While I was doing my Taiji routine this morning, I had music on as I was doing the forms as was my wont these days. It’s funny how the playlists that YouTube makes for me just includes all the songs I like with no context. So Rihanna is followed by Vienna Teng, who is then… Continue Reading
Eminem, the rapper, has a notoricously difficult relationship with his mother. He’s written several songs about her, including one that he now doesn’t sing any longer, Cleaning Out My Closet. Which is a banger, by the way. The song that really struck me, though, was Headlights, ft. Nate Ruess, which I have included below. Dang.… Continue Reading
I come from two cultures that hammer home how important family is. Taiwanese and America, I don’t actually know much about the former other than what my mother and father have told me. The latter gives lip service to it, but doesn’t really put much effort into making it happen. In fact, during the pandemic,… Continue Reading
My brother and I were talking about our parents. we don’t talk about them that often, but it comes up more often because my father’s dementia is getting worse. He can still recognize us, but we don’t know for how long. He is getting more and more confused about other things, though, such as where… Continue Reading
I was talking to K today and mentioned my frustration with being outside all categories. In general, I’m fine with it. It is, as the kids say, what it is. But, once in a while, it just irritates me because I would like to feel included in the converastion. We talked about gender and what… Continue Reading
I have pretty much given up on Slate advice columns because I don’t like most of the columnists and, to be frak, the commentariat is….not my cup of tea in general. Or rather, I never know which way they’re going to swing, and it’s frustrating to me. For the most part, I can guess which… Continue Reading
When I was a kid, I was taught that there was nothing about the family that you could say to anyone not in the family. I’m not talking about big things like marital difficulties (though, that, of course, was also verboten), but about the little things. The story I tell over and over goes like… Continue Reading
In the last post, I was talking about rules and why I don’t give a shit about them. I learned a new word today: contumacious. It means to be stubbornly or willfully disobedient to authority (usually in a legal sense). See also: anarchy. I don’t believe in anarchy, actually. I think it’s good to have… Continue Reading
It’s Mother’s Day. I have had a fraught history with this date. First of all, it’s a manufactured holiday. The idea was noble. A woman did it in honor of her mother to celebrate all mothers did for their children. Which, fine. I have no issues with that*. But as with all holidays, it’s become… Continue Reading
In yesterday’s post, I touched on how we humans make things harder on ourselves. This is true in general, and even more so with family dysfunction. What we grew up with was the norm, and if it was unrelenting, then it can be hard to break free. In my family, women were subjugated to men… Continue Reading