#for context it’s 8 am and mom is doing cleaning or smth and it’s making a bunch of noise and she thinks she woke dad up and he went to bed a | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aitian · 4 years

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8/12 3am

this is another dream i felt like i had before. i was in a park, next to a squirrel, a wolf, and a giraffe. the squirrel would chase me causing the wolf and the giraffe to chase the squirrel. i ran across a bridge and climbed a sign, only to have it break. and as the sign somehow wobbled back and forth, i sat on top swinging, swinging and watching my shadow on the ground swing back and forth. before moving at all i thought carefully about this plan and climbing the sign was the goal. maybe it meant the wolf wouldn’t hurt me but i would get tohave an experience.

2nd dream was about a chase as well. in a dirty city… i forget why. but i hid in a corner and saw my friends who were also running disguise themselves as an old man and a homeless man, and our pursuers ran by. we went to a restaurant, i think owned by our aunties, maybe the chopsticks auntie or smth. and my job was to wash the vegetables. they had already been julienned though lol but i spent so long washing the julienned carrots because there was so much. all the while i was listening to these three rude old dudes sitting outside complaining about the service because no one went to take their order. finally i went inside and asked the young man who was the only one working to check on them. and the dream shifts to his pov and he explanis to the jeerin g men that he will be the new owner, and he grabs my rpevious character close, who i guess is a woman, and says she will be his wife and co-owner, and the men grudgingly comment on their appproval.

the last dream i am a spoiled chinese girl waiting for her spoiled chinese boyfriend to take her to the movies. we are both attractive in the way chinese tv likes young people to be. im waiting for him to text, waiting, and im angry that he has forgotten again. and i fall asleep on my bed, and have a dream. my dream is his dream. he says i his dream, he put on these lenses?glasses? and his eyes became unbearably cute, and everyones stares made him feel unsaafe. tjen he put on another pair and his eyes glowerd red, and everone seemed intimidated, and he felt comfort in that. waking up from his dream, he realized everyone looked at him that way already, and nothing had changed.

-- afternoon

having a crush is this immense flooding of feeling stupid, like only a fool would expect desire to bridge the gap

. i thought about him, a picture of his sister catching his hat at graduation, violence & empire

. told some dumb bby queer in the columbia class fb group not to ask students to out their profs online so he could have a list of q/t professors. he was very entitled to placing this information on a public forum, insisted that it was not an issue (for you?) i responded once briefly, then let it die. i told myself i needed to be as short as possible to not be anxious posting, but my heart still sped up thinking about arguing w someone so publicly over some shit i didn’t want people to ID me for.

. signed up for okcupid. just to see who’s around. lots of white people. anime subs vs dubs is a question they all needed to answer in their profiles.

8/12/2020, 11pm

today mom told me the story again about her life with dad. we walked after dinner along the path that led through the trees outside our neighborhood, and sat on the steps outside the Videon company. she was in beijing. she was dating a man who was tall and thin, who was clean and orderly, who cooked for her. he was insecure that she had a phd and he was only a college graduate. she always felt he had his guard up, couldn’t speak from his heart, insecure. they had only been seeing each other for a while, but she decided she should move on. she went on a date with dad, set up by a mutual friend. she says her first impression was how short and stout he was. pale, a scholar. or nerd. didn’t know how to make good conversation, and while she fantasized about expectations before meeting him each time, their dates were very plain, boring. she says he probably felt she didn;t have much interest in him either. the setting up felt stale, rehearsed, like there was a path to follow that was already laid out. he went home for his younger brother’s wedding, and never talked to her again. their mutual friend says to mom, us from henan, when we talk, we say what we mean. but these hebei people could say ten things and none of them would be truthful. they had no contact for months. three days before dad was supposed to leave for america, my grandmother came to beijing to help him pack and send him off. she brought the money the government game them, untouched, for my grandfather’s death. and it was stolen. my grandmother passed out, and was sent to the hospital. mom says my grandmother thought dad should have gotten together with mom, that if they had been together, none of this would have happened. dad went to her office to find her, and her colleagues said she was on lab. and his thick-headed self thought she was at a homophonous company in the tech district. and as he was headed down, she was headed up, and they met in the stairwell. if they had missed each other, then they would have never met again. but he told her what happened, and she went with him to the hospital, and she helped him pack and sent him off. i wanted to ask what compelled her to do that. im guessing it was what he said, a mother in the hospital, a near departure… maybe it was the beginning of a romantic feeling. she only fell in love with him after they had both settled in america. she said things were more simple when they got away from the messiness of china… the city, the relationships. mom says her mother was grateful because she thought mom would have trouble getting married. in my head i laughed.. her stubborn ass… they knew. she said dad’s mom saw her as a good fit. which was cruel irony thinking about my first years. mom says she had never argued with dad before grandma came. so many of his bad habits started then. she told me about this because we talked about dad being childish at home, refusing accountability, using manipulative tactics to ignore us and center himself, trying to blame others for his mistakes. we talked about mom’s shitty coworkers. we talked about adeles mom and dad, their abusive relationship, the abusive dads, and the societies of fear (scarcity) that made our community members brilliant fools. mom said she could never forget that guy she dated before dad, though i think she didn’t really mean it because she said again how he was always guarded around her. i wanted to tell her, mom, i have liked a boy a lot too. during high school. his name is andrew, and he has been on my mind a lot recently since coming home. he was really good to me, mom. sometimes i wish i was more brave. but i didn’t say anything. i was looking at the clouds, and they were moving earlier. they were moving west, then east, then west, and they stopped. and then they vanished. the sun was setting, and mom said they probably flew away. but i said no, they vanished. dad came over, i could tell it was him because he walked cute like donald duck. he said this was his regular exercising place. as if he even left the house to exercise regularly, much less walk to our spot, the place he knew we would be. we got up and left after a while because it was getting dark. later i would hear dad complaining downstairs about how we didn’t stay to watch him dance, and how that was what had held him back. shameless.

there are some memories of stories that i just cannot say were things i made up, but i have so little recollection of what and how they were told.

when mom was in alabama, her boss or maybe coworker tried to date her. i guess she was not into white men. maybe it was one of the things that pushed her toward dad.

mom has had a miscarriage before. im not sure about the context. i think i remember her telling me when she was upset many years ago, or maybe just casually. it might have been something she thought should be kept a secret, or just something moms don’t talk about to their kids. i do remember her recounting more recently once while talking about being pregnant with me vs alice, that she had a bit of miscarriage each time. im not totally sure what that means but she said it like it was natural, a thing that just happened for some people. maybe a bit of bleeding and discharge.

i think i remember alice once telling me she thinks dad wants to be a woman but is too repressed to admit it. and then saying thats probably not it.

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