Space Nakji

I hate when I write some kind of irritated, ranting post then walk away for eight days. It’s not that I’m trying to be all pollyanna on you. I embrace the bitter and disgruntled. But still, I’d rather leave you alone in the house with a bit of poetry to mull over rather than my deepest, innermost thoughts about the weather.

But I can’t seem to summon the blog muses lately, and I can only assume that it’s for all the right reasons. The trip to California was the best so far and brought my mom and I closer together, perhaps closer than we’ve ever been. Work is busy. Finally getting writing done. Studying the stars to plot out the next five-year leg of my wayward journey. And, hardest of all, putting on my big girl face so I can respond to certain questions without spazzing out.

In fact, most discussions lately that involve anything further than what I’m doing tomorrow are liable to set off peals of panic. I’ve witnessed the same thing happening to The Missus, as a simple question like “How’s your summer going?” will trigger a five-minute barrage of clumsily strung together clauses and unsolicited justifications.

So what have I been doing lately that I can talk about here that might be even remotely entertaining or newsworthy? I haven’t baked anything new, so that’s out. Haven’t written anything that’s in any shape to share. Haven’t knocked anyone over on the subway or been chased by the undead. In fact, the only revelation I’ve had of late is that the most heart-breaking thing anyone can say to me is, “I’m really going to miss you.”

How do you respond to that? I’ll miss you, too. I’ll miss you more. I won’t miss you because I’ll be too busy dulling the pain with varying proportions of butter and sugar. I’ll miss you so much that I’ll drop everything and everyone and split myself in two, plant half here and half there, and grow into someone who can sit down and eat lunch with you every day and talk to you until you fall asleep every night.

You’d think after six or so years in Korea, I would learn to stop asking people such ridiculous questions as “When did the rainy season start this year?” and “Has it been raining for one or two weeks now?”

Any such attempts to get a fix on this year’s changma will invariably be met with the following pearls of wisdom: “The Korean rainy season begins in mid-June and ends in mid-July.” “In Korea, the monsoon season lasts for around one month.”

Never mind the fact that for the last few years, the monsoons have been starting later and lasting longer into the summer. Last year, I was in Denmark from late June to mid-July, which, according to the above information, should have meant that I was gone for the duration of the monsoons. Nevertheless, I returned home to find that it hadn’t rained much in my absence, and that in fact the rains were just beginning. I was rained on for two months straight last summer. Yet, “The Korean rainy season begins in mid-June and ends in mid-July.” Yeah, maybe in the Chosun Dynasty, back when these things were recorded in the royal ledgers.

This year, I spent what should have been the second week of changma out of country. Now I’m back and it’s so humid, it’s difficult to breathe outdoors. When I asked my hair cutter how long it’s been raining, his response was, “In Korea, our rainy season begins in mid-June and ends in mid-July.” The hell it does. I left on the last day of June and it still wasn’t raining!

I mean, what gives? Are they not hearing the actual words in my question, or do they just assume it’s another dumb foreigner asking, “What’s changma?”

I know, I know. Generally speaking, that is the correct explanation of the start and end dates of the rainy season. But since when does weather act in any general way, especially lately? Maybe the next time someone asks me how the weather is in California, I’ll say that every day it is 95 degrees and burning. So don’t forget your asbestos suit the next time you go on vacation. There’s a reason the name was derived from the Spanish for “hot oven.” And don’t be surprised that gay marriage was finally passed. We’ve always liked our trees flaming.

Space Nakji: So’m all like, dood…

Girlfriend: You sound more American now.

———————

Coworker: Welcome back!

Space Nakji: Thanks!

Coworker: Where’d you go anyway?

Space Nakji: California

Coworker: Oh, you went to a nice place!

Space Nakji: Mmm.

Coworker: But isn’t California supposed to be sunny? You didn’t get tan at all.

Space Nakji: I’m very serious about sunscreen.

Coworker: Still, you don’t look like someone who just came back from vacation.

Space Nakji: I’m not kidding about the sunscreen.

———————

Space Nakji: *gasp!* *pant!*

Paper Fan Struggling To Stir The Air Heavy With Humidity:  Swish, swish, ahh.

I’ve had it. From now on, unless you’re dating someone I already know and approve of, I refuse - REFUSE, I tell you! - to meet your new boyfriend/girlfriend/dating partner/f— buddy in order to tell you what I think of them.

What do I think of them? Based on virtually every other “new boy/girlfriend” I’ve met in the last 32 years, I’ll tell you right now what I think of them: L.O.S.E.R. 

Not worth it. Not worth you. Wasting your time. Dump ‘em now before you’re in too deep. Pale, milk-fed, soft-bellied, smooth-handed wastes of space. Girlfriend cheatin’ on you? DUMP HER. Boyfriend sits around all day playing video games and blowing his parents’ money on internet poker? DUMP HIM. 

Let’s face it. If you even have to ask me to size them up for you, there’s something wrong!

While I’m at it, I am also declaring a moratorium on providing a sympathetic ear. My ear is done with heartache that never heals itself. If every time we have a conversation, it revolves around anecdotes about your partner giving you a lot of double talk about your relationship / putting you down and treating you like shit / telling you to quit school because “what’s the point of studying?”, then, for the love of all that is merciful, realize that something is wrong and DUMP THEM. 

Yes, yes, it will suck for a month or so. But that’s nothing a little bout of wanton promiscuity can’t fix.

Hmm. Well. I guess there’s always Fresno.

Figures. No sooner am I really feeling at home again and all settled in and cozy with the parents, but I get a little reminder of everything I don’t like about Southern California living:  i.e., spiders in the bathroom. Gigantic, spiders in the bathroom.

Or to be specific, one gigantic spider in the bathroom, since they’re not social creatures. Nor am I. And perhaps that’s why I can’t abide them on my turf. If we were both tigers, say, or spiders, we’d have some way of signaling to the other that, hey, this patch of tiled floor is taken so shove off, Hairy. But no matter how heartily I acknowledge the spider, I don’t get any acknowledgement in return. 

Or maybe I did. Maybe it acknowledged me in that it did not immediately leap onto my face and suck my brains out through my eye sockets. After all, it was there first when I turned on the light, and I was the one to back down. Isn’t there some pheromone that can be sprayed, or a special huff or snarl to keep it away in the future? Shall I mount another spider’s head on a stake and plant it near the bathtub drain?

No, no. I do not like Southern California. I know that other places also come with spiders in the bathroom, but this *particular* bathroom has had a disproportionate amount of spiders, hairy gigantor spiders, compared to all the other bathrooms in the world that I have been in. And for that reason, I do not care for it. 

And my meals still consist of 북어국, 굴비, 오겹살, 찹쌀 도너츠, 밥, 만두, 반찬…