Argh. I've been wanting to write the perfect entry about my lameness at keeping up this blog but the being lame part still gets in the way. Part of it is my inability to find balance in my life, how to carve up the twenty four hours between two kids, a husband, and myself, plus basic home keeping (which I am proud to report my husband does at least half of and still it is such a struggle!), plus writing, my web business, and then having quality family time and husband/wife time! Does anybody have any tips? Maybe if we pool our hard earned lessons then it will amount to something! I would love to hear.

I am still working on my longer writing projects though, with progress. Last year I took a serious turn into non-fiction and it was greatly humbling to my fiction-lauding, high minded self. These are some hard to hone skills. But I have inspiration, works I keep by my desk and in case anyone is curious or maybe has these same books - they are Joan Didion's We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live (the entirety of her writing!), Jo Ann Beard's The Boys of My Youth, Junot Diaz' Drown, and Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies.

If you'll notice, two are non-fiction and two are fiction. This is because I am most interested in the area of writing where these two overlap - both Joan Didion and Jo Ann Beard use fiction techniques to write non-fiction, where Junot Diaz and Jumpha Lahiri write fiction which can only be read as truer than life. Also, Diaz and Lahiri write ethnic stories but have managed to escape the clutches of the ethnic sub-sections of the bookstore. A topic I am most interested in - when Asian-American lit. or other 'ethnic' lit. is/or becomes American Literature. One I believe creates an experience that only similar-cultured folks can relate to while the other creates a universal experience. How do they do that? This is what I think about when not writing.

Anyway I am so glad at least some of you forgot to take me off your RSS feed. The comments make the writing-about-very-specific-things-in-the-Internet-void feel like discourse, and it gives me a nudge when things get slow.

If I could draw, I'd make a superhero whose special power was super nunchi. He'd sit at the table, say between Israel and Palestine, and use his super nunchi to understand where each side was coming from, what each side wanted. He'd use his super empathy, so each side knew felt what they felt, and they'd both feel heard. Then he'd weigh the balance with his special sense of Korean justice, balancing the needs among the group over his own self-interest and create a story where both sides could see themselves in it. Might would be an option still because Koreans are practical. They've had to be.

At the of the day he'd withdraw into the shadows, and drink. Probably too much. Super nunchi wears on you but he'll fight as hard as he can not to give in - to black nunchi. These would be the local villains who try to destroy our superhero... An ancient halmoni made of flames, consumed by her anger. A villain in a suit, the dark king of his home, ruling with his fists. The perpetually lost, teenagers who can never find their way, who cause suffering to all those who come near. Black nunchi is the worst in those who know exactly what their power is worth, and use it for their own gain.