Mẹ ra đi nơi này vẫn thế. Vẫn có mẹ trong tim chúng con. Nhìn lại đoạn phim đã thu hình chín năm trước đây mà con không thể cầm nước mắt và nụ cười. Đạo hát sinh nhật mừng bà nội và mở quà cho bà. Không những thế, nó còn hôn bà. Thấy được niềm vui trên mặt của mẹ bên mấy đưa cháu là niềm hạnh phúc của đời con. Chúc mừng sinh nhật lần thứ 85 của mẹ.

We’ve made it through 14 years. We are still working through our conflicts, but we are committed to be together. This family is much bigger than just the two of us.

After 14 years, I still am madly in love with her. I just can’t imagine my life without her and my sons. I don’t regret our journey together. It hasn’t been easy, but we are still on the same path. We both know what it takes to make our marriage work.

In our last heated argument, we didn’t even bring up the “D” word. We learned to make up after we fought. We learned to apologize when we were wrong. We learned each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We learned to communicate and compromise. I hope that she will not give up on me and we will do just fine as long as we keep it honest to each other.

She is a strong woman and she can handle anything throwing her way. She was not prepared to be a mother, but she is doing a hell of a job raising our boys. She never looked back. Our relationship went through ups and downs, but she kept moving forward. I appreciate that she makes the effort to maintain our marriage.

I hope we spend many more years together as husband and wife. We have made it through this far, nothing can break us apart. I am thankful for the 14 years together.

Last night, I dreamed of attending my cousin’s funeral in Vietnam. I was not sure what exactly the cause of his death. He had family members surrounded him and prayed for him. After the monks chanted for him, they cremated him right in front of us while he was taking his last breath. It was barbaric and disturbing.

Then it was my uncle who had terminal cancer. We went through the same ritual, but I protested the cremation process while he was still breathing. Then he turned into some kind of a lighting bug straight out of James Cameron’s Avatar. His wife and kids blamed me for not letting him reincarnated into a human being. I told them I can zap the damn bug so he could be reincarnated.

The dream was so fucked up that I woke up with a chill. How did I have this dream? I didn’t take any psychedelic drugs. All I had was a can of Grapefruit Smash, which contained one-and-a-half shot of vodka and seltzer water. Fortunately, I only get these kind of dreams once in a while. If I keep getting dreams like these regularly, I might as well not sleeping at all.

When I was about five or six, I had another weird dream that stays with me until this day. I was in a playroom full of kids. There were kids sliding down the slides. There were kids crawling around the floor. There were kids on the walkers. We are all just having a great time then the adults came in chopping off the kids’ heads. One particular kid on the walker had a neck like rubber. The adult tried to chop his head, but the ax just bounced right off. I still can’t get that image out of my head even today.

In retrospect, I wonder if it has a long-lasting effect on me. Whenever I see a surgery I would get blacked out. When a doctor cut my wife’s stomach opened to take out Vương, I got blacked out and hit my head on the ground. They had to take me to the ER room to had my head checked out.

Mấy hôm trước thằng cháu gửi cho tôi xem hình căn nhà vợ chồng nó muốn mua. Nhà có bốn phòng, hai phòng tắm, và mảnh đất xung quanh nhà rất rộng. Tụi nó trả giá thêm 50 ngàn đô để mua vì vợ nó thích căn nhà đó quá. Nhà tuy đẹp và sang trọng nhưng gia đình chỉ có hai vợ chồng và một đứa con, mua chi cho lớn. Dĩ nhiên đó là quyền tự do của tụi nó, tôi không có ý kiến. Riêng cá nhân tôi thì quá sợ duy trì nhà lớn. Nhà càng lớn dọn dẹp càng nhiều. Tôi thà để dành thời gian đi chơi với con cái hoặc bạn bè.

Lúc trước mỗi khi đến nhà những người bạn, tôi có phần ganh tị vì ai cũng có nhà cao to và sang trọng. Nhưng giờ đây dường như ai cũng mua nhà cao cửa rộng cả. Chẳng lẽ để khoe khoang? Có người ở nhà rộng quá không dám mở máy lạnh mùa hè hoặc máy sưởi ấm vào mùa đông vì tốn tiền điện. Vợ chồng con cái rút vào trong phòng dùng máy lạnh hoặc máy sưởi ấm nhỏ đỡ tốn tiền hơn.

Giờ đây nhà lớn và xe xịn đối với tôi không có nghĩa lý gì cả. Ai ở nhà to chạy xe đắt tiền cũng thay kệ. Tôi không đua đòi về vật chất. Tôi rất muốn bỏ không cần đến xe nữa. Không những chỉ tốn tiền xăng mà còn tốt rất nhiều tiền để sửa chữa và duy trì. Sau này khi các con tôi lớn và không còn ở chung nhà nữa, tôi muốn ở căn nhà nhỏ hơn và thậm chí sẽ không dùng đến xe nữa. Đó là ước muốn của tôi. Tôi muốn cuộc sống đơn giản và không bị căng thẳng bởi vất chất nữa.

Những ai còn có mẹ hãy dành thời gian với mẹ của mình. Đừng lãng phí đi cơ hội vì ngày mai không biết có còn được thấy mặt mẹ mình nữa không.

Tuy đau lòng nhưng không có đường chọn lựa. Một ngày nào đó mẹ chúng ta cũng phải rời xa cõi tạm này. Lúc mẹ còn sống tôi không thể nào tưởng tượng được một ngày không còn mẹ. Tôi không biết mình có thể chấp nhận được hay không. Điều tôi không thể nào ngờ được sự ra đi của mẹ vô cùng đớn đau. Trong những giây phút tuyệt vọng nhất, tôi xin ơn trên cho tôi được đi thế bà. Chắc tôi không có niềm tin nên không Chúa hay Phật nào lắng nghe lời cầu nguyện của tôi.

Nghĩ lại nếu tôi là người ra đi, mẹ sẽ đau khổ gấp trăm ngàn lần. Con mất mẹ tuy đau đớn nhưng chắc chắn không thể nào so sánh bằng mẹ mất con. Tuy tim nhức nhối và những giọt lệ tuôn rơi mỗi khi nhớ đến mẹ, tôi tạ ơn trên đã giữ tôi lại trên cõi tạm này. Ngược lại, tôi không biết mẹ sẽ sống ra sau nếu mất đi thằng con cưng này. Người ở lại lúc nào cũng đau khổ hơn người ra đi.

Mẹ đã khổ đau suốt một đời vì con. Thôi thì cái đớn đau cuối cùng để con được sẻ chia với mẹ. Hôm nay ngày lễ mẹ. Con luôn ghi nhớ công ơn của mẹ.

I am once again at odds with social media networks. Thank goodness I haven’t even tried Instagram, TicTok, and new social media platforms. I am still on old school platforms. I use Twitter primarily for web development and Vietnamese typography. Twitter seems to work out OK, but it has been taken over by the richest motherfucker in the world. I am not sure how it would change. Although I had been on LinkedIn for a while, I only started to post a few months ago to promote my professional work. I don’t see anything in return. I haven’t landed any career-changing or freelancing opportunities.

I use YouTube to post videos of my kids and I skiing and skating. I just wanted a place to post my videos. I don’t interact much with YouTube, but I do use it quite a bit for all sorts of DIY activities including skating, skiing, and home-improvement.

Facebook is the one that I am disillusioned with. I post photos and videos of our family activities. I am not sure if they come across as showing off or just to let family and close friends see what we’re up to. It made more sense when mother was still alive so she could see her grandchildren. After she passed away, I deleted every post, photo, and video. Then I started posting again. Now I am beginning to wonder what the fuck is the point.

I am not going to deactivate my social media accounts, but I want to return to my blog. My blog is where I can be true to myself. It is liberating to just be able to put down my thoughts without having to check in with anyone. I can write 100 words or 1,000 words on my blog. I can decide how my blog looks and feels. Posting the big hero text alone on my homepage is just so satisfying. The grid layout and the typography are the fun part of improving my blog. My blog feels most personal to me. I have no problem shutting down all my social networks, as long as I still have my blog.

The pain in my ass has significantly subsided. I no longer feel the sharp stab every time I get up or sit down. The downside is that the swell is still there as if I have grown a third ball right next to my asshole. I am hoping that the swell will also subside on its own. Right now I don’t mind if it doesn’t cause any issues. As long as I can still skate and rollerblade, I am fine with taking the time for it to flattened.

I am still contemplating on contacting my physician to get an expert examination, but I think I have a pilonidal cyst, which caused by ingrown hair. I didn’t realize that ingrown hair can cause such a huge problem. Now I have the reason and motivation to shave my hairy ass. I would love to pull out my ingrown hair too, but I can’t do it myself.

It seems like the older you get, the more strange issues you encounter. I have never experience any pain in the ass in my life until the last two weeks. I finally understand the true meaning behind “pain in the ass.” It is irritating as fuck so just don’t be a pain in the ass.

I spent a chunk of my time over the weekend taking selfie of my own ass. Is that a sign of becoming a narcissist? The pain in my ass got worse in the past three days. Every time I stood up, I felt a sharp stab to my buttock. Nevertheless, I was still able to rollerblade with a minimal pain as long as I bent my knees and not my butt.

On Saturday, the bump had started to swell and the pain was excruciating. I couldn’t sleep much. Last night was the same deal so I stayed up googling. The closest symptom I could diagnose is a pilonidal cyst. The treatment is to drain the pus or surgical removal. As a keloid former, I don’t want neither, particularly surgery. I don’t want to have keloid on my ass.

I planned on calling my physician this morning to get an expert examination and to see what I should do. The pain, however, reduced since I started taking Aleve on Sunday afternoon and evening. Should I waited out for it to seal on my own or should I consult my doctor? I am going to wait for a few more days hoping it will pop on its own.

Forty-four years already. Time is moving fast, but life is great. I can’t complain. My wife and I are tighter than before. I still enjoy spending time with my kids. My career is stable for the moment. My health is still decent. I am more active now with skiing and skating. I still read voraciously. I still blog like words just roll off my fingers.

I am still a deeply flawed human being. I have my share of obsessions and even addictions. I am working toward being positive and optimistic. I need to let go of my worries. I want to have more compassion and empathy. I want to be less selfish and more self-control. I want to be more social and to reach out more to friends.

Life is too damn short. I need to treasure every moment of it. I want to live my life without regrets and without looking back to the past. Whatever mistakes I had made in the past, I cannot go back to change them. I can only move forward. I can’t bring my parents back. I can only care for my family and the people who care for me. I can only tend to matters within my control. Nothing else matters.

I had a mild case of gout flare last week. Luckily, I dodged the attack. Let’s back up a bit to see how I got here.

Since my last gout attack, which was over a year ago, I went back to my normal dietary with the exception of consuming beef. I also drank moderately like a bottle of beer or a glass of wine a day. In the past few months, I have been hooked on Twelve5’s Rebel hard coffee, which is coffee with a bit of alcohol. I replaced my morning coffee with my afternoon hard coffee.

Last week, while on vacation, I increased to two cans of hard coffee and a beer or two a day. Last Wednesday, we went to a Thai restaurant for lunch and I ordered a sunrise, which had tequila. In the evening I grilled burgers my wife prepared, but I wisely declined to have one even though I really wanted one. I just asked my wife to let me two bites of hers. Nevertheless, I felt a bit of a pain on the joint of my right foot at night. I knew it was coming. I checked my backpack and the only medication I had was a bottle of expired ibuprofen. I took one pill immediate and it seemed to ease the pain.

Thursday morning, I took another pill and went rollerblading with the kids. I still felt fine to skate. I stopped drinking alcohol. My wife advised me to get a bottle of Aleve. I drove to the the nearby drugstore and grabbed a small bottle. I took two Aleve pills in the afternoon and the pain in my joint subsided. I took another one before heading to bed and ended up with a bit of a stomach upset during the night. On Friday, I took another one in the morning and another one in early evening. The pain was gone. I stopped the pills.

I haven’t had a drink since then. I am so glad that I didn’t have to be out of commission for three or four days, which would cause me to miss ice skating or rollerblading. I am not so sure if apple cider vinegar would work. My internist said it has not been proven. I am just going to stick with Aleve when I get an attack. Aleve could harm my organ system; therefore, I would only take it when I needed to.