Torture Korean-style

Yoga graced my house today, and us mere mortals (Dad, Michelle, and I) evacuated to Barnes and Noble. The store kicks us out at 11PM, and we usually have another half hour of waiting till the yogis have had their fill of our couch and mood lighting. To pass the time, we park in a NASA-sized parking lot at the church at the end of our street, and zombie around till we get the "all clear" phone call. There's no entertainment there save Michelle's incessant chattering. Every now and then, Dad shushes Michelle: "Shhh, the priests are sleeping...with the priestesses." She's 11, there's no point in hiding the truth from her anymore.

That reminds me, Michelle's going to middle school this year, that day camp where you make unfortunate friends and memories that bring you to the psychiatrist later in life. Sadly I can't impart any social wisdom onto her, as I have been a near-recluse for the last years. My days of being a social butterfly of a little girl are long gone.

Chun told me excitedly today that she'll soon get to dice animals in the name of science. That includes mice, rabbits, rats, and probably some others I've repressed. I'm glad she's having fun. Go Chun!

I'm still on the Korean film spree, though the last couple are begging me to switch back to Hollywood. I'm talking about A Moment to Remember and Daisy, which start off cute, and then end with a dense hour of despair. Men weep or die, women lose their minds or die, and then if someone hasn't died yet, they die. The ones who manage to somehow survive all that weep or lose their minds. The aftertaste is one of hopelessness and loss. This of course doesn't make them bad movies. On the contrary, if you're Chun, they're very cleansing and provide an opportunity to use the famous tear ducts. But if you're Mark, a seasoned traveler of the movie universe, life has taught you there's a limited number of watchable movies, and sooner or later you're going to have to watch that movie you already watched seven times for an eighth time. And eight horrible endings is just too much.

Good Luck Chun =)

Watched Kit Kittredge today. Finally, a movie that met expectations. Very low expectations. The popcorn, on the other hand, was exemplary. It was so good, we popped the family free refill cherry, and downed the second serving with forty minutes of trite overacted time-filler to spare. You know you're suffering when you begin to miss commercial interruptions.

Michelle is leaving us again. I know I know, I don't deserve it, who else gets two vacations a month? To celebrate, I have a date with Barnes and Noble's and then perhaps some hours of guitar inadequacy. Life is good.

Also going to try and get back to Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal which has been gathering dust on my harddrive. Not doing anything useful can be really time-consuming, and I've been neglecting my foreign language studies.

I think I might visit some of my relatives this week. They all suffer from a congenital defect called "family values," and risk getting a heartattack if kin enter their vicinity and don't drop by. I definitely don't want any dead family karma. Those tend to take revenge on you by manifesting as some horrible disease. You can hope it's merely physical like cancer and not truly insidious like "family values."

Less than two weeks left till I get to visit my girl! She's probably fainted twice reading the previous sentence, expecting horrible jokes on her account. If so, I hope today is not the morning of July 10th, and I haven't made her late for her date with the MCATs. Yes, yes, she's one of those - aspiring murderers. Steady hands, loves blood, kills your rabbits for free (I'll never let this one go), and refuses to settle for a lesser profession than sending people's insurance rates through the roof. But...that's all in the faaaaar future. For now, she's a little study-monkey, working her butt off to earn herself debts and slavery for the next X years. Aaanyway, por donde iba?...It's so easy to get distracted when people have ambitions to poke at. What I wanted to say...I think...was: let's all help her with a cheer. Join hands you homophobes...and:

Chun, Chun, she's our man,
Even studies on the can,
Verbal, physics, bio, chem,
Wait a minute...what the hell is she thinking? She's an electric engineer...ahhh!...must salvage the cheer...Good Luck Chun!

To Australians

Ran out of health/dental insurance starting yesterday. Normally this wouldn't phase me, but for the last 22 years of my life I've suffered from a little-known condition called spontaneous rapid dental decay. In English this means that in a couple of months, possible as early as late August, one of the remaining 12 living teeth in my mouth will mutiny. Not having too many ways to wage war, it will commence operation suicide. With dental insurance, I usually catch the little bastards somewhere in the second trimester, and go to Russian dentist #1 or Russian dentist #2, who give the culprits a lobotomy. Now I suppose I shall have to learn to love pain and suffering.

I have an appointment at Barnes and Noble's today at 8 - an unlikely coincidence with today's 8 o'clock yoga lesson chez moi. I'm thinking two servings of Battle Cry of Freedom, a grande hot chocolate, and then a serving of aimless browsing.

...

Back from appointment, and one less national bestseller left to read. I dipped my toes into The Lovely Bones, and didn't feel a damn thing.

Watched an Australian comedy - The Rage in Placid Lake. Not really sure what happened because my tolerance for good movies has gotten so low from lack of experience, the film threw me into an epileptic fit. Nonetheless, there's a good if unorthodox aftertaste.

The film is about a human teenager raised by hippies. His name is Placid Lake. He has a girlfriend - Gemma - who is the brain of a Helga in the body of an Amber. Placid, also a genius, but cursed with the body of a rhesus monkey, is constantly tormented by bully classmates who experience acute withdrawal if they're not molding his face into a new shape. Instead of buying a gun and shooting everyone in school like we do in America, Placid waves a big red figurative flag right in their Aussie faces, and then refuses to move when they charge. After another incident where Placid barely escapes with his life, he decides to make a change - as Gemma puts it - "from fearless to spineless." Apres-metamorphosis, Placid enjoys his newfound job, friends, and lack of principles, while Gemma tries to cope with his slithering, while trying to decide whether to be the next Neils Bohr, Isaac Newton, or Euler (does he have a first name? or is he like Sting?). The rest you must find out for yourself.

I Love Watermelon

I have pimped out all of my skills on Craigslist, with the frail hope of earning a dollar here and there giving private lessons. If there's something you want to learn that I don't know, and that you are willing to pay for, tell me. I will learn it and teach it to you.

Went to Barnes and Noble's again today, read a bunch of books that failed to make an impression on me. My sentimental half screams that this is because I'm still heartbroken from The Time Traveler's Wife, but I punished it with a Civil War book. Next time it'll keep its fat mouth shut.

Did some writing today - got well on my way into a song that started out about Tina, but tragically lacked a necessary depressing quality, and thus slowly transformed into a love song for Chun. I am now frantically juggling Tina between a slow blues, and an open window.

Meanwhile, Mario has come out with a new single, mourning his love for Iris, who is unfortunately a willing captive of a better man. The song is nearly complete, lacking only lyrics, but they will undoubtedly come around soon and be somewhere high on the scale from 1 to Pathetic.

Michelle asked me to tuck her in today. I considered it for a brief moment and then laughed in her face, a move which somehow doesn't hold the same element of surprise as it used to.

Michelle has a fat friend, who conveniently stores all self-consciousness for her condition in Michelle. Whenever Mom says "hey Michelle, where's fatty?" or Dad asks "where's Piglet?," Michelle inexplicably gets as offended as if it were her own liposuction-filled future they're talking about. Being intrinsically mild-mannered and considerate, I generally restrain my witty insults, and if anything, try to turn the conversation to safer and less fertile ground - such as how fat people contribute to society. By the way, has anyone found the answer to this one yet?