Tag: holidays

A 2023 Year-End Post

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In spite of all the changes to my general writing habits, one thing I always feel compelled to write about is the end of the year post, even if I have an inkling of knowing that it’s going to be pretty mundane, if not kind of depressing.  It’s something I’ve done for years, and old habits die hard, and in this case, it’s a habit that’s not necessarily bad, as much as it is just writing with the hopes of being able to reflect and contemplate life in general, and maybe I’ll recognize some patterns or observations to possibly improve my standing in life.

But mundane and kind of depressing are a fairly accurate way to describe how 2023 was for me.  This isn’t to say that I thought it sucked by any stretch of the imagination, there were definitely a lot of positive things that occurred throughout the year.  It’s just that we as people tend to dwell more on the negative things that upset us or make us unhappy and it truly is a case of what have you done for me lately, life, huh?? kind of attitude.

As has been the case since becoming a parent, twice, and living through the pandemic, I’ve made my general world a really, really small place.  Being a dad and parenting comes ahead of absolutely everything else in the world, and considering the immense amount of, capacity, it requires to raise two toddlers, I barely have any time on a daily basis for myself, and so often times I try not to dwell on just how much shit I have to punt on, on a daily basis because there’s just not enough hours in the day to accomplish everything on top of being a parent.

My daily routine has mostly maintained the same course over the last three years, and I’m always the first one up in order to make breakfast for the kids and be ready for them in the mornings, and most every minute upon my arrival back from the office or the end of my work day is spent with my children, until they go to bed at around 7-8, and then I do a bunch of daily chores to reset the house and prepare for the next day, and when I’m done with that, then maybe I’ll have an hour, maybe two, depending on if I want to forfeit some sleep, in order to have some personal downtime, which has its own pressure in not wanting to squander it, and a feeling of failure if I do.

I don’t have the capacity to dick around on the internet as much as I used to, and look up news and stories from around the world, the state, or even my own city, to have inspiration to write about, and even if I do have the inspiration, I don’t have the time to write about it.  If I earmark it for later, it stands a good chance to not happen, because the knee-jerk reactions that fuel lots of writing don’t exist after too much time passes.

Among the numerous self-imposed writing exercises I put onto myself, I keep a living document that tries to summarize every single day of the year.  In the past, I would jot down some interesting news that might have happened on X day, or a sports occurrence that happened on Y day, or tragic news of a shooting that occurred on Z day, but I generally had this belief that something, somewhere, was interesting stuff happening, on every single day, and it was my way of trying to capture all some of it.

But then COVID hit at the same time I had a kid, and my world became extremely small.  Even though the worst of the pandemic has passed and my kids are getting older, my world hasn’t expanded back out that much, and my general daily summaries are usually along the lines of me being agitated about something, usually parenting related, things my kids did, occasional sports or wrestling observations, but for the most part, a very sparse well of topics that I’ve had the capacity to summarize on a daily basis.

If it sounds depressing, it’s because I’ve come to the admission that I probably am depressed, possibly on a clinical level.  As in the chemicals in my brain are wacked out, causing me to feel apathetic, disinterested in everything, unmotivated to do the things that I generally enjoy and other activities.  The thing is, I feel like I know what’s causing the depression, and it isn’t just solely a chemical imbalance, so I don’t necessarily feel like medical intervention is necessary. 

Throughout my life, there’s been a direct correlation with my emotional state and my financial wellbeing, and the fact of the matter is that I haven’t felt financially comfortable in like three years, and I don’t know how to fix any of it, so it leaves me feeling despair often, and I’m pretty sure that’s the root of my depression.

Like if I were to go on some sort of anti-depressants, sure that might make me feel like I’m not so stressed or sad anymore, but no medication is going to magically make my financial woes go away, so I’ve never felt like I should see anyone to try and see what’s up.  Also, my medical insurance at my job throughout 2023 has been absolute hot garbage, but I’m going on mythical wife’s medical for 2024 which is way better, so perhaps I should swallow my pride and look into getting checked out, because living the way I have been living throughout the last few years probably hasn’t been the best for all parties involved.

But like I said, there was also a lot of good stuff that occurred throughout the year, even if I’m a headcase for more days of it than not.  My family went on a bunch of Disney trips that were brutally expensive for sure, but rewarding in their own rights.  Cruising out of New Orleans was great, visiting Hilton Head was pleasant, and trying a bunch of new restaurants at Disney properties were all good, and my kids seemed to enjoy a lot of it, and that’s what really matters.

One of my closest friends got married in Vegas, and I didn’t hesitate to go out there and bear witness, and my company sent me out to Los Angeles for the Adobe MAX conference, which was the coolest work trip I’ve ever been to in my career.

Most importantly, as much as they sometimes drive me crazy with their roller coaster of toddler emotions, watching my kids grow throughout the year is always a wondrous sight of seeing them develop, physically and intellectually.  Both my girls have demonstrated a ton of intelligence, and sometimes I just stop and watch them while they eat, play, read or just simply exist, and three years into the journey, I remind myself of how unbelievable it still feels that I’m a dad.

So, much like my emotional state throughout the year, this year’s end post goes up and goes down, like a roller coaster.  There may be plenty of days in which I’m burnt out, worried as fuck about finances, or in need of a good anxiety outlet, but there are no days where I don’t have love for my family and children and friends, no matter what is believed to be on my exterior.

Overall, I do not feel that 2023 was a poor year, and at the same time, I hope that 2024 and beyond is better.  Because why shouldn’t anyone not hope that the next day is better than the one before it? 

I am so over shopping for presents

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I understand that over the last year or two, I’ve been coming off like a tremendous Scrooge.  I will be the first to admit that I am suffering from depression in the span of that time, because at the root of everything I feel that my life is very difficult, and largely in part due to the feeling financially insecure, and the gamut of factors why it is as well the results of it.

In this span, I have been largely incapable of enjoying holidays in the manner in which they really should be enjoyed, because when you’re in a position that I’m in, holidays mean a lot more work, a lot more effort, a lot more money, with the latter variable being largely in part of why I’m often times so anxious and fretting over the most.

But to the point of the subject of this post, I’m really over shopping for presents, mostly because I just don’t know what the fuck anyone and everyone wants, but I feel obligation to provide gifts to a lot of these people, because it’s the most efficient way of demonstrating that I care and I really do care and I really do want to show my appreciation, but the truth of the matter is that I just don’t know what people want and/or I do, but it’s something that’s ridiculously expensive and I don’t have the means to get it and that’s a whole result of sucking as well.

Anyway, I have a list of people whom I want to get something for, and the vast majority of it is blank currently, because I just don’t know what to get anyone.  These days, or maybe that it’s always been the case, people are capable of getting what they want, when they want, to a degree that by the time the holidays roll around, there’s nothing left to ask for.  And not knowing what to get someone seems like the worst possible outcome, because if I knew what to get everyone, I wouldn’t be typing up this conversation piece in the first place.

Yet I feel obligated to get things for everyone because I know that the most of them will be doing the same for me.  Honestly if it were up to me, there would be no gifts shared, so that neither party feels obligated to exchange gifts and go through the time, effort and finances to demonstrate with gifts the importance of one another to each other.  I try to do that for others by giving them time, effort, favors when called upon, or being there in times of need.

But the point is, I’m sick of gifts.  I’m sorry if that sounds horribly crass and blunt and really curmudgeon but that’s where I’m at right now.  I’m tired of not knowing what anyone wants because I don’t have the capacity to be around everyone that matters to me to pick up hints and ideas for what I can provide for them, and it’s driving me insane sitting in front of my computer and trying to rack my brain fruitlessly for ideas of gifts that will inevitably end up being shitty because the rationale for them will be so convoluted and stretched that they’ll suck and people will try their hardest to be nice and try to not feel in the backs of their minds that they were given a stinker.

I want nothing, so that I can be absolved of the feeling obligated to return the favor, so that I can spend my sparse time, shits to give and money on more important thing than gifts, which is exactly what I’d really like the most.  There is a direct correlation with my depression and those things being in more copacetic places than they are now, and I just don’t know what to do to improve things and this is not how I want to be feeling at a time of the year where people are expected to be happy, festive and grateful for things.

I will never understand people who think cash doesn’t make the best gift

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s that time of the year when all across the country, as well as the world, people are preparing for their respective gift-giving holidays and putting way more thought than really should be necessary in pondering on what to get for the ones in our lives we feel the compulsion to give gifts to.  And because I am fortunate to have people in my life who care about me, I’ve been asked for what I want, or lists of things that might want to expedite their pursuits for checking me off a respective list.

The honest answer to if there is anything that I want is that I literally want nothing.  There is no physical tangible thing out there at this juncture in my life that will improve my standing in said life, and I would rather have absolutely nothing over one more piece of existing matter that can further fill up my house that I already feel is packed to the brim with, things.

Not even any more wrestling blets, because for starters there aren’t any blets out there that I actually want anymore, and secondly because I have no office or personal space to put them in, any further blets would just sit in my closet out of sight until whatever day comes when I can have a private space again.

What I would really like, is to receive cash, if I had to get any gifts at all.  But the thing is, at least with so many Americans, cash is considered not a good gift, as it’s impersonal or thoughtless or other pejoratives people who feel this way use to try and justify their opinions that it’s just not a good gift.

Quite the contrary, I don’t think there’s a gift better than cold hard currency, because it shows that you care enough to want to gift something to a person, but at the same time, take into consideration that they can actually then use it on specifically what they want, because the things people want might be personal or too expensive and require lots of other cash gifts to help to go toward it, but the fact of the matter is that cash is one of those things most could probably use, but at least in America, probably won’t get solely based on perception bias of cash as gifts.

In the Korean part of my upbringing, cash as gifts was about as common as white people giving out cups and mugs* as gifts.  Not only does it demonstrate thoughtfulness, it also takes into consideration that the recipient is now free to use it towards what might actually make them happy, instead of receiving something that they might have to pretend being happy over and making it awkward when it’s never seen of again, or worse off, ends up in a charity pile or discreetly sold on Facebook Marketplace.

*this is another can of worms that maybe I’ll rant about the next time it triggers me

Frankly, I’d love it if everyone who wanted to get me a gift would just send me cash.  The only things I want are time, which I know can’t be purchased, and relief from feeling like I’m scraping by, which can only be gifted in the forms of cash that I’d use to help keep my head above water.  And it wouldn’t be like using gift cash to pay for my bills or anything, it would be like cash used to help cover for actual indulgences that just happened to have occurred in the past, like the multitude of Disney trips that have happened over the last two years where it always feels like I’m trying to dig out of.

That’s what would actually make me happy.  Things won’t make me as happy as the alleviation of some of the financial undertakings that I’ve been put on, because there is a direct correlation with my financial security and my general state of happiness, and anything that can bring me any sort of relief, would be the most welcome gift of all.

Dad Brog (#126): When will the holidays be enjoyable again?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This morning, I was awoken a few minutes before my alarm went off, because #1 had already begun to stir and babble and indicate that she was awake.  My alarm went off three minutes later at 7 am because I get up at 7 am every single day of my life regardless of if it’s a weekend or holiday so that I can hope to get some stuff done and have breakfast ready for the kids for when I inevitably get them from their respective rooms.

I got off of the couch because my in-laws were visiting and mythical wife and I forfeited our bed because we no longer have a guest room because we have an au pair, and I trudged into the kitchen to begin the morning routine.  It didn’t last long, because #1 began screaming and crying out for dada to come get her, and it was getting louder and louder, and typically I try to no-sell it and hope she calms back down, but it was evident that that wasn’t going to happen this morning.  And before her screaming would wake up the rest of the state of Georgia, I went up to get her early, regardless of the fact that I hadn’t gotten anything prepared for the morning.

Turns out she had completely soaked the bed, and most likely from a combination of shame and embarrassment, she was furious, despite the fact that I did not get mad or upset with her and explained calmly that everything was okay and that we would fix it.  She wailed like a banshee and had a nuclear meltdown, while I stripped the sheets and got her changed and brought her downstairs.  I love my kids, but trying to do anything with them around is at least three times harder than it should be, and putting away yesterday’s dishes and trying to prepare breakfast for them is no exception.

After getting #1 situated and eating, I went up to get #2, and thankfully this morning she was the chill kid, and didn’t fuss and fight at all which was a huge relief.  She sat down and began eating and for two seconds, things were quiet with them eating breakfast.  But that didn’t last long, because the rest of the house started waking up, and other human beings are automatically distracting to them, and before I know, breakfast is abandoned, and they’re running amok, primarily fucking with the Christmas tree and some of the decorations we had just set up the night prior after Thanksgiving dinner part two.

To cut to the chase and cut down on redundant words and stories about how hard my life is in my parental circumstances, that was basically the story of the day, playing a fuck ton of defense throughout the house as #2 was being a little shit all day long just trying to get into things, fuck with the Christmas tree and being a defiant dick, throwing and knocking over anything she could get her hands on, and #1 being an uber-clingy barnacle to me the entire day, demanding my attention or having a meltdown if she wasn’t getting it.

Mythical wife and I declared that today was arguably, the hardest day we had as parents as we’d ever had, as in ever, and we both agreed that as much as we love the kids, this was one of those days where we just could not wait to put them down to bed for the evening.  I often think it’s cliché for people to crack open a cold alcoholic beverage after a trying day, but today definitely encapsulated the circumstances for it to sound like the greatest idea in the world, and not five minutes after I came downstairs after putting #1 to bed, it was straight to the fridge to pull out a Schofferhofer, one of the weak-ass fruit witbiers that I still actually enjoy drinking at home, when I feel like having something with a little booze in it.

As nihilistic and pessimistic as it might sound, this was just another year of holidays that I just can’t really get into and didn’t really look forward to, because this stage of parenting is just so overwhelmingly difficult on a daily basis, that I don’t really much like getting out of the routine, even for holidays in which we’re expected to be happy and thankful for things, because it just means a whole lot of extra work of preparing my home, hosting people, and a whole lot of gray area of childcare and eyes on the girls, resulting in mostly me feeling like I’m the only one who is mindful of the kids and being the primary person chasing after them and keeping watch over them, all while I have other responsibilities and expectations to do as well, because trying to do anything with kids around is automatically eight times harder than it should be, but I still have to do them anyway, hell or high water.

And I can’t help but think about holidays in the past prior to having kids, because they were all just so simple and full of space to have the capacity to think about things like traveling instead of hosting, contemplating Black Friday shopping, and actually having the money to do both, and I love my kids and family until the day I die, but there’s no denying just how different, simple and mindless life was prior to the rigors of raising kids.

Lots of parents of children far older than my own often like to say how things get easier as they age, which makes sense, but god damn there are times in which I can’t wait for those days to become reality in my life, because days like this I find myself cursing in private at how much I’m so sick of parenting sometimes, and wanting to scream and break shit over the aggravation of my kids can be when they both feel like being little asshole shits, and I feel bad for doing such, but I’m already always living in a state of high RPM stress on the regular, and I just wonder when things will actually calm down to where I don’t have to feel like this and dread holidays and can eventually get back to enjoying them again someday.

Dad Brog (#115): Father’s Day 2023

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As many should know about me, when I say I’m going to do something, it’s a safe bet that I’m probably going to stick with it.  I’m not bragging about it, it’s just who I am.  I don’t commit to a lot of things in the first place, so when I do commit to something, it should be expected that I will follow through with it.

That being said, last year was year one of my Father’s Day gift to myself, which is truly the only thing that I genuinely want on a year basis, which is a picture with my daughters with their tag team championship blets, with me with one of my numerous blets from my collection 25 blets deep.  I genuinely could keep this going for 23 moar years even if I didn’t get any more blets, which is a fat chance, because all promotions eventually redesign and there will always be title reigns that inspire me to want them, but the fact of the matter is that it is also genuinely my life’s mission to have this photo, every year, with my girls, for the rest of my life.

So here we have it, year two of dada and his daughters with our respective blets.  I’m not sure what really made me pick the IWGP United States championship as my blet of choice this year, but it seemed to work out, because Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay tore the roof off of the arena in Toronto, and I just love how gaudy and red it is, and I was just feeling it for this year.

But more importantly is just how big my girls have gotten over the last 12 months since the last photo was taken, and #2 is rapidly catching up in height to her big sister.

Full disclosure, this was still a composite photograph, cobbled together from three separate photographs, because it’s nigh impossible to expect to get a perfect picture of both my girls posing with their blets and expect to have me in the photo as well, and I wonder how many years it’s going to take before I’m able to do this in one fell swoop where all three of us are in position at the same time.

Regardless, much like last year, and much like all future iterations will probably do, this photo makes me extremely happy.  No matter how hard life gets, parenting gets, and how much emotional turmoil I go through every now and then, these photos calm me and brings me back, and I think about just how happy I will be in the future when I’ll have enough of them to make collages and scrap book them, and maybe become internet famous for five seconds when the Buzzfeed of 2045 gets wind of my timelapse and wants to use me for clickbait.

And because I’m neurotic, I’m going to make sure to make this post always drop on June 25th of every year, regardless of when Father’s Day actually is, because I started it last year on June 25th, so it’s forever going to be the dada and daughters blet day from here on out.

What an incredible way to New Years

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve made it pretty clear that I am no fan of Ohio State, especially when it comes to football.  I won’t call them “The” unless it’s in irony and with the intention to mock and ridicule, and few things make me happier during any given college season is seeing them get lose, be it to Michigan, Oklahoma, or better when it’s against some unheralded school.

However, regardless of my bias against them as a program, there’s no denying that they are talented and are always a threat to win a National Championship.  And the way that the media has been overwhelmingly favoring Georgia over them for the CFB semi-final Peach Bowl, I couldn’t help but have this sinking feeling that it was all tempting fate a little too hard, and it was a ripe scenario where Georgia was going to get their shit pushed in and choke hardcore to a program that should frankly never be overlooked.

I didn’t watch the game at all, but I was casually following the gamecast, because it’s not so much that I’m any bit of a UGA fan as much as I like that they represent my home, as much as I was just hoping to see Ohio State lose.  And as much as I didn’t like seeing it, I wasn’t really at all that surprised to see just how tightly TOSU was playing them, and when they went into half with TOSU up by a hair, I spoke with my one friend who actually liked sports at our chill New Years Eve gathering, about how I just had a bad feeling about this game.

When TOSU was up by two scores in the 4th quarter, I had the split feeling of being disappointed that Georgia was on the verge of choking against another team notorious for choking in TOSU, and how they were no longer buoyed by the baby luck that brought them, the Braves and Virginia Tech successes over her first year of existence, which is why they were crashing back to normalcy.  But at the same time, a degree of satisfaction at being right at the prediction that TOSU would pull the upset, because this is exactly what happened in 2014 when TOSU was so overlooked in favor of Alabama, before they steamrolled them en route to winning the first-ever CFB natty, but when it came down to it, I still would’ve preferred to see Georgia win, because seeing TOSU is always a treat.

But then fates intervened again, and TOSU just had to pull another TOSU and threaten to choke themselves, in a battle of notorious chokers.  Georgia would threaten, but it looked like TOSU got the stop, and forced Georgia to settle for the seemingly fruitless field goal that didn’t change their need for two TDs, but at least put them into a position where the second one would be a game winner and not a game tie-er.

Next thing you know, Georgia gets a stop, scores, and then gets another stop, and suddenly in crunch time, Georgia’s in a position to take the lead, which they do, with less than a minute to go.  In a battle of two programs notorious for choking, it was a war of who was going to fuck up last and go home as a result, and it was looking like it was going to be TOSU. 

But as many football fans know, 0:54 seconds might as well be 54:00 minutes, and before you know it, TOSU has gotten down the field, passed the arbitrary television field goal range marker, and they’re suddenly in a position to possibly win the game with a field goal.

All the while, the clock is ticking down towards midnight, where my friends are all watching Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Years Eve, as tourists in Times Square who have been likely standing there since 5 am, with pee jugs all hidden from cameras, are pretending like they’re having the greatest day of their lives, while the most exciting college football game in recent history is happening 15 miles away in Downtown Atlanta where not any one of us wants to be remotely close to.

The countdown to midnight starts taking up the screen, and I’m watching on my phone as Gamecast seems to be frozen forever, presumably where TOSU is setting up for the game winner while Georgia is presumably burning their last timeouts in an attempt to ice the kicker, and as we get to the last ten seconds of 2022, the snap and the kick are happening, and by the time the kick sails wider than I-285, and the refs are signaling NO GOOD, it’s suddenly 2023.

Seriously, it’s bonkers to me just how perfectly timed everything occurred, where Georgia completes a legendary comeback and survives the upset, at the very same time when the ball drops in Times Square, and the Peach drops less than a mile outside of Mercedes Benz Arena, and there are probably 100,000 people going apeshit gonzo in the 30303 zip code with thousands more around the Georgia, Ohio and sports bars across the nation, all while the new year changes, with millions more celebrating that.

I could only imaging the insanity that was occurring in Downtown Atlanta after the new year had lapsed.  Jubilation over survival and being on the winning side of an epic bowl game, all capped off with the celebration and jovial happiness of many others for bringing in the new year in memorable fashion.  With the cherry on top being THE Ohio State getting jobbed in a humiliating manner.  As much as casuals will throw the kicker under the bus, frankly he should never have been in a position where he was relied upon to deliver the win.  Watching the highlights of the game after the fact, TOSU’s defense got absolutely shredded in those last two drives, and they’re the motherfuckers who lost the game, not the kicker.

Whatever though.  TOSU loses, Georgia gets to defend their championship and go for two, and the New Year was brought in with good company and a chill and relaxed evening.  Seems like a fun start to me.

The Thanksgiving post, circa 2022

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I am thankful for this photograph coming out pretty decently.  Through Facebook memories, I’ve seen pictures of past Thanksgivings where I remained home with my group of other vagabond friends who didn’t travel or have local family in town and we always got together for evenings of traditional Thanksgiving food, games and eventually Brack Friday shopping.

Then I got married, had kids, and it’s been a minute since we had a traditional Friendsgiving.

I called an audible this year, and made the choice to stay home for Thanksgiving this year.  With three adults and one child that no longer qualifies for lap travel, and no real place for us all to stay whilst up in Virginia, the idea of going up for Thanksgiving seemed like a colossal clusterfuck, so I made the call to forget the plan and just stay in Georgia in the comfort of our own home.  

I just didn’t want to sink a boatload of money on a trip that was going to stress me out when I could’ve gotten the same results staying at home.  Needless to say, the tone of this post is probably going to go downhill really fast now.

Because aside from the obvious things, like the health of my kids and having a better job than my old one, I can’t really think of anything that I’m thankful of this year.  I understand that putting such a sentiment in writing makes me sound like a bitter and miserable person, but at the same time all of the above isn’t really that inaccurate.

My job doesn’t burn me out on a daily basis, but the rigors and daily tribulations of parenthood more than makes up for it these days.  Even with an au pair that is like a gift from god, there’s still way more time than I want where I’m on double duty with both girls, and it’s just so tremendously difficult to manage a toddler and an infant at the same time.  It always makes me feel like a failure, because I can’t really give any one of my kids quality attention because I’ve always got to remain on defense that one doesn’t hurt herself while trying to man the other, and it fills me up with resentment when I logically should not be on double duty but I am anyway.

I am so burned out on a daily basis that people in HR would probably be willing to extend me a little leniency.  I haven’t had a proper or adequate break from being in this stage of dad mode, and I think I might be headed towards a breakdown if I don’t.  I love my kids more than anything in the world, but the day-in and day-out responsibilities that they are, and the fact that I get less than 2-3 hours a day to unwind unless I want to jeopardize sleep and being even a shittier dad the following day never helps.

Even trying to be introspective and analytical, I genuinely don’t feel anything to be thankful of otherwise this year.  I’m just so perpetually full of piss and vinegar that I have no thanks to give.  I am on an island where maybe one or two other people I know probably understands what I’m going through, and my mood swings are becoming more scathing and bitter the longer this continues.

I probably need therapy, a solo vacation wouldn’t hurt, and maybe stopping saying I’m fine when I’m actually filled with anger is a good idea too.   Maybe a Fight Club-like cry session would help.  But none of these seem particularly feasible without clashing objectives and wants, so I’m just left in this bitter mass of existence within myself where I can only hope to find solace in the little things and try to convince myself that they’ll make everything alright.