This Ro(a)mantic Life: Funny that you should ask ...

Body: in sickness and in health

I won't lie; this body and I have had our issues with each other for many years. Body image -- sure. Physical and mental overextension -- comes with being a Type A kind of girl. I still struggle with these things, so they show up from time to time in my writing.

More recently, illness, pure but not simple, has added itself to the mix in a multi-system sort of way. And the challenges in figuring out exactly what's gone wrong are many. As problems have revealed themselves in the last few years, beginning with reactive hypoglycemia in late 2008, I've documented them here, partly to gain a little clarity on managing complex conditions but mostly to give voice to vulnerabilities I feel but don't normally share with anyone face to face. Better out than in, they say, right? (Oh yes, humor is one way I deal.)

The links below cover the different angles I've examined (and from which I've been examined) within that experience.

Travel: neither here nor there

When the person you're married to lives two time zones away, you log a fair number of frequent flier miles. And if you blog about commuter relationships, you log quite a few posts en route too.

Since we're no longer in separate places, I blog less often from airports. But we do travel -- together now! -- which is much more fun to write about. So in addition to thoughts on our years of commuting, the links below cover the places we've been as a pair and, in some cases, the adventures that have happened on the way.

Writing: the long and short of it

Why do I do it? Good question. Maybe it's not so much that I like to write but that I have to write, even when the words refuse to stick to the page. Believe me, I've tried doing other things like majoring in biochemistry (freshman fall, many semesters ago). Within a year, I'd switched to English with a concentration in creative writing and wasn't looking back.

After graduating, I taught English for a few years and then worked as an editor, which I still do freelance. In 2007, I applied and got into an MFA program at a place I like to call Little U. on the Prairie. I finished my degree in 2011 and have been balancing tutoring and writing on my own ever since.

The following links cover the writing I've done about writing: process, content, obstacles, you name it. It's not always pretty. But some part of me loves it, even when it's hard. And this is the result.

Heart: family and friends

I'd have a hard time explaining who I am without being able to talk about the family I grew up in as well as the people I've met beyond its bounds. But even with such context, it's not easy! In the simplest terms, I'm a first-generation Asian-American who has spent most of this life caught between cultures. That, of course, doesn't even begin to describe what I mean to, but there's my first stab at the heart of it all.

That's what this group of posts is reserved for -- heart. The essential parts of my life whose influences I carry with me, for better or worse. The links below cover what I've written as I've learned how these forces work within me, for me, against me, in spite of me. They anchor me even as they change me, and they keep life interesting.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Funny that you should ask ...

You know those people you run into while you're waiting for the bus, the kind who are total strangers but like to engage you in conversation anyway? Somehow, I seem to attract them.

Most of the time, I don't mind the chitchat -- I mean, it's only polite to respond when someone says, "How are you today?" and generally, out here where the heat is as extreme as the cold, there's always something to say about the weather. After a few exchanges about rain/snow/ ice/all of the above, the conversation peters out or the bus arrives and you can part ways.

So yesterday, at my bus stop, a man started talking to me. "You going to school?" he asked. Seemed like a fairly innocuous opener. So I said yes, I was going in to campus to hold office hours. "You're a teacher," he said. Not wanting to mislead him, I explained that I was a student too. A few moments of silence, and I assumed we were done.

"I see some lucky man's already made you a promise," he said suddenly.

"What? Oh." I realized he was looking at my left hand. "Yes."

Inevitably, after a few more questions, the conversation reached the admission that D and I have a commuter marriage. To which, without any hesitation, the man said, "I guess in a relationship like that, you must have to be abstinent, huh?"

"Um" -- and here I think my brain sort of lurched to a sudden halt because it couldn't believe what it had heard -- "we do see each other as often as we can."

Now, I'm sure the guy didn't mean any harm, but how do you answer (or get out of answering) something like that? Clearly, he understood the institution of marriage -- at its simplest, a promise to be faithful -- so what further confirmation needed to be made about that? And yet, if I had offered no response, what would that have implied?

I think it's time to start carrying a book to the bus stop. Either to look really engrossed in it so as not to be disturbed or to thunk people on the head with it when they ask inappropriate questions.