Not to succumb to little boys fascination about letting out wallops or any bodily “indecent” sound, but while eating dinner the other day, Chris pulled up a recent blog entry answering questions from readers. Particularly this section:

Q: My best friend swears that in over five years with his girlfriend he has not farted in her presence. Which lead me to two conclusions. 1) I can’t believe they’re still together, and 2) this has a make him a huge pussy, right?

A: Sure does. What’s the point of having a girlfriend if you can’t terrify her by dropping ass in the middle of some terrible movie she rented? On a deeper level, not farting around your girlfriend (or boyfriend, for that matter) suggests that you really aren’t all that comfortable around her. I mean, really. Five years and you don’t feel comfortable enough to let it rip with your old lady around? What, are you still trying to maintain the illusion of courtship? Ridiculous. You should WANT a girlfriend who you feel clear to nuke the couch around. That means you’re yourself, instead of some dipshit guy putting on airs whenever his chick is around. I hate guys like that.

At some level, this…bodily sound is immature. Is it because it’s primal? Why is it so private? Because it reminds us that we are at the core…animals?

But the core of the question is about…how long can your facade (the perfect side of you) last? Beyond bodily sounds, when are you ok with letting your frustrations air? When are you going to be ok with sharing the fact that you too make mistakes—like yes you do slip and fall, that you spill food on yourself…that you have bad habits too?

A few years ago, a friend who I was semi-interested in overheard a conversation I was having about the state of my room. My room in Pittsburgh was a puny room the size of a walk-in closet with a sloping roof with only room for a twin bed and a desk. And I simply could not keep it neat. Being brazen, my friend asked me, “Will you clean it for me, Jenn?”

All at once, I was slightly irritated compounded with constant nagging from my mom to clean my room when I was a teenager and the desperate need to be neat in this society. Immediately, I said, “No.”

But what I was trying to say was that there was no way I would ever change for anyone.

Returning to the Bay Area with a solid education and better social skills, I was finally comfortable with myself. And when I ever did “date”, I would lay it all out. There was no reason to pretend to be perfect. In contrary to popular dating logic, I preferred to talk about all the things that may annoy people—particularly my natural social anxiety, my dislike of being too girly, not drinking…and freely pooting.

So often after seeing a movie that was so inspirational, emotional, impactful, I would find a movie review. Not because I wanted to really know about the rating, but rather I wanted to relive the moments.

And there was nobody that I trusted more than Roger Ebert. I rarely ever watched the TV show, but ever since I was 12 I started reading his reviews, discovering his book in the library. He embodied a quality unlike any other—to summarize a movie deftly in words. Not a word wasted. With personal views not to talk about himself, but rather to give the review a different perspective.

There was a period in college when I wanted to be a movie critic and actually created a website here for it called OMG reviews. But then I found that I had nothing inspirational or impactful to say.

Unlike Roger Ebert. Surprisingly, I only just discovered his recent condition. Like so many writers out there, words are not lost by the loss of voice. They are lost when there is no method by which to communicate. And yet he’s more honest and open than any writer. Having worked in creative services for awhile, I am used to the spin employed to shape everything for the better even when worse. What’s admirable is that he doesn’t try to hide it at all. There’s no spin. Because that’s how he is right now.

Being almost silent during most of my life…perhaps embarrassed that I couldn’t speak that well…I preferred the printed word. For many years even now, I prefer the concreteness, the absoluteness of the printed word. It meant that I could think about it. I could explicitly say what I want to say.

Roger Ebert hates one of Chris’ favorite movies—Bad Boys II. He said it was a bloated, unpleasant assembly-line extrusion in which there are a lot of chases and a lot of killings and explosions. All true. Did he change my mind of the movie? Not really. But like many film critics…he offered an opinion. A well-created opinion that built my understanding of the human condition.

I dislike recalling statements that we say over and over again…but it’s true…

Our world is so small.

How does someone you decide to separate from…a former friend, an acquaintance…how do they end up back in your circle again?

In reflecting this yesterday, perhaps we all harbor the same preferences of friendship. We choose our friends unconsciously and in effect, those friends will choose similar friends until…the circles you wanted separated now intersect.

Whether it’s through common interests, through a common high tolerance…and oddly enough ethnicity.

I like to call myself an American who happens to be Asian. I identify myself as a human first, then by my interests, perhaps my career…then by where I live…then of schooling…then nationality, then ethnicity. What’s fascinating is that Asian Americans that I knew more than 10 years ago somehow keep popping up on my radar over and over again. Do we happen to move toward the same career field? Do we always be friends with those who look similar to us?

But why I am chuckling now is because I know that the non-Asians that I knew 10 years ago will not intersect my circle. They just don’t. I am not sure why. Will I ever run into the “friends” I had in high school?

There is this comfortable feeling I have on Saturdays. I wake up, not driven by the alarm clock. The day is open and hopeful. It may be sunny, cloudy or raining, but it’s so full of opportunity.

During graduate school in Pittsburgh when I lived in a different state than my parents, empty days were full of possibility. I loved the dawdling down to the local supermarket, perhaps a stop into the local tea shop…jogging around the park. But as the first year passed, it was…as I realize it….was incomplete. And I would write endless entries in my journals and blogs trying to understand the incomplete piece.

There’s a part of me that loves being a quirkyalone…and yet…maybe I am not.

What is the joy in watching a TV show or movie…when you can’t ask someone what they thought about it even if you know their answer will always be “I LOVE JACK BAUER”? What is the joy in eating when you can’t taste someone’s dish and not feel guilty about spitting it out if it has mushrooms? What is the joy in going out for tea alone when you can’t stare at someone across the table in silence without awkwardness…but only feel comfort of the moment?

I love the weekends, because I don’t have to ask, “Do you want to go to [something] with me?” Rather it’s “How do you want spend your day with me?”

If I haven’t spammed the Internet enough, my very own quote is in an AP article! Discussing mostly the phenomenon of Cupcake Camp, I had participated with a friend in baking our mojito twist cupcakes.

Because it was through AP, it was published throughout the world in Vancouver, San Francisco, msnbc, etc.

How did the writer decide to write about you?

While setting up, the writer came up to us and started asking us questions about our cupcakes. In fact, our presentation was something to really look at. I didn’t read that detail that a single cupcake was judged on its own and thought that the entire presentation would work. I had brainstormed the weeks before finally concluding that a giant martini glass would do well to showcase mojito cupcakes. We filled the bottom of the glass with frosting and put toothpicks through the mini cupcakes to make it seem like an olive.

And I spoke in my own jennism way. In my super self-conscious, easily guilt-tripped way, I was quoted saying, “Last time I think we ate a lot of cupcakes. So, we wanted to kind of off-load that guilt.”

Maybe it was cute? I am not sure.

Are you a web designer?

No. Although I am amused by the misnomer in the article (I realize that the writer was coerced to be more layperson-friendly), I am usually furious when someone calls me a web designer. I do not develop—I don’t like writing php, css, and html. Web designer to me signifies oh about…10 hours to come up with a web site on the fly. A web designer is also someone who does the work part-time just like how one’s teenage son would do it as a “favor” for his parents’ business.

Are you famous?

Probably not. Apparently even my friends who initially read it didn’t even see my name. One of my friends said, “ew” upon hearing about the concept of cupcake camp. And really can you even remember a single name from an article you have read? I can’t.

What did you learn?

Don’t get yourself photographed which I successfully avoided. The AP camera guy loved taking pictures of the target item fortunately.

“Don’t even think about ordering,” I said when he picked up.

“AY! how did you know!” he said in a guilty voice, standing in front of the menu at Taco Bell.

“I know what you’re doing and you need to eat your dessert that is waiting for you here,” I said at the dessert house across the street, sitting at a back table, waiting for him to get something from his car.

“Ok,” he said in a defeated voice and appeared next to me 30 seconds later.

I had absolutely no idea what was going on.

It just makes sense to me. I don’t have to do what I dislike doing. If someone is willing to do it, then why not?

For instance, calling restaurants to ask about their hours. It’s a simple task, but to me, it speaks energy, dealing with abrasive people, and having to think quickly. A simple task yes, but I hate doing it. If someone else can do it for me, then why not? What am I missing out by not doing it?

Likewise for bigger things. I don’t like moving furniture so I am willing to pay or bribe people to do it for me. And then skills that I don’t have and am not interested in learning. Someone can fix my shoes or cut my hair.

So why am I being pushed to do something that I know that I don’t want to do because I have tried it already. In the end, I want to be a specialist rather than a generalist.

There’s this Chinese saying that goes When you go up to the mountain too often, you will eventually encounter the tiger.

That is, the more often I do something, the more often I will expose myself to risk. Although mathematics says the chances are the same every single time. Because after all, I have only 1/6 chance in rolling a 6. But the more I roll it, the more likely I will get a 6. At some point.

Ever since I started biking, I almost hate crossing the street with cars around. Biking has taught me that (American) drivers don’t look, don’t like to tell other drivers what they’re doing, and can’t drive in a straight line.

When I was taking a bike on the road class, I was at an intersection near Golden Gate Park. The task was to make a right turn into traffic. So I did everything the instructor said. Check for the pulse in traffic. Signal right. Then smoothly merge into the lane.

Unfortunately, being my cautious self, I waited…and waited…and waited…and waited…until the perfect moment. Which took nearly 8 minutes while my classmates behind me visibly gave annoyed sighs. Being good instructors, they praised me for my caution.

The other day as we were in a car turning left from 20th street to South Van Ness, I spotted a guy getting out of a fancy pants car. He was wearing loose clothing. He was meeting a guy in red with a cap pulled back loosely. The guy from the car walked up and threw a punch. I always worry in the back of my mind as I walk up and down 24th to my favorite taquieras, to my favorite ice cream stores, to my friends’ apartment that I may get caught some day.

Everyone remembers the horrible slide shows that they would sit through. Where you would see the same people with the same expression in front of different landmarks. When I was younger and traveled with my parents, that was the kind of photos we took with a film camera. Those photos would be developed and put into an album never to be seen again.

I remembered once when we visited Boston that my mom insisted on taking a picture with a statue at the Harvard campus. I was embarrassed. It was the same posture and expression she had at everything else we had taken picture of during the tour. It was dull, boring, and mundane.

When I got my own digital camera in college, I resolved never to do the same. Every picture has a purpose. With the advent of distributed pictures easily accessible on the Internet, was there any reason to take a picture of something that we can easily find…a better shot on the web?

While in Hong Kong, I hated taking pictures like these, but I could tell my aunt was not used to my liberal, creative ways of photo-taking (and would the Chin Lin Nunneries be ok with my sudden creativity?)

There is a reason why Toad is in my pictures. There is no point in taking a picture unless I can truly make it mine. If I take the same shot as someone else, it’s a waste of digital space. Especially with my canon powershot elph that’s struggling behind the times.

This is also why Toad was in “costume” at my friend’s wedding in Hong Kong: