When I started this blog, I believed I could write whatever I wanted. For a long time, I did write whatever the fuck was on my head. My inspiration was drawn from listening to hip-hop. If rappers could rap about drugs, sex, and money, bloggers could blog about anything. Sure, I got myself into trouble here and there, but I corrected myself and learned from my mistakes. I was young and vulnerable, but I didn’t give a fuck. My writing was raw and uncensored.

Almost two decades later, that mentality has changed. I am now a grown-ass man with a family. I have responsibilities and I can no longer put myself at risks. These days if I write the wrong thing, I can be called a sexist, misogynist, racist, or even homophobic. As a result, I have to check myself before hitting that publish button. The stakes are much higher these days.

I don’t think I will ever go back to read my earlier posts because they will make me cringe. I don’t think you should either unless you want to dig some dirt on me. Other than what I was thinking at the time, I don’t think there were anything horrific. Why am I writing this post? I have no idea.

David Sedaris:

Guests usually take the train from London, and before we pick them up at the station, I remind Hugh that for the duration of their visit, he and I will be playing the role of a perfect couple. This means no bickering and no contradicting each other. If I am seated at the kitchen table and he is standing behind me, he is to place a hand on my shoulder right on the spot where a parrot would perch if I were a pirate instead of the ideal boyfriend. When I tell a story he has heard so often he could lip sync it, he is to pretend to be hearing it for the first time and to be appreciating it as much or more than our guests are. I’m to do the same and to feign delight when he serves something I hate, like fish with little bones in it. I really blew this a few years back when his friend Sue (ph) came for the night, and he poached what might as well have been a hairbrush.

It is humiliating when a couple bickers around other people. It just shows how bad a relationship is. I guess at some point we don’t need to hide anymore. Just start yelling and throwing things around. No relationship is perfect.

Jane E. Brody writes in The New York Times:

In general, if your waist measures 35 or more inches for women or 40 or more inches for men, chances are you’re harboring a potentially dangerous amount of abdominal fat.

Subcutaneous fat that lurks beneath the skin as “love handles” or padding on the thighs, buttocks or upper arms may be cosmetically challenging, but it is otherwise harmless. However, the deeper belly fat — the visceral fat that accumulates around abdominal organs — is metabolically active and has been strongly linked to a host of serious disease risks, including heart disease, cancer and dementia.

I measured my belly right after dinner and it is at 37 inches. Last week, I went to bed with a stomach ache almost every night from eating too much. I am now cutting back my portion and getting back to walking and jogging. Last week, I also stayed up late to revise my book. I need to get at least seven hours of sleep again.

When I told my former colleague that we are expecting our forth kid, she joked, “You know, there’s a thing called birth control.” I had to reminded her what Ol’ Dirty Bastard said: “Oh baby, I like it raw. Yeah baby, I like it raw.”

All kidding aside, of course I know about birth control, but I can afford to raise another kid. I am not broke and I am not relying on the government to take care of my kids. So it’s good. These days I watch four kids on most weekends anyway so I will be fine. A baby girl might be unexpected, but I know exactly what to do with another boy.

Louis Menand:

As we are learning, the danger of data collection by online companies is not that they will use it to try to sell you stuff. The danger is that that information can so easily fall into the hands of parties whose motives are much less benign. A government, for example. A typical reaction to worries about the police listening to your phone conversations is the one Gary Hart had when it was suggested that reporters might tail him to see if he was having affairs: “You’d be bored.” They were not, as it turned out. We all may underestimate our susceptibility to persecution. “We were just talking about hardwood floors!” we say. But authorities who feel emboldened by the promise of a Presidential pardon or by a Justice Department that looks the other way may feel less inhibited about invading the spaces of people who belong to groups that the government has singled out as unpatriotic or undesirable. And we now have a government that does that.

Read the article at The New Yorker.

Đán flexed his arms and said, “Đán cay quá.” I didn’t quite understand what he meant until I translated back into English, “Đán is too hot.” I keep telling him. He’ll be a great comedian.

This morning he asked his mom for a dollar. She told him that he has to work hard to earn it. His response was, “Daddy cleaned the house all the time, but you gave him nothing.” I just have to give him a hug and kiss for recognizing it.

Đán can be so charming yet he can also be extremely annoying. He finds your weaknesses and keeps attacking them. He makes Đạo mad all the time. He makes Xuân cries. He makes me and my wife furious. When I ask him nicely not to do something, he does it more. Is it wrong to love your child and to be annoyed by his behavior at the same time? It’s a damn dilemma.

The Vietnamese government proposed a 99-year lease to Chinese investors in the three economic zones in the north-east, south-east, and south-west of the country. A 99-year lease is a beginning of a takeover. No wonder the people opposed to this crazy-ass proposal.

It took the Vietnamese people a thousand years to get rid of the Chinese. Now the Vietnamese leaders are inviting them back for 99 years. Let’s not allow history to repeat itself. Stay strong, Vietnam.

“Tình ái như con diều bay tuột dây / Giữa mây trời buông lả lướt”,  Nguyên Hà tự sự qua “Tình Ngoan”. Đây là một bài blues buồn diễn rõ nét hát của Nguyên Hà. Nhạc sĩ Quốc Bảo nhận ra được bản chất bụi, lười, và bất cần của Nguyên Hà nên anh đi tiếp với ý niệm kể chuyện của cô. Đặt biệt với Địa đàng 3, Quốc Bảo cho vào những tác phẩm có giai điệu dân ca rất dễ thương. “Thương nhau chúc đi” thì vui tươi trẻ trung. Còn “Vần trăng rỗng” thì nhẹ nhàng và huyền diệu. Nhưng thấm thía nhất là “Chiều thanh”. Tiếng hát Nguyên Hà với tiếng đàn tranh Vũ Kim Yến thật tuyệt vời.

Cả tuần căn thẳng và thiếu ngủ. Công việc làm bù đầu. Server phải nâng cấp. Trang web thì đưa lên mây. Phải kiểm tra đủ thứ.

Về nhà đêm khuya không ngủ lại thức viết lại quyển sách Nghệ thuật chữ Việt. Đang có cảm hứng nên phải làm ngay. Tính tôi là thế. Một khi tập trung là lúc nào cũng nghĩ đến cả.

Hai hôm nay mệt đừ cả người. Ngủ bù nhưng cũng chưa lấy sức lại. Hôm nay được thảnh thơi chút xíu.

Biết rằng mình đã già rồi và không nên phí sức nữa nhưng căn thẳng và mệt nhọc cho thấy tôi còn sức sống. An nhàng quá đầu óc lại đưa tôi đến những nơi tôi không muốn đến.

Bệnh thất vọng (depression) thật ghê quá. Nó có thể khiến người ta tự kết liễu cuộc đời mình. Tôi thì chắc chắn không bị vì tôi còn có quá nhiều trách nhiệm với con cái. Cho dù cuộc sống tôi thất bại hoặc thất vọng đến đâu tôi cũng sẽ sống đến hơi thở cuối cùng.

Only three days apart, Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, two successful individuals, took their own lives.

Patrick Radden Keefe recalls:

Looking back over my notebooks this morning, I recognized dark threads running through our conversations. Bourdain freely acknowledged that part of the reason he continued to work at such a frantic pace might have been a fear about where his mind might go if he ever sat still.

Daphne Merkin writes about depression:

I didn’t know Kate Spade, who hanged herself with a red scarf in her bedroom on Tuesday at the age of 55, other than through the prism of her insistently cheerful and whimsical accessories. But everything about Ms. Spade and her designs suggested a sunny temperament, from her candy-colored aesthetic to the perky image she projected. We have a hard time squaring a seemingly successful woman — one with a highflying career, a family and heaps of money — with a despondency so insinuating that it led her to end it all. All this helps explain why Fern Mallis, the former director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America and a friend of Ms. Spade’s, called her death “so out of character.” In fact, it turned out that the bubbly girl from Kansas City “suffered from depression and anxiety for many years,” as her husband, Andy, said.

Mental health is serious and depression is deadly.