This one.

And I am never ever drunk.

Sending a text message to someone else. Like a friend. Like a client. When it was intended for someone close to you. Because you let your phone be jostled in your bag while its surrounded by grocery items and similar things. Because you are using a different bag.

And now you sit in front of your computer, appalled to find out that yes that PHONE number matches the PHONE number that you didn’t watch. And you just want it to go away.

Then you think. Well at least, I didn’t drunk dial him. Because you don’t get drunk anyway. You just lazily put your phone in a place where the buttons are easily pushed the things in your bag.

At least you didn’t start sexting with him.

“Sorry to wake you,” the conductor said last week as I let out a soft scream, being audibly woken up by the loud “TICKETS, PLEASE!”

It is the most polite form of post-waking-up that I have experienced on the caltrain. Usually, it’s the clatter of keys on the side of the train waking everyone in the car. Followed by a barely audible thank you.

There’s just something wrong with this picture of me soundly sleeping for the 40+ minute ride on the caltrain, being suddenly disturbed by the lawful conductors. Because as it says when I board the train, THIS IS A PROOF OF PAYMENT SYSTEM and I am doomed to stay in anxiety having my validated ticket at hand.

Isn’t it wrong?

I dreaming of the time away from work, away from feeling like I am traveling in a metal tube going at 70 mph in one direction, all these yuppies willing to spend money on a $20 taxi…ugh.

What happened to the system I have experienced on the LIRR and the commuter train in Chicago? Where I can clip my ticket near the seat. By god, that means that no conductor has to reach over me to the person sitting in the window seat. No, they don’t have to lean toward me to touch my curry-filled hands because I yet again spilled my lunch under my eat. No, they don’t have to notice that yes my feet is up…because it’s so much more comfortable than feeling like I am stuck in an airplane. By god, it would be incredible if they only had to look outside my seat and realize that YES SIR, I did pay for my ticket.

Although I can say this. There is nothing worse in disturbing my sleep when I hear a conductor yelling at a passenger who purposefully or not purposefully did not have the right ticket. Thrown off, yes. With protests, whining…and all I want is settle into my yuppie-ness of dreamlessness sleep.

This is how I qualify spending. In determining the value of something.

1. Will it make me happy 24 hours later?
2. Will it make me happy one week later?
3. Is it replacing something that I am sorely missing?
4. Will I receive something in return? (e.g. social currency)
5. Does it help an organization I believe in?
6. Do I desperately need it now?
7. Am I paying significantly under full price?

If the the item, the meal, the experience…answers positively at least 5 of the questions, then I smack down the money.

Riding a taxi rarely if ever answers 5 of those.

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?”