On Monday in Fox Theater, Chris helped me find a spot behind the railing on the floor. I was happy, watching the band up close, but not too close. I recognized the large golden “foxes” on either side of the stage. A human really with lights that glowed green with a black pupil and a colored jewel.

On stage, the Joy Formidable banner went down and a Passion Pit banner went up in its place. While waiting between sets, I looked up behind me.

Then I remembered. I remember the last rows. I remember watching New Order. I remember watching another band that I had so-so feelings about. I remember all of this as I was wretched in emotional turmoil. I remember wanting to desperately be on the ground floor in general admission. I remember why I had hesitation. And most importantly, I remember how much I desperately wanted to be somewhere else in the darkness as the booming music floated from the stage into the last rows in the balcony, the furthest seat that you could possibly have.

That flashed over me as the lights went down and the lead singer Passion Pit appeared on stage. And even then, every song evoked a memory. The last two years of confusion and strife. I love the music of Passion Pit. On the surface, it’s happy pop. It’s a reminder of how to be fun, after all two tracks appeared in the happy LittleBigPlanet game that I was obsessed with during the recession (I wouldn’t leave for days). It had hope for me. Then when their second album came out, I listened to a few tracks over and over again over Spotify and in the car. I could quote their lyrics now—like the one where a voice declares how happy he is but underneath all the pain is just bubbling to the surface. I can quote the jazzy croon that evokes images of glances exchanged and words unsaid. All of this.

But there I stood near the stage the balloons batted by concertgoers, shifting from foot to foot trying to kill the numbness of standing in the same place, bobbing my head. In the darkness lit up by colored lights, I smiled.

Walking to the elevator, I heard a female talk to the security at the front desk, “Is the class cancelled? I saw a sign.”

“I don’t think so if you haven’t gotten an email…”

I walked around the sixth floor trying to find the room number. A middle-aged woman came up to me, “Are you looking for the creative nonfiction class?”

I nodded and right at that moment, the security came up, explaining that the registrar said that the class was still in session. He paused, staring at the sign, unsure about whether the class was in session. “Well the registrar said that it was still on and nothing changed. So if the instructor doesn’t arrive, come tell me.”

“I don’t know about you, but I came a long way to be here,” a woman said to me.

The room filled. The chairs were arranged in a circle with a few seats in the middle, all facing the board. It reminded me of rooms of screenwriters—people tossing ideas where we could see each other faces, nearly equally. Then as time ticked, each seat was slowly filled. Women dominated the class. A woman in her seventies took a seat next to me, fiddling with her flip phone. A guy with a white hipster bike helmet sat across the room. Several people looked distant, middle-aged. Our eyes gazed downward, not quite connecting with other faces.

“If the instructor doesn’t show, someone should teach the class!” the old woman next to me said. “What’s her name?”

“Lorelei Lee,” I said and then hesitated knowing what I found. “There’s a lot of stuff on her.”

“Maybe we can find her phone number?” a female voice suggested.

We sat in silence for the next few minutes. A Filipino lady pulled out her phone and called the main office. No answer. A busy tone. “Seems like it’s closed,” she said finally and tapped her phone off. She walked to the other side of the room to plug her phone in.

I brought out my notebooks, of varying sizes. One empty from my previous work. Then my working notebook, almost filled with writing from workshops and my very early drafts from early January. Only a few pages remained as I flipped through with various stickies showing how hefty this black spiral notebook was. I pulled out my smaller red notebook, the pocket-sized one and pondered Nanowrimo. Was that really a good idea? To just draft out some version of my grandfather’s story? What is the tension? I wrote several lines down, drafting a list of scenes in case that I would pursue the project in November. But I reminded myself, you have greater work to do in the month of November!

A student finally went downstairs to talk with the security guard. The old woman turned to me and said, “The janitor said that she might show!”

My face twisted. Was she insinuating that his Mexican features suggest that he worked as a janitor even though he clearly wore a security guard uniform. “He is security,” I said finally.

“Maybe someone can teach the class!” she said loudly to nobody in particular.

In a few moments, a man in casual wear walked in, “She’s not here. Hold on tight and we’ll get this all sorted out shortly.”

The security guard walked in, glancing at the full classroom of earnest faces—people from all walks of life, people with notebooks, people who had never taken a class. “Her husband apparently came and put up the sign and told nobody, because the instructor was ill. I am sorry about that. But if you have complaints, don’t direct them to me.”

As people got up to leave, he told everyone that now they could get back to whatever they wanted to do. He looked at a woman and said, “I know that you wanted to go shoe shopping.”

She turned around, “Now why would you think that?”

That moment slid quickly away.

The old woman put away her things and said again, “I thought someone would teach the class!”

(Based on personal experience of winning the game.)

Assuming that each assassin gets your full name, your home address, and your work address (if it’s post-school):

“I didn’t try, because I knew that I wasn’t looking for the same thing that you were,” a former crush said to me more than eight years ago.

In contrast to all other rejections I had then, I smiled then. Because why go through the grief, the rejection, the games. He read what I was seeking and didn’t feel the need to use me to validate himself. And for me too, I accepted it as it was, not trying to change his mind. He had a slight crazy, ranting streak that I admired. But internally, I knew that it wasn’t for me—I was becoming more socially conservative, turning inward and staying in. Partying? A thing of my insecure early twenties!

For years afterwards, we kept in touch. Although five years ago, our communication completely faded into nothingness.

Then suddenly, a mutual friend mentioned that he was coming in town. Yesterday, we met again after more than five years of silence. He had become more disillusioned. I had grown past my wounds, which for some reason, he never rubbed. As the night ended, he said, “Let’s not make it five years.”

“Let’s not,” I said.

I saw Gravity in the best way possible. Real Imax. 3D. Best surround sound. Best seats.

And it was an intense 90 minutes.

Afterwards, I almost nearly wanted to say that I never wanted to see another movie again. Mostly because there is nothing that can be quite comparable.

It’s like the gelato that I had in Italy. Initially, I had bad gelato. But I didn’t really know it. There was one time during a dark Italian evening that…I finally just threw it out. The cream, the straticella gave me a headache and I just could not finish it. It was then that I decided that I would never again have bad gelato (to the best of my ability) and stick with good gelato. My stomach thanked me for that.

And yet here’s a movie. A masterpiece. Where I wonder how it could be any better. Will I be disappointed my eyes gaze across similar movies? Will the dialog elsewhere seem so much more fake? So here I am: stuck. I had the best then and now I want more. Yet how do I do that without forsaking the great quality.

Last year, when he was barely one-and-a-half, we traveled with a friend’s kid. It was his first time traveling long distances. It was his first time to Taiwan.

Like many kids his age, he was uncomfortable with all the change, all the weird food and people.

Our friends had warned us about how their kid had them at their mercy. He threw tantrums, quite often in the most inopportune places. Restaurants, trains, airplanes. We were warned that things might be slow. Because he is…like the king. He wailed. He needed to be consoled. He needed help.

But he had this incredible knack for looking at you. For a brief moment. You then face him and smile back. Suddenly, he turns away and the smile is gone. You wonder…did he smile for you? Just for you? Has he figured out that’s his way of getting you to pay attention?

Whatever the case, I saw him today, almost a year older, he was jumping around his living room. He repeatedly fell into the couch, planting his small body in the cushion. Every so often, he would look up at his adult counterparts—over five feet towering him. Then he would smile.

Sometimes I like to look at reality differently. Just for a moment. What if the exit isn’t an exit, but an entrance? What if the road isn’t just a road, but misdirection? What if the building next door is shelter?

It’s not that I want any of these things to be true—to be hunted, to be stalked, to be followed. I love games, because they alter the reality for a second so that I can be someone else. I can be empowered in a role that I never had the abilities before. I am in a different world.

In a few hours, I am embarking in a street game. Perhaps just entertainment in the hedonistic ways in the city. But for a moment, I want to break from the mundaneness of the world and see the world differently. Just for a moment.

People think that I love zombies. And yes, in some way, I am. I host the annual book club complete with “zombie food”. I read zombie books and material incessantly. I watch zombie movies and TV. I attend zombie events.

And yet. I am not a horror fan. I hate chaos. I hate gore and body horror (although evidently I needed to be desensitized due to my avid watching of such things.)

I am more like Max Brooks. I worry about the future and my fear is reflected in my fascination with zombies. It’s the dread of the unknown. It’s the dread that I will forget to follow simple rules: cardio, double tap…oh wait, what were the rest? I want to know how we will behave differently if the world is suddenly…very different. Will I trust the ones I love? Will they be selfish? Will I be selfish? Do my soft skills even matter?

There’s a reason why I still dabble in ARGs. For a brief moment, I can imagine how it would be like. But the most important thing is that I won’t die and become a zombie.

“And it’s because you’re Asian,” someone suggested.

I had just described the taunts, the teasing, the pain of childhood growing up in a predominantly white suburbia. I blinked. “No,” I said. “It’s because I was too different.”

I meant that I was different because who I was. My quiet personality, my way of thinking that didn’t adhere to the norms, my creativity that seemed to be lacking in other kids, my innate lack of coordination.

To this day, I always wondered why I never heard racist comments until I was in my mid-twenties. Was it because I only wanted to hear things that were only about me…and if it’s a group, my brain completely filtered it out? Or was the pain so directly to my internal me that I never thought that it was part of how I looked? Or that really my school was 10% Asian and located so close to San Francisco, diversity was so ingrained in the culture that I never really felt different from other kids except that I was socially awkward and intense? Or even worse, did I participate in the racism against my own heritage? I am not sure.

Now aware of the subtle racism toward Asian Americans, my sensitivity has risen to great heights. I cringe when someone yells “Gangnam Style” to an Asian style. I don’t like the word “chink” or any movement to squint someone’s eyes.

I know that I hate being asked “where are you from”, especially when it’s intention is to figure out what my ethnicity is.

Two years ago, I was going through a period where I wanted to live anywhere but the Bay Area. I went on an international trip bouncing from New York City to Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Germany. But to my surprise, I found that I was lucky in the Bay Area. My identity as an Asian American is not perceived as strange, weird, or odd. Whether it’s due to the fact that I grew up this way…or because I was truly lucky, I felt comfortable in the Bay Area. I came to the conclusion that there are very few places in the world that I would feel ok with who I am…on the outside.

They called my name. Once, twice, thrice. I hesitated, surprised that my name was said outloud in the air.

“Oh that’s me!” I finally said.

Then I walked to the microphone and read. With practiced diligence, I read and looked up. I said the italicized words differently. I said the questions differently. Then I finished.

It was over.

It was my first time at open mic.