martina vs. #trashhustle

It's finals week and, right on schedule, I'm going through a crisis of sorts. There are a few people in my life, people who aren't even acquaintances but who I know simply through the weird tinyness of the world, who continually reappear in my life through their success. Success is great. May we all be successful in our endeavors, amen. But success stemming from thoughtlessness and/or a general lack of talent bothers the shit out of me. The fact that it bothers me bothers me even more because who am I to judge how garbage people make a living. Get that money. #trashhustle, etc.

I guess what I need to do with this obviously poisonous feeling I have towards those who I think are undeserving is use it to prioritize my own goals as someone who wants to be successful and who assumes she is talented. (Can you even process the amount of narcissism in the sentence? Plz write to me in 23 years when you finally do.)

At a mandatory conference I attended last quarter, I sat in on a lecture about mindful meditation. Since then, those words have popped up everywhere for me and yet I have opted to ignore the obvious signs that I should adopt this practice myself and, instead, have focused on the mindful part. Everything we do should be mindful. (With the exception of reality tv indulging, maybe?) We should be mindful of how we talk to and treat each other, of what we are consuming, and of what we are creating. #trashhustle seems to be dependent on people creating a large quantity of things they aren't exceptionally mindful about.

Therefore, here are three steps we can take to combat #trashhustle and use to ensure we are meeting our goals of creating mindful content:

1. Create things that answer questions, whether universal or particular.
2. Create things that do more than advance your social status.
3. Create things that hold more value for others than they do for you.

I'm such an asshole. Bye.

(edit: The day after writing this post, ONTD reposted this article with similar grievances. Really helpful to know I'm not alone in this feeling.)

for you a lei

I never saw my grandma's corpse, and I thank her for that. It was hard enough seeing one of the two women who raised me fall into the depths of Alzheimer's over the course of a decade. It was hard enough watching her eyes go from alert and active to glazed over, searching around the room for things that didn't exist. It was hard enough holding her hand over the course of two days as we all waited for the inevitable to arrive.

My grandma's funeral was beautiful. I specifically remember her telling me she didn't want a sad funeral; she wanted everyone to wear bright colors and to laugh. I'm so happy we were able to fulfill that wish. A few members of my family had a bet going re: the amount of funeral-goers with my grandfather betting 300, my aunt betting 100, and my great-aunt betting 60. I went with 150 and won the box of See's Candy.

My mom suggested we invite Maho because "American funerals are crazy" so we brought her along for what I imagine was not the most representative American funeral. Having her there gave the day structure. Her roommate had gone home for the weekend so I slept over and in the morning, after breakfast, I practiced my eulogy and singing Amazing Grace with her. I didn't feel anything. The week my grandma was dying, I witnessed everyone in my family in each stage of grief, but I had somehow fast-tracked myself to acceptance.  I hadn't cried since the day she passed away and it stayed that way until, in the church, my mom urged me over to her spot in the back of the church. I walked back there, past the dozens and dozens of faces I didn't recognize, but who recognized me, and saw my grandma's best friend, Susan. I hadn't seen her in almost a decade and the second I laid on eyes on her, I burst into tears. She hugged me tight, held back her own tears like the bad bitch she is, and held me at an arm's length to take a look at me.

"You know, Martina, you're young lady now," she said. "But the green hair is a phase, right?"

My uncle's ex-wife was in attendance, another person so integral to my childhood who I hadn't seen in years and years, and I sobbed into her shoulder. I stayed close to my family and away from the crowd until the service began. My uncle talked about my grandma's transition from homemaker to businesswoman, my aunt talked about my grandma as a workaholic full of life, and I spoke about the best grandma to have ever graced this planet. During my uncle's speech, I hadn't really cried, maybe because the majority of what he was saying were things I had never heard about her before. But between his eulogy and my aunt's came a musical performance by two family friends and suddenly, the rows that contained my little family flowed with huge, ugly, cathartic tears. The tissue box passed from hand to hand, up and down the rows, and for the first time in my life I saw my brother sobbing. Poor Maho sat between the two of us, tearing up herself. My cousin Ajay and I laughed about it later. "There's something about music."

When the service ended, the funeral director instructed everyone to exit through the front, pay their respects to my grandma's urn, her portrait draped with two bright purple leis beside it, and move to the gravesite. Seeing the impending stampede of mourners headed my way, I made a beeline for the back of the church, where my cousin Lindsay and her baby were seated. "I gave eulogies for both my grandparents," she said. "It's tough." We sat there while everyone cleared out. A man, a straggler, approached me. "You don't know me but I know you," he said. "I was Bridget's boyfriend." Bridget, my grandma's business partner, who was killed in a hit-and-run a few years ago. "Did you know she once saved my life?" I asked. He didn't. I told him the story of how I was choking on a piece of hard candy when she gave me the Heimlich at the top of the stairs at my grandma's office, and how I watched as the candy flew from my mouth to the bottom of the stairs.

At the gravesite, when everyone but the family had left and they were waiting to put the urn in the ground, my uncle Tyler put one of the leis around me, the other around my aunt. When the urn was in the ground and the funeral director asked if there was anything we'd like to include with it, my aunt and I simultaneously seized the leis from around our necks without any thought and draped them over the urn.

The funeral was held in the same church my father's was. I asked my mom if my dad had the same amount of people as my grandma. "Your dad's was bursting out of the church. There were people standing up and down the aisles and out the door." That's what happens when you die young. And now my grandma is buried a few feet up the hill from my dad, both of their graves keeping watch over the graves of the small children whose pinwheels I used to spin when we came to visit my dad. I know there's no heaven, but I know that there was a universe before both my grandma and my dad were born, a universe when they were both alive, and an interim when my dad was alone in the ether. Finally, there is universe for them both again.

The first interaction I had at the reception was from two older women who were talking together when I walked in. The mother of my dad's childhood best friend told me everyone had always wondered what happened to Ryan's baby, and she was happy to know I had turned out so well. The other woman was an agent, a colleague of my grandma, and she told me my grandma loved me and always complained I lived too far away. The theme of conversation between the people who knew me, though I didn't know them, was that my grandma loved me and would never stop talking about me. Complete strangers to me knew so much about me. My grandma loved me.

My aunt brought boxes upon boxes upon boxes of family photos for everyone to look through. She converted old Super 8 footage and VHS tapes full of family video to DVD and they played throughout the reception. Ajay went diligently went through every single photo, occasionally handing me a giant stack of pictures of myself I had never seen. My family is a well-photographed one and I had a great time seeing every single stage of life of every person documented heavily. Lexi arrived and had a cry about my grandma even though they'd never met, which I really appreciated. She and Maho hung out as I talked to old, old friends and rifled through photos. Guests began trickling out and after we all took shots of some Greek liquor, just the family (and Maho) was left. My aunt gave me a DVD of Christmas 1990. "Your father does a Brando imitation, it's hilarious."

Maho and I got back to her room, exhausted, and got ready for bed. As she went to take a shower, I put in the DVD of Christmas 1990 and heard my father's voice for the first time in my life. I cried steadily through 50 minutes of my grandma 24 years younger than I had last seen her, playing with her dog and making dinner, through my mom's bewildered but grateful expression upon receiving extravagant gifts for her first Christmas in America, through my dad hiding his face from the camera with a magazine. I was a voyeur of life before I was even a thought.

sprang break 4ever 2014

I had easily the best spring break I've ever had. Lexi drove down from Santa Cruz after her last final and we participated in undie run (already documented here somewhere). After a failed attempt at getting into the giant cemetery at 3am, we visited the tiny cemetery where celebs like Dean Martin and Farrah Fawcett are buried. Internet frand Patreece flew out from Boston to meet me, Connie, and Shelbi in Palm Springs where we stayed at the Ace and had a killer time pool lounging, pub quizzing, and karaoking. (Also, the MOST LUXURIOUS MATTRESS I'VE EVER HAD THE PRIVILEGE TO SLEEP ON.) After a few days there, Connie, Patreece, and I came back to UCLA and did touristy things with Crispy and Maho. After Patreece went back to the east coast, Crispy and I helped chaperone a group of Japanese junior high schoolers at Universal Studios as a favor to one of Maho's old teachers. It was really fun getting to know the kids and I think they liked me just as much as I liked them – when I told them I was considering applying for the JET program, one student said if he had an English teacher like me, he'd want to learn English a lot more. *tears brimming emoji*

Schwasted communal bathroom post-undie run double selfy.

Capote didn't have any flowers so I stole some from Marilyn's bouquet. (She always has enough anyway.)

Hipster Gandalf and Daisy Buchanan aka weird Ace Hotel robe and walking stick + Wal Mart hat.

I bought an underwater camera and this is the only underwater pic I took.

Easily the best karaoke night ever. I wish we got a pic with the dude who didn't know the words to "Somebody to Love."

Biker girl gang.

*~*~Take me back to PS~*~*

If there's a blank old timey sign, me and Shelbi are gonna pose w/ it.

Waiting for the Ace to pay me to use this photo for promotional use.

Not even my finger can obstruct how qt Patreece is.

DIN TAI FUNG!!!!!!

Magical Rilakkuma boba shop in Chinatown.

My mom and I couldn't get into the Getty Villa, whateva.

Post-Jurassic Park. Yutaka, throwing up the peace sign, was scared of roller coasters.

Mine and Crispy's group - Miyu, Miki, Yutaka, and Hoan. Crispy taught them the West Coast hand sign, ofc.

Connie, Crispy, and I saw got funked hard by Chromeo.

out of con-texts 2

people are my religion because i believe in them

One of my touchstone's as a humanist, in absolute earnest, is the YMIW w/ TJ Miller in which TJ talks about atheism without nihilism and Pete talks about how, when he first started dissenting from Christianity, he thought about stealing Cokes at a hotel because nothing was going to judge him for it. Kumail and TJ, both atheists, told him if he did, there would be consequences not for Pete, but for the person who worked at that hotel. This teeny tiny anecdote is important to me and something I always come back to as a person who does not believe in any reward or punishment after death.

We were put on this planet for who fucking knows why, and the only thing we truly have is each other. We must do good things not for our benefit, but for the benefit of others. I sometimes get these weird moments of paralyzing fear about things like picking up litter or holding a door for someone – that if I don't do this courteous thing there will be some sort of karmic retribution (how my humanism functions bits and bobs of other ideologies is another post in the distant future) – when really, I need to pick up litter or hold a door for someone not to avoid something bad happening to me but for the good it will do for others, whether immediate or hundreds of years in the future.  

Tonight, I worked with my least favorite manager who treats me, and others below us, so badly I only think of quitting when she's around. I started having intensely mean spirited thoughts towards her until I realized there are people who love her. At work she's drunk on power and talks down to people and treats me like a kindergartner, but she has a family. She has friends. I'm sure there are people who think of her as one of the best things in their life. Just because I see a side of her that is loathsome doesn't mean everyone does.

Anyway, I basically spent the rest of my shift thinking about how faith in the theistic religious sense can be transposed into faith in people. Though theists cannot seen their god, they still believe in his power and omnipresence. Though I sometimes cannot see the good in certain people, I believe there is good in them and that they are valuable to this world in some way. My faith lies in people and their inherent goodness. I am constantly trying to make this faith stronger. I try my best to do good things every day that will contribute to the faith of others.

I just want to die knowing I did everything I could to make this world better than it was when I came into it. Even if it's just a little bit. Even if it's just the litter I've picked up or the doors I've opened.

To conclude this rambly diatribe, here's another piece of audio I consider a humanism touchstone – People by Andrew Jackson Jihad.

"I have faith in my fellow man, and I only hope that he has faith in me."

didn't get pinched

I dyed my hair green on St. Patrick's Day. On accident. I'd been wanting to do it since my friend Cathy posted a #tbt of her with bright red bangs a few weeks ago, and as I left my first final of the week at 10am, feeling defeated and ashamed of myself, I decided today was the day. I took the bus to the Sally's Beauty in Santa Monica and got a bleaching kit and two jars of Manic Panic. (It is SO WEIRD to have to travel 30min to get to a Sally's when the one at home was right across the street.)

My tips are (were?) very light and looked like an intentional ombré but are (were??) actually just the evidence of my years and years of overdying my hair that have grown out over the past two years. Some strands were actually legit blond, so I used them to test run the color and then left for work. As I was leaving my building, a neighbor pointed at my head and said, "For St. Patrick's?"

To which I responded, "Oh, nooooo." And then spent my entire shift at work explaining to coworkers I had not planned this and deflecting their comments that I was definitely going out for Jameson and Guinness that night.

 

I got off work and it was time for bangs. Bleaching and dying your hair in a dorm with communal bathrooms is exactly as fun and easy as it sounds!! V. fun to have people constantly walking in on you and asking what your doing as you furiously apply bleach while holding your breath to avoid inhaling the fumes. 

After I lifted the color in my bangs, I looked like some sort of off-brand Jack Black character.

For the color, I wanted a deep blue/green and mixed Voodoo Blue with Electric Lizard until it looked like a dark teal in the bowl. Left it on for two hours and ended up with this:

At this point, it was 2am, my bangs were a little too bright, and my ombré a little too mossy (like I was some sort of forest wizard a la Sylvester McCoy in The Hobbit). So I went to bed, woke up, mixed up a bluer dye and left that on for four and a half hours.

Needless to say, shit looks bomb!

I especially like it in a high ponytail.

Indoors it looks Sailor Pluto-y and has a lot of dark green lowlights, and then I go in the sun and the neon-y bits light up. It's perf. *pats self on back* 

(Let's see how my preschoolers react to this.)

ten books

Alex posted this meme last night and I have a Buddhism paper due on Friday that I have not even started yet so why wouldn't I do this?

Rules: In a text post list ten books that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard - they don’t have to be the “right” or “great” works, just the ones that have touched you.

1. This is just my favorite book ever ever ever. There's nothing much to it other than I love the kind of sad it makes me and I care deeply about every character. (I think how much I care about them is partly aspirational––they're cool, affected, can travel and drink literally every second of the day. They are terrible people, but they're the interesting kind.) I feel fairly indifferent about the rest of Hemingway's work, this is just THE novel, you know?

2. When I watched that Deadhead in the final episode of Freaks and Geeks say he wished he never heard American Beauty just so he could hear it for the first time all over again, I finally found a way to describe how I feel about this book. I am among the last group of millennials who will remember the events of September 11th, and while I think dwelling on this fact is simultaneously corny and pointless (an effect of my childhood being split in twain by 9/11??????), this novel helped me unpack that major American event and my weird and previously unaddressed feelings about it. I realize now, having read some criticism of the book, that it is fairly cloying and a little exploitative, but when I first read it as a high school freshman I labeled it as my first brush with poignancy. Also, photographs in a book? The red ink of someone correcting typos in the NYT in a book?? Text bleeding into each other to incoherency in a book??? This shit blew my mind.

3. Homebase - This was the first Asian American novel I read outside the Amy Tan/pocket-paperback-Chinese-women-coming-of-age genre and the first Asian American novel I read in an academic setting. Needless to say, it was really important to see an Asian Am book being given attention and to have a non-British lens at the effects of colonization. Also, this is just one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read. Every sentence is ethereal with an occasional line that'll knock the wind out of you. This is less of a novel and more of a giant poem about home, or the lack thereof, that is born in America. It's also devastatingly under-read so READ IT, DUMMIES. 

4. Beloved - God. Damn. Wong's writing is second only to Morrison's. I spent this whole book being equally spooked, weepy, and thrilled. I remember Keisha telling me about this book when she read it and being very scared by her reaction to it; she was mostly speechless and when she could speak, it was usually about how fucked up the story was. I was even apprehensive to start the novel at all, not realizing that by "fucked up" she meant the fact that these things happened, the fact that this is based in a real actual time period in which human beings were kept as slaves for other human beings and based on a true event that happened as a reaction to this. A specific line that will stay with me forever: "Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self as another." 

5. Absolutely crucial to my teenage years. I picked this up in the 8th grade because I was obsessed with reading everything in the ~classics section of my local library and Gravity's Rainbow was too thick. I tried to get my friends to read this too but nobody really wanted to and if they did, they hated Holden. (Who doesn't, tbh.) I think this was so important to me because it sort of sat me down and said, "Look, you can't go around re-enacting scenes from Mean Girls your entire life. There are people who will do that, but you're not one of them and that's okay." It's important to have a special snowflake moment so you can move on with your life and this was it for me.

6. I bought this book at the peak of my obsession with SNL/being a comedian and devoured it. The fact that it's an oral history means it reads like a digest of juicy goss. Pair that with tales of young comedians and writers on coke and celebrities throwing fits, and you have the perfect book for me. This made me feel being a writer or comedian was a real tangible thing I could do, but I had to be prepared to deal with assholes with ridic daddy complexes like Lorne Michaels and general pieces of shit like Chevy Chase. I haven't picked this up for a while so I don't remember who's anecdote this is, but I will always have this very romanticized image of a young Bill Murray in the snow, standing in the middle of a New York street and waving goodbye to a guest as they drive away.

7. THIS IS JUST MY FAVORITE HARRY POTTER BOOK. I have read it the most of the series and I love Lupin (mourn u til I join u, bb) and it's right before all the angst and hormones kicks in and I LOVE IT.

8. Salinger is on here twice because I am that person. "A Perfect Day for Bananafis," "Uncle Wiggly In Connecticut," and "Teddy" are the jam. The Glass family is the jam. Sad intellectual white New Yorkers is my guilty pleasure, always.

9. Trainspotting My life is a series of cathartic breakthroughs connected by the moments of everyday life, and reading this novel spurred the most cathartic release I've had in my 22 years on earth. I won't detail the entire exhausting event here, but let's just say looking into the lives of heroin addicts as the daughter of a heroin addict who I never really met really helped me a lot. Trainspotting also quite literally changed my life as I wrote about the catharsis it triggered for one of my personal statements when applying to universities and I would bet my entire net-worth (note: this is a two digit number) that that personal statement is why I was accepted to both UCLA and Berkeley. I've been meaning to write Irvine Welsh about how much this book means to me but I keep chickening out. 

10. Definitely read this at the height of my hippie years, in which I only listened to John Lennon and Bob Dylan and just wanted to end the oil wars, man. It helped solidify my anti-war stance but it also helped me stop believing in god and start believing in people. A "kurt vonnegut" google led me to the humanism wiki page, and the rest, as they say, is an acceptance that there is nothing after death and no reason to be good to people other than to be fucking good to people that gradually developed over several years. Also, the way Vonnegut can write about himself with equal deprecation and narcissism is v. inspirational to me.

knowing me, knowing you

Life according to my disposable camera, January to February 2014.

My bb Andy looking handsome and about to go to class. Obligatory $C sucks comment.

Ezra, way too much fog machine, and Baio shaking his booty off camera.

My neighbor and half-Lebanese amateur rapper/electrical engineer, Juicy Jean, rocking blow up boobies I bought at Daiso.

Daiso visors with Maho.

My princess mother came up to take Maho and I out for shabu-shabu.

 The photobooth at the Short Stop was broken so Lexi and I improvised.

My multinational girl gang repping Japan, Mexico, Spain, and America.

At Barney's for cider.

Coworker dinner with the most beautiful ladies.

Tecate on the Getty lawn with Lexi.

There was a Pokemon gathering of about a hundred ppl on their DSes. This Pikachu was killin it.