friends? foes? frenemies?

why do people say when they break up, "let's stay friends" or "i do love you...as a friend." i laugh at these statements. statements people say to alleviate their own guilt. these words are to make the person doing the dumping or breaking up feel justified. of course, i didn't know all this back then. back then, i was a wide eyed, well, as wide-eyed as my slanty eyes can get girl.

college is when i was allowed to date. if you have kept up with my blog, you can refer back to the blog entry about how my mom broke a brick in half in front of my prom date, and hence, ended my first and last date in high school. nice huh? college is where i got to meet people who were different and the same as me. for me, college was the first place where i actually met my first love. here, i got my BFA and my first BF. having a boy pay any attention to me was freaky. no one talked to me in high school. i was the quiet girl who sat under a tree sketching comics or reading. no boy pursued me or wooed me. that was reserved for girls who flirted and dressed the part. not girls who played the violin and listened to dead milkmen. being in college, i got to paint, have an art show and also got told for the first time that i was pretty. i don't need to hear compliments. i am not a fisherman of compliments, but it was touching to hear. it is an asian cultural thing not to call your kids pretty. superstitious. if you call your daughters pretty, the devil would come snatch them away. it's an asian thing to just value education/intelligence over physical beauty. i excelled in school. i failed at dating.

i hung out with the artsy punk crowd. the poets. the writers. the thinkers. nothing mainstream. everything edgy. my friends were witty, funny, extraordinary. we would hang out, party, listen to records, watch movies. i was the disheveled one. hands usually black from charcoal drawing, overalls and vans covered in paint or clay from the potter's wheel. no makeup. hair in pigtails or just down. nothing fancy. nothing glamorous.

i figured if or when i did get a boyfriend he would be an artist, a writer, something like that. instead, the dating gods played a cruel trick on me. my first love turned out to the polar opposite of me. a frat boy.

handsome chiseled face. tall. dark hair. a nice rich tan in the summer from sailing on the cape. strong jawline. a deep voice. he was an art history and history buff. his trousers always pressed. he knew how to tie a tie.....well. he sported blazers with the greatest of ease. he wore vans when sailing. he wore dock siders every day. glasses. his one vice. he smoked. but that was given up quickly.

this is who would be my first love?! he approached me in the courtyard. i knew some of his brothers. he walked me back. we talked. he asked if he could call on me again. manners. diction. complete sentences. he built furniture. other girls wanted to date him. why the hell is he after me? i made him laugh and i was so different from him.

i dont wanna rehash details. it didn't work out. i never felt comfortable with him. meaning, when we first started dating, he would bring up the fact that i wasn't white. i felt at times that who i was was not who he wanted me to be or wasn't enough. the feeling of inadequacy is the most horrible feeling.

the comic "post it note" documents my heart/breakup. i read it now and i laugh. this was all before the sex in the city post it. i never knew such a little yellow note could shatter my heart. who knew the girl above would have her heart ripped out by a product of 3M. (i had to scan it in 2 parts).

breakups, heart aches, heart breaks: my graphic novel

i have been making my own comics ever since i was an even littler pearl. in high school/college, i started to document my heart breaks, heart aches, and breakups: all inked on my bristol board. every pen stroke recording a piece of my heart ripped.

i don't know how it started. i never was allowed to date in high school. strict asian upbringing. it was ok since i was no hot commodity in high school so you can't miss when you didn't have, right? also, when i did get a date to the prom, i was soo excited. little did i know how much prom dresses cost, so i ended up sewing mine and it was no pretty in pink moment, but the same reaction from snotty girls. "how home ec of you!" sewing takes a skill. going to freakin nordstrom doesn't take much skill.

getting asked out to prom was like some magical moment in my high school career. it was like getting a red rose in my locker. it was like getting to start in the opening game, off the bench, the cheerleader on top of the pyramid, the apex. it was totally cool that me, little pearl was going to prom!

then it hit me like bricks, my parents. how did i convince them this is a study session which requires girls to wear strapless taffetta and boys in tuxedos? totally not going to fly.

i decided to just ask them and explain how important it was for me to finally sort of be accepted, etc. my parents were actually understanding and i was surprised. the one condition was for them to meet the dude. ok.....i was waiting for a catch, but there wasn't.

i worked on my dress for 2 months. simple black mandarin collared chinese inspired dress. the night finally came and the dude arrives all nice in suit and flowers in hand. i was nervous. i mean it wasn't a date, but sort of. anyhow, my parents answer the door and i greet him and pics taken. then my parents ask the dude to sit down in the dining room. they pour him tea. then my cute mama, asks him, "what time dance end?" dude: "around 12 midnight, don't worry, i should have pearl back by 2." my mama's slanty eyes go round. "2? no. no. not acceptable." dude: "ok, but the dance ends at 12, so..." mama: "not 2." dude continues to "argue" with my mama. i am sitting there, my stomach becoming heavy. no one is drinking the tea. it is getting cold. my mama stops arguing. instead, she takes from under the table, a brick. a red brick. prolly from our garden. places it on the table. dude looks at me. we both are confused. my mama places the brick on the table and with her hand strikes it, it breaks in half. "bring pearl home by 9." dude turns white (or i should say whiter). that nite, i was dropped back from the prom at my house at 8:30pm. the prom started at 7pm.

with my dating history starting off with a smashed brick, it is no wonder i documented my heartbreaks.

college is like best of series. i documented how my heart was torn and the many evil ways/methods on how i was dumped. i know, people will say the "post it" story, aka. sex in the city, but that happened to me way before that show aired. i inked my story with post it and my note was not as nice. i have another comic depicting how some dude broke up with me over speaker phone and during his band practice. yes, his band mates were present.

heart aches and breakups are hard. i mean what do you expect with words such as "aches" and "break" in the words? inking and just sketching out my breakups made it less real to me. at the time it was real. i was hurting, i was crying, but these comics show me how funny some of these situations were. it was almost like therapy.

life inspires art. i think it is the madness in life that inspires my art. it is this little satisfaction, this smirk i have. these boys may have broken my heart, but in the end i got the last laugh. i should thank them all. i got some great comic strips out of it. how can you not laugh at a little asian woman breaking a brick in half? fyi, i spent 1 hour at my prom. that was first and only date i ever had in high school.