Mariana Lin

I remember when I read Raymond Carver’s Cathedral for the first time. I was taking a fiction workshop in New York, and the teacher, the disarmingly awkward and white-bearded author Robert Dunn, assigned it along with a bunch of other stories.

The experience of reading it was like tasting a rich, heady, unusual cheese for the first time. I rolled sentences over and over in my mouth. “A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to.” I was in love. Who was this guy? What was this that I was reading? Ten years later, I would remember the detail of the onion skin falling out of the brown paper bag as he shook it. And the ending. It made me weep, and broke me. It dug a trench in my heart and filled it with something. Tobias Wolff said that he felt like he was levitating off his couch when he first read Cathedral (he and Carver were friends). I must have floated around for days; for days I could think of little else but that story.

I heard a saying once. Poets are more powerful than politicians. Because politicians can change the way people think. But poets can change the way people feel.

I think it’s the highest and most sacred honor to touch someone with the words you write. To put feelings there, where there were no feelings before.

Later in that same class, I workshopped a short story about a Korean girl named Lyung who had a birthmark on her face, and who worked at a fashion magazine. Lyung was a complicated character. The story was only 13 pages long, but at the end of it, the class was heatedly arguing about her. “She’s a loser,” someone spat. “How could she do what she did?” “But her friend wasn’t much better.” “I like her. I empathize with her.” On and on they went, and I sat back, half amazed, half delirious. Pinching myself. With the other stories up until then, my classmates had critiqued structure — I didn’t understand this part, or maybe you can extend this scene. I had been expecting more of the same. But they dove right into talking about the character. The story had stirred something up in them. “I made it up!” I was crying out in my head. “It’s all fake! I just made it all up!” Yet on they went — to the point of actually raising their voices at each other. Lyung was as real for them as if she’d walked into the room.

I was hooked. I couldn’t believe that I had just put black lines on a page, and these little lines, arranged in a certain way and in a certain order, had done something. They had made something come to life, and made people feel things. It was crazy. I felt like a mad scientist. It was like I’d discovered this unbelievable secret to the universe. A tiny, gleaming little pinhole, a backdoor passage into the human heart. Let me in just enough, and I’ll flood your insides with my tale. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll tell you a story that may change you forever. And in the process, I’ll be changed too.

I’ve been writing stories ever since I was a little girl. I was doing it long before I understood or cared about an audience. I remember in elementary school I wrote a play set in the 50s about a group of kids whose parents died in an accident and had to raise themselves. In the end, they had to split up and go to an orphanage. Just your run-of-the-mill neighborhood BBQ entertainment. I cast neighborhood kids in the roles, we had rehearsals, there was even a soundtrack (The Monkees — of course, so Oliver Twist). We put on the play for our parents during a backyard get-together. I remember that no one paid attention, they were talking and eating through the whole thing (Gotta love Asian parents. Surely if it had been a piano solo or a Mandarin recitation, there would have been a different reception). But I didn’t care, because it was just what I did. I would sit for hours making up stories silently in my head as I held a book, turning a page when I thought it was done. I wrote stories in notebooks, and didn’t show anyone. Not because I was afraid to. But because I just didn’t think about it like that. For me back then, storytelling was as simple as this: I had a story to tell. And I told it. Sometimes in silence, words falling on ghostly ears.

As an adult, though, I came to see another side to writing. I came to see it not just as a vehicle of expression. I started to feel the thread that formed and spun between the author and reader as words were consumed. I began to see writing as a sly, sweet, incandescent form of connection.

*  *  *

I floated for days after that workshop, much in the way I did after reading Cathedral.

It’s been a while since I’ve floated. It’s been a while since I’ve felt the longing that fills me up when I read a perfectly chosen word. Felt my heart racing when I, by a stroke of sheer divine luck, maybe penned one.

It’s been two years. I’m in California now. Just a few months after my last post, God’s hand plucked up me and my son and brought us out here.

I’ve been working at a large company as a creative director of copywriting. It’s a beautiful company with a history of creative expression. And I love working with words. But, more and more, I want to work with my words.

There are writers who want to make people see things in new light, or experience new things, or understand new ideas.

I want to make people feel old stuff. Buried stuff. The primal stuff we thought we’d forgotten. The stuff that makes us weep and hunger and pound things. The stuff about love. Maybe it’s because I was never so great at feelings myself. They are there, ferocious and neat, under the surface of performance and a smile. Maybe this will be my way of weeping, and hungering, and pounding. Maybe there will be something about love.

About the contests at the back of Poets & Writers? A lot of them are for writers under 40. I guess 40 is the writing world’s version of the regular world’s 30 — that age by which you are considered to have achieved success enviably early (I suppose editors assume that before 30, you can’t have that much deep or interesting stuff to say about life–maybe they got one too many manuscripts on love, drugs and existential crises before they decided to up the “early success age” to 40).

I mean, WTF? Once I’m past 40 I’m officially considered an “old” writer? I’ll have to have my business cards read “Ye Olde Writer, Aged 41.” I mean, our country’s focus on early success is so ridiculous, it’s disheartening to see this trend extend to the writing industry as well. There are so many ’30 Under 30′ lists now that you can feel ancient as a 31 year old tech entrepreneur, rocket scientist or Nobel Prize winner. Soon it’s going to be ’10 Under 10: The Elementary School Students Most Likely to Take Over the World.’

But back to 40, and those extra 10 years that apparently the literary world has generously extended to me. Those who know me know that I only have a few years left until 40.

In the words of The Wire’s Clay Davis, “Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeit.”

I’ve realized that there are talkers and there are doers.

So much of the world (and so much of New York) consists of people very caught up in their fancy talk. Obsessed over their own ideas, critics of everything around them, an opinion always ready at the hilt. I’m not saying I’m not guilty of this myself. I mean, what is this blog if not that, to some degree. It all appears to be upon examination, as someone once said, much ado about nothing.

I’ve come to realize that your walk speaks volumes over your talk. Shut up and do. And what does this mean for a writer, whose trade is in words? It means writing, not talking about writing. It means churning out pages, not experiencing life for the purported purpose of writing and then getting so caught up in the experience of life that the writing is left forgotten.

Today I was happily digesting an issue of Poets & Writers, which I admit I haven’t picked up in a very, very long time. But there was an absolutely haunting photo of Joan Didion on the cover, the kind of face and photo that stop you. Someone once gave me the highest and most undeserved compliment by obliquely referencing her in a description of me. So I grabbed the issue and put off watching “Tree of Life” to read through it (I’m not really so high-minded all the time; last night I watched “Bad Teacher” and really liked it–even snort laughed a couple of times. It’s all part of that “experiencing life” mentioned earlier).

Reading through the issue stirred in me again the desire to get back to writing. I mean, BACK to writing. Not the kind of service journalism that I do for work and in freelance. It’s not that I don’t enjoy reporting and non-fiction (I get an incredible thrill from chasing a story and knowing I’ve reported it well), but it doesn’t embody nearly the risk, nor reward, in my humble opinion, that creative writing does. I once interviewed the brilliant photographer Alexei Hay for a cover story for Picture, the photography magazine. Alexei trained with Philip Lorca di Corcia, and over the years became a very successful commercial photographer, shooting major international ad campaigns and editorial. And with all the commercial success, after a while, he just wanted to “get back to the lumpiness.” The lumpiness is what we start with. It’s that first nugget of what gets us excited about whatever it is that we want to do, and it’s lumpy because it’s raw, completely unformed, untrained, awkward, prone to mistakes. The lumpiness is hungry, and unafraid to be bad — really, really bad. Because the lumpiness is obsessed with creating, at all costs. The lumpiness is youthful, and unburdened, and sooty — it’s the coal before the diamond.

I got to the end of the magazine, where all the prizes and contests are listed. I wondered if I was ready to send some stuff in, and then I got the biggest message that I wasn’t: most of the entries required at least around a hundred pages of work.  A hundred pages? It was embarrassing how few pages of submission-ready material I feel I have — maybe 15?

I haven’t written in a while. It’s the usual excuses: I’ve been caught up with a demanding job, raising Monch, life, Bad Teacher, etc.

I’m at a bit of a crossroads right now. I’m enjoying my job. I want to move back to California. I want to make a lot of money so I can provide for Monch and me, and not have to worry, and write. I want to write. I want to write about time. I want to write creative stuff. The lumpy stuff. I also want more time with Monch. I don’t know what order this is going to all happen in.

But I do know: I want it to happen. And I want to stop talking about it.

That pretty much sums up my existence for the past few weeks.

WORK, WORK, WORK, and…

I don’t know how to handle it all. The first rosy week of work is long gone. Now I’m deep in, and it’s…mm, I like to call it “crazytown.”

The people are great, but it’s the most challenging plate of work I’ve ever been served up. There is a huge editorial mess to clean up, in terms of process and content quality. There is enormous pressure from the business side to grow quickly—I will venture to call some of these goals unrealistic, or at least barely on this side of sanity. To be fair, it’s exciting—we have content partnerships with major media outlets from Real Simple to AOL to InStyle, television content opportunities from the Oprah TV channel, but the business opportunities are growing faster than the content has been able to catch up, and new goals get added on every day. Guess who’s recently hired and in charge of the content catch-up?

The good news: Since I’ve started, metrics on the content have shot through the roof. I’m a strong believer in quality content. I was the co-founder of a website called UrbanDaddy; since we started it years ago, the brand has grown to national recognition and business success—we had a buyout offer from a major media brand but have decided to stay independent for now. I handled all the editorial from the ground up, from voice and branding to journalistic standards and editorial process. Because I ran content in a startup environment, I was heavily exposed to business demands—and those needs were a large part of my content strategy. So I get content, and I get business and growth.

But in spite of my organizational strengths and business instinct, creating great content is ultimately what I do best. It’s what I love to do. I want to be left alone to create a great story. That’s the best part of my job.

So that’s what I decided to focus on when I started this new position. And guess what? The metrics followed. Before I arrived, their average email was getting from 4-10 Facebook shares. A couple of comments was typical per post. Since I started, I’ve run several stories that have gotten over 200 Facebook shares—one that reached 2,500 Facebook shares—and commenting has gone up on every post—one story garnered over 250 comments. Traffic back to the site from the email has gone up by sometimes as much as a third, depending on the story. This is just in the first 3 weeks.

It’s really exhilarating to know that good content yields tangible fruit, and so quickly. It confirms my faith in the intelligence of people, that they know when they’re reading something good. It sounds basic, but as a writer and editor, it’s pretty incredible to see such reaction unfolding before your eyes, and knowing you made it happen.

The bad news: I am exhausted.

I come home several times a week, collapse and fall dead asleep wherever I happen to be—couch, bed. My body is shutting down, I’m not taking good care of myself in terms of eating well and staying hydrated. At work I’m nonstop all day, and often feel like a clenched ball of stress. I’m not as on top of stuff for Monchichi as I’d like to be. This can’t be good for me. I don’t feel good.

~

After Monchichi’s recent evaluation, I told the CEO about my situation, and proposed working part time. She said she wants me full time, but agreed to more flexibility. The funny thing is that I haven’t felt the flexibility because there is so much to do I AM SUPER BUSY AND COMPLETELY STRESSED OUT ALL THE TIME.

I have to figure out a way, and sooner than later, because I just can’t keep going on like this.

PRESCHOOL

Monchichi started preschool this week. What change!

I spent much of his first day with him. He was so excited, crawling around to meet all his new classmates. One of his new buddies, a little girl named A, likes him so much that she pushed him over and lay on top of him. Her teacher said to her, “A! Play a little hard to get!” Hysterical. Munchkin love.

A little tiny yellow bus picks him up every morning and drops him off every afternoon. The funniest thing about it is that Monchichi doesn’t walk yet, so he gets handed to me off the bus. In his olive green winter puffy coat, it’s like a little round marshmallow pouf being handed off to me. It’s ridiculously sweet and funny.

I miss him so much when he’s in school, and I thought I would feel more relieved that he’s in good hands during the day, but I haven’t gotten there yet…I just feel stressed out wondering if they’re taking good enough care of him. Haunted by the idea that no one loves him the way I do.

~

I have to learn to let go and de-stress. I have to figure out how to manage work, and find some balance. Someone help me!

One of the happiest places on earth, and home to:
- a beautiful yoga studio overlooking the ocean
- spa treatments that put you in a permanent state of happy delusion
- the best two nights of sleep I’ve had in years
- artichoke fries that are unreal
- sun that warms you up from bones on out

Life never seems to get any easier. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, because I am thankful for so many things. And in some ways, I look at where I am right now compared to where I was two years ago (in the midst of my separation, my world falling apart) and I can’t believe how far I’ve come and how I’ve been able to find happiness again.

But it doesn’t mean life gets easier.

I just started a new job this past week. I was hesitant, because it’s a startup, so it’s an all-consuming environment. I have come to realize about myself that if I like what I am doing, I am very committed, passionate, and potentially even a workaholic. So I was worried about work/life balance, particularly because the weeks leading up to my starting were already very consumed with work (I was working part time for them).

The week was great, though. I am liking my new job far better than I thought I would. The people are wonderful, the energy in the office is invigorating, I believe in the vision of the company, and my ideas and talents are being appreciated and utilized. There is something to feeling fulfilled in what you do, excited about how you pass your day, that is deeply satisfying to the soul. It maybe begins to skim the surface of what Aristotle called the pursuit of eudaimonia, the Greek word for happiness or well-being, but a deeper version of what these words mean in English—virtue, fulfillment, the life well lived. And speaking of life well lived, I managed to leave the office at 7 every night to get home to Chinese takeout and Mad Men reruns. I think Aristotle would think that’s pretty damn good.

Then Monchichi and I had a doctor’s appointment this past Friday with Dr. Marilyn Agin, a well known neurodevelopmental pediatrician and speech pathologist in Manhattan.

Let me back up a little before I tell you about this appointment. Dr. Agin, from my research, appeared to be the best of the best when it comes to speech delay. She has authored books, is considered the queen of speech apraxia (motor planning), and used to be head of New York’s Early Intervention program, which is the free government program that Monchichi has benefited from—it provides therapies to children under 3 who are developmentally delayed. This is not to mention that she is a pediatrician and a speech pathologist. She must have spent most of her life in school.

We waited over 3-4 months for this appointment. I suspected it was going to help me unlock the key to Monchichi’s speech delay (at almost 3, he’s still not making any consonant sounds, much less words or approximations), and help me prioritize his therapeutic strategy.

It did. Dr. Agin is brilliant, perceptive, and caring. She is far and away the best doctor I have taken Monchichi to for an evaluation—she is thorough and her base of knowledge is deep. From her, I got a picture that was really sobering and hard to take. Monchichi has major developmental issues, and now it’s not just considered “delay,” (because it’s doubtful he’ll ‘catch up’), it’s a disorder or disability. He has serious dyspraxia, which is motor planning, a mysterious disability that involves the brain and its ability to speak to the muscles to tell them what to do. He also has some other challenges that make it hard for him to develop fine motor control and speech, like hypotonia and sensory integration.

Dr. Agin told me that speech for Monchichi is going to be a five-year road. She also left me with a host of new things to do—I have to take Monchichi to see an orthopedist, I have to get him fitted for orthotics for his feet, I have to start him on supplements which she’s found helps dyspraxia, get his blood taken and tested for allergies or deficiencies. When he starts preschool we are still going to advocate for the state to give him therapies (speech, PT, OT and an ABA therapist) outside of school.

I left and went home and sobbed.

There’s a unique relationship between special needs parenting and denial.

My theory is that you can’t get through special needs parenting without healthy and normal doses of denial at certain stages, which God then gently pares away when it’s time to move forward.

When I first found out that Monchichi had a chromosomal abnormality, I told myself that we would aggressively do the therapies through Early Intervention and he would get caught up by kindergarten. As he got older, it was apparent that he would be special ed for preschool. I learned to accept that, and got excited about his special ed preschool program. Then I thought that going to preschool was going to ‘fix’ him, he was going to thrive, and maybe as he got older he would be able to be in a typical classroom for elementary school (“typical” is special needs speak for “normal,” which is not so PC). I also thought that starting preschool was going to take a huge burden off of me, and the great team of therapists and educators there were going to ‘fix’ him.

I keep waiting for the moment when it will “all go away.”

Dr. Agin’s meeting was emotionally devastating for me because it imparted upon me that it’s not going to go away. This is my reality, and it will be as far as I can see. She said that Monchichi will walk (soon) and talk (later), but it’s hard to tell what kind of life he will lead as an adult, how independent he will be. It was so painful to hear, but it’s not something I haven’t thought about. And it makes me realize that how much I invest in him now, and in the coming years (especially given how rapidly kids develop in the early years, until 5), can make a difference in that future. I still have so much hope.

And as I sat in her office listening to her, I had that aching feeling in my heart that is familiar. It’s the feeling that convicts me to change whatever in my life I am able to, once again, so that I can be there for my son.

I don’t know what I’m going to do, as I just started this job. But I know I can’t be in a full-time job given all of Monchichi’s challenges. The doctor told me she does not know how I am doing it. That Monchichi has severe needs that even a two-parent family would have a tough time handling. Friends say that to me, too, and it kind of freaks me out. Should I be having a nervous breakdown instead of walking around smiling?

Anyway, I hope I can work something out with my new job. But if not, then I move on and figure it out. The saving grace of having Monchichi in my life is that it has gifted me with perspective, which brings me some sense of conviction and peace. Which can be hard to come by. Which I had a lot less of before all of this.

But sometimes I say, screw perspective. I just want things to get easier.

I haven’t had a chance to write in a while. So much has happened. I’m a big believer in terse writing on the web, so here’s a quick and dirty list of things that have happened since my last post:

• JOB: I got a new job! Totally unexpected. I’ll be Editor in Chief of a new startup, a personal finance site for women. I’m excited. Just call me EIC (blow tip of smoking pen before I put it back in my holster).
• WIFEY: I found a new wifey — G — she has an MA in therapeutic recreation and is really good with Monchichi. I miss C a ton. It’s hard adjusting to someone new, but I am hopeful about G.
• CRIME: My cleaning lady stole $2000 of cash from me. I deduced this after some CSI-like analysis, went with my gut, told her I knew she did it and gave her an ultimatum. I called the police. She brought the money back a few hours later that night. Life is crazy. I really liked her, and trusted her in my home and around my son. It made me feel a little worse about humanity. But a little better about my future as a detective or special agent.
• PRESCHOOL: Monchichi got a spot in a really awesome special ed preschool, YAI. The school and staff are fabulous, everyone there is nuts about him, and I think he will have the time of his life terrorizing little girls with his addictive grin. He’ll start in February, right around when I start my new job.
• CASHMERE: Me love cashmere (channel Cookie Monster). When winter is cold and life is hard, it actually makes me feel better.
• HOLIDAYS: I spent Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve alone at home with the Monch. This pre-romanticized cozy vignette did not turn out as cute as I had imagined (me and Monchichi home in matching Santa hats, sucking on candy canes). Instead we were both cranky, disheveled, and half-heartedly played the same games we played a few days earlier. I was lonely and tired. We had some sweet alone time, but I’m not sure I’d want it the same way again.
• LOVE LIFE: Revise from earlier cheery post: dating sucks and I’ll be alone forever.

So…

To sum, I’m glad the holidays are over.

I’ve always believed that expectations are a large determinant of resultant happiness. If I’m expecting a stinky pile of poo, a rock seems pretty great. If I’m expecting a cupcake, a cockroach pretty much looks like the devil. Well, then again, cockroaches always look like the devil. In fact, I think the devil himself must look and behave quite like a cockroach. But you get what I mean.

The thing with the holidays is that there’s so much expectation around what you have planned. All human conversation from mid-November to the end of the year is pretty much reduced to one question (and its variations): “What are you doing for the holidays/Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year’s?” or even worse, the pressure-filled “Are you doing anything fun for the holidays/Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year’s?” And let’s not forget, upon passing of the holiday, “So, what did you do for the holidays/Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year’s” or “Did you do anything fun for the holidays/Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year’s?” Wow, this paragraph was just about as fun to write as it probably was to get through.

I don’t resent these questions, because they are quite realistically what people are occupied with during this period of time, and it can elicit some interesting conversation. “Wow, you’re headed to Rwanda to work with the orphans? That’s really amazing. I’ll be at Zadig and Voltaire buying another cashmere sweater” or “Your in-laws were horrible and didn’t touch your pie? That’s terrible. Send it to me. I had leftover Chinese on Christmas Eve.”

What I do have difficulty with is the pressure to do something festive and fun over the holidays. What happens if I don’t have the means, or the energy, or don’t want to, or just can’t make it happen? A normal, uneventful day might feel like a very nice, solid, good slap-on-the-back ole ordinary day if it were any day of the year, but if it happens to fall on the third Thursday of November, December 25, or December 31, then suddenly it is a depressing, moribund reminder that your life is uninteresting, you have no friends, and you will die alone (in my case, I will leave Monchichi behind, and who will take care of him?).

I am not actually this negative in real life (am I?), but in all seriousness, the holidays this year were a reminder to me that (1) I am still estranged from my father—he has not spoken to me in almost three years, ever since my wedding. I thought about going to CA to visit my family, but did not have the emotional bandwidth to deal with our impasse; (2) As I get older, all my friends are off doing their own thing now, with their own families; and (3) I don’t have a serious relationship in my life right now. And it’s not looking great for next year, either.

But the weight of those reminders lifts immediately after the holidays are over, doesn’t it? It doesn’t go away completely, but it no longer takes up your emotional focus. This is why I’ve always loved the celebration of the New Year—it’s filled with so much hope and resolve for making what is to come better than what was.

When I ended my relationship this past summer, I actually looked ahead and had in mind to go through this holiday season alone with Monchichi, just me and him. It felt like something I wanted to do for myself. And though it was a little tough, I’m glad I did it.

But I came to realize that it’s just the two of us all year ’round, and we have incandescent moments all the time. We have them on a random Friday afternoon when I make him crack up by bonking his stuffed monkey’s head. We have them on the train when we wave at strangers together, or in the doctor’s waiting room when he falls asleep on my shoulder. We have our traditions, too—morning banana milkshakes, belly button tickle time, made-up songs. We have our holiday moments all year.

So when it comes to the actual holidays, there’s no need for me to enforce the seclusion of our precious world if I’d prefer company: family, friends.

And I think I do. Monchichi’d probably like it better, too.

This year, we had a quiet, tired and sweet holiday. And I said to myself: I’d like for us not to be alone next year for the holidays. That would be nice.

But about that new year…it’s going to be good.

This Thursday is Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. I love that it’s just about family, food, and being thankful. It’s a mellow and cozy holiday.

This year, I will be spending Thanksgiving alone with Monchichi. It’s my first Thanksgiving “alone” in a long time. I always spent it with family growing up. When I was married, we spent it with my ex’s family. The year we separated, my dear friend Rana came to spend Thanksgiving with me. Last year, Monchichi and I spent Thanksgiving with my then-boyfriend and my brother visiting from CA.

This year, though, it’ll be just us two. It’s part of my alone period. Being on my own (sans man) for the first time in over a decade.

Being alone is easy and it’s hard. It’s easy because I don’t have anyone to be accountable to (other than my little Monch, and since he doesn’t really care whether I shower or speak in complete sentences, my adult functions get a pass). I can do what I want, when I want, for the most part. But it can be hard being alone, too. Sometimes it would be nice to have someone to share things with, someone to lean on in that unconditional and steadfast way that only a significant other can provide.

At this very point in my life, the pleasures and solace of being alone are not outweighed by the desire to have the company (and responsibility) of a man. I regard men with a hairy eyeball. I still question whether being with one can actually make my life better or easier or happier. I still doubt in the ability of two people to make it work, long term, without it ending in infidelity, bitter hatred, or a slow decline into indifference and pasty cheek-pecks.

I hope one day to feel hope again in relationships, but for now I will gladly hunker down in my wintry burrow of books, hot tea, cashmere and holidays—Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s—with the only man I need right now.

I’m not sure what we’ll do for Thanksgiving. The last thing I want to do is cook, so maybe I’ll order in some turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy. My PT nanny, A, already did handprint turkeys with Monchichi on Sunday. It was really cute except that Monchichi has a hyper sense of smell, so after a bit of exposure to the finger paints, he spontaneously threw up over everything, BLEUUUGHHH. He is such a cute weird sensitive little one.

In the spirit of giving thanks, these are the things I’m thankful for right now, in no particular order:

- how Monchichi wobbles to me to give me an open-mouth kiss
- a perfect crispy apple
- my nannies—I had a blast singing and dancing with you guys to Beyonce this weekend, with Monch bopping along. You guys are the best.
- Zico coconut water (so refreshing! yum, I’m drinking one right now)
- how I get two weekdays at home with Monchichi
- how work is peaceful and supportive (thank you, P)
- old, old friends
- newer friends
- www.mymomisafob.com (thank you for existing—the source of many LOLs)
- Jacob’s therapists, doctors, supporters, buddies
- fall fashion (was it me, or ’twas good this year?)
- my sweet and cozy apartment, and how in the mornings I can hear kids singing Christmas songs across the street at Our Lady of Pompei
- my new relationship with my mom
- my cool relationship with my bro
- cashmere (if they made underwear…wait, I think they do)
- that maybe I’m a little worse for wear but not looking completely deranged
- my very soft bed and sheets
- Monchichi’s morning breath
- that God hasn’t let me go
- quiet nights in with no one to see, nothing to do, Monchichi asleep in the other room

HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

I enjoy hyperbole. Life isn’t as exciting without a peppering of melodramatic statements and emotional outbursts.

So I was overjoyed when my friend pointed me to a hilarious cartoon blog called Hyperbole and a Half. This post will do nothing other than point you to this clever site. It may be the best thing I will do for you this year.

My favorite post is this one: Sneaky Hate Spiral. Thank you for making me feel less alone in this world of insanity. The most relatable one for me is the brown thing falling on the guy’s head. Nothing makes me want to rend my own clothes like stuff falling out of cabinets. Which happens to me at least twice a day. I live in Manhattan, after all. We have no space.

I just watched Nursery University on Netflix streaming.

As some of you may know, this documentary covers the 3-ring circus that has become the preschool admissions process in Manhattan. There are admissions committees, applications, lotteries, interviews, not to mention workshops and private consultants ($4K a pop for 7 sessions, as one silver-haired lady charges) on how to get your kid into a good preschool.

All so for $20K a year, your 2-year-old can sling silly putty at the best of them.

It was not unlike a horror film. Gory, very stressful, yet I couldn’t look away. As always, it’s the parents who induce a bit of vomit in the mouth, not the kids (all of whom remained—for now—untarnishedly cute). My favorite two scenes: the creepy UES couple lining up their daughter’s acceptance letters next to each other on the dining room table (7 in total) and showing them to her (btw, did you notice how there was nothing on the walls in their apartment??); and smuggy blonde Columbia MBA getting rejected by her top two schools of choice for her son (“I’m just not used to not getting what I want!”). Welcome to life, sister.

I admit I was rooting for the little nappy haired dude to get into the posh privee school and have opportunities his parents didn’t have; and I liked the chill West Village couple, even if I’m iffy on the co-op parent teaching model…though I do have a good Elmo voice.

I get that the parents are just trying to do the best for their child. I mean, it’s not like these people are out there shooting baby pandas. They love their kids. I think the reason we still hate them a little, though, is that they seem to have lost perspective—you get the feeling that it’s become more about them than their kid. It’s more about their own comfort level and status, their own feeling of achievement, their own ability to say where their kid is. You look at these little kids’ faces and you know they would be happy eating paste anywhere.

I watched Nursery University in preparation for my first “school visit” for Monchichi, which is this Friday at YAI, a special ed preschool. Aside from increasing my stress level as an overachiever (Asian+watching movie with academic theme and competitive tone=high blood pressure) and making me feel like there is no way Monchichi will be able to compete with these little high-functioning, alphabet-reciting, admittance-letter clutching sharks and sharkettes in the world, the show did give me a vague idea of what to expect in a school visit. Some pointers were recited by the school directors in the movie:

1. Don’t be late – CHECK. I have always been the perpetual late person. Time has always been…relative. I’ve been late to job interviews. But having a kid, a full time job, a schedule, and a million moving parts a day has forced me to become…(I never thought I’d say this) punctual. I am a recovering tardiholic, been on the wagon for 3 years now.

2. Don’t be on your cell phone – CHECK. I am usually the opposite. I forget to have my cell phone out when I should, in case the sitter needs to reach me; it’s on permanent vibrate and I often don’t hear it ring; I let the battery die in the middle of the day. But the next one might be a problem…

3. Don’t take copious notes – WHAT? Why not??! I mean, who made that rule up? (I rewound, just to make sure I heard right). I felt like that was very personal, and directed at me, like in a horror movie (OK, a real one) where the person on TV slowly turns and looks at the camera, and talks to the person watching: “You, M, do not take copious notes.” First, I must ask, school director, does this offend you somehow? Does my pen feverishly scratching on the paper distract you from what you are saying? Is it rude to hold your expertise in such high regard that I feel the need to transcribe it verbatim for later review? Does my lack of eye contact for 20 minutes as I am hunched over my Moleskine like a wizened troll bother you? I think a copious note-taker indicates an engaged and highly involved parent, one who sees the value in good record-keeping, and…ok, I’ll try to put the pen down.

3. Be yourself. Ah, that eternal piece of advice, equal parts omnipotently true and (hence) utterly useless.

I think I’ll just have to wing it on Monchichi’s irresistible smile.