A Backstreet Birthday Wish

On my seventh birthday, I wished to be Nick Carter from the Backstreet Boys.  I’m not necessarily sure why I wanted to be him other than the fact that every single pre-teen girl (including my sister) worshipped the ground he walked on.  I guess I thought he was cool.  And that he had a nice voice.  And I’m sure that I thought he was kinda cute back then, too.

I just remember thinking that when I blew out the candles of my cake (it was an ice cream cake from Carvel) that the sacred exhale would float in a bubble up to the heavens where the angels would catch it and send it to God himself to grant it.  Trust me.  When I saw the home video of it (which I bet my dad was thinking that it was the coolest thing ever that he was filming this stellar moment), I could relive myself thinking this exact thing seconds after blowing the candles out.  I’m convinced that the reason why I love the scent of blown-out candles is this exact moment.  It was possibly one of the happiest moments of my young life.

That entire year, I probably went through the biggest identity crisis that a seven year old could have.  Once my eighth birthday rolled around, I was a wreck.  Why hadn’t my dream of becoming the heartthrob of the most popular boy-band of the late 90s come true? 

I remember doing all I could to catalyze my transformation.  My favorite color used to be blue.  Then my old brother told me that his favorite color was blue and demanded that I change mine.  I switched to green because I knew it was Nick Carter’s favorite color.  I wanted his blonde hair, blue-green eyes, and boyish smile.  Whenever a Backstreet Boys song would come on, I would sing along his part the loudest.  You could say I was obsessed.  I thought that all of this would help the transition from nerdy, chubby Asian boy to global singing sensation.

Eventually, it didn’t happen.  I began to be skeptical of birthday wishes, and on May 27, 1999, a part of my childhood died.  I lost all my naive hope and started to turn into the raging, cynical bastard I am today.  I just kept thinking that the angels must have misplaced my wish.  Maybe, there was just a long waiting list.  Or God just had bigger problems to solve.  Maybe, God would just get to it eventually.  I didn’t want to lose hope.

But I eventually did.

It’s quite sad, isn’t it?

I’ve probably told this story a million times in a half-a-million different ways.  Each time I write about it, my perspective on it changes.  It’s probably the most memorable moment of my childhood.

Looking at this now, I really don’t know how to feel about it.  It is a major turning point in my life, and I know that it has shaped the person I’ve become.  I can’t really describe how that is, but I just know that it has.

I’ve always been a dreamer, and I’ve always had big dreams.  But it taught me to be realistic about those dreams.  And it also taught me that dreams can change.  And that becoming Nick Carter probably would not have been the greatest thing in the world and that becoming myself was more important.

I think I’m better than him now, anyway.

Checkmate

I remember being taught how to play chess back in elementary school.  We had flimsy laminated paper “boards” and pieces that we would always seem to lose.  We would always substitute quarters or other pocket change for the knight, which has always been my favorite piece.  It was also the one that always went missing.  I feel like it had something to do with the fact that it looked like a horse, and when you’re seven, you think horses are pretty, so you steal them.  It’s as simple as that.  I just always liked the “L” shaped move it made.  I always quietly said the letter to myself each time I moved it.

If I recall correctly, a whole bunch of the kids were terrified to play against me.  I thought that I was pretty good at the game.  And back then, we equated the ability to play chess with how smart you were, and I was the class nerd.  I wanted to be revered as the best chess player in the class.  Suck it, fellow third graders.  I run this classroom.  Well, so does Mrs. Martinez, but she wasn’t the class chess champion like I was.

As it turns out, I don’t think I necessarily had much strategy at all.  I moved my pieces in all the ways I knew how, and I especially did my “L” shape with my knight as often as possible.  I would beat kids left and right, and they would bow down to my greatness.

Then a new kid moved in and changed everything.  This is before that time when kids get really brutal to the new kid in the class like in middle school when you’re a pre-teen and absolutely everyone’s a prissy little bitch.  This is still the time when you see the new kid and relentlessly ask questions about where he came from and how he ended up in your class and whether or not they have bodegas with 50-cent sodas where he comes from.

We played chess once.  I guess for some reason I thought he would be really lousy at the game, as if the kids in my class were the only ones knew how to play it.  I thought that I was already one step ahead of this kid.  I even let him go first.  He moved his pawn up one square.  I moved my pawn up two.  Just because I could.  And the rest of the game unfolded.

As it progressed, I kept my eye fixated on his king.  Right in the middle of the board all the way at his end.  I would always stare at that piece.  I would try and pay attention to the moves he made, but ultimately, it was that king I was after.  I would try to make stealthy moves, all in the pursuit of that king, but he systematically began knocking down my pieces.  Each time he “ate” one of my own (I don’t even know why we used to say that our pieces were being “eaten”), I saw how I could have avoided my obvious mistake.  And I continued to make obvious mistakes over and over again.  I questioned my ability, as it seemed as if he outsmarted each thing I did.  I would make a move, and he would counteract it as if I never even made a dent at all.

Eventually, all I had left was my lone king and my faithful queen which I frantically moved around the board trying to avoid his legion of remaining pieces.  My queen flew across the board trying to eliminate his king, but he would simply move another one of his pieces to protect it.  I would call “check,” and with a simple, calm gesture, he would move a piece that remedied the situation.  I would respond by finding a new spot where I would be able to call “check” again, and he would do another simple gesture in opposition.

Then he “ate” my queen.

I stopped breathing as he kept moving towards my king.  All I could do was move it back and forth and wait for my impending doom.

“Checkmate,” he called. 

And just like that, I was no longer chess champion of the third grade.  It was pretty devastating.  I had been de-throned, and I was a sore loser.  I thought that he clearly cheated somewhere.  He broke a rule, probably, and I didn’t catch it because I was too fixated on my own moves.  Maybe he switched a piece while I wasn’t looking.  It just didn’t make sense to me.

“Good game,” he told me, and he walked away, unscathed.  He left with a small grin of victory on his face as I sat there paralyzed, staring at what was left of the board.

I lost the game.

Starbucks Rant

So I finally got a seat in my neighborhood Starbucks.  What sucks, unfortunately, is that there are no outlets even remotely near where I am sitting, so my time here is limited to the amount of time my battery decides to stay on (which is apparently 2 hours and 23 minutes).

I’m right near a window where I see everyone walking down this street at a frenzied pace.  It’s right after 5PM, so I could only assume that a bunch of these people are coming from work or school or whatever they were doing today and just want to get home as quickly as humanly possible.  I can sympathize.

I have my pink earbuds plugged in and hanging from my ears, but nothing is playing out of them.  I love sneakily listening to the goings-on around me.  Currently, there are two men speaking in a language that I cannot recognize at the milk and sugar station directly behind me.  There is also a lady who has just spilled some milk while pouring it into her drink, and in a peculiar accent exclaims, “AYY SPEEEL EVREESEEENG.”

The same lady goes and sits at the table in front of me.  Upon putting her drinks down, she goes outside and smokes a cigarette.

I didn’t buy anything, and no I feel hideously awkward sitting here, taking advantage of their free wi-fi (clearly with facebook open), listening to the violin concerto (or what sounds like a violin concerto) playing overhead, and taking some prime real estate in the seating area.  But taking into account the amount of money and the percent of my soul which Starbucks now has in its possession, I think I’m entitled to this seat.

I just realized that several of the signs in this Starbucks are also written in Spanish.  I love being in the Bronx.  It also helps me brush up on my language skills.  “Nuestro café mas suave y popular,” it says, “inspirado por la tienda donde todo comenzó.”  It’s referring to the Pike’s Place blend.  I’ve never been very fond of it.

On the topic of languages, there are two other women in here who are speaking Tagalog very loudly.  Oh, and even the baristas are ghetto here.  I never thought I would have heard a bird ever say, "Where's my soy pitcher?"

Anyway, I really am at a loss right now.  I don’t know what to write.  So I’ll leave it at that.

Winter Walk

I had been meaning to write something today for several hours now.  Here it is.

I walked out of my house to walk to the Starbucks five minutes away.  It’s one of the only ones in the Bronx, and I was craving a Soy Chai.  And I wanted to write really badly.  For some reason, I was convinced that I was going to find someone in Starbucks and just start writing about them.  I got there, all the seats were taken, and the hideously ghetto barista was chatting it up with two of her friends before she got to my order.

So I guess that’s what postponed this whole writing thing…

Anyway, so I decided to walk around, sipping on the grande Soy Chai that was keeping my hands warm.  Along the 1 train tracks and the perimeter of the projects, I thought about the arbitrary term of “home.”  I pondered these thoughts as I took my slow strides up Broadway.  Everyone else seemed to be in so much more of a hurry, including a very displeased Puerto Rican girl who was complaining aloud about missing the train or something of the like.  I nodded in approval, took another sip of my drink, and watched as she and the others passed me.

I passed the 99-cent stores with their wide assortment of cheaply made goods, the bodegas obnoxiously advertising the 355 Million Dollar jackpot for the Mega Million lottery, the African store proudly displaying an array of wooden sculptures and colorful dashikis which I’ve never had the balls to enter, and the Hispanic restaurants which smelled of rotisserie chicken when you walked by.  The ground shook as the train passed overhead.  I finally reached Garden Gourmet, my favorite independent market that I frequent far too much.

I got a tomato and cheese focaccia and ingredients for a magnificent eggplant parmesean.  Oh, and kiwis.

Basically, all of this, this completely boring and ordinary night, made me realize how much I love being “home.”

Don’t know what else to write anymore.

2011 To-Do List

So technically, this was written yesterday.  Same difference.

I sit here on January 1, 2011 in the middle of a Filipino household in the Poconos (so basically, the wilderness for me).  The youngins are playing games, the old folk are line dancing (after the failed karaoke), and the even older folk are sleeping.  And here I am writing this.

I’m fond of my lists.  Instead of New Year’s Resolutions, here is a to-do list for 2011.  I guess it’s actually just a collection of dreams, hopes, wishes, and advice, in no particular order, that I would like to keep track of for the upcoming year.  Just like any to-do list, and I will inevitably not be able to fulfill all of these.  But let’s just say I’ll try a little harder this time around.

1) Hook up with an Indian boy.

2) Finally declare my Interdepartmental major.

3) Get one of my secrets on PostSecret.

4) Listen more.  And be more supportive of others.

5) Learn French.

6) And Portuguese.

7) Quit lying to myself.

8) Loosen up, and stop thinking too hard.

9) Sleep LESS.  Really, I can sleep when I die.

10) Take things a little more seriously.

11) Make a gown.  Preferably with African fabric.

12) Learn to save money.

13) Use time more wisely.

14) Successfully go to Africa.

15) Get a new camera.

16) Try more ethnic cuisines.

17) Fear less, and just go for it.

18) Have no regrets.

19) Get a “real” job.  Or internship.  Or anything.

20) Pretend to like my family harder.

21) Write more.

22) Stop waiting.  Start doing.

23) Become a Youtube celebrity.

24) Try to actually go to the gym and stop half-assing it.

25) Don't give up.  Follow through.