is that comma taken?

I'm a comma person, no, not COMA, but commas. They give me pause, and they let me think, almost as if there's something magical about the way the concave punctuation mark shifts and sifts, not really turning its back on the rest of the thought or sentence, but giving room to say, yes, think of this first, then the other follows. The comma gathers and shields, yet separates like a sieve or a levee, although it never really marginalizes as much as the period or the semicolon. The comma doesn't intrude as much and isn't as showy as the exclamation point, and it isn't indecisive like the question mark.

I use lots of commas in my writing, and especially in my poetry, especially in catalogs. Some folks think its b/c I'm trying a gimmick, but it isn't, really. It's just, well, the method I use to give way to other thoughts, to lead them in, like guiding successive ideas and phrases to come out one by one.

Or, it's because my teachers didn't teach me how to use punctuation marks.

Things I should have blogged about recently but didn't:

* Going to see Mendelssohn's violin concerta at Davies Symphony Hall and listening to Charles Ives Holidays pieces

* Brilliance of Sergey Khachatryan's violin skills. The 22 y.o. is incredibly gifted -- more talent in his little pinkie... etc, etc, etc...

* Reconnecting w/ long-lost friends. Overly inquisitive friends with slightly disconnected buddies

* Relatives exhibiting different cases of illness: glaucoma (real) vs. craziness (imagined)

* Crazy aunts (aforementioned imagined illness)

* Bowling, cracked bowling balls, size 5 shoes, and how it all reminds me of Kim Oja!

* Free tickets to Berkeley Repertory Theater and Argonautika

* Thanksgiving

* Poetry/visual art installation (it's really happening!!)

have I already told you?

It's 2:36 a.m. Friday morning, and I realize that Thanksgiving Day went by without me ever having the chance to check my blog to write a "thank you" to the world. And then it hits me that, well, that's good. I spent time with real live people and gave open thanks and counted my blessings in the presence of friends, not in virtual space, and that's not so bad after all.

I am grateful for the friends who have texted messages or called or emailed or whatever. And I am hopeful I have been diligent throughout the year in telling you that you are called FRIEND, and that your presence is felt -- whether near or far. I hope I have given thanks enough and have expressed my gratitude enough on every non-thanksgiving day. I hope you have experienced my friendship and adoration and gratefulness, and can call me friend, daughter, sibling, niece, granddaughter, teacher, confidente, and coworker, with much joy. For it is with joy that I call you friend.

shitty blog posts

Ever since t. issued his challenge, I've been browsing through my most recent posts with a fine-toothed comb, searching for the occasional fuck or damn or shit or anything, some sort of verbiage that even hinted of more hardcore content, of something with more sass, with more gravitas. I have not found any. I've been sissified by mr. t. He's called me on it, and there's no denying it because if you've read the entries that have been written on the blog from the inaugural post to this one (if you're still reading, I'm incredulous), this here is some bad shit. But fuck it, I say, because I'm writing what I want. Sorry, T. This is what I have to offer, and it sure as hell sucks, but what more can I give?

My life is about white rice and bland persimmons and boring church meetings and repetitive administrative tasks. I'm pretty mediocre. Nothing stands out, and so, what I produce, well, it's quite unimpressive.

Wait one fucking minute, though. Maybe it's not that my life is boring as hell but because I'm just a shitty writer. Maybe I just have nothing but "slices of life" that make people want to jab letter openers through their eyes after reading, and maybe which will make Norman Mailer roll over in his grave, if he hasn't done it already. I'm the producer of stale blog posts that Mel might want to throw to the shitz and that T wants to dump in the trash.

Sorry, world, this is it.

persimmon theory

After church on Sunday, we had an early Thanksgiving lunch. A group of us were sitting around a table, and somehow the conversation turns to the persimmon. No one else likes the beautiful orange persimmon, so I'm the only one with a persimmon on my plate. It tastes too bland, someone says. In fact a lot of people I know don't enjoy persimmons (hard or soft); they say it has no flavor and has a strange texture.

No matter what people say, though, I love, love, LOVE this fruit. The ripe orange color, the sweetness, the cute size. When you hold a Japanese persimmon in your hand, it fits perfectly -- a deep, rich globe of sweet flavors just resting in your palms. (Is anyone else thinking of Li-Young Lee's poem?)

My friend over at the Daily-M has this persimmon theory that Asian Americans who are born outside the U.S. like persimmons and those born in the U.S. don't.

I find this off the cuff theory quite interesting. Simply put, persimmons and other tropical fruits such as dragon-fruits, soursops, longans, lychees, etc., are grown in tropical regions, and we don't get them often in the U.S. So if you grow up with bananas and oranges, then you'll find a persimmon too different. If you don't grow up eating grapes (which you don't when you're in Vietnam), then grapes on vines are quite spectacular.

However, if we give it any sort of credence at all, the persimmon theory forces us to reconsider certain things: What does it say about identity, and what does it tell us about how we define our identity? How else am I different and individual? In what ways do I identify with other Asia-born Americans? In what ways am I different from my American-born Asians?

You can rename it, too. Fish-sauce Theory. Mam Ruoc Theory. All those names are about the same thing. What would I eat or not eat, depending on where I was born and raised. Would I eat fish sauce? A lot of my Vietnamese friends (in VN) thought that I could not eat fish sauce, because they assumed that growing up in America, I would find it disgusting. The same goes with mam ruoc theory (but to the 10th degree, b/c the taste and smell is 10 times as pungent).

I like to break boundaries. Maybe just throw in a wrench here or there to spice things up. I want to up-end these theories and assumptions and say it's not so easy to create a formula. A + B does not necessarily equal C. Just because I grew up in the US doesn't mean I don't cook with fish sauce and eat spring rolls with fish sauce and douse my rice (too much!) with fish sauce.

And, maybe, I just love, love, love, persimmon. Or, I just eat too much. I have no discriminating tastes, in fact. I eat everything. (Except beans.)

small portions

Last week, the editor and director of a pretty big church publishing company visited the seminary and distributed gift copies of a daily meditation/devotional to the faculty and staff. Thanks to my free gift, I began reading these daily devotionals on a regular basis -- more so than my poetry! -- and it made me wonder: why do we only want to get our meditations in small parcels? If I can overeat and overwork and oversleep, why is meditation and reflection parceled out in itty bits? The more for us to chew on? It just seems like another example of lazy meditating.

Or, it's like poetry. My kind of poetry.

Each word, each line, and each stanza is small enough for us to contemplate, and yet large enough to encompass the universe of sense feelings that make us who we are. It's like thinking of how much God is contained in one little cup of coffee taken with sugar and cream in the morning in front of the office window overlooking the maple tree rising into the sky.

And I think of how much easier for us to experience God in the little things, to see God only in parts. Like Moses shielding his face, only taking in the little bits that he is able to understand.

And while seeing the great in small parts, while contemplating the greatness of what we do not know, we must be careful not to reduce unnameable glory to very disjointed parts. Otherwise, the poem is all wrong. If if we're just seeing the wheel instead of the wheelbarrow and if it's just the wheelbarrow instead of the red wheelbarrow, and so on and so forth, we'll never know what we're missing...

Jake Gyllenhaal @ Peet's

Last Sunday, I saw Jake Gyllenhaal at Peet's on Walnut and Vine. He was three feet from me, smiling, and all I could do was stare blank-faced, with my mouth agape. I didn't even say hello, I couldn't even think enough to pay attention to know what kind of coffee he ordered. Cappucino? Latte? Black? Decaf? I have no idea. He doesn't seem like a Latte kind of guy, but what if?

There he was, at MY Peet's coffee, on Sunday morning. Ordering coffee. And being the nonchalant Berkeleyans that we are, no one flocked, no one mobbed, no one approached.

All I could do was pour that half-and-half and stir in the brown sugar. Then I left. I left Jake back at my Peet's. This was probably the Sunday morning that he and Reese Witherspoon was heading to Napa Valley to check into the Carneros Inn.

Oh, and he's short. But cute.

oil spill in Black Sea

I know the oil spill here in the Bay Area is bad, and I know that environmental disasters that are close to home make more of an impact. But, the 58,000 tons of oil spilled into the SF Bay is nothing compared to the oil spill in the Black Sea. Nearly half of 1.3 million gallons of fuel oil, and over 7,000 tons of sulfur dumped into the sea because a major storm sank 10 ships including a Russian freighter.

We have so many people helping to clean the Bay here. But imagine how much effort will be needed to clean up the oil spill in the strait. Imagine the devastation that will linger throughout the decades.

Why, why, why didn't the freighter turn around when it was warned of the stormy weather?

here we gather

A few weeks ago, I walked past our Chapel on my way home during Thursday evening prayer, and was stopped in my tracks by the sound of a four-part harmony of the old favorite hymn, Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing. It was the most beautiful sound flowing out of the sacred space of worship. I was so moved to hear the sound of praise thrifting into the evening air -- and I think the leaves were slightly rustled by the wind as I stood there. It was the sound of our community worshiping in harmony, believing together, moved together by the Spirit within that place. It was a rare moment -- a pause in the middle of a long day, a respite at the close of a busy week.

Friends

Yesterday I found out that a friend of mine who had recently published a book had named me among her list of closest friends in the Dedication and Acknowledgments. And this came from someone whose opinion and friendship means a great deal to me, but whom I never imagined would consider me among her top five (how silly it is to say Top Five as if we were still in primary school or on some reality T.V. show!) to be thanked. In her 40+ years of life experiences, being who is she, there are multitudes of people who esteem her, love her, care for her, admire her, respect her, and who have given her so much in return. As for me, I've only been fortunate to have claimed three years in her circle of friends, and in consideration of every one else, I'm a small, mewling little thing compared to the others. For this reason, I am honored, and overwhelmed by her generosity in extending friendship and companionship. This is also an example of who she is -- the great and the small have all enjoyed her presence, and are able to call her friend.

When I actually held the book in my hands, seeing my name printed, I did not know what to say or to think. What have I done, really, to deserve being called such a friend?

Tin buon

Toi hom qua, Xep nhan duoc tin buon. Tin buon da lon tat ca nhung chuong trinh cua cuoi tuan nay, va cua hai tuan toi. Bat dau tu hom nay, phai "live into change" mot cach moi. Vi vay, minh phai tu hoi, minh co nhung kha nang nao de dap ung voi nhung thay doi dot got (spelling?) nhu vay?

Nho

Sap den ngay Thanksgiving roi. Mua nay, o Viet Nam nhu the nao? Cac ban be lam gi? Cong viec lam co lu bu khong? Chuyen buon, chuyen vui? Chuyen tinh, chuyen ghen? Dieu gi lam minh nghi den que huong?

Random thought of the day

I love my office. I love the tree outside my window. I love the plants we're recently planted on the deathstrip. I love the way the office seems to brighten up slowly as the night falls quickly outside my window. I love the tea cups and coffee mugs. I love the little fridge and the hot water thermos. I love the atrium outside my office door, with the ferns, hydrangeas, hibiscus, mums, and what have you. I love the silver-veined fittonia and the pink-nerved fittonia on my desk. I enjoy going to the office, and even enjoy sitting in meetings. I love that people stop by to snatch pieces of candy out of the candy bowl. I love that the space is mine but not mine -- public and private spaces at the same time. I love people whose offices are near mine. I love that they tolerate my singing and humming and grunting and ranting. I love color-coded files. I feel good coming into the office, and I feel good leaving it at night. Thank you all.

On the record about poverty

I've just signed a petition to the 2008 presidential candidates asking them to go on the record and tell us exactly where they stand on fighting extreme poverty and global disease. We're trying to get 40,000 petitioners.

You can take action on this important cause, too, by visiting here.

Speak up about fighting extreme poverty and global disease!

Prior Approval Not Needed

Recently, my grandparents (Mom's mom and Dad's dad) have both tried to leave home. Paternal Grandfather (Ong Noi) is 93 and lives with my dad's older sister in Portland. Maternal Grandmother (Ba Ngoai) is almost 85 and lives with my mom's youngest sister in Denver.

Both are experiencing a great sense of restlessness, dissatisfaction, unrest, frustration, and sadness, much sadness, that they have lost their independence. Despite being loved and well-cared for, despite being waited upon hand and foot, they still feel -- I don't know what -- something like desolation...? No one understands them; they are told what to eat, where to go, what to wear, what not to wear, etc. Neither GP nor GM can understand why they have so much restriction, and they can feel frustrated, and perhaps great outrage, at being controlled.

My aunt in Portland came home to see my grandfather had raised the garage door, and was actually taking a step out the back door. When my aunt and her husband came into the house, my grandfather did the whole "welcome to my humble home" routine and then proceeded to excuse himself because he had to return to Long Xuyen (in southern Vietnam).

My aunt in Denver calls a member of her church on a separate matter and finds out that my grandmother had "persuaded" the church lady to take her shopping, without telling my aunt that she was leaving the house. In fact, grandmother even insisted that my aunt already knew of grandma's plans to go shopping. Di Hoang, of course, knew nothing.

Grandmother's escapade was only one of many. She merely wanted to escape -- to feel a sense of freedom, the liberty of doing what she wants without having to acquire prior approval.

I listen to these stories, and I wish, wish, wish I lived nearer to them...