Behold the Power of Woman

I was researching an issue when I happened to come upon a case where the judge made the following observation on women:

The literature of all countries in all languages and in all civilizations since the Garden of Eden is replete with the lures, the enticements, the inducements and the temptations used by womankind to lead, control, direct, influence and, indeed, to confound man. Their use has not been either universally malignant or universally benign.

Who knew I harbored so much power to confound men? All this time I thought they were confounding me.

Why orc why?

I confronted my friend as to why he set me up on a blind date with an orc from "Lord of the Rings." He said he thought we'd get along. Then I asked him questions along the lines of: Do you think the guy is genuinely attractive looking? ("On a scale of one to ten, he's a 6.") Do I look like an orc? ("No.") Are we both on differing yet similar levels of orc-ness? ("No, you are definitely more attractive...")

Of course my friend isn't going to tell me I look like an orc, nor is he going to tell me that I exceed my blind date's orc-ness. I think I made my friend feel really bad because then he began sputtering that I was "hot" and he wanted to "show [me] off." It didn't make any sense and so made me suspect that my friend does in fact think I'm an orc. Maybe I should change my blog title to Yellow Orc.

My etymological conclusion

I used to think it was called "blind date" because the two blindly go on the date or go on the date having no idea what the other person looks like, i.e., as if they were blind.

I now suspect two other reasons for it being called "blind date": (1) After seeing your date, you wish you were blind, and (2) After seeing your date, you go blind.

A tiny headline

For some reason, this tiny headline on the New York Times made me very sad:

Last American Titanic Survivor Dies at 99

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 7, 2006
Filed at 1:54 p.m. ET

BOSTON (AP) -- Lillian Gertrud Asplund, the last American survivor of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, has died, a funeral home said Sunday. She was 99.

Asplund, who was just 5 years old, lost her father and three brothers -- including a fraternal twin -- when the ''practically unsinkable'' ship went down in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg.

She died Saturday at her home in Shrewsbury, said Ronald E. Johnson, vice president of the Nordgren Memorial Chapel in Worcester, Mass.

Asplund's mother and another brother, Felix, who was 3, also survived the Titanic sinking in the early morning of April 15, 1912.

Random Saturday night

A friend and I had a drink last night and then stopped by a party at a bar. The scene at the party encapsulated my dating experience overall: All the guys either were gay or had girlfriends.

One of the guys I met was half Asian and half white. We were chatting, all flirty, leaning into each other, giggling, etc. Then my friend taps on my shoulder and whispers to me, "Yo, he has a girlfriend, she's right behind him, and he doesn't date Asian women."

Doesn't date Asian women? The Halfie was just telling me what Asian ethnicities he's dated before. It never occurred to me that a half Asian half white guy could have an actual distaste towards Asian women. And it threw me off that he was flirty with me (or letting me be flirty with him). I suppose if there are Asians who only date white people, and white people who only date white people, then it shouldn't surprise me that there are half half-people who only date their one half.

At any rate, when I bumped into him later that night and started chatting with him, his tall blonde girlfriend came scampering along, wrapped her arm neatly around his waist, leaned her head on his shoulder and smiled at me. I smiled back at her, introduced myself to her and shook her hand. (Aren't I the politest girl? At least as polite a girl can be after unknowingly flirting with a spoken-for guy.)

My friend and I left before midnight, seeing the utter lack of prospects. I ended the night by eating an entire small pizza (incidentally, a great way to stave off a hangover).

All in all, a random Saturday night.

Epiphany

When a friend tells you, "I'm going to set you up with someone who is right for you," the presumption is that the someone is comparable in intelligence, personality, and attractiveness. When you meet this someone and see that he is less than attractive, a few theories come to mind:

1) Your friend thinks you're unattractive and so sets you up with a similarly unattractive person.
2) You overestimated your attractiveness and are in fact unattractive. Your friend then sets you up with a similarly unattractive person.
3) Your friend thinks the unattractive person is in fact attractive, so in your friend's mind, the friend has set you up with a similarly attractive person.
4) Your friend knows that the person is less than attractive, but that person's personality, sophistication, and success will more than compensate for his appearance.

I will be the first to admit that to be in relationship with someone, I have to be able to at least entertain the mere possibility of being able to get it on with the guy. If the prospect of being physical with someone sickens me because he resembles an orc from "Lord of the Rings," then chances are we will not succeed as a couple.

Hmm. Maybe I've resembled an orc this whole time and never knew it. In which case, I'd have to thank my friend for leading me to this epiphany.

Lame Asian Moment

Six Asians are squished in a Lexus. The radio is on. "A Little Respect" by Erasure comes on. Six Asians freak out, turn up the radio to maximum volume, open the windows and sun roof, and drive through the city.

White passerby stare into car, confused by Six Asians' obsession with 90's new wave music.

Six Asians decide to turn down the music and close the windows. Six Asians suddenly feel lame.

Biz

I've been busy with work. You know work is keeping you busy when:

1) you are working on a Friday night en Cinco De Mayo,
2) you have to work the following Saturday and Sunday, and
3) you calculate the number of alcoholic drinks you can consume on Friday night and Saturday night based on your having to work on the following Saturday and Sunday.

I'm not complaining though. At least the work itself is interesting. All I know is there's going to be a margarita tonight with my name on it.

Another yellow gal's rants

I finally found someone interested in seeing Margaret Cho with me. The Naysayer tentatively agreed to cross various state lines to watch the show. Recently I saw Ms. Cho's DVD, "Assassin" which was filmed in D.C. It's interesting--I don't agree with everything she says, but she is so charismatic that I feel like I want to. Before watching the DVD, I considered myself a liberal moderate / moderate liberal. But dang, that woman is LIB-bral. A couple things she said:

o Bush would be Hitler...if he applied himself.
Disagree. Bush is not trying to annihilate an entire population of people via mass executions and concentration camps. I mentioned this to the Naysayer (who is Jewish) and surprisingly, he didn't entirely disagree with Ms. Cho. The N said that while Bush may not be advocating genocide, his political tactics in suppressing those who disagree with him, violating civil rights, and hating Muslims (to name a few) are akin to Hitler's. Bold statement.

o People who enjoy the show "Will and Grace" but are against gay marriage are lame/stupid/hypocritical. She said you can't pick and choose what you enjoy out of gay culture and leave the burden of their discrimination to them.
I never thought of this, but she has a point. It is akin to the 50s, when white people, adoring the black music, the rock 'n roll, the jazz, would say "I love your music, but can you not drink from my water fountain? Thanks. Now let's do the twist!"

Those were a couple observations I made. Okay sorry to get all political. I try not to get too political in my blog b/c I feel like I know little to nothing about politics. All right, back to banal musings about boys, about which I know even less.

Back in the game (sort of)

I went to a few professional events last week and made new friendly acquaintances. After one event, a bunch of us went out to shoot pool. Interestingly, it was four married guys and four single girls. That show I habitually quote from, "Sex & the City," once said that married men are the city's untapped resource of eligible bachelors. Befriend the married men, meet their single friends. I relayed this idea to the other girls and we began asking the guys if they had any cool single friends. My pool partner said he'd think about it, which I interpreted as, "Yeah yeah okay, now stop nagging me, woman."

Much to my surprise, my pool partner called me on Friday asking me if I wanted to go on a blind date with a "really cool" guy. At first I was hesitant. First, I have never been on a blind date. Second, I just met my pool parnter a few days ago. Now he was setting me up with a guy? But I'm open-minded. And if I'm willing to try dating guys from online or bars, I might as well try a blind date.

Blind Date Guy called me last night and we ended up talking for an hour. It was a pleasant conversation, nothing out of this world. We're meeting on Saturday for lunch. I may have been too presumptive, but to relieve any pressure, I blabbed something like "Never having been on a blind date, I know that the worst thing that could happen is we meet up and just don't click on that level. But it never hurts to meet new people." He agreed.

Interesting thing is, Blind Date Guy (BDG) is not only Asian, but of the same ethnicity. I haven't dated, let alone gone on a date with, a guy of my ethnicity since like 1998. I guess lately I've been dating white guys (with the exception of Online Guys # 3 (half white, half Colombian) & 4 (Chinese)). BDG came to the U.S. when he was in elementary school, and from speaking with him on the phone, I could discern a very slight shading of his ethnic accent. He is fluent in his native tongue while I am so not. So perhaps it is no surprise that I felt so...white speaking to him. Nonetheless, BDG described himself as a "twinkie," while I am a "banana." (Apparently, there is a difference between a twinkie and a banana, but that's another blog entry.)

Whenever a relationship fails, I always wonder, "What am I doing wrong?" I always try to find patterns in my dating style so I can learn from my mistakes. After ending things with the Guy, I realized that I hadn't dated a guy of my ethnicity in a while and began wondering what it would be like dating someone with the same cultural background, same Asian American experiences, etc.

Then my married pool friend comes through.

So strange how life works. We'll see what happens I suppose.

My avatar

On Yahoo.com a user gets to create her own avatar. This is the avatar I sort of created for myself:


Okay I wish I was this cartoonish cute in real life. The face type was the closest thing to Asian-looking I could find. My hair is sort of like the style and I'd probably wear it in a loose pony-tail like that. Cute, huh?

I'm spun right round

Just wanted to point out that the "Big Hits Of The 80s" station on Yahoo's LaunchCast is awesome. Very nolstalgic. It makes me want to wear ripped jeans with red jelly shoes and my hair crimped in a side pony tail.

The secret

The sound of a fist hitting someone's face is nothing like the sound in movies. It is not raucous, loud and raw. The actual sound is surprisingly soft and muted; it is barely a dull slap.

Yet the sound of a fist hitting one's face is different from the inside. That sound, the rattling of your head, the knuckle hitting cheekbone, is like the sound in the movies; it is like the pain underneath the bone -- raucous, loud and raw.

One doesn't see the first. One doesn't see the hitting. But there is an elbow rising up and down methodically and a head turned downward, intent. One loses count after a while. And the noise, that dull noise, begins to fade into a soft tap. Then it sounds like it's not happening anymore. It doesn't exist. It becomes a perfect silence, sweet and pure, like a secret no one will ever tell.

The Swedish Fish

They beckoned me from their small opened box atop the edge of a secretary's cubicle. Green, red, yellow and orange, they lay against each other, still and hopeful. A crude sign bore the words "HELP YOURSELF!" in scrawled black marker. I looked at them. They looked at me.

"No," I said to them.

"Please. We are so delicious. You deserve a break."

"No," I repeated sternly.

Each time I walked by their lair, they called out to me, coaxed me, yelled at me. "Just one," they said in unison. "Just one!"

"If I take one, then I will have to take one of each color," I reasoned. "So no."

Other onlookers could not resist their siren songs and grabbed them and popped them into their mouths, savoring the yummy sweetness. But where others failed, I will succeed. They're still there now, calling out to me. But I will resist them.

I will resist.

Blogging at your own risk

One of the great things about having a blog is being able to post about anything or anyone you want. It's liberating. It's cathartic. It's fun. Yet a steady blogger will always run the risk of being "discovered."

I know I rant quite a bit about certain events and certain people. What if one of those people just happened to discover this blog? What if Online Guy #1 happened to link to here? Or the Guy? Or worse yet, my mom? The ramifications would be long-reaching, life-altering, and traumatizing.

Okay maybe not that bad. It's not like I'm posting lies. (Just slanted, egregiously biased opinions.) And everyone is entitled to their opinions and feelings.

Yet once in a while, I wonder if one of these people will stumble upon my blog. Even sitemeter won't help you then, as once the discovery is made, knowing what ISP they use or what time they visited your page will do little to alleviate the mortification.

I suppose all of this is a risk that all bloggers must accept. It's worth it...isn't it?

Irony

Someone did a search on msn.com for "japanese horny gal" and clicked onto my blog.

Ironic how my rants come up in the search results for the very things I rant about.

On the wrong team

I was walking down the street the other day when I beheld two guys walking towards my direction. They were handsome. They were athletically built. They were well-dressed.

They were holding hands.

I feel like if I were a gay man, I would be dating a higher caliber of men than I would as a straight woman. Just a thought.

Two out of three ain't bad

So this past weekend, I may have lost a guy but I got a new apartment. I was quick with signing the lease (i.e. I signed it within minutes of viewing the apartment). Twice before I had viewed an apartment I liked, decided to think about it, and came back to sign the lease literally thirty minutes after viewing it ... only to discover the person who saw it right after me signed the lease. This happened with TWO different apartments. So the apartment I saw this weekend may have been a bit pricey, but instead of waiting for the next person to snatch it, I just signed on.

So I got the job, got the apartment, but don't got the man. And I think I'm fine with that.

The End (The long version)

What do you call the straw after the straw that broke the camel's back? Or the nail after the final nail in the coffin? I do not know, but if I did, I'd affix that idiom to the Guy's behavior last night.

The Guy and I had plans to meet at 8 PM last night. We were going to grab dinner, maybe a drink, and then see a comedy show at 10:30 (for which I purchased the tickets). I get dressed up, ready to go, my jacket on and look at the clock. It's 8 PM. I wait. It's 8:10. Then 8:20. 8:30. I'm thinking, Holy shit, am I getting stood up? I start laughing, yes laughing to myself, because I'm wondering, could this get any worse?

(Note to self: Never ask, "Could this get any worse?" because chances are, they can.)

I call the Guy on his cell. He doesn't pick up. I leave a terse message, "Hi, it's me, just wondering where you are. It's about 8:30 and I believe we were supposed to meet at 8. Call me."

At 8:40 PM (forty minutes after we were supposed to meet up), my phone rings. It's the Guy. He says, "Hey, I'm still home. Um, I'm playing my game online and I'm in a tournament, and there are only six people left and I just want to play until I finish. So I don't think I'll make it to dinner, but hopefully I'll make it before the show starts." My jaw drops. I literally have no response. None.

He continues, "And whatever money I win, I'll use it to by you drinks."

Still in shock, I blabber some ineffective responses and we hang up. Not only was he blowing me off for an online game, but he didn't even feel the need to let me know in advance. He was just going to let me wait there until he finished, wait until I call him, wait until he has to return my voicemail message.

Then I start calling my cast of friends, Person A, The Naysayer, friend from school, The Ex. My friend from school is flabbergasted. She tells me, "Tell him don't bother coming down. I'll go with you to the show. And I'd dump him right now."

"What if I get his voicemail?"

"Break up with him over voicemail. That jerk deserves it."

"No I can't dump someone over voicemail. If I get the voicemail, I'll just break plans tonight & tell him to call me back. If he never calls me back, my job's done. If he does, then I'll break up then."

"Whatever you feel comfortable doing."

I call the Guy. He doesn't pick up. I leave my message saying "Forget about tonight. I'll deal with the tickets myself. You have fun playing your game online, and call me when you get a chance. Take care."

He calls me later on. When I pick up, he says "I'm on my way!" I respond, "You know what, don't bother. Forget about it."

He says, "Are you sure? You don't want to go anymore?"

"Yeah, just forget it."

"Oh okay. Well just so you know, I won $700 tonight," he says proudly.

"Okay."

"All right--" he says, using his about-to-get-off-the-phone voice.

"You know what," I say, "I don't think this is working."

"Yeah," he says and as I expected, he continues, "I was thinking the same thing."

"Well that's great we're on the same wavelength," I feign. "That's good we agree."

"I was actually going to talk to you about it tonight but if you want to do it over the phone, okay."

"Oh, was there anything else you wanted to say?"

"No, not really. What about you?"

"No, I think I said what I had to say," I reply.

"Well, okay then, it was fun while it lasted!" he chirps.

"Yeah. It was nice meeting you and hanging out with you. Take care."

"Yeah you too. Maybe I'll see you at a bar some time," he adds.

"Yeah," I fake laugh, "Okay bye."

"Bye."

And that was it. I start making my round of calls again, updating everyone on the story.

Then a strange thing happened: I started crying. Now, why the heck was I crying? First, he was a bad guy that needed to be dumped. Second, I dumped him. Third, I was liberated from the confines of my insecurity and uncertainty! I suppose two months of my life dedicated to one guy may have led me to become emotionally attached, despite his being a jackass. And I suppose it just hurt to be treated so meanly.

Another thing I wonder about that I KNOW is totally moot right now is if he really was going to have "the talk" with me that night, or if he was just saying that. Maybe he was going to dump me. The signs were certainly there. But if he had something on his mind, why didn't he just say it rather than conveying it through passive-aggressive behavior?

Perhaps he's one of those guys who has to act like a total jackass to force the girl to dump him rather than going through the pain of breaking up with the girl (for the lawyers out there, that would be "constructively dumping" me).

Maybe he's utterly clueless. He has no idea he was being a jackass and this is his idea of acceptable normal behavior.

At any rate, the explanations don't justify his behavior. There is the saying, "To understand is to forgive," and I geuinely want to understand. I just can't believe a rational human being can treat another human being that way. It boggles my mind. I suppose there is no point in trying to figure the Guy out at this point.

So that's the end of the Guy. I'll get over it.

Next.

A night out

Incidentally, I did have drinks with the married guy I mentioned in a previous post. We met at a bar, had good conversation & joked around a lot. I was taking pictures of his hand on my cell phone (not his face because he purported to be unphotogenic) so that whenever he called, his picture would show up.

Then he asked if I wanted to grab dinner, and I felt comfortable, so I said sure. The weather that evening was very nice and we end up walking to an Italian restaurant he liked. We had a pretty good dinner with exquisite red wine and good conversation. Nothing sketchy. I did not get any weird/icky vibe from him or anything. He did however mention that his wife was out of town that evening, but made no suggestions related to that fact. When the bill came, I reached for it and he insisted on paying. I said I'd pay for half and he refused to take my money and just put it on his card. He then said I could pay for the cab ride home, which I did.

So in the cab ride, I told him I had a good time and it was fun, and he agreed. Then I was dropped off at my apartment without incident.

Maybe twenty minutes later, my cell phone rings. I look at the phone. I see the picture of his hand. I pick it up, very amused. "Did my sexy hand show up when I called?" he asked. I laughed and said yes. And we chatted a bit as he complained about being hungover already and I said I was still drunk. After a while, we both got tired and ended the conversation.

And that was it. I told another guy friend about this (the toxic guy friend) and he told me the dude was being totally sketchy. I insisted that nothing happened, I didn't feel like I was getting hit on or anything; but my friend insisted it was sketchy.

Perhaps it is ambiguous behavior. But as long as I know in my mind we're nothing more than friends, then I don't foresee any danger.