out

On Saturday night, I went out. Not out to a twenty-something dinner party or out to a showing of Dreamgirls at the local cineplex, but out to an actual club where people dance and drink. This may not seem like a big deal if you knew me circa 2002, but since I've been in law school, I've never gone out with my friends in LA, not even for the post-finals "everybody-who's-anybody-goes" celebrations. So yes, it's such a big deal that I'll say it again: I went out.

Despite being a momentous event personally, the night itself was refreshingly chill. My friends and I went to the Echo, an LA club whose basement-like interior was only slightly upgraded by a few strategically-placed strands of multicolor Christmas lights. Behind the bar were unadorned shelves of liquor, which were served by bartenders wearing the same attire as their patrons -- t-shirts, athletic jackets and hoodies, jeans, and sneakers with the occasional high heel. The understated environment kept the focus on the music, a great dance-able mix of underground hip-hop and neo-soul, topped by the completely out-of-place theme song from Greatest American Hero ("Believe it or not, I'm walkin' on air...").

Going out reminded me how much I love dancing. When I'm in Chicago, we usually end up at a lounge or bar where I sit while everyone else drinks, and when I was in San Francisco, we usually went to the all-Asian meat markets where the music is usually just truncated versions of hip-pop songs. Even in my early clubbing days, my dancing was more about meeting people and making impressions rather than pure love for dancing. On Saturday night, however, it was really just about me. I wasn't looking for a man or a one-night-stand, so I wasn't out to impress anyone, as evidenced by my lack of make-up and earrings, my ponytail, and my un-sexy robot t-shirt. I just wanted to dance -- and dance I did for three straight hours. Of course, I spent one of those hours swaying and pushing my heavy eyelids open and wondering how I would possibly drive 25 miles back to my house (I can now sympathize with Flo for all those times she bailed early to go back to Northbrook!). But I did get my second wind 2/3s into the night and managed to stay up until 2am, just shy of Eddy's old goal of 2:30am. I paid for it the next day when I had to be back in LA 8:30am for a all-day production day for law review, but the aches and slowed motor skills were well worth it.

feeling guilty

I carry around a lot of guilt. I don't know where this behavior came from. Some people say that Catholics always feel guilty, so it's possible that in the second grade, Sister Veronica taught me to the art of feeling guilty in addition to my Hail Marys and Our Fathers. It could also be an Asian thing, though I've never really discussed it enough with other Asians to say for sure.

I suspect, however, that the most likely source are my parents and their frequent use of emotional blackmail. If I had to pick, the birth of my guilty conscience probably took place when I was 12. My dad was home, and my mom got angry at him, so she took my sister and me to a Chinese restaurant for lunch. She didn't invite my dad, and we didn't bring anything back for him, so he was really cranky when we came home. Instead of dealing with it with my mom like a rational human being, he sorta laid it into my sister and me for not being more considerate. When you're 12, an angry dad seems like the scariest person alive, so when he was yelling at me, I made a permanent mental note to always consider the other people around you.

This is not to say that I'm an all-around selfless person. Rather, I can usually identify what other people want. Whether I actually do the thing that they want is another story (especially when they want me to talk a lot -- that's something I don't like doing on cue). The problem is, whereas my friends at school will usually do what they want and say f*** it, I do what I want and become wracked with guilt. I think about what I've done and the possible ramifications until it makes me sick. The only way for me not to feel sick is if I totally push it out of my brain, but nine chances out of ten, something somewhere will remind me of my selfishness, and the bad thoughts reemerge. And the bad part is that many times, the other people doesn't even give a sh*t.

Two things happened this week that really brought this all-consuming, usually irrational guilt into light. The first involves my mom. For a while, I've known that I was going to Chicago. There's not really any room for negotiation anymore. Gary and I may go to California in the future, but the one thing that's certain is that I will be in Chicago next year. My mom sorta knew this too, but I never really wanted to talk about it with her. After two and a half years in my parents' house, I felt like I would be abandoning my mom, like I was leaving her lonely and depressed. Sure, she has my dad, but if you've ever met my parents, you'd understand that their differences oftentimes gets in the way of them enjoying things together. So I kept making myself deadlines to talk to my mom so that I could console her about her impending loss. But every time I thought about it, it made me feel like a bad, ungrateful daughter.

Earlier this week, we had dinner together. There was nothing unusual about it: I sat quietly as my mom rattled on about random stories that she collected throughout the week. Out of the blue, she says, "It's going to be so sad with you and Chris gone." Tears started to well up in my eyes. I tried to play it off by saying that she had Nicholas (her one-year-old grandnephew), but my mom can tell when I'm crying from a mile away. She asked me what was wrong and tried to cajole the reason out of me for a good minute and a half before I finally felt comfortable saying, "I don't want you to be lonely when I leave." At which point, the woman LAUGHED. "Oh no no no" she said, "When I say that to you and Chris, I'm just trying to make you feel guilty!" Then she went on explain how she knows I'm at that age, that she has lots of stuff to do with her life after I'm gone, blah blah blah. Relieved to know that I'm not the terrible ingrate that I thought I was, I finished my meal in peace.

My guilt isn't confined to family matters; it extends to the professional sphere as well. Last semester, I offered to volunteer with an organization that I externed with last year. While I wanted to do some pro bono work, my main motivation was to work with the organization's legal director, who, in my humble opinion, is the greatest lawyer that I've ever worked for. She never takes on volunteers because she doesn't like having to supervise them, but she made a special case for me.

To make sure that she didn't regret her decision, I wanted to wow her with my extensive legal research skills. So I started the semester doing a couple of memos, and about four weeks in, she asked me to research potential causes of action for a certain case. The case involved a pretty unique fact pattern, which meant that I had to be really creative to make it fit into the law. All of this lawyer's most notable successes was based on really creative legal analysis, so I knew this was my chance to shine. The problem was, I didn't. My workload first semester was 100% heavier than I anticipated, and I let the project slide. I originally told her I would have the memo in one week, which turned into two, which turned into never. Not only did I not do the assignment, but I never emailed her during the semester to explain what happened. I felt so terrible that I had to tell myself not think about it in Vietnam. The way I looked at it, I killed the greatest hope I had of becoming the best public interest attorney I could be, and all because I couldn't send a timely email to the woman explaining myself.

To salvage respect she had left for me, I sent her a note late week. I could have called her or emailed her, but I thought a handwritten note would most fully express my deep regret and embarrassment. In the note, I went on and on about how much I respect her and love working with her and how sorry I was that I wasn't able to pull through as promised. It took a few days, but she finally responded to my note just now. And you know what she said? She said that I was SILLY, that she totally understood the snowball effect of law school, that she wasn't offended at all, and that she had another project for me if I was interested. I am, of course, relieved that she didn't chew me out, and I know this whole experience taught me to get my butt into gear, but I also feel like a supreme dork-o for spending precious moments of my life worrying about this.

I wish I could turn off the guilty conscience or at least turn down the dial a notch or two. As you can see, it doesn't mesh well with my mole-ly personality, which would rather deliberate the offense ad nausuem rather than nip it in the bud by talking with the other person. Maybe there's a support group for all the guilty-feeling moles out there. If you find it, call me.

my first bridal fair

This past weekend, I went to my first bridal fair. The timing was a bit soon after the engagement for my taste, but it was one of the only weekends in the past few months where my mom, my sister and I were all in the same place, so I thought the fair would be a good mother-daughter-sister bonding experience.

Bridal fairs, in case you haven't been, are events where local vendors show off their services, ranging from calligraphy for invitations to chocolate fondue fountains to videographers. They entice you with free goodies, like cake samples and sample favors, as well as special event discounts. Because this particular event was at the Four Seasons, they also served a lot of classy booze, such as champagne and chocolate martinis, whose purpose was probably to loosen up the soon-to-be-brides, making them more likely to open up their wallets. The aisles of fake smiles also help to sucker women in as merchants 'ooh' and 'aah' over the rock on your left hand, no matter what size it may be.

Luckily for me, I don't have a date yet, so vendors tended to congratulate me obligingly right before they scooted off to find a woman in a more desperate state of mind. Also, because the wedding likely won't be for another 9-12 months, I'm not overly concerned about keeping my girlish figure for the dress and could therefore enjoy the endless supply of shrimp cocktail, mini-paninis, ahi-tuna, and chocolate that everyone else was avoiding.

My mom was feeling a bit indulgent as well; she drank five glasses of champagne during the two hours that we were there. (Obviously, I did not inherit my alcohol deficiency from that side of the family.) She says that she wasn't drunk, but it was pretty clear from her constant chitter-chatter with random Four Seasons employees that she had too much to drink. When she asked one of those employees to bring her bags to her car -- a car that was parked downstairs in valet! -- my sister and I realized that we may have to find someone to watch her champagne consumption at the wedding reception. Maybe that person can do double-duty by watching her and Gary! Any takers?

Aside from stuffing my face and laughing at my mom, I did come away a little less ignorant about weddings. I'm hoping to take Gary at some point just so he can experience it too, even if the female to male ratio is strikingly high. There's one at the Drake sometime in March, so if any of you want to come (you should just for the food), come with us!

the missing boutonniere

I went to my first formal in my freshman year of high school. My date was Robert, a long-time friend whose precociously rock-hard body would make his college weight gain of 100+ pounds all the more tragic. I did everything I could to prepare: buy a nice off-the-shoulder dress, cake my face with make-up, and curl my hair for the then-standard poufy hair look. My mom helped me through this whole process, improvising as best as she could for this strange American custom known as the high school formal. When Robert arrived at my doorstep, she already had her camera in hand, ready to take pictures of my date and me in our awkward get-ups. After a couple of snapshots, Robert slipped a beautiful red rose corsage on my wrist, which I stared at admiringly for a good two minutes.

"So don't you have something for me?" Robert asked.

"Like what?" My mom and I looked at him, puzzled.

"You know -- like a boutonniere?"

We had no idea what he was talking about. For all their features on prom dresses, shoes, make-up, and sex-related warnings, none of my Seventeen magazines had mentioned this thing called a "boutonniere." From the look on my mother's face, her sources had failed her as well. Robert was of course very understanding about this insignificant detail, but my mom's mortification stayed with her for the remainder of my high school years, causing her to hound me before each subsequent formal into buying boutonnieres long before I had to.

My mom feels a similar sense of uncertainty today. When I told my mom that Gary and I got engaged, she congratulated me and immediately started worrying about engagement etiquette. Was she supposed to talk to Gary? What was she supposed to say him? What about his parents? Was she supposed to welcome them to the family? Is she supposed to throw a party? The list of questions went on and on, all surrounding the basic theme of how not to embarrass ourselves in front of Gary and his parents. Besides me, she asks everyone what to do, such as her sister, a random co-worker, and my sister (who, having no engaged friends and being the younger "I'm not getting married until much much later" sister, has no idea what she's talking about). I keep telling my mom that we'll figure it out together, that Gary and his family will hopefully understand our awkwardness, and that our family is not about stuffy formalities anyway. She understands all of this, of course, but deep down, I think the woman is still haunted by the missing boutonniere.