“I found it easy to fall into their pattern. We were all very serious and dignified gents taking the train to our offices in the City of London where each of us, so we thought, was engaged in high finance and other enormously important matters. Most of my companions wore hard bowler hats, and a few like me wore soft trilbys, but not one of us on that train in the year of 1934 went bareheaded. It wasn’t done. And none of us, even on the sunniest days, went without his furled umbrella. The umbrella was our badge of office. We felt naked without it. Also it was a sign of respectability. Road-menders and plumbers never went to work with umbrellas. Businessmen did.

I enjoyed it, I really did. I began to realize how simple life could be if one had a regular routine to follow with fixed hours and a fixed salary and very little original thinking to do. The life of a writer is absolute hell compared with the life of a businessman. The writer has to force himself to work. He has to make his own hours and if he doesn’t go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him. If he is a writer of fiction he lives in a world of fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not. Two hours of writing fiction leaves this particular writer absolutely drained. For those two hours he has been miles away, he has been somewhere else, in a different place with totally different people, and the effort of swimming back into normal surroundings is very great. It is almost a shock. The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks more whisky than is good for him. He does it to give himself faith, hope and courage. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.”

- Roald Dahl, Boy

There are three postcards sitting in my room right now that I have kept around me for the past several years for no more special reason but that I like them and they remind me of a pleasant evening I had in Berkeley with friends. I found them (the postcards, not my friends) in a bookstore next to Zachery’s on Solano selling for only 50 cents each. A definite bargain, for the curiously long company they’ve kept me. (I usually buy, then promptly lose, most of these types of purchases.)

They all have slightly odd illustrations –  two of them which are a little disturbing and ominous, which I love, and one that’s silly, which makes me happy.

My favorite of the postcards is entitled “Haie Der Vorstadt”, which roughly translated means “Sharks of the Suburbs.” It’s a dark and stormy night – a bald man with a moustache (can you spot him?) peeps his head out a window overlooking his small provincial-looking neighborhood, dimly lit by a lone streetlamp, and he finds that his entire street has been flooded like an ocean, and within the teaming, frothy, black waters lurk sharks with sharp, gleaming white teeth and wide, vacant eyes. It’s a deliciously unsettling situation to imagine, isn’t it? And I love the way it’s drawn, the way there’s a touch of the absurd mixed in with the comical menace:

The second is titled “Schaufensterhase”, which means “Showcase Hare”, and it is exactly that: a small hare – looking more rabbit than hare – performs for a small crowd of people by standing on the tips of his little ears. There’s something unsettling about this illustration as well, although I don’t quite know why. Maybe it’s the way the clouds look in the slightly overcast sky, just a little too puffy and grey. It could also be the crowd. There’s a woman who’s on stage with the hare – the hare’s trainer or keeper, I suppose – and she’s probably the main source for uneasiness: her skin is stone white, and what little face we see that is unobscured by a droopy brown hat is androgynous at best – more the face of a man than a woman, apart from the red, pouty lips:

The third postcard is called “Hot Dog”, and it shows a small black dog with a white stomach and a blue color standing up on its hind legs in front of a hot dot cart in New York City, looking through some kind of one-eyed binocular at the angry-looking hot dog vendor:

Aside from the three postcards, two other pictures decorate my room. I haven’t hung them up yet, and I don’t know if I will, because they look quite nice just resting on pieces of furniture against the wall. (Also, the frames are crappy, and hanging them would only make them fall apart faster. I mean that quite literally). My favorite of the two is called “The Birthday”, and it also happens to be my favorite painting by Marc Chagall. Like so many of his other paintings, it features his wife, Bella, with whom he was passionately in love with his whole life. In a journal entry, he describes the event that inspired this particular painting: it is Bella’s birthday, and it’s early morning – Chagall is working in his studio, when suddenly, she walks in, carrying a bouquet of flowers, and as he watches her, he falls into reverie and imagines his body leaving his seat, floating up into the air and to her, finally kissing her, as she’s going to set the flowers on the table. I think the painting captures all the whimsy and love of his daydream, and the love he feels for Bella:

The second picture I have in my room is a painting by Matisse, called “Gold Fish”. There’s not much I have to say about it, except that I like the colors, particularly the bright red-orange of the fish.

Cute, aren’t they?

Most of you reading probably know, but still, for the purposes of this blog, I’d like to officially acknowledge in writing some recent developments in my life: I’ve quit my job, moved to Manhattan, and I’ve been living in Greenwich Village with my boyfriend for the past two and a half months. As Januarys go, it was an eventful one.

As if to balance things out a bit, February was the exact opposite. March decided to follow in February’s footsteps – just for good measure.  It would be an exaggeration to say I’ve done absolutely nothing since arriving in this iconic city of opportunity and smog, but only a slight one. There are many side-effects to being in a state of temporary suspension while also having just moved to a new city. One of them, I’ve discovered, is having to engage in the same conversation composed of the same awkward three-sentence exchange with concerned family members, curious friends, or polite new acquaintances.

Family, friend, or new acquaintance: So what are you doing now?

Me: Nothing much – [Pause] – I’m not really doing anything right now.

[Silence]

Family, friend, or new acquaintance: Oh [Pause].

I’ve had this conversation so many times by now, it’s beginning to spark nagging little twinges of what feel suspiciously like embarrassment.

I used to say I was job-hunting, but I’ve stopped saying this. I decided it was a lie to count any activity you engage in for a collective twenty-minutes a week as a major time preoccupation, unless it’s something like bare-fisted tiger wrestling.

I have no solid explanations for why I haven’t felt the urge to do anything in particular for two months. People tire of themselves, and I haven’t felt like myself for a long time now, so maybe I’m unconsciously taking a break from myself. Another concurrent possibility is that I’m in the process of taking a deep breath before making the plunge into the vast, opaque waters of my new-found freedom. This breath has taken so long to breathe, however, that I’ve apparently decided to stopped treading altogether. I’m floating on my back – face slowly reddening under a cloudy sun. And as I lay there, calmly unsettled, I churn through all the probable reasons why the unknown has become overwhelming in a way I hadn’t anticipated – and then I try to forget them all so I can just dive in without thinking about anything and everything so much so that life becomes paralyzing.

It’s April. The days and nights aren’t quite as bitter cold as when I first arrived in New York, although they are still by no means warm. I hope they will be soon. Meanwhile, patience, tempers, and checking accounts are wearing dangerously thin, and stagnation has become thoroughly exhausting on both mind and spirit. It’s tiring to climb out of holes, but I suppose more tiring in the long run to stay in them.

Fiddlesticks.

To say it’s been awhile is an understatement. So let me try to be more precise: it has been exactly eight months, eight days, ten hours, thirty-six minutes, and eight seconds since I last wrote anything new in this restlessly hibernating blog.

I say “restlessly hibernating,” patient readers, because that is the precarious state in which my blog has been existing. It’s tossed, turned, moaned, and groaned; there were times when it almost arose from its resentful slumber – (false alarms, all of them.)

But now the real alarm has sounded and it’s finally awakened – though who knows for certain if this isn’t just one of those particularly lucid dreams. An unlikely possibility, I’d venture, but a definite one. And lucid dreams aside, other, more dangerous, obstacles loom. It’s hard to wake up, and harder still, sometimes – especially when the weather is chilly – to stay up.

So I’ll just say this: I think it’s up now, for good, but I’ve been wrong plenty of times to know that I’m wrong plenty of times. So we’ll see.

Something very odd happened to me at work yesterday – let me start from the beginning:

At its usual ungodly hour of six-ten, my cell phone cleared its digital throat and began to sing loudly until a semi-conscious hand to its left bapped it into quiet submission. It was a rather dull and unimaginative cell phone, never knowing or doing anything very interesting – but it knew enough to suspect, however dimly, that an important reason why it was still in its useful existence was largely due to this very ability to shut up at the slightest tap. So it shut up and I was soon up, throwing on clothes, brushing teeth, and packing up items necessary for an entertaining BART ride to work.

At precisely seven fifty-two, I arrived at the metal building that stood powerfully erect across the street from the world’s last standing Chuck E. Cheese’s. Seven fifty-three, I stepped into Elevator No. Five, a space in which conversation and eye-contact were strictly forbidden by somber security guards in black, and at seven fifty-four on the dot, I pushed open the light-brown wooden doors which led into the world of grey I was to inhabit for the next eight hours.

Absolutely everything was grey, although admittedly, they were different shades. The cubicles were a warm steel-grey, while the carpets were more of a delicate asbestos-grey; the computers were all the familiar shade of cream-grey, and the walls, a delightful white-cement kind of grey; even the small windows in the office that were all huddled on one side of a far, lucky wall were grey: a tasteful double-sided-mirror grey; the entire floor looked at the world through grey-tinted glasses.

It was a long, sobering walk from that door to my cubicle that morning, as it is every morning – one which sunshine, blue skies, and spritely, handsome men like Joseph Gordon-Levitt became mere memories of a world distant and removed. I vaguely recalled admiring beautiful weather and enjoying the rays of sunshine on the BART just that very morning – but now… it was hard to remember as I was walking now, whether it was indeed today or perhaps it was sometime last Tuesday. I squinted at the small windows on the far right wall for a clue, and realized that I must’ve indeed been mistaken about the weather this morning – in fact, the day was the exact same grey-tinted gloom as it always was whenever I’d ever stood up for a look out of the windows of this building.  I reached my cubicle, and quietly pulled out my wheely chair to sit. I set my bag down on the desk, keeping a hand on it so to muffle my rattling bottle of ibuprofen. When I’d first been given a tour around the office four months ago, a frizzy-haired woman had told me with a drooping smile that the office was so quiet you could hear a pin drop; so once, I came equipped with one and dropped the proverbial pin, and lo! – I heard it! It tinkled, sweet and light – the sound of the world’s daintiest bell.

The only time the office wasn’t conducive for audible pin-dropping was when Grioghar was talking to someone. Watching Grioghar talk to someone in this office was like watching a foghorn conversing with a bee. He was talking to someone now, and I could hear his loud booming voice from halfway across the office.

“NEXT TIME HIRUM, YOU DON’T HAVE TO INCLUDE IN THE EMAIL WHY YOU’RE ABSENT.”

There was a buzzing sound – Hirum, I presumed.

“YEAH, IT’S COMPANY POLICY. IT’S NOBODY ELSE’S BUSINESS THAT YOU WENT TO SEE YOUR OPTHOMOLOGIST.

Some more buzzing.

He walked by me and said, “HEY GOOD MORNING! HOW AREYA DOING?”

“Good morning,” I said, and smiled. I hoped the smile looked sincere. Too often, I felt my lips stretch automatically into a thin grimace at a co-worker before realizing how it must’ve looked to its recipient.

The most exciting conversational exchange of my work day now over, I settled into my seat for another day at the office.

Everything hummed steadily on as usual, until precisely two forty-five.

As I often did, I got up from my cubicle, and set off for the kitchen for some water. The kitchen was situated quite a far distance from where I sat; I had to walk across the entire length of the office floor and down through a narrow, grey hallway, where I would then stretch my legs a bit and make funny faces at the walls. But things would be different today.

I was halfway down the hallway before I stopped in surprise, noticing something I’d never noticed in all my four months of working in the office and all my daily trips to the kitchen: there was, at the end of the long, lean hallway, a door. I couldn’t believe that I’d never taken note of it before, because it looked so conspicuous now in its ascetically sparse setting;  it was a rich, dark brown wooden door against the plain, white-cement colored wall – and it was slightly ajar. The lights were off in the room, and the whole scene looked as though someone had carelessly left the door open while in a hurry to go someplace else. I walked up to the door, and was about to pull it shut when I realized that handle was rigid, locked from the outside. I hesitated, and looked behind me. No one was around. Curious, I pushed the door further open instead, and peered inside.

I could see nothing. I glanced to the left and then to the right, but I couldn’t make anything out in the dark. I was just about to close the door when there was a sound – a static crackling – and a computer screen lit up with a white light, dimly illuminating the space around it. The computer was little distance away from where I was standing at the doorway, but it wasn’t far enough that I couldn’t see what happened next.

The screen turned black as quickly as it had turned white, and large words in a sans-serif font filled the screen all at once.

Hello Helen.

I stared at the screen. I then looked nervously around me, still standing in the doorway with my hand on the door handle.

I have been waiting.

“For – me?” Words tumbled involuntarily out of my mouth and sounded loud and awkward amidst the stifling silence of the hallway and the dark room beyond.

It is time. Come in and close the door.

I didn’t move. My body felt stiff, but my mind was racing furiously. What was this?

Come in.

The letters were bigger this time.

I will not ask again.

I let out a slow breath and I could hear it — tempered, soothing like a controlled breeze.

“Okay,” I said.

I stole a quick look behind me to see if anyone was there, and then slid quickly into the room, shutting the door behind me quietly with one hand on the door knob and the other on the door. My eyes strained to adjust to the darkness, but the computer screen –now blank — appeared to be the only source of light in the room, and it was a poor one indeed. I pressed my back hard against the comforting solidity of the wooden door behind me. I waited, but nothing happened. Everything was still.

“Hello?” I asked to the emptiness.

You are a conscientious worker. I have been pleased with your efforts.

“Thank you,” I said, feeling somewhat relieved, but mostly surprised. But taking courage from this compliment, I decided to ask a question.

“Um, I don’t meant to be rude, or offensive, but what are you exactly? How are you – functioning?”

I am Order.

That’s not terribly informative, I thought, and I waited, but nothing more was offered. I stood silently, wondering what to do next.

The blankness went on for so long that I wondered if the computer hadn’t fallen asleep.  “So – how is it that you know my name?” I asked. Lamely.

I know the names of all my workers past, present and future.

“Hmm,” I said, thinking that once again, it – he? she? – hadn’t really answered my question.

Do not be alarmed. This is standard operating procedure for all those whose time has come for the Offering so as to join the Order.

“What is?” I asked. “And what order?” The order of the phoenix, I thought wildly.

A scene from The Matrix flashed through my head: Neo is struggling, held down by agents as they insert a metal shrimp into his belly-button. I felt a little weak imagining a metal crustacean digging through the center of my belly-button and forcing a path into my body.

The monitor had become blank again, and the computer began whirring furiously. I looked at it nervously as the noise grew louder and louder. Then it stopped. A wall of text filled the screen, and as I leaned in closer, I saw that it was all to do with me: addresses of all the places I’ve lived in – some which I didn’t even remember – my full name, date and city of birth, college degree, social security number, weight, height, blood type, salary, work hours, car model and year, percentage of the day I worked hard on the job, percentage of the day I vegged out, average number of times a day I got up to go to the kitchen, average number of times a week I went to the snack shop downstairs to buy refrigerated watermelon slices. When I think back on it now, I should’ve felt more alarmed, but it seemed natural then, as I stood there in that dark room with the conversing computer, that it should have all the information it did.

Standard operating procedure mandates for you to confirm the accuracy or inaccuracy of your personal file by saying yes or no.

“Yes,” I said. I was careful to speak loudly and to enunciate, like when you speak to those phone machines.

You do not need to speak loudly and enunciate to me as you would to an automated phone server. I am advanced.

I felt silly. “Sorry,” I said.

What?

“I said – ”

ROFL. A little bit of humor so to lighten the mood.

“Oh.”

The computer ROFLed a few more times on the screen as I stood there, feeling like the world’s great prat. I recalled all the numerous times I’d rolled my eyes and smiled amusedly whenever someone had said “Rofl” to me.

Standard operating procedure mandates that it is now time to execute the purpose of this meeting.

I waited for it to continue, but felt a smidgeon more nervous at its use of the word “execute.” The screen of the computer began flickering and the loud whirring sound started again. Then everything came to a stop again:

You have been a faithful employee at  ———- now for a complete cycle of four months. Your performance has been commendable. You have been punctual and polite. Most importantly, you have been reliable. Apart from going to the kitchen an average of two times more than the average employee, you have been a diligent and smart worker and you are an increasingly valuable asset to the Company.

“Thank you,” I said. My toes grew warm and my mind was pleased at the favorable appraisal.

Standard operating procedure mandates at this time for the Offering of the Key.

I looked quickly to my left and right, half expecting to see someone — or something — creep out of the darkness with a gold skeleton key on a red silk pillow. My heart beat a little quicker.

I, on behalf of ———-, offer you the Key.

What key, I was about to ask, and then I saw it, lying there next to the keyboard, glinting in what little light there was in the room. It was small, about the size of half my pinky.  My arm automatically reached out to it, and I touched it gingerly. It was cold.

Take it, keep it safe.

I looked at the key resting the center of my palm. It was heavier than it looked. “What is it for?” I asked.

Foresight.

“What do you mean?”

The feasibility of control and certainty in life’s trajectory and consequence as much as life will allow.

“And what is that?” My voice came out sounding like a stranger, it was so low.

Comfort enjoyed of luxury; Freedom granted by options; Love and Warmth of family and friends that come with the availability of time, energy; Trust bred of familiarity; Peace of mind granted by stability and consistency.

I stood silent. The computer had turned black again.

“And in return – ?” I asked, after a long moment.

In return, you will be giving exactly what you have been giving, but both feet will be in the door. You will become a part of the Company and the Company will become a part of you. We will become a mutual unit in purpose, direction, strength, devotion, and rewards.

I looked at the key, and then looked at the computer. My body felt cold, but my cheeks were burning hot – I felt a little dizzy.

As following the standard operating procedures, you will have three full days to consider your decision. Should you choose to accept the offer, on the third day at precisely the same hour, come back and insert the key into my body.

I looked at the computer. “In there?” I pointed at a small hole near the bottom of the computer, the perfect size to fit the little silver key that was still resting in the palm of my open right hand.

If you decide to accept the offer, yes.

I stood there, my left hand hanging by my side and worrying the silky fabric of my dress, thinking. Now it was my mind that was whirring, and I felt my thoughts fly through my brain like a flurry of birds swarming furiously in mid-sky

I’d stay at ———- for real now – for good; I’d finally cease jumping from job to job, settle down roots, and then I’d work – harder and better than now because I’d be invested long-term now, mentally; time would pass and I’d be given more challenging tasks, more trust, more responsibilities; I’d continue getting to know my co-workers – I’d really put effort to making friends now that I’m staying for keeps – I would nurture enthusiastic references and connections, and then move on to more lucrative positions elsewhere, and after a time, I would be successful; I could see that I’d be successful.

And then what?

And then after another time, I’d be at that place:  I’d be able to have most of all the things I desired, travel with friends to where I wanted across the span of the world, eat wherever and whatever I wanted in hip, fancy restaurants with glowing ambience, buy elegant, lovely things that’d flatter me to look better than I actually do. I’d be able to enjoy all the plays and concerts I’d ever want to see, freely engage in whatever fun activities and events I wanted with friends and family – and there would be none of the worry or burden because there would always be enough. There’d be acceptance and there’d be ease surrounding me like cushions– my parents, friends, acquaintances; and I would have ample time with all of them. I could buy a house if I wanted to, purchase a nice car, and if there ever grew the desire, I could raise my own family in my beautiful house and car and be able to provide for them everything they would ever need and want. Everything would be so blessedly comfortable and safe; life might be good – great even, maybe.

But from as far as I can remember in my life I’ve never felt compelled to buy things almost ever, and I rarely feel happier when I do; I don’t care a snit about cars, and I don’t know if I’d even want to have a child to raise; and when have I ever longed for home ownership? – in fact, the thought of being anchored to owning a house was immensely unappealing. I do enjoy going to nice restaurants, but I don’t miss it when I don’t because good conversations are ubiquitous and the dollar rice at Super Taco Taqueria is the height of epicurean perfection with a little salt and Tapatia; as for spanning the globe, traveling vacations have proven thus far to be largely overrated, and there’s probably very little most people could get from vacations that they couldn’t from attentively watching Rick Steve’s video adventures, or posing for a picture against a convincing backdrop — they’d probably even learn more history and get better camera angles for their shots. And all of those things – well, not all, but most – they were nice, but they weren’t important. They’re comforts – that’s all. They’re last week’s trinkets: shiny toys of Lucite that sparkle briefly in the sunlight and then forgotten, discarded for the next and the next and the next.

But another brief pause in the run for just a moment: Were these things actually trivial? Or did they only seem so because I’ve been fortunate enough to never want for anything in my entire life?

You may turn up your nose at what I am offering, but the more pertinent question for you is whether you can realistically achieve what you do think is important.

This interrupted my thoughts, and I stopped. My hands fell cold and I didn’t say anything – I just looked at those blindingly white little words that hurt my eyes, they were so clear and bright. “What are you saying?” I asked.

You know. You have lofty dreams, but you lack resolve. You long to move, but you are frozen. You could, but you don’t. You fear, doubt, weaken.

My mouth felt dry. My voice caught a little as I said, “But – I’m working on that. On all of that. I’m trying.” My chest hurt at the sound of what I was saying.

You sleepwalk as you daydream – meanwhile time fleets. Your strides are neither big nor brave enough for what you wish to happen. You are aware of this fact yourself.

I stood there quietly now. The ache in my chest dug a little deeper. It hurt like it does when I feel heartsick about something, but it’s a cold seeping spread now – slow, patient, almost gentle.

Little decisions cast long shadows which linger. Do you really think you possess the will and determination? Do you really think you are brave enough, self-disciplined enough?

The screen was getting brighter and brighter. My eyes were having a hard time keeping on the screen, but I didn’t look away.

I will provide for you, I will guide you along the ordered path. You will be happy.

I looked at the word “happy” on the screen. It seemed a slightly larger size than the other words in the sentence. “Are the others happy?” I asked after a few minutes.

Most are.

“Okay,” I said after a while. I felt the key in my hand and touched it with my left hand. It was still as cold as when I first touched it. The silver was beautifully clear, and I caught a glimpse of my shape in the reflection. It was so bright that it almost appeared as if it were glowing. I looked at it for a long time until my fingers closed upon it, snapping shut like a flytrap. I squeezed my hand tight, and I felt it digging into my palm. It felt safe.

“Thank you for the offer.” My hand was squeezed so tightly that it was starting to hurt. I eased up a little. “It’s quite something.”

I look forward to your decision on the third day.

“Okay,” I said.

Do you have any more questions for me?

I thought for a few long seconds. “No,” I said finally.

I shall now conclude the Offering with the last standard operating procedure. It is a warning: Do not communicate this offer in any way to anyone during these three days, or the offer shall be rescinded and nullified. Do you understand?

“Okay,” I said.

I’ve been sleeping with this song about the Erie Canal playing softly in the background every single night for the past week and a half. It’s a simple tune, but there’s something about her voice, or maybe it’s the melody or the lyrics or the guitar strumming — or all these things —  that’s comforting to me. I love it!

Thirteen years ago, four hours after departing from Shanghai, my dad and I stepped off a rickety train and onto a platform in Nanjing. The air was crowded and dense, heavy with the weight of summer. The sky hung over us like a grey curtain and littered sparsely along the dirt road in an erratic formation were tall raggedy trees, their hot breaths occasionally lingering on my cheeks, making me feel warmer than I was already. I looked around and felt restless; after the train, there was still another leg of distance to travel before reaching my grandpa’s house.

He wasn’t my real grandpa, but I was to call him that when I saw him because, according to my dad, he was as good as a father to him and therefore, as good as a grandpa to me.

I could tell my dad was excited to see my Nanjing-grandpa because he’d been so agreeable during the entire train ride, talking and answering all my questions with a chatty graciousness markedly different from his usual curtness: there was a gentle tone of amiability he fell into whenever he was particularly happy or excited about something and it was completely infectious to me back then; I treasured these moods when he was all jokes and smiles, tranquil and light, looking as if frowns had never before troubled his face. We would play games and make each other laugh, and best of all, he would tell me stories.

On the train, he told me about my Nanjing-grandpa. He was once a professor at Nanjing College, and a dear old friend of my real grandpa, who was also a professor, though not in Nanjing. Every summer, starting from when he was very young, my dad would be sent off on a train to Nanjing to spend three months with my Nanjing-grandpa and his family. He loved it there.

Nanjing-grandpa liked my dad because he was a quiet serious boy, and liked to read – qualities absent from Nanjing-grandpa’s three children, rambunctious spirits roughly my dad’s age who regularly tore the house apart.  Amidst the chaos, he would take my dad aside, as young a boy as he was, and the two of them would have long serious talks about life: family, mathematics, philosophy, Shanghai, books. I imagine my dad must’ve learned a lot from those talks and found them immensely enjoyable, if for nothing else but the novelty of being listened to and respected like an adult by an adult when he was only a child.

Later, over a paltry lunch of lightly salted crackers that left pale crumbs in our laps — the only snack we’d thought to bring on the long train ride — my dad told me of how great of a cook Nanjing-grandpa was, how he reigned the kitchen with a swift-handed confidence won from impeccable intuition guided by the most discerning of taste-buds. Real cooks scorned the use of written recipes and measuring utensils, my Nanjing grandpa would say – true cooks know the right type and the correct amount of ingredients by the feel in their fingers, their minds, imaginations.

I’d often heard my dad repeat this same sentiment in different variations when either my mom or I asked him how he made a particular dish that turned out well: “I use the same ingredients that we all use,” he’d say, “it’s just a sense; you can’t explain it,” and he’d grin at us. My mom and I would laugh, or she would laugh and I would roll my eyes.

Smiling a different kind of smile now, he told me what had left the deepest impression about Nanjing-grandpa’s cooking: his spicy cellophane noodles.

“Cellophane noodles?” I asked.

He told me not to underestimate just how much a great cook can transform a plain, simple dish into an extraordinary one.

“Nanjing is where I learned how to eat spicy foods,” he said, “and those spicy noodles are what taught me.”

How much spiciness a tongue and stomach could tolerate always seemed to be a point of pride with chinese people – or perhaps it was just my parents who were competing with everyone on this matter despite everyone else’s indifference. I recall numerous meals in restaurants with family friends in which plates of spicy foods would be ordered; these dishes would be red from all the peppers and spices on, in, and around the food; the food would radiate. My parents would taste a bite of the pulsating dish and then say nothing; if casual inquiries were made regarding the level of spiciness, they might look up with mild surprise and say something like, “Oh! Was this supposed to be spicy?”

“Nanjing spiciness is different from Szechuan spiciness,” my dad continued. “Szechuan spiciness is a very oily kind of spiciness, but Nanjing spiciness – it’s an entirely different taste.”

“It’s a very clean kind of spiciness; it’s a white kind of hotness. When you know Nanjing spiciness, you know that this is a superior type of spiciness,” he said.

“When he made those noodles, it was that superior spiciness; it was an event. He wouldn’t show anyone how he made it, but he’d finally emerge from the kitchen for dinner, and everyone would sit there, waiting for the main attraction.”

His eyes looked as if he were far away, and he smiled like a man remembering the most delicious memories of summer and youth.

“I remember my very first time eating it. It tasted like nothing I’d ever had before. It practically destroyed my tongue it was so spicy — but it was so good I didn’t even care; his noodles actually inflicted on me physical pain and all I could do was just ask for more, more, more even as my eyes filled with tears.” He laughed. “That’s how good his cooking was.”

I imagined my dad as a little kid, eyes wide open and shining from this epicurean revelation, hunched over the table and shoveling spicy noodles into his mouth as fast as he could with his eyes and nose streaming and I laughed too.

Nanjing-grandpa looked just as I imagined he would look: he was a fairly thin man, and he wore black scholarly-looking glasses on his nose, a woolen grey hat on his head, and a wide smile on his lined face. He and my dad embraced each other, but I felt a little shy, as this was the first time I was meeting him. Nanjing-grandma reminded me of a plump little bird, fluttering around us with attention and careful fuss. She had sharp, intelligent eyes and her hair, pulled back, looked as soft and smooth as down feathers. I looked at the two of them and thought they looked like a couple who loved each other and belonged together.

Once settled in, I spent a little time exploring their house and the tiny garden in the back before finally planting myself down in the kitchen where Nanjing-grandma was preparing food for dinner. I could hear the sounds of conversation and laughter coming from the living room, and I slunk stealthily past the living room, peeking in to see where both my dad and Nanjing-grandpa were sitting. I could tell by the way they were both smiling that they were having a wonderful time catching up.

After some time, my dad finally came to tell me it was time for dinner, so we went into the dimly lit kitchen and crowded around the small table filled with steaming food, save one blank spot in the middle. Everyone was chatting when Nanjing-grandpa came out of the kitchen carrying something in his hands, and I immediately knew what dish was to fill that open spot: his spicy cellophane noodles.

My dad exclaimed loudly and everyone laughed. I think he said something about how he’d just told me that very day how much he remembers that particular dish, and how much he loved it, despite all the physical stress the spiciness of the noodles put a body under. He then described to everyone what he’d told me earlier that day on the train, his first experience eating the dish as a child. Nanjing-grandpa laughed, and looked proud. Everyone got a large helping of the noodles, including me, and we began to eat.

How can I describe the taste of those noodles? I can’t, because it was forgettable. I probably wouldn’t have remembered how they tasted had someone asked me even an hour after that dinner; but I do remember what I felt like as I was eating those forgettable noodles. I became a method actress. It wasn’t an intentional transformation, or even a conscious one, but if I were to stop to think about it, I would’ve felt it a necessary one; unconscious as it was, I had a remarkably distinct and sharp sense that something important and precious would be lost otherwise. I could feel my dad’s eyes on me, seeing how I reacted, and every body movement, every facial expression I made was to demonstrate to him the validity of his assessment that these were, indeed, mind-blowingly amazing noodles; when I finished my bowl and someone asked if I wanted more, I eagerly nodded, though my tongue was killing me and I was full and my eyes and nose were streaming. My dad laughed and kept saying, “Didn’t I tell you it was delicious? It’s not like anything you’ve ever had right?!” and as he beamed at me, looking so bright and excited, I could only nod vigorously and smile at him. I ate two more bowls after that first one, and spent most of that night awake with a terrible stomachache.

I was making my usual lap around my local bookstore, looking for just the right books to cozy up with for the afternoon, when I noticed that someone, somewhere in the store, was speaking quite loudly. The voice was vague and distant as I ambled through the history and biography aisles, but by the time I reached McCarthy, Cormac, the voice had become angry — rising in sharp dramatic peaks and cutting vigourously through the usual quietness.

The scene took place near the center of the store next to the information desk, and people were scattered all around nearby; some were staring unblinkingly at baby-animal calendars with a frozen concentration, while others shamelessly glued their curious eyes to the spectacle, as if some novel street-act were suddenly transported to the middle of the bookstore. Free entertainment!

She was a large woman with a big stomach and small eyes and crimpled yellow hair that hung limply above her round shoulders. I’d seen her many times around the store, talking to co-workers, picking up books and magazines people leave strewn all over tables and chairs, her face usually looking as though she’d just been insulted by someone. A male chauvinist, maybe. Today, that idiot of a man had apparently crossed a line and he was really going to get it — right between the eyes.

As it turns out, the chauvinist was a middle-aged Chinese couple. They looked to be in their mid-fourties, but their little boy, who was with them, looked to be only about seven-years-old.  He was hugging a shiny new book close to his chest, and stood a little distance away from his parents and the woman, watching them with large eyes.

She was yelling. The sound of her voice was piercing and hostile; her finger jabbed in the air at them again and again, her mouth made round, open shapes, and moved carefully — elongating her syllables and enunciating her S’s and T’s with the relish and precision of an overzealous theatre actor. The Chinese couple didn’t seem to have a chance to say very much, but when they did, their voices were quickly smothered by the sheer force and volume of the woman’s loud and vocal irritation.

I don’t know what the dispute was about — something about the pricing of the kid’s book, I think — but I remember feeling uncomfortable, and embarrassed for both the woman and the parents. I continued walking past them to the horror and reference aisles. By the time I’d made a round trip around the store, a tall man was now standing next to the Chinese couple, wearing a khaki hat, a security badge, and a slightly bemused expression.

The Chinese woman looked flustered, her husband frustrated, and I could hear him starting to say something to the yellow-haired woman; but it sounded nothing more than the mumblings of a child when compared with the oomph and kick of her interruption: “I told you that al-ready sir!”

There was a brief pause, and the man dared speak again, opening and closing his mouth a few times — but he was soon struck dumb once more by the woman cutting him off, then throwing up her arms and rolling her head like you would with your eyes.

There was something in her exaggerated gestures and her expressive voice — which projected impressively across the room in a way that would have made my old public-speaking teacher proud — that made me think she rather enjoyed the attention of all the eyes and ears on her handling of the situation. She seemed to grow ever more spirited as more people started watching, and with all her little dramatic flairs, it was as if she were playing some sort of satisfying role; she’d made it abundantly clear with her body, face, and voice that she was dealing with imbeciles — and who doesn’t find something satisfying about being not only vastly superior to other people, but also unreservedly ripping on them when they get on your nerves by exercising their abject stupidity? And who doesn’t enjoy watching it?  That’s one reason why everyone likes House, is it not? Even if she wasn’t coming across as vastly superior, she certainly was coming across as the most articulate person in the fray when compared to the other two, with their heavily-accented English and voices you could barely hear.

“Okay, you know what? I do not have the time to stand here and talk any more to you,” she said. “I have already spent too much of my time…” At which point, the man tried to say something again. This seemed to push her over some sort of edge.

“Okay, that’s it. Get out. GET OUT of the store right now!”

She swept her arm with a heavy gesture that ended with one authoritative finger pointed straight at the door with formidable command. The security man shuffled his legs a little at this new development, but seemed unsure about what to do, so he just stood there. The Chinese man was still trying to say something, but she simply raised her voice another notch.

“GET. OUT. Get outta the store! NOW. GEDDOUT. ”

Each word was like a punch, hard and fast, and she kept retracting her arm only to repeatedly direct it back out toward the exit.

It became quiet then — no one watching said anything, and the Chinese man didn’t try to talk anymore. He just looked at her. The little boy stood there holding his book, and looked at her. The security man went into action then, and said, “Come this way sir.” He proceeded to escort the mother and the father out of the store, and we all quietly watched them leave, with their little boy trailing behind them.

The last time I remember feeling excited about a movie aimed for kids was when Aladdin finally came out on VHS. Most animated movies are like goldfish crackers to me: mildly pleasant, but ultimately forgettable (apart from the disgusting goldfish-cracker afterbreath) and I almost never feel like eating them when there are other snacks in the cupboard.

So when a good friend of mine strongly recommended to me the 2003 live-action Peter Pan, I was a little skeptical. I’d already seen three versions of Peter Pan on film: the 1950’s Disney Peter Pan, the 1960’s Peter Pan musical, and Steven Spielberg’s Hook (if you count that). Was my life really missing yet one more retelling of the boy who would not grow up?

Apparently, it was. This Peter Pan flies in a different sky from its more light-hearted predecessors. For one thing, the 2003 Peter Pan is more faithful to the darker mood and uncomfortable themes of J.M Barrie’s play, Peter Pan, and novel, Peter and Wendy. As a result, it is an unusually daring children’s film, presenting viewers with characters and story ideas that are refreshingly complex. Hook isn’t a simple-minded buffoon or a thoroughly evil monster, and Peter isn’t a good-natured goofball or a perfect hero; conflicts don’t resolve neatly and predictably on the protagonist’s most favorable terms. There exists ambiguity and regret; there is sadness that isn’t cured, emptiness that isn’t filled.

The real Peter Pan is an unsettling creation: he is little boy who has fled from the world so that he could not grow up. In succeeding, he has become frozen in time, unable to progress or change. He will forever be a child, and children are — as Barrie writes in the final line of his book — “gay and innocent and heartless.” This particular Peter, played by Jeremy Sumpter, isn’t quite heartless, but he comes closer to that idea than all the previous Peters. When Wendy’s brothers, John and Michael, are taken by pirates, Peter’s reaction is indifferent, and it seems perfectly plausible that he would have forgotten them completely had Wendy not anxiously reminded Peter to rescue them. In another scene, Peter is about to punish Tootles, a Lost Boy, for shooting Wendy down from the sky, and what if he hadn’t been interrupted and Tootles were killed by Peter’s sword — would Peter have felt aching regret for his actions? Would he have mourned the death of his friend? To feel those emotions, Peter would need to have an understanding of consequence and finality; but to understand the weight of those two concepts would be to rob Peter of his innocence, his nature. And so to keep living as he always has, Peter Pan would not feel remorse or grief. He will forget, because to linger on unhappy thoughts would corrupt his very existence.

The primary focus of this movie, however, is not on Peter’s inability to grow up, but rather on an idea that is muted even in the books — the possibility of love. We have our main players: Hook and Pan — two characters who ostensibly have nothing in common except for their country code: one is a grown-up, the other a child; one is bitter and malicious, the other blithe and playful; one is stranded on solid ground, the other has the ability to fly. The differences between the protagonist and antagonist are so obvious, in fact, that it’s been a film tradition to take the easy route. Hook, for the most part, has become a caricature of a villain whose mad, obsessive desire to defeat Peter Pan has always seemed – to be honest – a little unfounded in its intensity and therefore, rather silly. This movie finally breaks that tiresome relationship. Hook and Pan are no longer polar opposites, but rather the same character borne of the same condition — only pushed to different logical extremes. Had fate been different, had Hook been the immortal boy of Neverland and Peter Pan the adult, the role of villain and hero would simply be reversed: they both lack a basic level of empathy; both are immature, petulant whenever things don’t go their way; and both are trapped in Neverland, unable to grow, or change, beyond what they are, and always have been. They are both characters for whom love is ultimately doomed. The only difference is that one character knows it and the other doesn’t –- and more importantly to the movie’s conflict, the one who knows it will always know it, and the one who does not will forever remain ignorant. It is for this carefree ignorance that Hook envies and hates Peter Pan, because, as we see in the movie, ignorance is freedom. It presents possibility. It allows Peter to skirt along the edges of Love when the opportunity arises, and experience moments that almost, but not quite, feel like the real thing.

The development of Peter and Wendy’s romance and its eventual failure is, therefore, another major source of the movie’s emotional conflict. It also demonstrates how this children’s movie is unafraid to present a love story that an audience will want, and some will expect, to succeed, but that is inherently impossible: to have romantic love is to be a part of that grown-up world that Peter has renounced, and the lovely Wendy, played by Rachel Hurd-Wood, represents a part of that grown-up world that Peter will never fully experience. As much as they bat their eyes and flirt with each other — and they do lots of both — Wendy is unable to cross that emotional boundary Peter has constructed all around himself.

But she comes close. There is a sweet scene where Wendy and Peter dance together in the night sky, framed in a large, milky-white moon suspended above a sea glinting in its shine. They twirl, dance, and float, higher and higher into the night as gold-dusted fairies fly all around them, and Wendy smiles at Peter, her face bathed in the dewy moonlight, radiant with dreaminess and love. There is the hope of possibility in her eyes, and Peter soaks in its glow for that moment.  Hook stands alone in the evening forest below, watching the two of them together up in the sky, his face filled not with anger or hatred, but of sadness. “He has found himself a Wendy,” he says, and then sits down and watches them dancing above him.

But Peter can’t keep Wendy, and their waltz into the realm of romance is brief. As the scene continues, Peter’s smile disappears, and he pulls away from her warm gaze, a startled look on his face as he looks around himself and realizes how high in the sky he is. He turns back to Wendy with a slight frown and a look of mild alarm, and says, “It’s only make-believe, isn’t it?” Wendy’s smile falters then, and her face dims as she responds, “Oh. Yes” and slowly floats down to earth. Wendy then realizes that while Peter understands jealousy and anger, love is an alien concept. “I have never heard of it,” he says with a blank look on his face. When Wendy insists that he must’ve felt it at some point in his life, he says, “Never. Even the sound of it offends me.” He then quickly flies away, as if he senses a danger in this girl standing there in her white nightgown.

It’s a sweet and sad love story, and it’s this relationship, as well as the adversarial one between Hook and Pan, that make this movie a good movie. Unfortunately, I actually ended up feeling a little disappointed at the end of it, because it could have been such a great movie. There was so much potential. Rachel Hurd-Wood’s Wendy and Jason Isaac’s Hook, two of the main emotional ingredients in the movie, are so wonderful that their performances elevate their characters from simply being interesting theoretical ideas, to real people we fall a little in love with. Rachel Hurd-Wood especially, is completely charming.

Her bright blue eyes shine with such conviction, spark, and wisdom, and her face is fresh, expressive with wonder, excitement, and sadness. All her movements, affectations, and lines are so free and natural that you feel like you’re really watching the real Wendy Darling, and she’s more lovely, intelligent, and spirited than you’d ever imagined. The supporting cast was also good, and I remain convinced that there’s not a movie in which Olivia Williams cannot manage to be the model of quiet intelligence and beauty of the best kind. The movie images were creative and what I’d expect Neverland to look like, along with a few surprises. There was an especially vivid, and very eerie, scene with the mermaids in the lagoon I feel I have to mention, since I felt genuinely creeped out by it. Peter and Wendy were kneeling at the edge of a dark pool of water, and in the distance, these female heads with vaguely aquatic and scaley features slowly rise from the black water and they silently glide toward Peter and Wendy. Watching those strange mermaids swim toward me on screen was the first time I realized that actually seeing a real mermaid in the ocean would probably frighten me out of my mind and then haunt my insane dreams until the day I died.

But then there are the movie’s problems. First, there’s the garish, neon-colored Tinkerbell whose fast, high-pitched cat-screechings and manically-exaggerated movements and facial expressions annoyed me so that I felt barely a sliver of sadness when she finally drank some poison and died. She didn’t seem like a magical fairy from Neverland, she seemed like a valley-girl whose mood alternately jumped from either hyperactive excitement to tantrum-throwing infuriation –- she also had an unfortunate coloring made her look like a bright orange-yellow cartoon character. Second, parts of the movie without Wendy or Hook dragged a little, and the battle scenes between the pirates and the lost children were not very good — they just weren’t very exciting to watch. But those aren’t huge issues; in fact, they’re almost negligible compared to the real problem.

The real problem is Peter Pan – or more specifically, Jeremy Sumpter.

This is not negligible.  He is, at the very least, one third of the movie’s emotional substance: the story is about Peter Pan, the main character is Peter Pan, the movie is called Peter Pan, — and yet, the movie might as well been called Wendy Darling, because Jeremy Sumpter’s Peter Pan has absolutely no charisma, mystery, or presence. He may have been cast for his boyish good features the director probably envisioned Peter Pan to have, but as soon as Sumpter talks, there’s absolutely zero believability that Sumpter could be Pan, as sunkissed and curled as his blond hair may be. There ought to be something special, timeless, and unearthly about Peter Pan, a boy that embodies the qualities of Youth, freedom and adventure — Peter Pan should not look and act like a would-be frat boy from High School Musical, the Junior High Years. When Sumpter speaks as Pan, it’s clumsy, awkward, and almost uncomfortable to watch. “Oh! The cleverness of me!” he says at one point in the movie, and it just sounds so wrong and disconnected. There’s this great part in the book, Peter and Wendy, where Hook asks Peter during a sword fight, “Pan! Who and what are thou?” and Peter answers, “I am youth! I am joy!” and I cannot for the life of me imagine Jeremy Sumpter delivering a line like that without me cringing.

And that smile. That terrible smug smile Sumpter kept flashing at everyone throughout the entire movie was one of the most annoying parts of his performance. Whether he intended the smile to look flirty, playful, daring, or happy, they all ended up looked the same: insincere and obnoxious. The smile just never ended up reaching his eyes – and sometimes not even his face. It was like someone had pulled invisible strings to turn up his lips while the rest of his face remained in apathy-land.

So for me, Jeremy Sumpter effectively turned what could have been a great movie into merely a good one. Which is a shame, because this Peter Pan role was such a well-written part. Sometimes, all you need for a memorable movie, even if the movie itself isn’t very good, is just one great character. Case in point: Pirates of the Caribbean. There is no way that movie would have had two sequels if there was only Will Who? and no Captain Jack Sparrow.  This Peter Pan was that kind of a movie-changing role, and it was fumbled.

I suppose that’s kind of a downer way to close the post, but that’s sort of how I felt after watching it. But to end on a more positive note, it was a good movie, and the most substantive Peter Pan movie I’ve seen — although, Hook was probably more fun to watch.

I love movies: the way a shot is framed on the screen, a brief picture of a moment, captured as it’s still living; the carefully-prepared details of a movie-set in all its eclectic clutter or precise neatness; all the wonderful sounds – the music, sighs, whispers, clicks, rustles, crunchings, ticks, whooshings; the way light falls, filtering through a scene, glowing, flickering, illuminating, and shading. I love great directors and what they can do with all of these things — how they make it all work together as they show us a story, an idea, or a mood.

But above all else, I think I love great acting the most, because I love, love, love, great characters  –  and there can’t be great characters in a movie without great actors. I know a good director is probably more important to the quality of a movie overall, but where would the the joy be in watching a beautifully-directed movie if you don’t feel love for its characters? Or if not love, at least empathy, compassion, hate.

Actors make movies human, and when an actor is great, he or she can create a real, whole person out of flat words and stage instructions. You can hear the character’s voice, their speech, watch their mannerisms, their faces, and it all comes alive: their pains, their triumphs, their pettiness, their vulnerabilities: their entire life. It’s a pretty magical thing. And because film is artistic in nature, these characters are usually placed in heightened realities, where emotional stakes, and pains are elevated to pivotal, life-changing moments most regular people experience only once in a rare while. Actors, therefore, embody life in its most distilled state — its essence. Great characters and great actors strip down the trivial fluff of the quotidian and get to the meat of the matter — and all within the lengths of a feature film. Amazing, is it not?

With all that said, I’m going to start writing about movies I watch, or have watched (something I’ve always wanted to do!), and this post is a warning that I will be writing an awful lot of how horrible or wonderful an actor is, and that the horrible or wonderful actor will end up significantly influencing my opinion of the movie overall, even if the directing was good.  I hope I don’t come across as mean, and I’d like to make the point that, obviously, it’s only my opinion and I’m only talking about their acting, not them as a human being. Someone thought I was being mean about Dianna Agron in my Glee post when I wrote that I thought she was terrible actress. Well, I’m not being mean. How can I help the fact that she’s the acting equivalent of a rock.

“I don’t want to talk,” I say again, and inexplicably, frustratingly, I start to cry. I had thought for sure I wouldn’t, when I walked in the front door just minutes ago.

But then he had said “You look sad,” as I walked past him in the living room where he was sitting, waiting for me, and I felt so angry he said that – that he was here, waiting for me instead of shutting himself in his room like usual; that he’d guilted me into coming home when I didn’t want to; that we were going to have to have a talk now, to make him feel better. And now, looking at me with that face, and speaking to me with that tone — especially that face and that tone — so familiar and yet so inconsistent with how he behaves normally. It felt exploitive.

I walk into the dark bedroom next to the living room and put down my bag. I can hear him waiting for me to respond and I know he’s going to come in any second now, if I don’t say anything. But even if I do, I know he’ll come in anyway.

“I do not. want to talk about it,” I say loudly and clearly.

But that’s a hard thing to say to a member of the Zou family. We talk because that’s what makes everything okay again. We don’t stop.  It’s like we can’t stop. We brute-force our way into feeling better and I’ve only started to realize in the past few years the limitations of this conflict-resolution approach. This was one of those times.

Right now, I didn’t want to have deal with all his inconsistencies, his contradictory behaviors. I wasn’t his little girl anymore, readily taking in his mood swings and only all too eager to laugh along with his jokes and please him when he’s feeling happy and being nice. I need some consistency now.

So I shake his arm off. And when he tries to hug me, I pull away more vigourously, like he’s poison. My movements feel almost automatic, like I don’t even mean to do them, but my body just won’t tolerate his kindness.

“Do you dislike your father so much?” he asks, the third time I brush him off.

“No, I don’t.”

And it’s true, I don’t dislike him. I love him.

But I just don’t want to talk.

My first real blog post back from my month-long silence shall be one about Truth, Art, and Justice.

And it is this:

Only on Planet OverratedTVShowsWithBadWriting should Glee have won its golden globe for Best Television Series in Comedy or Musical.  Now I don’t watch a lot of T.V., but the last time I can remember a show being so popular with so little merit (just to throw in a slightly irrelevant, yet totally petty sidenote here) was Friends. Remember those days? When people still cared about whether Ross and Rachel were really, truly going to end up together — and guess what? After 1 neglected baby, 50 gallons of hair gel, 500 petty break-ups, and 1,545,098 bad jokes, (spoiler alert) they do. Surprise!

But ultimately, Friends was mostly mediocre, while Glee fluctuates between being mostly terrible (I mean, really — just terrible), occasionally bearable, and twice (2; two) sweet. So Glee would still win.

I realize I am talking about the golden globes in a somewhat serious manner and yes, it is a little embarrassing.  These types of awards shows are, by its very glitzy and self-inflated nature, pretty silly, and this is without even mentioning that what merit they do have for existing — to recognize and award excellence in some form of performance art — is tarnished by the often political decisions that ignore worthy winners for lesser hacks.

So why then, am I writing about the golden globes like they matter?

Two reasons – one: because Glee on Fox channel 2 is an overrated and bad enough show that I feel as though I must somehow balance the universe for it having publicly won a coveted and somewhat-respected award for excellence slash superiority in its nominated category of Best Television Series in Comedy or Musical; and more importantly, two: because some people will (wrongly) assume a golden globe win actually means that Glee is a better, funnier show than the other shows that were nominated in that same category. And then what might these misguided people do? They might decide to watch Glee instead of those other shows and before you know it, viewers who could’ve been supporting funny, well-written shows are now watching Matthew Morrison sing and dance Sisqo’s thong song while Tina Fey and Steve Carrell file for unemployment.

Did this potential consequence on the world of television entertainment just send the shivers down your spine as it did mine?

Disturbing? Most definitely. But it’s not just that, my friends. It’s more than just that. It’s unjust. There were simply too many good, or just simply better, shows that were competing with Glee for Best Comedy or Musical Television series for Glee’s win to be anything but unjust. Or at least retarded.

Now here, I must make a confession — I’ve actually only watched three out of the five nominated television series that were in the same category. I’ve never seen a single episode of Entourage or Modern Family.

But I have watched almost all the episodes of The Office and 30 Rock. And they’re funny shows.They’re not mind-blowing awesome, but they’re good. And some episodes are very good. The Office oscillates in quality and funniness, but this season was more solid than usual with most of the episodes being pretty funny and a few being very funny. Jim and Pam’s wedding finally happened this season, and while part one was nothing special, part two was funny, sweet, and warm. It felt like a satisfying and appropriate end to the long, romantically-teasing courtship of Jim and Pam — and that’s not an easy writing feat, considering the patient, sloth-like build-up that started all the way back from season one. There was also the “Scott’s Tots” episode, which was by far the best-written and funniest things I’ve seen on T.V. in a long time, and certainly on The Office.

And 30 Rock is just as good a show as The Office, if not better. Unlike The Office, 30 Rock is consistently good and almost always funny. The plots are unpredictable and odd with just the right amount of random. The dialogue is clever and sharp. It’s a show that grows on you the more you watch, and that’s very rare — for me anyway.

As for the acting, both the cast for The Office and 30 Rock are talented, especially for 30 Rock. And not only is the acting good, the characters are good. They’re entertaining, quirky, yet relatable, and this is probably equally on the strength of the writers as it is the strength of the actors. In any case, the characters, with the exception of only a very few, come off as fresh and organic. All in all, The Office and 30 Rock are both just good, solid comedy shows.

Then there’s Glee.

There are so many things wrong with this show that I don’t even know where to begin. But as the award it won was for Best Comedy or Musical television series, let’s tackle it first from the musical angle.

—

First of all, Glee was the only musical out of the 5 shows that were nominated in its same category; so I think it’s sound to say that judging the other shows based on that particular criteria would be a tad unfair. But not only this, the thing is that Glee isn’t even an exceptional musical — in almost any way. The musical bit of the show simply consists of extremely average covers of bubble-gum pop songs coupled with some extremely energetic choreography that I could probably perform if I took a hit of E and didn’t have knee problems. I could even do the singing, because all the voices on the show are auto-tuned or synthesized (or whatever the heck producers do to singers’ voices in the studio) to death. Whenever the cast spontaneously bursts out into tune in the middle class, each note that leaves their empty, smiling faces is deadeningly polished to porcelain perfection; it’s literally as if someone suddenly put on a CD in the middle of a scene, turned the volume of the music way up, turned all the real-life sounds way down, and everyone in the room jumps up and decides to start silently dancing to the CD while moving their lips for some reason. If you strain hard enough during their musical numbers, you can almost hear the dull roar of the recording studio in the background. The only discernible talents that really stand out, in terms of singing, are Lea Michele and Amber Riley (roughly in that order), but they’re both such unlikeable, poorly-written characters it almost doesn’t matter they have pretty voices that we’ll, unfortunately, never get hear in their natural state. Which is a shame, because it would probably sound a lot better than the over-produced and rather boring renditions they’re putting out now.

And let’s not even delve into Mr. Schuester’s song, rap, and dance numbers, which mostly wind up being awkward, strange, and a more than a little creepy as he breaks it down and struts around his under-aged students.

Let’s now approach Glee from the comedic angle. And this is where things get really confusing for me. Because you see, Glee is not funny. This is not a subjective opinion. It’s not a funny show. Jane Lynch is just about the only funny thing in Glee — in fact, Jane Lynch is just about the only really good thing in Glee. And, ironically, the one person who most deserves what little acclaim there is to get from Glee didn’t even win in her nominated category of best female in a comedy television series. But that might be because the writers have managed to mess up their one really good thing by cutting down her role and turning her character all weird about halfway through the season. So what’s left after Jane Lynch? Not all that much. Certainly no one funny.

And no one who can really act either. I have two friends who both pronounce the word “bad” in distinct ways when the occasion calls for it, and so to borrow from them, the actors in Glee are both “baaayud” and “beeayd”. The only exceptions are Jane Lynch and Chris Colfer; they’re both pretty wonderful and deserve a better show. Maybe by themselves. But other than those two shining beacons of light, everyone else is either average to the extreme or terrible. Matthew Morrison: awful. Cory Monteith: bad. Artie, the wheelchair guy: bad. The Asian girl: bad. And most of all, Dianna Agron. She’s beautiful. She really is. Just looking at her, you like her because she’s so pleasing to the eye.

But she is a terrible actress. The only reason I can think of for why they would cast her in an acting role is because she is one of the most naturally (I think it’s natural anyway) beautiful people I’ve seen on television and she looks like the popular cheerleader everyone would want to be liked by. Jayma Mays and Jessalyn Gilsig, Mr. Schuester’s love interest and wife, are actually pretty good, but their characters, especially the wife, are so poorly developed that both these women just simply can’t claw their way up from the pit of bad writing on their own. They just can’t.

Which brings me to another, and perhaps the most pertinent, point of all. Glee is a terribly written show.

Okay, maybe that’s a little unfair. But even if it’s not terrible, it’s certainly not a good show. And it’s definitely not good enough to win a golden globe over 30 Rock or The Office.

There are a few good moments in the show. I can name them: scenes with Jane Lynch from the earlier episodes of the season and the “Preggers” episode. The “Preggers” episode was the best-written episode from Glee, and Kurt’s storyline in that episode was solid. And in the final scene of that episode, when Kurt finally confronts his father, it’s sweet and vulnerable and best yet, it feels true.

And then there’s Jane Lynch, whose bizarre displays of confidence are both ruthless and terrifying, and yet completely hilarious.

But that’s pretty much all the good of it — “Preggers” and Jane Lynch. Other than that, it’s overwhelmingly average and most of the time, just plain bad. Plot, character, dialogue — you name it, it fits that description. The plots are inconsistent, needlessly melodramatic, and aimless. They jump every which way with no clear narrative unity, hence often leaving the audience cold, unmoved, and forgetful of what just happened in the episode 10 minutes after watching it. They’re predictable in all the wrong ways, leaving only tedium as you wait for the story to catch up to what you already knew was going to happen 5 episodes ago. The characters are boringly predictable as well, as most of them are easy stereotypes and caricatures of what you would imagine them to be by simply looking at them. And just as the plots are inconsistent, so are the characters. This may sound like a contradiction between what I just wrote, but it’s not. There’s a crucial difference between a character being inconsistent and a character being unpredictable: an unpredictable character is one that manages to keep the aberrations or surprises of their behavior within the believable realms of their personality; an inconsistent character is one that acts one way one day, and another way another day, and there’s no discernible reason why except that their change in behavior caters to the twist in the plot. Inconsistency is bad writing. It’s the cheap and easy way to appear unpredictable, and Glee is guilty of this many times over.

Now it may sound like I have some raging personal hang-up against Glee and that’s why I keep going on and on about it – but it’s really not like that. I wanted to like the show, I really did. In fact, I kept making excuses for the show episode after episode, so my friend would continue watching it with me. But finally, there was this one episode where it got so bad I couldn’t even pretend anymore that it was anything but a complete train wreck.

Okay, this post has really gone on for way too long. Waaaay too long. I cannot believe that I just wrote a two thousand word post about Glee. I really can’t. And I know after reading this magnum opus on the shortcomings of Glee you’ll find it hard to believe me, but I don’t even feel all that strongly about the show now. I mean, I did when I first heard that they won, but not really anymore. Did anyone even read any of this? I just reread this whole thing and dozed off a little. Sigh.

Just don’t watch the show folks. It baayud.

(Ahem)

It’s been awhile huh?

-silence-

This is a little bit of awkward eh? Heh heh.

-silence-

Oh come on Limy, I’m sorry. I am! It’s been…well, you know. I’ve been very busy.

You’ve been busy.

Okay, you know what I mean. Obviously, I wasn’t so busy that I couldn’t have made any time for you, but you know how these things are. The longer you walk, the harder it is to start jogging again.

(Humph)

And also, I was busy: Christmas; New Year’s; a lot of activities happen around that time block you know! Good friends come back for the holidays, and then there were all these holiday parties I had to attend, Indian buffets I had to eat, movies I had to watch, and a new three-hour-long boardgame I had to play; and did I mention that I got sick for like, two and a half weeks and produced more nose mucus than I ever have before in my life? Buckets full. Oh! and then there was this Christmas program I put together and performed, and…

I see. Sounds like you had a chock full o’ fun time. Well, I’m glad that you’ve been alive and well this whole time, blowing out buckets of mucus, attending holiday parties, and playing long boardgames. And there I was, silly old me, starting to wonder after weeks and weeks of isolation and desolate loneliness whether something had happened to you. But no, your fingers weren’t somehow tragically incapacitated by some horrendous freak accident, you just forgot about me.

Oh Limy! How could I forget you? You’re my one and only in this whole world! I created you! You’re like my baby!

Is that supposed to make me feel better?

Oh Limy, all I mean is that I didn’t forget about you.

Oh, so you just consciously ignored me for a whole month.

Well, technically, it’s still one full day short of a whole…month.

You’re joking right? Are you really nit-picking about this with me right now? While I’m in this state? You’re going to SIT there and argue with me about the semantics of whether it’s really been a complete month or not??

Okay, okay, I’m sorry Limy! You’re right. I really am sorry for forgetting about you and getting carried away with my big fun. Will you forgive me?

-silence-

Limy?

Okay fine.

I love you Limy.

Shut up.