That Thing We Sleep With

It’s 1am in the morning and I’ve had a little cramp in my toe for about half an hour. I keep trying to go back to sleep, but it’s one of those anxious nights when every thought becomes an entire novel. I reach out in the dark toward the nightstand for my phone. It lights up like a beacon in my hands. I make an appointment with Dr. Webb…. MD, and what do you know, the doctor can see me immediately. Without even examining me, he diagnoses my tiny toe cramp as a symptom of the Bubonic Plague. 

For the rest of the night, my thoughts migrate from my impending health crisis to how this thing, my sleek and trusty phone, has become my doctor, and not just my doctor, but my librarian, bookie, banker, portfolio manager, purchaser, teacher, researcher, nutritionist, fitness instructor, appointment keeper, navigator, news anchor, photographer, videographer, publisher, postal worker, meteorologist, translator, travel agent, yogi, deejay, that friend who’s always trying to get me to play more video games AND that friend who’s always trying to get me to be more social. If I were single, it would be my matchmaker, too.

It’s no wonder my phone thinks I’m dying. 

It has taken over all the roles in my life that used to belong to humans. 

Except one.

Is there someone you love? 

Do you hold them, look at them, pay attention to them, take care of them, pick them up and carry them, spend all day touching them, spend all night with them, miss them, need them, want them, come running when they call you like you do your phone? 

That’s a lot of dopamine!

I know I don’t, at least not all the time. Maybe it’s because there’s no real commitment and thus no real chance of heartbreak. If my phone doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain, I simply trade it in for a new one. Maybe it’s because there is no gratification delay. I push a button or touch a screen and immediately receive that quick hit of dopamine. Maybe it’s because my phone is the most powerful echo chamber, curated to make me feel so damn good about myself. Or maybe it’s because my phone knows me best.

The Amazon app knows my favorite books (Harry Potter). The Pandora app knows my favorite music (90s R&B and Hip Hop). The Chipotle app knows what I want on my burrito (salsa, never; extra sour cream, always). The Maps app knows where I’ve been (Chipotle). The Bank of America app knows all the secret things I spend my money on (Funko Pops). And the Firefox app knows all those weird, dark thoughts that end up in the search engine (can I still love the art of a bad person? is the world a simulation? is reincarnation real? is Chipotle still having an E. coli problem?)

Our phones know the who, what, where, and when of us, but there are some things they will never know. No algorithm or data or technology can know the way my daughter’s laugh pulls the light-strings deep inside me, or how I respond when someone I love needs a hug, or the emotional cycling involved with rediscovering and recreating my self at the same time. My phone will never understand the topography of marriage or what it means to navigate the world in my body. Our phones will never know the Why of us. They would need hearts to do that.

Maybe we just need to stop treating Siri like she has one. 

Fat Jesus Doesn't Get the Girl

In the 7th grade, I was on the Spam and Fishstick Friday side of pudgy. I'd never eaten very healthily, but a series of well-timed growth spurts kept me svelte enough to avoid most fat jokes. Unfortunately, by 12 years old and already 5'11", I'd pretty much stopped growing (maybe two more inches into the first half of high school), and my "baby" fat really started to settle in. 

My school at the time, the now defunct St. Peter's Catholic School near Stockton and Fruitridge, held a Stations of the Cross play every Christmas season. For you non-Catholics out there, the Stations of the Cross is a series of fifteen events from Jesus being condemned to death to Jesus' resurrection. It's normally depicted in some kind of artistic form, and if you ever entered a Catholic Church and wondered what those carvings/paintings on the walls were and why they were marked with the Roman Numerals I to XV, well now you know. 

The "play" wasn't so much a play as it was a bunch of 8th graders standing still on the dusty stage of the school's auditorium for a few minutes per Station, illustrating, in human form, what those artistic representations might've looked like if a group of multiethnic middle schoolers from South Sac had actually participated in said events. In case you missed it in the last sentence, let me make it more clear - the play was for 8th graders only. Unfortunately, none of the 8th grade boys wanted to take on the iconic role of Jesus. Maybe they felt they couldn’t live up to it. Maybe they didn’t want to carry the cross (yes, there was an actual cross, but more on that later). Whatever their reasons, despite multiple admonishments by Sister Esther, the kindhearted nun in charge of the play, the 8th grade boys all declined. So what did Sister Esther do? She asked me to stay after class one day and tried to guilt me into taking on the role of Jesus.

Sister Esther and friends praying for a 7th grader to take on the role of Jesus.

I said no. Then again. Then again. Play Jesus? As a 7th grader? Are you kidding me? Talk about pressure. But after more guilting from her, the Sister Principal, some other teachers, and my mother (Hi, Mom!), and thinking maybe this would absolve me of some of the sins I’d already accumulated (like stealing chocolate milk from the cafeteria fridge and making out behind the dumpsters), I said “fine.”

Rehearsals started immediately. I really didn't mind initially because there was an 8th grade girl I'd had a gigantic crush on. We'll call her Brienne. Brienne was different. She was bold enough to rock the pixie haircut while the other girls were still Aquanetting their bangs to high heaven. She was bold enough to eschew cheerleading and instead played softball, volleyball, and basketball and rolled up those ugly, uniform plaid skirts just enough to seem rebellious. During rehearsals, she kept smiling at me and giving me the eye. I'd find her and her gal pals, two girls of the giggling genus, on the stairs below the stage, looking at me and giggling while Brienne's face turned red. It was the stuff of innocent YA novels. It was the beginning of something special.

Or not. 

You see, Jesus has to take his shirt off. It hadn't occurred to me that maybe that's why the 8th grade boys didn't want to do it. As a group, they were not the in-shapest bunch I'd ever seen. Robed for the first nine Stations, the tenth is generally entitled, in one way or another, "Jesus is Stripped of His Clothes." So that's what happens in the play. From Stations Ten to Fourteen, I learned in rehearsals, I'd be standing on the stage for about 20 minutes, being faux-nailed to a cross, dressed in nothing but the faux crown of thorns (which somehow did manage to cut my forehead) and a shaggy, brown cloth that wrapped the basketball shorts Jesus certainly wasn't wearing.

Before we go on, let me describe the cross. It was a real cross, made of wood, probably 30-40 pounds, that I had to carry on my shoulder for most of the play. For the Crucifixion scenes (Stations 11-13, for those keeping track at home), Sister Esther, being as brilliant as she was, decided we would make it look like I was actually nailed to a cross. She took a heavy wooden box that stood about three feet high, cut a slit in the top the exact size of the base of the cross, slid the cross into it, and told me to stand on the box with my arms outstretched along the wood. This meant that I’d be standing there, shirtless, for about 20 minutes while everyone in the audience and in the play (including Brienne) would be looking up at me.

The thing is, until The Moment, I didn't even consider myself fat, so when (un)dress rehearsal came, one day before Opening Night, I took off my shirt without much thought. I climbed up on the box, extended my arms like I was told, and immediately heard Brienne and the gals giggling again by the stairs. I overheard one of them say, "Jesus wasn't fat." He wasn't Filipino or confused about puberty, either, but sometimes you need to suspend disbelief. 

The actual day of the play was worse. I was playing Jesus, see, and I had to look bloody at the right moments. Sister Esther had decided to stage the play as glow in the dark, meaning most of our costumes were white and there were big black lights facing the "actors" from the front of the stage. This also meant I would be wearing strategically placed bandaids that had been colored with highlighter ink to produce the appearance of blood. Two of these bandaids were placed on my upper abdomen, one on the left and one on the right, so that in the dimness of the auditorium, and the black light shining on me, the location of those two bandaids looked like nipples for extremely sagging breasts.

By the time the resurrection scene came, and I stood on the box where the cross had been in, swathed in brilliant white clothes, my right hand raised high over my fellow actors and even higher over the audience, who would soon be clapping and cheering after finishing their prayers, all I could think about was Brienne's giggling. She stood in front of me either as Mary Magdalene or Veronica, I'm not sure, her head hooded but face turned up to me. Whether she was looking at me or not, I don't know, because I made sure to keep my eyes on the Exit sign across the auditorium, shining green like some kind of emerald pathway to salvation. That was too serious. Let's try that again…. shining green like some kind of emerald pathway to the parking lot outside, because even though they were serving punch and cookies and the refrigerator in the kitchen was filled with chocolate milk, I really just wanted to go home.

Brienne never looked at me the same after that, and for the next two weeks, her friends couldn’t look at me without giggling or smirking. Brienne graduated a few months later and I never saw her again. I've spent years in shape, feeling great about myself, and I've spent years doing and feeling the exact opposite. But if there’s a silver lining, it’s this - I had an opportunity few in this world will ever have. I got to play Jesus, even if my bandaid nipples were hanging a little bit low.

Frozen

Many people who know me know that I hate the film Frozen. Hate is probably too strong a word here, but I’m going to use it anyway. “Let It Go” is the most annoying song I’ve heard in the last decade, and that’s coming from someone who listens to “Baby Shark” multiple times a day. On top of that, it actually goes against the message of the film. After running away from her problems, Elsa finally decides she’s going to be herself and just “let it go.” In doing so, she unleashes an eternal winter on the kingdom, leading to a chain of events that ends with her sister Anna needing to sacrifice herself to save Elsa’s life. It’s this act of sacrifice that ultimately redeems Elsa. Letting yourself rely on those who love you is what saves you, the film seems to say, not the “I don’t care about anyone else and I’m just going to do me” message of the song.  

But hey, I’m glad a gazillion kids all over the world know the song by heart.  

(Insert your “Let it go, Elison” joke here. It’ll only be the millionth time I’ve heard it.) 

One of my daughter’s Frozen contraband. Stop trying to look so innocent, Elsa!

Before Emmy was born, I told myself there would be no Frozen propaganda in the house – no clothes, no toys, nothing. I knew it was a strange thought to have, a tiny, inconsequential rebellion against conformity, the kind of thing so many of us do. Maybe you refuse to watch Game of Thrones or try out that new restaurant everyone is talking about or wear exercise clothes to work even though the dress code forbids it. We acquiesce so willingly to most social rules and norms that we must have some places in our identities that are separate from the hivemind and the world.  

Emmy just turned three the other day and, despite my best attempts, has many Frozen merchandise in the house. There are the mini-figurines of Anna, Elsa, Sven, and Olaf. There are the Frozen-branded maracas and recorder which, amazingly, isn’t as bad as “Let it Go” even when Emmy is blowing it straight into my ear. There are the underpants, the sweater, the books, the stickers. They were all gifts for various birthdays and Christmases, so guilt prevented me from donating them to Goodwill. And Emmy likes them, so, I guess that’s that. 

But here’s the thing: Emmy doesn’t even like the movie. Whenever we turn Disney + on, and I ask what she wants to watch, she screams “Not Elsa, not Elsa!” as if Elsa snatched away her favorite balloon and popped it in her face. The first time Emmy yelled that, a surge of pride overcame me – that’s right, Emmy! Don’t like it just because you’re a girl and girls are supposed to like it – but that was quickly swallowed up by a wave of disgust. Did I do that? Did I force some weird value judgment/identity marker on my young child? 

As it turns out, no. My mother showed Emmy the movie one time, and there was a scene early on that scared her, and she hasn’t wanted to watch it since then. But what if I had? Isn’t that what parents do? Isn’t that our main job? To pass on our beliefs, our values, our stories onto our progeny? 

Or maybe our job is to not do that. At least not all the time.  

When I talk to people now about anything – sports, social issues, work, whatever – I'm always thinking about what stories we’ve inherited. Stories about what it means to be a man or woman, black or white or brown, an American or a foreigner, a citizen or an immigrant, rich or poor, religious or atheist, carnivore or vegan, or all the shades and flavors in-between. So much of what we believe and thus, how we negotiate the world and other people, is based on stories we have inherited. But stories, while immensely powerful, are often not factual, especially as they pass down from generation to generation. It’s like the world’s longest game of Telephone, each retelling moving further and further from the truth while further entrenching us into beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world that we think are 100% true. 

What results is confusion, frustration, misunderstanding. We have trouble relating to people’s experiences because they don’t fit the stories we’ve been told about how others should act or think or feel. We perform a bunch of mental exercises to justify the story (see my first paragraph), which then justifies the way we treat others, or even the way we treat ourselves. We need to be better about the stories we let ourselves believe and, for those of us who are parents, we need to be better about the stories we pass on.

Someday, maybe Emmy will decide she loves Frozen because Elsa eventually let her sister in, showing the value of familial love, or that Elsa learned to be herself and to never apologize for it. Or maybe she will simply love Frozen because Olaf is funny. I don’t know. What I do know is I hope I can be thoughtful about what I’m passing down to her, so that her life isn’t frozen in some outdated story, including the one about her Dad hating Frozen, but still wanting her to make up her own mind about that and, well, everything else.