32. Coming Out means you go through a second phase of adolescence. or my parents are just overcompensating.

before i Came Out, i seldom said a word about crushes.

or myself.

nobody - my parents, in particular - knew a thing about my taste in...anything.

i kept to myself, opted to impersonate my mother rather than offer up my own thoughts and feelings.

as such - that is, after shipping off to college and the island of Lesbos - after practicing trial-and-error for as long as i have (emphasis on the error), i'm realizing that these feelings of uncertainty and dumbassness and self-absorption in the context of relationships and self must be akin to those my hetero peers mucked around in several years ago.

after you Come Out of the Closet you Dive Blindly Into a Dark, Complicated, Terrifying Bedroom.

and, well, world, i guess.

if i was the kind to tap into that level of sappiness.

which i'm not.

aloud.

anywho.

my understanding of Involved Parenthood of Hetero Teenagers is that mom and dad are so nosy they can't help but say and do embarrassing things in the pursuit of buried, angsty feelings and preferences.

at least, that's how it goes in movies.

with the parents constantly making assumptions and causing their spawn to blush or throw unnecessarily emotional fits.

being that my parents were under the impression that they managed to raise three of the most a-sexual, pure young women imaginable, none of the Toro girls faced much interrogation growing up.

it was only when one of my sisters accidentally let some key piece of information slip that my parents became curious.

for me, that curiosity or concern for my love life didn't come about until i Came Out, and my parents were suddenly aware of the fact that, contrary to 18 some odd years of denial and silence, i actually DID have some kind of "drive."

so those cringeworthy conversations came about.

but instead of being completely agonizing, looking back i'm pretty sure it was all hilarious.

1. just months after i Came Out, my dad and i were at Borders partaking in some Daddy-Daughter Bonding Time [as he called it].

at one point, he called me over to the calendar rack - a crazy look in his eye.

"Pssst, Vickie! Hey, Vickie!"

"...Yes?"

"Come over here!"

"What is it?"

he pointed.

right at a Sports Illustrated calendar.

i blushed.

"Oh...um...great, dad. Awesome."

"You know what I JUST realized?" he asked, in one of those non-whispers-that-was-supposed-to-be-a-whisper.

"What?"

"When I say things about women, you could be thinking the SAME THING."

afterward, when i tried to change the conversation, my dad was determined to uncover my taste in women.

and was excited to find that i was, in fact, my father's daughter.

i was nauseous.

2. at Bath and Body Works, during yet another Daddy-Daughter outing, my dad caught me looking through some scents.

"Whacha got there?"

"Hm? I dunno. Nothing. Just looking."

he grabbed another bottle of the same scent and sprayed it.

sniffed it.

"Hm...Maybe not that one."

"Okay."

"'Cos you know, women like scents. If you wanna get girls, you have to have your own scent. So make it a really good one."

i stared.

"Here! This one's pretty good. I'll go pay for it."

3. my mother doesn't like too many people.

actually, for the longest time, i wasn't even sure if she liked me all that much.

but i digress.

one day, my oldest sister brought her boyfriend over for the holidays.

after, while my mom and i were in a car together, i asked her what she thought of him.

"Eh, I don't like him."

"Really?" i asked, "He's so nice, though! And Olivia likes him a lot."

"I know. But ugh. Beside, I'm yoh mommy. I'm gonna hate any boy you bring home."

"Ha! Well, that's lucky for me!"

at the red light, she stopped, looked me square in the eye.

"Girls, too."

and i knew that she was finally okay with my gayness.

4. i was lamenting the fact that i was single and clueless and hopeless.

my mother's words of comfort were a little uncouth.

"You know, iss actually kinda lucky you're a lesbian."

"...Why?"

"Women tend to like awkward, nerdy people better. Eben the pretty ones. Look at me and yoh daddy."

5. i told my dad that i'd drunkenly gotten a girl's number, but that i wasn't sure about giving her a call.

he was pumped that i shared this with him.

"Ha! You and I ARE alike!" he exclaimed, "When I was your age, and I'd get home from some party, I'd find girls' phone numbers IN MY CLOTHES. It was crazy, but I didn't know what it meant. My friends were like, 'Man, you should totally call her.' And I'd be like, '...Why?' It was hopeless. Ha! It's nice at least ONE of you girls took after me. Nice for me, not for you."

6. my mom told me she was a little surprised by my first girlfriend.

because she had always hoped i wouldn't pick someone like my mother.

i didn't see the resemblance til after that conversation.

and then it was all i saw.

7. the usual talks about how i'm a "wonderful girl, of whom no one is deserving."

gross.

and this is all i've got for now.

17. i come from a long line of terrifying women. and i take after my dad.

long time, no talk.

but excuses are like butts, and right now mine's hidden because of its recent descent into flabby unawesomeness, so i'll spare you.

anywho.

lately, i've been learning all sorts of fun facts about my family's history.

my Dominican side has ties to the assassination of Trujillo, and my Korean grandma broke all of the rules.

ALL of the rules.

apart from successfully escaping the clutches of her North Korean captors during the Korean War, she also managed to do much of the same from her adulterous husband.

apparently, my Korean grandpa was anything but faithful to her during their marriage.

he had affairs - Jeebus knows how many - and eventually, he managed to get a woman pregnant.

pissed, my grandmother had him and his mistress arrested - because adultery was against the law in those days - which was unheard of, as it was usually men who turned their adulterous wives in, while enjoying the company of as many women as they chose.

but my grandmother had him put into prison, divorced him, and bent his entire family to her will as she was the one with the money and the power.

"When he's released," she told him and his family, "I will help support him, but only because he can't support himself."

the family had no choice but to do whatever she asked.

so she was a war survivor and a divorcee.

and, on top of everything else, a successful Black Market saleswoman.

we still don't know the details.

all we know is that she also managed to raise my mother: a woman whose nickname in high school was Barracuda.

according to our aunt, my mother was the type who actively disliked just about every boy in school, which in turn only increased her appeal and made said boys want her love all the more.

nothing changed when she graduated and took a job at the US military base near her hometown.

indeed, she had been proposed to several times, and even found herself occasionally serenaded in the Officers Club and bars and the like.

she was the shit.

and, according to her, she knew it.

the only person who didn't seem to know it was, of course, my clueless dad.

"Uh, dat's where YOU get it from," she told me, mid-story.

anywho.

apparently, my mother was confused as to why this one man just didn't seem to like her as much as all the other men she met.

What's wrong with him? she wondered, and, What's wrong with me?

she had to get to the bottom of it and make him notice her.

she tried flirting.

"But he was stupid and didn't notice."

"...I really didn't..."

"So I had to try eben hahdah."

"Yep. She did."

and so she resorted to spreading rumors about how she had a crush on Andy Toro - a rumor she hoped would reach him.

and it did.

"But I didn't really believe it," my dad interjected, "The guys would say things like, 'Hey, man, I heard Ms. Kim wants to have a tour of your tank.' And I'd be like, '...So?'"

and my mom shook her head.

"Useless."

finally, my mom took a more direct approach.

"Andy?" she asked one day, when they ran into each other, "Would you mind teaching me Englishy? My Englishy is uh berry bad."

"Huh?" was all my dad could say, clearly confused, "Um...I guess..."

and after just a couple of sessions, my dad finally came to his senses.

finally, he asked her out.

"Okay," she told him, "But I just hab to uh tell my boypriend I can't see him anymoh."

"...Boyfriend?!" my dad exclaimed.

"...Boyfriend?!!!" i exclaimed, years later.

"Uh huh," my mom went on, "Foh a while I was dating dis man wis biiig glasses, berry tall, berry white, but berry nice. He wanted to get married, but he couldn't marry me while in his kind obah job, so he quit and said we could stay in uh Korea for a few moh years so I could learn better English befoh we go to dah States."

i stared.

"Yeah. I felt so bad when I broke up wis him. I couldn't eben look him in the face when I did it. But aptahword, when we left dah restaurant, I finally looked up at him, and his glasses were so foggy, and I felt so bad, so I just reached out my hand and gabe him a handshake and said, 'Okay! Bye!' And dat was it. Huh. I wondah where he is now?'"

my dad shook his head.

"Yep. And I bet you regretted it ever since."

"...Maybe. hahahaha."

knowing this doesn't make the fact that both of my parents are sure that i take after my dad at all comforting.

"But look at it dis way," my mother tried to console me, "It's actually lucky you're a lesbian."

"...Why?"

"Girls like nerdy, awkward, shy people moh. Look at me and yoh daddy."