Another New York moment

I wrote most of this last week, but didn't have a chance to finish. It seems anticlimactic to write about now, but here you go:


Last Wednesday night, a little before 6 pm, I was at work. T.S. (I just read that he also blogged about the experience on his blog) had just come over and we were talking about when to have our belated birthday Karaoke celebration. All of a sudden there was a crash, like loud thunder, and our lights dimmed for a second and I heard people gasp. I didn't think too much of it, as it had been thunderstorming all day. But then there came a low rumbling, like thunder. We paused for a moment, then kept talking, but the noise didn't stop. It was unsettling. "What IS that? Is that thunder? What IS that?" I kept asking. T.S. started walking away and then back to the window. We couldn't see anything. "You're freaking me out. That noise is freaking me out" T.S. said. I heard someone mention a fire in the building next door, smoke visible from their window. I couldn't see anything. Then our fire alarm started sounding. Connie stood up. "That's it, I'm leaving!" The fire safety director announced that there was a fire alarm on the third floor, and to stand by. People started gathering up their stuff. I went back and forth between my desk and the hallway, undecided. It was probably nothing. But what if it was something. Should I take my bag? Should I turn off my computer? I had just heated up some pasta, and the bowl of unfinished pasta was sitting on my desk. Should I go wash it out?

We looked down the hallway and A was gathering everyone up telling them to go to the emergency stairs. I grabbed my bag. "There was a lot a smoke" L said worriedly. We stood waiting for an announcement. "You should start walking down the stairs" C said, to A, who is over 8 months pregnant. That's when I started thinking, A is pregnant. M has two kids at home. L's fiance is a fire fighter. What if this is something big. What's going on?

We looked into the stairwell, and there were people going down the stairs. "Did someone tell you to go down, or did you just decide on your own?" A asked. They had just decided on their own. "We should go down" C said. "But they said the alarm was on the 3rd floor, what if we're walking into a fire?" A asked.

We pondered that and waited a little more. Then someone made the decision that we should start going down. For some reason, at that moment I decided to go back to my desk for my umbrella and galoshes, and by the time I started down the stairs, probably 2 minutes later, everyone was gone. I saw a few people I knew in the lobby, but wandered around a bit aimlessly, looking for my department but not seeing anyone. I realized I had a voicemail on my phone and tried to call. It took a few tries, but I eventually got through. It was from my roommate Rose.

"I'm on the bus right now and someone said there was an explosion in your neighborhood. I'm calling everyone I know who works in that area to see if they're okay."

I decided to go outside. People were milling around all over the place. "Someone must know what's going on." one woman said to another. They saw me with my cell phone. "Do you know what's going on?" they asked me. "I don't know...my roommate said there was an explosion..." I wandered to Lexington Ave, thinking I would just walk home and turn on the news, and then I saw it. Billowing white smoke, and a lot of it. Everyone was on the street, watching. On their cell phones, taking pictures. I took a few pictures, too.

I stood there for a while, unsure of what to do. Nobody seemed to be panicking. Just curious. But everyone was on their cell phones, but none of my calls were getting through at this point, just like during the blackout. I overheard a woman talking about a manhole cover, another mentioned a steam pipe, another mentioned a transformer.

I had a kickball game scheduled for later that night on 137th and Riverside. I wondered if it would still be going on. Was the whole city in chaos? Should I just go up there? I amazingly got through to Meghan who was planning on playing kickball with us that night. "Where are you?" I asked. "I'm stuck in traffic in my car..." "Are you still planning to go up to the park for kickball?" "Well, I was planning on it." "Let me try to call my teammates and see if the game is still on." I had the thought: I would feel weird playing kickball if a serious tragedy had just occurred. I decided to call my parents. I figured I could get through more easily to them since they were in CA. I got through to my dad. "Dad, there was an explosion near my work and a lot of smoke...can you look on the news and let me know what's going on?" He checked the internet first, nothing. Then CNN on the TV. Nothing. "Oh well, you're safe, right?" he said. I was. "I love you!" we said. I tried calling my friend Alexis, who was also co-captain of our kickball game. "Do you know what's going on?" I asked "Well, the game is still on, I don't think it's going to rain." "No, I mean, what's going on with the city?" "What do you mean?" I told her about the explosion, the smoke. "No, I'm here in Times Square eating dumplings. Didn't know about any of that! Although I did hear a bunch of sirens."

I decided that if the West side of Manhattan was oblivious, things overall were probably fine. My dad called back "It was a steam pipe explosion." He read me an article on CNN. He paused. "So, it's not terrorists. You're okay." It didn't occur to me exactly that I needed to hear that. I didn't really think it was terrorists. But still.

And so I walked over the Columbus Circle to catch the train. The day ended normally, with a kickball game (we lost, yet again), and happy hour drinks. The next morning, the streets on the way to work were emptier than usual, but by the following day, for the most part, everything seemed back to normal.

Just another NY story.

Another unsettling NY experience

My last post reminded me of something else that happened a month ago or so.

I had been at a friend's apartment in Brooklyn for poker night, and as I was walking down Smith street to the subway afterwards, probably around midnight, I witnessed a violent fight outside one of the bars on that street. A vagrant-type person was yelling, threw a guy down on the sidewalk, while two or three woman protested and yelled at him to stop. The man hit the guy on the ground in the head with something--it looked like maybe he was holding a plastic grocery bag, but something else, too. Something harder and bulky. I was on the same side of the street, and so stopped and backed away a bit. The violent man got up and was coming towards me and I saw what looked to be a drill?!?! in his hand. I stepped to the side onto the street and let him pass me, and then I walked around the group to continue on my way to the subway. The guy on the ground was up and looking dazed, holding the side of his head with his hand. He seemed to be okay, just in shock, and I heard a woman ask if she should call the cops. Then they all went into the bar.

Isn't that crazy? It was definitely an unsettling experience at the time, but once again, I completely put it behind me that night. It's startling and scary to witness violence in person, but at the same time, I think New York and the media has desensitized me to it all. Nothing surprises me in this city anymore. It's like that commercial where all of these crazy and horrible things are happening on the streets of Manhattan, and none of the pedestrians even bat an eye. It's so true.

Asian women and gay men. What would you have done?

Last week after playing darts with coworkers, some of my group started hankering for Karaoke. We decided to go to Lucky Cheng's, which is dubbed "The Drag Queen Capital of the World." I had never been there before, but had heard good things about it. We walk in, and they haven't started Karaoke yet, and as we're waiting in the lobby area, one of the "ladyboy" hostesses looks at my coworker J and says, "You look familiar--don't I know you from somewhere?" which embarrasses him because this is the second time he's been out with coworkers where he's been mistaken as being gay. Then "she" looks at me and says, "Is this your boyfriend?" and we both say NO but she continues and says, "Because you know what they say about men who date Asian women..." and I sigh and nod and say, "Yes, I know what they say, but I find it insulting."

What I know she's getting at is that some people say that many gay men who are perhaps still in the closet date Asian women to cover up for the fact that they're gay. I know this because I had an incident with a gay friend of mine a few years ago--he made an offhand remark to another friend about how he thought my boyfriend at the time was gay because he was dating me. Needless to say, I had a talk with that friend. And then recently other friends have brought up the book Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides which I own but have not yet read. Apparently, there's as passage in the book where he talks about this "phenomenon" as well. I have no idea if it is based at all in reality. And I'm not quite sure what the reasoning would be for this, perhaps that Asian women are seen as being "exotic" and desirable, so that if a man is seen with an Asian woman, then people will assume that they must be having sex with them. But this is just my guess.

So, as I said, I said to "her" that I found that generalization offensive, but she is oblivious to my protests and is putting on a show, has her whole routine going, and starts strutting around saying, "They walk around in Chelsea with an Asian woman on their arm, saying 'Look at me...I'm not gay! I have an Asian girlfriend!'" and she goes on and on, and I keep saying, "I find that offensive" but it falls on deaf ears and at one point she says, "And the Asian woman is okay with it, because she passive." And finally, what for me was the final straw, she says, "And the Asian girl is happy with it because she gets to say, 'Look at me, I'm with a white guy!'"

Argh. It's at this point I turn to my friends and say loudly, "Let's go somewhere else" and so we all leave. I don't look back.

Anyway, I managed to completely put the incident behind me that night, but the next morning I woke up for no reason at 5 am, remembered what happened, and got extremely angry.

The hostess happened to be black, which doesn't play a role in the incident at all, except for the fact that it frustrates me even more when one minority group is racist towards another. The fact that "she" belonged to two disenfranchised groups made the whole incident even more frustrating.

I keep wondering if I should have done more than just walk out, if in fact I was being passive in my reaction and actions. What do you think? What would you have done in my situation?

hat

This past weekend I went to my friend Heather's apartment party in South Brooklyn, and then shared a car with friends to Williamsburg. The next morning, which was freezing cold, I discovered that I had lost my hat. Below is an actual email exchange with my friends earlier this week. I've pasted the emails chronologically. Email addresses and last names have been deleted, but otherwise this exchange is listed verbatim.


From: Heather
Subject: Re: found!
To:
(left at my house after the party)
8 oz. stainless steel flask
containing vodka (?)
anybody know who's it is?

On 2/6/07, Alvina wrote:
Nope--you didn't by any chance find an off-white winter hat, did you? I think I may have left it in the car. Oh well.

On 2/6/07, Sarah wrote:
um... we found an off-white winter hat in the car we took to williamsburg... and the driver told us to take it...

On 2/6/07, Alexis wrote:
did you call the car service # provided by patrick? maybe alvina left it in the car we took, and then he came back to the same party and you guys got it!

On 2/6/07, Alvina wrote:
hahaha--seriously?!?! I'm pretty sure I was wearing it while we were waiting for the car, and then the next morning I didn't have it, so it must have been left in the car or dropped on the ground...

On 2/6/07, Mariko wrote:
wow! i had a feeling that it was one of our friends'. i was like "oh of course i'd take it. it's one of my friends'" then realized "wait, how could it be?" but the driver insisted so we took it. i even wrote a craigslist ad about it

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/laf/273273825.html

On 2/6/07, heather wrote:
that's awesome.

On 2/6/07, Jessie wrote:
wow. all so...serendipitous.the only person i saw with a flask was claudia...could it be hers?

On 2/6/07, Alvina wrote:
I can't believe you posted that Craigslist ad! It's definitely mine. I just saw Sarah at Maya's birthday drinks and she described it to me.

First you had my scarf, now my hat. You guys are my winter wear lifesavers.

*********************************


Now, when I really think about it, it makes sense. It was the same car service number that was called, and the driver must have guessed that since he picked us up from the same party, it was likely that we knew each other. But still, it seemed rather unlikely that I would ever see that hat again. And it was nice for him to insist that my friends take the hat. Not quite like the cabbie who returned the diamonds left in his cab, but damn close.

Love Story

I knew they had met in NYC at a Taiwanese singles Christmas party.

My father was looking for a wife. He knew he wanted to marry a fellow Taiwanese, and he wanted her to be strong, independent, and smart. And she had to believe in Taiwan independence, too. He was living in Atlanta, Georgia at the time, but friends recommended that he go to NYC to look, so he did. His plan at this Christmas party was to dance with every woman there, rank them in order of preference, and then starting from his top choice, work down the list and ask each woman out until one of them said yes.

"What number was mom ranked?" we asked him when we were kids.

"Number one, of course!" he said.

As a child, I had always pictured a Jane Austen-esque party of hundreds of people, fancy gowns, and formal ballroom dancing, and wondered how my father managed to dance with every woman there. But of course in reality it was a smallish party, with 10-12 women.

What I knew: they met, three months later got engaged, three months after that they were married. And they're still married today, over 36 years later.

What I didn't know until their visit this past week: they got engaged on a rock in Central Park.

On Labor Day Monday, my parents and I walked from my apartment to Central Park on a beautiful, mild summer day. Our destination was my office, and then lunch, then the MoMA. My mother told me to take my usual route, but we took a few detours, checking out the remote-control sailboats, the Alice in Wonderland Statue, Bethesda fountain. Then we walked through the Mall, and tried to find the rock that my father had proposed on so many years ago. They didn't know exactly where the rock was, but they knew that it was near the street, because they had gone to the Park after a dentist appointment that my mother had. Of course, she didn't remember where her dentist's office was, but I guessed it was South of the park. My father went to a cluster of big rocks off the Mall, but my mother didn't think that was right. Then I took them to the rocks above the Trump ice-skating rink, and my father said it seemed right. My mother wasn't convinced, but they sat down on the rock next to each other, and she seemed content to believe.

I want one of those

Just a quick post before doing yet more work--I'm back in NY! I had a fantastic time in LA and at the conference, but I'm totally exhausted, too, and work is bearing down on me, hence why I'm procrastinating. This week (what's left of it) is already totally packed, I'm hosting a baby shower at my apartment on Saturday (yay for Tanya!), and I'm feeling anxious about getting at least a 10 mile run in before the half marathon on the 27th. But I'll try not to think about that right now, and instead will share a quick funny story from the conference (and there are many--including one of Mo and Jarrett sitting on the toilet together on the bus).

Jarrett was showing me this great website made by some of his fans, and as he was scrolling down there was this picture of an adorable kid wearing an adorable My Buddy, Slug T-shirt.

me: "I want one of those!"
Jarrett: "Yeah, me, too--I can't wait to have kids."
me: "Uh, I was talking about the T-shirt."

Hahahahahaha.

Okay, more later if I can come up for air. I'm drowning!

Self-defe...er...deprecating

I recorded my audio recordings last week (at my company, all editors make audio recordings of our book presentations for each list and make CDs to distribute to our Sales force so they can listen to them in their cars to get more familiar with the books), and used the word "self-deprecating" to describe the writing in one of my YA novels. I ended up having to do this particular recording three times because I kept messing up, and the more I said "self-deprecating" the more I thought I had it wrong. I'm always paranoid about that word because once my friend said "self-defecating" by accident and we endlessly made fun of him. But I've said it jokingly that way so many times that now I'm paranoid that I'll say it at the wrong time. And on a Sales CD would definitely be the wrong time. Then again...I wonder how many people would actually notice?

Greetings from beautiful Diamond Bar, CA. I never thought I'd be coming to Southern CA to escape the heat!

No Candy and Me

It's been a week and a half since my birthday, but I wanted to say thanks to everyone who made it a great birthday weekend, even birthday week. I don't actually care too much about my birthday, but then again, it's nice to throw a party, and it's nice to see and hear from family and friends. I used my 2nd annual rooftop birthday party this year to also start raising money for Fred's Team. As I've mentioned, I'm running the NYC marathon this November and am raising money for pediatric cancer research. I'll be starting my big fundraising push after I run the half marathon in NY at the end of August, but in the meantime if you want to help me out by donating, you can do so here. I'm running in honor of Grace Lin's husband Robert, who was also the inspiration for the Robert's Snow fundraiser that raised over $100,000 for the past two years. We're not having that fundraiser this year, so if you want to contribute, please donate for me running over 26 miles!

I raised $431 dollars from having a raffle at my party (thank you to everyone who contributed), and when added to the internet donations, over $600 (raffle money isn't yet online) so far. So I'm closer to my $2500 goal. A great birthday present! And on my actual birthday, Sachin surprised me with tickets to see The Producers and took me to a wonderful dinner at Gramercy Tavern--the perfect cap to the perfect weekend, which started off with a cupcake surprise from Grace.

But all that wasn't what I was intending to post about...what I really wanted to post about is CANDY. Candy, candy, candy. For the past two years, I've eaten tons of candy at my birthday party. Most of my friends know why, but a few asked me, "What's up with all the candy?" Well, here's the story. About five years ago I went home for the Christmas holiday. Whenever I go home to Southern California, my mother inevitably takes me to a new doctor or two she's seeing. It may be reflexology, chiropracy, or accupuncture, etc. At any rate, this trip she took me to see two different doctors, and as they were pushing the pressure points on my feet and measuring my energy levels through my fingers, respectively, both doctors asked, "Do you eat a lot of candy?" "Uhhh, well, no, well, maybe, well..." Well, yes, actually, I do. At that time, up until recently I had been roommates with Grace and Jon, and we all loved candy and sweets. There would be pound bags of Smarties everywhere, chocolate, sour candy, nerds, everything. I also had a candy drawer at work, and would eat candy throughout the day. I've always had a sweet tooth, partially spurred, I think, because my parents never had sweets in the house and forbade me from eating candy. So of course I ate it every chance I had.

Well, even though part of me suspected that my mother had tipped off both doctors, I realized that I really did eat too much candy, and it couldn't be good for me. So I decided to stop. Just like that, cold turkey, as one of my New Year's resolutions. I had guidelines, of course, and I didn't give up sweet things altogether, just candy. Candy was defined mostly by whether or not something was found in the candy section of the supermarket, and also by the intent. For example, mints were okay, because the intent was to freshen my breath. Also, if it was an ingredient in another type of food, it was okay. So, for example, I could eat chocolate chip cookies, or even cookies with M&Ms in them, or ice cream mixed with Butterfingers, because the candy in those examples was secondary to the main ingredient. So for one whole year, I didn't eat any candy. None. And to be honest, to my surprise it wasn't that hard. It was hardest when the candy was free (it's extremely hard for me to resist free food of any kind, even when I'm not hungry), such as in the many candy dishes people had at work. So anyway, because I did so well I decided to continue my resolution the following year, but as a reward (because a lifetime without candy seemed a dark life indeed) I decided I would eat candy one day a year, on my birthday. This proved successful, and for the last three years, for my last three birthdays, that is what I've done. (The picture above is from my birthday last year.) I start eating candy at midnight the night before my birthday, and continue until midnight the night of my birthday. And I enjoy every piece. This year, I started with Grape Heads that my friend Mat bought me (under my specific instructions--I had spied them in a convenient store on the corner of the where he was staying at the time). I also overdosed on Rainbow Nerds, chewy Spree, Bottle Caps, SweetTarts, M&Ms, this funny "make your own ice cream cone" candy (pictured here) that Saho brought me, and more. I think I'll continue this resolution for as a long as I can. I enjoy the candy more that way--I don't take it for granted (although I must say my teeth and sides of my mouth do take a beating). It has been tempting to watch my coworkers eat the candy in front of me (I've been bringing the leftover candy into work--and there's still more!). But I AM STRONG! I AM WOMAN! And I like to abide by the rules of my own making.

On a related note, CANDY AND ME is a book by Hilary Lifton that I read a few years ago. It's a "candy memoir" about her life and the role candy plays in it, and it's funny, poignant, fully enjoyable, and a book I totally related to. I liked it so much that I went to the Web site for it after finishing the book, and even posted a few of my own candy memories. Mine are about Alexander the Grape (now called Grape-Heads), and Sugar and Jello Mix. See them here. The author got my permission to print my Alexander the Grape candy memory in the paperback edition of her book, but I'm a little ashamed to say that I haven't actually bought/seen a copy to check to see if it's there. I will, though!

I'm going up to Boston this weekend to visit with Grace, Anna, Libby, Meghan, and Linda (I hope), and I'm going to overdose on something similar to Alexander the Grape--it's small and round and cute and delicious: blueberries! We're going blueberry picking. Perhaps my next post will be Blueberries for Al.