I want to throw up.

Why do I always end up sitting near the inconsiderate jackholes who spend their entire train ride trying to pick a ring tone? Would it be wrong to grab the phone, run to the other end of the car, throw it down violently and scream “TOUCHDOWN!”?

Why do some non-homeless people smell so awful?

And why was there no a/c on the train this morning?

It makes me want to hurl. I haven’t felt so sick on public transportation in such a long time. It didn’t help that I saw two puddles of puke–yes, two–as I walked up Market Street after my hellish morning commute.

I hate everyone. Everyone. I hate them.

On a brighter note, I almost got crapped on by a bird this morning.

Don’t worry; be happy?

I worry too much–no, not too much; just a lot. A heck of a lot. I worry about my future, I worry about money, I worry about my mother, her health, her job, my health, the environment, the bad weather, famine, epidemics, asteroids–yes, asteroids–and all that good stuff. I worry. That’s what I do.

Mom had a doctor’s appointment this morning and, since I’m at home now–and have been since graduation last year–I went with her to translate some and nag the doctor. Nag nag nag. I do that, too. Mom’s blood pressure is good, her thyroid is good, her lipids are good, and her colon is good. Except it’s got little “pocket” things and “it’s very important that she has good, regular bowel movements.” Her red cell count went up a little, which is good; mom’s anemic. You see, the main problem we’re having at the moment is that she’s anemic and nobody knows why. Her iron is good, B12 is good, there’s no blood loss anywhere–and yet, she doesn’t have enough red blood cells. Well then, somebody’s got to know where they are!

I read somewhere that anemia could sometimes be linked to thyroid problems. I don’t know why, but I didn’t remember that until after the doctor had left the room. Damnit. The doctor wants to send her to a hematologist, but mom doesn’t have health insurance. And specialists cost mad cash–which is essentially the root of every problem that anyone’s ever encountered…almost.

If we had money, mom would have health insurance. She’d see the specialist, and whatever problem they find would be taken care of. But we don’t have money. And so, I worry. Secretly. Very secretly. And I think that’s a problem.

Some people don’t have a problem ranting and venting and getting things out of their systems. They talk about their frustrations, their anger, their sadness, their worries. More often than not, I don’t know where to start, so I clam up. I bottle everything inside, and then, one beautiful day, out of nowhere, the dam bursts.
The dam bursts, and it’s ugly.

I like to think that I’m strong; it really helps that everybody thinks I am, too. As far as everyone’s concerned, I’ve got my feet well on the ground and my head firmly planted on my shoulders, and nothing moves me. Little do they know, just thinking about certain things can make me sob uncontrollably for the next hour or so. Sometimes, I cry myself to sleep; bet you didn’t know that! I mean for Christ’s sake, I cried during Spiderman and Monsters, Inc!

The one thing that never fails to bring me down–I’m really setting myself up for failure here–is thinking about my mom’s death. You probably think I’m crazy for thinking about that, let alone bringing it up, but I don’t believe it should be a taboo. Death is part of life; we’ve all lost someone, we’re gonna keep losing people, and, one day, we too will have to go. It’s not a secret, and I don’t think we should avoid the subject. There’s no sense in being in denial, and I’ve decided to talk about openly (don’t burst my bubble; this is my way of coping with something before it happens).

We were watching Vân Sơn–a Vietnamese variety show–this past weekend, and the theme was “Mothers.” I was fine with that until this singer came along and started singing the saddest lyrics I’ve ever heard: “We will have to say goodbye,” “When you say it, it’ll make me cry,” “It’ll be the last time I hold you near”–etc, etc. I’m gonna stop quoting it because I’m already choking up as I’m typing this, but you see where I’m going with it. I had to get up and go to the kitchen to “make lunch” so as to not cry in front of my mother.

This is another silly thing I do–or don’t do, rather: I don’t cry in front of my mother. Ever. I’ve always successfully held my tears back when she’s around, and I’m not gonna let some stupid variety show where people LIP SYNCH ruin this trend. Seriously. I’m ridiculously good at not crying in front of her, because almost every time we’re together and something warrants a good hard bawling, that “something” typically concerns her and she’s already somewhat of a mess. I’m not saying that crying is for the weak–because it’s not–but if I cry, it’ll make her believe that things are not okay; that, in fact, they’re unbelievably bad.

Does this sound stupid yet? I guess the only thing you should know in order to make sense of this is that she doesn’t think I am ever nostalgic, get sad, or worry. She doesn’t believe I do any of those things. In sum, she doesn’t think I’m human, and I think I’d rather keep it that way for now. Just for now.

I don’t want her to know that, when she passes, I will be crushed; food won’t have taste, colors will look gray, I probably won’t step out of the house for a good month at least, and everything will smell like her.

Crushed.

Folklore Obscène

A song popped into my head while I was doing the dishes Saturday night, so I started singing it:

Au clair de la lune,
j’ai pété dans l’eau.
Ça faisait des bulles;
c’était rigolo.
Ma…

I paused to remember the lyrics. This version is a twist to the French folk song Au Clair de la Lune (“Under the Moonlight”) that most children know–at least when I was a little girl. The lyrics never came back, so I went online to do a quick search and voilà:

Au clair de la lune,
j’ai pété dans l’eau.
Ça faisait des bulles;
c’était rigolo.
Ma grand-mère arrive
avec des ciseaux;
Elle me coupe les fesses
en trois mille morceaux!

This translates to:

Under the moonlight,
I farted in the water.
It made bubbles;
it was funny.
My grandmother came in
with scissors;
She cut my butt
into three thousand pieces.

It occurred to me then that I had never heard/heard of any obscene or vulgar English-language folk/children’s songs. Here is another French one:

Frère Jacques, Jacques Chirac,
où es-tu, trou du cul?
Je vais à la messe,
niquer les gonzesses.
Ding, ding, dong.
Ding, ding, dong.

And here’s the lovely translation:

Brother Jacques, Jacques Chirac,
Where are you, asshole?
I’m going to mass,
to fuck the chicks.
Ding, ding, dong.
Ding, ding, dong.

Yet another version has, instead of “niquer les gonzesses,” “pour montrer mes fesses“–meaning “to show my butt.”

Read more about this subject here.

I miss being a kid.

Look Up

_____* past couple of days, my Gchat** status has been, “J’attends que le ciel me tombe sur la tête, d’ailleurs je crois que ça va pas*** tarder” (I’m waiting for the sky to fall on my head, and actually I think it won’t be long).

Then, tonight, I picked up the current issue of The Atlantic (theatlantic.com) and the cover read: “THE SKY IS FALLING” (read about it here: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/asteroids)

Jus’ sayin’.
_______________
* “This” or “These”? Google search results in favor of the latter. It’s curious how some people use both structures (“this couple of ___” and “these couple of ___”)—why is there no consistency?
** Sounds better than “Google Talk”.
*** Yes, I know that something’s missing.

And since when does Facebook allow HTML text tags? Exciting.

Mmm, steak.

Saturday, Mom and I headed to the King of Prussia mall to look for a handbag and a watch–both for Mom. She got this bag in black, but no luck with watches (she’s looking to replace the watch that she lost a few weekends ago, also a Fossil). Come to think about it, maybe we should have gone to the Fossil store instead of browsing in Macy’s for hours. To be fair, we had coupons for Macy’s, so there.

We got hungry after walking around some more, and headed for our usual spot, the California Pizza Kitchen–only the wait was thirty to forty minutes and we were HUNGRY. We don’t like food courts, so we had to look for another restaurant. I grabbed a map and spotted a Rock Bottom in the other building; remembering the yumminess that was Rock Bottom in Bethesda, I decided that we had to have dinner there.

We were seated immediately. Mom had decided that, if she couldn’t have pizza, she’d have steak; I followed suit. She had a delicious filet mignon with fries and green beans, and I ended up with a New York strip with mashed potatoes and green beans. I had been craving steak for a bit over two years, so that 14oz piece of MEAT definitely hit the spot. For dessert, we shared the triple chocolate stout cheesecake. Even with a stuffy nose, I could tell that it was delicious.

Speaking of stuffy nose, I felt like shit all day Saturday and I still went shopping with my mother. At fucking King of Prussia. And I had a great day.

I didn’t get anything for myself on that shopping trip, but I did find my next perfume! It will be Allure by Chanel. I’d always liked Allure, but I never really experienced it fully. When we were still at Macy’s, I sprayed some on me and walked around to see how the fragrance worked with me. Suffice it to say that I fell completely in love with it! Allure for men is also very, very good. I can’t wait to finish my current perfume! It’s Gucci’s Envy Me–a fun, sweet scent, but I’m generally not a fan of what I call “pink perfumes” (like Yves Saint Laurent’s Babydoll, which I have used in the past). I like warmer, muskier scents.

Another highlight of Saturday was the quick stop we made at Rite Aid before leaving the mall. I bought some NyQuil Cold & Flu, which underage folks aren’t allowed to buy (as I found out at the register, when the cashier asked for my date of birth).

And on that note, it’s time for me to take my NyQuil and get knocked out.

p.s. My chipping red nails didn’t last long. On the morning of the 14th, I took the polish off; that night, I painted my nails white. The white didn’t last long, either; I removed it Friday night.

Buckley’s Cough Mixture

I’m currently plagued with a cold, but it’s getting better–slowly but surely. When my aunt noticed my slight cough two Saturdays ago, she brought over two bottles of Vicks’ Cold & Cough syrup. I looked for the expiration dates and saw that they had both expired, so I dug deep into our cabinets and found two brand new bottles of Buckley’s Cough Mixture that my aunt had brought over a while ago. I couldn’t remember why I had shoved them so far into the back of our cabinets, but it all came back to me after I read the box:

“The one problem Dad found was Buckley’s unique taste. Dad described it as ‘brisk’, but to be real honest, it tastes real bad.”

“It tastes awful. And it works.”

A quick glance over the ingredient section will give you a vague idea of what to expect: ammonium carbonate, camphor, menthol, pine needle oil… A vague idea, because you won’t actually know until you fucking smell that shit. But in order to experience it to the fullest, you have to taste it. You have to taste it, swallow it, puke it up a little in your mouth, and swallow it back down.

Like I did when I took it.

My cough was unbearable. It was a dry, painful, brain-shaking cough; I had no other option. So I took it. And I regretted it.

I can tell you exactly what it tastes like: Vicks Vaporub and ammonia. But hey, at least it’s not gooey!

I dug deeper into our cabinets and found an unopened bottle of cough syrup that had been prescribed to my mom two years ago–and it hadn’t expired. So I started using it, and I finished it within the week. My voice has gone and come back, but my cough lives on. And I need a remedy. And I’m not about to go out and buy a bottle of yummy cough syrup because I have two perfectly unexpired bottles at my service. Disgusting, but unexpired.

And so I will suck it up and take it like the man that I’m not. That’s right; tonight, I am taking another dose of Buckley’s.

And I’m gonna regret it.

Changing My Ways

It’s not easy being a big time procrastinator with OCD tendencies. I have somewhat improved procrastination-wise (meaning I’ve been procrastinating less, not better) but I need to work on reducing my OCD quirks. Sure, they comes in handy at times (when I apply them to important things, e.g. work) but I find that I tend to obsess way too much on relatively unimportant things. Like my nails.

I have always really liked nail polish and everything nail-care related. When I was little, my mom and I shared one bottle of a certain shade of metallic pink (much shinier than matte pink). When we ran out, or when the polish lost its fluidity, we bought a new bottle of a different shade of pink. One of my aunts–my father’s younger sister–had herself a box full of pinks, reds, silvers and golds–the glittery silvers and golds, my favorite back then! I turned 12, and by then I had more than just one bottle of nail polish, and more than just pinks; I had pearl-white polish!

One day, I was writing–or coloring–with a black marker when some of it accidentally ended up on one of my certain-shade-of-pink colored nails. As I washed it off, I noticed that it left behind a beautiful cobalt blue. So, I did what any girl would do: I colored every millimeter of every nail with my black marker. After about five minutes, hopeful, I headed for the sink. You should have seen my face–or better yet, my nails! They were shining a wonderful blue and I was ecstatic. I couldn’t wait until I saw my best friend the next morning!

Blue nail polish wasn’t en vogue yet at that time, so everyone looked at my nails–and thought I was crazy. My best friend, dying to sport the same shade, took my marker and colored her pink nails the same way I did mine. It didn’t work. That is when I discovered that it wasn’t the marker but the polish that did the trick.

That summer, or the summer after that summer, I went to California and visited my five older cousins who owned a nail salon. Knowing that I loved nail polish, they sent me home with twenty six different colors of polish. TWENTY SIX. I had blues, purples, browns, reds, pinks, golds–I was in heaven. I kept my nails long, neat, and a different color every few days. Never did I let the color chip beyond the very edge of my nails!

Then, something horrible happened. My nails became yellow and bumpy, “because of all that nail polish,” said my mom. So I let my nails breathe for a while, threw out all that polish (it was almost all gone anyway), and everything returned to normal. I subsequently calmed down and stopped using polish for a while. And then I moved to the States.

I still paint my nails on occasion, and I always have five basic colors: clear, black, white, a dark red/crimson, and a barely-there pink/beige. Some time last week, I painted my nails red. “Bus Stop Crimson,” to be more specific. For the first time EVER, I’m going to let the polish chip. As a matter of fact, I’ve already let it chip; not a whole lot, but a tiny bit around the edge–which has always been enough to make me take it off entirely. This time, I’m letting it chip beyond that but not until there’s only half of it left on each nail, because that’s gross and tacky. I’ll let one fourth of it chip away.