faulty vision

We’re back in California again, which is gratifying mostly in the way where we actually get to sleep in our own bed. It’s a trivial comfort, but at our age — hah — you learn to appreciate these things, especially when set against the comparative standard of the beds my mother’s house provides. There’s nostalgia wrapped up in those beds, as well there should be: my father built the trundle beds that the Guy and I sleep in; the wood is unfinished and covered with the kind of graffiti my sister and I thought suitable at the creatively anarchistic ages between 3 and 17.

Of course, the problem lies in the fact that the mattresses date back to that same halcyon time as well, which makes them almost as old as I am. I’ve heard that mattresses eventually sag with repeated use, but in this particular case what actually took place was a kind of ossification, resulting in a surface that could have been used as flooring for one of your more spectacular high rises.

And yet, despite that fact, I managed to sleep in until at least 10 am every morning, at one point clinging stubbornly to the bed until 11 until the Guy managed to oust me with his typical campaign of annoying.

California, it turns out, is almost as cold as Seattle, and with far less excuse. All that can be said for it is that at least it’s not raining, though this is probably counterbalanced by the fact that we wouldn’t go outdoors in either case. Our new house is freezing, easily five to ten degrees chillier at any given time than it is outside. This is all well and good during the summer, but it turns out that my blood has thinned in the years I’ve been living here. I’ve been spending most of my free time huddled in the bed, under piles of comforters. Not that I wouldn’t have spent my time there anyway, but this time there is actual cause.

2007 was one of the most volatile years I’ve had in a while, which is saying a lot considering I have lived in tenements and survived hand-to-mouth in times past. Like most volatility, it turned out to be for the best, something Mom is never tired of reiterating. For a woman who happily and darkly prophesies the worst at any given moment — her motto is best described as “apocalypse now” — she is prone to forcing the best possible perspective on everyone else. How this reconciles in her brain, I have no idea. Asana yuu na, kotogoto issai tetteishite sushin ni kansha sen. “Be absolutely grateful to almighty God in every way, for all things, morning to night.” It’s perfectly fine as a mantra, if intensely aggravating when you’d much rather just complain about things that are going wrong.

In any case, she usually turns out to be right.

In spring of 2007, my husband’s company started to run out of money. Things looked bad; on the other hand, my company was doing better, so there was a certain amount of security. At the same time, we decided we would buy a house. We began searching, under the auspices of a very good realtor, and a month or so later, found one that we would like to buy.

At which point, I got laid off from my company of 5 years. It was a charitable layoff, in that they were closing down the California office for good, and the best possible options were offered to me. I was invited to move to Texas at the same salary (no thank you) or stay employed in California until I found a new job or they closed the office (in June) or they found a replacement for me in Texas, whichever came first.

They showed a curious reluctance to look for my replacement. After a period of very mature sulking, I started looking for new employment, and a surprisingly short time later had two offers on the table. Both of them were spectacular in their way, in terms of salary, responsibilities, product, and company. I dithered for a few days and finally accepted one offer.

I made the right decision. I am now surrounded by wonderful, professional, nice people who are ten times smarter than I am, answering to management that is not only effective and likable, but intelligent, trustworthy, and competent to boot.

We moved to our new house. This took time, effort, and a great deal of pain. Our old place had damage. The building manager negotiated for us, and got us a very reasonable deal, all things considered. We have been singularly lucky in the people we’ve encountered.

Shortly before I took on the new job, the Guy accepted another position at a different company. We carpooled for a few short months, but the new company turned out not to be a good fit for him. He was dissatisfied, and decided to quit. The day that he decided to quit, the majority of the engineering team was laid off instead, which is rather like deciding to buy a 32′ television one night and then winning a 42′ television and a Playstation 3 the next morning, right before you head out to go shopping.

Being the Guy, he found a new job in under two weeks. His new place of employment is less than 10 minutes away from the new house. We both of us continue to be content, in our own ways.

Between us, we’ve had 5 jobs this one year. Our taxes will be appalling.

On the personal front, things continue much the same as always. My brother-in-law and his wife in England had their first child, the cutest baby in the world. My sister continued working towards getting into nursing school. My mother got braces, which are already starting to do an impressive job of realigning her teeth. I did not do much writing, but finished Nanowrimo.

The world didn’t end.

Mom is disappointed, but optimistic. After all, there’s always next year.

I leave you with a picture of my niece, determinedly sucking down a bottle of something white. It’s probably Baileys, but don’t take my word for it. The expression of anxious concentration on her face while eating is definitely something she inherited from my husband’s side of the family; I’ve rarely met a man more devoted to the consumption of edible byproducts.

Happy Old Year, folks! See you in 2008!

Sako set up a game of jigsawsudoku.com on her laptop, and settled Mom down in the kitchen with it. The day is lost; Mom has self-discipline, but there is only so much the human spirit can do in the face of overwhelming compulsion and addiction.

“Four,” Mom chanted, while I sat beside her and ate dried apples. “Four, four, four, four, four. Four. Six. Six, six, six, six, six–”

She plays Sudoku as though it is a monologue. Sako and I tried hard not to laugh.

“At least it’s good,” Sako said. “You learn how to use the mouse.” Her laptop has a touchpad, which is a new experience for Mom.

“Mouth,” Mom said.

“Mouse.”

“Mouth.”

“Mouse, Mom. Mouse.”

“Mouse,” Mom said obligingly. “I am using both. Mouth and mouse. Mouth mouse mouth mouse.” And then a few seconds later, “Seven. Seven, seven, seven, seven, seven….”

Sako and I headed into the living room and lounged around. The Guy wheeled past us, attracted into the kitchen by the soliloquy of numbers, and then attracted back out by the sound of Sako and I chatting. “Your mom is so happy,” he reported.

“Three,” chanted the kitchen. “Three, three, three, three, three….”

It is snowing, a rare gift in Seattle. A white Christmas. It’s not sticking yet, but I continue to hope. Our flight might be delayed tomorrow, but it’s worth it today.

We are not people accustomed to delayed gratification, in this family. Christmas has not bothered to wait; we opened the last of our presents yesterday, since we were tired of dropping clues like boulders across the paths of the recipients and likewise trying hard not to bump into them on our way out.

This is the problem with coming to visit too early. In between the introduction and the denouement, there’s an entire period of suspense-building and development that we just can’t be bothered with. It’s all very good for storytelling, but we’re not detail people. Broad sketched strokes and outlines, that’s what we want. Shibui – the beauty in the empty spaces. That’s what we like.

The Guy trotted out to Fry’s right after we arrived in Seattle and bought Sako a black Mac laptop, which we subsequently hid under the bed until we had a chance to wrap it. We gave it to her a couple of days ago, and she has been plastered to it ever since. This will be affectionately known in the future as “The Christmas of ‘07,” wherein Yuhri and the Guy scored big with the Christmas presents. It will pose an insurmountable bar of excellence that no other family member will ever be able to transcend. This is how it should be. We told her it was her graduation present for finally finishing her four-year degree (in 12? 13 years?). Her department had actually shut down the program several years before she’d bothered to start considering matriculation.

We told her it was also a Christmas and birthday present for the next few years, an arrangement with which she is perfectly satisfied. “I have too much stuff,” she said, only to tack on a half-second later, “No. Except for this computer. This computer is mine.”

She gave the Guy a shower head. The last Christmas present she gave him was a rubber ducky toilet seat. She continues in this obscure obsession with bathroom accessories.

My mother, who is never quite sure what to get my husband for the holidays, decided to give him a sweater. Barring the fact that we live in Silicon Valley, which rarely gets below 55 degrees during the worst of the season, it was a very nice gift. Certainly the thought was to be commended.

In fact, if she hadn’t somehow managed to get him a woman’s sweater, it would have been a real win.

Sako, Mom and I, were seated on the couch while the Guy tried it on. It only took one look to identify the gender-affiliation of the sweater — for three of us, anyway. The three of us that did not include my mother, that is.

“Mom,” said Sako. “That’s a girl’s sweater.”

“Um,” said the Guy, and looked down at himself.

“Girl’s,” I said.

“What?” said Mom, and looked puzzled. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” said the Guy.

“Yes,” said Sako.

“Yes,” said I.

“How can you tell?” asked Mom.

Well. All you really needed to do was look at it on him. “The shape,” the Guy said diplomatically. “It’s cut to accommodate certain things–”

“It’s a girl’s sweater,” Sako said, and that was that. He took it off.

Later on in the car, with just Sako and the Guy and I, the subject of the sweater came up again. “Haha,” said Sako. “You got a girl’s sweater.”

“She’s taking it back,” I said.

“Girly,” Sako said. “It’s because you have that hair.”

The hair is a sore subject with the Guy. He’s defensive about it. It reaches down to his ass and seriously needs to be cut. Every time I bring the subject up, he acts like I’m volunteering his right testicle for medical experiments.

“My hair isn’t girly,” he said.

“It really is,” I said.

“It is,” Sako said agreeably. “You have girly hair.”

“No.”

“He thinks it’s manly,” I told my sister, and patted my husband on the shoulder. “It’s very manly hair.”

“Thank you.”

“Except the way where it’s not.”

“So manly, Mom got you a girl’s sweater,” Sako said.

He puts up with a great deal from my family.

We gave my Mom a 32 inch flat screen TV for Christmas. UPS dropped it off tonight when we were driving back from Taka Sushi. We drove back in two separate cars, and Sako and Mom got home first. “The truck passed us on the way home,” Sako hissed at us over the phone. “There’s a big box sitting at the front door.”

“Is it the TV?”

“I don’t know. Where are you?”

“We’re stuck in traffic. Try to keep it hidden until we get home.”

“Ack,” said Sako, and hung up. It took us another ten minutes to get home, during which time my sister ran a desperate distraction and defense strategy to keep Mom oblivious. She managed to sneak the box into the living room while Mom drove the car into the garage. Then she lugged the box into the dining room while Mom was occupied in the kitchen. When we got back, she was looking fagged, and Mom was still oblivious. Then it was my turn to distract Mom while the Guy and Sako frantically put the television together and set it up to replace the old, broken one.

As a surprise gift, it worked great. Mom flipped out. She was quite excited. Unfortunately, the TV also comes with a massive new remote, which she is just as excited to learn all about. Sako and I, remembering past experiences involving Mom and new technology, chickened out. “He’ll teach you,” we both said in turn, and pointed at my husband.

This is what he’s married into.

“These goldfish,” my Mom said, passing the aquarium on the way upstairs. “They are so big!”

“I heard somewhere that they can get up to a foot big,” my husband said.

“And they live a long time,” said Sako.

They went back to staring at the television. Mom leaned over to me. “Sst,” she hissed to get my attention, and then whispered, “When they get that big, let’s eat them.”

My sister dragged me into the Express at the mall — I hate malls — to look at clothes.

“What are you looking for?” asked a friendly saleswoman. “Who’re you getting clothes for?”

Sako jerked her thumb at me.

“She doesn’t like my wardrobe,” I said.

“Aww,” said the saleswoman. “Is this a mother-daughter shopping trip?”

My ego is bruised.

“No.” Sako said.

“What?” I said.

Her apparent outrage sent the saleswoman skittering away like a nervous rabbit.

“Oh my God,” Sako said. “Did she just call me your mother?”

“I’m pretty sure she was talking about me,” I said.

The salesperson spent the rest of our stay in the store determinedly not making eye contact while we argued about it for the next half hour.

We were still arguing about it on the way out of the mall. “We should go back and ask her which one of us she thought was the mom, and which one was the daughter,” Sako said.

I was tempted.

Being at home has this remarkably soporific effect, which is due as much to Seattle’s notion of what constitutes appropriate winter weather as it does the much lazier pace of my mother’s house.

It’s raining. This cannot possibly be a shock to anyone. Oh well.

Thus far it’s my sister who’s been the hilarious one in this latest trip home. She has always been prone to coming out with the most random thoughts at the most unexpected moments (a trait, I might add, that I do not at all share, being at all times logical and eminently rational with my utterances) but the long periods of isolation that she’s spent in Yosemite and now in Las Vegas — it’s impossible to get actual darkness there, she tells me; Seattle at 4 pm is about as bright as the darkest time in Vegas — has somehow tipped her off the deep end. She acts perfectly reasonable, but then the most amazing things come out of her mouth and render the rest of us inarticulate for a few minutes while she flaps her arms at us and yells. I would transcribe some of it for you, but I’ve gone and forgotten the gist of all of it, barring the lingering memory that it was hilarious.

“Mom and me went to the Japanese market and bought you guys snacks,” she told us brightly on the drive from the airport. “Because we know you like snacks.”

“Aw. Thanks.”

“And then we ate them.”

She seems to be operating under the delusion that it’s the thought that counts, even if the thought doesn’t actually translate into action. The thought of giving someone something is all very well and good, unless you actually don’t bother to get the thing, say. She lives a different lifestyle, as her stories of dumpster parties in Yosemite make glaringly obvious.

“This is actually for John,” she said, opening a packet of crackers to pour them out onto the table. (John being her boyfriend, currently in Las Vegas.) “Except, oops, we’re eating them, so he won’t get them.”

“Poor John,” my husband ventured.

“That’s okay,” she said comfortably. “I’ll tell him that we ate them so he’ll know that he almost got the crackers and didn’t.”

The year is almost done now, as is Nanowrimo, and I’m left with the disconcerting realization that I’ve actually only written 10 entries for all of 2007. 11 if you count this one (thus the title) which certainly doesn’t do anything for my reputation as a prolific writer, a reputation that I have concocted all on my own without any evidence to back it up. It resides in no imagination but mine, which I suppose is what happens when you dream up reputations for badassery and don’t bother to flesh them out with anything. It’s like buying suits from Goodwill. They look good in concept, but in practice they’re just too much work to fill.

Imagine if the real world were like that, in which you could create your own persona in your mind and force other people to accept the reality of them — rather like MMORPGs, though given the apparently intolerable need of young men to believe in fantasies of their own terrifying prowess in the domain of their choice, I imagine social interactions would start to take on a monotonous sameness. Testosterone punishes its victims by inflicting delusions; reasonable men who privately think polygamy would be a great idea — multiple wives! Woo hoo! — blithely overlook the fact that only the top 2 or 3% of men (among whom they would likely not number) actually get any wives at all, while the rest scrabble forlornly on the outskirts, hoping desperately that someone will take pity on them and move the entire society back to monogamy. Men, like women, are never so cruel to others as they are to each other.

Imagine the weediness of two young sprouts encountering each other in a comic book store for the first time. Introductions, always an awkward business, would take on the quality of farce.

“Doombringer142. What’s yours?”

“Doomslayer66.”

At which point they would ritualistically wave their swords or, lacking those, drop their pants and wave other things instead. We are not homophobic here in the Bay Area, as the overt misogyny that’s extant in Silicon Valley is less a byproduct of philanthropy than it is of generalized social terror. There’s something humorously tragic about the idea of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates dropping trou to wave peckers at each other, although … now that I think about it, I think that might be the only thing that’s keeping our economy afloat right now. Metaphorically speaking.

For the record, if I ever play an MMORPG, my character’s name is going to be ‘Totally Chapstick.’ This way, when someone asks me the inevitable, ‘a/s/l?’ I can answer quite honestly, “Lubrication in search of Recreation.”

I have no idea what the hell I’m talking about either. There’s a weirdly Carrollian quality to my writing today. Maybe I should start over….

…or maybe not.

I finished Nanowrimo early, which was a result of (prudent) front-loading on my part. There wasn’t a lot of it that is worth keeping, but I’m continuing work on it nonetheless; it resides on my work laptop, which is one of those really stupid things that they tell you not to do in ‘Being a grownup 101.’ I never took that class. I missed the syllabus and the study guide, which is why I still occasionally drop red underwear in with the whites when I’m doing laundry, and forget to rinse dirty dishes before dropping them in the dishwasher.

We’re leaving for Seattle tomorrow afternoon. Every year I dread the visit, and every year I wish I could have stayed longer. You’d think expectations would eventually catch up with reality, but positive reinforcement can’t seem to break even with pessimism. Given that I’m not really that cynical, you wouldn’t think I’d expect the worst from my mother, but there you go.

No, I don’t have any Mom stories. I have no idea why. They continue to happen at the same rate, but the narrative flow has fallen by the wayside. Give me some time. It’ll come back to me, I’m sure.

I’m all over the place today. Carrollian and subatomic. That’s me.

I didn’t bother to finish posting the rest of my Nano, because it’s being revised and finished anyway, and to be honest, I got bored with uploading it all the time. So it will be taken down.

See you in Seattle.