Reflections on Home, Family & Belonging

This is Mike George, coming to you live from Crimson House in Alexandria. It is a cold, cold day out there. Now, mind you, I'm in the South, so what I consider cold might be different from what some of you are used to. But let's take a look at the temperature outside. It's -3 degrees (25F) and it's supposed to drop to minus nine tonight. Yes, it's definitely a cold one out there, folks. I think it's pretty much cold everywhere in the country right now, except maybe the West Coast, which is probably still warm because it's still on fire.

Despite the cold, I'm feeling very much in the holiday spirit - as much as you can be when you're by your lonesome. Though I have neighbors and friends nearby, none are blood relatives. That's pretty typical for my holidays, as my family has always been scattered. It feels like a long time since I've had a proper family Christmas, where you're annoyed by those crazy relatives you forgot you had.

Right now, I'm cooking up a storm. I'm making a sweet potato, cranberry, and apple dish. I'm not sure what to call it, but I had a lot of those ingredients, and conveniently, there was a recipe for just those three exact things. It must be a fall or winter staple for some, though not for me. But if it turns out well, maybe it will be!

We're in the second winter of COVID. By now, all the weak ones have died off, and we're just left with the ones with the "COVID lungs."

It's funny, I've been here in Louisiana for about a year and a half now. It's remarkable how many people I've seen here, or maybe it's just a product of where I'm at in my life now that I'm 36 years old —middle-aged, I guess some might call it. Also, the U.S. life expectancy is going down, so I'm getting older, and the life expectancy in our country is going down. Eventually, we're going to hit a crossroads, and I'm just going to die. Hopefully not soon, I have a lot more havoc to wreak upon this great nation and Earth of ours. Fortunately, not as much as you all have wreaked on this planet. I won't even mention that car stuff, that's always my big soapbox when I talk to you guys, or anybody really.

So, I'm just baking some stuff and relaxing. I feel like I'm always walking around when I'm on Facebook Live. Let's just have a chill time, how about that, kids, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, et al. – that's my trans and queer-friendly greeting for anyone who didn't pick up on that. That way, we cover everybody except for Al Roker, and God damn Al Roker has better things to do anyway. If he really wants to be involved, he knows where I am.

My Mother's Journey and Steubenville

I hate the holidays sometimes; I have to teach myself to like them again. Throughout my life, it always felt like my family was the odd one during the holidays. I'm an only child, and my mom's family all lives overseas in Taiwan.

I was reflecting on Steubenville recently. It's easy to wax romantic and nostalgic about Steubenville, and I often do. It's easier when you haven't been there in a long time. When you're there, it takes about two weeks to start getting tired of the place again, and hating it all over again.

But one thing I kind of cherish about Steubenville now, that I definitely did not before, is how they treated my mom. One thing I really cherish about my hometown is how wonderfully my mom was treated by the people of Steubenville. We were one of a small handful of Asian families, and I failed to appreciate how isolating that must’ve been for my mom.

One thing that I feel really bad about is how badly I treated my mom. I used to ridicule my mom a lot for being "stupid," for not being intelligent, curious about the world. That was kind of my vibe with her when I was growing up, and I feel really shitty because I don't know how much of that was my own feeling. It was frustrating because as a kid, my dad and I would geek out on stuff. We'd play video games, he got me into sci-fi, we'd watch Star Trek: The Next Generation together. We reveled in being big nerds together. My dad was kind of like a big brother in regards to growing up playing video games together. He actually introduced me to video games; he's the one who got the Atari system that started the whole ball rolling, and then we got the Nintendo. Believe it or not, my dad kind of introduced me to that, the gateway drug of video games and all the unhealthy addictions and habits that go with that.

But my mom... my mom and I did not share as many of those types of hobbies, passions, and interests. My mom was very much an enigma to me. It was hard to have special moments together; there weren't as many bonding moments. There were, but they weren't the same as the ones I had with me and my dad. As a kid, that was a wall between us. One of the big frustrations I always had, and I probably still have today, is trying to teach my mom how to use a computer. I was passionate about computers when I was a kid. I went to Wells, which back when Steubenville had its parental schools of choice (magnet schools for elementary schools), I went to Wells from grades two to five. At the time, it was known as a fine arts and, now that I think about it, quite progressive for a school back then: its specialty was computers and fine arts. God damn, what a combination! Now that I think about it, that really explains a lot about my own passions. I don't know about any other Wells kids out there, of course, now it's Wells Academy, after they bulldozed and tore down the physical building that housed my old elementary school and moved it into the unused part of the high school due to shrinking demographics and population of Steubenville, Ohio.

Nonetheless, I remember being passionate about computers. Mind you, this was back in the late '90s. Computers were still kind of first entering the PC market. People were just getting their first PCs, and it wasn't uncommon for a kid never to see a computer except at school, and that's only if their school was lucky enough to afford these things or have them donated. But my mom couldn't give a shit less about computers. In fact, she probably still can't, even though she uses them all the time and doesn't realize it. But that was always a big source of tension between me and her. As a kid, I always wanted her to learn, which is funny and ironic for a kid to try and teach a parent something, because you don't hear about that very often. Obviously, it's usually the parents who are believed to pass knowledge down to their kids. It was frustrating teaching my mom how to do anything. It's not because of stubbornness; it's just because she literally had trouble. She was learning so much when she came here. My mom spoke English, but it wasn't her first language. I can't help but think what it must have been like for her moving to the U.S. where nobody else around her spoke her language, and she just had to pick up English. She knew a little English when she lived in Taiwan, enough to impress my dad, and that's how they met.

Here's a picture while we're doing my little tribute to mom. I love that picture of her. The way I have it framed reminds me of those pictures of Mao in China where everybody has the same picture of Mao. You guys can see her, and I have that same picture of her elsewhere on Facebook. I love that picture; that's her at the age of 36, which is the age I'm at now. Oh God, that's so weird.

My mom came from Taiwan to the United States, didn't know very much English. She had to pick it up. I compare that a lot to when I lived in Montreal and failed so hard at picking up French. Mind you, those are two different situations. Montreal is a bilingual city, so it's easy to get lazy and slip right back into English, which was part of the problem why I never really learned French adequately enough for Hydro Quebec to hire me.

So, that's something I never took enough time to really admire my mom for: how she adapted to this weird country of ours. Not only did she adapt to the United States in a general notion, but Steubenville, Ohio, of all places. I think often when immigrants come to the United States, they usually find some cool big sexy city to settle in, and within that city, they find a little diaspora of similar people. You see it everywhere, all the time. In Columbus, for instance, there's a whole diaspora of Eastern African peoples, Somalis. They all hang out. It's fascinating to look around your city and discover these things. Of course, New York City has well-known places like Chinatown and Koreatown. Then you have the gays, which, mind you, that's a whole different... I mean, that's not like an ethnic group. The gays aren't people, for the most part, I wouldn't say are people that, okay, let me think about this for a second. I guess a lot of gays had escaped smaller towns that were dangerous places to live, so I guess they would have a similar story to what immigrants went through. Mind you, they were kind of domestic, mostly domestic, in-house immigrants, migrants I should say, migrating from a small town.

Nonetheless, my mom did not have that. My mom lived in Steubenville, Ohio, and like I said, we were the only Asian people there. Man, when I look back, I remember how lonely it must have been for her, not having other Chinese people to talk to, not having other Taiwanese people to talk to, not having that sense of community where she kind of based her identity. And damn it, my mom never even talked about it. As a kid, I never picked up on it. I definitely picked up on the fact that my mom kind of did her own thing; she didn't have a lot of friends, and she didn't hang out with all the other women around town. But she did have friends; she made very few but very valued friends there. I remember Norma Jean, or God damn it, Norma Jeanette, she wants it to DeCarlo, but that's her maiden name. A lot of the DeCarlo family, we were friends with. And then there were these Italian ladies on our street, and my mom learned how to make legit, really legit tomato sauce, pasta sauce, the best pasta sauce you can imagine, like from a home in Italy, like that Italian grandmother hand-crushing the tomatoes and making the sauce. That type of tomato sauce, made with love. My mom made great Italian food. I think it's sort of a testament to Steubenville, Ohio, that my mom made such amazing Italian food as a Taiwanese immigrant. That just goes to show how wonderful my hometown was at accepting my mother.

It's easy to kind of write off Steubenville as a Podunk town. But really, they were full of some of the nicest, kindest people, at least as my mother was concerned. When I look back on that, I really, really cherish that, man. Especially the individuals who went out of their way to make my mom feel at home, especially when I, as a kid, kind of shunned my mother. As a kid, I just wanted to be like everybody else, so that meant sort of pretending... well, I never would think this is how my mother, but I just remember feeling like the weirdo with the immigrant mom. That's unfortunate that I looked at it that way back then. But whenever I look back at it now, obviously, I really appreciate her a lot more. God damn it, she did stuff, she took risks and took leaps that I would never do at this time. She didn't have, I mean, maybe it's just that she didn't know any better. No, I doubt it, because I keep... that's kind of what I always used to assume. Damn it, I just admire that so much, especially at that age. It's not like she learned English growing up; she learned English in her middle age, in her 30s. Which is remarkable.

I was reflecting on this because my mom has lived in Taiwan since 2003. She has not been to the States since 2003, that was my junior year of high school. It amazes me, I think one of the most remarkable things about her is that her English is still so F-word perfect. I'm pretty sure I must be the only person she talks to in English anymore. That's on the phone for maybe once a week. Sometimes I've gone months without talking, or even years, and yet her English is perfect. She's able to understand my English, this blabbering, fast-talking bullshit. She's able to understand me, and damn it, that's just incredible. Thank God for that, also. I'm thankful for that because I can't even imagine how terrible it would be if I couldn't speak to my own mother, if we had that language barrier. I guess I already feel kind of distant from her side of the family just because they don't speak that much English, and I don't speak much Mandarin. But I don't think enough credit is given to my mother for that, and I will... damn it, I just really love everybody, all of you out there who treated my mother with kindness, respect, and love. I love you guys, because you guys, and you know who you are, really... when I look back on that, it really means a lot to me, especially knowing how much of a shit son I was.

But yeah, I just want to say that. That's kind of what I want to reflect on a bit, because my mom, it's incredible, just the journey she's been through, and the fact that she never even got a high school education until she moved to the States, and until maybe five to eight years after she moved to the States. My mom earned her GED at the same time that I was maybe finishing elementary school, when I was 10 or something. And God, I was so condescending to her. I just remember thinking, "My God, my mom only has a high school education." I just remember thinking as a kid that my mom was stupid. I really regret that. Damn it, she's such a smart woman, and I do not give her enough credit for it.

Anyway, but you guys did. A lot of you guys really did. You saw something in my mom that I failed to see. And damn it, I just really cherish all the random women, God damn it, you know who you are. I'm just thinking of Norma Jean and, yeah, the Sibireos on my street. God damn it, and thank you to the Sibireos too, because that explains why my mom made such killer tomato sauce. I have you all to thank for that, and also why I, to toot my own horn, make some killer pasta sauce as well. Almost as good as mom's.

Anyway, that had to be said, because I do not give enough praise to that woman, to my mother. She put up with a lot of crap from me and my dad. My God, how lonely must she have felt sometimes in her shoes, in Steubenville, Ohio, as a Taiwanese immigrant? F-word. It really, I get weirdly emotional when talking about my mom. And thank God she's okay too, like she's healthy and everything's good on that account. I'm thankful for that, very thankful for that, especially given the state of the world these days. That's a whole different subject.

Upcoming Christmas Event

So anyway, let's zoom out of that for a second, shall we? But yeah, I love you guys, and I love my hometown. Steubenville, Ohio, doesn't, I mean, while we're on the subject of things that don't get talked about enough in a positive light, Steubenville, Ohio, I think, deserves some credit. And they will get some love, some deep-seated love from me for that, for taking good care of my mother, for taking good care of her when it seems like she, you know, when I imagine it must have felt very lonely for her as an immigrant in America, and again, not in the sexy places like New York City and San Francisco where all the other Asians were, or even Pittsburgh, but Steubenville, Ohio. It is quite remarkable, I think. Oh God, I'm like a mess here. It is quite remarkable that my mom was made to feel so welcomed in a place like Steubenville, Ohio, and I think places like the small towns like Steubenville don't get enough credit for that at all. And yeah, I'm thankful for that.

I'm going to zoom out of that emotional moment there and just take a second to check on how my little baked treat is coming. I know, by "baked," I don't mean me this time. I mean this wonderful little concoction here. I'm making a cranberry, sweet potato, and apple thing in there. I need to come up with a name for this. It's not like it's a unique dish; after all, I found a recipe online. But you know what, I'm going to come up with a name for it anyway, not now. Oh shit, it's Facebook After Dark time, time to start taking off some clothes, if nothing else, because it's hot as F-word in here. I've got the oven and all the heat on, and everything on because let's look at the temperature out there: it is minus three out there, three below freezing, which in Fahrenheit, I believe, is 25. Let's have a gander, let's have a peek out the window here, shall we, at the wintry wonderland that I can't really see anything. It's not worth it anyway.

That's all I have to say about Facebook, about family and home and so forth, at least for now. I have some other things to say that are more present-day related, but that is for another Facebook Live. We have to save some material for the holidays after all, since I'm going to be home a lot.

Christmas Day Invitation

And on that note, we're approaching Christmas. I don't know why I'm saying that like it's a surprise, but yes, we are still approaching Christmas and also my eviction date, which is the thing that's giving me more anxiety than Christmas right now, as you can imagine.

If you guys... actually, while we're on the subject of Christmas, I know I'm not the only person who's going to be alone on Christmas. So if you out there in Facebook land have nowhere, you know, don't have family nearby and are feeling kind of lonely on the holidays, I know I often do. I'm going to play a little shindig, a virtual shindig, and it's also going to be my way to kind of herd some of you guys into the Crimson Rouge Studios ecosystem a little bit. So, I'll be hosting our board game night on Sunday, which is Christmas Day. You guys are all invited. If you don't get an invitation directly from me, it's a public event, being a Crimson Roost thing, I guess. There's information about it on the Crimson Brewer Studios Facebook page and website. It's a board game night, pretty hard to explain that one without sounding pretty redundant, I guess. So, please, and if you guys do have stuff going on, it's an open event, so please come out. More generally speaking, if there is anybody out there that's feeling alone and feeling kind of bummed out because they're alone on Christmas, you're not alone. I kind of feel that same way too, and I've felt alone here in Louisiana for quite a...