the ch!cktionary

    8 Nov 2010

    With the Roomie himself! Snapped outside the Hynes T stop after dim sum brunch with Lingbo and Mr. Lingbo yesterday. Anatomy of an Outfit: Interracial Double Date Edition! (at the request of Jessica Chu) Rebel Yell faded anchor crop top ($25 from Plndr) James Perse basic tank (under $20 from Hautelook) Goldsign skinny jeans (gift) Juicy Couture booties (from Williamsburg location of Beacon’s Closet) SoHo Hearts elephant bracelet/necklace ($19 from Daily Candy’s Swirl) Hanii Y jacket (gift) German escort (complimentary with your Harvard education)

    With the Roomie himself! Snapped outside the Hynes T stop after dim sum brunch with Lingbo and Mr. Lingbo yesterday.

    Anatomy of an Outfit: Interracial Double Date Edition! (at the request of Jessica Chu)

    • Rebel Yell faded anchor crop top ($25 from Plndr)
    • James Perse basic tank (under $20 from Hautelook)
    • Goldsign skinny jeans (gift)
    • Juicy Couture booties (from Williamsburg location of Beacon’s Closet)
    • SoHo Hearts elephant bracelet/necklace ($19 from Daily Candy’s Swirl)
    • Hanii Y jacket (gift)
    • German escort (complimentary with your Harvard education)

    8 Nov 2010

    Anonymous asked: Hi Lena,

    Does Patrick in general have the same views as you regarding marriage, feminism, the "one", sex, etc.or is he more like "Lena I can't wait until the day we get married, have kids, and drive in excess of 250 km on the Autobohn during my 50th birthday mid-life crisis"? I guess what I'm really wondering is what are the top three things you two have in common that allow you to be in a seemly healthy and productive relationship?

    Yes and no, let me explain. When it comes to stuff like marriage and “the One”, I think it would be pretty difficult for two people with divergent views to be together, and luckily, we are on the same page when it comes to future expectations. We want to be together, but we’re not going to get hitched or make babies, and if one of us (more likely, me) suddenly wants to, we’re either going to have to break up or they’re going to have to do those things with someone else (this is why I keep a gay male on retainer*).

    Overall, his views definitely fall on the more radical side of the political spectrum, but we still have a lot of intellectual disagreements, though to an outsider, I suspect that our ideas would appear extremely similar. When it comes to feminism, Patrick thinks ideological labels are imprecise and useless, so he wouldn’t call himself a feminist or anything else for that matter. He would never use the phrase “the personal is the political”, because he thinks it’s a statement that’s become devoid of meaning (whereas, I, with all my sex blogging and such, completely embrace such a sentiment). We also disagree on things like whether my mainstream writing is too fluffy and not critical enough or whether his academic writing is inaccessible and not making a real world impact. (Seriously, these are the types of arguments one has when dating a Ph.D student.) But nonetheless, I think that it’s great that we can have these kinds of conversations, and in doing so, make the other person defend and even rethink their views. This might surprise you, but I honestly do not believe that I would be doing the work I do today if not for Patrick. Our day-to-day discussions have made me into a much more outspoken and open-minded feminist, one who doesn’t see eliminating gender inequality as the ultimate goal, but rather as the first of many battles to end oppression. And regardless of what happens to “us”, I’ll always be grateful that our relationship contributed to my political and intellectual evolution.

    Of course, although I’m clearly happy with Patrick, that doesn’t mean we don’t fight or disagree. Neither of us has ever lived with a romantic partner before, and we are both really high-maintenance (in different ways). I care a lot about food and will get pissy when he doesn’t take meal-planning seriously. He cares a lot about cleanliness and I have always been incapable of picking up after myself, despite my mother being a maid (or maybe because of it?) Like any other cohabitating couple, we get irritated at each other and, yes, we even have the occasional explosive blow-out fight that makes each of us think that we’re dating a crazy — or, at minimum, neurotic — person. (And I say this as someone with a ton of friends who are legitimately “crazy” in the psychiatric sense of the word.) But ultimately, it’s understood that we’re in this together. We live together, we give input into the other’s work, and we share a lot of the same friends. Sure, I’ve made some decisions over the course of this relationship that I would not have made if I were single, but I don’t view them as sacrifices, because it’s expected that he would make similar choices for me if something were integral to my happiness. Not to get all sappy on you, but your partner is really supposed to be like a teammate, not an enemy, and your relationship is a partnership, not a war. Fights are not about who “wins”, because nobody really wins if one of you is unhappy.

    Also, we’ve already driven over 250km/hour on the Autobahn, so we’re going to need to formulate a new game plan for his impending mid-life crisis.

    * And wouldn’t you know, my gay best friend is every bit as neurotic as my boyfriend. Aren’t I a lucky one?

    More burning questions? Ask Lena Chen.

    1 Nov 2010

    Patrick’s costume was … Harvard Final Club Member*. Flanked by Asian girls! Get it? (No, I haven’t seen The Social Network, but I’ve witnessed enough as an undergrad to confirm this stereotype.) At least he’s making a facial impression implying sheepish awareness of his own male/White privilege ;) * The Roomie did not actually dress up for Halloween. Apparently, the holiday is an uniquely American abomination.

    Patrick’s costume was … Harvard Final Club Member*. Flanked by Asian girls! Get it? (No, I haven’t seen The Social Network, but I’ve witnessed enough as an undergrad to confirm this stereotype.) At least he’s making a facial impression implying sheepish awareness of his own male/White privilege ;)

    * The Roomie did not actually dress up for Halloween. Apparently, the holiday is an uniquely American abomination.

    27 Oct 2010

    Patrick is not “The One”

    Just to make it clear that my little rant yesterday applies as much to those who are coupled-up as it does to singletons.

    It’s easy to forget in an era of bridal magazines and wedding planners and rom coms that the idea of “the One” is an entirely modern notion. For most of Western history, marriage was a purely economic arrangement, arranged by family patriarchs and devoid of romance (or much choice, in the women’s case). It really wasn’t until the 20th century that marrying for love became the norm and the ideal. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that this concept of “the One” came into being right around the same time that an entire courtship industry was born out of engagement rings, flower arrangements, and Hallmark cards. Love sells.

    And once you find “the One”, as any well-adjusted American inevitably will, what better way to express your commitment than with a public declaration involving large amounts of white tulle? It’s really an obvious choice.

    I’ve blogged pretty extensively about why I don’t think marriage makes sense, because it privileges certain types of relationships (romantic ones) over all others and also assumes that permanent two-person partnerships ought to be the ideal. It forgets that many friendships are longer lasting and more intimate than romances, that the partner you’re with at 20 or 30 may change and no longer be compatible, and that this type of relationship is not something we all ought to be after. If you’re unmarried and middle-aged, people feel sorry for you. You could accomplish all kinds of great, wonderful things, but marriage is supposed to be a life-altering event that completes you.

    So just about the worst thing you could do — besides never finding “the One” — is to find the One and then not marry him. Because, really, woman! Without a ring, some other ho is just going to snatch him away and then you’ll have no one to blame but yourself. So the only option once you land a keeper is to trick him into marrying you. If he fails to do so within an appropriate length of time, he clearly doesn’t love you, can’t commit, and wants to continue sowing his wild oats. It doesn’t matter if you have an apartment, car, or pet together. None of it counts until a low-paid employee of the city stamps a piece of paper declaring you legit in the eyes of the state.

    As much as I adore my boyfriend — and friends will testify that it is really sickening how obsessed I am —, he’s not “the One”. Believing in the One means that I would have to believe that I’m somehow less of a person without a guy. And that’s just not true. I have a ton of great stuff going on in my life, lots of supportive friends, and a career that allows me to “work” on the issues I feel most passionately about. So while I love the Roomie to pieces, if he dumped me tomorrow and proposed to another woman, I wouldn’t see it as a reflection of my personal faults. If either of us were to die in a fiery car accident, I would fully expect the other to mourn for an appropriate length of time and then move on. Love isn’t about holding on to the other person forever and ever, regardless of changes in your relationship or life. If anything, maintaining a death grip on your partner only blinds you to problems and leaves you disappointed when the other person reveals themselves to be as human as you are.

    Of course, not being “the One” for each other hasn’t stopped us from signing onto a family plan with AT&T. Cue vomit.

    23 Oct 2010

    Head of the Charles Weekend

    And Patrick is rowing! Hamlet and I are taking off to cheer him on at 1:14pm, when he rows the Club Eights in a Yale alum boat.

    I’ve never actually seen Patrick row, because we only started dating when he was already in graduate school (and he rowed lightweight/heavyweight mostly in college). So this is pretty exciting, even though he’s promised me that it is not at all exciting to watch a race. Nonetheless, I think it’s a pretty good a excuse to dress Hamlet’s little bulldog butt in a Yale hoodie, which is normally reserved for the annual Harvard-Yale football game. And since I have zero allegiance to Harvard when it comes to school sports, I’m going to shake my pom-poms for my roommate instead this afternoon.

    Expect a lot of school-spirity photos to come + a faux rivalry between yours truly and the two Yalies with whom I coexist.

    Also? Men in spandex = hot. Obvs!

    18 Oct 2010

    I oscillate between English and German iPhone settings (one of the little ways I keep the language in my life now that I’m not taking classes). Yes, my mail client signature is totally toolish. Yes, I’ve been told. No, I’m not changing it. I constantly feel like the language is slipping through my fingers, since I don’t practice speaking it when I’m in America. (I should, but I don’t.) The other day, however, I had to translate Google Map directions from German to English (in my head) to Chinese (spoken to my mother), and I navigated us from Long Beach Airport back to our house in the San Gabriel Valley. So, I’m not totally helpless.

    I oscillate between English and German iPhone settings (one of the little ways I keep the language in my life now that I’m not taking classes). Yes, my mail client signature is totally toolish. Yes, I’ve been told. No, I’m not changing it.

    I constantly feel like the language is slipping through my fingers, since I don’t practice speaking it when I’m in America. (I should, but I don’t.) The other day, however, I had to translate Google Map directions from German to English (in my head) to Chinese (spoken to my mother), and I navigated us from Long Beach Airport back to our house in the San Gabriel Valley. So, I’m not totally helpless.

    28 Sep 2010

    I had a mini-breakdown yesterday.

    Pretty much right after I got home from the airport at 10 p.m. Probably caused by the fact that I was trapped on a plane for eight hours with a broken entertainment system and no functioning light. (Was practically going blind in the name of reading Marilyn French’s The Women’s Room.)

    Anyway. All I will share is that I had a domestic dispute that involved a Hello Kitty Christmas ornament. Suffice it to say that the situation has since been resolved.

    I hesitate to even share the existence of a fight. People write the cruelest things about Patrick and me (he’s my European sugar daddy! I’m his Asian trophy girlfriend!) in the comments section of this blog and make all kinds of assumptions that I find laughable because even my closest friends aren’t familiar enough with the intimate details, yet random Internet stalkers think they’ve gotten us all figured out. Their criticisms put enormous pressure on me to maintain the facade of a perfect romance, which is ridiculous because I’m pretty open about the fact that my life is otherwise very unconventional. This is also the first time in my life that I’ve had a relationship which is entirely my own. I don’t share details of my love life with anyone, in part because a lot of my closest friends from college and in the Boston area are also friends now with Patrick. Talking about our issues with them would be way too weird and close for comfort. But on the other hand, my friends also aren’t quite close enough to the situation to really offer an informed opinion either.

    Sometimes, I feel like I’m flailing out here and not entirely sure if what I’m doing is right. But blogging about sex and relationships and thinking critically about the gender roles to which we’re all subject has actually been really helpful to my love life in many ways. It makes me less possessive and jealous (because I realize that my partner is not someone I “own”) and less focused on reaching relationship benchmarks like engagement and marriage (neither of which we’ll be participating in). Mutual satisfaction — in and out of the bedroom — was one of the most basic goals of women’s lib, but it’s funny how things today haven’t necessarily improved for the better … problems have just evolved. Women get stressed over why the guy hasn’t “put a ring on it”; dudes get paranoid over what happens on girls’ nights out. My relationship isn’t perfect, but the above problems aren’t what we fight about and for that — I have feminism to thank.

    2 Sep 2010

    Yes, I am that creepy.

    • P: Have you seen my gray t-shirt anywhere?
    • Me: Nope. Don't think so.
    • P: Are you sure you didn't take it with you on a trip somewhere so you could smell me?
    • Me: Um ...

    1 Sep 2010

    I try to keep my cold German on his toes. (Yes, my iPhone is in German. Getting in practice where I can!)

    I try to keep my cold German on his toes.

    (Yes, my iPhone is in German. Getting in practice where I can!)

    18 Aug 2010

    Bad Feminist Confessions: “I can’t operate electronics”

    bell hooks says that “feminism is for everybody” but could you be doing it wrong? If you wear push-up bras, partake in doggy-style intercourse, or enjoy teen vampire romance novels, then chances are, you’re unwittingly aiding the Patriarchy! Luckily for you, Lena Chen, a self-described “Bad Feminist”, is here to steer you clear of pink consumer products and strippercise classes. How? By acting as a charming case study on what NOT to do. Introducing the first edition of “Bad Feminist Confessions”, a series that may or may not appear regularly on this blog, depending on whether the comments cripple my self-esteem …

    Because I am unusually happy and therefore game for being Internet-bashed today*, I’m going to confess that I can’t operate most electronics in my apartment. By “most electronics”, I pretty much mean anything that doesn’t live in the kitchen and isn’t emblazoned by an Apple logo (and even the iPod-controlled sound system is exasperating at times). Why am I such a techno-phobe? Well … I really don’t have an excuse. When I moved into my current place a year ago, my live-in boyfriend set up the sound system. And the DVD player. And the Xbox. And come to think of it, also the printer, phones, and Internet. If we watched television, I’m sure he would have installed the cable too.

    He has the passwords and the account information and possibly even user manuals for all of these things, but to be honest, I’ve never inquired. Everything works when he’s around (which he mostly is), and I’m happy as a clam to not have to turn on anything myself ever. Except you know, when he’s elsewhere and I’m stuck in an apartment that might as well be someone else’s, because nothing inside works when I touch it.

    The full extent of my incompetence didn’t fully occur to me until a few nights ago. I had a couple friends over, wanted to watch an episode of Family Guy, and found myself spending 25 minutes trying to turn off the photo slide show that had been playing on my television screen all evening. When fiddling with the channel and the various remotes didn’t work, I resorted to calling Patrick, who didn’t pick up. I kept fiddling and calling and finally after about ten calls that went straight to voicemail, I came to the then-reasonable conclusion that he had clearly died sometime in between leaving dinner and meeting his friends at a bar approximately two blocks away. And along with that seemingly logical explanation for his disappearance, another horrifying realization dawned on me: now I would never, ever be able to figure out the DVD player in my apartment. EVER.

    It was at this point that I resolved to never let this happen to me again. Next time, when I meet and move in with the dude of my feminist dreams, I will not only ingratiate myself with his puppy, but also endeavor to familiarize myself with every knob, button, and light of his formidable stash of electronic devices.

    And then Patrick came home and fixed the television for me and I was too busy fawning over his unexpected reappearance that I failed to figure out what was wrong with the damn settings in the first place.

    I am a Bad Feminist. Whoops.

    * Limited time offer! Expires in 24 hours and/or when unstoppable hormonal fluctuations strike.