In which I resurface.

The internet is full of interesting places. Years ago, after stumbling upon Sorry I Haven’t Posted, I resolved to never meta-reference my own writing in writing. That’s something self-important writers (and writers with readers?) do. So in lieu of apologizing for not posting, I’ll meta-reference meta-referencing one’s own writing in my own writing.

Flippant frippery aside, I felt ashamed to write again. My last post about experiencing covid-19 as an Asian person aged poorly as discourse on race relations, police brutality, and systemic racism surged to the forefront of American thoughts. I took my second board exam in the heart of a deserted Manhattan, and during every break the TV in the corner was broadcasting live George Floyd’s Brooklyn memorial service. Ahmaud Arbery, my age, was still on my mind. Breonna Taylor. Tony McDade. And old wounds reopened as old names were spoken: Eric Garner. Tamir Rice. Hope and despair seesawed through the day, outrage and solidarity and fervor and sickening apathy like a coup-contrecoup of the heart. And like a shaken baby, I was limp and overstimulated. I wanted to write a million things. I wanted to write nothing—what right does my voice have to be? Was silence violence, or would speaking be yet another artifact of performative “woke” signaling? I wanted to contact trace the hate and callous hypocrisy I saw on my newsfeed, the greatest fraction of which was coming from Christians, and shepherd them with an iron rod (Rev 2:7). Or just break their vessels in pieces (Psa 2:9). On good days, I imagined sitting down with them and correcting them with a spirit of meekness, looking to my own mistakes (Gal 6:1). Obviously I’d be looking at my own mistakes with a biased eye and “correcting” them upon the presupposition of my rectitude. So maybe those weren’t very good days for me, either. On better days, I checked in on my friends. I learned a lot by reading and listening. On my worst day—I’m ashamed of it now—I actually tried to act out my good days and ended up on a long private message debate that did nothing but dig both our heels deeper into sinking sand.

I have a hundred skeletons of drafts, a hundred speeches. I have links to studies. I have statistics. But without love, I’m a warehouse of cymbals.

So I’ll tell you about my life instead.

R and I got married a few weeks ago. The weeks leading up to the wedding, all the questions were, “how do you feel about getting married?” The weeks after, like a palindrome, they’ve been, “how does being married feel?” I’m probably a tremendously unsatisfying recipient of these questions. In truth, I felt married to him a year ago. We had talked and prayed for so long, and the inward assurance I felt had long ago become a permanent fixture. As to being married, I had spent so much time at R’s apartment since he moved in that making it my home just felt like much of the same. Except the commute home in the evening was much shorter. Even as the world burns outside our fourth floor walk-up, it feels like inside these thin walls, everything is all peace, all joy.

Things I learned from the wedding:

• If it exists on the body, there is an industry centered around making it more beautiful. The more I looked, the more I found. There’s brow perming, eyelash extensions, a million exciting and painful ways to remove hair, creative body sculpting clothing/fabric prisons, makeup for clavicles, and treatment after treatment after treatment. There are a million professionals waiting to cash in on the idea of and insistence on perfection.
• The more I looked at perfection, the more I saw imperfection in the things I had. I even tried to persuade R one night to do just one thing: to get his eyebrows shaped. He refused. And I got mad—why should I have to bow and scrape at the bejeweled toes of every female beauty standard, while he just has to shower, wear an outfit he already owns, and stand in the right place? Then I realized I had not only drunk the Kool-aid, but set up my own Kool-aid stand.
• For a wedding, there is only one must-have: by the end of the day, we have to be married. Everything else is just icing.
• Icing can be delicious and beautiful. But cake decorating is way harder than it looks.
• The closer the wedding got, the more I appreciated the opportunity to live with my parents again. As strange as it was to sleep in my childhood bedroom in my 20’s, I enjoyed the little jokes that only made sense with my parents and living in the Costco-addled excess that my parents’ house had become. Everything becomes special and lovely when you spend your days knowing that you’ll look back and miss them.

Fun things about married life:

• I got a squat yellow mug and a squat yellow teapot. They look like Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum next to each other, and the teapot has a few design flaws that keep it from being truly excellent at, well, making tea, but it seems unfair to choose them for form and grade them for function.
• Back in the suburbs, I’d have to hop in a car and drive for 15 minutes to get anything; now we live steps away from a grocery store. Gone are the days of making dubious substitutions in recipes!
• Instant pot. Taiwanese beef noodle soup. Ribs.
• Buying my own groceries. Bagel bites. Corn dogs.
• R and I have a little counter/bar in the kitchen facing a window with a slice of sky. It sees neither sunrise nor sunset, and the ground below is the trash alley formed by the dumbbell buildings, but sky is sky. We’ve spent many meals and early morning prayers sitting here, looking out and up.
• I gave myself and R a home haircut yesterday. I cut off about a foot of hair, and what a relief! No longer do I have to worry about accidentally singeing my hair on the stove when cooking (it happened; the hairs turn very curly), or having to tie back my hair before eating anything, or getting my hair caught in doors, under elbows, backs, or any leaning body parts.
• With that, the recrudescence of my eyebrows, and the meticulous (and probably scandalizing) work of peeling off my gel manicure, all the remnants of my wedding finery are gone! I have shed my chrysalis and become—the same beautiful caterpillar that I was before the metamorphosis!!! Egads!!!
• I sometimes wake up to the sound of soft guitar strumming and singing wafting from the living room.
• Nothing was as satisfying as Marie Kondoing all of my clothes. My closet is exquisite. Also relevant, I never wear anything but pajamas nowadays, so my wardrobe is really just for show right now. Next up: memorabilia, tchochkes, doodads.
• R and I went to our first art museum in almost a year, the Met Cloisters, and ate the most delicious burrito we’ve ever had. Note: burrito, not burritos. I actually got tacos but his burrito was so good that we shared it. Marriage is great, folks.