Broken Man

“You’re just going to have to do it so they’ll leave you alone.”

- Me.

“Seri­ously! It’s becom­ing the only option.”

- Aaron L.

“I don’t think Thu H would mind. She’s all about keep­ing it in the family.”

- Me.

“We should have said going to mock trial together was a date. Then, not only could we be going out, it’d be piti­fully bad.”

- Aaron L.
I’m not sure why he’d want that, but what­ever floats you boat, buddy. But will your friends buy that?

Any­way, Peggy came home and we talked some more until Bethany called me up and invited me to go to Wal­mart with her. I agreed of course, because I haven’t seen my aBB in for­ever. The trip was fun. We dove through the bar­gain DVD bins because she was look­ing for a birth­day gift for her grand­fa­ther. He’s turn­ing ninety-​five! Also spent a good amount of time in the toy aisle, of course.

Went to Jack-​In-​The-​Box after that. She got a Kid’s Meal and let me play with the toy as she was eat­ing. Sweet! It was one of those paper-​board build-​it-​yourself dealies. In the shape of a river boat, because Jack is on a safari theme at the moment. It was fun to build, and it might become a LB gift, because the hull of the boat is green. And the bag led us on a dis­cus­sion of what musi­cal instru­ments would be appro­pri­ate for a safari. I had no objec­tion to the flutes and tam­bourines they had on the bag, but Bethany felt a har­mon­ica would be ideal.

After that, she dropped me back at my place, and I packed up my laun­dry and went home home. Oh yeah, I for­got to men­tion this, but the washer at the apart­ment broke a cou­ple of days ago. It tends to leak water all over the floor now. So yeah, took my stuff home. The drive sucked. I hate going any­where in Sac in day­light now. Even 5 gets con­gested, and 99 is a total nightmare.

Got home to an empty house. Started up the first load, and went online. Talked to a cou­ple of peo­ple, mostly Peggy, though. Din­ner was great. I had many serv­ings of banh cuon. The din­ner con­ver­sa­tion is dif­fer­ent now that we have two fam­ily friends rent­ing out one of the rooms. It doesn’t feel as close as it did before. Maybe because my sis­ters weren’t there today. (Gio Linh is still in Min­nesota, and Dong Ha had work until 10.) I dunno, but I miss it.

Yet more chat­ting after din­ner. Peggy ran me through a com­plex hypo­thet­i­cal sce­nario that sounds like the basis for a Korean drama. Or per­haps an episode of Springer. She says Maury. It was out there. Oh, and this was while she was sup­posed to be study­ing for a midterm and/​or prepar­ing for a speech she has to give tomor­row. Damn, I’m such a hor­ri­ble influence.

So yeah, kept talk­ing and doing laun­dry. Even­tu­ally, my par­ents wanted to go to sleep, so I had to leave the com­puter I was at, which is a desk­top in their bed­room. Swapped for my dad’s lap­top, and went out to the liv­ing room. Also watched Saved! It had funny moments and some good lines, but over­all, felt a bit cold to Christians.

Yet more chat­ting online. Oh, tried out Sophia C’s new ring­back tones or what­ever it’s called. It’s cool… too bad her stu­pid voice­mail mes­sage inter­rupts the song. Any­ways, every­one I was talk­ing to is asleep, so maybe I should fol­low suit.

Good night!

EDIT: Oh yeah, I for­got to rant about some­thing. What’s up with teeny-​boppers and Scar­face nowa­days?! One of my sister’s friends left a shirt when she swam at my house, and it’s got the words “Money — Power — Respect” with a pic­ture over each of them show­ing Tony Mon­tana demon­strat­ing each qual­ity. Well, the first pic­ture is him at his desk with huge stacks of money (not bags of crack), and the sec­ond two are him in dif­fer­ent poses with his M-​16.

First off, they are chang­ing the movie. It’s sup­posed to be “Money — Power — Women,” but I guess whores all over shirts don’t sell well to that crowd. And sec­ond… it’s freak­ing Scar­face! Why are lit­tle girls idol­iz­ing him? Do they want to be like him? Do they want their boyfriends to be like him? Cor­po­rate Amer­ica needs to stop push­ing this per­sona onto kids, and give it back to the rap­pers (You know it’s true… watch any episode of MTV Cribs… I’ll bet there’s a Scar­face poster some­where in rap­per X’s house) and other assorted “badasses.”