Of course, you can probably guess what I would say. I am so predictable. I would go on a shopping spree in Japan, like, ALL OVER JAPAN. If the term ‘shopping spree’ included shopping around for airline tickets, hotel rooms, and various modes of transportation, then I would shop in all the Japan cities I’ve dreamt of visiting. If I was only limited to one city, then I would choose Tokyo.
Tokyo is the main hub where Jian & I shop the most. When we are in Tokyo with our little bean (currency conversion permitting), we tend to go nuts on shopping. Tokyo is the epicenter of all our absolute favorite brands and stores. We could spend an entire month in Tokyo going on a shopping spree & still not even get everything we wanted. Also, as my child has gotten older, become more aware, & has been able to appreciate & understand things more, she has also developed her own love of brands & stores in Tokyo.
Geez, just thinking about an absolute shopping spree, supposing the cost was not coming out of our own pockets (aka paid for by someone else), & there was no spending limit, sounds extremely enticing. Also, being the ever-generous person that I am, I can already imagine myself going hog wild on buying a shit ton of gifts for friends & family. All day long, I’d carry around a 5 pound bag of coins, just so I could go balls out on all the capsule machines.
Of course, I would have to throw a wet blanket on a lighthearted, what-if scenario, & bring up my personal elephant in the room. All this time that I am imagining a wild & carefree shopping spree, I can’t help but think about over-consumption & the big questions looming over my head, “Where am I going to put all of my purchases once I get home?” “How am I going to store everything?” I don’t want to waste anything. What the fuck. I’m going to end this here before I get too deep. Cha-ching & Cheers. 💰
I often think about my sleeping habits. They’re not great, as the title of this post clearly states. I go to bed very late every night, & because of my little bean’s school schedule, my internal clock has already adjusted itself to wake roughly around the same time every single morning, no matter what. My internal clock even wakes me up minutes before my actual alarm clock screams at me to get up.
Yeah, even when I get sick, my body will wake up at the same time due to it being conditioned to my little bean’s repetitive school routine. I can’t even get myself to sleep in on the weekends; not even on holidays, or on vacations. Fuck me.
I don’t mind waking up early in the morning. One of my favorite things to do is lounge in bed for a little while before I get the day going. I don’t even mind the fact that my body is so accustomed to a routine that I cannot get myself to sleep in, no matter how hard I try. The only thing that really bothers me, to the point of pissing me off (pun intended), is that my body doesn’t just wake up because of repetitive routine. It is mostly because my very, very full bladder is my alarm clock, & roars atme to get up & urinate.
No matter how hard I try to convince myself to wait a minute, then another minute more, all I can think about is how my bladder will either explode like an overfilled water balloon, or I’m going to eventually give myself some sort of urinary tract infection. I can’tconcentrate on anything other than voiding my bladder. By the time I finally muster the motivation to get out of bed to urinate, time has slipped through my metaphorical fingers, & I begin to rush to get my daughter dressed, fed, & ready for school drop off.
The evenings are a different story. I don’t rush to get in bed at night. I take my time to prepare things for the next day, such as picking out my little bean’s school outfit, pre-packing her lunch & the things she will bring to school, pre-prepping all the ingredients for breakfast, or picking out what I’m going to wear the next day so I won’t waste time thinking about what to wear (I can just grab the outfit I set aside & put it on without thinking about it.).
After everyone has showered (we’re all nighttime bathers) & brushed our teeth, & my little bean has read a bedtime book, after I’ve helped my mother with any extra task or favor she’s asked of me, that’s when I begin my wind-down process. I take time to do all of my skincare steps, I brush my hair, then I set up all the things around my side of whichever bed I am sleeping on.
Let me clarify this by explaining what that means. Basically, my little bean is a co-dependent sleeper & needs a parent to sleep next to her. Jian & I swap co-sleeping roles every other night, & depending on the situation, we trade beds (sometimes one of us will sleep in her full-size bed alone, sometimes she will sleep in that bed with a parent). This is a routine we have all gotten used to. Jian & I get to share a bed on the weekends, when the little bean sleeps with her grandma (as a weekend treat). Grandma has no rules, so on the weekends the little bean will sometimes stay up until 1am watching random videos of raccoons eating trash food.
So, to get back on topic, after everyone else has been tucked in bed, that’s when it’s my time to properly shine relax. I put on my ear buds, watch a ton of Instagram reels before switching to YouTube shorts, play a couple rounds of whatever puzzle game I’m into at the moment, maybe color a few pictures from my color-by-numbers app, pinboard aspirational photos on Pinterest, then freak out about how late the time is. After all of that bullshit, I put down my phone, put away the ear buds that are starting to make my ears feel tender & sore, then try to fall asleep, all while trying to convince myself that I don’t have to pee one more time before sleeping. (That always fails, & I end up making a big fuss with myself just to unburden my bladder for the night.)
Oh, you thought I was done? No way, José, & that includes you all the way in the back row. I am still not done. What’s that old saying, “First one up, last one sleeping”? Or was it “First one in, last one out”? Either way, I am always the last person to sleep in my household. I am making sure everyone is taken care of before I ca truly fall sleep, & that mostly applies to my little bean. I make sure she is covered properly, that she’s got all of her favorite things to sleep with right next to her, & that she is fully asleep before I doze off.
So, this is where I end my post. I am going to sign off, take a whizz, then go to sleep at a relatively decent time for once. Cheers.
Write about your first name: its meaning, significance, etymology, etc.
I once had to write a short essay in my high school Spanish class about how my parents chose my given name & why, then read the story aloud to the class. So, I asked my dad who was sitting at his home office desk after dinner, how he chose my name. & why.
I should preface this by saying my dad was under the influence of a few glasses of post-dinner vodka. Yup, my dad was not quite sober when I decided to ask him a very serious question for my school homework assignment.
I couldn’t believe how he could try to keep a straight face while giving me a completely bullshit answer. As I kept asking him if what he was saying was the truth, he started cracking up. What was the story he made up about the origin of my name? Well let me tell you it was weird.
Let me start by saying if you’ve been paying attention to my username/handle, & you know an intermediate amount of Japanese vocabulary, then you can pretty much guess what my name is (or at least half of it). So, my name sounds like a Spanish name, but my family has no ties to any sort of Spanish culture or ethnicity. My entire family tree is as oriental as you can get. However, when my dad immigrated to the United States, he landed in San Antonio, Texas & immediately fell in love with Tex-Mex culture. That’s probably the real reason he chose a Spanish-sounding name for me. The story he told me?
Well, well, well. My dad (who had been a banker his entire professional career), told me that the first known lesbian he ever worked with had that first name. He went on to say he greatly admired that coworker (but did not elaborate on why), & that he liked the sound of her name, so he chose it for my name when I was born.
No matter how many times I asked him to tell me the truth, he stuck to that story. I even asked my mom if she knew why my given name was chosen, & she had no clue whatsoever. All she could say was that she let my dad pick my name at birth. I don’t know why I never questioned my dad again about it. Was it pure laziness on my part? Most likely. Was it a bullshit story made up by a man whose liver was soaked in a potato-based alcohol? Absolutely.
I ended up using that story for my homework assignment, but I embellished the story a little bit, mostly to fit the length requirement of the essay. I don’t remember what I wrote or what I ended up saying in front of my classmates, but I do remember my utter embarrassment in having to use that as my name origin story.
My dad has been out of the picture for 14 years now. So, I guess I will never know the true story of how I got my given name. That’s ok, though. I have kind of grown into liking my dad’s made-up farce of a backstory. It’s quirky, & that’s kind of cool. That’s all. Until the next one, cheers.
Rabbits & Foxes 
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