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| In exactly 5 days, my biological clock will hit 25 years old, a quarter century.
When my grandmother was my age, she’d already had 2 children and was an engineering executive (Her mother had already had 6 children! And never mind that she didn’t work outside the house, she was an executive all right. She said the word, and her children executed.)
Tupac Shakur, by the age of 25 had already a multi-platinum album and was also an accomplished poet
The Olsen twins haven’t even hit the 25 –year mark and are already worth over $100mm.
Meanwhile, my accomplishments include:
Being able to rap Tupac’s California, in all its entirety.
(Finally) getting over my crush on Uncle Jessie. | | |
| So now in my room I have 2 framed prints of Shanghai girls in vintage advertisements, 2 Monet prints, 1 Van Gogh print, 1 Renoir print, and a panorama of the SF night scene. I really have little room for any other prints. However, I’m thinking of buying a big Floyd Mayweather print for my ceiling. Why not?! Lots of guys have prints of naked girls on their walls. I want one of a huge, half-naked boxer on mine. Sweat glistening on his chest, veins popping from his chiseled arms, and his fists up like he’s ready for action. One on one. | | |
| One thing I love to watch in NYC is men watching women. More specifically, men gawking at women. I was riding the subway home yesterday and the guy who sat across from me clearly had not been with a woman for a long, long time, from the way he was staring at the woman seated next to me. He was a carpenter or construction worker (wearing some “Carpenter Union” shirt), perhaps mid-forties, not wearing a wedding ring. Dressed in jeans ripped at the knees and dusty construction boots, he sat with his legs open, a cloth lunch pail resting on his generous paunch. His round white face showed the years of sun and labor and was framed on both sides with a few shy patches of white hair. The object of his affection, to put it lightly, was a woman in her mid-thirties seated next to me. From the corner of my eye, I saw her remove a hairbrush from her Fendi bag with her French-manicured hands. As she brushed her long brown hair, I could see Mr. Carpenter inching closer. (Meanwhile, I inched further away as the long brown strands were falling from her brush and onto my lap.) When she was finally satisfied with her hair, she pulled out her compact and began powdering her face. Batting her long lashes into her mirror, she removed a lipstick and began putting on a thick coat onto her collagen-injected pout. I could see Mr. C practically falling out of his chair. By now, his lunch pail was on the floor and his mouth was half-open, like a little kid staring at a chocolate sundae. My seatmate by now was looking pretty satisfied with herself. As a final touch, she adjusted her collar down so that the top half of her ample bosom happily popped out, as if to greet Mr. C themselves. Just then, the subway doors opened and in rushed a group of tourists, completing disrupting the climax of Mr. Capenter’s show. (Her I admit it disrupted mine as well.) Miss Ample noticed this was her stop, and gets up, and saunters out in her four-inch stilettos, leaving a heavy cloud of Chanel No. 5 trailing behind. Mr. C’s eyes follow her out the door, all the way until the subway doors close. And then they turn to me. | | |
| Every day when I get off the subway to walk home I see two blue double-decker City Sights New York buses, with the matching blue-uniformed guys handing out pamphlets. They always ask me if I’m interested, waving their brochures in my face like it’s a lottery ticket. The same guys, every single day. Something about me, my demeanor, just screams lost tourist. Every day during my walk home I also say Sorry at least 20 times. Maybe it’s because I live in midtown, where it’s bustling with tourists (or in my case, look-alikes) and I inevitably always find the most crowded route to my destination. Maybe it’s because I’m a klutz. Or maybe I just attract people who can’t walk straight. It’s probably a combination of all three. When the inevitable collision does happen – whether it’s with the 6 foot 6 linebacker-type or some banker enslaved to his Blackberry, the words “I’m sorry” immediately tumble out of my mouth, whether or not I was at fault, whether or not I really am sorry. Once a portly tourist with his face buried in a map crashed into me. As I was bending over, picking up the contents of my spilled grocery bag, the words, “I’m sorry,” came flying out of my life. As he rushed off without even a glance at me, I wanted to yell as his sweaty back, “And I suppose your mother never taught you those words!” Another time I was in a bar waiting for a friend when one of other patrons and I started chatting. Within two minutes he grinned knowingly at me, “You’re from California, aren’t you?” “Well, yes,” I was a little surprised. “How did you know?” “Well, there’s something about your demeanor.” “Oh,” I blushed. I didn’t know what to say. I was almost apologetic. “It’s really cute. You talk softer, slower.” He said this matter-of-fact, in the tone of Wow, you are so slow you didn’t even realize you were slow… Excellent. I’m cute, but I’m slow. “Anyways,” the guy finished. “I gotta go,” he downed his beer. “Welcome to New York!” Walking toward the door, his wide shoulder crashed into mine. Ultimately splashing half a cabernet onto my white shirt. Immediately the first words out of my mouth were, “I’m sorry.” And they came out slowly too. | | |
| I’m visiting my parents for the long weekend, and the inevitable happens in the first few hours. There is of course the initial small talk (“How was your flight? Did you get to nap? I hope you didn’t sit next to a fatty”), but then there is the Spanish Inquisition. It starts off easy with questions that I can answer. How is work going? (fine) How is your health (implying, I hope you don't intake more calories from alcohol than vegetables?) Do you sleep well? (Yes, but I still talk in my sleep) Have you been studying for your GMATs? (no), Finally, when the easy ones have run out, it becomes When are you going to buy your own house (read: next door to us?) and When am I going to see my first grandchild? These last two questions always floor me, because I think she expects them to be executed simultenously. I mean, I’ve always been great at multitasking, but even this I don’t think I can pull off. For the house, I would need seed money. Lots of it. And for the child, well, I would just need seeds.
But I can be aggressively ambitious if she wanted me to be. I can give it my best effort to get it all done at the same time. I picture myself, at 24 years old, in a gray office as a day-trader. I am bent over my desk placing a limit order and doing the nasty at the same time. (Or, rather, someone is doing it to me). “Yes, oh, do it, harder baby, harder” (here I type in the stock quote)… “Faster, harder, oh you know I like it like that” (hitting the “Place Order” button)… “Baby, I’m coming, oh oh oh!” (The screen flashes “Order Executed.”)
So either I will complete everything in the meager amount of time my mother has allotted, or someday I will have to tell my poor kid, oh yes, your father and I were very romantic with each other. In fact, you were conceived in front of a Bloomberg terminal during a market rally. I made $80 grand in about 40 minutes – about the time it took Daddy to finish putting you inside me. | | |
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