Geisha School Dropout

Now We are Six (plus 25)

So today is my birthday!  To celebrate, Tim and I are going out to grab some Ethiopian food tonight.  That's it!  And I'm very happy.

I guess this quiet haze of contentment stems from the fact that I finally kept a promise to myself: I started working out a couple weeks ago.  The first couple workouts were fine, the third left me curled up on the floor, dry-heaving and almost soiling myself, and the fourth was almost...enjoyable?  Dare I say that out loud? 

For someone who is as sweat-averse as I am, making it even this far is a huge milestone.  I meet with my trainer on Mondays and Wednesdays, and she, the former ballet dancer, has re-introduced me to parts of my body that haven't received any attention in years.  Ow!  Hello, abdominal muscles!  Oof!  Nice to see you again, triceps, what's shakin'?  But apparently, the pain is a good thing.  Healthy people have such fucked up moral codes, don't they?

I don't have any specific weight loss goals in mind, I'm mostly doing it to feel healthier and have more energy.  And so far, the only progress I see is that I can do a few more crunches before I pass out.  But I'll be sure to post a picture of my 6-pack next month.  LOL!

Here is this year's music dedication to myself.  The bastards disabled embedding: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veN2gyCEj8s

The Vagina Dialogs

Whew, the Lysol ad I posted earlier this week really sparked some awesome discussions amongst my Facebook friends.  Here are some highlights, anonymized:

Amos: is THAT why i saw a lady at the car wash riding through on top of her car?........case solved!

Me: Actually, she was there to get waxed. Ba-dum CHING!!! I'm here all week, folks.

Betsy: this generation's lysol is breast implants and brazilians, yeah?

Me: Totally hit the nail on the head there, Betsy! People of the future will look at Maxim Magazine and scratch their heads over how much we must have hated women to make them go through such extremes to be considered attractive.

Me: That said, I take a Brazilian over Lysol any day.

Amos: i want an answer to this question from an elderly feminist:
how is it that you intelligent, educated, modern ladies still allow the weakling peter pan males of your generation to CONTINUE to manipulate you into thinking that there is something foul and poisonous going on with your girl parts?
y'all had better damn well not let your own daughters, and especially your sons to continue this obscenity-----so what are you going to do? i've GOT to know!

Me: Okay I thought about this for a while. It took me a while because I don't personally have (many) hang-ups about the squeaky cleanliness of my ladybits, BUT:

1. even today, girls are really ignorant about what their own girl bits look like, and what girl bits "should" look like in general. It doesn't help that you basically have to sit with your legs splayed in front of a mirror to really get a good look, but regardless, they probably freak themselves out at their first look because it doesn't look anything like the line drawings in the sex ed brochures or Barbie's ladybits.

2. Assuming they're straight and they want to be with boys...these boys have no idea either. They just know the very airbrushed, sometimes surgically corrected, sometimes totally fictional vulvas of Playboy, Japanese animation, and internet porn. Oh, and that vaginas "smell like fish" which conjures up some weird mental imagery. So it might freak them out when they finally come in contact with a real-life vagina with its varied terrain and water features.

Combine these two things with females' tendency toward insecurity anyway and you get the culture as it is now: where basically you have to get your mons venus waxed, polished, and buffed to a Barbie Doll shine so your vagina looks like a 10-year-old's so it doesn't differ too much from Jenna Jameson's. They even sell vagina "water" so you can have your crotch smell like oranges, geraniums, or lavender, no joke!

That said, I don't really know how to send the message to my daughter without getting sued. Right now I kinda lean towards the hippie "your vagina is a blooming flower" slant. I think I might need Eve Ensler to guide me.

Oh! And in general, boys tend to blame problems on others while girls take blame on themselves. So if their Peter Pan boyfriend is "ew, your girl parts scare me" I think most females would rather go to the nearest waxing salon before it ever occurring to them that actually, *he* just needs to get clued into the real world. So that is definitely a real, teachable lesson to pass down to the next generation.

Amos: well-said, ms. kang....it really is the boys who have the power to help girls overcome many of their insecurities...but boys are ignorant, lazy, and controlling.....

ps. your final comment on this being a "lesson to pass 'down' to the next generation' was the freudian slip of the day!

Betsy: you are right, Julie. Girls don't know what they're supposed to look like, and what is really in the range of normal (as opposed to airbrushed, photoshopped, surgically altered, cartoonized, fetishized.) There is a site which shows pictures of the zillion or so variations of normal breasts at http://www.007b.com/breast_gallery.php ; and there should be one for genitals...but i haven't found it yet.

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Have you ever visited the normal breasts gallery?  It really is a breath of fresh air.  I've known about the site for a while and have even located a few facsimiles of my own breasts, and words cannot describe the emotions that flowed through me when I saw my own boob doppelgangers staring right back at me.  I also loved the fact that they separated out the breasts of women who have been pregnant.  There is also a blog called "Shape of a Mother" that displays the breasts and midriffs of real women who have carried children that was equally empowering.

On a related topic, one of my favorite newer websites is "Make Love Not Porn," where a lot of porn world norms like no pubic hair, women just gagging for anal sex all the time, women coming a million times while men do nothing to stimulate their clitorises (clitori?), etc. get corrected in a no-judgment, laid-back way.

So, do we also need a normal vulva gallery?  I definitely think so!  Even with the few face-to-face encounters with other women's ladybits I've had in my time, I know there is a huge amount of variation out there, and they were all healthy and normal and nothing to be afraid of.  Let's all say NO to 10-year-old vaginas!

Lysol as Douche?

Holy squeaky clean vagina, Batman!  "Yo Mama so OCD her pussy tastes like Lysol" was actually a REALITY 50 years ago!

 

Thanks, Jezebel!

An Open Letter to Serena Williams

Dear Ms. Williams,

Not a lot of people know this, but I played some tennis back in the day and I love the sport.  I have always been a fan of yours (and your sister's), and have had the honor of watching you play on several occasions.  Always a delight.  But wow, you have just rocketed yourself past the world of man to become an astronomical object, a celestial body.  Literally.

Holy Moses, lady.  You are Wonder Woman.

I know there will be some trolls out there saying "OMG WTF FAT."  Please ignore them.  Do not allow their brain-curdled exclamations get within 100 miles of your gorgeous ears.  They are maggots.  There will also be some people who will say "Finally!  A real woman's body with real curves!" but they are naive in their inclusivity.  *I* have a "real" body.  It does not look like yours.  Yours is the body of a gladiator; a body that comes once in a millennium and only from a lifetime's love for sport combined with an otherworldly work ethic, and should be worshiped and celebrated as the divine ideal it is.

Please keep doing what you're doing, preferably in the buff.

Sincerely yours,
Julie Kang

(Image from Just Jared)

My First White Hairs

You're probably wondering what the hell you're supposed to be looking at right now, but I'm too excited to wait for a better camera to come my way. I've avoided the whitening of my hair thus far, after my first year of teaching, after the births of my first and second children, after the Bush Administration and all the other events people warned me about. But here they are! My first white hairs. Oddly, they are not on my head, but they stand erect out of my arm like rogue warriors. But I'll take what I can get. I haven't been this excited about my body since I sprouted breasts!

Smell Ya Later, Granuloma

So I finally had surgery on my hand on Tuesday!  I reported at the surgery ward at 5 freaking 30 in the morning, since I was the first one scheduled for the day.  They set up an IV drip, and into it went some delicious Versed (for my NERVES, Loca) and Zofran for nausea.  They wheeled me into the OR, squirted some Fentanyl into my drip, and the next thing I know I'm back to my little curtained corner, putting my clothes back on with one hand (my right hand was totally numb) and asking the recovery nurse if my granuloma bled all over the place.  "Uh, I wasn't in the room, hon, but I don't think so."  "But but but I thought it would bleed."  I told myself to shut up before I started scaring people.  Fifteen minutes later, Tim picked me up and we headed home.

How First World in the 21st Century was that experience?????  No pain, seamless transitions, hardly any waiting.  Oy vey, thinking about how I had to suffer through 18th-century silver nitrate sessions in order to get there, my brain gets stuck between indignation and relief.  But I'll just stick to relief for now.  One bad thing, though, is that I have no idea what they did to my finger or what it even looks like.  I think they might have shown me while I was under anesthesia.  Hopefully it's happy in its packaging, which will be removed in 10 days.

Oh wait, there's one other bad thing:

 

They bandaged my finger to look like a small penis.

(If you're wondering about the significance of AL, those are my surgeon's initials.  He marked the finger to be operated on, as if the parasite-ridden pustule wasn't enough indication.)

A Few of my Favorite Things

Despite Little Miss Emimoo desperately trying to ruin my nights and dampen my good spirits through flying food and supersonic screechiness, a blood-filled tumor causing my middle finger to swell up and blush in various shades of purple, and a slew of other responsibilities competing for control of my sanity, I shall now share with you a few reasons why I am still relatively happy and giddy.

1. March Madness and the WBC

A little unknown fact about me: I love college basketball.  I especially love The Big Dance every March, and I participate in an NCAA men's basketball tournament bracket pool every year.  And every year I lose really badly.  But this year will be different!  I really feel like I have it in the bag this time.  Click through to see it full-size and please ignore all the red already:

From Bracket 2009

If your bracket does not look like mine, then you are going to lose.  To ME.

And to put the icing on the professional sports spectator cake, part of this year's World Baseball Classic is being held in southern California!  Last night I got to watch Korea vs. Japan at my parents' house.  Let's just say that I was screaming and throwing dried squid at a Sony television when a Japanese pitcher hurled a fastball into the brain stem of one of our players.  Then I got mad at my parents for buying a Sony instead of a Samsung.  I get really, really, REALLY jingoistic when it comes to Korea vs. Japan on anything, and to a lesser extent, Korea vs. USA.  I trash-talk and spew racist epithets like the Occupation and the Korean War are simultaneously still happening.  Take it from my poor husband, who unfortunately is both Japanese and American, whose face gets all scratched up during World Cup, WBC, and Olympic years.

DAE HAN MIN GUK MAN SAE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. Fruit Punch

I have recently rediscovered this magical elixir.  Now they have all-juice varieties which aren't nearly as sketchy as the powdered Red Drink of my youth.  But let's face it, all-natural crack is still crack.  Lots of last-minute shit on your plate and you feel like you're going to cry, explode, or beat a bitch?  Go to the fridge and take a hit.  Instant sunshine and happiness.  Don't give it to your kids, though, I think the shit causes cancer.

3. Unbelievably cute baby shoes, I HAZ DEM

If Emily is going to be a bratty 2-year-old, might as well have the shoes to match, right?

4. Spring Blossoms

All around the city, stone fruit trees are beginning to blossom.  From the bright magenta of the peach trees to the whisper pink of the almond trees, petals are bursting from lifeless branches.  Mother Nature absolutely pwns any human technology every spring.  I can barely suppress my urges to burst out in song, like "SAKURA! SAKURA!  YAYOI NO SORA WAAAAAAA!" but then I remember that I hate Japan right now.

5. Vicodin in Bed

Mommy's Little Helpers.  The best thing about having a pyogenic granuloma on your finger is that it hurts so bad, doctors give you Vicodin.  I don't go to sleep anymore without popping one.  And it makes the nighttime Emily care so much more manageable.  She wakes up about 4 times a night complaining about too much blanket, not enough blanket, too much snuggling, not enough snuggling, too much fluff in the pillow, you get the picture.  I used to get mad, now I smile like the Virgen de Guadalupe and can honestly tell her she's such a good, beautiful, flower of a girl and Mama loves her, even as she kicks me in the face.  Ah, the precious little moments of motherhood!

I Forgive You, Boy, I Will Prevail

(Title poached from my favoritist Stone Roses song EVER IN A MILLION YEARS, video below)

I stand before you today triumphant, a new woman.  After a lifetime of spreading my asscheeks for the Fates to do as they please, today I actually manipulated a situation to go my way.  It is like a drug, this new power, and I am soarin'. 

I shuffled over to the Orthopedics department for my second silver nitrate torture session.  In the waiting room were people of all ages, shapes, and sizes with messed up knees, ankles, and arms.  I felt like a total wimp, whining about this thing coming out of my finger that now looks like a shriveled embryo.  But I'm telling you all, I've given birth both naturally and via caesarean, and this overgrown pimple is bothering me a whole lot more than the postnatal recovery did.  It's insane.

So my name was finally called, and I shuffled in and they took my vital signs.  My heart was semi-racing, 110 bpm, my blood pressure was really high (137/94 or something like that) and I was obviously nervous.  The PA looked at me very sympathetically, and asked me if I'm ready.  "I think so," I whimpered.  He took one look at my finger and he said "Holy moly, it's growing!" 

"Yes!" I whimpered, opening my eyes really really wide to emphasize.  "And it hurt so much over the weekend!"

"Aw, Julie, you should have called me over the weekend then.  I would have definitely given you something to take care of the pain."

I batted my eyelashes and whispered "I would have liked that very much, but I thought you were closed.  I just don't understand why it hasn't gone away already."  My lower lip trembled.  I was hoping I looked like those sad bug-eyed anime girls:

 

It hit him deep in his heart, I could tell.  He winced and looked injured.  Then he looked again at my finger and I could tell it was starting to anger him for causing me to suffer so.  "I have half a mind to take the whole thing out right now.  Hey Fred, can you take a look at this granuloma for me?"  Another PA walks through the curtain and he blanches.

"Joe, that needs to go to surgery.  Dr. Leoni would definitely want to take that out himself."

My original PA smiles sheepishly and a little apologetically.  "Well, you're off the hook then, Julie.  Instead of silver nitrate, you'll be getting hand surgery with a relaxing general anesthetic and a numbed arm.  Wait a few days and Dr. Leoni's nurse will call to schedule an appointment."

"Can you give me a Vicodin prescription anyway?  Please?"

"Definitely."

I strutted out of that clinic like a rooster on his wedding day.  The Stone Roses were blaring in my head, cocaine-induced rock and roll flowed in my veins, and all was well in the world again.

Truly Disappointed. Truly, Truly, Truly, Woooooe...

(Title bummed from one of my favorite Morrissey songs)

I headed over the Harbor City Kaiser this morning to hopefully get my pyogenic granuloma (henceforth referred to as "my tumor") surgically removed for good.  But nope.  My tumor is still here.  And I am feeling incredibly sorry for myself.

Basically the tumor is too "alive" to just cut off because it will grow back.  So we'll have to kill it first...by fire.  Es loca!

Here is what I have to do: basically I have to drive over to the hospital everyday for 2-4 weeks to get my middle finger burned with silver nitrate (which is applied via a wooden stick that looks exactly like those big barbecue matches).  If I don’t want to drive, then I’ll have to burn myself at home which is not a physically possible option for me for now, since I don’t really feel like burning myself on purpose, plus my hand automatically pulls away from the heat source IMAGINE THAT!

The procedure hurts really bad, kinda like burning yourself, IMAGINE THAT!  But for 30 minutes straight.  I cried like a baby.  I drove home crying, I collapsed into Tim's arms crying, and couldn't stop crying until Tim brought me a bagel.

My self-pity level is through the roof.  Woe is me.

When All Else Fails

Man, I am in a funk today!  I have this crazy tinnitus, a fever, and that stupid pyogenic granuloma motherfucker on my middle finger grew back to twice its original size. 

So I scoured my old blog archive for this video of Emily laughing for the first time:

It never fails to put a smile on my face. Hopefully it will put a smile on yours as well.