the ch!cktionary

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
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4 notes

I try to keep my cold German on his toes.

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

28 Jul 2010
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6 notes

Anonymous asked: Have you and Patrick talked about long term plans as a couple? I know you don't necessarily believe in marriage but do you see yourself with him for a while?

You think I’m staying in frigid-ass Boston for the next two years just for shits and giggles? The Roomie is definitely a major factor in how I’ve decided upon my future plans. Part of the reason why we moved into our current apartment (less than a year ago) is because I started living with him and Hamlet, which necessitated much more room than our then-one-bedroom. Now that I’ve graduated, I’m not going to the ditch the dude and dog and leave them with extra closet space while I seek my fortune in warmer climates. And besides, I would miss the two boys terribly. So I’ll be in Boston the next couple years as Patrick finishes his PhD and where we go afterward remains a topic of discussion but I can really only speculate at this point.

This is the reason why I’ve never understood the supposed “magic” of marriage. I don’t need a ring on my finger to make a commitment to someone (and this goes for friends as well as lovers). In my relationship, not being married or ever aspiring to be married doesn’t get in the way of making long-term plans with each other.

25 May 2010
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10 notes

Anonymous asked: In response to your recent entry on interracial relationships:
I am an Asian female at UC Berkeley and though I am open to dating people of any race, it's also important to me that my guy and I share family backgrounds and life experiences (...that we can travel to Europe together and both be stared at and later bitch in good-humor about it i.e.). I feel so many experiences just cannot be understood, even by perhaps the most empathetic guy, unless you've walked in similar shoes. And I most definitely did not enjoy seeing my parents as nervous as they once were for Sunday brunch with my then caucasian boyfriend's family.
Maybe those are just values of mine, but if those are important to you too, how have you overcome the issues with Patrick and the men of other ethnicities in your past?

(Anonymous is referring to this entry on interracial dating.)

I like to think that I ask the same things of my romantic partners that I would ask of my friends. In other words, if I had a friend who flaked out on me all the time or a friend who were sexist, they would probably get eliminated from the Circle of Trust pretty quickly and the same should apply to a romantic partner. But on the flip side, since most of my good friends from college come from totally different backgrounds (a good thing, I think!), then there ought to be no reason why I wouldn’t be able to have an equally intimate romantic relationship with someone who isn’t Asian or first generation American. So Patrick may not know firsthand what it’s like to be Asian, but neither do my best friends from Harvard, one of whom is a gay White male and the other a Black woman who grew up a Southern Baptist. (Talk about radically different life experiences!)

Maybe you’ve encountered people who don’t want to understand or aren’t interested in your perspective on race, but that’s not because they’re non-Asian. They could just be close-minded. I feel like there are so many differences from person to person that even if you date an Asian guy, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s more enlightened than someone who’s White and it certainly doesn’t mean he’s not racist. For example, I’m involved in queer activism on campus and have met queer people who make really ignorant and occasionally hateful comments about those who are trans or bi. Being queer doesn’t preclude them from being prejudiced, just as being straight doesn’t preclude me from being accepting. There’s no real guarantee that someone being Asian means that they’re going to understand where you’re coming from. And if we’re going to talk cultural differences, race is much less of an issue in my relationship than the fact that Patrick is German and I’m American.

So when it comes down to it, the fact that my parents came from China and that I grew up in not-the-wealthiest circumstances and that I have slanty eyes … there are not really insurmountable barriers in my relationships with people who don’t share these experiences. Admittedly, it’s nice that Patrick can speak some Mandarin, but I think that beyond the physical ability to communicate with my family, it’s even more important that he makes a huge effort to get to know them, to make sure that they’re comfortable when they visit our home, to keep them company when I’m not around. That means a lot more to me than him looking like me or having grown up the same way. Patrick, who is essentially the physical embodiment of straight, White, male privilege, is still a million times more empathetic, knowledgeable, and open-minded than a lot of people who are less overtly privileged. Plus, he’s a feminist. So really, what more could I ask for?

25 May 2010
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29 notes

I’m going steady with Hitler.

26 Apr 2010
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30 notes

sunnyexpectations asked: Do you think you will eventually marry Patrick?

Patrick and I have similar feelings about marriage. I doubt he will ever get married, and I can say for certain that I will never marry “for love”. No one needs marriage to validate their relationship in that sense. But would I marry for citizenship, health insurance, etc.? Sure, if only because I want to enjoy those benefits. (Not that I’d even have to specifically marry Patrick for those things.)

Basically, if you’re going to get married, I don’t think you should fool yourself into thinking that it’s going to make your relationship so much more meaningful. The marriage is not the end-all, be-all. No, your relationship ought to be awesome whether or not it gets rubber-stamped by some government official, and you ought to be confident enough in it that you don’t need marriage in order to make it work. If you have to “make it official” in order to sustain a life commitment, then you should probably think twice about getting married anyway.

Beyond legal rights and benefits, the only logical reason why one would ever need state recognition of their relationship is if they wanted to make it harder for their partner to leave them. This sounds kind of depressing, but it’s actually a conservative line of thought, and one that I agree with. According to “pro-family” advocates who want to preserve marital sanctity, the institution of marriage is crumbling and that this is cause for alarm because families are being broken, children being abandoned, gay people being uppity, the list goes on. But if there’s really havoc, why is it the logical solution to exclude gay people who want to marry and to tell unhappily married folks to stay in incompatible relationships? The answer is not to forbid same-sex unions, decry divorce, and discourage all that premarital hanky-panky that ruins you for life. (Yeah, divorce might suck, but the fact that people can leave their partners today is a huge — and relatively recent — win for personal freedom.) Instead, the glorification of marriage only encourages people to think that tying the knot solves your problems, imbues your union with meaning, guarantees fidelity, offers personal fulfillment, and permanently chains your desired partner to your left leg for the duration of your existence. Reality check: it doesn’t.

No matter how much I may want to spend the entirety of my life (or for the moment, my young adulthood) with Patrick, I realize that getting hitched is not going to prevent him from leaving me if our relationship goes to shit. And you know what? If that were to happen, I’d want to break up — not because our relationship isn’t important to me, but because there are all kinds of relationships that end for all kinds of reasons. Whether or not the people involved are married says nothing about whether they should stay together and nothing about how they feel about each other.

As long as I’m in this relationship, I can be certain that we’re both here because we want to be, that I don’t need marriage to tell me how I feel about my partner, and that if I get married, it’s not to validate his love. I don’t need marriage to give me what I already have.

14 Apr 2010
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11 notes

“Man, how did you get an Asian girl? Are you a rapper or something?”

— random guy on the street, to Patrick

27 Feb 2010
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2 notes

Remember That Time …

… when I celebrated my first (and thus far, only) anniversary with Patrick by reenacting our first date?

Yeah, that’s not going to happen again tomorrow. To commemorate the second year of our unholy union, we will probably order delivery and hide out from the “wintry mix”, because anything more elaborate would require that I get out of the sweatpants and jersey to which I’ve become so accustomed to wearing during thesis hell.

Also, there will be no exchanging of gifts beyond the sexual since the only thing I could possibly want is A COMPLETED THESIS, which sadly, not even a magic genie could be compelled to produce.

10 Feb 2010
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My boyfriend would be the gaudy ring in this scenario.

Me: Don't you want to see Patrick without his shirt?
Her: That's like window shopping at Tiffany's.

16 Aug 2009
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2 notes

Patrick and I in Amsterdam for my 22nd birthday.

I didn’t have a cake or candles, but the feast at Indonesian restaurant Blue Pepper more than made up for the lack of a birthday wish. Literally every plate was a palate-pleaser, what luck!

With good food, warm weather, and cute roomies (both canine and human), there’s not much else a girl could ask for. Except for health insurance. (But even that I’ve acquired … call it an early birthday gift from the state of Massachusetts and its taxpayers.)