Shopping Deal Madness!

I've been doing this compulsive thing every morning, where I casually guess how many emails I'll have when I check my Blackberry. Then I go through and delete spam and all of the shopping deal emails that don't interest me. I'm usually left with 2-3 "real emails" from the over 25-40 originals. I'm meticulous about unsubscribing from junk/spammy sites so this afternoon, with one uneventful day to waste, I went to seek out all of the shopping deal sites I'm subscribed to and considered which I actually care to keep around. It's my spring er "winter" cleaning. This is what I found:

I-Ella.com: It's a super website geared toward buying, selling and BORROWING of high end, vintage or one-of-a-kind clothing or accessories. It's especially cool because they donate a portion of their transaction fees to great causes every time and their stuff is really fantastic. I like to peruse just for eye candy. I hope to one day have closets that are worthy of this site to share. It's an "invitation-only" site, so leave me your email address if you want to "get in."
Theater at Madison Square Garden Insider: Who knows if these are actually deals or just pretend deals to get  deal suckers, like me, to buy things, but it's still a nice reminder of what's playing at the Garden every week. 

Groupon: Duh. If you're not on groupon, you're just not with it. I'm even subscribed to the Rio Grande Valley groupon site. It's not nearly as exciting and the numbers are always so low. In fact, sometimes the deal doesn't even go through because not enough people purchase it. That would never happen in New York, thank goodness!
Contiki: Weekly emails on fun vacations for cheap. The site is geared toward 18-35 yr old travelers, so most of their bargains look quite appealing. Some not so much.

Rue Lala: Great men's and women's selection of goodies. I also enjoy their email layout and this could be one possible reason I favor them over some others. But isn't that what good design is for? Yes. I thought so.
Beauty Blitz: Fun site with new beauty products and contests to win things. Yay to winning things!
Beyond The Rack: Nordstrom's discount super-store! Skamps insists the men's selection is so pitiful that he wouldn't be paid to remove something from their racks. Women's selection is pretty sweet. I've gotten some great event and work dresses there as well as some kick ass MK heels for sweet prices here.
Sephora Beauty Insider: Not exclusive at all, but they offer lots of samples and goodies when you sign up/shop based on a point system ($1= 1pt). Some of my favorite lip gloss is from their registration kit :)
Ideeli: A very good selection of designer stuff for decent prices. They also offer less high-end stuff too like American Apparel and their items are less often sold out as I tend to find like Gilt Groupe.
Daily Candy: I used to like this site a lot until they started sending out "dedicated emails" that were basically just paid advertisements for random companies. Still, fun and unique sales throughout the city. They also have a travel/weekend email which is nice.
Living Social: This one is by far my favorite. I don't know why. Perhaps it's because they always offer bowling packages, and I like to bowl. Also, if you get 3 of your friends to also buy the same package, yours is free. It really just doesn't get any better. Also, they have random days where they give you a bonus package if you use your Visa credit card. All around applause for the best deals. did I mention I purchased a pole dancing class (5 classes) for only $35??!
Gilt Groupe: Also a great site to peruse designer clothes, shoes and accessories. They're one of the older sites so they have a lot of customers that have preferred notifications on sales. This means that if you don't frequently order, you tend to find that the sales are almost always sold out of the sweet pieces or your size. GRR. "Members Only" but you can request it or give me your email addy :) Great men's selection too.
Top Button: Decent site that sends weekly emails about sales and events online. I don't know why I feel this way, but I don't think it gets me. This may be one I need to whittle out of my immense herd of sales sites...
Urban Daddy: I like this site a lot because they announce fun new bars and restaurants that open in the city. They also send emails with sweet Groupon-like deals
Valpak: I don't know how I got on their listserv as I will be unsubscribing, but they have a lot of domestic discounts, like carpet cleaning and dentist recommendations? haha.

This is all I could muster up for now. I'm sure there's a few more lost in different email addresses. Now tell me your favorites if they're not here!!

A Night out in Mactown!

The details are all a bit fuzzy, but thank goodness for Facebook and Foursquare! Last night, I went out with some new friends in "downtown" McAllen!

[Picture note: Me with my partners in crime last night! Blurry and drunk; beautiful] 

Our stops:
Shiraz Lounge: A sweet low key bar scene with live DJ and crazy lights (this seems to be the theme in every establishment along South 17th street, I come to learn). Drinks were pricier than I had imagined in South Texas.
The Vintage Room: We walked into this tiny store front spot with blaringly loud live music and test tube shots abounding. It was too much for us sober folk, so we left after a couple shots.
Dirty Bottle: A hilariously cheesy/"dirty" spot with poles and hot pants everywhere. This is where I got a lesson in dollar placement and how to shake one's tail feathers. Although most of this took place indoors, people were smoking cigs everywhere. My native South Texans said it was pretty normal. Places like that never got raided, so it didn't matter. So different than a majority of places in New York. They also had a sweet outdoor set up in back. What we thought was an alley turned out to be an outdoor cabana retreat with its own set of poles.

Brewski's Beer Bar: This was one of my favorite stops! Very typical New York scene with a few dozen beers on tap and a regular bar down one side. I'd had a few too many drinks at this point to remember which brews we actually tried. And none of us had ever seen them before, so we just cataloged them as the baby, the monk, and the fat tire. All very good, but I do wish I knew what the baby was. That was my favorite. It was light and had a hoppy flavor and the tap had a naked metal baby on it. Anyone?

[Picture note: Brewski's tap lineup!]

Our last stop of the night was The Patio on Guerra. You walked through the front door and were back outside again in a casual umbrella'ed space. There was live Spanish music playing and I traipsed my way through a few songs. Spectators seemed to enjoy Asian girl dancing.

I guess the rules of Texas are, establishments have to stop serving at 2am. So my night was cut short from the usual NY 4am cutoff and I was swept away by Khanster and his friends after a final round of Landsharks back at Shiraz. Needless to say, with an average of 1.5-2 drinks consumed per bar, I was incapacitated till late afternoon today.


Happy Christmas eve!

Won't Someone Stop this Train?

It's always the little things that make me realize I'm not in Kansas (er...New York) anymore. Like this train that runs through the busiest street in McAllen everyday and stops traffic for upwards of fifteen minutes at a time in front of the restaurant. The freight trains remind me of those old Westerns where people have high noon duels and drink whiskey at saloons. Also, that and Water for Elephants. (I can't wait for that movie either!) Maybe it's just because I"m in Texas...

Lacking patience with for almost everything else, Texans are not the outrageous drivers I'm accustomed to in Manhattan. In fact, they're quite the opposite. They're slow and doting and infuriating when I'm in a rush. Khanster has mentioned that in order to get anywhere, one must drive like a New Yorker. This, however, is at a cost. You freak out the other drivers, but they always give you the right of way. I like it.

Also, for those of you counting (or just me), 26 days till I'm back in New York!!! AH!

Pepsi or Coke?

Three years ago, I had a semi-romantic flirt-fest with a married man.

We met on the plane from Houston to New York. I was on my way home from a ten-day hostel trek through Nicaragua and glad to be homeward bound to clean sheets and potable tap water. There was immediate attraction and even more tension the second he sat down in the aisle seat of my row. As it was to happen, no one sat in the seat between us and the conversation started off with a "So do you think they're going to serve lunch on this flight?" Four hours in, we were sharing ear buds listening to his iPod and commiserating on my poor music library. To this day, She Wants Revenge songs will occasionally remind me of him.
As we exit the airport, I hand him my number and tell him to call me if he needs any New York advice. It just so happens that he will be spending half his stay in Westchester at the Pepsi headquarters and the other half in Manhattan... my two homes. AND his hometown, McAllen TX, is where he would eventually return to. What were the odds??
So did I mention he was married? And my intense shock when he actually calls? We chat almost everyday and email just as much for a couple weeks, even when he goes back to Texas. I'm floored every time we talk. Why is this so easy? I'm definitely doing something wrong, right? Why am I SO giddy? It's disgusting. Repulsive! But we keep in touch for another couple of months, with a call from him every so often, just to talk about nothing. Then one day, I decide. I am not investing in this preposterous no-future affair any longer. So I stopped answering. I actually felt sad for a while. Like I'd broken up with someone or lost a friend. "Heard from married man lately?" says Skamps with an air of condescension. I know he's right. But every so often, I'd see the Pepsi company headquarters and remember him. Every time I visited my parents in the next couple years, I'd look at their restaurant invoices. I noticed we've switched to Pepsi and scavenge their records for his name. It's not there.

Three years later, I'm back in McAllen and sitting in the restaurant office when the mail comes. There's a letter from Pepsi. It's a notice about their rates changing for the new year. Up again from last year. Signed, him.

I'm literally light-headed. Is it weird I want to email him? Should I say hi? This is a sign, right? Maybe he's divorced now. ha ha. Keep dreaming, Yon. Move on to the next one...

Texas: An Update/Exploration/Social Observation

As most of you know, I've been spending most of my time at the family restaurant in McAllen. In the last two weeks, I've done little exploration of south Texas. Not even to look across the street at the strip mall 200 yards from the restaurant. I did today, because I was craving a deli sandwich (it was horrible by the way. The clerk definitely inferred that I was fat). Look what I found!!

I know. SO Texas. There were bars in the windows, but you could just freely walk in. No buzzing or anything. I thought about going in, but was too unnerved after a scruffy teenage duo walked in before me. It made me think of that Miss Congeniality scene where Candice Bergen says, "This is Texas! Everybody has a gun! My florist has a gun!"

Another observation of the week is the perturbing use of the word, "already." People here use it with gerunds so it really makes no sense to me at all. For example, someone was on the phone explaining to someone else that they were walking out the door and on their way elsewhere. So they said, "I'm already leaving!" You can't be already leaving! You haven't left yet! You're just plain LEAVING! There were other examples, but I forgot to write them down and recently have the cognizance of a geriatric. 

And on a completely unrelated note, there was another sighting of Bernard, the friendly stray!

How CUTE is he!!? It was a cold (for south Texas) day, so I'm hoping he will be okay.

Things that made me a little giddy this week

In the past few weeks, I've made some personal goals to be more consciously optimistic by assessing that which makes me happy. I've found a few things that put a smile on my face this week.

1. Mom made me stop the car and buy grapefruit and oranges off the back of a truck. This purchase almost literally "fell off the back of a truck"! I think we bought a bushel (whatever that means) for dirt cheap! Scurvy will never get us!

2. My good friend, Zapp B, alerted me on the Sanrio anniversary celebration toys that would be included in McDonalds Happy Meals. Khanster and I made a date over nuggets and I got this sweet watch! It made my day! I kind of want them all though...

3. I went on a Hello Kitty craze this week and really needed a purple pen to write out some holiday cards. I don't know why, but I love using purple ink in cards. It's a thing. Anyway, I purchased this pricey little purple pen. (It's an excellent micro-tip specimen. I'm very pleased)

4. My mom bought me some ridiculous Sketchers Shape Ups sneakers. For any of you that know what I'm talking about, you know they look absolutely crazy... like a hybrid moon boot and geriatric shoe. I'd never in a million years buy a pair myself, but this is perhaps the reason my expectations versus actual experience were so drastic. I'm not one to advocate for products, but boy! were my thighs sore. Between the Texas high noon heat and the Shape Ups, I barely got through a sad sad mile run and returned home with BURNING thighs, calves and butt. The next day was even worse! Being moderately athletic, I was shocked and pleasantly surprised. So kudos to Sketchers for making one butt-ugly product for a butt-pretty result. Perhaps photos for later ;)

5. Christmas season is upon us! To the possible dismay of employees, I had two Christmas trees and a Frosty assembled this week, along with about a dozen strings of lights untangled and hung. I've never had a Christmas tree before, so I was extra-excited about decorating. Tinsel, ribbon, lights, bells, bulbs of all sorts! It was a magical experience :)
Here's some of our handy work:

What makes you guys happy? There must be so many things! I need more inspiration to keep up my spirits :)

Stray Cats Everywhere!

It's a rampant epidemic of strays EVERYWHERE! I literally see gangs of cats in the night, creeping on lawns, convening behind gas stations, and teaming along bushy highways!

Look at this cute little one that's managed to find a sunny sill outside my bedroom! I think I'll call him Bernard.

Love sought for... and then lost again

Drunk "confessions" are the best. They almost never say much about the person who utters them, but they make for great conversation pieces. Like for instance, this lovely tidbit I received this morning via Kik:

Captain Sexy Pants (3:14am): I want to fall in love w someone (yes Im drunk but I watched a chick flick and I want that)
Me: Best drunk Kik I'll ever get
CSP (9:44am): Oh god. I think it would have been better if I said I want love but not the commitment.
Me: And he's sober now.
CSP: Lol you say that w such a sense of loss
Me: Women around the world just sighed... a sad sad sigh

But seriously, is "love" so daunting that men in sobriety's light must run for the hills? Is it love then when passion is hampered by necessity and duty? Or is it another animal entirely? I can't say I've been in love before. I can't really say I've even come close. So I'll use what I do know to say that I love my mom. And I love my dad. And I know that if they were ever in need, and I could change that, I would in an instant. My parents never "expect" anything from me but always the utmost of me. As an almost adult, I don't ever need anything of them. It's love, I hope, that keeps them calling, and sending care packages, and submitting funny little requests (like when my dad asks me to go on blind dates with random Chinese boys).
Love isn't just a feeling and a lust for someone. It's an embodiment of your outward expressions. It's about anticipation, and consideration, and near-anxiety for someone else's needs and wants. But it's about all these things in the sense that living these things out makes oneself content and happy and loved as well. So at the end of the day, I go with Jennifer Aniston, from The Breakup. "I want you to want to do the dishes." Because then if you don't, it's just a commitment. A duty. No one wants that. Especially not Captain Sexy Pants.

My Family: A hilarious Thanksgiving Day!

I grew up in Westchester, New York, a county that by most standards is as American and white-picket-fence-y as they come. However, I don't recall a Thanksgiving turkey until I was about 12 or 13. It was at my good friend, Lizzie-Burks' house, because I spent almost every waking hour at her house anyway. I remember being anxious and uneasy about the traditions and the grace and the forks and the knives... cranberry sauce? ...everything. Cutting food into bite-sized pieces was a skill I had to wait a few more years to acquire.
It was when I turned 18 that I decided to have a Thanksgiving dinner of my own. C-meister helped with the turkey and the mashed potatos. We made biscuits and string beans too. My friends came over after their own dinners and were surprised to find a table filled with foods fit to eat. Mom and dad didn't even believe it was possible, so they brought food home from the restaurant. Jerks.
I got used to a lack of holiday spirit in my household. I got used to spending these so-called family holidays at homes of friends... good friends. Like, T-Kay for example. Her holiday events will always have a special place in my heart. She likes to think her family is disfunctional, but in all honesty, does anyone have a "normal" family, with considerate siblings, sane grandparents, and perpetually happy moms? I don't think so.
I have to say though, after losing any hope or aspirations for a family day, I couldn't have been more surprised this year. Happy tears are welling up behind my eyes just thinking about it. My dad woke me up late morning, on Thanksgiving 2010. "Heyy! Are we still going to the beach today?" with a hint of excitement and a small grin on his face. No chance I'd say no. so we packed the car, mom, dad, me and Khanster and headed to South Padre Island.
Do you know what I love about Texans? They think 75 degrees farenheit is too cold out. So our band of four stepped out into the deserted sand dunes of Beach #6 and ran to the waters. Mom collected seashells and shrieked everytime the waves crashed too close. Dad battled Khanster for king of the waves. It was a sight to see. Later, Mom, afraid of sand in the car, made us all rinse off with bottled water in the trunk(Picture Note: Khanster fighting a off foot scrub from dad). Dinner was fun. We all watched dad eat like the half-ton man and then went home for some ping pong action to work off some of the 8000 calories we consumed.

I couldn't have had a better day. Thank you family. Thank you friends. Thank you, thanksgiving days for a day to dwell on what makes my life so amazing.

The {Insert any language here} language is not my forte

My favorite parts of the day are when people call or come into a Chinese restaurant and expect staff to know Spanish. I don't just mean knowing your numbers and greetings. I mean asking about employees, what they're doing/where they are if they're not here (like I care in English either), etc. I literally caught myself trying to conjugate IR in the preterite EL form before I decided to just say, "Call back tomorrow."
On the other end of this spectrum, there's a lady here that only speaks Mandarin and Cantonese. She tried to tell me there wasn't any carbonation in the soda machine. There was a lot of hand gestures and funny noise making to get the point across. 我的中文不太好了。 Then a friend called and my uncle caught me speaking in "crazy-fast English." Apparently, it blew his mind how anyone could understand me.
In my 24 hours here, it seems that people here like to point things out about you. Like for instance:
*You're very organized. You'd be a great mom!
*You're so... peppy! Are you like this all the time?
*You smell good.
*You're very smart. You should stay in Texas for a long time! (Someone shoot me)
*I remember you from last time. You're that Chinese girl! (How do these people find me?)

(Picture Note: This is a picture of my uncle. [No, not the Mexican looking at me with the bizarre smirk.] He has NYC pride. Cool. )

Good with the bad... or just bad with the bad.

Leaving New York is so dreadful. The days leading up felt like childhood fear and loathing in Dr. Shaff's waiting room for any number of needles or poison-flavored medicine. But really, there's never actually evidence that it did anything for me. So, now after having swallowed a sweet-tasting sleepless red-eye flight and a layover in the mammoth Bush Intl airport, I'm here. I'm in a land of maybe good for me, maybe not. But I don't think I'll ever know. But one thing's for certain: I don't like the way it tastes so far.
Here's to the next few weeks where my writing will mostly be an homage to New York. I love you and I miss you!












(Picture Note: This is what I find in the lost and found in these parts. Someone must be SO devastated without it)

I'm in a mood

I've been telling people that I've lived in Manhattan for six years now for the past year. It sounds nice when I say it. It's a somewhat substantial number. Experienced, tried and true kind of number. And I've pretty much believed it, because I've said it so many times now.
I moved into my first apartment in August 2005. It's weird to me... I've only been here for five years. I caught myself yelling at tourists today, because they were standing in the middle of a busy sidewalk. When did I become one of those "rude New Yorkers" everyone always talks about? Five isn't so cavalier. I wasn't even in a bad mood. They just ticked me off, making everyone walk around them, because they wanted to take a stinking photo.
Is it just me, or has this city changed me?
The leaves are starting to fall in Central Park. I hope autumn puts me in a better mood.

New Leaf

New leaf, new leaf
why won't you turn?
Like frozen spinach stuck together
until it just explodes when it thaws.
Then there are too many leaves.
I'm watching spinach thaw.

Flings and things

Does every girl do this? Do we all pretend to be like men, like in that episode of SatC where Carrie romances one of her exes and then leaves him after the dirty duty was done?
But in the early morning light of reality, we're just being wound up in their stupid little man nets, unbeknownst to us, that it's getting more and more tangled?

What really is a fling to a girl? Does it exist? I don't think I know it.

Lots of questions, I know, but I can't figured out what I'm doing. Because I'm pretty sure I just got out of a very long "fling", vowed never to get into such a catastrophe ever again, and have somehow spun myself into something that looks vaguely like Charlotte's web.

Sigh.

Facebook Drama

I got a someone disturbing and slightly off color Facebook message today that read as follows:

"don't know if you know this but ***** is runnin his game all around town. You aren't the only girl he's doin right now. Thought you would like to know."


How does one reply to such a thing?
And is it also sad that it gives me a twinge of pain even though I'm no longer seeing him?

In such a big sea as Manhattan, is it so normal that you're invariably forced into catching such "fish" like this? Or as random Facebook girl put it, "You're not the only cow in his field." ugh. I'm feeling nauseous.

Type A, B, or O?

A wise friend told me about a dating theory today. It went along the lines of people falling into two categories. Type A or B. Type A'ers were relationship queens; The kind who could fall out of a four year romance and get right back on the horse two months later. And then there's the Type B variety. They're the ones catapulting from one fling to the next on a perpetual single girl haze. This probably describes most Manhattan women (as Millionaire Matchmaker's Patty has, to my woeful surprise stated, there is a 5 to 1 female to male ratio in the Big Apple).
Upon hearing this theory, I had a moment where my extra-regular girl reflexes kicked in and screamed in my head, "I'm Type B! I'm going to be single FOREVER! UGH!" But there must be a way around this type of thinking... there has to be some type of.. "rH factor" (I'm a huge nerd) to change up this scenario... but what is it?
I decided an addendum was necessary. There would be a Type O. The women who fall into this category are the Carrie Bradshaws of the world. The kind of woman who isn't afraid to date casually, because there's a whole sea of men out there and if you don't go fishing, who's to know when you'll miss the opportunity to reel in the next potential Mr. Big? Now, I know you're asking: What's the difference between Type B and Type O then? Well, the simple answer is: Mindset.
If Patty is right, of the 2m in the Manhattan population, there are around 400k men swimming around this little island. So for the Type B ladies out there, the "Woe is me" moment of despair sets in all too soon. But for those Type O women, the reality has become clear: It's all a numbers game. If you open yourself up to meeting new people everyday, you'll find that one of these days, you'll be sitting at a Starbucks counter, sipping on your latte, and Mr. Big himself may be enjoying his own brew right next to you (True story*).
So I'm embracing Type O. O positive that is.

Old Shoes

Is it something we women just can't gain self-control of? Is there some x chromosome gene that gives us that obsession with shoes to the point of near bankruptcy and lack of grocery money? And a current problem: Why can't I get rid of old shoes?
There's a metaphor here, but that's all I'm saying. Old shoes are so great sometimes. They're reliable, and predictable, and always there when nothing else seems to work. You know, the pair that you can always count on to be able to walk fourteen blocks in a not feel a pinch or squeeze. The pair that is just casual enough to dress down a sexy dress, but just right to jazz up a lazy outfit. The pair that you always seem to run to when nothing else is working and ten outfit changes later, you're back in the same shirt and jeans, and of course those shoes.
But they're also the pair that has that weird dent in the toe from the time you tried to climb a fence, or the scuff marks that give them character, or the weird way the heel always feels wonky on the left foot, b/c maybe they've just been strutting for a year too much.
So when do you give them up? When is it time to just drop them in the shoot and venture to find a replacement? Is it when you chance upon a brand new pair of perfect Katheryn Amberleighs that may or may not take up your next pay check (but seriously the perfect shade of aqua green dyed horse hair atop those sexy stilletos) and this is still a question?
The line of realistic utilitarian motive and pure animal (female?) desire is in question here. What are the answers? I just don't know... but I do know that I need a new pair of go-to brown flats. Any recs on where to find the perfect pair?

On One Night Stands

A tid bit was revealed to me today by a 30-something female co-worker that threatened to shake my entire definition of dating in the city forever. The conversation started on a commonplace subject: a cute guy. And led to a silly statement that he let leak nonchalantly, "I wouldn't want to date a girl who had more than 1 one-night stand a month... for guys, I think 2 a month is acceptable."
Really now. Is this standard? Is this legitimate? Would more than silly frat boy concur with this egregious statement? What was completely undermining though was that co-worker thought cute guy needed a reality check. She didn't think it was fair to put such restraints on her dating routine. I sat in shock, dumbfounded, taking in the Union Square afternoon sun.
This entire episode launched me into an introspective about the list... you know, the hook up list (formerly dubbed, "The Bang List"). I remember a time in life... lets say sophomore year of high school, when a good friend and I decided that we'd be married with a list shorter than we could count on our hands. At some point, I guess this morphed into toes too. But what happens, god forbid, when even this isn't even enough? I sigh, thinking about co-worker, her 30-something years, and her list. Doing the math quickly, that would be more than hands and toes in just ONE year!
Have the unwritten rules of society evolved so quickly, that even I, a 20-something social New Yorker, has skipped a beat and fallen into sub-social "prude" status?
I don't know how I feel about this yet. I suppose this week is as good a week as any to test out my feelings...

My Craigslist romantic tryst... or so I thought

One can always lure me into a fun adventure with a line that goes something like this: "Oh come on, Yon. It'll be a great anecdote for your book one day." And so that is when I was coerced into replying to a Craigslist personals ad. I made sure to sound cute but not too into it..."I've been meaning to try this place out. Friday after work? "... just New York enough. And what I got in return was a derelict Aussie ("I'm from a little island called Australia. Actually, it's quite a big island, but it's far away so it looks tiny when you peer at it from Los Angeles or wherever on your left coast.") with no concept of socializing in America (He doesn't even have fb!). AND a beer ALONE at Rattle N Hum ("I'm stuck at work!"- LAME). This will teach me to be early ever again.
In such a large metropolis, in a room full of patrons divulging in happy hour, I'd never felt so alone, so embarrassed! It was the first time I'd been stood up in my entire life and I fully intend for it to be my last time. A wise friend once told me, "Yon, you're a responder. That's always trouble."
Weeks later, the man has repented for his wrong doings and has asked on several occasions to arrange another drink date. Do I respond? Do I give him the opportunity to wreak havoc on my emotions again? You know I want to...

On the Search for a Husband

I think it was around 5:30 in the evening when my father called me at the office to talk about my future as I would never think of it the same again. It started something like this:

"Honey, you know, you're 22 now and you're not a baby anymore. You have to start making real decisions now. You have to stop making bad ones, because you're going to be very unhappy in 20 years if you do."

This preposterous diatribe went on for 45 minutes and covered all of the bases. Here are some of the highlights:

American boys have no value system. They'll dump you as soon as you run into your first fight (and leave you with your children!). Then we won't be able to talk to them, b/c they won't know Chinese.
A good Chinese boy will do whatever you want. You would never have to work again. They will NEVER leave you (Is he trying to pull at some non-existent heartstrings here?).
You don't want to turn into your old (unwed late 30s) aunt or cousin, do you?
You should move to Shanghai. There are so many business opportunities abroad (I thought I was never working ever again?).
And my personal favorite, "By the time I was your age (TWENTY-TWO!), we had your brother already." Ew.

My trip to Shanghai next month should be a good time... I think I should find a husband before then so I don't get accidentally betrothed to some inane idiot with a doting disposition and no personality. Any takers, New York?
Normally I'd say, qualifications include good stature, a witty wit, a beautiful smile, and some gusto... but times are tough and I cannot be one to be so picky. So what would I settle for? Who could I see myself legally stitched to for the rest of my life? Who could actually keep me entertained for at least the next 50 years? Who could stand me, my laugh and my love for eternity? I have no idea... It's so daunting, I think I'd prefer choosing the spinster life.

Hanging up the phone that day, in complete shock and tear-stained dreariness, I realized how different life had become so instantly. I was sitting at my office at 6:45pm doing client research, ad work, and reviewing the notes on dad's idea of my future and all of a sudden trying to comprehend where I turned the corner into real life.