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“Let’s go to Spec’s.”

“Um… I’m not sure they have dinner there.”

“I need to get alcohol for my place anyways. Besides, there’s food there.”

“Spec’s has food?”

“Yeah. I mean it’s not as good as Whole Foods or Central Market, but it’s pretty darn good.”

“Okay. I’ve never been before. Let’s go.”

“Wait, you haven’t been to Spec’s? Wow, this will be an experience for you.”

“Yeah, I never had the chance. When I grew up here, I was never old enough to buy alcohol.”

He pulled his SUV into a parking space. It was lightly drizzling outside, and she had purposefully taken out her umbrella before she left to go to his place. She forgot that it ever drizzled in Houston. He reached over and slid the clutch into park. They both exited and made their way to the entrance.

She was hanging out with a high school friend. She always knew that he had a crush on her and couldn’t help spending time with him. She liked the attention that he lavished on her, and it was a much needed distraction from her current relationship, or whatever you want to call it. Boy had texted her the day before saying that he found his phone and was going to call her. Of course, she hadn’t called back, and he never called that evening as promised. When she texted him the next day, he said the phone was charged enough that she could talk to him. That was probably a white lie. She was sick of the entire situation. So she was out with Michael drinking at the moment. Well, they were preparing to drink. Hopefully, there will be other people joining them because she didn’t have enough strength to play the rejection game without being a total bitch.

Walking down the aisles, she asked inane questions, trying to gauge how other people, besides him, would react to her returning home. Of course, many people would think that she’d failed, which is whatever to her. She didn’t care what other people thought, as long as they were willing to hang out with her and give her a chance. After all, that’s all she wanted. She wanted emotional closeness to a select group of people and fuck the rest.

He picked up tequila, rum, vodka and the regular mix of drinks that people usually stocked up on. During the conversation, she found out that he and his roommate, another friend from high school, just moved into their apartment together and he needed to fill up on a lot of things. During the process, she found her favorite childhood candy, Kinder, and bought more than her fair share, which was about $20 worth. It was extremely overpriced but she didn’t care. All she wanted to do was feel wanted and included in some group. She tried so hard in San Francisco to fit in and feel like she belonged. Somehow, it just didn’t happen to work out.

They went back to his car and drove to the local grocery store to buy food. There, they filled up on a couple of sandwiches, completely forgetting the mixers and made their way back to his place. Sitting down to eat, he kept texting his friends, trying to gauge who wanted to hang out and what was going on this Saturday night. She had bought two sandwiches and was alternating her attention between the two of them. Whenever she was famished, her mind was always bigger than her stomach. Hence, her current weight situation.

After a quick phone call, he turned to her.

“Come on. We’re leaving to go eat hamburgers.”

“What?”

“They’re the best in town. Sam and Jason are waiting for us. We’ll go eat there and decide what to do for the rest of the night.”

Not wanting to disappoint these people she hadn’t seen since high school, she quietly obliged. Although she did take half of her tuna sandwich, not wanting to completely lose power. On the drive there, he talked about nothing at all, mostly singing along with the music. It annoyed her terribly; she’d rather hear the song than hear his singing voice but didn’t say a thing.

As they pulled in the parking lot, Sam and Jason were just walking into the restaurant. To her amazement, they were always gone and inside when they locked the car door. Michael mentioned something about the restaurant’s ordering system, but she thought it was just plain rude, although she didn’t say so. Inside, they waited in line to order. Jason pretended not to know her very well, but Sam was more than polite. He was just as she remembered him and all of a sudden, she was so very glad for his politeness and courtesy. Of course, she didn’t like Jason that much during her high school years and this was no different. He seemed in his own world, and she wasn’t part of it.

After they’d ordered, she got nothing because she didn’t feel hungry at all, they made their way to the table. Michael was nice enough to get her a drink. There were big screen TVs all over the restaurant, clearly a sports place. Tonight was one of the final rounds for the national college football championships of some sort. She had no idea what was going on and all the semi-explanations didn’t do the trick. Somehow, everyone assumed that she knew something about college football and seemed to leave out some crucial details. She didn’t k now how the system worked at all, having gone to a private school and wasn’t understanding why people cared so much for a random sport. The teams had nothing to do with their own alma mater, especially since A&M, UT and UH didn’t stand a chance of getting in the finals. At least that’s how she understood it. UT might have a slimmer of a chance if OSU won but that wasn’t happening by a 10 point spread or so. That’s about as much as she could understand.

Jason wasn’t too keen on the details of his life. Every time, she made a polite general question he thought it was directed towards him. Any courtesy she could afford, which was very little at this point, was overlooked. Sam, however, was more than a gentleman. Michael, for the most part, remained quiet.

After dinner, they went back to Sam and Michael’s new place to drink the freshly bought alcohol. Jason was disappointed at the selection and went back to his truck to get a ready filled cooler with cold beers and ice. She fixed herself a drink, which was way too strong and not at all what she thought. Apparently, they had bought the wrong type of triple sec, which wasn’t triple sec at all, and anyway, she had used Pucker to make the original concoction, a drunken experiment gone right, for once. They sat, watching college football and not talking much. Jason was pent on leaving. Clearly, he just wanted to hang with the boys and was annoyed at her presence. Ann, Sam’s girlfriend, showed up a while later. They had known each other since middle school, but she didn’t seem to recall her at all. She wasn’t sure if it was Ann’s actual forgetfulness or just her. Ignoring the awkwardness, they proceeded to hang out and talk about everything from the game to iPhone apps to movies and TV shows. The alcohol was warming her up to everyone, or what that just time?

Jason made some excuse about leaving and left. She made her way to Michael’s couch and took his spot. There, she proceeded to plug in her iPhone and text boy. Doing so required her to leave over Michael’s lap. Neither of them seem to mind, although Ann and Sam looked a bit suspicious and uncomfortable. As they were watching crappy TV, boy called. Ann instinctively unplugged her iPhone and handed it over to her. She talked for a bit and then went outside for some privacy. She didn’t mean for the call to last long but the alcohol was affecting her. It was just natural for her to run out and get some smokes, since she was out. Starting the car, she drove around aimlessly, trying to find a gas station. The call was distracting her and he frustrating her, so she said she’d call him back and just drove. A pack of cigs later, she called Michael and asked him to open the door. As always, he obliged. That’s what she appreciated most about him. Even during her bad habits, he was always a gentleman and could be counted on for support. Back in his apartment, she showed them two girls and one cup, a movie that she didn’t watch but laughed at their reactions of horror. Even though the clip had come out over a year ago, she thought it was more of a rite of passage. Clearly, they didn’t agree.

They watched TV until close to two in the morning. She felt that since she was technically visiting her parents’, she should at least adhere to the two am-stop-drinking limit that most clubs in the Bay Area imposed. She excused herself and prepared to leave. Thankfully Ann thought the same thing, although she couldn’t tell if Ann was just waiting for her to make the signal or not. Giving a rather formal goodbye at the door, she hugged Ann and Sam before heading out to the car with Michael. He had insisted on walking her out, which was very gentlemanly of her. Once there, he made a quick goodbye and she was left at the door of her mom’s car. Quite buzzed, she lit a cig and began smoking it. She was too tipsy to properly feel the nicotine, although she loved having the freedom of being able to smoke without judgment. Sometimes it just felt good to be able to have a smoke without people looking down on her or hurrying before her parent caught her or having to worry about what people at work thought about her frequent 20 minute breaks. Even the Starbucks people were joking about her having nothing to do at work that she hung around so much. This was nonjudgmental smoking, even if it was at two am on a Sunday morning, standing outside her friends’ house drunk and not caring. After she finished her fag, she promptly went into the car and drove home. The streets were mostly empty, particularly because her parents lived in a residential neighborhood that didn’t see the heavy traffic of young people going out. As she pulled up to driveway, she made sure that the headlights were off.

After a shower, she picked up her cat and nestled with her for a moment. The cat was used to her showing affection. When she first go the baby, the cat didn’t like being kissed but was used to it now. She lied on top of her, stroking her head while kissing her fiercely, roughly nuzzling her. The cat seemed to like the attention. After all, she had been sleeping upstairs and the cat didn’t enjoy the usual night time bonding that they usually experienced back home. Back home, she always slept naked, and the cat would come up onto her bed and suckle on her arm pits like a nipple, needling her soft layer of fat. This hadn’t happened for several days while she was back in Houston, so they both obliged each other to this bonding behavior. Maybe she was being too loud, but her mom was outside her door. Quickly and embarrassingly, she got dressed. Her mom remarked that everyone could see her naked with the blinds open. She hadn’t really paid attention, since none of the neighbors had remodeled to include a two story house. No one could possibly see her naked unless they had binoculars and were looking at her window specifically at three am in the morning. Nevertheless, she closed the blinds and got back into bed to sleep. The cat was still in the room. Hopefully, she would have another chance to bond with her baby before leaving the following Tuesday to return back home.

House update: the interior decorator came by and added accents all over the house.  Most of them I like, although I’m not 100% they really say “my parents.”  The living room looks like a freakin’ jungle, but all in all, the house feels lived in and not empty.  I’ll post pictures after I get back.

My cat’s getting the royal treatment here.  Even my mom, who said she didn’t want anything to do with the cat, spent some time to get to know Mon Petit Coeur and pet her.  I can’t wait to have kids because if they dote on my cat like this, think of all the freedom I’ll have once I bring kids over! 

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It’s been a bit difficult keeping up with the blog, while I’m trying to write the novel, so sorry for lagging.  I promise to be better, especially because I’ve been reading so many books and have lots things I want to talk about.  I posted an excerpt from my novel below.  Hope you enjoy!

Cheers,

Jany

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She opened her eyes to stare at the ceiling. The plane was firmly headed on a downward path, making her stomach lurch towards her throat. Lying on her mother’s lap, she rotated towards the seat in front of them, digging her face into a blue bag with white letters. She actually wasn’t sure how long the flight has been. Her eyes swelled into her head and her lips were chapped from throwing up for so long. She felt her mom stroking the back of her neck as she continued to heave into the foreign bag. At this point, she had no idea what there was left to throw up. During the flight and countless meals, the only thing she had been able to keep down was a slice of tomato. The only activities she knew was curling up to sleep, hurling and praying to some unknown entity that all this torture would soon end. She felt bad for her mother, who was also motion sick and had to take care of her child, while trying to communicate to the German flight attendant. She felt sorry for the flight attendant, who had to take care of the two Chinese country bumpkin look alikes that threw up everywhere and didn’t speak a word of German.

Finally the tires bounced gently onto the tarmac. She couldn’t remember what happened next. Her mom whispered in her ear that her daddy would be waiting for them. She was so excited to see her daddy again; it seemed like too long. Then, as they were walking down a walkway, she let go of her mother’s hand and started to run. At first she couldn’t recognize any of the faces around her. Everyone seemed completely foreign. Blurs rushed to the left and right. People were picking up their bags from the luggage go-around. She dodged in between people and weaved through legs in every direction. When she started to feel utterly lost and overwhelmed, she noticed a huge blob of blue. Hands reached down and picked her up. Big eyes meet hers. Shyly, she looks into them. She’s afraid to speak. This man had simply picked her up and was looking at her expectantly. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do to make him happy. Her hands rested on his shoulders, her chin tilted down and her almond eyes looked into his. He was smiling.

“There you are!” Her mother called from across the room. She has just emerged from the hallway and was making her way towards them. She was holding their carry on bag. “Well, don’t just look at me. Hug your daddy!”

She looked into his eyes again. Obediently, she gushed, “Daddy!” Her mom and aunties had been telling her for a while that she was going to see her daddy again, but she didn’t remember him all that well. This man sure didn’t look like anything she thought. That didn’t matter though. Right now, she loved the prospect of having a daddy, and if this man was it, then she was going to love him and hug him and call him daddy.

As her parents were waiting for their luggage, she looked around. There were a few other Chinese people in the sea of foreign faces. She wasn’t used to seeing anyone unlike her, and now, they were everywhere. Blonde hair, brown hair, people with big feet and legs that lasted forever. She’d look up to see if they had heads at all, they were so tall.

Sometime during the commotion, she had fallen asleep. There was a car and murmurs. By the time they arrived at their destination, it was already the dead of night. Honestly, thinking back, it was probably only 10 or 11pm, but to her four year old self, it must have seemed like the witching hour.

The room is small and bare. French doors looked out into a lawn and then trees. On the opposite wall was a couch that folded out into a bed. Prior to her and her mother’s arrival, dad had acquired a double mattress that was hidden behind the couch during the day and pulled out for her parents at night. She didn’t remember anything else about the rest of the room. There had to be a TV, and probably shelves and closets, but none of those things were particularly important to her at the moment. Her mom spread out sheets on the sofa, and she soon felt her cheek melt into the cushion and drift off into candyland.

Sometime in the next few days, she toured the graduate dorm and met all the other Chinese families. There was Meimei and her family. She was always haughty and stuck in her ways. Her mother would walk around praising her, but her father’s advisor was very kind, and she was always the one with bunches of new toys. From the child’s point of view, she had a heightened class because of the toys.

One time, she and Meimei were having an argument. They couldn’t decide how many seconds were in a minute. Knowing that she was right, she suggested that they would walk ask an adult. They both walked up to Meimei’s mom, who was cleaning in their apartment.

“Ay yi (Auntie), Meimei and I are wondering a question. How many seconds are in a minute? I said 60, but she says 100. I know I’m right. Tell her that she’s wrong, and there are only 60 seconds in a minute,” she pleaded bossily.

The woman knelt down to be at their eye levels. Her look seemed confused and a bit distraught. Clearly, she thought her daughter was the best and here was this lesser child, who was proclaiming that she was smarter. Not wanting to see her daughter in tears, yet again, she proposed, “Both of you are right. There are 60 seconds in a minute and there are 100 seconds in a minute. It really depends on how you look at it.”

“Hah! I told you so,” Meimei’s sharp voice rang from her left year. She rolls her eyes. Clearly this woman was either tremendously stupid or too spoiling of her daughter. After all, how was Meimei going to learn that there are only 60 seconds in a minute if her mom was lying to her like that. She runs into another room, where there were a group of men talking. As she approaches, they all look up and smile at her.

“Yanyan, how are you?” One of them questioned.

Furious that she was just denied, she launched into her debate anew, “Meimei and I are wondering how many seconds there are in a minute.” She didn’t want to bring up Meimei’s mom’s indiscretion. It might make her look bad.

“Why there’s 60 seconds of course.”

“Meimei says there are 100, and her mom said that she’s right, but I wanted to ask you because I knew I was right and she was wrong.” It all slipped out of her. It was like she just had verbal diarrhea.

The man laughs and looks at both the girls. Finally, he says, “Well, you’re right. Meimei 100 seconds sure does sound like it makes sense, and that’s a good guess, but the right answer is 60. Now, which one of you can tell me what time it says on my watch? Meimei? Yanyan?”

Meimei, pissed that she was just proven wrong and didn’t get her way, smiles and runs away to her mother. Her dad, having heard the conversation and disappointed that his wife would teach her daughter a lie just to appeal to the girl’s ego, also leaves. All of a sudden shy and taking too much time, she looks over at the man’s watch. It seemed like forever. Locating the bigger hand and counting until it stopped, she determined it was 5 o’clock. Now, the shorter hand was past that. 5:36pm. She repeated her answer to the man.

“That’s very good. You did a splendid job. Now, you need to practice on being able to do that faster. That’s something you need to work on. Just because you’re right about the minutes and seconds with Meimei doesn’t make you perfect. Instead of yelling at her for what she got wrong, you should be working on learning more. Do you understand?”

She was shocked. She was the one who was right. Meimei was always the one who got what she wanted, and now she of all people was being chastised because she finally got her way. Numb and bright red, she nodded and looked down. If there weren’t so many strangers hanging out in the room, she would have started crying.

From out of the corner, another man jokes, “Oh, Cao, don’t be so hard on her. She can tell the time; she was just a little nervous, weren’t you?”

Still looking at the floor, she nods.

“See? Now, you’re just being mean to this precious girl.”

The man makes his way to her and scoops up her face with his right hand. She looks up at him obediently.

“Do you think Yanyan looks like her father or her mother?”

Some chimed in mother and others father. “What do you think, Yanyan?”

“Both. I look equally like my parents.”

The men laughed. Most girls would tend to say their mother. “Well if you had to pick between your parents, which one would you pick?”

“I wouldn’t pick. I’d want both of them.” Again, most girls, especially after being separated from their fathers for over a year, would have picked their mother.

“Well, what if you had to pick? What if you didn’t have a choice?”

“I don’t care. I would pick both.”

“But…”

“Leave it alone. Clearly, she’s getting upset. Yanyan, go and play. Shushu (Uncle) was just messing with you.”

She nods furiously, so hard that her mom jokes that her head was like a bulanggu (drum), and runs off.

[This pretty much has nothing to do with the excerpt.  I just love this pic I took of White Sands in New Mexico.]

BUT today is the official start of National Novel Writing Month, and it’s going pretty well actually.  I’ve already penned 1761 words!  Not all of them are great, but I’m just worried about getting everything down right now and worrying about editing later.

If you’d like to support my efforts, it’s not too late to donate to NaNoWriMo and fund me going to the NIght of Writing Dangerously.  Just visit www.firstgiving.com/janyxu and contribute what you can. Thanks!

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Without further ado, here’s a lot excerpt from what I have down:

I’m not sure if my earliest memory is real or a fabricated mix from stories my parents used to tell and latent memories of my childhood that coagulated into a single dream. I was about one and half, maybe two. My mom worked at the local watch factory in Hefei, Anhui- one of the poorer provinces of China but close to the mountains and great at making tea. She left early in the morning every day to ride the thirty odd minutes to go to work. I’m sure our neighborhood was colorful with bricks and green trees, not too far from where my father worked at the local hospital/university. But in my memory or dream, the scenery grayed out.

We lived on the first floor of a three story building (maybe it was two), and in Hefei that meant cold winters and wet summers. The humidity would always soak up on the concrete floors in the rooms. Enough that my mom would have to mope the floor of its wetness. At some point, I had a crib, but I remember sleeping on the bed with my parents. They’d put a chair next to my side, so that I wouldn’t accidentally roll of the bed during sleep. I tended to toss and turn a lot. Still do, in fact.

On that particular day, I felt myself waking up as my mom quietly gathered her things to prepare for work. I didn’t open my eyes, lest she figure out that I was awake. The muffled swishes of fabric let me know that she was getting dressed in the far corner of the room, so that she wouldn’t wake me up. She grabbed her keys from the dresser next to the door, tip-toed down the hallway and as silently as possible, opened and shut our squeaky door.

I was one and a half (maybe two) and thought she was leaving forever. As soon as that door shut, I was off the bed, running across the room and after her, already on the bike and pedaling away. In my dream I would keep running. She was half way to work, and I was quickly losing ground, but I couldn’t let her get away. She was my mommy. I loved her. Why was she leaving me? I couldn’t figure it out. Somewhere in my head, I knew I was in college, in the US and comfortable in my extra-long twin sized bed in my fashion magazine covered dorm. But that thought was far far away. All I could think about was my mother.

In the distant, I knew my father had woken up to my screaming and movement. He was running after me to keep me at home and let my mother leave. Finally, she parked her biked outside the rakes in a glass-windowed factory building and noticed my snot-covered, sobbing face. She reached out to hold me and told me that she had to go to work. I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t want to be with me. My parents exchanged worried looks before she handed me off to him. She went inside. I had lost.

My father was a grad student at the time (MD not PhD; he’d get that later in Germany), and though he worked long hours both taking classes and working, he slept in late, so it was his responsibility to take care of me, while my mom went off to work. I was an early riser. I’d wake up and immediately wanted to get up and start my day. But my dad wasn’t like that at all. He’d always drag me back into bed and hug and cuddle me, while I struggled to get away. Finally, I’d relent and let me just hold me, while I laid there wide-eyed and bored. After a while, I got used to it and would wake up and go back to sleep in his arms. I guess that’s where I get my habits today. I love spending the whole day in bed, chilling out and being totally relaxed. At any point, I could conveniently have a snack, watch TV, write, read or take a nap. Sure, it sounds slothful to many, but it’s also very convenient. And since I grew up a relatively clean person, my bed’s almost never made and always clean. The only things that adorn them are my duvet, two large pillows, my cell phone charger and cell phone and my laptop- a virtual mother that lulls me to sleep every night after episodes of The Boondocks or some mindless movie.

After I woke up, I couldn’t quite tell if I remembered the dream as a memory replayed or it was just a dream. I decided to confirm the story with my parents. The real version was almost eerily identical. I had woken up to find my mother leaving, had ran outside after her. She was, in fact, getting ready to ride her bike, but I didn’t by any means chase her to the factory. That didn’t make any sense, since I have no idea how a toddler could run far enough that she’d ride a bike for half an hour. That’s like three miles? Instead, she was riding off, when she heard a screaming toddler running after her- me. So she stopped, held and cooed me until I calmed down. She’d try to leave, but every time she let go, I’d start my ear drum piercing screaming again. Finally, she was already half an hour late, and had to go get my dad to hold me down as she rode away.

I swore to them that they’d never told me that story before. So how did I possibly know that it happened? Did my dream start innocently and some aspect of the memory sparked a dusty, unused nugget in my brain? Or was it totally coincidental? Maybe my parents did tell me that story, but I’d simply remembered the details and not them telling me. Whatever the rationale, it bothers me that during my second year of college, I was suddenly having this dream.

Of course, I didn’t want to grow up. As much as most of the students around me were planning their futures and taking heavy loads of finance or mechanical engineering, I was more interested in running the hell away and as fast as possible. Taxes? No thank you! Bills and getting married, living up to social expectations and living with the fact that most adults don’t have more than 10 very close friends? God no! I didn’t, and still don’t, understand why so many young adults race to erase the “young” prefix. I loved it. It meant that I had potential, but there was nothing having to do with living up to it. I didn’t have to prove anything because that was for the future. Right now, I’d just gotten into one of the best schools in the country, certainly the best business school and am comfortable enough with my environment that I just wanted to enjoy life. Not worry about this huge future looming overhead. The judgments of aptitude and worth, along with a worried expectedness.

That was probably what brought on the dream.

I’m in a very unique position, you see. I always tell people that if it hadn’t been for the Communist Revolution, that I wouldn’t exist. I know very little about my family history, but from what I did know, my mom’s side was fairly well-off and from a good sized, little town. Her great grandmother had been disgraced because her husband died, so she was subsequently sent back to her own family. It was a big no-no back in those days and deemed her a widow and lowered her family rank. But all in all, they had money, and from an influence of Chinese soap operas, a large courtyard and lots of decorated, octangular windows. On the contrary, my father’s family was largely from the farms. Many of my grandmother’s 7 other siblings still dwell in the little towns that dot the mountain range eight hours drive west of Hefei. The trek was retardedly slow and up dangerous, narrow mountain passes that almost meant my certain doom years after my parents met, married and had me. So theoretically, without the equalizing forces of Mao and reeducation in the country, my parents would have no chances of meeting. Actually, fate is fairly ironic. At the time, my mom worked in a watch factory and my dad was getting his MD. They basically switched social classes.

But I couldn’t, at the time, confirm or deny the story. It’s just what made logical sense in my head. I’ve moved around enough at a very young age, that I could probably make up any type of bullshit that I wanted to. The kids from the sheltered German school have no idea what life was like in China. Neither did the elementary school students from the very Texan public school called Mark Twain. In fact, with them, I would talk in German or Chinese and confuse the fuck out of them. I didn’t. I was a good child. But I could.

In high school, I realized exactly how nerdy I was. Before then, I was blissfully happy, if not ignorant, and didn’t care. So what if I didn’t know who MC Hammer or Moesha was? I had Mozart and Beethoven. Liszt throwing a glove at Beethoven and their subsequent feud. Did Moesha have that?

Yeah. NERD. Like not Pharrell N-E-R-D. But NNNNEEEEERRRRRDDDDDDDD…DDDAAAAHHHH….

Then, I moved to Philadelphia for college, where no one really knew me. (Thank God… err if I believed in you). I didn’t have to be nerd. Among nerds, and the errant rich kid who went to Penn instead of snobby Puck Frinceton or Harvard… or Yale, I could be anyone. That excited me.

Until sophomore year. When I didn’t want to grow up. And didn’t understand who I was. And didn’t want to grow up.

Of course, I did have to. Grow up that is. And I’m on the West Coast and non-the-smarter, but I’m a good bullshitter. Always have been, which is why I got into Penn. Which is why I never spent more than an hour on homework. Which is why I didn’t do so well at Penn. I got what I wanted out of the experience, and I’m happy.

From where you’re sitting, I’m a sarcastic, somewhat schizophrenic nerd, who just confessed to bullshit everything and enjoy lying. And you’re only on page three. Hah! Buckle your fucking seat belt.

For the first year, I’m attempting to write a novel for NaNoWriMo. I always thought about putting down my history on paper. It’s not egotistical… Okay maybe just a bit. More than that, I’m interested in my past and the lifestyles of generations before me.

I never really knew what my grandparents went through. They don’t talk about World War II, and I can’t even begin to imagine what they went through. Then, without the Communist Revolution, I wouldn’t exist. Several generations ago, my mom’s side was fairly well off and living in a city, while my dad’s family were and are mostly farmers. Without the equalizing forces, they wouldn’t have a chance to meet and I wouldn’t be here.

My own life is quite unique as well. I still remember the discrimination I faced living in the small college town of Goettingen in Germany. The locals were inundated with all these foreign immigrant families with husbands, mostly, getting their PhDs. My best friends Hannah and I were the first local/immigrant best friends duo, and we forced our friends to hang out with each other. Same thing happened in Houston when I first moved there. The Hispanics would shout down the street “China! China!”  Yes, I’m Chinese.  I’m aware.

So I want to put this all down on paper, and NaNoWriMo is a great community to do it. I love their philosophy of write now and edit later. Get your words down first because you’re often your worst critic.

If your interested in supporting my efforts, I need to raise $200 to join the Night of Writing Dangerously Write-a-Thong… err.. Thon. I’d really appreciate your help in getting me there.

Click here to donate. I’ll keep you post on the novel writing process and will post segments as I’m working.

I’m also going to do a lot of research into Chinese history and interview my relatives to get more insight on the first parts of my novel. My goal is to write something as colorful and descriptive as Junot Diaz and Gabriel Garcia Marquez… we’ll see.

Thanks!

There was already someone in the bathroom when I walked in. I scuttle to a stall not wanting to bleed on the floor. But once in, the molecules of hemoglobin couldn’t hold. All I could think about as my blood stained the floor and left dozens of splatters was the CSI team coming in to test my DNA. Linking the crime to me. Inevitable. I grabbed as much toilet paper as I could and tried to stop the hemorrhaging while using my other hand to wipe the floor. Blood’s surprisingly hard to clean.

Instead of soaking into the paper, the splatter now smeared across the tiles in a rusted orange. More paper. More scrubbing. The stain on my dress is seeping in, binding with the fabric, increasingly permanent.

Shit! I’m out if toilet paper. I grab my purse and head for the sink. A business woman glances at me with disdain, casually questioning my sorry state.

“I’m fine. Sorry.”

What else could I say?

The paper towels disappeared in handfuls. I tuck the three pieces of the remaining tissue paper from the box neatly over the wound. Its flow was steady now. Under control. More scrubbing. My dress almost turning back to its normal color, except wet. My hair lay in a disheveled mess on top in my head, wondering if it will ever see a brush again.

The phone rings.

“Where are you?”

Fuck, I’m late. I rinse my hand, tuck more paper towels over the wound, tussle my hair and walk out in my three inch white leather heels, pretending to know what I’m doing.

It was so real that I came to work this morning fully expecting to find a draft there, waiting for me to hit the ‘Publish’ button.

But it wasn’t.

It was all a dream.

I dreamed about blogging.

How antisocial is that? Blogging? Not floating above an audience as usual or solving some randomly nonsensical relationship problem. Blogging. Hunched over a computer, sprawled on my bed, typing so fast that my arms could barely support my upper body and sweating in anticipation of getting all my thoughts out before they disappeared into an abyss.

Damn.

I can’t wait.

The only thing I want is love, but I don’t know how to get it.

I try to be aloof, but my mind has been filled with him since I left over an hour ago. I keep trying to stretch my heart to fill what we both want. We stand at opposite ends of a spectrum. And I can’t trust that he will ever be mine. Or want to be.

Perhaps the future will brighten my perspective. Maybe it’s time to leave the hurt behind. Along with the love. But it’s so, so hard.

A swatch of curly hair passed her peripheral.  Reality rushed into place.  The fluorescent scorches hung above the 15 foot ceiling, animating the small patches of color and name brands.  A bed headed blonde wearing last season’s one button jacket and those horrendous ‘Asian’ embroidered slippers scurried pass with several feathered, silkened and scratched creatures desperately grasping on to its slipping hangers.  A numbing warmth vined its way from her lower back to a realizing flush under her zygomatic arc.  It stiffened her.

Nonchalant gaze replaced the piercing desire on her palate.

“It’s nice,” she scoffed turning her ample upper body towards him.  He smiled.

“You’re a bad liar.”

“Fuck you.”

“Right now, right now?”

“Whatever.”

An unsteady suede heel glid over the linoleum floor.   As she hopped away to the next fashion block, he tasted her seductive warmth, slid the hanger from its rail, and traced her steps.

“Try it on for me.”

“Why should I?  It’s not like I could afford it.”

A smile spread through his moistened lips.

“Just try it on for me.”

“Fine.” 

She rolled her eyes and draped her beloved over the shoulder, letting it flutter into the dressing room.  As she rounded the corner and out of sight, her eyes tinted a wickedness that spread into an open smile.

Thumping to the tune, he pulled out his wallet.

I emailed this to OO at some point because I had some down time:

Another foggy night in San francisco. Nicole wished that for once she
could celebrate her birthday on a sunny, non-suicidal day. The
building lights that usually dot the financial district hid today over
a rainy cloud that left water droplets on everything in its vicinity.

“nicole, ven aqui.”
“si abuela.”

A smile blushed on her face at the sound of abuelita diana’s voice.
Her six year old feet carried her down the stairs and into the living
room.

Inspiration:

 I’ve decided to write the novel in pieces, as they come to me.  I know that it’s not what OO would want, but he knew I’d make his plotline my own.  Hopefully, he’s happy with the product… although it’s been incredibly difficult for me to write in a Hispanic perspective, when the only thing I know about growing up in a Meixican family is from him and others’ stories.

She huffed.  It doesn’t take more than a minute to message a quick I can’t come by today.  Does he even care?  Or is he really just enjoying the envious looks from parading her around in barely anything and slapping her plump ass?  Her $300 49ers jacket they’d gotten a week ago at the game hung loosely down her torso.  She was hungry.  Not for food.  God no, not for food.  For attention and dare she utter the word: love.

Someone had always cared for her, no matter what abuse she doled out.  Some friend or caring creature jumped to fulfill her boredom and laughed obligatorily at her sarcasms and self-proclaimed sense of style.  Now, there isn’t anyone.  She’d imagined that the abuse was just a test: if you really cared about me, you would stick around.  Hah!  Only the Crystal Geiser bottle and brand new lap top daddy bought her lie in front of her.

God, she’s hungry.  The fag teetered on a modern ash tray some website said was the “it” thing.  A gentle stream of smoke odored the smallish dining room and her less than tan skin.  Somewhere outside, her uppity drug dealing neighbor blasted some top 40 hip hop song in his mysterious, new Mercedes E class.

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