Discretion

As much as I love telling stories, there are some that don't need to be told... or at least explicitly. 

Lesson of the day: it's severely important to be extremely aware of your surroundings least you wind up scratching your car while simultaneously banging your head onto your steering wheel with such a force that you can feel your brain actually slam back and forth.

Happy Faces

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Mai likes burning himself. It's pretty faint here but you can see the line of discoloration on his arm where he pressed an iron into his arm. Why did he do this you ask? 

Well, because he felt like it. Actually, he felt like making a happy face with the pointed end of the iron, the line on his arm that you can see here was the smiling mouth of his iron-face, with the eyes above it having faded over the last few years.. 

Kitty Needs New Kicks

In an attempt to assuage my low self-esteem and pent-up energy, I invested in a pair of sneakers less than a year ago and all but threw myself into constant gym workouts every time I came home from work. Since then, the stitching on the toe is the least of my worries. My shoes are pretty much falling apart, which sucks because now I have to buy new shoes, but it's kinda good because now I get to shop... oh, and I guess it means that I actually did something useful in the past year.

20 Over the Limit Part Deux

Yesterday, this was a chair with wheels. We have three of them in our house. 

Today, when my dad's stuck in bed and my arm strength isn't enough to pull him out of it, this is a mother fucking godsend.

(Implied damage counts too right?)

20 Over the Limit

This is the floor by the door of my parents' bedroom.

This is where my dad called me from while I was sipping on my second Mango Lemonade Shaker and where I found him about 20 minutes later when I rushed home doing 80mph on the turnpike after he told me he'd fallen to the ground and couldn't get up. I know I like to focus on scars and physical damages that have cool stories behind them, but I think emotionally-exhausting damages have a place here too right?

Dad's gout is acting up and he spends most the night with a low-grade fever that worries me because I can handle babies without anuses but an old man in pain is a little out of my league. I'll feed him and give him all the medications I can find downstairs because he can't get up on his own let alone maneuver through two dozen steps, and he'll thank me and tell me to sleep after I admit that I've only had four hours of sleep in the past 24. I leave our doors open and keep my TV on low, but I get too anxious to sleep anyway so I gather up my blanket and plop down next to him so I can assure myself that my daddy's alive. I'll wake up every 4 hours to check his temperature and give him  more medication and water and sometime around 6 am, I ask myself if this is really something I can keep doing. 

And then I wanna smack myself when I realize it's not that big of a deal because he and my mother had done the same for me my entire life anyway.

We All Fall Down

She joined a biker gang.

Well, it's less of a bike gang and more of a group of people who get together every other Saturday and bike around town. On one particular evening (yup, they do this during non-daylight hours too), it happens to be Halloween-esque weekend, so a few of the bikers are dressed in costumes.

She's in a ladybug outfit with the antennae included when a chick in a liederhosen two bikes ahead of her loses control of her ride, swerving and pretty much bringing down the entire line behind her.

She skins her right hand so nasty to the point that you could've seen the muscle underneath and she ends up with some gross bruises to her stomach as well. The health director tells her that she can't come to work because it's a health hazard to touch patients with a big, gaping, sometimes oozing  wound on her hand.

It takes a three weeks to fully heal...but when you consider that this is what it looks like now, almost three months past the initial incident, you can only imagine how nasty it was when she first got it.

Lion King: Simbo's Tale

When I first sat the tattooo on Mai's arm, I laughed and pointed, "Lookit! It's Simba!"

Mai corrected me, "IT'S SIMBO DAMMIT!" and I chose to ignore him because I was under the impressiong that he was so inebriated at the time that he was likely mispronounciating the word.

Turns out, I was wrong: the lion inked into his right tricep is Simbo... which I always thought was a mistake given that this is Mai and I always pictured him as a...grizzly bear/panda-esque kind of person instead of a hairy beast. But, like all tattos received when sober, there was an actual reason behind it:

"I am very proud of who I am and I strongly believe in symbolism and where I come from."

Mai is actually a sunny, rolly-polly Leo, hence the roaring feline. He and his brother went out together back in '08 to "a shady parlor on Bird Road" that I pass every time I come to work that's decorated by marvel superheroes on the side of the building and had the tat done "by an artist that was drunk and coked up."

I'm not sure I would've stuck around if my artist was under the influence, but I do give him props for being the first person who didn't get it done at Lou's Tattoos like every other girl I know.

Mai vs. Iron

From far away, it looks like a dark tear running outside of his right eye. But, if you know Mai like I do, you'd know that he cries maybe once every two years (usually during a romantic comedy where he spends the movie holding a guy's hand). 

I've always thought that Mai got the scar when we were in high school, but turns out, "I was like three or four," he tells me. "I was playing with a toy...I don't know," he replies when I ask him what kind of toy it was. "I think it was a toy car or something."

In the Philippines, a lot of people tend of sleep in wooden beds that function as multiple surfaces during the day time. On this particular instance, someone (Mai can't recall who) was ironing while a mini-Mai was playing with his probable-toy-car nearby.

At some point, "I had lean over the iron and got the edge right into my face," he laughs, clearly not traumatized by this memory in the least. For that matter, he doesn't remember much else about the incident, like if anyone else was in the room of if he even bled afterwards, let alone how long the wound took to heal. 

He reminds me of that phase he had when we were circa high-school age when he had a weird fascination with burning himself from irons and cigarette butts...clearly, this incident was just the beginning of Mai's pyromaniac tendencies.

Reject

"Yeahhh...we're going to a tattoo parlor after this."

Jessica looks between Tiffany and me like we're crazy and then rolls her eyes because she knows that she's stuck coming with us. We're having dinner (Tiff and I are enjoying a few drinks to prepare ourselves) and I'm personally pretty excited. We're largely doing this because Tiff wants a tattoo and I'm kind of bored with my life and think a little needle (hold the drugs) might spice things up a bit. 

It takes like fifteen minutes and there's a lot less blood than I thought there would be and the girls will laugh at how I clenched while on the seat, rising my feet in mild pain. At one point, the guy turns away and I sit up...and possibly blanch at the giant needle curbed through my skin. 

I spend the next few months occasionally forgetting that the damn thing is in place, wincing randomly anywhere at work or, worse, at the gym where I learn to adore boy-shorts for their hoochie-mama-esque hip lines. Eventually, I'll learn to realize that it's actually coming out, that my body is rejecting it and I kind of have to evacuate my belly ring ASAP before I get a nasty-looking scar. 

Eh, guess it's time for another visit.

Demon Kitty

I wouldn't have even noticed the long, thin scar on Tatiana's arm unless she pointed it out. 

When Tati was 10, she had a kitty. He was dark gray all over with white paws and appropriately named Pepper. Although, according to her, her family "never even kept him in the house.. he stayed in [their] backyard and slept in the screened area." One day, Tati decided that she was going to pick up said kitty... who clearly didn't enjoy the contact and showed his displeasure by viciously biting Tati by her thumb and simultaneously scratching her. Needless to say, Tati dropped that bitch.

Somewhere down the line, the family would notice that the kitty wasn't in the yard, her mother eventually finding out that Pepper that met an SUV tire that didn't like him too much.

...and years further down the line, Tati would discover, surprise surprise, that she was actually allergic to cats. Maybe Pepper was allergic to her too?

Belly Bump

It's her second time around, and her first time making it to term. She's usually petite but today (and for the last 7 months) her belly's been threatening to take on her entire body, swelling large and huge to the point that I tempted to take a pin to her tummy just to see if it'll pop. Instead, I reel in the urge to do something stupid and watch as the more enthusiastic crowd at the baby shower comes together to play baby games that make me laugh my ass off.

Her (still) unnamed son is on his way in the first week of March and I'm as excited and hopeful as everyone who came by tonight to wish the couple well.

When Machetes Attack

He's fifteen and cutting up firewood in the backyard of his house (if you've ever been to Ilo Ilo, you'd understand that the entire countryside is everyone's backyard). He's got a machete in hand and having a great time destroying lumber when his grip slips, missing the piece of wood in front of him and smacking right into his leg.


It takes herbal medicine (because they pretty much live in a bamboo house) and three weeks for the wound to heal completely... and his brothers (all 6 of them) can get the firewood in the meantime.

Ouch

And this, ladies and gentlemen is what happens when you can't grip a pole correctly as you make many flailing attempts to twirl around it. Granted, it's not much, c'mon, I had to smack my head into pavement and develop a concussion to actually develop an actual bruise... and that was almost four years ago.

I have a newfound respect for bitches who do this on a regular basis.

Playing with Matches

I have this irrational fear of getting into a horrific accident and developing amnesia. So, since I've been old enough to have this irrational fear, I've develop a love/habit of writing, of chronicling my life, my family, my "cult" and friends with the (irrational) reasoning that, when I develop amnesia, I'll have a first-hand account of what my life is supposed to be like.

I'm a fervent believer that everything has a story, that every person deserves to have their voice heard, their side understood. I believe in the written word; that it alone has withstood the test of time across multiple centuries and nationalities through hieroglyphics, sanskrit, letters to tell us what the world was like, what people were like, how they thought and why. I believe in the freedom of speech, regardless if the the speech comes out of passion, hatred or insanity because they provide the insight into what crazy/amazing/ecstatic thoughts our minds are capable of.  

But there are some words that don't have to be seen, words that don't matter. Or rather, words that used to matter, but have since depreciated in value, in substance, in meaning. Such were the words hidden in the front cover of my pink scrapbook. It takes me a minute and I worry that maybe I hid it somewhere else altogether until I find it behind the flyer for our senior year play where I acted as a ghetto-fied clown.

It takes nine and a half matches and 10 minutes. One of the matches snaps and at least two die out before I can even touch them to the thick, sealed envelop. It takes some time because there are at least four pages inside said envelop...and another envelop (I take sealed letters to the extreme). Eventually, the embers I've lit grow to the point where I don't have to hide them from the breeze coming from the lake. I turn the envelop so the flames eat the words from the bottom up until I have to lay it down before I burn my fingers.

When the embers have died, I wait for the regret, for the panic to seep, for me to shout, "What have I done??" and scramble to piece the charred remains together.

Instead, I lean forward, blow, and watch the ashes scatter.

Pop and Zap

  

Once upon a time in a Catholic school when Jessica was actually shorter than me (I know!! Such a time really did exist!), my "daughter" got smacked in the face.

Jessie herself can't exactly remember if they were playing tag or hide and seek; only that she was running around with the boys because she'll be a tomboy for the next decade and is the only girl in the crowd that can keep up with them. There's a demon child/ginger kid who's "anxious" to catch her and, after a chase, manages to do so... by smacking her.

"In your face??" I ask incredulous, unable to fathom anyone who could smack an adorable mini-Jessie in the face.

"Yeah...Actually," She says thoughtfully, "I...don't recall if I ran into his hand or if he really did slap me. But I doubt I'm that retarded to run into his hand." She adds quickly.

"I started crying and I spent the day holding onto my cheek a lot," She recalls slowly. "And I guess holding on to it made it even more irritated that it created this..."

"Pimple?" I offer.

"Yeaaah," Jessie says hesitantly, "But it was more like a bubble. A bubble of blood."

I wince. "Ew. That's gross."

She laughs. "Pretty much. When I noticed it, I figured it was like a pimple and if I pop it, it'll go away. Like a pimple. So I kept popping it over and over again."

My hands stop typing over the keys. "You mean...it kept coming back? And you kept popping it anyway??"

"Yup." Jessie replies like her 8 year old self that didn't realize there was something definitely wrong with the blood-boil of death on her face."After a week of that, my parents finally got fed up and told me to stop, saying things like "IT'S GOING TO EAT YOUR FACEE!!! and finally took me to a dermatologist."

(Turns out, she was actually popping her face for 2 months before getting professional help.)

One painless "zap" later, the red blob bubble of blood was finally vanquished.

It used to be darker and over the years, she's gotten whiter and the scar has managed to blend into her skin.What she describes as once having been a pit she could dig her finger into is now barely a scuff that she has to play around to even find.

Heart Song

I've switched lollipops with Jessica, trading my green apple for her cherry one as we lean against the counter opening into the tattoo artist's lair. We've just had dinner and ambled our way into the shop, with the proprietors probably wondering if we're too drunk to be there… or guessing by Tiff's frickin cardigan that we're probably lost. On the contrary, Tiff's leaned back with her jeans unbuttoned scandalously low on her hips as the man with the buzzing needle hovers over her comparing the stencil to her skin. My own stomach is still pretty sore from my turn on the seat and I take in my lollipop in mild comfort as we watch the needle rise and fall.

Tiff was in band. Not the hormonally-charged one American Pie glorified, but the kind with nerdy students with bad acne. She was first chair flute if I recall correctly when we first became friends in the trailer-infused world known as Narammonsia. I'd later find out that she actually played piano too, and in the years that would follow she'd eventually be taught by my own piano teacher and we'd even manage to play a duet together: Pachelbel's Canon in D (She'd get stressed during evaluations and I'd gotten to the point of accepting that I could never keep the proper tempo).

Suffice to say, music's been a big part of my wife's life. She's never allowed herself to follow solely mainstream songs and I remember listening to Angels Should Die on her CD player (Geez, anyone remember those???) among other random songs (musicals included) that we'd eventually accumulate in the next decade of our friendship. Hence, the reason why we've managed to find ourselves in Lou's Tattoos with Jessie in tow watching her take on her first tat. It doesn't take too long although I do find enough time to circle around the shop for a bit and take in the photos of naked women wearing nothing but the ink etched into their skins. Tiff takes in the experience with stride, reacting only once when the tattoo artist lets the needle seep a little too close to her hip bone. Her parents will be marginally scandalized (more her dad than her mom) and in a week she'll be contemplating her next tattoo. 

As for this one, it's all about the music:

"...I believe it is one thing that is able to convey emotions no matter the language... and background. And even though I only play for myself and very infrequently now, music is still something I hold dear."

Yup, like an example for all good girls, Tiff's keeping her most precious element near and dear and in her pants. 

Monkeying Around

"Hey Bitchie, do you have a scar?"

He cocks his head to one side to think for a moment and brings his hand to his chin thoughtfully. After a moment, Rebecca and I look at each other and then back at him and I make a comment over how it's not that hard to know if you have a scar or not.

For once, Richie isn't being an idiot as, it turns out, he's actually pointing out a scar on his chin. 

 It takes me a moment too notice it, a faint patch of flesh beneath his lip where his facial hair refuses to grow.

Once upon a time in New York, a small(er) Bitchie was on a playground, on a bouncing bridge. He was attempting to reach out to grab a set of monkey bars. Unfortunately for Baby Bitchie, a stampede of children come down the bridge at the same time, causing him to lose his balance. He falls about five feet, smacking his face onto the edge of the lower platform. There's tears, there's blood, and there goes little Baby Bitchie running hysterically around a New York playground bawling for his mommy.

On the plus side, he gets to ride in an ambulance and stitches...that counts as a plus right?

Ding a Ring

I'm a little fuzzy on the details, actually, of how I managed to get this ring. I know we were out in a group (because that's what cool freshmen [were we sophmores actually...?] do) when I found this simple band that's actually small enough to fit me, or at least my middle finger. Anthony gets it for me...I think...maybe...all I know is that I didn't pay for it.

In the years to follow, this ring would only leave my finger for long on two occasions: to be worn by what I like to refer to as "the-bad-college-freshman-decision-we-all-make" and when I start working in the hospital and get hammered into my head that jewelry is a hornet's nest-worth of germs and bacteria just waiting to passed around regardless of how clean I scrubbed my hands if the irritation rashes on the backs of my palms are any indication...

My ring has become a staple in my life to the point that I get genuinely confused when I look down at my left hand and realize that it's not there at work. Over the years, I've managed to scratch it on just about any surface you can think of: a flame-proof black top of a lab table, the counter at Tiff and Brittney's (haunted) apartment while I watched them attempt to make Shake-and-Bake dinner, the handles of weight-machines at the gym. I've actually once dropped it into a toilet and reached in without even thinking: that's how much I treasure this thing. Which is funny, considering that on one particularly emo day in college I nearly chucked it into a lake beside a beautiful chapel in a fit of justifiable, though very misplaced, rage.

It kind of shows, then, how we mark the things that are precious to us...and judging from the callus right beneath my middle finger in my palm and the tan line you can't see unless I take it off, I guess it's kinda marked me too?

"Keep in Touch"

It is the first yearbook I've ever owned. We didn't have one in my elementary school so I'm excited and happy to finally have something to commemorate my first year of middle school with. I forget the circumstances except this one girl Amber whose mom was a dead-ringer for Scary Spice because she's in the car that I came home with. After I've hopped down and made it up my driveway, I turn around and wave for them to stop because I've left my yearbook in the car.

Amber steps out and forsomeidioticreason, throws it at me even though there was no freaking way it could've reached me unless a) I was the Filipino version of the superhero Flash or b) she was an Olympic shotput hurler. I watched my first yearbook sail through the air in slow-mo fashion and hear the booming "Noooooo" come out of my own mouth as I stumble to catch it...and miss completely.

This event causes the binding of my book to fall apart and when I try to pick up the yearbook today, the cover is pretty much dislodged from the rest of the book. This event will also make me resent this girl to some extent for the next few days. I will get over this one day. My yearbook, on the other hand, is clearly another story altogether.

Scrape

It's the second day of my junior year of college. It's Florida so it's always warm so I'm walking through my campus in my hoochie shorts because that's how I represent the 305. 

I, then, can indirectly blame the 305 for raising me to wear hoochie shorts because it's because I'm wearing said hoochie shorts that, when I clearly trip on thin air, I topple forward on an incline and scrape my knee against gravel. When I've managed to sit up, I breathe a sigh of relief because there isn't any blood...just white tissue.

...but then the white tissue starts bleeding...and bleeding...and ohmygawdwhywon'titstop???

Seriously, once the blood starts dripping it's like someone broke the proverbial skin-dam of my knee and the blood keeps pouring like something out of a horror movie. A girl rushing for a sorority stops next to me, asking if I'm alright and I manage to say, "No, thank you but I'm okay..." even as the blood starts to trickle down my shin.

"Oh no," She winces, looking at my knee and rummages through her bag, pulling out a set of bandages that definitely won't fit over my new boo-boo.

I actually laugh, "Do you carry those everywhere?"

She laughs back and offers to help me to the student clinic but I wave her off since it's thankfully 2 dozen steps away. I will spend the day with a bleeding knee, having to step out of my Tai Chi class because it's awfully difficult to pose like an archer when the three bandages I have over my knee are dripping wet. 

This wound will actually get infected in two weeks after I spend a weekend at my boyfriend's roommate's lake kneeboarding and will take another 6 months to fully close and heal.

Maroosh

Her nails are painted black, with the ring finger of each hand coated with silver glitter and she twists her wrist to show me the tattoo inscribed.

She was at a Mediterranean restaurant, a rarity in a town that has more Hispanic places to eat than the rest of the state altogether.

As excited as she is to enjoy the chicken kabobs, she's more enthused over the waitress... or rather, her tattoo. It's in Arabic script and it inspires her on the spot. Fast-forward through connections and making stencils of the word she's chose and she finds herself in Lou's Tattoos (same one that LiJoan got hers and where Tiff and I will visit in the future) and it's inscribed into her wrist in the old language: Love.

Superman Scar

"Daddy, Daddy do you have a scar?"


It's almost 6 and dad's running late so he shouldn't really humor me, but he stops trying to get his belongings together and gestures to a scar right below his left eyebrow.
"Oh cool. When did you get it??"

"I can remember..." He says slowly and stares off into space in an attempt to remember. "I was seventeen... No, ah!" He starts. "I was fifteen. No!" He says again and I look up from my laptop a little annoyed because I have a feeling he has no idea when this happened. "I was sixteen. I was about to graduate high school."

(At this point I wonder if it's a really good idea to trust the memory of a man who occasionally falls asleep with the stove on)


I know the court he's talking about. It's behind his family's complex that you don't even realize it's there unless you're actually looking for the right path.

"I was at our place and I was playing with my friends. I was accidentally elbowed." He recalls.


"Do you know who did it?"


"I can't remember." He says after a minute of thinking, looking genuinely frustrated that he can't remember a childhood friend. "But I was trying to snatch the ball away and he elbowed me in the face."

He insists that he has to go to work, but I drag him under the ceiling fan anyway to get decent lighting on the scar over his left eye that he's pointed out to me. I have to take a few shots because it's as old and faded as its owner that it practically melts with the rest of his growing wrinkles."I was in Bolong. (It's the name of the barangay) There's a basketball court there."

Momma's Boy

Richie's a dumbass. But he's also a kid on this special day and he wants a slushy. 

He doesn't have a slushy machine... nor a Seven-Eleven nearby apparently. He does, however, have Gatorade. And like every broke and semi-creative child in the world, decides to make his own slushy by freezing said Gatorade in the freezer. Once his magical creation has frozen to his liking, he takes it out and grabs a steak knife.He's in the process of sawing through the bottle to enjoy his home-made slushy but his grip isn't just right and either the bottle slips or his hand does, but before you know it, he's managed to slice himself down to the bone.

He drops the bottle and knife, starts crying like a baby and runs to find his mommy. He gets a bandaid... and probably a kiss on his booboo.

Prick

"Hey Dad. When did you start taking your blood sugar?"

He looks up from the kitchen and furrows his brows, genuinely conflicted and confused,

"I don't remember."

Thankfully, there's "Mom?? When did Daddy start taking his blood sugar?

"Back when we in Serena Lakes." She replies easily, naming our first home.

So it's been about 5+ years since my daddy's started pricking himself on his fingers, which is harder than it looks since his hands are callused from years of farming and working with his hands. Since then, he's proven that he has horrible self-control on his eating habits.

After all, this is the guy who proudly proclaims that his blood sugar is 3 times greater than any normal human being's should be. 
 
Yup. That's my daddy: a tanner, balding Mr. Miyagi with diabetes.

Counting Lanes

We have an appointment downtown...in the morning... during a weekday. Which means, of course, that we're stuck in traffic for about 70% of the ride to the doctor's office. Gemma's driving our ancient (read: "pre-historic") Dodge Durango, mom's in the backseat trying to sleep and I'm bored as hell in the passenger side. 

I don't remember what road we were on (not just because I have a horrible sense of direction and don't exactly know where 826 is without having a constant GPS at my side but because the details are pretty hazy leading up the incident) but I know that we're stuck in traffic and it's slow as fricking molasses for miles and I'm ready to try to fall asleep like my mom is behind me. There's an 18-wheeler ahead of us as we "drive" as much as we can when traffic inches forward...and I suddenly realize that it's getting a littletoofuckincloseohshite...

I scream. I distinctly remember letting out a scream (or a shout or a girly yelp depending on who might've heard) that wasn't quite loud enough to drown out the screech of metal grinding on metal, glass shattering and the outbursts from beside and behind me from my sister and mother.

Gemma will later explain that she was ataken back at the number of lanes on the road...and decided to count them...as she was driving...right behind a 18-wheeler. I remember she swerved to the left, clipping the right side of our SUV but managing to avoid hitting the other SUV on the lane beside the massive semi that would have definitely destroyed our car and deployed our airbags. 

When the glass has settled and we're at a full stop (effectively becoming one of those stop-and-stare "accidents" that Miami-ans can't seem to move the fuck on from), the semi drives away, completely unaware that it nearly killed us.There's some crying, a lot of shouting and some shaking but it's a good thing: it means we're alive enough to argue with each other. 


And then I turn around and see blood. It's coming from my mom's right elbow, that she had perched on the window sill as she tried to sleep in the backseat. It's dripping down her arm and there's a big piece lodged into her elbow that she pulls out with a wince. I feel a little sick watching it because (c'mon!) this is my mommy and because I'm kind of relieved it's not me. That last thought makes me feel really disgusted with myself long after we park at the hospital lot and I stay behind because the idea of our car, mangled, broken and wide open didn't sit well with me. 

Today, I grab my mom's arm insisting on getting a decent shot of it, accidentally making her drop the spatula she was using to making eggs this morning. For some reason, I anticipate it to be big and gaping with a piece of glass still lodged inside it, instead of a barely-there indent on her elbow. Something extra to add to the stretch marks Gem left her with...

Linked

I'm shopping for a bikini... although at 15-years-old I'm really too chunky to be wearing two-pieces at all and will, in a few hours, buy the ill-fated pink-bikini that will visually scar several of my friends at Brittney's pool party that weekend. 

I walk out of a store at the mall and find Gemma, Karla, and Gabby gathered at a jewelry kiosk. Looking back, I probably should've walked back into the store. Instead, I approach them and find out that my family members have decided that we should all get matching piercings. I think this is a bad idea but, being a weak-minded and socially-pleasing girl I am, I find myself on the chair. 

The woman at the kiosk is petite and blonde and makes a point to not ask any of us our ages or for parental consent as she marks our ears and readies her gun. Mind you, I got my first piercing when I was a baby and the image of that freaky thing coming towards me nearly makes me run out the damn place with a, "Fuck that!" But I keep it together and, within half an hour, we all walk out with matching piercings on our left upper ears.

My parents will be appalled, my martial arts instructor will tell me to take it off (and ultimately allows it as long as I put a tape over it) and the site will hurt in the following year, so much, actually that I will not be able to sleep on my left side at all. Now that I'm older (FUCK HAS IT BEEN ALMOST TEN YEARS??? SHITTYFUCK!!) I realize that what I thought was "a little pain" was likely an intense infection and that the petite, blond ear-piercer lady should definitely have sent us home with a few antibiotics or something to anticipate the whole, super-inflammed/tender/OMG-this-hurts phase that was essentially my Sophmore year (and the summer before Junior year too).

Today, Karla and Gabby's holes are closed; Gem and mine are still open (obviously). I've thought about taking out (probably should've done so when I was 15) but, honestly, I think it just sits there like a happy reminder that even the worst, festering, sleep-pattern-altering pain can fade... and that I should visit Lou's Tattoos sometime soon.

Stupid Puppy

For the record, I am a damn good driver. I realize that, as a female Asian claiming this with an image of essentially-destroyed side mirror, no one will believe me. 

And yes, I admit that I don't always come to a "complete stop" at stop-signs (does it really matter as long as I'm not killing anyone??). And yes, I tend to consider "speed limits" as just mild suggestions. And yes, I have a teensy-weensy-miniscule tendency to get a tiny-bit upset at idiotic drivers, particularly chongas driving twenty under the speed limit/suggestion on the Turnpike because they're applying their fucking eyebrows and talking on their cellphones.

Now see what had happened was, I was coming home from work. For some idiotic reason, I decided to take the long way through my gated neighborhood, which makes us drive under 20mph, which I was totally going!!So, I'm driving home, at 20mph, on what I now realize was April Fools' Day (thanks, Universe) and I make a VERY slow turn... and promptly hit the brakes when I see an adorable puppy running across the street. I'm a little taken back, because puppies that size are usually insanely expensive and kept in unnecessarily-pretentious bags the size of bowling balls. So, as I drive away (still at 20mph), I look at my rear-view mirror in an attempt to make sure the damn thing doesn't try to chase after me and get run over by my pretty tires.

...aaand immediately smack into a garbage can. Did I mention it was Trash Day in my neighborhood? Yeah, it was frickin' Trash Day and someone clearly decided to leave the damn thing out, IN THE ROAD, may I point out, where I was driving 20mph on. And this impact (love-tap, really) was apparently enough to knock my passenger-side mirror off into a hinge. In retrospect, the fact that all it took was a plastic trashcan to break off a piece of my car does not bode well to that one, faraway day where my car will have to meet something likely larger and stronger than industrial-plastic. 


I promptly have a massive titty-attack, come home two blocks away and call about five different repair shops and begin my conversations with the men on the other lines with, "Please fix my baby!" Gemma looks at me like I'm an idiot because businesses will likely charge me more if they realize that 1) I'm retarded when it comes to repair charges and 2) am so obviously-desperately invested in repairing my car for whatever they charge me.


All the likely-big-and-burly men on the other lines ask me for the make and model (Ford Mustang 2011) and I can actually hear all of them wince as they go, "Ouch! Already??"


Eventually, I find a business with a reasonable price (or at least I think it's reasonable)... only to drive out and find a seedy garage that looks like a body might've been chopped in there once upon a time. But the big and burly tattooed men are courteous and non-offensive in their affect or smell so I don't burn rubber the moment I approach the shop. The mirror won't come in for a few days so big-and-burly-man #1 drills a few screws to hold my damaged one in place. I thank them profusely and drive back home.

This time, I take the short route, hoping to God that I don't run into that stupid puppy again.

Icarus

I must've been 4 years old at the time.

It me, my mom and my little sister. I don't remember the context, except that we were on the floor and my mom was fussing over Gemma. For some reason, the only light in the room is the single-bulb lamp on the floor, the shade tilted towards us. My mom warns me to not get close to the lamp and I ignore her because, really, I was four, not stupid.

At one point, I lean forward to look at something and sit back on my heels...and promptly burn myself in the process on one, stupid lightbulb that is apparently not as stupid as me. I cry and become excessively indignant and hysterical when my mom admonishes me because Ihaveaboobooandthisisnotthetime to chastise a four-year-old having a freak out moment.

The years have passed and the scar has largely faded, looking more like I pressed an overly-light foundation pad to my skin as opposed to having the site singed almost two decades ago. Funny how you can experience the worst pain in an instant...and, years later, have to struggle to remember how it even happened.

Passio(n)

She's wanted it since she was 16, so when Li Joan walks into the tattoo parlor (surprisingly, the same one that I would visit in a few years with Tiffany and Jessica) there's no hesitation. 

For one, she's legal and two, she's not living with her parents anymore (hallelujah~!). She's got her best friend at her side and the symbols in her mind. It'll be small and going on her back (thankfully not a tramp stamp otherwise I don't think I'd let her live it down), easily hide-able by long, black hair that I can't remember being any shorter than half-way down her back in the nearly 20 years we've known each other. 

"I've always believed in doing everything in life with passion," She explains, "But I wanted to get something to link being Filipino to it..." 

And so, the word is in Alibata, otherwise known as Baybayin, an ancient Filipino writing system from pre-colonization times comprised of abugidas to form words. I'm actually pretty impressed that she knew about the system at all, since most Filipino-American kids grow up without even learning how to speak Tagalog, let alone write it in the old way. Personally, I love how she used the heart as a diacritical mark, but her tattoo artist, a scruffy guy who likely owns a Harley and far too many extra pounds on his midsection, thinks it's a guy's name. It takes only 20 minutes and she doesn't freak out in the least at the needle digging dangerously close to her spine.


ME: Didja get a blowpop? 
LIJOAN: LoL. No I didn't. You did after your piercing?
ME: Oh yeah. It was like visiting the Doctor: lots of needles, a little pain, a little blood and a bill and lollipop when you walk out...


I ask her if she wants to get another one, to which she replies, "Naw. First and last."

The Pen Story

Back in the day when my present-wifey was just my kindred spirit/fiance, there was an incident involving a pen and Tiffany getting stabbed.

......Actually... that's pretty much it. Yeah: Tiff got stabbed with a pen in the hallway (Well... whatever it was that constituted a "hallway" in a school comprised totally of trailers) of our middle school in the 8th grade by an absent-minded, weapen-wielding idiot. But since this is my project, I wanted to create a narrative of the event in question so I went straight to the source, my wife... and promptly discovered why journalists have to twist some stories.

ME: ...I need you to tell me how you got the pen scar...

TIFF: I was going to Mr. Mike's class (our Earth, Space, and Science class). No one was with me. Mr. Mike totally didn't believe me until I was like, "Mr. Mike... I'm BLEEEDING!!!" and let me go to the office...there was no damn nurse and no damn Neosporin which was probably why it scarred...so I had to slap a band aid on that shit

ME: ...Worst. Storyteller. Ever.

When I pointed out that my wife had the narrative skills of a drunken sailor, she decided to rephrase her story,

TIFF:Once upon a time, in the chaotic land of Narammonsnia there was a damsel who was running late to class. She, however, was only mildly concerned and was walking at a reasonable speed. Upon turning a corner, she was confronted by a mad man. He was dashing through the narrow hallway at such a speed that the damsel could not move out of his path. The mad man struck the damsel, drawing blood!!!

And that is the Pen Story of the scar on Tiffany's left forearm...or at least one of the versions.

Day 1 Beauty Mark

I'm six and she's five...and throwing a tantrum of epic proportions. 

We might be fighting, but it's been nearly two decades since then, so I can't remember exactly what lead up to my Sister having a shit with me. All I remember is that I'm holding her Beauty and the Beast Golden Book in my hands (the ones with the hard cardboard binding) and she demands that I return 'her' book even though at this age, we're stuck sharing everything together. And so I do... a la Sailor-Moon-Tiara style, hurling the book like a violent projectile-frisbee until it smacks my Sister dead-on her right eye. There's crying, a fair amount of blood, and she ends up spending the next week or so with an eye-patch and fending off questions as to whether or not she's being abused at home. In effect, it was possibly the first of many domestic disputes to curse our relationship for the next dozen years until I finally move out.

The scar permeates even after exchanging hugs and "I love you"s becomes a daily occurrence...a testament to how far a relationship can come from spending everyday trying to kill each other to trying not to cry when you send her away with her husband.