God, I stink. I really smell. And everyone around me smells. We all smell. We, collectively, are an aromatic bunch of human secretions and expelled bacteria-rich water vapor. It’s Day 6 of my 24 day John Muir Trail thru-hike and I need a shower. Not to say I haven’t been squeaky-clean on the trail: every night after I set my tent up, I jump into whatever body of water is nearby (I prefer rivers and streams, but a lake will do… although I find the water to be more stagnant… and fish-filled… and tadpole-heavy) fully clothed in my hiking clothes and I rinse off every bit of dust I can. Then, I pull myself and out like a sexy swimmer coming out of a swimming pool. (I try… but I mostly look like a wet cat.) I pull off my clothes, hit them against the rocks, wring them out, jump back in the water, rub my hair and skin with water, and like Venus on a half-shell, emerge… squeaky clean. Well, enough. I now am swatting mosquitoes away as I dry quickly with my shammy towel (cut down to the size of a palm to save weight) and I’m pulling little wigglies from my hair and god, I hope I pulled them from my nether regions. So bloody, damp, and squeaky-clean.
Outdoors While Asian- Random Trail Thought #1
Outdoors While Asian- The French Guys
Why are the french so french?
From the John Muir Trail:
On Day Zero of my 24 day John Muir Trail thru-hike, I met 3 french guys. We met at the shuttle stop at 6:15am. I was solo and was going to start my trip, they had just spent 21 days and had just finished their trip. They were very french. They were 19 years old and worldly. One even pointed out that he did the entire 230 miles of hiking in his ‘slippers’… which were a pair of cut up Keds with the backs cut off. (“The blisters hurt, so I cut the shoe. Eh.”)
Outdoors While Asian: “Cupcakes”
As a woman in the outdoors, there are major things to consider. Tent space, shoe size, backpack capacity. But the one demand I ask of myself while packing my gear: Do I LOOK GOOD in this outfit? I admit it, that even if I’ve been in the woods for 5 days and smell like 3 day old crusty vagina, I swear at least I’m wearing a moisture-wicking shirt in fuschia with a delicate lavender flower in the bottom left hand corner. 
And one thing I hate: CUPCAKES. That’s right. CUPCAKES. You know that ‘effect’ that happens when you’re cold, excited, or when your bra is old or unlined… all of a sudden, your nipples look like 2 little gumdrops peeping out from that merino wool technical tank-top. Perky little bastards. It’s like the woman’s version of an erect penis. You’re talking about this project you’re really passionate about and you notice your male counterpart is struggling to maintain eye contact… all because his eyeballs are now being poked out by your ever enlarging nips. Those little things rise like cake batter… you don’t even know its alive until you look down.
In any case, when you go outdoors for a long time (I’m talking about week long trips at least here), you have to find that perfect bra that doesn’t make every snap shot of you look like 2 cupcakes rising above your muffin top. (It’s enough that your muffin top is there.)
Some ideas:
SAF Seeking… less walks of shame.
Ah, the walk of shame. You know, that walk you take in the morning after a rambunctious night with someone you barely know… and now you’ve gotta leave his place without seeming like an ingrate or becoming that morning stalker girl with the “So, are we having breakfast together?” comment.
My favorite walks of shame was when I was about 20 and lived in Africa. The dorms were divided by gender so whole buildings of men and whole buildings of women were separated by huge expanses of grass and were… um, on the opposite sides of the campus. So when I awoke in my boyfriend’s (yeah, this one turned into a long-term boyfriend, go fig) arms that morning, I would endure the whoots and hollers of ‘Congratulations!’ sent up to his room for all 35 minutes of my crawl back to the women’s side.
What happens to a dream deferred?
My father says many things to me that become quotes in my impressionable mind. When I was younger, one of my favorite father quotes was, “As long as that sun rises, there is always hope.”
But my favorite daddy quote was when I was 30 and decided I was quitting acting. I had done my time in LA, suffered bouts of self-induced depression and self-imagined grandeur, and I was now past my twenties and still had to regulate myself to one real hair cut a year because that was all I could afford. (I had stopped going to Super Cuts. I could’ve placed a bowl on my head and had better styling results. But I digress.) So I quit. I gathered my 15 closest friends in LA and had toasted to a good decade of LA living… onto a new life!
What does it mean to be a “Dog Eater”?
“I don’t want to eat it! It’s DOG!!!”
“No, it’s not, it’s BEEF!”
“DOG!”
“BEEF!”
“DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOG!”
Do not be afraid of me! I am only soup!
My mother is loud enough to cause full red-face embarrassment. She’s turning hysterical. ”Mom,” I hiss through tight lips, “just try it. Even if it WAS dog, I can guarantee you it’s delicious.” She looks at me like a petulant child looks at her mother. She presses her lips together and retracts her whole mouth back into her skull, somehow she does it. She crosses her arms and shakes her head vigorously saying, “No no no! You can’t make me eat it!” My dad sighs at us, and blindly spoons some pho soup into his mouth. The Vietnamese restaurant has paused only a little in its mild amusement, but the bustle of clinking dishes slowly begins again.
I hate my fuckin’ DENTIST.
Reason #4 Why I haven’t dated an Asian guy in a decade: My DENTISTS.
I exist only to prove hell is real.
I HATE them and they just happens to be Asian. Literally HATE them. If he was German, maybe I’d hate all Germans. I’ve always hated ALL dentists but these two specifically. WHO LIKES DENTISTS???? Gentlemen, just to give you an idea of what being a woman is like, imagine going to the dentist. When you’re at the dentist, a STRANGER you’ve known for maybe 10 minutes a year is ENTERING your orifice and is poking around in there doing things YOU can’t see but you can FEEL… and to add insult upon injury, he/she is commenting on it! “Oooh, looks like you need to take better care of that tooth.” “Ooooh, not a big flosser I see.” “Wow, you’ve got great gums!” Yeah, feel our pain.
I feel sorry for Steven Hayashi
You think you’ve got it made. You finally find a nice home in Corcord, CA, a nice suburb of the SF Bay Area served by BART and great warm weather. You’ve got two sons almost fully grown, 19 years old and 13 years old. You live on a street called Trailcreek Court. You have a few dogs in the yard. American dream accomplished, check.
Yes your Honor, I owned dogs.
Outdoors While Asian: Pack-orexia
OH NO! I got junk in my trunk! (Courtesy of Yanko Design)
(If you googled “Orexia” hoping to find more about the sexual-enhancement drug, soooo sorry, wrong site. Yup, keep looking.)
Nope, I’m talking about a sickeningly obsessive disease that I have developed over the past year… a form of self-infliced fear of carrying too much weight in my backpack…
Outdoors While Asian: Popping the Car-Camping Cherry
It's all Greek to me.
“I can’t haaaaaaaaaaaandle it! I want to go HOOOOOOOOME!” The words were floating through the crisp, redwood tree scented air and through my thin tent walls. “HOOOOOOOOOOOOME!!!!!” My three year old niece was crying in her tent, her parents (my cousin and his wife) were cooing gently, trying to lull her back into complacency. But it was too late. Everyone in the 87-site campground now knew we were camping VIRGINS.
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Leaving LA: An actor explores her options
I’m no longer an LA actor. Let me share a moment with you why that is.
Waiting for your audition is like waiting for your turn at the county emergency room.
“What are you doing back here?” I don’t quite know how I heard it. “What are YOU doing back here?” “What are you doing back HERE?” “What are you doing BACK here?” All I knew was it was early 2008, the height of the Writer’s Strike, and I was sitting at yet another commercial audition waiting my turn to act the hell out of a one line double-take to camera.
Outdoors While Asian: The Menstrual Cup
I smiled at the guy at REI. He was unfortunately the only one around and the store was closing.
“Excuse me,” I say in a sweet voice, “Would you know where the Diva Cup is?”
“The what?”
“The Diva Cup.” I casually throw out the words, as I flip my hair nonchalantly and a wholesome shrug of the shoulders.
“What’s that?”
“Ummmmm…. it’s a girl thing.” Trying to be flippant and ordinary, as if we were comparing bags of baby spinach.
“What’s a Diva Cup for?”
“Um… you know… BLOOD.” I make a fanged face, complete with spiny hands. ”BLOOD!” I breathe. “BLOOD!” I give my best Dracula impression.
(Silence.)
SAF Seeking… Less Painful Twat Stuffing
Whoop, there it is!
“Are you sure you want to try the diaphragm?”
The Planned Parenthood nurse looked at me with sympathy and concern.
“Yeah.”
“There are so many other form of birth control these days,” she gently continues.
“I’m not getting on anything hormonal.”
“There are so many kinds of pills nowadays,” she insists.
“They drive me crazy.”
“Have you tried-”
“-The NuvaRing had me sobbing everyday in the bathroom between classes. I’m not doing it.”
“How about an IUD…”
“My mom’s uterus was ripped open by an IUD, I’m not putting one up me.”
She sighed. “Okay, let’s fit you for a diaphragm.”
Making A Difference in a World of Indifference
A bicycle without a rider
It’s almost 6:30am and I just dropped off my friends Ryan and Johann at the Cow Palace. In a few minutes, they will be astride their bikes and riding 600 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles… all in the name of charity. It’s that time of the year folks, AIDS/Lifecycle time. Time to dust off our perfectly able bodies and our latent willpower and DO SOMETHING.
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At 30, The Grass Is Always Greener
What path to take thru the grass?
I had an audition in Sacramento yesterday. That’s 2 hours one way from San Francisco and another 2 hours back after my 5 minutes of dazzling them with my monologue work. So 4 hours total in the car. As a regional theatre actor, you get used to these long mileages… one will travel far for a chance at work. But I did something I hadn’t done in a while: I just rolodexed thru my contacts list on my cell phone and just called anyone I haven’t talked to in a bit. I got four valuable conversations with various friends: “JESSE”- a fellow actor since we were starting out, “DAISY”- a high school friend who’s now a high-powered vice-president of a national corporation, “MICHELLE”- who’s now an award-winning journalist/freelance documentary maker, and lastly “TRINA” -my college roommate who still sings in an indie band. Just a bunch of thirty-somethings talking about love, sex, career. Trajectory and dreams. Decisions and hopes.
When do you start to care?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik55Kx45Wes
If you can see the video preceding this sentence, that means youtube has yet to discover it and yank it off their site…. AGAIN.
There’s a huge uproar about this “Little Girls Going Hard to Single Ladies”. Basically, the girls dancing are about 9 years old and they’re performing at the World of Dance competition which touts itself as ‘the world’s largest urban dance competition…with focus on the art of street dancing and today’s new age choreography’. People are up-in-arms about the sexualization of these little girls (the girls are wearing fishnets and gyrate on the stage)… and etc. I’m sure you can google the rest and come to your own conclusions.
Superman to Both of Us
My mom and I don’t agree on much. She watches Fox News; I’ll watch anything else. She likes taking cruises; I’d rather be backpacking. She loves Jay Leno; I watch Conan. She’s a staunch Republican; I am far from the right. When I was growing up, we had loud fights in which my childhood home still sustains holes from the various kicks and punches I’ve thrown in frustration. But there is one thing we simply and completely agree on: CHRISTOPHER REEVE WAS THE MAN. We both stood in line in 1980, my mom clutching my hand, as the line wound around the movie theatre. I was too young to understand what the fuss was about, but I knew that being in a darkened theatre was a treat. Then there it was: Superman II. I was scared! Who were these 3 people in black disco clothes and why were they so mean? But thank god for that beautiful man in the red and blue!
Have You Hugged A Tree Today?
Yup, that's me hugging a Giant Sequoia.
One of my best friend’s said, “I have 2 churches. One is Theatre and the other is Nature. I couldn’t do without them both.”
I’m doing theatre up in the Sierra Nevadas. Mostly for retired folk who still go to theatre. It’s nice. And outside the theatre? Well, it’s a gateway to all things YOSEMITE and BEYOND.
Being a Northern California girl, I’ve lived among and visited the California Coastal Redwoods for most of my life. They’re majestic.
There's a person hugging that tree. See her?
There’s something about those large 2,000 year old trees that stand as sentinels on the mountains facing the ocean. It’s the handshake of water and earth. Better yet, think Ewok forest.
Recycled Advice
I am a big fan of quotes. They’re like little tidbits of wisdom in morsel-sized bites. Advice by IV drip.
But I remember this wonderful piece of quote-heaven from the good 1990′s. It was written by Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune and re-recorded by Baz Luhrmann. Every line is a quote I’ve used to guide my life thus far. (I’ve even did the “Live in NYC and Live in Northern CA” one. I find that one funny.) Hopefully, you might find something you like it in too. Enjoy!
Who do we respect? Who do we trust?
RIP, Tian Sheng Yu
Ah, teenage rebellion. We, as a society, are so blase to it now. We expect it. We expect our children to want to commit suicide, to listen to music that we dislike, to cut themselves, and to want to have wanton sex while they suffer under low self-esteem and a quaking identity. ‘Parents just don’t understand’ has been artfully repeated from “Rebel Without A Cause” to Will Smith and Jazzy Jeff’s 1988 teen anthem. Teenagers are angry. And don’t we know that????
