cry?

I told my colleague this the other day, but I will write it here anyway: I really do not understand people.

 

Whiskey

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My sleep schedule is screwed. I can’t seem to sleep at a regular hour for myself unless I’ve sedated myself with whiskey before bed. Last night, I slept well, but I kept waking up every hour or two to see what time it was. The only other time in my life I’ve had sleep like this was in the days after Ed passed away. For an entire week, I couldn’t sleep through the night and would wake up several times, dead alert. The night before last, I slept through most of the night, but still felt too sluggish at 6am to go to the gym.

I was at lunch with one of my colleagues and told her I was taking a whiskey shot before bed to sleep, and she suggested I take a melatonin supplement. What scares me about taking a supplement even if it is supposedly all natural is that I will get addicted to it. I can’t really get addicted to whiskey before bed, right?

On a hike

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My parents are spending this week in Monterey. They’ve been there a million times, but I guess that’s what they like to do — go back to places with which they are familiar. Surprisingly, though, after I showed them photos from Point Lobos State Reserve, they actually decided to go there to hike it and see it themselves. I was really surprised because in most cases when I have given them recommendations on things to see and do, they rarely take me up on it because it’s new to them, and therefore foreign. My mom raved about how mild the weather was and the pretty scenery.

It makes me happy when my parents discover new things that they like and enjoy doing because it doesn’t seem to happen enough. They get too caught into their usual boring and everyday routines, and the curiosity to discover a world outside of what they know is rarely there. Maybe I shouldn’t doubt them as much as I do and keep suggesting new things to them.

Single friends

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I invited a friend over for dinner tonight to help eat all the food that Chris made me this week, and we discussed online dating, weddings, and being single. He is eight years older than me, and everything in his life is going well from work to friends to charity work — except for his romantic prospects. He’s always jokingly asking me if I have any cute and smart single girlfriends, but the truth is that I don’t — at least, not ones that are in New York City, or ones that he’d be into given their personalities. He makes it obvious that this is really dragging him down, and he’s been in a bad mindset in the last few days. I want to help him, but I can’t.

It reminded me of my college-time obsession with the show Sex and the City and how the show discussed being single in your mid- to late-thirties, when most people are seemingly getting engaged, married, and having children. My friend is going through the male version of this, except he’s not getting one night stands as easily as those female characters were. The more I think about it, the more I think it’s not great to be single in New York City. Yes, you think you have a lot of options, but those options end up screwing you over because then you feel like you don’t need to commit to just one person. That doesn’t even just apply to romantic relationships — that applies just to agreeing to meet someone for a meal. I feel that frustration myself from the friend perspective. So if I think it’s hard to make real friends here, I don’t even know what it would be like if I were single today at my age in this city, trying to find “the one.”