Here I am the morning before I set off on a two-week long road trip with Dallas Aunt watching “Speechless” and “Designated Survivor” on Hulu. To be honest, I’m a little put off of the disruption of my normal routine thanks to Dallas Aunt choosing to sleep on the couch rather than the second bedroom. Apparently her distaste for my mom runs so deep that even being in a room that my mom hadn’t occupied in months. So yet again I am relegated to my bedroom.

I have several concerns about this trip:

1. When I did the Louisiana road trip with by cousin Aaron, I kept photos of it on Flickr. I’m not quite sure that I want to use Flickr this time around. Maybe I’ll just use Google Photo just because? Good lord, that sounds pathetic.

2. Wheelchair cousin is really concerned for me. She and I are the only ones in the family who can get along with Dallas Aunt, and our patience is wearing thin. Yesterday she got into a tizzy fit because I didn’t acknowledge an informational text she sent me. Or that I don’t update her on everything I do. It’s quite grating, really. I don’t know how I’m going to survive being in close quarters for two weeks with her, but those who know me personally know that if nothing I will persevere. Or drive us off a cliff, whichever strikes my fancy.

3. I will miss Vin Scully’s last game. I figure I will be in Vancouver for it. Or Victoria. Or Missoula. Nevertheless, I will miss it. Although I can catch it on MLB.tv when I get back home, I’m still sad about it.

There are some more concerns, but I don’t think I can sufficiently express them here.

The plan is to go up Pacific Coast Highway through California (mostly) before heading towards the I-5 through Oregon up to Vancouver before heading east on the I-90 to Missoula, MT and heading down south the I-15 and get back home. Of course things can change. Dallas Aunt, in fact, is already proposing changes. Oh, heaven help me.

I don’t know what image would greatly complement this post, so up above is a photo of me approving of I Heart Pancakes in Santa Ana after eating half a stack of strawberry cheesecake pancakes. Because why not?

I’ve had some pretty fucked up dreams about the Grandmother over the last couple of weeks, but there are two that are seared into my memory.

1. I’m in bed, and I hear something banging in my closet. I open the door and there is my grandmother with her eyes and mouth sewn shut. She’s in a complete panic, and I’m looking down at her completely annoyed trying to figure out what I need to tell the 911 operator when I call them.

2. I’m wheeling my grandmother around a hospital, but she’s flailing about creating such a scene. A doctor wants to take a look at her, but I tell him it’s unnecessary because she’s dead. I get her into an examination room, and she’s still causing a ruckus. She finally yells out that she soiled her diapers. I yell at her at the top of my lungs in Korean, “THERE’S NOTHING IN YOUR DIAPERS! YOU’RE FUCKING DEAD!!!!”

Somehow I don’t think I’m all right.

Saturday was Madd’s birthday. And since I’m a gentleman, I won’t reveal how old she is. I will say that we’ve been friends since I was 17. Back when in order to get black nail polish, I used black marker and topped it with clear enamel. For a mesh undershirt, I cut a hole in the crotch of fishnet hose. That to find the music I wanted to listen to, I had to troll the compilation CDs in record stores and read zines like the defunct IndustrialnatioN.

We had dinner at the Penthouse in the Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica where we had this view:

Afterwards we went to the Santa Monica Pier and rode the ferris wheel which is one my favorite things to do in all the world. Walking down the pier, we saw a bunch of folks walking with their heads down looking at their phones. It seems they were all playing Pokemon Go and looking for the special Pokemon nodules or whateverthefuck it is they were looking for. I guess it’s nice that this game is getting people outdoors, but they really do seem to be missing out on interacting with the real world.

But most depressing was what we saw at the end of the pier. There was a gaggle of people wearing headphones dancing. It looked like a scene from The Lobster coming true. See?

The hardest question I get asked lately is, “How are you doing?” I don’t know how to answer it. I tend to be a very honest person when it comes to things like this which also means I’m not very good at small talk, chit chat, what have you. I guess I can give a curt answer and say, “I’m all right.” After all, I’m not crying or wailing every day. Or any day.

But really, I’m not all right. There’s a lot of emptiness that I didn’t expect to feel especially since I had prepared for so long for The Grandmother’s death. Last week I had to get a copy of her death certificate to our apartment leasing office. Sure the weight of the certificate itself is heavier than most other pieces of paper, but there was also a huge psychic weight of that piece of paper that told me she died of natural causes on July 31, 2016 at 0010.

For someone who has ridden this grief train several times in the past, these last few weeks have been much harder than I imagined. I know what I need to do to move on with my life, get a job, etc. Where I am stuck at right now is whether I want to. Maybe I will head my ass back to Baton Rouge. Maybe I will move out of country like I keep threatening to do. Maybe I will just dig a hole and crawl in it to while away the rest of my days.

Yesterday was The Grandmother’s funeral, and here she is in her final resting place. Well, a little more than six feet above her final resting place, but you get my drift. It was a nice ceremony despite the fact that I was tapped to deliver the eulogy. The service was done in Korean, and I mixed it up but did it mostly in English. Then we went to the grave site. After most of the mourners left, we family privately dumped earth on her grave.

Now we’re starting the process of cleaning up the apartment. Actually, the more accurate way of describing it is I’m making my mom and aunts clean up the damn place since they’re responsible for most the shit that has accumulated in this place.

I’m sad, but my emotions are blocked. I’m numb, perhaps a little shell-shocked, perhaps filled with anxiety on what my future holds. To be honest, I don’t know what’s going on with me. People ask how I’m holding up, and I don’t know the answer. I’m not grieving or weeping or anything like that, but I don’t feel right, either.

Oh wait. I have gin!!!! YAY GIN!

The unfortunate part is that in my experience, guys with visible abdominal squares are pretty shitty at sex. And speaking of sex, I’m slowly trying to reclaim parts of my apartment as my own. Take for instance my medicine cabinet:

Hot.

I saw the pale lifeless husk of her body and completely broken down. I didn’t notice any details, just what was left of my grandmother, the woman who helped raise me, the woman who survived Japanese occupation, a World War, a Civil War and even her own offspring.

It wasn’t after I composed myself and made phone calls to the rest of the family that I went back in for a closer look. She had a hint of a smile, a smile that showed she was happy to be rid of this avatar, that her pain would be gone, that she was headed to her god. Or maybe it was a mischievous smile of a woman who decided to die at 12:10 am. Nevertheless, despite the broken down body that failed her being right there, with that smirk she seemed at peace just lying there.

My mom was the last person in our family to see her alive, and I am so far the only person in the family to see her dead. Aside from that initial burst of tears, I’ve been calm. I got home from the nursing home at around 2:30 and couldn’t fall asleep until 4. Unlike the dreams I had the other night that were filled with The Grandmother, last night was peaceful. I slept for a solid five hours until more rounds of phone calls and text messages this morning.

To be honest, I don’t know what I’m feeling right now. Sure there is some sadness, but I’m feeling more empty than anything else I think. I guess this is why I feel compelled to write, to sort of deal with all of this shit. Everyone else in the family is holding up well, so I guess that’s minor miracle.

Now on to plan the funeral (which, thankfully, I am not doing.)

The whirr of the oxygen machine hits you when you enter her room. Its constant low-frequency percussion fills the silence of the room as if the sound of death was slowly creeping its way closer to The Grandmother. On Monday it wasn’t necessary. By Wednesday, it was needed. And here today on Friday, I am coming to terms that The Grandmother will be dead very soon.

My mom called me late last night in tears while she was visiting The Grandmother. She told me what I already knew and am struggling to deal with, that The Grandmother looks to be giving up. It’s a marked change from the normal conversations I have with my mom. Usually she talks about all the food she fed her — after all she has the mystifying talent of getting The Grandmother to eat. But last night she was in tears because she couldn’t get The Grandmother to eat one bite.

When I visited The Grandmother today, she barely acknowledged I was there. With the oxygen tube in her nose, she barely opened her eyes and weakly nodded her head. While I don’t have my mother’s skills in feeding her, I am usually able to get The Grandmother to eat. But she can’t swallow anything. Not the pureed food they serve her at the home. Not even water. Not her medication.

Even though I’m an atheist and my reading Korean sucks, there I was reading her the first chapter of First Corinthians in my broken white-boy accented Korean reading words I didn’t believe but which I hoped would sooth her soul.

Her hospice nurse came by just as I was ready to leave, and we discussed her deteriorating condition. She told me that they were going to change her status as “actively dying” and will now stop by to check up on her every morning. I nodded and agreed with this assessment. Then as I was walking the hall, I broke down sobbing. Then when I got inside my car it became weeping for a good minute. The emotions of it all just hit me.

Reading WebMD’s article on signs of impending death for the elderly, The Grandmother has all the signs:

Meet Chantal. She is a sexy black 2013 Honda Accord LX. She has an iPod connection, alloy wheels, backup camera. She is also my new car.

This is the first time I’ve had to buy a new car. My first car was a 1987 Honda Accord that was a hand-me-down from an uncle. When that died in 2003, I got another uncle’s 2002 Toyota Camry. So going into this, I was expecting the worst.

The funny thing is Chantal was the first car I test drove. I ended up driving three cars, but she fit me best. I was surprised how painless the entire process was. Perhaps it was because I got her through Carmax, but I was expecting the worst.

So here it is, the car I will be driving for hopefully the next 15 years.

I realize just how much of an outsider I am sometimes. I’m not saying that as if I’m ashamed of it — of all the things I’m ashamed of myself, my status within a community is not one of those things. But sometimes it does put a dent into fully enjoying something.

The Bubba Bang party at Faultline on Saturday was quite interesting. The music was fun, and it did get me to shake my booty a little. Or it could have been the Hendricks and tonics that I was pouring down my gullet. And of course, being there with Yobo and being bitchy Heathers was a blast!

But one of annoying things of going to these bear parties is seeing some of these fagolas desperate trying to project masculinity. There was a flock of these butchies close by, and they had to have butch drinks, move in a butch way, have butch body hair, butch facial hair. It’s such a bore.

Sure, being butch is fine, but once in a while you have to throw in a little bit of nelly, right? Whatever image of masculinity these little fagolas have in their mind, it’s too fucking bad. We are faggots. We don’t have to fit into these nice little hetero-normative boxes.

As the night wore on, Yobo was getting more and more belligerent against these fagolas. He was about ready to throw his glass into the crowd, and I stopped him because he does frequent the Faultline and didn’t want to see him banned. But the breaking point is when I saw a tattoo of one of the butch fagola’s arms:

Two words: bitch, puh-lease. I told Yobo he could do whatever he saw fit. We realized it was our cue to depart.

For some reason I remembered parties of ages ago (pre-9/11) where I never noticed these things. Then again, I was probably way too drunk and young and stupid to notice. But now, sometimes, I don’t know where I fall since I’m not entirely butch and not entirely nelly. Okay, cue the Britney Spears…