A Better Twilight

When I was a quarter of a century young, I played on with rose-colored lenses. Now, a penny plus, I find that I'm no fool, but a beggar. I laugh no more for no laughter was heard, I shed no tears for no tears were shed for me. There was no celebration from those who remembered, forgotten, only from those who were told. For once, I let it slip, and it did.

It was I who wanted the slip. A quiet passing of change, a nod from the knowing, in the twilight of florescence, alone.

I was born and named after the rising morning, still unseen by the glorious sun. Tonight, I fade, heavily, in yearning of my named glow.

Homeward Vagabond

To wander away from my daily route. To view the familiar with a close gaze, again, as if it was a strange love. Inconsequential your presumption, afar, not to determine a present future course. How eager one would wake. Clean, empty, virginal.

I leave for the ruins of the Incans. Hidden from the steps of the Spaniards nearly seven-thousand high—blind to it, as I my city; lost, without translation, amongst its eternal wanderers. “To find myself,” I say, “I must leave in order to return, not to escape, but to re-awaken.” Wanderlust I am not, yet I seek to wander off. Into a state of exotic fantasy I hope I can only avoid. I seek not, dear Incans, to be bedazzled by your third-world ruins, to realize my downward glance can, too, widen. I fear to be yet another disillusioned youth, arrogantly marching for the glory of blind transcendence.

I wish only of your accompaniment, your open air for my gasping through. I beg of you, allow me into your open shelter. Permit my tender feet to touch with eager vision, to not steal a tender glance from your weary land. Let me be thy admirer, yet let not me be a doter, a lover of poster grandeur. Only beckon me to come forth, when you see that I have given up my presuming and given in, open.

Let go, my knotted urban psyche, and permit my presence to leap forward as if a childhood fancy—believing in all deities, spirits, and fantastical creatures, I fly away, so I may one day return, with you, within.

Learn Chinese por Tetras

“Excuse me, do you mind me asking what your ethnicity is?” A clean cut twenty something gentleman approaches me on the platform. “Yeah, I do mind, you sorry excuse of an ignorant mofo, you self-absorbed ethno-centric bitch tit.” I utter tersely, but the tremor of the words bypasses my vocal cords and instead heads directly towards the back part of my brain where images of his carnal destruction burned like a cross on fire. His friend, sensing a whiff of the sizzling cerebral, tries to make himself invisible behind the subway column. Good thing, too, since I am sure I am not making a point to hide my Ong-Bak stare. Knee to the face. Repeat. Irreversible.

Nevertheless, the gentleman continues, “Because I’d like you to ask you a question. Well, how should I ask this question. Okay, I’ll just put it to you plain, so I have a question about a Chinese girl I was seeing. Are you Chinese?”

What, do my slant eyed black hair look Chinese to you? Because based on alllooksame.com, my specific East Asian appearance, statistically, is most often concluded as being Korean by other AzNs, but you probably don’t know what that means. It’s just us Asians drawing on stereotypes about other Asians, but that’s probably what you’re looking for. So please, do continue, if I don’t grab your dime-sized balls and rip them out first.

“So what’s your question?” And you might want to hurry it up, as my teeth are losing their enamel.

“So I was wondering if you could explain something. Oh, are you from Taiwai, or Mainland China?”

“Mainland.”

“Oh, nevermind, that girl was from Taiwai, you couldn’t possibly understand. Thanks, anyhow.”

If he had said that, at least it would have been over, with him lying on the floor crying, “A curse on both your Chinese houses!”

Instead, his condescending ignorance keeps flapping its vocal opening, “So yeah, I was dating this girl, she’s Chinese, but once I kissed her, she got all weird on me. I don’t know, I really thought everything was going well. So…I was wondering if that reaction was, like, a cultural thing, or something personal.”

Just a minute, let me pull out my “How to Date a Stereotypical Chinese Female Handbook.” You know, you really ought to get one of these. EVERY Chinese guy has one, well, at least the straight ones, though, yeah, I know, we all look gay, but I digress. Ah, here, under “No ‘Rents, No Booty,” it says, “due to the lack of direct physical affection amongst most Chinese households, most Chinese females tend to be anxious and nervous when it comes to physical intimacy. So in order to win her heart, you must circumvent a direct approach, i.e. any attempt of kissing, groping, or so much as eye contact, and instead tend to her feelings via her parents. With the matron of the family, you should compliment her cooking, regardless your distaste for such exotic dishes as boiled pork stomachs. Further, do not, under any circumstance, make the mistake of adding soy sauce to a dish she consciously refers to as being “too bland.” With the father however, you must appear meek and humble, almost spineless. Yet whenever he has his back turned to you, you should administer Bruce Lee’s infamous Three-Inch Punch and take him down (for instructions on this other martial art forms that ALL East Asian people are born with, see Chapter 5: Don’t Kill Bill, Be Bill). This shall provide you an opportunity to save his life, since if the punch is administered correctly, it would only appear that he suddenly collapsed from over-eating. Once he owes his life to you, he will naturally give up his daughter to you as a reward. Then you can you’re free to have your way with her submissive guilt and her desire to please a hero amongst her clan. But if she still doesn’t respond to your advances, THEN IT’S BECAUSE SHE HATES YOUR LILY WHITE UGLY SELF.”

“Wow, that was so insightful, I’m so glad I decided to tuck my balls behind my legs and asked you. Thank you, for not only your ferocious eye contact, for not administering “Monkey Steals Jewels” on me, and for remaining calm while you making gross generalization about your own people and condescending judgments about my history-less ethnic background.”

I maintain my visual, like a vulture to a corpse, “I don’t know how to answer that.”

“Yeah. Oh well.”

I turn around, took off my jacket, and slowly dip into my wide horse stance.

“Thanks…anyhow.”

Boot to the head, por detras.

Nobody Wants a Divorced Stay-Home Dad

I have powerful female friends in soon-to-be powerful social positions. They are Alpha in work, in play, and probably in bed. They will want a job with long hours, a late marriage, and a perfectly planned family complete with 2.2 children, 3 years apart. They will desire lavish material acquisition, or cultural enlightenment, or worldly journeys without and within. They wish their children to be home-schooled in Chinese, English, and Sanskrit. Their boys are to go to ballet class, the girls, football camp. During the summer, they will visit New Delhi with the young. The children will practice Vinyasa and Kathakali while the the women cure the West Nile and plan parenthoods.

How shall all this be possible? The Omega Stay Home Dad. He is strong enough to move furniture, yet gentle enough to rock a baby to sleep. He can fix the toilet, whack the weed while the laundry dries and the ziti cools. He knows when to yell at your daughter for watching too much TV, but he can cry with her when Bambi's mother dies. While the mom is wearing her pant suit, seducing her way into a multi-billion dollar settlement, the dad is wearing his overalls, fighting with the realtor for a lower down payment.

Charming idea, isn't it? Especially with women becoming increasing more socially and political powerful, men, undoubtedly, will be looked to, with a flirtatiously demanding eye, to leave their 9-5 to play with Barbies. Frankly, I'd be the perfect candidate. Having taken a year of gender studies, worked with an all-women's theatre company, and picked out more shirts for women than my own wardrobe, I would like to think that I would be man enough to stay at home, raise my genius children, re-decorate the house, and flirt with the gardener with her hot yellow gloves. If I were, I would not be alone. I'd be one of more than 2.5 million SAHDs, and hell, most of them are from my home state. Ang Lee even cooked and cleaned for seven years before he got around to make it big in cinema with a movie about a father who cooks for his three daughters.

So why shouldn't I? But somehow, the idea isn't very sexy. For me, the scary part is not so much the notion of capability or enjoyment, but more of its near inevitability. Frankly, it makes sense. Given my nurturing personality, my value in family, and my who-know-what-may-come-of-it career, being SAHD just seems to fit, right between SADD and SNAFO. But how many Alpha F are actually seeking Omega M? The Power Couple phenomenon are apparent amongst my friends; Ph.Ds and Esqs and MBAs and MDs are all hooking up. And of my single Alpha friends, many seem to desire an even more Alpha male, in order to make them feel "more like a lady." But God forbid, no ring without a pre-nup. But who will raise the children? Who will have the time and energy to read to their kids after a 12-hour day at the Firm or a beltway accident day from the ER? Though it is unfair to ask the matriarch to give up the career to tend to the young, but is the world ready for the middle manager to give up his Herman Miller chair for the bean bag? Sure, you can be a Manhattanite and pay for nannies and maids for them to take over your private institution, but then you get Paris Hilton, featured in night vision.

And then there's the other fifty percent. If the pre-nup is fair, the dad would gain custody, the mom would deal with the child support and weekends, and he would get her half of the family tree. Otherwise, he's screwed. Who would want a divorced stay-home dad? No energy to hit the gym, no time to watch the game, no skills to get a job, and no glory to date young. And worst of all, he's out of breast milk.

But maybe I'm not giving the women enough credit. Maybe they find sensitivity sexy, a child touching, and an eye for curtains endearing. She rather opens the door for you, while dressed in Chanel. She'll drive fast, but admits when she's lost. Your children fear her when they wrong, but run to her when they need someone to hold them. And when she buys you a new suit, you two will paint the town, and she'll let you lead on the dance floor.

Is there an acronym support group for that demographic? Call me, so I can be their St. Valentine.

Dean for DNC!

"He has used the power of technology, the force of his personality and the depth of his ideals to bring new people into the party."

Well said Pelosi!

"Settle"

Such is the mantra of my paralegal associates these days. "Settle! So we don't have to go to Detriot." "Settle! So we can move on with our lives." "Settle! So I can sleep." Whether it is a desperate cry at a time of paralegal crisis or a moment of blind optimism, it has become our Seinfield phrase. The actual result of its potential enactment would be purely financial, X would pay Y more money than a small nation's net worth. The ramification would be even less pronounce, it would mean the return of financial status quo: Big business practices would continue to monopolize, and innovations would continue to be usurped. It would simply be a ripple on the Street, unfelt with the bumpy ride.

Yet within the dynasty that is my team, the ripple would signal the end of an era. Battles would end, wounds would heal, and tears would vaporize in the ripples of laughter, drowned out by the flowing of champagne and whiskey. The haze that is the political power struggles, the administrative alliances, the inferority complex of irrecognition, the high school passive agressive manipulative backstabbing coupled with stress-related sexual partnerships and the I-am-not-a-shopaholic-but-it-makes-me-feel-better-about-working-my-soul-away would all, quite simply, settle. Yet like the sandstorms amongst the Sahara, its calm, temporary; its lingering, eternal.

But the settlement is distant. For now, outside the calm eye of its center, the winds bellow with ferocity and desperation, and we are blinded by the sands of restless time and are blooded by the cuts that those it blinds make. To deepen the imperfections time digs, and our flaws fly, and suffer, do us all.

Alas, to ground the gust, I long. Calm within calamity we both share, yet dare I rest within our tender eye? "I v. The Storm," I plea. And so begins the chant within, "Settle. Settle. Settle."

Feel like a Million and Half

To match my other calf.