#monrok

Monrok has a really great sardonic opening that sets the table for the whole joyfully sarcastic set (that also just happens to be her first Conan appearance).

I have never been intimidated by beauty. I am not a jealous person. I’ve always wanted to be the “friend.” Ya know, the funny friend of the most popular and prettiest girl in high school. I made it happen; my best friend in high school won best smile, best looking, best personality, etc. In retrospect it’s kind of fucking ridiculous that we even had those superlatives. We’re educating students in science and at the same time giving them awards for being the best looking thing science has produced? What kind of message does that send?

Anyway, over the years I have always gravitated towards extremely good looking women. Contrary to popular belief, it was fairly easy to become friends with them. As I got to know more of this advanced species, I realized something: BEAUTIFUL WOMEN HAVE NO FRIENDS. 7’s, sure, 8’s, yea a few, 9’s at least one, but every 10 I have ever met has had no close female friends. When you are better looking than every girl you have ever met it can put you in a very lonely and isolated position. Bitches be hatin’. You have to be a pretty secure person to hang out with someone that literally makes you invisible.

I started analyzing groups of female friends. Most groups of girlfriends are a similar level in looks. If most people are unattractive, few people are attractive, and almost no people are “HOLY SHIT I WOULD KILL MY FAMILY FOR A CHANCE TO SIT NEXT TO YOU” good looking. As one of those few people, what are the chances that you are going to find a group of cohorts to hang out with? Most people are going to be less attractive than you - and pissed about it. All it takes is to see someone ridiculous once, to lower your number on the attractive scale. When I lived in Maryland, I thought I was an 8. Then I moved to Los Angeles and became a 4.

I do think that beautiful people struggle with their own issues, as trivial as they may seem. Imagine being so insanely hot that it’s all anyone can focus on and they have to comment about it within moments of meeting you. It’s like being overly tall,

“WOW YOU ARE SO TALL!”

“Yeah, I know. I live in this body.”

Everyone feels comfortable commenting on a person’s height but the tall person feels like a freak. Being noticed only for your appearance, whether good or bad, can be quite annoying. I once took a beautiful friend to a girls night where she didn’t know anyone and people felt comfortable commenting about how attractive she was to her face. Even with the barrage of compliments, I could tell she felt embarrassed and uncomfortable. They continued to keep alluding to it and make assumptions about her the rest of the night. “Well, I’m sure you’ve never had any trouble with guys, there’s probably a line out the door for you.” It was everyone else’s insecurity that was isolating her.

Good looks can also be a crutch. You can rely on your looks to get by. You don’t really have to study that hard, or develop a strong personality in order to be adulated. Life is a joy ride until you start to get older. Your looks fade and you suddenly feel irrelevant. Looks have been your currency and your sense of self worth. Who are you now?

There is a price tag for everything in life. It sucks to be stereotyped. If you are shy people assume you’re a bitch and if you’re nice people call you fake. Either way, you are still hotter than all of us and we wish we were you.

While I was preparing to head home for the holidays this year I started thinking about my childhood, and realized that I had zero attachment to my childhood home. Sure, I had many experiences there. Birthday parties, looking for insects in the backyard, swinging with my sister like monkeys from the coat bar in the basement closet - but if my parents sold that house tomorrow, I would feel nothing. “Am I dead inside?” I thought.

My parents were immigrants, and like many immigrants they turned up wherever they could get a foot in the door. My father had gotten a job as an assistant professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. We lived in a sub development about half an hour from the campus called Silver Spring, on Blue Jay Lane, where every house looked exactly the same. One builder was contracted to build several homes on a lot of land, and the only artistic thing he did was make the stone that each house was built out of a slightly different color than the next, just enough so you didn’t walk into your neighbor’s house by accident. Nothing around except for similar neighborhoods built upon the same formula for miles. The Theatre? Museums? Colonial Architecture? That was all in Washington D.C., which was much too far of a drive. We did the White House tour whenever a relative would visit and that was about it. I started thinking about my memories, specifically my childhood memories. What are they? What has stuck?

My first trip to India and consecutive summers there. Being exposed to that chaotic, majestic place. Showering out of a bucket. Walking a mile to get milk from the milk lady who gave us jars of it, fresh from her cows. Making homemade ice cream with my cousins that had funny Indian accents. Wrapping myself in wet sheets and sleeping outside on the veranda because it was too hot to sleep inside after the monsoon, and that fresh smell of wet mud right after the rainstorm. I pushed a cow once for trying to steal some of my soda and a herd of people starting chasing after me screaming - that part wasn’t so great. I didn’t have any of my things from home except for a couple books. It was so simple, yet so fulfilling. Children are all the same, no matter where they are in the world and what they have, they will always figure out a way to play. I didn’t have an etch-a-sketch, so I drew in the dirt with a stick, AND IT WAS FINE. 

I remember when I went to France with my father on a business trip. I felt like I had never eaten food before and my entire existence was a complete sham. The first night we were there my mom was reluctant to stop at any restaurant without fully dissecting the menu because she wanted it to be the best meal of her life. She made us walk for hours and right when we were about to stop she saw something that looked “quite charming” at the top of a hill so we took all the energy we had left to climb to the top. We sat down and I proceeded to have the best French Onion Soup of my life. The Gruyere cheese had dripped around the side of the bowl to form a hardened cheese crust. I punctured it with my spoon and swallowed up chunks of warm French bread (FROM FRANCE! Do they just call it bread here?) soaked in rich, syrupy beef broth. And it was, the best meal of my life.

In comparison, growing up in a suburb community almost felt like growing up on a television set, but the crew was made up of landscapers who only showed up once every other week. It was a 4-bedroom house in a very safe neighborhood and I had my own room (even though my little sister slept with me most nights), but there was something eerie about it. I spent most weekends at the mall, as it was the only thing to do. I collected various junk from the local “Kids R Us” toy store and enough cheap clothes for an entire school grade of kids. It was the definition of consumerism, and I don’t remember any of it.

In my pseudo-adulthood, the most important thing to me is who’s in my house, not how big it is. I don’t understand the desire for a fancy car at this stage, socially. Cars are mobility, you use them to work and to see the people you love, not to impress them – I know that now. I value diversity, culture, and Malaysian food.

My mother called me this morning to tell me she found about 400 stuffed animals among other things in the basement that she has no idea what to do with. “How do you feel about me getting rid of all of your childhood things?”

Burn them. (No, give them to charity, of course. It’s just fun to declare the burning of things.)

My parents can move, the stuffed animals can be given away, but the property won’t be missed. I will never remember the year I got my Summertime Barbie, but I will never forget the day I tasted French Onion Soup.

I was at Trader Joe's in the chocolate covered whatever they decided to cover in chocolate this month aisle when I overheard this conversation:

“I mean I don’t know what to do. I’m 29 and he hasn’t proposed yet. What do I do? What if he never proposes and then I’ll be 30 and screwed. If I break it off now at least that would give me some time to find someone else.”

30. That final annual frontier in a woman’s life. Examining where society expects you to be vs. where you think you should be vs. where you are.

You should have kids by now.

I should be married by now.

I’m single. 

A few of my friends are married, many are single, and everyone is freaked out about it. Some women have a solid prerogative to be married by the age of 30. There is the “born bride.” This woman has one thing on her mind, and it sparkles. She already has her wedding dress picked out despite the fact she has no suitors. She knows exactly where it will be. “I’m going to have a destination wedding in Montana.” She wants a wedding and goddamn it she is going to get one at all costs. If she has to be a bridesmaid at 100 weddings, she will do it. The guy? He’s irrelevant. If you are willing to propose, she is going to say yes. It’s the event she’s after. The title of “wife.” The status of being “married,” and you bet she will update her Facebook status before the wedding has even ended. This woman feels that it is better to be with anybody than to be alone. She wants children. Marriage is a long and tough road so better to get some kids and take a chance on divorce than to end up with nothing.

Then there is the woman that is holding out for true love. She will take on her thirties single if no one came along earlier on. This woman wants to meet “the one.” She wants butterflies, to get lost in one another’s eyes or whatever the hell people do, and weekends away where you don’t leave the hotel room - the whole package.  She will hold out until she finds him. 33. 35. 37…just try her. She WILL NOT SETTLE, and yes, one day her perfect man could very likely show up and sweep her off her feet, or she could die trying. Either way, she would rather be alone than be with someone she doesn’t look forward to seeing at the end of the day. After all, isn’t that the point of marriage? Finding someone you love to spend the rest of your life with? She is a strong woman, completely self sufficient and independent. To her, marriage is a blessing in life, not a right. Or is it? Every year after 30 seems more difficult, she feels more undesirable, she has a newly found feeling of insecurity that has nothing to do with who she is. What is happening? Is it real? Or is she doing it to herself?

30 plays a huge role in the decisions we make as women, and in how we feel about ourselves. We can either fear it, or embrace it, the latter being a hundred times harder. It’s just one birthday. You get to be so many different ages, why is there such a huge emphasis on just this one? 

Even I fell victim to it. Allow me to share this excerpt from a notebook I used to write joke premises in, from late 2008:

“MONROK hates marriage, she will never get married, it’s a stupid contract between two people that means nothing but a tax break. What’s wrong with just being in a relationship with someone forever? You shouldn’t need a piece of paper to make it last, that’s so unromantic. If you really want to be with someone, just be with them. You don’t need a wedding to sit next to someone until one of you dies.”

So naturally, within 12 months of my 31st birthday, I was at the altar.  

Lots of things in life have a shelf life. Ballroom Dancers, Music Careers, and women. We expire at 35. At least, that’s what society tells us. So we better “have our shit figured out by then.”

It’s up to us to change this dated perception, because nobody is going to do it for us. I know it’s hard. It’s hard to look in the mirror and see frown lines suddenly appear between your brows and think “I AM SO ON BOARD WITH THIS!!!!” However constantly focusing on it and stressing out about it is only going to make it worse. If you don’t think your age is a big deal, no one else will. The bigger deal is who you are and what you know about yourself. I live in Los Angeles. It’s the only place in the world where the yoga instructors have plastic surgery. (THIS MAKES NO SENSE.) The power is in OUR hands. 30, 42, 53…these are just chapters that represent the fleeting time we have as tenants on this earth. If your life is a book and you’re flipping through it counting the chapters, you will have missed the whole story.

So the next time someone asks you your age, don’t be a baby – just say it. It’s time to flip the switch. A true man never asks a woman her age? No. A true woman shares her age when asked.

My name is MONROK, and I am 32 years old.

I live in Los Angeles. People LOVE to talk about Los Angeles, especially people that don’t live here. I have heard many people from all over the country talk about how shallow and superficial this city is. “Everyone is too into how they look, it’s too laid back, it’s yoga obsessed, nobody is getting anything done.”

I have to admit I myself am guilty of saying some the above when I first moved to LA. Coming from the east coast, it’s very easy to label anything different as negative. What’s with all these vegans? Why is everyone so casually dressed and creepily nice? Is this really la-la land?

After living in LA for over a decade now, my impression has changed. I see a bunch of people that have figured it out. I see people that are brave, people that left their families and communities to do something different. I see a work to leisure balance that allows you to be in good form. I see people costing the health care system the least. I see people that care about animals, and people that care about the environment. I see the most beautiful people in the world. I see people that are happy, people that smile, people that want to pet your dog. I see people reading outside in the sun. I see runners, hikers, bikers, mountain climbers, volleyball players, surfers, swimmers, yogis, and spinners. I see a bunch of people profiting from every avenue of life. 

I used to fantasize about the hustle and bustle of a big city lifestyle. My sister lived in NY for three years and said: “New York has made me tough, I don’t give a shit, I could shoot a man on the street.” Woah, woah, woah! I then realized I don’t want to be rude, hardened and stressed out. I actually LIKE my life in Los Angeles. It might not be the most exciting thing in the world, but it’s pretty damn great. I live in a beautiful townhome at a fair price and survive off of being a COMEDIAN, which is the most bullshit job if I’ve ever heard of one. The biggest cause of stress in my life is whether or not my dog has taken a shit. When I’m tired, I can just sleep. I take NAPS. And yes, I go to the gym EVERY DAY, because I have the TIME. Time is not money. TIME IS TIME, and if you have some left over, there ain’t nothin better.