ChristMUST YOU, MOTHER?!

Always looking for an opportunity to avoid spending time with my family, I was elated to spend my first Christmas living in San Francisco actually in San Francisco! Wahoo. (Berkeley counts as San Francisco. And by "Berkeley" I mean "Wendy's house in Oakland." Shut up.)

My mother went to Taiwan because my grandfather on that side had some surgery, and my dad went to join her shortly after my brother's kid was born. My mother called me yesterday to say "Merry Christmas" and ask me if I am exercising. Well, a better way to put that would be to say that she called to ask me if I am exercising, but she said "Merry Christmas" in front of it to make it seem like she was just making conversation.

It's always vaguely insulting (...scratch the word "vaguely") and never unexpected, no matter how she tries to slip it in, but it's somehow worse when she asks me in Chinese. I think it's because the second character in the phrase for exercising, "yuen dong," is the word for movement in general. It thus always sounds as though she's asking if I have the ability to move, or whether my raging obesity has yet gotten to the point where my fat weighs my arm down such that I have been rendered incapable of reaching for the remote while spoon-feeding myself mayonnaise in my underwear.*

Of course, I do realize that that's not what "yuen dong" actually means. I realize that all she's asking is if I'm doing anything to combat my horrendously disgusting weight problem. You know, taking any steps to address my flagrantly self-destructive lack of self-consciousness about my appearance.

So, thank you Samin for the "How to Ride a Tiger" books, thank you Nichole for the book on Edith Head, thank you Wendy for the clothes, thank you Kevin for the Netflix subscription, and thank you Mom for reminding me why I'm so glad that I didn't put myself through two weeks of the same ol' shit this year.




* - I would hypothetically be in my underwear because presumably I would be too fat to go through the effort of getting fully dressed. Also, fat makes you hot.