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.

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anniversary

Over the last few weeks I've been getting increasing amounts of junk mail, none of them the interesting kind that involve breasts or HOT CHIX!!! or ASIAN LUVIN!!! although for a while there, I was getting emails actually in Japanese, urging me to visit so-and-so site to view so-and-so sexy girl. When I say that the email was in Japanese, I mean that it was actually in Japanese, none of this sophomoric romaji stuff, wherein Japanese words are spelled out using english characters that prove woefully inadequate because the English alphabet contains both an 'R' and an 'L.'

The upshot of sending me emails actually in Japanese was that I didn't really read them, instead hoarding them up in my inbox for later translation just in case they happened to be from relatives. Since the subject lines were also in Japanese, I honestly had no idea what they were about. My limited classical self-education has yet to reach the anatomical; in other words, I know the characters for 'bicycle,' but am somewhat at loss for how to write 'twat.' (Unamerican of me, I know.)

Anyway, I eventually realized I had six Japanese emails in my inbox, all from the same person, all with the same subject lines, and decided to actually read one. It was much hard labor with the Japanese-English dictionary, and the Kanji dictionary, and once an extremely embarrassing and baffling phone exchange with my mother. All so I could read the Japanese version of 'Hot chicks! Steamy Pussy! Horny sluts! XXX!!'

I find it odd that the Japanese can't spell 'hello,' but they can spell 'sexy' just fine.

***

I've never been big on April Fool's Day. I've always had plenty of ideas for pranks, without the balls -- so to speak -- to try them, which is a recipe for frustration at any stage. Any nine year old can dream of replacing the car door on her neighbor's volkswagon, or shaving her little sister and sending her out to collect for the hari krishnas. On the other hand, it's another matter altogether for a nine year old to get her hands on a circular saw and a car door, not to mention risk the wrath of Mom when the little sister appears, shorn, at the dinner table.

Mom had no sense of humor when it came to mealtimes. The little dead moles we occasionally brought to the table had hair, and look how upset she used to get about that. Imagine if my sister had shown up without any.

On a brighter note, the Guy and I -- with the assistance of K & B and Tara and Remington, the full quartet responsible for bringing us together in the first place -- have determined that April 1st is in fact our anniversary. It's an appropriate date in that it's close to (or approximately or even, who knows, actually) the date we might have first met. It's not the 25th, which is unfortunate, but on the other hand it's April Fool's Day, which is appropriate. So happy anniversary to us.

Of course, I'm in the Cow, so there'll be no romance for us. None that doesn't involve wireless static and bad reception, that is. Not to mention that I'm in The Cow, and the only lustful thoughts that should inspire better be in your next door neighbor's piebald great dane with the placid brown eyes, udders, and penchant for tulips.

Feeling the need to do something relationship-related this evening, even 220 miles away from my boyfriend, I finally bit the bullet and told my Mom that he had moved in.

Actually, I'd gotten some encouragement from Binky a little while ago. A whole plan of action, a strategy if you will. A multi-pronged attack to wear down her spirit before the death blow was applied. However, as these things usually turn out, it all came down to a moment of weakness (or strength, depending on how you look at it.) Mom called after a trip to Hawaii for work; the conversation circulated on "what is your sister up to?" and then "I talked to your grandmother." From there it was a simple hop to imminent mortality and her bright assertion that everything was just fine, nothing to worry about, she felt healthy as a horse and the diabetes was perfect and she didn't miss us at all, too busy, too busy. After five minutes of this, I caved like a radish nibbled by squirrels.

I was good, too. It was slick. I talked about my old roommate for five minutes, and how she had always lived with someone, lived with her parents, lived with me, and now she was going to get married soon and she'd never lived by herself, see, on her own, see, and how she decided to get her own place and she'd been thinking about living on her own just to try it out just once, so she could say she had that experience before getting married and so she'd moved out andsincetheGuywasalwaysoverwefiguredit'djustbeeasierifhejustmovedin. "So, how was Hawaii?"

"Smooth," said Heisenburg sarcastically.

There was a small silence on the phone. Apparently, my mother hadn't been fooled by the 'Hawaii' bit. "Well," she said, and sighed. Sadly. "I suppose since you'll eventually get married anyway -- " (what?) " -- but you should keep clean until your wedding, Yuhri. I don't mean just your room."

In Japanese, this means "Don't have sex." It doesn't translate well into English. Curiously enough, neither does "who said anything about marriage?" Not, that is, into Mom-talk.

I counted my internal organs, considered myself lucky, and called the Guy to break the news of my immense bravery. "Guess what!"

I didn't tell him what she said about marriage.