what would you do if you weren't afraid?

it used to be, wear a 2 piece bathing suit.

i’m now 3 summers of my white b-shaped belly making the rounds in rivers and kiddie pools and oceans.

my body is no longer scary to me. we’re getting to know one another. we’re taking it slow though. we have tea and talk about what hurts. and as if by magic, it hurts a little bit less.

i still don’t want people to get any ideas about us though. we’re not trying to change each other. we’re trying to make it easy, starting with real butter on toast and whipped cream on hot chocolate. and now we’ve made it to bikini status. maybe one day we’ll say ‘i love you’ to one another as we slowly caress each scar. ‘it’s ok. i love you.’ to each inch of dimpled skin, the curve of each calf, each fine delicate eyelid. ‘you’ve done so much for me.’ to each rounded finger, each jagged bitten fingernail. ‘and i appreciate you.’ running our hands through our slick hair.

we’re going to be fine.

where i'm from

today I’m from a place that’s slow moving and tired. this place where coffee doesn’t make a dent. i have a thing for bad coffee, gas station sludge or the weak kind you get for free at hospitals or waiting rooms. i make coffee at home but it’s bad in a way that isn’t bad enough, but i make due. i like synthetic tasting sugar free creamers. i like all these things. it’s not the fashion. i know i’m judged for my want of east coast convenience store 42 hour bottom of the barrel rocket fuel. that’s the stuff. i’m from new jersey. none of this should be surprising. i’m all greasy bags of chips, snacks that turn your fingers unnatural colors. i’m all hot dogs, you know, the kind with the cheese injected into them. i’m all carnivals, rides that should have been condemned, all death defying, it’s a wonder i’m still alive.

i moved to california. for awhile i was all avocado and sprouts on sprouted grain bagels, on a good day, a slice of tomato. for a moment i was all $9 green juices, carrying my yoga mat around in my athleisure. i was full messenger bags with spin shoes and sweat towels and en extra pair of socks. i was all smoke and mirrors, like maybe i could really fake it until i make it and the big reality show reveal i’d come out in a body con dress and i’d be effortlessly beautiful and white.

i’m all low grade anxiety on the daily about my double chin and the clunky way i get up from the reformer in pilates class, the springs and carriage all clanging, like humpty-dumpty and the wall. i’m all egg shaped and weird. i’ve left california but i’m not quite the well worn jeans and complicated facial hair of portland. i’m anti-umbrella. i’m covered in dog hair and oversized sweatshirts. i’m top knots and fraying fading teal hair and cbd tinctures. i’m the aging raver in leg warmers and black leggings with a husband who works in tech. i’m the ex-vegan who eats spam because it is her history. powdered milk and corned beef and garlic fried rice for breakfast. the colonialism present on my plate, my people didn’t invent canned meat.

these days i’m anti-salad, pro ice cream in the winter and not interested in eating leftovers because i’m spoiled. i’m all recovery from catholic school and forever fag hag. i’m all carbs and wearing hoodies as winter coats and black lives matter. i’m all therapy and failed attempts at a meditation practice. i’m 32 flavors and then some and every singer songwriter you can remember from the late 90s.

J broke up with me after I bought him dinner.  I always bought him dinner because he worked in a grocery store and I worked in an office that paid me decently.  He had access to food but never brought any over to cook so I bought him dinner.  J was a butcher and the one time he actually did bring over pork chops from his natural foods store he only brought enough for himself.  This should have been a sign. 

J broke up with me on McAllister Street outside the pan asian restaurant that was just ok but close to my home. After dinner, after sharing short ribs and rice and spring rolls and noodles.  After he ordered three beers to my one.  After it started to drizzle and he opened his mouth and told me that he didn’t think this was working out and that he was going back to Texas for a few days and I stopped listening. I wanted to go back inside because it was raining. I wanted to go back inside because maybe it would rewind us for a little bit so I could be more prepared or maybe he could revise what he was going to say and say something like, “Thank you for dinner. Do you want to go get ice cream?” or “Goodnight, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

J started to follow me as I turned around to start walking home.  I didn’t know what to say although my mouth kept opening and closing, all start and stop.  Nothing was coming out so I just started walking because everything was shutting down. I could feel my body sink into itself, like it was deflating and I needed to a soft place to land.  Home. Walk the two blocks home. Get directly into bed. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. J was still talking but I had no idea what he was saying.  The rain started to soak through my jacket, my shoes. My toes squished with each step.

“So you’re not going to talk to me? Is this is?”  He asked.  I turned back around. His glasses were wet and I couldn’t see his eyes.

“You’re going home to Texas,” I said. “You’re not going to come back are you? Are you seeing her when you’re there?”

“Well, we’ve only texted. I might meet her for coffee.”

“You don’t drink coffee.”

He didn’t reply. Laura. She dumped him before he moved to San Francisco. She had the J who had health insurance and access to his meds. She had the J who didn’t need a 40 of miller high life to go to bed every night or he’d freak out and think he’d lose his job and become homeless and then die within a year. She had the most functioning J there ever was and she dumped him.  I had J of the 40 oz. J. who rationed his klonopin until it ran out. J who hid in a bathroom for three hours at a friend’s party. J who had broken up with me before in a drunken haze then woke up with no recollection that he had dumped me.  I had this J and I stuck with him.

He pulled out a pack of Basic’s from his pocket and started to pack them, smacking them against his left palm.  He would never be able to get one lit in this rain.  He was looking for something to do to take up this silence.

I turned around and started walking home again.

“It’s not what you think!”  he called back out. “We’re just catching up!”

I whipped myself around. He had taken one step towards me.

“I don’t care!  I don’t know what to say to you! I need to go home and I need you to stop!”

“Stop what?”

“Whatever this is! I need you to stop so I can go home!” Before I start crying. Before I start thinking about wasting time on something that was so harmful to me. Before I start listing all the awful things about me that are the cause of you breaking up with me. Before I start thinking about Laura who is thin, Laura who is white, Laura who I’ve only seen myspace pictures of. Laura who had the good version of you and threw you away when I was the one who had the dysfunctional version of you who couldn’t bear to let you go.

He put the pack of cigarettes back into his pocket.

“Go home,” he said. “I’m sorry. I still want to call you when I get back. We should still talk.”

I turned again and made my way home, wet, heavy, throat tight, wishing I had taken his pack of cigarettes as a parting gift, wishing that my roommate wasn’t home so I didn’t have to explain anything, wishing I was someone else altogether because being myself sucked so bad.

well then THAT happened - 2018

what if i told you the highlight of my year was the Janet(s) episode of The Good Place?

like, i’ve watched it twice and can watch it another 5-10 times if need be as some sort of reset button when i feel like i’m glitching out and can’t even. my anti-glitch resource used to be listening to ‘Magpie to the Morning’ by Neko Case on repeat while re-organizing my underwear drawer and re-balling my socks over and over again. i think watching this episode of The Good Place, or any episode of The Good Place (oooh, the Derek episode!) is an upgrade from balling and re-balling my socks (which apparently is bad for the elastic in your socks but whatever).

January started off with an exhausted groan. shoving a lot of travel into the end of 2017 made new years an uneventful thing. I baked a cake. I declared this year the year of cake and passed out before midnight.

Knee surgery was looming and it was giving me horrible anxiety. I had a dream that someone broke all 4 of charlie’s legs and i woke up crying and couldn’t stop crying and even thinking about it right now typing this out my eyes are welling up and my chest is tightening because i think that’s probably one of the most horrific things that could ever happen and i’m so so so sorry to have even shared this if it brought you horror and pain as well.

that’s the state i was in prior to knee surgery.

jeff likes taking pictures of me under the affects of anesthesia for some reason. one might think he hates me.

January and most of February can be described as

i spent most of my time like this in a full leg cast to keep my knee as straight as possible.

i started PT. PT was all I remember of February. Maybe some snow. Working from bed. Sleeping downstairs in the front room of our house because stairs were out of the question.

March rolled around with more mobility and my first foray back into movement was a Fat Kid Dance Party class with Bevin who was on a mini tour.

We decided to foster again with OTAT PDX and had a great couple of weeks with this big baby

otis was the best foster non-fail

i took him out on a solo walk and we ran into neighbors i had never met before and they fell in love with him at first sight.

the best thing is we still get to see him and his new family since they’re close by. we get to dog sit him and his brother Kuma and they’ve gotten to dog sit charlie and bean.

i started to volunteer more with OTAT and get more involved because as the year in politics and existing in this world became more exhausting the more i found dogs to be my saving grace.

OTAT Puppy Feta

i continued to struggle with knee issues but i kept on working at it. i continued to struggle with my body and feeling like it was failing me because i am inherently a failure but i kept working on it. i continued to go to therapy. i continued to spend time with other fat folks who weren’t trying to change their bodies. i went to see sonya renee taylor and jess baker speak and read. i thought about cutting out food groups and then didn’t. i entertained the idea of diets but then didn’t. on my worst days i called my body garbage and went back to the idealized version of me i always imagined i should be. when i realized this version of me was always white i realized that there were so many more things i hated about myself that had nothing to do with size.

I KNOW, RIGHT?

therapy is horrible and awesome and painful and helpful and shitty and necessary.

i started taking a writing class.

i was still working at the same time. the OTHER kind of work. the paycheck kind. it was starting to make me a horrible person to be around.

i started to entertain the idea of writing more and working less.

i deleted facebook and instagram off of my phone and then re-installed them because i am human and because local friends are sparse.

i recorded a podcast with IRL friends and it reminded me of bad decisions, sloppy living and how much that can bond people when you survive the worst times and the best times of your life with a group of people.

i finally finagled an appointment with winston the whale and committed to the largest tattoo i have.

people ask me for meaning and significance and really, it’s a head in a book. a tribute to my inner nerd and nothing too deep.

spring melted into summer and instead of getting up at ungodly hours to go to the gym i’ve found myself going to a monday night dance class that has made me completely rethink my old relationship with movement.

i continued to dismantle all the old ways i used to think that were slowing killing me while the outside world crumbled around me. immigrant detainment. children in cages. this proposed wall. the privilege i currently have along with the truth that if i do not open my mouth and speak perfect english something bad could happen to me... it all played out in how i was living my life and spending my days.

existing anyway. waking up every morning and going about my life anyway. being and thriving in this marginalized body anyway is a political act. understanding the privilege i have being a smaller fat, being a less brown race, having opportunity and choice which means it is my duty to listen and help those more marginalized than i am in whatever way i can.

i decided to stop working and talked to my company about taking a break to write. i couldn’t keep doing what i was doing. i have been needing to get off the hamster wheel for a long time now.

melissa moved back to the bay. when your local friend contingent consists of 3 people that’s a pretty significant loss.

bean misses squishing his head between our shoulders after a morning at the dog park.

i stopped working and i thought i’d be a writing machine.

typical day

i clearly wasn’t.

in true ME fashion, i slept. for like, a thousand years.

between naps friends came to visit.

we spent time in large bodies of water.

and tiny bodies of water.

i kept doing the work.

some days i felt cute.

somedays i did not.

this mirror will always be dirty

more bad shit kept happening to BIPOC.

i kept writing. and reading. and going to therapy. and going to dance class.

the most accurate description of doing the work

photo by Lindley Ashline of Representation Matters

i went river tubing for the first time ever and got stuck in various places which reminded me of several important life lessons.

1. people want to help you (people i had just met that day were willing to come take a dangerous route to fish me out).

2. i am also capable of helping myself out even when i feel like a hot mess.

3. next time, bring a paddle.

i had a birthday. i contemplated this step closer to the end.

i still gladly order chicken fingers 90% of the time they are offered at a restaurant.

I went back to San Francisco with Jeff for the first time in over a year and a half. I mostly went for the friends and the food.

at ChaYa our favorite veg restaurant that has managed to stay alive in the constantly changing Mission.

I continued to not work.

i wasn’t writing like i had anticipated. it came and went in spurts in between a plethora of appointments. P-DTR. PT. Acupuncture. General Practitioner. Therapy. Pilates. Dance. Yoga.

I was busier than ever and I had no idea how it happened. This writing sabbatical turned into a healing myself in all ways possible sabbatical.

I realized the more I wished things were different the worse I would feel.

I got another tattoo.

two in one year? who AM I? (by the awesome Lindsey Strong @ Equinox Tattoo)

I made it to my third Portland Bookfest/Wordstock in a row to see Lindy West and Abbi Jacobson. Chef Ed Lee and Sam Sifton and a whole slew of other writers.

in which my phone wants to turn people into ghosts

i wrote notes to myself on bus rides.

there was more of this

and this

i also got to go to England with Jeff to spend time in London

drink coffee with my sister in a former public toilet

and see these lil guys who are growing really fast

and despite the long flights there and back it was worth it

the rest of december has been quiet settling and the acceptance of this concept

and trying to keep the voices at bay that tell me i should do this, i should do that, i should, i should, i should…

It’s January 1st. I slept in as much as Bean will let me (before he gets the breakfast shakes). I pulled out the journal and wrote a bit. I lounged a bit. I made breakfast and ate it with Jeff. I settled down to write this with the fear it would take up most of my day and it has but the sun is still out and I still have time to put on real pants, possibly a bra and run a brush through my hair…or not. I still have time to bake another cake or finish coloring this while listening to podcasts (which is a whole new level of “things that bring me total joy”)

from the Liberty Fabrics coloring book

this year has felt like a lot of this

but i’m still here and so are you and most people i love. i don’t know what this year will bring. i typically like to throw out some message of hope and joy and whatever but this year it feels more appropriate to tell everyone that if you need to feel shitty, you should let yourself feel shitty. feel all the things. the hopelessness and the darkness and the fear and despair. feel meh. feel angry. feel all the uglies you need to feel. all of this is ok. don’t cover it up with “love and light”. don’t let yourself think your feelings are ridiculous or uncalled for.

then give yourself some grace.

know that you are loved even if you don’t feel it at the moment.

it’s just a moment.

find your own reset button. the Janet(s) episode is a good place to start.

you can try and categorize your moments with an app (like i do and i DON’T KNOW WHY I KEEP DOING IT)

lifecycle

but know that you contain multitudes.

i love you.

  I remember heartbreak and it feels like a wrung out washcloth.  It feels like numbness and rage and deep sadness all at the same time. It feels like flaming hot Cheetos dipped in sour cream and washed down with orange juice.  It tastes like your mouth after throwing up, like you’ll never be able to taste normal again. Like your mouth is the deep pit of Mordor. Like everything inside of you is black sticky tar and you wonder who will tell your parents that you are now a useless slug of a person, an empty husk who can barely pick up the phone to call in sick for the 3rd day in the row. Like there are not enough hot wings and beer and ice cream in the world to fill you up, your insides a cavernous void, a black hole. You miss being human. You miss your friends even though they come by to check on you but all you can do is listen to them talk about movies and their jobs while laying prone on the couch taking up way too much space.  You imagine playing out the rest of your days playing candy crush and spending money on games designed to make you spend money and you hate that you’ve become one of those people who falls for this scam but $14.99 for another 10,000 coins or bubbles or upgrades or whatever sounds reasonable if you could just keep playing until your battery dies and you need to get off the bed to find a charger because the one on the nightstand has a bent cord that no longer wants to work. Like you. Like how you no longer work because someone bent you. Someone used you so haphazardly that you broke and now you’re all glitchy and weird and need to be replaced.

when invited to a cocktail party

i want to praise things that cannot last. i’ve stopped pulling out my phone to take pictures. i’ve stopped feeling the need to interrupt whatever is happening in the moment so i can chronicle, meals would go cold, moments missed, all for a subpar shot of a fancy pasta dish or an indistinct blur of the moon in a dark sky. there are people who are experts at this and no iphone will make you ansel adams. so i keep the device in my pocket or on the coffee table and i eat my fatty carbonara and let the fresh peas pop between my teeth and i can imagine my own netflix cooking show in my head with perfectly curated shots of silverware and wine glasses and i laugh at bad jokes in my own version of a cocktail dress which is really a summer sun dress, hot pink in a sea of black lacy numbers and impossible looking shoes and eye makeup i don’t understand. i keep my phone in my pocket even though i want to capture the fireplace and the old tufted leather couches with furs and velvet blankets. even though i’m tempted to curl up on the cowhide rug like a restoration hardware spread. i want a photo of what this feels like, like you could smell the whiskey and smoke and glamour of it all and in the middle of it, me and my green hair in a top knot, garish pink frock and sensible shoes.

"6 Self Improvement Hacks to Instantly Improve the Way You Live & Work"

Please let me tell you something you already know, wrap it up into a simple bullet point list telling you that meditation and gratitude will improve your life. that being present and not juggling too much stuff (some call it multi-tasking) will lower your blood pressure. that eating well balanced meals and having friends and family will make everything better.

this is not a life hack.

i want to tell you about the several times i’ve failed, even with a meditation app. how i can’t rely on doing something 5 minutes a day every morning because life happens. how multi-tasking is the only way some of us get anything done. how i don’t trust what people tell me about how well balanced is a balanced meal because everyone has an agenda to make me smaller.

no carry on luggage.

but what if i am all of my baggage?

what if i’m just a collection of experiences, reactions, memories, wrapped up in a skin suit, this bag of spaghetti and bones.

but feelings, i leave those out. so fleeting and fickle and something that can change weight so quickly.

i want to bring just the important stuff. like that one perfect day where both my knees were functioning well enough i could take our dogs for a long walk. that batch of cherries from Bi-rite in 2013. the first and only bite of a patty melt at the pine crest diner at 3AM where i was drunk, it was raining and i had fallen down in the tenderloin but it didn’t matter because my friends picked me up and we ate french fries and drank coffee and i took one bite of the most perfect patty melt before pushing the plate away saying, “I can die now. This is life, you guys.” slurring and sloshing beverages around without care. opening up all the windows in the cab to my driver’s dismay because i wanted to be rained upon.

those moments all stuffed into a suitcase haphazardly, too many of them i have to sit on top to get the zipper to move. i want to pair it down to the essentials but i find myself grasping onto more of them. these tokens of what love looks like.

ice cream sandwiches on front stoops, sticky fingers, melting everywhere and not enough napkins. bike rides at midnight to the 24 hour safeway. pizza and youtube videos. naps in the park. throwing paper airplanes off of josh’s balcony in fox plaza, high above market street.

i think i need a bigger suitcase.

***

there is nothing tidy about my life. everything is always spilling out everywhere no matter how hard i try to keep it contained. it is this mess of stuff, all story, none of it is random. do you know what the heaven beetle is? can i show it to you? can i tell you why it’s important?

i seemed to have stopped purging. it was great once upon a time. i always wanted to get rid of the old so i could continue making room for the new stuff that the new me would want. there was always a new me on the horizon. old me is so 1998. current me is never enough and is always in flux. current me was never real me but new me, just you wait. she’s fucking tidy. she goes to the gym often but not too much, she puts more vegetables than fruit in her smoothies and isn’t a “dessert person”. she can have cocktails on a weeknight and still make it to a yoga class in the morning before starting work at her job in a young office where she can meet deadlines and still take fridays off. she has a capsule wardrobe and only purchases an article of clothing every 6 months and never changes sizes so she never has to replace anything. she has 4 pairs of shoes, one for each season because you know, she doesn’t really need a lot of stuff. she doesn’t like having stuff. it’s all boiled down to the essentials. like an ascetic monk…but aesthetic. an aesthetic monk.

fuck. i hate new me. i mean, why don’t i want to be this current me with too much of everything and underwear in 3 different sizes and clothes that are either too big or too small and 25 pairs of black leggings all in various states of disintegration?

sometimes i see friends and family members who have children and i wonder if the distraction is a blessing or an even heavier thing to carry thinking about the shitty world we’re handing over to them to deal with while we get alzheimer’s and get old and forget that cd’s don’t exist anymore. while we talk about telephone radio alarm clock combos that plugged into the wall and paying for things with checks and learning things about your friends organically because there was no facebook.

current me needs to get off the internet and take a much needed shower. her ‘natural’ deodorant is failing her or 3 days is the limit on days she can remain unshowered. current me thinks showering takes too much work, wishes breakfast sandwich delivery was more affordable and is mad teleportation hasn’t been invented yet.

i write because i like re-reading old journal entries. i write because i like looking back on memories i’ve forgotten that i get to put on again, briefly

so my fingers and hands can remember the feel of wet sand and the tide washing over them and the first taste of salt water taffy. the disappointment that it wasn’t any good and how the adults loved it but i wanted fudge and i swore that when i was an adult i wouldn’t lie to kids about candy and what is good and not good.

i write because i if don’t no one will know about all the secret cigarettes i used to smoke out my bedroom window

or the time i pocketed the body of christ at mass so i could take it home and look at it to see if it was really special in some way, huddled over the wafer, locked in the bathroom. the disappointment in seeing it was just like the flying saucer candies, like thin edible styrofoam and i popped it into my mouth in a panic because my mother knocked on the door.

i write because i want to remember and catalog all the times i’ve locked myself in a bathroom to do anything other than its’ intended purpose.

to hide from an ex at a party.

to examine my underwear the day after a miscarriage.

to eat a thanksgiving meal after my aunt had told me i gained weight.

to eat an unsanctioned snack of cheetos because i was subliminally taught that it was the only place to eat unsanctioned cheetos.

to hide in the bathtub from my parents because i refused to change into a dress for a party.

because it’s where i go when i want to be an asshole but not hurt anyone’s feelings.

i write because it’s easier than talking to people and i want people to know that i love them but i don’t want to hear what their reply would be.

i write because one day i may need to remember in specific detail all the horrible things that have happened to my body, by others, by myself, with good intentions, but maybe not. i write because the brain has selective amnesia and will do what it needs to do to protect you, so you can function in daily life without being haunted by ghosts, but the body knows. the body knows.

loser

the thing about having asian parents…

there is never an action i do where i do not think, “is this benefitting you or advancing you in any way shape or form? if not, then why are you doing it?”

i think this as i individually pick up dried water beads with my finger tip and scrape them off into a container. i have been doing this for the past 30 minutes. i really have no reason to keep these things and quite honestly it feels unhygienic to keep and reuse them since i have thousands of them and they were $10. i have 45 unread books scattered around me, a novel i haven’t started writing, meal prep to do, clothes and dog toys strewn around the floor, an unmade bed, a bunch of PT exercises i haven’t done in days, a piano i haven’t touched in a month and here i am picking up itty bitty beads and putting them into a jar while all these other bigger things go undone.

the thing about asian immigrant parents, if you don’t accomplish their version of success then what are you and what did they sacrifice for?

there is no room in my life to breathe even as i make this choice to waste time on a mindless task that benefits no one. each minute is saturated in guilt. i should be writing. i should be reading. at the very least i should be cleaning the house or making dinner. at the very least i should be making a budget of some sort so i can find out where we can save money. i have that same affliction samantha irby wrote about. that “i grew up poor so now that i have money expensive useless things like special face wash make me feel good about myself.” and while i’ll take my addiction to toiletries that don’t do anything to make me look better and insulated hydroflask water bottles over an expensive purse and/or shoe addiction any day i still don’t feel that great about it. ideally, i wouldn’t be addicted to material things. ideally, i also wouldn’t be wasting time dehydrating water beads by the handful on my desk.

i walked out of hilary’s office and limped down the steps (as a person with chronic knee pain often does) and out onto N Williams Ave thinking about how i spend an hour a week trying to figure out why i think i’m a lazy garbage person with privilege she doesn’t deserve and how do i stop feeling this way because i really can’t be all that bad of a person. i’ve never killed anyone. i say please and thank you and often god bless you when someone sneezes. i hold the door open for people even if they’re far away and i never let my bag take up a seat on the bus.

one theory is that i’m lacking mirrors. i’m lacking people in my life who reflect back to me and reinforce my inherent goodness. i have my husband. i have my therapist. but all my friends live all over the place and i don’t have that daily interaction with people who know me and can provide this positive reinforcement.

being an introvert and an empath and an adult who does not have to go to an office everyday i’m faced with the impossible task of making friends.

i’m so not good at this.

so i continue to keep my life insular. i pet my dogs. i do the mundane useless task. i buy an expensive shampoo. i feel like a failure. i kiss my husband. i contemplate if it’s a “me” character trait or a general Cancer (sun sign not disease) thing. i wonder how other people do it.

but i dare not ask the internet. i’ve shared some of my frustrations and anxieties via intstagram stories and have been met with one part heart emojis and one part “have you tried cutting sugar from your diet or intermittent fasting?”

wtf people.

get your shit together. if you’ve been paying any attention to any of the content i put out there you’ll know that your suggestion of occasional controlled starvation is not wanted or tolerated.

i can’t depend on social media interactions to be my mirrors because i don’t trust it when it sends me shit like this from people who only vaguely know me.

i need some IRL friends which feels impossible to make while i continue to think and act like i’m a complete loser.

i have nothing good to put into a poem this morning.

i am all stomach gurgles and questionable breakfast choices.

i am the instrumental music that comes on when the medical office puts you on hold and you’re on hold for five years.

i am the jack in the box that opened up after your favorite falafel place closed down.

the 24 hour diner with the lights shut and locked door at 2AM.

i am the tone of your mother’s voice after you’ve ignored her last 3 calls

the friend who wants to talk to you about carbs

the hairdresser who aggressively combs out your earrings

the person who cuts in front of you in line casually, like he had been there all along when he was really over two feet away flipping through US Weekly

the smaller city Target that doesn’t have anything you want or need.

i’m the truck who won’t let you get in the right lane

the stained plastic take out container you can’t recycle so you can feel good about your environmentalism.

i’m the starbucks that opened in italy.

the disappointing salad you spent $15 on

the medication that gives you explosive diarrhea.

the leftover goo stuck to a bottle after you removed a label.

the ghost booger you have while you’re waiting in the lobby for a job interview.

i’m over lotioned hands that won’t let you turn the doorknob

the lego embedded into the bottom of your heel that you’ll still be feeling days from now.

please don’t ask me how i’m doing today.

i blow the candle out because i don’t want to remember. it’s not the right time. funny how the brain does this, starts closing the sliding door to that room. no, it’s not time yet. you’re not ready. it’s too much. the mechanisms your body has to keep you alive. your body wants you to thrive even though the world is shit and people can be horrible selfish creatures, even though you can’t think of good things to put into a poem this morning, even though you are surrounded by moments that are loving and earnest, even though you can’t see them right now, they’re here, they’re happening and the brain shuts the door to the really dark stuff because even the grey stuff is too much right now.

being filled with too much from the outside world. the people who love you are worried about you.

dehydrating water beads you need to spread them out. they dry out quicker the further apart they are from one another. the ones that stick together remain full the longest, pulling life from one another, like living things, like if they could create a raft of themselves they can keep themselves afloat for much longer than if they were alone.

i want to thrive.

please don’t give up on me. i don’t want to wither alone.

i write to remember

I remember the night we cobbled dinner together out of all the things I needed to eat before I left Boston. 5 mangoes leftover from the box Fred impulsively bought at Haymarket. A cup of cereal leftover in the box. 2 packs of ramen. A box of mac n cheese. Leftover Rice a Roni in a tupperwear in the fridge. Fred gathered the mangoes in his arms and carried them like a baby in his arms.

“I got these,” he said.

“You’re going to be shitting yourself for weeks!” Jesse laughed.

“I know,” Fred replied. “It’s going to be epic.”

I finished the cereal in one handful to the mouth.

“What’s next?” I asked, still chewing.

“We can do the mac and cheese with water.” Jesse grabbed a pot out of a box, like magic, nothing ever appears that easy in an apartment full of boxes and trash bags. all soft sided things were thrown into hefty extra tuff garbage bags. everything else in brown cardboard pilfered from the market down the street. it makes sense that my last winter in boston was the coldest and our heat was broken for most of it. i remember throwing matches at the pilot light, willing to risk life and limb for working warmth. at first, leaving boston felt like admitting defeat, a failure of sorts. I had told myself that there was nothing left for me there.

I could have stayed. I would have eventually left Lawyers Weekly and gotten some other office job. I would have fallen in love with someone else, someone who wasn’t Fred. someone who wouldn’t insist on eating 5 mangoes in one sitting. someone whose pants i didn’t need to mend on the regular. I would have found an apartment with working heat and would have never let my constitution go soft like it did in sunny, warm LA. I don’t remember who ended up with all my winter gear, the grey wool men’s coat i found a thrift store, the only thing that ever fit me from a thrift store. the fleece gloves that you couldn’t hold shit with if you were wearing them. the duck boots from LL Bean. the flannel lined jeans. none of it came with me to LA and now I want them back just so i can smell them and remember what boston in the winter smelled like.

***

three starts. three assignments. no editing.

#1

things that don't suck. my cholesterol. surprisingly. i think even my NP was surprised and a part of me wanted to be like, "Ah ha! I got you!" like i'm wearing a fat suit  and all of a sudden i shed it. surprise!  fooled you into thinking this thing about me which is totally untrue! but...

this is not a fat suit.

the realization that comes with a lifetime of being in this skin, my viscera, the way my hair thins in  this one spot. these moles, the fact that i keloid, my scars becoming puffy little masses, like they're raising their hands saying, "I'm here! I'm here!"  the secondary chin that pops out to say hello when i'm tired and i let my head nod forward. my fading tattoos. my inability to jump upright out of bed, the ay i can feel my bones scrape against one another, my juicy days are far behind me.

these things suck. sort of. mostly.

the miracle of walking my dogs after 2 knee surgeries. finding the best recipe for buttermilk pancakes. the warm pocket my husband leaves in the bed when he gets up. the ability to live anyway. to do anyway. to be happy anyway. to keep it all wide open despite it all.

that doesn't suck.

#2

no thank you. no it's ok. i'd rather do without. i know already that i didn't feel better when i looked like that. no thank you to eating disorders and treadmills. i'm saying goodbye to that. she. her. she never served me. she was always a means to an end. she was the promise of love, relationships, of acceptance, success, of normalcy. she was the end of a 90 minute rom-com, all lilting acoustic guitars as the credits rolled over an image of a sunset over the bay. she was a shiny gold thing, all coveted sparkling gems.  she was all ease. at least that's what everyone suspects.

no thank you to her.

there used to be tremendous effort to day goodbye to her. she's just an idea. she's not even real and i can't help but sit here looking at my hands in wonderment at this dream that was sold to me so long ago that i believed it was my own doing. my own fault.

no thank you to accepting blame for everything. for doling out forgiveness to every space i walk into, issuing apologies before anyone has noticed me. i'm so sorry i'm like this. i'm do sorry for asking for anything. i'm so sorry i'm not her.  

#3

there is a certain kind of trouble with this kind of harsh light.

exposure therapy. it's a thing, right? it feels relentless and unforgiving. 

it's in my own control right? i'm doing this thing. opening the wound over and over again.

i don't turn on this lamp for a reason.

i read at night in low light. i prefer the darker months of the year. when the world get a little too cold for comfort. where the outside is wet and saturated and the sun is nestled into a cloud pocket. this kind of grey is nice. the neighbors stop grilling and we all go inside for warmth. we all do the things we do to nourish ourselves to the ultimate cozy. 

i'm all over the place when the seasons transition. i'm wondering how long i can be barefoot in the house. i'm unsure if i should wear pants outside. i look at weather apps and it's like a completely foreign language i refuse to read correctly. it's never right and i want to wear dresses and flip flops with scarves and hoodies. everything is uncomfortable. the temperature of a room takes up way too much real estate in my brain, pushing more coherent thoughts. what was i talking about again? am i running away from something important? filling in the uncomfortable gaps with talks about the weather? is my brain tricking me? protecting me from myself?

permission

you have permission to use the wrong word

to take the easy way out

to walk away when you realize it's a waste of time

you won't believe this but it's ok to throw away politeness

there's not enough time left for sitting on your hands wishing for something better.

you have permission to fart in public, to change your mind, to say how you really feel

to not compromise

who likes pineapple on pizza anyway?

say no to obligatory dinners with people who make you feel bad

let go of people who wished you were different

     if only you had more money

     if only you were as much fun as so and so

     if only you wouldn't wear that shirt or those shoes 

     if only you didn't let yourself go so much

     if only you didn't drink so much

     if only if you drank more often!

     if only you didn't have bad knees or listen to old music or like that tom hanks movie or

    insist on getting your own popcorn because you don't like to share.

yeah. fuck those people.

you have permission to say fuck that noise and whatever whispers that will come after.

let your soft fat body go out in public, eat popcorn shrimp in the food court and get your ice cream in a cone even though you know it'll end in certain disaster.

be the sticky faced three year old you know you still have rattling inside of you.

buy the $8 orange juice because it tastes good.

buy the $2 concentrate can because it tastes like your childhood.

go to the grocery store and buy nothing but $50 worth of juice because you can. give it to people you meet on the street. hand out dixie cups of it to marathon runners. join the race for half a mile or however long your body will take you then go to a bar and order a ridiculous drink full of sugar and booze and fruit.

feel free to drink it or throw it at the next person who warns you about diabetes or the person who tells you how juicing cured their cancer or how chia seeds makes them less hungry.

 throw your beverage at people who offer nutritional counseling without your want or permission.

take a nap dangerously close to bedtime.

wake up in a panic at midnight cursing you and your bad decisions.

make more bad decisions. 

because life without them isn't life. 

love me like fresh everything. but also like the forgotten shea butter in the back of the drawer, years old, its oils rancid. if you can love me like that, the rest will be easy. love me like the forgotten. love me like the rediscovered, where everything you've lost becomes found again.

love me like first kisses, all unknowing and unfamiliar but full of wanting. love me like last kisses, the holding of faces, the teary goodbyes.  the last goodbye, how do i show you what a lifetime of love is in one last kiss? the one that i hope isn't in a hospital but somewhere cozy with a fire and our dogs laying at our feet.

love me like you know how i will die. love me like that.

like every morning you've ever reached across the bed to kiss the back of my neck. like the dogs and how they jump and squeal and bring us their most prized possesions when we come home. love me like someone who has come back after a long journey. like a homecoming after a harrowing disaster. like a near car accident, a close call. love me like i'm something you could possibly lose.

love me like the ninjas love their own stealth but make it loud.  make it like the garbage trucks on an early friday morning clanging the bins against their vehicle. make it loud like getting stuck in  front of the speakers at a show, like you wished you brought ear plugs. love me like the crying baby on a plane whose lungs are on the verge of giving out, all the wailing and uncontrollable emotion.  she wants what she wants. she needs and she needs and her parents can't stop apologizing.

love me like that. all unraveled and disheveled emotion, all last push for the finish line of the longest marathon, like the last exhausting step up the mountain, the last stroke of your weary arms hauling you ashore where you can finally rest.

love me like that.

it doesn't have to be beautiful.

when i started working from home i stopped learning how people dressed themselves in public. or i just forgot how to not look like i just came from the gym or from sleepy time yoga. i don't know what to do with hair that just wants to live in a top knot everyday or worry if i need to shave my legs if i'm going to some sort of formal event because i refuse to let pantyhose back into my life.

i'm letting myself grow unruly, like our unkempt back yard.  i'm overgrown with spring flowers growing wherever the seeds were tossed months ago. the dead straw like stems of mowed down clover left to bake in a the sun during a too hot summer. the random potatoes jeff buried in the corner to see if we could get new life out of wrinkled aging spuds we forgot on a counter. it is all randomness. it is all throwing stuff out there and seeing what nature will let stick.

i'm a lush jungle of too much stuff. my belly grown and flopping over, too full of memories, of meals both consumed in joy and in sadness. the binge of breakfast cereal and breads and all the things i denied myself. there was a time where there simply wasn't enough honey nut cheerios in the world that would satisfy. this hunger that was let loose after a lifetime of being tidy, neat, being all things good and quiet and easy to swallow.  full of order. easily contained.

these days i'm unraveled, like ursula unleashing her tentacles, an uncontrollable mass of life and limbs coming undone. the first deep breath after a long breathless evening in an undergarment squeezing you small.  the sigh of relief after letting go, shaking loose and sitting with whatever you are now, now that you are free.

i have no discipline because it does not serve me anymore.

i am unruly because my days have no structure.

i am judged by the state of my body and the rules i now no longer choose to live by.

it doesn't have to be beautiful.

nothing has to be.

it. just. is.

i don't know how to eat a mango.

i could google it. i could watch a hundred youtube videos.

i should know how to do this.  is it not the fruit of my people?

i don't really have a people.

feeling very 'other' lately.  like i'm special but in that bad way kind of special.  it's easier to cast my lot with american. i grew up drinking juice out of metallic pouches and eating cereal that tore up the roof of your mouth. i was born here. i only speak english. 

i had a job in belmont once. 6 of us squeezed into a tiny office nestled in a weird strip mall off of el camino real. 3 white men and 2 filipinos.  i was the whitest person there. my bosses grew up and spent more time in the phillippines than i had and the language would switch when they wanted to discuss things they didn't want me to know about.

i've lost my ability to grasp meaning from the few words i knew. as i grew, more and more words slipped from my brown, out my ears, needing to make room for more interesting things. whatever things teenage girls liked.

wild writing starts back up in september but in the mean time i've signed up for 27 days so i can do it on my own.  i've only managed to word vomit my feelings in a non-pretty way. i've only managed to be 1/2 way through michael arceneaux's memoir.  the part where he's currently broke in LA and how it mirrored a lot of my same experience of the sprawling city.  carless. broke. embarrassed about being carless and broke and how that keeps you lonely in a place that is already designed for peak loneliness.

we had a two day break in the heatwave but that's pretty much over.  my inherent asian anxiety wants to keep me living in fear of wasting every singly privilege i have.  the rest of me is trying to take a staycation.

therapy should be interesting.

i could hear the tubes filling with blood. my blood. i could hear it and it made my toes curl and my insides go all squidgy.  i was looking away. i always look away because i hate needles. i can't look.  i remember getting nauseous catching a glimpse of an iv in my hand pre-surgery.  

my blood pressure was high. again.  the nurse asked me about it and if it's something i talked to my NP about and I told her no, i had only come in once before last week and it was high then too.  it's doctor anxiety, i'm sure.  it's also brown person anxiety.  it's fat person anxiety.  it's 'i took the bus here and i've been feeling ick about the bus lately which goes hand in hand with brown person anxiety.'  i have privilege though. i know it.  i'm not black. i'm not indigenous.  i'm not the most marginalized of the marginalized. i filled out their questionnaires on depression and anxiety.  they gave them to me after i filled out my initial paperwork.  probably cautionary since i went into detail about how anxious i've been lately.  there aren't enough lines in your form for me to tell you why.  if i could boil it down to something that would fit into the small space you allotted i could say:  historical trauma. marginalization. trump.

i'm bracing myself for the lab reports. i cry on the bus to the coffee shop on the way home in between bites of a protein bar that tastes like sadness and self loathing. i can't eat them anymore. especially on public transportation. i was always scarfing down sugar free protein bars to and from some sort of workout class because i was always scared of passing out, like a part of me knew that i was existing on barely enough food to keep me going.  i was a vegetarian with a gigantic fear of carbs at the time so i was always carrying around quest bars, the lowest of the low carb protein bar options.  

i was grateful for the empty corner table at kainos, my favorite coffee shop.  i was grateful austin was working because i always get hugs from him no matter how busy the shop is. i drank my coffee. i ate my biscuit. i read my book and tried not to think too much about it all.  i need to parse it out. i need to let it all slowly make its way into my brain so i can digest all these conflicting emotions.  this need and want for my body to be different than it is.  this need and want to not change how i've been making decisions about exercise and food because this way has felt balanced.  watching my belly expand and grow and feeling conflicted because i do not love this body but i do not wish to change it because i've done that before and it doesn't work. 

how do you not feel like a failure when society says your body is shameful?  and if you don't work to change your body your behavior is shameful? 

i'm supposed to be writing poems about this kind of shit, i'm sure.

when i was a kid i'd often day dream about my funeral.

out of all the adult milestones it was easier imagining dying than getting married.  that and imagining my life as a waitress in a city a la "it's a living" because that's what you did when you moved to a city.

i couldn't wait to be a waitress and i couldn't wait to die.

it's still pretty accurate.  lenny kravitz' 'fields of joy' is still the song i imagine when my body is carried into a churchy type place. when i was younger dead bodies were carried in coffins and i thought that was my only choice but now that i know being turned to dust is an option, i imagine a viewing, a wake before being cremated. i can already hear my playlist. star witness by neko case on repeat.

things i will be remembered for:

- food on her shirt

-tenuous relationship with social media

-very nice. maybe too nice?  

-she liked dogs. like, a lot

-lots of crying

i look down at my lunch, a bowl of instant ramen extra souped up with shitakes and frozen corn and a medium boiled egg. at the end of the day no one will remember that i didn't eat enough green vegetables or consumed gallons of diet soda or preferred americanized mexican food.