Thursday,
September 20, 2001.
Inevitability Index :
43 (+0)
Game Playing : Dead or Alive 2 (nice panties!)
and Soldier of Fortune (nice, er, throat shot? ew....).
I pity the Fu' !! ... who hasn't checked out Alyssa's
site.
Don't worry. Be Hapachan!
EASTER JEN vs. TESS TOSTERONI
Despite current events, I've been trying to keep myself and those around me on a positive track lately.Been trying to make myself go to the gym more again, which may be working if I can make it before sloth time hits around 9 p.m. every night.
Yesterday I saw one of the regulars there holding a weight disc on his head to exercise his neck muscles. Admittedly, I've done such exercises in college, but I hardly see a need for it now.
Back then I was constantly trying to push more weight on -- bench press, squats, shoulders -- especially shoulders. I've let go of most of those mesomorphic fantasies now. I'm just as concerned with trimming down these days. Although I still wish I was big enough to impose a protective presence if need be.
Work has been fun (not as fun as staying home, but you know what I mean).
My delightful team and I haven't really talked about The Attack since it was first mentioned. We get our sadness quotient filled from the 30-year old girl with the newly diagnosed esophageal cancer we see every morning anyways, among others of similar impact. Still, I try to keep things amusing and interesting with relevant and occasionally irrelevant tidbits.
Like this article I saw last week showing that (willing and) expectant fathers had lower testosterone and cortisol levels and a higher proportion of estradiol, in general. (Mayo Clin. Proc. 2001; 76: 582-592). They comment that the "physiologic importance of these hormonal changes, if any, is not known. However, they are hormones known to influence maternal behavior."
What an amusing study. I've noticed anecdotally, that most men certainly become less aggressive, more responsible, and calmer once children enter their lives.
Or maybe that's due to sleep deprivation from their babies crying all night.
extraction
We went to Amy's best friend's wedding last weekend. It was okay.
Amy's parents, her cousin (Kevin), and our nieces came with us.
Kevin substitute teaches and was still disheartened after continually trying to convince his students that their chants for "nuking 'em all" was not really the best option for anyone (our next generation?).
Maybe someone should do a study of hormone levels of bloodlust vs. no-bloodlust types during these times. (I'll put money down on higher testosterone and cortisol levels on the first group.)
During the wedding, the pastor even mentioned the terrorist attacks in the vows.
I didn't really hear much else he said because my five-year old darling niece was standing on the pew busily rearranging my hair to more suit her tastes. And I let her of course, since we were sitting in the back and I'm a pushover when it comes to them.
Amy looked beautiful as the Matron of Honor. She was the most beautiful one there; even her mom said so out loud when she walked down the aisle (in Korean though, haha).
The reception afterwards was a little annoying. Seemed like everyone was either an ex-fratboy or a "doctor" per their seating tags, or they worked for "Dr. So-and-so." "Doctor" in this case being from the dentistry profession (the groom's friends).
Amy's parents were clearly uncomfortable, since their English is pretty poor, and we were the only Asian folk there (aside from the Korean owner of the Laundromat where the bride and groom met -- she left early too).
Kevin (our cousin) was actually hurt that the bride and groom forgot to put his name in the seating arrangement, so he was glad to get out of there.
I had a million other things I'd rather be doing myself, so I facilitated our extraction.
So I did us all a favor when I convinced Amy's parents to leave early with us with the following two statements:
1) "Let's get some Korean food, and"
2) "I'm paying."
drunken elephant style
The restaurant was more fun. (Even though Amy couldn't join us.)
The Princess Niece continued to whisper nonsensical things in my ear and ask my name every five minutes (she never asked before). Meanwhile, the Monk Niece (a year younger) just made faces at her nonsensical sister and shook her head in disapproval.
I made them both laugh though with my elephant impression, while saying elephant in Korean,
"KO KI DEEEE." (A new word I learned ... and no, I was not drinking.)
They weren't quite as believing when our cousin and I teased that they were eating "cat meat." (They love ... The LIGER! but he's scared to death of them.)
We both learned my Korean name / designation then - KOMOBO - meaning "uncle on sister's side" or something (Amy is "Amy Komo" to them).
They made fun of my big nose compared with our cousin's smaller nose again. And I could practically feel my hormones adjust to a more maternal endocrinological profile every minute I spent with them.
When it was time for them to go home with Amy's parents, they played a game of hugging me around the neck AND NOT LETTING GO. Like an elephant trying to shake off clingy little monkeys, I tried to wag my head and lift my neck to loosen their grip, but to no avail.
For the life of me, I could not get out of their inhumanly strong Death Grip of Love.
Not that I really wanted to get out of it then.
But eventually they left, whining the whole time because they couldn't stay. Amy wasn't coming home for awhile, and I felt a little wistful and a little lost after they were gone.
So I went home and played an ultraviolent anti-terrorist game (coincidental, really, I bought it like 8 months ago) and planned on hitting the gym that night as well.
It was almost as if a part of my confused brain wanted to resort back to a hormonal profile it was familiar with, prior to all these little girl machinations.
I even thought about doing some of those neck exercises as well. You know, just in case I got caught in their death grip again.
"Ko Ki Deeeee!!!"
(means "elephant" in Korean)
