Broke

I broke a pitcher today, one of my favorites, which we received as a wedding gift off our registry. I wasn't hurt; only the pitcher broke, because I did something very stupid. I poured hot water into it. Our apartment (uninsulated, poor heating) is very cold, and apparently the temperature differential was too much. I'm kicking myself because it actually occurred to me before I poured the water that maybe it wasn't such a good idea - but I did it anyway. So the pitcher broke. No big deal. It was expensive but not that expensive. So what's wrong with me? Not just today, not just about the pitcher, but about everything. I have so much to be thankful for - so very, very much. When I stop and think about all the things for which I have to be thankful, I just feel overwhelmed with how blessed I have been. So why do I find myself in tears over little things, like the pitcher breaking, like someone scratching the paint on my car? And not merely crying, but full-on weeping like the whole world broke around me?

Awake and Barely Breathing

I can't sleep. I keep thinking that I need to go back to work. What is wrong with me? I'm living the dream, but I keep trying to run away from it.

Living the dream. That's what they used to say, as a joke, when it was late at night and we were still in the office, cranking away. It's not like I miss that. When I was there, I couldn't wait to get out. So what is it that I want?

Every night, my own life flashes before me like scenes from a movie. I feel so disconnected. Maybe it's not a good idea to spend so much time living in your own head. Maybe it would be good for me to see other people every once in awhile. But not my neighbors.

In the Water

A list of injuries I have sustained while surfing:

• concussion
• black eye
• absolutely enormous bruise on my inner thigh, from my enormous center fin (unclear how this happened)
• wax under my fingernails, resulting in detachment
• many, many other bruises and cuts
  

But it still comforts me. I'm not very good (or any good at all), but surfing is the one thing I do where I don't care if I'm any good or not. I do it because it makes me happy. We live up the hill from the ocean. Sometimes when it's foggy and overcast here, we'll drive down to the beach and it'll be sunny. Of course, it happens the other way around too. Today it's hazy up here. It's supposed to rain again. They say it's an El Nino year. During El Nino, the water is supposed to be warmer, but so far, it's not.

On My Knees

I do believe, Lord; help me in mine unbelief.

Sidewalks

It's pouring rain. From where I'm sitting, in my dark "office", I see it falling on eucalyptus, oaks, redwoods. When I was a teenager, and as angst-ridden as any I've ever met, I used to love the rain. Rain opens up possibilities: it used to feel like things could happen when it was raining that couldn't happen when the sun was shining. Good things, like someone falling in love with you. Or like escaping, this place, this time, this person. I used to feel like if I could claw through my skin, someone else would emerge from the carcass, someone more lovable, more beautiful, just more. I could live a white-clothed life hazed in gold, and I would finally be able to be happy.

Back then, I had a friend who routinely made me cry. I think I was in love with him, at least a little bit. The way he palmed the steering wheel when he drove. The way his voice sounded late at night. Back then, I was always looking for someone to understand me. The nightmares in my closet, the rage and ache knotted in my chest. He said once that he loved the smell of sidewalks after the rain. But that wasn't what I meant.

Now I know that I wasn't so hard to understand. That makes me saddest of all.

Scared

I feel so scared. It's a horrible feeling. I have no real reason to be afraid, just a jumble of insecurities and anxieties that never leave me (perhaps the most faithful friends I've had in a long time). I feel like I'm having a long, drawn-out panic attack that has already lasted several days. I just want to stay in bed, stay asleep.

A sample of the voices in my head:

• I quit my job to be a writer, and I'm afraid that I'm not any good at it, that I'll never be any good at it. At the same time, I don't know why I care about being good at it.

• My friends are scattered and far away, and I'm afraid that the loneliness I feel will never abate.
  
• The walls of this apartment are closing in on me. My neighbors are bizarre characters from fun-house nightmares, and I am afraid that I will never be able to afford a house or get away from here.
  

On the subject of my neighbors, here is what I mean:
Next door to me is an officious, domineering software consultant. He even tries to boss me around; I hate to imagine what his wife has to put up with. He is married to someone we believe was a mail-order bride. She looks several decades younger than him, she's beautiful (he's not), and she speaks very little English. She looks terrified whenever I try to talk to her. I don't often do so, because he is almost always with her (he works from home).

Downstairs is a woman of about sixty-five, although she could easily be older than that. She's a nice old lady, but has a tendency to violate your personal space when she's talking to you, thus affording me the opportunity to observe that she nearly always reeks of alcohol. I ran into her in the parking garage one day, after she had just parked her car, and it was the same thing. I can't believe someone of her age wouldn't know better than to drive drunk. She lives alone, and depresses the hell out of me.

We have already discussed Crazy Fed Ex Lady. I still can't figure out why she was so freaked out about her package that she couldn't wait for a couple of hours for us to get home from work, but had to have the package RIGHT NOW. My theory is that it contained some sort of illegal substance.

The apartment manager, who also lives in the building, has a frightening smile.

Crazy Lady

There's a crazy lady who lives in my building. Today her Fed Ex package got delivered to me by accident, by our building managers. (For some reason, Fed Ex doesn't give us packages directly; they all have to go through the main office.) I saw the package at my front door, but I was on my way out, so I put it right inside my apartment and left.

An hour later, I'm fielding desperate phone calls from the building managers' office. Crazy Lady is hyperventilating about the package. She's been told that they accidentally delivered it to me, and that they'll contact me to see when I'll be home, but this isn't good enough for Crazy Lady, who threatens to call the police unless the package is put in her hands RIGHT NOW. She is apparently very intimidating; at least, she has the building people thoroughly cowed.

Meanwhile, I'm about half an hour's drive away, where I was planning to get some work done. I suppose I could have been a hard-ass (and probably should have been) and told the building managers that it wasn't my problem and I wasn't going to make a special trip home just because THEY misdelivered a package. But instead, I rolled over into my natural doormat form. And here I am, back at home.

The Unbearable Lightness in My Head

Been abusing the caffeine again. I know some people use it every morning to wake themselves up and get them ready to face the day, but it makes me ADD. I've been wasting all kinds of time today, and I blame the coffee. I have this jittery, anxious feeling, like I'm waiting for something...something's about to happen... [Cue music.]

It's a gorgeous day here in the Bay, but I've got to get some work done. Why is it that working for the love of it, rather than working to get paid, feels so much harder? I always thought it would be the other way around.

Keep your fingers crossed for me that whatever it is I'm waiting for, turns out to be a good thing. I've got a case of diet Dr. Pepper calling my name, but I'm staying strong, folks, staying strong.

Divided by Babies

As I get closer and closer to thirty (only two more years now!), my friends increasingly divide themselves into two camps: those with babies and those without. The two groups don't mix. I don't have a baby, but for some reason the baby group accepts me and lets me hang with them. This may be because they're trying to convert me.

They may be succeeding. Lately, I find myself eyeing babies. Especially during Halloween, when parents dress their babies up in those adorable plush costumes. I find myself avidly reading my friends' baby blogs and waiting impatiently for them to post new pictures. All of this scares me to death.

If I have a baby, will my babyless friends reject me? Technically I will no longer be one of them - but could they continue to love me anyway? Will they understand when I can't go out for drinks, or to a movie?

Even beyond my social life, I'm afraid of how a baby might force changes I'm not ready to make. I've already made a lot of big changes this year, giving up a $200,000/year job for a job that currently pays me $0, moving to a new city, cutting my previously waist-length hair. I'm not sure I can handle any more changes right now. But balanced against that is the ever-present fear that if I keep waiting, one day I'll wake up and find out I'm too old. Being almost thirty is freaking me out.

Why do babies have to be so damn cute?

On High School Reunions

My ten-year high school reunion took place this weekend. Although there were more people there than I had expected, including people I was in fact pleased to see, it still turned out to be a boring evening. I knew these people ten years ago and have not spoken to most of them since - I felt like I spent the night making small talk with strangers. Probably it is my lack of curiousity about other people that is the problem, and not that the people from my graduating class are actually boring.

There were the usual ten-year role reversals: a girl from my senior year English class, who had been overweight and afflicted with dandruff, had grown six inches (she was tall to begin with) and lost fifty pounds. She now looks like a runway model. Whereas the popular girl - who had been tall, blonde, and athletic - is still tall and blonde, but has gained fifty pounds and looks like a diner waitress, which, coincidentally, is what she now is. Just like an '80s movie.

And where did I fit in? People knew who I was in high school, but I didn't run with the popular kids. (This may sound snide, but: thank goodness.) Someone came up to me at the reunion and said, "You know, I predicted that the odd-looking girls would now be hot and the cute girls would no longer be cute. And it's true - look at you." I honestly didn't know whether he meant that I was now hot, or now no longer cute. Of course, it didn't help that the rest of the night people kept telling me that I look exactly the same.

Title

Regarding the name of this blog: Although I am Asian(-American; people usually forget that it's a two-part identity), it's not a racial thing.

If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat , by John Ortberg