I'm Ashamed to Admit...

I kinda like Miley Cyrus! ACK! I'm a 32 year old woman that likes to listen to the pop-music of a 15 year old - I know...so sad! I barely roll down my windows when Britney Spears is playing, but Miley - it's either sunroof only or A/C on. Suddenly, I feel like I'm part of an AA meeting!!!

When her song, 'See You Again' came out a few months ago, I thought, 'Hmmm...this is pretty catchy.' Of course I'm not a big fan of lyrics that include the singer's own name...like when she sings in the chorus, 'My best friend, Leslie, said, 'Oh she's just being Miley.' That part I find a little gay. (Ugh, I even talk like a 15-year old!) But other than that, I like it. It's got a good beat and although it doesn't make me want to get up and dance like a Solid Gold Dancer, it's still got a good beat to drive to, work to, and/or workout to.

Whenever the song came on the radio and my husband was in the car, he begged me to change it. He usually does this for pop songs in general...but if I was driving...no way...it's driver's choice. The song stayed on. When he was driving, no such luck. But if I was alone in the car, sometimes I secretly wished it would come on just so I could enjoy it.

About a month after it really hit the airwaves, I was sitting in a sports bar having dinner and the DJ played it. (They always have music on over the games.) And when it came on, I started bee-bopping to it. The waitress/bartender came by, saw me...I saw her....she was bee-bopping to it too.
Then she said, 'I kinda like this song.'
I replied, 'Me too.'
She said, 'But I haven't made it as far to download it on iTunes.'
I replied, 'Yeah, me too.'
It's a guilty pleasure, I guess.

When I was working from home a few weeks ago, I caught her on Good Morning, America...giving her Friday concert in Central Park. Two weeks later, again while working from home, I found out she was going to be on the Today Show for their Friday morning concert series. I was secretly excited because I was pretty impressed with her GMA showing. So while I was working, I caught Miley in concert - she sang her new song, 'Seven Things I Hate About You.' A little mouthy -but it's a decent song. It's no 'See You Again' but I'll take it.

I find that she's a good performer; I mean she's 15 - she's a ball of energy. She might garner bad publicity sometimes, but we all did stupid stuff when we were 15 - we always wanted to be older than we were. BTW - was it me or did her Vanity Fair controversial photo make her look like a 'cleaner' version of Heath Ledger's Joker? I think it's the lips. She has a pretty deep voice for a 15 year old and although she's not as talented in the pipes as Christina Aguilera or even Kelly Clarkson, she does know how to entertain - and isn't that what the gist of it is? She's entertaining....she is the Annette Funicello of her generation.


I won't be going to her concert anytime soon - I'm not THAT obsessed with her that I'm willing to battle over-eager parents and screaming tween girls to see her live. And if I did happen to go to her concert, I would feel like I'd have to borrow some teenage girls to mask my excitement. But I did finally break down and download 'See You Again' on iTunes.

On an even more positive note, I'm sure the best thing to come from Miley Cyrus is the fact that her dad, Billy Ray, got a second chance at celebrity stardom. Now he can forever be known as Billy Ray Cyrus - he played a doctor on some show on the PAX channel, hosted Nashville Star, dabbled with Dancing with the Stars, father to Miley and most importantly, one hit wonder. Cause having one hit wonder as your only claim to fame just seems so sad.

If I Were Famous....

I'd want to be famous for doing something that I actually like doing. If I were famous for something in fashion, I think I'd better learn how to draw figures (I'm much better at landscapes). But that would be a good enough amount of fame for me - have people buying my clothes, wearing them to big events and getting the notoriety that I am a talented designer - all the while keeping me living in a comfortable environment.

Vera Wang comes to mind as someone that is way famous for her wedding dresses, is often sought after, but she doesn't show up among the blogs and gossip rags, allowing her live a somewhat normal life.

If I wasn't famous for fashion, maybe I could be famous for modeling. If I were famous for being a model, I would have to grow a few inches and lose the spare tire. Okay - I don't have a spare tire but I would definitely have to get model-fit. Models get to travel the world and wear awesome (and some not so awesome) clothing.

I wouldn't want to be like a Heidi Klum (although I wouldn't mind looking like her) or a Naomi Campbell type model but I think when you're a model, you almost make your own level of fame. Heidi is well known for fitting splendidly in whatever Victoria's Secret throws at her and building an empire of herself. Naomi is known for her awesomely bad temper and receding hairline. No - I would want to be like a Marissa Miller (yes, with her body) where she gets recognized for her beauty, she fits into everything like a glove and yet she only dips her toe into the limelight. She seems really down to Earth and isn't hampered by the paparazzi. And it probably doesn't hurt that these models aren't starving themselves and are actually healthy looking.

Could I handle being famous? Probably only on a small scale - where people would know who I am but I would still be able to go to the market, run my errands, live like a normal person, travel whenever I wanted without being chased by flashing cameras and people blocking my car so I couldn't drive away.

Yes - maybe I'll just keep thinking I'm famous...in my own head.

The Whitest of the Non-Whites

If you haven't realized by now that I'm not Caucasian, then look at the nice pictures to the left - I am the non-blonde one. But I rarely define myself, or even relate myself, as the 'Asian' or 'Chinese' that I look like - I identify more with Caucasians - after all, I grew up with a majority of them and that's also the majority of my 'crew.'

I am an American, however. I was born and bred in New Jersey. While growing up in New Jersey, I played the piano (very Chinese), played tennis (very Chinese), went to Chinese School (that my Dad helped establish) to learn the language, and I was an active participant in my youth group for church (a Chinese church). My parents brought us to Chinatown and we celebrated Chinese New Year when I was small - I only continued the tradition when I was older to get my red envelope of MULA! That might seem like a lot of Chinese stuff growing up but compared to growing up in an actual Chinese community, I don't think it is. I'll admit that my 'crew' in junior high and high school consisted of a lot of Chinese people but that quickly changed when I went to college.

College made me become a little more white-washed. I chose to attend college at Purdue University, in Indiana. NOT a lot of ABCs (American Born Chinese) there. I only dated Caucasians (kinda hard not to when you're in Indiana) and I ended up marrying a white dude that is known as 'Pale Force.' The four years that I spent in Indiana certainly stretched me further away from my Chinese heritage - probably because I didn't have many people to share it with during college. I couldn't quite relate to the Chinese students on campus because more often than not, they were what we ABCs like to call, 'FOBs' (Fresh off the Boat).

After leaving Indiana, I promptly returned to New Jersey, worked a little bit in NYC before settling down with a job in the Jersey 'burbs...in IT (How CHINESE!). I worked with a good mix of Chinese, Koreans and Indians. And you know what - I was the only American-born one in the group. So that made me feel like an outcast among them. When we moved down to Virginia, my husband and I started hanging out with a bunch of Purdue alums - rarely was there another Asian in the group. For my softball jersey, I almost went by the nickname 'Token.' But then another Asian guy started hanging with the group and I felt like the nickname couldn't be carried out - it wouldn't make sense.

I often find that when I'm hanging out with my friends now, I rarely know that there's a difference between us - that I have immigrant parents or that I know another language because I grew up speaking it. Of course I use the Chinese to my advantage when ordering food or listening to other people's conversations -but really, there are no other opportunities to set me apart from everyone else (not that I'm looking). But the good thing about it all is I'm comfortable in my own skin. So comfortable that when someone makes a stereotypical remark about Asians or Chinese, I usually laugh it off because I don't think of myself in that way.

The same goes for another one of my girlfriends - we'll call her K. She grew up in Atlanta and she's Afro-American. But she doesn't think of herself as a black girl - she hangs with all of us and she's into nerdy white guys. On the surface, we're definitely the two minority girls in the group - the Chinese and the Black girl - but if you knew our group, you'd know there's no difference.

We're the whitest non-white people you'll ever meet!

Mis-Animation

My husband and I were watching "Mad Men," last night (excellent, in case you haven't jumped on that bandwagon), and I started thinking about the business of advertising. I understand from post-9-11, that when times are rough in business, the marketing budget is among the first to be hit. To me, this is a shame. I am not embarrassed to admit that marketing has a lot to do with the purchasing decisions I make. If the packaging is good, or the commercial makes me laugh, I'm more likely to buy the product - plain and simple. But sometimes, I really wonder what those people in advertising are smoking and how their proposals even make it past the boardroom.

The most glaring of these, to me, is the overuse of animation in advertising. And by animation, I mean the kind that personifies an inanimate object. Remember the smashing success of the California Raisins? Well, so do I. But that was over 20 years ago, folks!!! Come up with a new concept. Have we learned nothing in the last two decades?

Last night, I was forced to watch this commercial for Compound-W (I assume it was Compound-W - maybe it wasn't - either way, I didn't care because the commercial sucked). The geniuses at the advertising firm gave life to a wart on someone's finger. And the wart was talking smack or something and then got covered with some kind of liquid, turned white, and apparently died. Gross! This does not inspire me to buy your stupid product. I'd rather pay the extra money to have a doctor remove the wart for me.

This brought to mind two other commercials with animation that I cannot stand (again, please excuse me for not remembering the name of the product, which proves to me that even though your commercial was notoriously memorable, it's still not enough to earn brand recognition). The first of these is that awful commercial with the fungus that lives under the bed of your toenails. That commercial was so unbelievably disturbing that I would interrupt whatever I was doing and leap across the room to change the channel. I do not want to see anyone, even a cartoon, lift up a toenail.

The second was some commercial for diapers (Luvs? Huggies? Again, not sure). These advertisers had the balls to animate a DIAPER! The diaper was turned in profile and had eyes above the hole where the baby/toddler's leg would go, which was apparently the mouth of this character. Are you serious? Do you even realize what diapers are for? And what goes into them? That is beyond disgusting. And unless I have stepped into an Austin Powers movie or something, that is animation gone way too far.

Thinking of these dumb commercials makes me at least appreciate the Geico cavemen a little more. Sure, they blew it with that lame attempt at a sitcom. But it was original. I have to give them that.

A Hairy Situation

After some very busy weekends and even busier work weeks, I finally found the time to relax and go to the mall to shop for friends and even myself. In the past few weeks, I really wanted to get a long sun dress but wasn't having any luck on the internet. Plus it's one of those things that I'd like to try on in person to see if it accentuates my body or unflatters it.

I found myself wandering into LVL X. It is a chain off of another chain - their clothes are not of the "best" quality but their prices are reasonable (not as great as Forever 21, but then again, their quality is even lower) and they have dresses and tops that you would probably find on ladies out for a good time. I looked at all the short dresses around the perimeter of the store - the nice thing is that everything is color coordinated, so all the gray outfits are all together, all the gold ones are all together, etc. I found one really cute pale yellow dress and a blue, long sun dress before I hit the dressing room.

While I was in the dressing room, I was quietly trying on my outfits, falling in love with my pale yellow dress and overhearing the conversation next door. There were a few ladies next door trying on dresses as well and all I remember hearing was one of them saying, '..but I don't want it to make me look like I'm pregnant.' A few thoughts ran through my head (because I hadn't seen what they looked like)....
1) If you're pregnant, there's really no way to avoid looking pregnant.
2) If you're not pregnant, but you've got the belly, maybe skin tight (because LVL X lacks for flowy dresses) is not the way to go.
3) And finally if the dress is the type of cut that is supposed to look flowy but instead makes you look pregnant (cause I've been there before), then maybe it's not the dress for you.

After I was done trying on my stuff and settled on purchasing the pale yellow dress and the long, blue sun dress, I went to the cash wrap and patiently waited behind the girl that was trying on dresses next door. She had three friends with her. They were four, rather large, girls and the dress that the one ultimately picked out was nice, but as I said, pretty skin tight. She was making her purchase when the cashier pointed out that when she took off the security tag, it left a very small hole in the back, by the zipper. As they were discussing this, I looked over at her friends, because it was taking way longer than it should have. This is when I noticed the one of her friends didn't shave her legs. And I don't mean didn't shave for days - I mean didn't shave for life. I thought my gag reflexes were going to ignite right there. While I was waiting, I also happened to look over at the far end of the store where there were two Asian ladies - one of them playing with her hair, trying to pull it up into a ponytail. It had to be right when I looked over there that she was pulling her hair back and I saw that her arm pits weren't shaved well....and this is from quite a distance, so you can imagine.

After experiencing all that, I started wondering if I missed something...like did people decide to burn their razors? Was July a 'no shave' month? And the girl that had the hairy legs - she had a perfect pedicure - so imagine the work and stares that her pedicurist goes through!

But that wasn't the best part of it all - you're probably wondering how can you top hairy legs and hairy pits? I'll tell you how...stupidity.

As it turns out the cashier was going to give the buyer 10% off for the minor hole. But the problem was she already charged her card for the full amount. And so that would involve a charge back and then a re-do and you know how it goes. And I just kind of stared like, 'you're kidding me, right?' The cashier saw my look of annoyance and said she would ring me up first and get right to the return but the girl didn't want to wait so she's like 'what's the difference? how much is that?' So you have FIVE adults (not including me - I didn't want to join in all the math fun) available to help you figure out what the discounted difference is. I heard one of her friends say, 'how much is 10% of $108?' Another girl replied, 'It's about $7.' And the four others just gave up the calculations and agreed.

I was appalled - secretly snickering inside: 'How dumb can you be?' So the cashier ended up giving her some foot pads (for the insides of your shoes and the balls of your feet) worth $6.99 so she didn't have to wait. A-ma-zing.