Final* Feelings re 'The Sympathizer' (the HBO miniseries, based off the book THE SYMPATHIZER by Viet Thanh Nguyen [2015]) or On Being [Unwittingly] Shaped By Whiteness/Who are you if not your identity? or Overcoming Whiteness | An All-American Aspiration

The Captain

as metaphor

for a nation torn

(by whiteness)

"I think

therefore

I am"**

The Mind-Path

of the

Independent Thinker

the Danger

The Transracial

bereft

of identity

The Mother(land)

penetrated

by force

The Mind

once freed

cannot travel backwards

Man

the Morpheus

to the Captain's Neo

How can you not see?

What is right in front of thee?

It's not fair to say in front

when the location is within

The Insides

cannot be seen

only felt

The Mind

The How

The Now

Nothing

not Nothing-ness

for to know

Nothing

is to know

Everything

The Hubris

within the Minds

of dictators

&presidents

Democracy

or

Democratize?

Normalcy

or

Normalize?

The Remembrance

to forever remember

that Nothing

matters

*until i read the book, of course.

**descartes

Token Trifecta

Not to brag but, generally speaking, I find a lot of orphaned cash on the ground/floor. I'm not above taking that which has obviously been lost and no owner logically found, etc. Especially if that cash amount is relatively small, a few bucks here, a twenty there. I've stumbled upon so much lost cash, in fact, that I've lost track of how much cash I've found. This year, alone, I've already found $32.00 USD, which brings me to the beginning of this Trifecta of Tokens; the bodybuddy/lifemate found a ₩500 KRW whilst doing laundry a few weeks ago. 

Okay, for starters, the Korean 오백원 is my favorite piece of usable currency. This is no secret to anyone who knows me, which means that nobody really knows this factoid (the bodybuddy/lifemate excepted). My love for the 오백원 stems from its utility (between the years 2013 - 2018, when we lived there full-time). There are a lot of things that one 오백원 can buy, and there are even more things that a modest handful of 오백원 can buy you. And then, I learned that Koreans interpret people who pay in cash as "rich." We only paid in cash, but I never found out how Koreans feel about people who pay with change, lol. I felt like I was interpreted as poor, but one cannot have change unless one pays in cash, unless, obviously, one is homeless (i.e. "unhoused") and the change is pity money. This was why I would oftentimes find myself with a bowl of 오백원, and so, we started to include the cash value of all of the 오백원 we collected as disposable, which meant that I could spend them on whatever, whenever. And for many years, I lived, happily, exclusively by treat-spending the 오백원 we received as change as cash-only consumers. It was awesome. I didn't feel poor, so I never gave the image of paying with change any more thought.

And so, to this day, the Korean 오백원 represents something so pragmatic: that one coin could be the "right" value so as to make the purchasing of things at that price point a very simple transaction, AND that there are things (namely snack foods) that can be purchased at this 오백원 price. My love for it is undying. I love the 오백원.

And then, the bodybuddy/lifemate just happens to find one 오백원 on the dryer in the communal laundry room of our condo complex. 

imagine our luck
while (technically) living in the USA
we find a Korean 오백원
my favorite piece of global currency

While on our walk home from our jobplace, as we were crossing one of the many streets that must be crossed in order for us to reach our desired destination, I found a thing on the ground. I knew it wasn't money, but I didn't know if it was some small plaque-like thing purposely set into the sidewalk (the intersection in question has been newly redone). At first, I walked by as I took notice, but then I stopped, turned and picked it up. 

a literal token for something somewhere

Back in August of last year, I bought myself a black jade bangle as a reminder to "turtle" at my new job. As a high-achiever, jobs tend to burn me out because I want to do everything I do, well. This new job that I've been doing for nearly a year now, has taught me a lot of things, and one of those things is that some jobs are never "done."

The bangle broke within the first month of this year. Honestly, I wasn't even upset about it. I had felt that I had outgrown it, and so, I was looking for the next thing.

But then, this is when my patience was tested. There's a "local" Tibetan shop around here that I'd been wanting to visit to either purchase something new or get ideas about a new something-or-other to remind me of the existential things of which I need constant reminding lest I fall into a spiral of despair about the general ethos of failure I feel about my life and its "successes" and lack thereof, etc. 

By the end of January, right when the bangle broke, the "local" shop of Tibetan goods undertook a move. The projected date for reopening was early March, I think, and then it was pushed back to early April. During this time I considered my old amethyst bead-bracelet, but the sizing knot is frayed, and I really don't want that bracelet to snap and send those beads flying everywhere, etc. 

By the time the Tibetan shop finally reopened, I had lost all inspiration and motivation. I gave up. I asked the universe to speak to me. I let it go. 

And then, while on our run tonight, there it was, this amethyst bead-ring, just sitting there, on the sidewalk, right in my running path. I stopped and picked it up. 

I understand that someone lost this ring. And if you are a person who lost a ring like this, recently or not so long ago, please let me know the general vicinity of where you might have lost your ring that looks just like this one. If it was lost near where I found it, I will gladly send it to you. I whole-heartedly see the thing as a thing being borrowed.

Thus, in the meantime, I will wear it, as a long or short-term gift from a stranger. Thanks, Stranger. 

  

FOUND!
an amethyst bead-ring
until claimed, it will be borrowed

What is a List but a prophecy of one's future?

선 (Sun)

He looks at you. Your birth-grandfather does. He speaks at you. And in Korean, you have no idea what he's saying, but he's being very serious about it, and you can hear your Korean name being said over and over again. The translator, a young, wide-eyed, half-terrified college student, looks at you, "Your grandfather," birth grandfather, you correct in your mind, "says that he specifically named you with one name, because he wanted you to stand out, be different." A near-crime when considering the Korean cultural same-ness aspired to by the entire culture, as a whole, especially when considering the time period in which you were conceived, orphaned, and transracially adopted. 

"Your Korean name is Sun?" a Korean coworker at the English academy where you substitute teach and part-time teach at during Summer/Winter Intensives asks after finding out that you have a Korean name. "Hmmm," the coworker wonders aloud, "Like this," she writes 선 on a piece of paper. "Yes," you confirm despite never asking for a dissection of your Korean name. "Ah, so like the root Chinese is the word 'nice,' I think," she giggles, almost embarrassed, not confident, or maybe too confident and is lying to you. You can't tell. Koreans, you find, are hard to read, still. 

For obvious reasons, the name Sun, in English was never a viable option to you, since, as in English, 'Sun' is a tremendous idea. In English, Sun is grandiose. In Korean, as far as you know, Sun is nice. 

So which is it, you decide you must decide. Or maybe, there is no decision to be made at all. You've circled the Sun as Sun for nearly one full lap (excluding the nearly-four years you lived as 선 in Korean, in Korea). As you ponder this, you begin to realize the enormity of your decision. This name-change is not something that was done willy-nilly, even though, the implementation of the idea seemed spontaneous. 

You haven't legally changed your name, because there's nothing to change. Your full legal name is Tiffany Kim Sun Camas. You dropped your white first name (cause you hate it) and your Korean last name (cause you feel no loyalties), leaving your given birth name and the last name legacy of the family who saved and raised you. You could do the paperwork to make the names by which you've decided to be called the only names associated with you, but a lot of people know you as "Tiffany," and that's not a problem for you. A year into deciding to use the name that your birth grandfather gave to you and you feel the weight of the name.

And you're not sure you can live up to it.

You even feel guilty for using the name, even though it is your own.

And you feel insecure at the thought of what other people might think about you using it.

Your birth grandfather either saw &or hoped for greatest within you. A singular-syllable Korean first name. You are something special by his logic. He decided to make you special. He decided that of all of the things in this world, he wanted to make you stand out. Go noticed. Be different. This is the man from whom your physical body stems, your blood, your genes. Someone, upon your birth, hoped for greatest upon you, determined that he could make you special, through your name alone. 

It's a lot to live up to. To become a mononymous person. 

And then, you were great. Being beyond your adopted parents' expectations. You thrived. All of this adoption trauma didn't really seem to affect you at all. You were a winner. You were great. 

But that was Tiffany. She's not Sun. And Sun is not Tiffany. They are two very different people, even though, they are obviously the same singular person. 

Nevertheless, here they are, Tiffany and Sun, now, Sun with Tiffany fading further and further from Sun's personhood. Nobody is quite sure who Sun is, yet, but Sun's different. Sun is more Korean than Tiffany could ever hope to be. Sun has a heavier weight to bear than Tiffany ever bore. Sun is emotionally more vulnerable than "Stone-Cold" Tiffany. 

But they both just want to be free. Of everything, really. The bodybuddy/lifemate excepted.   

On Soup Lube

First Feelings re 'The Sympathizer' (the HBO miniseries, based off the book THE SYMPATHIZER by Viet Thanh Nguyen [2015])

Bon grapples with the Major, and in Park Chan-Wook style, the camera opens wide to a static shot that frames the entire stage of action. The Captain skirmishes around the car port wall as he and Bon beat a fighting Major. Headlights swipe over the scene, and just as the men are about to be revealed in the lights, an off-camera dumpster hides them in shadow. 

^..^

At first, based solely off of "RDJ Plays Multiple Roles In New HBO Miniseries 'The Sympathizer'"-type headlines, I thought it was so strange that RDJ playing multiple roles was newsworthy; and also, like, why wouldn't you just hire more actors? 

I thought nothing more of/about the show.

&then the bodybuddy/lifemate says to me one day, "You wanna try 'The Sympathizer'?," to which I quickly respond with an air of as if, "No," to which he responds, "It's that new Park Chan-Wook show," to which I respond, "What the fuck!," to which he responds, "What?," to which I respond, "Why wouldn't you lead with that? All I've heard about that show is how Robert Fucking Junior is playing 'multiple characters.'"

So, we started watching it, right then and there.

And after patiently watching episode one unfurl, I definitely understand that the production probably wanted to pay as few white actors as they could logically "get away with," etc. Genius. Also, RDJ sorta represents a certain type of white person, as a whole, and also, he fills in as the joke that all white people look the same to Asians, lol. 

^..^

I couldn't decide whether or not the Captain is gorgeous or hideous. I've decided that he's fucking gorgeous. *swoon*

^..^

The "Asian perspective" makes me feel so happy. I laugh so much in every episode. The humor is perfection, and I just love the scathing commentary being made on and about white people. It's so so good. *sighs* It's so so satisfying. I obviously wish I had read the book first, but I think it'll still be a great read, cause I can pore over the writing for myself. *drool* 

a Debut

twas the bodybuddy/lifemate's revelation
that i ought to have an image
associated with my writer's rate sheet
so that the interwebs can more easily
pick up this type of information
and make it more "findable," etc.
that made me realize that he is/was correct
*sigh*
months later
we finally sat down and did it
and now it's done

On Jealousy

Her toes, wet, a significant splash of salty sea spits itself over her shins, a High Tide. The splash presses her into the future; she sees herself. Aglow. Awash. She's everything she's ever wanted to be. She's there. 

But it's not her. It's some other person who resembles her greatly.

Heat. Flushed. She fills with jealous rage at what is not, at what she is not. The overlap. The person she is not but wants to be sees her, looks over and smiles, "Oh to be in the same place at-not the same time." The person she is not but wants to be sighs a beautiful sigh of contentment. 

Her face, wet, the significant splash of salty sea slinks itself off her scalp, present. The splash recedes, a Low Tide. As she scrambles slowly down the shore to reach the significant splash of salty sea, she slides a hand into the water as the splash splashes her. The past. She sees herself, again, aglow, awash. She is everything she wishes she still was.

But it's not her. It's some other person who resembles her greatly.

Cool. Calmed. She fills with jealous sentiment at what no longer is, at what she was. The undertow. The person she was but no longer is looks at her and smiles, "Oh, to have been, to have been." The person she was but no longer is sighs an ugly sigh of smugness. 

She washes ashore. 

The squirrel, as it simmers, it speaks, "Took you long enough," and then he hits his joint hard. 

She rolls over and motions for the squirrel to come closer. Annoyed, the squirrel sits back and smirks, "As if," as he takes another puff. She slithers over to the squirrel's stone and props herself up. The squirrel, annoyed, holds the joint out to her, and she pulls long and hard. "I need a Frankie," she states as she sighs the smoke from her lungs. "There aren't any more, and if there were, I sure as fuck wouldn't let you smoke the whole thing by yourself," the squirrel eyerolls. 

"Whatever," she spits with another big inhale and slow, smooth exhale. 

The squirrel speaks, "Apparently;" she interrupts, annoyed, "What?" "We're early," the squirrel explains as a few "Fucks," exit her mouth in rapid succession. "Fuck." 

They each take another pull.

"How do you know this?" she asks. "That goddamn dragonfly basically confirmed it without me even asking. That asshole," squirrel responds. "Well, whatever," she scoffs. "Whatever?" squirrel challenges. "Yea. What. Ev. Er," she smacks along with her fingers gesturing a "W" and an "E." "Wow," squirrel yawns, "we really are early; you're still a fucking teenager." "Fuck you," she blows the squirrel kisses. Squirrel catches the kisses, because he must, but he does not want to accept them. "You have to," she explains. "Whatever," squirrel mimics. 

On Unearned Power (of the white variety that black people have co-opted as their own *clap.clap.clap* [not a criticism, an adoration *iroll*]), Among Other Racist Shit, etc.

unearned power is exactly that

UNearned

&unearned power can never reign

because the wielder was not

forged in the ferocious fire of

EARNED POWER

&EARNED POWER develops over decades of proving one's self and one's reputation

that the reputation stands

that they are who they say they are

and that they do what they say they will do

&to think that we ought to bestow UNearned power upon someone

based off of the color of their skin

(cause that's how the whites have done it/do it)

and call it "diversity"

"equality"

&"inclusion"

is fucking capital-ARR Racist

of the whitest variety

eye'll give 'em something

tho

those whites and those blacks

they sure see the world in exactly that

*shivers*

^..^

Here's a dead giveaway that you're average (or below) ::

You imagine that High Achievers are "perfectionists," thus, you "walk on eggshells" around them because you think that they can't handle criticism (like the way that you can't handle criticism), and so, you believe that High Achievers are somehow so riddled with self-doubt that they are able to achieve so much...how?

An older [race redacted {cause eye've decided to no longer participate in the heavily Racist language utilized by black women on the internet who make and believe that everything, everything, boils down to race, when really, what everything, everything, actually boils down to is economic class, etc.}] woman used to say things like, "Oh, don't even try to tell her she's done anything wrong, or she will blow up at you," referring to me while we were sitting in our bosses' office discussing her terrible jobplace attitude and overall insubordination. And she's, quite frankly, the only person who has ever expressed this sort of view of my behavior, also, just fyi. The [race redacted] woman who came to retrain me, because the first [race redacted] woman who trained me left out a key piece of information that eye needed in order to do my job well even commented on the openness of my mind with regards to being retrained. 

Eye, obviously, thought that this assessment of needing to "walk on eggshells" around me was hilarious, because eyema High Achiever, and it was painfully obvious that the older [race redacted] woman was very shook by my arrival into her jobplace, etc. She viewed herself as doing the job well. I proved otherwise.

The races of the older [race redacted] woman and the [race redacted] woman who came to retrain me are, obviously, not the same. LOL!

The thing is, though, that the older [race redacted] woman revealed her own very-average intellect.

To think that a High Achiever is repulsed by criticism, critical feedback, people who are both capable and willing to point out flaws in their logic, is idiotic. You're a moron if this is how you think High Achievers achieve.

High Achievers are High Achievers because of the criticism and critical feedback and revelations in their flawed logic. 

The fact that low-achievers believe this way about High Achievers is, quite frankly, what makes you a low-achiever. As a low-achiever, criticism, or even the whiff of it, destroys you. You are wrecked by the idea that you are not perfect, that there are flaws that could be mended to make you a better person, etc., etc., &c.

BAHAHAHAHA!

Like, duh.

Ugh, it just must be like so fucking frustrating to be average. That's why you all stick together so tightly. I totally get it. Good news! You've got each other, y'all. Do it. Stick together like your life depends on it! (Cause it does, BAHAHAHAHA!)

^..^

 

Most people could not recognize a [race redacted] free-thinker if we punched them in the face

So, like, onward! 

Spend none of your precious [race redacted] time convincing anyone [race redacted] of anything

especially not the [race redacted] idiots!

^..^

And then it occurred to me, "Why do I value the opinion/approval of [race redacted] women? What [the fuck] have they ever done for my [race redacted] ass or for [race redacted] people? I don't fucking owe them shit. Goddamn." 

The clouds part, and I am free.

^..^

The two groups that represent

the Totality of Color

and its Total Void

have this in common

tote foesh

a Non-Asian mindset

On Lists &List-Making

"Whose list is this?" you wonder in whisper. &Where the fuck am I? your mind whispers. The list sits loose between your fingers; you read it again.

Maybe it's not me, you console yourself; It's a common name, you decide.

"But is it?" you ask aloud, &then you start pacing.

"It is, but it isn't," you work out, "Cause, like, is this my list or am I an item on this list?" You stop cause something's in your shoe. You wriggle the thing free.

"If it's my list, then someone slipped it in my pocket?" you ask nobody in particular as you are alone, in a cold, dark cave, lined in ice, lit by a small wood fire. But you don't remember ever acquiring this particular list, so, "If I'm a line item on this list, what the fuck?" you shout, incensed at the thought, your voice echoing, echoing, echoing in the hollow cave.

"And where the fuck even am I?" you realize. Maybe I'm dreaming? Goddamn. You reach your hand out to the fire, No, fire's hot. 

"But..." you realize, "I am not cold, and I feel like I should be cold?" And why don't I remember anything? "No, I do remember, except that I'm not sure I should say what I remember aloud or even think it in my mind," you admit as you look over your shoulder at me. "What?" I ask, innocent. "I can hear you," you insist. "Hear what?" I challenge. You roll your eyes, "You're doing it, right now!" "Doing what?!" "Narrating!" 

^..^

The sun shines bright on a beautiful spring day on the horizon of the older woman's living quarters upon The Orbital, and as the squirrel, araft upon a thing of its own design and making, rides the creek—meandering, deeply, for the entirety of this day in a shallow valley through a forest—the creek opens out into a swaying field, and off in the distance the squirrel sees the middlemost peak where the three peaks meet, and at the base of the middlemost peak, the squirrel can see the green green hillside of the Listmaker's Ranch. 

The squirrel will not make it all the way to the Ranch by nightfall, and so, it sets up camp on the edge of the creek where it butts up nicely against a swaying field.

^..^

the first drop fell

and then it poured

for an entire week it rained

and then it rained more

^..^

"One leaf died last week," the dragonfly informs, "And another will die in the next week or two, and so, I know that you are not from when I am from." The squirrel looks embarrassed, "I'ma squirrel. I'm obviously not from whenever this is that we are now." Confident, like all dragonflies, the dragonfly rolls its eyes, "Obviously." "So, should I pay you your $5 now for the analysis, or...?" squirrel goads. Above all of this nonsense, the dragonfly flies away.

^..^

The squirrel prepares itself a joint and simmers on a stone as the sun sets slowly behind the middlemost peak where the three peaks meet, and as the creek splashes softly by, the squirrel jots down a short mental list of the various things it would very muchly enjoy eating, that should be readily available along its journey to the Ranch. The squirrel takes another big toke and enjoys its life as it watches the sky turn from sunset hues to vast darkness sprinkled with specks of shimmery dust. 

'A Rose By Any Other Name'

captured & edited 01APR24
on a handheld Canon EOS 4000D mounted w/a prime lens
in natural light
&on the Snapseed photo editor
using the Samsung Galaxy A14 5G
edited only for color amplification

VIRGIN

captured & edited 01APR24
on a handheld Canon EOS 4000D mounted w/a prime lens
in natural light
&on the Snapseed photo editor
using the Samsung Galaxy A14 5G
edited only for color amplification
(cause like, let's be real, all fucking pics that are published to places wherein things can be published
have been digitally edited
sometimes the edits are simple, simply to make the image pop
other times it truly is to deceive
&everything in between
&to know the difference is to understand at what you're looking
&if you don't know at what you're looking
then you're illiterate in images
you cannot read images
just like there are many forms of illiteracy
[for instance, you can be socially illiterate &not-know how to behave/interact w/ppl in social settings
cause you don't know how to "read a room," etc.]
there is a form of illiteracy that has to do with one's inability to read images
if you suffer from this condition
i imagine that these days are very confusing for you
which must be such a total bummer. *shrug* bummer.)

'TRANS-RACIAL' or TRANSRACIAL (but this way will alert spell check of an error) from my Point of View (cause, like, this is my fucking blog; why would you assume i'm speaking as anyone other than myself? huh?)

trans·racial 

"I know that I look Korean to you, or probably, more like 'Asian,' but you're not quite sure from where, specifically, so probably Chinese, but I am very, very, very white on the inside, because white people raised me."

Corrective action may or may not be taken. Either way, the insides don't really match the outsides in the way that one, who is not them, might perceive of them. 

Most are acutely aware of how stereotypes work. 

All have a heightened sense of awareness with regards to identity.

Yes, racism is real. 

&Yes, white people are very aware of the fact that racism exists; why else would I "need" such a white name? To ease my suffering. 

I'd also like to declare the International Transgender Day of Visibility a day that also sees those of us who are Transracial, since, as two separate groups, we will never make up a 'majority,' etc.

The purpose of sharing our pain is not so that we can all participate in the Victim Olympics.

The purpose of sharing our pain is so that we can let others hear that we understand the pain that we're suffering.

I read a thread on Threads by a (fellow transracial [my identifier, not theirs]) "black girl", adopted to white parents, who shared how she heard the n-word in country music that blared out of the vehicles of her 99%-white rural town. Hannah Matthews doesn't specifically describe the experience as pain, and she goes on to explain that Beyoncé's new album is changing the way that she experiences country music. That's a miracle. 

I replied by sharing one of my own transracial experiences as a korean woman adopted to white parents who also grew up in a very white, rural area.

The shared experience that Hannah Matthews shared helped me to feel less alone, and so, I shared my experience in hopes of helping her feel less alone.

And then, all of this (happening as i write) made me have a think about what it means to be "transgender" (i use quotes here to identify the sexual orientation as a term being thrown around within and throughout society these days), on this International Transgender Day of Visibility. 

I currently do not know anyone (that i know of) who identifies as transgender. I do know, however, about a friend from my childhood who was labelled one gender and who now identifies as another. 

Nevertheless, I do not identify as transgender, and I do not know anything about what it is/means to be transgender from personal experience, except through one person who was once a childhood friend but with whom I've had zero contact since ... grade school. 

We were children. As students of a teeny, tiny, private christian school (like, that crazy kind, the kind wherein girls must wear a dress on chapel wednesdays, who also must attend a "godly woman" class wherein we learn how to be "proper" women who have pretty hair, clothes, and nails, etc.) from grades six through ten (i left for the public school to finish out my junior and senior years of high school), it was abundantly clear that my friend did not identify with the way they were "supposed to" present themselves. This was VERY obvious. It was painful. By the time we entered seventh grade, I was figuring it out, and so, I started to call them by a different gender-specific name, and they seemed to like it. I received a nickname of my own from this friend, and then, we started calling each other these new names. But it was all just a joke, out in the open. Nothing serious. Nothing crazy. 

The thing about it, though, now, today, in my life as an aging millennial, nearly aged out of my youth, is that maybe this friend could see that I was also not named appropriately, based off of my obvious race, that differed GREATLY from everyone else's. 

My white name is Tiffany. BAHAHAHAHA! Can you believe it. My white-ass parents named me Tiffany and then threw my birth name in the middle. Tiffany Kim Sun Camas. Sure, I know other asian Tiffanys, but the thing is that I already had a name. I arrived in These United States two months before my fourth birthday, which means that I had been being called Sun, 선 (as in the fucking sun, not all asianlike, soon or sohn *barf*), for the entirety of my nearly four years of life. And then, all of the sudden, my white family either needed to make me theirs or they needed so desperately to make sure that I would "fit in," so they gave me some seriously-white-ass name. *vomits* (supposedly, my brother [also an adopted korean] chose my name, but the fact is that my name should've never come up as needing to be changed.)

Thus, perhaps my transgender friend also saw that my name did not fit my identity, just like I saw that their name did not fit their identity. 

We saw each other. 

But we ought not utter a peep about what we knew, out loud. To do so by them would be to make them racist. To do so by me would make me sexist and cruel.

Even in grade school, we were keen enough to be able to see that something wasn't adding up. And I miss that friend a lot. I always have. They gave me the greatest nickname I've ever been given. 

To see and be seen. What else is there to this life but this?

That desperation to be seen.

What else could it be but to be human, to socialize, to interact with our fellow humans?

But the sharing of one's experiences, one's pain is too oftentimes labelled as selfish, an expression of the ego wanting to compete in the Victim Olympics. The reality is that we all suffer pain. Some is more nuanced than others, and some is objectively more terrible than others, nevertheless, everyone's pain is painful to them. And so, to mock the expression of pain is to mock the very essence of being human. 

We are the cause of each other's suffering. 

Why? 

Why do we do this to ourselves when we could be the cause of each other's euphoria? 

It's idiotic. It's moronic. It's truly counterintuitive. 

Do I agree with all of the arguments for transgender identities? Absolutely not. Do I fundamentally believe that there is obviously a biological difference between sexes. Yes, and it's a spectrum. But sexual orientation and gender are not the same thing. And since so few people seem willing to openly discuss these sorts of things (as they seem to be relegated to "conference-like" meetings wherein the non-believers are supposed to simply become enlightened, etc.) everything ends up sounding like hate. When maybe, the issue is that we're not taught to feel very many emotions beyond "happy" and "sad," "love" and "hate," cause being confused can rile a feeling that feels very similar to hate if you don't know how else to name the feelings you feel when you feel confused.

Identifying one's feelings requires practice. 

Like all things. 

If we refuse to feel, we refuse to be human.

And if we do not have the patience to teach each other how to feel, what are we teaching each other?

Happy International Transgender and Transracial Day of Visibility. Cheers to the weirdos!  

misogorny (misogyny + horny [as in 'me so horny']) :: the specific type of misogyny that men exercise on women of specifically East-Asian descent, because, really, there is no specific type of misogyny when considering that men who peddle misogyny are also subscribing to the idea that stereotypes are, across-the-board, true, etc.

I saw some porn montage, a long time ago (not that I don't watch porn, now), wherein some guy sticks his fingers inside of various different shades of women and as he (supposedly) removes his fingers from each woman's pussy, his fingers are covered in something that stereotypically represents the woman's race.

To think that there's some special, very specific type of misogyny for one specific race of women is narcissistic, at best, racist, at face value.

Thus, I'd like to expand "misogynoir" into the very specific type of misogyny that asian women experience from black men.

Because for a group that insists on teaching us all that Racism exists, yet the idea of it is "not real" because some crusty old whites made it all up, they really are full of ... racist language. It's like how hate against jews has its own, very specific label, while all other hate is lesser hate, at best, &not real hate, in their minds. 

On Not Having Enough Time to Satisfy My Own Ego

What did people used to do with their time? Work. Work the fields, work the forest, work the hunt, work the fire, work the shelter, work to survive, twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, year after year, until that one bad year decimates your community, &or until you die, like everyone else who has ever lived died.

And now, the modern human bitches, endlessly, about how spending a very-tight eight hours a day, five days per seven-day week, is unethical? That living beyond one's means is the fault of the one who distributes the pay. Understanding that you're a slave, yet you do nothing, economically, to attempt/buy your own freedom. Instead, you spend the only thing that can save you. You take your pay and immediately shovel that money back into the companies that supposedly pay you so poorly. For what? Social clout on your swamp socials?

I do not understand this world in which we currently live. 

And then I realize that people never had "extra time" to "burn."

Or did they? And what would they do with that time back in ancient history? Hard to say. Nobody really wrote things down until we started writing things down, so human history is murky, at best, lost, in reality. 

Have you ever heard someone say something to the effect of, "Yea, I've got an hour to burn." Literally, this person has so much time on their hands, that yes, they can effectively do nothing of any true or perceived value for ONE WHOLE HOUR or ten minutes or days, depending on the experience you've had with this particular way that humans are. Like having so much money that you can literally burn some of it without feeling pain, they can figuratively burn TIME. 

This is the modern* human.

We, as modern humans of These United Colonies of Elitism, have time, aplenty, on our hands. The ways in which we spend that time matters more than how much of it we have. And the way (note: singular) in which we, as a society, spend that time, is on social media. Literally, we spend most of our time alone, watching other people. Imagine how this would work out in humanity's past. It wouldn't really, because to have other people in your sights meant that those people were physically in your presence, so there was no "I'm watching you while you're not seeing me," sorta experience. If I'm seeing you see me, you're seeing me see you see me. I'm not talking about whatever perverts existed back in ancient history who wanted to spy on others, etc. 

There's nothing more isolating than seeing without being seen.

Not to mention how much time we all spend looking at ourselves, being obsessed with our image, our brand, our personality, the way we come off through a screen, to a stranger, the voyeur who watches without engaging or wanting you to know that they're even there, watching, like a fucking freak. These are weird fucking times in which we are currently living, as a very social species that requires social connection. We require social mingling so much, in fact, that you are deemed "abnormal" when you are not socialized "well," etc.

My theory is that most of us feel like we don't have enough time, because what we want is to think about ourselves, all the time, and since we have to job and do dishes and clean poop (not me, obviously, the idea of cleaning poop is why I don't have kids or a dog) we are deprived of time to roll around in our own egos (i.e., swamp in our socials), because we want to roll around in that catnip all day long and give our egos a nice long stroke. And so, for some of us, some days leave us with zero time for an ego toke. Other days, when we are oh-so free and have an entire day to ourselves or an hour to burn, what do we do? We spend all that "free time" in our social swamps, making content for the swamp, ingesting the swamp.

And our socials are completely digital! A figment.

And the psychological crunch is weeding out those who cannot evolve fast enough to keep up with these Tech Times. 

And it's sad that the evolution of humanity depends on one's ability to no longer need physical human social connection and that to do so well comes with financial rewards, The Hollows, aka influencing.

It's been a long time since I wondered what was wrong with the world. It's so obvious from where the harm stems, and yet, to do anything about it would be disastrous (for other people, not me, cause not a penny of my financial well being stems from social media), in a wholly different way. 

To suffer the crime or awaken through the punishment. Is that the question? 

*again, this piece is not about everything, as it is specifically about the economic class that These United Colonies of Elitism deems the ever-shrinking "middle." 

Charcuterie, Bored

&Remembering that "Illness is not a metaphor." A sound piece of wisdom I first encountered through Susan Sontag and is a tough idea to shake, and if you don't understand what it means to remember that "illiness is not a metaphor" (like I did when I first encountered it), I've become to understand it as the way that humans who believe in a specific sorta way of human existence wherein there's a "heaven" and a "hell" and that some Being is judging them by their actions here on Earth, which means that if you suffer an illness, of the body or mind, this is somehow some sort of punishment upon the "sinner," etc. If I'm wrong, in my interpretation, please inform, or point me in the right direction, and I will read some book about it. Thanks.

&Wondering why my face skin is, all of the sudden (as opposed to back when we first drastically changed our everyday living environment when we moved from the dry mountains to the moist seaside), not liking the climate. I think it's a combination of my jobplace mask-wearing and the general oilierness of my skin, in general, in this climate. I am curious, though, about why the shortened "combo" for combination is not "combi," which would make more sense, in my mind, but whatever. 

&Realizing that I absolutely cannot get over that brown, turned grey, turned back into dark dark brown strand of hair! It's taped up on a door, cause, What the fuck?! The other thing about the strand of hair is that it's curly where it's grey and for two more curls where it turns back to the dark dark brown, and then it's jet straight all the way to the root. Like seriously, what. the. fuck.

&Wanting to write a lot more fiction. The Listmaker, the character about whom Book III is titled (The Listmaker's Ranch), remains elusive. A lot of the other characters are becoming impatient, and I can hear the impatience in Ladybug's voice nearly every day. Ladybug, in particular, grows impatient when I am obligated to other (menial) tasks that require my brain power, leaving less brain power for the writing of the things that need to be written, etc. 

&Ladybug thinks that this is all a stupid fucking sham, anyway. Cause like, the reality of the situation is that "the few" must do what "the masses" demand, like always, cause like, at the end of the day, the death of "the few" comes at the hands of "the masses" when "the masses" become The Mob. Mob Rule to kill them all. Imagine that. Being ruled by "the masses"! Imagine it! Omffingg. Like, that is one Living Hellscape. *shivers*

&Fantasizing about the British Royal Family's final act upon their inevitable death (as an institution, like relax) being something about how they donate tons and tons of money to the research of cancer, and it is, thusly, because of them that humanity cures itself of cancer! BAHAHAHAHA! A girl can dream. *vomits* Wouldn't that be something, though?

&Great salads require a lot of prep work. You will know you're in "great salad" territory if the preparation of the salad stuffs takes ten times the amount of time it does to eat the salad. 

&Embarking on a loop that will take us through our fave musubi cafe, Daiso, and the bita shop. The weather continues to bring rain, when what we want is a sunny summery beach day. Winter is real here.

&Yea, it's just like really pretentious. 

&Feeling a little freer every day.

&Reminding myself, as often as I think of it, that if it takes my entire lifetime to become and, thusly, be the person toward whom I'm striving, then, like, that's sorta the point, no?

&Singing, "I ran out of tears when I was eighteen," cause old school The Weeknd was ... something else.

&Ladybug finds it very confusing that The Listmaker, someone about whom I know very little (according to Ladybug), would headline Book III, cause like, if I knew The Listmaker, I wouldn't waste my time making "that guy" the main course, "if you know what I mean," Ladybug explains. To which I question why Ladybug cares at all about who the protagonist or subject of the book is or will be? And Ladybug scoffs. Obviously, Ladybug is jealous that I am not writing an entire book about Ladybug. Obviously. And part of me wonders why I am not writing an entire book about Ladybug, but then I remember that the point of Ladybug is to be pointless, and yet, Ladybug is oftentimes the catalyst for spacetime travel, etc. It is because Ladybug has arrived that anything ever happens, really. There are a lot of ladybugs on The Listmaker's Ranch, and Ladybug knows this. Perhaps Ladybug is frightened of my poking around at what it means to be a ladybug, what it means to be Ladybug. Like when the panda in Kung Fu Panda 3 wonders, "Am I the son of a panda? The son of a goose?" Life's greatest challenge is "to know thy self." Man, I've been watching a lot of movies lately. But not too many. Maybe Ladybug doesn't want to go there.

&Intriguing nonsense about how to turn the LOPSIII model into a story-like metaphor, etc. The bodybuddy/lifemate thinks it can be done. I am less optimistic, because the idea is not exciting. The idea is much more suited to a textbook, but I understand what/that the bodybuddy/lifemate wants to do/do it.

&Now we're off on our loop cause everything's finally open.

&Having trod the loop, I wasn't hungry for musubi on the way out, so we went straight to Daiso, and while we were at Daiso, I remembered that it was B&N that I needed to go to, cause like, I've been in desperate need of a new notebook, but I've been procrastinating/not that desperate cause my whole job situation has been very demanding, but now it's leveled out etc., and so, after swinging through the bita shop, we went to B&N, and it wasn't even open yet! So, we went upstairs, because we needed to burn exactly ten minutes, the perfect amount of time to grab musubi! 

&Feeling the pressure of that new-notebook feeling wherein I deeply ponder what first thing to write in it. Probably something about Ladybug, for Ladybug's sake. *shit*

&Becoming hungry.

&Shouting, "Yes," to the bodybuddy/lifemate, "and can I also have a slice of cake!," a slice of chocolate cranberry fudge cake that he made last night from the recipe off a can of cranberry sauce that was sitting on the "free stuff" table in the laundry room for which he realized he already had all of the ingredients. *drool*

On Day Trips

So...

my posts about our move from Longmont, CO, USA to Honolulu, HI, USA have been trending every day for a few weeks now, &I've suspected that they're trending because we flew Alaska Airlines, and the video embedded in the second of two posts has hashtagalaskaairlines in its title *yikes*

Whatever.

When an older post trends on this site, I, typically, go check it out, because I, typically, forget the details/specifics of a post once it starts getting crusty, etc. Thus, our "Moving Day" posts are trending on my site, and they have been for a few weeks, and my theory is that maybe my posts are coming up in searches for/about Alaska Airlines. That being said, it is the first of the two posts that is trending this week, and that post does not mention Alaska Airlines at all, in its title or its description. 

Whatever.

None of the above is really my point, because my point is that my bodybuddy/lifemate and I look really fucking good when we travel, and I've not really noticed until now, and it's not because we haven't looked good until now, because we have, but for some reason (the fact that this was a move and not a trip), I am only now realizing how good we must look when we travel. 

Not to brag (really, I'm not bragging, there are a lot of people far more well-traveled than I, but I have traveled a lot for the "average" person, *blech*) but I travel a lot, and as a unit, we(thebodybuddy/lifemate&i)'ve traveled/moved quite a lot. We've traveled &or moved by plane, boat, train, bus, lightrail, subway, monrail, small car, large car, cross country and across countries. We did not used to look good when traveling. We looked poor and gross. But then we learned a few things, and figured out other stuff, and by the time we took our first vacation while living in Seoul, we were looking like serious stuff. Not as serious as that one Korean man we saw walking through Incheon, who walked like one serious. serious. serious. fucking. mothafucking. fucking. fucking. bad. ass. mother-fucker. And he had two young adult "boys" (I, personally, think that any Korean man under the age of fifty looks boyish) at each of his shoulders, behind him, and they parted the sea of people as they strutted through that airport in a perfect triangle of power. It was basically the most amazing thing I've seen in an airport, in my life, thus far. Like, it is my life's goal to look just like that guy someday. *yuh-mee*

My point is that it's nearly impossible to look good while traveling for the first time. It requires practice, like all things. The reason why it's so difficult to "look good" while traveling is because most people do not travel enough to get good practice. Some people, obviously, are more organized than others, and so, will adapt much quicker to the world of travel. Some people will travel more than any could hope to dream and will continue to be totally disheveled. It's whatever.

I've always wanted to be good at traveling.

I started young, and I remember the way that some women would just look while gliding through the airport. They looked like they had it all figured out, this travel thing. I always felt hot and dirty, and I always, always, had way too much shit. Always. All I wanted was to be one of those beautiful women, gliding through the airport with one simple carry on and one simple purse/bag. No shopping bags filled with extra stuff collected who knows where or how. No trash strewn from the top of a tote that's threatening to discard all of its contents all over the floor. No digging all desperate through my bag, melting down at the ticket counter, because, "I know it was in here!"

It was never my goal to look good while traveling. 

My goal was always to be good at traveling.

And the best place to really get good at traveling is in a really big city. 

The city in which we were "travel trained" was Seoul. As an adopted Korean, I could live and job in the country with an F4 Visa. This was back in 2013-2018, and so, no, I don't know if/how its changed since we left, because from now on, we will simply stay in country for the amount of time our passports allow sans visas. The bodybuddy/lifemate was sponsored by his employer, a private English academy called ECC.

Really big cities require you to traverse them with competence. If you do not, you will find yourself lost very quickly. And getting lost, for the budget conscious, can be very expensive, because sometimes it means that maybe you have to pay for a cab all the way to wherever it is you're trying to go, if you can't figure it out by cheap subway/bus. 

Navigating a really big city is like taking tiny little trips every day. It can be a whole thing to go from one side of the city to the other for the day. Really big cities also have very different parts of the city, and so, you sometimes have to travel to a very specific part of the city to acquire a very specific thing you want to acquire. In essence, you get a lot of practice traveling from place to place within a very defined space. And since most really big cities have public transportation, you learn how various time tables and routes work together (or don't, boo.).

In really big cities, you can take a tiny trip as often as you like, and when you take tiny trips, trips that maybe take you hours away from your home location, and if you don't have a car, like we don't, you kind of have to pack for a whole day. Day trips are hard to pack for, but what is an international flight day but the best day trip? When you fly internationally, you're packing for the trip trip but also sort of packing for a whole day spent between beds on the outgoing/incoming travel days. And so, all of the day tripping practice that a really big city provides is the perfect amount of practice time because that amount of time is a typical international flight day. 

What are international flight days other than long day trips at the bookends of a full-trip trip?

Which brings me to the first trip wherein I'm fairly confident we looked pretty good, cause we were getting pretty good at this thing called travel. Vancouver, BC. That travel day was the best travel day, on record, to this day. We left Seoul early in the morning, flew for ten hours, and when we landed in Vancouver, it was only like noon on the same day (I can't look up the specifics in the travel notebook at this time. I went into my job late and left early cause I'm feeling like shit from something we ate over the weekend, so I'm not up for a deep dive from that trip, at this time. Perhaps another opportunity will present itself in the future from now). Flight went perfectly, our new luggage worked perfectly, our first foray into AirBnbingit worked perfectly, the location of our ABnb and the Bnb itself was perfect, our first slice of pizza was perfect, and the weather was perfect, and every fucking little thing was absolutely perfect. 

We even met a friend who was willing/able to purchase us some vitamins, and then we sat in a park overlooking some water as the sun set and created this perfect sliver slice of sunlight across the grass that made its way all the way through the park until, at last, it was night, and so, we hunted down a grocery store and stumbled into Urban Fare (the best grocery store of all grocery stores), bought up charcuterie stuffs, stopped for froyo on the way back to the Bnb, and smeezed some bita and slept like happy little babies until I awoke at 0500, at which point, the bb/lm strolled sleepy-eyed into the kitchen, and I was like, "What the fuck?," and he was like, "What the fuck?," and I was like, "Why are you up?," to which he responded, "You're up." And I was like, "But I just got up for a minute," and then we decided to stay up, take our vitamins, and when he asked me what I wanted to do, I said, "I wanna watch The Lego Movie," like a demanding infant that the bb/lm took as a challenge, and so, he turned on the Bnb-provided Xbox and logged onto the Bnb-provided Netflix account, and we watched The Lego Movie, until we got hungry and went out looking for breakfast, at which point, we found a place called Breka Bakery & Café, and it was the best breakfast we had ever had. And that was literally the first twenty-four hours!

For me, the most important thing you can learn from day-tripping (without a car!) is how little you actually need to get through one day. It's liberating. I used to pack way too much, in general, for month-long trips, and even for like a week-long trip. Day trips can really help to put into perspective exactly what you need and what you definitely don't. In the context of a day trip, you're not in a survival state. You are, however, exposing yourself to the elements of an entire day away from/between homes. There are some things that you are going to be really happy you packed. There are going to be other things that are going to weigh you down the entire day, and you never even used it once! But it's the learning of a thing that we call practice. You're simply going through the motions over and over again, and with every try, you're learning something new about the thing and about yourself.

And so, it is in my opinion that day trips are a really important skill to have in this day&age. 

A day trip's amount of time away from home (and without a car!) teaches you a lot of things that are not threatening to your survival. Day trips can teach you about how to thrive. The metaphor of carrying around what you need for a day can really inspire you to whittle down the amount of stuff you have, in general. If you can learn to be comfortable with less on a day's long outing, maybe you'll start to feel comfortable with less on a day-to-day basis. And maybe, eventually, you start to feel uncomfortable with how much shit is just like, Why is there so much crap in this house?! 

On a side note, Remember, you traded real money for all of that shit that's just taking up space in your home. Save yourself the hassle. The next time you want to spend money on some stupid shit on the internet, just go flush the money down the toilet. It's the same feeling you'll have when you realize that you haven't even used that piece of shit, so you use it once, and it breaks, so you throw it away. 

Day Trips. They can change your life, because they change your perspective.