Eccentric Asians, Man-Eating Pandas & Other Mysteries of the World

Elon Musk Creates Our Future

Elon Musk, the current most revered inventor, a visionary who extends his talent from electric car, solar power to space travel, a dreamer who convinced us that the hyperloop could be a reality and a true innovator who gets his ideas during morning showers.  He runs three companies, serves as CEO for two and chairman for one.  Yet he still has time to tweet.  He posts for magazine covers like a true hero.  With his charisma and super brain, he is one of the most exciting inventors of our time.  I truly admire him.

I married an inventor once before, Dr. Arnold Lande, son of a famous Germany physicist Alfred Lande.  A trained heart surgeon and a talented medical device inventor, Arnie has invented the first commercial produced membrane oxygenator with the founder of Medtronic, Dr. C. Walton Lillehei.  He puts himself to sleep by inventing a upside-down catamaran.  His invention includes an wearable artificial kidney, an artificial lung, a diving gill and a frozen yogurt machine.  The following is a story about my exciting life with Dr. Arnold Lande.

            Lolita II: A Chinese Student's Story

            Call me Lolita if you want, although I am not fourteen.  Sometimes I hold his neck, whispering into his ears sweetly, "Manny, you are so cute."  Sometimes, at the end of our daily running, when he mercilessly passes me by, I will say angrily, "Yuck".  Manny and I run along the Mississippi every morning and evening, in the rain, after the snow, under the sun and in the wind.  We have left so many pairs of invisible footprints that even the road begins breathing the same rhythm.  Only in the winter, our two pairs of foot prints are visible on the snow.  His is the one with toes slightly pointing inward; mine is the one with toes slightly pointing outward.  Now these two pairs of feet diverge and are no longer next to each other.  They go off to the different directions and will never come together again.

            I have to see him again, my husband, Manny, whom I just separated from a month ago.  I have been very slow on moving.  It has been almost two months since I moved out.  I have not yet finished the moving.  I am a little scared of seeing him.  Scary may not be an exact word.  But it is close.  Nowadays, whenever I think of being with him alone in his office at the quiet quarter of Doctor's sleeping rooms, I always imagine him hitting me on the head or jabbing me with a knife.  That is how much I think he will hate me for leaving him, for ending our five years of wonderful marriage (he would say so).

            I have to see him now.  I want to show him I am determined and will not change my mind.  It did happen once when we were dating.  I went away and came back.  That was almost six years ago.

            I was a graduate student in the Biomedical Engineering Program at the University of Houston then.  I came to the United States in a way like most other Chinese students did --- going to the graduate school.  I met Manny in the Cardiovascular Fluid Dynamics Laboratory where I worked as a research assistant.  Manny was trying to do a joint research project with my boss.  It turned out the project did not work and Manny got a girlfriend in compensation.  He started the relationship by teaching me how to drive.  By the time I got the driver license, we had also gone to the movie theaters, concerts, ballets and sailing trips.  I had a wonderful time.  Then one day, I suddenly disappeared (in his words).  I left him for a handsome young Chinese student.  Actually he happened to be my roommate in a same house.  He dated me out of convenience (I did not know at the time).  He was so possessive that he did not even let me answer Manny's phone call.

            On a Saturday afternoon, I ran into Manny in my lab.  That was not exactly the case.  Since he no longer collaborated with my boss, he was not there by chance.  He went to see me there.  Although I was the only one in the lab at the time, his sudden appearance did not scare me.  At age fifty-four, he had a youthful, pleasant look, even with his salt-pepper hair.  He wore jeans, a red button-down cotton shirt and a pair of new-balance running shoes.  His slender, medium-sized body looked fit and healthy.  His eyes were twinkling.

            "Bonnie, how are you?"

            "I'm...I'm fine."  I stuttered.  I was not good at patching up misconduct.  I did not know how to explain my disappearance.  For a girl from China, going out with men was something new.

            "Have I hurt you?"  He asked earnestly.

            "No."

            "So why do you leave me?"

            "You...you are too old."  I finally uttered the real reason.

            "Okay, I hope I did not hurt you."  He patted me on the shoulder, winked at me and left swiftly.

            After I broke up with my handsome roommate, I made a point calling him, although without any serious intention in mind.

            He recognized my voice right away.  "Bonnie, it's so nice to hear from you."  He sounded so sweet that I decided to try again with him.

            On my birthday, he took me out to a nice seafood restaurant along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.  We had fresh oysters and shrimp.  Then we went back to his house and swam in his swimming pool.

            After we both dried ourselves with towels, he suddenly held me tightly against his naked chest, nothing sexual though.  

            "Bonnie, I don't want to loss you again."  He said.  Although he did not cry, I could sense the deep emotion hidden behind his bony, tan chest.

            These words were like religion, the gospel of my life.  I obeyed.  We got married a year later.

            Now six years after that incident, I cannot think of any reason why it should happen again.  Things change, situations change, I tell myself.

            He has taken away my car, yet I feel the most free, even though I have to go to work by bus every day.  Today I am driving my boyfriend's car, I feel very restrained.  I am going to see these people, people I use to see everyday in the hospital, the nurses, volunteers, janitors and cafeteria workers.  They are used to see us, an odd couple, and everyday, coming to work together and having lunch together.

To be continued in my book: