Kymburrr: Origins

If you know me, chances are you know I'm adopted  I know a lot of people are hesitant to make assumptions, but let's be honest. If you've ever seen any photos of Asian me with my whiter-than-egg-whites family -- or if you've actually met them -- chances are you've had your suspicions. Or maybe you've just jumped to the conclusion that my mother must've been hanging around the dry cleaners a lot back in the 80s, in which case, fuck you! Who the hell are you to make that kind of assumption about the dry cleaner! Racist.

Point is, I was adopted, and like many adopted kids, I often wonder where I came from.

Here's what I know:

I was born in Seoul, South Korea, to an unmarried 22 year old woman and 26 year old man. For the first six months of my life, I was under the guardianship of what I can only imagine was a very loving, caring foster family who were totally not in it for the money or any other reason besides Love. Why else would anyone voluntarily open their home to an uncontrollable pooping vomit machine? DO NOT CORRECT ME ON THIS. Then, after these very kind people had enough of the Vomitron 88™, they put her -- me -- on a plane to the United States of America, where I was collected by my new, real parents. My life as a mail order child had finally begun!

Growing up white was fine, except for the part where I wasn't actually white. This led to being bullied a lot, which in turn led to my initial curiosity of why I had been put up for adoption. It was during these formative years that I firmly decided that Birth Mama had definitely been a ninja. I'm talking League of Assassins shit. That's why she couldn't keep me. How could she? The League is made up of the hardest motherfuckers in the world, and it is most certainly not a place for children (cf. The Dark Knight Rises: Talia Al Ghul). To this day, you cannot convince me otherwise. Sure, we can sit down and talk about the unfair stigma placed on single mothers in Korea and how that resulted in extremely limited options for pregnant women. Perhaps you and I will go on to form an alliance to combat all sorts of social injustices, and that would be amazing. It still wouldn't change the (almost certain) fact that my birth mother was a ninja.

This conclusion also had its tactical advantages during those bullying years. I thought that if Birth Mama was actually Ninja Mama, maybe there were some special ninja skills hidden in my genetic makeup, and all I had to do was unlock them. I tested this theory out on the playground when some jackass snotbag asked why my eyes looked so funny before deciding that it would be a good idea to "speak Chinese" to me, by which I mean say "Ching chang ling long!" a lot. Needless to say, this didn't end well for anyone.

Before I go any further, I should mention that my parents are good people and I love them dearly. This post isn't meant to criticize them for adopting me or to disrespect them in any way. They did the best they could, and like, I turned out fucking GREAT!

But they weren't ninjas.

They're actually the opposite of ninjas. Just last week, my mother once again proved that she has absolutely no ability to be stealthy:

But I digress. 

The other thing that got into my head at an early age was Disney. More specifically, Disney princesses. Most specifically, WHAT IF MY BIRTH FATHER WAS A PRINCE?! If I could find him, then maybe I could reclaim my rightful place as heir to the throne! The release of The Princess Diaries only served to reinforce this idea. Of course, ten year old me had no concept of the politics of royal births, let alone births out of wedlock, so my new dream of secretly being Korean royalty seemed totally attainable. 

Side note: While writing this, I did some research, and there is in fact a Korean emperor who would've been the right age in the late 80s to have been my birth father. Go figure.

Eventually I grew up and realized that Disney princesses are a load of bullshit. I also realized that it doesn't really matter where I came from, cause it's not going to change where I'm going. I do still catch myself wondering about it from time to time. These days, however, I tend to take delight in the unknown. For all I know, Ninja Mama might not be my birth mother. She might have been the genetic origin for a batch of clones. I could be a fucking clone. How cool would that be? There could be more of me out there, waiting to be discovered. And then? Then we'll take over the world, just like we were destined to do. 

You Can't Always Get What You Want, or Why Football is Bad for My Mental Health

Another January, another post-season for the NFL.  After watching my home team fall in the first round and my second choice cry "uncle" last weekend, I realized that whichever of the four remaining teams make it to the Superbowl, this year's game is going to be a bleak event in my life.

But that wouldn't be absolutely terrible.  As far as First World Problems go, this really shouldn't be that bad.  It is just football, after all.  That is, it WAS just football, until I noticed that one of the possible match ups could be the Baltimore Ravens vs. the NY Giants.  Then my brain imploded.

As a Steelers fan, a deep, deep dislike for the Ravens has been instilled in me for as far back as I can remember.  It doesn't matter that I now live in Baltimore and am happy to call it home.  There is nothing on this earth that could persuade me to turn traitor, even if that means that my Sundays are spent in exile while the rest of the neighbors gather to watch the games.  

I'm okay with this, though.  I am fully aware that I'm living behind enemy lines here, and I'm willing to respect that (to some extent).  Also, as much as I love my fellow Baltimoreans, they're insanely delusional, so avoiding them on game days is always a good option.

My uncle has a similar affliction, according to my father.

Of course, the Steelers aren't without their token shady player, either.  But I can't say I've ever rushed to his defense so readily.  Nor is there any way to twist his alleged charges into anything remotely endearing.  Not that murder can be made endearing, but that's not the poi -- no! that is ENTIRELY the point!

My intense dislike of the Ravens extends so ridiculously far that I have actually felt guilty if I'm not as equally decked out in Pittsburgh gear when surrounded by my Baltimore counterparts.  

But this is nothing when compared to the hatred I have for the New York Giants.  The very fires of Hell cannot hold a candle to the pure loathing I feel towards the fucking New York Giants.   And the thing is, I haven't the slightest clue as to why I hate this particular team so much.  There is absolutely no logical or sensible reason behind why I feel so personally offended when someone steps into my house wearing a Giants jersey, but it's as if they're attacking my integrity.  I have no problem with any other aspect of New York City.  It's a fantastic place.  But this team...I can say without a doubt that I have less tolerance for this team than I have for stupid people or Christmas music.  Maybe a Giants fan dropped me on my head when I was an infant, or perhaps there's some other Giants-related traumatic event buried deep in my subconscious memory. 

At any rate, telling me that the Ravens could very possibly win the Superbowl is like telling a small child that Santa Claus doesn't exist -- it's a huge disappointment, but come Christmas morning, there will still be presents under the tree.  Saying the Giants could win, however, is like desperately waiting throughout the entire school day to go home and enjoy the last piece of vanilla-strawberry cake topped with rich, beyond delicious buttercream icing that my mother made for my 8th birthday.  

But when I finally dashed through the door and into the kitchen, I found my father quickly scraping up the last of the crumbs from the plate.  

The cake was gone.  I was devastated.  I tried to convince my mother to send my father out to buy a replacement slice from the grocery store, but she refused, and I didn't push the matter.  I knew a store-bought cake wouldn't taste anywhere near as delicious as one baked from scratch, and well, I wasn't going to get another homemade cake cause that shit takes EFFORT.  

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I'm starting to wonder if my mother purposely didn't want me to have that last slice...

Anyways, you see my dilemma.  Unless I outright boycott this year's Superbowl (not an option), I'm between a rock and a hard place.  So I made these pros/cons charts to help me come to an easy decision:

So basically, I'll be accepting bribes from both sides.  

(This post is dedicated to Eileen Huang -- best friend and fellow cake enthusiast.) 

Anatomy of a Heartbreak

A friend of mine just got engaged, which is all sorts of wonderful.  But even before the ring, all she could talk about was how busy she was.  Busy being in love, that is.  And now...

Of course, we all gushed and obligingly listened to her prattle on about how she told Ben that he had to time his proposal so she'd have at least six months to plan for a fall wedding, and then, somewhere about ten minutes into the possible locations discussion, she looked at her hand and gasped.

On a good day, this might've been cute.  Maybe even something remotely resembling endearing.  But it's never a good day when your heart has recently been broken, and so this caused some sort of minor implosion in my brain.  And in my chest cavity.

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I've had boyfriends before.  I even liked them at times.  But breaking up with them, leaving them behind, it was the best feeling in the world.  Suddenly, I could be me again.  I could go from 0 to 100 mph in under five seconds without having to check that someone was strapped in and holding on.

Then I met this new guy.  He was different.  He was pretty much the epitome of wonderful.  He was the sweetest, most intelligent, gorgeous, tallest man ever.  The technical term, I believe, is a keeper.  Not only could he hold on by himself, but he had his own bike.  We could hang.  For realzies.  

I started to think that maybe this could be it -- maybe I had finally met someone who could keep up with me and more importantly, someone whom i'd be willing to follow through this adventure of life, as well.  And he made me happy.  Like, legitimately giddy.  Like, unicorns puking rainbows happy.  Which was new.  I've never had a unicorn before.

But you can't have it all, as the saying goes.  I guess I just thought I could for a hot second.  The chemistry was there when we were there, but spending a month apart put too much of a strain on things before we had a chance to solidify our budding relationship.  He sadly decided that he couldn't see a long-term future for us, and I stupidly agreed for whatever reason.  In retrospect, it was probably because I'm just used to being with people with whom a long-term future is indeed a ridiculous notion, and I just reacted out of instinct.  Who knows.  The fact of the matter is, I hadn't really given it any serious thought, and now that I have, I'm realizing that I so wanted there to be a future with this one.  But it's too late.  We parted ways a little over a week ago, and by parted ways, I mean he ended it, point blank.

This has never been a problem for me before.  I've always been a huge proponent of the whole packing up and leaving thing cause in a way, it's really liberating.  But not this time.  This time, I'm a fucking mess.  It's strange, experiencing what was once a sure thing disintegrate, because even though we weren't together for all that long, when it's right, you just KNOW it.  And when it falls apart, it hurts.  Badly.

It feels kind of like heartburn, but not really.  Actually, it's more like the opposite of heartburn.  With heartburn, you're all aware of your heart's existence and shit, cause it fucking stings.  And then there's always the less-than-novel flatulence element.  Heartache, on the other hand, has no sharp pain.  In fact, it has no pain.  It has so much not pain that it feels like your heart has disapparated out of your body, and you're suddenly missing a vital organ.  Or maybe it was harvested by aliens while you were asleep.  Whatever the case may be, all you know is that you feel so hopelessly empty.   You've just poured so much of yourself into being part of this incredible two person act that it's going to take some time to figure out how to perform the stunts by yourself again.

People have been telling me that the transition between being a full-time student and a real person is often mentally difficult, and that perhaps some of that is to blame for how down I've been feeling over this whole thing.  But all things considered, I feel like I've made the transition relatively well.  For example, this is how I would've handled the situation a year ago:

Now, however, I'm able to put the recent events into a more realistic perspective, and perspective is a fantastic thing to have.  Even though this relationship fell through, i can still be a badass motherfucker at life if i want to, dammit!

This is made easier by the fact that I've not got a heart anymore.  

Though apparently, having a heart isn't a requirement for feeling sad, as I'm discovering, and despite my best efforts, the realization that Boy and I are really over tends to hit me at really inconvenient times.  

Printers = Satan**

Printers are direct descendants of the devil.  They will always win no matter what, and there isn't a damn thing you can do to change that.

I've been doing battle all year with a particular printer at the photo lab I frequent, and recently, this printer has decided that instead of at least pretending to cooperate with me, it was just going to make me absolutely miserable.  Every time I walk in, it greets me quite amicably -- enough to trick me into thinking that perhaps this time, it will do my bidding.

So I delicately load a piece of paper into its tray and press the print button.  Then all hell breaks loose. 

Of course, once the data has been sent through, the paper can't be salvaged, so letting it go and hoping for the best is usually the most logical option.  If nothing else, when the results are less than desirable, the problem can be easily diagnosed.  If a head cleaning is needed, for example, that's easily identifiable and simple to fix.

Or at least, it should be on any other printer.  Except this one.  Because this one is the Anti-Christ.

I'll admit, I'm not the most patient of people, but I try to remain level-headed when a big project is on the line, as frustration is often counter-productive and won't do anything in the way of helping me achieve the desired results.  But it's around this time that my patience starts wearing thin.  And the printer knows it.  And oh, it LOVES it.

...And then, this happens.

Which is great when you've stolen your office printer to dismantle in a deserted field.  Unfortunately, it's not so great when you still have jobs queued.

Well, fuck.


**This post is dedicated in part to my dear friend Stuart, who has denied all knowledge of my existence purely for the sake of getting printers to cooperate with me.  (If you like music, particularly funk and blues, or if you're an analogue junkie, or if you just want to read the musings of a relatively cool Aussi, you should show him some love by checking him out at  www.somethingaboutfunk.wordpress.com.)  The rest of this post is dedicated to a lovely woman named Bonnie who has jumped through circus-worthy hoops on multiple occasions in attempts to make the printer in question my bitch.

I'm a Real Artist Now!

Internships are great.  They give you opportunities to explore your future career path of choice, and they hook you up with loads of people who can help you along the way.  What they don't do, however, is pay you.  So although I've got a pretty sweet gig lined up for the spring, I need a paying job.  Because, like most relatively functional people, I've got expenses.

**

**If we want to be technical about it, I'm not so sure that Boy counts as a real expense.  It would just be really nice to have to funds to treat him to a proper dinner out and such every so often.  And if we want to get even more technical, there is no flight to Portland booked at this time because I'm broke.

But that will all change soon, as I start a seasonal job tomorrow as an artist for an online ornament company!

I went to their office for an interview last week, all gung-ho and excited.  When I walked in the door, though, the first thing I noticed was how perfectly miserable every single employee looked.  Maybe it was the pre-Thanksgiving Christmas music droning on in the background, or maybe it was the overzealous middle-aged women walking around like overseers, pointing out several mistakes the Packers and Shippers were making in taping boxes together.  Trying to be optimistic, I decided that maybe I just didn't understand the specific situation at hand, so I took a seat by the receptionist's desk to wait for my interview with Loraine.  It was then that I saw this sign hanging by the door:

Did I say "overzealous"?

After about 10 minutes, Loraine came out to meet me.  Or rather, I assumed she was Loraine.  She never once introduced herself during the entirety of the interview.  Nor did she ask my name until about halfway through.

"So, your name is Kate, right?"

"Um, no, I'm Kimber."

"That's right.  I'm sorry.  Kim, Kate, it all sounds the same."

"I understand --"

"So you prefer Kim, then?"

"Um, Kimber, actually."

"Great!  Well, Kim, you don't happen to have a steady hand and excellent handwriting, do you?"

After restarting my brain, I managed a quick, "I think so."

"Well that's great!  We need more artists!"  Loraine replied.  "Why don't you have a seat here and we'll give you the test!"

"Ok, I can do this," I told her.  "I've decorated ornaments with my family for years!"

"Well, why didn't you say so, honey?!  We would've had you in here weeks ago!  We need more artists!"

I decided it probably wasn't worth the effort to mention that I had written exactly that in my cover letter.  Which was required in the application.

At any rate, when she said "artist," I thought maybe I'd have a chance to paint the ornaments, which would be super fun.  I was wrong.  As Loraine sat me down and laid several ornaments out in front of me, I realized that the position of artist actually just meant writing customers' names (and maybe a special message) neatly onto cheaply decorated, mass-ordered ornaments made in China.  But the trick to it, Loraine explained, was that you had to make sure that the text didn't overwhelm the artistic value of the ornament.  The original design's integrity had to remain intact.  Though we were allowed to put little flourishes around the names, which would be left up to the artist's discretion.  For example:

"Are there any specific names I should write on these?" I asked Loraine.

"Nope, your favorite names will work just fine," she said, walking away.


I set to work, writing ornaments for my housemates and my neighbors.  Once finished, I was feeling strangely proud of my handwriting, and I went to find Loraine, who in turn went to find the owner and president of the company, Mary.  Mary took a long, hard look at my samples, eventually deeming them acceptable.  But, she pointed out, I would need some training.  Apparently, the large space at the bottom of one of the ornaments that was clearly meant to be completely filled with text was not actually meant to be completely filled with text.

"But that's ok," Mary reassured me.  She then grabbed a box of defective ornaments and began sorting through them so that I could have a take-home practice kit.  She instructed me to go on the company's website to use those designs as templates.  As she carefully scrutinized each piece, she tried to strike up a friendly conversation with me, asking if I went to school.  I told her that I had recently graduated.  She asked from where, so I told her.  This surprised (and apparently impressed) her, and she didn't hesitate to make that fact known.  In front of a room full of employees.

Ornaments in hand, I booked it out of there before anyone could have a long enough look at my face to recognize me on my first day, for which I was given a starting time, but not an ending time.  I asked, and the reply was, "Let's just see how it goes."  Right.  Nor was I told what my hourly wage would be, come to think of it.


I drove home and got started right away on my assignment so that I wouldn't forget about it.  I browsed through the company's site, and holy shit, their stuff was awful!  It reminded me of the ornaments CVS used to give out for free if you spent a certain amount on Christmas decor.  Once the initial wave of nausea passed, I sat there pondering what kind of people would actually order these things.  And at $15.00 a pop?!

But a job is a job, and I'm not going to complain, so I sat down and began writing, figuring that at the very least, I could use this pile as gag Christmas gifts for my housemates, neighbors, and boy.

I still felt like maybe I wasn't preserving the natural integrity of the ornament's original design, so I went back on the site.  Finally, it occurred to me that maybe the text should just match the cheesiness of the ornament.  And yep, that was it.

Though I'm not sure my sanity will be as well preserved.