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"Having Sexy"

I don't think I need to tell you my dilemma. The title should be telling enough. My son has only just finished Pre-K and I am having to deal with "sexy." As the little girl in the opening of Annie Hall tells the Woody Allen character, "Even Freud said there was a latency period."

My son had his "girlfriend" over (that's another story). We were watching TV when suddenly: Are they having SEXY?

This after almost 20 minutes of surfing the channel guide for something age appropriate for my son and his friend to watch.

The Cats! It was the cats! We have two. A male and a female. The male has been particularly randy these last few weeks. They male mounted the female right in plain view just a foot or two from where we were sitting.

I don't know how much faith I would put in the people who created Spongebob to inform me about sex and my kindergartner but what I read on their site seemed to make common sense.

The Parent Center at the Baby Center site has a more authoritative name and provided much more information. In fact the Parent Center has a "How to Talk" for almost everything under the sun.

Most of the sites say the same thing. Speak calmly and openly. Don't make stuff up. Don't rush to judgement. And admit when you don't know stuff. Of course, despite my training as an educator and my liberal social views, I became the perfect caricature of the uptight old Christian school marm - Look Away Children! Look Awayyyy!

Blame it on conditioning? The insistence on silence and avoidance by a sexually repressed society? Contrary to my education and my liberal views, when it came speaking to my son about sex, I am a hypocrite. Caught off guard by the situation, my instinct was to avoid the issue and ignore it (which is what I did). I shooed the cats away and ask my son and his "girlfriend" to continue to watch TV. They did but I suspect that the question had not been forgotten.

I tried to follow up with my son the next day but it was too little, too late, and it was more of a talk about coming to his mother and me with questions about the body and what the cats were doing. I spoke to him about not touching other people's bodies and about how "No means No." But we just never got around to talking about sex. In fact, I don't think the word ever came up.

Writing Assignment

Last fall, I took a children's book writing class. The first assignment was to write a letter to yourself at a younger age. I just came across my letter to my 12-year old self:

Dear Vincent,

You don’t have to read the whole thing if you don’t want to. You don’t have to read this all at once. I’m hoping you do but you don’t have to.

This is going to sound weird but sometimes it is OK to lie. Just like people, there are “good lies” and “bad lies.” A “good lie” would be when someone gives you a present and you really wanted something else, but you say you like it anyway because you don’t want to hurt their feelings. A “bad lie” is when you say you have something you don’t because you think it is going to make you more friends.

Don’t try to impress people. Your friends are your friends because they like you, not the things you have or who you want them to think you are. That’s the other thing. You’re not a bad person, so I don’t understand why you need to be someone else. Don’t. You are going to hurt more people than you can live with because you weren’t honest.

Try this: Get yourself a marble notebook, the kind that Mommy buys every August to get you ready for school. Then get yourself a pen or pencil, something you like to write with. Always keep the two together. Always keep the two hidden in a spot that only you can remember. Write down the bad lies you want to tell in the notebook instead of telling them to people. It’s like making up stories just like the stories you read or watch on TV. Use the notebook for your thoughts, dreams, and the things that scare you. It might feel strange and be hard at first, but I think you’re really going to get to like it.

You’re 12 now. Twenty plus – almost 30 – years from now I don’t want to be sitting here writing this letter.

The Good, The Bad

My eldest son and I were watching Heroes one night. He asked me, "Daddy, who are the good guys in this movie?"

I replied that there were no real good guys or bad guys, just a lot of good guys doing bad things.

He watched some more before responding: "Daddy, I'm confused."

Something clicked for me at that moment.

There must have been men fighting or he would not have noticed that there were two sides in the story. My son is still very young. The books we read him and the stories we usually let him watch draw a distinct line between the "Good" and the "Bad." However, the books usually don't go into why the wolves or witches do the things they do that make them bad. 

Joseph Campbell was all over PBS touting his "Power of Myth" when I was in college. Almost like one of their fundraiser drives, after heavy airplay, he disappeared into oblivion; available only to fans and casual browers of the PBS video catalog. Though Campbell's focus was mythology and not parenting, I have found meaning in Campbell. At 40something that meaning is changed from what it was at 19.As we age from children to adults, at some point we need to leave good and bad contructs of perception and accept a new paradigm that mires perceived good and bad acts in more complex dances of motives and emotions.

But what does that mean to my son? How do I clear his confusion? Motives and emotions are hard enough to understand at 40. How do I explain them to someone who is just building his vocabulary of emotions? I need a "Now" answer.

It would have been easier to have villified one character over another. We see it in political and religious campaigns all the time. Good Guy/Bad Guy. President Bush brought the adjective "evil doer" out of radio scripts into modern day politics. Religion draws dangerously distinct lines between what is called "Good" and what is called "Bad" - though it seldom practices what it preaches (sorry, couldn't resist the jab).

The scene from Bedazzled where Dudley Moore is dancing around Peter Cook just popped into my head. It's in this scene that the Devil (Cook) explains to the movie's protagonist, Stanley (Moore) why he fell out of favor with God. He explains that he had been loyal to God for centuries and then God one day says that his son Jesus is in charge. The Devil says he loved God so much that he just couldn't follow Jesus, so he and a few other "True Believers" revolted.

 My son and I watched the rest of the episode in silence, absorbed by what was going on. I was engaged on what would happen next and I would like to believe he was engaged in trying to understand why what was happening was happening.

TAG, You're It!

My wife's and my latest dilemma has been over Talented and Gifted (TAG) programs. She favors them, whereas I do not. She believes students in these programs have better access to a school's latest and greatest resources (e.g. equipment, books, and teachers). She believes our son would be better challenged academically in a TAG environment.

I agree with my wife that TAG programs have better access to a school's resources than mainstream classrooms. However, I also believe that TAG programs are elitist programs meant to establish social and intellectual hierarchies. I am afraid throwing our son into a TAG program would cause him to support the unfair and condemning social and intellectual hierarchies that exist and subvert the notion of social responsibility and conscience that I hope to instill in him.

I Googled "dangers of talented and gifted programs" and then "negative impact of talented and gifted programs" (and then I Yahoo!ed) but didn't turn up anything - though I am sure there has been research done on the impact of TAG programs on the social and intellectual development of TAG students and mainstream students. I did manage to find an opinion piece regarding the impact of a TAG program on students that do not get selected.

I wonder what the impact would be, if you provided low performing students with TAG access to resources? Among the resources, you would have to include a "safe" environment. One where the student felt confident about letting his or her "guard" down and fully exploring the content assigned.

New York Magazine ran an article about the New Explorations in Science, Technology, and Math school (NEST+m), a TAG school that was to serve as an example to the rest of the public school system. However, in my opinion, the principles on which it was founded were misguided. NEST+m was founded on the desire to build a "private school" in a public school setting. Instead of building on the positive aspects of the New York City public school system, NEST+m adopted all of the negative aspects of the private school system - elitism, social Darwinism, profiling, etc.

Why do people believe that the education in the private school system is superior to that of the public school system? I am not convinced that the private school system provides a better education than the public school system. For me, it is an issue of nature v. nurture. For me, if you provide low income students with the same environment upper class students are privileged to in private schools, you could generate the same results. Of course, you would also have to address issues of "safety." BUT provide a safe environment for students to learn and they will learn.

Students stop learning when they stop being challenged. In my surfing for information about the negative impact of TAG programs, I came across a legal sounding document from Virginia regarding how TAG students are identified. It was a long piece about the racial inequities inherent to TAG programs. It stated that the criteria for determining TAG students often overlooked those students labeled as troublemakers or had a history of acting out. It stated that some of these students might be TAG students. It stated that these students acted out because they were not appropriately challenged.

Like any other parent, I like to think my children are filled with great potential. As a parent, who is also an educator, I struggle to distinguish "true" academic potential with parental pride. Would my son make a good TAG student? Would he be able to be both the TAG son my wife wants and the socially conscious son that I want?

Bang! Bang!

The one thing I was insistent about when my eldest was two was that there be no guns. Unlike the other kids, even water guns and the kind you make extending your thumb and pointing your finger were not allowed. My son is now five and guns have made their way into his play. He sees them in the cartoons he watches, on the news, other kids, comic books and the regular kind - Everywhere!  

In hindsight, my decision to ban all gun play was irrational and harmful. Keeping my son from a "bad thing" did not prepare him for what to do when that "bad thing" was all around him. I'm jumping the gun here (pun intended), but how is he going to handle a situation where he is 15 and the kids around him are all smoking pot or just cigarettes? In hindsight, my banning the "bad thing" from his life left him unprepared to deal with other "bad things" later on. In my ban I destroyed any opportunities for "teachable moments."

In hindsight, it was not so much the guns that bothered me. It was where he was pointing the weapon at that concerned me. I hate to sound like an NRA goon, but in this case it was "people that kill people," not the gun. My ban on guns did not stop him from pointing his imaginary web shooters, iron palms, Ultraman ray (made by simply bending your arm in a 90 degree angle), etc. at the "evil" object or person.

There has been a lot written about little boys and aggression. Some years ago, my wife and I swore by a documentary we saw on PBS called Raising Cain. It addressed aggression issues in boys and talked about the "boy pysche" in the modern world. It made the claim that aggression was natural in boys and that ignoring it or suppressing it could be harmful.

When I read a recent Parental Advisory on Babble, it reminded me of my snap decision to ban gun play and being hit with the consequences of being wrong.

Guns and aggression are inevitable in the life of a 21st Century boy. I have lifted my unenforceable ban on gun play for my boys. I have replaced the ban with talks of proper gun play conduct and appropriateness.

Native Tongue

I want my children to learn Chinese because:

1. I'm Chinese.
2. It is important to me that my children retain a cultural connection.
3. I have always regretted that I am illiterate in my parent's language.

It was always a given that my children would learn Chinese. My wife and I did not question it. The dilemma occured when my wife and I were deciding which dialect they would learn: Cantonese or Mandarin? The other issue is that I really don't like the way Chinese is taught. The classroom is very traditional and uninspiring.

I do not have fond memories of Chinese school. My parents stopped sending me shortly after I started. I got into fights with the other kids. I started late, so was a year or two older than the other kids. My friends played baseball on the weekend. I didn't think it was fair I had to go to school. I speak Cantonese awkwardly and am completely illiterate.

I cannot even write my own name in Chinese. I have to ask my father to write my children's names. I don't even know why I insisted my children have Chinese names. My Chinese name serves no other purpose than to remind me of my shortcomings. Even my grandmother called me by my English name when she was alive - and she was the one that gave me my Chinese name!

So I wonder about the wisdom of sending my children to Chinese school. It is "awakening" for me to be in the position my parents where in when they registered me for American kindergarten in Queens. They did not have an intimate knowledge of the English language, just like I don't have an intimate knowledge of Chinese. I struggle to understand everything I am being told. My wife and I speak English at home. We do not share a common cultural dialect.

I toy with the idea of going back to school and getting a BA in Chinese Language. I want to be able to read in Chinese, regardless of the dialect. But I know I am a poor student. I have tried several times to learn Mandarin and have not made any progress. It is struggle to stay focused.

I wonder if my sending my children to Chinese school is a decision made from ego (a way to compensate for my own shortcoming) or if I truly believe it is beneficial for them in the future.

Birthday Bash

Recently, my wife and I argued over whether or not to throw our son a birthday party. She wanted a large party with all of his classmates. I wanted something more intimate with just the nuclear family. 

This year, our son's birthday fell at an opportune time. It was Spider-Man week in New York City, Free Comic Book Day, the Tribeca Film Festival, and the Asian American Heritage Festival. I felt it would have been enough to spend the days up to and after his birthday attending one of the events going on around the city. I felt it would have been more "intimate." It was time to bond with him. And it was more than just one day.

My wife felt that it was important to have a more traditional celebration with a party, cake, and candles. This was his first year at school. He had attended his classmates' celebrations and had been asking for his own party. She also felt that this was a very important birthday for him. This birthday marked a benchmark in his life. We last had a big party for him when he was three. We hired a storyteller and rented the backroom of a cafe.

Recently, I read an article on Babble called "Birthdays Gone Wild." The author wrote about how much time, planning, and money she had spent on her son's birthday parties. Once, she even rented a lion cub from a local zoo! She wrote about how frustrated she was that her son seemed to have no memory of the great birthday parties she had thrown for him. He only remembered running around and playing with his friends. She realized that the parties she had thrown for him were more for herself than for him. The parties helped relieve the guilt she felt over being a working mom. Needless to say, with each year the parties became more and more extravagant until she came to the realization that the size and expense of the parties did not matter to her son, who only wanted to play with his friends.

This year our son got a party with all of his friends and we celebrated throughout the week with a special activity here and there. It worked out well for everyone involved. I spent the day with him and our youngest. My wife had a party waiting for him when we got home. We don't have the resources to rent a baby lion but "Birthdays Gone Wild" was a poignant cautionary tale for all future birthdays.

His Fifteen Minutes

I didn't want to talk about it. There are enough people talking about it. Analyzing it. Thirty-three people dead. Murdered without reason. "Without reason." Senseless. That's what makes the situation all the more tragic, all the more depressing. Sad. There was no reason for it. It was just spleen. Everyone involved was collateral damage to his rage.

They're dead. He's dead. What did it prove? Why? As disturbing, sad, and painful as these days are, the human heart is a very resilient organ. The survivors and the friends and families of the deceased will move on. Live. And cope with the tragedy and loss. He will become a statistic. His fifteen minutes will fade and he will become a statistic.

So what was the point?

The senselessness of it all is what upsets me most. Do I ever want to be able to understand something like this?

The cynic in me asks: Where will you be? What will you be doing? when this happens again?

The imagined enemy. I remember reading Notes from Underground, where the narrator speaks of a great offense that the alleged offender is completely unaware of. The narrator imagines conflict where it is only coincidence. The narrator needs conflict to justify living, so he dramaticizes an accidental bump in a crowd into the greatest injustice and insult.

I am infuriated by the killer's insistance of "victimization." He takes no responsibility for his actions (including his own suicide). He hid behind the persona, Ishmael Ax. Being victimized (perceived or not) does not justify victimizing others. Revenge makes for a nice story vehicle but is ineffective as a solution to any real world problems.

Dumb Daddy

I've been an "Idiot Dad" more than once. More than once I have convinced myself of a truth just to be proven otherwise. More than once, I had made up my mind before I heard the whole story.

This happens most with my eldest simply because he is the eldest and the way we interact is booby trapped with opportunities for me to jump to poor conclusions.

It happened last Saturday. I got upset at him because he didn't finish his breakfast. I scolded him for not finishing his food. Eating is an issue with him. Where his younger brother has a healthy appetite, it is rare for my eldest to ever want to eat anything (including the sweets that other parents complain about).

Still angry, I asked him to brush his teeth and get dressed. We had a dentist appointment that morning. We walked quickly to the subway station in silence. On the train ride, I stopped being angry and spoke to him about why I was angry and why it is important that he eats his meals. The remainder of the morning was fine after that. He didn't even wince as the dentist cleaned his teeth and he entertained himself quietly as he waited through my teeth cleaning.

I knew something was wrong when he said he wanted to go home. Usually we spend the latter part of the morning together after our dentist appointment. We window shop, visit the nearby comic book store, go out to eat, some times even a movie. This time, he just wanted to go home. When we got home I realized why - he had developed a temperature since getting out of bed. That was what probably made him eat even less than he normally does!

I am an idiot! I should have known. The signs were there but for one reason or another I was OK with my conclusion that he was just being difficult about eating his breakfast. I didn't think that he was out at the playground the day before. It was unusually warm. The temperature dropped that evening. We left the window open. He caught a chill. I didn't dress him warm enough the morning of the dentist appointment. His chill blew up into a fever.

I am an Idiot Dad and not only did my eldest suffer for a week with a cough and fever, my youngest caught the bug too. I did too. I am even more of an idiot because after the first time I didn't listen to my eldest, I swore I would not do it again.

(I will tell you about how I became an idiot in another post).

Namesake

What will I tell my sons when they ask how my wife and I named them? Will they ask? My sister was named after a race horse. My father says he named her after a race horse that won on the day or some time during the week of her birth. I was named because he wanted something "different."

I say that both my wife and I picked the names for our sons, but the truth is I picked them. She just agreed. We had two names that we really liked for our oldest. We went with the one that was softer to the ear and had more meaning in Chinese numerology. We didn't know at the time that we would be using the name we didn't choose for his younger brother. A harsher sounding name in English. In Spanish, smoother.

A fun fact about my children's names: Neither my wife's or my parents can pronounce the name correctly. The consonant sounds do not exist in either of our parents' languages.

The boys' names were easy. My wife and I struggled over what to name a girl. Initially, we thought our second would be a girl. We had a girl's name picked out for our first just in case, but for one reason or another, we felt it was necessary to revisit girls' names. I think it was me. I was unhappy was the name we had selected before. But I had no alternatives to choose from. We wrestled with names it seems up to the day our second was born.

Both my sons have Chinese names that they do not know or can write. My grandmother chose my oldest son's name and my father chose my youngest son's name. My grandmother had passed away before he was born, so the responsibility fell on my father.

Their Chinese names are simple to remember and to write. That was my one request. My Chinese name is complicated and hard to write. I remember at one point in my life when it seemed like I was going crazy, my grandmother wanted to change one of the characters in my Chinese name because she felt that all of the ornate dashes brought about a "disharmony." I had refused.

Actually, it sort of made me angry. It was the name she gave me. And even though I could barely write it, I had become very possessive of it. It was after all - My Name! I believed all of the little ornate dashes were strengths and not a weaknesses. I believed they symbolized "versatility" and not "disharmony."

My sons' names begin with a solid unbroken character. The second part of the name is not so "unbroken" but the strokes are limited. There aren't a lot of dashes all around. I believe this will make sons more straightforward and driven than I was, especially in adolescence. Also, their names both bring to mind the sun, which brings to mind new days on spring mornings. Which brings to mind the subtle and unconscious need for hope and new beginnings.

My grandmother passed away shortly before my oldest son's first birthday. I still do not use my Chinese name for anything. I still cannot write it. However, it is still my name. I hope my sons feel the same about their Chinese names.

Trust

It is a horrible feeling not being able to trust your mother. Recently, I have had to draw some pretty thick and deep lines in the sand when it comes to my mother. It has not been easy.

I know she did not mean to do it maliciously. I know she thought she was doing the right thing. And I have no intention of trying to change her. But she can be very controlling and sometimes in her need to control her environment, she can be insensitive to the people around her. She can be extremely hurtful.

I do not blame her. It is my fault and the fault of my wife's for not addressing the issues earlier. It is my fault and my wife's for not enforcing our boundaries and reminding my mother of them when she first crossed them. Instead we ignored it and my mother mistook our passivity as our condoning her actions. Now, I have stopped it and my mother says she does not understand.

I have to be very rational and very clear with my mother. I need to control the conversation. If I do not, she breaks off into hysterics. She gets emotional. When she gets emotional my wife buckles to her whims. When she gets emotional, I hang up the phone.

She used to be able to manipulate my sister and I that way. She used to manipulate us by crying or screaming and yelling. But we are grown now and somewhat more self-aware. All sincerity is lost in the knowledge that she has used this tactic to gain control in the past. My sister has not spoken to my mother in 12 years. I am not my sister but I am tempted. All I have done is restricted her visits with my children to once a month.

She kept saying she "didn't understand." I told her that she is very controlling and that sometimes her need to control hurts people's feelings. I told her that my wife does not stand up to her and that is a problem when it came to decisions regarding our children. I kept on at her, listing instances of when she crossed the line with me, until she relented and said, she didn't agree. I told her not understanding and not agreeing are two different things.

My First Book

The Rice Daddies blog recently held a writing contest that asked parents to reflect upon a favorite book from their childhood or one they have read to their child(ren). I missed the contest but it got me thinking about my favorite books from childhood.

Actually, I don't remember the title or the author of the book that had the greatest impact on me. It was the first book I read by myself. It was about a boy who was made fun of or felt awkward because of his big hands. The story ends with the boy using his big hands to play football, where his hands help him become an excellent receiver. He no longer felt awkward about his hands, now that his large hands served a purpose.

This book had a big impact on me because up until then I was choosing books that were beyond my reading level and only "pretending" to read them. I don't know why I did that. I guess, I thought it would make me look smart.

The second most important book from my childhood would have to be Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. I remember my elementary school teacher reading it to my class. I read it myself recently and realized that my teacher had skipped some of the more perceivably controversial sections of the book (or at least I don't remember her reading those parts of the book). What I remember most about the book was that it was "contemporary," set in then modern times in the same city I was growing up in. I think I felt a "connection." It was a story about a boy a little older than me, growing up in the same city as me.

Up until then reading had consisted of fairy tales, furry animals in human clothes, and SRA cards (SRAs were the bain of my existance in elementary school. Basically, it was an hour of silence where you completed reading comprehension activities printed on little color-coded cards).

Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing is set in New York City's upper West side (or East side, I don't remember) near Central Park. The narrator, Peter, lives in a small apartment in Manhattan with his mother, father, and baby brother, Fudge (who antagonizes Peter and his parents with his seemingly innocent antics). It is because of Fudge that their father has lost an important account and is on the verge of losing another. It is because of Fudge that their mother is so frazzled all the time. And it is because of Fudge that Peter feels so much like a "nothing." The story climaxes when Fudge swallows Peter's turtle (which is funny because I didn't realize that those little Chinatown turtles were available back then). I am sure that you have already guessed the ending. Everything turns out well. Fudge lives and Peter for a brief period in time sees the positives of having a little brother. Peter gets a new puppy (something too large for Fudge to swallow) and it seems his parents have set stricter boundaries for Fudge.

Is.It.Me?Space.Com

I have a profile. I have Friends. I have even been Added and have asked to be Added. So why do I feel like something's missing? Why do I feel like I'm doing something wrong?

I have friends who can get on a plane or a train and end the journey having met a new acquaintance. Nobody talks to me when I am traveling. I never meet anyone. My wife moved into my apartment shortly after we met. I had been living in the same neighborhood for five years and only said hello to the fellow in the pizza parlor, the husband and wife at the video store, and the cashier at the supermarket. Within a week she was friendly with most of the neighborhood (including the severe looking guys at the Italian Club on the corner).

Networking itself is confusing to me? I know that it happens - that it is supposed to happen. I know it is routine and ordinary. But it seems so insincere to admit that you do it or that you are good at it. At least it does to me. It could be just the idealist in me. The part of me who wants to meet people for the thrill of meeting new people and not for the purpose of my own professional advancement.

Networking. It sounds so calculated.

I set up a MySpace account after reading an article about it in Blender? Or Spin? Or Rolling Stone? I don't remember which. It was a short article where the subject matter was more interesting than the writing. The article was about how MySpace is changing the way music is being marketed. It talked about how bands were using MySpace to connect with fans and promote their shows and CDs. I have actually become a fan of some of the bands that have sent me MySpace friend requests. Tilly and the Wall, Tiny Masters of Today, and Ruby Throat (Katie Jane Garside's project) to name a few.

I recently set up a Face Book profile. I guess now that MySpace can be considered mainstream, technophiles are looking for other virtual networking alternatives. My youngest sister introduced Face Book to me. She says it's "cooler" than MySpace. I can't tell the difference. MySpace has better customization options but Face Book has much less spam.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Drawing Lines in the Sand

I have drawn lines in the sand with my family. I have had to set boundaries. It was difficult at first. It started with my father and grandmother. I had to get them to call before "dropping by." I also had to get them to agree not to drop by so often.

It hasn't been easy. I know their feelings have been were hurt. And, in hindsight, there have been times I made decisions out of personal convenience instead of a greater good. I have said, No, to family gatherings, if the boys were sick or if the weather was bad or (and I hate to admit it) if I didn't feeling like dealing with my family.

It is important to me that my children bond with their grandparents - all three sets of them! It is more important that my family is healthy and happy.

I grew up not knowing much about my father's side of the family. I knew only that my grandmother was a second wife and that my father was her only child with my grandfather. He had several children with his first wife but my father was the only child he had with my grandmother. At least this is what I have pieced together.

My wife's family is very close and my mom's family is very close. Being close means that life is not always cheery. Sometimes being close is too close. Recently, I have had to draw a thicker line in the sand for my mother.

My mother comes over to "help" my wife manage the house and our two sons. It began as a visit once or twice a week but then grew into a visit a day. Some weeks she even came on the weekends. My wife and I no longer spent time alone with our children (especially the our youngest child). Her visits had become more of an inconvenience than a source of help and support. She made greater and greater demands of us and took control of how our youngest was being raised (including issues of health and medication).

I have asked her not to come over anymore. However, I have yet to confront her about her actions. She doesn't know that anyting is wrong. I simply told her that my wife, my kids, and I needed some "nuclear bonding time"; bonding time as just a "nuclear family."

JinXes

When I was young (maybe 10, maybe 7), my grandmother ran through the house shaking a rope of bells. My sister and I followed excitedly behind her with our dog, who barked throughout the commotion. My grandmother said she was chasing out demons. Decades later, I reminded my grandmother of it. She denied ever doing it.

My grandmother died a devout Christian. There was only one devil and one God. She did not believe in demons and kitchen gods anymore. These beings were relegated to folklore and superstition.  

Drugstore Cowboy is one of my favorite movies. Not only because William S. Burroughs is in it. He was my creative inspiration for many years. I regret not going to see him when I had the chance. He died months later. And not only because Matt Dillion was great in it. Up until then I had only known him from Rumblefish. I never saw the Outsiders. But because the Matt Dillion's character was severely superstitious, which caused tension with the gang his character was the boss of.  "Never put your hat on your bed..."

I am selectively superstitious. I don't stand chopsticks up in a bowl of rice. I cut my hair the week before the New Year and not the week after. I also don't sweep or vacuum New Year's day or the day after (to be on the safe side). I believe in ghosts and have had moments of Deja Vu. I tell myself that they are the result of anxiety, restlessness, exhaustion, and stress. I'm not very convincing.

My wife announced she was pregnant with our son the Saturday after 9/11. My wife and I waited the three months before telling anyone outside of our family. When we announced it to our friends, my coworkers wanted to celebrate but I said, No. I was afraid that bad karma from 9/11 would harm him in some way. I didn't want a big deal made. I didn't want to attract any bad luck.

Recently, our youngest son had an operation. It was a common and simple procedure. The doctors seemed confident and everyone we spoke to whose children had the same operation said it was a simple operation. My son's operation would have been simple, if he did not have an ear infection, a cough, and severe cold. It also turns out that there was a minor complication with the procedure itself. It took longer than the surgeon expected.

Everything worked out fine. He is recovering nicely on all counts (the cough and cold, the ear infection, and the operation). My wife and I were both stressed out during the weeks leading up to the operation. I refused to speak too much about it. I was afraid that speaking about it too often would jinx the operation. I wrote a brief email message to friends asking for their well wishes but that was about it. I was uncomfortable giving out any details - even to family.

Waxy Poetic

It used to pour out of me. It used to be a state of mind. I used to be able to take in a situation and churn it out as "poetry." I was so passionate about it then. I actually enjoyed the challenge of putting sounds and rhythms together. I used to have something to say.

Then it all changed. I changed. It got hard. It got too challenging. I got bored. I was reading the same words over and over again. It became more about who I was with than what I was saying. And when that happened I didn't have anything meaningful to say anymore.

Now, it's been a long time. I finally took an online creative writing course. My wife has been very supportive of my writing again. I tell her she doesn't understand the time involved. The class started out OK. I enjoyed reading what other's were working on and I enjoyed receiving criticism on my piece, but there wasn't enough time and slowly but surely I stopped turning in the weekly assignments and I really only did what I always end up doing, reediting the same portion of text over and over again. I got stuck in the same place I had when I first dropped the piece.

I made a decision when our first son was born. I decided that our being together then the three of us, now the four, was the most important thing for me. I still dream of getting that first book out and I think that maybe someday I will. But for right now, spending time with my wife and my boys is what I want most.

Right now, I am still my kids' hero. They still enjoy spending time with them. I don't remember spending time with my father when I was young. I think maybe I just forgot. I remember my mother taking my sister and I shopping a lot. I think most times it was just me. My sister spent time with my father. It is important to me that my kids remember spending time with me.

Right now, my job is still enjoyable. I feel like I am learning again. The challenges are stimulating and not just frustrating (though it seems I have been catapulted into a more tremulous and polarized arena). I daydream about earning a living as a fiction writer and poet, but doubt I would be able to earn what I do now. Practical things are important now (health insurance, regular paychecks, etc.)

Nine Lives Frisky

Are you an animal lover? Do you have pets? The Chinese aren't big on the pets-n-baby scenario. I like to tell friends and co-workers what some of the members in my wife's and my extended family said to us when we announced we were going to have a baby.

One of the comments was (loosely translated):

"Now, that you are going to be parents, it's time to grow up and get rid of your pets. The dog is cute so you could probably sell him but you should probably just put the cats to sleep..."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing and just bit my tongue through the rest of how inhaling or ingesting cat hair causes cancer.

My poor cats. They were to blame for everything from the common cold to the path to Armageddon. Our dog caused human blight as well but not to the degree that our cats did. I was not always a cat lover. I did not have a cat when I was growing up. We went through several dogs and fish. It was not until the summer after my freshman year in college when I owned my first cat. Rain. It was a tiny black kitten that a friend had brought over. I didn't want to come back to the City, so I was renting the first floor of a house with friends under the guise of finding a job. I spent most of the summer hanging out, smoking, and drinking. The cat ran away when I came home to NYC for a month to earn some money.

My next cat experience was through my first real girlfriend. She was actually the first woman I would say I was in love with. With a few exceptions my wife reminds me a lot of my first real girlfriend. My girlfriend was White, my wife is Vietnamese. My first real girlfriend loved cats, my wife loves dogs. My first real girlfriend and I might still be together now, if I weren't so emotionally retarded then. I had a lot of strong opinions then. I've since learned that 2+2 doesn't always equal 4 (though the sum may be similar). My first real girlfriend lived at home with nine cats. For Christmas, a year into our relationship, I went and adopted a cat. He was a Maine Coon Cat. His name was "Spike."

My first real girlfriend and I broke up. I was unemployed and couldn't pay the rent anymore. After a night of drinking by myself, I decided I had lost. It was time to move back home to my father's house. My father forbade me from bringing Spike home and my first real ex-girlfriend couldn't take him either. I think one of her roommates was allergic. Spike went to a nice security guard who worked the plaza where the Fotomat store I used to work in was. I meet him in the street and handed him the cat. It was a warm day. The sun was out. It might have been spring. I don't remember. People were having brunch, so it must have been a Sunday.

It was painful. I was in a daze. It didn't seem real. I have him tattooed to my arm. It was my second tattoo.

A friend of mine helped me load all of my stuff into a van and we drove all night. That same friend also helped me move into my first apartment in NYC. I got our current cat, Squat, shortly after. He was a stray that wandered the Brooklyn neighborhood where I lived. He was a runt (though you couldn't tell it now). He been badly beaten up in a cat fight. It costs a whole month's rent to get him fixed and patched up.

We got our second cat, our first New Year's living in Manhattan. She was a tiny white kitten my wife named Tomoko. She and Squat have been members of our family since.

Just Like Momma Used To

I joke that my dad was the typical stony Chinese dad. I joke that the only time he spoke to me was to tell me that I was blocking the TV. My dad is a nice man. In hindsight, while he was the one that gave me most of my spankings, it was usually at my mother's request.

Before the divorce, I can remember him laughing and joking with his friends. He has since lost contact with them. The divorce really sent him for a loop. He cried in front of me. I was a teenager. I was cold. I told him, if she (my mother) really wanted to go, let her go, and move on.

A positive byproduct of the divorce was that my father and I actually started speaking. I mean having conversations that went beyond the weather and whether or not I needed money. Unfortunately, now that we were talking, we realized that we didn't understand each other. He couldn't understand how I made sense of my world and I couldn't understand how he rationalized his.

This doesn't mean that we didn't keep trying. We still don't understand each other but the range of topics we speak about has increased as the number of "life decisions" I must make increases. Also, having met one of his college friends from Hong Kong, and sharing stories,  I have come to realize that he and I aren't that different. He was a big partier in college too.

Where my dad was not engaged, my mother was controlling. My mom and I had a great relationship until I learned it was OK to say, No, to her. Up until junior year in high school, when I discovered New Wave music and the school theater club, I didn't really care about what I wore or how my hair looked. I had a terrible puberty and lost any feelings of attractiveness during it. So up until junior year I really didn't care what I looked it.

I gave up on my mother my senior year of high school when I got my ear pierced. It was still pretty taboo then. She was furious. I joke with her now that by the time I graduated college, many of her male interns and even some of her male staff had earrings. They did the "Italian" (the one diamond stud in the ear). I had flamboyant hoops and expanded collection in college.

College was really the time I "grew up." My parents were distracted by their recent divorce. I was eight hours away by car or bus and free to explore all of the things I thought an arty poet musician wannabe should be doing.

In adulthood, I have come to accept that my father and my mother wanted a different son. They wanted someone who better fit their mold of "All American." In my mind, I did. I was very "American." It just wasn't the America they were hoping for.

I am scared now. I see a lot of my mother in me. Do I control my sons too much? Am I too demanding? I also see my father in me. My eldest son acts differently around me than around my wife. She says it is because he and I don't "spend enough time with him." I say, I do. But do I? She says we don't interact when we are together.

Decades from now, if they are sitting, writing about their childhood, will my boys feel I controlled them or was uninterested in what they liked? Is knowing that the potential is there enough for me to stop and have a better relationship with my children than I had with my parents?

If They Are Anything Like Me

You can’t help but compare.

Oh he has your eyes.

He has your mouth.

It’s a real ego spurt when someone says my sons look like me. I don’t know why, It just is. I’ve thought about it every now and then, in quiet moments after a good day when everything falls into place. I’ve thought about it and still don’t know why it makes me beam.

It just does.

At least it does until I really think about it. It can be quite damning. I am not the most handsome daddy out there. I am not the most successful, the most daring, the smartest, the coolest, the richest, the nicest - I am not much of anything except mediocre – and I’m not even the most at that.

I know people mean it as a compliment and I certainly take it as such, but when I really think about it, No, my sons shouldn’t look like me. They should be better. They should be more handsome, more successful, more daring, smarter, cooler, richer, nicer, and so on.

When I think about my life, I think about all of the opportunities I let go by because I was too scared to ask or too frightened to act. I think about all of the mistakes I’ve made and the people I’ve hurt because my ego got in the way of doing what my conscience told me to. I think of all of the loss and sadness that could have been avoided, if I were the right person at the right time.

It scares me sometimes to think that either of boys would end up like me. It scares me to think that they would end up on the wrong side of a situation that might bring them harm, physically or emotionally. I can’t watch Law & Order: SVU anymore because I have nightmares about my boys ending up as one of their stories “ripped from the headlines.” Every once in a while, something on the news, something on TV, will set me off and I’ll be awake nights upon nights, panicked over the possibility that that could happen to one of my kids.

And while my imagination runs wild setting up all sorts of desperate scenarios, I know that it would be just as equally painful (if not more) if I were to be overprotective or dominated their lives in some way.

If they are anything like me, they would hate me.

Rediscovering Anime

I have been rediscovering my love of anime. I was a big fan in the 90’s after college. I went to see Urotsukidoji and Akira at midnight showings at the Angelica in New York City. I bought my first series – Bubblegum Crisis – from a then fledgling anime distributor, Animego in North Carolina. My sister got me hooked on the ongoing love-hate hijinx of the innocent Lum and her lecherous fiancée, Ataru in Urusei Yatsura. I watched Ranma ½ on snowy videotapes dubbed in Cantonese.

My crowning achievement during this period was the discovery of Arcadia of My Youth on video, starring Captain Harlock from my own youth. My sister and I used to strain to watch adventures of Captain Harlock: Space Pirate on our tiny TV from the days of rabbit-ears. The show played on UHF. Anyone old enough to remember UHF understands my sister’s and my deep dedication to the show.

Then everything just seemed so stale.

Just like that it seemed that the anime writers were borrowing unabashedly from each other’s storylines. And the drawing… Let’s just say that it became increasingly difficult to tell one supporting character from another. Sometimes the only way to tell the male characters from the female characters was by how bouncy and robust their bosoms were.

Then Pokemon came and I wanted no part of it.

Last year or the year before, I was flipping channels and caught an episode of Samurai Champloo on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. It was different with its quirky sense of humor and engaging characters. I am not going to say that the underlying premise driving the story was original but will say the three main characters and the interaction between them was too rich to be ignored. They were very “human” characters to me, so they were very interesting to me. There was a level of sophistication to the characters that had been lacking from the shows that circulated in the late 90’s into 2000. Later on I learned that Samurai Champloo was created by the same person who created Cowboy Bebop (a favorite my sister introduced me to), Shinichiro Watanabe.

Because it was on right after, I also became a fan of Paranoia Agent. Though I can’t say that I like the way it ended, the getting there was really interesting. It reminded me of the old X Files with Mulder and Scully. There were was a subtly twisted sense of humor at play in some of the episodes that made the entire series appealing. My only wish is that its creator would have taken more care with its ending. The culmination of the series was the usual big all encompassing tidal wave of goo and destruction. It was sort of like the writer just got tired of writing and needed an “And then she died” ending.

I would have liked to have seen the series end via subtle circumstances. Where the characters concerned came to their dramatic conclusions ignored by the general populace. That seemed to be the theme of the series: daily personal dramas. Only in the story these dramas were enhanced by supernatural activity. In comparing Samurai Champloo and Paranoia Agent (I’m doing so because I watched them at the same time), the former had a better ending, while the latter had a more interesting story premise.

After both series concluded, there was nothing again, until Bleach and Trinity Blood. But, while I enjoy both, I can’t say that I feel the same anticipation I felt in the midst of a Samurai Champloo or Paranoia Agent episode.

And now there is Gunslinger Girl and Basilisk on IFC. The coolness and subtlety of Gunslinger Girl reminds me of Paranoia Agent. My sister has already warned me that it is a short series lasting only 13 episodes. I told her that it didn’t matter as long it ends well.

My "How I Met Your Mother" Story

If you would have told me six years ago that I would be married with children, I would have laughed and said, No Way! I wasn't even dating then. I joke with friends that I planned on my girlfriends getting incrementally younger and I got incrementally older.

I like to think how I met my wife is a great New York story. I met her because she wanted to take over the lease to my apartment. I had gotten into a housing lottery and had an opportunity to own my own place. She had just broken up with the brother of a mutual friend. We didn’t really have a long courtship. Our relationship moved pretty quickly.

We don’t speak to that mutual friend anymore. The rumor was that our mutual friend was pretty upset that we got together. We should have made an effort to speak to her, but there was too much “entanglement” and neither of us wanted to deal with it. We did see her by chance on the street shortly after QT (our first son) was born. We walked right by each other. It was sad. I wish I would have spoken up or said something. At least I would know that I tried to reach out to her.

Anyway…

She came to look at my apartment on a Sunday, called me on a Wednesday, we went out to dinner on Friday, she stayed until Sunday, and moved in shortly after. For several months it was me, her, her two dogs, and my cat in our tiny Brooklyn apartment. I had been there since getting my first “real” job with the not-for-profit that taught Constitutional Law. We were happy there. We had just met and didn’t really have any heavy decisions weighing on our relationship. I can remember we had one major fight. I don’t remember what it was about but we went to see a relationship counselor.

Sometimes, I think we should go back. I felt the counselor made some good points. I am carefully to consider them when my wife and I fight now.

The early days of our relationship were spent looking forward to moving into Manhattan. Our first year in our new home was peaceful despite the evolving politics of being on the Board of Managers. In fact, that’s what we argued about most after moving in. She wanted me to join to Board, but did not support any of the decisions I made as a Board member. I was angry because joining the Board was her idea. And I did not like the idea that I was supposed to be a puppet.

Then 9/11 hit. We had only been in our new home a year when 9/11 hit. A sad truth: I had never noticed the towers from the landing of our home until they fell. The pillar of smoke seemed to rise for a week before dissipating into a gray fog that wafted through our streets for another week. The smell of paving tar still sends a momentary jolt of sadness through me. And we were among the lucky ones, we were running late, so were saved from the heart of the devastation.

The following Saturday, my wife announced she was pregnant. We considered our options, but who were we kidding, we were excited about our baby. His brother followed two years later.

What I Do

My goal after college was to sell the film rights and go out in a blaze of glory.

Things didn't happen that way...

I mean I would like to think I found minor (if ever so minor) success as a poet and writer in the 90's back in New York after college. But in hindsight I spent more time drinking and smoking and trying to get laid than actually at my keyboard dishing out deep thoughts. I might still be stuck in that rut if a series of bad personal decisions hadn't brought my life to a crossroads.

I had left a good job as a Program Associate at a not-for-profit that taught Constitutional Law through role-play. The kids would do the workbook exercises with their teacher and conclude with a Supreme Court trial, where they played judges, defendants, and plaintiffs. I was only there maybe a year, possibly two, when I made my first mistake - I chased a paycheck from the then New York City Board of Ed.

All through grad school, the job fairs, and the new teacher orientations, I was told that male teachers - especially those of "color" - were needed in the city system. I was lied to. And I was stupid. I quit my job before I found another. The director at the time even offered me a raise to stay. I was an idiot. The city didn't need me and after two grueling years, I found myself "asked to resign" and working third shift in the publishing department of a brokerage firm. I screwed this up too.

I don't remember how long I was there? It wasn't long. I was answering phones in the publishing department of a brokerage firm. I was a glorified receptionist but the people were nice and the pay was good. I left because I wanted to pursue a "career." I ended up in ad sales for one of those free community papers. Not the career I was hoping for. Not the career I kept.

I didn’t last a year at the newspaper. Having worked in ad sales, I have a newfound respect for salespeople – especially door-to-door salespeople. The degradation and rejection are at times unbearable. I was smart this time around. I waited until I had a job before quitting the sales job. I didn’t really quit though. They would have fired me sooner or later. The day I went in to give my two weeks notice, they had fired my boss. I gave my two weeks and was told not to bother showing up tomorrow. So I didn’t.

And that is how I ended up at my current job. As of today, I’ve been at this job for eight years going on nine. I am relatively happy where I am. It pays well, I like my coworkers, and I like the job itself. While there are still other things I would prefer to do to make my living, in terms of employment, this is as good as it has gotten for me so far.