I'm sitting in the back of a vintage Volvo, wearing my oversized gray hoodie with the hood down. We are heading towards downtown portland, to some chick restaurant for people too cool to be chick. My childhood friend is driving, his caucasian wife if in the passenger seat. he's asking me how my parents are, but instead of describing how they are I describe what it was like for me to spend the previous weekend with my parents. Always answer the more interesting question, I heard once, and in most cases I am more interested in myself.

Anyway, I tell them that the weird thing about staying with my parents is everything in their house feels hyper small, which is normal since I was hyper small when I grew up there. I told them about how when taking a shower I am reminded of my father's obsession with not wearing things out. As in, don't shut doors too hard and by all means do not turn the knobs on the facets too tight. I told them at 41 I am still hyper vigilant not to wrench up the shower facets, but that the facets were about 40 years old, and never worth a whole lot to begin with, so clearly my father had gotten his money's worth. I told my friends that I wanted to tall my dad that, and that maybe it was time he go ahead and wrench these things up. Like, "Hey Dad, think you got your money's worth!"

And the funny thing was my friends laughed. And for the first time in months, I felt connected.

I've never been one to make many friends but and fewer still who really get my sense of humor. I would say my humor is a cross between west coast subtleness and new york brash. And that is quite a cross. My humor is hard to detect, but there, and for those who can pick up on it, it can be bitterly harsh.

But this story is not about my humor, or lack thereof, but rather about being connected. Being in the back of that car and with people who understand me made me just want to giggle. My joy was palatable. But then the evening ended, and I was back at work and then back in Beijing, where there are damn few folks who would laugh at the facet story, and my depression was just as high as my joy was the prior week.

This sense of feeling connected and then feeling depressed upon the absence of connection, makes me wonder if the connection was worth it.

And it's then that I think I am a lot like my father.