CBR9 #8: Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions by Valeria Luiselli

To say that this has been a difficult year would be an understatement. For Americans, no matter what one's political affiliation is, it is clear to see that the rampant gas-lighting the current administration is putting us through is not normal. The word "fact" seems to have completely undergone a change in meaning, so much so that statements from politicians are view with the default setting of "definitely a lie."

Putting aside that I wake up every morning with a sense of impending dread that I'm sure has something to do with having my iPhone so close to my head (every Politico news alert I get seems to give me heart palpitations), my personal life has been in the trash. I upended my life for a man this year, only to have it completely tossed in the air again six months later when he walked out of my life. I'm still waiting to see how it looks when things fall in place.

And yet, it's hard for me to vocalize how bad I feel because I have a sense he's doing worse; I have a sense that I've been lucky because of all the work I've put in on myself, because of all the friends and loved ones who've come to my rescue, and because of the daily reminders that I am not alone.

I bring all this up in my review of Tell Me How It Ends, because it came as an absolute surprise to me, at a strange intersection of feelings – of immense disappointment in US politics, immense sadness at the apparent downward slide of Cambodia's (facade of a) democracy towards outright tyranny, and of immense happiness for my friends and their journey.

I certainly didn't know what I was getting myself into when I opened this book after I ordered it from Amazon – no, I'm not kidding, I had put it in my Amazon basket months ago and had forgotten why I did that, so I just clicked "buy" when I was in the US in August. Tell Me How It Ends... this must be a romance novella, yes? This must be a slow burn of a friendship, yes? A strange existential novel about young love, yes?

Well, friends, it is not. Valeria Luiselli is a Mexican writer living in the US, waiting for her green card for her and her family to come through in the summer of 2014 when she hears of the news of tens of thousands of child refugees coming into the US from Mexico and Central America. She then begins working as a Spanish interpreter for the New York City immigration court, where she asks the children 40 questions drawn up by immigration lawyers to "process" their way through the American legal system. Depending on how the children answer, the lawyers are able to draw up a defense to the immigration court, to persuade the judges to rule that these children may have sanctuary.

Two days after I started reading this book, an old friend of mine finally got notification that she will be sworn in for citizenship in less than a week. A day after she received the letter, the White House announced that they will be rescinding DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration policy that enable people who had entered the country as minors be allowed a postponement of deportation.

To say that my friend's naturalization ceremony notice came at a bittersweet moment in history would be an understatement. She was wracked with guilt and relief – after years of being called an "illegal," of being unable to go to preferred colleges or obtain jobs in journalism because of her status, she would be able to be pronounced a citizen under one of the most polarized administration in history.

Like my friend, Luiselli was herself questioning her desire to be in the US, guilting herself on her and her husband's fortune to be professors and writers at a time when people – children, essentially – who looked and spoke like her were being villainized on talk radio. The very system in which she was trying to gain access to is broken and morally wrong in its treatment of young children. But she continues waiting out her green card while working at the immigration court, making her way through the 40 questions that seem so innocent but can reveal so much about the scars a child has obtained on his/her way to the land of the free... where the moment they arrive, they are kept in cold, locked rooms, shuttled from untrusting adult to untrusting adult until they get her, someone who can act as their voice.

I found myself tearing up several times during this. Yes, it's about children, and yes, it's a bare-bones look at our immigration system. But the words on these pages reflect a raging culture war that is happening in the US now. My privilege, the distance I have as an expat, my general upper middle-class Asian upbringing leaves me untouched, but I am touched as well.

There is a part in the book when she describes how police officers stopped their car during their road trip out west for vacation. She and her husband keeps it simply -- "We are writing a Western, sir... We came to Arizona for the open skies and the silent and the emptiness," she writes. It is untrue, but that's what they say.

Handing back our passports, one official says sardonically:  

So you come all the way down here for the inspiration.  

We know better than to contradict anyone who carries a badge and a gun, so we just say: 

Yes sir.  

Because –how do you explain that it is never inspiration that drives you to tell a story, but rather a combination of anger and clarity? How do you say: No, we do not find inspiration here, but we find a country that is as beautiful as it is broken, and we are somehow now part of it, so we are also broken with it, and feel ashamed, confused, and sometimes hopeless, and are trying to figure out how to do something about all that.  

We roll the windows up and keep driving. 

On September 7, my beautiful friend – the brightest, most hard-hitting and hardworking journalist in New York, I believe – was sworn in as a citizen. Her friends and I were sequestered into a separate waiting room where all we had to see them by was an inadequately sized TV. We were surrounded by bored relatives and petulant children.

We were there until 11 am, when Judge Ann Donnelly entered the court and issued a perfunctory swearing-in. She was the same federal judge who ordered a stay on Trump's refugee ban, allowing refugees detained in airports across the US not to be sent back to their home countries – but we didn't know that then, when we were standing in New York Eastern District Court listening to her begin a speech. Halting and filled with emotion, Judge Donnelly quoted President Barack Obama's press statement on DACA released the day before.

"What makes us American is not a question of what we look like, or where our names come from, or the way we pray. What makes us American is our fidelity to a set of ideals – that all of us are created equal; that all of us deserve the chance to make of our lives what we will; that all of us share an obligation to stand up, speak out, and secure our most cherished values for the next generation," she quoted, her voice crescendoing. She urged the new citizens to vote in all elections – "even in your local ones" – and to use their voice and speak out on issues that are important to them. She ended it by informing them that they are all Americans, that they are wanted in this country. The people in the waiting room, who previously had the energy of stale bread, burst into applause and tears, and then ran down to congratulate their loved ones.

My old newspaper was shut down by the government just two days before– a sign of Cambodia's increasing lean towards dictatorship – leaving many of my Cambodian colleagues jobless; the current administration had chosen to deport 800,000 young people who were brought to America by their parents; and I had just seen my friend sworn in as a citizen. In that moment, I chose to go with hope and happiness for my friend's future. I chose to see the strange serendipity that fate engineered to get her an eloquent, passionate female judge as a sign for better things.

Tell Me How It Ends takes its title from Luiseilli's daughter, who asked her mother often about the young refugees' stories when she was interpreting at the court. "Tell me how it ends, Mamma," she would say, inquiring into these children's outcomes. I suppose, in a way, it is a strange existential book about young love. But it is no novel, and we still don't know how it ends.

CBR8 Review #5: How May We Hate You? by Anna Drezen and Todd Dakotah Briscoe

Ever worked in the service industry? If the answer is yes, then you are probably aware of the magnitude of stupidity and rudeness that the general population possess. It doesn't matter if you have waited tables, worked in retail, dealt with customer service phone calls, worked in a hotel – there is something about being in these "How may I help you?" positions that somehow elicit some of the worst behavior from people who are typically nice in their everyday lives.

In my six years living in New York, I bartended and waited tables in four different places. The worst establishment was a very popular restaurant in the West Village that was essentially a tourist trap. We used to get hordes of tourists there who ranged from interesting to rude to misogynistic. Not everyone was terrible, but if I had to mete out a percentage, the scale would definitely tip over towards "Humanity Sucks."

It was there that I also met the coolest, funniest bunch of weirdos, some of whom I am still friends with today. One of them is Anna Drezen, a co-author of this book, who had a wickedly sarcastic sense of humor which sometimes flew under the radar of customers. After working at said terrible restaurant, she worked as a concierge in hotels in Times Square – a tourist trap in a meteoric sense – and it's there that she and her friend Todd decided to start a tumblr filled with some of the most ridiculous but true conversations they had with customers.

How May We Hate You became a huge fucking hit! Of course it did, because everyone who's ever worked in service recognizes the frustration of it, but also because Anna and Todd – both comedians – were able to capture the laugh/cry quality of dealing with the public.

Here are some examples of people being rude, people being dense, and people with thick accents/language barrier which can lead to some hilarious misunderstandings.

Anyway, from this runaway hit tumblr, they parlayed it into a book!! And the book has a ton of new stuff, along with actually helpful advice on how to be a tourist in New York/how to not inadvertently be an asshole. There is also a hilarious section where Anna and Todd classified the guests. For instance, I laughed out loud on the plane when reading about The Miracle, "a person who can be classified as a miracle based solely on the fact that they've survived this long." They can be identified by "an 'I [heart] New York' shirt, a camera around their neck, and an aura that just says "ROB ME." There is also The Unprepared, and their appearance "varies, but it's never weather-appropriate."

There are also people who aren't really tourists, such as the Wealthy Retail Tourists hailing from places like Brazil, Qatar and Germany, who "do not mess around when it comes to shopping." They can be easily identified by their "gorgeous bone structure, amazing hair, all the time in the world to ask you the price of every single goddamn bag in the Coach outlet in New Jersey. This may not sound like a visual trait, but you'll notice it by the haze of blood that clouds your eyes because your brain is bleeding because it is trying to kill itself."

If you think this book is only bitching about people, eh, you're kind of right, and you'll probably be totally delighted by it. However, there are also stories of people being actual human beings, and they talk regularly about concierge staff who really do love helping customers. I also got weirdly choked up at the end when Anna wrote about how a tourist she had been helping all week invited her to see an opera, a totally unexpected gesture that resulted in a genuine friendship.

At the end of the day, you will love this book if you've ever worked in service, and you might even recognize yourself in some of the characters mentioned (everyone has been a clueless tourists somewhere). The important takeaway from it is Treat Others the Way You Want to Be Treated... and maybe that high schools/colleges should make it mandatory for students to spend a semester working in the service industry to curb the public's asshole behavior towards service staff. 

CBR6 #2: The Golem and the Djinni by Helene Wecker

This book has been favorably reviewed by many, including Cannonballer Jen K, so I bought it on my recent trip to Bangkok, where they have an expansive Kinokuniya. I was intrigued by the idea of a golem -- have always been intrigued by them since it was first mentioned in Michael Chabon's Kavalier and Clay as a character in a graphic novel by the protagonist Josef Kavalier -- but this was the first time I've thought of them as a Jewish equivalent to a djinni, which we so commonly see spelled as genie.

The Golem is Chava, a Golem created in the shape of a human-like woman at the behest of a not-so-nice businessman who's about to immigrate to America. During the journey over the ocean, the businessman passes away from an illness and she is left master-less, and feels lost. A golem, in Jewish lore, is created to fulfill the wishes of its master, and without her "husband," Chava feels a gulf within her. She can also hear people's desires and her nature pressures her to help people, without thinking of the consequences.

Luckily, she encounters a rabbi, who recognizes her for what she is, and he takes her in and teaches her how to suppress her nature as he is fearful that people will destroy her once they find out what she is, or worse, she would destroy them.

A counterpoint to Chava's personality is the titular Djinni, who gives himself the name Ahmad. While we often equate genies to Robin Williams' personality in Aladdin, author Helene Wecker creates an entire back story to these creatures, who seem like invisible powerful spirits that roam the deserts of Africa. We first encounter Ahmad as he spills out of a gas lamp that was being polished and fixed by a tinsmith named Arbeely living in Little Syria in New York, which is today the Financial District (or more pointedly, around the area where the World Trade Center was). With him, we have to uncover the mystery how of he ended up trapped in a gas lamp, with an iron chain around his wrists. (Iron is a material most hated by djinnis and it prevents Ahmad from assuming his real form, and is thus forced to stay as a human.)

 What was interesting for me was the idea of nature. Obviously, both of our characters are magical creatures but they have human traits -- and since humans have also created these beings in our cultures, it is significant to me what types of characteristics we impart to our creations. Chava is essentially a slave to her master, and if she has no one to obey, she feels uncomfortable and unmoored; Ahmad, however, is a free being who's been trapped, so he does not really care about how his actions affect others, almost to the point of callousness. There's also an idea of where our personalities come from -- characters in the book keep talking about how "it is in their nature." But this never excuses Ahmad's insensitivity or Chava's blind obedience.

While I thought the novel started with really interesting ideas and posited potentially evocative themes, I am disappointed that it never builds up from that, that it never explores how both cultures -- who in the media is portrayed as being fundamentally suspicious and antagonistic to each other -- are similar or different, and it never really allows the people from the different neighborhoods to interact.

Moreover, while I was stabbed with nostalgia (of what I've never know or experienced) over her descriptions of New York City at the turn of the century, I was not very impressed with her writing and character development when it came to the actual people (and creatures). I was also a bit annoyed by how neatly the ending tied itself up, like the stupid TV trope of how coincidence and luck somehow allows for everyone to be in the right place at the right time.

Overall, this was definitely a book worth reading, and I actually finished the 600+ page book in two days. But more than for sake of the writing or the story, I'm glad The Golem and the Djinni has reminded me, once again, how interested I am in New York City's history and the communities that were cramped there which has so drastically shaped the city into what it is today.

CBR5 #5 to #8: The Patrick Melrose Novels by Edward St. Aubyn

The Patrick Melrose novels by Edward St. Aubyn go by incredibly quickly. The first four of the series – there are five total – all have titles that sound like exclamations of exasperation. Never Mind, the first novel, displays the home life of five-year-old Patrick Melrose, the son of an English aristocrat and an American heiress; Bad News follow’s 21-year-old Patrick, who’s now a heroin addict, and his drug-fuelled days in New York City when he goes to bury his father; Some Hope features him as an older, though not much wiser, man trying to come to terms with his past; and Mother’s Milk charts the summers that he and his family spend in the family’s home in France, and the declining health of his inattentive mother.

I’m gonna review them separately, even though they all came in one tome. I think this edition (where the four are actually one) was released right before the launch of St. Aubyn’s fifth and final book, which I have not read.

Never Mind

In the first book of the Patrick Melrose series, St. Aubyn introduces David Melrose, the patriarch of the Melrose family, through the eyes of others who seem eager to avoid him. His maid tries to skirt around his attention while his wife, Eleanor, often seems to stay very, very still so as not to have him notice her. Only five-year-old Patrick seems to appreciate his father, who he sees as a stern and commanding presence.

The other players in Never Mind is Jewish philosopher Victor Eisen and his reporter girlfriend Anne Moore; and Nicholas Pratt and his new young girlfriend Bridget. The three couples are meeting at the French house of David and Eleanor, and the entire book takes place in the span of a single day.

David Melrose, an English aristocratic, is seen as the top dog by all the men in terms of style and class, and all the men do verbal gymnastics around each other to try to appear clever and ironic, while also not overtly aggressive. St. Aubyn skewers the rich by portraying them as a malicious bunch – and all the ammunition is flung while they are sitting civilly to dinner. Eleanor, who is American and really the wealthy one as it is her inheritance that David and the family are living off of, often finds herself feeling left out:

Eleanor still found it inexplicable that the best English manners contained such a high proportion of outright rudeness and gladiatorial combat. She knew that David abused this licence, but she also knew how ‘boring’ it was to interfere with the exercise of unkindness. When David reminded someone of their weaknesses and failures she was torn between a desire to save the victim, whose feelings she adopted as her own,and an equally strong desire not to be accused of spoiling a game. The more she thought about this conflict, the more tightly it trapped her. She would never know what to say because whatever she said would be wrong.

The entire first book is beset with a sense of foreboding – David, as you can already tell, is a sadistic fucking dick; Eleanor is forever his victim; and Patrick – who Anne, at one point, says is the only person she likes in that family since there is still optimism in him – seems to be the vessel upon each parent’s cruelty and neuroses is spilled into.

I’m going to keep hammering on this throughout all the reviews for all four books, but St. Aubyn is unforgiving in his portrayal of the wealthy, and he manages to imbue all the characters and descriptions with such a richness of knowledge. Patrick, as a five-year-old, is largely exempt from such contempt, but his point of view is just as poignantly vivid, and it brought along a sense of almost nostalgia – I could remember feeling these emotions when my mother used to get angry at me, and I could not figure out the reasons behind her anger:

As Patrick slowly crossed the floor he tried to think of some way to placate his father. Maybe if he said something clever he’d be forgiven, but he felt extraordinarily stupid and could only think over and over: two time two equals four, two times two equals four. He tried to remember something he had noticed that morning, or anything, anything at all that might persuade his father that he had been ‘observing everything.’ But his mind was eclipsed by the shadow of his father’s presence.

Never Mind is really about the resignation of a child, at five, that things are just going to be shit for the rest of his life. His father is an asshole, his mother is a dishrag, and adults seem despicable through and through. Patrick’s world is split into half on this day with the knowledge that his parents, whom he had seen as model adults of sorts, could come to embody monsters.

Bad News

Bad news arrives in a phone call from an old family friend to Patrick, 21, as he is just about to expertly inject heroin into the crook of his arm – his father had passed away. Will Patrick stop by the funeral home on Madison Avenue in New York City?

Patrick put down the syringe he had been flushing out, and sat beside the phone without moving. Was it bad news? Perhaps he would need all his courage not to dance in the street, not to smile too broadly.

With that begins a two-day drug-fuelled existence in New York. Upon hearing about David’s death, Patrick resolves to quit using heroin. But in order to get himself off it, he’d have to distract himself with other substances – such as cocaine, quaaludes, speed, valium, and general overuse of alcohol. It doesn’t matter because he ends up using heroin anyway. In his quest to rid himself of the stench of having been fathered by a sadistic child rapist, Patrick seeks out his old “friends” – Pierre, his old dealer, a French man with the purest heroin available who scolds Patrick for always trying to seek a rush while selling it to him; and Willy, an Alphabet City dealer who is willing to invite Patrick over to his home and provide him with a much-sought-after needle.

Patrick also visits with old family friends and all in all, comes off as an entitled rich brat who is adept at having cynical conversations with “grown-ups.” It’s clear that no one knows to what extent David’s cruelty was inflicted upon Patrick; he continually has to hear others tell him what a singularly amazing man his father was.

The second book is probably my least favorite, because Patrick – while sympathetic if you had read Never Mind – is a real mess. That’s to be expected given his childhood, as well as the heroin addiction. But every time St. Aubyn seems about to redeem Patrick’s general shittiness, he’s assailed by a sudden need to be unkind or make an observation that can only be thought of as “Rich White Boy” with an eye roll.

One thing that I loved about it though was the hazy clarity that Patrick seemed to collapse into when under the influence of drugs. While reading this, all I could think was, “Holy Christ, St. Aubyn totally had a drug problem.” There was a realness to the addiction, like the way Patrick mapped out his night according to the drugs he had left, just to make sure he didn’t run out too long before his flight returning to London took off, but that he didn’t have too much whereby he’d be too high before boarding the plane. Patrick is also visited by hallucinations and voices, and there are whole pages that continue with conversations in his head with the television in his hotel room.

The whole experience made me really wish I knew what it was like to be high on heroin.

Another great thing about Bad News – you start noticing recurring characters in the Melroses’ life. Nicholas Pratt is mentioned again, and Anne returns, this time as an old friend who, despite her dislike for David, does not quite approve of Patrick’s vocal hatred toward his father. It’s sort of fun to note familiar names and recurring themes in these books – such as the appearance of an Alsatian, or a German shepherd, and how it symbolizes David’s restlessness and sudden anger.

Some Hope

I actually read Some Hope first, before I even knew that it was just one installment in a series of five. It begins with Patrick Melrose’s point of view after he had woken up from a dream, and while it may be random (especially if I came at it without having gone through Never Mind and Bad News) it was immediately gripping and interesting.

Patrick, at 28, has a singular voice and point of view. He is acerbic and humorous and self-lacerating. He is immature, sure – after all, he is a child of a trust fund and absent (slash abusive) parents – but as the chapters switch between his point of view and others within his social circle, it’s clear that the entire community of rich, well-to-doers are not even close to half as self-aware as he is.

Some Hope spans over a single day, and it’s essentially a look at various people’s lives as they prepare for a big party at night that will be thrown by Bridget (yes, young, flitty Bridget that we first saw in Never Mind) and her society husband for a princess. Patrick has been drug-free and sober for a couple years now, and his closest friend is Johnny, who seems like the most normal person in the entire book – and this is as an ex-heroin addict.

British snobbery is on full display here, with clever double-talk and the employment of crushing barbs in polite conversation. Every single person portrayed is a fucking bitch here – no one means what they say, and everything they say means nothing here because they would just twist it later when repeated to other parties. Yet St. Aubyn never makes a reader feel like that entire cast of character is a stain on humanity because we are able to see the humanness in all these deplorable characteristics. Because who hasn’t shit-talked a friend, and spoken behind their backs? And haven’t we all done it because we are all insecure in some ways, that we feel the need to crush others in our minds in order to feel good about ourselves? St. Aubyn just shows it off here to a greater, more extreme degree. 

The title this time refers to Patrick’s search for some sense of normalcy, in his mind. He is still struggling with his childhood abuse under the hands of his father, and how to reconcile it with the fact that David Melrose is greatly respected by Very Imporant People, people who never hesitate to tell Patrick what a great friend his pedophile father was to them.

If anything, the duality, and even the multiplicity, that exists within us has been a persistent theme throughout these novels. It’s trite to say, “Oh, he has characters that are not flat and are multi-dimensional.” Yes, it is a minimal requirement for an author to be able to expertly render his protagonist, and the people surrounding him, as a human being. But it’s an entirely different skill to make me seriously believe that these people are good and bad, and evil and kind; to hold these two opposing point of views at the same time in my mind. And truth be told, aren’t we all like this? I’m constantly questioning the intentions behind my actions and behind my motivations – do I do good things because I want to be good, or because I want to be perceived as good? It’s bad to gossip and shit talk and be snide, but isn’t it also just so clever to be a witty pessimist rather than an earnest do-gooder?

This was my favorite of the four books, and the one that prompted me to seek out the entire series (saving the final book, because I live in, you know, Cambodia/non-Amazon land). It works as a stand-alone book, but I re-read it anyway when I started from the beginning, if only because Patrick’s history makes me appreciate so much more the re-appearance of personalities from his past, as well as the effort it has taken for him to get to this point, where he can concretely say, “Well, maybe I could make my life about me, and not about having survived my father’s abuse.”

Mother’s Milk

The fourth book is a jarring departure from the other three. First, it is no longer set within a short period of time – it spans several summers from 2000 onwards – and also, it provides an extensive look to the people around Patrick. Now married and with a children, Patrick appears, at first to have settled comfortably into fatherhood and married life. Their summers, initially spent in the family house in France (in which Never Mind took place), were supplanted as Patrick’s mother, Eleanor, began giving the family fortune and property away to some New Age cult religion group.

St. Aubyn has focused so much on Patrick’s relationship with his absent parents – and we’ve only seen one very meek, very subservient side of his mother in Never Mind – that Eleanor’s reappearance and her portrayal is almost unrecognizable. Eleanor, after all, has always been a cipher for others to pin their hopes upon, and having each time failed their expectations, have flitted to her next goal, whether if it is being a good wife (failed), a good mother (failed failed), altruistic Mother-to-the-People (sort of failed, but who knows), and an upright Human Being Who Submits Herself to a Higher Power (failed because it’s essentially a cult she entrusts her hopes upon).

St. Aubyn juxtaposes Patrick’s neurosis and self-awareness upon the reflections of his young and precocious son – who is trying his best to emulate his father -- and his wife, who is the extreme opposite of Eleanor. This self-awareness that Patrick has carried throughout his life has now been taken up to a greater degree by his older son, Robert.

And Robert is… an anomaly. As a child, he possesses an intelligence that I sincerely doubt is possible in real life, but always seem to appear in the children of movies and books. Yet St. Aubyn does the very clever trick of having Robert’s inner thoughts seem extremely insightful and probing, while from the outside point of view have him engaging in play and childish acts. And truthfully, haven’t we all felt like this as a kid? The belief that what the adult sees is only a fraction of my capacity as a child? I remember thinking, perhaps around 5, that adults vastly underestimate children and their ability to understand that they’re just so full of shit. So maybe Robert’s portrayal isn’t that far off – it’s just more eloquently written.

For Patrick, Eleanor’s gradual descent into old age has him feeling a curious mix of hatred, compassion and resentment. How hard should he be pushing her for a slice of the family inheritance? Should he even care about it, considering how much he does not love her as a mother? If she asks for his help in killing herself, should he do it because he loves her and wants to put her out of her misery… or does he want to do it because there’s the glee of revenge that comes from a lifetime of familial betrayal? Any time you begin to judge Patrick’s motivations for his urges, don’t worry – he’s already gotten there and ran three laps around the park with them.

It’s sort of interesting, now that I am writing about these books, to clearly see how St. Aubyn has brought Patrick’s character to a full growth. In the first, he unfailingly loves his father and mother, and his world is shattered in a single day. In the second, Patrick encapsulates the rich young asshole who sees the world as being preternaturally against him and therefore he must try to shorten his life as quickly as possible through substance-abuse. And then in Some Hope, he’s taken the rashness of his youth, and is trying so hard to push life forward with an attempt at maturity. Finally, in Mother’s Milk, he’s reduced to his former child when it comes Eleanor and his wife Mary – playing the blame game – but he tries to emulate adulthood by rationalizing his reasons and putting his feelings up for full inspection.

It’s exhausting to watch, exhausting to experience, and exhilarating to have on page to see. Not only is it amazing writing, but St. Aubyn’s portrayal of Patrick just pulled so much empathy from me – the specific details of his circumstances may differ (greatly differ) from my life, but I completely saw so much of Patrick within me and his over-thinking his over-thinking touched my soul.

What a fucking corny way to end a review, huh? Well, I cannot recommend the Patrick Melrose novels enough – it’s brilliant, it’s funny, it’s painful and it will speak to you in volumes about what kind of people we individuals are. Go. Go read it, now. 

So I disappeared for a bit...

2013 was a bit of a shit year, to be honest. After I read and reviewed Ghostwritten, my life sort of went down the rabbit hole. My boyfriend and I broke up -- we were in a long-distance relationship, so the absence shouldn't have mattered so much, right? Even so.

So I disappeared for a bit, and I stopped reading, and I stopped reviewing. I found it difficult to sit still by myself with my thoughts, and so I was just running around, doing as much as I possibly could. I went to Kep on weekends with new friends, went to Jakarta on another weekend to visit an old friend. I started cooking again, this time trying to make Chinese-style noodles (hor fun), or pierogis, or just meals that consisted of the four food groups. I adopted a kitten and named him Biggie Smalls. I fought with friends, made up with friends, said goodbye to friends. I went to new places, new events that I wouldn't have bothered with six months ago, and I met up with old friends who visited Phnom Penh. I bought a nice camera and (somewhat) learned how to use it. 

First day in Jakarta

Jakarta city-view

Parts of the city were waterlogged when I was there. 

But people still seemed positively cheerful 

With Christi and her boyfriend, hanging outside in the balcony

Biggie Smalls, when he was very small

Biggie Smalls, two months later. Dude got huge!

My pierogis. I was very proud of 'em. 

Jane and I looking like hot bitches on our way to a classical music concert (Photo by Ben Woods*)

At the night market with friends (Photo by Ben Woods)

Always at Liquid. Etan (third from left) visited me in Phnom Penh for about 48 hours. (Photo by Ben Woods)

And this was all while working my ass off at my job, which is utterly life-consuming in some ways. Work was a relief during this time. I complain about it a lot, but I do love it. 

In March, I returned to the States for a month for Cynthia's wedding. It was beautiful, of course, and it was great seeing her again. Talking to her always feels like such a relief, like nothing's ever going to change between us and that if there's one thing that I can rely on to be constant in my life, it's my friendship with her. Her husband, Chris, was very sweet, very funny, and loves her very much (obvi), and I, naturally, think that he's lucky to have found a woman like Cynthia.

We don't like each other. 

Puppies kissing Cynthia before the ceremony

Cynthia walks down the aisle with her father

I also got to spend some time with my mother. We took a trip to central California, to Solvang, and its surrounding towns. This place was like weird farm central. We went to an ostrich farm, a miniature horse farm, a miniature donkey farm and a lavender farm. My mom also accompanied me to a beer brewery, called Figueroa Mountain Brewery.

miniature ponies!

miniature donkeys! (This one was sweet)

The donkey was trying to get my mom to pet him. 

Ostriches are fucking freakish looking. Also ginormous, and have huge talons. 

Then New York, which was exhilarating and exhausting. I stayed with Marissa, and just had a schedule full of seeing family, friends, mentors, and former colleagues. I drank way too much beer, ate way too much good food, and spent... not as much money as I expected, which was a nice surprise given how expensive the city can be. But I guess since I was visiting from Cambodia, everyone seemed to want buy me lunch, dinner, drinks. I also got to go to a concert in Bushwick, which made me so happy. Haven't heard live music in ages. The band was Crushed Out aka Boom Chick -- a drum/guitar duo. They were great.

View of uptown from my uncle's office. He works near WTC.

My cousin. She got so big! And understands words now. 

I meet the Polish hotties in the East Village.

I miss these girls so much. 

got a hipster card from the girls

Last week, May 3, was my two-year anniversary in Cambodia with Emily. We didn't do much -- just had sushi for dinner to commemorate it, then went out drinking with a buddy who was back in town.

Two years in Cambodia. Nuts.

Anyway, it's been a pretty eventful four months. I'm glad that I was more willing to put myself out there and do different things, but obviously there have been some down sides to being unwilling to settle down and allow myself to be ok with just. sitting. still. But I'm trying, right now, I really, really am. I've even started reading again -- besides that Ron Vitale book I reviewed below, I've read three other books. I'm aware that puts me way behind my CBR5 goal of 26, but I'll keep trying.

(*My friend, Ben, has more photos of Phnom Penh at his tumblr. He's a great photographer.)

buildings in the sunrise

I love this video, absolutely love everything about it. I love that it has the streets of lower Manhattan and bars of Brooklyn. I love that the frontman and his bandmates remind me of the Boys I know in New York (even if they would hate me for making this comparison) and I love that they are eating gyros at a street cart. I love the soaring anthemic Carry Onnnn as they slide across the marble floors of Grand Central, and I love the piano in the bar, and I love the fist-pumping to the chorus. I love the view of buildings (Water Street?) as dawn arrives.

Maybe it's because I've been feeling impossibly heartsick for New York, and the repetitive chorus probably punched a little harder with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. I don't know, don't care – I just love this song and I love this video.

Eating in Cambodia, part two

Did I ever mention I'm part of a food-blogging trio? Well, before I moved to Phnom Penh, we were just roaming around NYC eating and having fun, and then writing about it after. The other two, Rachizle and Etanbomb, are pretty voracious eaters too (and funny) so we just call ourselves funeaters.

Anyway, I did my first food post from PP about crab in Kep, so do check it out.

Fun Eaters!

Headline of the Day

If World Ends, So Does Alternate-Side Parking

Thank you, NYT.

I actually know a couple Brooklynites who'll be very happy about this.

Country Living/Leaving

This was where I spent most of my weekend.

I went to my uncle's house in upstate New York, and it was wonderful just to get away from the city, if only for just 24 hours. I arrived there Friday night, slept in a bedroom that was built in the 1700s (and was just a bit disappointed that I wasn't awaken in the middle of the night by ghosts), biked along an old rail trail on Saturday afternoon and spent time playing with my little cousin. Then I was on the 7:45 p.m. train and whisked back to the city.

My uncle, his daughter and his wife

When I arrived at Port Authority, I made my way to the ACE. Some guy violently bumped into me and I looked up (from texting, of course), annoyed, and glared at him. He quickly apologized, and instead of saying, "It's ok," I snapped, "Dude, watch where you're going." I instantly regretted being rude but didn't know how to take it back. The kid was younger than me, looked like he was from out of town and looked seriously freaked. He disappeared before I could figure out an appropriate way to apologize.

Perhaps I've been in New York a little too long? Six years ago, I would have accepted that apology without a second thought; yesterday, I had to bite my tongue from saying something inappropriate.

I suppose these thoughts are only natural since I am actually leaving the city. I am leaving the country, to be more exact, on May 1 to Cambodia for a new job. I am absolutely thrilled/nervous/thankful for this opportunity and jumped at the chance when it was offered – but a part of me wondered if I was ready to leave this city I love so much. An old friend of mine said once, "I don't think people should leave New York until they absolutely cannot live here anymore." Her reasoning was that if we left before we were ready to, we'd always keep coming back, searching for that new shiny life, and being disappointed over and over again. It's a little bleak, for sure, but it's difficult to take an optimistic point of view when city living can beat you down with the high rents, high expenses and rude people (Exhibit A: me.)

On the other hand, I could also argue that the people of New York, be them transplants or actual locals (not an urban myth by the way), are some of the best people I have ever met. There are so many that are genuine and interesting and weird and strange and hardworking and good – I have become much more open-minded to so many different types of people, and I am always able to see the goodness in them. They (we – because as my uncle said, I am a New Yorker, even if I'm not) can be brusque and a little rough around the edges. But what you see is what you get, and if you don't like it, we really don't care.

My favorite quintessential New York Summer photo. Taken in 2007, I think.

So no, I'm not quite ready to leave here yet. But I am so ready to start on my new gig. Anyway, I'll always be back.

Doomed Lovers At The Train Station

Last Saturday, a friend gave me tickets to see the Broadway play, Brief Encounter. I knew nothing about it and went into the Studio 54 theater completely blind. My initial judgment of it was that it was very British and far too quirkiwhimsilicious (that's on the bad side of quirky where the whimsy feels forced).

By the end of the hour and a half, I was completely sold. Most plays try to transport you to a different time and place with the costumes and appropriate props, and director Emma Rice certainly had the stage decked out with pre-World War II nostagia. But it was really the intensity of the emotions portrayed by the actors and the literal interpretation of two lovers getting caught up in a torrent of emotions that left my insides feeling strangely raw.

For those who do not know, Brief Encounter is based on a Noel Coward and David Lean film from 1945 of the same name. Laura, a housewife, meets Alec, a young doctor who is married as well, by chance and they fall in love. The story is incredibly simply, but this does not diminish its tragic end. It's strange that in today's films we have to have something huge and substantial happen to the characters - someone's dying of cancer or there's a huge betrayal or there is a great sacrifice - for us to feel like it was something worth crying over.

With Laura and Alec, it was simply that they fell in love but could not be together because both had their own families. In the end, they had to "be sensible" – keeping their feelings buttoned up in their stiff period costumes, yet knowing that their hearts were irrevocably broken. I left the darkened theater feeling both alive and numbed by the sheer onslaught of emotions, and was astonished that I could feel these things after having initially felt disdain for the two lovers.

It was such a pleasant coincidence then that this week's New York Magazine did an article on the design of the play. The piece included this sketch below, which was created by Neil Murray, the scene-and costume designer. I think it perfectly encapsulates the tragic romance.

My Hero

City Room: Jetblue Flight Attendant Uses Emergency Slide to Escape Dispute

I wish that my restaurant/office building has an evacuation slide attached to it. "You want me to 'keep your mimosas coming' even though you just made me run to bring you three in 10 minutes? EVAC BITCHES!!!"

My week thus far in pictures...

On Tuesday, I went to Bryant Park after work to unwind with my crossword. I had this mental image of myself lying sprawled on the lawn with all the reflective buildings gazing down on me as I raced through the empty boxes with my pen, finishing the crossword before dusk. In my Bryant Park fantasy, I was intellectual and content.

The reality: The lawn was closed so I sat on a hard, butt-numbing wooden bench with no back. I was almost stung by a bee. A couple sitting in front of me seemed to think that they were in a cheap motel room. I gave up on my crossword early – I'm not even smart enough to get through Monday's very-easy edition – and almost fell asleep doing it because 3:30 a.m. was the time I went to bed the night before. At least I got the "reflective buildings" part right.

On Wednesday, I decided to go to Central Park to try and catch the Black Keys on SummerStage. I didn't have tickets to the concert (that would have required spending money) nor did I really have a plan. I tried to get someone to go with me but no one really wanted to stand outside a concert venue looking in, trying to get a glimpse of a band they don't really care about. So I went by myself. I found a giant rock outside the concert area that had a ton of people on it and there was a spot on it with a clear ("clear" is a relative term) view of the stage, so I was just perched there. This would be the second day in a row that my butt lost feeling.

I don't have a photo of this, so this will have to suffice:

Yes, I'm cool - why do you ask?

I actually didn't think it was that weird for me to be there by myself, but other people did because they asked me why I was there by myself. I had zero expectations for this, did minimal planning, and in the end felt blessed that I was able to hear everything, much less see 'em.

Here's my view:

They sang a lot of stuff from their new album, which I don't really know but it was still really good. Toward the end, they played "Your Touch," and it was great. I don't usually go to concerts because I just don't really know music, but when I do know and like a song at the rare concert that I attend (peer in from outside of), I feel like the band is playing that song just. For. Me. It feels fucking awesome.

All in all, The Black Keys rocked, even from a distance, and I think next time I'll actually shell out money to see them.

Finally, I saw this today:

Media rivalries always strike me as petty, but they are also hilarious. Probably because they are so petty. Although, this message probably would haven been more effective if it wasn't parked right outside the Times building. "Ooh, yea, you really told 'em, NYT."

Quick Ones

As I said in the previous post, my best was in New York for two weeks. A more detailed post of her visit will come soon.

I caught Inception opening night and it was amazing. Despite my high expectations, I was still impressed. I cannot wait to rewatch it when it comes out on DVD. I am also nursing a serious crush on Joseph Gordon-Levitt - it hasn't been this bad since Brick.

I also watched Top Gun for the first time - it was projected onto bedsheets tacked up in the yard of a friend's place in Bushwick. It was fantastic and I'm so glad I live in New York in the summer.

Things I am not glad about: this insane heat wave.

Last bit: One of journalism's greats just passed away. I wish I knew more about Daniel Schorr and his work when he was alive. Thankfully, my ignorance can countered by all the great stories being told about him all over the Internet.

Guess who's coming to New York...

That last picture was taken at prom. The reason why it is so small is because we were actually on an upper level of the ship (Yes, our prom took place on a boat! It was really cool! And then I discovered that I get sea sick) and our friends were on the bottom deck. This was at the end of the night as we were inching toward the exit, and our friends snapped a photo of us from afar. Good thing we were camera-ready! The photo was cropped, and I don't even have the original anymore.

Two more days!