Behind the Curve
Friday, April 30, 2004
Monkey shines, and his grace...
They were small, only a few inches taller than I am, and they were all dressed in black. They wore cloth masks that covered their faces except for their eyes. I never heard them coming.
I was surrounded by flock of deadly ninja.
"Yeek! Ninja!" I said.
The cold-blooded killer closest to me scratched his head.
"You’ve heard of us?" he said. There was a general murmuring from his friends.
"Are you kidding me?" I yelled. "Of course I’ve heard of you! You’re the deadliest of the deadly, the cruelest of the cruel! You can pick out a scorpion at a hundred paces, and I heard that once you took out an entire army with a single lethal dodgeball throw!"
Ninja # 1 sort of nodded modestly. "This is all true," he said, "But mostly what we do best is cook really delicious hors'deuvres." Nods and quiet murmurs of assent from the rest of the assassin squad.
"Whoa!" I was impressed. "I love hors'deuvres!"
"Finger foods are our specialty," said the ninja, "They’re bite-sized, easy to carry and conceal, and are totally tasty treats. I have a selection here, if you’d like to try some. But first things first," he said, his eyes narrowing. "What are you doing in our secret lair?" he hissed, pulling a dagger from, seemingly, nowhere.
"Yikes!" I said, "I swear, I didn’t mean to intrude! I was only following the monkey," I waved my hand toward the giant Tim-tapestry.
There was a muffled uproar among the ninja.
"Shush, all of you!" said Ninja # 1. He grabbed my collar and glared deep into my eyes.
"You," he said, "You have seen the monkey?"
How many degrees of separation...
I am adopted and from Korea. My uncle's daughter is adopted and from Russia. We are of no blood relation to each other, twice removed.
I’m going to her first holy communion tomorrow, atheist that I am.
After that, my older cousin, who is a Marine, is being shipped off to Iraq.
I wish I could feel something about any of this, I really do.
I barely know the man, but I need to remember: His father died last year, of MS. I hope he comes back, and I hope he comes back whole.
Hey, hey, he's a monkey...
"Tsukiyama!" I hollered as I rolled at breakneck speed off the garage roof. I landed with a thud in some forsythia bushes. Ouch. I scrambled to my feet and looked around, afraid that I’d lost Tim.
There he was! The slight, agile figure of a monkey bounded from the backyard fence into the darkness.
"Wait!" I yelled, and took off after him.
"Cheep!’ he replied, and kept on going.
It was a crazy chase. Monkeys run fast. Under the moonlight, through the darkening streets, narrowly missing a crash collision with a man on a unicycle -- it was a night unlike anything I had ever experienced.
Faster and faster Tim ran. Faster and faster I followed, until the scenery became a blur, and I had no idea where I was anymore. A firehouse. A school. A garden filled with statues. On and on and on we raced. My eyes watered. My breath burned. I couldn’t possibly run any farther.
"Awk-!" I gasped, and collapsed in a heap.
"EEEeeeeee…!" The answer faded into the distance.
I’m not sure how long I lay there, blinded by my own tears and gasping for breath. But the first thing I noticed when I started being able to notice things again was the sound. Something was flapping like a sail in high wind. Slowly, I stood up and took a look around.
I was on the rooftop of an apartment building – a high one. Skeletal branches of antennae clawed at the sky. Someone had hung a bedsheet out to dry, and it billowed in the wind, making the flapping sound I had heard. There was no sign of Tim.
I was lost, I had no monkey, and I was starting to get hungry.
I walked to the edge of the roof, with the idea that I might be able to get my bearings with a bird’s eye view. As I passed, the bedsheet unfurled in particularly strong gust of wind, and I found myself face to face with a huge embroidered image of a monkey.
It was no bedsheet at all. It was a gigantic banner of Tim.
The banner was a magnificent piece of work. There was Tim, about two hundred times his actual size, lovingly depicted in vibrant silken threads. His embroidered eyes glowed with a benevolent light, and his right hand was raised in greeting.
I was marveling over the craftsmanship when small, wickedly sharp, star-shaped blade flew past my head and embedded itself into the wall behind me. I cried out and whirled around.
I was surrounded.
My world of nuts...and ice cream
Ate lunch in the park today. Nice weather! Nice sandwich! Taylor and I got Mr. Softee ice cream cones. Taylor’s was called a "Nutty Wizard." Then Ross made some suggestive motions to illustrate his concept of the Nutty Wizard.
Those wacky kids!
And all these years, I thought I liked vodka better than gin…
I think I’m losing my sense of taste. Either that, or all the soju-drinking with the TKDers is starting to catch up with me. Amber’s gin martini really didn’t taste like anything much (even if I did get a healthy whiff of juniper) – but it did get me a lot drunker than the light beers! This morning, Ross called me "Drunkie," and said I was slurring my words last night. Heh. And here he’s never even seen me puke on bridesmaid dress.
I remember, in my youth, that time that Crazy Uncle Dave and I went to a martini bar, and I didn’t like it very much. Ha! I was so young then. Kids. I'm telling ya.
Anyhow, bye-bye Tom. I’d feel worse, except I know that he will continue to be around, so I don’t really care.
I need more money. I like my work, but maybe I should take a second job too.
Thursday, April 29, 2004
Like a fine wine...
My personal trainer is, he says, 30. Weird. I expected anyone who is a personal trainer who wears track pants and a backwards baseball cap to be, at most, 26 years old. This is the age of my roomates' personal trainer -- yes, I have 2 roommates, and they share a trainer.
My trainer says that within the next year, the normal aches and pains I now experience will increase tenfold, and all my hair will fall out.
When this happens, I shall shave my head and live as a monk, like that chick in Shaolin Soccer.
You can't go home again?
I wonder, vaguely, if the Southeast Bronx has any demand for a good sushi restaurant.
Then I wonder if there would be any shootouts in a Bronx sushi restaurant.
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
So I'm old
The 10th year high school reunion was traumatic, traumatic, traumatic. Why are people my age married, with 3 kids? Why do some of them have 5-year-olds? I simply could not deal, so I spent all day Sunday drinking Guinness and crying to myself. Um. Maybe I’ll do that this weekend too.
On the plus side, because the food at the reunion was so insanely horrible, Linda and I went to Syeda’s house, where we were treated to a nice Bengali curry and some of Syeda’s chocolate birthday cake. I do so love curry. Syeda has promised me the recipe. If she does not give it to me, I shall whine. Incessantly.
Syeda’s family is a very nice one, though incredibly extended for my Western relative-tracking senses. I have one aunt that I can barely bring myself to stay in touch with. Sy has a million cousins, brothers, sisters, and in-laws, plus a husband. She’s still a little taller than I am. So I picked her up and carried her a few feet, just for kicks.
Friday, April 23, 2004
Busy...
I make fiendishly strong coffee. This is good, because it’s exactly what I like, but man, am I wired.
10th year high school reunion tomorrow. What to wear? Mother’s birthday. Fond deflower-er’s birthday party. GAH.
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
I feel like such a blonde.
I’m suffering from that special kind of sickness brought on by too much diet cola, I think. It’s hard to pick up my feet to walk.
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
yawn
Pilates is fantastically energizing. Unfortunately, I only ever seem to do these exercises around midnight, and can never seem to get to sleep afterwards.
The wrong kind of man...
David Carradine is achingly cool as Bill in Kill Bill Volume 2.
And Pai Mei is so much like my actual martial arts master, it brings tears to my eyes. And deep pain to the rest of my body.
That's really all I have to say about that.
Of course, I don't have a real job either
My personal trainer has got to be the most disorganized man on the face of this Earth. In addition to being a half hour late for our first appointment and needing to reschedule our second appointment for a completely different day, the man has wiped out the calendar in his cell phone and has to call me to figure out when to show up for the third appointment.
That’s fine, because I’m not rigidly scheduled myself, but I worry about people like him.
Potentiality is not a word
Neutral point. Moment of greatest potential energy, about to be transposed into kinetic energy. The uppermost point in the wavelike sequence of motion. Feet don’t move inward widthwise but lengthwise. The distance you move widthwise should probably be changed to a vertical displacement. When executing a middle block, both palms face outward.
Friday, April 16, 2004
There's a name for it
I believe the word for what’s wrong with me is anterior talofibular ligament impingement. This would be no problem, except that I kind of do need to run, jump, slide with joints moving in 2 directions, kick things, and do all sorts of impact-related activities.
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Gosh, I'm tired...
It takes a lot to get out the door every morning.
Lunch? Check.
TKD uniform? Check.
Gym gear? Check.
Lunch? Check.
Coffee? Check.
Three shades of eye shadow? Check.
Hey, it’s hard being a girl.
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Quiet night at home?
It is weird, isn’t it, to receive a birthday invitation from the guy I lost my virginity to so many years ago?
Weirder still, the party date coincides with my 10th high school reunion, my mother’s actual birthday, and one of my rare teaching commitments.
What a fucking mess.
On kicking @ss, taking names
Think I should keep up with the Pilates, because it seems to make me noticeably more flexible in TaeKwon-do. It would be really useful if I was tall enough to throw axe kicks.
Oh, I finally did catch all 20 episodes of Clone Wars. They were right! That Mace Windu guy finally did become cool. And at the end of his brawl with the robots, he did a product shot for…water, the beverage choice of the discriminating Jedi.
Monday, April 12, 2004
On health...
Although Dannon Light ‘n Fit Creamy yogurt is delicious and good, Dannon Light ‘n Fit Whips! yogurt is just plain weird. It's like a spongy-melty space age insulating polymer that comes in lime flavor.
Did Pilates over the weekend. Yes, the fitness craze that is sweeping the nation basically boils down to doing long, slow variations of sit-ups for about an hour. On the plus side, it seems to work, and although I was warned by several people, I am not sore at all. I'm probably getting the form wrong. Afterwards, I was still able to run 3 miles in 26 minutes, though really no farther.
Still couldn't sleep, but this week should probably be better.
Friday, April 09, 2004
I'm okay!
Personal training session with G. last night. I’m not as sore as I was last week. I’m still really not sure what I’m doing, but heck, it’s only been 2 weeks. Apparently, I have no upper-body strength. This is very sad.
Thursday, April 08, 2004
Yummy
Lipton Cup-a-Soup Spicy Thai Chicken flavor is actually quite good for an instant powdered soup. And just 60 calories! A far cry from La Sa Ga on all accounts, but what can you do? Now, if only they made it with noodles.
Chicks who scare me
It occurs to me that K. is kind of like the younger female character from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Just because she can be kind of hotheaded (rarely, but it’s scary when it happens). The flashing eyes, the smashing kicks, the way she punches your head.
Or maybe it just comes from being a thin Taiwanese woman, I don’t know.
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
Part 4
"I’ve got something incredible to show you!" I yelled as I burst through her door.
"You’re nose is purple," she observed, glancing up for her comic book. (Jin’s favorite comic is about a boy who transforms into a steamboat. Jin kind of an odd duck, if you haven’t already guessed.)
I scrubbed my face distractedly with my sleeve. I had managed to change clothes and get most of the paint off Tim, but I hadn’t remembered to check my face before tearing out of the apartment. I guess that would explain some of the bemused looks I’d gotten on my way here.
"Never mind my nose now!" I said, gesturing grandly. "Behold, a monkey! His name is Tim."
Jin sat up and looked around excitedly. "A monkey!" she exclaimed. "I’ve always wanted a monkey. Where is he?"
"Eep cheep! Eep cheep!" chattered Tim from between my paint-splattered sneakers. I reached down to pick him up, and he scampered onto my head.
"Well?" said Jin, impatiently. "Where is it? Where’s the monkey?"
Was she kidding me?
"He’s right here!" I said as best I could with Tim’s tail wrapped around my face. "On top of my head!"
Jin scowled.
"Quit fooling around, Kevin," she said primly. "You should know better than to raise a girl’s hopes about a monkey, and then dash them cruelly to pieces. Perhaps I’ll never speak to you again. Perhaps I’ll eat your turnips."
"That’s fine," I squeaked indignantly. "As you know, I can’t stand turnips. But what do you mean, ‘raise a girl’s hopes’? He’s the best monkey ever! He’s better than a dog… or even a super-intelligent hamster!"
Jin sighed with the long-suffering air of one whose best friend is clearly an idiot.
"Poor Kevin," she said, "You’ve obviously breathed in too many paint fumes for your own good. Better wash the rest of that gook off your face before dinner."
Had Jin gone blind? I wondered as I stumbled to the bathroom, trying to keep my balance with a monkey bouncing up and down on my head. Couldn’t be. She was able to tell that my nose was purple, for one thing. Was she playing a trick on me? But Jin’s not really the type, and besides, she’d be too excited by Tim to put on an act. Then I remembered that no one in study hall had seen him either. What was going on?
"Are you a ghost monkey?" I asked Tim as I turned on the bathroom light and started lathering up.
"Ook?" he ooked, looking anxiously at the open window.
I could see Tim’s reflection in the mirror, and he looked perfectly natural, so odds were he wasn’t a ghost. I picked him off my head and placed him on the sink. We stared at each other for a long moment. The window curtain waved gently in the breeze.
"Why can’t anybody else see you?"
"Ork! Ork!" he said, and started jumping up and down in an agitated manner.
He looked at me one more time, then made a break for it, leaping out the window before I could even think to yell.
There was nothing for it. It was a tight fit, but I dove out the bathroom window into the night, in hot pursuit of the mysterious monkey.
Part 3
Like most monkeys, Tim has a prehensile tail. This means that his tail is not for wagging, but for climbing, swinging, and grasping things. During the trip home, Tim swung from tree to tree by his tail in a truly excellent display of simian acrobatics. He tossed several acorns at me, several of which bounced off my head. He seemed to be in high spirits, so I took this to be a friendly gesture.
"Hey Dad!" I yelled, as I breezed through the front door. "I met a monkey in 5th period, and I brought him home with me. Can we use the computer?"
"Certainly, son!" Dad yelled back, "As long as it’s for something educational."
"Of course!" I said, and nearly tripped over a plaster statue of a man standing on a tortoise.
My father is an artist, so our apartment is filled with tons of weird paintings and sculptures. I never know what new project of his I’ll find when I get home: some tribal looking mask, or a strange landscape, or a portrait of an imaginary character. Living with my father is like living in a museum. Other people’s houses might be less messy, but they’re definitely not as interesting.
Anyway, when I get home, the first thing I usually do is check on my favorite webcomic, Narbotics Inc. Narbotics is a comic strip about a goofy mad scientist, Helena Narbotic, and her bumbling henchmen. They always get into hilarious situations. One of her "henchmen" is actually a super-intelligent talking hamster with an I.Q. of about 250. His name is Jim. In a recent story, Jim created an army of robots who all looked exactly like him! I wish I were a mad scientist with an army of lookalike robots. I’d rule this town. I would never have to take gym again.
In the meantime, I was still the only kid in town with his very own monkey.
Tim, apparently, is very appreciative of art, as he was swinging lovingly from one of my father’s abstract metal constructions. Now, I feel compelled to say one thing: kids, don’t try this at home. Art is not always a toy, and sometimes it will fall on you, if you’re not as nimble and quick as a monkey. I speak from experience.
I switched on the computer. I didn’t think I should teach Tim how to play any games. In the movies, this is always a bad idea, and the monkeys are led into a horrible sci-fi existence where they have to pilot warplanes.
Tim had his own ideas of fun. He had somehow gotten into my father’s paint, and was flinging gobs of color at my father’s sculpture. There was a bright orange handprint on his chest, and a green one smeared across the top of his head. The wall was now an interesting piece of concept art.
"Cheep cheep!" cried Tim, and threw a liquid purple missile at me, turning my nose the shade of a rhododendron.
I grabbed a tube of magenta and gave chase.
Needless to say, an intense game of hide and squirt followed, ending with me slipping on a splotch of vermilion and sliding to a stop by the coffee table (recently dyed a lovely shade of puce).
I lay, panting, in a sweet-smelling rainbow puddle, and took stock of the room.
Chaos does not begin to describe the lovely explosion of color that the living room had become. Tim and I had managed to mark every available surface with a different shade, or eight. Handprints, footprints, and tailprints were everywhere. I had never seen such a beautiful sight.
Of course, even though I thought the room was a lot more fun, and Dad has always encouraged my fledgling efforts to make art, Mom was going to freak.
The phone rang. I got to my feet and squelched to the kitchen to answer it.
It was Jin.
"Hey, nimrod," she said, "Want to come over for dinner?"
She didn’t need to ask me twice.
Friday, April 02, 2004
Oook
The rest of the day was pretty much business as usual. I wanted to ask my best friend Jinhi to help me look for Tim after school, but she had detention. She had gotten caught ripping the sleeves off her shirt in chemistry class. Jin likes to think of herself as tough and would do anything to join a gang. Every so often, I try to point out that there are no gangs in Riverdale, and if even there were, they probably wouldn’t want a nearsighted, pint-sized Korean girl for a member. Jin says that I am an Old World chauvinist and a tool of the imperialist capitalist ruling-class Caucasoid patriarchal 20/20 visionist establishment. Then she usually punches me. Jin knows martial arts and is pretty dangerous, even though she can’t really see without her glasses.
I drew doodles of monkeys in the margin of my lab notebook until it was time to go home. We were making models of molecules using toothpicks and marshmallows that we colored with markers. Usually, I find this a lot of fun, but it was hard to concentrate when I knew there was a monkey running around.
What do monkeys like, aside from plantain chips? String? Folk music? Shiny things? I had none of these things. Finally, I decided that the first thing I would do was go back to the auditorium where I had last seen Tim. When the final bell rang, I waited for the crowds to thin before I headed there. Maybe Tim didn’t like vast crowds of people, and that was why he had run away. While I waited, I practiced making some monkey noises to myself, in hopes that Tim would understand and know that I was a friend.
+++++
"Ook, ook," I spoke into the dimness, for the thirty-seventh time. "EeeEEeeEE!"
Maybe my accent was off.
I thought back to those silly drama classes my parents had made me take for a semester of Saturdays. My parents believed I should be doing something character building with my life instead of just hanging out with Jin and reading comic books. Drama class was not character building in the least, although it was highly amusing. My teacher, Mrs. Herskowitz, was a complete flake.
"Call me Jenny," she said in the breathy voice of a woman pretending to be a very small girl. (Personal Disclaimer: In my actual experience, real little girls tend to be quite loud and have excellent lung capacity. .. as well as nigh lethal low-kicking ability.) "Now," breathed "Jenny," "Everybody hold out your arms, stretch as tall as you can, and pretend that you are a tree, reeeeaching for the sun. Really get your mind into the mind of the tree. Now, pretend you are the color orange."
I like trees as much as the next bloke, but you have to admit they don’t lead the most exciting lives. Pirates have much more fun. Why couldn’t we pretend to be pirates? Also, I’m more of a Phthalo Blue man myself. But now I wondered if maybe Mrs. Herskowitz had been on to something. I tried to put myself into the mind of a monkey.
Of course! I needed more intensity.
"Oook. EeeEEEooOOOOK. OOOK," I intoned.
Nothing. I closed my eyes in bitter defeat.
"EeeEEP eeEEEP ook ook ook!" came a chattering at my feet.
I opened my eyes and looked down, hardly daring to believe. There, still holding on to a half-eaten plantain chip, was my new friend Tim.
Thursday, April 01, 2004
See no evil?
I was drinking my third can of Coke when I noticed the monkey. It was a small black monkey with a glossy coat, and it looked like it was smiling at me.
"That’s odd," I thought. I didn’t remember seeing any monkeys in my study hall before. But I have read stories in the local paper, The Mumford Daily Bugle, about how big cities and people building malls and apartment buildings in what used to be natural habitats is driving more and more animals into civilized societies. I thought that sounded kind of neat. Even though I know better, I still think it would be cool to ride an elephant to school instead of the bus, or maybe have a couple of bears in my class. But the guy who wrote the article seemed to think it was a horrible thing for wild animals to live in the city. He’d change his mind fast if he were a bear, I bet.
Anyway, maybe this study hall monkey had been turned out of his home by a new factory and couldn’t find anywhere else to go.
Stealthily, so as not to alert Mr. Ackerson, the study hall monitor, I unzipped my backpack to see if I had any plantain chips inside. A plantain is a kind of small banana. Chips made of plantains are kind of chewy and salty and sweet, and taste very good on peanut butter and bacon sandwiches.
"Psst…heeere boy," I sing-songed under my breath as I dropped a few chips under my desk.
The monkey chattered and scampered to the spot next to my chair, where he started jumping up and down in a very excited manner.
"You hungry, boy?" I muttered, nudging a chip toward him with my foot. "I wonder what your name is."
The monkey looked at me indignantly, as if to say "I know you have a whole peanut butter and bacon sandwich in your backpack. Hand it over quietly, and I won’t jump on your head."
Well, I’m not one to lose a battle of wills with a monkey that’s small enough for me to step on, especially on an issue as important as lunch.
"No way, monkey," I whispered. "But you can have an apple if you want to come home with me."
The monkey scowled at me, but seemed to calm down a bit.
"That’s better," I said. "Maybe I’ll call you Tim. You look like a Tim."
"Kevin Dembling!" yelled Mr. Akerson from the front of the room. "Do you think you could find it in your heart to stop disrupting this class? I am sure we would all appreciate a quiet study hall without your insane mumblings, not to mention those disgusting banana chips."
"Sorry, sir," I said, "Actually, those disgusting chips are plantains. And I was only talking to the monkey."
"Quit fooling around, Kevin!"
"Yes, sir."
When I looked back down, the monkey was gone.
Manifesto
I am an evil monkey. I am small. I run and scamper in the moonlight, my eyes glowing vermilion in the shadows. I howl and chatter with glee. My prehensile tail snags a mango pie from a windowsill. Pie! I throw off my tennis shoes and sing at the fire escapes. Fire escapes! I will form a folk band. An evil folk band. We shall howl and chatter and shriek.
