Nguyễn Tranh Chiếu, chồng dì vợ tôi, tự xuất bản quyển tiểu thuyết đầu tay với tựa đề The Short Life. Đúng hơn đây là sách tự truyện về cuộc đời ngắn ngủi của chú. Sách được viết bằng tiếng Anh vì chú muốn con cháu sau này có thể đọc và hiểu được câu chuyện của chú. Nhưng sách sẽ hay hơn nếu chú viết bằng tiếng Việt. Tiếng Anh của chú tuy giỏi như nó vẫn là ngôn ngữ thứ hai nên cách viết chưa được tự nhiên và trôi chảy.

Tuy nhiên nếu người đọc có thể vượt qua những sơ hở đó sẽ tìm được những câu chuyện thú vị và đắng cay của một người trí thức kiêu ngạo. Là một người không lớn lên trong lửa binh, tôi cảm kích sự nhận xét thành thật và không thiên vị của chú để tôi hiểu rõ thêm về chiến tranh Việt Nam. Ngoài sự chứng kiến, chú đã nghiên cứu và tìm hiểu sự thật cho chính mình giữa Cộng Hoà và Cộng Sản.

Về đời tư thì có những chi tiết nhạy cảm, nhất là về người bạn đời của chú. Không biết những quá khứ đau buồn ấy có nên nhắc lại hay không khi nhân vật ấy vẫn còn sống? Không biết dì có đồng ý hay chú không nghĩ đến cảm giác của dì? Tôi không rõ nhưng ngoài chú ra chắc không ai trong gia đình biết đến sự kiện đau buồn ấy. Giờ thì những độc giả đều biết cả. Tôi hy vọng những chi tiết đó chỉ là sự hư cấu.

Schumer stepped it up in her latest Netflix special. She not only shared her pregnancy but also showed it. From vagina to period, she nailed jokes on women’s body. She addressed men in the #MeToo moment. The heart-warming moment was when she revealed her husband’s autistic characteristics. This one is way better her previous special, which was raunchy and in your face. She is indeed Growing.

Nguyễn Tranh Chiếu’s self-published debut novel is based closely on his own life. Growing up as a buffalo boy in Huế, Việt Nam, he excelled in school and earned a full ride to study electrical engineering at the University of Rhode Island in the United States. After receiving his master’s degree, he returned to his war-torn country. With his intention to help rebuild Việt Nam, he decided to stay back even though his family had fled the country and South Vietnam had lost control of its power and territory.

After his long experience in the reeducation camp, he learned the painful truth about the Communist and had to flee the country by boat. His family, his wife in particular, had to pay a horrifying price for his decision not to leave with their extended family.

I am not sure why the book is written as a novel instead of a memoir when Mr. Chiếu is telling the story of his life. Could it be that he doesn’t want to reveal his emotion through his own narrative? In his prologue, after he learned that his two-month son had die while he was in the reeducation camp, he simply writes, “And that was that.” Later in the book, he mentioned the mysterious incident of his son’s death, but he also left it at that. It could be that Mr. Chiếu is a forward-thinking man who doesn’t dwell on the past.

Even with a bit of braggadocio, his story is incredible. His historical perspective is informing. His prose, however, is more like documenting than storytelling. Furthermore, a copyeditor would have polished up his grammar, punctuation, and wordiness.

Ernie Smith writes in Motherboard:

Adobe is too powerful and can ignore things it doesn’t want to do—whether in the form of cutting prices or ignoring usability concerns—in part because it carries itself like it’s the only game in town.

There is no alternative to Creative Cloud.

Jia Tolentino writes in The New Yorker:

Part of the seeming strangeness of Shen Yun could be attributed to a latent Orientalism on the part of Western viewers—including those of us who are of Asian descent. But the real root of Shen Yun’s meme-friendly eeriness is that the ads brightly and aggressively broadcast nothing at all; this is why it’s so easy to imagine them popping up in Ebbing, Missouri, or in the extended Blade Runner universe, or on Mars. The ads have to be both ubiquitous and devoid of content so that they can convince more than a million people to pay good money to watch what is, essentially, religious-political propaganda—or, more generously, an extremely elaborate commercial for Falun Dafa’s spiritual teachings and its plight vis-à-vis the Chinese Communist regime.

Simply fascinating.

After dropping Xuân off at his daycare, I sat in the lobby reading and waiting to meet with his teachers for a brief conference. He spotted me when his class went outside or a morning walk. I tried to hide, but he already looked right at me. He didn’t cry or anything. I waved at him and pretended to continue to read. He didn’t spot me when they went back inside.

His teachers told me Xuân is calm and creative. He invents his own way of playing with blocks, cars, or magnet stiles. He gets along with his classmates and they respect him when he wanted to play by himself. He follows direction and listens to to his teachers. They would like him to speak up more in group activities.

I don’t worry much about Xuân. He is a sweet and bright kid. When he knew that I was not happy with his behavior, we would always asked, “Daddy, are you happy?” It melts my heart every time. I love this kid.

Stormy Daniels had a rough life. Her father left her, her mother neglected her, and her neighbor raped her all before she turned ten. At seventeen, she started stripping. In her twenties, she became a star, writer, and director in the adult film industry. I have tremendous respect for her. She is smart, funny, and resilient. The sex encounter with Trump, however, was so out of her characters. She fucked him even though she had no desire to. She did it for nothing—not even for money. Except for that three brief minutes, her story was so compelling. She made her husband had sex with her on camera when he wanted to have kid. The complication of giving birth to her daughter was also heart-wrecking. If she left out the Trump scandal, her memoir would be much more intriguing.

Hôm thứ bảy về thăm mẹ. Thế là mọi chuyện cũng qua. Vợ nói rất đúng. Mẹ chỉ nói thế nhưng hành động thì khác. Tôi rất may mắn được người vợ hiểu biết. Em đã khuyên tôi nên làm hòa với mẹ và động viên tôi về thăm bà. Thấy mấy thằng cháu nội nhất là thằng út nở một nụ cười là bà vui rồi.

Dù sao đi nữa cũng tình mẹ con. Có chạm tự ái đến đâu cũng bỏ qua được. Tình cảm mẹ dành cho tôi vẫn thế. Có lẽ tôi đã suy nghĩ quá xa xôi. Mấy tuần nay tôi sống như bị thiếu sót điều gì trong lòng. Khiến tôi không thể nào ăn tâm. Giờ thì mọi chuyện trở lại bình thường.

Mẹ con mà. Giận thì giận mà thương thì thương. Làm sao bỏ được. Làm sao không nghĩ tới được. Tôi vui và hạnh phúc có được những người thân yêu gần xa. Những tình cảm đó còn quý hơn cả tiền. Tôi sẽ không để tiền bạc chia rẽ người thân.

Claire Cain Miller and Jonah Engel Bromwich defines snowplow parenting in The New York Times:

[C]learing the way for their children to get in to college, while shielding them from any of the difficulty, risk and potential disappointment of the process.

In its less outrageous — and wholly legal — form, snowplowing (also known as lawn-mowing and bulldozing) has become the most brazen mode of parenting of the privileged children in the everyone-gets-a-trophy generation.

They also wrote about A Vietnamese student:

Cathy Tran, 22, a senior at the University of Pennsylvania, is the daughter of people who immigrated from Vietnam who did not attend college. “They do give me a lot of emotional support, but they haven’t really been able to tell me about what I should be doing, like next steps,” she said.

Clearing her own path to college had some benefits, Ms. Tran said. “I actually think that I have a sense of independence and confidence in myself in a way that some of my friends whose parents attended college might not have,” she said. “I had some friends who didn’t even know how to do laundry. I guess in some ways I feel like I was forced to be an adult much earlier on.”

For parents, the entire article is worth-reading.

The weekend is here and the weather is beautiful, and yet I am conflicted about it. Weekends are supposed to be relaxed and to be with the kids, but I have so much chores to do. The guilt is depressing the hell out me.

Instead of riding bike or going to fun places with the boys, I need to do work around the house. The floor needed to be swept and mopped. The wrinkled carpet needed to be stretched out. The shed needed to be reorganized. The cracks on the driveway needed to be filled. The deck needed to be repainted. The basement needed to be decluttered.

Owning a house comes with so much responsibilities. I hate it. I want to do nothing on the weekend, except chilling with the family. When I used to rent, I did not have to worry about any of that mundane crap. I wanted to go back to living a minimal life, but I am no longer living alone and I can’t make all the decisions.

I wish I can throw away most of the things in our house. One of these days, I will. The conflict between cleaning the house and taking the kids out is killing me. The guilt of letting the house untidy is bad. The guilt of cleaning up the house and letting the kids glued the iPads is even worst. Either way, I am fucked. I might as well just take a week or two vacation time to do what I have to do around the house.