Anna Goldfarb on “How to Be a More Patient Person”:

If your impatience trigger is killing time in waiting rooms, designate a game on your phone that you play only when you’re at the doctor’s office. If you detest being in traffic, leave for appointments earlier. If you abhor crowded grocery stores, run your errands at off-hours.

I always carry a book with me wherever I go so that I can read to kill time.

Sáng hôm qua trời mưa tầm tã tôi thức giậy sớm đi gặp hai cô giáo của Đán. Tuy không chăm chú học và thỉnh thoảng không nghe lời, Đán được cô giáo khen là đứa học trò dễ thương và đối xử tốt với bạn bè. Hai cô hơi lo là nó không hứng thú để tập trung học và không đủ tự tin nên không muốn học.

Ở nhà tôi kiên nhẫn tập luyện nó đọc. Với sự cố gắn, nó tiếp thu khá hơn trước. Thế là mừng rồi. Dĩ nhiên nó học được khá thì bản thân nó nhờ. Tôi đâu cần phải được công nhận là người cha giỏi.

Tốt hay xấu, tôi tự biết bản thân và trách nhiệm của mình. Nhiều lần tôi muốn buông xuôi để tự nó học nhưng không nỡ. Không bảo nó đọc thì nó không bao giờ đọc. Lo là nó không đủ căn bản để theo kịp bạn bè trong lớp. Tội nghiệp cho nó.

Tôi sống cho bản thân và gia đình. Tôi đâu cần tiếng tốt từ thiên hạ. Những người chê bai, đâm thọc, nói xấu sau lưng tôi cũng thừa biết. Hạng người đó càng tránh xa càng tốt. Nhiều lúc phải đối diện vì bất đắc dĩ khiến tôi không thoải mái. Tôi không cần phải chứng minh với họ điều gì cả. Họ nghĩ tốt cho tôi, tôi cũng chẳng được lợi ích gì. Họ nghĩ xấu đến tôi, tôi cũng chẳng mất mát gì.

Tôi tự biết mình đang đứng ở vị trí nào. Tôi tự biết mình đang làm gì. Tôi tự biết cái gì quan trọng cho chính mình và gia đình. Nên tôi không cần phải chứng minh gì cả. I don’t give a fuck.

The six Netflix’s half-hour specials are crude as fuck. Big Jay Oakerson confessed about seeing his fourteen-year-old daughter’s bush. Brad Williams went all in on being a midget. Yamaneikia Sauders held nothing back on sex. Liza Treyger broke down the different between real sex and porn. Joey Diaz admitted he’s a fucking degenerate. Christina P. channeled her craziness so brilliantly. Solid season for comedy lovers.

Một ngày đẹp trời, tôi ra sau nhà nhổ chút cỏ dại. Đạo cũng theo phụ. Bỗng nhiên nó báo tôi biết có đôi chim đang bị nhốt trong cái máy lạnh (HVAC outdoor unit). Tôi vội vàng tắt máy quạt khổng lồ và lấy đôi đũa gắp đôi uyên ương ra. Tuy vẫn trong vị trí ngồi bên nhau nguyên vẹn, bọn chúng đã chết khô từ bao giờ. Chỉ còn lại thể xác giòn rụm. Bọn chúng chết một cách thê thảm.

Không hiểu sao bọn chúng có thể chui vào đó được mà lại chui ra không được. Cũng may là bọn chúng chưa bị rơi vào cái quạt. Hậu quả chắc đã bị chém ra nghìn mảnh. Thế là bọn chúng chỉ có thể ngồi yên một chỗ cho đến chết. Làm tình cũng nên chọn chỗ nào ăn toàn. Chơi kiểu này quá mạo hiểm.

Đạo cũng xót xa cho cặp tình nhân dại dột nên đề nghị tôi chôn cất bọn chúng.

He’s not a dictator. He’s a dicktator. He needs attention and he says outrageous shit just to get you outrage. The angier you get the more coverage he gets. The media needs to stop focusing on him. I don’t give a fuck how many lies he told. I am tired of reading how dangerous his rhetoric has become. I am sick of seeing his tweets being quoted like they are some prose shit.

We fall into his trap every time he makes a ridiculous comment. After two years, we should know by now. We need to ignore his stupidity and focus on the real policy. If he doesn’t get the attention he craves, I am sure he would go crazy. Imagine no one is paying attention to an incompetent president?

In a way, the Republicans are brilliant at ignoring him and just focus on their agenda. They know damn well he’s a fucking moron. They just don’t say it to his face or in public. They just use him as a mouthpiece to distract the public from paying attention to the laws they want to pass.

The shits he says don’t surprise or shock me anymore. I don’t need the media to remind me his non-sense. Calling him out on his stupid tweets and keeping track of his lies are not working. He continues to get away with them. From grabbing women by the pussy to shooting someone to praising the white supremacists, nothing he said could sink his presidency.

What we can do is ignore his dumb shit and vote him the fuck out starting next Tuesday. I can’t wait to see the turnout and the takeover. I still have faith in America. We can’t let a dicktator run our great nation.

Sáng thứ Bảy, Đạo và Đán tự thức dậy đánh răng rửa mặt. Xuống bếp hai đứa lấy trứng ra chiên cho ba ăn. Còn hai đứa tự lấy cereal và sữa luôn cho thằng em. Ba đứa cùng ngồi chung bàn ăn rất dễ thương. Ăn xong bốn cha con chơi múa lân. Ba đánh trống, Đạo đánh chiêng, Xuân múa lân, còn Đán quây phim. Tuy ồn ào nhưng vui. Xuân dạo này mê múa lân lắm.

Chơi xong tôi cùng Đán đọc một quyển sách thiếu nhi. Đạo đọc sách Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Xuân tự chơi một mình. Đọc xong cho mấy đứa chơi iPad. Tôi tranh thủ dọn dẹp nhà cửa và giặt đồ.

Trưa đến đưa ba đứa đi ăn mì Nhật. Đạo và Đán thì mê rồi. Còn Xuân chắc hôm nay đói quá nên ăn cũng khá. Ăn trưa xong đưa hai đứa lớn và thằng cháu đi học võ. Trong lúc chờ đợi hai tiếng đồng hồ tôi ghé qua quán café Starbucks làm 3 shots espresso, đọc quyển sách hay tuyệt, và nghe nhạc jazz nhẹ. Tiếng hát nồng nàn của Louis Armstrong báo tin mùa giáng sinh đã sắp đến.

Đáng lẽ ra hôm nay định đưa Xuân đi picnic ở nhà ông Dean nhưng có người đổi ý không chịu đưa tụi nhỏ đi học võ nên phải thay đổi kế hoạch. Tuy hơi bực bội nhưng vẫn là một ngày thứ Bảy tuyệt vời vì không cần phải la hét bọn nhỏ.

In The Library Book, Orlean weaves together investigative journalism, personal introspection, operational insights, fascinating characters, diverse culture, and social openness to tell engaging, riveting stories of the evolution of libraries. Orlean who writes for The New Yorker is both an excellent storyteller and reporter; therefore, this 300-page book is a breezy read—Carly Loman’s exceptional typesetting helps as well. If you love the library, you will appreciate this book. Here’s one of my favorite passages:

In Senegal, the polite expression for saying someone died is to say his or her library has burned. When I first heard the phrase, I didn’t understand it, but over time I came to realize it was perfect. Our minds and souls contain volumes made of our experiences and emotions; each individual’s consciousness is a collection of memories we’ve cataloged and stored inside us, a private library of a life lived. It is something that no one else can entirely share, one that burns down and disappears when we die. But if you can take something from that internal collection and share it—with one person or with the larger world, on the page or in a story recited—it takes on a life of its own.

1. The Book, by Keith Houston, explores the fascinating history of bookmaking that dates back to more than fifteen hundred years ago.
2. Decoded, by JAY-Z, is part memoir, part lyrical analysis, and much better than what I had expected.
3. The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank, helps put me into perspective at a time of a global pandemic.
4. The Library Book, by Susan Orlean, weaves together investigative journalism, personal introspection, operational insights, fascinating characters, diverse culture, and social openness to tell engaging, riveting stories of the evolution of libraries.
5. These Truths, by Jill Lepore, told the naked truth of our great yet flawed nation through the concoction of illuminating politics, fascinating biographies, arresting journalism, and sprawling technology.
6. Time is a Mother, by Ocean Vương, is beyond my comprehension for poetry. I need to re-read these poems again in order to understand everything he has written; therefore, I bought myself a copy. Gotta support our Vietnamese-American talents.

I refuse to jump on Mastodon and Micro.blog because the last thing I wanted to do is keeping up with more social media networks. I am tired of them all.

I never joined Instagram, which was a good decision. Google+ shut down and I didn’t even bother to download my content. I lost interest in Pinterest. I could not get into Dribbble. I no longer care about Medium. I still have a presence on LinkedIn, but I don’t do much with it. I still check Twitter every once in a while, but I hardly tweet anymore. Facebook is still hard to let go because I still want to keep up with family and friends. I did quite a bit of cleaning up on Facebook and also turned on privacy.

I still read blogs via RSS. Free blogging platforms are ridiculous. WordPress.com, in particular, is filled with ads. My kids’ dentistry keeps popping up on the blogs I read on WordPress.com. It is irritating that I just want to take my kids elsewhere.

It’s funny how social media comes in full circle again. Not so long ago, social media is a skill that most professions, web design in particular, most have. Now the less noise the better. I don’t even bother to cross-publishing my blog to other platforms. If you want to read it, you’ll just have to come here or subscribe to my RSS. I am not being cocky or anything like that. I just don’t want to creep you out everywhere you go.

When we bought the house, I imagined our basement as an entertainment space where the kids and I watch movies and play video games. We hired an electrician to put in fancy track lights from Ikea and we painted the rooms dark purple. Needless to say, it now turns into storage space with tons of shit. The track lights have been flickering on and off for years, but I refused to change the fixture.

When it comes to electricity, I am shit scared. I got shocked three times for simply replacing the switch. I got shock again yesterday even though I turned off the breaker. This afternoon, I shut off the entire breaker panel just to replace the fixture. I rather be safe than sorry because I am such an amateur.

After about an hour, I successfully replaced the fixture. Turning on the lights that worked felt great. You’re probably laughing at such a trivial task, but it is a huge accomplishment for me. I am starting to like doing small home improvements.

Being a cheap-ass has its advantage. It challenges me to do more things that aren’t just related to the web. Besides, I can’t hire an electrician to do small jobs like this. I can ask my brother-in-law, but I also dislike bothering people unless I absolutely have to. I might as well do things on my own. I can read and follow directions. YouTube has been a fantastic resource. Home Depot and Lowe’s have anything I need. All that I need is a bit of self confidence.

When my father-in-law was still living with us, he tried to teach me how to fix things. I appreciate his efforts and I miss him terribly, but I was not learning much. I need to figure things out in order to learn. I always messed up the first time, but I learned my lesson quick. The second time is always better. There is no shortcut. I just need to do it unless I could depend on my wife.

I envy my neighbor whose wife does everything. I hardly see him outside the house, but I always see his wife outside shoveling the snow in the winter and mowing the grass once a week in the summer. She even patched up and sealed her driveway, something I need to catch up on.

Back to the light fixture, my wife brought the Hampton Bay’s 3-light white ceiling spotlight. It is easy to install and it is perfect for storage area. The design is simple and you get lots of light.

Total cost: $25