Tag Archives: Life

Are Men “Naturally” Bad Caregivers?

I’m a horrible father.

The thought kept ping-ponging in my mind after shoving my bawling 5 year old son into his kindergarten class.

This morning he decided that he wanted to ride his scooter to school rather than his bike. I told him that the bike was quicker, but he started whining, so I let him take the scooter. 18 minutes into trek, he starts whining again, “Daddy, I’m tired. I want to stop.”

We are 10 minutes away from the school which starts in 8 minutes.

scooter

Happier times before scooters became an instrument of torture.

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Give It Away Give It Away Give It Away Now

Giving UnconditionallyOn Sunday we were late to church as usual. Before entering, I opened my wallet to find two twenty-dollar bills. I usually give each of my sons a dollar to put in the offering tray just to get them in the habit of giving. We donate quarterly to the church, so the two dollars on Sundays are more of a superficial gesture than a tithing.

Some Sundays, I only have one single and a five, so one of my sons gets to give five dollars, but $20 is a bit extreme, especially on our tight budget. Since we were late, I knew we could sneak in without giving anything and only a few members sitting next to the door would even notice. I even thought about dropping the $20 in and taking out two fives. But my conscience kept nagging me.

“You blog about abundance all the time, and you’re going to stiff the CHURCH for a measly 20 dollars? Everyday Guru, my ass. What about Everyday tightwad?” Continue reading →

Fix Everything in One Easy Step

Have you ever fixed something, but had no idea how you fixed it? We have this clock radio and the clock part went dark. Everything else worked, but we could not see the time at night. I pushed every button on that damn clock, but nothing could make the light work.

Bender: I take shop. You must be a f#*kin’ idiot!
Brian: I’m a f#*kin’ idiot because I can’t make a lamp?
Bender: No, you’re a genius because you can’t make a lamp.
Brian: What do you know about Trigonometry?
Bender: I could care less about Trigonometry.
Brian: Bender, did you know without Trigonometry there’d be no engineering?
Bender: Without lamps, there’d be no light. Continue reading →

Love, Reign O’er Me

Looking back at my childhood, I realize that it wasn’t the 10 years of physical abuse by my step-father that hurt the most; it was watching my mother stand idly by as I screamed for mercy. Don’t get me wrong, I love my mom. That was part of the problem.

Until recently, my whole life has been a desperate attempt to become loveable. As an Asian American growing up in the 80s, I loved this country. Yet my love was often rejected with angry chants of “go back to where you came from.”

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My Life is Perfect Because I Want it to Be Perfect

The ubiquitous Rarasaur recently posted some pictures of herself:

Rarasaur photo

Rarasaur in all her glory

I commented that I loved her short hair, and this was her response.

P.S. Thanks! I love the short hair, too. I was trying to grow mine out again, but I’m just not there yet… not ready to see the Rara that used to look like that, so… instead… my short hair is perfect because I want it to be perfect. ;)

I love the last line. What if we changed “short hair” to “life”?

My Life is Perfect Because I Want it to Be Perfect Continue reading →

Smile Bigger

Scott Graham Photography

Scott Graham Photography

Smile Bigger, Hug Longer, Love Stronger

The other day, I was passing a cute older couple crossing the street, so I smiled. The older woman smiled back like only older people can–with wrinkles of joy. I was so delighted that I tried to smile bigger. By the time we passed each other, my face was sore from trying to make the edges of my lips touch my ears. Continue reading →

Prison Awakening

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I originally wrote this fictional epistolary piece for the DPChallenge: Shift Your Perspective, until I re-read the challenge and found out that you had to write about blogging. I decided to post this story anyway after reading Professions for Peace’s posts about forgiveness and stumbling and Tracy’s post about letting go. I also think it applies to Mirth and Motivation’s post FOCUS: PEACE. I apologize for any offensive language; I was trying to portray the character as realistically as possible. 

Dear Edward,

I hope this letter finds you well. I know we haven’t spoken in sometime now, but I recently heard about your incarceration and I wanted to reach out to you. I know everything about the case, and I wanted you to know that I still love you. I will help watch over your kids until you get out.

If you want to write back, here is my new address:

Grace Osborne-Dufresne
199 E. Pearl Ave Gate #7
Harmony, Ca 93435

Hoping to hear from you,
Grace Continue reading →

WordPress: The Final Frontier

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Shift Your Perspective

Coming out of cyber-sleep always feels like a bad case of food poisoning. Lt. Kozo sat in the sanitizer chamber for the better part of an hour as every orifice convulsed and expelled whatever liquid was left in his body.

“I know this is just a ploy of the GenCorp. For all I know, I was only sleeping for five minutes,” thought the lone explorer hoping that the thought scanners were not activated yet.

Ever since the Toxic Meltdown, all exploration was executed remotely by lone explorers in 3D simulation chambers. Kozo knew that the reason they isolated the explorers was so the GenCorp would have full control of anything of value found by the “expendable” explorers. Continue reading →

The Animated GIF: The Antithesis of Mindfulness


People who like GIFs (a series of images that create the impression of movement) are the same folks who slow down on the freeway to try to catch a glimpse of something gruesome after a car wreck. Ok, that’s a bit of an over-generalization taken out of context meant to be incendiary, which is a pretty good definition of an animated GIF. Continue reading →