April 25, 2003
illness and death
It's been pretty useless for me to write anything the past three weeks. The first week back from The Cow saw me laid out with flu -- not the nasty skin-eating, turn you inside-out type, but the kind that makes you sadistically crawl into your Chinese-populated office (full of people who have just returned from visititing the homeland), so they can shriek about SARS and prod you out of the office with bamboo poles. From the reception I received, you would've thought I was an unpredictable, charmless walrus with rabies and bad body odor.
After that brush with fun, I spent the last two weeks writing specs. As everybody knows by this point, the writing of anything technical promptly reduces me from an occasionally witty, erratically articulate human being to a two-dimensional red-shirted extra from a Star Trek comic strip, too utterly meaningless to deserve even on-screen time in a real live episode.
While I look good in red, a color that brings out the natural green and anemic blue tones in my skin, the Red-Shirted Extra state of mind is not particularly conducive to journaling. I find myself writing things like "Had tuna fish for lunch," and "cleaned toilet." While both of these are snippets from the factual Life o' Yuhri, neither of them are exactly titillating to the masses. Or to me, to be honest. I want to be able to go back to my journal at some point in the future and be thrilled with the exciting, mostly honest accounts of my adventurous life. Toilet-bowl cleaning, (and the tuna that might or might not have led up to the toilet-bowl cleaning) doesn't seem to be one of those activities that'll warm my aged heart with fond memories.
So what to write about, then?
The Mom.
"You should take care of Yen," Mom told me. I called to tell her I was recovering -- albeit slowly -- from the flu, and that the Guy had caught it from me.
"His name is Yan."
"Yen," repeated Mom, obligingly, if inaccurately. "You should take good care of him."
I called Mom after mostly recovering from my flu. It took me about a week to feel mobile again, and despite the refresher in the juices of life, I still sounded like the title character in 'The Frog Prince.' This fact didn't seem to concern my Mom, particularly; while the rest of the world was gabbling on about SARS, she informed me the reason I was sick was because I hadn't been to the Dojo1 lately. "You see?" she said triumphantly.
I didn't, but I let her have that one. "Meanwhile, Yan's got it. The flu, I mean. That's what he says, anyway," I said darkly. "I was on the brink of death, and he's just sitting there on the sofa, watching TV and inhaling crackers. When he feels like it, he plays with his computers. Looks fine to me. Big fat faker."
"You should take care of him," Mom said promptly, displaying far more maternal feeling for him than she had for me. "I worry about him."
"I had a fever of 102," I told her.
"I don't like the way he looks," Mom said ominously, paying no attention. "I think he will die young."
"Um, okay."
"I can tell," said Mom. I could tell she was shaking her head on the other end of the line, already having consigned the Guy to an imminent and untimely doom. "The way he is shaped, and the way he is walking and standing ... you should take care of him. Otherwise, he will die."
The Guy.
"I'm going to what?" The Guy said, after I'd told him. (Of course I'd told him. Why wouldn't I tell him?)
"She says she thinks you're going to die young," I snickered. "Isn't that hilarious?"
There was a small silence. For some reason, the Guy was not entering into the whole spirit of the joke. In a small voice, he asked, "Did she say how?"
I flapped a dismissive hand. "Oh, I dunno. She says you don't look healthy. Maybe a heart attack or something."
Silence again. "Your Mom doesn't like me, does she?" His eyes were getting smaller. I suspect they were starting to twitch.
"She likes you fine. She says I should take care of you." Probably because she's worried about my cleanliness.
The Guy shrank down in the sofa and brooded. No sense of humor. None. He was a paranoid wreck for the next three days.
Tara's Mom.
"You told him that?" she exclaimed.
We were sitting on a sofa at Tara's baby shower, canopied by pastel purple streamers and helium balloons. Tara's Mom had flown down for the event, co-hosted by yours truly; she'd brought several pounds of baby clothes for the occasion, which she'd started hoarding when Tara was still in high school. Most of them were pink. (We're really hoping Tara's baby comes out a girl.)
"Why not?" I asked, surprised.
Tara's Mom threw her hands in the air. "It didn't occur to you that he might not need to know that?"
I looked blank.
Ever since I became friends with Tara, back in the confusing world of 6th grade, Tara's Mom has served as a surrogate social acclimitizer for me. You'd be surprised about the things you don't learn about American society when you're raised in a 1st generation Japanese household. Proms, for instance. Tara's family taught me about proms. And Italian food. And boys. And makeup. And clothes, and cars, and parties, and how not to immediately say everything I was thinking. I don't say she was entirely successful, but she certainly gave it her best.
Before I met Tara's family, my report cards usually read, "Is not integrating well. Does not play harmoniously with others. Does not understand sharing. Bites." After Tara's Mom, they took out the part about biting.
Beside me, a mutual friend was smothering her giggles, without much success. "Okay, from now on, whenever your Mom calls, call me, and we'll go over the conversation together," ordered Tara's Mom. "I'll tell you what you shouldn't tell your boyfriend."
"I don't keep secrets from my boyfriend," I said a little defensively.
Both Tara's Mom and our friend started to laugh outright.
"We need to talk."
She was joking, of course.
I think.
1. "Dojo" means "Church." It sounds fancier and less religious when we say Dojo. One rather envisions a large, tatami-floored room where we practice our godly kung-fu magic. The reality is much more prosaic. We have carpets.
Posted by yhirata at April 25, 2003 08:22 PM