Dining Table

It all feels vaguely familiar.

I was always sitting at the dining table with my laptop wearing day-old clothes and surrounded by a mysteriously growing mess of half-empty cups, nearly empty bags of Japanese snacks with chopsticks sticking out — why get fingers dirty?–, and pens, pens, pens. A lot of the time I was alone and typing away at paper that I shouldn’t have put off until the last minute. I had music emitting from speakers I pretended didn’t exist. Instead, the music, the notes, the husky ooOOOooh’s, I’d like to think they float from a nondescript place and wrap around my body, circling in a spiral until above my head, and then uncurl. In a wavering line, up and down, they danced away into the shadows. I was kept company by a hamster that looked like a miniature cow, a neurotic dog that saw me as a skinny food dispensing machine with legs — I guess it didn’t help that I perpetuated her belief by constantly feeding her whenever she looked at me–, and Macbooks that had the bruises and battle scars of belonging to college students.

Over a year later, I’m sitting alone with my computer at the dining table working away on an assignment due the next day. Everything is different. I miss the moocow hamster and the neurotic dog that thought I was her equivalent of a walking refrigerator. The current Macbook has no marks except for the hungry Kirby sticker on the front and pretends to be an Ipad except without the touchscreen and with a keyboard– it refuses to be reduced to being called a “netbook”. The dining table is half the size of the old one and cleaner; the mess is gone and one can actually see the original color of the table. The cups are diligently washed and put away. The Japanese snacks are neatly hidden away in the cabinets.

But it feels familiar just enough that I’m half expecting Cheng and Diana to walk through the front door so we could talk about our day.

Growing up isn’t as much fun when you’re so far away from best friends. Life and airplane ticket prices get in the way.

Cheng’s MAcc Graduation, May 2010
Diana, Cheng, Me

A different kind of homesick

Whenever I miss someone, I tend to eat foods that remind me of that person.

During the entire time I was in LA, I missed my mom desperately, to the point where a part of me would dread my flights back to LA because I would have to leave her and I’d spend my first night back crying. I constantly made a sweet mung bean soup because eating it reminded me of all the times she used to make it for me during the summers because she knew it was my favorite. However, now that I’m home with my mom again, I still miss people.

I drink so much tea because it reminds me of all the times Miri (my GORGEOUS genius) and I would go to different cafes and tea houses in K-town. I like to soak shiitake mushrooms because it reminds me of Chengyee’s (the deceptively sweet hamster) obsession with mushrooms and how she would eat anything I cooked for her as long as there were mushrooms. I adore crème brulée because it reminds me of how last spring I finally, FINALLY figured out what I could make for my Diana (my beautiful picky eater). It was her favorite dessert. Unfortunately, after I realized that she loved crème brulée, I wouldn’t stop making it so there was a month where I made several ramekins of crème brulée each week just for her. I like eating pasta because every time it reminds me of all the nights Momo (my little bunny) would make pasta for dinner and sit with me while I studied. And I make brownies specifically from the box because of all the nights back from the beginning of high school and through college winter breaks when Naomi (my little butterfly) and I would crave gooey chocolate during our sleepovers and she would always have a box handy. While we’ve both graduated to making brownies from scratch, I still prefer the brownies from the box because of the memories.

I miss them all, terribly.

Two You’s

On my multiple personalities:

Michelle: You know, I think there’s like a crazy you and a normal you. And…they work together really well…In your body. But I don’t know why.

Dinnertime Conversations

On singing and making noises:
Diana: [randomly starts singing] Blue moooooon….[looks at Chengyee and me to see if we noticed her singing]
Me: [looks up from Stev-e (my laptop) and stares, doe-eyed] Hmm?
Diana: [looks at Chengyee and then back to me] Don’t start. Cuz you guys are weirder.

On people and their time limits before they become annoying to talk to:
Me: I think he’s okay in small doses. He’s kind of annoying in big doses.
Chengyee: I think everyone is okay in small doses. Except you. You only come in big doses. You don’t give people a choice. Take it or leave it!
Me: …Yay?
Chengyee: It’s a compliment.

Eman’s prediction of how I’ll act during my spring break while my roommates and girl friends all go to NYC and Philadelphia:
Eman: Wednesday is probably the day you’d become the most overwhelmed with being alone.
Me: Err try 2 hours after ALL MY ROOMATES LEAVE.
Eman: I mean, well, the thing is you’ll occupy yourself with trips to all the food places and sleeping. And you won’t have much time to be whiney and alone. I know you. (But when you do realize that you’re alone) You’ll just sit in the middle of the apartment and go “wahhh!”

For the record, I’m pretty sure his prediction will be correct

Cinderelly

Diana’s mom randomly gave her a Disney 365-page calendar with various Disney characters and scenes from the movies. She was passing out individual days to the roommates. She asked if anyone wanted a Cinderella page with the mice.

On Jaq and Gus-Gus:
Me, Chengyee, and Michelle: [without planning, simultaneously singing] Cinderelly, Cinderelly…
Chengyee: Do we know the rest of the song?
Michelle: …I think that’s all we know…

Naked

While I was sitting at the dining room table with my laptop, I heard Chengyee’s song that she sings when she is in a happy-go-lucky mood as she and Edwin were walking down the hallway outside the apartment to come home. Edwin is a modest guy who is not horribly comfortable with my lounging around in a towel after I shower. To him, it’s still the equivalent of my being naked.

Me: [on hearing Chengyee's happy-go-lucky song of "do do do dooo" outside decides to give warning of my being in a towel] I AM NAAAAAAAAAKEEEEEED!
Chengyee: [to Edwin in the hallway] Jenny’s naked.
Edwin: Really? How do you know?
Chengyee: Who else would be naked?
Andrea and Michelle: [overhear my naked warning and scream back from their respective bedrooms on opposite sides of the apartment] YAY! NAKED!
Greg: [cowers due to all the sudden screaming]

Food Shopping

On going to the market:

Me: Do you want to go to the market with me?
Diana: Sure.
Me: Yay!
Diana: [stares at me]
Me: [looks around to see if she is staring at something else]
Diana: …what do you need from the market? Don’t you have everything??

Shooting things

Me: So how was your day shooting things?
Edwin: Oh, it was fun! I’ll give you a heads up next time.
Me: Oh, no thanks; I’m a pacifist.
Chengyee: Yeah so? I’m a pacifist but I still do it. I’m not shooting anything live. No small animals! Guns don’t kill people; people kill people!
Me: Oh! Eddie Izzard!
Edwin: I don’t see how pacifism has to do with shooting guns.
Me: I don’t like violence. Or guns. Or any weapons.
Edwin and Chengyee: Eh…okay. [drops subject and bumble around the kitchen preparing something to eat]

Ten minutes later…
Edwin: [suddenly looks up from preparing dinner] Wait! Jenny is a pacifist?!
Me: Why is that so weird?
Edwin: It’s not…It’s just not what I would immediately think of. Like, Andrea…pacifist. Mo (Michelle)…not at all a pacifist. Jenny……hmmm… And it wouldn’t occur to me until later when someone throws a roll of toilet paper at me– Oh! Jenny! Pacifist!
Me and Chengyee: [stare at Edwin in silent and confused disbelief while trying to imagine why Edwin would be pelted with a rolls of toilet paper]

Spring Cleaning

After being gone for the day, Chengyee and Edwin walk into the apartment and see a FINALLY clean living room without the piles of strewn paper, mail, and books, randomly placed bags of plastic bottles for recycling, weeks of empty take-out containers and an empty dining room table with the exception of my laptop, my painting supplies, and my sketchbook. The apartment has not been this clean since we came back from winter break. I have also moved from my usual seat at the head of the dining room table to a seat on the right side of the table.

Edwin: Something feels different…
Chengyee: Yeah…why does it feel different?
Edwin and Chengyee: …
Edwin: OH! The apartment’s clean!
Chengyee: Oooh!….Wait, something still feels different.
Edwin: Yeah, the apartment is clean!
Me: Yeah! It hasn’t been clean for months!
Chengyee: [looking genuinely puzzled and slightly agitated] No…something still feels different.
Me and Edwin: …
Chengyee: Oh! Jenny’s moved!
Edwin: …?!
Me: That’s what you noticed?!

Lunchtime Conversations

On my attention span:
Chengyee: So, what were you and Diana talking about earlier?
Me: …Eh?
Chengyee: When I was looking at my application (to graduate school)?
Me: …Eh? I have the attention span of a peanut.
Chengyee: [a two-second delay after I started speaking] …attention span of a peanut.
Me: I aspire to be a cashew.
Chengyee: …?! Why specifically a cashew? Out of all the other nuts?
Me: I think they taste the best.

On elementary school crushes:
Me: [shows Michelle a picture of my first grade crush] This is my first grade crush.
Michelle: Wow…I didn’t start having crushes until I was like…in the third grade. And even then, it was that confused feeling… where you just want to hit them all the time.
Chengyee: [abruptly stops munching on her corn on the cob] What?!
Me: [laughing so hard that I had to grip the dining room table to keep from falling over]
Michelle: What? You guys didn’t feel that way..?
Me: I was nice to mine!
Michelle: [pouts] I didn’t know I was the only one…

On more efficient ways to get to campus (even though we live one block away from campus):
Chengyee: I wish I had a catapult. That way, I would accurately set it so that I could just catapult myself from City Park (our apartment building) to VKC (the building her class was in) or any other building on campus. No walking, no biking, no driving!
Me: It’d be like flying!
Chengyee: The bad thing is that I think other people would copy my idea, and then I would end up hitting someone in mid-air.