Rest In Peace, 'Donger.'

You wouldn't think that when you hold your baby as he takes his first breath, you would one day be holding him as he takes his last breath. It's not something I've ever considered, at least.

It was my college graduation day--May 11, 2012--when my mom told me that cousin Tom has cancer. What kind? I asked, as if there were any good kind of cancer I could hope for. She didn't know how to translate it from Korean into English. 췌장암, she said.

Pancreatic cancer.

When I returned back home from school, I started visiting Tom every weekend I could. Sometimes just to watch Nats and Redskins games with him, sometimes just to play with his dog, and sometimes to eat some good old seafood with him. Why did it have to take cancer to bring us closer together? Nonetheless, I'm glad he got to taste some Hot N Juicy and Chasin' Tails cajun seafood before he went, and that I also got to bring him some live catch of my own.

"He's in a better place now," people tell me. Where is he? And how is it better? As someone who doesn't believe in a heaven nor hell nor nirvana nor any other sort of life after life, this consolation means almost nothing to me, but I wish it did. It's times like this that I wish I believed.

"You were so good to him," Aunt Kathy tells me--the youngest aunt in the Park family. "I know you were." I felt like I didn't do enough, though. And I know there were others who did more for him. I could have taken him to a Nationals or Redskins game. I could have taken him with me to my crabbing and fishing trips. I could have done a Marvel movie marathon with him and watched some stand-up comedy with him. But I didn't. When his mom and Aunt Kathy and others tell me that I was "good to him," I feel like I am being commended in a way a helpless child could be commended for chipping in loose change to help pay a mortgage.

He is 19 years my senior; most of the Park cousins are considerably older than me and had grown up together, and I was the baby. My very first memory of Tom is when I went over to his house to visit my aunt and uncle with my mom, just a little after my parents had divorced. He walked over to me and stuck his foot in my face and then laughed when I got scared; I thought that he was going to smother me with it. Always the jokester. He continued making us laugh even after he was gone. As we were going through his things, one of the very first things we found were two very--let's say, explicit--DVDs in his top drawer. James handed them to me before I knew what they were and said, "Do you want these?" Also, I myself have been known to steal stupid things--giant stuffed toys from Kings Dominion, dinnerware from my campus dining halls, souvenirs from vacation spots. Imagine my amusement when we were going through his things, and I saw two green fold-up chairs in his closet and room that very clearly said "Patriot Center" on them--from his alma mater, George Mason University. I also found a sketchbook with drawings by his 14-year old self. They were actually pretty decent. He and I are more similar than I thought. On the paddle he got from his fraternity, which was placed on his casket, I learned that his nickname was 'Donger.' I'm not sure why, but it somehow seems appropriate.

While he was battling his illness, there were a good amount of times when we thought he was reaching his end. Whether he was particularly beat up from chemotherapy, or when his stent had a blockage and he vomited everything he tried to keep down, or occasions when he got delusional and unaware of his surroundings. But each time, he somehow pulled through, and the next time I would see him, he would be his usual snarky self, laying on the couch watching TV with his dog while his brother James cooked some spicy pork outside on the grill. He was invincible. I got used to thinking that no matter how horrible his condition got, he would recover. I foolishly thought there would always be more time. Only, last week, he decided he couldn't fight anymore. He was done. He got to play one last round of poker with our cousins and his friends. He got to have a proper farewell with a lot of people. He requested that "Amazing Grace" be sung at his viewing, and I hope I did it justice--although I'm sure if he were alive to witness it, he would have told me that I sucked and booed me off the stage.

I was afraid of asking him out of the fear of offending him, but I finally did, because others have wondered the same thing when I tell them about him: "Why have you been fighting for so long? What makes you want to keep living?" He had no wife, no kids, and I guess for some people, if you don't have those things, then you don't really have anything to live for. Of course, they would be wrong. He had his cousins, his brother, his adorable niece Alexis. He had his mother, who was holding his hand in her sleep when she awoke to his grip loosening as he passed away; she wailed "my baby, my baby" over his body through the morning. He had his father, who collapsed on the front porch as he watched the coroners cart the body away. He had his friends, his Alpha Chi Rho fraternity brothers, his job. He had all the people that showed up to his viewing, funeral, and burial ceremonies. Indeed, when I asked him why he was holding on, he responded by saying, "Alexis. I was fighting for her. But I can't do it anymore." It's damn near miraculous that he made it over two years with pancreatic cancer, and I am in awe of his resilience.

I think of all the could-have-been's. Having been a bachelor all his life, would he have found love and settled down if it wasn't for the cancer? Would he have liked Kevin Hart and Louis C.K.? If he ever did meet any boyfriend of mine, would he really have given them a "beat down," as he always threatened to do whenever he thought I was dating somebody? "He better treat you right, or we'll give him a beat down."

They simplified his life so much in the funeral program. August 27, 1971: born in Korea. 1977: immigrated to the United States. Elementary/Middle/High school. George Mason University (English Major). Work at a bank. Work at a mortgage company. August 28, 2014: deceased at 5:20am. There was so much more to him than that (as there is to anybody, of course). The district, regional, and state wrestling championships he participated in and won. The countless people he helped out that were in trouble by giving them all sorts of money and resources without expecting anything in return--myself included. The Treasurer and Vice President positions he held with Alpha Chi Rho. The crass dick jokes. The amazing shrimp barbie recipes. The surprising secret artistic abilities. So many other things that I myself will never get to know about him firsthand.

At his viewing, his mother wept at his casket while his father repeated, "It should have been me, I should have gone first." It will take an eternity for me to forget my aunt's cries of "my baby, my poor son" over his body.

The day I found out from James that Tom's condition was rapidly deteriorating, it had been almost two months since I had last seen him. You always think there would be more time. How did I let almost two months go by? I am a fool. I am a coward.

Last Tuesday, August 26, I went to his house as soon as I got the word from James. "Good to see you," Tom greeted me while he was drinking some soup. I tried to contain my shock at his 80-pound frame. He looked like a skeleton with skin stretched over his bones. I kept him company in his room while we watched the Nats game, and that's when he started to lose it.

"Hey, is the game on?" he asked, his eyes closed. I was confused, and didn't realize what was happening to his mental state..
"Yes...? We're watching it right now," I replied, worried. He stayed silent.
Then, a few moments later: "Oh, man, do you need anything? Are you okay?" he said, his eyes half-open.
"What?" I laughed. "Do you need anything? You're the one with cancer, man."
He paused and then chuckled. "Wait, sorry. I thought you were in labor just now. Must be hallucinating," he mumbled. More silence. Suddenly, he started rambling on in gibberish and groaning, and I cried openly in front of him, knowing he wasn't aware of it and thusly couldn't make fun of me like he had in the past when I cried for him. I caught the words "plastic Indian" and "sing sang sung steam," but didn't make sense of much else--not that those phrases in themselves make any sense.

I couldn't stay to watch him anymore, but he was slowly regaining his coherence. I walked over to him and told him I would be back the next day, and that we would watch some Louis C.K., as he had never heard of him before. He groaned in agreement--I think. Then, something I had never said to him before--something I rarely say to people in general, but especially anybody in the Park family, because they (we) all think lovey-dovey stuff is cringe-worthy: "I love you." Gratifyingly enough, I got an "I love you, too," in return.

The next day, Wednesday, August 27, I went to his house. It was his 43rd birthday. He was bedridden for most of the day. I went to his room, sat down next to him, and placed a hand on his sharp hip bone. His hand slowly reached over to meet mine, and though he couldn't speak, the gesture spoke volumes. Later, while I was in his living room with his parents and friends and brother, we heard him hop out of bed. He appeared in the hallway right outside of his room, saw us, and said, "What's going on?" We looked at each other in surprise.
"It's your birthday! This is your party!" we exclaimed. He grinned like a little kid, then went back into his room. Seeing him in the hallway was a harrowing view; with no shirt on, we could count each rib, each vertebrae.

Thursday, August 28. I woke up to a voicemail from James. "My brother has passed away. My mom says he went around 5:10, 5:20." I will never forget how cold Tom's skin felt on my lips as I kissed his forehead before his body was taken away.

I will live twice as hard for him. I don't have room for fear or apprehension or awkwardness or anxiety anymore. And there will always be room for tomfoolery (how apt of a word!).

If there is a heaven, I would like to think he's feeling "aw shucks"-abashed at how many people are mourning his death and how many people cried at his funeral. There's probably unlimited cajun seafood up there, with lots of steak and cigars and football and wrestling and fishing and poker.

science and Reddit trivia that changed my perspective on things

• Technically, you're not necessarily looking "up" at the stars--since directions can be arbitrary/relative, you could also be looking "down" at the stars, considering where you are on earth and where we could consider to be "up" (i.e. outwards of the perimeters of the earth? upwards in terms of the "plane" that the orbits of the planets are generally forming? north pole?).
• Everybody that was alive when the oldest living person was born is dead now. All of them. On the planet.
• In fact, 54 million people that are alive right now will be dead within the next 12 months.
• In 100-120 years, it will be a whole new crop of people inhabiting this earth. Rinse and repeat.
• Before wishing for invisibility as your superpower, think again--being invisible means you would be blind as well. If your eyes are invisible, then the light has nothing to bounce back to, rendering you incapable of seeing anything.
• There are many bug-parts in chocolate, as bugs can't really be kept out of the cocoa beans. The FDA allows a certain percentage of bug parts per ounce. When someone is allergic to chocolate, generally, they are allergic to the bugs and not the chocolate itself.
• The smell of fresh-cut grass is actually a distress signal from the grass being cut. It 'warns' other grass blades that destruction is near, and upon being warned, the grass redistributes most of its nutrients closer to its roots so that its losses are minimized. Basically, plants are more metal than I thought.
• Eating one single banana exposes you to more radiation than being within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant for one year. Note that this is a testament to the safety of nuclear power plants (so long as it is in compliance with regulations), not the radioactivity of bananas; the stigma around nuclear power plants is rather misleading.
• Arthur C. Clarke: "Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."
• Mathematically, there have to be other lifeforms in the galaxy, and it's almost certain that some of them are intelligent--maybe as many as 10,000 different civilizations. The catch is, space is so big that as far as we can determine right now (some 15 billion light-years across), given an even random distribution (unless it's not so random... but that's to contemplate another time I suppose), none of us will ever likely meet each other or even detect each other. For all intents and purposes, then, we are alone in the universe. Any intelligent alien races likely suffer the same lack of significance as humans do. Not only is it improbable that alien life exists within reach, but it's even more improbable that we are co-existing at the same time.
• If the acceleration model of the expansion of the universe is correct, things will start disappearing from our visible sky. People of the future (provided that human civilization can last that long) will have no way of knowing these things ever existed through their own direct observation; they'll have to rely on our documentation.
• We don't use "10% of our brains." We use all 100%. There is no secretly-unexplored chasm of superpowers in our brain. We just happen to not use all 100% at the same time, since each part of the brain does something different. We aren't doing math and writing a symphony and playing soccer at the same time (although I'd like to see that).
• The stronger the smell of chlorine in a swimming pool, the more contaminated it is with sweat/fecal matter/urine. Sometimes I forget that the nostalgic smell of summer is really the smell of stank.
• Our monetary system has been set up so that there will always be more debt in existence than there is money to pay it all off. We will never be out of debt until the USD (and subsequently every other world currency) collapses.
• Eggs are basically a chicken's menstruation.
• When you eat figs, you are basically eating wasps; figs can't become the way they are without a female fig wasp flying into the center of the syconium to lay her eggs; one inside, there's no getting back out.
• Ladybugs have the highest STD-rate among animals.
• Green apple seeds contain cyanide.
• Red-colored candy and soda is made out of ground up beetles; see if you can find "carmine" as an ingredient in these items. Gelatin is also made out of horse/cow hooves and is an ingredient in most types of candy and gum.
• Flipper (the dolphin) committed suicide. The majority of dolphins held in captivity commit suicide.
• You have never actually been 'touched' the way you think you have. Our atoms all repel each other and don't actually 'touch' because of the electron cloud. The tactile sense you feel is really just the repulsive forces occuring on the molecular level.
• Statistically, American women have a better chance at becoming princesses than Supreme Court Justices. More American women have become (or always been) a part of some royal ancestry than they have become Supreme Court Justices.
• The idea that racism is bad is newer than the automobile.
• Bread is actually bad for ducks. You are slowly killing them when you feed them bread.
• Sometime in the future, you will be thought of for the last time.
• Bats have the highest percentage of homosexuality among all animals. (Keep this in mind when Batman vs. Superman comes out...)
• Every dog in that movie or TV show you like so much is dead now.
• Hugo Boss designed and produced the uniforms for the Nazis.

Four things to be thankful for today.

• Friends like Jan and Casey who will come help me at last minute's notice. My dad's BMW 750 has had battery issues in the past, but never when I was in possession of the car--until today. It was confusing enough just to open the hood and identify the positive and negative terminals (and I somehow cut my finger deeply in the process?). Jan came to the rescue with his A4 and cables and jump-started my car. :)
• My mom, who I know will help me if I'm in trouble without expecting anything in return.
• My room mate, Jasmine, who is patient with me and gives me all the constructive criticism I really need for problems I encounter, both personal and professional.
• My determination. Opportunities can be found in setbacks. To be honest, I'm glad that certain choices are made for me, even if they aren't what I expected them to be. If my biggest worry is that I have too many choices, then I am a fortunate individual.

Plans for the rest of 2014

I plan on...

• getting my credit card balance down to almost $0 by the end of this year. I have completely max'ed out my limit as of now, at the end of April, after spending moneys upon moneys on graduation gifts, birthday shenanigans, and just treating people to food in general.
• foregoing my MBA this Fall, due to the sad fact that I still have about $30,000 in student loans as well as a barely-livable salary and an apartment in Fairfax County.
• leaving my position as an Intern for DHS and getting into a permanent and higher-paying position, whether it be in public or private sector.
• getting my body fat down to 11% (I have no idea what it is right now but I'm fairly sure it's not below 15%); I don't really want to gain muscle either, so that might just end up becoming 10-15 pounds to lose.
• going crabbing at least three times a month May through September.
• buying an actual box/frame for my mattress.
• finishing at least two pieces of artwork.
• cutting certain people out of my life--and not pussyfooting around it, either.
• working harder to keep certain people in my life--and not pussyfooting around it, either.
• watching all of Orange Is the New Black. I haven't started it yet, but I hear it's a good show.
• finishing the rest of Community and Weeds. Bonus: get through at least the second and third season of Glee.
• getting a tattoo of an octopus or starfish on my shoulder or hip.
• writing the lyrics to and recording my voice for at least three original tracks--one of which I'm going to be rapping on. I know, I've only ever presented myself as a pianist or singer, but I really admire spoken word and rap and want to learn more about it.
• taking a walk by myself during a big thunderstorm around my neighborhood.
• making a spontaneous trip to a beach by myself--probably Virginia Beach or Outer Banks or even Ocean City. Who knows? It'll be spontaneous, after all.
• getting something (less controversial) published on ThoughtCatalog again.

Four things to be thankful for today.

Jan, who I know will help me out no matter what kind of trouble I'm in. Thanks for the Big Mac and the shisha.

Same with Ann, who also bought me Thai iced tea tonight.

Training sessions and courses I get to attend as an employee for the U.S. government, which have given me a lot of opportunities to meet highly-ranked military officials, presitigious federal SES's, and just some pretty cool people in general.

My mattress warmer, which keeps me cozy and snug when my room mate blasts the air conditioning. Very thankful to have a warm bed to sleep in, especially during the cruel winters.

RE: "18 Things Females Seem to Not Understand (Because, Female Privilege)"

I recently read this article about "female privilege" on thoughtcatalog by a guy named Mark Saunders and decided that I can't let it can't go unaddressed. So, to counter the 18 advantages that the author believes females apparently have over males:

1. Male privilege is being comfortable with walking down the street at night without fear of sexual assault (Saunders, you realize that your first point of men not being able to walk down the street without being feared as an assaulter is something to blame men for, not women, right?).
2. Male privilege is being able to ask out girls because it's the norm; when a girl asks a guy out, she is interpreted to be too ballsy or aggressive and depriving the guy of the role. Male privilege is also not having to deal with overeager, oversexed, unsolicited "creepiness."
3. Male privilege is being able to get drunk and have sex with a girl and then getting away with it on the grounds that it was a "grey area" and that "these things regularly happen anyway."
4. It is male privilege to turn on the TV and see yourself represented in a positive way and be encouraged. Male characters, no matter how unappealing or unambitious or otherwise unattractive (ugly and lazy, in Saunders' words) they are, can still score quality women. Male privilege is not having to deal with the intense body image pressure and "thinspo" bullshit as unrelentingly as females do. Male privilege is being a bodybuilder and getting praise; females become bodybuilders and they are met with misogynistic "that's disgusting, that's not how a girl should look" comments. Male privilege is being able to work out without a shirt on at a gym and not being kicked out, whereas if a woman were to work out with a sports bra and yoga pants, she gets kicked out.
5. Male privilege is being recognized for heroic actions, whereas female heroines are rarely heard of in media and history.
6. Male privilege is being able to decide whether or not you want to be a father, whereas for a mother, it is apparently not supposed to be a choice (if the law prevents a woman from being able to choose to be a mother or not, then the law should also prevent men from being able to abandon fatherhood. It took two to make the baby).
7. Male privilege is being able to get away with writing a check every month for child support while the mother actually raises and supports the child. You want to talk about responsibility for supporting a child "you didn't want to have in the first place"? It's not just about money.
8. Male privilege is not having your gender used against you and everybody else; it is not having your gender associated with inferiority and weakness. It's never being told that the way you are born is, by default, wrong: "You throw like a girl," "Stop being such a girl," "You run like a girl." I fight like a girl, and you can test me on this.
9. Male privilege is being able to joke about rape.
10. Male privilege is being able to leave your wife and not have anything to do with her or the kids anymore because you found a younger booty to chase.
11. Male privilege is being able to frighten your spouse into not calling the police and simultaneously cultivating her Stockholm Syndrome.
12. Male privilege is being commended for being empathetic and sympathetic; dare females be as cold and indifferent (read: calculating and objective) as men tend to be, we are admonished for not being sensitive enough.
13. Male privilege is being taken seriously at your job and not having to deal with sexual harassment--which, even when reported, may not actually be taken seriously as an issue. Male privilege is not having a glass ceiling. Male privilege is being able to make your way to the top without anyone assuming you fucked your way up there. Male privilege is being able to be a stay-at-home dad and get reactions of commendation, not people sneering at you for being "unproductive." 
14. Male privilege is being found guilty of crimes and still serving less harsh sentences than women.
15. Male privilege is not being discriminated against in qualifying tests and winning the majority of athletic scholarships.
16. Male privilege is being able to have an opinion without being told you are a picky or high-maintenance or self-righteous bitch.
17. Male privilege is being able to discuss sexism without being written off as "just another crazy feminist."
18. Male privilege is arrogantly believing that sexism is no longer an issue.
    
    Those match Saunders' 18 items. But continuing on--
19. Male privilege is not having to deal with the backwards-ass patriarchy that still pervades in today's societies (first world societies aren't the only societies to exist, you know) such as having to read articles like the one Saunders published on Thought Catalog. 
20. Male privilege is being able to sleep with numerous partners and be revered, whereas females are called whores, sluts, tramps, and the like for doing the same thing. Even if men are called "manwhores," notice that the root word is "whore"--which roots in being female. 
21. Male privilege is not having to put on cosmetics and make-up and shave your body hair to appear more presentable and pleasing to the eye. Male privilege is not being told the natural functions of your body that come with your gender (and being a human in general) are inappropriate or disgusting, such as menstruation, menopause, body hair, facial hair, hot flashes, and cramps.
22. Male privilege is being able to walk on the streets without being honked at, whistled at, or having lewd comments shouted at you. (see this article on objectification)
23. Male privilege is having so many superheroes and protagonists to relate to, where as females, for the most part, are just eye candy (see Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze theory).
24. Male privilege is not having your worth automatically discounted upon reaching the age of 30 (I love the show, but in HIMYM, Barney often discredits women over the age of 30 and deems them unworthy, or "expired").
25. Male privilege is not automatically being deemed a bad driver and suffering higher insurance premiums.
26. Male privilege is not being deemed loose/brazen for partying and drinking.
27. Male privilege is not being expected to pay for birth control pills, plan B, or other medical contraceptives.
28. Male privilege is not having your innards bleed out of you once a month as mother nature's way of morbidly congratulating you on not being pregnant.
29. Male privilege is not having to check out in a lane with a female cashier for some purchases.
30. Male privilege is not having to go through the judgment of buying a pregnancy test or the morning-after pill.
31. Male privilege is being able to keep your last name and not depleting your parents of funds for the wedding.
32. Male privilege is being able to cry about something and being told that "it takes a real man to cry," whereas when a female cries, she's just being a drama queen.
33. Male privilege is having your emotions and thoughts validated as being genuinely from the autonomic self, whereas female emotions are just hormones.
34. Male privilege is not having to throw away your jeans, shorts, skirts, dresses, blankets, panties, and other such textiles and linen that are in the firing range of your vagina when it's at its angriest time of the month.
35. Male privilege is being able to eat sushi and medium-well/medium/rare meat and ride roller coasters and smoke and drink and sleep on your stomach and not vomit and keep the same clothes and not have to take supplements because you won't ever be cultivating something that is technically a parasite inside of your womb, let alone be pushing it out of your genital area.

This list is clearly biased against males by using falsely universal statements--just like Saunders' list was clearly biased against females by grouping them all together. Also note that many of his grievances actually can be traced back to men fucking up and ruining the livelihood of women to the point where we HAD to create those "privileges" for ourselves.

Obviously, none of the points on my list are universal or descriptive of every male ever. They are generalizations, many (if not most) of which can easily be challenged and disproved. There are exceptions to every rule, and you know what? Everybody has their own opportunities and privileges, and likewise, they all have their own crosses to bear. We need to quit bitching about how unfairly we are treated by others and look to how we treat each other, and then collectively learn to treat each other with empathy and respect. 

Also, f*** you, Mark Saunders.

Running

Throat closing tight
Eyes straining tight
Fists clenching tight

Mind running loose,
Lips running looser--

Wait
Did I say that out loud?
Did anybody hear me?

Can anybody hear me?

This must be what it feels like
If my mind were a prison
My thoughts convicted of crimes they did not commit

Where is the warden?
He must have dozed off into a drunken stupor again
Just like yesterday,
Just like the day before.
Still, the prisoners do not escape
Out of fear that freedom is not
What they hoped it would be

They have learned to sing in their cages.

The sun has set;
Yet another day
The prisoners' schemes have gone unnoticed
As they pass cigarettes to each other,
The warm red glow providing their only light.