Halloween already?!!

Halloween? November already?

Last weekend, the optics hunk and I took on an uncharacteristic challenge of party-hopping. We started with my firm's attorney retreat in Scottsdale. We were nervous about our 50s' outfit choice. Before we stepped out of our hotel room, we patted each other on the shoulder: at least we tried. But it turned out that we were among the handful of people who actually dressed up for the rooftop party. Also much to the delight of the optics hunk, he got compliments for being "really cute." So I paraded him around like a prize pony.

Remind me again, how did he shake off the bowl-cut, geek swirl glasses, and knee-high socks and mature into such a fine, good-looking young man?

Thank me again, and my impeccable taste.

After a night filled with Elvis quivers and unorganized dancing, we stopped by our favorite restaurant in Phoenix, Chino Bandido. Back in the old days, I was a follower of Guy Fieri's carb porn show the Triple D. Owned by an interracial couple, Chino Bandido was one of the diners Guy visited during his Arizona road trip, and it featured an unusual fusion of Chinese and Mexican comfort food. We first visited the place in March 2010, after a late flight from San Francisco. To fill the Brad-Nelson-Iris-shaped holes in our heart, we braved through a rare storm in Phoenix and arrived at the place.

That meal was cheap, fulfilling, warm, and delicious. The Chinese-Mexican combo reflected exactly how the optics hunk and I ate on a daily basis: he got his burrito, I got my bowl of rice, no cheese. We parted ways in our eating habits, but we also stole bites from each other's plate in a semi-savage manner often known as sharing.

After we paid pilgrimage to our shrine, we headed to our second-round of wholesome partying, at my host mom, Carmen's place. Carmen is one of the most inspiring persons I know. She has a big heart, travels extensively, and radiates sunshine into other people's lives.

I knew Carmen through a host family program, International Friends. A few weeks after I got in Tucson, I received a call from Carmen, a judge in town who decided to take me after seeing my name--a lone law student--on the list waiting to be loved and included. I did a similar program in college and thought it was just a welcoming formality, as I had dinner with that family once or twice and then never heard from them again. Based on that experience, I did not see how International Friends would be any different, but I signed up anyway, desperately wanting to meet people. And luckily, Carmen picked me and became a powerful presence in my life. She not only showed me around to get to know Tucson better, but also taught me how to embrace and love Tucson, and its wonderful people. She restored my faith in the goodness of people.

Finally, after my dark and twisty days in the depressingly gloomy New England, let there be light, Tucson!

It was a woefully short stay at Carmen's party. Every year, Carmen's party grew bigger and bigger. She has such amazingly positive energy, and people are naturally drawn towards her. The optics hunk and I left to make room for the incoming crowd, driving to our next destination, a dinner party at his friend, Manal's house.

I adore a low-key get-together like this, where people from diverse backgrounds simply relish in good food and good conversations. That feeling of tangible connection with other individuals--in our commonality of differences--makes me feel warm from the inside.

I always complain that I hardly have any Chinese friends. I don't quite fit in the Chinese way, but I don't fit in other ways either. In the end, I think I am becoming a country of my own, raising my own army, setting up my own defense, and putting down my own safety net. Do I miss that bonds with people from my country? Oh yeah, very much so. In my dreams, I could see clear and blurry faces from my high school, wearing that same hideous-looking uniform, speaking in that same dear voice, and laughing that never-ending laugh for the same lack of reason.

But I have always been too proud, too busy, too stubborn, and too critical--too much for a Chinese girl. In my mind's eye, I can see my parents doing chest-bumps and victory dance at home right now, celebrating and exclaiming: thank God/Budda/all deities in the world, finally a taker from the brave wild West!

The last stop was the optics party. The optics hunk dressed as Gob, his favorite character from The Arrested Development. He donned a suggestively translucent and half-buttoned white shirt that truly revealed his credentials as the optics hunk. I was supposed to be his ambiguously British sidekick. He downloaded the Final Showdown to his Iphone as entrance music, practiced the awkward dance moves and forever-failing magic tricks, and even thought about rolling around a Segway.

We thought we would be a huge hit.

We were wrong. People at that particular party were ill-informed of the infamous characters from the show. We exchanged a sympathetic glance with the similarly underrecognized Tobias in snakeskin flare pants. Later we found out that at a graduate mathematics party somewhere else, 15 people coordinated their Arrested Development looks.

But still, not a bad way to end the night.

The next morning, we bid an official farewell to our short-lived glamorous Lindsay Lohan way of life. I spent a holy day doing a writing competition, and then started a week of eye-gorging exam studying. The optics hunk went back to his power point monkey mode, churning out overly meticulous slides to prepare for a conference in Austin.

Also, for those of you who had no clue who the optics hunk is, that's Blake. Not the Blake Lively Blake, though.