If a Bowl of Udon Was a Woman...

If a bowl of udon was a woman, she would be your naturally beautiful girlfriend. Her face has sharp yet graceful lines, and her striking features rarely need the accentuation of makeup.

A bowl of plain udon noodles, delicious in its simpleness, is both hardy and desirable. Unlike other dishes that rely on colors or presentation, the wheat-flour noodles and salty-sweet broth awaken the deepest hungers within. Like your natural-beauty girlfriend, with hair as touchable as the perfectly boiled udon noodle, simplicity is sexy.

But for elegant evenings, your udon girlfriend applies the most subtle shades of makeup to highlight her beauty, not hide her blemishes. She softly kisses her lipstick, drawing a line as thin as the pink of kamaboko that gently accentuates a bowl of udon. Her eye shadow caramelizes her eyes as rich and tempting as a shrimp tempura half floating in broth. Each of her curled eyelashes are as fragile as the thinly cut scallions that rest on the island of noodles.

And when you return home from you evening out, she washes her face with hot water and a Bioré Daily Cleansing Cloth. The steam from the sink rises onto her face like the moist aroma of a fresh bowl of udon from the kitchen. She turns around, and you smile.

No foundation, no scallions, no lipstick, no kamaboko.

You walk over to her and smell her most basic, yet most beautiful, self. "You look delicious."

Inconsiderate

The light rail train was packed, and, despite several open seats in front of her, this mother left her stroller in the middle of the aisle blocking any possibility of moving toward the front of the car. Now, I understand being a mother is difficult, and I would have no qualms with a nose tackle of a stroller if the baby was crying or in some way requiring her mother's attention. But this sugar-plum-dreaming baby quietly rested in the middle of traffic while her mother calmly read the paper.

I had to stand for the duration of my train ride.

Inconsiderate.


While watching some of the festivities at the San Jose Obon, my friend took this picture of two girls encroaching on her space. "[These] girls would lean back and rest on my legs like I was the back support of a recliner." My friend was not upset but, rather, confused as to how people could be so unaware of their bodies.

Personally I would be upset. In hot South Bay weather, sticky-backed girls leaning on me would be very off-putting. I understand this was a crowded summer festival, but people should still be aware that putting full-body weight on someone is inconsiderate. And if truly nothing could be done, they should at least apologize for pickling someone's kneecap in their armpit.



On the train ride home, I overheard about 80% of this couple's conversation. The VTA light rail is like a giant sound amplification chamber on tracks. Now, I understand the ambient noise on the train is somewhat loud, so louder speaking voices may be in order. I overheard sentences like, "He brought a knife to a gun fight? What the fuck was he thinking?" I found the act inconsiderate and topics confusing.

But maybe I'm just out of touch with motherhood, bleacher etiquette, and gang violence. Maybe I'm being too closed minded. To gain some insights, I'm off to listen to "Beat It" and read What to Expect When You're Expecting while sitting on a metal bench. I'll report back.

Roadkill

Animals dead on the road typically evoke a stronger emotional response than clothing on the road. If I see a mutilated fluffy tail on the double yellows, I think it might be Wart's squirrel lover from Sword in the Stone. But when I see a shoe, I usually just think some negligent driver committed misdemeanor littering.

Things change though; I've never seen roadkill quite like this.
















I've seen animals, compressed into 2-dimensional corpses, glued to the highway with their own blood as the adhesive. But this flattened shoe, split apart by the accosting speed of a passing vehicle, had the macabre presence of a dead animal.

The moist, vibrant shoe leather complemented the woman's purse as she strode from the passenger seat to the restaurant door. The clicking of the heels against the concrete attracted her date's eyes. He held the door open for her as she walked through, her maroon dress trailing like a ribbon unrolling from its spool. "Thank you," she said. He smiled, blushingly avoiding her eyes. Her dress, her smile, and her shoes were all blended together creating a powerful first-date persona—the identity that says as much with actions as it does with words.

Dead animals easily sadden us because the blissfully unaware creatures have a specific life and death. Maroon pumps are made out of inanimate objects to begin with, so they are easily disregarded as trash.

But I've never seen a shoe this flat, horribly crushed of its life pursuit of protecting and accentuating the foot. Even the spike heel was robbed of its perpendicular glory to heighten and beautify its wearer by being pushed parallel to the sole.

I've seen trash, and I've seen dead animals—and this was neither. This shoe was a moment somewhere between true sadness and losing your fourth-favorite piece of jewelry. An instant that makes you think, "This is a memorable moment," as you walk away into forgetfulness.

If Red Vines Were a Woman...

If Red Vines were a woman, they would be your corporate co-worker who works at a different branch. You only see her a few times a year at the corporate meetings, but when you do see her, you always have a fling.

Red Vines come in two main delivery methods: the iconic tub and the movie-theater box. You buy the tub of Red Vines at Costco for your church picnic, you impulsively buy the box of Vines while waiting in line for Star Trek—but whatever method you happen upon the Red Vines, you never specifically went out to the store to buy them. You never had a specific craving for them. Just like your co-worker fling.

Your eyes meet across Conference Room B in the Radisson. You both stepped outside to "get some air." You casually started up a conversation over drinks. Maybe this time will be different; maybe this time you won't fall into that primal passion that seized you during last year's quarterly review. But like that first sensual bit into the Red Vine, when the twisted waxy ridges smoosh between your front teeth, you are ensnared.

You can't consume them just once. There is something comfortably familiar yet erotically exotic about the Red Vine and the co-worker. Before you know it, you've eaten 17 Vines and you've missed your boss's presentation on "Interoffice Efficiency."

But as much as you loved the weekend, you don't love them. As pinkish and gummy as your spit is, as wonderful as the romance was, you bid adieu once the tub and the agenda are empty. Even though you love curling her hair, her long, hollow, red strands, around your fingers, you don't buy another tub and you don't call her until the next meeting.

You never see people snacking on Red Vines at home, alone. And you never see people seriously dating their inter-branch co-workers. That's because the Red Vine and the office romance find their deepest shade of red, their deepest passion, when there is a pretense for their existence.

Fireworks

Daisy hated fireworks. It wasn't that she was particularly unpatriotic. She loved eating 4th-of-July hotdogs that carelessly fell to the floor. And she loved lying by the warm oven as the evening's apple pie browned. It's safe to say that she loved everything about the 4th except for the fireworks.

Around 9 pm, exactly when the navy blue and the ruby orange skies reconciled, Daisy could sense the inevitable. It was the sound, the repeating din of fireworks that drove her insane. She tried her best to cover her ears as she ran around the house screaming, but when one of your hands is actually one of your feet, this is a difficult task.

One year, the fireworks over Kailua Beach started a bit early, and Daisy was still outside. She tried her best, but her phobia and momentum carried her through the screen door into the house. She didn't just rip the mesh—she ripped the screen from its hinges.

I guess I'm a bit like Daisy. I often hope to have bad seats for a fireworks show: that the fireworks actually explode a great distance away from me. I've been to three 4th-of-July shows when the fireworks would explode directly over my head like I was wearing a hat made of igniting firecrackers.

Looking heavenward, the biggest of the explosions expanded wider than my eyes could perceive. It was as if God himself was revealing a part of his own body. The sublimity of the sky mixed with the pounding resonance in my chest made an experience thought-provoking, not celebratory. If a man-made ball of gunpowder could be that terrifying, think how big God would be. Or Satan.

Daisy died of cancer in mid-June 2006. Driving home from the vet, an empty dog bed in the back seat, I thought that the timing of the disease was the one silver lining: she lived thirteen years but only experienced twelve 4th of Julys. Daisy wouldn't need to rampage through the house with a tumor sloshing around in her chest. Daisy hated fireworks. And I guess I do too.

I didn't watch the fireworks that year. I just sat on the couch watching syndicated sitcoms. I listened though. I heard the starting slow cadence of ricocheting pops build into a grand crescendo of machine-gun rounds fired into the air.

I live only a few blocks from the beach, so the sound always shakes the figurines on my shelves, but the evening seemed calm and tranquil—and lonely. I had no one to bark in my ear as I held them, whispering, "Happy birthday, America."

That's Not Rainbow Chip!

I really hate it when people confuse "Rainbow Chip" frosting and "Funfetti" frosting.

Rainbow Chip frosting is made by Betty Crocker. It's the frosting that already has the round chips harmoniously integrated into the frosting. Funfetti is the Pillsbury frosting that has an unenlightened segregated package of sprinkles that one is expected to manually mix in.




Walking through Target today, I saw this section of Funfetti sniggering at me. "Hey there, chump. Target doesn't carry Whore Crocker's Rainbow Chip." Defending my frosting mother's honor, I knocked out one of Funfetti's front teeth. Who's laughing now, Doughboy?








But there wasn't always this hate between us. I open-mindedly bought a can of Funfetti about four years ago when I was still in college. How bad could it be? While preparing the frosting for my first cake, my knuckles kept dipping into the frosting making my hands sticky. Excuse me Pillsbury, but I don't have extra-long frosting stirring spoons.

And I'm no baker: I didn't know how many sprinkles to put in. My first cake came out like a sprinkle donut: sprinkles crushing the aesthetic. The sprinkles on my second cake were so sparse that it looked like a topping mistake: the lone gummy bear in your mixed nuts at the ice cream parlor.

Some people are particular about their wine, some about their coffee. Me? I'm particular about my pre-packaged, fat-inducing, Betty Crocker cake toppings.

The rainbow chips are softer than than Funfetti sprinkles. It's as if the rainbow chips have somehow absorbed the frosting's poofy essence into their genetic structure. The Funfetti sprinkles are, in texture, too different from the frosting itself. It's like getting a stale raisin in your oatmeal. And that is the beauty of the rainbow chip: it exists in neither the sprinkle realm nor the frosting realm—it exists in the same realm that unicorns and mermaids exist: sweet delight.

I Dreamed the Dream That Lovers Dream

Behind the house, we walked beneath the pines.
The trail released a lingering dust that dimmed
the laughing summer voices from inside.
Our shoulders swayed and gently glanced in time

with the coy, half-curved smiles shyly revealed.
He brushed the peach-pit pebbles with his foot
before he flapped a white silk sheet over
the sloping terrain, swollen by the tree roots.

We sat in warmth despite the citrus sky.
I rolled pine resin between my fingers
and watched the sap turn black. He whispered kisses
tickling the goosebump hairs behind my ears.

     This dream inspired love's faith, but day told me:
     Even the sweetest dreams are only dreams.