My achilles heel...

The year was 1990, or maybe 1992, and teenagers across the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex had yet to face the devastating loss of Y95. Our ears were accustomed to the faster dance sounds of Paula and MC as well as the soulful ballads of the legendary for a summer Wilson Phillips, when suddenly across the air waves we were assaulted with a song that originated in the pit and somehow made its way into the pop history that is the early 90's. You will find it on any monster ballads CD. You will find it wherever bad music is played. A song by a band named Extreme. The longest, whiniest most hideous sounding songs in the history of all songs...More then Words. (It could be debated that the Beatles' song The Long and Windy Road is a possible tie for first place, but we will leave that to another blog post.)

If you were fortunate enough to reach puberty in the early 90's then you were fortunate enough to probably learn the lyrics to Ice Ice Baby by heart. It is possibly that you embraced this song only because your ears were so numbed to all that is right and true in music by the hideousness of the song More then Words. I loath this song. If I ever become a double agent for a secret government branch and was held captive and tortured for information my captors should just put this song on repeat...I will tell them anything they want to know. I would rather listen to nails on a blackboard, or Beijing opera, all day long then listen to More then Words. It makes me skin crawl. I have been in department stores trying on clothes that I might actually like to buy when this song has started playing. I left the dressing room quickly and never looked back. I am not sure how else I can say how much I despise this song. If you ever think it is funny to sing it around me and see my reaction, you are not my friend. And I will not let you read my blog anymore...cough, SL, cough.

Unfortunately the other night The Captain decided to take a break from programming to watch some funny Utube clips. He typed the word sitar into the search. Not only did he find Sitar Hero, he also unfortunately found Mike Myers signing More then Words in The Love Guru. And thus he discovered my achilles heel. I know it is not healthy to hide things in relationships. But it is also important to reveal your achilles heel to those closest to you at just the right moment. In the case of my husband and I the right moment could have come when we were in our 90's and I could simply turn down my hearing aide while he decided to torture me with his own rendition of More then Words. Please friends pray for us, the cat is out of the bag and now The Captain can torture me at any moment. I fear for the consequences. But now I must go and find something worthwhile to listen to because this blog post has put the loathsome song back in my head.

I have a lot to say...but I don't always say it...

One of my favorite bloggers recently posted a blog entry about racial diversity. I found it interesting, commendable and also slightly naive. Actually I'm not sure if naive is the word I'm looking for, but there was something about it that made me stop and read the first 50 comments posted in response looking for someone expressing my sentiments. I took about 15 or 20 comments before I spotted it but there it was. Disagreement.

I knew it would be there and I knew it would come from either: A) A person who majored in early childhood education in college and took approximately 12 hours of classes on cultural diversity. B) One of my professors who taught those 12 hours of cultural diversity classes or C) someone not white. I'm betting it was probably the third type of person because I don't think Dr. V would waste her time reading the Pioneer Women blog. Her blog reading would be more intellectually stimulating. But I digress except for this shout out to Dr. V who I personally think was a wonderful professor and I am now saddened by the fact that I think I was to intimidated to ever tell her.

There are a lot of things I think about blogging about. Some are public service announcements. Things to the extent of "Just in case you were wondering if you should post your the birth video of your first child on facebook, don't." Others are feebly formed thoughts on issues like race. Others are just dumb bumblings of how I mess up in language all the time and can barely master English grammar let alone Chinese grammar. Almost daily I compose fantastic blog entries on all of the above topics, usually while washing dishes. But then I don't actually blog. I'm not so worried about the first three reasons I don't blog: 1) lack of time 2) lack of a computer with a proxy 3) stupid idea to start with. But the fourth reason I don't blog really is something to think about. I don't blog sometimes because I'm scared of what people will think.

I'm scared that someone who did post her birth video on facebook will read my blog entry and be offended. I'm scared if I talk about my bumblings everyone will know what level I am as a language student. (As if they didn't already know.) And I'm afraid that talking about things I think about frequently, like race and culture, are issues that friends will not understand or disagree with. So I don't talk about them.

I think that's ok. No one needs to be told through their friends blog not what to post and not post on their facebook page. A blog isn't really the type of medium that invites personal interaction and dialogue which can promote understanding. That would be a phone call. It's more of a public proclamation of thoughts. Or maybe just a public proclamation of cute baby pictures. Since we don't have a baby, all I'm left with is my thoughts. Which are not as cute.

So today I desire to stick my neck out and say one thing about race in response to reading another person's blog entry saying that discussing race should be avoided. Race is often, not always but often, connected to something that I find precious. It's connected to culture. I don't think race needs to be the first thing talked about when a person meets another person, but to ignore race in an effort to be "color blind" means that a person's cultural background is ignored. I think culture is precious because it is a part of each of us and to pretend we are all the same is really not true. We are all people, but we are unique in our personalities, our cultures, and skin colors. I like that and I like talking about it because I like people. I just wanted to say that, it's ok if you don't agree. Or if you have a suggestion to help me refine my perspective, that's good too.

On another interesting note because I happen to be white American and my husband happens to be Chinese American we get a lot of reactions in this Asian city where we live. People here ask about race pretty frequently and usually at the beginning of the conversation. In my husband's observations it's because of a desire to figure out what type of relationship they can have with you. In my observation I agree with him. I also think it's because they feel confused by us. Maybe I'll explore this topic more in the future. Maybe I won't. But I do just want to observe that difference between one Western perspective on race I've encountered recently vs. the perspective I encounter here pretty regularly.

Another interesting question. If you have time go and read this blog entry and then write me a note. I am really curious now to know if you would buy your children dolls that were not your own race.

Stand back ladies...

There are many reasons that I married The Captain. Some of them are quite spiritual like his leadership, his desire to see those who don't have to access truth have access to truth, his willingness to listen and work through things. But the truth is I married him so that I could have a front row seat to watch this action.

Please follow his blog instructions and listen to Miley Cyrus while reading his lyrics, you'll thank me for that tip later. I will also admit that this blog post might be particularly funny only to those who actually ride their bike in front of KFC daily and get a large dose of loud American pop music. And stand back ladies, there's only one seat in this front row....