Every so often, he has a twinkle in his eye. Just like the ice cream trickery to the front row at the US open. I have hold back my usual habit of i can’t ask…i can’t ask such a question habit. In some sense, I wouldn’t lose anything by asking (except my dignity whenever I think of the situation). But if you don’t try?!

Some tips and tricks:

Blame someone else for doing something you didn’t intend to do.
Getting a free caltrain ride (although I got yelled at) for an unredeemed ride. I said that a friend told me that I could do it. Basically, it wasn’t me. It was someone else!

Don’t show any insecurity. Believe that it was valid!
Using a $8.50 movie pass for a single ticket of the nearly sold out IMAX showing of The Dark Knight. Unfortunately, I had read pages and pages of how it was a YMMV deal. I spent time drafting an counterargument to “Sorry we don’t accept that” when the guy just nonchalantly took my pass and gave me a ticket to the IMAX showing.

Say you belong there. Make up plausible stories. Speak in a foreign language. Dress the part. Lock the door.
And of course, the infamous night how we got box seats at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House.

We lost our cellphones after the opera and came up with a plausible story so that we could not only check the ground floor, the box seats and the top tier…in the end, it turned out to be ok.

“Can I sit there?” he motioned to the seat next to me. I was already taking up three seats at the back of the bus when I plopped down with my grocery bags. Nodding, I shifted my bag over.

“I am glad I am not fat,” he said conversationally, a faint breath of alcohol. Or was it alcohol-laced cologne? He looked like a laborer. Probably going home from work. Service? Janitorial? That’s the type of people usually on the 49. He squeezed into the empty seat.

I looked straight ahead and nodded, letting thoughts of cooking my chicken tortilla soup wash over me. Black beans. Chopped green chiles. Saute the garlic and onion first. Medium saucepan.

“Are you from China?” he asked. I tensed. Despite growing up in a world lacking of racism, I had a habit of regarding the question…as an ignorant question especially when asked as introductory question. People around us gave a slight casual curious look.

“No,” I said and continued looking straight ahead watching for my street. The bus filled up when we got to 16th and Mission, but despite that I didn’t shift over and still sat next to the man.

“Korea? Japan?” he guessed.

Feeling a little sympathy, I bluntly said in American English, “No, I am from here.”

He looked at me and sensed my reluctance. “Are you from China?”

I paused while the bus rumbled and then said without making eye contact, “No I am from here.”

He laughed, “China eh? You’re Chinese!! Just trying to make conversation!”

“American. I am American.”

We were silent for a moments. Then he continued, “What’s your name?”

Pausing for a moment, I decided that my name was common enough that I wasn’t losing anything. I gave it to him. Chuckling, he said and extended his hand, “Oh you probably didn’t give me your real name!!! Well, I am Walter!”

I gave a light grasp almost just touching his fingers and shook his hand. Guilt washed over me for not being friendly. As the bus approached 23rd street, I pulled the cord. “Oh so this is where you live!!! Nice talking to you!”

And then I walked out in the once warm now chilly summer night.

“Everything is sweet,” it said.

And then I was immediately excited and enthralled. I was fascinated. I had to have the miracle berry. I don’t miss such opportunities.

So then I thought about buying it online or by ebay. I will have it.

Even a friend was going to put it on her 101 things in 1001 days.

But wait, this can change my perception of taste. It’s a chemical. It lasts only 30 minutes. You can eat cheese and lemon and think it’s a dessert. For several moments, everything is different.

The funny thing is that I have always been against the idea of chemicals altering my experience. And yet I am a hypocrite. I use painkillers when I am horribly throbbing in pain. I take antihistamines. I take all these other drugs. I take antibiotics. In some sense, they are altering the experience. Not always for better health, but as prevention.

Is it a recreational drug? Should be termed as such?

Regardless, maybe this will help me eat the green leafy vitamin-laden, fiber-filled vegetables that I leave cold on my plate.

You can send anonymous messages! To people…because it’s often embarrassing to tell someone…than being the one receiving the message…right?

nicecritic.com

Yesterday, I was so enthralled with the concept and started to think about how I would use it. I also thought it was hilarious. Then I thought about sharing the link with a chatter mailing list at work. It demonstrates hilarity and web-iness. Good water cooler conversation.

Then I thought again. Wait a minute. I don’t want someone telling me that I smell. Or that I don’t bathe enough. Or that I forget to close my mouth when I chew. To some extent, I really don’t want to know.

Besides, it’s passive aggressive. You can’t change who people are. Well, what if someone really smells?

“See look,” I began. “They had to wear adult diapers and they switched out a girl just because she wasn’t cute enough.”

And despite being of Chinese descent, I couldn’t stand that not everyone was Westernized. “The director too!” I said. How could they steal the very thing that humans are. We aren’t slaves of course! We have the right to have a free will and be treated fairly.

But even my dad who at the age of 3 left China to Hong Kong…whose grandparents once landowners were forced to do hard labor in the fields, “You see, they are communists. There’s good and bad. The Chinese work hard and because they do, they are happy about it. Because it’s for the country, not for themselves.”

I shut up, because in some way, I wouldn’t be able to understand the way the Chinese worked. I don’t understand the dedication of an entire life to something—to be taken away from people. I have an education because it was required and am living a life of excess.

“There are things about people you find initially endearing but you find annoying much later,” he said.

I related. I described a former good friend who I once loved his quirkiness, but somehow treaded into the wrong territory. He breathed too loudly. I couldn’t stand the fact that he slept in the same clothes he wore during the day. I knew it was just my mind trying to react and rationalize.

He then told me that a girl who had terrorized his life had a mole on her lip. Just like me. They were now sworn enemies and couldn’t be in the same room. I held my breath.

“I am glad I didn’t walk away because you have a mole on your lip too,” he said and touched my mole with a finger.

“Do you want to go to Great America?” my mom excitedly asked me on the phone several weeks ago.

I had woken up. A Saturday, I think it was.

“There’s a deal. It’s on the 17th. 2 tickets for $53. And you get hot dog, chips and ice cream! In the Chinese newspaper. There’s also a Children’s talen show!”

Of course, she had meant that it was for me and whoever I wanted to go with. Not for her of course.

The week before, I walked all the way to Chinatown during my lunch break. Decided not to express myself in broken Chinese and bought tickets. The lady at the Sing Tao counter spoke in hesitant broken English and handed me the tickets.

And then we checked something off our list of things we need to do last Sunday—visit Great America or Marine World or Cedar Point. On our list still, there are things like picnic at Sutro Baths and build a snowman just right—bottom as big as possible, top slightly smaller.

As expected going with Chris also means that my experience wouldn’t be just like going with anyone else.

Highlights of the Sunday

Twenty months ago, I said (in near frustration), “Let’s go to popscene this Thursday.”

He picked me up from my apartment. We danced. Eye to eye. Face to face.

I remember so vividly when he bought me a drink and said “no, you can’t bring it to the dance floor.” It was my first time seeing him being serious and putting his foot down.

Afterwards, the air was magical (although it was probably just an average cold San Francisco winter night). It was slightly drizzling and we rushed across the softly lit street to his car. Our ears ringing from leaving the club.

Today, I wondered what would be worse to..leave or to be forgotten. I think it’s the latter.

I am going to a dance partay again today at Popscene with a friend. A female friend, since he is working late today.

On the way to work, I always walk past the former US Federal Mint Building. Especially now that Mint Plaza is there.

But the building is boarded empty. Nothing inside. It was one of the last buildings standing after the fire spread after the 1906 earthquake. And how everyone had to stand on its rooftops staring down at the destroyed city, guarding a third of the nation’s money inside.

A few days ago, I saw light inside. A few windows were uncovered. Figures moving through lit hallways inside the stony walls.

A chandelier in the main entrance was lit. Five globes suspended in air. There was electricity. I searched online for a story, but there was none. I had been walking past the building for 17 months and never saw life inside. Why now?

There’s really cool music in the Mint Plaza at noon on Fridays!

“I always thought I would be moving,” I said to a friend. “To Boston. To NYC. To Europe. But somehow I ended up back in the Bay Area. Not by choice, but because the best opportunities were here.”

He seemed surprised, “But you love San Francisco!”

I cocked my head. Somewhat. Somewhat not. It’s always the feeling that I am missing out, having only lived once outside California for less than 2 years in a place called Pittsburgh, PA.

And I told them the two reasons I would leave.

1. a disaster of epic proportions that made living in the Bay Area unbearable
such as: hurricane, earthquake (likely), the American government (maybe?)…

I am not a homebody. A friend once observed that I really had no home. In some way, I still live almost like a transient barely having much furniture that will last and only having several valuables—a rug, my Japanese shoiji screens and ottoman—of value (to me).

2. Trauma.

Emotional trauma that is. In Sleepless in Seattle, he had to leave Chicago because he couldn’t bear to be in the same city as Wrigley Field and other memories. I couldn’t live in the Bay Area to the fullest without encountering memories that could cause happy memories, but that of loss. The risk I took is to give it all way, knowing that I may not get any back.

“Let’s talk about the present, because that’s what matters now,” I said to my friend, changing the subject.