OakMonster’s Den

I’m sure Morpheus is waiting outside the door with the blue pill and red pill right now.

I can’t possibly living in a real world right now.

I finished the 2-day cram CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) course at 5:15 p.m. today. I walked away from Justin & Olaina’s kitchen table to join them in his office in a semi-daze. Lines of codes floating in my head. We were deciding where to go for dinner. Justin said we could look at the menus on his computer.

Olaina and I congregated in front of the lap top. The font was so small, both of us leaned in and squinted. We laughed. Both of us have been staring at the computer screens all day. She’s been working on the pictures of the Match day, and I on the class.

“All I see right now are just flashes of lights,” she said.

“All I see are lines and lines of codes,” I said. “You know how the numbers stream through the screen in The Matrix? That’s how I feel right now.”

Life has been quite surreal these past few days, actually. Neo might as well unplug me any second now.

Taking the train down to San Diego by myself after an early start of the Early Meeting was an experience on its own.

Justin & Olaina’s excitement and anticipation for Match Day was highly contagious all on its own but I felt additionally honored to get to be with them on their other special day.

Getting a chance to just hang out with Olaina on her home turf for a change was also cool as hell.

And finally, after a few years of trying to make sense of CSS on my own, I finally learned how to actually use the damn thing.

It is also surreal that I am here without Brandon.

I mean, I’ve gone home for over a week before, but it didn’t feel quite the same. Perhaps because I know I was really far away and that I can’t really quite call him up like I can from San Diego. Knowing he was so close by and yet I can’t be with him is very weird. It makes my stomach lurch a bit and my heart sink a little.

I just hope that he misses me as much as I do him.

Adding to it all, it’s Friday night and we’re sitting her watching March madness, sipping the champagne I brought down to celebrate Justin’s big day. All of this after a nice huge dinner of yummy food at Ritual. Oh my god, the Shrimp Scampi!!!!  (I’ll blog about that over at the food blog later.)

And just last night, we were sipping expensive cocktails at an ultra chic lounge called Jade with Justin’s classmates. Actually, Olaina and I and another lady were huddling together and people watched. Before that, we were enjoying dinner and booze over at the Whiskey Girl.

Yet, another two moments of this trip that poignantly reminded me of Brandon’s absence.

I am so confused.

I am having such a good time out here alone. Yet I wish Brandon was here with me too.

We just can’t have it all, can we?

But YOU can have it all, my dearest readers. Tomorrow, I’ll post all of the hilarious snippets of conversions we’ve been having these past few days. I’m sure Olaina is getting tired of me calling “dibs” a few times a day. LOL.

My brother Onk emailed me that one of dad’s employees is collecting used toys to take to an orphanage over the weekend.  Apparently, he’s been doing this for many years.  Onk asked if he could pick “the ugly ones” of my stuffed animals to give away.

Have I mentioned to you guys that I have a massive collection of stuffed animals back in Thailand?  As in, when we renovated my room when I was 13, dad had built-in wall-to-wall 3-level shelves for my “friends”.  And yes, the shelves were stacked, some double layers, with stuffed toys.

I mean, as far as I know, growing up, I had more stuffed animals than anybody in my class, and possibly, more than anyone I knew.

My mom and I had talked about donating the stuffed animals for years. When I left home 15 years ago, mom had all of them wrapped up in clear plastic bags and cellophane to keep out the dust. I would come home to stay in my room, surrounded by my old friends.  Even when “my” room became mom’s walk-in closet in recent years, I would still go in to my room to at least say hi to the toys.

I mean, how can I not say hi to my old friends?  They have witnessed me growing up.  They were my confidants, my co-stars and captive audience, my guests at tea parties, my rescues and hapless victims need rescuing.  Among them was where my imagination grew and where I learned to keep my inner adult in check.  But I digress.

I have asked my mom to donate the majority of the stuffed animals, keeping only the sentimental ones many times. Same goes with my clothes I left behind. But she always said, not yet, not yet. My dad said deep down the stuffed toys and my clothes in the closet reminded her of me, and that was why she kept them.

Those stuffed toys gave me so much happiness growing up. Now that mom is gone, it is as good a time to share my joy with the less fortunate children just as I have meant to do all these years.

I gave Onk a list of the ones with sentimental values that I can recall off the top of my head. I told him if he actually sends me the picture of the shelf, I can tell him exactly who to be given away.  But in our case, I will have to have faith that my brother knows who gets to go to a new home.

And yes, I realize I called them “who”, not “which”. Hey, they were my childhood imaginary buddies. They will always be somebody to me.  In my mind, all the toys are just like in Toy Story.  They are alive when you’re not looking.  But I digress again.

It’s just strange not getting to personally say goodbye to some of them though.  I hope they would forgive me and learn to love their new friends as much as they have loved me all these years.

Out of sadness, comes hope.  And a renewed energy to get on with life.

Brandon and I are entering a few photos into the amateur photography contest in our little city.  I have been looking forward to this since winter, and damn near almost miss the deadline!  Brandon will drop our handy works off on Monday before he goes to work.

Nhien, a quasi-professional photographer, helped me pick a few more options out yesterday.  She had entered a few contests herself so she knows what to look for.  I told her if I win, I’ll give her a framed print as her commission.  I am pretty sure of my 3 entries.  Brandon may pick some of his as well.  Once we know which one we’re submitting, I’ll post them here and you can tell me what kind of chance we have to winning this thing.  Heh.

Along the line of getting on with life, last night Brandon and I went to Ikea and picked up a new computer desk and filing cabinet for me.

It all started at our appointment with the accountant on Thursday.  Brandon mentioned that the hand-me-down metal filing cabinet I have, the bottom drawer doesn’t open properly.  Somehow from that conversion, we decided on buying me a new computer desk and rearranging my office as well.

Here we are.  Yet another redecorating project for the apartment.  Hahah.

And finally, I will be spending 3 days and 3 nights in San Diego with Olaina and Justin a few weeks from now to take a 2-day Cascading Style Sheets class.  I head down from the office on AMTRAK on Wednesday and Brandon will come down to visit and pick me up on Saturday.  This plan here has been a total pain in the butt to finalize, but it is now done.

The original plan had to do with a $900 course in San Diego next week.  I bought the AMTRAK tickets and arranged my plan with O&J.  A day after that, the class was canceled.  At least this one is more trustworthy and I KNOW they will not run off with my money.

Ah, the joy of those big training companies.  If a class is not popular enough, they reschedule again and again until you probably want out.  (With CSS, everyone seems to be learning from the book or the website.  I tried unsuccessfully to learn from the book and my experience of online classes has been bad–as in I don’t really retain much of anything.)  Then, they will offer you a private class for the same price.  If they had told me earlier on, I might have stayed with them.  Unfortunately, while waiting to hear back from these guys, I found another vendor who will do one-on-one on site training for almost half the price.  I arranged to have this session at Olaina & Justin’s apartment instead.   What a deal!

I look forward to finally learn CSS so I can stop “borrowing” codes, but I am extremely excited to spend time with Olaina and Justin; especially when I get to be there to celebrate Justin’s match day and go to church with Olaina on Good Friday.  Soooo stoked!

Positive changes are abound, my friends.  My life is coming back to me in a grand way.

Ninja Grief strikes again.

This time, the door was left wide open for an attack from visiting with Ray and Hsiao-yen who were in town from Hawaii last night.

Ray and Hsiao-yen go back a long way with my parents.  Ray and my dad went to college and grad school together.  Naturally, when my mom came over with my dad during graduate school, the wives were buddies as well.  I knew them my whole life even though we were living in different countries.  And of course, my recent visit to Hawaii to attend Ray’s daughter’s wedding has strengthen this lifelong bond.

Last night after dinner, Brandon drove me out to La Mirada where they were staying last night to drop some stuff off.  We didn’t expect them to be home already but they were.  So we went in for a visit. We talked about our families, work, and politics.  And of course, the subject of mom came up.We recounted our last time we saw her alive.  Ray saw her when we was still talking.  I saw her not long before she passed.  I didn’t want to go there, but we sort of ended up there anyway.  How could you hang out with your family friends and not go there?

Telling someone new that my mom passed away, I expect that to hurt and it does.  But I never quite expect that remembering my mom with friends of the family would be equally painful.

Being with Ray and Hsiao-yen last night was like being in the living room with my dad and my mom again.  They are one of the closest people I have to my family.  Being there with them brought me great joy and at the same time great longing to have my family put back the way we were before.

I want my mommy and daddy, dammit.

I guess I have been trying to put everything about my mom’s passing away.  You know, I’m trying to get on with my life.  Most days I can do that successfully, but of course the feelings do surface occasionally.

Once in a while, this grief would pop up and swing that 3×4 of Pain and Sadness quite literally right in my chest.  Sometimes I deflect the blow and walk away with a few tears in my eyes.  And sometimes, like today, I get knocked off my feet and reduced into a puddle of tears, especially when the 3×4 is wrapped in barb wire of Homesickness.

Like today.

I cried while getting ready for work, and it just didn’t want to stop.  I had to call in sick.

Maybe it is because I didn’t grief properly like Olaina once wrote about Justin’s way of dealing with his mom’s death.  But then like Celeste told me, these sad days are going to continue for quite a while.

Things happen for a reason though.  I mean, this entire chapter started with a chance meeting two days ago.

On Monday, Nhien asked me to help her bring up a few boxes of stationery from our messenger waiting curbside.  As we rolled our dollies out of our building, I spotted a guy that looked remarkably like Ray.  It couldn’t be Ray…could it?

He swung around again, and now I saw that it was indeed Ray.  I called out to him.

Ray was out of context to me at first glance.  I too was out of context for him, he said.  So out of context that it took him a few more seconds to realize who I was.

“What are you doing here!?” I asked as I hugged him.

“Actually, I’m lost,” he said.

“Where were you going to?”

“XXX Flower Street.”

“You’re in front of it!”

“Seriously?”

“Yes!  THIS is my building too!”

Serendipity is the word Ray used.

I was meant to go downstairs to run into Ray and effectively help to find where he was going. I was meant to get to Ray’s place late last night so we could visit instead of just dropping off stuff.  I was meant to be with my “family”.  I was meant to remember my mom.

Buddha/God/Gods/My karma/The Universe wants me to deal with my grief and to remember what it is like to have a family, to be with the parent figures.  It was a round and about way of doing it but He/She/They/It makes damn sure I get there.

Now, if He/She/They/It could turn down the volume knob on my crying, that would be awesome.

On my way to work this morning, I had an epiphany.

I am way too content with my life, and therefore I lack the motivation to do anything else.

Look at it point by point and see if I’m crazy.

I love my body so I’m not really that motivated to work out. Genetically, I am not set up to live until I’m 100 years old. Since I don’t plan on having kids, there is not really a reason to live that long anyway. All I have to do is outlive Brandon. However, I am changing my eating habit, and that is working quite well for me so far.

I love my job despite the occasional bitching and moaning. (I mean, who doesn’t!) I don’t want to be in management so I’m settling in nicely where I am at. There is no need to claw my way to the top because I am not aiming for the top. I am just happily carving my own little niche in the organization like a little career trench I can move around laterally, playing all the important roles for the team without getting shot.

The commute is ridiculously simple with this bus route. Not to mention that I am saving the planet everyday, riding this bus.

Everything is going so swell that I don’t want to change a thing. I am pleased with life in general that I don’t need any more and I don’t want any less.

But somewhere deep in this lovely contentment, I think I got subconsciously bored.

That was why I haven’t wanted to do much of anything but watching hours and hours of television. Even before the flu and the antibiotics. I mean, I didn’t even want to cook–or blog! That right there should’ve sent a signal. But I was so comfortable where I was, I didn’t even see it.

Through television, I was escaping my content little life to somewhere else where things were different than what I have.

Now that the problem is brought to light, I have been plotting all day to make some changes.

I bought SiamesePixie.com (which right now is pointed to OakMonster’s Den content) with plans to extend my line of shirts and raise more money.

I looked up classes to take just to get me out of the routine. I was looking at a local dance studio that offers hip-hop as well as modern dance, and a kung-fu class at the local college. I was thinking of some cooking classes. But I could easily grab recipes and hit the stove on my own for that. Culinary school was very enticing to me but I don’t think I can afford it.

I planned on doing all the projects I dreamed up but never executed. Like putting up a photo wall in my den with the Post-It photo paper. Like updating Boren Consulting website. (Please don’t go there right now. It’s kind of embarrassing.) Like making my scrapbook since I haven’t done it for the past two years. Like making Brandon’s kilt and my own Renaissance Faire costume.

Yes. That’s some list I have going on for myself. But one thing I definitely accomplished today though.

I got all the tax paperwork and bills sorted, ready to be worked into Microsoft Money tomorrow. Oh, and I can see the office’s carpet again. One small step for the OakMonster.

The Contentment Wall? You’re going down, buddy.

Thanks to my brother Onk for making me cry first thing in the morning on the Friday of an extremely stressful week.

I will never hear this song the same way again…

I know I am late on this bandwagon, but I am in love with Once. 

Much like how I’d recommend Ratatouille to anyone who loves food or loves to cook, anyone who loves music DEFINITELY have to see this movie.

As for the rest of you, you’ll have to see it.  It’s a magical film.  So simple and yet so beautiful.

And yes, I am going to learn to play Falling Slowly. 

*

Not much going on here over the Southern California “storm watch”.  Yeah, the 3 systems of storm that came our way?  Not all that impressive really.  But hey, we had the rain we need.  And I got the perfect excuse to coop up in the house all weekend.  Hehe.

I have come out of the funk somewhat unscathed.  Thank you all for your kind words and support.  It’s just strange how things creep up on you like that.

I think it’s started with me wearing mom’s favorite hat during these cold days.  Then the planning of Honolulu trip with dad is a bittersweet journey.  A family trip to Hawaii has been talked about our whole life to see Ray and his family.  And now here we are, just me and dad accomplishing what the family has wanted to do for 30+ years.

And finally, it was something else that stirred the emotions together.  Perhaps a delayed mourning.  A grief that has been pushed away too long.

Just like this California storm, it was slow to arrive, linger a while with light rain and days of gloom.

And as slowly as it comes, it’s making its way out.

I didn’t expect it, but writing up the 2007 Awards entry a few days ago stirred me up something fierce. I manage to lock up the emotions for a few days before facing a break down when I got in bed last night.

I miss my mom.

Revisiting last year brought up all sorts of feelings. The guilt. The shock. The sorrow. Even a few fond memories. And I didn’t even talk about it or mentioning it to anyone, not even Brandon. Instead, I marched onward with New Year’s Eve plans and didn’t even have time to think on it.

Well, I did have the time. But I filled those minutes by watching television and movies. I looked around the house and saw all the responsibilities I left behind while I sat mindlessly in front of the tube.

I wanted to be mindless. I didn’t want to think about anything because the moment that I did, it would be about missing my mom.

Finally, when I got in bed last night, I had the moment to think. Unfortunate timing, but just as I was letting my mind wander on its own, it walked right back to that part of the brain where mom lives.

I cried. And Brandon held me.

It’s like a flood gate just open up. I thought back on everything leading up to her death. I re-lived my last days with her when she was healthy and when I last saw her alive. I imagined what it was like on her last days.

For some reasons, I just couldn’t shake these thoughts. I am still on the verge of tears. And I can’t seem to keep my brain off of my mom.

Celeste told me there will be days like these. Days that you just woke up unable to do anything else but think of your mom. Days that it doesn’t matter what you do, you can’t shake the grief you’re feeling.

And today is one of those days.

The day after Brandon’s office party, where I showed up wearing the elf hat and chugging the big ol’ mug of Guinness, one of his colleagues from another department came up to him.

“Was you wife drunk at the party?”

“What? No! Why? Because that giant mug of Guinness?”

“Well, we figured she’s got to be drunk wearing that elf hat and all of that.”

“Nah. That’s just how she is, man.”

“Oh.”

Brandon’s sergeant chimed in at this point that, yes indeed, Oakley is quirky that way, with or without the booze.

“Now don’t you be spreading the rumor about his wife,” the Sarge warned the guy.

Dude. What the hell!? I mean, just because I like wearing funny hats, that equates drunk? This guy must be hanging out around some REALLY dull people.

Look, dude. I wear that hat EVERYWHERE. It’s the holidays for god’s sake.

And then, there is always this thing about being the only geeky one in the office and sometimes in good company of other non-geeks. Suddenly you realized that you’re the only one who actually watch SciFi channel or “Chuck”, play or talk about video games, or understand the beauty of “all your base are belong to us”, “uber pownage” or Jonathan Coulter. (JC is my new music obsession at the moment, thanks to James.)

“Oh I wouldn’t spend that $50 on a game or spend all day playing it,” someone said. “That’s just like a total waste of time and money.”

That’s all relative, my friend. Some people use that same money and time in a bar somewhere, fix up a classic car, tweaking new speakers in their arsenal of sound systems, or do whatever it is that they do for a hobby. OUR hobby happens to be games. There may not be any finished product at the end, but hey we enjoyed those “wasted” hours as much as anybody else doing what THEY love to do.

I just hate it when people single you out because you’re different. I get made fun of all the times since I was a kid, just enough off the norm to not be normal. I embrace my abnormality, but occasionally people do really rub it in to you. I don’t make fun of you for being “normal”. Leave me the fuck alone on being geekier that you. Sheesh. But I digress.

I know I complain or roll my eyes sometimes when I go to dinner with Brandon and his bunch of geeks. It’s always game talk. WoW this. EQ that. What quest to do. What zone to run through. A gig of something. Megahertz of other. Funny clip of a chipmunk. How about that liquid helium footage.

But after spending a whole lot of time among non-geeks, I really start to appreciate all the geek talk. Suddenly, I’m back where I belong. With people who talk the same language and adore my elf hat.

The problem with being the baby girl of the family, let alone a baby girl of an Asian family, is that undeniable instinct to please.

It’s the Golden Child Complex, I hereby dub it so. You start with your parents. By keeping them happy, you get the attention you need. And of course, with the attention you need, you can get away with or get just about anything you want. A baby girl already has +10 advantage to the ability to get what she wants from her dad, but still, there is always that need to be good, to do well, to make people happy. Eventually, that need to please bleeds into your daily life. You keep your friends happy. You keep your teachers happy. You keep your coworkers happy. You keep your bosses happy.

Sure, this complex probably doesn’t apply to every baby boy/girl. But everyone seems to have one in the family, that Golden Child.

I have the Golden Child Complex. At the office, I’m a hard worker, a team player, an entertainer. I work fast and I do good work. I take on projects sometimes not even really mine just to get things done right. (Well, it also doesn’t help my complex that I am a control freak.)

What happens when the Golden Child makes a major mistake that displease her Uber Boss?

I made an error at work. A pretty big one. The final result is still passable; it’s just not ideal. It’s not the perfect picture I had in my head, and definitely not the perfect picture the Uber Boss had. He didn’t come to me outright to talk about my error, but he talked to my Lady Boss behind closed door. One doesn’t need a spy listening device to figure out what was going on in there.

I was crushed, highly disappointed at myself for making such a rookie mistake. I mean, it was a simple one. If I wasn’t in such a rush to get this done, to have the project arrived on time, I probably wouldn’t have made the mistake. But I did. And here we are at the point of no return with dissatisfied customers on my boat. They don’t say anything, but the guilt of knowing they’re not happy is eating me alive.

The Golden Child couldn’t possibly make a mistake like that. Hell, the Golden Child NEVER makes a mistake. Everything has to be perfect. I couldn’t have just fucked up, could I?

Oh yes, you could. And you just did. And here you are.

I spent the last two days quietly brooding over this mistake. I mean, I have never made a mistake this big in my career anywhere. Usually, if there’s a fuck-up, it wasn’t my fault. I can’t help the printers making the mistakes because their plate didn’t match our proof. I can’t help the late delivery from a greeting card vendor when they were slow to correct their mistakes.

But this one? It’s all me. I made the boo-boo. I did it. Me.

I suck.

In the middle of this self pity party, the Universe sent me a few signs, I believe.

We watched “Rescue Dawn” last night and I watched the featurettes afterward. They discussed the optimism of the lead character Dieter in real life (played by Christian Bale). His plane shot down in Laos during Vietnam war, Dieter was tortured and kept at a prison camp. Not once did he give up. He takes no for an answer and is always positive about the outcome. Always smiling. I’m getting out of here. We’re going to make it. This is not an obstacle, just a slight delay. And the dude survived the camp, escaped it and got out of the jungle with that positive attitude.

Then I flipped to CNN salute to heroes or something like that, just in time to catch Glenn Close introduced Christopher Reeves as the Heroes’ Hero. They showed snippets of the documentary about his recovery, which I watched when it originally aired years ago. The part of him taking his steps in the water on his own, THAT was just what I needed in my pit of self pity (and mild hatred).

Superman fell off a horse and is paralyzed from it, but that doesn’t even stop the guy. Dieter walked out of the jungle alive despite the odds against him.

And here I am, hating myself and dreading going back to work because I made one mistake.

That’s just unacceptable.

After all, I am the Golden Child, right? I can’t just let this little speck of tarnish stop my shine. Just buff if off and get on with it. Shine brighter. Do better. Make up for the delay.

As the great Tim Gunn says, make it work.

I’ll make it work.