Today is my off-day for blogging, but I want to keep the momentum going. So, I thought I’d do something light today–a list of seven things you may not know about me in no particular order.
- I have four tattoos. I’ve been fascinated with tattoos for over twenty years. I thought hard about getting one when I was in my early twenties, then rushed out to get one at midnight with my best friend. Big mistake. The only place open was being manned by the nephew of the owner–who was still in the training process. In addition, I’m keloid, which means I scar twice as badly as most people do. Needless to say, the result was terrible, and I spent a year or two being ashamed of my scarred, puffy, faded yin-yang in a sun tattoo. It was on my left breast, so it wasn’t always easy to hide. The next time I got the urged to get inked, I did my research and ended up with a fantastic tattooist–Ben. He did a small tattoo of Kali (a representation of her, made of flames) right above my belly, and it made me happy every time I saw it. I returned to him to see if he could cover up the mistake on my boob. I wanted a woman in the tree of life, and he drew it, but said it wouldn’t really work. We talked it out, and came up with a lotus blossom engulfed in fire. My first tattoo was a tattoo; this was a piece. It took four hours for him to do, and I was ecstatic once he was done. I had my third tattoo done by someone else while I was living in the East Bay, and it’s a bracelet of flames on my left forearm. My fourth tattoo was done by Ben, and it’s a ring of waves/flames on my upper right arm with a yin-yang pendant in the middle of it. I got all these done before tattoos became a thing,* and I had more than one person asking me if I wasn’t worried that I’d regret them when I got older. It’s been a decade and a half since I got my last one, and I don’t regret it one bit.
- I love ’80s hair metal bands, especially their power ballads. Skid Row, Bon Jovi, Cinderella, Winger, Europe, White Lion, Warrant, Poison, etc., that was my fucking jam. I joke that this is my guilty pleasure, but I don’t feel that guilty about it. I know I have terrible taste in music, and it’s something I long ago decided to embrace. I saw Bon Jovi and Cinderella in concert, which was fucking amazing, and I’d go see them again in a heartbeat if they toured together again.
- I played the cello from the age of eight to eighteen, and I took dance classes from age two to age fourteen. Hey, I’m Taiwanese American. It’s practically mandated that I learned a string instrument. I wanted to learn the bass, but the orchestra director at my school convinced me to try the cello instead. He pointed out that the cello gets to play the melody once in a while, whereas the bass never did. I think maybe he just needed cellos, but whatever the reason, I’m glad I chose the cello over the bass as I think the cello is the most beautiful instrument in the world. Yes, I’m biased, but it’s also true. Any time I hear a cello playing, I can’t help but be captivated. As for dancing, I took tap, ballet, and jazz classes once a week for twelve years. I only stopped when the time came to graduate to toe shoes in ballet. I loved the idea of it, but the reality was much harsher. They hurt my feet, and I couldn’t imagine ever getting used to them.
- I’m allergic to cilantro. I’ve never liked it, which is a real struggle as it’s EVERYWHERE in Asian food. I used to complain to my mother that it tasted gross to me, and she would pooh-pooh what I said. A few years ago, an article came out in the NYT about how some people have a legitimate allergy to cilantro which makes it tastes like soap to them. “Yes!” cried I in relief when I read this. There was an actual reason I hated cilantro–I wasn’t just being a picky eater. Which I’m not, really, by the way. I eat almost anything except kiwis, water chestnuts, and a few other foodstuffs. Yet, in my family, when we go out to eat, my mother and I (the two most flexible eaters) rarely get to pick the restaurant precisely because we will eat almost everything. Anyway, I emailed the NYT article to my mom, and she finally accepted that I wasn’t just making up shit when I said that cilantro tasted disgusting to me.
- I acted with Theater Mu** for a year or two in my mid-to-late-twenties and had a blast doing it. I also did several solo performances afterwards that I wrote, staged, and performed. I’ve always wanted to be an actor (and still would love it), but as an Asian kid growing up in the suburbs of Minnesota in the eighties, I never thought I could be one because I didn’t see anyone like me on TV or in the movies. Later on, when I auditioned at school, I had too much performance anxiety to give my best performance. One of my uncles likes to tell the story of how when I was a small child, I would jump off the coffee table and shout, “Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!” Why that phrase? Who knows? But it shows that performance has been in my blood for most of my life. My biggest dream was to be in a musical on Broadway, and my love of musicals have lasted until this very day. My aforementioned best friend laughed when I gushed to her about how much I loved Moulin Rouge. “I don’t get it, Minna,” she said once I was done. “I know what you’re going to say,” I replied before rattling off everything I knew she thought I should have had a problem with. The contrived plot. The lust that was called love. The woman dying at the end to make sure the love remains pure. The hooker with the heart of gold theme. She laughed, but acknowledged that was what she was thinking. She’s right in that normally, I like my drama that is realistic, gritty, and complex. However, all the rules don’t matter when I watch a musical, and I have no idea why. You set your pain and angst to music, and I’ll sing along with you. Right now, I’m obsessed with Hamilton, which is a brilliant musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda. I cannot get enough of his amazing soundtrack.
- I like to dance in the rain/snow–naked. There’s something about the rain or snow beating down upon my naked body that makes me feel so alive. One reason is because I love the cold and loathe the heat. One game I love to play in the winter is to see how long I can drive with my windows down until I reluctantly give in and close them. I used to be able to do that well into the negative temps, but it’s changed a bit as I’ve gotten older. I still will keep the windows open until it hits zero, but that’s as low as I can go these days. I don’t necessarily turn on the heat, though. I keep the thermostat in my house set at 62 during the day and 60 at night. Back to dancing outside naked. It has to be in the dark, obviously, and I prefer doing it in the snow to doing it in the rain. I go outside with socks and shoes on but no other clothes, and I just dance. Depending on how cold it is, it’s not for very long, but it’s good for my soul.
- I have hyperthyroidism. Back when I was a teenager, I was hot all the time, cranky and agitated, and my pulse sometimes got up to 140 bpm. I couldn’t sleep, and I thought it was just normal teenager angst. I found out that I had Graves’ disease (hyperthyroidism), and the next year was spent trying to fix it. It was not fun. I had to get my blood drawn once a month, and my veins are terrible. I’ve had to be double-stuck more times than I care to remember. At one point, I was taking 27 pills a day, which broke down to 9 pills 3 times a day. That didn’t work, nor did anything else, so the doctors recommended radiation. This was thirty years ago, and they told me that my thyroid would be completely destroyed because they couldn’t be precise about how much radiation was needed. Nowadays, they’re better at it, I believe, but back then, this was the only option left to me. They destroyed my thyroid with radiation, and now I have hypothyroidism instead, which basically means I’m lethargic and cranky instead of agitated and cranky. I’m supposed to get cold, but I don’t. I’ve been told this is better than having hyperthyroidism, but I’m not sure i believe that. I have to take a pill every day for the rest of my life, but it’s not really that big of a deal.
So, there you have it. Seven random facts about me that you may or may not have known. Have a good Sunday!
*Hipster tattoo-ee.
**Now Mu Performing Arts.