Drawing on the Subconcious

Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, fathers of doodleology, would argue that our drawings reveal symbols from our subconscious. If they are right, I am in real trouble.  For the past few months, I've noticed a certain recurring theme in my daily doodles, a frequent image that seems to pop up often where maybe it should not belong:

Yes, judging from my doodles, apparently I am obsessed with whole roast chickens.  If asked what is my favorite food, I wouldn't have thought the whole chicken would have necessarily even made the top ten.  So what is this all about?  

If I think really hard, my earliest preoccupation with chickens dates back to the third grade when I read C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.  I know, you're thinking, I don't remember any chickens in The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe?  

You are not mistaken.  

For those of you who do not recall, the story centers around four siblings -- Peter, Susan, Lucy and Edmund -- who crawl through a closet full of fur coats into the fantastical land of Narnia.  Although it has been nearly three decades since I read this book, I still remember one thing very clearly:

Turkish Delight.

You see, somewhere along this adventure, Edmund got tangled up with the villain in the story, the White Witch, queen of Narnia.  For purposes here today, suffice it to say, she was a pretty lady who lured Edmund to the Dark Side using tins of some magical food called Turkish Delight.  

In the third grade, I was still mastering the idiosyncrasies of America and so it could not be expected that I would understand anything of a place as remote and exotic as Turkey.  All I knew about Turkish Delight was that it was kept in a tin and that it was so damn delicious that Edmund readily betrayed his brother and sisters with nary a thought.  

Of course, the abstract deliciousness of Turkish Delight piqued the curiosity of my belly, but my mind was engaged in an altogether different subject -- what ethereal food was this that one could so easily trade his own flesh and blood for a mere taste?  In this way, Turkish Delight seemed to share a power that I had only otherwise observed in Stovetop Stuffing.  

In the 1980s, there were a lot of commercials on TV depicting young boys deserting dinners cooked by their mothers in pursuit of something called Stovetop Stuffing.  The plot was usually the same: little boy Timmy would rush home and realize that Bobby's mother was making Stovetop Stuffing.  Timmy would make some lame-ass excuse to escape his own family dinner and then hightail it to Bobby's house, where Bobby's young and beautiful mother would be shaking a box of something unbelievably irresistible -- something called Stovetop Stuffing. 

The thing is, the commercials never really clearly showed the viewer what Stovetop Stuffing was.  Maybe this was deliberate or maybe it was assumed that any red-blooded American would intuitively know what stuffing was, but for a little Chinese girl growing up in Kentucky, Stovetop Stuffing was as mysterious as can be.  We Chinese had no equivalent to chopped up pieces of bread covered in spices.  The two words Stovetop Stuffing offered some clues (clearly, it was to be prepared on the stovetop), but there, the trail went cold.  At least for me.    

Stovetop Stuffing and Turkish Delight thus became symbols of those things in life that we find cloyingly irresistible even without knowing all the details, things so wonderful that we don't even feel guilty about our total lack of willpower.  The path to Stovetop Stuffing and Turkish Delight is that of a happy, delirious moth diving headfirst into a blaze of glory.  It is where we go willingly, happily, and blissfully without thinking.

And that is why, naturally, at the age of eight, I decided that the White Witch's tins of Turkish Delight must have contained delicate pieces of THE MOST SUCCULENT CHICKEN ONE COULD EVER IMAGINE.  

I mean, why else would Edmund have turned to the dark side?

If what lay within the mystery box of Turkish Delight were a Rorschach test, I daresay I failed ... but rather blissfully.  Turns out that those tins of Turkish Delight would have contained pieces of overly sweet, super sticky candy.  Bleh.    

Edmund was a fool.  

So Answer Number One to why I am obsessed with roast chickens:  nostalgia ... and an active imagination.  

Answer Number Two would probably be a question of genetic inheritance.  Once during a family vacation in Europe, after eating a perfectly roasted chicken in Paris, my mother asked us to leave her behind in the middle of the trip so she could become a rotisserie apprentice and learn the secrets of perfect chicken.  We said no and made her come home with us.  What I learned from that experience was that my own mother could exhibit the same telltale symptoms as Edmund -- a willingness to abandon one's family in pursuit of something unbelievably transcendentally delicious, in her case, a perfect roast chicken.

Mom Wanted To Be A Rotisserie Spy

Should it be such a surprise that I might be similarly weak in the knees for such poultry given that the woman who birthed me also had this tragic flaw?  

The other reason why I might be obsessed with roast chickens is because when I'm really hungry, and I mean TERRIBLY HUNGRY, sometimes in my mind people's heads turn into whole chickens.  Now I didn't invent this -- cartoons depicting this very phenomenon can be found everywhere in pop culture -- so don't judge me.  Just don't get too close to me when I'm hungry.
  

Don't Let This Happen To You

Another reason to invite a whole chicken to the party is that it offers something for everyone.  The whole roast chicken is an equal opportunity food.  In addition to a myriad of different parts, the bird has both white meat and dark meat.  So whether you're a health fanatic hell-bent on a low-calorie, high-protein diet or someone who doesn't mind living dangerous on the dark juicy side, the whole roast chicken satisfies all!

Finally, the whole roasted fowl makes an ideal everyday accessory because it is very easy to carry and run off with it.  In fact, the thing even comes with built-in handles -- two very handy drumsticks that can be waved in the air at sporting events or that can keep your awkward hands otherwise occupied at cocktail parties.  

Convenient For Getaways

Better Than Pom Poms

Never Feel Awkward Again!

So there it is; my subconscious is filled with whole roasted chickens because deep down inside, like any other red-blooded American, I want me some Turkish Delight!

What delights your Turk?   

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Why Do I Draw?

Why do I draw?

I draw because sometimes I see something that makes me pause, and my mind freezes a Kodak moment.

I draw because once in a while I need to reach an idea hiding somewhere I can almost touch.    

I draw because I need to push out a thought stuck in the mud in my mind.  

I draw because I like to laugh.  A whole lot.  

I draw because I have secrets to share and stories to tell.

I draw because there is so much to see.  

I draw because sometimes I can find no words...

... where only a picture will do.  

I draw...

Sharing Is Caring

... for you!

Thanks for coming back.  

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In A Galaxy Far Far Away....

I'm sorry to be the one to inform you, but you've been reading the blog of someone who actually likes Star Trek.  But we come in peace.  We call ourselves trekkers.  

Before you hastily close this window, I said, "trekker," not "trekkie."  If this distinction escapes you, then yes, maybe you should just come back next week....  

Or if you're feeling curious, just read on.  Trekkies are basically just groupies obsessed with Star Trek, and they are in fact TOTALLY NUTSO.  They spend thousands of dollars on conventions every year, and yes, they wear uniforms and pointy ears while attending seminars!

I, on the other hand, have only aspired to attend a convention, and I have never ever worn space-related uniforms of any nature nor any prosthetic ears of any sort!  (Although I'm not saying I wouldn't try them on for a few minutes if someone were to hand me a pointy pair of Vulcan beauties....)

Who Can Resist?

Some people are born into royalty or life in the mob.  I was born into Star Trek.  By that I mean I was forced into it by Big Brother (the same guy who got me into all that trouble with Doritos).  I guess if you sit on a bean bag long enough in the family room without moving, this kind of thing happens before you know any better.   

Ensign Little Brother and I Really Never Had a Chance: 

BEFORE...

... AND AFTER 

Big Brother was born into the Star Wars generation.  In 1977, shortly after we moved from Taiwan to America, my dad had heard much hullabaloo about this Star Wars thing and decided to take us so we could have this important American experience.  Never mind that none of us really spoke a word of English at that time.  In fact, in 1977, I was just a baby and likely not saying much at all.    

"Blah blah booobie...?" 
(tr. "What the...?")

By the time Empire Strikes Back came out, Big Brother had learned enough English in school, but I was still only four years old.  What English I did know was acquired completely from Mr. Rogers.  Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood of Make-Believe, however, did not include any stormtroopers or AT-ATs, so naturally I cried every time these interstellar bad guys appeared onscreen.  Consequently, most of my American Star Wars experience was marked by general hysteria.    

While I was shrieking my head off, Big Brother was having a deep spiritual experience.  And like many of his generation, he has never been quite the same ever since.   

   

After being properly primed for all things spacey, somewhere along the way, Big Brother also fell in love with Star Trek.  And because for most of the first decade of a little sister's life, she is little more than a shadow to a Big Brother, naturally I fell into that hole right after him.  By the time he had found Star Trek, I had scraped enough English to make sense of what I was seeing on TV.  It might have been Big Brother brainwashing that had started it all, but Star Trek was colorful, funny, and had catchy theme songs.  Before I knew what was happening, I kind of liked it.    

If the Force was strong in Darth Vader, Luke, and Leia, Star Trek was just as strong in Big Brother, Little Brother, and me.  Little Brother and I were unknowing heirs to Big Brother's bathroom collection of Star Trek novels.  (It was many hours with these books that I gained the scholarly knowledge that made me the trekker I am today.)  From a very early age, Little Brother could draw just about anything, and soon his bedroom was cluttered with self-created ship schematics.  Every night before bed, the nacelle engines of his plastic model U.S.S. Enterprise would glow under his bedspread, fueled only by AA batteries and a powerful imagination.  (And occasionally, the muffled sounds of photon torpedoes.)   

As for me, in middle school, I decided I would teach myself to raise an eyebrow à la Spock, and to this day, this isolated muscle remains extremely well-developed, as true and sure as anything in my life.  Shunning the social habits of my peers, I practiced my Vulcan moves at night, arching my eyebrow in the mirror and longing for the ability to execute an immobilizing nerve pinch.  I started writing my own Star Trek novel based on a new character that I hoped would eventually make it onto the TV series -- a half-Orion, half-Vulcan female Starfleet officer -- basically a smart but sexy Vulcan lady the color of Incredible Hulk.    (Had I gotten further than Chapter 3, she would have been bad-ass and broken a lot of hearts.)      

I won't go so far as to say that but for the brotherly brainwashing, I would not have possessed any of the habits of the nerdy, geeky, or dorky all on my own.  But on good weather days, I might have passed as almost normal.  

That was then, and this is now.  Today, my trekker instincts are second-nature, particularly irrepressible if I've sniffed out a fellow-trekker at a cocktail party.  (And yes, this does not often happen.)  If you are otherwise a normal human, I will play along for now, but know that deep down inside, this Vulcan is just dying to pinch you.  
      

Live Long and Prosper

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Happy New Day

The confetti has blown away, and it's time to clean up.  It's always tempting to view the beginning of the new year as an opportunity to shake off the bad mojo, wipe the slate clean, and hope for a fresh start.  Now that 2013 is in full gear, many of us probably came up a list of resolutions in an well-intended effort to leave our past flaws behind.  Some of us, however, are rather reluctant to set ourselves up for failure. 

A Little Too Busy To Be Making New Year's Resolutions

For 2013, I could have made a New Year's resolution to give up Doritos, but seeing as how I've eaten Doritos every night the last fourteen consecutive days, I see no need to highlight my own personal failures.  

Humans tend to be creatures of habit.  Very few of us quit things cold turkey.  If we've spent a couple years smoking or eating Doritos or just being fat in general, a New Year's resolution is likely just the tip of an iceberg, the proverbial first step of very very many.  As a kid, all of my habits were still laboratory experiments that I could turn off when I needed.  That's how I stopped biting my fingernails and being afraid of the dark.  But decades later, the habits I have retained all my life are now second-nature.  It would take much more than a day that comes around every year to turn the U.S.S. Dorito Monster around.  

New Year's resolutions are really about one thing anyway: gym memberships.  I know because I spent most of New Year's Day sitting on my fat butt and watching TV.  And during this time, I was subjected to an onslaught of gym commercials urging me to get off my fat butt RIGHT NOW!

HA HA -- Still Sitting On My Fat Butt and Loving It

Like every red-blooded American, I over-ate from November to New Year's Day. Miraculously, I did hit the gym sporadically during this period, but in that final homestretch to Christmas and NewYear's, there was only one lane left for sprinting, and yes, it was the lane was full of holiday food.  

Finishing First in the Fast Lane of Food

Making a New Year's resolution basically puts your biggest weakness under the stress and tension of a rubber band.  And rubber bands love to snap.  Google "New Year's resolutions," and you'll find a vast amount of information about how you're going to ditch your resolutions by February.  But it's the New Year!  We all feel that we need to do something.   

Stretching the New Year's Resolution Until February

What we can do is at least try to make a few little changes.  Rather than "resolve" to do a drastic about-face, just tweak the knobs for a minor adjustment in the right direction.  Reducing the speed of the locomotive is much more doable than slamming on the brakes.  This year, I will not resolve to give up Doritos because I love myself and Doritos a little too much to put us through that inevitable train wreck.  But I can try to eat fewer than a hundred chips in one sitting and who knows, maybe even skip a night here and there.   

For me, there is no special magic wand waving on January 1st.  It's like any other day except a little worse thanks to those guilt-inducing gym commercials.  The New Year isn't anything more than a New Day.  And guess what, we get one of those, well ... EVERY DAY!    

So Happy New Day to all of you!  Good luck on all of your minor adjustments!  

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