Sex, shopping and thinking pink

Evolutionary psychology
Sex, shopping and thinking pink

Aug 23rd 2007
From The Economist print edition
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9682588

The brains of men and women are, indeed, different

WOMEN really are better than men at shopping. And they really do prefer pink. And, surprisingly, it is possible that these facts are connected. The first conclusion was drawn by Joshua New of Yale University and his colleagues. The second was drawn by Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling of Newcastle University in England. The connecting theme is that in the division of labour that forms the primordial bargain of human hunter-gatherer societies, it is the men who do the hunting and the women who do the gathering.

Blackberry-picking aside, urban humanity does little gathering from the wild these days, so Dr New decided to look at what seemed to him to be the nearest equivalent—shopping at a farmers' market. There is a fair amount of evidence that men are better than women at solving certain sorts of spatial problems, such as remembering the locations of topographical landmarks. Many researchers suggest such skills may have been important in the past for man-the-hunter, who needed to be able to find his way round the landscape. If that is the case, then woman-the-gatherer might have been expected to develop complementary skills not shown by males. And that, as he writes in this week's Proceedings of the Royal Society, is what Dr New found.

Dr New used the market to test two hypotheses. The first was that women remember the locations of food resources more accurately than men do. The second was that the more nutritionally valuable a resource is, the more accurately its location will be remembered.

To prove these conjectures he recruited 41 women and 45 men and led each of them individually on a merry dance around the chosen market. In the course of this peregrination, each participant visited six of the 90 food stalls in the market. At each of those stalls, participants were given a piece of food to eat. They were asked their preference for the taste of the food, how often they ate that food in normal life, how attractive they found the stall and how often they had made purchases from that stall in the past. After visiting all six stalls, they were taken to the centre of the market and asked to point toward those stalls, one at a time, using an arrow on a dial. In addition, they were asked to rate their own sense of direction.

In the pink
On average, women were 9° more accurate than men at pointing to each stall—a significant deviation if you have to walk some distance to get to a place. This was not because those women had more experience of visiting the market than the men had. Nor did the women rate themselves as having a better sense of direction—indeed the men rated their own navigating skills more highly.

Dr New suggests that these results show women are better than men at the particular task of relocating sources of food. That contrasts with the idea that men are better at navigation in general. In other words, women's minds are specialised for their ancestral task of gathering the sort of food that cannot run away.

That such food is in a different mental category from the one occupied by general landmarks was suggested by the answer to the second hypothesis. The higher the calorific value of the food sold by a stall, the more accurately Dr New's volunteers were able to point towards it. And that result applied to both sexes, though women still did better than men.

How much the participants liked the food did not have an effect on this accuracy. Indeed none of the secondary attributes of the food or stall in question (taste preference, the frequency of an item in a volunteer's normal diet, the appearance of the stall and how often a volunteer used that stall in daily life) were found to affect pointing accuracy. Only the calorific value of the item in question was relevant.

For their part Dr Hurlbert and Dr Ling, who report their study in Current Biology, used coloured patches flashing on a computer screen to find the preferences of their set of volunteers. These volunteers were men and women of British and Chinese origin who were in their early 20s.

Mostly, the two researchers found that people of different sexes and from different continents did not differ in their colour preferences. But there was one exception. Among both the British and the Chinese, women preferred reddish hues such as pink to greenish-blue ones. Among men it was the other way round.

Moreover, though anatomical sex is binary, mental “gender” is more pliable. To see how masculine or feminine the brains of their participants were, Dr Hurlbert and Dr Ling used what is known as the Bem Sex Role Inventory, which asks about personality traits more often associated with one sex than the other. This showed that the more feminine a brain was, regardless of the body it inhabited, the more it liked red and pink.

All this suggests a biological, rather than a cultural, explanation for colour preference. And Dr Hurlbert and Dr Ling have produced one. They suggest that their result may be connected with the fact that the colour of many fruits is at the red end of the spectrum. An evolved preference for red, pink and allied shades—particularly in contrast with green—could thus bring advantage to those who gather such things. And if they can also remember which tree (or stall) to go and visit next time, then so much the better.

hazy memories

if you have been reading my blog, you’ll notice that a lot of my stories involve my shenanigans as a little girl. a few of my dear readers have commented on how good my memory is. not to be a braggart, but i do have a pretty good memory. ask me what we were doing when i first met you and 9 times out of 10, i’ll be able to tell you. i’ll also probably remember what you were wearing (e.g. audris shau: i saw you, you didn’t see me and you were wearing a hat. jen parks: first year, warren hall at a rugby meeting, you were wearing cool pointy shoes. sylvana sinha: on the bus, i just remember your eyelashes, chris pollak: on the rugby pitch eating cheetos).

my first real, cohesive memory takes place in San Diego, circa 1982. the kim family had just moved to san diego from los angeles, the city where i was born. we chose a nice cul-de-sac that had a mere 6 houses on it at the time. it was peppered, however, by empty construction lots that would one day be filled with homes that would one day be filled with families who would one day experience laughter, sadness, love, divorces, contentment, scandal, empty-nest syndrome, dog bites, pet deaths and lost baby teeth.

side story: a man who would eventually become my ophthalmologist moved in across the street in 1987 with his family. he was softspoken and gentle. his name was dr. montgomery. my dad (and i swear every other korean dad with a korean accent will do this) called him dr. MUNGLEMERRY. it wasn’t until i was 16 yrs old and getting fitted for glasses at his office that i realized my mistake. “DR. GORDON MONTGOMERY” was written in neat golden block letters on his door. i had called him dr. munglemerry for 6 yrs. heh).

my family and i went to the construction lot almost every day to see how the house was coming along. it was fun for me and my brother because we would find neat things like arrowheads and dead birds and interesting shaped pieces of wood.

one day i saw a nice big piece of white sidewalk chalk just hanging out in the dust. i could hardly believe my good fortune! what a serendipitious day! today, i thought, will be the day where big smiley faces are drawn on the sidewalk. but when i tried to pick it up, i realized that it was not a piece of chalk. it was a piece of dog shit that had been bleached white by the sun. it just looked like a piece of chalk. the white log of shit crumbled into a fine powder between my fingers when i touched it and i felt disgusted. i remember thinking "this thing fell out of a doggy bung hole. grody."

i wasn’t really sure what to do. i walked over to the adults trying to decide if i should tell them what happened. they were too busy talking to each other and i remember feeling ignored. so i just stood there with my fingers outstretched as far away from each other and my palm as possible. i was contemplating my next move. but then something really funny happened: my parents and the contractor were sniffing the air and lifting up their shoes to see if they had stepped in something like poo. i found this really amusing bc they still didn't realize i was there and certainly had no idea that the odorific fumes were emanating from my tiny right hand.

so, i never did tell them what happened. it was too complicated and i just wanted to go home and wash my hands. when we got back into the car, i sat in the backseat and rubbed my hands on the fuzzy underpart of the car seat over and over again until my fingers were burning.

everyone should try it. think back to your first memory and see what you come up with.

Milkshake bah buh better than yours, ba boo buh better than yours

04:07PM jparks1: What are the lyrics to the Milkshake song?
04:08PM jparks1: its been in my head all day, and I just realized I actually only know 3 of the words I'm singing
04:08PM ikim3: "my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, and they're like, it's better than yours, damn right it's better than yours i can teach you, but i have to charge, my milkshake...
04:08PM jparks1: awesome!
04:08PM jparks1: thanks
04:08PM ikim3: it used to be my ringtone.
04:08PM ikim3: why?
04:09PM jparks1: I was singing. Milkshake bah buh better than yours, ba boo buh better than yours

sky mall is an undiscovered gem

i take a lot of flights. whether it's to my home home in san diego or any one of my client locations, i always do two things as soon as i settle into my seat: (1) i check to see if the arm rest is in its horizontal position and if it's not, i make sure it is. this sends a firm signal to the person sitting next to me that i am in no mood for small talk, and (2) i study the SkyMall magazine.

SkyMall is an underdiscovered gem. i have found many relevant gifts for loved ones from 35,000 feet in the air.

here's a list of six things - categorized into "cool" and "why why why?"

(1) COOL:

if there's EVER a reason to do the Beyonce Bounce in the shower, here it is. a wall mountable back scratcher.

(2) COOL:

i am SO MAD at myself for not thinking of this portable pillow myself. it's so much better than the neck pillow. the only drawback is the slight embarrassment of blowing it up and then feeling awkward about deflating your breath into recycled airplane air after you land.

(3) COOL:



also useful if you're into sex with little people. i'm just saying that there are other uses to this Pet Staircase. i'm just saying.

...on to "why why why":
(1) WHY WHY WHY:


there's really nothing i can say about these tailgate chairs. it left me speechless.

(2) WHY WHY WHY:


i can see this conversation piece kicking up a lot of trouble at cocktail parties. one drink too many and a compromising photo of you and the sumo wrestler will be tagged in facebook faster than you can say "yokozuna".

(3) WHY WHY WHY:

this is a FAKE security camera. i've seen similar burglar retardant devices and think they are all dumb. included in this list is the fake dog barking tape and the blowup man.

check it out for yourself: www.skymall.com

also, learn about the etymology of the word "midget" and why it's not politically correct: http://www.arturogil.com/m_word.htm

look a little closer and you will see...

A few months ago I blogged about the quadri-colored trousers by Vineyard Vines (Blog "not sure what to say" 6/12/07).

If I ever saw someone wearing those trousers, I would (after I pick myself up from the ground from shock) immediately look around to see if I was at the entrance of the Octagon, New York City's first municipal insane asylum, around closing time.

If I were, I would probably also see someone wearing these (tip sent in by loyal blog reader Sylvana):



All I have to say is that it's lucky for her (and for us) that she wasn't fibbing like the rest of us when she put down "attention to detail" as one of her more marketable attributes on her resume. "what's wrong with that skirt" you ask? Well, look a little closer:



HOT TRAMP? Who thought this was a good idea? I'd really like to be in the design room when this skirt was being discussed. It may have gone something like this:

X: I think the problem with fashion these days is that nothing really sticks out anymore. Everything looks the same. It's always blah blah blah.
Y: I agree with you. We live in a homogenous society filled with fashion lemmings. We need something that SAYS something. Something that makes a statement. Something that makes me say, I AM WOMAN. HEAR ME ROAR!".
X: I got it!! HOT TRAMP.
Y: It's brill. Break out the Beadazzler*, everyone.

Come on people. Hot Tramp?

*The Beadazzler: a popular gadget from the 1980's, the beadazzler is still a stunner at just $19.95. this little blue plastic object, closely resembling a stapler, can be used with special sets to add sparkle to just about anything from scrapbooks to clothing TO THE BUTT OF REALLY EXPENSIVE SKIRTS WITH THE WORDS "HOT TRAMP" ON IT. When you purchase the beadazzler, it comes with plastic rhinestones and studs as well as amini version of itself (cute! but what for?). Since today's fashion is all about glimmer (Paris Hilton's phone is crystallized with Austrian crystals) girls might really enjoy having this handy little bling tool to add a little magic to their wardrobe, OR THE WORDS "HOT TRAMP" TO THE BUTT OF YOUR REALLY EXPENSIVE JEAN SKIRT.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/69809/ten_great_gifts_for_teen_girls_under.html (with some editoralizing by irene j. kim in BOLD)

the hungarian guy spy

my parents were extremely inventive when it came to halloween costumes. i find this very impressive considering that Halloween is a tradition that is nonexistent in their homeland of korea. My parents were REALLY good. as in, my brother and i won contests.

My earliest memories of Halloween begin in San Diego, around age 5. at the time, I was attending the allan school which was just down the hill from where i grew up. One day, as I was running down our big ass hill, my feet wanted to go faster than my hip joints were capable of churning out rotations. do you know what i mean? anyway, i fell on my face and for a moment it felt like inertia was going to lift my feet clear over the top of my head. “i’m going to be the world’s first human slinky!” i thought. it got me kind of excited even tho i was in a lot of pain. alas, i only did one flop down and before i knew it, my mother was already picking me up and giving me a good shake to make sure nothing was broken. "Irene, you have a hard head!" Apparently, even tho my mother was a good 20 feet behind me, she could hear the loud crack of my forehead against the sidewalk.

allan school had an annual Halloween fair. i entered the costume contest, as did my brother. My parents got creative. They put an itchy rainbow clown wig on my head, dressed me up in my father's hospital scrubs and his white coat, and wrote "MAD SURGEON" in squiggly letters on the back of it with a red "Marks A Lot" permanent marker. Fake blood stained operating gloves hung out of my side pocket and a stethoscope was draped around my neck. Sarah P, my best friend at the time, ran up to me in her sugar plum fairy costume. blond and angelic, she asked me if i was a crazy clown. i rolled my eyes and said, "i'm a mad surgeon", as in, "you are so dumb for not getting it, sarah" but wished that i was also in a princess costume. I stuck the stethoscope on her forehead and said very gravely "I'm very sorry, but you only have 3 days to live. let's go do the cakewalk."

my brother was darth vadar. he wore black cords and a black long sleeve t shirt with a black polyester cape. brother had a complicated 2 part mask that dad bought from Kay B toy store. the piece de resistance, however, was the tape recorder that hung from his neck. in the tape recorder was a tape that had 60 minutes of "hhaaaaaaaaaa huuuuuuuuuuuuu hhhaaaaaaaaaa huuuuuuuuuuuuuu" over and over and over again. and in case you were wondering what "ha hu" is, that was my onomatopoetic version of darth vadar's creepy breathing. can you believe it? my dear father spent an hour breathing into a tape recorder! 3 years later, he would spend an hour blowing up a 5 foot inflatable raft for my 8th birthday. I sat in it gingerly, holding my breath to make myself lighter. I was deathly afraid of popping the raft and then marinating in the miasma of someone else's breath. Ingrate that i was.

Anyway, my brother and i handily won the Halloween contest.

In 8th grade, my mom got really inventive. She dressed me up in her long skirts (several of them), wrapped my head in a colorful scarf, clipped 5 earrings on my earlobes and bought me a ba-zillion bangles. I was a gypsy...a HUNGARIAN gypsy, in fact.

Again, people asked me what i was. "Are you a bag lady?" And again, i sighed and explained, "no, i am a gypsy, a HUNGARIAN gypsy". By this point, i was kind of used to explaining my costumes every year. "i'm a traditional korean girl wearing a traditional korean dress. it's called a HAN BOK. a HAN BOK."... i'm charles dickens - can't you see that this jacket is English tweed? feel it"... "i'm a orthopedic surgeon, look how strong my hands are. they can fix your bones," i would say with a bored look in my eyes.

As expected, I won the costume contest tho my victory was severely undermined by the fact that my teacher introduced me as a HUNGARIAN GUY SPY. "WTF? You actually have credentials to educate young minds?" I thought. "What the hell is a guy spy?"*

It was during one Halloween that my heart broke for the first time. It happened when my best friend forever erin and i were trick or treating. we heard a pitiful mewing in the distance. it sounded just awful, like a squeaky hamster wheel. no, like a squeaky hamster wheel where the exercising hamster was also singing the rodent version of "rigoletto". we discovered that the noise was coming from a beautiful Persian cat who was trapped under its owners garage door. the door was pressing on the cat's back and a stream of urine was zigzagging down the driveway. erin and i gasped in horror and we ran to ring the doorbell. "your cat your cat! peeing on your driveway! open the door NOW." i am pretty sure our voices dropped a couple of octaves when we said the word "NOW". I may have even rolled my eyes into the back my head for special effect.

the owner lifted up the garage door and picked up the cat as if it was dryer lint. he didn't even canoodle it or ask it if it was ok. i ran up to the cat and tried to speak to it through my eyes. "If you want me to rescue you from your horrible horrible owner, lick your nose, okay? lick your nose, you hear me? i'll rescue you!" the cat didn't lick its nose so i tried another method, "mew mew meeeeeeeeeewww. mew mew, mewmew!!!!"

The weird thing is, i don't even like cats very much. I think they are sneaky. But no one wants to see a beautiful thing suffer. no one wants to see an ugly thing suffer. later, i found out that the cat had broken its back and died. and i cried as if it were my own cat. i cried because no one cared and my heart felt sad for weeks. it felt even sadder than when i accidentally starved my own pet turtle, shelly, to death and found him dessicated atop his rock. Because indifference is colder than ignorance.


*Actually, there is a Guy Spy. "Guy Spy and the Crystals of Armageddon: In this interactive cartoon, you are brave English soldier, who must stop Fascist Von Max, who wants to build a Doomsday Machine with the special crystals. http://www.mobygames.com/game/guy-spy-and-the-crystals-of-armageddon"
Fine. But in 1990, there was no such thing.

sorry, mole

the mole came back benign.

i *really* miss it now.

http://www.justicedenied.org/

my mole martyr

jalvles100: so how is everything
jalvles100: I mean
jalvles100: now that the mole is gone
irenejkim77: i miss it a little.
irenejkim77: it was adoooorable.
irenejkim77: super tiny and brown. just a little freckle, really.
irenejkim77: but then it raised itself - probably bc it was trying to get closer to the sun.
irenejkim77: but by doing that, it called attention to the fact that it could turn into a malignant baddie and got itself violently dug out of my shoulder.
irenejkim77: so. moral of the story is - don't speak up bc there's a chance that you'll be executed.
irenejkim77: anyway, it's a martyr. it's my mole martyr.
jalvles100: wow
jalvles100: I suspect the mole will be immortalized in your blog
irenejkim77: what.
irenejkim77: oh yeah.
irenejkim77: good idea.

vacation planning

I'm trying to plan a vacation with a few friends. B and I are trying to convince P to go to Colombia. This is what happens when you get three girls in finance trying to reason things out…

ORIGINAL EMAIL WHERE B AND I ARE TRYING TO CONVINCE P THAT COLOMBIA IS SAFE:
From: Chambers, Rebecca M
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007
To: P W
Cc: Kim, Irene (EQ - New York)
Subject: RE: Vacation

I definitely don’t want to go if you don’t feel comfortable. That being said, I think that is just an outdated perception. Also, there is that article from NYTimes, I can’t imagine that they would highlight the city as a great place.

Here’s the Colombia kidnapping index on Bloomberg!!


(COLOMBIA MONTHLY KIDNAPPINGS - COKPMON INDEX GP GO)

P HAS A TRADING IDEA:
From: P W
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007
To: Kim, Irene (EQ - New York); Chambers, Rebecca M
Subject: RE: Vacation

I just sent the index to my co-workers and they said, 3 unaccompanied American girls going to Colombia, they’re going long for sure.

(note: as in, they are going to buy this index in the hopes that we get kidnapped so that the graph goes up so that they make money).

IRENE'S RESPONSE:
From: Kim, Irene (EQ - New York)
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007
To: P W; Chambers, Rebecca M
Subject: RE: Vacation

were they joking?

P HEDGES HER RISK:
From: P W
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007
To: Kim, Irene (EQ - New York); Chambers, Rebecca M
Subject: RE: Vacation

No and they told me I should too, to hedge myself.

(note: as in, if you're going to get kidnapped, you might as well make money. nevermind you will be in the back of a car, bound and gagged. at least your portfolio is doing well)

Btw, I’m laughing out loud at my desk, people just keep staring at me.

P RUMINATES SOME MORE:
From: P W
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007
To: 'Chambers, Rebecca M'
Cc: Kim, Irene (EQ - New York)
Subject: RE: Vacation

This is hilarious…and yet not funny at all. Irene, can you please practice your Spanish? I asked my Venezuelan friend, “will i die in Colombia?” He said “does someone in your group speak Spanish?”

IRENE PUEDE HABLAR ESPAÑOL!!
From: Kim, Irene (EQ - New York)
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007
To: P W; Chambers, Rebecca M
Subject: RE: Vacation

por favor, no quiero morir.
(pls, i don't want to die.)

P IS SCARED:
From: P W
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007
To: Kim, Irene (EQ - New York); Chambers, Rebecca M
Subject: RE: Vacation

Oh, we’re going to die for sure.

IRENE DISAGREES:
From: Kim, Irene (EQ - New York)
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007
To: P W; Chambers, Rebecca M
Subject: RE: Vacation

ALTO P!
(stop p!)
estoy muy fuerta!
(i am very strong.)

well, my friends, that was entirely the wrong tactic. p ix-nayed colombia. quiero estudiar espanol mas en escuela!"*

* my colleagues on the european sales desk tell me that the correct way to say "i wish i studied harder in school" is: quisiera que yo hubia estudiado mas en universidad. dammit. maybe p was right.

mean thoughts

sometimes when i see morbidly obese people standing passively on the down escalators, i want to tap them on the shoulder and say, “excuse me. this is an escalator, not a ride. this may be why you have a Body Mass Index of 50*. you are resting when you should be burning calories.”


is that wrong? ok, i feel bad now.


*http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/

puff, the magic irene

Every morning I try REEEEEEALLY REALLY hard to remember to take my vitamins. They are exactly one inch long and a muted orange-y yellow color. These gel caps are filled to the brim with a mysterious and magical powder. I dread taking it every morning because it feels like a dry piece of crack pipe as it makes it's way down my esophagus.

This morning I did something stupid. I stuck the vitamin in my mouth and washed it down with my hot Dunkin D. I sat there, blinking back tears of pain, and tried to calculate the rate at which a gel cap would deteriorate when surrounded by fleshy esophageal varices. By my rough calcuations, I figured that even the speed of light would not be fast enough.

I solved this problem by inadvertantly letting out a super loud, bodacious burp (the body works in amazing ways) and I felt the pill pass through my throat. But the coolest thing happened to me next. Right when everyone turned around to see who burped, a cloud of orange powder floated right out of my mouth. I think they all think I'm a dragon!

beautiful spoils

now listen:
when it feels like it was all for naught, remember.
when it seems to me
that you are someone else, i remember.
when my life seems far from yours, please remember.

together we built it up and
together we tore it down.
but the fact remains: once

it was the most beautiful house on the block.

i believe you

today at work i saw something weird in the bathroom. when i walked into my stall, there was a little altar of Splenda packets in front of the toilet. They were arranged with care and from my vantage point of 5’ 4” above ground (in addition to the fact that I never wear my glasses even tho i really should), they looked like soft canary feathers against the gray tile.

I thought to myself, "well, that's strange. Why would anyone ever bring 6 packets of Splenda into the bathroom and then leave them there?"

I came to the conclusion that a lot of things seem weird when you don't have all the information. And then when you do have all the information, you think, “Of course! How could I have thought it to be any other way? Silly me.”

My mom and I used to go shopping almost every weekend when I was in high school. Not to buy, just to browse is what we would say. Mom and I would walk around Fashion Valley, an amazing outdoor mall, and just "catch up”, often hand in hand. I remember one time, in front of Wet Seal, there was a man bent over a bunch of wires working away. A “work man" was what my mother called him. Other people would probably call him an "electrician." But I knew exactly who she was talking about when my mom whispered to me, “Uh muh nah! Look at what that work man is wearing” because this work man had on the most curious outfit. He had a very tiny white wife beater that stopped right under his pectoral muscles. This wife beater was paired with extraordinarily low jeans. His entire midriff was exposed and while that is not THAT strange in and of itself, what WAS strange was the fact that his midsection was a perfectly smooth, mottled tan, and completely devoid of hair. It was the hairless thing that seemed particularly odd given the fact that the work man had hair pouring out of every other visible nook and cranny. And i mean every. We literally stopped in our tracks.

Then the work man did the most peculiar thing. He took his entire midriff OFF. Well, okay fine. He didn't really take his midriff off. He was wearing a super wide, super tan, super hairless work belt. And he took THAT off. But the point is, well, we felt bad for jumping to conclusions before we knew the whole story. We should have given him the benefit of the doubt.

This takes me back to senior year at Wellesley College to a time when I hope someone gave me the benefit of the doubt. I lived on the top floor of Claflin Hall, one of the prettiest, most storybook dorms on campus. And to get to my room, one had to take a separate set of stairs up to the turrets.

In college, i had a friend who was very soft spoken. Let’s call her Tootsie. Tho Tootsie was quiet, she expressed all of her pent up aggression through activities that required force. Any kind of force whatsoever. What I mean by this is that she would SLAM doors shut. She would CRASH her books on the library table. She would CRACK every pencil she used. Tootsie stomped up my stairs with the grace of a hundred and one pachyderms. And, just in case there was any confusion, that’s not graceful at all.

It’s 9 am on a Sunday and I hear her heavy footsteps. Damn her. I'm going to teach her a lesson. I jump out of bed, dizzy/sleepy/drunk and stick my left foot in a shower slipper and the right foot in the high heels I wore the night before. I wrap a towel around my body and wobble through the door and scream BOOOOOOO!!!!!

It was a work man, not Tootsie, on the other side. Yup, there was his tan leather belt! The poor guy fell against the wall in surprise and screamed. I can hear his scream even now as I type. I really did think he was going to cry.

I felt so bad.

I jumped back into bed and could only hope that he would give me the benefit of the doubt. Just like I'm going to give the person who brought six packets of Splenda into the bathroom stall and left them there. There must be a reason that makes sense.

everybody toots...sometimes

03:13PM bonita: omg
03:13PM bonita: omg
03:13PM irenejkim77: what
03:13PM irenejkim77: ?
03:13PM irenejkim77: are you ok?? what?
03:13PM bonita: just made the loudest noise
03:13PM bonita: somebody HAD to have noticed
03:14PM irenejkim77: like...what kind of noise?
03:14PM irenejkim77: uhhhhh....
03:14PM bonita: THE kind
03:14PM irenejkim77: HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
03:14PM irenejkim77: you are HILARIOUS!!!
03:14PM irenejkim77: calm down calm down
03:14PM bonita: I am giggling like crazy
03:14PM irenejkim77: no one will notice.
03:14PM irenejkim77: shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
03:14PM irenejkim77: shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh quiet. stop.
03:14PM bonita: x and y aren't here
03:14PM irenejkim77: thank GOD!
03:14PM irenejkim77: hahahaha. hahahahaha!
03:14PM bonita: but the guy on the other side of my desk is
03:14PM irenejkim77: don't worry.
03:14PM bonita: HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa
03:14PM irenejkim77: you have to hahahahahahahahaha I can't hahahahahahaa
03:15PM irenejkim77: ok.
03:15PM irenejkim77: calm down.
03:15PM bonita: SO LOUD
03:15PM irenejkim77: no one will remember.
03:15PM irenejkim77: hahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
03:15PM bonita: ok
03:15PM irenejkim77: that's REALLY funny.
03:15PM bonita: am bright red, trying not to laugh is making me hyper-ventilate
03:15PM irenejkim77: dude. chill. take a deep breath.
03:15PM irenejkim77: and go to the bathroom.
03:15PM bonita: NOOO
03:15PM bonita: then he'll think I have a problem
03:15PM bonita: haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
03:16PM irenejkim77: haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
03:16PM bonita: if you blog this, can you pls change my name to bonita?

sweet dream

last night
i dreamt of you
and we
were on a hill
and we
were just talking
(as if)
we were best friends

all i wanted was a churro

When I was maybe 16 yrs old or so, I worked at SeaWorld in San Diego for one summer. I drove my little red Honda Civic to work. From where I grew up, (Bonita, CA) it was about a 35 minute drive. It was actually my brother's Honda, but he got the Jeep Cherokee when he went to college. So I was left with the little Honda which was trusty and looked like a cinnamon tic tac.

I didn't work feeding the dolphins or cleaning fish tanks, so in a way, I was a SeaWorld impostor. I worked at a kiosk as a poster roller. Let me clarify…you know those Asian men who sit on the sidewalk of Times Square and paint a word (usually your name) using colorful flowers/dolphins/trees instead of letters? E.g., the "I" in IRENE would be a palm tree. The "R" would be a curved porpoise. The "E" would be a hula dancer with a really bad goiter... you get the picture. And no, silly! I didn't paint the names! I was the authentic Asian girl who rolled up the scrolls and put them in the tube. Day after day. Hour after hour. I nearly drowned myself in Shamu's piss pool out of sheer boredom.

So when I completed my last day of work ever at SeaWorld, you can imagine my joy! I skipped out of there like a little girl, my long ponytail swinging behind me. On the way to the employees’ parking lot, I thought to myself, "You know what, Irene? Why not treat yourself to a delicious Mexican donut dusted with cinnamon sugar, also known as a 'churro'?” (roll the ‘r’, please, in churrrrrrro). It was a fine idea, indeed.

I paid for the goods and was poised to take a bite when someone knocked me over the head with her purse. BAM! I staggered to my right. I was furious and embarrassed. Do I pretend it never happened? Do I stagger to the left, finish off with a twirl and start a little dance? Before I even had a chance to figure it all out, the same crazy Coo-Coo-Head hit me again over the head again, this time pitching me forward several steps. By this time, a small crowed had gathered around me. Did you see that? Do we help her? That was so funny! I was the circus freak! I was the car wreck! And I was still clueless as to what was going on!

I decided the best way to handle this was to pretend nothing had happened. The person who was shoving me ran away too quickly for me to tackle her anyway. I re-poised myself to take a bite out of my churro when, as if I had suddenly acquired Tourette Syndrome*, my arm shot straight up in the air. I looked up. And it was a strange moment for me. Initial confusion was chased away by a shock of total clarity.

I was under attack by two monstrous seagulls. MONSTROUS. One of them had my SeaWorld windbreaker cuff in its mouth. And the other one was repeatedly flapping me on the head with its wing. My "fight or flight" response was called into action and I fought them valiently for my hard earned churro. To tell you the truth, I really wanted to JUST GIVE UP! But a latent "Rocky Balboa" surged in me and it would not let go of the damn donut.

Eventually, a massive shit squirt dangerously close to the eye left me defeated. And all I was left with was a small 3 inch length of churro. Smushed, greasy, inedible. I was sad. Only then did people try to help me! But it was too late. I brushed them off brusquely and ran to my little red tic tac Honda.

As I drove home, I came out of my shock and I started to cry. I was crying because my knees were skinned and I had poop in my hair. I was crying because I had repeatedly looked into the butt hole of a seagull. I was crying because my churro had gone to wrongful owners. I walked in through the garage door that led into my house. My mom was cooking dinner. When she saw me, she dropped the pan she was holding and said, "UH MUH NAH!" (translation - oh my goodness!).

Poor Mommy. She must have thought I had gotten jumped or even worse. I cried and cried as she held me and smushed the bird poop all over her shirt. Something only a mother will do.

I can actually laugh about this incident today. It's really funny, in all honesty. But churros make me quiver with fear. And seagulls? Forgetaboutit.

*I know it’s really un-PC to talk about Tourette Syndrome so glibly. I apologize to anyone I have offended. Did you know: One of the less common possible symptoms of Tourettes (yet the most recognizable) is Coprolalia (outburst of obscenities and curse words). Coprolalia is actually very uncommon in Tourette Syndrome and only effects as low as 5% to 15% of Touretter’s. Learn something new every day.

i'm pro female and all, but...

irenejkim77: oooh. THAT makes total sense. ok.
irenejkim77: go tit.
irenejkim77: hahahahah!
irenejkim77: gooooooooooo tit!
irenejkim77: hilarious.
irenejkim77: GOT it. (is obviously what I meant)
irenejkim77: I used to be a cheerleader, but even that is a little excessive for me.

you! don't bring me flowers anymore...

i don't like flowers. i don't like receiving flowers as gifts. i don't like giving flowers as gifts. similar to my dislike of soup spoons (blog: "slow day at work" 5.31.07), i can logically defend this prejudice. (let me take this moment to tell my readers the only actual phobia is the one i have of fr*gs. i don’t even like to see that word in print. they creep me out. as do pickles since they resemble fr*gs).

cut flowers are beings en route to death. i hate to be so macabre, but it’s true. their misleading vibrancy is masking the fact that their roots have literally been cut and their days are quite numbered. when i see a bouquet of flowers, i cannot help but think that in a few days, those pretty, quasi living di/monocotyledons (dude, remember that from 5th grade science?) will be face down, feet up in my trash can.

so, AS IF i needed another reason to deeply, deeply resent flowers, something terrible happened to me yesterday. i even took a picture of it but i think i forgot to save it because i now i can't find it on my phone.

the flowers which were pushed on me by the clean up crew at a wedding i attended last week, spawned a caterpillar. when i saw this larvae with it’s undulating and segmented body just hanging out in my living room, i felt like i was being punk’d. i was praying that ashton kutcher was hiding in my bedroom along with my brother, best friend, and mom. please, ashton, tell me this is not real. i’m waiting for you to holler “surprise! it’s not a real caterpillar! it’s a GUMMY caterpillar! hahahahahaha!”

i am not kidding when i say that my gag reflex kicked in. and after my mini gag session, i did a really peculiar thing: i started jumping up and down, shook my head, shot my hands straight up into the air, all the while started screaming "ahhhhhhh!". i think the clinical term for this sudden and violent outburst would be “to engage in a freak out.”

i did what any convulsing woman would do…i steadied my twitching hand long enough to knock on my neighbors door and when he answered, i managed to squeak out, “caterpillar, help me…please, i *insert freak out dance here* can’t do it. caterpillar. flowers. *insert gag reflex*”

i honestly cannot believe that he followed me into my apartment. for all he knew, i was a crazy psychopath with a sadist tendencies. but he did and i’ll never forget the image of the tightly coiled caterpillar being flushed down the toilet. i know it’s not rational, but now when i go to the bathroom, i feel like the caterpillar will exact it’s revenge on my bum one day.

the great french cover up

11:53AM ikim3: i have a fashion question.
11:53AM jparks1: yes
11:54AM ikim3: if i am wearing a black dress with red lipstick, is red (short) nails overkill?
11:54AM ikim3: or should i get a french manicure?
11:54AM jparks1: i hate french manicures
11:54AM ikim3: really? why?
11:55AM jparks1: short red nails is fine
11:55AM ikim3: ok. thank you.
11:55AM ikim3: why do you hate french mans?
11:56AM jparks1: french mans are tacky
11:56AM jparks1: and I especially hate it on toes
11:59AM ikim3: ew.
12:00PM ikim3: the problem i have with french manicures is that it's covering up dirt.
12:00PM ikim3: which is never a good idea.
12:01PM ikim3: ppl with french manicures look like they have nice white nails when in fact, lots of dirt could be stuck under there.
12:01PM ikim3: it's misleading. the french. they do that with perfume, too.
12:01PM ikim3: covering up B.O.
12:01PM jparks1: yep
12:01PM jparks1: its like a cover up
12:01PM ikim3: the great french cover up.

introducing trouble

let’s go back to 381 wagon wheel way. the most salient memories i have of those years are of the glorious san diego summers and of playing with my beautiful best friend erin cory who lived across the street. when erin was about 6 (and I was about 9) she procured two lop eared rabbits named heartcakes and cocoa. heartcakes and cocoa made my lips and eyes and ears itch. tho it was painfully obvious, i didn’t want to admit that i was allergic to rabbits. (side note, i am also allergic to potatoes, tomatoes, corn, soy, and peanuts. and anything else that produces dander). so what i would do was put my brother’s striped tube socks over my arms like long gloves and touch the rabbits lovingly through the hole in their wire cage. it didn’t do jack shit, but I think allergies are 50% psychosomatic anyway.

i was a little prankster. i was that kid who jumped out from behind doors, fell and cried only to yell “just kidding! when help arrived”. i even faked running away from home when i was really just hiding in the back of my mom’s car while she frantically drove around looking for me. can you believe it? i thought it was funny at the time…if only my 7 year old brain could have understood the depth of panic my mother felt, i would take it back and never do it again. all in all, i was just a really *happy* little girl.

erin and i played tricks together. one of our favorites was the peanut butter trick which we did but once. the set up was this: get some chunky peanut butter and shape it into a long piece of turd. then put the fake turd on erin’s doorstep. borrow a dog if you don’t have one yourself ( we used the lucas’ little dachshund…let’s call him “ziggy” because i can’t recall his name right now). ring the doorbell and wait. what unfolds was seriously hysterical. for us, at least.

we could see sharon (erin’s mom) come up the stairs to answer the front door through the white shutters. sharon was the world’s most perfect mother. gorgeous, loving, huggy, perfumy. it’s not surprising that erin is exactly the same way. sharon was my “i’m going to run away and live with sharon” sharon. sharon was the epitome of what i thought an american family should be like (and what i myopically thought the kim family was not.) sharon was not just another lovely person, she was an aspiration. i loved her penchant for hunter green. i loved her perfectly golden pancakes topped with squeezable butter. i loved the way she cut my food into tiny pieces of mush and I just loved sharon.

as sharon opened the door, my transformation into an oscar worthy actress began. “look sharon! ziggy did an accident!” i would glare accusingly at dear little ziggy who was probably vigorously licking his anus. sharon’s eyes would catch the peanut butter turd innocently lying on the grey concrete and before she could do or say anything, i would say, “but don’t worry, i’ll take care of everything. “ i picked up the peanut butter turd and jammed the whole thing into my mouth.

what happens after that is unclear. i can only imagine peals of laugher mixed in with screams of horror mixed in with an attempted heimlich maneuver mixed in with one wriggly irene running home.

it’s really ironic that i developed an allergy to peanuts as an adult. that means I can never play that trick on you.

"not sure what to say" (real item from www.vineyardvines.com, the WASP-iest, mass label out there)

From: Ali, Wajahat
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 3:58 PM
To: Mascarenhas, Mark A; Kim, Irene (EQ - New York)
Subject: Not sure what to say...

http://www.vineyardvines.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/products.detail/categoryID/4a6fd419-651c-4c88-a341-31f39f1f6129/productID/49493234-b52c-4db3-8ba6-be5400134249/


Wajahat


-----Original Message-----
From: Sinha, Sylvana [mailto:Sylvana.Sinha@xxxx.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 4:23 PM
To: Kim, Irene (EQ - New York); tanyaxxx@xxx.com
Subject: RE: Not sure what to say...


I can't believe they are $98!

Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico

This weekend I had to go to Saks Fifth Avenue to return a dress I bought during one of my frenzied retail therapy sessions. Honestly, even I am shocked and awed at the unrestrained and voracious nature of my spending. Just to put it into perspective, I spent more than 3,000 USD in 1 hour. WTF? Who do I think I am? Princess Haewon of Korea? (she's real - and I am obsessed with her: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haewon,_Princess_of_Korea). So, to make wrong things right, I sheepishly went from store to store returning all that I didn't REALLY need. Which was pretty much everything, including the ivory alpaca cape from Barney's.
I forgot that the Puerto Rican Parade was running right up 5th Avenue on Saturday. But for once, I had time on my hands so I didn't mind waiting in line as the police managed the flow of non Puerto Rican Parade revelers across 5th Ave. The Po-Po let us trickle through bit by bit by moving the metal barricades a few inches and then closing it off abruptly, without warning, and with great mirth. We were like a human titration across 5th Ave - a very delicate balance had to be maintained.


Some observations:
1) Ricky Martin has a foundation. That's Ricky's bom bom in the picture.


2) Long nails hurt when they poke you in the chest. See, I wanted to take a snapshot of the pretty Puerto Rican girls. This picture was taken right after I yelled "LOOK UP THERE!" so that I could take the picture without arousing much suspicion. The one in the middle turned to me and said, "what are YOU (poke) looking at?"


3) The way out of a situation like the one I detail above, you only have to do one thing: raise your hands and yell "BORIIIIIQUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=boriqua) and...

4) ...you are INSTANTLY inducted into the Puerto Rican circle of love, regardless of race, gender, or the fact that the entire time you are listening to Pete Yorn wailing about something on your iPod. Whatever it was, it was quite possibly the most un Puerto Rican song possible.

(And by "un" I mean "anti/opposite of/contrary to", not "un" the Spanish word for "one/a"...i know this seems nit-picky, but i have a co-worker named "se" and everytime someone would say "yo, se!" i thought they were saying "i know" in Spanish. Being multi-lingual can cause much confusion.

a story by st kim

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=151806215

*this* bothers me

I get up really early to go to work. I am usually on the train platform by 6:10 am bc I refuse to let myself get stuck in the golden handcuffs and take a taxi to work. Which is what everyone else on my trading desk does. In any case, it only saves me 20 minutes of sleep. Which begs the question, would you pay 10 dollars for an extra 20 minutes of sleep? Which over the course of the year is 2400 dollars which is really 4800 pre tax. So the REAL question is, would you pay almost 5000 to sleep an extra 20 minutes a work day? It's a personal decision, but for me, the answer is, NO.

Anyway, I digress. Sometimes I walk out my door and step over drunk hobos or locked out boyfriends curled up like guinea pigs in my lobby vestibule (and I'm being generous by calling it a lobby). Sometimes, as a resident of Christopher Street, I will run into a gaggle of barefooted trannies coming back from a big night out. As I wiggle myself between them, I think "this is what salmon feels like when they have to swim upstream to do whatever they do upstream". The trannies know me at this point and they all pretend to touch my hair and coo, "oooooh…pretty business lady!".

None of that bothers me.

What DOES bother me is particular short man in a super tacky leather/pleather/naugahyde jacket who is also at the platform every morning. He will walk *this close* to me and say, "hey baby" in a very salacious way that makes my skin crawl. He makes a point to sit across from me every morning. The one time I ran out of a subway car to avoid being in the same one as him, I missed the train. I was so mad! Once I am on the train, however, I am usually on my blackberry or listening to my ipod or reading my book or paper. So over time, he has become a non entity. Kind of like a hooker's plantar's warts. In the grand scheme of things, it's the least of her worries.

This morning, I hit a wall. I saw him coming out of the corner of my eye and I just DID NOT WANT TO DEAL WITH THE SHORT MAN. I turned to him and said, "It would be awesome if you could PLEASE F*CK OFF." but I said it really sweetly bc who needs that kind of agression at 6:10 in the morning?

We sat in different cars this morning.

this is the way we think

10:11AM jparks1: I just threw up at Au Bon Pain
10:11AM ikim3: OMG.
10:11AM jparks1: so hungover
10:11AM ikim3: oh.
10:11AM ikim3: i was just about to call you bc
10:11AM ikim3: i thought you were preggers
10:11AM ikim3: WHEW!

i wish

i could type without making mistakes. i love the sound of "tippity tappity tip tip tap".
the sound of typing uninterrupted by "BONK BONK BONK" which is the sound the backspace button makes on my computer.

(look. it's my initals. ijk!)

The Anatomy of a Nose

I don't like carrots. I find that carrots, more than any other food, have a way of sneaking into your nasal cavity. The result is an awful, tight, "I've got a booger in my nose yet not REALLY in my nose" kind of feeling. Carrots are especially dangerous bc they don't mush up as you chew them. Instead, the pieces just get smaller and smaller. But still stay separate. As the itty bitty carrot pieces multiply, so do your chances of swallowing the wrong way and getting one tiny piece lodged into your nasal cavity. Tho the size of a pencil tip, that carrot piece will feel like you've got the Rock of Gibraltar up your nose.

When I was a kid, my Aunt Betty cooked up spaghetti with meat sauce. It was a real treat bc I basically ate Korean food every night. I slurped it up with gusto with noodles flapping everywhere. I probably had red spaghetti sauce marks all over my face as the soft noodles slapped against my forehead and cheeks. Then I probably left the table to make a fort with my brother and ran around the house until I hit my head against the wall and cried.

Later that night, as my mom was tucking me in, I told her that my throat felt funny. And that I also wanted to pick my nose "but not really." My mom didn't properly diagnose me at all. Instead (bless her) she gave my little nose a squeeze and kissed me goodnight.

I woke up the next day with the same weird feeling. And because I was only 5 yrs old, I just couldn't articulate what I was feeling. Except with "Oma, I want you to pick my nose." (Hahahah, I'm totally cracking myself up, this story is so ridiculous).

So my mom took me to the bathroom…and held down one baby nostril and then the other and told me to blow. AND THEN A LONG NOODLE FLEW OUT OF MY NOSE AND STUCK ON THE BATHROOM MIRROR. Imagine our surprise!!!

So that's how I learned that everything in the head is kind of connnected to each other.

advice from a wise woman...a little self helpy but i still like it

How do I be content with what I have and stop wishing for things I don't have?

"Contentment is relative. Practice gratitude. No kidding. Just make a mental list any time of every little bitty thing you have to be grateful for. It could be a nice man at the deli counter. It could be that the subway came quickly. It could be a little flower bed in bloom, a funny-faced dog, a laughing baby, that you have a job that challenges you and pays you well, that you have a man who loves you more than life itself and has dedicated himself to make you happy. Once you start looking, you can find a million things. Gratitude fills the void you feel. And supposedly, from a place of gratitude, you attract more of what you're grateful for.

Try it. Every single nite as I try to go to sleep, I make my list for the day and fall asleep without anxiety."






...ah f*ck it. who am i kidding...

39 Magazine Street

everything will be alright. everything
will be alright.

i wake up and remember how everything happened and then i wake up...it was supposed to be this way

it skimmed the surface. then it sank one inch down. today it's almost two inches and then it's gone. i'm close
to remembering why it was supposed to be this way

it took me by surprise (did it for you, too?) but I think everything should be ok.

(but don't forget me...at least not right now.)

i mean, i'm no grammar genius, but i'm clearly more grammar geniousy than those ppl at the MTA

even tho i was an english major, i still say things like, "more easier" as in "hey, why don't you just buy slip on shoes? they make things more easier". or "more funner" as in "i have found that bubbles make things more funner."

i blame this on my immigrant parents. don't get me wrong. i love them more than anything on this earth and they have given me everything from my first side zip bongo jeans to my, well, genes.

but. you can understand how one can get confused when a mother routinely says things like, "for ONCE in a BLUE LIFETIME can you PLEASE clean your room?" i also have memories of my mother singing me to sleep. a sweet image, no? uh, no. i would have nightmares to the lyrics: "you are my sunshine, my only sunshine. you make me haPPY! when skies are graaaaay. you'll never know DEAR how much i LOVE YOU, oh pls don't TAKE my sunshine awaaaaaaaaaaayyyy....the other night DEAR when i was sleePING...i thought i held YOU in my aaaaaaaarms. but when i woke DEAR i was mistaken, and so i HUNG myself and i DIED." note - the correct lyrics are "but when i woke DEAR i was mistaken, and so i HUNG my HEAD and i CRIED." big diff. biiiiiiig diff.

but when i was on the subway this morning...i saw a sign that just didn't look right. i may not be a grammar genious, but i would think that ppl at the mta can spot a run on sentance as well as the next guy.

"Litter gets on the tracks and catches fire and that causes train delays that make you late aside from making trains and stations untidy because a little litter goes a long way." ?!?! WTF?

slow day at work

TanyaQS: know what I hate?
irenejkim77: soup spoons.
irenejkim77: i HATE soup spoons.
irenejkim77: so big.
TanyaQS: hahah really?!?
irenejkim77: oh yeah.
irenejkim77: soup spooons are unecessary.
irenejkim77: do you REALLY need a bigger spoon to eat soup with? your lips don't stretch around it as nicely.
TanyaQS: that is true
irenejkim77: i mean, ok, so we get 5 more drops of soup in the spoon.
irenejkim77: but so what?
irenejkim77: no one eats soup with a ladel.
irenejkim77: that's basically what a soup sppoon is.
irenejkim77: a mini ladel.
TanyaQS: that's exactly what it is
TanyaQS: I thikn the point is to be able to get the soup on the spoon easier
TanyaQS: but it doesn't necessarily have to be bigger to do that...
TanyaQS: weird
irenejkim77: right.
irenejkim77: it shoudl be MORE shallow but wider.
irenejkim77: like a shovel.
irenejkim77: NOT a ladel.

a short story

there once lived a story who was only 2 inches tall. she was really cute.

the end.

A Nose Like Elizabeth Taylor

381 Wagonwheel Way, Bonita, CA 92002. it doesn’t exist anymore. They took away the zip code when I was in 8th grade and made it into 91902. It took me a long time to remember the new zipcode. 92002 was ingrained in my head probably because of my parents who put the fear of God in me about getting lost and being raised by a new, strange, caucasian family. If I ever got lost, I needed to tell whoever found me where I lived…right down to the zip code. I also had an ID necklace that I used to wear at all times. It was oval, silver, and one side had my information on it. the other side had Jesus etched into it. his arms are outstretched and there are little baby lambs at his feet. I bet you my parents picked it out for me. I remember thinking that his hair was so odd. Flat on top and thick at the bottom. Middle parted and wavy. Jesus, I thought, had two New Hampshires on either side of his head.

I lived at 381 Wagonwheel Way from the age of 5 to 14. I loved this house. Every room in the house had a different color carpet. Mine was light pink. My parents was peach. My brother was blue. Downstairs was magenta. The bonus room was teal. The living room was two toned because the carpet installer mismeasured the room’s width and ran out of magenta. So we took the carpet that was left over from my parents room and made a peach border. It was okay to do that back then because it was the 80’s. We had a pool in the back, a hammock in the garden, and lots of snails that made me cry because they were so gross.

Erin Cory lived across the street from me. My phone number was 619 475 1379 (easy to remember because the last four numbers were the corner digits of the keypad). Her number was 619 267 5845. It’s amazing to me that I still remember her phone number. I couldn’t even tell you the area code of my brother’s phone number now. Cell phones took over the part of my brain that remembers phone numbers.

Erin is beautiful. As a child, my mother used to always say “Erin looks like Elizabeth Taylor from National Velvet.” And she was right. Dark lovely eyes, smooth white skin, chestnuty thick hair, and red red lips that were always a little parted. She even had beautiful teeth. They reminded me of the tile in the bathroom my brother and I shared. White. Exact. She cried all the time and could cry on cue. “Erin, Erin! Can you cry? Then maybe we can spend a night at each others house again.” Erin, sensitive, beautiful, soft, sympathetic, empathetic Erin. She cried. And she didn’t cry because I asked her to…she cried because she wanted to spend the night…she cried because she was sad at the terrible thought of spending the night away from her best friend, Irene. Erin, I thought, is amazing.

My mom tucked me into bed every night when I was little. She would ask me “Irene darling. Do you have anything you want to ask God?” “Yes Oma. Can you ask God to give me a nose like Elizabeth Taylor?” I asked this every night for years. My mom would then take her forefinger and thumb and squeeze my nose presumably into the shape that she thought Elizabeth Taylor’s nose was like. I would close my eyes and be comforted that one day I would have a nose like Elizabeth Taylor. A nose like Erin Cory my beautiful, sensitive, precious best friend.

“Dear God. Thank you for allowing us to live another day in your glorious world. Thank you for watching over Irene and Steven. Thank you that they are healthy and thank you that they are happy. Please Lord, give Irene a nose like E.T.”

My eyes flew open. I felt annoyed…my mother had the tendency to turn everything into an acronym. I tugged at her arm. “Oma. Do you think God knows what you mean? Do you think He knows that you mean Elizabeth Taylor and not E.T?”

“Of course, darling” my mother would say. “Why would anyone ask for a nose like E.T?” I guess that's a fair point.

the bike lane is for bikers

one thing that really bothers me is when ppl walk in the bike lane. as if we don't have other things to worry about such as car doors, road raging cab drivers, and billowing truck fumes. oh, and bug in eye is also a good one. i could go on forever.

ppl are in such a hurry to get places in nyc. so much so that they need to shave .005% of travel time to their daily commute and leak over to areas that are not designated as their own. stay on the sidewalk! there are only, like 3 bike lanes in all of nyc. can't the bikers keep them? sheesh.

never realized my ears were deformed

you must watch this video...netti pots unite!

i mean....it's the strangest thing i have ever seen. have you ever heard of a nettipot before? it's good if you have a nose full of snot. (it says no image, but if you click on it, it will work).

i found it!

i feel like i discovered the cure for cancer. i can't believe i found the book. i read it 20 yrs ago. everyone buy it. it's really good. and should be made into a movie starring anne hathaway. i feel so happy right now. like how i felt when my friends and i successfully broke the time-space continuum and fit a 6.5 foot couch through a 5.5 foot doorway.

http://www.amazon.com/Royal-Pain-Point-Ellen-Conford/dp/0590438212/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-6439206-8750416?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179417969&sr=1-1

the lingonberry mystery

i'm a little tipsy after having a few glasses of wine. and so i don't know why i'm blogging when i really should be asleep. but someone during dinner said the word "lingonberry" which triggered in my mind a book that i read as a teenager. i forget what it's called, but it remains to be the funniest book that i read according to my life level. meaning, i have since read funnier books (burroughs , sedaris, barry etc etc) but relative to my life experience, that book is the funniest. does that make sense. anyway, i'm tipsy so not that articulate. THING IS, i cannot remember the name of the book. the only thing i remember is that the female protagonist was the "lingonberry princess" and she said to the prince "i'd rather make out with a mongoose." so i typed this in google and you'd be surprised how many results come up. i mean, REALLY?

anyway. if you can tell me the name of that book, i will love you forever and ever. (the front cover has a princess who is lifting up her dress to reveal blue jeans. i know - i real hoot! but AT THE TIME, it was age appropriately hysterical).

all of you?

part of my job as a equity salesperson is to take around corporates (in this case, it was a chinese water utility company) to investors so that they can learn about the company's story and figure out if they want to invest in it. because the representatives of these companies are either the CEO or CFO of the company, we have to take them around with drivers.

last week, i was in chicago with said chinese water company. i was in the front seat and giving our driver instructions on what the day was looking like..."so after this meeting, we need to go straight to o'hare by 11 am because we have flights back to new york." then he said, "i love you?"

i was really confused by this non sequitor and obviously really freaked out. "excuse me?!" he said it again: "i love you? i love you?"

i did what any person would do in an awkward situation like this...i just gave him a "ooooookay, weirdo" look and ignored him.

it was not until well into the meeting that i realized what he really said:

"all of you?"

um. yeah. all of us. we're all going to o'hare after the meeting.

tastes like it smells

i took a bite out of a low fat brownie bar and wrinkled my nose (by the way, according to some body language experts, only women wrinkle their noses as a sign of disgust) and declared, "this tastes like SHIT."

i probably shouldn't have said that bc the little girl next to me on the subway said, "how do YOU know what shit tastes like?" kids these days.

i felt like recounting a story to her, but it wouldn't have been appropriate. so i'll write it in my blog. it goes like this:

i was around 7 yrs old & at a church potluck. it was one of those korean extravaganzas at ski beach, san diego. in addition to the actual bbq and the rice, all the families make and bring different "ban chan" or side dishes. i.e. family x and y and z all bring the spinach. and that group over there brings the kim chee. etc etc. then it's all compiled and it's fun and we eat.

i took a bite out of the spinach and chewed and chewed and chewed and the damn thing just wasn't dissolving. i DISTINCTLY remember thinking...i taste something familiar...i just don't know what. i spit out the spinach and there in my little grubby hand was a band aid. really gross i know. BUT. that was the first time i realized that things really DO taste like they smell.

tip: if you want someone to stop talking to you..

you sneeze on them. i didn't do it on purpose (my allergies are out of control) but it works.

people who wear glasses just know

so i do this thing where i put my credit cards in large bags of water and freeze them. i do this because it prevents me from making impulse purchases i.e. $1000 wallets and $300 worth of gum (both of which i have done. but the gum was from asia and who knew when i'd be back in hong kong?). the thinking behind it is that i would go home, take the bag out and while it was thawing, i would be thinking really hard about making xxx purchase.

it's worked out really well. i rarely have a credit card balance.

the other day i saw some eye glasses. they were so cool. they are blue, cat eye like, with wings on the side that have glittery jewels in them. hello kitty would wear them if she had -1.75 in each eye.

and i couldn't wait the 4 hours it takes for the ice to thaw. so i popped the whole thing in the microwave for a few minutes. and the card completely fritzed on me. the magnetic stripe crackled right off. a noxious smell overtook my apartment. it warped and writhed against the still intact ice block.

so i did the most logical thing which was to take the card and bag and ice to the store. and the girl behind the counter (unlike jim from amex who helped me get a replacement card) totally understood. because people who wear glasses just know.

porn - oh well

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

to hug your own child

(i'm writing this on my parent's home computer and it translates everything into korean and i accidentally flagged myself as a bad blogger as i was randomly clicking on buttons to start a new post).
*****
i had dinner with clients on thursday night in san diego (JRDN.com - it's a really cool restaurant, right on the water, in PB). i had to take a cab home since my high school honda civic is long gone and i didn't want to rent a car.

i should have known the second i approached the car that the cabbie was a little off his rocker. he didn't unlock the door despite my incessent knocking on the window. when his brain synapses finally equated that "knocking on the window signals door is locked ergo unlock the door, moron" he started talking and did not stop until 25 minutes later.

i don't even know what he was talking about. he was speaking in clicks and clacks and the occasional hiccup. bc i didn't want to encourage him, the only words i ever said in response to his chatter was, "ARE YOU ON DRUGS?" and i was being 100% serious. i was fully prepared to do what i have rehearsed in my mind many many times before in various other situations with weird cabbies: the roll out of a speeding car onto a freeway curled up into a small ball in hopes of bouncing along to safety.

but instead, i just closed my eyes and tried to wait it out.

my parents live in the north part of san diego in a part that is currently being developed off the 56. tho i love my house, it's one of those houses that is made to look old even tho it's brand spanking new. the area itself is quiet, relaxed, has horses and no street lights. NO STREET LIGHTS.

this was a big problem for the driver. as we were driving up a winding hill, he kept on screaming "THIS IS SCARY THIS IS SCARY". He was craning his head to look at me while simultaneously looking at the road so all i could see were the whites of his eye. i think actually his eyes were pointed in opposite directions. i don't know. but i was really freaked out.

i didn't want him to know where i lived, just in case he was truly nuts so i asked him to drop me off in front of the gate where my parents live. i pressed the secret code and the big gates opened and i was just walking down our driveway with my samsonite darth vadar rollie bag. i was a little scared bc it was dark and my heels were echoing but it was so dewy and eucalyptus-y smelling and warm, so my panic was muted.

as i was nearing my house, my mom must have heard me and she came out to greet me. "Ireeeeeeeeeeeen?" she sounded little. she came out in her nightgown and cardigan, so tiny and sleepy looking. the olive trees are lit by little lamps and they cast a little baby halo around her head.

and i felt like crying or laughing. i ended up hugging her and laughing and thought to myself "this is what it must feel like to hug your own child."

observations from a plane

i'm on a plane to california right now. i have a question for the 3 ppl who read this blog:

what do seats 1a, 1b, 3d, 4c, 4d, the guy next to me and 6d all have in common? THEY ALL ORDERED TOMATO JUICE. what is it about planes that makes tomato juice, ice, and a plastic cup so palatable? i really don't think i have ever been in another situation where over FIFTY percent of the ppl around me vocalize a hankering for TOMATO JUICE. in fact, i can't remember the last time anyone ordered tomato juice sans a little absolut and a celery stalk.

this really puzzles me. isn't a plane basically the same thing as sitting on a bus? the last thing...the LAST thing, other than a sharp stick in the eye, is a cup of canned V8.

i don't get it. it's so weird.

i was smarter when i was 9 years old

when i was a kid, i had a black, spiral bound notebook, that i carried with me everywhere. i found it recently and in it were lots of ideas and drawings. mostly of dresses (1950's style, of course) and ideas (like the great idea of having a contraption that you put on the end of a tube of toothpaste so that it would flatten the tube as you pushed it up). yeah, i know it exists. but i was the first one to think of it. i just didn't have the ability to execute.

on the front of it, i wrote in sparkly gold marker "make your life extraordinary" and then put stars all over it. i remember looking at it and thinking "wait. i don't want my life to be EXTRA ordinary." (as in, really REALLY ordinary). so then i underlined the "extra" part of the word twice. i remember feeling horrified that in my attempt to negate the "Extra" part of "extraordinary", i had only called further attention to it perhaps making it somehow prophetic.

i look at my life now and wonder if i did myself in when i was only 9 years old. that somehow i had chisled in stone the fact that my life will be not only ordinary but super duper ordinary.

how depressing. i wish i were 9 again. i knew everything about everything i needed to know. tiger fish, sea anemones, how to spell "auxiliary", the capital of norway. i knew enough to know that when i was an"adult" that i would be extraordinary. now, 2 decades later, i am too dumb to execute.