Words are fun to play with.

Called mama for mother's day. I tell her I found old Vietnamese records from the 1940's to 1970's. She tells me that back in the day everything was recorded live, not by a machine and not in separate parts. The guitarist, the drummer, the singers, they all had to be there. I was delighted by this little piece of information. She asks me how I'm going to play the records. I said daddy had one. I hope he still has it. The sounds that come off those records are beautiful, archaic, lost.  She then goes on to tell me about her purchases at Kohl's yesterday.

I spoke to my grandma in Vietnamese for the first time today. We had a full conversation that lasted maybe 5 minutes, but this is the longest ever in my life. I asked her what she was doing, she said she was cooking Bun Ca but a special kind from Chau Doc. I told her that  Bun Ca in Long Xuyen didn't taste so good. I asked who she was cooking it for. She listed it off for me. It was nice being able to speak to a woman whose taken care of you since you were little for the first time. She yelled at me really bad once when I took her lipstick and drew it all over my hands. I remember trying to wash it off as she was yelling at me. I ran into my uncles room.  Love right there. I usually call my grandpa only, so she was very surprised to get a phone call from me. Her voice a bit older than a few years ago, I can see her gray hairs. But still has cheerful and fluffy as she has always been. She tells me how the other day she went to eat sushi with my cousin Rebecca and I ask her about her upcoming trip to France. She is going for about 20 days. Leaving on July 4th and coming back around July 26th.  I'm really excited for her. I tell her I really want to go. She entertains the idea for a little bit before realizing that I won't return until the end of August. I try to tell her in the most simplest terms that Joseph (my cousin) read something that I wrote my work in Vietnam and he's doing good too. She laughs and sounds happy about it. She says something about us cousins doing good together.

I talk to my aunt who I call Mommy, appropriate day to call her. She just awoke because last night she went to see a music show. One of her favorite things to do. Mine as well.  We talk about Vietnam and the people we know. I update her on how people are doing. She talks to me about her daughter Rebecca who bought her a pretty black purse for mother's day since she now has a job as a volleyball coach. She's proud. I like listening to her talk. She always talks with so much passion and knowledge. In fact, I like to listen to all the women in our family talk. It's actually a pass time of mine when I was little and well into highschool.

Whenever I would hear my mom get on the phone with my grandma at 9:00 pm because minutes were free then, I sat around and listened because this was the only way I could really get to know them, by listening. I couldn't speak the language they spoke over the phone but I can damn well listen to it.

Happy Mother's Day mama, mommy, and abo. I miss you.

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I realized that if I combine my love for story writing and gre words, I will remember them better! Get your dictionaries out. I've also been reading Kurt Vonneget's Slaughter House Five - maybe I'm influenced by it.


"The cockles of Billy's heart, at any rate, were glowing coals. What made them so hot was Billy's belief that he was going to comfort so many people with the truth about time. " - Slaughter House Five, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.


20 words chosen at random:

Her hoarding idiosyncrasies were beginning to carve a place between her implacable urges of unrequited love and her hyperbolic tendency to express her love for strangers after a few drinks. She was a mess. Casual conversations with strangers became a rather grievous event. She had unfortunately become a garrulous parrot. It didn't make sense. She was "happy" with work, as happy as a 20 something single woman can be. She was liberal or rather voted for Obama on accident when she was distracted by the handsome young man in the booth next to her, was your average impious church attendee, attending church only when her mom reminded her to, and was an impetuous shopper having just purchased a $200 pen because it was pretty? Surprisingly she felt stuck, in an impasse unable to overcome her inability to satisfy herself with material goods. Fucking pen. 

There was something inchoate inside of her, she felt disorganized despite her three separate work stacks. TO DO. IN REVIEW. COMPLETE. Three simple categories to make sense of her mundane shifting of papers, documents, folders, excel sheets, word documents. She lived by these three categories unconsciously. Yet, she knowingly kept a fourth category at the bottom third drawer to the left. Undetected by the average passerby or nosy gossiper, the achingly plain brown forth drawer was where she garnered her growing collection of bread crust. It started as her need to husband food scraps so she could have a snack throughout the day, but it escalated. The drawer full of bread crust comforted her. At least that was absolute. At least she had control over that forth category. This is not a legerdemain, I'm telling the truth, I swear I am. Maybe a guile, but definitely not a legerdemain.

On Friday nights she found herself in stiff imperturbable rituals. 5:00 pm get off work. 6:00 pm get home after commute. 7:00 pm shower after doing nothing 8:00 pm attempt at fancy dinner/food while being frugal 8:22 pm realize that that's impossible and opt for frozen tv dinner 9:00 pm so exhausted, facebook 11:40 pm what the heck. 12:45 pm knock out, feeling rather bummed at the night's lack of fortuitous events

Repeat Saturday and Sunday too. She knew she would blight any chances of having friends if she went to the bars. She often behaved fatuously unable to control her emotions, she could be found in the corner crying to some poor fellow who thought she was cute. Lethargic after her tv dinner she shifts into unreachable dreams. Fucking pen. She writes in her dreams.