My Mother & Ginseng
The price of ginseng has stayed flat, not affected at all by the current inflation. How strange. Just when I think everything is up and up, ginseng comes out and displays its steady price exactly like before, as if to mock my misconception. The autumn and the coming winter are the appropriate time to take…
The Underlying Messages Are So Different
I went to the grocery store last weekend and picked up a book from a three layered table display with books all piled on each layer, deliberately disorganized. I don’t want to mention the book’s name or the author’s name since I don’t like to say negative things about a living author. I prefer gentle…
A Game Of Confidence
I am feeling a little uncomfortable with myself when I think of this, but I can’t get rid of this feeling. I met Dodo last weekend again in the store and she talked about her kids. How intelligent is her son and how sweet is her daughter. She ranted, holding my hand as if I…
Saturday’s Busy Void
Have you ever found that you are busy for an entire day, but in the end, around the midnight, you realize that you have achieved nothing. Busy for the sake of being busy. Rushing here and there just for the purpose of satisfying an inner demon of self torture or some other kind of inexplicable…
It Is A Mind Battle
I feel that every day I am wallowing in writing mistakes and can’t crawl out of it. Is this another trap? This feeling is punctuated by the thoughts that I am criticizing myself too much. The problem is that my brain seems to have a mind of its own. It doesn’t really follow my instructions.…
The Beginning Of My Story
The first time I felt that there might be something wrong with my father was when I was eight-years-old, or probably nine-years-old, standing right outside of the three-story apartment building where we lived. The snowstorm of the night before was gone, bringing a brilliant morning of sunshine and cloudless sky. The wind had died down;…
When I Am Blocked
A six months absence from WP; a half year hiatus. I stopped posting because I felt repetitive. The phrases I typed had been written and typed again and again before. I didn’t see any improvement in myself even though I had expected to see gradual changes–hopefully for the better of course–in wording, thoughts, structuring of…
Our Twisted Mind
I was clicking on a random video in Spanish last night and found out that Biden had dropped out. This is the first time I received news in Spanish before receiving it in English. I couldn’t help feeling a sense of triumph. My Spanish has plateaued for months and had no sign of improving despite…
A Writing Lesson (Flash Fiction)
Flash Fiction #175 A: “It says here ‘nothing is too silly, too stupid, too weird to be included.’ Now the first exercise is: tell me something absurd.” B: “I don’t have it right now.” A: “But you told me your parents were absurd the other day.” B: “I did, but … I said it in…
I Should Have Said Something
I was in the 99 Ranch store last weekend. I asked to buy a grocery bag at the checkout and the cashier gave me one. A minute later, she inquired if she had given me two bags instead of one. She blamed herself for making another mistake. I assured her that she didn’t. I had…
Against Our Competitive Instincts
I have stopped playing Wordle now because I think it feeds the kind of narcissistic thinking that I want to get rid of. I just read a book about how to deal with emotionally immature people, which include narcissists. In it, the author, a psychologist, said that narcissists tend to like games—board games or trivial…
The Peacock Misconception
A friend of mine created a peacock metaphor and she has used it very often. So the word “peacock” showed up in our texting regularly. I felt that it was a little unfair to the beautiful bird. I loved one beautiful green peacock in our local zoo when I was a child. He was probably…
An Old Friend & A Continuous Romance
I have always tried to steer away from reading a book of romance, which is usually too unrealistic for me. However recently I try to write a kind of Kung Fu story happened around Mongolian steppe. I should say proto-Mongolian steppe since the story is set in the 7th century when Mongolia as a country…
Easy Or Pyrrhic?
I just learned the word pyrrhic, an adjective, meaning “won at too great a cost to have been worthwhile for the victor”. It is pronounced “pirik”. People always tell me that I pronounce “i” as if it is “ee”, a typical non-native speaker’s mistake. I have always wanted to improve my pronunciation, but I’ve never…
Cultural Differences In A Restaurant
As you know, I like to watch videos about food although I dislike cooking, eat almost like a vegan, and often delay dish washing until it is impossible to delay anymore. I used to like cooking and shopping for food etc., but my enthusiasm has suffered a steady decline for years. Recently, food is more…
Haoyan Do 