36 weeks.

One of my friends is 36 weeks pregnant right now. I was feeling particularly foolish and fond and so decided to Google what her baby looks like right now ... only I must have clicked the wrong link because this was what I got:

I'll admit it. I was horrified. I mean, GEEZ, that picture doesn't even look possible! How does the skin even contain the two of them?! How does that woman even walk upright with her belly distended like so?! How did Octomom not DIE!

I've always been rather keen on twins: more bang for your labor buck; double the trouble, yes, but also double the fun; the close bond of siblings close in age and especially twins; et cetera. Not that you get to order what goes in your womb like you fill an Amazon.com shopping cart, but . . . I used to want twins. But that picture seriously made me pause and rethink.

So, Rach, this one's for you. You may be melting in this heat and uncomfortably bearing a big baby inside your body, but it could be worse: there could be two in there. Love you and hope Baby Coop comes out soon!

Another one bites (Ha.Ha.) the dust.

I know, I know ... I just finished saying that I wasn't into "the whole young-adult-literature-for-adults scene."

Well, color me stupid because in the last 48 hours I breathlessly read myself halfway through Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series.

What is it about those books?! For me, I have a hunch it might be the combination of vampires + werewolves + smuttysmuttysmutty = awesomeness. Because evidently I'm a judgmental book snob, I didn't really expect much, but after seeing Twilight the film, I couldn't wait till the next movie to find out what becomes of Bella, Edward, and underage-but-still-sexy Jacob/Jake.

Now, look. There's this thing I'm teasing apart. I can't quite put a finger on it yet. But it goes something like this in still-figuring-it-out Mayumispeak. The books didn't suck. This surprised me. The writing was clear and clean, a compliment to writer and editor. On the one hand, many of the descriptions and images were quite innovatively and beautifully written; on the other hand, some were less inventive and then repeated over and over again. For example, the Cullens' skin was like marble or stone in the dark, like diamonds or jewels in the light. Or, for example, every male in those two books "growls" when angry--whether vampire, werewolf, or man--and considering how often someone is angry with Bella, that's a lot of growling. I got a much, much clearer sense of Bella from the books than from the movie. I actually wished I hadn't seen the film before reading the books, because I don't actually think Robert Pattinson (tall, pale, and handsome as he is) is the Edward Cullen in my imagination . . . or, for that matter, the Edward Cullen in the books. There's something too . . . well, effete is the wrong word, because R.P. is not that, but what is the word, then? Too "metro"? I don't know. Perhaps it's nothing the matter with R.P. but more that I imagined a different Edward Cullen from what I read. Also, all the critiques I had of the film (what's so great about Bella? what's with all the smouldering? et cetera...) hold true for the books, as well.

And it is hard for me to take the books seriously. I'm all compartmentalizing them into "Young Adult" literature, or "Young-Adult-for-Adult" literature. I'm segregating and it's snobby and wrong, but still I am doing it. On the one hand, the books didn't make me "think" as hard (if at all, really) about craft, or Literature, or a writing career, or even flawed human nature. On the other hand, maybe that was their beauty; I mean, when was the last time I read a book cover-to-cover, in two sittings, and then reached for its companion, devouring it in even less time--especially one of upwards of 400 pages--for the simple reason that I couldn't put it down, I was enjoying myself that much?* On the one hand, they were like candy: something simple and sweet to enjoy. On the other hand, they were like candy: empty calories.

But isn't there something to be said for remembering how to read as a reader? How to just enjoy?

And, of course, there is that Meyer does skillfully render high school, all of it, the awkwardness and the posturing, the mean girls and the mean crushes, the in-groups and out-groups, and all that staring and panting and hoping and dreaming and planning and scheming. GOD, even the lean of young men against lockers. While reading, I was taken back to a Very Vulnerable State. 'Course it's nice, too, to for-once be identifying with the Awkward Clutzy Girl who gets ALL the guys, who has to beat them down with a stick practically, whose awkwardness and shyness and quietness--and did-I-mention awkwardness**--didn't mean a social death sentence. I read that and was moved, and then I thought: TOTAL FICTION. But, okay, disbelief suspended. Hahahahha, actually that's really funny: No problem with the vampires or werewolves here, but the fact that the awkward girl could get the sexy guy? Holdonaminutenow! That is fucked up, Self.

As another point, I would self-righteously begin to critique the notion of "eternity" presented by the vampires... except I remember high school. We may sit there, huge tome in hand, and think: What the hell is wrong with Bella? She's 17! She has her whole life ahead of her! How can she be that sure that this boy-man, this vampire, will be the right man for her not just now, not just through a lifetime, but through all lifetimes unless she meets an untimely demise at the hands of (a) another vampire, (b) a werewolf, or (c) the Volturi?!?!?! I mean, even in the span of a lifetime, one is continually becoming, one is never at the apex of being the person they are meant to be. Always it is a shifting thing; always we are chameleons. So, how could anyone possibly know who would be right for them once they were alive for 200 years? But seriously, again, she is 17, and I remember high school. Everything was that tragic and that dramatic. At any moment, you were going to meet your One True Love, and he was going to ride into study hall, in Hawai'i, on a white horse and sweep you off and away into the sunset. Nevermind that it was really weird that he had a horse, I mean, where the heck did he get that horse, and then would it even clear the doors for study hall, because those doorways were pretty skinny.

Now that I've completely revealed my embarassing teenage mind to the Internet, let's move along swiftly, shall we?

I am only halfway through the books, but let me just say rhetorically MY GOD, does anyone ever get to have sex?! BUT PLEASE DON'T TELL ME THE ANSWER IN THE COMMENTS, because I have two more books to go. I guess Bella et al. are only in their late teens, and there are complications besides (Bella might get bitten/drunk or clawed to death if she tried to make love with either of her most likely suitors), but geez-US somebody should be getting some for that exact reason: they are in high school. Now I certainly wasn't up to nothing in high school (hi there, Mom), BUT ... I KNOW that others were.

Nonsequitur: I am, by the way, 2,000% TEAM WOLF, but I sense that the only screwing Bella is going to do with Jacob involves his head.

That was an unnecessarily complicated way of saying I think my team is going to lose.

So. Look. In conclusion, I could sit here and pick apart the plot or character choices, but so many others have already done it in such great detail (just check the Amazon user reviews on any of the volumes in the series ... which make my Inner Writer quaver in fear of the weapon that is user-generated content. Everyone's a critic these days...). I could do it to make this an exercise in learning about writing craft; I could do it to try to prove how smart I am.

But you know what?

I don't want to.

I told you why I loved the books. Because I truly enjoyed them just the way they were: flawed and delicious.

---

* I am being rhetorical, but actually I know. It was Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, a book that had all the candyness of the Twilight books and all the brainpower of Great Serious-Serious Literature.

** Sidenote: the word awkward is really awkward to spell. Now I keep staring at it and I'm just not sure, even after verifying it on Merriam-Webster's online.

Congrats to "Jill and Kevin"!

I don't know who they are, but their wedding processional was AWESOME.



(Thanks to Adrienne for the tip!)

"Catcerto."

OK, at first I thought this was kind of hokey, but the cat is actually really good at playing piano.



(Thanks to !! omg blog !! for the tip.)

Hot under the collar.

So.

Twilight, the film.

Umm. WOW.

I’m not really into the whole young-adult-literature-for-adults scene. I haven’t read a single Harry Potter book, nor Lemony Snicket, nor any of the Twilight series. I don’t go watch the movies. I have nothing against any of it, I just never got swept along into that tide.

And, frankly, from the pictures I’ve seen popping up all over magazines and the Internet, I thought Robert Pattinson needed a tan. I mean, he is a handsome boy for sure, but there was something about him too tall and too manikin-shaped. Too serious-looking. And thems some crazy hair.

The storyline is pretty straightforward, traditional, even cliché in many, many parts. There is nothing innovative about a vampire man falling in love with a helpless human girl. Some of the plot actually pained me, other parts make me laugh out loud—though they weren’t intended to be humorous. (Take, for example, Edward’s earliest serious moment with Bella wherein he tells her he’s a bad boy, and she should stay away—first of all, riiiight, cuz that’s going to work, and second, ummm hiiii talk about clichés!) There was an awful lot of slunking around, smouldering, and looking serious and intense. Much of the dialogue was stiff and uninteresting. But, then again, Edward and Bella were supposed to be in high school. Perhaps the dialogue was spot-on. In fact, Edward Cullen reminded me of not a few boys in high school—none of whom were actually vampires but all of whom did a lot of slunking and posing. And Bella … what was up with her? Why was everyone so in love with her?? She is pretty, but clearly girlfriend has issues. I mean, Edward is all serious and slunky and smouldery because he’s a vampire, but what was her excuse? She did a lot of being serious, and slunky, and girl-shy smouldering, and a heckofalot of talking to herself/narrating to us (which is just an irritating film conceit, anyway, hello, SHOW, don't TELL!). Not to mention how much film time she spent either staring off into space or staring intensely at Edward. Which seemed kind of weird. Then again, haha, I remember high school ... I did a lot of retarded intense staring, too, and look what it landed me: a husband, haha. (It must be said, though: NO ONE, no matter how sexy and fanged he was, could make me want to spend an eternity in high school.)

But, all those reservations aside, I have to say I was really taken with Twilight.

Because the bottom line is it was HOT. I didn’t care if Edward and Bella couldn’t string more than a few sentences together between them, because it was so HOT. HOT HOT HOT. Ridiculous, really. I mean, all they did was kiss, and the movie quickened my pulse more than any other I’ve seen in years—including movies in which people are implied to be having sex. So, what is up with that? Is it some crazy tantric film-viewing philosophy, wherein the more Edward and Bella breathe hard near each other, or stare intensely and rather inappropriately at each other, or lay near but not touching each other every last hair on their bodies on alert, or, finally, spend some quality time necking, the more our temperatures rise? To the point where, when Edward jokingly questions whether Bella is ready to become a vampire in what you know is the last 5 minutes of the film and obviously not a moment where any director would put a big “reveal” moment like having him kiss her and turn her undead, your heart is beating veryfast and you’re shouting at the screen, JUST DO IT ALREADY!! MAKE HER A VAMPIRE!! And then hurry up and have sex, please, because this whole delayed gratification thing is just not my scene!!!

But maybe that was just me?

I also liked the whole Native Americans as wolf tribe thread of the story. I liked that it gave another layer of shadow to the plot: it's not just a story about interspecies love amongst anglos, there was also this Underworld element to it, the battle of ancient clans, Vampires and Lycans, fighting to keep a tenuous peace through the centuries, and et cetera. Besides which, that Taylor Lautner (playing Quileute Jacob Black, also enamoured of Bella) is pretty easy on the eyes--and likeable. Possible future foil against Edward? Maybe Bella should go the the way of the werewolves instead? Or maybe Bella should move back to Arizona or to Florida with her Mom? Maybe!!

Anyway. Twilight. Bad in the ways I thought it'd be bad but surprisingly good in other ways.

Will definitely see the next Twilight: New Moon, due out in November of this year. Now whether or not I'll cough up $10.50 to see it in the theaters or wait for it to queue up on Blockbusteronline.com, well, we'll just have to wait and see. But after a synopsis like this, I might be hooked!

Also? We ate this the other night.

Baked salmon (one fillet farmed, the other wild)* + soba noodles + soba sauce + fresh watercress salad with homemade ("winged it") dressing involving sesame oil, shoyu, ginger, rice vinegar, ginger, salt, pepper, and probably some other stuff, I forget now.

There is nothing as perfect for a hot summer night as cold soba noodles and sauce, I swear.

---

* Two fillets of salmon per person was waaaay too much food. Hubby's fault. ;)

Other people's weddings.

Last night, I wore makeup for the first time in months. For a girl who used to love getting dressed up, I know that's kind of hard to believe, but now it often feels like too much effort. Especially in the summer when I know I'm just going to be sweating it all back off. Sorry, TMI. We were headed to Dave's co-worker Jason's wedding reception at a Chinese restaurant palace in Flushing, Queens. When the cab dropped us off, we were like where the hell are we, and please come back and get us at the end of the night. We were so far into who knows where that we spent $100 roundtrip in cab fares, people. For one fricken night.

But what a night it was. It was a pretty crazy reception. The food! It just kept on coming. Fruit and lobster salad. A plate of intact mini-octopuses, jellyfish, pork, carrots, and seaweed. A plate of scallop and fried prawn. A single, huge fried seafood dumpling thing. Shark-fin soup with red vinegar. Pork with a huge portobello mushroom and crisp sugar snap peas. Then family-style chow fun noodles, fried rice with crab, and a whole fish and a whole chicken, neither of which I could even eat because I was too full. And then yellow cake with some kind of fruit spread somewhere in it. All the while, the wine was flowing copiously.

Here is the lovely bride and groom:

I meant to take more pictures, but you know how it goes. One glass of red wine around people politely and constantly refilling your glass = you forget to take pictures. Then again, it was a wedding; they had professionals handling the photography. Lots and lots of group shots at this wedding--it felt like prom all over again. Here's one of ALL the Japan Air Lines folk at Jason & Sirena's party. I managed to get it while the pros were posing people for pro shots:

Incredibly, amongst the airline folk, I met a Yumi, and at the same table as us, a co-worker's wife's name even ended up being Mayumi! So many people were so much more Japanese than me and there was much bowing in all directions and embarassment that I am so haole compared to them. But whatareyougonnado. I met Dave's immediate supervisor at JAL, Joe, and his awesome wife whose name I stupidly forgot even though I spent a good fraction of the night chatting with her. (That was the problem, I think ... she said her name at the beginning of the night and then we were too busy talking story to repeat names.) Then I met the JAL station manager, Leroy, who has had a similar trajectory to Dave: living, as he did, in Hawaii, Los Angeles, Burlingame (CA), San Francisco, and New York (maybe a few other places, too). I meant to get a better shot of Dave with both, but here was all I managed to get (L to R: Dave, Leroy, Joe):

I think it was Joe who was joking about how no one ever wants to transfer into New York . . . but now that Dave did, they were never going to let him go. Not, by the way, the best joke ever, since I'm itching to move again.

Both men were so friendly and kept saying the nicest things about Dave. That, incidentally, was my favorite part of the night. I mean, I know who I married and what an incredible person he is, and I think I'm pretty good at remembering to tell him how wonderful he is and how much I love him every single day. But I really enjoy having other people tell me about how great he is, as well, it's like the cherry on the sundae, you know, like you've already enjoyed the whole thing, it was delicious, you didn't care about the calories, you enjoyed every nuance of flavor, the ice cream, the bananas, the chocolate sauce, the caramel drizzle, the whipped cream, the nuts, and you get to the end and there's this totally sugar-petrified marashino cherry, just all sugar and no fruit, really, and you hesitate for a moment, thinking I don't really need the thing but then you eat it, because what the hell, right, what's a cherry after all of that. And you LIKE it, too.

Wow. That was an incredibly inane and extended metaphor.

Anyway, that's what it's like to hear people tell me Dave is wonderful. It's the duh on top of the sundae, but a delicious duh.

Besides, I think it's good for him to hear. Dave is one of the most down-to-earth and humble people you'll ever meet. He goes pretty quietly about living his life in a kind and giving way, unassumingly being awesome, so when people are moved to praise him, I enjoy it. I enjoy watching him be a little moved and a lot bashful, I do. The JAL folks can tell me how calm he is under pressure, what a hard worker, how smart and innovative, how dedicated, et cetera . . . and then when I can manage it, I'll slip in other things. When the conversation turned to a daughter's violin lessons, I asked did you know Dave was a cello-performance music major in undergraduate? Did you know he was like the next Yo-Yo Ma? And when another co-worker talked about how he lived in Hawai'i for a little bit and really loved Hawaiian music, I mentioned casually that Dave used to open for some of the big bands when they came to Los Angeles--the Makaha Sons, Ale'a, Palolo, et cetera. The co-worker said, "Doing what?" And I said, "Oh, you know, singing and playing anything with strings, really. Guitar, ukulele, bass." Dave was deeply embarassed; it was awesome.

All in all, the night was good. There was much eating, much drinking, much talking story. There was a dance party, including a really weird mambo line and feathered boas and a limbo stick and rave accessories like glow sticks and glow necklaces. There was the groom removing the bride's garter belt with his hands, and a second time with his teeth. There was the groom's friend, who caught the garter when thrown, throwing a tie over his shoulder and doing a little dance before reapplying the garter belt onto his poor girlfriend with his teeth. There was old people making out and a kiss between the bride and groom supposedly for as long as the crowd could make noise (actually, the crowd made so much noise for so long that bride and groom had to come up for air). And there were the warm fuzzies of celebrating other people's joy with the one who makes me so happy, the one I am glad to have married. And there was the supreme satisfaction of watching other people field thousands of photo ops, and "work" the room, and jump through all the reception hoops (make an entrance, get covered in confetti and glitter, receive a toast, make a toast, dance a dance, cut the cake, feed each other the cake, receive a toast, make a toast, rinse, repeat). Never again, I say. Which does seem to be the point of the expression "as long as you both shall live."

I meant to get a good picture of Dave and me, but instead here is an arms' length one taken at the end of the night, while waiting 3o+ minutes for our stupid cab. I wish it had captured our matchingness, both of us in navy blue, and the subtleties of my outfit, the navy blue dress with the green and silver earrings, and the fun silver ruffle shoes, and the silver bag, but alas this is what you get when you leave drunk Mayumi in charge of picture taking.

Awwww. Look how tired I am! Someone give that girl two Advil, a glass of water, and a cab, STAT!

Notes from my travels: On magic.

July 8, 2009 @ Santa Maria in Trastevere, Roma, Italia.

Reflection: When sitting, awed, in the middle of a church, don't say "holy shit."

It is wrong perhaps--no, definitely--that this is the first phrase to spring to mind. But how else to deal with the way that ceiling made me feel? This was a ceiling to blow away all other ceilings; this was a ceiling to make me understand, a little bit at least, religion.

I am not a religious person. I wouldn't go so far as to say I am an atheist, so I guess that leaves me an agnostic. Which is just kind of an icky word, don't you think? Doesn't it sound more cultish and magicomystico than just saying I don't know what I believe or when I will know what I believe.

But that doesn't mean my life is devoid of inexplicable magic. I've found it often back home in Hawai'i, when the air itself breathes with something that doesn't make solid, scientific sense. I've felt it quite often in nature--on a hike, say, or in the ocean--felt something in me click into alignment, feet, head, heart, any puzzling thing working itself out, jigsawing correctly into place. I've heard it and sung it in many a song: "Ke Alaula" with the lights coming up slow in a church; "Kalanta" by candlelight, sung by children ages 6 up to 18; or, say, "Ku'u Hoa" sung and danced behind a small-town church, with all the rambunctiousness and fondness of a lu'au, all before 10 am and all in the name of town community. I've poured myself into it in the rare moment when, having been coerced into one public performance or another, I can actually forget about the people watching and remember the beauty of the thing I am doing: not my part in doing it, not the performing of it, but just how beautiful the thing itself is--the hula that has been choreographed, the song that has been arranged, the spectacle of the many bodies or the sound of the many voices, lit in a certain way, acoustically placed in a certain way, visually juxtaposed in a certain way.

I get it, the magic, and I believe in it.

But that church was a church to make me understand religion. Not to believe but to at least understand. When I saw that ceiling, I knew that I didn't have to believe in God to worship. Because what that ceiling was trying to do was to capture that inexplicable magic, to harness that feeling that swells up inside you like it cannot fit in your heart, like it is pushing at the confines of your skin, like it is bigger than you and wonderful as it is you can't hold onto it forever. All you can do is hold it for one moment and then let it go. The people who painted such beauty were pouring that feeling onto the blankness of ceiling in golded frescoes and rich, saturated colors; the people who gazed at that ceiling were triggered, by its wonder, to feel the same.

And they call it God. I say let 'em.

Tuu-ues-sday. Aaaf-terno-oon.

After over two long, silent weeks, one would think my first entry back would be brilliantly contemplative. I mean, they were two weeks in Slovenia, Croatia, and Italy. Of the two weeks, ten days were specifically a residency for my MFA in Writing program, via Vermont College of Fine Arts.

If I were a professional writer, I would have figured out someting really deep to say about the whole experience. Something about travelling, how it makes the foreign familiar and the familiar strange, or how some other times the foreign stays foreign and you just want to go home. Something impassioned about the importance of travel to not becoming complacent, something amusing about remembering how to have a roommate, something about the writing workshop experience and how sometimes it's helpful and sometimes it's less than helpful. Something about how when you try to hard to get to know people, your attempts can flop; but if you expect nothing, but are open to everything, the effort can be ... well, effortless. Perhaps something funny about how after the first full day of touristing about with my mother, I dreamed of gladiators--and, specifically, of being Russell Crowe in Gladiator. Something about the odyssey that is the Vatican Museums, and of finally being handed the prize of the Sistine Chapel, yet something about a lacking sense of magic, or awe, or reverence in today's society, due to the fact that we cannot notice a thing of beauty except through the lens of our increasingly complicated cameras. Something about how don't it always seem to go that your camera works fine till you're actually on that long-awaited vacation.

Something.

But I'm not there yet. I am left . . . contemplative. I'm mulling it all over. I'm also avoiding Gmail, Facebook, and this blog, as well as the voicemail on my phone. I'm trying to get through two work deadlines in the next week while remembering to feed and walk my dog and feed and love up my husband, who was so lonely while I was gone.

So. Here. I made this today.

It's evidently called a Dutch Baby. I got the recipe from Quarter Life Crisis a while back, but never got around to trying it till today. It was, as advertised, somewhere between a pancake and a custard, but either way totally delicious . . . especially once we styled it up with some paper-thin slices of apple sauteed in butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar and a dusting of powdered sugar.

YUMMM is about all the depth I can handle for today.