Fan’s Complaint

The Cuddle Puddle of Stuyvesant High School — New York Magazine

“It practically takes a diagram to plot all the various hookups and connections within the cuddle puddle. Elle’s kissed Jane and Jane’s kissed Alair and Alair’s kissed Elle. And then from time to time Elle hooks up with Nathan, but really only at parties, and only when Bethany isn’t around, because Nathan really likes Bethany, who doesn’t have a thing for girls but doesn’t have a problem with girls who do, either. Alair’s hooking up with Jason (who “kind of” went out with Jane once), even though she sort of also has a thing for Hector, who Jane likes, too—though Jane thinks it’s totally boring when people date people of the same gender. Ilia has a serious girlfriend, but girls were hooking up at his last party, which was awesome. Molly has kissed Alair, and Jane’s ex-girlfriend first decided she was bi while staying at Molly’s beach house on Fire Island. Sarah sometimes kisses Elle, although she has a boyfriend—he doesn’t care if she hooks up with other girls, since she’s straight anyway. And so on.”

A diagram of my relationships when I was at Stuy would’ve been a solitary dot on a blank sheet of paper.

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The following was found in the excavation of my travel journal. It was written in the summer of 2003. It is an account of a dream I had somewhere in Europe, probably written on a train or a park bench when I should instead have been talking to strange European women.

***

I am a favored aide of President Bush. He calls me “Willy.”

“Willy, come on in here,” he says, “tell me what you think I should be doing about this mess.”

So I ask with complete sincerity, “Don’t you think the American people would be happier if we spent the money currently budgeted for war on improving social services?”

President Bush then produces an elaborate 3-D display of line graphs from nowhere.

“This is our economy now,” he says, pointing at the graphs, which were blue holographic lines descending slowly in real time. “Each line represents a major sector,” he says. He pauses to gauge my reaction, then continues, “This is what happens if the sectors related to defense stalls.” At this point, three of the many lines on the graph turn yellow and dipped sharply. Seconds later, all of the other lines dove precipitously toward the carpet.

I was convinced. It was all in 3-D.

Claire Danes walks in and says, “Mr. President, Matt Damon is waiting.”

***

I was hesitant to post this, because the previous post listing the top five regrets of my twenty-five years also happened to have been the 400th post on this blog. It would have been a nice way to end whatever it is I am doing here.

But tonight (last night), I watched the world’s toughest man cry. He finally hung up his skates. He spoke of how hard his decision to retire was, but that he was able to do it because he knew it was the right thing to do, at the right time.

That seems like a damn good way to make decisions to me, and so I’ll keep on doing whatever it is I do, whether it’s posting little scraps here, or smoking, or drinking. No matter how counter-productive it seems, I’ll keep doing it until I know it is time to quit.

1. Fan’s Complaint

For nearly four years now I’ve been flinging my crap at this space, shotgun-style, seeing what sticks. The point was to plant seedlings of ideas here, then reuse and refine the really good ones in my real writing.

It hasn’t really worked. I haven’t done much real writing since this started. The blog has become a crutch, a way to make myself feel productive by writing a few paragraphs now and then, instead of devoting all my energies toward some solid, cohesive thing to be worked on every single day.

I also now pay $120 every year to keep this site up, which is $120 more than I can afford.

So why keep it up? Why maintain something that is impeding my progress as a “writer,” something that is only a source of embarrassment, something that may in fact make me unemployable? I think maybe deep down, I know that I will never be a “writer,” and that this is as good as it gets: getting read by a few friends and the occasional stranger wandering in searching for “Macalester sucks” or “Chingy fan club.” I’ll settle for it.

2. The Story of a Once Real Boy

Once upon a time, there was a boy who was normal in every way except for one. He lived a simple and wholesome life of Disney Afternoons and Sega Genesis. He went to the corner deli every day with his fifty-cent allowance, spending one quarter on colored sugar water, and the other on a small bag of Wise potato chips. It was nothing spectacular, but he had no complaints.

One day, some Men in Tweed told the boy to write an essay. “I had better try my best,” the boy thought to himself, as that was what he had been taught he should always do. And the Men in Tweed read the boy’s essay. They decreed, “This boy is different. This boy is special. He must be taught that he is special, and placed into a class with other special children.”

And so the boy was told that he was special, that he was better than other children, that he could achieve anything (with the exception of becoming the President). The boy listened to the Men in Tweed, and joined the other special children in their special classroom, where he learned that being special meant he did not have to work very hard. He could play Sonic the Hedgehog instead of doing his homework, because being special meant that he could complete his homework in class and still get a gold star. He could copy homework from his friends, because being special meant that he would never be suspected of wrongdoing.

One day, the Men in Tweed came back with a test for the boy. The boy took the test, but he did not try very hard. The Men in Tweed looked at the results of the test, and decreed, “This boy is Very Special. We must place in in a school where all the children are Very Special.”

And so the boy went to his Very Special School, where every day, he was reminded of just how special he was. He learned that he was so special that he hardly needed to work at all. He could spend his afternoons hanging out on street corners, his nights watching television, and neglect his homework completely, for he was so special that the lies coming out of his mouth blinded teachers as to how little work the boy was doing.

At the end of the boy’s time at his Very Special School, the Men in Tweed returned one last time. It was time for the boy to choose what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. They reminded the boy that he was so special, that all his dreams would come true. He could do anything he wanted in the world and succeed (except for becoming President).

And so the boy chose his path without giving it very much thought, for he believed everything the Men in Tweed had told him, that he was special enough that good things would happen to him without hard work.

But once the boy left the care of the Men in Tweed and the world where his mistakes were forgiven because he was Special, he learned the truth of the real world: all of those other children who were not declared to be special had learned how to work hard enough to get by. Their simple and honest lives had not conditioned them to expect great things. They could be happy.

The boy saw all this, and finally understood that his entire life had been a colossal waste. He realized that accepting the invitations of the Men in Tweed to their special classes and schools had been the greatest mistake of his life.

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6. Flatulence

A lot of people I know are very open about their bodily functions. I’ve been in cars with people who rip loud, obnoxious farts and then laugh about it. I’ve known people who will scratch their privates in front of me. I’ve had bowel movements described to me in excruciating detail.

Yes, everybody pisses, shits and farts. Maybe it’s the remnants of the values instilled in me by my British masters, but I am very uncomfortable with those things. If somebody does something like that in my presence, I tend to ignore it. That’s the polite way to go about things, isn’t it? And as for me, I will go to great lengths to avoid doing any of that stuff in front of other people. When I am in a public bathroom have used a stall, I will actually stay in there until the entire bathroom is empty, even if I have to wait ten minutes.

So here is the scene. I’m in fifth grade, and something I had for breakfast did not agree with me. I’ve been gassy all morning, and have been discreetly relieving the pressure throughout the day. Now it’s time for gym. We start warm ups by bending over and touching our toes.

One. I bend over and start to feel a fart coming, so I clench my buttocks.

Two. Still clenched. Just eight more to go.

Three. Oh no, here it comes. And it’s a girl behind me.

Four. I can do this. Just a few more.

Five. BRPPPPPPPHT!

The girl behind me is horrified, and the entire class erupts in laughter.

7. Paris

The first thing I did upon my arrival in Paris was to call an artist friend of my father’s. He had asked me to bring him a duty-free carton of Davidoffs, and I wanted to make my delivery as soon as possible.

Like most Parisian apartment buildings, his required the entry of a key-code in order to get into the courtyard. I helped a man and his beautiful teenage daughter with their groceries in order to gain entry.

***

“Do you have a girlfriend?” he asked.

I was taken aback, and in the time it took me to think of a way to politely deflect his question, he had seen the horrible truth plainly evident on my face.

“You’ll have a good time in Paris then,” he said.

“How’s that?”

“I was in New York, I know what you have to go through there to get into a girl’s pants.” I grew uncomfortable at the turn that this conversation was taking. “I asked out a girl at a bookstore,” he continued, “We went out, had a nice meal, but that was it, you know?” I nodded. “I was only going to be in town for a week, so I didn’t have time for that crap.”

“Well, I don’t have much time here in Paris,” I replied.

“Son, that’s what I’m getting at. How long are you here?” he asked.

“Three days.”

“You should be able to sleep with three girls.” Seeing my look of bemused disbelief, he continued, “look at me. I smoke like a chimney, I’m fifty years old, and I slept with a girl I met at the Musee d’Orsay just last week.”

“I don’t know, I’m not really the type to approach strangers.”

“Just do it.”

***

As I left the building and went into the courtyard, I heard him calling my name from his window.

“Hey!”

“Yeah?”

“You know where the drugstore is?”

“No.”

“Find one. They have the neon green crosses. Go buy a pack of rubbers. You can thank me later.”

I yelled my thanks and left. I resolved that I would get laid before I returned to New York.

***

That was from my travel journal. There was a girl I stared at, for a long time, in the common room of a hostel in Florence. She was writing furiously. As was I. This is what I wrote.

“Somewhere over the Rainbow” floats through the barred windows of the common room. Right now, here within these walls yellowed by years of smoking backpackers, and with a tray of ashes, four badly bent butts and a peach pit before me, it is the saddest song I have ever heard.

There was another girl, in Berlin. She was from Dusseldorf. We spent a day walking around Berlin, seeing the sights–the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, and the big TV tower in East Berlin. I spoke to her in German, she spoke to me in English. We ended the night back at the hostel bar. There was a moment where I could have taken her hand, but then I went up on stage to do Karaoke. I sang “Pretty Woman.” The girl left before I finished.

It was a good thing I didn’t buy that pack of rubbers in Paris.

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11. Irving Plaza - New York, NY USA, June 9, 1997

I had a math final on June 10th, a Tuesday. You can’t really study for math. There are formulas to memorize, yes, but if you understand the concepts, you can derive the formulas on the spot. Math isn’t history or biology, you either get it or you don’t.

And yet I still told myself, “Be a good boy, study for your final, don’t buy that $15 concert ticket.” So I spent that Monday night at home, not studying, and also not seeing the legendary Radiohead show at Irving Plaza with the star-studded audience, instead playing NHLPA 93 on the Sega Genesis.

Epilogue: I aced the final without studying. I saw Radiohead three more times after that, twice at the Hammerstein Ballroom, and once at Radio City Music Hall. The first show at the Hammerstein Ballroom was incredible. It was full of mopey youngsters such as myself, swaying gently to the music. The 2nd show had some proto-striped-shirt guys who tried to mosh. By the time of the 3rd show, at Radio City, the OK Computer hype had spread across all strata of society–there were more striped-shirts and old people than mopey kids. I never saw Radiohead again.

12. The Retainer

I was at Sears with my father a few months ago, waiting to buy a tire. We got to talking about why I like to have expensive tires for my car. In the middle of my long-winded explanation of contact patches, I noticed my father staring at my mouth.

“What’s wrong? Have I got something stuck in my teeth?” I asked.

“What the hell is wrong with that tooth?” my father asked, pointing to my crooked tooth (one on the bottom next to the right incisor).

The problem with that tooth is that I stopped wearing my retainer a week after my braces were removed. The first day I had it, I took it off and placed it on a napkin during lunch, to the disgust of my lunch-buddies. The second day, I left it in and could not enjoy my pizza. The rest of the week, I didn’t eat. Sometime after that, the retainer was broken in a freak accident–somehow it fell out of its protective case, onto the ground and under my foot.

And that’s why to this day I have that one weird crooked tooth. Please don’t draw any attention to it.

13. The Lie

I lie. A lot. I usually don’t get caught. Big deal, right? Everybody lies.

I was accused of being a martyr the other day. I said, “I ain’t dyin’ for nobody,” but maybe there was some truth to the accusation.

Regardless, the first big lie I told, that could’ve gotten me into trouble if I’d been caught, was at the expense of my grandfather, who’s now dead. I’d stolen some amount of money (which seemed astronomical at the time, somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred Hong Kong Dollars). I spent it on small things, mostly candies and various treats, because I knew I would have been asked questions, if I had bought a shiny new toy. I kept this up for nearly a month, before my mother asked me whether I had seen my grandfather snooping in her things. I, knowing they did not get along, said yes.

Now that I’ve written it up, the sin here doesn’t seem to be the fact that I lied, but rather that I stole. But somehow I don’t consider stealing all that immoral. If you aren’t careful about your possessions, you sort of deserve to get ripped off. It teaches a lesson, doesn’t it?

I’ve told many lies since. With every lie I tell, I feel as though I’ve committed another horrible crime, and that one day, someone will tug on the thread of truth and unravel my entire life.

Damn, I’m out of smokes. I’d better “borrow” some from my father’s stash.

14.

I wrote you a letter once. I think the elephant that suddenly appeared in the room ate it. I kind of liked having an elephant around, so I kept feeding it. Everytime you ignored Stampy (I’m not very original), I gave it some more.

“More letters! Here are some that are shaped funny, in lines. Ooh, this batch seems to tell some kind of a story!”

I liked making food for the elephant, it was something to do that made me feel good about myself. It gave me a sense of accomplishment, and I didn’t have to work very hard at it, because Stampy ate just about anything. Then one day, you got sick of the elephant and sent it away. But I’ve been making grade-F food for it for so long that I don’t know how to do anything else. So here I sit, day after day, slowly drowning myself in the flood of letters.

15. Ode to My Family

Tomorrow I am going to see the Rangers-Flames game at MSG. I have a couple of $100 tickets that my cousin bought for me. I have not written a thank you note to her. I’ve been telling everyone (and myself) for years that I have no extended family. I barely acknowledge my parents. Other Chinese kids I know love their extended family, because they get red envelopes from them for Chinese New Year. My extended family is mostly in Hong Kong and Canada, which means I never see them, which means no red envelopes, which means they might as well not exist.

I’d love to have a “real” family. The ones I see on TV seem nice, and my friends seem to enjoy not drinking alone and eating a Hungry Man Turkey Dinner on Thanksgiving. The problem is that I don’t speak Chinese very well, and my family doesn’t speak English, which brings me to…

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21. The Underwear

In fourth grade, someone once found a pair of fruit of the loom briefs in the back of the classroom. And though they were devoid of track marks, there was a great to-do. Kids were running around screeching, “Oh my god! Whose underwear is this?!”

I can’t say with 100% certainty that it was my underwear, but I did wear fruit of the loom briefs at the time. I have no idea how they would’ve gotten into the classroom, or why I should have been so embarrassed, or should still be as embarrassed as I am now when I think about it. But as it stands, should someone I knew from back then came up to me in a bar and pointed a finger in my face and said, “That was your underwear in 4th grade, wasn’t it?!” cue up Lust for Life. I’d be out of that bar before the guitars came in.

22. My car

Yesterday I drove my car for the first time in a month (I’ve been driving my dad’s 1988 manual transmission Nissan Sentra). I had forgotten what a great car it was. It’s comfortable, fairly powerful, makes a great sound, corners well, and most importantly, rear-wheel drive. I love this car. I’ve already spent over $1000 in mods and maintainence on her. She’s in pretty bad shape now, from all the times I’ve hit potholes while the car was overloaded (thanks, friends), and from my driving like a maniac. If I had $1500 to spend to fix (when a car guy says “fix”, he means “replace with more expensive parts”) the suspension, brakes, and to get belts and hoses checked and replaced, and the coolant flushed, she’d be perfect. Or as close to perfect as she could get while still having a stupid automatic transmission. Of course, I could spend a few grand to get a manual swapped in, but if I’m gonna do that, I might as well import a whole silvia front clip from Japan and get a better engine too.

And very quickly, I can “mightaswell” myself into wanting to spend upwards of 10 grand on the car, and decide to do nothing at all. If I had just waited around a few months before buying this car, I could have gotten one with a stick, and then the grass on the other side would no longer be greener.

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A lot of these will probably fall into this category. That is, instances where I painted myself into a corner by doing something half-assed.

It was the first term of my senior year in high school. I had a few blemishes on my record (a 65 in Drafting and a 75 in American Government), but my overall average was around 93, and I’d already gotten my SAT score of 1430. Not great, but not all that bad. I probably could’ve gotten into any college short of the top ivys. But I didn’t want to be bothered with doing the research required to figure out what I was looking for in a college. I didn’t want to be bothered with applying for Early Admission. I most certainly didn’t want to spend my weekends visiting colleges instead of sleeping in and playing videogames (though in retrospect I doubt my parents would’ve paid for my airfare around the country).

So I waited and waited until the last possible moment to take care of my shit. Columbia was my first choice. Surely I’d get in. It wasn’t Harvard or Yale or Princeton. Safeties? Why bother? I’ll just find 5 other schools that’ll take the common application.

The day the Columbia app was due, I stayed home from school and did the whole thing. I rode my bike to the post office in the snow to mail it in.

The day the common app was due, I didn’t even bother staying home. I just brought it all with me to school, did bits between classes, then went to the main library on 42nd after school and worked there, until they kicked me out at 8pm.

I wandered around a bit until I found a cabbie hangout. I went in, ordered a coffee, and finished up my the app while listening to Pakistani music. Sometime around 11:30, I arrived at the main post office on 34th and waited in line with other slackers to mail my app.

Months later, I’d gotten into every school to which I’d applied except Columbia. I believe my choices were NYU, Macalester, one other school in the midwest, and a couple on the west coast. I was leaning towards Macalester already, because I would’ve had to live at home to go to NYU, to save my parents some money.

One night, someone called my house from Macalester, to answer any questions I had. I think I was watching TV at the time, and I just wanted to get off the phone. I asked him things like, “How easy is it to get around? How close is the school to the city? and Are there a lot of theatres, music venues, etc. within walking distance?” Having found the person’s answers satisfactory, I decided I might as well go to Macalester.

I don’t think this person lied. There were buses around campus that would take me places. They just stopped running at like 8pm. The school was technically within the city limits, as he’d said. But then Staten Island is within NYC too. And yes, there was one theatre within walking distance, and the school itself was a music venue.

All of the complaints I’d eventually have about Macalester were things that I could’ve learned first hand, in March or April, if I’d just bothered to visit. I could’ve made a more informed decision (would probably have gone anyway, on account of the generous aid package).

Instead, I jumped into the situation without being prepared, and wound up feeling incredibly trapped by sophomore year.

I will be turning 25 in a week. I’d meant to do all this sooner, with the flurry of best-of-lists flying around, but I’ve only just gotten back from Benderland.

Actually, the truth is that my internet was out for about two weeks, but I like lying and exaggerating about hard partyin’ lifestyle.

The above is a list of the top 25 songs, ranked by playcount, of 2005. I wish I’d done this at the end of 2004, but the current playcount tally only goes back to the last time I had to rebuild my computer, which was January of 2005. I do remember the last version of this list having Cherry Blossom Girl at the very top, but cannot remember much else.

Love Will Tear Us Apart coming in at number 2 should give you a pretty good idea of how my 2005 was. Judging from the four days of this new year, that song will have climbed to first place in a year’s time.

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