Wild Ride (狂野骑行, 野生の乗り物, 와일드 라이드)

 In a year of reading memoirs, one of the last ones I've read is called "Wild Ride" by Hayley Arceneaux, the cancer survivor who flew on one of the first citizen-crew flights into space. It's a pretty short story, and the actual flight itself was shorter than I expected: about 2 days (I've gone on flights to Asia that felt just as long! but the "wild ride" of going up into space and then coming back down is one I'd never want to do, even though there's plenty of talk nowadays about humankind not being a one-planet species, that we need to branch out into the universe (also I just watched Interstellar where Matthew McConaghey searches the universe to do just that). 

Things you have to do to go into space: quarantine for Covid (pretty obvious, but yea getting infected with Covid is not great, especially the new JN.1 strain even in best conditions, but especially in cramped positions in space), hang upside down( I don't like blood flowing to my head causing headaches in any situations), feel claustrophic (it's a cramped space, so you're sharing a small cabin with 3 or 4 other people, like getting the middle seat of a long Transatlantic flight). Training for G-forces, simulators to emulate space called "the vomit rocket," and ears popping (my ears already do funky things just going up in airplanes) so "No Thanks" to ever going up in space, even I was somehow picked to go or had enough money to fund my own mission/ buy my way on, etc. I do like the idea of establishing a call sign though to be referred to as a cool name, like "Maverick" or "Iceman"- how's the "Gorilla" for pounding my chest. 

The possibility of space travel seemed impossible just 10 years ago, but we live in a different time now: I just listened to a pretty eye-opening podcast about the future of AI: a lot of things we would have thought impossible as a child seem like they might become reality at an exponential rate, like AI taking over all facets of our lives and replacing many of the human functions that we take for granted today: not just helping 6th graders do their homework or creating computer programs, but really fundamentally replacing human beings or at least the need for human beings at all. It's like we're on this "Wild Ride" towards a future that we can't control, that's inevitable- that's what makes it seem really wild. At least on airplanes when there's turbulence and delays and circling the airport you know what the end destination is and it's a safe place to get on the ground, but with the future of AI there's really no telling where it's going to spiral into. One thing I did take away is that today's youth is very in tune with the currency of our time, which is attention: how many people know about you and how many views you get on social media, and the No. 1 sought-after profession is to be a social media influencer.... but maybe instead of replacing old-school jobs like accountants, lawyers, doctors, insurance agents, etc. as is the conventional wisdom, the first job that AI comes for is.......social media influencers? Starting this year there will be more content generated online by AI than by humans, and AI creates better content by learning from the bst content that's already online. I've already heard that in the future actors and actresses won't be needed due to the real-life capaiblities of AI generating life-like characters, what's to stop it from replacing all these slice-of-life videos and how-to-make-a-quiche videos? So unfortunately all those Youtubers and Instagram Models, I don't know if your job is safe guys, AI's coming for all of us. I'll say that I was already worried about AI taking over my office job 5 years old in late 2018; lots of worrying stuff back then already, but here I am still plodding away at my 9 to 5 job (just that it's now in the safety of my home and not at an office). Not taking anything for granted, but here's hoping for another 5 years of work free from the AI Death Star taking over! 

Fragrance Overkill (香水过度杀伤力, 過剰な香り, 향수 과잉)

 Americans smell more than they ever use to now. I don't necessarily mean they smell bad, they could smell good, but virtually everyone has a scent on them now that is overtly noticeable and frankly offensive. I didn't ask to smell you the heavy perfume or cologne that you put on; I didn't try to make bodily contact or have anything to do with a random stranger, but there's your own personal smell, bursting in on my senses rudely without my permission. (It might have been better during Covid to have lost one's sense of smell). 

I use to brace myself to enter into an elevator because I don't want to be standing too close to others due to social distancing and chance of Covid, them not wearing a mask or I'm not wearing a mask....but now even if the elevator's empty I brace myself.... for the scent that someone has left just from their own body. It seems the range nowadays is to douse oneself with certain scent so that everyone within a 15-foot radius knows what you smell like. I could be outside on a clear day, open air, and be trailing behind someone and from quite a distance away know what they smell like. And yes, some of the smells are theoretically good, but eventually even good smells because pungent and just dull, like eating too much cake. I get the idea of deodorant to mask the smell of one's body odor, but when that DEODORANT is stronger than the body odor itself, it's too much. It's also usually the more inconsiderate people who wear that much perfume too: I was at a classical music concert: Vivald's "Winter" of the Four Seasons, and three twenty-somethings (how I envy their youth but marvel at their ignorance now that I'm not amongst their ranks) walk in of course 10 minutes after the performance had already started, force other people out of their seats even though the theatre has plenty of empty seats, make a fuss about sitting down, and promptly sit right in front of me for the whole concert. The most important thing I notice, of course is how they smell. It's a nice perfume, but it's too much, especially if they're about to be sitting in front of me for an hour and a half. Oh and of course they're one of those who clap between movemetns of a piece (you're not supposed to even though some people do it out of habit, just like you're not supposed to smile for your passport photo) and they talk during the brief pause about how they thougth they were coming for The Nutcracker. Sigh. 

Poor MJ, who has better sense of smell than I do: she must be even more overloaded with fragrance overkill than I am. 

Speaking of sensory overload, I finally saw the movie Avatar last night. No, not Avatar: The Way of Water, the 2022 movie, I watched Avatar: the 2009 movie. I saw it on my home computer on a Friday night after a REALLY long week of work, but even on the Acer basic model the sights and sounds of Pandora were incredible, so I can't imagine what a visual masterpiece it must have felt like in 2009 when the movie first came out. I guess I missed out on a piece of moviemaking history. It's kind of incredible how much of history I've missed out on not just from not being alive pre-1987, but even while actually being conscious and present in the world since 2000 (I'll give myself a pass for pre-teenage years) but holy cow, I had the Internet, the news, and everything, and can't believe some of the stuff I missed due to being obsessed with good grades, sports, language learning, and being in my little bubble all these years. I missed a HELL of a good show called The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, I missed Sam Bankman Fried's meteoric rise in the business world due to crypto and didn't hear about him until October 2022 when it all came crashing down like a house of cards/crypto, I'm embarrassed that I had to ask someone who David Bowie was when I heard of his passing in 2016. There's ignorant but I guess I was blissfully ignorant of anything pop music-related back then. Now that I've joined civilization and kept up with what the world is doing, I feel the sensory overload overloading my circuits.... sometimes there's too MUCH going on. What I do appreciate is the overload giving me hope with people like Mr. Beast giving out money for people who need it, and St. Jude's Children's Hospital for providing all healthcare free for children with cancer. That's exactly the right thing to do and I wish I had thought of that sooner. 

Hospital Hospitality

 Both the words "hospital" and "hospitable" come from the same Latin root word of "host" or "guest," which makes sense: a hospital is where a stranger comes in to be treated for a disease and the hospital hosts the patient. I would, not, however, necessarily associate the word "hospital" with "hospitable" or "hospitality." Even though MJ is a nurse and has worked in bedside nursing, she acknowledges a lot of the downsides of treating patients in the hosptial. This past Monday, MJ was in a familiar spot: a patient at a hospital, and I was once again the lucky guy who goes to the hospital without being the patient. I think I've been on a long, long streak of not being the patient, ever since my birth; I hope to not have to do so for a long, long time. Anyway, the waiting room is often packed with people, giving us a good idea of how crowded the bed areas were; and this was just at 5:30AM, the earliest time to check in and prepare for surgery. Later on even the WAITING ROOM for family members gets crowded and jostling for available seats; feels like the gate area before taking off for a crowded flight on Thanksgiving. As for MJ the patient being prepped for surgery, this is not "The Good Doctor" or "ER" or any medical drama where the patient gets plenty of room in a well-situated room with a TV and a space for visitors, and enough room for Freddie Highmore or George Clooney or Ellen Pompeo or any of many good-looking actors to act as doctors and talk to the patient; these rooms are better described as a "corner" or a corridor with a curtain spread out to pretend there's some privacy; you could still sense other patients in other rooms within arm's length, without any walls to separate. The nurses and doctors do the best they can, but there are just so many people to attend to and people bustling around, it's hard to be attentive to everybody. Because we weren't doing major surgery or anything, we weren't "VIP" or very important people and felt a little like uninvited guests, as soon as MJ was done with surgery the efforts to get her strong enough to go home ramped up, and an urgency wasn't said out loud but omnipresent, despite her still feeling nauseous due to the medication/anesthesia and walking without proper balance (always leaning left when moving forward). Yet the doctor didn't even come out to talk to us about how the surgery went! Until I expressly had to ask to see if she was available to talk to us. Apparently she was busy with another surgery. Sometimes I do wish MJ and I were VIP, or at last treated like ones. 

I know it pales in comparison to the patient's pain and suffering, so not actually complaining, but the life in a waiting room is no picnic neither! Fighting for space, waiting for updates as to the patient's condition, having morning talk shows drone on with an inability to change the channel (who knew Kelly Clarkson has her own talk show now? And Kelly Ripa still has one?) Listening to some other families (who seemed to bring a whole entourage, and a whole church group too) talk about nonsense topics while trying to listen in on a work call, all while trying not to cough too often while still getting over the tail end of a Covid cough. Oh, and there was one receptionist who was very accommodating and receptive to requests.... he also had a stutter that gave me pause for a second but then I realized it was a medical issue. That's the thing, I sympathize with people with natural disabilities because they've probably been treated poorly by others their whole lives, so they understand how important it is and what a big influence it is to treat others NICELY. That's my theory at least; the other receptionist was very UNRECEPTIVE to my request to go back into the recovery room to see MJ because I forgot something. The more I live life, the more I realize how important that representative person at the front desk or the first person you first meet at a company or building is. That's the person that leaves the biggest impression on how a visitor feels. The surgery can go perfectly (as MJ's did, for the most part), and everything else can go well, but you'll always remember if that receptionist had a bad attitude or gave you a hard time in their only interaction with you. It's just not the right place to be grumpy, rude, distracted, abrasive, bossy, or anything that gives a bad impression. And it really doesn't cost anything to be nice. It's really the easiest job skill to have that doesn't take any training to adopt, yet so many places lack someone to do that. 

Hospitality at a wedding can also... vary in experience. MJ and I went to a young friend's wedding this past weekend and while we're very glad for the couple (young love! They're married before I even found my first girlfriend) it was a stark reminder that people respond to incentives. The wedding was let's say, not the most expensive of weddings (I totally understand trying to keep the budget down) but at the expense of lack of hospitality by the staff: an unsmiling DJ who often walked out on the music to go outside, waiters who didn't fill my water cup through the whole 5-hour event despite me finishing my cup multiple times, and a wedding planner/host person who barked orders at the guests (including me) to get out of the hotel at the end of the night so that the bride and groom could have a private dance inside the hotel. I get the private dance and special moment, but is barking orders at the guests really a good experience to have? Seemed like inexperience or lack of understanding of hosptiality, or just being irritated or overeager to go home as to project frustration; not like she had asked us earlier to leave, just immediately, first request, leave the hotel now because we have to do this. I'm not expecting so much hospitality from a hospital, but a wedding seems more like an event that should try to offer that.... at least if you're expecting more customers for future events. 

Late Stage Capitalism (资本主义晚期, 後期資本主義, 후기 자본주의)

Have you ever been at a party where you start a conversation with an attendee but then realize he or she is not interested in talking to you but is interested in talking to more successful, higher ranking, richer, or more connected people? I certainly have. There's a lot of reasons for these type of people, and a generous interpretation is that they are very goal-oriented and "discerning about who they want to talk to," but one of the reasons is that they are trying to take a step up in society, vaulting themselves up into the next social stratum to better their own lives. This is a symptom of late-stage capitalism. 

The Japanese sensation Shohei Ohtani signed with the L.A. Dodgers this past weekend (after a furious Friday of twitter activity in which he was thought to be on a flight to Toronto to sign a contract with the Blue Jays- but Canada in December? Really?) on a contract worth $700 million for 10 years, the most lucrative contract in sports history, not just baseball. My friend immediately reacted to this development as "late stage capitalism," which I hadn't thought about but makes a ton of sense in how society works nowadays. Everyone wants to be the first to congratulate the best in the world, and appalude when they "get a bag," aka get paid a lot of money, a way to applaude others when they make it but also hope to be as successful as them and have that success rub off on them. So the winners win not only in the money and social status achieve but also the attention and esteem from others, branching off one way, while those who are not successful or never get any praise (me!) get ignored, so the top 1% are really the top 1% in everything: they win everything, and the losers get nothing. Very little attention is paid to individuals who need help or just need a little to get on track because the attention is all lumped on those who need help the least (the 1%) while those who need help the most get ignored. That's late-stage capitalism, and I'm really worried about it; the definition includes that the system is on the verge of collapse; this rate of winners winning everything is unsustainable. According to Karl Marx, there will be a violent revolution of this system by those suffering at the bottom who can't take it anymore. 

I'm not saying there will be a violent revolution soon, but I am very sympathetic to those who arent' in the "big club" of celebrities and those who have made it. Everyone (including MJ and I) like to see the success stories and go to luxurious big cities and stores that are winning, but what about the local businesses that close down after failing? The 90% of cities in America that are not the big 4 NYC, L.A., Chicago, etc. and are just getting by? Nurses and teachers and others just making it on a basic salary who are having their purchase power decreased because of inflation and coddling of the richest class. My Youtube and Facebook algorithm is filled with successful comedians, musicians, Youtubers with great cat videos, movies, and if you don't actually go into society a bit you'd think that's all society is, people fooling around, having fun but making money, living a decent lifestyle and being able to create "content" as a career. That's not America, nor the world. Very rarely do I get directed to videos of struggling lower-to-middle class people who are living paycheck to paycheck, in dire financial straits, etc......I've recently seen some Mr. Beast videos and others who give handouts to those in desperate need: not a panacea and won't solve the overall problem, but at least these videos show the underside of our society that doesn't get shown in the upward-climbing capitalist society that only cares about stepping up in society. While doing that, it's important sometimes to also reach down and try to lift some of those who are down there up. (Maybe my roots of being born in a Communist country sprouting up, but Asian societies still value collective communities whereas American and other western societies are much too individualistic and emphasizing individual accomplishments, to hell with everyone else). 

Hope we figure out how to fix this late-stage capitalism thing and avoid the early-stage violent revolution thing. 

Downsides to Eating Out

 A downside to hanging out with fancy office workers who are always working: I often wonder, "do they ever cook anything themselves?" Breakfast was ordered from a bagel place, lunch was at the office park, and then we unanimously agreed to go to a Mexican fine dining/alcohol place for a nightcap. Quick math indicates that there's no room for a home-cooked meal in there. This was kinda me when I went to the office everyday: there was a small lunchtime-cafe who specialized in taking money from people like me, cooking up a mix of cubano, reuben sandwiches, and their specialty, the chicken and bacon wrap. (For some reason, all restaurants all have a healthy portion of bacon sitting around to put in their foods- my theory is that bacon is very easy to put in small doses like salads, other meats, eggs, even pancakes and breakfast foods- bacon mixes well with everything, and nobody complains about it. It's also when of the highest- cholestrol foods out there and adds nothing nutritionally and contains mass amounts of the thing that I DON'T want, salt). 

Yup, salt. I'd been desensitized to it until I started cooking on my own, but salt is like the universal ingredient for most restaurants to make their food taste good. Sure that's MSG, hot sauce, butter, mayo, some other small secrets, but overwhelmingly salt is the thing that restaurants can sneak in there and people just keep flocking back to. It's terrible for our bodies (MJ's the one who tuned me into this). Every time I have something really salty I think of the Meghan Trainor song, "It's all about that salt, 'bout that salt, 'bout that salt, no healthiness....it's all about that salt, salt, salt salt." And it's pretty clear why the girl in that song is "no size two," cuz she's ingesting all that salt. There's nothing inherently wrong about eating out 3 times a day especially when duty calls and work is running late (well, it does tend to flatten your wallet more quickly), but restaurant foods and bar food and Chinese takeout and Mexican foodtrucks and "urban food courts" all tend to have salty options, except maybe like "Sweetgreen" or "Joe and the Juice" or something. Even the Mexican fine dining place I went with my co-workers to at the end of the day: looked high-end, had chips and guacamole brought out, didn't skimp on the margaritas, but the food? Tasty but completely supported by how salty it was. For someone who's used to making tofu and mushroom dishes at home and having a rather light palette, it was like seeing the ocean for the first time: realizing all that hype about restaurant food where people give free advertising to restaurants through word of mouth by saying, "I heard that place is good...." it's mostly just because they've been brainwashed by the salt intake. Their minds cry out to them for more of that salt injection. Next to Big Sugar and Big Corn, the next biggest cartel in the American food industry that I'm slowly understanding: Big Salt. 

Luckily for me, MJ realized this early on and pointed me towards restaurants that are lighter and rely more on light ingredients that fit well together to create tasty food rather than just tried-and-true salt, so I've been able to ween off and escape Big Salt. I consider myself a survivor and hope to rescue others from the dietary hell of Sodom Sodium. 

Premonition (预感, 予感, 예고)

 “The Premonition” is a book by Michael Lewis that discussed the warning signs leading up to  Covid. It joined a whole list of other nonfiction books over the years he’s written that offer compelling stories on the most well-known developments in society at the time, like “The Big Short” about thr 2008 Financial Crisis, Moneyball about baseball’s sabermetric revolution which was the biggest thing in the baseball world at the time, and then the oddly prophetic Going Infinite about the rise of Sam Bankman-Fried whom Lewis followed around for a year because SBF was the hot new entrepreneur in the crypto world, only to make like Icarus and fall from Grace horrifically and publicly, now spending time in Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

I’ve had a few premonitions from my young days turn out to be true. I dreamt that I would learn Japanese, then Korean. I dreamt that I would one day fly from East Coast to the West Coast to be on a game show with trivia. (In my dream it was Jeopardy, not a knockoff GSN show that aired to a VERY limited audience, but I haven’t given up yet!)

Also when I was a young college kid choosing careers, the lifestyle that appealed to me most was that of a traveling attorney. I had a premonition that in my later years I would be flying around the country for work, from city to city, office building to office building taking on important cases dressed fancifully, staying at swanky hotels, dining with rich people, etc, essentially living the glorious life of an attorney. I could see that life from the middle seat of the back of Southwest planes flying through college because it was a fantastical dream yet attainable…. All I had to do was go to law school.
My premonition turned out to be pretty accurate, at least for the last 2 days. Most of the year I’m just sitting at home in my sweatpants making homemade meals and my commute is from my bedroom to the adjacent living room. I had the opportunity to take a client’s deposition in downtown San Diego today, and I lived the lawyer high-life. The hotel: I have a mental limit in my head (maybe self-imposed?) to not spend more than 200 dollars a night for a hotel. This drives MJ crazy. That doesn’t apply…. When the firm is paying for the hotel! Suddenly I feel like Super Mario and the number of stars in the hotel goes up. It’s really a mindset for lawyers, act the part, be the part. Part of it is how I dress… I was required to put on business formal for the first time working in a long time, and I just feel different… like I’m important, and I belong to the group of people who are enjoying nice things.

Getting breakfast: I almost NEVER entertain the idea of eating at the hotel we’re staying at, but at some of these fancy hotels, they “gift you 25 dollars” to spend within the hotel so that if you don’t spend it you lose it (a tricky resort fee maneuver) but that does mean I wake up ready to eat at the hotel. Açaí bowl! And all fancy places have fancy food. It’s not the Bobby “I’m in a hurry” special, (MJ hates this too) where anything will do.

Office buildings: the stories about commercial real estate spaces losing customers is undoubtedly real, but that doesn’t mean some of the spaces aren’t really nice. And near the beach, or upper-scale office park locations, where there are running fountains, Christmas decorations (this time of year), valet parking, and heat lamps for outdoor dining enhancing the fine dining experience. 

Front desk people: every office people usually has a receptionist or someone at the front desk who is willing to help. That's a very important person! Often hospitals and other busy establishments are so buy no one is stationed with the sole purpose of helping with whatever is needed at the time. Office buildings have the opposite problem: that front desk person is often TOO friendly, with no tasks needed. But when they are needed, it's such a luxury to have and reminder that office people just have it easier. 

I really wish MJ, or any other hard workers who’ve worked in other environments their whole lives, could experience my lawyer world for a few days like I just did. You realize why some people go against the advice that lawyers have bad reputations and substance abuse issues or will be displaced by AI (Isn’t everyone?) and choose the attorney life. It can be nice. 

Dry Cough (干咳, 乾いた咳, 마른 기침)

 After 4 years of its existence, there's still so much we don't know about Covid-19, partly because there are so many variants: we've moved past Greek letters like Omicron and Delta to abbreviations like HV.1 and EG.5. And it can affect different people very differently, even if they are in the same household, like MJ and me. Yup, we both contracted Covid this past week or so, MJ maybe even before that, and it's been just safely resting at home. Actually took a bit of the pressure off to do anything exciting or make a day of it; I'm content with just being at home. Most unusually, though, this disease seemed like a nocturnal animal, like a vampire or something: only coming out and showing its fangs, doing its worst work during the nighttime, being relatively peaceful during the day when the sun was out. 

During our stay in London, (yup, we still traveled to London despite both having Covid during the trip) we would both feel OK during the day and even had time to visit Windsor Castle, the Shard (highest observation point in London), all the touristy stuff but then MJ would worsen noticeably at night, when it got bitterly cold admittedly, but that didn't necessarily explain the excessive shivering and dry coughing all throughout the night. Later, after arriving home from the trip and feeling symptoms too, I also had the worst fits of coughing at night, almost like the disease clicked on and was more active then. 

This is the longest I've dealt with Covid- almost a full week now of displaying symptoms. the side effects of the vaccine were gone after a day, and the previous other time I thought I had Covid also dissipated quickly. Maybe I'm dealing with a more virulent version of the virus now, but whatever it is this disease is not a joke, even for a fully vaccinated, good immune system-having guy like me. I haven't even been able to run like I used to; brain fog crept in.The worst part about it, though, for me, has been the dry coughing. It sucks, not just because I try to hold it back and stifle it like I would a normal cough, but something inside of me feels like it's burning to get out, accompanied with a powerful itch, that I can't suppress it for too long. And one cough becomes a chain reaction of several coughs. At its worst, the cough can make me feel like I can't even breathe, like there's a loss of air supply around me. Nothing that made me fear for my life or anything, but I could see how one might panic a little bit if that sense of airlessness dragged on a little longer. Especially at the beginning of the pandemic when treatments weren't available, patients were not vaccinated, and doctors didn't know what to do, I could definitely see why ventilators were needed to help patients breathe; ultimately though getting put on the ventilator meant many patients would never be able to get off it and passed away shortly after. Sad stuff. 

There's that familiar phrase that most people know but don't practice: an ounce of prevention is more valuable than a pound of cure. It's always better to take steps to prevent getting something in the first place than trying to fix it after you've already gotten it. Feel like America and most of the world has gotten pretty complacent about Covid-19, me included: planes are pretty much full of people who don't wear masks, trains and subways in the biggest metropolitan areas like New York and London are teeming with people who don't wear masks; while masks have been proven not to be 100% effective in preventing transmission, it still has some preventive effects, especially if people like MJ and I who HAVE THE DISEASE wear it to protect others. As with a lot of situations, I feel America went too far to address the disease (lockdown businesses, etc.) but then went too far the other way when totally opening up, and now we just get people who suffer Covid all the time (hearing a lot of friends and co-workers still get it) without it ending up in the news anymore. 

I really hope this dry cough goes away. Several times this week I tried to close my mouth, and instead I cough through my nose. Phlegm everywhere. Not a good feeling. MJ checking my nose every few hours to see if there's new sputim. Spoiler Alert: there probably is. It's neverending, no matter how many times you try to take it out. Still haven't hit the motherlode.