April 2009 | The World According to MEH

Viva La Revolution du The! (With the Appropriate Accents)

Posted on April 15, 2009 by admin • 9 Comments

tea bag Ok. I tried to be above the fray that is the teabaggin’ parties, but I cannot. Why? First of all, I want my tea back! Tea is a wonderful beverage that warms you up on a cold, MN winter night (sniff, bye winter), and it is unfairly being usurped by the right to further their inchoate cause.

I am Asian! Give me back my tea, you scumbags! Besides, the original BOSTON (not American) Tea Party was in protest of the British taxing the colonists when the colonists had no representation in the Parliament. In other words, taxation without representation. In the current invocation of Tea Parties, however, they Teabaggers are protesting, well, um, I’m not exactly sure what they are protesting.

President Obama’s higher tax rates! Except, he cut taxes for 95% of Americans. In addition, he did not raise taxes on the other 5%, he merely let the Bush taxcuts expire. Now, that particular tax rate is the same as it was under Clinton. In addition, it is 10% lower than it was under that great Communist leader, Ronald Reagan. So, we can dismiss higher tax rates as a legitimate concern.

I’m Ready for My Close-Up, Mr. DeMille

Posted on April 13, 2009 by admin • 7 Comments

locked-computer Ok, not really. It’s day 13 of Script Frenzy month, and I just wanted to check in and let you know how I’m doing. The goal is to wirte a hundred-page screenplay in the month of April. That breaks down to roughly three-and-a-half pages per day. So, since I tend to be a perfectionist in this area, I set myself a goal of five pages per day. How am I doing? I’m ahead of the curve, thank you very much. 67 pages as of yesterday. Woo-hoo!

It’s strange, though. I am having a hard time making myself write this year. I will sit at the computer, resolved to write my five pages, and then, I will distract myself (FB quizzes, anyone?) and distract myself until I manage to get on track.

An Elegy for Winter

Posted on April 11, 2009 by admin • 2 Comments

snow-wolf I have been in denial for a week or two. I dread this time of year every year, and I try mightily to pretend it isn’t happening. Still, right after my birthday, it comes like clockwork. The end of winter. Oh, I know there might be one last gasp somewhere down the line, but I also know that with two consecutive days in the fifties (in which the golfers are out in their short-sleeved t-shirts) comes the advent of spring.

Let me state this unequivocably: I hate the end of winter. I don’t hate spring and summer, but I hate that I will have to say good-bye to seeing my breath and frolicking in the snow for three more months. Yes, that’s a slight joke, but only very slight. I deeply enjoy autumn as well, so I am fine with the one month we have it.

Midnight Rantings of a Crazed Mind

Posted on April 8, 2009 by admin • 12 Comments

grayness I should be working on my script. I know what I want to write, and I have written some of it, but I am not now writing. Why? I’ll tell you.

I am actively depressed. This is not the passively sitting still and watching the world go by kind of depressed–oh no. This is the ‘who the fuck cares and why the fuck do I try?’ kind of depressed. I have been feeling a general malaise over the past few days (most likely because of my birthday. I am about as birthday-neutral as I can be, but apparently, it still makes me slightly depressed), and it just hit me full force.

What the fuck? I went grocery shopping at my favorite co-op (Fresh & Natural in Shoreview), had lunch with Natasha at a great Thai Restaurant, Sen Yai Sen Lek, went to the library with her and got some books, then walked around a golf course with her. We had a good lunch and a good time. I got home, and then I started sliding into the depression. I had fun on Facebook for a bit and my various political blogs, and then I started writing my script.

You Say It’s Your Birthday

Posted on April 7, 2009 by admin • 12 Comments

asian cake Well, it’s my birthday, too. The fact that I can state that is pretty amazing. I have a strange and complicated relationship with my birthday, as I do with so many things. When I was a kid, I did the whole slumber party/ballerina cake thing (stop laughing, I did). I enjoyed the presents part, but I never quite got the whole hoopla over me being born.

As I became a very depressed teenager, I hated my birthday. I didn’t want anything to do with it. I don’t remember the reason for hating it other than I just did. When I was a teenager, I hated pretty much everything, so why not my birthday? In addition, I didn’t have many friends as a teenager, so my birthday seemed yet another way to underscore that fact as I struggled to think of something to do. My parents, of course, insisted I celebrate my birthday (a fantasy they hold dear until this very day. I expect a phone call from them later in the evening). It was, needless to say, a painful time in my life.

Somewhere along the line, in my late twenties, I started actively disliking my birthday. I refused to tell anyone when it was, and I certainly didn’t celebrate it. I began to see it as a marker of all the thing I hadn’t accomplish that year, which would immediately put a damper on any celebratory feelings I might have entertained (which, admittedly, weren’t many). I would sit and think of how wasted my life was and how time was slipping away. I would castigate myself for being such a failure, and that would send me further into depression. Needless to say, it was not the most conducive mindset to embrace in order to move forward.

Please, Please, Please

Posted on April 5, 2009 by admin • 2 Comments

memorial I am sure you have heard the terrible news by now. There was a shooting Friday at the immigration center in Binghamton, NY. At first, the information came trickling out in dribbles and drabs. I heard a little here and there, but nothing substantial. Then, there were rumblings that the shooter was Vietnamese. The first thing I thought was:

Please, please, please don’t let him be Asian. PLEASE!

I followed the story, and when I found out that he was Asian, I was not a happy camper. Now, you might be asking yourself, what difference does that make? How can you be so selfish as to think of that when thirteen people lay dead because of this man? Believe me, I’m not proud of this reaction, but I remember what happened when the VA Tech shooter turned out to be Korean American. Much closer to home, I remember what happened when the Hmong hunter got into a fight with some white hunters, in Iowa, I think (one of the bordering states) and killed six of them. I think it was six. I am not looking it up because it still hurts.

My heart clutched each of those times, too. See, when you are a member of the minority, you know that every time one member of your group acts up, you all get targeted. It doesn’t matter that the shooter at VA Tech was Korean American or the hunter was Hmong, just as it doesn’t matter that Jiverly Wong is Vietnamese (ethnically Chinese). In the eyes of the majority, they are the same–yellow-skin, alien, and other. The racism that emerged after each of these situations was not surprising, but it still made me wary.

Natural Born Killers

Posted on April 1, 2009 by admin • 2 Comments

piggiekilleh

Addendum: I know that Michele Bachmann has waxed apoplectic about China wanting to force the US to change its currency because she is too stupid to realize that she obmitted the word, ‘reserves’ from the statement, but I don’t have time to cover all her stupidities. You’ll just have to look that one up yourselves.

Yesterday morning, I woke up and followed my usual routine. I got dressed in my room, and then opened the door to greet my boys. They don’t sleep with me because I am allergic, and I sleep badly enough as it is.

I don’t like light, so I didn’t turn on the hallway light. I pet the boys and cooed over them as they rubbed all over my legs (yeah, I know it’s a ruse to get me to feed them, but damn, it feels nice to be loved. Oh, it’s also their way of making sure to mark me again after my night of restless slumber. Back to my narrative), and then I looked down. On the ground was a…toy? I didn’t recognize it, but I stooped down to pick it up so I could throw it for them. To my surprise, it was warm and soft. Now, Raven has a small problem with inappropriate elimination, so my next thought was, “Ew! It’s poop!” It didn’t smell, however, so I crossed that off my mental list. Finally, I brought the thing closer to my face, and it was a dead mouse.

I freaked out slightly because I prefer my mice alive, thank you very much. After I disposed of the poor little thing, I praised my boys for being mighty hunters (though, between you and me, I am pretty sure it was Shadow who did the actual killing. Raven rather just play than kill) and thanked them for the gift. I have read on cat sites posts from people who are freaked out when their cats kill something, and it puzzles me. Cats are predators; it’s what they do. Some vegetarians try to make their cats eat strictly vegetarian (non-meat) diets which disgusts me. Cats are carnivores. Believe me, they looooove them some meat, and they will fight each other to get to said meat.

Monthly Archives: April 2009