Tae Kwon

Tonight, we (and I mean all of us - parents and children) have Tae Kwon Do class. Bill is a second-degree black belt; the girls and I have red belts with a black stripe. We need to earn two more black stripes before we qualify to test for our black belts. I'm not a natural (yoga is my niche), but it's a great workout, a family activity, and we all adore our Saba Nim (venerated master instructor) Robert Zang.

Master Zang started with Tae Kwon Do at the age of 4, under the tutelage of a Grandmaster of Tae Kwon Do. He stayed with Quanja Nim (aka Grandmaster) for thirty years, ending up in charge of one of Quanja Nim's do jangs (I'm phonetically spelling all the TKD stuff). Master Zang was like a son to Quanja Nim. Ever the Korean patriarch, Quanja Nim would both shower him with praise and verbally eviscerate him.

At belt testings, Quanja Nim, Saba Nim, and other masters of Tae Kwon Do sit at a long table in the front of the room and evaluate the students as they perform their patterns, spar with fellow students, and break a number of boards. After everyone has been tested, protocol demands that Saba Nim give a little speech about how lucky we are to have our Grandmaster, what a great champion he was, and what a wonderful Quanja Nim he remains. Then Quanja Nim would riff on whatever topic seemed to cross his mind until he ran out of things to say.

I'll never forget the testing where Quanja Nim lost my respect (and respect is a foundation of Tae Kwon Do). We were all seated on the floor at his feet. As he was expounding, he noticed a boy about 8 years-old sitting on his mother's lap. He said to him, "You are not a baby. Do not sit on your mother's lap." This kid just nuzzled into his mother even more. Even my kids were able to spot that the boy was probably autistic. But Quanja Nim didn't. He harangued the boy, who never responded, reducing the kid's mom to tears. Because they were seated at the front of the room, with about about 50 people crammed in behind them, she couldn't even take her son and flee. The tears streaming down this woman's face did not deter Grandmaster at all. Later, I saw Saba Nim whisper to him, apparently explaining the situation, because Grandmaster then made a show of personally awarding the boy his next belt.

A few years later, in a fit of fury, Quanja Nim fired Master Zang. He soon regretted his outburst, said he didn't mean it, and expected things to continue as always. But Master Zang had had enough. Quanja Nim offered him the do jang outright, an established business with a large clientele. Master Zang would keep all profits, with testing fees still going to Quanja Nim (who has probably 5 other locations). And Master Zang said no. Master Zang decided that, even though he's the sole support of a wife and two young children, he'd had enough. He now has his own do jang, a business based on the idea of mutual respect not obeisance to the lord.

Of everything that he's taught my children, I think the most important is that security is not worth your soul. They saw that Master Zang could say, "You can't treat me this way. I'm worth more than that," and walk away. (Also, learning how to break multiple boards with your hands and feet is quite the rush.)

Tests of Friendship

On screens both large and small, you can tell who the best friend is because she always walks into the lead character's home without knocking and helps herself to a cup of coffee. And she knows where the cups are. I was feeling sorry for myself* because I don't know where anyone keeps their coffee cups (and my mom's house doesn't count, since I used to live there).

On the other hand, I do have four people who will call and say, "Hi, it's me," and I'll know who it is. I think that might be just as good a barometer of friendship as the coffee cup test. Plus, my sister pointed out that I know where she keeps her cups, and not everyone knows that about a sister, so it counts.

*Imagine that

Private Lunch and TV

Yesterday noon, my six year-old niece came home from day camp and said to my sister, "Ahhh, my favorite time of the day: private lunch and TV." I must agree. I think it's genetic.

I've always had a hard time falling asleep, so I have several thought projects I work on to lull myself to slumber. One of the most effective is planning my Best Day Ever, a schedule of the food and TV that bring me the most joy. And here it is.

My Best Day Ever:


Breakfast: White toast with butter, coffee
9:00 - 9:30: The Dick Van Dyke Show
9:30 - 10:00 The Mary Tyler Moore Show
10:00-10:30 Designing Women
10:30-11:00 Roseanne

Now here I'd break for a walk, because developing bedsores as a result of TV viewing is just bad. I might even shower, but since it's my Best Day Ever, I might not.


Lunch: Kentucky Fried Chicken meal (all white meat, double mashed potatoes as the sides), Diet Coke
11:00-12:00 Family (the show from the 70's, not spending time with my own)
12:00- 1:00 Thirtysomething
1:00 - 2:00 LA Law


Break to call my sister and brag about how great my day is.

Snack: Kettle-cooked salt and pepper potato chips, seltzer
3:00 - 5:00 The Made for TV Movie (MfTM) Sunshine (a young mother's losing battle with cancer, based on a true story)
5:00 - 7:00 The MfTM Harvest Home (occult happenings in a Connecticut town)

Break to avoid livor mortis.


Dinner: Montecello's Restaurant's spaghetti dinner with meatballs (includes tossed salad with the house dressing and garlic toast), Pinot Grigio
8:00 - 10:00 The MfTM The Girl Most Likely To (Stockard Channing as an ugly duckling turned swan who seeks revenge on the men who spurned her)


And after that Best Day Ever, I'd get into bed with a book, and I wouldn't have the tiniest problem falling asleep.

Yikes!

My husband doesn't understand my fascination with other people's miseries (and writing it out like that makes me sound both mean and ghoulish). Last night I watched "Zoo," a documentary of men gripped with zoophilia, focusing on a Seattle man who died of internal injuries after enjoying a private moment with a horse. While shocking, more than anything the film shows the sadness and loneliness of these men. I didn't even bother to tell my husband about the movie, because I know the gross-out factor would overwhelm everything else.

I did tell him about the website I looked at, where men who own Real Dolls (lifelike doll-women that cost thousands of dollars) discuss photo shoots, private weekends, and technical problems (apparently the hip socket is easily broken with frequent manipulation). In the "Was My Face Red" section, a man wrote that, with his wife's amused consent, he retreated with his red-headed doll to the basement for an evening of romance. He'd poured the wine, lit the candles, and started the music, when his teenage daughter burst in. He panicked, threw a blanket over the doll, and screamed at this daughter to get upstairs. After calming down, he headed up to the master bedroom, where his wife was laughing with his daughter. Apparently, the girl had thought her father had killed her mother and was planning to have sex with the corpse. Imagine the relief when she learned it was just Daddy and a doll! (I found this site after I watched "Lars and the Real Girl," a very sweet movie I've now seen twice.)

I also skipped telling Bill about transabled.org, a site for sufferers (and they do suffer) of Body Image Identity Disorder (BIID). These people are obsessed with becoming paraplegic or amputee. I first learned of this disorder on Primetime Live (or 20/2o - what's the difference), where they interviewed a woman who parked her car in a secluded area, packed her leg in dry ice, then waited for hours until her leg would be too damaged to save (if I remember correctly, it took more than one try). On this website, these sweet, sad people share their struggles (and sometimes their triumphs when they succeed in disabling themselves).

The shame is in the voyeurism, which I rationalize by noting that a market exists for these stories (HBO documentary, feature film, and TV program). I don't think I'm looking for a thrill. Actually, I know that I'm looking for a validation, along the lines of, "At least I'm not that fucked up." Obviously, I'm not the only member of the audience, so it's not so bad to watch, right? And I guess for the zoo groups, the Real Doll forums, and transabled website, their consolation is that they're not the only ones, too.

A while ago, I was checking out at WalMart, and I saw that the clerk's name was Laken. I mentioned how pretty I thought her name was. She told me that her mom named her after a character in the soap opera "Santa Barbara." She added that she'd even met another Laken (though spelled Lakin) at a softball game. I said, "Wow, that's got to mean something. I just don't know what!" She thought a moment and answered, "I guess it means I'm not the only one." (That line's more effective if you sing it like John Lennon in "Imagine.") I found that thought quite comforting.

Great Idea Not Done #1

Here's a book I didn't write, but I think is still a great idea. Titled "Grown Children from a Previous Marriage," it would be a self-help book for adult children whose parents are divorcing. The title is inspired by every article I've read about rich men and their second families (e.g. Don Imus, Larry King, Michael Douglas), where the old guy rhapsodizes about fatherhood after age gazillion. He always says something like, "I probably wasn't around for my kids as much as I should have been the first time. Now I know how wonderful being a dad can be." Then the article says, "In addition to Jackson, age 5, and Annabelle, age 3, Old Guy has three grown children from a previous marriage."

Having been 32 years-old when my parents split, I know how hard it can be. I can remember thinking a long time ago, "If something bad happened, I probably wouldn't care so much if I had my own husband and family," which turns out to be completely untrue. For a good two years, I didn't speak to my father. He never told my sister or me that he got married (it was the seaside wedding photo on my grandmother's bureau that helped us figure it out). I didn't met his wife until 8 years after that (at my grandmother's funeral). I have yet to meet my three year-old "brother" and have no intentions of doing so. My sister and I cycled through the classic stages of grief (Anger, Denial, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance), though it was probably more Anger, Anger, Anger, Anger, and Acceptance. (Here, my mother would yelp, "But I was the person at Ground Zero!" Which is a whole chapter in itself.)

I'm thinking a workbook would make a great companion piece (because the women who read these kind of books like to fill in blanks), not to mention that the very do-it-yourselfness of a workbook would make it relatively easy to create.

Great idea, no? Someday I'll tell you all the reasons why I can't actually do it. (And I think of new excuses all the time.)