Memorial Day 2012: Shopping and Romance “Literature”

I’m sure throwing up on the carpet of the Nordstrom’s Women’s Shoe section would have been frowned upon.

The Higa family spent Memorial Day doing what we do best: looking for deals. Lynnette was born with a bloodhound’s sense of smell for retail sales; her nose for savings led us to Ala Moana yesterday. There were, to be sure, several purchases made by our family, but I am most happy to report that we’ve made it another year without Madison giving a crap about shopping. Lynnette and I have done such a good job raising Madison that she actually turns down opportunities to purchase things. For example, we’ll ask if she wants a dress. She’ll look at it and make a call immediately. There’s no Lynnette-esque wishy-washy, I-want-to-get-it-but-maybe-I-shouldn’t, red wire or blue wire hesitation thus far in Madison, and that makes me happy. She even asks “Is this ‘spensive?” if what she’s eyeing looks pricey.

Aside: We made yet another trip to Eden in Love yesterday. Lynnette spent close to half-an-hour scouring, trying on, and making decisions. When she got to the register with her purchases I asked her “Are you getting a skinny belt?” “No,” she replied. “You may as well get a skinny belt now because otherwise you won’t be able to recreate the look when we get home and you won’t wear the dress,” I said. The cashier looked at me and smiled, then looked at Lynnette. “Okay!” Lynnette said. It’s not mind-reading so much as it’s collecting years’ worth of data, looking for trends, and then making the best call based on all the available information. Marriage: so sexy.

If I had known that Madison would love fake dogs for such a long time, I would have bought Abby from Toys R Us.

I never understood why Jungle Fun set up that table with random automated toys out in front of the store. I still don’t, but I guess it might have something to do with the fact that my daughter must stop by it every time we come within a 50-foot radius of the store. Yesterday, there were four fake barking, walking dogs. As you know, Madison has a thing for fake dogs. In our home alone, Abby has to compete with Ruffy (a pull toy), Roxy (the fake puppy formerly known as Delection), and an electronic puppy on her toy computer for Madison’s affections. At Jungle Fun yesterday, I arranged all of the puppies in a line and then released them to create something of a race. Well, the picture you see is the result of that “race.” The Taco Bell dog left the others in the dirt and that husky-ish puppy never really competed. Of course that’s the one Madison was drawn too. “Awwwwwwww, it’s okay, puppy,” she said as moved it up to the rest of the pack.

A summer job would probably get this done, but whoring myself out seems much quicker and likely more enjoyable.

Speaking of toys, it was a bittersweet moment indeed to learn that the Lego Store carries officially licensed Marvel and DC lego sets. A few weeks ago one of my students told me that Lego would soon be releasing a few Lord of the Rings sets. As cool as that is, it’s nowhere near as awesome as the comic book sets. I might be biased.

The Batman sets include the Bat Cave (far left) with a little contraption that allows you to slide Bruce Wayne in and Batman out – and vice versa (!). Of course, there is also a Batmobile/Bank robbery set (right) and a helicopter/Batjet (or whatever it’s called) chase set.

My ambivalence, of course, is founded on knowing that I am far too old and have far too many other financial obligations to spend near $200 to complete a Batman Lego set, but wanting so desperately to buy it, build it, scream at Madison not to touch it, then forget about it as it gathers dust in some quiet corner of my house.

To quote the narrator at the beginning of Armageddon: It has happened before. It will happen again.

The Gilly Hicks Waiting Area featuring bored 4-year olds and 32-year olds with sore feet!

I think the shopping highlight of the day came courtesy of Gilly Hicks. I’m not sure whether this is true or not, but sometimes I get the feeling that Lynnette is an underwear snob. Back in the day – long before we were married – Lynnette had not planned on staying over at my parents’ house and as such, did not pack an extra set of clothing. She already had some clothes at my house, but did not have any underthings. “Let’s just go to Walmart and get like a 9-pack or something and you can just leave them at my house for occasions just like this,” I said. “I’m not going to wear Walmart underwear!” she said defiantly. Well, we ended up going anyway – because Pearl City is closer than Mililani – and she hated every second of the search, purchase, and eventual use of Hanes panties. She’s a Victoria’s Secret girl. Perhaps it goes back to her days in college when she worked at VS. I don’t know. When we saw that Gilly Hicks had a seven-for-$26 deal on underwear, I suggested Lynnette poke her head in and check it out. Well, she did. Madison and I set up shop on the patio area fronting the store. Fifteen or so minutes later, Lynnette emerged from the store with a little bag and said “I have to admit that they’ve got some pretty good sales,” as if the idea of any store other than VS having serviceable underwear was such a stretch. Madison and I got up and I took the bag from Lynnette (because I’m not that guy who makes his partner carry all the shopping bags, even if they’re all hers) and said “So did-” Lynnette cut me off. “No, I didn’t get any thongs. I don’t wear those anymore. I’m a mother now.” Parenthood: so sexy.

Aside: Madison has a very sensitive nose, apparently. There are certain stores – such as Gilly Hicks and Abercrombie and Fitch and Basique Threads – that some kind of smell that turns her off. Yesterday we got about half-way into Gilly Hicks before the smell of their perfume or whatever hit Madison’s nose. She immediately pressed her nostrils down with her fingers and said (with a Muppet voice) “I don’t like the smell, dad. I wanna get out of here.” Whenever she does this, I say “What?” then she’ll say it again. Then I’ll say “I can’t understand you because you’re holding your nose.” Then she releases her nostrils and screams “I don’t like the smell! I wanna get out!” Before quickly clamping them shut again. It is hilarious every time.

There would be no take-home box.

“I’m going to be brave,” Madison said. She was talking about sleeping over at my parents’ house last night. Friday was Mad’s last day of school, and any other year, that would have been fine. But this school year, the underclass finals are after graduation. That means I have work this week. I’ve worked it out so that I don’t have to come in on Thursday, but I’ve had to make arrangements for Madison on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.

We broke the news to Madison on Sunday night. She was hesitant. “Why do I have to sleep at grandma and grandpa’s?” she asked. “Because mommy and daddy still have work,” I said. “I don’t want to,” she said. “Well, Abby can’t watch you,” I said. “Is there anything you want me to pack for you?” I asked. “Well, some pajamas. And some snacks. And some other clothes,” she said. “So you can go out?” I asked. “Yes,” she said.

When I get filthy, rotten rich, I am going to hire a live-in masseuse and a live-in sushi chef.

When we dropped Mad off at my parents’ house on the way home, it went off without incident. She hugged and kissed both of us goodbye and disappeared into the living room. “Are you two going to dinner now?” my mom asked. Lynnette and I looked at each other with matching looks of surprise. I have no idea how the hell neither of us thought of that. So that’s what we decided to do. We ate at Kunio. We had a nice conversation about missing Madison (we always do this, I suppose it somehow assuages our guilt) and a few other things. Mostly, though, we just inhaled food.

When we got home, Lynnette began reading Fifty Shades of Grey (which apparently features a bunch of kinky sex and whatnot) and that was that. I watched some Criminal Minds on TV. Every so often, I would say something, ask Lynnette a question, etc. and Lynnette would come out of her book shouting something like “What? I’m trying to read!” I smiled. You see, whenever I am reading, she bugs the shit out of me. Like my reading isn’t important and I could simply bookmark my page, do some menial task, then get right back to reading it. If you’re a reader, you know this is not true.

So when she put the book down to brush her teeth and turned off the light in the bedroom, she dove back into bed and said “Can you turn your lamp on?” Our room was shrouded in darkness. I lifted my left hand and began to move slowly. Like glacier-slow. “Can you turn your light on?” she asked again. I continued to move slowly. “What are you doing?!” she shouted. “I’m trying to read!” I started laughing. “It’s suuuuuuuuuuper shitty when you’re reading and people bother you, yeah?” I said. She started laughing. “Yes!” she said. “I will never bother you again!” Win. I turned the light on. Then I sat up and started playing with my phone. A few second later, she started making grunting noises. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “You’re in my light,” she said. “Let’s switch sides!” she shouted. I acquiesced. She plowed through the first 100 pages of the novel.

“He just showed her his play room,” she said, closing the book for the night. “What, with like whips and chains and swings and stuff?” I asked. “Yeah, and handcuffs,” she added. “Did let the gimp out?” I asked. “No, I don’t think he likes the gimp,” she said. “But he has everything else!” Good. God. “I like this Christian Grey,” she said. “Oh, no,” I said. “What?” she asked. “Now we need to get a life-sized cardboard cutout of Christian Grey to put in the garage next to Edward Cullen,” I said. She just laughed. I assume she will spend part of her morning on Googling whether such a thing exists.

Memorial Day Weekend 2012

I spent the bulk of my Memorial Day weekend doing Damien things, as per the usual. Gave away the English Award on Saturday at the Baccalaureate Luncheon. This minor inconvenience was offset by the presence of a carving station and prime rib at the end of the buffet table. And of course yesterday (Sunday) was the actual graduation ceremony at the Blaisdell Concert Hall. Congratulations, Damien Memorial School Class of 2012!

While I’ve been doing all of this work-related stuff, Lynnette and Madison have been galavanting all over the place. Yesterday morning when I was putting my dress shirt on, Madison asked me where I was headed. I told her I had to go to work. “But it’s Sunday, you don’t have to go to work,” she said. “Well, I do today, sweetie.” “Sometimes I miss you, dad.” She gave me a hug, too. That was a very small consolation.

Destined for Punahou and Maryknoll respectively.

*We spent Saturday night at Lynnette’s friends house. Emmie lives at the top of the hill, so we were lucky to have a pretty short commute. Saturday was one of those nights where Lynnette’s college friends get together and cook things that they ate while at Creighton. I have no idea what their college years were like, but somehow, pizza, Hamburger Helper, spaghetti, and pot brownies didn’t make it onto the menu. How is that possible? That’s like saying “We’re going to vote for the NBA First Team right now – only you can’t pick LeBron or Dwight Howard or Kevin Durant.” There’s no way pizza doesn’t make it. And don’t tell me it’s because they’re ladies. Pizza is a universal food group.

Lynnette and her friends usually spend the night talking about mutual friends, when it was they last saw them, what they’re up to now, who is married, who has kids, who is still living a life of leisure, etc. They did a little of that, but far less than I’m used to. Instead, they lamented male actors who are gay – in particular that one guy from White Collar on USA. I have no problem with this because it is the same thing I do when I find out that actresses are married and/pregnant. “Wait, Natalie Portman’s going to have a kid? There goes my chance! F*ck!”

Paul’s friends have been initiated into a Madison Higa parade.

*My brother Paul threw a “Beginning of Summer” BBQ at my parents’ house Sunday evening. My parents hadn’t seen Madison in two weeks and my mom was having withdrawals.

When we arrived, Lynnette and I bumped into a very young, very cute little boy. He is the son of Paul;’s friends. I taught the father during my first year at Damien. Yikes. Anyway, my voice as well as Lynnette’s went up about 43 octaves as we carried and talked to this child. MADISON WAS PISSED.

She walked away from where the two of us were. When Lynnette tried to call Madison to talk to the baby, Madison ignored her. When I walked over to her, she lifted her arms, telling me she wanted to be carried. When I picked her up and brought her over to Lynnette and the baby, she turned her entire body in the other direction.

Eventually, Madison warmed up to him and they even had a little conversation that went like this:

Madison: You have to hold the flower like this.

Baby: Baa, phew!

M: It’s okay, I’ll help you do it.

B: Brrrrb.

My parents were thrilled they didn’t have to walk in the parade this time.

The highlight of Madison’s night came when I popped up from my seat and handed her a chopstick set. “You’re the parade leader,” I said. One of Paul’s friends had a little birthday balloon which she offered to Mad to use has the leader’s stick (I don’t know why Mad needs a sticklike thing to lead the parade, or how she came up with that idea, but she does insist) and she dropped my chopsticks in a heartbeat.

She walked back to me and said “But we still need plenty more people for the parade.” Paul stepped in and offered the services of his friends. “Just walk to the table and tap the people you want in your parade,” he told her. Madison looked at him, then over at Lynnette and I. “It’s okay,” Lynnette told her. “Go ahead and pick.” And then Madison set out on her draft. She went with an eclectic mix of boys and girls. She did manage to ruffle some feathers. There were only 4 or so of Paul’s friends still seated when the parade began. “Screw this parade!” one of them said with mock anger and hurt. “You can still wave as it comes by,” I offered with mock empathy. “Nah, no way,” he said. They did two-and-a-half rounds of my mom’s car. How’s that? The rest of the participants gave up after the second tour, but Madison kept going (she couldn’t see them quit) like a naked Will Ferrell in Old School.

BFFs.

*I must again thank Madison’s Aunty Tanz. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Tanya is Madison’s favorite person who did not have a physical role in her creation. Whenever we’re around Tanya, Mad immediately seeks her out. Whenever Tanya tries to sneak away for a break – to eat dinner, use the bathroom, use her phone, etc. – Madison can be heard shouting “Aunty Taaaaaaaaaaaanz!” from wherever she is.

Ever since the day Madison was born, I’ve been living with this heightened sense of awareness. As I’ve said before, it’s like Spidey-Sense, only it doesn’t warn me of danger, it’s a sub-conscious gauge of wherever Madison is in relation to me and what she’s doing. Is she in the street? Is she touching the stove? It’s also kind of like Dot Matrix’s Virgin Alarm in Spaceballs. It’s supposed to go off before Madison gets herself into trouble, not afterwards.

I cannot tell you how mentally exhausting dealing this is at times. I also cannot put into words the peace of mind and relief that comes whenever Madison is with Tanya. Thanks, Aunty Taaaaaaanz!

Well, now comes the highlight of my weekend: I finally get to spend some time with my fam.

 

My Wife is 45% Sane, and You Know What? I Love Her

When I informed Geno (one of my best friends, full-Filipino) of my intentions to marry Lynnette, he said something along the lines of “Congrats, man, that’s awesome. Filipino women, they take care.” Based on my relationship with Lynnette to that point, I felt the same way. But then a funny thing happened after we got married: we fought a lot. Sometimes these arguments were minor, like those skirmishes that break out between boxers during pre-match press conferences. At others, they were knock-down, drag-out (verbal) slugfests that would have made Jim Ross soil himself calling. When this went on for a while, I had a conversation with Geno a few months into wedded bliss and he said, “Yeah, Filipino women, they crazy.” “What?” I said incredulously, “You said they ‘take care’!” “No, they do,” he said. “They’re super loyal. But they’re crazy.” “Why didn’t you tell me this before I got married?” I asked. “That’s kind of a downer,” he said. “I was just trying to be happy for you.

I can’t blame Geno. He has a history of misleading me. To wit: one day during high school he bought the spaghetti plate. I asked him how it was. “It’s pretty good,” he said. I went and bought one, too. I took one bite and said “This is terrible, what are you talking about?” “Yeah,” he said. “But I didn’t want to be the only one.” Once when we were in our early twenties I wanted to bleach my hair. “You go, I go,” he said. So he did me up first. We smoked cigarettes while waiting for the bleach to set in my hair. Something like a half-an-hour later, I rinsed it out. “Aaaaaaahh,” he said. “What?” I asked. I walked to the mirror and my hair was bright-ass, Big Bird yellow. It wasn’t horrible, it just wasn’t what I had expected, I guess. “Alright,” I said. “Nah,” he said. “No more enough bleach left.” He said this despite the fact that there was exactly half of the bleach left in the tray. “What happened to ‘you go, I go’?” I asked. “I cannot,” he said. We left it at that.

What does this have to do with anything? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me fourteen times, shame, shame, shame on me.

I’m sure she actually felt this way at the time, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that she was simply tired of talking and saying stupid things.

*My wife Lynnette (left, striking, I know) is funny. She’s both “haha-funny” and “what the hell?-funny.” As I’ve mentioned on numerous occasions, she’s a very intelligent woman who enjoys holding her two degrees over my head as validation that she is possessed of superior intellect.

That may have been true when we first met, but for a number of reasons, she’s somehow been watered-down. Her first instinct, of course, will be to blame me for “making her dumb.” I grant that this is at entirely possible, at least in part. Yesterday on our way to dinner, though, she and I had an all-time great conversation.

I asked if she find my blog entries entertaining. “Sure,” she said. “I think you don’t find it as interesting because it always sounds like me, and you know me,”  I said. “Yes, I know you, Phil,” she said flatly. “You know how I am and how I think, so I don’t think anything I write in there would surprise you,” I said. “You’ve lost all shock value with me,” she said.

She’s right. I have said and done a great many stupid things during the tenure of our relationship. I do not wish to embarrass Lynnette (or myself), but suffice it to say that I am thirty-two and Lynnette has made (on several occasions) the statement that I am simply a “horny boy.” I can neither confirm nor deny this. Tee-hee.

“Maybe I should have paced myself with all that nonsense,” I said. “Maybe you should have,” she responded.

*As we took the Waikele off-ramp, Lynnette noticed that Madison was sucking her thumb. “No sucking thumb,” she said. Madison ripped her hand away from her face. “If you can’t stop, the dentist is going to have to put a machine in your mouth if you can’t stop,” I said. This is true, technically. “No!” Madison said.

Lynnette has a theory that Madison’s thumb sucking will decline when Mad gives up Honey. She went on to talk about how one of Mad’s classmates used to be a “sumb-thucker.” “Sumb-thucker?” I said. “What? Did I say that?” she asked. “Yes,”I said. “Leave me alone! I’m mentally exhausted!” she shouted. I think you’re just crazy,” I said.

Bill Simmons, an ESPN writer, said that based on his experiences with his own wife, women become 12% less sane with the birth of each child. So, since Lynnette didn’t start at 100% sanity, she’s just insane now. Granted, mathematics and the female psyche are only minor hobbies of mine, I’m going to take a shot at this. Let’s say she was born with 91% of a normal person’s sanity (as per Geno’s ethnic hypothesis). She was probably at about 79% by the time she exited high school, and then ticked down to 66% after 6 years studying in Nebraska. She must have been near 57% when she assented to my marriage proposal. That means by now she’s at least in the neighborhood of 45%.

This might seem cruel – terribly inaccurate at best – but it’s probably correct.

As we passed the Fil-Com Center, I asked her “Hey, would you be interested in going to one of those local wrestling things with me sometime? My friend wrestles-” she cut me off. “Yes! I told you yes before!” she shouted. “But I don’t want Madison to come, though,” I said. “What?!” she shouted. She screamed, actually. “Why? Do you want her to come?” I asked. “No!” she screamed. “Wait, what?” I said. “Shut up, Phil!” she screamed. “Madison, daddy’s making fun of me. Tell daddy to stop making fun of me!” “Stop teasing mom, dad,” Madison said calmly.

She cray.

It’s Always Been You, Belle

As you well know, my house has been overrun by the Disney Princesses. Madison is the progeny of a Filipino Princess, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before those hardwired genetics began to show up. She doesn’t like to get dirty. She tells me that I can’t go into store with Hello Kitty Merchandise because the store is “for girls only,” right up until she wants to buy something, then it’s okay for me to enter the store. Every time we’re at Target or Sports Authority I ask her to try on a baseball glove and she says “No, dad, that’s only for boys,” even if the glove is a pink Jennie Finch model. There’s a lot of girlie stuff going on, but the Princesses are at the top of the list.

Now, I’ve had those conversations in that past that start with the question “Which Disney character do you think is the hottest?” I’ve always said two things: “God, this is such a stupid, shallow question.” and “Belle.” But that was back before I was the mature adult I am today. Besides, those princesses are no longer mere fake, animated physical objects of desire anymore. Thanks to my daughter, I’ve actually gotten to know them. So you know what I’m going to try to do? I’m not going to say which of them is the hottest. I’m not even going to play Marry/Boff/Kill (too easy). I’m going to look for compatibility. That’s right. I’m going to eHarmony the Disney Princesses to look for which of them would be my best match.

She loses points for being played by Kristen Stewart in a live-action movie.

Snow White. Likes: attention, talking to animals. Dislikes: cursed fruit. My gut tells me that Snow White and I probably wouldn’t work out. She isn’t careful about what she eats, but neither am I. I am a fan of shorter length hair, but I don’t care for the complexion. Now, I know that some as pale as myself probably shouldn’t be judging another person – even if she doesn’t really exist – by their skin tone, but I can’t help it. Also, Snow seems to prefer a rustic lifestyle which is probably the deal-breaker for me. I need the internet. I need cell phone reception. I’m a product of my age. Add that to the fact that she’s an attention whore who surrounds herself with dwarves and woodland creatures who fawn over her constantly. Compatibility Score (1-10): 0.9

I still haven’t figured out why Madison gravitated towards Cinderella first.

Cinderella. Likes: hypebeasting high-end footwear, chubby rodents. Dislikes: indentured servitude, obnoxious step-siblings, effeminate princes. I really think Cinderella and I would hit it off. She and I could probably go on for hours about shoes and accessories and whatnot. She comes from humble beginnings so she won’t be as stuck up as some of the princesses on this list who were always princesses and don’t know how to deal with adversity (oh, I’m getting to you, Ariel, don’t worry). Cinderella is a grinder and I find the fact that she knows how to do housework is a plus. You can’t really teach work ethic at this age. Also in my favor is the fact that she doesn’t seem to prefer overly masculine men. I’m not a man’s man by any definition, and based on Cinderella’s past dating history, I think she might find me swell – dashing, even. Prince Charming’s got a really cool name and all, but I think I could take him in a fight. I mean, he couldn’t even catch Cinderella while on foot. I got this. The one thing that’s kind of a turn-off is that midnight curfew. I’m a man, you know? I don’t know when romance will strike. What if things get hot and heavy at 11:57 PM and then she’s all like “Wait, stop. I have to go home now.” Ugh. Compatibility Score: 8.9

All these animals are male, none of them are listening to her, they’re just checking her out.

Princess Aurora. Likes: comfortable mattresses, high-thread count sheet sets, good fairies. Dislikes: spinning wheels, bad fairies. On paper, this looks like a match made in heaven. Aurora likes to sleep, so do I. But when you start digging past the surface, the problems begin to show. First, what the hell is it with all these princesses having deep relationships with animals? Honestly, I’d be like “You’re spending too much time with the owl!” and Aurora would be all “I knew the owl waaaaay before I knew you (she met me once upon a dream), the owl stays!” That’s rough. Also worth considering is the fact that she’s already been in a relationship with someone named Philip. That’s a lot of baggage I’d be dealing with. The guy did wake her up from a perpetual sleep. That’s tough to follow. Every time I’d say something I thought was funny and she’d  say “Oh, Phil,” and laughed, would she really mean me? Or would she be thinking about the other Philip, the one that’s a prince. Too much of a headache. Compatibility Score: 3.2

There’s no real downside to her lack of speech.

Ariel. Likes: singing, hoarding worthless junk. Dislikes: Faustian deals with bitchy squid/octopus hybrids. Let’s just say what everyone is thinking: Ariel is a looker. Even in mermaid form, she’s a solid 8.5. The problem is she’s spoiled. As the youngest of Triton’s 33 daughters, she’s been babied her entire life and no-showed her musical debut. She’s unreliable. She’s been known to deliberately disobey orders. She’s stubborn. She’s prone to making very poor decisions like risking her soul for the chance to spend time with the man she loves (and doesn’t even really know). She’s impulsive. I can’t swim so making down to her dad’s house for dinner would likely end with me drowning. I know she can really sing, but theoretically, so can all of the princesses. Aside from her aesthetic appeal, she doesn’t have much going for her. If I’m going to have to spend the rest of my life with someone, I’d like to know that she’s in  it to win it, too. Sadly, based on everything in her history, I can’t trust her. It might be fun for a little while, but she’s more likely to skip out on me for some fool who has had a stone statue of himself made than to settle down with me. Compatibility Score: 2.1

She might actually be impressed with my literary prowess.

Belle. Likes: reading, spending time with her family, talking houseware, Peabo Bryson. Dislikes: self-centered, arrogant jerks. From a purely physical standpoint, I’ve always thought Belle was beautiful, in as much as an animated character can be attractive. She can make casual (left) look good and she ramps it up to an entirely different level when she rocks the formal yellow dress. She likes to read and is an independent thinker. Both of those are qualities which I appreciate. She sticks to her guns. When all the other girls in town were swooning over Gaston, she saw him for what he really was: a muscle-bound ass. She obviously doesn’t care about looks. Her most endearing quality, however, is her dedication to her family. She agreed to live in the Beast’s castle for eternity in exchange for her father’s freedom. I know that Belle would never sell me out like Ariel would. The only problem I can see is that her horse is named Felipe, which might cause some confusion. It’s not a deal-breaker, though. Compatibility Score: 10

She knows that you know that tiger of hers is lurking somewhere just waiting for you to try something.

Jasmine. Likes: keeping ferocious animals as pets, magic carpet rides, sneaking out of the palace. Dislikes: liars, sneaky political advisors, parrots voiced by Gilbert Gottfried. Calling Jasmine is a little tricky. She’s the first – and only – princess on this list who wasn’t the central character in her movie. In truth, I know little about her. I know she’s an independent woman, she didn’t want to live the life as dictated to her. That’s why she dressed up like a Jedi and roamed around the city with the dregs of humanity. She absolutely despises liars. He comes from money and power, but seems grounded – unlike a certain mermaid princess. She’s pretty enough, I guess, but I just don’t know enough about her. Compatibility Score: N/A

“…and this is what we call a ‘high-five.’ We use it to celebrate things like finding land before running out of provisions on a 3-month sailing expedition.”

Pocahontas. Likes: nature, white guys. Dislikes: war, prejudice. Like Snow White, Pocahontas prefers the rural lifestyle and is even more of the outdoorsy type. This is in direct conflict with my own predilections. I couldn’t survive  by living off the land. Perhaps even more difficult would be the cultural conflict. Pocahontas holds on to many beliefs which I do not understand and would likely never come around to. It’s not her fault, but having already dealt with one incompatible relationship in my life (on the grounds of religion), I am loath do so again. I admire her steadfast adherence to her way of life in an ever-changing world, but I do not believe I would be willing to change for her, either. Also, I can’t stand raccoons. Compatibility Score: -1

I feel you, Shang.

Mulan. Likes: playing dress-up, defying odds. Dislikes: antiquated views on gender roles. You’d think that being the only Asian on this list would help her cause – and it does. Only not enough to make up for my own personal insecurities. The thing about Mulan is that you could argue that she’s the only Disney “Princess” who actually accomplished something. She won a war against the Huns with little help. Her detractors will point to the presence of the lucky cricket, but let’s be fair: she’s an ass-kicker. What the hell could she possibly need me for? To keep her safe? I empathize with Shang completely in his awkwardness in approaching her for a non-soldier, romantic meeting. How can he handle that she’s better than him at the thing he’s best at? This is not even to speak of the ease with which she transformed herself into a passable male. In a relationship with Mulan, I’d bring nothing to the metaphorical table. It’s not you, Mulan, it’s me. Compatibility Score: 1 (only because she’s Asian)

If she can make this work, what can’t she do?

Tiana. Likes: restauranteering, amphibians with royal bloodlines. Dislikes: alligators, voodoo. I have to admit that Tiana is a little past my time. While her story and the one it’s based on is an old, timeless tale, I have no connection – emotional or otherwise – to this newly minted Disney Princess. She does possess admirable qualities. She works two jobs. She’s open-minded. I suppose that the cultural conflict would simply be too much for us to overcome. I have to say, writing about these last two princesses has made me feel like a horrible person. What I’m essentially saying about Tiana is that I don’t know her and I don’t want to put any energy into getting to know her. Am I the kind of person who would let a small thing like the fact that a woman once transformed into a frog  prevent me from ever caring about her? Yes. Yes, I am. Compatibility Score: 0

I gotta say, I like this look better.

Rapunzel. Likes: floating lanterns, lovable scoundrels, fine hair care products. Dislikes: overbearing passive-aggressive foster mothers. She’s too young for me, bro! Rapunzel is the newest Disney Princess and I have a problem with that. I feel like she hasn’t put in the requisite time to be considered for the roster. Let her play out a few seasons in the minors before we anoint her the new “it” girl.” She’s got that whole Nicholas Sparks “I can make this relationship with a gritty, selfish ruffian work regardless of the odds” thing going on. I don’t find that kind of naive idealism attractive. I do, however, appreciate her will to break away from the despotic rule of her horrible fake mother and her determination to find the truth. It’s cute. But the law prevents me from entering into a relationship with someone so young. Alas, maybe in another life, Rapunzel. Compatibility Score: 0 (6 in five years)

The ‘ship

Ideally, we’d only have to do this two more times.

Thanks to fortunate scheduling, we didn’t have a game two Sundays ago. This allowed my leg to heal to a point where it is no longer an open sore hanging out on the side of my right leg. By last Wednesday, the whole thing had turned a corner and I could move with only slight discomfort. Ironically, this came only a day after I had finally gotten used to taking a leak at the urinal while leaning heavily on my left leg. I suppose that’s a skill that might again come in handy one day.

Last Thursday I made a trip to The Sports Authority for long socks. The only pair I had were these Nike Dri-Fit ones that were super tight and caused much distress in the putting on and taking off. By Sunday, the outer edges of my wound were the bright pink of new skin and the center of the wound was scabbing over. Today, the scabs look like some kind of island chain amidst a dull pink ocean of regenerating epidermis.

What all of this means is that I was able to play on Sunday. My legs were wobbly – probably because I had spent the previous two weeks moving on them awkwardly to accommodate the pain – and luckily no balls were hit directly at me. There were two balls hit to my left which I probably would have dove for under the usual circumstances, but my, my, my having already been bitten by the field, I was too shy.

We won. This was our second playoff win and it has set us up for the remainder of the season well. There is still much to be determined and our next game is on June 3rd, but our season can play out in the following ways. Bear with.

1) We win our 11 AM game on 6/3: We are done playing for that day and will play for the championship the following week.*

2) We lose our 11 AM game on 6/3:

A) We have to play a 12 AM game:

i) If we win, we move on to the following week, but will have to win two games to win the championship.

a) If we win the 12 AM game, we earn the right to face the lone remaining undefeated team the following weekend. We would have to beat them twice to win the championship.

ii) If we lose, our season is over.

*Winning the 6/3 games means we would only have to win one more game to capture the championship, as our opponent will advance from the “loser’s bracket.”

For you visual learners, I submit this flow chart:

See?

Again, ideally, we only have to play (and win) two more games. Doing it the hard way means losing the first, then winning three games in a row.

“Why are they mad, dad?” “Because they can feel their season slipping away, Goob.” “Oh.”

I’m not a professional athlete, so I can’t pretend to know what if feels like to have a season end short of the championships on that level. But I think I have at least an idea about what makes it tough.

Madison sat in her officially-licensed Dinsey Princess lounge chair and watched the Lakers/Thunder game with me yesterday afternoon. At first, she wasn’t really watching, but every once in a while I’d shout something (like when Westbrook banked in that runner while getting fouled) and Madison would get startled and ask what was happening. Once this happened enough times, Mad saw fit to follow the action on the TV. She was particularly curious about the players yelling at each other.

There’s a metaphor in there about softball gods and championships and wanting.

Kobe Bryant’s got some things he’s trying to get to before he’s finished with the NBA, not the least of which is another ring. His biggest obstacles aren’t Pau Gasol’s seemingly indifferent attitude towards the game or Kevin Durant and the Thunder, it’s time and his own athletic mortality.

Kobe’s exit from this year’s playoffs means he’ll be a year older when he has to try it again. He’ll have to endure another offseason of training and another regular season before he has a shot at making the playoffs and winning another title. That’s the most emotionally draining part of it: walking away from an unfulfilled season knowing what it took to get to that point and knowing that you’ll have to do it all over again – just to get to the same spot. For me, there’s always been a feeling of emptiness, that somehow everything that preceded the final loss of the season was meaningless. There is, after all, only one happy ending.

I’m thirty-two and with every passing season in which we fail to win the championship, I get older and slower and less certain that we will ever win one again. When we were bounced from the playoffs last season (it made no difference at all that we lost to the eventual champs), I sat in the dugout for 10 minutes after the game and cried and swore into my balled up jersey (you thought I was kidding about that in the flow chart, huh?). I’m a super laid back guy. But not when it comes to this. Many of you know that my grandfather died on Christmas Day in 2008. He was Nakagusuku. We haven’t won a championship since. Before every game, I jog out to second base, get to the edge of the infield, make a cross in the dirt with my right index finger, then lick the dirt off of it while looking to the sky. Then I nod. It is something I have done forever. But until 2008, I wasn’t looking for anyone in that blue sky. Now I do.

Every season brings this pressure for me. I don’t know if my teammates feel it and I don’t really care. I can’t explain it. It’s not like my grandfather’s last words were “You guys better win the championship.” I don’t know what his last words were. By the time I got in to see him, his words were blocked by a tube. And yet this game is what he taught me to do. It’s what he taught my father and my uncles and aunts and my cousins. We have to win a championship soon.

So when I watched Kobe walk off the court last night and ignore the outstretched hands of fans who simply wanted to touch him, I felt for him. He plays in the Staples Center where thousands of people scream his name. I play at Halawa District Park where my daughter screams my mine. Obviously, we’re worlds apart. But we’re obviously the same.

Bouncing Castles and Belated Mother’s Day Gifts

She was pretty good about the x-rays along with everything else yesterday.

Whenever Madison decides she’s going to be grown-up about something and just deal with it, I am always impressed. Last weekend she took four shots plus the TB shot without fighting us or crying later. Yesterday, she took her trip to the dentist in stride.

The last time we went, she said she was going to handle her business, but panicked when we got into the office. Yesterday, she sat in the chair alone for the first time and assented to take x-rays of her teeth. The lead vest was probably the heaviest blanket she’s ever used.

The camera alone might be enough for me to move to a Droid for the next upgrade.

Since my leg prevented me from doing just about anything last week, I didn’t have time to shop for Lynnette’s Mother’s Day Gift. She was very understanding and other than a few sarcastic comments about me not loving her enough to deal with shopping through the pain, she seemed content to take a rain check. She decided earlier this week that she would like to get a hair cut as her gift. She had not gotten one in some time and felt that perhaps she would be refreshed and somehow motivated to lose weight if she got a new hair cut. This made no sense to me, but I didn’t question it. She deserves a nice hair cut every two years or so.

When she checked in at Regis in Pearlridge, she said it looked like an hour or so. “What do you want to do for an hour?” I asked Madison. “Oh, I think the bouncers are awake now. When we had passed by 808 Bounce earlier that morning (Mad’s appointment was at 8:15), Madison was appalled by the deflated bouncers. “What happened?” she asked. “They aren’t open yet,” I said. “Are they okay?” she asked. “I think so, Mad. I think so,” I said.

Bounce with me, bounce with me.

Madison and I were in 808 Bounce for a long time. Lynnette’s hour came and went with no contact. Madison tried out all of the bouncers in the place and gave each one a name. The Finding Nemo one was the swimming ocean. The fire truck one was “where we go to eat,” (don’t ask). The small one in the corner was the “baby” one, and the large one pictured above was dubbed the “school house.”

I think it’s pretty safe to say that Madison got my $9.95 worth. About an hour in, I had to use the bathroom and told Madison she had to come with me. “Are we coming back?” she asked. I told her that we were. “We have to hurry before they fall back asleep!” She’s awesome.

Let’s just say I could have bought a very nice pair of shoes and a very nice shirt with this hair cut.

Madison was a sweaty mess by the time my phone rang. Lynnette said she had just finished and that she’d meet us among the bouncers. When she popped in, I have to admit that I was impressed. I suppose Lynnette was right, it had been a while since she got a hair cut. And I guess since she was there, she opted for some color in it, too. She told me how much it cost and then tried to justify it, but she lost me when she gave the dollar amount. I’ll put it this other way: it’s a good thing I don’t spend money on hair cuts.

But she does look lovely, even set atop the background of children screaming and bouncing castles and whatnot. Yes, it might have cost a pretty penny, but Lynnette promised me an erotic dance featuring her new hair cut, a Black Widow Costume, and Sister Christian’s “Night Ranger.” A guy can dream, can’t he?

Dog Minutes

I totally agree: the creation of a machine that plays loud music and dispenses tacos should be one of NASA’s top priorities.

*When Lynnette and Madison got home, I asked the Goob what she wanted to eat for dinner. She said that she wanted to eat at “the place where we had s’mores last time.” “Uh… that’s at Windward Mall,” I said. Lynnette was all like “Let’s go!” and I was like “That’s sooooo far.” But “Lynnette was all “I’m the one driving!” and so I was like “But still.” So drove to the Times in the Town Center to buy s’more stuff.

Before we left the house, I turned to Madison and said “What are the three components of a s’more?” “Oh, you need the chocolate and the marshmallow and the cracker,” she said. She was right, but I was more pleased that she context clued the definition of “components.” These are the kinds of things I live for. Go ahead and judge me. Just remember, while you might have natural athleticism or some of the grand gift going for you, I have to settle for knowing the differences between there, their, and they’re. So there.

Diamond Head Red Cream Soda is amazing, even on the dinner table and the carpet.

For simplicity’s sake, we went with a box of tacos from Taco Bell for dinner. I didn’t want to cook and deal with dishes. When we got home, we had a feast waiting for us. And then disaster struck. I opened the two-liter bottle of Diamond Head Soda and it did this thing where it hissed – like they all do when opened for the first time – and bubbled like always. I watched the liquid through the transparent bottle and then for whatever reason the behavior of the soda just changed and it went apeshit. The soda went from clear to fizzy and it literally shot out into the air and came splashing down on the dinner table. I don’t understand it. It’s like it knew I had 12 tacos minus however many Lynnette was going to eat waiting for me, and the soda didn’t want me to eat them. Abby got there immediately for what is likely the most delicious liquid she has ever tasted. Or wore as makeup.

She can hear a cracker crumb drop on a patch of carpet while listening to Megadeth in another room with the door closed.

Abby got to the spilled soda a little too quickly. As she busied herself mopping up yummy red soda from the carpet, drops fell from the table onto her head. She didn’t care. I suppose this is what passes for a party in puppy culture. I mean Abby can’t do a keg stand and she doesn’t really like to play games like Spin the Bottle or Seven Minutes (49 dog minutes*) in Heaven. It’s highly likely that Abby’s first taste of Diamond Head Soda is one of the 6 or 7 greatest things that she’s ever experienced.

We don’t have a fire pit. Or a yard. So this is it.

When it got a little cooler, we broke out the table top cooker and melted the marshmallows for our s’mores. Madison is the worst marshmallow melter ever. She sticks her marshmallow over the fire, then goes back to watching TV. Her arms moves all over the place. At one point she was resting the thing on the side of the cooker and she didn’t even notice. “Mad, you have to watch what you’re doing,” I said. “Oh, sorry,” she said… then starting watching TV again. Lynnette helped Mad with her mallow and when it accidentally caught on fire, Madison couldn’t loosen her grip on the knife fast enough (we forgot to pick up chopsticks from the store). Madison is more Shere Khan than Katniss; the Goob is afraid of fire. Eventually, she was able to take a bite or two of her glorious s’more before deciding that was that.

*Aside: Lynnette and I are clowns. When I originally typed the Seven Minutes in Heaven joke a couple of paragraphs ago, my first instinct was to turn one minute into 7 dog minutes. But because my math skills are shit, I asked Lynnette “How many dog minutes do you think are in one human minute?” And that’s when the chaos began.

Neither of us have touched math in over a decade. Cut us some slack.

Our discussion began hypothetically and climaxed with me getting up from bed, walking to the computer room, fetching Lynnette a pen and a piece of paper, and watching her try to figure it out by hand. I was on the calculator on the computer. We hit about 12 snags because we couldn’t isolate what we were looking for.

After a few minutes spent confusing the hell out of each other, I told Lynnette I saw going to Google it. “No!” she shouted. “I can do this!” It was like she was fighting some greater battle for the human spirit. She would find the answer via thought and hard work rather than a search engine. How noble. I on the other hand, am lazy. I popped the question into the search field and this is what I found:

This is comedy gold.

So according to the first guy’s math, my initial instinct was correct. I am both too lazy and too tired to verify. Lynnette said she’d take a look in the morning. But it’s the guy’s final statement that killed me. I guess because I felt like it was an attempt to sound profound, but the only response to this statement is “No shit.”

I started reading the thread out loud and Lynnette and I couldn’t stop laughing. Part of the humor was the absurdity of the commentary – I mean, really, it has to be sincere, right? But the other, larger cause of our laughter was the acknowledgement that she and I had spent the last 5 minutes of our lives lying in bed trying to convert dog years into dog hours into dog minutes into human minutes. All so I could make a stupid joke in this blog. Growing old with this clown is going to be pretty great, isn’t it?

John Mayer’s Released an Album Every Three Years for My Entire Adult Life

Of course I’m going to be suckered in to buying this one, too.

My brother Paul text messaged my brother Matty and I this morning to remind us that John Mayer’s new album Born and Raised will be released next Tuesday. This is just how my brothers and I roll. We don’t really message each other to remind each other of important things or to profess our brotherly love, we only use mobile communication as a means to point out upcoming and useless pop culture events. Hey, at least we don’t fight.

The first time I saw the cover art I got the impression that it was meant to mimic the southern rock aesthetic of the 60′s and 70′s. This despite the fact that I wasn’t around then, an I can’t really say how I came to that conclusion. But if that’s the look John was going for, then mission completed.

You’d think as a fan of the Cowboys I’d like this look. I do not.

And then John started popping up looking like this (left). I think it’s safe to say that my original opinion was more or less accurate. What does this mean? Will Born and Raised take a marked turn away from the relationship-pop of Battle Studies? One can only hope. Perhaps a more important question is this: If John tried to make a 2012 version of “Freebird,” would that be a good thing? I say yes, even if it sucks, so long as it doesn’t have references to Ambien and/or a thinly-veiled discussion of a failed celebrity relationship. I’m always going to want to buy this album, but I think Matty will first. Then again, he’s super lazy. I’ll probably just end up listening to samples on Amazon and make a decision that way.

In honor of John’s (we’re on a first-name basis) new release, I’ll take a look back at his previous studio efforts and pick a song I like best from each album. Since I have zero musical background, this will be a completely subjective look at John Mayer’s trajectory starting with the singer/songwriter to blues guitar enthusiast to pop icon to pensive lover to what appears to be bluegrass rocker.

Has John’s total body of work made this album more impressive or less impressive?

Room for Squares, 2001. “You heard of John Mayer?” That was the first I heard of John Mayer. My brother Matty (the one with actual musical talent) asked me this question during my senior year of college. I didn’t. But then I went searching and I was thrilled. Clever lyrics (“No Such Thing”), tricky guitar work (“Neon”) and themes I could understand. It’s a pun on the word square, right? Like the actual geometric shape and dorks? Has to be. Why the period table on the CD? Only “Neon” is an element. This makes me want to do research that I will realistically never get to.

I have two favorite songs from the album. The first is “Neon” because of the guitar work and imagery. The other is “St. Patrick’s Day.” I am positive I have written about this before. I love “St. Patrick’s Day” because it sounds like a Christmas song and it’s about insecurity. I don’t know how one comes up with an idea like that, but it’s still the song on the album that speaks the most to me: I don’t know if this is going to work, but it will work until March because I can’t break up with you before then for superficial reasons. I want to stab someone every time I hear “Your Body is a Wonderland.” I want to go to the gas station, purchase $4 worth of gas, pour it into a coke bottle, then light it and myself on fire whenever I hear “No Such Thing.” That rises to $8 worth of gasoline if my brother is the one playing it.

It’s pretty clear he was trying to distance himself from that acoustic guitar.

Heavier Things, 2003. As with baseball, I’m always worried about the sophomore slump for musicians. Psychologically, it makes sense. The success of a debut album creates expectations that didn’t exist for the release of the first album. Whether it’s genuine or not, John Mayer has never seemed to lack for confidence. The album is notable for an overall increase in the scope of sounds when compared to Room for Squares. It wasn’t a clone of his debut album, but I took solace in the fact that John still had some poignant things to say.

My favorite track is the album’s first. John Mayer’s epiphany on “Clarity” articulated thoughts I had in my mind, but lacked the skill to express. I was a year out of college working my first real full-time job. Whenever I listen to “Clarity,” I think about how I’ve had to come to grips with the same problems, “By the time I recognize this moment, this moment will be gone. But I will bend the light, pretend that it somehow lingered on.” I still struggle with appreciating moments as they happen (something I expressed this past weekend). Mayer also sang “Was there a second of time that I looked around? Did I sail through or drop my anchor down?” I don’t know. Neither does John. “This” as he says “won’t last forever” because “it can’t and it’s not supposed to.” I realize that this seems like an over-simplification, but that’s all we’ve got whenever we try to explain the outcome of a process whose mechanics we don’t completely understand or lack the ability to describe. Since I am not an astro-physicist like Daniel Faraday, John’s explanation of time is perfectly acceptable to me. The comfort comes in realizing and accepting (they aren’t the same thing) you can’t do shit about it. Speaking of which…

His masterpiece?

Continuum, 2006. I’ve seen it argued that Continuum is Mayer’s best album. I don’t really have an opinion – other than Battle Studies is the worst. “Waiting for the World to Change” was ubiquitous upon its release. “Vultures” kicks ass. My favorite track, though, is “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room.”

Yes, perhaps it’s the obvious choice. I don’t care. The English dork in me thinks the song is amazing for several reasons. First, the imagery in the title is striking. The idea of two people clinging to each other nearly motionless while the room burns down around them is the perfect metaphor for the relationship described in the song.

“Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” is the specific application of the epiphany Mayer spoke about in general terms in “Clarity.” The first verse, “It’s not a silly little moment, it’s not the storm before the calm. This is the deep and dying breath of this love that we’ve been working on,” is the realization that whatever incident Mayer’s citing isn’t just another blip on what appears to be a tattered relationship – this is it. It’s a point that he makes clear in the chorus, “We’re going down, and you can see it, too. We’re going down, and you know that we’re doomed. My dear, we’re slow dancing in a burning room.” He realizes what this latest episode means for his relationship.

If you’ve ever listened to the song, you might have noticed that John doesn’t sound particularly sad. Some of the words are bitter, true, but it’s not overly angry, either. If anything, his tone is wistful. The tone is his acceptance. He isn’t reacting to the failure of the relationship, only calling a spade a spade. He’s recognized and accepted that his relationship is irreparable. But this isn’t even the source of his angst; his primary irritation seems to come from the fact that his partner hasn’t figured it out yet.

Nice pic, though, John.

Battle Studies, 2009. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, this never happened.

I wrote about the album when I bought it and haven’t picked it up since. Don’t get me wrong, thinking about inter-personal relationships is one of my all-time favorite activities. It’s just that… I don’t know… maybe I wanted John Mayer to do something else? Rock out? Well, whatever it was, I didn’t care for the album and I can only hope that Born and Raised is better (as far as I’m concerned, since my opinion is the only one that counts when I’m loading music onto my phone).

For what it’s worth, here’s the lead single from Born and Raised, “Shadow Days.”

Happy First Birthday, Elijah!

This used to be a lot easier when Madison was lighter and I had a fully functional right leg.

For the second weekend in a row, we found ourselves at the Hawaii Okinawa Center in Waipio. My high school classmate and fellow IMOPper Brad and his family traveled from Las Vegas to celebrate his son Elijah’s first birthday. The party was scheduled to start at 5, but as Lynnette reminded me, “It’s a Filipino party, it won’t matter until the sun sets.” That left Madison and I plenty of time to get some play in.

Injury update: My leg still hurts pretty bad. For whatever reason – probably something to do with preventing addiction – they only prescribed me ten painkiller pills. I took the last of them last night. The odd turn of events is that the pain is most intense when I stand still or sit like a regular human in a chair. Yes, that means going to the bathroom for a number one or a number two is pretty inconvenient. It also means that if I sit in a chair, I have to hike my right leg up on the chair next to me. This is not completely comfortable, but discomfort is preferable to pain. In fact I am typing this in my classroom with both feet on my desk, the laptop screen open to the most obtuse angle possible. My stomach is holding the bottom of the computer in place. It’s not great, but it works.

I think doing something like this will be really cool – and it is – but then Madison keeps saying “Let’s do it again, dad!” and then it becomes an endurance test. Which I will fail.

I suppose it has something to do with our lack of  a yard, but any time Madison gets near an expanse of grass, she goes nuts. For the most part, I sat on a concrete walkway while she ran around shouting things like “The princess is in the garden!” and “Look, dad, watch me jump!” My brother Matty accompanied us out into the courtyard and I have to admit that he snapped some pretty great pictures. “These might be the best pictures I’ve ever taken,” he said. I would be inclined to agree.

There’s a stone walkway imbedded in the grass. When Madison looked at it, she saw two things. The first was a massive hop scotch path. The second was the remnants of some ancient temple. She ran atop the path shouting “ha-un” as she jumped. Matty added the new wrinkle of shouting “Fire!” while she ran. Whenever Madison heard this, she tilted her head backwards. I suppose this was supposed to represent the sliding that the characters do in the game. For what it’s worth, I still haven’t made 10,000,000 points in that game and it’s still on my phone. I’ve all but given up hope of making that goal.

Madison was completely caught up in the magic show.

I generally hate magic shows because it drives me crazy that I can’t figure out how the tricks are being pulled off. But I guess Madison was just old enough to understand most of what was happening, because she sat on the dance floor before the stage completely rapt by the magician’s set. Since I have to kind of spread out to comfortably sit on the floor – the position I have to take up isn’t flattering in the least and my constant fear is that I will reveal my mid-drift – I had to sit off to the side of the dance floor. Madison was so into the whole spectacle that when I called her name to ask if she wanted to sit near me, she scrunched her brow and quickly turned back to the action on the stage. Well, then.

She received $5 from the magician for helping him out. She promptly turned that $5 into a Hello Kitty thermos.

I returned to my seat halfway through the show. A few moments later, the magician asked for volunteers. I couldn’t see anything, but I heard him say “Okay, you in the pink.” “It’s Madison!” Lynnette said. I have to be honest, I didn’t know Mad was down for this kind of thing, but I guess she found the magic so crazy that she simply had to be a part of it.

Aside: Near the beginning of the show, the magician pulled out this two-sided octagon looking thing. One side was red, the other yellow. But I guess the way it works is that it has multiple folds or something because he kept changing the color. He started by asking what color it was. Madison and the other kids screamed “Red!” When he flipped it, they yelled “Yellow!” This went on until he started flipping it to the other colors. I wish I could have filmed Madison’s face. It was like her mind couldn’t warp itself around what was happening. I assume this is what drew her in.

So she hopped on stage and was asked to say “Abrakadabra!” into the microphone. Her first three attempts were closer to “Abrakadaba,” until she finally got it right. She put on the magician’s robe, wore the hat, and was a capable – though not exactly bubbly (as you can see in the picture) – assistant. She got to keep a paper magician’s hat and $5 for her troubles. She used that $5 to buy a Hello Kitty thermos at Ala Moana yesterday. I now fear that she’s adding Hello Kitty to the Disney Princesses in an attempt to diversify her girly portfolio. Yikes.

Honestly, who looks happier here?

Participating in the show might not even have been the highlight of Madison’s night. There’s an argument for the pinata. It was one of those deals where the kids pull the strings one of them is supposed to open the panel to release all of the goodies. Well, it didn’t work that way, so the magician had to slowly tear it open and pour the pinata’s innards onto the dance floor.

Madison was a step slow when the candy and toys starting falling from the sky. “Go, Madison!” Lynnette shouted. That was all she needed. She got on her hands and knees in the middle of the chaos with all the other kids. After a few moments, she looked over in our direction with both hands full. She had a pained, worried look on her face. “Bring your stuff over here so you can go get more!” Lynnette barked. Madison ran over and dumped her findings in Lynnette’s hands and headed back into the fray.

Team Junk Food was out in full force. “Look,” Lynnette told me as she whacked me in the arm. “She’s bypassing all of the toys and only going for the candy!” “You can’t eat toys, mom,” I said sarcastically. Lynnette smiled. I don’t know if she’s ever been prouder of her daughter.

The highlight for me, of course, is getting to hang out with my friends. This happens far less frequently than I’d like, so whenever it does happen, I am thrilled. It was great to see Brad in particular because he doesn’t live here anymore. Matty, Geno, Jay, and I live here and we get together every couple of months or so. Whenever someone comes back, I consider it something of an IMOP Reunion because the odds of us all being in the same place at the same time are pretty short. It requires someone to get married or coordinated vacations. It’s a tall order.

Still, though, I couldn’t wait to get in a picture like this because I think it’s awesome to think that maybe one day my daughter will be friends with my friends’ children. Maybe they’ll hang out. Maybe they’ll just friend each other on Facebook or some future version of it. I don’t know. But the possibilities are pretty cool to think about…

Good times.

Ten Years Ago Friday

It was and is still a blur.

This past Friday, May 11 made ten years to the day that I graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a bachelor’s degree in English. It was a hot day. I smoked a cigarette in my seat in Sunken Gardens during the ceremony. I was hung over, also.

Anyway, I saw this anniversary coming a couple weeks ago and planned to unleash a huge retrospective of some kind on Friday. It was going to have pictures and anecdotes and everything. I even called old friends to ask if they had pictures of our time together (I’m telling you, the lack of digital photography is the single biggest missing technology from my college days). Then life happened. More specifically, my leg injury has evolved to the point where I can’t sit in a chair without feeling pain. That’s why I haven’t written one of these since Tuesday. I can’t sit at a desk for longer than a few minutes.

That said, I have no idea how this is actually going to play out, but maybe it’s fitting. In the spirit of college, I’ll just make this up as I go along. Near the beginning of this school year, I wrote an entry featuring things I missed about college. It was mostly general. I will try very hard to prevent this entry from becoming that.

Freshman year. Yes, that’s a yellow turtleneck. I swear to you I was wearing it ironically.

Nothing in my first 18 years of life could have prepared me for the awesomeness that awaited me at Loyola Marymount University. I applied to LMU and three other schools. I was accepted to each and opted for LMU sight unseen because it offered me the best financial package. It really was that simple.

My first college class was Western Civilizations at 8 AM on a Monday. I got there 10 minutes before class started. I was anxious, I guess. I was alone in class when I heard the back door open. I turned my head to see to hot blondes walk in. Honestly, they might not have been hot, but remember, I went to Damien for four years. The last time I had classes with females I was 14 and they were wearing blouses and long, plaid skirts. These blondes weren’t.

Big Bear and the first time I saw snow.

I think the thing about college I fell in love with first was the idea that anything could happen. Because my parents weren’t around to Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard me into doing what they said, I felt an immediate freedom that was unlike any I had experienced before. Even at the end of high school when I was staying out into the AM, I still had to go home, still hoped not to wake anyone  there, and had to get up before noon. Not so in Whelan Hall. I distinctly remember there were some Friday and Saturday nights when we partied so hard that we wouldn’t wake up until well into the afternoon the next day. I actually called these vampire weekends before there was a Vampire Weekend.

Na Kolea seniors my freshman year. They taught me a lot, but the most important lesson they would teach me didn’t happen until they were gone. People fall in and out of your life all the time. There’s no use trying to avoid it. The best we can do is enjoy each other while we’re here.

You have to believe me, at 18, I was a shy person. Meeting new people wasn’t easy for me. Everything I did that appeared extroverted was a conscious attempt to compensate for my anxiety. Thankfully, I met a lot of great people who made it easy for me to slowly figure out that part of my personality.

One of my favorite memories of the first two weeks of college involve meeting a girl who had graduated from Punahou. At the risk of sounding cheesy, she was easily the most attractive person my age I had ever actually met. I asked if she would be interested in playing on an indoor soccer team some guys in my dorm were trying to put together. She declined, saying that she did not play soccer. She did, however, agree to meet for dinner later that night. I got to her dorm, buzzed her room and waited. She walked out in a Punahou Varsity Soccer t-shirt. I threw some kind of sarcastic comment out there like “are you kidding me?” She smiled and said something about it being just a shirt and she being some kind of manager. She was one of my first friends at LMU and I will go to my grave believing she wore that shirt on purpose.

Team Swank. My first winning team of any kind.

I entered college trying to maintain a long-distance relationship. To this day, it is the single biggest mistake I’ve ever made, with diving for that football in second and sliding for that softball rocketing up the charts. It worked out about as well as it could have the first year, but then it stretched out miserably for the next two. It was horrible. I am sure my roommates could tell you horror stories about having to deal with me during the downturns. I won’t go into all of that here, but the greater point is that I simply couldn’t let her/the relationship go, and it prevented me from participating in a lot of things. At a time in my life when I should have been freest, I tied myself down, not to a person, but to the idea of being with that person – who was 3,000 miles away. In retrospect, my decision looks insanely stupid. At the time, though? There wasn’t even a choice to be made; I was doing the only thing to be done.

It makes me feel good inside to remember that once upon a time I could drink.

In my head, there was something Romantic/noble about trying to make a long-distance relationship work. I don’t know, that somehow it made me appear devoted and committed. What I didn’t realize is that those qualities aren’t admirable or marketable or desirable until full adulthood. And even then… I also liked comic books back then. Let’s just say I was ahead of my time and leave it at that.

Anyway, the problem was that I was trying to have it both ways: living the college life and “spending time” with my LDGF. Remember, this was before cell phones and free long distance. I’m talking about phone cards and $300 phone bills that sent my parents off into psychotic rages. Anyway, I couldn’t enjoy either side because whenever I was doing one, I wished I was doing the other. And then I felt guilty about that, and it ended up becoming this never-ending thing.

It had to have been a UH football game on TV or something. I miss stuff like this. I really don’t know.

You know what I miss the most? Being around people all the time. There were people I always smoked cigarettes with before certain classes. During my junior year, a few of us lived in Hannon Apartments and basically bummed cigarettes off of each other for a year. People would knock on the door at 3 in the morning to say what’s up – then ask for a cigarette. We’d have these random hangout sessions where we’d make something up – like pillow diving – and spend an entire night coming up with the rules, playing the game, making changes to the original rules, and then playing some more. Note: Pillow Diving is the thing where you steal all of the couch cushions from the common rooms in a dorm and bring them into a single common room, then stack them as high as you can. Then you take turns jumping onto the pillows – chest first – and returning to a standing position while holding onto as many pillows as you could. I have short arms. I never did well in this event. There are thousands of other stories just like this, but I’ve forgotten many of them, and I could never do justice to many of them.

This was after I graduated. But still. It’s the only picture I have of the two of us and leaving her out doesn’t seem right.

I posted a stellar 1.5 GPA during the first semester of my junior year. I failed both Accounting 211 and Art History. My mom was in hysterics when she called. She knew that it had something to do with the on-going drama of my long-distance relationship. And then my dad got on the phone. I still remember what he said:

If you’re not done in 4 years, then you’re coming home and it’s on you.

My dad never made threats, only promises. Later that year, I would take my first and only trip in an ambulance because I drank myself into oblivion on the night of the 2001 Charter Ball. Even now, that school year ranks as the worst stretch of my life.  My father’s words helped me to snap out of my funk. So did Cayenne.

I met Cayenne in a Calculus for business class I took in an ill-fated, ill-advised attempt to become a business major despite A) sucking in math, and therefore B) hating math. She was a freshman. I was a junior. The only junior taking that class and well on my way to a solid D. Note: Only a C or better counted for business majors. So ended my attempt at that business degree. Here, I’ll say it for you: I did a lot of fucking up in college.

Anyway, long story short, I was really into her, but that ship sailed before the plane even got off the ground. I don’t know what it would have been like, but I do know this: when I was 20, I was miserable and I used to get really drunk and sometimes I would physically hurt myself. And Cayenne saw me through it. I would wake up in the morning after rough nights and find notes on my desk in her handwriting saying that she stopped by to check up on me. For a time, she was one of my very best friends. And then I graduated and saw her less frequently and now I don’t even remember when the last time I saw her. But I will always remember that dark period in my life. I choose to remember it for perspective. One of those “this, too, shall pass” things, I guess. Whenever I think about it, I run the gamut of emotions: embarrassment, sadness, shame, etc. But also, gratitude. Thank you, Cayenne.

Orange Bhang: both a softball and fantasy softball team.

I think the single biggest difference between my college life and my life now is time. Back then I had more time than I knew what to do with it. During my freshman year, a senior named Brent explained to me that college was like summer camp in that you did something you didn’t want to for a few hours of the day, and the rest of the time you spent with your friends. That’s still the truest description of college I’ve ever heard someone come up with –  even if I had never been to summer camp, but I had seen Ernest Goes to Camp, so I had an idea what it might be like.

So yeah, I went to class, had a job at the Seaver Mac Lab (SAVE EARLY. SAVE OFTEN.), and played every intramural sport except for water polo (I can’t swim) and basketball (I suck). I partied. I stayed in with the GF. I played in an adult softball league in Culver City. What the hell else did I do? Whatever I wanted. I had no idea back then how amazing a luxury that is.

I really wish I could still fit that shirt.

There’s a pretty significant gap in my photo collection. I took a bunch of pictures with a shitty camera (that I actually had to load film into!) during my freshman year and a little at the start of my sophomore year. I have virtually no photos from the second semester of my sophomore year and my junior year (though I suspect Brett might, someplace), which again, is coincidentally the nadir of my existence. The photography picks up again during my senior year because I spent it with Katrina. She liked – among other things – to take a lot of pictures. At the time, this seemed slightly onerous. Now? I wish we had taken more. She actually spent a lot of time memorializing the bulk of my senior year. I have to thank her because I wasn’t going to do it. It’s funny to say this now, but she knew it was all going to end for me before I did – and she was two years younger.

She spent a lot of time taking pictures, making me cards and writing me letters. She organized my birthday party senior year which was lunch at our apartment and a Dodgers game at night (awesome). She was the one who bought me Robbie for Christmas. But I didn’t understand what she was doing; I was busy doing typical Phil Higa things like getting smashed and trying to prove my sobriety by being able to name any position player on any Major League team. I could really do this, sober or not, actually. Anyway, what she was doing (and I would only realize this later – in my mid-20s – long after we were over) was trying her very best to create moments for me. I simply didn’t appreciate them at the time.

And then I graduated.

What the hell was I so happy about?

I don’t blame myself. I couldn’t have known at the time. How could I? It’s the reason I give my students the benefit of the doubt fairly often: they’re young. When I took my last college final, I got back to the Madrid and starting singing Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” with my roommate Derek. We partied the night before graduation and got to campus late the next morning. We celebrated with family in the afternoon following the ceremonies then got absolutely obliterated that night. I have pictures. I don’t remember taking them.

What the hell were we celebrating?

I was young and I didn’t know what graduating would mean. How could I? I had only ever been in school. I was young and hypothetically invincible and had always been. And then slowly I became less young and more vincible.

May 11, 2002. I haven’t been back since.

The most important lesson I learned from my college experiences wasn’t spawned in the classroom. Additionally, I didn’t figure it out until two or three years after I received my degree.

Romanticizing my college years has always been easy for me because for a very long time, those four years were the best continuous period of my life. Note: This title has been usurped by the last four years of my life, 2008-2012. No joke, Madison is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Don’t get me wrong, my 20′s were mostly great, but there’s nothing quite like being on campus, you know? In all the time since then, I’ve tried very hard to be aware of the moment as it’s happening. I can’t do it all the time. Sometimes I have to be reminded, but I try my very best. Those four years at LMU flew by so quickly and I behaved so arbitrarily that I never thought about what I was doing. Everything just kind of happened. And because I was young, I assumed life would move forward in this fashion forever. And it did. Until it didn’t.

My original intention for this entry was to be as specific as possible, but about five minutes into this thing I knew that wasn’t going to work out. And part of me wants to just list a bunch of names, events, memories, and whatever off the top of my head, but that won’t work either because unless you were there with me when it happened, it won’t make sense to you. Also, to do it right would have meant a lot of mental heavy lifting. So this mostly cohesive, chronological, somewhat detailed (in places) entry is the compromise, I guess.

Part of me wants to tag as many of my friends from LMU as Facebook will allow me to when I post it on the site, but I don’t really want this to end up on people’s walls without their permission. If you read this and you like it, feel free to share it.

I know that 10 years is arbitrary. It’s just as long as 9 years which is just as long as 8 years. This is the fascinating thing about it for me: I spent four years of my life living with these people, and then for the most part, I never saw them again. Nowhere near that frequently or intimately. My concept of who these people are today (and their concept of who I am) is predicated largely on the memories of shared events that took place a decade ago. We aren’t the same people. Or are we?

The cliche goes that a human is the sum total of his experiences. If that’s true, then I am that same guy. At least in part. And I guess this will have to do:

To anyone I spent time with during those amazing four years at Loyola Marymount University. Anyone who ever gave me a ride, bought me a drink when I couldn’t, let me bum stoges, and let me sleep it off at your place. Anyone who endured my sarcasm and failed attempts a humor and my obscure pop culture references. Anyone who let me sleep in their room when I lived off-campus, borrow their one-card to buy cigarettes, walked with me all the way to U-Hall just to get my mail. Anyone who played IM sports with me and had to deal with me being a dictator (softball) and really shitty (all the other sports). Anyone who spent time talking to me about stupid stuff and important stuff (in college, they’re interchangeable). Anybody who listened to me go on and on about this girl or this other relationship or my shattered heart or this other girl. My roommates, my friends, friends of friends, the people I hung out with, those I did more than hang out with, the people I met just the once, and everyone I’ve shared a memory with. Thank you. Because all of it counts.