My first girl friend

Wendy and I both went to Steve Luther Elementary, but she was two grades ahead of me and a couple feet taller. Our moms were friends first, so Wendy and I became friends during all those "you have to go" visits to each other's houses.

We lived in the same neighborhood, so Wendy and I would ride our bikes together a lot. I rode the rusty frankenstein bmx that my cousin built for me, and Wendy had her pink banana-seater from Price Club with the shiny tassles on the handle bars. We were raised in frugal Taiwanese families. One of our favorite things to do was ride near a bunch of trees that had dropped their seeds on the concrete sidewalk. And when you crushed the hundreds of little bulbs under your wheels, they would make these delicious popping noises. Like microwaving popcorn!

We also did other fun stuff together like burning things with a magnifying glass, trading Garbage Pail Kid stickers, and making homemade fireworks with matches and aluminum foil.

Wendy was fun and we played together a lot, until things got weird one Halloween.

I went over to Wendy's house dressed as a vampire with too much styling mousse. She was already playing wih her friend Carol, and Carol's brother David. When I arrived, the girls didn't want the boys around anymore so David and I played downstairs while Wendy and Carol locked themselves in their room upstairs and did girl stuff. Pretty soon, David and I got bored and became extremely curious what the girls were up to. So we went on a secret mission to find out.

We crept up the stairs super quietly and listened at the door. I was looking under the door when it opened suddenly, and then slammed with the girls shrieking behind it. David and I scurried away to re-strategize.

At first, we tried to lure them out, but our Jolly Ranchers and dollar bills just kept disappearing under their door. Then we threatened to tell on them, so they unlocked the door but barricaded it. Finally, we tried pushing our way in, and that's when I was yanked into the room and locked in with the enemy.

Terrified, I quickly crawled to the opposite side of the room. The two girls stared at me and smiled devilishly. I looked at Wendy and my heart started pounding. She was wearing a cute Madonna outfit, her hair was done up, and she had make-up on. And I thought, 'Wow, Wendy is... pretty.' I felt weird. And happy. And eventhough David was pounding on the door and yelling, I kinda didn't want to be rescued.

As time went on, Wendy and I grew apart. She had junior high school stuff to do, and I had other crushes to nurse. Sometimes my cousin would tease me about my "girlfriend" Wendy. And I would feel weird all over again.

I played with girls

Don't get me wrong, I was no pansy on the playground. I could smack the handball and tether ball as well as the tallest and burliest of the boys. And that's saying a lot for a small Chinese boy.

But I also liked the change of pace when playing with girls at recess.

The difficult thing about hopscotch was that I never had a marker. Girls usually used stretchy beaded bracelets, those hair-ties with the balls at the end, or some other kind of jangly accessory. I would often have to resort to using a rock. That was a severe disadvantage because unlike girly trinkets, the rock would bounce around randomly and refuse to stay in the squares. I don't remember ever winning a game. But I played anyway.

Girls are very graceful when they hop. Like a butterfly or like Tinkerbell in Peter Pan. Sometimes a girl would brush her hair behind her ears before bending to pick up a marker. That was super pretty.

The thing with double dutch is there's just too many variables for a 9 year-old boy to calculate. With two ropes moving like sine waves in opposite directions, you have to run into a small space and jump high enough to clear the slapping rope below but not too high or you'll get whipped in the head by the wooshing rope above. How girls managed to make it look so easy, I'll never know.

When I played, they would use just one rope. Is that single dutch? After a while, I got the hang of it with the nodding technique. I was so happy when I finally got in and could keep jumping. But then getting out became the problem. I kept getting whipped on the butt on my way out. That made girls giggle.

The one girl-sport I was awesome at was four-square. I could beat the pants off any girl, but what's the fun in that? Sometimes two girls would call "tea party" and just pat it back and forth to each other all friendly-like. I didn't understand the point. You totally can't win like that. But oh well. That's just something girls do.

My yellow monkey

In grade school, my favorite t-shirt was a bright yellow iron-on that had a picture of a cartoon monkey swinging from a coconut tree, and it said "Just monkeying around in Hawaii". I didn't get why it was funny, but I liked the shirt anyway because the cotton was so soft. I wore my shirt to school, to the dentist's office, and even slept in it sometimes. Everywhere I went, my monkey shirt made me feel comfortable.

Eventually it started to get very thin in spots and had a few little holes here and there. I loved my shirt so much that I kept wearing it anyway. One day, my cousin's high school friend came over. He was a short, hairy white guy with an Oingo-boingo obsession. Well, he saw me wearing my raggedy yellow monkey t-shirt and said, "Here, let me help you with that" and he tore one of the smaller holes into a big one. I guess he thought it would be funny, but I didn't think so. So I hit him and ran away crying.

I wasn't a bad boy... was I?

In second grade, I was on probation.

Every day, I had to see the teacher after class and get a slip of colored construction paper. My teacher would write on the paper if my behavior was good or bad that day. A green slip meant I turned in all my homework and was cooperative. Yellow was for when I didn't pay attention because I was drawing during class. And red meant I disobeyed the teacher or did something really bad.

Most of my days were yellow. Finishing homework on time was really hard. And eventhough it was a bad idea, I liked to bring my airplane and army drawings to school. One time, I got a green slip and was so happy that I skipped all the way home. But when I got red ones, I was really scared because I knew my mom would be angry. Sometimes I would cry when the teacher handed me a red slip.

I didn't understand why I had to get slips. The only other person who got slips was a really naughty boy. I wasn't trying to be naughty. I misbehaved by accident. Why was I a bad boy?