sun and pluto

Next year I think I'm going to come home and visit at some random time, when there are no holidays. Airports are just insane this time of year - and people definitely aren't feeling goodwill to man when they're cranky and cramped and tired.

California is warm. Very warm. If my knee wasn't still cramped I'd go running on the beach. In shorts.

*sigh* Days like this it makes me wonder why I moved to NY. When I could be here where it's warm, try to mediate between my parents' bickering and take care of them, not worry about tearing my knees, not have all this drama with Sabs, not be living in a box and wading through tourists every day to get to the subway, not be paying my life away in taxes...

So if I might make an analogy (which is really quite disgusting so don't visualize too much). The crap hit the fan. Someone comes along who you would hope would turn it off - and they turn the setting from low to high and walk away. Whether that was done on purpose or by mistake is irrelevant at that very moment, because it's you who's stuck in this vale of ... crap ... and having to try and deal with it all at once. And crap is gross. It smells. In the aftermath, you may be able to look back and acknowledge that maybe they accidentally hit the wrong button and it wasn't intentional - but the effect isn't determined by intention. So when you're standing there in all this crap and they ask everyone around you "why is she standing there in all this crap? and why doesn't she understand that we care?" - you just kind of want to sit down and throw your hands up. Except then you'd be sitting in a lot of crap and that kind of sucks.

Reconciliation is a hard thing. Particularly when you're stubborn as mules. All three of us are - we're Korean, it's in our blood. That's why our poor country has even survived up until now. I see the fine line between having to concede and compromise, and giving in and being walked all over. I think there are times that I have to stand my ground and force them to hear me out - though in a twisted way, that happened this time because I went silent. Maybe silence is their language, I don't know. Languages of love, I know - as if we didn't do enough of that in ACF to know that that's the root of most conflicts. They can sepak 5-6 different languages - they don't have to speak mine, but it would sure help a lot if they could attempt to understand it.

We're so different, it's kind of ridiculous. If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, they're from the Sun and I'm from Pluto. One day if I ever get around to writing it, that will be the title of my book. Perhaps it'll be made into a major motion picture. And then I'll give the DVD to Sr and he'll understand, because what got through to him in the end was his Christmas present: Searching for Bobby Fischer.

There's hope. It's small, but it's there. And that's what Christmas is about: hope.