Geisha School Dropout

Signs Daenerys Targaryen is Actually Asian

Tim and I are huge Game of Thrones fans, and the final scenes of this week's episode sent us into fits of fanboy glee.  Without giving too much away, Daenerys Targaryen, tiny little Mother of Dragons, kicked major ass.

In the series, the character is played by British actress Emilia Clarke and the UK's entire supply of lip-plumping gloss, but I think she just might be Asian, at least on the inside.  I present my evidence below:

1. Daenerys has silver-blonde hair, violet eyes, and dark eyebrows.  You know who also had blonde hair, violet contact lenses, and dark eyebrows?  Any Asian girl in her early college years.

Those eyebrows don't lie: total bottle blonde.

2. Daenerys married a foreign man who was much more sexually experienced than she was.  When confronted by her own sexual ignorance, what did she do? SHE GOT A TUTOR.  I totally would have too, and my mom would have paid for it.

There's a cram school for everything these days.

3. Girlfriend is not afraid to eat blood and organ meat.  She once ate a raw horse heart with an enthusiasm that would make any tiger mom proud.  

And she did this while pregnant with a son! Bonus tiger mom points.

4. She can spend the night inside a bonfire like it's no big deal (thus earning her the title The Unburnt).  At the Korean sauna, there is one especially hot room called the bulgama which is usually set to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, and little grandmas hang out in there like that's no big deal.  (True story: one time, Tim braved the bulgama but forgot to take off his glasses beforehand.  When he came out, he noticed odd things with his vision...it turned out his LENSES MELTED.)

Dany awaits her scrub-down at the jjimjilbang.

5. She has a tendency to fall in love with and adopt everything she runs into: dragon eggs, the Dothraki horde, slave armies, etc.  But sometimes, she has trouble taking care of them all.  I also have a problem with this, although I don't know if this is a generalized Asian tendency.  Let's discuss.

Dragons bring her luck, just like any good Asian!

6. (WARNING: this one is spoiler-ish) In this last episode, Daenarys totally pulled the Asian trick where people were talking shit about her in Valyrian, thinking she wouldn't understand, and she went along with it until the time came for her to make her move.  Then she busts out with fluent Valyrian, and rubs their ignorance in their faces with savoir flare, heh heh heh.  I've totally done that with both English and Spanish before.  Sometimes you gotta let the stereotypes work for you, you know?

How do you say "You're so fucked" in YOUR language?

Two Emi Stories

Today was Emi's therapy day.  The facility is a Craftsman bungalow with the rooms converted into offices.  Emi's therapist specializes in play therapy, so she and Emi talk about what happened during the week and mutually problem-solve while they play with blocks and puppets.  It's all very cool and adorable.  

However, adults get seen there too, and some of them are pretty disturbed.  Today, Emi had to use the bathroom, and it was occupied for a while by a young man.  When he finally came out, I opened the door and was just socked in the face by the smell of fresh jizz.  Emi wrinkled her nose and said, "This bathroom doesn't smell right!" but started pulling her pants down.  I tackled her, wanting to inspect the toilet seat first, and thankfully, it was dry.  I still made her hover, though.  

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After therapy was over, Emi got to choose something out of the snack bowl.  As usual, she picked up a lollipop and stuck it into her mouth.  "Look, Mom!  I'm cigaretting!"  She struck a Marlboro-man-meets-James-Dean cool guy pose.  I was mortified. 

"Where did you learn what cigaretting is?"

She looked at me like I was in idiot.  "From Red Ribbon Week, MOM."

Thank you, DEA, for teaching my baby about drugs.

I'd Rather Be Watching "Downton Abbey"

No real post for today?  Fer fuck's sake.

Lady Grantham, please accept my sincerest and gravest apologies.  You see, I am drunk and want to watch TV.  Your show, in fact.  I'm so drunk and want to get off on retro English awkward silences and imagine kissing their stiff upper lips and fantasize about their privileged sweat dripping onto my abdomen.

Don't worry Mary, I'll stay away from all Turkish diplomats.

Argh, I suck.

Point taken.

GIVEAWAY SUNDAY: I Wanna Do Bad Things With You

Okay, Glamazons!  Today's giveaway is a Tarte for True Blood eye makeup palette:

Image from A Brilliant Brunette

I bought this a few months ago and although I've opened the box and looked upon it lovingly many times, I actually haven't used it.  So I am giving it away, hopefully to someone who can do it more justice than creepy staring.

The palette contains 17 full-size eyeshadows, ranging from everyday natural to glittery fabulous, primer, aqua gel eyeliner, and mascara. Because it was limited edition, it is no longer for sale in retail stores, but right now it's going for about $80 on eBay.  

So, what I want to know is: Which character on "True Blood" would you most like to do bad things with?

You know the deal: Comment below to enter to win!  I will randomly draw a winner on Friday.  Good luck!

PS: Although I love me some Eric AND Bill, I'd have to go for Pam first.  She's so fierce and she swings my way?  Jackpot!

Bay Area! Go Watch the APA Vagina Monologues on May 17!

Although I love vaginas and enjoy talking about them, I have yet to go see a Vagina Monologues show.  Oh, how I wish I can go to this one!  The cast is all Asian/Pacific Islander, and I bet this will be a transformative experience.

From their website:

NAPAWF Bay Area proudly presents an Asian Pacific American women's production of the Vagina Monologues. Set in the historic Castro Theater of San Francisco, we'd like to invite you to an evening celebrating community visibility, the stories of women, and Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. 

This production is directed by Gabrielle Patacsil and features an all Asian Pacific American women-identified cast. Proceeds benefit the local Bay Area chapter of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, the nation's only multi-issue women's organization for Asian Pacific American women and girls. 

And here are the performers introducing themselves in an awe-inspiring, irreverent, hilarious, and poignant video:

The APA Vagina Monologues
Thursday, May 17, 2012 7:30 PM
Castro Theatre
429 Castro Street (at Market)
San Francisco, CA 94114
United States

Tickets are $15-65 and can be purchased here.

Cross-posted on Kimchi Mamas.

Questions from the Audience #4

Erin asks: If you had a day to do whatever (and whoever) you wanted without consequences, barring any obstacles or even physics or the laws of time and space, what would you do?

 Two words, my friend: SMITHS REUNION.

Morrissey and Marr: I can make them get back together, I know it!

After that, I would definitely take the day off, send the kids to school, and bend space-time to accomodate a lot of hedonism and world travel.  I'd flag down The Doctor (not the current one, but David Tennant, ohoho yes) and make him take me all over the universe in a blue Police Box.  I'd definitely visit my friends strewn across our little blue planet and invite them to join us.

Mmmmm...lovely

The day would culminate in a Last Supper-themed feast/rave/orgy/photo shoot styled by David LaChappelle where Morrissey is Jesus, I am the Virgin Mary, and the apostles are my favorite drag queens and members of the Stone Roses.  Lady Gaga will be Magdalene, washing everyone's feet with her mouth.  There would be  real flying cherubim and the spread would be epic: Moroccan, Ethiopian, Korean, Indian, Greek, Mexican, and those are just the models, dahling!  The food would be even more delicious.  Vomitorium would be off to the right, of course.

Because of the time travel aspect, I have to assume this already happened because LaChappelle has already captured it:

Questions from the Audience #3

Anonymous IMer asks: How has your love story with your husband changed since you first fell in love?

Oh, jeepers.  The short, smart-ass answer is, "A shit ton, give or take a shit."  The long answer deserves more time and thought than what I'm about to say here, but I'll limit the focus to just the "love story" part of our relationship (i.e., not our co-parenting, the daily banalities of marriage, or what-have-you), and just from my point of view.

First and foremost, I think it's important to point out that I was 23 when we got married.  I was a baby, and didn't know myself and/or my potential selves, let alone all of the intricacies of Tim's psyche.  All I really knew was that our connection ran deep, like animal-brain, pheromone-level deep.  I could just stare at him for hours, talk to him for days on end, memorize every pore.  My heart rate would palpably slow down if I just leaned into his neck and breathed him in.  And of course, there were fireworks every time we touched.

(Sounds so cheesy and stalkery now!  But I shall go on.)

Because this kind of affection inevitably cuts both ways, and probably also because I was still very much at the mercy of my depression, I really, really needed him.  I had this juvenile desire to spend every moment together, so any meal, movie, or laundry folding session spent apart wounded me.   I also thought the relationship would end quite often, so I would constantly miss him, sometimes even when he was right there next to me.  As you can guess, Tim felt suffocated and would pull away at times, which made me feel worse.  The whole thing was pretty unhealthy, and I really had to grow up quite a bit and learn how to be my own person.  Unfortunately, this was when I was also trying to figure out how to be a mother, so Isaac's early years were tumultuous for Tim and I couple-wise.

Nowadays, things are much more stable.  I still like to smell him, but I'm more comfortable in my own skin.  I've developed and nurtured my own self-identity, learned to recognize where I end and other people begin.  So now I'm fine being alone, with or without the kids, and that's very much a good thing.  Having a home to call our own with the little family farm out back helped me greatly, too.  Once we were able to put down roots somewhere, my spirit really started growing.

We still can talk for hours, make each other laugh, and we go out a couple times a month to concerts, movies, dinners, drinks, etc.  But now the stakes aren't so high, perceived rejections aren't constantly plaguing me, and I feel more relaxed.  There are still fireworks, but toned down a smidge because our house is small and Emi has an uncanny "business time" spidey sense.  I think she wants to ensure she's the baby of the family.

So, moral of the story is: relationships are extremely tough to sustain because you are not just dealing with two people over a certain period; you are also dealing with the people they morph into over the years as well as the shifting whirlpools of their environment.  So at any given slice of time, are the partners compatible at that moment?  Hopefully so, but chances are there will be time periods of incompatibility.  And I think that's okay.  If you're really in it for the long haul, when you look over at your partner and find an almost-complete stranger who isn't up to snuff, at some point you will have to think, "I will wait; this person is worth waiting for."  Of course, the two of you could always find other people who are already at the levels you need, but what's the fun in that?  :P

Writer's Block Again! Embarrassing Story Time!

Today's embarrassing story brought to you by Oasis!

Okay, so I was at an Oasis concert at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco when I was a sophomore in college (so that would be around 97/98).  They were playing "Champagne Supernova" and the crowd was going wild.  Then the really long guitar solo part came on and Liam Gallagher started wandering around the stage, dead-eyed, trying to convince girls to flash him.  He looked STRAIGHT AT ME and made a motion with his hands to pull my top up.  I did the whole "Who, Me?" shrug and pointed to my chest.  He nodded and tilted his head, like he was saying, "Well, come on, then!"  And so I took a moment to think about it.

I must have taken too long because the instant I yanked my shirt up, he pivoted and started walking the other way.  Therefore, I flashed the people in the audience staring at me instead.  I was so mortified, I didn't want to pull my shirt back down and show people my face, so I was frozen there.  However, Liam did turn back, took a glance, and gave me and my "girls" a thumbs-up.  Whew! 

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Please help me from future embarrassment!  I will blatantly copy my Kimchi Sister jooliyah and take questions.  You can ask me anything, about motherhood, depression, not living up to your parents' expectations, my personal Top 5, hobbies, what I'm wearing, anything!  Please comment below or email me.

 

Birthdaypalooza Part Deux

My girlfriends and I spent Birthdaypalooza this year in LA.  Since I was then the unofficial host and tourguide, I took them to two of my favorite places: Magic Castle and the Korean spa.  People might label an evening of drunken flirtation with members of the occult followed by a day of full-monty same-sex nudity with scrub-downs by dour Korean ladies dressed in what can only be described as ironic black lingerie as unorthodox, but then again, they wouldn't know much about me and my girls.

The worst part about Birthdaypalooza is the shock one feels the Monday afterwards.  Reality never felt so cruel.  

Sigh, I love them all and always will.

Oh!  I also owe two of them a limerick.

Ode to Linda

Linda brings boatloads of fun
Her parties are second to none.
My liver's still sickened
From her bachelorette weekend
That happened in 2001. 

Ode to Deb

Deb is a dancer and sailor
And so many boys want to nail her!
But they disappoint,
She rejects them en pointe;
Only her groom is allowed to abseil her. 

Birthdaypalooza 2011: Let it begin!

It is 11/11/11, and my girlfriends and I are snuggling together in our plush hotel room near LA Live!  There are two more flying in tomorrow, but I will now take this time to write an ode in limerick form to the two who are here.

Ode to Huong

Huong has a great big set of hooters
Which attract an army of suitors
Be jealous of me,
For I see them for free
Resting beside my computer. 

Ode to Kathy

I have a dear friend I call Kathy
Who is currently taking a bathie.
Through the door I heard moans
So I left her alone
To her intimate homeopathy.