What's Wang This Week

I'm at home now, after a couple of weeks at Cornell. It was fun, although I missed the amenities of home, like a kitchen and a bathroom that doesn't remind me of high school. The thing about Cornell was that we were staying downhill from our classes, so we had to hike up a reasonably daunting hill every morning, and then the closest restaurants were about 20 minutes away (including an incline). We were sharing a fridge thirty ways, too, so I never really got beyond the yogurt-juice-bananas stage of grocery buying.

I also played a lot of soccer. It was definitely fun; unfortunately for me there were lots of Europeans there, and they actually know soccer, so I spent a good deal of time in the backfield hoping nobody would yell at me. Also, I played after this ridiculous thunderstorm, and the field (the pitch, for those of us in the know) was all muddy. The next day my shoes were so encrusted with mud I couldn't even get my laces untied.

They got washed clean on my last day in Toronto, though, where I headed immediately after Cornell. I chose the worst possible day to hoof it to Chinatown, and my dinky-ass umbrella (which I bought because I didn't want to pack my good-ass umbrella from Berkeley) didn't cover my backpack, so everything in my bag got soaked. Unfortunately that includes the autographed beer coasters I got from Peter Lynn. Fear not, though -- I took a hair dryer to them and now they're as good as new, although they are a bit flaky now. Think of it as adding character.

Which brings me to perhaps the most exciting part of my trip to Toronto: meeting Peter Lynn. That, however, is another post.

Besides Mr. Man vs. Clown!, Toronto was a blast. In an effort to make sure Potsie never ever speaks to me again, I stayed for two days with Mantek and two days with Jim, and they were very gracious hosts. I saw the CBC building, the MuchMusic building, the CN Tower, some of U of T, Ryerson, Toronto Island, and I walked through the underground walkways and rubbed shoulders with a bunch of Bay Street business types. (I was the one wearing the Homsar shirt.)

I could easily have spent a couple more days there. I never got to see Niagara Falls, for example. But overall I am satisfied with what I did while I was there. Besides, remembering the old adage about guests and fish, I figured Mak and Jim had had just about enough of ol' Dickolas. And hey, I got this:



Now I'm home. More excitingly, so is my sister, and with her my little nephew Thomas. He's a cute kid. I'm not convinced that he actually recognizes me yet. When he first saw me, I had overgrown hair and glasses. The next day I got a haircut, and put in my contact lenses so I could see what the hairdresser was doing to my hair. When I came back, he looked bewildered. Now I've got short hair and the glasses, which will just confuse him even more.

He also never smiles when he sees me. I don't think he likes me, actually; I'm pretty sure that to him I'm just a beast of burden who will let him look out the window, give him water, and burp him. This could have something to do with the fact that any time I get to carry him, my mother is at my shoulder grabbing his attention. She's almost as hyper as he is. Unfortunately, she's so eager to play with him when she's holding him that she never actually does things like, say, giving him water or burping him. I may have to make like Kathleen suggested and tuck him under my arm like a football and run away from my mom until he starts to recognize me. That might just make him hate me even more. It would certainly make my mother hate me more.

Probably my sister, too.

Speaking of Kathleen, a bit of an embarrassing moment: a few weeks back, she sent me an e-mail out of the blue, after 6 years of radio silence. She was bored and had Googled her own name. Imagine my shock (well, imagine her shock, really) when she told me that the first hit was a post I wrote mentioning her about a year ago. I of course was mortified that my guise of anonymity had failed, but then it struck me:

I have become the Internet's Foremost Kathleen Pennykid Resource.

On a related note, Jowen informs me that if you Google "Leah Kimura Coquitlam Now", I, Dickolas Wang is the second hit.

I've been cranky of late for a few reasons. First, the other night we went to a highly regrettable strip club and due to some misunderstandings and rudeness, the waitress was a complete bitch to me. I could have been more polite, but then again at no point was she ever exactly killing me with kindness either. Second, my picture (along with the rest of the LUGs') was regrettably put on hotornot.com, without our permission. I personally specifically told our friend not to do it, but he did it anyway. I keep bitching to him about it (you know, little things like invasion of personal space and lack of regard for the wishes of your friends), to which he tells me that I'm just being uptight, and to "hold your comments until the ending" because "it all worked out in the end". He doesn't get it. He's not sorry at all, either -- in fact, he's pretty proud of it, which chaps my hide even more. Maybe I'm being uptight, but then again not unusually so.

Yeah, no.

At least he used my "Dickolas Wang" picture. I would really have hated it had he used what I thought to be a good picture and it got shat on.