WAY.

P: “I thought that only happened in ‘olden’ times.”

We then got on the topic of Communism and China. No one should start talking about China right before bedtime. It’s too much. You can go on endless tangents like – What do you think the factory workers are thinking about when they make those millions of rubber duckies? Do you think that they think Americans have some sort of weird duck fetish? Do they wonder what we do with all those rubber ducks? Or why we keep ordering more each year?

Why? Even I can’t explain why.

I went on to tell her that the government in China used to strongly discourage the practice of any type of religion. Her reaction – “What! What about Buddhism? What about the Dalai Lama? What do they do with him?”

M: “He doesn’t live in China.”
P: “WHHHHAAATTT?”
M: “His home is Tibet, but he doesn’t live there either. He lives in exile in India.”
P: “WHHHHAAATTT?”
M: “Tibet is currently occupied by China. The Chinese government is not fond of the Dalai Lama at all.”
P: “That’s crazy. Who doesn’t like the Dalai Lama?”
M: “That’s a good question.”

Next topic.

P: “Where is Amsterdam? I can’t remember.”
M: “WHHHHHAATTT?”
P: “I heard Amsterdam was a cool place to go.”
M: “Like what kind of cool? Who told you this? Why do you want to go there?”
P: “Geez. I just asked you what country Amsterdam was in.”

Change subjects.

P: “Where’s the happiest place on earth again?”
M: “Denmark.”
P: “Why are they so happy?”
M: “Well, lots of reasons. Free health care. Free education. There is this feeling of equality amongst the Danes. They have a saying ‘Jante-lov’ which means ‘You’re no better then anybody else.”
P: “They probably think the rest of the world is crazy”
M: “I don’t think they even care. But it’s not all great, they do pay a lot of taxes.”
P: “How much?”
M: “Between 40% and 70% of your income.”
P: “WHHHHHAATTT?”
M: “Yep – but they happily do so.”

P: “Mom?”
M: “Yes, Paige?”
P: “Can you please stop talking and leave me alone? I am trying to go to sleep.”

I want someone to give me one of these, but with a coupon for a 5% “pay” upgrade. Unfortunately, since I’m self-employed, I would have to give it to myself and that would take all the joy out of it. All that aside, don’t you think that all pay raises should be presented like this?

You know you do.

When Paige was 7 years old I told her that when she turned 14 I would no longer censor her music. Censorship basically meant that I didn’t let her  listen to anything too explicit or offensive to women. Or basically, shit that I didn’t want to listen to in the car while I was driving her around.

Back then making her wait 7 years seemed like an eternity, but it sure got here in a hurry. As soon as she turned 14 the first thing she said was, “NOW I GET TO LISTEN TO WHATEVER I WANT.” I had no idea that she had been patiently looking forward to her birthday precisely for that reason. Just another notch on the “neener neener, I’m becoming an independent person” post.

In order to make commuting in the car together more enjoyable, I decided to create an iTunes playlist where we both contribute songs to the mix. Surprisingly, this has been an amazing bonding point for the two of us. This is what I call “accidental genius.”

It all started with Hey Jude. You may have heard of that Beatles song. She would listen to it over and over again thinking that the Beatles was some sort of one hit wonder like Barry Mann or Billie Ray Cyrus. That’s when I started introducing her to the entire Beatles’ catalog. And where she was just AMAZED, amazed and dumbfounded that one band could come up with so many great songs and original music. In the day of remakes and sampling, it was almost unfathomable to her.

Since that day, she’s been adding to the playlist and I round out the mix with songs from the wayback machine that I think she might like. Sometimes I give her a musical history lesson. For instance, until recently, she had no idea that the Beastie Boys are Jewish boys from Brooklyn. Or that Reverend Run was the same guy on Run’s House. You should have seen her face when she saw before and after pictures of Lauryn Hill.

Sometimes she schools me on her musical repertoire too. Who knew she new all the lyrics to most of Johnny Cash’s hits? Or that she loves the Doors? And Bob Marley? She even introduces me to music like Estelle or Lupe Fiasco (For the longest time I thought Lupe Fiasco was a Latino rapper. He’s not.) I love it.

Here’s a samplin’ of what we were listening to on the way to the mall yesterday while stuck 3 miles behind a car accident with no where to exit. Oh yeah, it was snowing too.

30 Seconds to Mars: The Kill (yes, that is Jared Leto)

Atmosphere: Guns & Cigarettes

Beatles: Don’t Let Me Down, Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds, Strawberry Fields Forever, Come Together, Revolution, etc, etc, etc.

Britney Spears: Hit Me Baby One More Time, Womanizer, Circus

Cake: Going the Distance, I Will Survive

Coldplay:  Viva la Vida and various songs from all three CDs

Death Cab for Cutie: Soul Meets Body

DJ Kool: Let me Clear My Throat

Doors: Touch Me, Peace Frog

Eminem: Real Slim Shady, Mockingbird, Stan

Jack Johnson: Sitting Waiting Wishing, Better Together

Jay-Z Unplugged Live: This is the best.

Kerli Koliv: Walking On Air

Little Jackie: The Stoop

Lupe Fiasco: Kick Push, Superstar, Daydreaming

MGMT: Electric Feel, Time to Pretend, Kids

Mika: Relax, Take It Easy

The Killers: Mr. Brightside

And on and on …. can you guess whose songs belong to whom?

I hate to say it, but I am a Britney Spears rubbernecker. I can’t help myself. Forget Christina. Forget P!nk. Nevermind Madonna even. Miss Britney’s popcandy is what keeps my legs moving at the gym and consequently I have developed an affection for her music and yes, for her too.

Now y’all may be laughing at me, but hear me out. Seriously. Britney Spears totally took one for the team. The mom team. Who hasn’t looked at their sweet child and then had thoughts of running off, doing drugs and shaving their head? Who hasn’t fallen for the wrong guy and then paid the consequences for it? You can’t tell me that you’ve NEVER worn an outfit that was completely unflattering (if you contest this one, you must not have lived during the 80′s).

I just think that it’s easy to judge. I know that I have been this close saying damnitall and instead of going grocery shopping, I have fantasized about going on a bourbon binge and having gratuitous sex with young bartender(s) who smoke cigarettes and have tattoos on their arms … in Brazil. The only thing different is that Britney just acts out all those impulses (and that she is an international pop starlet who could roll in money all day if she wanted to).

There was a time in my life when I was single and drinking up a huge storm every time Paige went to her father’s house. I felt as though that during this respite I could have some semblance of a “normal” 20-something life for a day or two a week. Except it wasn’t normal to drink that much. In fact, my friends had to have a firm but gentle intervention that basically went something along the lines of, “Baby, that ain’t flattering.”

Nowadays I’ve shifted to the otherside of the paradigm. I don’t think I drink enough. Correction, I am not carefree enough (carefree has traditionally been massaged out of me with a little bourbon neat). As you all know I am working on those changes but feel the need to take massive action. I think I need to launch a comeback.

Bring it on 2009.

“I tell you the story because I was raised the Chinese way. I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other people’s misery, and to eat my own bitterness. And even though I taught my daughter the opposite, still she came out the same way. Maybe it is because she was born to me and she was born a girl, and I was born to my mother and I was born a girl, all of us like stairs, one step after another, going up, going down, but always going the same way.”

- An Mei, Joy Luck Club

Sometimes when I get smug and think that I have gone through some quantum leap in consciousness I get knocked back down again and am humbled by how childish I can act. Take Thanksgiving morning for instance. I was in the throws of getting ready to head out the door to spend the holidays at the beach when I realized that my shiny 3″ silver faux snakeskin peep-toe pumps were missing. This could only mean one of two things – either there is a shoe bandit roaming our neighborhood bypassing the Apple and Sony electronics for highly impractical (unless you want to get laid) shoes or Paige took them without asking. Suffice to say, it wasn’t a shoe bandit.

There are a lot of ways that I could psychoanalyze what ensued next but the simplest is to say that I snapped. I am not proud about it, but it’s the truth. After I realized Paige had snuck them out of the house so she could wear them to a party, I spewed some diatribe at her that went something like, “can’t I have ONE thing that’s just mine?” and “is nothing sacred?!?”and “you’ve already sucked the youth out of me, now you want my shoes???” Perhaps I am exaggerating a bit, but you get the point. I had a nuclear meltdown and everything within 3 miles was obliterated. In my own defense, Paige’s laissez-faire attitude, “So what?” and “I didn’t think you would care” and “you borrowed my mascara so I thought it would be okay” only served to fan the flames.

We can now laugh that I had a meltdown over a pair of shoes that cost less than $100, but those shoes mean something to me. They are the opposite of my Dansko clogs – instead they represent something completely impractical. I would even say that their sole purpose is to make me feel happy and sexy. Like a reminder to myself to have more fun and to not to take life so seriously and to feed the non-mommy parts of my soul. For years I loved my daughter more than anything, including me. This is definitely not what I want to be teaching her but I know that in some ways I have been … just like my step-mothers and Aunties did and as I am sure my mother did too. How many times have we put ourselves last? When will we get to the point where we realize when we do this in front of our daughters, we are perpetuating this mindset?

It’s taken 34 years of personal development to bypass the ingrained tendencies of growing up as an Asian woman or even more accurately, an Asian and a Woman. And even though having a meltdown about a pair of shoes is nothing to be proud about, I am proud of the fact that I am no longer pouring all my hopes and dreams into Paige and that I am giving relevance and importance to my own hopes and dreams.

This is something worth fighting for.