Secret Lives of the American Teenager

After and during a Thanksgiving meal at my uncle's house, I was embroiled in discussion with a group of not-so-young teenagers. My cousin, now nineteen and a sophomore at Berkeley, had two of her childhood friends over. One was a year older, the other two years younger. They represented a perfect focus group for me. After giving them a thorough interview about the things they read as a young adult, scrolling through their iPod Nanos, and asking them about their obsessions, I got onto the topic of how they perceived their social status in high school. That somehow led to this gem:

"So when you did stop being shy?" I asked.
Sarah, the oldest one and seemingly very outgoing and probably the most comfortable with who she currently was, reminisced for me. "Like maybe sophomore year of high school."
"Oh yeah? Why?"
"I got my braces off." That answer, cliche because it's absolutely true, dissolved us all into laughter. It was the perfect response and her charming smile afterwards drove home the point.

For most of the evening, I'd been intently studying Ashley and her friends, watching them and more importantly, listening. What I realized is that I hadn't really captured the way real teenagers act/talk like very well in the Chloe book. I wrote teenagers as I've read them before -- it was a rendition based on a rendition. Even though I've been told that my dialogue represents female teens well, I noticed that I really did a piss poor job of capturing the little details that really highlight the way lines are spoken and a conversation is exchanged.

For example, the contrast between the hyper kinetic way one of the girls talked versus the slowly measured way my cousin chose her words and how that difference in energy changes the way you listen and react. And how talking really really fast tends to make a girl seem younger, even if her words are wise beyond her ears.

Plus I didn't put in enough physical cues, the sort that really capture a person. I stuck in some "beats" of course, but they were generic and not so much revealing as functional. The hardest thing I had to learn writing this book was working with dialogue. My first drafts read like screen plays and I found it an entirely new experience to have to vary the visual space of having people talk on a page. I kind of wish I had recorded parts of yesterday's conversation so I could practice recapping it in book fashion.

I've been trying to listen more to the world around me, in an attempt to become a more observant and better writer. It's difficult for me because my memory is terrible nowadays. I purchased a beautiful perfectly sized orange notebook a few weeks ago to carry with me, mainly to write down bits of conversation that I hear. It's not easy though, because people talk faster than I write. And I'm not in the habit of jotting things down quite yet. But I can work at it. For now, I'll just keep my eyes and ears open and find some more teenagers to study.

It's crazy to me how with it teenagers are. From re-meeting and interacting with my sixteen year old cousin this past fall, and exchanging weekly emails with her, I've realized that there really is no intelligence gap. There's an experience gap, a maturity gap (arguably), but there is no intelligence or worldliness gap at all. If anything, teenagers tend to have more stimulating conversations than the ones I'm typically engaged in with my peers, maybe because they (still) possess nimble curious minds and seem to have opinions about everything. Given a choice, I might very well prefer to hang out with the teenage crowd than the post-collegiate crowd. They seem to be more full of life, excitement, and possess this boundless optimism mixed with a wariness that's studied but not yet experienced. It's certainly a more invigorating combination than alcohol and banalness.

Blast from the Past

"and to answer the 'are we still at odds' portion of the email. the quick answer is no. however, driving home was no joy. i tried to defend my miscommunication, but then i gave up. she gets real agitated when we talk about this stuff. i haven't known her long enough, or well enough, to understand why she gets the way she does when talking about such things. we were nominally okay but she didn't seem like she was having a great day. and then on tuesday, we were trying to discuss going to eat or not eat or something. and i was somewhat snippy and rude (for just one second, and one statement). she wasn't happy about that. but she coughed it down. and then i addressed it later. so far i think she's cried, or i've made her cry, a total of five or six times since sunday. then on wednesday she told me that she didnt want to hang out that night (we were all to go to a friend's for a pizza/grammy's thing) because she was in a funk, sad, and didn't know what to do.

of course, i had also said things to her like 'its really hard for me to care about someone, and it's been interesting to try.' i think she's wondering why i have to try to care, why someone doesn't just automatically care. anyway, i was for sure that once the decline happens, it's irreversible. and maybe it is. this could be much more detailed than you wanted to know. the end of the story is that we're not at odds really but there's much to discuss. and i'd also like to sweep the last week under the carpet, but i don't think i want to.

i've given a lot of thought to how much i distance myself from people, and not just in relationships. i can't figure out how or why. i think i seem like i'm pretty close and open to just about everyone, and i am, but on an almost superficial-ish level. and i'm finding out that during this so called relationship, that i'm so much more aware of my motivations and reactions to everything. like i'm so clear about everything.

do you want someone more or less sassy than you? assuming 'sassy' is a good way to describe yourself (which is not how i would describe you, but just humor me). would you constantly be trying to out-sass someone if you went out with someone who was sassier than you? basically i'm wondering if you'd want to be with someone who had less than, equal, or more personality than you (at least outwardly)."
-Feb 2006-

The Safety of Objects

Oh love at first sight. It's so damn magical mythical isn't it? Can you tell I just came back from watching Twilight? All those long tortured stare downs between Edward and Bella. Goodness gracious. Part of you just wants to scream "Get it on!" but the other part of you wants to drag those delicious moments out forever.

Most everyone has had an experience like that in their past, when you just knew that you and someone special should get together. That's what usually happens to me. Not that I look at someone and feel like we are destined for each other, but within the first minutes of our interaction, I can pretty much already figure out if I like this person. I'm not a wishy washy type of liker. I just know. The most honest and dramatic instance of this was probably with my last ex. It certainly wasn't like we saw each other and fell in love but afterwards we both admitted to this instant chemistry that was different than just simple attraction.

From our first fleeting interactions to when she actually started hanging out with us/me, there was this clear and undeniable sense that we were definitely going down the path of romance. It's an addictive feeling. Embarking on those first few weeks (or hours) of hanging out and finding yourself falling in love -- if not actually in love in love -- and having every moment and spare thought directed toward the other person. That's what relationships are all about right? Wanting to be with someone so much that everything else fades into the distance? That's the magic of it anyway.

I'm a bit notorious for smothering the object of my affection with attention in the first few months. I lather up the attention, I present this incredibly fun and devoted side, and then I get the girl, thus portending a long gradual slide into inattention and problems. So that initial burst of enthusiasm, if you can call it that, never sustains itself. Not for lack of trying but something in my nature is always looking for that next big hit, the rush that can really only come about from having new people and relationships.

"Hey girl how you doing
Do you feel like talking?
Or do you need me to call you back
You from round what way and when's your birthday
Or what's your zodiac sign
Well I'm a Virgo so my sign's compatible
What you do for fun cause I don't drink or club
I just like to chill with somebody like you

Everything is cool when love is all brand new
Cause you're learning me and I'm learning you"
-Musiq Soulchild, Newness-

What I'm learning though, as reflection on a long string of failed relationships, is that the initial rush combined with attraction doesn't have to equate to relationship. In fact, I'm sort of deciding that being in the zone of just really admiring and loving that grey space is perhaps all I need. It keeps me on edge. Like the possibility of something happening, along with the safety of having nothing happen, might work out best for me. Looking at it that way, I'm faced with confusion about what a workable relationship is anymore.

I'd rather not repeat mistakes of the past but I find myself unable to get excited about dating someone without that rush. I mean, I fear that the pace I'm historically used to will lead to the exact same dead ends. I've been told that maybe the issue is that I need to be dating someone who can continually excite and stimulate me. Once that newness wears off, I need to be sure that the person I'm in a relationship with can continually makes things fresh. But that goes against everything I know and understand about relationships.

It seems to me like relationships are mostly about building and maintaining your own two person island. The trees go here, Thursdays go there, the moat is this deep and this wide, and the whole point of it is to be in familiar space. Relationships are about building a safe place and comfort. To step away from that paradigm is not only new territory but also something I don't really have a roadmap for.

Examples is what I need, I need examples of relationships that aren't insular by creation. Or maybe I just need to watch more Twilight.

Clan of the Cave Bear

As is wont to happen when a couple of guys get together at a bar, the talk turned to women. We ran through the usual debates and comments -- rehashing them because this wasn't a familiar guy grouping, at least to me. "Which city has the hotter girls?" "What do you look for in a girl?" That kind of thing. With a five to one single to taken ratio, we had a lot of opinions but not a lot of options.

The conversation turned to what particular traits about women intimidated us. Intelligence, money, age, experience? I said that a girl's cool factor could definitely intimidate me, especially in relation to this one girl from college, whom I've (rightly) dubbed "the coolest girl/person ever." She's seriously the only person I consciously just felt nervous about talking to and years later, I still feel the residual nervousness of those (non-)interactions.

Someone else said that beauty intimidated them. Like he would be very self conscious around a really attractive woman. In his mind he could picture the future and how it would be to fend off other pursuers. Then we reminded him that this wouldn't be in terms of a relationship, but just in the getting to know you stage. Even worse he said. He'd be even more aware of the "Who is that douchebag with the hot chick?" comments.

One of the guys, someone I don't know very well, said that he couldn't date someone smarter than him. We made the obligatory "Everyone is smarter than you" jokes but then dug a little deeper. What do you mean by intelligence and how much smarter would she have to be? Would being say, a lawyer or engineer, qualify her as too smart? The flippant reply was that she could be smart but not smart enough to realize that she should be dating better than him. Which was the perfect humorous answer but also probably a little bit true.

Another guy then brought up how he'd feel intimidated by a girl who was more worldly or cultured. Like if they'd been around and seen a lot of the world or experienced more of life. That would make him less sure of himself. It was interesting to see what people answered, even if it was just bar talk and not necessarily anything to be taken seriously.

The conversation wrapped up and we headed out.

It didn't pass me by that we were off to meet two successful girl friends for dinner. One is a lawyer and recently moved into the city. She's expecting her bar results this Friday. Her firm has had only one person fail in the past four years. That's apparently insane because the passage rate for the California bar is only 40%. It goes without saying that she's working for a top firm. Our other female dinner companion has been steadily working on her grad school applications for awhile now, fitting that task around her day job helping a Nobel winner with his research. Of the other two girls who'd normally be accompanying us for dinner, one was a law student and the other was more highly paid than any male there. By a long shot.

We're no dummies but it seems like we tend to know, as a general rule, women who are more accomplished than us on most levels. Money, intelligence, (looks), skills, coolness, culture, and any and all of everything we'd just talked about. So what did we have going for us? Well, we were men. And um, men rule?

All I can say is thank god for electronics that break and things that need to be moved or hung up occasionally.

Day 80

I'm up in the Bay now, for a span of three to four weeks. Upon landing and taking my bags into her apartment, George and I strolled down the block for donuts and coffee. My stock is recently high with her so she's been gracious enough to allow me to stay. I also quickly helped her spring clean and find some space for my luggage, my new computer desk, and my presence. The hope is that she'll find having me around so joyous that I can be here for an extended amount of time. This represents the longest period we'll have had occupying the same space since high school and it could lead to some momentous brother-sister breakthroughs. Or she'll tire of me and want to kick me out. Let's hope for the former.

In my idealized San Francisco life I picture myself wandering the city from one end to the other, iPod blasting and my feet never tiring. I'd drop in on friends during their lunch hours while spending the mornings and early afternoons at a cafe reading and writing. After six days of this I'll have met a new acquaintance that will quickly become a friend. She/he will introduce me to their social circle and I will have an opportunity to explore the side of the Bay that I've suspected but never seen. That acquaintance will be a writer or an artist, and also available to hang out during normal person working hours. I will be inspired and creative and finish a book proposal that will instantly get sold because of how marketable it is. Then when unemployment runs out, I will take a part time job that doesn't require much brain power but helps to pay the bills.

And I will finally have bills. Rent, electricity, cable, Internet, and cell phone. Plus a monthly budget that involves lots of movies. I will be technically poor but rich in spirit and culture. I will live in a three person apartment far away from the parts of town that teem with unwashed homeless people. But close enough to a bus line that I understand. I will be carless but friends will be willing to pick me up -- once in awhile.

I will have two special friends. One I'll meet for dinner every Wednesday (or Thursday) and talk about things that we can't talk about in the presence of others. Mainly gossip and "What did you think when?..." The other will be someone I never see but spend hours on the phone with as I walk the city. I will also date. Perhaps just one or two but they will be learning experiences.

That's how San Francisco will be, once I can muster up the courage to face the winds and go outside.

Day 74

Listening to: Elvis Presley, "You've lost that loving feeling". I had no idea this was Elvis' song. Watching the video, he is really The King.

I'm psyched to be heading to San Francisco on Saturday. I'm going for a few weeks, a month, maybe more. No agenda, no purpose, just getting away from San Diego. I have the notion that I'll go up and start looking for work (unemployment runs out in January) and to figure out if I can actually make a real move up there. There's nothing really holding me to San Diego at the moment and I really didn't want to spend the end of 2008 still slumming it in SD.

My original plan was the get up there by early November but that was put on delay as I've had to finish a few projects, host a few out-of-towners, and generally lie low and um, play Warcraft a lot. I've been having trouble sleeping recently. Going to bed at six am, waking up a few hours later, and then feeling like I don't want to sleep again. But then I'm too tired to actually do anything productive so I listen to a few podcasts, pop in a movie, and inevitably waste my semi-waking hours anyway. That all changed this past weekend as I suddenly acclimated myself to a normal schedule (not on purpose) and now I'm up before nine and my head is filled with excitement and energy.

I think my body is telling me it's done hibernating and ready to be productive.

Recently one of my best friends came to visit with her fiance and our friendship refrain is that we never spend any actual time together. Out of our eight years or so of friendship, we've probably spent less than three months of it actually hanging out. They came on a West Coast swing to see if they could possibly move out here after he finishes this part of residency.

I really like her fiance a lot. I've never met her previous serious boyfriends because there's a part of me that doesn't like to own up to the fact that she's not "mine." But this one is her one and he's a really solid, great guy. That's the struggle with having close friends get married. I like to conceive of certain friends being "mine," of extending an ownership blanket over them, but when they get married, that all changes. I know, I know, you can't own people, not fairly anyway, but that's just how I think about some friendships.

Day 71

George had this to say about the anniversary of dad's death. ("Anniversary" seems like a weird word to use in this context).

"i dont know why but i always feel as if on his anniversay i should be staying home, alone and reminiscing on past memories and then when i dont, i always end up feeling guilty about it. i feel guilty that somehow im being a bad daughter and because for the other 364 days of the year, i dont really think about it or it doesnt really play a big part of my daily life and that for just one day, just 24 hours, i should pay my proper respects."

Since I was actually in San Diego, I accompanied my mom to the memorial park. We packed up a plastic trash bin full of flowers and headed over there as it rained slightly. Generally speaking, I don't visit the grave because it's not a place that speaks to me of my dad. Instead, I mostly go when prompted and even then I'm slightly resistant. It's not because it's hard or difficult, but rather because the physical resting place doesn't hold much meaning for me.

I used to imagine going there by myself and sitting there in the nice grass, thinking deep thoughts and maybe clearing my head or heart or something. It doesn't work like that. Something seems deeply artificial to me about going to a cemetery by myself, or with anyone actually. It's hard to overlook the gardeners, the obvious economic benefit of the tiny plots, and the general sense that this is less a place for resting than a place to be put away.

When we go, my mom is always insistent on cleaning the memorial plaque and removing the dirt, twigs, and debris. My paternal grandmother is buried a few rows up and to the left of my dad and it's usually George and my job to tend to her plaque and to fill her flower pot. I'm ready to leave as soon as we dump the flowers off but my mom usually will gather us together for a moment or two of silence and "talking."

I'm not even sure if anyone is talking to my dad except for my mom. I dunno, do you talk to him George? I'd bet neither one of us does. In this I feel like we're the same -- even in if nearly everything else we're opposites. One of the first inklings for me that we may be more alike than different was in the seemingly emotionless way we both dealt with my dad's sudden departure.

I don't think either of us really cried, at least in front of each other. Actually, I think I did, maybe at his Chinese funeral. Regardless, both of us were more similar in our non-reaction than our obvious grief. Which surprised me because I'd expected her to be a crying mess. Shows what I know.

I think the problem I have with a day of remembrance or a day of grief or mourning or whatnot is the whole ritualization of it. In time it starts to lose its meaning and the actions come to mean less and less. By doing such and such in this or that order, you preserve the moment but lose the meaning. At least that's the way it feels. I've never asked any of my other friends who have lost parents if they feel similarly. I should I guess, because I feel like both of us feel a bit abnormal, whereas it might very well be perfectly normal to be cooking bok choy at home and going house dancing at night in remembrance.

What the hell are you waiting for?

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation."
-Thoreau-

The other day I was talking to James and he had a conversation with a mutual friend and he asked him, "Are you happy?" Which is one of those super generic questions but it took the friend by surprise because people so rarely asked him that. Like his life is full of friends, activities, and general happiness but beneath it lies a lot of unrest and skepticism about the direction everything is going. What was lacking was a purpose. For example, I don't want kids, I'm essentially devoid of a career, and I'm not tied into the idea of finding marriage or a life partner, so at the end of the day, what do you live for? I guess the short answer is that you have one life to live so it's always worth doing something versus nothing but without anything tying you down, it can be a very transitory existence. You make do and try to accomplish what you can and search out joy wherever you can but that's almost pointless right? Like the same as just idling and hoping time passes?

It's about finding purpose, I guess.

Day 65

I didn't participate today in the most historic of days and I don't even have a good reason why. Someday, maybe my children will ask, "So did you vote for Obama?" and I'll hem and haw and maybe say, "Yup, sure did!" just to be a part of the action. That was probably my best reason to vote actually, to join in the movement. After all, this is one of those things that will define our lifetime right? "Where were you when American elected its first African-American president?"

Nearly everyone else I know voted. I have friends who have thrown their all into this election and are going to bed tonight with success and joy in their hearts. I wish I could give a good coherent reason for why I declined to vote. It's not like I didn't have the time. There are a lot of stupid often trotted out excuses and none of those really apply to me. I just didn't feel like it. But it's not just about the presidency since there were other issues very worthy of support. Same sex marriage in California might be overturned and if just a few more people like me had gotten off their asses, maybe it wouldn't have been this close.

I think if you neglect or choose not to vote, you also give up your right to have opinions about it. Or rather, your opinions on people who voted the other way. Like today on Facebook everyone was donating their status updates to Obama or McCain. In my mind I'm going "You're voting for McCain? Really?" But who the hell am I to be able to say that? I didn't do shit. Overall it's probably indicative of a sideline posture I consistently adopt in life, where by not doing something, you do absolutely nothing. Which means I lose, I guess.

Anyone else wonder what was the point of the hologram interviews they were having? I have to say I was mighty suspicious if it was really a hologram or just some TV gimmick that made it look like a hologram. I mean, didn't it look way too Stars Wars-y to you?

Oh wait, that was an opinion I shouldn't be allowed to have. Fuck, maybe I should've voted.

Crash

Listening to: Bonnie "Prince" Billy, covering R.Kelly's "World's Greatest."

Tonight I spent time in the company of two close friends, but in such incredibly different ways. The first one was just a brief dinner, downtown with her, her friend, and her boyfriend. We ate pizza, drank wine, admired his cat's climbing abilities, and generally talked about Halloween and the Midwest. This particular friend represents a very important person in my life but at the same time, I have a hard time sometimes gauging exactly when/how we're close. There are things I'd inconvenience myself to do for this friend that I'd rarely do for others but a lot of that has to do with the fact that I've just decided I want to be this way for her. Like somewhere along the way in our friendship I've decided that I'd just be this person, ready and willing to say "Yes" to anything.

Now, does that mean that our friendship would falter if I wasn't like this? I don't know. Does it seem to go against tenets I've set up around my other friendships? Sort of. Truth to tell, oftentimes we're as much out of touch with each other's lives as acquaintances and there are times when it feels we are that exactly distant. From the outside looking in, I think other people would hardly know that we were friends, much less close ones. Only after repeated verbal and life affirmation would this fact be clear.

There's quite a bit of history to our friendship, much of it forged years ago and that's something that's always stood very prominently in my mind. And in a way, it gives me this foundation to unquestioningly depend and revel in this friendship, even when it seems like there are hardly any things to say at times.

The rest of my night was spent walking Coronado beach, with feet bare and frozen by the cold sand, and eventually settling on a life guard tower to smoke and talk. It's been a difficult time with this friend, my declared best friend, and we haven't seen or talked much to each other recently. In contrast to my experience earlier that night, there was a lot to say, and a lot of situational comfortability, but also this pervasive sense of not really knowing what we could and wanted to talk about.

I'd forgotten recently that the beach had always been our place. Dating back to high school, our typical hang out would consist of me picking her up, grabbing some coffee and cigarettes, and then heading to the nearby beach to catch up. The rhythm of our friendship was consistent for many years. No shared friendships, no cross-over lives, just simply see each other once or twice a year to talk -- and for me, solve.

Recently that rhythm has changed, to include hanging out or talking nearly daily and now that that rhythm has changed, the friendship is under a bit of strain. It hasn't been easy. But aside from that, in comparing the two experiences, one impersonally personal, the other personally impersonal, I couldn't help thinking about how these two friends represent very distant points on my friendship model and if there was something lacking in both.

Or something lacking in how I've been keeping all friendships. How is it that two people, both considered to be very close to me, can exist in such separate spaces in my life and in my interactions with them? And why do I have such trouble detailing those things to either of them? Or more accurately, verbalizing and identifying what I want/need from one, and what I can/can't give to the other?

The Next Episode

Okay, get over to jonyang.org to find out about "Exclusively Chloe," my next book, coming May 2009. Because this place is dead anyway.