Being sick sucks.

My Mom always used to say that I was like my Grandma (her Mom), because I hated being sick. I found it to be a complete waste of time and very unproductive. Why lie around in bed, when there are so many other things I could be doing!?

Well, a recent diagnosis put me on a 5 day isolation from anything that I love doing in NYC. That meant my Dad's trip to NYC was cancelled and so were our tickets to "Kinky Boots" and "The Book of Mormon."

I found this childhood photo, where my parents had tucked me into bed and I wasn't having it. However, you have to enjoy all the great 80's toys in this photo: I'm wearing a Popples nightgown, in She-Ra bed sheets, with a Butterbear from "The Wuzzles" plush and a "Pillow Pal" (just like DJ Tanner had in "Full House") and a Starlite horse from "Rainbow Brite."

Even if I can't go outside, at least I can stare out my window at the sun and update my blog.

The gift of gab.

"Hello? Is it me you're looking for?" - Lionel Richie

These days, I don't spend too much time talking on the phone; I text more often than talk. But lately, as the city has been feeling more and more lonely to me, I'm longing to talk to friends and family back home more often.

My friend, Mindy, found this old photo of me, obviously holding a very important conversation and wearing a Care Bears top, naturally. And this little #TBT Instagram photo even warranted a little repost from @CareBears, themselves! 

Posing for the camera.

I didn't always hate having photos taken of myself. When I was younger, before I realized that I looked different than everyone else, I loved posing for the camera. This was one of my favorite poses, holding my hair up, like it was my ear and I was Violet, this pup from the Pound Puppies cartoon. She was always the sophisticated, "fancy" one that looked down upon the puppies in the pound, but somehow I related to her fashion sense.

I'm pretty sure this was before a baby shower for a friend of my Mom's and I'm most definitely wearing a nightgown, but dressed it up for the shower. And, oh boy, that "Cootchy Coo" banner in the background.

Homer & Marge.

My maternal grandparents, the Gordon's, were married in the 1930's, but it was always fun telling my friends that their names were Homer & Marge. Of course, The Simpsons, didn't premiere until I was in Elementary School, but kids just could not believe that they had the same names as their favorite animated family!

This photo was taken on an Easter Sunday, shortly after I decided to give myself a haircut and trim my own bangs. This was WAY before asymmetrical haircuts were in...I was just before my time. Please also note those socks with sandals and my Punky Brewster doll.

I have a lot of fond memories of spending every Sunday after Mass at my grandparents house. I loved that the heating in their home came in through the floor. There was nothing better than stuffing myself full of food at breakfast to come and take a nap on their warm, carpeted living room floor. We spent almost every Christmas Eve there and various other holidays. I can remember hunting for Easter eggs in their back yard with my brother and younger cousins, lighting off fireworks in their driveway on the 4th of July and sitting in my grandpa's office, reading his latest work of fiction or playing games on grandma's word processor.

Recently, my Mom passed away and she was living in their old house. I spent a week cleaning and organizing all the collections she had kept over the years. Some of those memories came flooding back, but the house just wasn't the same. But there will always be the good memories...

A love of MJ.

As you can see, I've always been a fan of pop music. Even as a toddler, I loved Michael Jackson. I would dance around to his music on cassette tape and tried to learn all the dances from his music videos. I have a very vivid memory of waiting to watch the premiere of "Black or White" on MTV, when I wasn't allowed to watch that channel, but this was a special occasion. I also remember being extra excited because Macaulay Culkin was in the video too!

In the early years of music videos, even witnessing the morphing of faces in "Remember the Time" seemed unreal. I was leaving work in Philadelphia when the new broke that MJ had died. Co-workers rushed to my desk area to see if the rumors were true (they knew what a pop culture fan I am), but I had already shut down my computer. This was before I had an iPhone and my weird little flip LG phone didn't get me onto the web fast enough. It was so hard to believe; that the King of Pop was no more.

An American Citizen.

Here's a photo from the day I got my American Citizenship! I consider myself lucky that my parents could apply for citizenship for me, since I'm not sure if I would have passed the test on my own.

Also, let's talk about how cool it was to bring in my Citizenship certificate to Show & Tell as a kid. Not many other kids in Lincoln had one of them at the time, so it was something unique I could bring in versus showing up with my Care Bears for another year.

I don't remember much about this day, but I know my Mom was pregnant with my brother, Philip, at the time. She always wanted to have a big family and thought she couldn't have kids, so it was nice that once she & Dad adopted me, that they were finally able to have one.

Rainbow Brite & the Mystery of the Missing Star Sprinkles.

When I was a  kid, my family would take numerous vacations to Worlds of Fun in Kansas City, MO. It was the closest theme park to Lincoln and only about a 3 1/2 hour drive down. During my childhood obession with Rainbow Brite, there was a live action show that families could attend. During this show, they would pick a few kids out of the audience and you would get a giant magnifying glass and cap to help Rainbow Brite solve the "Mystery of the Missing Star Sprinkles!"

After being called on stage, maybe their director sensed my enthusiasm, saw my Rainbow Brite dress or just knew how many times I had dragged my Dad back to the show; but they picked me!

Looking back at these photos, I don't know how I wasn't terrified of the giant Sprites or Lurky. But it still remains a fond memory of my childhood and our family trips to Worlds of Fun.

The Chen Grandparents.

After my Dad immigrated to the United States, and Lincoln, Nebraska, he helped bring the rest of his family over and to the Midwest. My grandparents, Thomas and Sally, had a small house near the East Campus of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

My grandpa, was the one who kept English in the family and I remember that he was always obsessed with magic tricks. He always had some sort of fun, new trick to show me and all the other Chen grandchildren; disappearing ink, a cup that made an egg disappear. We would all sit around him when he was showing us tricks and revel in his laugh.

My grandma, or Popo, as we called her; was always cooking and playing the hostess to whatever was going on in her small home.

I think this photo must have been taken around some sort of special occassion or holiday. Maybe Easter? It's hard to know, since I was always dressing up and being a ham; which is hard to believe now, since you'll hardly ever see me in a dress.

My Little Pony.

Can you remember the distinctive smell when the plastic casing was taken off the cardboard backing of a fresh My Little Pony? I have very fond memories of it. I saved up so many of my allowance dollars, so I could buy one or two new Ponies on our family's weekly trip to K-Mart, Target or Wal-Mart as a kid.

I spent many hours combing their rainbow colored hair and dressing them up in outfits. Valuable dollars were spent on accessories and other merchandise of the Hasbro/My Little Pony empire. The baby pony ballet studio was one of my favorite toys; it was an oversized bonnet with rotating platforms, so the ponies could "dance" on their stage. I also have fond memories of the ice cream parlour with a special limited edition pony who worked in the shop.

And there's a home video from Thanksgiving where my parents patiently filmed me, while I paraded out each pony in my Aunt Mary's living room, introduced them to the camera and acted out some of their personality. I bet most of my relatives knew who "Twirler" was, since she was the pony with a strange wind-up dial protruding from her chest and when she was wound up, she would move in circles on whatever flat surface you placed her on. (She's the one featured in the photo that accompanies this blog post.)

My favorites were always those in the purple/pink hues and the unicorns. Flutter Ponies were special commodities, since they had thin, iridescent plastic wings that would flap, as if they were flying, but were very delicate and usually broke off in a week or so.

My neighbors had some ponies, but thankfully, my little brother indulged in my MLP insanity and would play with me. Sometimes we'd put on shows or just play with them around the house. He had a few of the boy ponies and often helped me paint the nails (hooves?) of the brightly colored ponies with a special polish. (I'm pretty sure one of the green unicorns still has remnants of the red polish on her hooves, even in my mom's storage shed.)

As an adult, I partially blame my nostalgia and renewed obsession on Lena Hall for mentioning My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic in her Tony Award acceptance speech. Once she mentioned that "friendship is magic," I had to check out the show. Then, thanks to Netflix, I was able to watch all of the first five seasons of this show and was trasnported back in time with some of my favorite characters. Some of their names might have been changed, but the premise was intriguing; instead of adventure stories, now the stories were all based around a lesson or aspect of friendship. Can you guess which ponies quickly became my favorites on this update?

Occassionally, it still feels good to break out a DVD of the first season of the Saturday morning cartoon or the movie, where the ponies were flighting the "floom" and the gloom it brought to Paradise Estates. With all of the sad children's toys (Bratz dolls) and little girls growning up too fast, at least we have the ponies to look back on with fond memories.

Nick at Nite.

It's funny how things change so fast from your childhood, or what you remember from it, at least. I remember watching hours and hours of classic TV on Nick at Nite with my family. I learned all about Dick Van Dyke, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Taxi from watching old episodes on this nighttime version of Nickelodeon. Now, when I turn on that channel it's Friends and Full House; am I really getting that old?

However, my favorite show from the former time was definitely Batman with Adam West. I fell in love with the campiness of the show and all the "POW!" "BIFF!" graphics that appeared on screen whenever Batman and Robin fought their enemies.

I quickly developed a crush on Robin, who was played by Burt Ward and asked for all things Robin. I had a black and white poster of Batman & Robin, that hung on the walls in my room, just across from a poster of Neil Patrick Harris dressed as Doogie Howser, MD, complete with faux autograph and stethoscope.

I found this photo of what looks like my 8th or 9th birthday and my Mom had gotten me a Robin figurine, which I was clearly enthralled with. I remember their slinky costumes and how they shone on the TV screen. I also loved the purple Batgirl costume that Yvonne Craig got to wear and secretly wished that I was badass enough to wear that costume.

Speaking of costumes, my aunt even made me a Halloween costume, so I could be Robin. She made me a neon green Lyrca skirt to go with the costume, instead of the briefs that he actually wore. You might say that I was sporting this look WAY before Eminem appeared in the costume for one of his music videos.

You'll see below that I also made a "dressed-up" version of my favorite Care Bear, Baby Hugs, and gave her big, red hoop earrings to go with her neon pink dress. I also had a weird obsession with polar bears and bought this mini one at the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo, which I promptly named "Cutesy" and got her a superhero cape to go with my outfit for Trick Or Treating.

All this talk of Batman make me wonder what I did with the book chronicling all of episodes of the show...it has to be somewhere. My favorite part of the book was the "Holy" index. which was a giant list of all the "Holy!" exclamations that Robin made to Batman during the series.

Sears Coloring Contest.

When I was growing up, the arrival of the Sears Roebuck Christmas Catalog was a big deal. Each year, they had a coloring contest for various age groups of children with various prizes, but the best one, being the cover of the local Christmas catalog.

I remember drawing an elaborate Christmas tree with my giant box of Crayola crayons. All the toys that I wanted were featured on this tree: Barbie, My Little Pony, Rainbow Brite, Care Bears. My parents entered me in the category for my age group, which had to be around 6-8 years old. 

I was very surprised to find out that I won the portion for my age group! I got to have a photo shoot with my parents and was featured in the Lincoln newspaper.

Recently, I found that black and white photo, which made me wonder where that drawing was and why we didn't think to make a copy of it before sending it off...oh well, I'm sure it wasn't as great in real life as it was in my memories. 

I'm sitting on the counter of the catalog department, with my Mom & Dad. Plus, check out that awesome Rainbow Brite dress!

A Little Bit About Me.

I've found that when I moved to New York City, I get a lot more statements of "You're the first person I've met from Nebraska!" (Usually, followed by some itteration of "There are Asians in Nebraska!?") So, let me tell you a little bit about where I grew up and my very multi-cultural family, especially for Nebraska in the 1980's.

I was born in the summer of 1982 in Taegu, South Korea. I was adopted by my parents before I was even born. My father, grew up in Butterworth, Malaysia and immigrated to the United States when he was only 18. My mother, was born in Omaha, Nebraska and grew up in Lincoln; which is where I would spend the first 23 years of my life.

They were introduced to each other by my maternal grandfather, who worked in the engineering field. His church had sponsored some Chinese immigrants and needed a translator. He knew my Dad from work contacts and as a thank you, wanted to take him out to dinner. The other guests at that dinner? My maternal grandmother and my Mom.

I don't know much about their courtship, but they were married in the late 70's and my Mom always wanted to have a big family. After some problems conceiving, they saw that Holt International (an adoption agency out of Portland, Oregon), was going to start letting families in the Midwest adopt from Asia. 

My parents filled out all the paperwork and had the mandatory home visits. They bought a new house in the Northwest part of Lincoln, The Highlands, and waited my arrival. After some delays with paperwork, they finally made the drive down to Kansas City, Missouri to meet me, along with several other Midwest families meeting their newest editions to the family.

I arrived dressed in a giant powder blue onesie and the attendant congratulated my parents on their "New baby boy!" "Wait!" My Mom said, "We're supposed to have a girl!" After some humiliating checking, I was on my way to my new home with parents. And thus, the journey in Nebraska began.