Walter went to a different church but he seemed to be quite at home in anyone’s car.  Walter was one of those kids who demanded that he always sit shotgun and he always had to be in charge of what music was playing in the car.  He would blast nothing but K-Pop to my chagrin. When he found out I didn’t care for it, he decided he would get on my case about how I liked “white music” (perhaps he didn’t know I listened to hip hop since he probably didn’t know who The Roots were).  It apparently became his calling in life to be an ambassador on the behalf of the Korean music industry and that he should educate me on K-Pop on how I could be a better Korean.  He definitely looked the part with his bleached (more like orange) hair  and über long bangs.  This “education” caused a lot of tension between us, since I never agreed to it, and since he was so condescending about it.  I never took to his teachings, and since we didn’t go to the same school or the same church, I thought that I wouldn’t have to deal with him after soccer was over, but that wasn’t the case.

Little did I know that Walter and I would end up enrolling at the same college.  Even though we went to a really big school, I kept on running into him.  I tried to avoid him, but we had friends that lived in the same dorm, so it was unavoidable.  He thought we were friends, so while I tried to avoid him, he kept on trying to get through to me.  He wasn’t the only Korean person on campus trying to show me the error of my ways, so I just started trying to tune any person out who started any introduction to me with “Are you Korean?  Do you speak Korean?”  While these questions seem innocent enough, they were usually followed by “Are you parents ashamed of you?  Why do you hate being Korean?” and hearing those questions definitely got under my skin.  My parents weren’t ashamed of me, I wasn’t ashamed of being Korean, but there was an assumption made that since I didn’t grow up speaking Korean, that there was some sort of negative story behind it.  I would explain that I grew up in the Midwest with very few Korean kids to talk to in my neighborhood, but my words would just fall on deaf ears.

It seemed like this stuff mattered more with Koreans than other Asian ethnicities (I could be wrong), which frustrated me even more.  It would take me a couple of years, but eventually I got over it, and surprisingly, one day, Walter got over it too.  After we moved out of the dorms after freshmen year, I didn’t see him for a while, and when I did, he was a lot more pleasant to be around.  He still had the bleached bangs, but he was no longer getting on my case about my lack of Koreaness.  In fact, there was an instance where one of his non-Korean friends asked why there were so many adopted Korean children.  Walter gave a predictable answer: “Because Korean babies are the best looking.”  I gave a more self-deprecating and cynical answer: “I guess Koreans don’t know how to use birth control.”  At a younger age, my response would’ve caused a lot of animosity between us, but Walter actually laughed at my comment.  I’m not sure what had happened to make him change his Korean pride way of life, but I’m glad that something did.  Maybe he finally became more comfortable in his skin, which allowed him to accept me for who I was, or perhaps he realized that being a Korean pride zealot wasn’t fun for him anymore and that he didn’t want to make being Korean a career.

As an adult, I’ve found that the most entertaining thing to do at a grocery store is to see what the people ahead of you in line are buying.  In a strange way, their shopping carts give you a small window into their lives.  Perhaps, they’re just buying food for just their upcoming meal, perhaps they’re buying their groceries for their week, or maybe they’re just buying a case of beer for a party they’re going to, but it’s uncanny how much information the contents of a person’s cart can give you.  I could come up with more than a handful of categories for my fellow shopping brethren – the single bachelor and his microwave dinners, the bitter divorcee and her cheap wine, the college student and their top ramen, and so on.  The aforementioned shoppers tend to carry an air of melancholy since this is their everyday lifestyle.  It may not necessarily be permanent, but for the time being, this is how they live their lives.  As I look back, I can say that I’ve been no different.

In college, my roommates and I lived down the street from a grocery store.  We often did our grocery shopping during the twilight hours.  Whether we did this to avoid crowds, or whether we shopped late at night just because that’s what college kids did, I can’t be for certain (I’m pretty certain that we were pillaging candy from the bulk candy containers).  We were definitely stereotypically poor college students.  During our twilight grocery excursions, we would be regularly seen with a bottle of olive oil, a bottle of balsamic vinegar, and a baguette of french bread.  While these three items might not scream “college students”, the fact that we would buy these items in the middle of the night clearly does.  There were no proteins, no fruits and vegetables, just bread and “sauce” for dipping.  This was definitely a reflection of who I was then: poor and I ate to live opposed to living to eat.

I’m obviously in a different stage of my life now, and my grocery cart reflects that.  While I still might pick up the occasional baguette of bread, my cart is now balanced with proteins (steak, chicken, pork, fish), vegetables, and fruits.  I learned how to cook after college so I found that a little bit of money can go a long way if you are okay with preparing meals by yourself.  You would be able to easily discern that if you had a snapshot of my college cart and my present cart side by side.  I would probably be a little embarrassed by hypothetical snapshots and I would probably implore you “not to judge me”, but you would anyways, and you should do so.  I still judge the people ahead of me in line to pass the time, and I gain a lot of amusement from it.  So to the couple who bought store made fried chicken, two packs of Klondike Bars, a handle of the cheapest grocery store brand Vodka, and a pack of Marlboro Reds, I thank you (I also can tell what you guys were up to that night… gross).  In a super voyeuristic and twisted way, you’ve brought the youthful joy of hanging out at the grocery store back to me, whether you knew it or not.

I was playing video games at a friend’s house when my mom called me.  I was supposed to visit my parents down in San Diego that day, so I assumed she was calling me to ask me if I had started my way down there, and then to ask me why I hadn’t left yet.  I was partially correct.  She wanted to know if I had already left for San Diego, but was actually relieved that I was still in Orange County.  She wanted me to pick up my cousin from a hotel in Irvine and to bring him with me.  It sounded like a simple enough request until I found out that the cousin I was to pick up, was a cousin from Korea that I had never met before.  It’s already weird enough when you know you have to spend an hour plus car ride with a complete stranger who’s actually related to you, but it’s worse when your sister informs you “I don’t think his English is very good”.

I drove to the hotel and peeked around the lobby, trying to find my cousin.  I had no idea what he looked like.  I just knew that he was in town because of work, so I had some simple parameters to work from.  I needed to find a Korean man who wasn’t wearing a Hawaiian shirt or any attire that would make him look like he was on vacation.  I thought I had spotted a man who could fit that description in the lobby, but as I approached him, his wife and child had walked out of the elevator, so I eliminated him as a possible suspect.  As much as she is forgetful, I was sure my mom would’ve mentioned his wife and child needing a ride as well if they were hypothetically also in town.

After a few more  futile passes around the lobby, I headed back to my car to tell my mom that I couldn’t find him.  She gave me the room number that he was staying in and told me she’d give him a call to see if he was there.  As I got off the phone, a man knocked on the passenger side door of my car, and it was him.  I unlocked the door for him and upon opening the door, I immediately caught a huge whiff of beer.  My cousin, who I had never met before, was drunk, which exponentially heightened the chances of this being a super uncomfortable car ride.  He introduced himself to me and his English didn’t seem to be as bad as my sister had advertised.  He told me that he was a little late because he had just gotten back from a business dinner, which explained why he reeked off beer, but I was still a little worried, not because I’ve never driven a drunk person around, but because I had no idea what kind of drunk my cousin was.  If he was a happy drunk or a sleepy drunk, I could manage, but if he was an angry drunk or a depressed drunk, I wasn’t sure how I would be able to survive being in a car with him for over an hour.

Luckily for me, he was pretty tame.  I asked him what he was working on and what company brought him into town for business.  He asked me what I did for a living and we basically covered that basics as far as two long lost cousins getting to know each other.  Things didn’t get awkward outside of him asking me about who I was dating, and then advising me to find a Korean girl to make my parents happy opposed to the Chinese girl that I was currently in a serious relationship with.  I brushed it off as quickly as I could and tried to not be offended by his suggestion since he wasn’t from the States.  We eventually made it to my parent’s house, and after spending a day in San Diego, I drove him back to Irvine.  It was a pretty drama-free trip.

He was a nice guy and I’m glad that I finally got to meet him (not that I knew that he existed before that weekend).  I especially appreciate the fact that he didn’t throw up in my car, but even if he had, my mom would’ve helped clean it up, because that’s what family does.  Family is about having a higher tolerance and a greater faith in each other than is recommended.  That’s why I turned the other cheek when my cousin suggested I break up with girlfriend on the basis of ethnicity instead of punching him in the face.  Besides, I don’t need my mom to make a new rule about me physically attacking people in my car.

Bruce decided to buy me a beer brewing kit for my birthday and while it arrived a couple week ago, I haven’t tried my hand at brewing beer.  It’s not that I don’t have any interest in it, it’s because it’s been busy and extremely hot outside.  I don’t know a whole lot about brewing, but I know that most beers need to be brewed in a semi-cool temperature, so I’ve been hesitant to start brewing in the summer.  Brewing takes a long time – 3 weeks to ferment and then another 3 weeks to bottle, so I don’t want to screw it up.  If I have to wait 6 weeks to see the fruits of my labor, I want to make sure I’ve done everything in my power to make sure its done right.  I don’t have all the time in the world.  It’s not like I’m in college anymore.

During my freshmen year, I lived next door to a guy named Sheldon.  He was a Biology major and while he was the same age as me, he looked a lot older since he had a full blown goatee.  He would take advantage of his “older” appearance by going to the grocery store to buy alcohol without getting carded.  He would usually buy a bottle of wine, a baguette of french bread, and a couple of other things, so he would seem less suspicious than if he were to show up to the cashier with a handle of Jack Daniels and a 2 liter bottle of coke.    Eventually they started to ask him for his ID, and he would tell them he left it in his car and he’d leave.  He knew he couldn’t go to the cashiers that carded him previously so after about a month, his options all dried up and we no longer had access to booze.

Instead of giving up, Sheldon decided to get creative about accessing wine.  He decided that if he couldn’t buy it, he would try to make it.  So here we were, in a freshmen dormitory, with carafes filled with grape juice, yeast and whatever else he thought went into wine.  While he did some research on the internet, and while I’m sure his science background helped, I’m pretty sure the ingredients he needed to make wine weren’t available in the grocery store. I’m absolutely positive that’s where he was getting his goods, since I don’t remember him getting anything shipped to him as far as grapes were concerned.  I didn’t say anything about it.  I was just a lowly film major and if it all ended up working out, I didn’t want to get cut out of any wine with my negative attitude.

Eventually the day came where the wine was ready and Sheldon had his over in his room for a tasting.  I will give him credit for buying french bread and oil/vinegar to “classy” up the event, but all in all, his wine was a failure.  I didn’t drink enough of it to confirm whether it had become alcoholic or not since it tasted like barbecue sauce and not like wine.  We appreciated his valiant effort but in the end, it was all for naught.  He wasted a lot of time and money trying to make his own wine in his dorm room, and had nothing to show for it.  He ended up dumping it all, since it was undrinkable and he decided to give up on his dream of turning his dorm room into a winery.

Obviously, with my home brewing kit, I’ve been given detailed instructions, and ingredients that have been tested, so I probably won’t end up making beer that tastes like barbeque sauce.  I can look at Sheldon’s failure as a cautionary tale, but I can also look back on his experience with envy.  He threw caution in the wind, and swung for the fences at at time in our lives where there was little recourse (he ended up getting kicked out of school, but that’s because he was playing too much Everquest).  In my home brewing process, I won’t have that same thrill, but at the same time, I probably won’t fail, and at this point in my life, that’s probably a healthy thing for me.

Obviously, when you date someone, you want to make a good impression on their family, so it would make sense that at some point, these guys would want me to approve of them.  Since I was literally just a little kid, I find it odd that I’d been taken out quite a few times (I have lots of sisters, it’s not that they dated a lot of guys).  My sisters weren’t going to take any feedback I had about the guys seriously.

“Was he nice to you?”

“Yes.”

“What’d you guys do?”

“He bought me ice cream.”

“Do you like him?”

“Sure.”

Unless a guy punched me in the face, I was probably always going to say I had fun and the guy was nice, so I doubt that it was my sisters’ idea that I needed to be wined and dined, at least not with these not-so-serious boyfriends.  The serious boyfriends, I could understand.  Perhaps they thought I was some sort of guard dog that could smell shadiness.  There’s Something About Mary hadn’t come out yet, so I don’t think they viewed me that way, but I never asked.  I think their money would be better spent on my other sisters (closer in age, more likely to have an opinion) than a boy who doesn’t even understand how babies are made, but that was their choice, and I definitely reaped the benefits of it.

I particularly remember one prospective suitor, not because our time was particularly interesting, but because he wasn’t actually dating my sister, he was just interested in her.  He went to our church, so it wasn’t like a stranger wanted to take me out.  He took me to the mall, he bought me some frozen yogurt, and then he bought a bouquet of roses for my sister.  There might’ve been more to the day, but that’s all I remember.  My sister never actually dated the guy, which is kind of sad.  I know she had valid reasons, and I’ve never questioned her judgement (she’s happily married now).  He wasn’t a loser, he was just kind of a dork, who happened to like my sister A LOT.  Even I picked up on that.

As kind of weird as it was in retrospect, I give that guy credit for trying to score points with my sister with the gesture of taking me out.  His intentions were clear, he executed his plan, but unfortunately, he just came up a short of his goal in the end.  I don’t know what he ended up doing with his life, I hope that he ended up with a life that he was happy with and that he doesn’t live with any regrets about my sister (my sister is in a healthy and happy marriage so don’t be a creeper).  He was able to give it his best shot and he was able to state his case.

In my life, I try not to have many regrets.  Failure is a part of life that everyone experiences, so it shouldn’t be something to be ashamed of.  Most of my regrets stem from not being given a chance, not because I tried and failed.  While no one in my family keeps in touch with this guy, I don’t think this guy was a failure by any means.  He didn’t achieve his goal, but he took a risk and put his best foot forward.  He may not have been able to earn my sister’s hand, but he was able to gain the respect of a young boy.  He may have thought of himself as a reject and a loser afterwards, but as sad as it sounds, he was probably more of a man than most of the people that have passed through my life since.

I eventually did get a few minutes to chat.  Since it had only been a few months since she’d been gone, it was easy to fill her in on what she had missed.  Sure, we had Facebook, e-mail, and blogs to fill in some of those cracks, but it was nice to just let the conversation flow rather than sitting down and typing up bunch of concise facts.  Even though the time was brief, I didn’t feel like my time was rushed and I was able to share what I needed to share.  It’s not like my life had radically changed in the last 3 months and it won’t likely change too much in the next month by the time she comes back.

A year or so after our move to San Diego, Bruce’s family came to visit us, or more accurately, they came to California to visit some relatives and were nice enough to swing by to see us for a day as well.  Since they had other obligations, their time with us seemed brief but I was obviously thrilled to see them and made the most of it.  After their visit, there was a 6-7 year gap between that time and the next time I would see Bruce.  We kept in touch through the years with a couple of letters, the occasional (more like annual) phone call, and eventually instant messenger/e-mail when the technology became available.  I didn’t see Bruce again in person until my sophomore year of college and when I went to the airport to pick him up, I wondered if it would be really weird.  We were no longer kids, we could legally drive cars.  We pretty much missed each other’s teen years (though that may have been a good thing for us).  The dynamic in our friendship could’ve understandably been a lot different, but there I stood there at baggage claim wondering if I’d even recognize him right away when he walked by.

Luckily for us, things hadn’t changed too much.  We still loved to eat and play video games.  He got along with Phil, who generously drove us around, and I didn’t notice any awkward silence.  I don’t remember discussing what we had missed out in each other’s lives at all, but I’m sure there was a little of that.  I think we spent most of the time focussing on the present and the surreal notion that we were actually sitting in the same room as adults.  I think I asked him if he thought I talked like I was from California now or if I seemed different because of my move, but the only thing that seemed to stick out as different was how large the size of the asian population was at my school.  I think a lot of the big changes in either of our lives were mentioned mostly in passing and we weren’t very aware of the weight that they carried.  My oldest sister had gotten married and had a child.  I was already an uncle.  That’s kind of a crazy notion, but I don’t think I understood that then.

I’ve always found catching up with people as kind of an intimidating task and sometimes I’ve even found it intrusive with the friends who’ve dropped off the face of the earth and have come barging back into my life wanting to know everything they’ve missed out on.  I’m not sure where this disdain stems from, since I can’t really think of any specific instances where I’ve had a bad experience.  I’ve had to catch up with someone who missed out on years and years of my life in Bruce, and I’ve caught up with someone after just a few months of being out of the loop, and I found both instances to be refreshing.  Perhaps I can put whatever bad taste was in my mouth behind me, and look forward to a future where I’m happily sharing about my past.

In middle school, they pulled me out of the gifted english and history classes, because I was pretty ambivalent about my studies in 6th grade.  This allowed me to get good grades in 7th and 8th grade, while still being ambivalent about my studies.  So, in 8th grade English, I talked about music a lot with a kid named Billy, who was really into exploring punk rock, so I knew he’d want to borrow the Blink album.  (Later that year he’d end up going to one of those radio station sanctioned concerts that was headlined by Blink 182 and some band called Radiohead – the mid 90s were a weird time)  In exchange for Blink 182′s Cheshire Cat, he let me borrow Red Medicine by Fugazi.

I’m not sure if he decided to let me borrow Red Medicine on a whim, or if he gave me a few options and that’s what I picked.  Red Medicine was obviously a much more difficult listen that Cheshire Cat. The production was more raw, the guitars weren’t always exactly in tune, and the vocals were a little harsh, but I immediately loved the album.  It was what punk rock is supposed to be, passionate and fiery.  While I still enjoy Cheshire Cat, it’s not a punk album, and Blink 182 is not a punk band.  Fugazi opened my eyes to what punk was at the exact same time that San Diego was becoming known as the punk/ska capital of the music world.

Eventually, Billy and I had to return the CDs to each other and after that year in middle school, we kind of lost touch.  I was placed back into the gifted english and history classes for high school, Billy stayed in the regular classes, and I didn’t really see him again until prom where he showed up in a purple pimp suit.  I don’t think I talked to him directly that night but I remember him being particularly obnoxious.  It saddened me a little that I felt that way.  I should’ve been proud of him that he was going against the grain and being edgy, but I don’t think he was trying to be punk rock that night.  At least, not in the Fugazi way, maybe in the Blink 182 way.  Even though I was wearing a tux, complete with a boutineer, I didn’t feel like I had sold out.

It would’ve been nice to lie and talk about how Billy’s appearance at prom had reminded me of how un-punk rock I had become, but it hadn’t.  It actually made me wonder if the CD exchange from 4 years earlier, had altered both of our life journeys.  Billy went down the road of dick and fart jokes with Blink 182, while I raged with indifference against the ridiculous and unforgiving social fabric of high school society.  While I’m far from what Ian Mackaye would want me to be, he’d probably appreciate that I understand that I’m not very punk rock opposed to thinking that being juvenile and obnoxious were the ideals.

We were young, and hopefully that was the last time that Billy ever wore that outfit.  I may never see him again, but I do wish him well.  I did really like talking to him in class in 8th grade and I’ll never forget that he introduced me to a band that was much much better than Blink 18s, and for that, I will always be thankful.

I’m not hoping to find someone that I work with or will eventually work with.  I think my friend’s parents have a unique situation.  I also think that there’s a huge difference between how our parents prioritized things and how we now prioritize things.  Working at one place for over 30 years is unheard of these days, especially when it’s not a business that you can call your own, or a job that you can’t consider as your “dream job”. Like I mentioned before, I don’t remember what they do for a living, but I’m betting that if they were actually passionate about their jobs, I would have some sort of memory of what it was.  I did see them a few years ago.  I do remember them still being at the same place.  I just forgot to ask what they did after all these years.

It probably doesn’t matter to them that I don’t remember.  They’re just happy that they live comfortably and that they were able to raise their one daughter off of their income.  As far as I can tell they have passions outside their job, but they’ve been fine just making a living.  I think my parents were the same way.  I think a lot of parents in that generation had this mentality as well.  It’s something I kind of envy.

I’ve been drawn to art ever since my adolescent years. I’ve always wanted to do something artistic.  Whether it be playing in a band, being a screenwriter/director, and now as some sort of essayist/short story writer, I’ve always felt that it’s what I should be doing for a living.  My expectations aren’t as grand as one might expect.  I don’t expect to ever be flying around in leer jets while swimming around in a money bin full of money, but I’ve always felt like making art for a living was what I’m supposed to be doing, even though I’m able to find steady, stable, employment elsewhere.

In college my first goal was to record some music, which I was able to do before the end of my sophomore year.  Later, my goal became to finish a full length screenplay before I graduated.  Once again, I was able to accomplish my goal, and I was pretty satisfied with myself.  I completed my goals, and I didn’t embarrass myself in the process.  I didn’t care that I didn’t get a record deal out of my EP or that I didn’t sell a bunch of copies of it.  I just cared that people liked it.  For some reason, starting with that screenplay, I’ve needed my penchant for writing to become a sustainable job for me and unfortunately that hasn’t happened yet.

I feel like I’m dawdling.  I had a friend in college who told me that he smoked a lot of weed in high school.  After freshmen year in college, he had an epiphany and stopped smoking so he could focus on his studies.  He got into grad school and is now doing research that he’s really passionate about.  I really wonder if I’ll ever have a similar epiphany where I’ll stop complaining in my mind about my stable, reasonably stressful job that I currently have.  I don’t think it’s bad to look for better opportunities, but I wish I could be happier with what I have.

Perhaps I haven’t found the trigger for my epiphany to appreciate “normal work” yet.  Perhaps it’ll be something profound like having my first kid, or maybe it’ll be something that barely seems related to the future of my life.  Maybe in 30 years, I’ll look back at these times and laugh at how foolish I was for thinking that I needed to create art for a living and that I could never picture myself working at one place for 30 years or maybe I’ll look back and smile at the struggle to finally get to where I wanted to go.  Either way, I hope I’ll finally be able to find that peace.

I ended up leaving the apartment after a year and started my journey of bouncing around Orange County.  First, I moved closer to campus, then to the beach, then back towards campus, before finally touching down in the city of Orange.  I didn’t have a particular affinity for any of these places, but I stuck around anyways.  Going back to San Diego seemed like a retreat, not just because I would most likely live with my parents again, but because I wanted to eventually make it as a screenwriter in LA, and San Diego was in the opposite direction.  I never moved to LA because I could never find that right combination of finding a job there and people to live with.  I could write from Irvine, or Orange, and then make trips up to LA whenever the studios started calling, but they never did.  After a while, it occurred to me, that proximity to LA probably shouldn’t be my only reason for staying in Orange, so I embarked on a little “tour”.  I made a list of places that I might see myself settling down in and went to visit them.  Fortunately, I had friends that lived at all these specific stops.  Unfortunately, none of the places inspired me to pick up all of my belongings.

I’m not necessarily restless to get out of here, but the fact that all my roommates have picked up their things and left- well… it makes me feel uneasy, like I was somehow left behind.  I know everyone’s timing is different, and perhaps I’m supposed to be here for a while longer and there’s some special purpose for that.  I’m wondering if the dreams that I’m pursuing are the ones I’m supposed to be pursuing and if I’m honestly in the right place at the right time.  Is this just a pit stop before I head towards bigger and better things, or is this it?  I, by no means, live a miserable life and if this is all it’s cracked up to be, I would like to try to appreciate it more for what it is than what I would like to be.  I mean, I should probably do that anyways, but right now I have goals and dreams that I haven’t attained, and it definitely puts a damper on my current reality.

While my roommates have dispersed across the country, I’m still here.  In fact, I work within a few miles of where we went to school.  When I go to the market, I enter our old landline phone number ###-SUCK and it still works.  I don’t even know if any of the roommates still remember it or the story of how Phil chose that for us.  I wouldn’t say college was the best time of my life or any of our lives, but we all keep in touch more or less, so the friendships that were formed in that apartment were definitely not superficial.  We haven’t had a set reunion or anything – that’s not our style, and our lives have spread us pretty far apart.  We’ve been out of college for seven years now, but it seems much shorter than that.  I’m not sure if I feel that way because I haven’t felt like I’ve accomplished much or that I haven’t made a crazy cross-country move, but I think staying in an area for 7 years is an accomplishment in itself.  I’ve managed, with plenty of mistakes and growing pains, to live on my own, and I think when I first got out of college, that was my main goal anyway, and it’s a goal that I’m glad I achieved.