Mark Making

It was good while it lasted.

2009-09-01T23:29:00.000-07:00

Like all positive things in life, the only thing to say will be "It was good while it lasted." The bed was good. The easel is good. And I feel good building things, even if they don't last.

It's easy to tell when you having finished building a bed or an easel. And it's pretty easy to tell when you've outgrown such things and need to move on, even if there's a part of you that hates to admit it. Still, at the end of the day, you can say, "It was good while it lasted."

In many ways, Mark Making has been about building. However, unlike physical objects that show signs of wear and use -- and thus, allow one to more easily judge when to move on -- deciding when to end such a project is not nearly so easy. In all seriousness, it could go on for the rest of my life. But should it?

Unfortunately, no. Simply, I am moving on with my life, which will have other forms of mark making, but not in the form of this blog. While we most often think of moving from Point A to Point B involving a purging of physical belongings, it is often the intangible things that are the hardest to let go, the most difficult to say, "It was good while it lasted." After all, they are the easiest to bring along. But that doesn't mean you should.

No matter how long you've been reading Mark Making -- or for that matter, regardless what you think of it -- thank you. I wrote in my first entry, "I decided to venture into blogging as another means of sharing." By virtue of reading, you helped to make the project worthwhile. And in case there are things may want to return to, whether that be my writing, links on the right, etc., the site will remain accessible, at least for a little while.

Enough. Good night, you princes of Maine, you kings of New England.

41.57709, -74.08367

2009-09-01T14:08:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I got lost. Very lost. Like, 200 miles out of my way lost in upstate New York. Damn signage, or lack thereof. Needless to say, I was not happy about this, despite the beauty of the quiet Sunday sunset illuminating the lush forests lining the highway. As it was, I was already brewing about something else entirely that left me feeling lonely, plus I was extremely tired and hungry. Those factors combined with knowing that I was 300 miles away from Montreal necessitated one thing: a pause. To look figure out where the hell I was. To shut my eyes for a couple minutes. To use a restroom. To splash some water on my face. To grab some coffee and something sweet.

Exits on Route 87 in New York are not frequent, let alone rest stops. Lucky for me, the Plattekill Service Area -- wherever the hell that was -- happened to be 20 miles ahead, so that was my destination. What was even luckier was that they had Internet, which was especially useful in mapping my location via Google Maps, seeing as my atlas did not contain Plattekill. After all, it's hard to find your way home when you don't even know your current location.

The Plattekill Service Area was, in many ways, the perfect rest stop. It was exactly what I needed, which I suppose is what service areas intend to do. I mean, I'm not trying to glorify it -- I do realize that service areas on major roadways are common and boring -- but the one in Plattlekill was worth remembering, if only for the weird name.

When I was checking out the upcoming episode for this week's This American Life, the topic of "Rest Stop" brought to mind my fairly recent encounter with this American institution. You know how much I dig that mundane Updike stuff, so the promise of "Nine radio producers. Two days. One rest stop on the New York State Thruway." had me hooked and eagerly anticipating for it to air in a few days.

I always click on the icon pictures for the shows, seeing as more often than not, they make odd pairings with the episode's content, much like Jared Diamond picking a disturbingly various array of ethnic portraits as the illustrations for Guns, Germs, and Steel. In other words, the pictures leave you scratching your head, which I'm okay with. So I clicked on the picture of a mini mart in a rest stop interior, which for once, actually made sense.

This week's picture had an added bonus: a link to not only more pictures, but a map. Yes, A MAP.

Half of the reason why people visit iconic sites like the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall, and other grand national monuments is so they can know and say, "I've been there." It's a way of constructing and expanding one's geographic identity. It makes the world seem bigger yet more accessible, more yours. And I am confident that one day, I will visit many landmarks that have such global importance. I look forward to that.

But for the time being -- and for that matter, always -- I have places like Shillington...and against all odds, the Platteville Service Area.

Stop Your Sobbing

2009-08-31T12:49:00.000-07:00

With a father who owns a janitorial company, my family has been lucky to never be at a loss for cleaning supplies. While his occupation has its perks, it also means that any purchase of a cleaning product from the supermarket is perceived as wasteful and comes under great scrutiny. For instance, I wanted to purchase a Swiffer awhile ago and the suggestion was considered in hushed tones as some sort of act of betrayal. Anyway, while I understand that Swiffers rank high on the non-green list of cleaning supplies, you can be assured that upon having my own place, I will abandon my Lisa Simpson-esque antics and purchase one in a stupid act of rebellion.

Perhaps the reluctance to purchase any other cleaning supplies rests in the fact that all possible animosity over such materials was used up over a decade ago on one thing: tissues. I don't remember how the mini war began, but my mother decided that she wanted better tissues. More precisely, she wanted Kleenex. The generic ones were not cutting it. They were thin and rough, so if you had any semblance of a runny nose, the tissues happily expedited the process of you looking like Rudolph.

And so she bought a Kleenex box with a van Gogh sunflower pattern. I hazily remember that this purchase did not go over well, but my mother persisted in her plight for soft and thick tissues. My sister and I liked them better, too. After all, we were a weepy set of daughters: Sam crying over math homework and me sobbing over more abstract things that I couldn't explain, like Sunday school crossword puzzles and John Travolta dying in Michael.

During my senior year of high school, I discovered a new brand of tissues that I favored over the sunflower box Kleenex. My photography teacher introduced me to Anti-Viral Kleenex, which is the 800-count Egyptian thread bedding of the tissue world: total luxury for your nose. For some reason, the Anti-Viral Kleenex has swirly blue dot patterns covering it, as though to convince the consumer that the dots are the Anti-Viral part and the white is the Kleenex part. My teacher kindly shared his far superior Kleenex with his students, for while having a cold is unfortunate, his artistic intuition renders him especially attuned to understanding the sensory contrast between a comfortable tissue and a sore nose, among other things.

Thus, when it came time to purchase tissues for college -- the first time in your life when you get to decide what products you want to use, however banal they may be -- I selected the Anti-Viral Kleenex. I went through a lot of those tissues during my freshman year and was careful to stock up during home visits, seeing as the limited shopping options of Hamilton, NY did not provide the option of Anti-Viral Kleenex. So much depended on that Kleenex.

These blue-dotted tissues remained my top choice until this past winter. Somehow, the final stretch of my thesis coincided with what I would identity as one of the worst colds I have ever endured, one that rendered my nose disgustingly chapped and red in a way that I hope to never see it again. In fact, it lasted throughout the entirety of winter break and necessitated that I tote around a box of tissues at work. But before any of that happened, I had to pump out my remaining thesis pages, which rendered no time to go off in pursuit of the Anti-Viral Kleenex I had come to know and love over the past four years.

So I bought what I conceived to be the next best thing: Puffs with Lotion. I felt like a traitor, as though I was somehow betraying my beloved Anti-Viral Kleenex. But I had to do it. I didn't have a choice. It was 2AM. I needed tissues. So I took what I could get.

Since arriving home in May, I have not bought tissues. I use whatever we happen have around the house. A part of me likes not having to make this decision, to not have to choose between Anti-Viral Kleenex and Puffs with Lotion.

You see, if you put me in the tissue aisle and told me to select one of those two, I don't know if I could do it. I really don't think so. I can't explain it. So don't ask me why, but the thought of even having to make that choice makes me want to burst into tears.

I Like...Maps

2009-08-30T21:18:00.000-07:00

There's a little bit of a theme going on with this week's "I Like This." I like themes. I also like maps. And if you're into those things, I'd like you to check it out.

Through the Looking Glass

2009-08-30T19:42:00.000-07:00

The other day, I pulled out my parents' wedding album. I don't know why I thought of it; it just kind of popped into my head while I was sitting alone at home, eating a bowl of cold linguine. The album is not kept in a prominent place that beckons one to say "Look at me!" like a coffee table book. Rather, the album is stored in the least used piece of furniture in the least inhabited part of the house: a chest in the foyer.

As I flipped through the pages, I found myself thinking more about the person who I was when I had last looked at these photographs than the photographs themselves. The last time I perused the album must have been at least ten years ago, if not more. When you're younger, you look for pictures and objects that help you to piece together whatever world existed before you came along. Some children are more angsty about this problem than others: the idea that the people who created you came before you. As for me, I was always more curious than indignant.

However, over time, the concern for whatever previous eras passed before you lessens. You no longer see the photographs and objects as methods of constructing history, as "those belonged to Daddy and Mommy." Maybe the photographs and objects don't ever transition from being "theirs" to "ours," but nevertheless, they inhabit your world and you possess some sense of ownership over them. Sooner or later, they become like the rest of the photographs and objects in your home.

But every now and then, you'll find yourself examining at them with the eyes of a three year-old and it's like looking at the night sky for the first time. It's bigger than you and there's nothing that you can do to make sense of it.

Tonight, I was attempting to unwind in all ways possible, which led me to the basement with Cat Power's The Greatest in tow. Barefoot and clad in a painfully color-coordinated lounge wear outfit (oversize Colgate sweatpants, tiny maroon spaghetti strap tank, and white sports bra) with my hair in a bun that resembled a pastry in a way that it never has before, I became Miss Gumby as I stretched and bended in every way humanly possible. And when I was extended backwards over my green exercise ball -- a giant gumball of a thing that could probably use some air -- my almost 23 year-old eyes settled on one of those things that existed long before me.

A foosball board. Any foosball board these days would have legs, but this one circa 1975 does not. So you sit on the floor with your own legs tucked under you or out at your sides, your back hunched forward a little bit as you concentrate on controlling the long knobs that connect to the lines of little men.

When my parents were a few years older than me, living in an apartment behind the middle school that I would attend two decades later and saving all of their change in a huge plastic pretzel jar, the foosball board was the central object of their dates. Yes, that was my parents' idea of a cheap date, sitting on the floor playing foosball, my father on the red side and my mother on the yellow side. Maybe they were drinking cheap beer and eating salt and vinegar potato chips. Maybe the TV was playing in the background. Maybe they were wearing their pajamas.

They haven't touched the board in years, although I distinctly recall watching a game when I was very young. My parents rarely exhibit any sense of competition with one another, seeing as they don't have any common ground on which to compete, like sports or cooking. And they rarely argue. So there's never any sort of dynamic action to watch, unlike some couples who, for better or worse, are constantly engaging in some highly watchable way. My parents don't make very good people-watching material, which suits me just fine.

But when it comes to foosball, my parents went into an entire other mode: one that I have yet to see again, although have seen traces of during a game of badminton or laser tag. My sister and I looked at one another, taken aback at their antics and fervor as the white ball rolled around the board, occasionally bouncing out of bounds onto the red carpet. The black-haired players spun wildly at their quick hands, skilled as though my parents had competed professionally in the Olympics. They called each other out on tilting the board. They disputed unfair goals. They cheered at their victories. They were not my parents, at least how I knew them.

I rolled off of my giant green ball and stared at the foosball board propped up against the wall. I spun the handles and watched the players sporting their ketchup and mustard uniforms rotate a dizzying 360-degrees. I considered the foosball itself, still white and mapped with scratches, and marveled that although unattached from the board itself, it had not been absorbed into our black hole of a home like other game pieces. The pegs from Trouble, houses from Monopoly, architectural ruins of Mousetrap -- yes, all of those have become separated from their home boxes. But no, not the foosball, a sphere that seemingly repels entropy and any sensibility of our current family.

For no reason at all, I looked at the gigantic wall mirror that makes the room appear twice as large. Two punching bags, two treadmills, two universal gyms, two green balls. One me. For a split second, I had one of those strange childhood moments in which you look in the mirror and become entirely unsure of everything and anything. You look yourself square in the eye and it's like looking at a stranger. Maybe you got lost in the mirror. Maybe you got lost in yourself.

But what you do know is that the only thing you want is to run to your room, where everything belongs to you.

Little Kids v. Big Kids

2009-08-27T21:48:00.000-07:00

We were sitting by the river, enjoying the shade provided by the bridge, and taking turns talking. I was working on drawing a picture of a bridge on his iTouch. Once I got the hang of the mechanics of the application -- called iBrush or something like that -- the ultimate struggle was color selection. If you are one of those people who has had difficulty in picking the perfect crayon from a Crayola 96-pack, the iBrush palette will drive you to the edge of your sanity. If you are drawing a bridge like I was, you will reach a point when you envision a little version of yourself jumping off of it in an act of artistic desperation. But when you get the right color -- well, your fingers do a little bit of a strut as you run your fingers across the smooth screen.

"Whatcha doin'?"

I glanced behind me to see two kids on a bicycle; one was probably ten and the other about seven. The children proceeded to interrogate us about why my friend and I were not swimming in the river. They remained unsatisfied with our answers, pressing us on why we didn't want to get wet and how we knew the water was dirty. They eventually requested that we get in the river so we could report to them about the water's depth. The children reasoned that we were taller than them and therefore were more qualified to assess the depth.

Throughout the entirety of this exchange, I remained fixated on drawing my bridge, so I was remarkably startled when I looked up to see the older boy stripped to his underwear and beginning to climb into the river. I suppose he had given up on us.

My friend and I exchanged glances and walked away. Unsupervised children swimming in a dirty river is a glaring liability. So we set a distance between ourselves and the children, far enough that they would lose track of us.

I had been startled that the children had even approached us. What happened to the "no talking to strangers" rule -- something that seems to be a million times more important in today's world than it even did fifteen years ago when I was that age?

"Don't we look like adults? Don't we look like the sort of people who kids would know not to talk to?" I asked.

He paused. "They're city kids."

I don't think that answer satisfied either of us, but we failed to produce any other explanation.

"The record shows I took the blows/And did it my way!"

2009-08-25T19:50:00.000-07:00

If you haven't figured this out by now, I love school. For as much as it always pained me to see summers end during my secondary school years, buying supplies was enough to persuade me that yes, I wanted to go back. For my sister and I, school supplies were not limited to the typical folders and notebooks. For the types of things we produced, we needed more than that, like complete sets of color sharpies, five different types of paper (copy paper, graph paper, vellum, cardstock, lined), and three different kinds of glue (white, stick, rubber cement).

Other parents would have scoffed at this wide array of necessities, but no, not our mom. She has a keen understanding that to produce good work, you need the right materials. You can't skimp. Furthermore, I think there's something to be said that if you have the high quality tools, a person will want results worthy of their investment.

Unfortunately, not all subjects in secondary school mandate interesting supplies. Specifically, math. It pretty much requires a pencil, a lot of paper, and a calculator. Maybe a ruler.

Not surprisingly, math never captured my interest. My sister had similar sentiments, except she would cry over it. Seriously, math was a sobbing event for her. It just didn't require a pencil, paper, calculator, and ruler. Those were secondary tools. The most important thing for her were tissues.

As for me, I never got that upset because I didn't care as much. Math was something that I understood to be a necessity. Yes, I did my fare share of struggling without tears. But more than anything, I found it to be irritating because I conceived of other subjects as being more worthy of my time and efforts.

Every now and then, I genuinely hated math. Loathed it. Wanted to see it murdered. That type of extreme dark dislike. Third grade was the worst because of these certain types of worksheets that we always did in class, never as homework. They were printed on one sheet, divided into four parts. The first part had a story, a problem of sorts that involved things like alliterative names to mess you up or various measurements of speeds, sizes, distances, measurements, and times. The second part would have questions that prompted you to summarize the given information. Section three gave you some guidelines on solving the problem. And the fourth section was some stupid reflection thing.

I now realize that these worksheets served to develop complex problem solving skills and verse children in critical thinking. As for me, I still firmly believe that I got nothing out of them. They just tested my patience -- and about midway through the year, I had none left for these asinine worksheets.

I distinctly recall one day in February, our teacher announced that the first task for the next morning would be one of these deplorable worksheets. Maybe she was trying to mentally prepare us for it, seeing as I was not the only one who hated them. While I have never been one to criticize my secondary school teachers, I think that half the problem with doing these worksheets was the teacher: she was never especially patient with us, especially in math class. I think that's half of why I dreaded them -- it meant that she would get in a bad mood, which is downright terrible when you are stuck with that person in a classroom all day long. Now that was worth crying over. Come to think of it, I spent a lot of time crying in third grade and I can tell you it had nothing to do with math.

Just like you know that I love school, you also probably know that I'm a fan of saying "screw it." Granted, the "screw it" mentality needs to be used responsibly, not recklessly. If you start telling me about something you don't want to do, you can guarantee that I will press you on whether or not you actually have to do it. To me, if you don't want to do something and it's not absolutely necessary, then you shouldn't do it. Life is too short to be following the "I should" agenda driven by other people's goals. On the glass full side, do what you want to do. And damn it, do it your way.

It is only recently that I have come to understand that this mentality, attitude, or whatever you want to call it, is a huge part of me. But it's always been there. Like that morning in third grade. Before school, I didn't feel so well. Or so I said. And so I went into school late, which meant that I completed the worksheet that night in the comfort of my home. And it was surprisingly easy without my teacher yelling at me and sitting at a table with five other upset children. Who would have thought?

You Are Now Entering...

2009-08-24T23:21:00.000-07:00

Over a month ago, I decided that I wanted to embark upon a project: watch all of original The Twilight Zone series. With 156 episodes and a plan to do at least one episode a week, it will probably take one to two years. For those of you who are wondering...no, this project was not inspired by Julie and Julia. I thought of it long before seeing that.

The reason why it will take so long to get through all of the episodes is I'm not just watching them -- I'm writing about each one. After all, the reason why I like the show is because it makes me think and I have things to say about it. And hence, this writing will go on a blog, Time Enough At Last, for those interested in perusing it. On a personal note, this project also serves as a way to keep up with academically-geared writing, much like Mark Making fulfills that for my creative side.

Ah, the things I do to compensate for the lack of a syllabus.

Popular Mechanics

2009-08-24T22:24:00.000-07:00

I stopped by to return a book and hadn't been expecting to stay long. Drop it off, maybe checkout another one. Yes, one of the perks of working at a bookstore is that you can use it as a personal library, checking out a couple titles at a time. And save Obama, who is seriously reading more than two books at time?Aside from John Updike releases -- which I suspect have ended after the recent release of The Maples Stories from earlier this month -- I rarely purchase anything there. Everything is cheaper in used bookstores and on Amazon.

Somehow, a pit stop turned into an eight hour shift of various tasks in the stock room. Not like I minded. Not like I had any other plans for my Friday night. There are some places where you simply enjoy existing. So you stay. So I stayed.

Among my various accomplishments for the evening was assembling a child's easel. I don't fully understand why the company has decided to transform the Kids section into Toys 'R Us, but as a part of this agenda, we've received various playthings, like one of those bead and wire rollercoaster things. And now the easel.

I am not one of those people who actively seeks out things to assemble, like model ships or cars. But when the opportunity presents itself for me to get my hands on something that requires an instruction booklet, I'm all for it. Bring it on. I won't even get up to use the bathroom until it's done. I get very serious about stuff like this, sitting on the floor and furrowing my brow a lot, all deep in thought.

It took about two hours to build. As to be expected, the instructions were terrible, which was half of the fun. When I stood back and admired my finished work, I was overcome with such an overwhelming sense of satisfaction that I felt like a kid who wanted to tug on a teacher's or parent's sleeve and say, "Look! Look!" So instead, I did this to my coworkers, who seemed genuinely impressed and enthused by the easel -- and probably more than anything, were relieved that someone finally did it.

The last time that I experienced this peculiar type of satisfaction was a year ago when I purchased, transported, and built my IKEA bed for my obscenely large dorm room. I didn't plan this, but I discovered that it was EXACTLY one year ago from today that I built that bed. (Obviously, this is not creepy at all.) Anyway, I don't remember disassembling it. I don't know where the bed went. And now someone else lives in that room and probably doesn't know what to do with all of the extra space.

As I put the finishing touches on the easel, I couldn't help but wonder what will become of it. Will I visit the store ten years from now and see it sitting there? Will some kid break it, rendering it useless with a new home in the dumpster? Will we go out of business and will the easel be tagged as an item for sale?

Like all positive things in life, the only thing to say will be "It was good while it lasted." The bed was good. The easel is good. And I feel good building things, even if they don't last.

Eye Candy/Finger Food

2009-08-23T22:54:00.001-07:00

My big sis gets angsty when I don't post. This, above all, is immensely flattering. Perhaps she forgot that I was working nights last week, which kinda kills the writing momentum. And thus, I have been guilty of spending my usual writing time listening to This American Life as I try to catch up on sleep.

But I did make this on a friend's iTouch. With my fingers.

Adult Bedtime Stories

2009-08-18T13:42:00.001-07:00

After a certain age, it becomes unpopular to read aloud. It's almost as though there's a general assumption that everyone had enough of sitting on carpet squares throughout elementary school and that what everyone really wants for the rest of their lifetime is to read to quietly to themselves. Maybe that's what some people want. Not me.

The other night, I couldn't fall asleep. I'd done everything to try to ameliorate the situation: changed pajamas, reorganized my bed, listened to The Trapeze Swinger, read a short story. Nothing was working. However, it hit me a bedtime story would do the trick. I was sure of it. However, seeing as I was already laying in bed and wasn't in the mood to run downstairs to grab my only audiobook, The Best American Short Stories of the Century, I figured that I was out of luck.

And then I remembered online radio. Ah yes, radio! Surely I could find an NPR story or something. Eventually, I settled on This American Life, which has been a long overdue item on my Intellectual Enhancement Media Consumption List. As someone who is admittedly easily distracted, I had simply never managed to find the right time to devote my full attention to it. I first stumbled upon the show thanks to my brief stint with the Nerve.com personals, where the only person of interest I discovered was a UPenn architecture student who seemed fiercely intellectual yet laid back, though perhaps a tad too interested in politics for my liking. He had answered one of the personal survey questions, "What celebrity do you look the most?," with something like, "People tell me that I look a little like Ira Glass, which makes me happy. I love This American Life and would love to some day be as accomplished and intelligent as Ira Glass. What a guy." And thus, I owe a thanks to Mr. Nerve.com UPenn Architecture Man.

Anyway, This American Life isn't exactly like being read to, but it is a bedtime story. Thank goodness that it's existed since 1995. Looks like I'm good for the next 14 years. Maybe the whole "I like being read to thing" will pass by the time I'm 36 years old, but I doubt it.

Where's my hoe at?

2009-08-16T18:14:00.000-07:00

Even if you don't want to admit it, I bet that you are still holding onto at least one fear from your childhood. Maybe you don't like sleeping without a night light. Maybe you're terrified on riding in elevators. Maybe you genuinely believe that if you're alone, monsters are out to get you.

As for me, I remain scared to death of snakes, or more pointedly, having unfriendly encounters with them. In other words, I won't freak out if I see a picture of a snake or even live ones at zoo exhibits. However, if there's one in my proximity -- say, peering into the living room window from the patio -- I become a wreck. I want the snake to not only be ought of my sight, but the assurance that it's dead.

Take for instance, tonight. I was cruising up my driveway and cheerfully zoning out to "Mushaboom," when all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I saw one sitting at the edge of the driveway. A big pile of black coil of good 'ole Mr. Snake. In the 10 seconds it took to ride up the rest of the driveway, I resolved to 1) pull around circle, 2) drive back down, and 3) squash the evil Mr. Snake with my Ford Taurus.

Steps 1 and 2 were easy. Step 3 was not, seeing as in the 20 seconds that had passed between my initial and return visits, Mr. Snake disappeared. At this point, any rational person would have assumed that it blissfully slithered into the field and then into the woods. But no, not me.

In my mind, Mr. Snake was -- and still is -- coiled up between pipes in the underbelly of my lovely Taurus. And at some point -- probably tomorrow morning as I get into my car to head off to the gym -- Mr. Snake will drop onto the pavement from his cozy overnight stay underneath my car, rear up at me, hiss, and lunge ferociously. As a precautionary step for this event, I already have a sharp garden hoe at easy access in the garage. So I'll whip out my hoe and we'll battle to the death until his pink bloody guts are totally exploded in a messy pile near my car. Maybe he'll twitch right at the moment when I thought he was done for good and I'll finish him off with one final wicked blow. After this disgusting event, I'll get the garden hose, wash away his entrails, and hop into my car to go to the gym, just like any other day. Also note that the entire battle will be conducted with me clad in totally bad ass workout gear.

Obviously, the aforementioned duel with Mr. Snake is extremely probable. In fact, it's destined to happen. You know it's true and I do, too. So bring it on, Mr. Snake. Bring it on. But I can promise you that you'll be sorry. Messing with an angry woman and her garden hoe is a bad idea.

Go Team!

2009-08-15T15:41:00.000-07:00

When it comes to baseball teams, don't ask me if I have a favorite. I won't be able to give you one answer. As someone who has only recently become interested in America's favorite pastime, I'm a chameleon when it comes to declaring an affinity. I don't like certain teams because of anything that actually has to do with the team. Rather, I make my selections based upon what any serious baseball fan would declare as total nonsense.

In other words, it's a tie between the Phillies, the Cubs, the Yankees, and the Orioles. Let me explain. My dad's side of the family is from Philly. A good friend of mine from Chicago is naturally a Cubs fan, plus I can't ignore that John Cusack is crazy about them. One of my closest friends is a huge Yankees fan. And lastly, if it is possible to be in love with a stadium, I'd like to spend the rest of my life with Camden Yards.

What does all of this add up to? Probably nothing. But please, just don't ask me to choose. I can't and won't do it.

My Coffee

2009-08-14T22:57:00.000-07:00

Similar to how most Pennsylvania diners are open 24/7, my family runs a 24/7 home. In other words, someone is almost always awake. This has its charms, like having someone to always welcome you home. Then again, I think that its only natural to want some alone time every now and then. And thus, I have come to enjoy those days in which I get up at 4AM or 5AM to go in for an early morning work shift, seeing as people generally aren't awake at this time. You see, I like to ease into my day like a soft incoming tide. Slow and steady with a quiet strength, all conducted in total darkness. If I'm not articulating the exact shade of this mood well enough, I'll just say that if I had a theme song that captured the whole ambiance I desire, think Belle and Sebastian's "Ease Your Feet Into the Sea," not Arcade Fire's "Wake Up."

The other day, I was eagerly anticipating my usual solo morning act. This did not happen. For some reason, my sister was awake. I think she was uncomfortably hot and thirsty, the latter which could be attributed to a pizza dinner the night beforehand.

I also happened to be parched, so instead of kicking off my morning routine with the typical shower, I mixed some Trader Joe's Midnight Moo Chocolate Syrup into soy milk and sat down on a cool leather stool at the kitchen counter. My sister poured out a miniature hill of Cinnamon Toast Crunch onto a napkin and sat down next to me.

Between my smooth sips of chocolate milk and her noisy munching on handfuls of cereal, we talked. Then again, I think I did most of the talking. Sometimes, when you get me talking, I just don't stop. I don't think that it's because I actually like talking or that I like talking about myself or that I like to hear myself talk. Rather, I think it has to do with a fear of not adequately articulating things. Thus, as a compensatory act, I keep on adding sentences that I think or hope with add depth and dimension to my ideas and arguments. It's not that I'm a perfectionist; it's just important to me that other people genuinely understand what I'm trying to say. In the world of mechanical drawing, you might say that I speak like an orthographic projection: one in which you are afforded all of the necessary views, plus dimensions.

Apparently, I can also pull this off at 4AM. I swear, it must be the Midnight Moo.

And I Quote...

2009-08-12T19:56:00.000-07:00

When my high school was renovated, each teacher received a framed plaque outside of their room with their name, the subject they teach, and a space for a quote. Not to be rude, but most of the quotes were nothing special and lacked any real intellectual substance.

I do recall that my 10th grade geometry teacher was really torn up about the whole thing. He was the type of guy who hated motivational posters and instead elected to hang up a Beatles poster. One day, some kid in my class really got on his nerves about the poster, a punky kid who lived to hate the things that people love. My teacher was a very chill guy, but man, this kid talking smack about The Beatles hit him the wrong way that day. So my teacher settled into his New York accent and proceeded to dish out a heartfelt defense.

Until then, I just thought my teacher was a Beatles fan -- which he was -- but as it turns out, he chose that poster because he liked having that image of four young people who were totally invincible and on top of the world, at least in that moment. For him, there was some kind of elusive hope and endless possibility in that picture, even though we all knew how the story ended. My teacher concluded his pained yet angry lecture by gesturing up to The Beatles and saying, "You know man, it's up there for you. That could be you one day." With that, he paused, shook his head, retreated to his desk, and didn't say anything for the rest of class.

I don't remember what quote he picked. And for some reason, that makes me feel guilty.

I Like This: The Value of Sharing

2009-08-11T17:44:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't figured it out, I am beginning to feel the pains of no longer being officially affiliated with an academic institution -- and with it, the stimulating people who make it so worthwhile. When I found things that interested me at school, there was always someone to immediately tell these things to over dinner or in the hallway while wrapped in my infamous red towel. The type of people who will consider any and all intellectual bon-bons.

While I am constantly finding such things to share, I don't want Mark-Making to become fiercely intellectual in an informational sense. That's not why I write it and I presume that's not why you read it, save the occasional art rant. However, given the joy that I derive from sharing things that interest me, I had to do something about it. Yes, in an ideal world, I would start a new blog wholly devoted to thoughtfully considering things the relationship between Richard Serra and pastries and New York Times articles, among other things. Alas, if I were to pursue this new endeavor, I would never do my research on Native American casinos, never find a job, never see the world, and never end up in academia, where I could actually get paid to think and write about these things that I like.

Whew.

Thus, I've added a new feature, "I Like This," located below the Statement of Purpose. As the name suggests, the feature will plug a couple of things that have recently captured my interest -- a website, book, article, film, work of art, etc. I will change it once a week or so, depending on my findings. They will be archived on a blog called I Like This, which I started several months ago for a different reason.

Ah, the joys of reappropriation.

Let's Get Personal

2009-08-11T15:59:00.001-07:00

When my friend found out that she wouldn't be going abroad, I could tell that she needed something to look forward to, something to make the prospect of the Spring semester more bearable. So, we made a pact: we would both join an online dating website. Somehow, I had managed to talk myself into believing that in doing so, I would somehow have the fortune of meeting a John Cusack-ish fellow, à la the horrific romantic comedy Much Love Dogs. As for her, she had visions of a lanky bearded hipster biking around West Philly with a Metropolitan Bakery baguette peeking out from his messenger bag.

After thoroughly researching -- yes, researching -- the online dating scene, I settled on making a personal ad on Nerve.com. Yes, I do know that Nerve publishes the Position of the Day books. However, beyond these snarky little books, they also have a website that boasts "love.sex.culture" for thinking people who like reading about how eating vegetables is sexy, the many turn-ons of the Honda Momentum, and 21 sexiest elderly people. For someone who highly values the sharing of common intellectual ground in any type of relationship, a Nerve personal seemed like a step in the right direction to scoring a date with a smart, feminist man, who might possess any number of other interests, like art, vegetarianism, used bookstores, independent films, the beach, and/or wanderlusting. And thus, I made a profile.

Sort of. I put on the bare essentials. I think I even checked the box that prevents people from searching me. I suppose that I liked the idea of the online personal more than the actual execution. When actually putting the plan into action, I realized that that idea of meeting someone online blatantly goes against my love for spontaneity, plus there's something peculiarly voyeuristic and creepy about the whole thing. Not surprisingly, sometime at the end of February, I shut down my practically non-existent profile after considering that I would be moving out of Philadelphia in two short months. After all, why bother when I could spend late nights cozying up with my laptop and reading about my latest obsession, Ed Ruscha?

Apparently, whatever I did when I thought I was shutting down the account activated another feature: an e-mail notification service to inform me of newly available singles in my area. Yes, I know that sounds nice and convenient, but for someone who resolved to give up on online dating, not so much.

And it wasn't just that. Something else went wrong, too: Nerve magically decided that I had become a lesbian or bi. So every week or so since February, I have received Cupid Reports about all of the new single women in Philadelphia, aged 22 to to 34. At this point, I can't seem to delete the account, so e-mails about these lovely ladies just keep on coming.

The whole thing gets on my nerves.

Letters to the Empire and Keystone States, Respectively

2009-08-09T21:36:00.000-07:00

Dear Upstate New York,

I don't think that you and I are ever going to be friends. We keep on trying, but it never really works for either of us. Yes, you're quite handsome and charming -- but on the whole, bad company. I mean, you practically sent me to Canada today! What kind of a friend does that?

Peace Out,
The Keystone Kid
---
Dear Northern Pennsylvania,

Like Upstate New York, you're also quite a looker with your winding mountain roads and rugged rock faces. In fact, I'd like to get to know you better, if not for one thing: those Bible thumpin' radio stations. Try to forgive me, but I can't get past that. So please excuse me while I turn up the volume to a crackly station playing Alanis Morissette's "I'm A Bitch" and sing along at the top of my lungs.

I see that disapproving glance. No worries. I'm just passing through.

Best Wishes,
South-central PA Chick

How ever did she know?

2009-08-08T23:01:00.000-07:00

The moon was beautiful -- or so we suspected from seeing golden yellow glimpses of it through the trees. So we went off in pursuit of it; through someone's lawn, across the street, down to the beach. Our suspicion concerning the moon's beauty was confirmed upon seating ourselves on the sand and drinking in the sight of it, a massive coin whose reflections played across the black rippling water.

At some point when I was busy working my hands through the cool sand and burying my feet in it, she was looking up at the sky and saw a shooting star. She said she made a wish for me. She told me what it was. I remarked that it was awfully nice for her to use her wish for me, to which she responded that she only ever makes wishes for other people.

I wish that more people were like that.

For as selfless as I would like to sound and continue this entry by writing a meaningful meditation on why I wish that more people were like that, I'll be honest and say that I hope her wish for me comes true. It was a good wish. In fact, if I had been making a wish for myself, that's what I would have wished for.

Announcing the Marriage of Little Debbie and Richard Serra

2009-08-07T21:18:00.000-07:00

When I was younger, I used to disassemble Little Debbie Pecan Spinwheels. I didn't like pecans so much, hence the disassembling. In fact, I'm still fairly opposed to nuts in my pastries. Anyway, I'd unwind the roll, pick out the nuts, and all the while attempt to keep the Spinwheel in one piece. This rarely happened, if ever, given the general inflexibility of the pastry. To compensate for the damage I had done, I would take the fragments and attempt to put them back together. This never really worked, but I think that I liked the idea of eating the Spinwheel in its pseudo-original form instead of the fragments I had created.

Today, I realized that Richard Serra's work -- specifically, those possessing forms similar to Torqued Ellipses -- are my Pecan Spinwheel sculptures on steroids.

Learning To Love You More*

2009-08-06T18:37:00.000-07:00

Mo, our 80 lb. "puppy," spends an inordinate amount of time in the laundry room. When we can, we let him roam free around the house, but at a certain point, he becomes a danger and/or nuisance. And so we quarantine him to the laundry room, where he lays up against the baby gate that my parents installed for him. I never had brothers, but I imagine that Mo is kind of a like having a little brother with raging hormones.

I don't ignore him entirely, although I certainly don't call him "Mo." Something about this name never stuck for me. Sometime shortly after arriving home in May, I began to call him "Boop," which can also be varied as "Boopy," "Boops," "The Boopster," "Mista Boop," you get the idea. At first, my parents thought that I was calling him Boob or Poop, which was obviously not the case, even though I can imagine an obnoxious older sister calling their 12 year-old brother by such a name.

Sometimes, I will bend over the baby gate and the Boop will look up at me with his big wet brown eyes. And we'll have a staring contest for about thirty seconds. Barnum and I also had similar exchanges and I would break the staring contest with an exaggerated outburst of "I LOVE YOU!" and nonsense statements, such as "I LOVE YOU BECAUSE YOU'RE BROWN!" And I'd ruffle him all up with his lion-like mane, making him explode into a big grin. Damn, that long nose of his would be the end of him, quite literally.

When I bend over to look at The Boopster, I might say, "Hiya. Yeah...whatcha doin'?" I might make faces at him, although I don't know if he is especially interested in me spastically moving my eyebrows. Some people think my facial expressions are pretty great, but I doubt that Boopy is one of them. I might say some silly stuff to him, like, "You're my Supa Boop! SUPA BOOP, you hear dat? SUP-A BOOP." He might hop up and lean on the gate and I might give him a big ole hug...that is, if he doesn't decide to open his jaws and clasp them in a death grip around my ponytail.

And just before I walk away, I'll pat him on his extremely bony head and say in a very low voice, "I...I'm learning to love you."

Hell, I don't know why I say this. I hate it when people say, "You'll learn to love (insert noun here.)" because I'm actually a big non-believer in that idea. As for me, I have never succeeded in learning to love (insert noun here), so I don't have any reason to believe that it's true. For instance, I never learned to love the way a particular significant other smelled, although I kept on telling myself that yes, maybe one day it would happen. No such thing. And after a year of deep unhappiness, general exhaustion, and much effort, I never learned to love Colgate. We all know how that ended. And during my lifetime of people telling me that I might learn to love E.T., that has yet to happen. I can tell you that it never, ever will.

Basically, the whole "learning to love" idea leaves a bad taste in my mouth, much like the time when I accidentally ate Good 'n Plenties in first grade or when my sister packed seaweed crackers in my lunch in fourth grade. But I tell Mista Boop that I'm learning to love him because it's the best way to describe how every now and then, I inch closer to finding him endearing, to actually feeling like he's a family member. Points for effort?

With all of my thoughts on learning to love, I will leave you with this: if the opposite of to learn is to forget, I do believe that you can forget why you love "insert noun here." Sometimes this is awesome. And other times, not so much. I think a lot of it has to do with whether or not you're the person doing the loving or if you're the (insert noun here).

And sometimes, you're the perennially frustrated third party who has no say whatsoever: the person who watches It's A Wonderful Life and still thinks that George Bailey should leave Bedford Falls, at least for a little while.

*The topic of "learning to love" was inspired by the title of Harrell Fletcher's "Learning to Love You More" project. I have more thoughts on this project, which I will probably share at a later time. It does connect with yesterday's post about slow looking, but I can only produce so much high quality intellectual fodder. In other words, it's what one might call "slow writing."

Critiquing the Critic

2009-08-05T18:49:00.000-07:00

Michael Kimmelman, chief art critic and the Abroad columnist of The New York Times stirred up quite the debate recently with his article, "At Louvre, Many Stop to Snap but Few Stay to Focus." I simultaneously love and hate this article. Here are three reasons why:

Visiting museums has always been about self-improvement. Partly we seem to go to them to find something we already recognize, something that gives us our bearings: think of the scrum of tourists invariably gathered around the Mona Lisa.
He never really elaborates on this thought and instead goes on a tangent about books -- which while interesting, is unrelated. So let's back up and begin to question the implications of his loaded assertion about self-improvement. What about the fact that when you see art in person, you realize that it's much different than how you previously saw or even imagined it? Is not part of the excitement in seeing something in person that you have already seen in print the confirmation that yes, this object is real -- and that by seeing it face to face, you somehow have a more intimate and meaningful relationship with it?

Cameras replaced sketching by the last century; convenience trumped engagement, the viewfinder afforded emotional distance and many people no longer felt the same urgency to look.
I think that he's asking the wrong question. Did cameras really diminish this "urgency to look"? In certain ways, yes. But people were still looking at things. So here's the better question: how did photography change the way we look at art, both literally and metaphorically?

Slow looking, like slow cooking, may yet become the new radical chic.
This is a nice idea. It really is. In fact, I nominate myself to be the radical who makes this happen. However, there's a bit of a problem. Showing someone how to slow cook is a lot easier than showing someone how to slow look. Furthermore, the outcome of successful slow cooking results in superior taste -- a tangible and even measurable outcome. But how do you determine the success of slow looking? How do you know if you're doing it right? Additionally, Kimmelman trivializes the rewards of slow looking by suggesting that it results in a good time, makes people smile. What happened to his self-improvement argument? Sure, it's great if you can derive pleasure from art -- happiness is certainly related to self-improvement -- but what about art that you dislike? And what about depressing art? I personally hate Thomas Hirschhorn's work -- it sure as hell doesn't make me smile, but I look at it because it fine tunes my lens. Christian Boltanki's work is haunting, but I look at it because it makes me think. I'm not saying that self-improvement is entirely void of happy rainbows, but there's so much more.

The bottom line: Kimmelman covers a lot of territory and makes a much needed claim for art appreciation. However, he fails to ask the tough questions, perhaps the most pressing being the one suggested in his title but is never addressed: why do people snap photographs of art at museums? What is the deal with that? Why do you need your own personal photograph of famous works of art? I mean, can't you just snag Mona Lisa off of Wikipedia?

Now that's a question I'd like to hear answered.

A Public Service Announcement

2009-08-04T21:48:00.000-07:00

Until recently, the content on my blog has been strictly non-fiction. In other words, it has been 99% true.

However, it should be noted that there's been a slight change. If I feel the urge to embellish, I will. That doesn't mean that I'm lying, but rather that I decided to get a little creative. If you enjoy reading between my lines, here's some advice: it's not the best use of your time. So try not to invest too much of a truth value, seeing as the bulk of what I wrote might have more to do with entertainment and writing quality than the kernel of reality that inspired it. In other words, I'm pulling a bit of an Updike.

For those of you who are wondering about the practical implications of the above paragraphs, let me give you an example: the post below makes me sound supremely irritated about Julie & Julia. I know this. It is supposed to sound that way. And while I sort of possess these sentiments about the film, I also thoroughly enjoyed it. Of course, mentioning this sunny fact in my uber-angsty Grumpy Bear of a post would have ruined the effect, right?

Right.

Death to...Moving, Food, Careers, Projects, and Heteronormative Romance!

2009-08-04T21:03:00.000-07:00

Let me begin by saying that I do like Nora Ephron's movies. However, I gotta admit that right now, I am a little bit irritated with her. I feel like I got gypped. Here's why: if you are a woman and you see Julie & Julia, be aware that you will begin to think about doing one or more of the following things:

...move to Paris.
...move to New York City.
...go shopping for quality cooking ingredients/new cookware.
...cook good food.
...eat good food.
...start a blog that lots of people will read.*
...go into publishing.
...tackle a daunting project that seems impossible.
...throw yourself into finding the love of your life.

Like I said, women will leave the theatre feeling a surge of immense hope that they can actually do one -- or let's face it, all -- of the things listed above. The thing is, I'm already miles ahead of the film, so I didn't exactly extract the "feel good" motivational juice like most other female viewers. Let me explain.

As far as moving goes, I don't want Paris or New York. Hell, I don't know where I want to be and my most recent fix happens to be Canada, but I know that I don't want the Big Apple or the City of Light. Concerning food, I'm currently very content with my recent Trader Joe's stash, which of course includes my Grade B Maple Syrup -- which tastes just fine straight from the bottle, thank you very much. I already have a blog and I'm contemplating publishing, plus I'm knee-deep in several big projects. And as for the latter...well, I'm a bit of a D to the P lady right now, so I offer a polite "screw you" to Ms. Ephron's syrupy portrayal of marriages. I don't need some dude telling me that I make a good souffle.

Then again, I'm having second thoughts.

I amend my food statement. I want Brie and a hunk of baguette to nosh on as I contemplate Richard Florida's "The Young and The Restless" chapter in Who's Your City. So let's see...Vancouver? Montreal? Boulder? Portland -- Maine or Oregon? I do not know the answers to these questions, but I believe that the Brie might help. Damn you, Nora Ephron.

*PS: Props to my friend Nina for starting a blog project on musical aesthetics, in which she reviews albums -- the most recent one being slightly inspired by yours truly on Regina Spektor's Soviet Kitsch.

Note for Non-Mawrtyrs: "D to the P" is shorthand for Death to the Patriarchy. Yay!

Shopping Together, Reading Alone

2009-08-04T13:23:00.000-07:00

The bookstore stood at the center of town, a rustic and charming monument of maroon brick with heavily lacquered pine wood floors. Even four years ago, college students were not nearly so savvy in their purchasing of academic books, so the bookstore thrived on our foolish reliance. Besides, the students of Colgate University were more about convenience than cost-saving, so most of them took advantage of purchasing their required readings at the bookstore. And to further educate the elitist, WASP-ish, and generally white student population in instant gratification, you could submit your syllabi list in advance for the staff to collect your books and put them in a box with your name.

As for me, I wanted to pick up my own books. But more than that, I wanted to browse. I had heard my sister fondly speak of browsing through her own college's bookstore at the beginning of the semester. After all, if you can't take a course, you can at least read the books. And so a good number of the books on her shelf came from such perusing, although I sometimes wonder how many of them she ever read. Lucky for me, she seemed to have a penchant for urban studies texts, which I have plucked from her shelf over the years and added them to my own collection. As far as I can tell, she hasn't missed Bowling Alone or The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

For whatever reason, the academic books of the Colgate University bookstore were kept in the basement. The first and second floors were occupied by books for the general public and an inordinate amount of 'Gate gear. Yes, there were the typical shirts and sweatpants, which I admittedly own and still wear. However, there was a good deal of other stuff, like Colgate Blend Coffee, leather luggage totes imprinted with the academic seal, and grilling gear outfitted in maroon, black, and gold.

At this point, I'm doing that thing where I lower my head a little bit, raise my eyebrows, look upward with my eyes, nod my head slightly, say "Yeah" in a flat tone, and purse my lips. There's a reason to purse my lips like that; it holds in all of the things that I shouldn't say. The type of things that will increase the volume of my voice, kick it up a few octaves, and send me spiraling into a rant peppered with profanities.

For better or worse, this behavior was not a part of the 18 year-old version of myself browsing in the Colgate Bookstore. Probably not, seeing as at the time, I think that I chose to not see all of those material goods as being a part of the academic institution that I was attending. I had sort of curated Colgate into being what I wanted it to be, right down to the people.

With maroon book basket in tow -- if you're counting the number of times I've mentioned maroon, that's three -- I wandered through the air conditioned basement, looking for books. Books that were on my reading list, books that were not. And to my surprise, I not only found books, but also someone who was doing the exact same thing.

We had two classes together. We had similar interests. So as you might imagine, we had overlapping paths in the bookstore and after several awkward greetings, we eventually fell into step with one another. We would take turns picking up books that interested us or to recommend to one another, and along the way, acquired the ones that we needed. As we loaded the books for our freshman seminar into our baskets, I remember him saying, "The thing I've been really looking forward to the most about college is buying my books for my classes, because it's not like they're just for class...it's a way of expanding my personal library...you know? And I like the used ones better because you can see what other people wrote in them, what they were thinking."

I melted right there on the concrete floor.

However, I don't think he noticed, seeing as his next move was to turn around, pick up Heart of Darkness, pause on it for moment, and put it into his basket. Seeing as this book was not for a class and we had been "just looking," I inquired as to why he was buying it. Apparently, it was one of his favorites and he had left his copy at home. With the casual decisiveness of his gesture and his response to my question, you would have thought that he had left his Bible at home. Then again, we all have our Bibles.

Maybe you can't judge a book by its cover, but one of the most beautiful, deceiving, and complex ways that you can learn about a person is through their books. I still haven't read Heart of Darkness. I don't know if I actually want to, but just in case, it's on my reading list. Granted, it's at the very bottom, grouped with a few other books of extremely low priority, like Crime and Punishment and War and Peace.

But it's still there.

Elusive

2009-08-02T22:22:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, our best intentions fail us.

The butterfly was throwing itself against the lighting fixture outside. It repeatedly crashed into the glass panes, fell, and managed to drunkenly ascend for a repeat performance. The sight pained me, the large swallowtail was too beautiful to be acting so haphazardly. And so I turned off the light, thinking that it might terminate its destructive behavior and fly off into the darkness. That's what I hoped.

But as soon as I turned off the light, the butterfly fell in love with a new light, even though it was far less concentrated. It began to throw itself into the French door panes that line the living room where the lights were turned on a dim setting. And so I went inside to turn off the lights.

During my return trip to the patio, I saw the butterfly fly into the garage. To aid in its escape, I opened the garage doors, which automatically turned on the lights that rest above each door unit. In the cavernous garage with its ceilings that are probably about twenty feet high, the butterfly still looked large. Any spectator except for myself may have even mistaken it for a bat or a bird.

It eventually rested on the garage door frame, so I climbed up my father's truck and made a rescue attempt with a duster. For several minutes, it did not move. But the moment my feet touched the ground, it began to fly around again, hurling itself at the light.

And abruptly, it fell into the light.

There is no way to manually turn off the garage light. Even for a human, the light is bright and hot, making it difficult to remove the outer cover, never mind the screws that hold it in place. And in the world of a butterfly -- a large one, but still remarkably fragile -- the human pace of getting a ladder and a screwdriver is too slow.

The soundtrack to this event, courtesy of my iTunes shuffle from my computer sitting on the patio, could not have been sadder or painfully appropriate, Feist's "The Park." A song about being blinded by your own illusion and want, so much that it burns you, leaving you feeling like a fool.

I kept it together until I climbed into bed, at which point I curled up into a ball and sobbed, for despite my good and innocent intentions, I had killed a butterfly. I should have left it alone.

At Her Fingertips

2009-08-02T21:39:00.000-07:00

I spent the better part of today on our back patio, which thanks to my mom, looks like something out of a Better Homes and Gardens magazine, or better yet, a Thomas Kinkade painting. It bursts in a full palette of bold colors accented by rustic touches of burgundy brick and wrought iron fixtures, all set against the muted green and blue shades of our pond, the fields, and the Appalachian Mountains. To accompany this stage, there's an orchestra of hummingbirds, geese, frogs, and the soft percussion of summer's insects. And did I mention the white gazebo? Yes, that's the finishing touch that makes the whole scene something out of a fairy tale. For as much as I yearn to see other parts of the world, I do not know if anything will look quite as lovely as that view from the patio, what we call The Backyard.

My time on the patio was spent connecting with people, courtesy of my cell phone and computer. In sum, I spent about two hours on the phone with people who I miss. People who I wish that I could run down a flight of stairs and see if they're up for a movie in Wayne or cookies in Rosemont or chocolate milk at Wawa. Or maybe just a short ride that turned into a long ride that invariably contributed to the 50,000 miles that I hit on my car today. In addition to these two hours on the phone, I wrote a four page e-mail to my best friend. We used to do that all the time, but somehow over the years, we'd fallen out of the habit. For as much as getting back in touch with people feels good, it also incites a peculiar pain: you realize that they make you more alive, and the moment you get off the phone or finish a paragraph, you can't believe that you've managed to survive without them. But yes, living is better with them.

So even as I sat on the back patio with the rain beating down, I felt good inside, as though something was being built. If you were to look at a cross section of my body, you might have seen little construction crews hurriedly traveling throughly me to install I-beams. You know the feeling; that something is slowly rising within you, all warm and soft like fresh bread.

A Failed Case of Multitasking

2009-08-01T22:22:00.000-07:00

I had just mailed off the entry for The National Association of College and University Food Services awards. The entry -- a scrapbook detailing every aspect of Haffner Dining Hall, our college's vegetarian friendly eating establishment -- had been a painstaking yearlong project. Even with all of that planning, I was still gluing little labels into it as the 5PM deadline approached.

Mailing things is generally an anticlimactic activity, whether at the Post Office or clicking "Send." Nothing happens, except you've released something into the world and after so much labor, you are thrust into the next stage of waiting. And so to compensate for the party that the postal service didn't throw in your honor, I find that having my own celebratory event helps to mark the occasion and make it feel less weird.

For the completion of the F.A.B, I already had my evening planned out long in advance. My significant other at the time arrived moments after the book was mailed and we would be going out with my friends, who had graciously put up with my long absences as a result of the F.A.B. (The Fucking Amazing/Awful Book), as they came to refer to it.

Caught between extreme tiredness and super heady hyperness, the evening was a bit strange. And awkward. At one point during dinner, there was a sort break in conversation, at which point I interjected the fact that every twelve minutes, there is a natural lull in conversations. So, the game for the rest of the night became calling "LULL" whenever we came upon a pause in the conversation.

I always kind of felt bad about that night. I think that I was kind of cranky and not being the most attentive friend as a result of the recent arrival of my guy. You can't exactly be kicking back with the girls and longingly staring into someone's eyes while also trying to hold hands under the table and eat dinner at the same time. Warning: do not try this. It will not work and it's not fair to anyone, especially yourself.

The book only got a Bronze Prize, which really irritated me. The relationship eventually dissolved, which more than anything, was disappointing. But every now and then, there will be a break in conversation, someone will call "LULL," and we'll all collapse into laughter.

Off Like A Prom Dress

2009-07-31T20:16:00.000-07:00

Some of the most memorable and happy times in my life seem to happen when I am ridiculously tired. I don't mean tired as in just one bad night's sleep. It's been building up for days or even weeks. You've forgotten what it's like to be hungry. You dread the prospect of staircases because you lack the depth perception for such an activity. Your skin feels prickly in strange places, like your ankles and in between your toes. And you adopt whatever behavior seems to feel best, a form of intoxication, maybe punchy or grumpy or quiet or cuddly. Or maybe all four at once.

Anyway, climactic things always seem to coincide with my sleeplessness. This doesn't mean that I remember these moments less, but rather that I experience and recall them in a highly romanticized haze full of fairy dust and cotton candy clouds and soft lighting punctuated with twinkly stars.

Perhaps the earliest occurrence of this in my life was prom. Within an hour of getting off the bus from my last TSA States Conference -- an armful of trophies in tow -- I jumped into my yellow gown and hopped in a limo. If the experience was not already dreamy enough by virtue of having these two supposedly monumental events occur in one day, showers of cherry blossoms decided to gently blow off the trees and swirl around us as we were getting into the limo, not unlike all of the sparkling leaves that weave around Pocahontas in the Disney film. A storm was brewing, too -- one of those deeply passionate April thunderstorms with heavy denim blue clouds that radiate with honey sunshine. As the first drops of warm rain fell, I got into the limo with pink petals caught in my wavy blonde tresses. On the way to our destination somewhere in Carlisle, I recall battling with the corset of my strapless dress, for even with my push-up bra, the gown didn't have the same curves to hug after forgetting to eat for a week at the conference. Despite this potential wardrobe malfunction hazard, I felt and looked like a freshly baked lemon cupcake.

But perhaps the moment that I recall best from the evening occurred immediately after I walked into the lobby: someone who never had anything nice to say at all broke away from the crowd to tell me that I looked beautiful and that the reason why it was raining was because all of the sunshine was in my dress.

Best Birthday Ever

2009-07-30T20:58:00.000-07:00

"No, I really don't want to try it."

"C'mon Jess. Just try it."

"No."

"Here, just lick the cap."

"Lick the cap?"

"You really have to try this. It's awful. Just try it."

"You want me to try it because it's awful?"

"Well...yeah. Just do it. You're not going to get drunk or anything."

"But I don't want to taste something awful."

"COME ON."

"Okay. Whatever."

She took the bottle of Raspberry Smirnoff off of her dresser, tilted it upside down, and handed me the bright magenta cap. I gingerly stuck out my tongue and pressed it against the inside of the cap. She was right. It did taste awful, exactly like red Robitussin.

This event occurred within five minutes of my parents dropping me off at my sister's college for my 17th birthday. The remainder of that day was divided between laying on her floor writing a bibliography for her paper, watching Keeping the Faith in the computing center while eating Jelly Bellies, and going to the gym with one of her friends.

That was the first time I ever used an elliptical machine. I distinctly recall smiling to myself when the songs "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Dancing Queen" came on my CD player. "She was just seventeen/you know what I mean..." "You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen..."

Oh, to be seventeen.

Sweet Spot

2009-07-30T01:03:00.000-07:00

I rarely make interesting culinary discoveries in my home. In other words, I hardly ever open up a fridge or a cabinet and say to myself, "Oh, that looks great!" Okay, I am not so lame that I actually say those words out loud, but you get the idea. In other words, one aspect of my role as the Anti-Schwartz involves my discerning culinary choices. Not only am I a vegetarian, but I like my food fresh. I'm not a super food snob or a health food nut, but if I'm consuming calories, I want to be savoring every bite.

However, the other day, I made an awesome discovery in the fridge: Grade B Maple Syrup. Speaking as someone who does not even like maple syrup, this stuff might be one of the three food items to take with me if I would ever end up stranded on an island.

Problem is, this Grade B Maple Syrup is hard to find in Central PA. And it's extremely expensive around here, too. As you might imagine, this is not desirable, considering it is my newfound obsession.

But thanks to a trip to Trader Joe's, I now have 25 oz. of Grade B Maple Syrup. And not only that, they had THREE varieties from which to choose, all at reasonable prices.

Right now, I am trying to figure out where I want to get a job. This issue of geography is of central importance and general confusion, seeing as I have no idea where to pick because I have no criteria.

Well, I had no criteria. So here's my plan: I think that I might just print out the map of all the Trader Joe's locations, blindly put my finger on the map, and move there.

I'm actually not kidding.

Cape or no cape?

2009-07-28T22:23:00.000-07:00

Nicknames. You either love 'em or you hate 'em. When someone invents a nickname for you, you will either feel that it fits you perfectly or that it's so horrible that you want to permanently hide under a rock and/or want to punch the person who invented it.

My sister's boyfriend has christened me with the nickname "The Anti-Schwartz." Somewhere in my 400+ posts, I know that I have hinted at the fact that I tend to do certain things differently than my family, whether that means wanting to do away with holidays or passionately hating The Honeymooners or being a food snob or rejecting religious tradition. Sometimes, it has probably made me seem a tad immature to still be holding onto the teenage mantra of "I don't fit into my family," but there's definitely a part of me that still believes that this is true. And for the most part, it's something that I have accepted. I love my family and I'm relatively satisfied with myself, so in my opinion, the whole thing works out okay. But that doesn't stop me from continuing to suspect that I'm black sheep, the one who walks to the beat of a different drum.

Until my sister's significant other, there was never anyone who actually assessed whether or not my suspicions are true. And not only did he confirm these suspicions, but he figured it out all on his own. Hence the name he invented for me, "The Anti-Schwartz." To accompany my nickname, he is quick to illuminate all of qualities that make it appropriate. To him, these differences are not flaws, but simply the characteristics that make me "The Anti-Schwartz."

If you haven't figured it out by now, I seriously dig the whole "Anti-Schwartz" thing. I feel like I should start designing a superhero costume.

Pick Your Own Ending: A Chick Flick Story

2009-07-27T20:35:00.001-07:00

For better or worse, there are some moments in life that belong in chick flicks. There are life-altering happy moments worthy of Harry's declaration, "I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible." Then, you have your downright terrible moments, the "I gave her my heart and she gave me pen" scenarios.

I have a moment for you. It belongs in a chick flick. Beyond knowing that, I'm not quite sure whether it's beautiful and hopeful or depressing and heart wrenching. You decide.

A girl went out to dinner with a boy. Like most dates in the 21st century, it was never explicitly articulated between the two parties as a date. And like many dates, each party was entirely unaware of the other's interests and intentions. But still, it was undeniably a date.

They began to talk.

The girl is not fond of conversations with agendas. In fact, she likes to talk about nothing. You might say that she wholeheartedly agrees with a line by Meg Ryan from You've Got Mail, "...all this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings."

The agenda of the conversation was to discuss a recent vacation. She paused in the middle of twirling an udon noodle around her fork to interject a slight digression:

"So did you pick a window seat or an aisle seat?"

The slimy noodle unraveled itself and fell back onto her plate. Its form reminded her of the plump worms that flood her driveway during spring thunderstorms.

"The aisle seat. So I could get up and stretch."

His tone suggested that his selection was the logical choice, maybe even the best choice. He resumed with stabbing his chopsticks into his bowl of noodles, which were much thinner and whiter. And less worm-like. She realized that she didn't even know what he had ordered.

"Oh."

She took a long sip of her water. It wasn't because of the spicy food. And it wasn't because the restaurant was humid. For the first time in her life, the girl wished that she was in a restaurant establishment that served alcohol.

If you're thinking that the question was a sort of carefully planned test for the boy, you're wrong. Remember, this girl doesn't like to have an agenda. You see, the girl did not understand the monumentality of her own question until after she received an answer -- or more pointedly, what she came to understand as the wrong answer.

For the remainder of dinner, she felt guilty for evaluating his answer as "wrong." After all, how can a personal preference be wrong? But for her, it was undeniably wrong. She could not get past it. The girl felt ashamed of her intolerance, her inability to accept that the boy with whom she was spending her evening would choose the aisle seat. In fact, she almost had an impulse to say that she wanted to go home early. But she stayed, for he could not help being wrong.

By the end of the meal, the girl had digested her guilt and felt a strange surge of gratitude for the boy, for his wrong answer had led her to the most concrete romantic epiphany of her entire life. In the following days, she shared this epiphany with a handful of people. Each conversation would begin something like this:

"When he said that he chose the aisle seat, he may as well have had said that he had the herpes!"

Yes, THE herpes. The girl's sister believed that by adding the article "THE" in front of herpes, the STD sounded much more dramatic and interesting. At this point, the listener would either look disturbed or laugh. The girl laughed, because after all, how can you not laugh when saying something so absurd?

After the humorous introduction, the girl would pause, the remainder of her laughter absorbed into a concerned and thoughtful expression. Her brow furrowed. People who know her exceptionally well would see that she was troubled with herself over what she was about to say.

"The thing is, I don't want to be with someone who wants the aisle seat. And I don't want to be with someone who doesn't care where they sit. I want to be with someone who wants the window seat. In fact, I want more than that: I want to be with someone who will fight with me over the window seat."

The listener would look confused. They knew that the girl was not especially fond of fighting, so her statement seemed peculiar, despite the earnest delivery. She understood the need for a point of a clarification, a better definition.

"I don't mean 'fight' as in an angry argument. I mean 'fight' like this:

'You can have the window seat.'

'No, you take it.'

'But I had it the last time.'

'I know, but it's okay, you can have it. Really.'

'No, I want you to have it. Okay?'"

She would search the listener's face for understanding. Both parties would laugh, but just a little. The girl would look down at the floor or into a corner, an indication of searching for something that wasn't there, something that would be very hard to find.

"And you know, this fighting would go on for a very long time and both of us would genuinely mean it. I don't even know why I'm calling it fighting, but I guess that's how I'd want to fight with someone. But more than that, what I'm trying to say is that I ultimately want to be with someone with whom I would be willing to give up my window seat. I mean, you know how I am about window seats -- I'll even pay extra for one. The whole window seat thing is a big deal to me, certainly not something that I would give up to just anyone. I'd have to be pretty crazy about them."

The listener would nod their head. But the girl would worry that she wasn't being clear enough. She wanted this to be understood. She wanted to be understood.

"Not even 'pretty crazy' is sufficient. I would want them to have that window seat more than anything else in the world. And I would want that not so I feel like I'm making some sacrifice for them, but because I would know that they love and appreciate the window seat as much as I do. The bottom line is this: seeing them have it would make me happier than actually having it for myself. And the reason why the whole fighting thing is important is because they'd feel the exact same way."

"Yes, I know this sounds like an insane way to measure love -- or I suppose being in love -- but I think that's it for me. And what makes even less sense is that whole window seat debate would be totally pointless because no matter what seat we'd be in, we'd be so happy just to be sitting next to one another that we wouldn't even notice the window. We would be too busy looking at each other and holding hands. You know, I've never thought it was fair for people have strict qualifications for what they are looking for in a significant other, but this whole window seat thing has given me a new perspective on things."

The girl nor the listener would know what to say. She would still be dumbstruck by the epiphany and the listener would be keeping their thoughts to themselves. So they would do what they do best: talk about nothing.

See, I told you this whole thing belongs in a chick flick, right? Problem is, I still can't figure out whether it's a happy moment or a sad moment.

Then again, it's not my story, so who am I to say?

Reading Rainbow: Blog Edition

2009-07-27T12:13:00.000-07:00

How do you know that writing is good?

There are a lot of valid answers to this question. For me, I think that the most compelling one is if I wish that I had written it.

The person who initially inspired Mark Making wrote something today that I really love. He's a very modest person and is probably going to be all "Gee, shucks" about the fact that I'm even posting this. I like his writing and I read his blog every day, but today's post, "How To Date A Punk Rock Girl," is by far, my favorite post ever.

There are a lot of things that I love about it. I dig the High Fidelity meets Say Anything plot. It involves an orange crayon and a bookstore. You want to meet the female protagonist and have coffee with her to talk about the first date. It's very real and you can see the story unfold right before your eyes. You know what that kiss feels like at the end and your face breaks out into a smile just as though you had been on the receiving end.

I now feel like Lavar Burton should magically appear and say, "But you don't have to take my word for it."

The Great Thorax Mystery

2009-07-26T22:59:00.000-07:00

If you're looking for advice on how to clean out your closet, you'll have to look in two places at Borders. First, check out Appearance, which was recently renamed Beauty and Fashion. Second, check Household Reference. Somewhere between these two locations -- which by the way, are on opposite ends of the store -- you'll find tips and hints on how to facilitate this entire process. I suspect that people who read "how to clean out your closet" books do this to either procrastinate on the task or to feel more accomplished. Dude, since when do you need a book to tell you how to clean out a closet? Just clean it already.

However, that doesn't mean that you can't have some fun with it. Okay, I guess if you hate your current body in comparison to how it looked in some former state, cleaning out your closet is probably not a whole lot of fun. I empathize with that, I really do.

That being said, I'll admit something that I suspect might irritate some people: I actually like my body, barring the normal insecurities that we all posses about how other people physically perceive us. Then again, maybe there's something refreshing and hopeful in knowing that someone is happy with themselves. It makes me sad that more people don't feel this way because looking in the mirror and genuinely loving what you see makes a big difference.*

Okay, so what's my point? The reason why I mentioned all of this serves as a sort of precursor to truly convince you that I am not a self-loathing person, for what I am about to share could easily be negatively perceived without that disclaimer. It makes all the difference that you believe me. And you should, because I'm being honest.

I hadn't cleaned out my closet in three years, but it still contained things from as far back as ten years ago. Yes, I had things in there from when I was twelve. Obviously, my closet contained nothing that I wear now. Still, there was an impulse to try on every other item to see if there was remote possibility that I'd still want it. Thus, the cleaning project was conducted with me strutting around in my underwear, as it would have been too much effort to keep on changing in and out of things. Yes, I sometimes turn into Charlotte from Lost In Translation, wandering around her hotel room in those pink underwear.

At a certain point, it became ridiculous that I was even trying things on, whether shirts or pants or skirts. Nothing fit. And you're probably wondering whether it was because I lost or gained weight, and really, it was neither. I suppose it's no surprise to say this, but in the past ten years, all of me has been entirely redistributed into a curvier, more womanly figure. I mean, that makes sense. While working, I sometimes meditate on this truly remarkable evolution of self because often I catch myself with a heavy stack of books resting at my waist, the same spot where women hold their children. Yes, there's an evolutionary reason for that perfect, sweet curve. I just happen to use mine for books.

Anyway, my physical redistribution makes sense...to a point. Here's where things get tricky: somehow, since high school, my torso has become insanely long. Seriously. The thing is, I've been about 5'7" since the beginning of high school. And every shirt that I wore during that time now reaches my belly button. They definitely used to reach my hips and it's impossible that they shrank. If I didn't get any taller, how did my abdomen elongate, thus necessitating that my legs become shorter? In a very physical, literal way, this does not add up.

Standing in front of the mirror with a good three inches of my midriff exposed, the word "thorax" came to mind. This is technically the part of the human anatomy that constitutes the space between the head and the abdomen. However, for me, it conjures up a different association: the extremely long central part of an insect. It makes me think of labeling diagrams of ants and butterflies in the Weekly Reader.

In case you were wondering, I kept nothing from my closet. In a short while, it will house my current clothing, which without a doubt, better showcases my lovely thorax.

*For some thought-provoking artwork on the self-loathing topic, check out Lisa Yuskavage's paintings. A good friend introduced her work to me with the description, "She paints everything that women hate about their bodies." This is what I think of whenever I look at her work, which I like because people tend to frame Lisa's work in terms of how society looks at women, not how women look at themselves.

A Job Well Done

2009-07-25T13:36:00.000-07:00

Going through old shoes is not a pleasant task. They do not smell good or feel remotely pleasant. You'll lift up a pair and as you examine the scuff marks and worn soles, you wonder how you ever wore these repulsive things. You wouldn't dare wear them now in their peeling, wrinkled state. But you know that you once eased your feet into these peculiar specimens and went on your way. You walked miles in them. They took you places.

Just when I thought I was finished cleaning out the shoe portion of my closet, I came across a bright pink box. Neatly wrapped in white tissue paper was a new pair of black leather flats, the material gathered in a decorative fan pattern at the toes. These delicate and dainty shoes are not designed for my feet that bear scars from a fairly recent surgery -- a decision I regret, for it only exacerbated their painful state while also making it impossible to buy any shoes, let alone decently normal-looking ones.

Even though they do not fit me -- and for that matter, have and never will -- they are still my shoes. When I arrived home in Summer 2007 without a job, I applied to work at a bookstore. I needed shoes to wear to the interview on short notice. Without any other promising prospects for appropriate close-toed footwear, I talked myself into believing that these quintessential black flats would not only be perfect for the interview, but that I would also break them in and be able to wear them everyday, just like every other normal young woman.

For the first and final time, I wore them to the interview. And even though they only graced my feet that one time, they took me miles -- or so I like to think.

I Have a Crush on No Boy

2009-07-24T21:55:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine recently started a blog called "I Have a Crush on Every Boy." It's true. She does have a crush on every boy. Going out anywhere with her becomes an exercise in checking out the opposite sex and seeing if they are checking you out. On various occasions, we'll be walking around somewhere and she'll say to me, "You know, that cute guy was checking you out" and I'll stare blankly at her and wave it off, attempting to remember who the hell we just passed because I was too busy admiring the quality of the sunlight.

In other words, I am as observant as a llama about these types of things in everyday life.

However, in my time working at a bookstore, I became very aware of all the creeps that checked me out. When I started working there, it was called to my attention by friends that my new gig in the retail sector -- especially in a bookstore -- was going to be a great way to meet guys. Good assumption, right? Well, after two years, I can safely say that I was never once hit on by a non-creepy dude. They were all super creeps. A fair share of them sent me running back to the stock room so I could flail my arms about and make "BLECH" noises and relay to the closest co-worker my encounter with Perverted Man X. No, I will not miss these men. At all.

Considering that I seemingly lack the ability to crush on real people, indulge me for a girlish and bookish moment. As you know, I love all things John Updike. I also happen to love photographs of him, especially in his early years when he looks all chipper and bright and especially delighted with himself. But I think that my favorite of these photos comes from the cover of Hugging the Shore, in which he sits in a boat. He looks like he's mid-laugh, not posed. For me, I guess it comes down to being genuine, which is not really something that you can "check out," is it?

Runaway

2009-07-23T22:20:00.000-07:00

How often do you ever lay down and look up? Probably not much, save whatever is above you when you sleep. As for me, that consists of various cards and an airplane fashioned from Coca-Cola cans hanging from my canopy bed. I think that I'm going to take them down tomorrow. Those things have been up there for 12 years and the only reason why they stay up there is because of that history. For me, keeping things the same just because they've always been that way is not especially compelling reasoning for anything, no matter how big or small, especially if you could imagine life being different and better by changing something. And thus, those things will go in a box and I'll have something new to contemplate at when I sleep: nothing.

On an especially awful afternoon during my freshman year, I went out to a small cluster of trees on campus and just laid down. I think that a few people noticed me laying there, though I was barely aware of it. When I was younger, I recall that in moments of anger and sadness, I -- sometimes accompanied by my sister -- would run outside and find some sort of natural nook, behind a tree or the dam. Such hiding spots embraced me, and in laying with my back on the ground, I was throwing myself into an entirely different perspective. It was also an ideal position in which to lay your palms flat against the ground and occupy oneself with pulling up grass, the ultimate therapeutic and brainless activity that tricks you into feeling like you're making progress. You can feel it tearing, hear it ripping. It's something to hold onto. Invariably, I would feel guilty about this angsty endeavor upon seeing the fist-sized bald spots I had created.

I don't remember why that afternoon was so terribly upsetting. But I know that the ground was damp underneath that layer of brittle pine needles and that my fingernails had soil packed under them when I got up. When I looked at myself in the mirror when I returned to my dorm, I had a dirty brown streak above my lip from under my runny nose.

It's hard to cry when you're laying down. Something about gravity just doesn't allow it to work so well. But yes, if you're really determined, it can be done.

A Little Help From My Friends

2009-07-21T20:56:00.000-07:00

I really got into reading in 5th grade. I mean, I had always been an avid reader, but when it really became a big thing in my life was that last year of elementary school. A couple of days before the academic year began, I found out that my best friend had to attend school in another district, and with that, I was crushed. And friendless, no kidding. For as much as I value the friends that I cherish closely, there's always the danger of getting screwed if one of them drops off the planet. There's never an immediate replacement for them, but then again, I guess that's part of the point of having a one and only. Despite that risk, I don't know if I'd have it any other way. That's just how I roll.

Anyway, my best friend was gone and she wasn't coming back. I didn't know what to do. I had no one to play with at recess. I had no one to talk with during lunch. I had no one to hang out with in the bus line. As you may suspect, I was an awkward kid, but at least when I had a best friend, I was an awkward person with a best friend. You'd think that I would have had the gumption to go out and find a new group of friends, but truth be told, when you've gone to school with the same people since kindergarten, you long ago assessed your options and found your niche. In other words, if your social world shattered in 5th grade...well, you were five years too late to start over and you were best off just waiting until middle school to find some new people.

And so I threw myself into books. I constantly had one with me. I kept it on the top left hand corner of my desk at all times. It went to lunch with me. It came to recess with me, where I sat on top of the hill in a corner near some bushes. At the beginning of the year, various teachers on recess duty attempted to engage me in conversation, probably because of how disturbingly content I seemed with spending so much time alone doing such a quiet activity. And I can only guess seemed entirely disinterested and maybe even rude sometimes. But you know, that was my time and I just wanted to get to the next page to get to the next chapter so I could finish that book and move onto the next one -- a constant pursuit of going through pages, searching for something that I was never going to find there.

"She looks more like him than I do."

2009-07-20T21:08:00.000-07:00

In the book Wreck This Journal, there's a page that instructs: "Glue a picture of yourself here that you don't like. And draw all over it."

This page interests me for two reasons. First, it is the only thing in the entirety of the book that involves photography. Second, it touches on an interesting point: as individuals, we all tend to be very fussy about what pictures of ourselves we like. And we don't have any interest in looking at the photographs of ourselves that we don't like, that we feel poorly represent us.

Facebook has made a significant contribution to this conception of self-image, as you have the option to literally put your best face forward. I know I do. People agonize over their Facebook profile pictures -- and with just cause. People look at you and judge you. I do it to people and I'm sure that people do it to me. In fact, when you are taking pictures of people, they will have you take it over and over and over again until it is perfect for Facebook. For the most part, I also do this, except I take my own portraits. This is perhaps worse, an act of extreme vanity that can result in upwards of a hundred photos until I create one that's just perfect according to my standards of perfection.

And to other people, these photographs probably don't even look like me.

Epiphany

2009-07-19T20:43:00.000-07:00

No reading at the register. I repeat, no reading at the register.

Until tonight, I had religiously followed this rule for over two years. Amidst other rules that make no sense at all, this one does: reading on the job makes you appear inattentive and bored. But it was a Sunday night, and like every other Sunday night -- save those that occur a couple of weeks before Christmas -- business was beyond slow. No one was walking in the door, and of the people who were there, no one was buying anything. The prospect of spending one hour doing nothing seemed unnecessarily wasteful, especially in a store full of books.

And so I broke the rule. I wanted something that I could finish in an hour. I plucked a thin book from the shelf that I had only previously glanced at, David Foster Wallace's This Is Water. I don't really know what I was expecting, but I can say that I didn't know what I was getting myself into. After all, how much could it say? It is, after all, only 125 pages. It only has a sentence or two on each page. And it was a commencement speech, so obviously, it would be pointless and phony, but probably well-written with maybe a gem or two of advice.

No such thing. Mayor Nutter spoke at my graduation and in comparison to This Is Water, Nutter may as well have been reading the ingredients off of a Nutter Butter bar.

In the past couple of months, I have been doing a good deal of thinking about what the past four years meant and what I want to do now. Additionally, I've been thinking about big picture concepts, like what really constitutes a lifetime and what is love and all of those other things that become extremely troubling and urgent in the mounting of a quarter life crisis. In case you are wondering, I think about these things when I am not reading at the register.

I don't have any answers to my pressing troubles, but I can say that in the matter of an hour, in 125 pages -- however you want to measure it, I don't care -- This Is Water threw off my entire center of gravity. It was jarring and delightful in such a way that I think that I'll look at the world differently tomorrow. In fact, I know that I will. Maybe I won't be closer to knowing what I want or happier and more content with my current state of affairs, but I'll be seeing things differently. I've always kind of hated it when people say, "This book changed my life," but I think I understand it a bit better now.

Or more importantly, I'm open to the idea of understanding it.

Lady Lovely Locks

2009-07-19T06:10:00.000-07:00

My idea of a haircut was what other people would call "just a trim." Growing up, my sister and I always had extremely long hair. Down to our waists, so long that we sat on it. From seeing pictures of my mother when she was younger, I know why she wanted us to have long hair. In her own mother's practical lifestyle agenda, shorter hair for a young girl was hassle-free. Like all mothers do, my mother wanted us to have something that was denied to her. Thus, being raised with long hair always existed as a sort of privilege for my sister and I, a reminder that might be mentioned when I was fussing and crying about the knots in my hair.

At some point in my sister's college career, she got her hair cut. And I mean cut, from the middle of her back to around her ears. At the time, I didn't really understood the cause of this sudden change in physical appearance, but upon going to the same college four years later, I came to know it as "the chop." For some reason -- and I really can't explain it, I swear -- there seems to be this constant impulse to hack off all of your hair. On any given day, you'll pause on the campus green and watch some woman walk by -- someone who you recognize but maybe don't know well -- and her hair has gotten short. Real short. Maybe "the chop" takes awhile to infect you, but when it happens, there's no stopping it.

I didn't know what I wanted to do with my hair. I was leaving for Las Vegas in 10 hours and I couldn't imagine having my hair resting against the back of my neck in 100 degree weather. I've never been the type of girl who can fashionably craft her long locks into businessy looking creations that stay securely on top of my head, so it seemed like I had one option: cut it all off. And so I hopped into my car, headed to King of Prussia Mall, and got the chop.

In the following months, I often contemplated trims to keep a short and tailored coiffure. Occasionally, I thought about going all the way and getting some sort of boyish moptop. For about a month, I enjoyed looking adorable with short pigtails, but that didn't last. It kept getting longer. Soon, I could pull it back again into a ponytail. And somewhere around November, I decided that I would just let it keep growing until July 19th, 2009, the one year anniversary of when I got it cut. I would spend the year watching a part of myself grow and change, a part that had always looked the same.

Yes, my short hair made me look five years older. And yes, it made me look more professional. But for now, I like wearing it down and in a ponytail and in a messy bun on top of my head. I like being able to run my hands through it. And maybe more than anything, I like watching it grow.

So let's pretend that today isn't July 19th. Just play along, okay?

So Far Around The Bend

2009-07-18T19:48:00.000-07:00

I don't remember how the whole thing started. He said the road was called Route 114. I said it was Lisburn Road. Even though we were both very certain that we were right, we were not convinced that the other person was wrong. The initial conversation went something like this:

"I think it's called 114."

"I'm pretty sure it's Lisburn."

And then we stared at one another and paused and laughed at the utmost certainty of our statements. The next day, our pressing dilemma was solved, thanks to a series of Mapquest printouts and hand drawn diagrams on the white board. And as you may suspect, we were both right. Two names for one road, two right people. I kept those Mapquest maps, for they signified not only a common road, but a common ground and the start of something.

He knows the route because it's his version of the long way home: a winding rural treat that allows him to feel his car hugging the road. I know the road because I live near it and need to drive on it every day in order to get anywhere. But it's a fairly long road, so I had never been on his part until after he told me about it. We drove on it together the day before I left for my freshman year of college, admiring the signage that alternated between "114" and "Lisburn."

The road doesn't lead anywhere that I ever need to be, seeing as it goes in the opposite direction of civilization. It's all curvy and alive and spontaneous and at any given time, supports relatively insignificant in traffic volume. There are even a few hilly spots and bends that give your gut that funny sensation, a strange cross between dropping on a roller coaster and feeling extremely heady.

I was up for that tonight, not in a giddy wanderlust kind of way, but when you become utterly convinced that the only way to digest your thoughts and emotions is by mediating your foot between the accelerator and brake. The turns and bends sway your body just enough to remind you that you're alive, not to mention the certain sense of accomplishment in maneuvering your vehicle on this twisting path. Spatial geography aside, it was the type of night where you can smell a fraction of autumn and you just know that you'll regret it later if you miss another night of fireflies and an opportunity to have your windows rolled down.

In other words, it was a night for the long way home. His long way home. A way home that consists of wrong turns that somehow lead to the right place.

Je Ne Sais Pas (I Do Not Know)

2009-07-17T21:13:00.000-07:00

In the film "Amelie," there's a part in which she sticks her hand in a barrel full of beans at the marketplace. I wish that I could fully recall the specific reason for this action, and better yet, find the clip of it on YouTube. Alas, my memory fails me on two accounts: reason Amelie does this peculiar thing and the adequate French vocabulary to search for the scene online. Oh well. I do know that it had something to do with simple sensory pleasures, which is the most important thing.

Every now and then, I will recall such simple sensory experiences from my childhood. The way that chalk feels and sounds on a good quality chalkboard. The texture of Silly Putty when you stretch it just far enough for it to acquire that peculiar softness. The intense scent and color of a new box of Mr. Sketch markers. The refreshing coolness of my blankie when it would be sitting out in an air conditioned room before I went to sleep during the summer.

I wish that I could remember more of those. Granted, it's not like these sensory pleasures have entirely disappeared from my life, but I find that they don't come quite as easily or often. Maybe I need a change of scenery. Maybe I need new things to see, touch, smell, hear, and taste. Maybe I've sucked most of the sensory pleasures out of Central PA.

But I'm be an adult and take responsibility to suggest something else. Or more pointedly, someone else: me.

I've Got Arms For You

2009-07-15T15:06:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, I began listening to The National, an independent rock band. While I have always loved listening to music, I had never really come to love the entire body of work of one group. Yes, I love The Beatles and John Lennon, but so much of the joy and interest I derive from that music deals with the intertwined cultural and personal histories. With The National, it's different: it's 100% about the music. And it's not just that their actual sound blows me away. It's the lyrics, too. I think that there's a very special feeling -- a type of love -- that I have about certain art-related things. An ache to be lost in it, a sense that it in some way, it holds you. That's how their music makes me feel.

Shortly after I began listening to The National, I realized that an inordinate number of their lyrics contain the word "arms." This observation is not just a casual one; I once spent a couple of hours combing the entirety of their songs in pursuit of "arms." There were a lot. An awful lot. And after closely examining all of the "arms," I still don't know what it all means.

Then again, I doubt that there's just one answer. In fact, I know it. I think it's about all of these, separate or together.

I. Anatomical Rendering of Arms

II. Prosthetic Arm

III. Military Arms

IV. US Navy Coat of Arms

V. Arm of the Boyfriend Pillow

The Gift of a Thief

2009-07-13T21:15:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. Counterfeiter,

I should have figured it out. You were too friendly. Too inquisitive. It should have been all too obvious. It pisses me off that I didn't figure it out until after you left. I hate that you took something that wasn't yours from a place that I consider to be mine.

But you know what else, Mr. Counterfeiter? It's been a long seven days. Physically, my feet and back are sore and achy and I should probably go get a massage. If that's not enough, I'm emotionally worn out, too. I'm tired of the fact that my job has become more of sick game than anything else.

Thus, in some twisted way, your act of thievery was a gift: two hours of being on the job and not having to do it.

And for that, I thank you.

Very Truly Yours,
Retail Lady

Read It, Eat It

2009-07-11T21:48:00.000-07:00

It felt like we were reading More Spaghetti, I Say! for weeks on end. We read it every day. Maybe we didn't read it for weeks, but to my first grade self, that's what it felt like. It was my teacher's favorite book, so I think that's why she read it to us so much. Perhaps it was an especially fun book to read aloud. Until you read books to a small child, you don't realize that some books are a total pain to read and some are a good deal of fun. For instance, my mom wasn't crazy about reading Lady Lovely Locks to my sister and I. Hell, I wouldn't want to either: the whole thing was written in alliterative prose. In contrast, I babysat for a toddler who wanted me to read a French book to him, over and over and over again. I didn't know what the hell I was reading, but I could still pull off a pretty great accent and he was damn smitten for over an hour. I even liked listening to those French words smoothly rolling off my tongue, just like Brie melting on a warm baguette.

In elementary school, everything revolved around units. Everything had a theme with various corresponding activities and bulletin boards. Thus, so did More Spaghetti, I Say! The concluding event for the book was a special lunch which the entirety of the class helped to prepare. And you guessed it...we ate spaghetti while our teacher read us the book. By that point, I don't think that I was paying much attention, seeing as I practically had the book memorized. Furthermore, I had never eaten spaghetti. In my house, we only ever ate angel hair pasta, so the pasta seemed about ten times too thick. I mean, I ate it, but it just seemed weird. For someone who will eat any and all types of pasta, I'm still not a fan of traditional spaghetti.

Everyone in the class was divided up into groups to assist in the meal preparation. I was in the Salad Group, perhaps because I was perceived as being a trustworthy child who could properly handle a knife. I bet that would never happen in an elementary school today. So my contribution to the great feast was cutting up lettuce.

At the end of the meal, I swept the crumbs off of my desk and tidily deposited the little pile into the trash can. And then I went around to all of the other tables and wiped them off. Somehow, my mother was informed of this little incident of self-intiated maintenance and I think that I received some sort of recognition for it. This confused me to no end.

A Slice of My Dark Side

2009-07-10T21:36:00.000-07:00

In pursuit of some writing inspiration, I figured that I would look back to see what I wrote about one year ago on this day. Sure enough, it was something entirely depressing and not the type of inspiration I was looking for: the death of a kitten that my housemates and I were fostering. Man, that's not what I had in mind. But hey, it's life.

It did make me think about death, which while not exactly "inspiring," is interesting in its own right. The phrase "think about death" immediately calls to mind the scene from When Harry Met Sally. You know, they're in the car and arguing about who has more of a dark side:

Sally: Amanda mentioned you had a dark side.
Harry: That's what drew her to me.
Sally: Your dark side?
Harry: Sure. Why? Don't you have a dark side? I know, you're probably one of those cheerful people who dot their "i's" with little hearts.
Sally: I have just as much of a dark side as the next person.
Harry: Oh, really? When I buy a new book, I read the last page first. That way, in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side.

And then Harry goes on to say that he'll be much more prepared when things go down. I don't really know how you exactly prepare for death, but I suppose that if that makes him feel better, good for him.

As for me, I do not have much of a dark side. I don't read the last page first. Then again, I don't think that's especially important in non-fiction books, seeing as they don't have a plot, per se.

However, I think that it's only natural to think about death every now and then. I haven't spent a whole lot of time mulling over it, but I do know these three things, which are all equally important:
1) I don't want the word "God" mentioned at whatever sort of funeral/memorial thing happens. And I guess this goes without saying, but no prayers.
2) No burying me in the ground.
3) Nothing Jewish. At all.

I think that I should probably have this in writing somewhere more official than a blog. It's kind of strange how people have certain things that they want to happen after they die, seeing as they are no longer around to have any say in the matter. But I can see how it might affect how you remember a person, which is important.

I remember that at my Uncle Jerry's funeral, someone speaking described how Jerry had expressed a desire to have "And The Saints Go Marching In." The congregation of people laughed in that knowing way, which could be translated "Oh, that's so amusing, but we'd never do that in person." And I recall sitting there, frowning, and wondering why the hell no one arranged to have it played. It made me sad.

Facing Off With Face Outs

2009-07-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

My sister remains endlessly fascinated by bookstore "face outs," those books that sit literally faced out on the shelf with the cover showing. On at least a half a dozen occasions, she has implored with a tone of fascination, "How do you decide which ones to face out?" I am not quite sure why this intrigues her so much, but I think that it has something to do with the fact that she recognizes that face out books have an opportunity to advertise themselves more to customers: people really do get to judge these books by their cover.

There are two answers to her question. One is extremely boring and fairly obvious. Face outs tend to be books with multiple copies. Multiple copies suggest that it must be recent and/or somewhat popular. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that facing out these types of titles could be financially advantageous. So we face the books out and hope that people recognize the covers and consequently, want to buy them.

The second answer is infinitely more interesting: personal bias. For instance, from about 2AM to 4AM this morning, I shifted around the entire Parenting section. I am not especially fond of this section, seeing as infant care and the intimate details of what to expect if I'm expecting are just about as interesting to me as the entirety of the Religion section. It's not a section that I actively avoid, but to me, it's pretty boring. I'd rather be off in Art or Sociology or Cooking or Literary Criticism.

Nevertheless, I had to rearrange the section, so I did it. At this point, imagine me rubbing my hands together and demonically grinning. Why? Face outs. I had the opportunity to push my own agenda, which in the middle of the night, thrilled me to no end. And thus, I chose to face out books that I thought were a) bizarre (like Spiritual Midwifery) or b) worthwhile considerations for the generally red crowd of Central PA (like The Ultimate Guide to Pregnancy for Lesbians).

Sometimes, you get really lucky and you'll do an entire shelf of face outs, which basically means that you're trying to take up shelf space. So it's up to you to curate a little display of five or six titles that have a common theme. As for me, I made one about the role of fathers in pregnancy/child rearing, the importance of play (half because I wanted to push the title Last Child in the Woods, a book about how kids don't play outside enough), and bullying. In other words, if I would want to read anything in the Parenting section, those are the types of things that I would pick.

But it won't last for very long. With my luck, by the time I go back to work at 6PM this evening, someone will have turned over The Ultimate Guide to Pregnancy for Lesbians and hidden The Sex Pop Up Book behind the children's play face out shelf.

My Magic Treehouse

2009-07-07T20:43:00.000-07:00

I have never been one of those girls who fantasizes about the future of my domesticity. There's nothing wrong with doing that, but it's not something that I do. I don't daydream about a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence or a cozy loft with a stainless steel kitchen and restored brick. I don't get all hyped up about hosting cocktail parties or girl's nights with various themes and gourmet cupcakes.

However, as you know, there are various aspects of my future permanent (or semi-permanent) residency that I think about, like a pit bed or orange walls or a sunken room. While I may seemingly be obsessed with these things, my heart really is not set on any of them. I'm in love with the idea of them. Yes, I know that sounds all so Gatsby, but it's true. They are nice things to think about, but I could live happily without them and probably will continue to do so for the rest of my existence.

About half a year ago, I became intrigued by the prospect of living in a very small house that had the essentials, or what I deemed them to be: a bed, wall-to-wall bookshelves, a small kitchen, a bathroom. And the whole thing would be extremely tiny, just a room or two, all in the middle of a very secluded natural setting that would afford an excellent view of the sky.

The vision for my mini paradise has recently advanced, courtesy of chance encounter with a random book about constructing your own tree house. You know what's coming: I was struck by the sudden and urgent desire to want to live in a tree house. It would be like the above-described small house, except in the trees. And I really want to construct it out of pallet boards. Hell, I made crates out of pallets, why not a home?

Yes, that's what I want. For now.

At The End Of The Day

2009-07-06T21:13:00.000-07:00

A woman arrives home from work. She goes to the dining room, which happens to currently house all of her clothing. That's their temporary home, seeing as she has been playing Tetris with her personal belongings for the past two months or so. It's been a slow game, but things are finding their places. The whole scenario reminds of her of a favorite childhood story in which Ernie moves Bert's belongings to strange locations. You know, the crayons end up in the fish bowl and the fish ends up in the cowboy hat and so on.

She strips naked in the dining room. Her floor-length orange dress -- not unlike the color of the day lilies that she loves so much about this time of year -- falls around her feet, a motion that she sees faintly reflected in the windows. She replaces her orange petals with a hodgepodge of over sized lounge wear. On any other night, she would probably care more about sort of matching these articles of clothing, but she knows that she won't be spending more than an hour in them.

Dinner. Angel hair pasta. Tomato sauce or olive oil? Olive oil. No, tomato sauce. Making asparagus at this hour is too labor-intensive. So tomato sauce it is. Then again, that doesn't solve the problem of protein. Protein. She stands in front of the fridge, leaning against it, berating herself for wearing those copper colored shoes that are beautiful, but painful. Boca burgers. Of course, add those to the tomato sauce. Yes, why didn't she think of that sooner?

Half a box of pasta? Or all of it? Half. A moment later leads to the latter decision. After all, she knows that she won't feel like making dinner tomorrow night. And cold pasta with tomato sauce is one of her favorites. She doesn't know why, but it is. Eating food warm has never been a priority, especially with pasta. And to be even more precise, manicotti. That's the best.

She feels bad for not wanting to talk while preparing her dinner. And she feels bad for not wanting to listen to other people talk. She's quiet at night and the morning, too. The bookends of her days. It reminds her of a scene in one of her favorite movies in which the man declares that he's always quiet in the morning and in the evening. In reality, he doesn't want to talk with his new wife, which doesn't bode well because they're on their honeymoon. Things don't end well for them, as you might suspect. As she cuts up the Boca burger into tiny pieces, she smirks and sighs with relief in knowing that she doesn't have anyone who wants her to talk right now. She doesn't have to say that she's always quiet in the night and in the morning. She likes knowing that it's true, but that she doesn't have to sell anyone on the idea.

The bottom of the pot becomes all sticky with the Angel Hair. It's because she used less water. A friend recently showed her how to make pasta with less water, like one would make rice. That seemed to be a good idea, an easy way to be more environmentally friendly. Then again, it has backfired. Her underestimate of the water will result in needing more water to clean the pot. Failure. Defeat. Well, this time around. There will always be more pasta.

She throws the mess of pasta and sauce and burger crumbs and cheese into a glass bowl. Suddenly, she's hit with the desire to make chocolate chip cookies. She knows why: she's using a cookie mixing bowl. But the thought quickly fades as she stirs her dinner for tonight, tomorrow, tomorrow and so forth. "Tomorrow Tomorrow and So Forth." An Updike story, one of her favorites because she discovered it the day she read that passage from MacBeth in her senior AP English class.

Stirring the pasta becomes harder than stirring cookie dough. She lifts the stringy ball. The cheese makes the Boca burger bits stick together. This isn't working out as well as she planned. Oh well, it looks reasonably well-stirred. And so she stands over the kitchen sink, eating her dinner. She wraps the top with plastic wrap and frowns at the realization that she should really abandon using plastic wrap. Somehow, her latest read -- Sleeping Naked is Green -- has infiltrated her brain for the past few days. More than anything, it makes her upset with herself. She's not going to give up her car, but she could at least ditch the plastic wrap, right?

Carbs. Protein. Something fresh. Lots of options. She wasn't expecting this. That makes the decision more complicated. Raspberries. Cherries. Grapes. Strawberries. Yes, raspberries. No, cherries. The cherries are already washed. Less work. She takes the bowl with her and stands by the trash can. Eats a cherry. Spits the seed into the can. Repeat.

Staring into the abyss of the can now spotted with her cherry bullets, she wonders how this whole act would look on film. It can't be good. It certainly wouldn't make a good advertisement if she was trying to get someone to date her. Which she isn't. She's not going to be around this town long enough to make that endeavor worthwhile.

Or maybe the whole scene would make a good dating advertisement because at the end of the day, that's what you'd be coming home to. She pauses to consider this while dumping the remaining cherries into a Ziploc bag for her lunch tomorrow. Ah, screw it. Take it or leave it.

1527 Miles

2009-07-05T19:51:00.000-07:00

I try not to make Mark Making a play-by-play of recent events in my life. More often than not, it addresses the past, not the present. But sometimes, the present intrudes in a very direct way. Then again, I suppose that everyone should be allowed a guest appearance every now and then, right?

This past week, I went on vacation. By myself. Until now, that word has meant one thing to me: the beach. This week included the beach, but it was merely a fraction, a cog in the wheel, a domino in the line.

I'd never gone on vacation by myself. In fact, I wasn't really even aware that people went on vacations alone until I realized that I wanted to do it. I don't think it's especially common to want to travel alone, but I'm okay with that.

If you're about to say that I did this last summer in Las Vegas, I don't want to hear it. People don't pay $200 to leave their vacation 18 hours early because they hate the location. You don't sob yourself to sleep every night on a vacation either. And perhaps more fundamentally, vacations are not about doing informational interviews and firsthand observations. Case closed.

So this week was my first vacation that was entirely planned and executed by me. Washington DC, Philadelphia, Atlantic City, the Delaware coast, New York City, Ann Arbor. Visits with four friends. Five art museums. Three used bookstores. Copious amounts of real, delicious food. Which of course, included lots of ice cream.

For as often as I have often been surprised by my own capabilities, I think this tops the rest of those times. I somehow made an entire week of doing exactly what I wanted. And then I did it. As silly as it seems to admit this, the whole experience makes me me feel so...accomplished. My vacation wasn't necessarily better than going to the beach -- yes, that's wonderful and I'm always up for that -- but it caused me to realize that I'm beginning to edit and revise definitions that I once believed were set in stone. I'm rewriting my own dictionary. I'm going back to basics. And for the first time in a very long time, the prospect of that isn't scary.

It's exciting.

Gutter Ball

2009-07-04T23:32:00.000-07:00

I had always been terrible at bowling. There were lots of gutter balls. I was okay with that.

But as with everything else, he wanted to see me improve. In fact, it wasn't even about improving. It was about learning. And ultimately, I now recognize that it was about him knowing that it was he who initiated, facilitated, and guaranteed the success of advancing my progress. I was his project. I liked it. I was the only person with whom he had an endless supply of patience. With others, he had none. But I was special. While he treated everyone else with sarcasm and blatant disrespect, there was something about me that brought out his softer side. A man who explained things in a gentle voice, who offered praise and encouragement, even when I messed up.

He showed me how to fix my gutter balls. He used his own hands to position mine properly around the ball. He explained the process of releasing the ball and broke it into a few simple steps, each of which he demonstrated and executed, and then had me mirror. He watched me, critiqued me, and offered advice as to how to play upon my strengths. It was no different than how he taught me to do other things: to draw, to drill, to saw, to spray paint. After a few games that night, I improved. Drastically. We both left the bowling alley with smiles on our faces, both proud in our respective roles of teacher and student, marveling at our ever flawless teamwork, the way that I so effortlessly imitated and perfected his instructions. The way that I, the student, edged ever closer to becoming him, the teacher.

Tonight, I went bowling. I hadn't gone since that night, six years ago. I warned my teammates that I was bad. Very bad. They said it was fine, that it didn't matter.

In the end, I wasn't bad at all. No, I wasn't great. There were still a couple of gutter balls.

A part of me hates that I have him to thank for this mild success. I could still hear his voice in my head, the echo of his softly spoken constructive criticism. I could see the form of his body demonstrating the process of release. I pondered at how somewhere along the way -- somewhere between five years ago and now, somewhere between epoxy-stained Levi's and delicate royal blue dresses -- we were no longer teacher and student. When that ended, we ended. We didn't know how to be anything else.

And so, we became a gutter ball.

Trust Me

2009-07-04T07:26:00.000-07:00

I think that I'm a good secret keeper. If you say "Don't tell," I won't tell. In adult language, I suppose that means I respect and maintain confidentiality. But I'd rather say that I'm a good secret keeper. If you're not a good secret keeper, I don't want anything to do with you.

Even though trust is a fairly abstract concept, I think that are moments in life when you can pinpoint the meaning of big words like that: honesty, love, respect, responsibility, character, etc. You get the idea. And more often than not, what makes you understand them is under bad circumstances. Someone lies to you. Someone breaks your heart. Someone rubs your face in the dirt.

My sister and I were chattering away, laying on a king-sized hotel room at Trump Castle, now known as Trump Marina. Clad in our oversized Atlantic City t-shirts as pajamas, we were up late giggling and sharing secrets, just like sisters do. At the time, she about 11 years old and I was about 7 years old. I don't remember her secrets -- probably because I kept my mouth shut about them -- but I revealed to her that I had a crush on some boy.

The next day, my sister told my mom about my secret. She did it in front of me. And while I showed anger on the outside, beneath it were thick layers of humiliation and the harsh aftermath of betrayal.

For all of the dark side of childhood that this story reveals, even I have to admit that the ending was pretty humorous. My way of punishing my sister was the institute a system of "trust points." If she did nice things for me, she earned trust points. And if she was mean, they were taken away. I don't even think that there was a grand total that she needed to earn. The whole thing lasted about a day. But at seven years old, that was my way of processing trust -- or rather, the breaking of it.

Truthfully, the real punishment has lasted much longer. I still tell my sister a lot of secrets. She knows more of my secrets than anyone else on this planet. But before I open my mouth about any of them, I say, "Look, you can't tell anyone about this."

She looks at me in the eye. Maybe rolls her eyes. "Who am I going to tell? Of course I won't."

I'll raise my eyebrows. "Well, you know."

She sighs. "Okay."

And between spoonfuls of ice cream, the secrets spill out. Some of them.

Don't Catch Me

2009-06-27T21:17:00.000-07:00

Generally, I don't think that people like flying that much, whether for the bureaucratic hassle rendered by flight regulations and/or a fear of flying. As for me, I could care less. I like every minute of it, even waiting in line. I kid you not. But the best part is being in the air.

In fact, the best part of my thesis research last summer was flying to Las Vegas. For the entirety of the flight, my eyes were glued to the American landscape passing beneath me. I wanted to stay up there for the next two weeks. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. We landed, as planes are supposed to do.

However, I distinctly remember the descent. We had to fly through some pretty thick clouds. And for some reason, the ride down was rapid and sharp. A lot of the passengers around me were holding on to their seats, visibly upset by this interrogation of motion, this interruption. As for me, I gazed out the window at the clouds whizzing past, closed my eyes, and absorbed the weightlessness of the plunge while a blissful smile played upon my lips. I was falling into the unknown, free from gravity. And for about sixty seconds it lasted, I didn't given a damn if we were headed straight for the ground. That only occurred to me later. I guess should have been thinking about that, but instead, I was having an out of body experience that I wanted to last longer than a minute.

It left me wanting more, a feeling that I'm certain is common for Vegas-bound passengers.

De Terre (French for "Of The Earth")

2009-06-26T19:25:00.000-07:00

How often do we really do what we want? Have you wanted to punch someone and did it? How many times have you wanted to kiss someone and planted it, right then and there? Have you ever wanted to leave -- and then you do just that, not returning until you're ready? For as much as I try to gyrate on the edge of indifference and catch the wave of the spontaneity that constantly floods my brain and body and heart, I haven't ever done any of those things, at least wholeheartedly. I reign it in and chomp the bit. I repress it, hold it back. And the thing is, I'd like to do those things, to do exactly what I want.

But just when I get close, something stops me: I'm human.

It's one of the worst things about being human. We don't do what we want. Animals don't have that problem. As far as I know, they just do what they want -- and if need be, they suffer the consequences. But being human is far more complicated.

I got to thinking about this because I'm in love with a song called "Furr" by BlitzenTrapper. It's about losing yourself in your instincts. Returning to nature. Realizing that humans are animals, even though we don't think of ourselves in that manner. Maybe I love the song so much because I'm kind of in a back to basics mode right now, though I'm not talking about eating organic food and using green lightbulbs and stuff. I think that purging a lot of my belongings at the beginning of the week and rearranging my room had something to do with it. I feel like I am making a habitat. And I've been thinking about how I'm a vegetarian and how that makes me feel more...natural. I don't even know if that's the right word. But the whole idea of not eating meat causes me to believe that I am somehow more biodegradable, closer to dirt. And I like that.

You can begin to hate me now. I know that all sounds like a bucket of nonsense, but it's true. I feel different this week and I don't know why.

I'd like to have a day -- just one day -- where I do exactly what I want. You know, it wouldn't even have to be a day. Maybe just an hour. An entire lifetime would happen in that hour. And in the way that all lifetimes end, I would die.

Of happiness.

Sealed With a Kiss

2009-06-25T21:54:00.000-07:00

If you've noticed, I rarely write about relationship-oriented things. There are a few reasons for this, but it's primarily that I have few to write about and that I tend to be immensely private about those types of things. In other words, it's none of your business.

One thing that I love about working at a bookstore is that I stumble into the most fascinating books in the most unexpected places. For someone who never shops in the Self Help section, I found a really interesting book today called Other People's Love Letters, a sort of Post Secret of love letters. I was expecting all of them to be glowing and mushy and detestable for any single person to read, but that wasn't the case. Those that did not deal with head over heels love concerned people grappling with the difficulties of love in less than desirable circumstances. And they varied from handwritten letters to napkin notes to text messages to e-mails.

As I sat there paging through the book, one cannot help but think about love letters sent and received. I hadn't thought about this in awhile, but one of my relationships was constructed almost entirely of emails. Save four or so days shared in person and a handful of phone calls, the rest of it was conducted with email. According to Other People's Love Letters, all of this online correspondence -- from the first email to the last one -- would count as love letters. I had never really conceived of the final bitter exchanges as love letters, but I suppose that in a way, they were.

In the book's introduction, the author writes that love letters are not often kept, especially the ones written by hand. After all, the ending of a relationship often results in the purging of its documentation. However, email neatly archives such correspondance, and while I am sure that some people have the impulse to delete them, that's not my style. I save every email, pretty much because I can. It doesn't take up any space, so why get rid of it? And if for some reason I ever need to construct the timeline of events in my life, email becomes my main source. It helps me to construct my past, and thus, me.

I know what you're wondering. You wonder if I hold onto those emails for the sentimental value, if I keep them to reread them. No, not so much. Every now and then, I'll run across one when searching my inbox and I might pause to open it -- that is, if I know it's a nice one.

And I'll read it and smile and be glad the whole thing happened, even if it amounted to nothing lasting, a mere fragment in my 2625 MB of emails.

What Dumbledore Saw

2009-06-23T21:53:00.000-07:00

Shoes are not something that I enjoy. I like having my feet free and open to the world, even if they are damn ugly because of their scars. One of my friends seems to think that these scars are "badass" -- and thus, "hot" -- so hopefully there is someone else out in the world who feels the same way.

Logially, I also don't like socks. But if I do wear them, I sport them inside out. Why anyone would ever want a seam rubbing against their toes all day is beyond me. That's so unnecessarily uncomfortable and I just can't deal with it.

I just don't know how you people do it.

Dream State (or District)

2009-06-22T21:51:00.001-07:00

I hadn't slept in 36 hours. But dammit, I was going to hear Robert Frank speak. I'd been waiting since January. And I wasn't going to let anything get in my way, even my lack of sleep. In my barely awake state, I managed to figure out the Amtrak schedule and forked out $126 for train tickets without a second thought. How I ever got from my dorm room to the Bryn Mawr station to 30th street, I will never know, let alone in the pouring rain. Rain always makes things seem a million times more confusing and unpleasant, but that day, I was blissfully unaware. I think I felt a certain amount of protection from it, as I had enough smarts to tune into the fact that the act of looking put together can do wonders for making you actually feel that way -- even when you can't figure out how to hold a muffin and an orange juice. And thus, with my badass trench coat and bright blue tights and hip argyle rainboots and vintage red umbrella, I made it to Washington DC.

Somehow, I do remember hearing Robert Frank speak. This was probably aided by the fact that I slept prior to the talk -- not on the train, but in the hallway that connects the East and West Buildings of the National Gallery. Curled up in the fetal position with my body wrapped around a backpack and my coat, I had my own surreal starry night experience as I dozed beneath the 41,000 LEDs in Leo Villareal's "Multiverse." The other day, I saw a picture of the hallway in a magazine and I wondered to myself if any other adult had ever slept there. It just might be my claim to fame. I can imagine that people have gotten high and then gone there, seeing as all the lights moving about is pretty trippy. But I still think that I have a monopoly on sleeping there.

Sleeping was easy. The hard part was getting up. I had been sitting there in the same position for at least an hour and a half, so when I went to stand, I could have sworn my right leg had fallen off. The left one was a bit off, but the right one was gone, totally and completely asleep. But unlike the normal sensation of the strange prickles, there was just nothing. I even remember hitting it and feeling nothing. Panic set in. There was a crowd pushing behind me, all wanting to hear and see the photographer of The Americans. I somehow managed to lean against the wall to propel myself forward, but I'm still amazed that I didn't fall over and get trampled. But I made it. And then somehow, I got home. I think I raided Au Bon Pain for the post 9PM pastry special. Or maybe I dreamed about doing that.

That was the theme of the day: living the dream but having no clue how I actually made it happen.

I Need Some Space

2009-06-22T20:04:00.000-07:00

Some families conceive of their home as a work in progress. For my family, not so much. We're not constantly remodeling the kitchen or painting the bathroom or refurnishing the dining room. We've lived here for seventeen years and it looks pretty much the same as when we arrived. Then again, my parents did spend two years doing construction on it prior to moving in, so I can understand why they would never want to go to Home Depot again. Except we went to this place called Hechingers, which is long gone. It was located across from my current place of employment and sometimes when I am looking out the front window, I marvel at how I've been circulating in the same space for the past twenty-two years.

And speaking of space, it's no surprise that my room hasn't changed since we moved in. The furniture has sunken into the carpet, never rearranged. The pictures on the walls are all the same. All of my horse figurines are glued in place. And there's never been any impulse to change it, seeing as I have never been one of those kids who spends a lot of time in their room. I just sleep there and go there for phone conversations. The majority of the interesting things in my house are on the first floor, so that's where my family spends most of our time.

That is, until today. I'd been thinking about it since I moved home about a month ago, which gives you a clue about my extreme hesitancy. But I finally did it: I moved things around. As I sit in my bed -- now cozily situated in a corner -- I can say that I wish I had done this sooner. And for as much as a part of me still loves horses, I'd rather have my college books on my shelves and my own photographs hanging on my walls. I was anticipating feeling some sense of loss in transforming the room of my childhood into one that better reflects and suits the young adult I am now, but more than anything, I am immensely delighted with how things have worked out.

In fact, it might sound funny to say, but I don't think I've ever felt more at home in my own room.

Dust (in my) Bowl

2009-06-20T19:51:00.000-07:00

Is it just me, or is the dust of cereal the best part? Cereal is not something that I like, but I will eat the two tablespoons at the bottom of the bag. In other words, I'm one of those kids who gets an awesome toy, but instead chooses to play with the box and assorted packaging.

The Sure Thing

2009-06-19T20:43:00.000-07:00

For all of the decisions that my parents made about our new house, they exerted a certain effort to involve my sister and I in making the house a home.

We picked out the color of our rooms. Sam wanted blue. I wanted orange. My mom convinced me that peach was a type of orange. Coincidentally, light blue and light peach do look good together and are not an uncommon pairing in wallpaper patterns. In every way possible, peach was a good decision.

We selected our beds. I wanted a canopy bed. Sam wanted a normal bed, but upon seeing my fantastical canopy bed fit for a princess, she decided that she wanted one, too.

We made our mark. The day the cement was poured in the basement, the four of us each put our hand in the fresh, cold wetness in our appropriate order by age and size: Dad, Mom, Sam, me.

We altered the landscape. My mother wanted Sam and I to each have a tree, both dogwoods. Planting Sam's tree became a birthday party activity. I don't remember when we planted mine. A few years ago, we had the property landscaped and our trees were removed. From the start, Sam's was always quite sickly and infested with some sort of problematic insect that rendered the tree in a permanent cycle of reviving and dying. Mine, on the other hand, thrived.

Still, we got rid of both trees ad planted new ones. At the time, it immensely irritated me because I had just read John Updike's memoir, Self-Consciousness, and there was something in there about him having a dogwood tree. And thus, I so badly wanted to keep mine, although I never told anyone. I didn't like that being knocked off our list of commonalities: our shared Pennsylvania heritage, our love of museums...I'm not going to bore you with the rest of the details. But the dogwood tree made that list one item shorter. And in a small corner of my heart or mind, I felt like the uprooting of the tree -- a healthy one, no less -- was severing a connection. A small one, but an important one.

Sometimes, I can stay sore about something for years and not say anything to anyone. And I mean anyone. More than anything, it's probably because I'm half embarrassed that I'm still irritated. Then again, I think that everyone has those things, something that still irks the hell out of you for a lifetime, even though you'll never be able to make it right. But is it really just that you can't let it go? Or is it more complicated than that? What if it won't let go of you? Maybe it goes both ways.

Whatever the answers may be to my questions, I did get over the dogwood tree. Really, I'm not just saying that. If I was still sore about it, I would confess it right now.

But I will say this. Although I love my peach bedroom, I one day want a room in my own house to be shade of bright, bold orange. The color of a pumpkin or a sweet potato. Then again, you might not even notice that the walls are orange because I want floor to ceiling bookshelves covering every inch of wall space. I suppose the orange color would probably exude a certain warmth peeking out from behind the bookshelves or shining down from the ceiling. I never resented my mom for persuading me to make my room peach, but yes, there is still that part of me that still wants an orange room. Amidst other troublesome impossibilities that are of far greater significance than the color of a yet to be determined room in a yet determined city/state/country, you might say that I am more in love with the promised possibility that having my orange room than the actual realization of it.

And of course, there will be a dogwood tree outside of my kitchen window.

There's No Place Like Home

2009-06-19T19:57:00.000-07:00

Shortly after we purchased our new house seventeen years ago, my father drove us to see it. My family stood there looking at it below a starry sky entirely untainted by light pollution, save the faint glow of Ski Roundtop in the dead center of our backyard. For some reason, the sellers of the house marketed the view of Ski Roundtop as a major perk, although I never understood how the view markets itself as an asset. Hell, I've never even been to Ski Roundtop. But I see it everyday. It's not like one of those homes that's right next to Wrigley Field and people build stadium seating on the roof.

At the age of five or so, I was quite weary of looking at houses -- even the one we finally chose -- so I have to admit that I actually don't remember this moment with us standing in the pitch dark looking at our new house. I do know that my mother began to paint a picture of that event at some point. And now that I'm older, I can imagine that it was a very romantic and happy moment for my parents: making a family, making a home. But at the age of five, I think that I just wanted to go home.

Lay, Lady, Lay

2009-06-16T19:49:00.000-07:00

When I was a young girl, the brass bed seemed awfully high. It occupied most of the guest bedroom, which for some reason, we named "Nana and Pop-Poo's" room. Then again, I guess that's what we called the room because they stayed there more often than anyone else.

In a far corner of my mind, I have a vague memory of crawling into that bed between my maternal grandparents, very early in the morning. Maybe I made that up. I don't really know. Or maybe I wish that it had happened and thus my memory satiated my desire with the appropriate mental imagery. It does that sometimes. However, I do know with utmost certainty that my sister and I slept in that brass bed the first night we moved into our new house. At the time -- seventeen years ago -- it still seemed awfully high. Reaching the mattress required a certain amount of climbing up the bedpost, which resembles the brass poles found on carousel horses. I recall enjoying this ascent, a pleasant change from my strictly horizontal range of motion.

These days, I don't look at the brass bed any more than I did when I was younger. It's tucked away in Nana's room, the walls painted a shade of deep buttercream ice cream.

Perhaps the first time that I actually looked at the bed was last night as I twirled around in my mother's vintage gown -- a diversion from cleaning out my closet. And as I swung round the brass bedpost in a long silky pink gown, it struck me that this very bed could have been the inspiration for my favorite Bob Dylan song. I romantically pondered this thought after effortlessly throwing myself upon the white mattress stripped of its sheets, my freshly showered body haphazardly extended and the slippery bubblegum fabric luxuriously slipped halfway up my newly shaven legs, smooth and strong and white.

First Steps

2009-06-15T20:46:00.001-07:00

Things were different when Sam when off to college. But I guess that's what happens when you come from a family that really does function as a complete unit. After all, a square isn't a square anymore when you take away one of the sides.

When Sam came home from college, she had a definitive smell. Even though I later went to Bryn Mawr, I never acquired that smell. I think it came from Merion, the dorm where she lived for three years. It wasn't a bad smell. In fact, it was nice. I had never noticed Sam having any sort of scent prior to living in Merion, so it seemed very different, especially the way it filled any room that she would occupy at home.

I wasn't quite sure what to do with her the night she came home for Winter Break during her freshman year. After all, I had really only just begun to grow accustomed to the "only child" status her absence rendered. Thus, it seemed awfully strange to be having her home. And for some reason, I was in a bad mood about it. Little did I know that coming home from college was probably just as strange for her, something that I would learn four years later. For as nice as Winter and Summer breaks are -- or shall I say, were -- I grew to expect them to be the poorly written Twilight Zones: the middle full of compelling content, but with Rod Serling's beginning and ending dialogues rambling and disjointed instead of spot-on and poetic.

She was kind of oblivious to my bad mood. Or maybe she was ignoring it. I think that she was just happy to be home and relieved that I was the only person not asking her about her classes and what she would be taking next semester. Sure, it's awfully nice to be asked about those things. And it's important to talk about what cost $40,000. But sometimes, you want someone who wants to hear about the other discoveries, the type that come at 2AM when you can't take any more studying or thinking or writing.

Even in one semester, Sam made a lot of discoveries. One of them was crunchy folksy lesbian music like the Indigo Girls and Dar Williams. I didn't know that's what it was at the time, but she wanted to share it with me the night she got home. She said that she had things to share with me, so we sat on the floor of my study in our pajamas on the slightly itchy emerald green carpet. She popped Dar Williams's "Out There Live" in our now dysfunctional six-CD stereo system.

I had never heard music like that before. In fact, they weren't just songs; they were stories. No one had told me a story in a very long time. Like everything else that night, it felt strange...but good. Sitting there in my pajamas with my sister -- my sister who seemed so grown up, even in her owl printed pajama pants -- it was nice to feel small again, to be the little sister.

Sam played a few songs which made me giggle and smile. But when "The Babysitter's Here" came on, we both burst out into tears, which quickly cascaded into heaving sobs. The kind where your face turns red and you begin to hyperventilate.

I tried to rationalize it. It didn't make sense. We had never really had a babysitter, not a regular one anyway. After all, my mom had generally abolished the idea of babysitters. You see, Sam took her first step the night my father finally coaxed my mother into going out on a date post-pregnancy, so it was a babysitter who saw my sister's first steps.

For as much as it didn't make sense at the time, I guess that you could say that we were crying for a different kind of "first steps" that night.

Family

2009-06-11T21:02:00.000-07:00

When I was younger, I drew people as "balloon heads." In other words, I would draw people's heads as the balloons with strings trailing below their chin. I don't know why. Most often, my family members were depicted in these strange renderings, which my mother lovingly hung on the horsehair plaster walls of our home.

As the years progressed, my drawings of our family matured, thank goodness. As I did with the balloon head pictures, I drew us in descended height and age, meaning the order went Dad, Mom, Sam, and me. I wonder if I would have drawn things differently had I not been the youngest and the shortest, not to mention my affinity for being last. (I know no other child who insisted upon going last in board games. Go figure.) Dad always had black hair, glasses, and a green tshirt. Mom always had curly yellow hair and a blue dress, the one she wore on New Year's Eve. Sam had long chestnut hair. I think her outfits varied. And as for me, I had long yellow hair and my outfits varied, too, although I recall sporting a lot of orange.

A couple of years ago, I was supremely distracted from writing a paper. So I made my sister a PowerPoint of our family a la South Park characters in business casual attire. And I lined up the pictures of the characters for a full screen shot of our South Park family, I realized that we hadn't changed much.

Rasputin Is In My Bathroom

2009-06-10T18:34:00.001-07:00

Fireflies. Ice cream. Barbecues. Iced tea. Flip flops and tank tops. Vacations. The heady prospect of romance. Yes, these and more are the things of summer.

"And more" also includes insects. A lot of people freak out about bugs and retreat at the sight of creepy crawlers. You might be one of them. You might even shriek in fear. But not me. That's not to say that I like bugs or am even interested in them, but for the most part, they're okay. We get along. However, there is one exception: wasps. They are small machines capable of extraordinary pain, something that I know from being stung on multiple occasions for no good reason.

Wasps happen to love making appearances in my room during the summer months. As you might imagine, this does not thrill me, but I take care of it. So when I see one, I retrieve my swatter and ever so carefully stalk them, waiting for the perfect moment to go in for the kill. Invariably, I miss the first time.

Perhaps what I despise so much about wasps is the difficulty of the killing process. As small machines of pain, they have an appropriately hearty exterior that requires not just one hit, but many. And in between smacks, they retreat into the most inconvenient corners that curtails further whacking. About one in every ten hits actually makes contact, upon which you'll hear a crunching sound and the frantic buzz of wings. The whole thing disgusts me, especially cleaning up the aftermath of the body parts splayed on my bed or desk or whatever surface the wasp was executed upon.

Tonight, I thought I got lucky. Upon opening the door of my bathroom, I saw a wasp: the first one of the season. So like every other time, I pulled out my swatter and set out to work. Eventually, I thwacked the wasp enough until it fell into my sink. Pleased with the prospect of not having to further smash it and subsequently clean up the mess, I turned on the faucet and standing on my toes, I peered over the sink and watched it go down the drain. Just to be sure, I let the water run and closed the drain.

A few minutes later, I returned, opened the drain, and let out a sigh of relief. Wasp killed. Job done. And so I began to clean out my shower.

In tenth grade, my World Cultures teacher told us about the legendary killing of Rasputin. Apparently, after enduring a series of events that should have resulted in immediate death -- poison, three gunshots, and being beaten -- he was tossed into a river and died of drowning. When the body was later retrieved, it appeared as though he had tried to claw at the ice in an attempt to escape.

Maybe you see where I'm going with this. While I was cleaning out my shower, I heard a buzzing. I bolted over to my sink to discover the wasp flutter its wings and inching away from the drain. Half infuriated and half terrified at this resurrection, I turned the water on again and watched the little wasp go down the drain. I left the water run for several minutes and after shutting it off, closed the drain.

It's still closed. In other words, I am convinced that Rasputin was reincarnated as the wasp in my bathroom.

Throwing Like Girls

2009-06-08T19:28:00.000-07:00

The first owners of the baseball must have been my parents, for Sam and I had never received a baseball. We were not the most athletically-inclined children, as our days were spent vomiting the contents of our imaginations into the world. Perhaps the charm of the baseball rested in its undeniable authenticity and resulting tactile temptations. Thinly coated in dirt, the ball's worn surface suggested that it had passed through many hands before ours, which we repeatedly ran over the thick stitching.

Sam -- then known as Sami -- asked our mother if we could play toss with the baseball. My mother said yes, but we should be careful not to hit the fish tank. At the age of three or so, I distinctly recall being wary of this suggested game. For as much as I enjoyed the weight of the ball in my hand, it seemed too heavy to throw, too heavy to catch, and most certainly not the ideal object to tossing about in a room with a large glass fish tank. I attempted to explain this uneasy feeling after the incident -- both in minutes and years later -- but no one believed me. But I remember that feeling and those thoughts, even if they came from my three year-old self.

I should have declined. But there's something about the stamp of approval from one's mother and older sister that a three year-old can't ignore. And so we tossed, until the ball was thrown too high. I, sitting below the fish tank, ducked to avoid being lobbed in the skull.

I presume that Sam has a mental snapshot of the tank exploding. She was, after all, facing it. For me, it was one of those moments when things happen in slow motion. You know what's going to happen before things go down. I can still hear the sound of the tank bursting behind me. But more than that, I remember bolting, slipping across the hardwood floor in my little pink socks.

Closer To Fine

2009-06-07T20:22:00.000-07:00

For someone who's terribly impulsive in many ways, it might be somewhat surprising that I'm the ultimate comparison shopper. It's not just about getting the cheapest price. More than that, it's about knowing that I'm getting what I want. And to ensure that, I invest whatever it takes: the gas, the time, the thought, the love...you name it. As you might imagine, this mentality extends beyond the literal meaning of comparison shopping, but we're not delving into the psychology of my decision making and hedonistic tendencies.

Anyway, I have a love/hate relationship with my comparison shopper self. It's hard not to have a certain fondness for my somewhat obsessive behavior, especially when it is so often rewarded. In fact, it works out pretty well most of the time, so that's why I keep on doing it. For instance, going to six different places to shop for eyeglasses. I wasn't planning to go to the last one -- Sam's Club -- but I just had to go. And wouldn't you know, I found the perfect pair.

But sometimes, I feel like I'm wasting an awful lot gas and time and whatnot. Take, for instance, when I go to four different grocery stores to examine the quality, quantity, and price of raspberries. Is that really necessary? Of course not. But I do it anyway.

Then again, who I am kidding using the present tense? I no longer have those four different grocery stores, which is probably for the better.

Or so I like to tell myself.

Cactus Pups: The New Lisa Frank

2009-06-04T20:21:00.001-07:00

I was never especially good at keeping up with fads throughout secondary school. It wasn't and has never been one of my strong suits. I'm destined to be one of the uncool kids and I haven't embraced it as much as I've ignored it.

Three different little girls wanted Cactus Pups. Yeah, you read that right, Cactus Pups. Thirty-six come in a pack, which sells for $5.99. They have names like "Bastardino." I kid you not.

And apparently, we sell them...or so Janice said, who enthusiastically gloated about her Cactus Pups to the entirety of her fourth grade class today. It also happens that today was their last day of school. I bet Janice's teacher was pretty happy about that.

If I was in fourth grade, I would not have owned Cactus Pups. But damn it, I bet you that I would have been balling my eyes out. Because you know, that's what all of the cool kids do on the last day of school.

Exhibit A: Cactus Pups

Exhibit B: Bastardino

Got It

2009-06-03T19:22:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's the little things.

I was kneeling in the Science Fiction section, trying to locate the final item I was pulling before the end of my shift. In a matter of seconds, a mother and her teenage son, probably about fifteen years old or so, appeared a few feet down from me, hurriedly scanning the shelves. A moment later, I heard a "Darn! They don't have it!"

As any bookseller knows, just because it's not on the shelf doesn't mean we don't have it. It could be on display. It could be in the stock room. It could have gotten moved to another section. It could exist in a Quality Paperback instead of a Mass Market. So I extended my help, looked up the title -- something like Vampire Roses -- and wouldn't ya know, we had just received another copy.

They both looked at me as though I was the most awesome person on the planet and they thanked me a dozen times. I don't have any idea of why they wanted or needed it so badly, but it was definitely of utmost importance. In reality, I had little to do with their procurement of the book. It just so happened that we had just gotten in one copy of an obscure SciFi title.

That was the best part of today: knowing that someone got exactly what they wanted and that I got to be a small part of making that happen.

Acquired Taste

2009-06-02T20:22:00.000-07:00

I have never been a fan of yogurt, the type that you buy in little containers at the grocery store. There's just nothing exciting about it. After all, do you know anyone who loves yogurt, anyone who totally craves it and can't get enough? No, I didn't think so. I think that half of the issue has to do with the gloppy and slimy texture. Granted, there are ways to improve yogurt, like adding fresh fruit or granola. But even then, yogurt still doesn't have a whole lot of deliciousness going for it. It's totally the person who asks you out on a date and you go because you have nothing better to do. And it seems okay at first, but by the middle, you're ready to be done with it. That's yogurt.

However, this past year, I discovered Greek yogurt. In case you are not aware, Greek yogurt (also called strained yogurt) is a super thick and creamy version of regular yogurt, which happens to be a tad sour for some people. As for me, I think that it's quite decadent and wonderful. And it's much more versatile than our typical American yogurt, meaning that you can basically find a way to add it to anything, whether savory or sweet. It's just as delicious in baked goods as it is with beef, fruit, potatoes...you name it.

And you'll probably think this is gross, but I really enjoy with with olive oil and honey. All mixed together. Yep.

Drive My Car

2009-06-01T21:14:00.000-07:00

When you're a kid, you devise the strangest explanations for the way things work. Take, for instance, my belief that cars drove themselves around. Since I couldn't see so well out of the car windows, it was a logical explanation. According to me, my family was the only one that had any control of their vehicles. As for the rest of the cars out there, they had a great deal of agency and their own agendas.

For this reason, I immensely enjoy the film Cars. It totally fulfills my childhood fantasy. Then again, this seems to be the plot of so many Pixar films, that being the realization of youthful imaginings: that your toys are actually alive, that there are monsters in your bedroom, that pet fish talk with one another.

The thing is, a small part of me still believes those things.

About Today

2009-05-31T20:31:00.000-07:00

Today, I got calls from three of my closest college friends. Another one wrote me a Facebook message inquiring when I'd be around the Main Line this summer. And today, as I was getting dressed for work, it occurred to me that I was wearing the same dress two weeks ago for a very different occasion than shelving and selling books.

It's nice to know that I'm not the only one. Despite the fact that I'm the princess of repressing emotions -- or so I'm told -- believe me when I say that I'm loving being at home right now, I really am. But tonight, there was nothing more that I wanted than to have someone in my passenger's seat who wanted to blare "Laid" and go to Wawa and just drive around for a little while down heavily wooded roads and enjoy the edge of summer that hangs in the air.

Yes, I wanted that very badly -- or more pointedly, I wanted you very badly -- more than you know.

Eyes Wide Shut

2009-05-31T19:54:00.000-07:00

A few posts ago, I shared that one of the things I'm reading is The Natural History of the Senses. I found it when shelving in General Sciences and I bought it as a result of my recent goal to throw myself into new intellectual material: the type of literature that has always interested me, but I never had or made the time to formally study within the past four years. The five senses happens to be one of those topics. Somewhere in this blog and in person, you've probably heard me say that if I wasn't such a social scientist, I would go into the natural sciences to study something sensory, probably touch or smell. I really would.

Knowing me, you'd probably think that I would be more interested in sight -- and don't get me wrong, I am. But in many ways, I think that my dependence on my physical vision prevents me from metaphorically seeing things, to the point where I have a hard time fully using my other senses when my eyes are open. Take, for instance, listening to music. Within the past week, I went to a couple of concerts. For as interesting as it was to watch the band, my ability to focus on experiencing the music drastically improved when I closed my eyes. And it's not just sound -- it's the other senses, too. If I really want to taste something or feel a hug or embrace a scent, I close my eyes.

Unfortunately, the chapter on Sight in The Natural History of the Senses has not helped to explain any of this. But lucky for me, I gained far more valuable knowledge: a medieval recipe that enables one to simultaneously cook and eat a goose. Score!

Buck-Buck = 15 Gallons of Petrol

2009-05-28T21:41:00.000-07:00

I didn't like much about second grade. My teacher was not the nicest of people. She went on to be an elementary school principal, so it was fairly obvious that the position was more of a stepping stone than anything else. It showed. And she was always absent because of her infant son who seemingly had a permanent ear infection. Don't get me wrong -- I think it's good to put your family first, but I think that when you're teaching young kids, you should assess your ability to balance the roles of parent and teacher. She wasn't so good at that. However, I do recall that we had a fabulous student teacher named Miss Bloom. She was lovely and assembled my many homework packets from being gravely ill throughout a large part of the winter. Miss Bloom wrote the nicest notes and always drew a little flower next to her name.

Anyway, the one thing that I did like about my second grade teacher was her method of expanding our classroom's library. When it was your birthday, she had you donate a book instead of bringing in treats. And then she'd read the book aloud. I don't know if other students were quite as enthused with this system, but I thought it was pretty great.

When my birthday came around, I immediately knew which one I would choose. I have no idea why, but my favorite book at the time concerned a chicken named Buck-Buck, which was the beloved pet of a little girl. Not surprisingly, the name of the book was Buck-Buck the Chicken. And so, Buck-Buck the Chicken became a part of the classroom library.

Sometimes, I wonder where that library went, and consequently, Buck-Buck. Maybe my teacher's son acquired it. Maybe it's still sitting on a shelf at Shepherdstown Elementary School. Or maybe it's being sold on Amazon for $25.66 or $34.68.

I kid you not. Buck-Buck is worth a tank of gas.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall...

2009-05-26T21:18:00.001-07:00

When I am at work, I sometimes see people who I know. Well, I don't know them -- I just recognize them from secondary school. What always surprises me is how I still see them as being that young.

For instance, tonight. I saw a kid who had graduated a year after I did, so I guess he's 20 or 21 now. In reality, he's a young man with stubble and hairy legs and a deep voice. But to me, he's still the kid who became famous in elementary school for choking on a pen cap. That's what I see what I look at him.

When I was younger, I was secretly obsessed with wondering what I would look like as an adult. I never told that to anyone, but it's true. And now that I'm sort of an adult -- or perhaps more aptly, have grown into the mature mold of myself -- I still look at myself like I'm sixteen.

As you might imagine, this is all very confusing.

Lucky Guess

2009-05-25T19:17:00.000-07:00

About seven years ago, the local oldies station played a Sunday morning program called "Beatle Brunch." As you may suspect, Beatle Brunch was a radio program that featured Beatles songs, audio clips, stories, and general history. In my attempt to soak up as much Beatles information as possible, I was a devoted listener.

That is, until the oldies station stopped playing it. However, I knew that Beatle Brunch continued to exist, as I often visited their website. One feature of their website was a trivia page which corresponded to the weekly question announced on the program. So each week, even after the show ended, I went on the website and answered the trivia question. Or sort of. I didn't know the question, so by the multiple choice answers provided to me, I would randomly guess.

One day, I got lucky. Real lucky. By my random guessing, I won an autographed edition of Playback, the autobiography of George Martin. The last time I checked, it was running for $2700 on eBay.

Seven years later, I still don't know what to do with it.

Car Talk

2009-05-24T22:10:00.000-07:00

I think that 50% of people who choose to take Physics at my high school do it for the Six Flags Physics Day. As for me, I enrolled because I thought that I wanted to be an architect, and therefore would have needed to take Physics I to take AP Physics during my senior year. That didn't end up happening.

On the much awaited Six Flags Physics Day, I was beyond tired. The previous day, I had turned in and presented my senior high project, which I now realize was yet another secondary school endeavor that I unnecessarily shed blood, sweat, and tears for. So with my fellow Physics classmates, I loaded onto the bus at an ungodly hour -- something like 5AM -- and off we went to New Jersey.

The ride was three hours. That's kind of a long time to be stuck in a bus after you haven't slept in at least a week and you don't want to talk to anyone, let alone calculate various equations based on amusement park rides. I distinctly recall the trip there, seeing as there was not much to do and I couldn't really foresee passing out first thing in the morning. Thus, a couple of my friends and I played a word association game: one person would say a word and the next person in line would say the first word that came to mind. Yes, I know that it sounds lame, but it was actually really interesting to know how other people conceived of words. And by some miracle, it kept us occupied for three whole hours.

Upon arriving at the park and completing the necessary assignments, I curled up on a park bench and went to sleep. Thus, whenever someone says "Six Flags," it's not too hard to guess what word comes to mind first: "sleep."

Now what?

2009-05-23T21:02:00.000-07:00

I think I stopped writing because of you. You're probably better off for it. On many occasions, I have vowed to not use this blog as a means of chronicling my daily life, though a lot of entries have been inspired by it. And I've also vowed to not be emo in that LiveJournal way; the world certainly doesn't need another angsty young person broadcasting their personal life struggles and trying to figure out the meaning of life and complaining about phonies.

Had I written something between my last entry and now, I can guarantee you that you probably would have quickly grown weary of my nostalgic pre- and post-graduation musings. And really, how often do you want to hear about me taking trips to the beach? Writing four entries about that would have seemed like a lot. (Yes, I did go to the beach four times within a matter of a week.) Or driving around in my car. (Growing up, my mother always said that we never skimped on three things: books, food, and art supplies. I'd like to add a fourth: gasoline.) Or finding the perfect architectural graduation dress at Banana Republic. Or packing. Or final thoughts on my double bed, which was worth all of the trouble of carting it up and down the stairs at the bookends of my senior year. Yes, this is all well-covered territory and I know that to anyone else, it's not terribly exciting. It's okay. I'm not offended.

But now I've been graduated a week and I'm in that "what now?" phase. So I'm working, going to doctor's appointments, and doing things that I need and want to accomplish, like making grandiose yet attainable to-do lists and reading books like The Natural History of the Senses. It seems like the biggest problem in my life right now is trying to figure out what things I should purchase, between various electronics and eyeglasses and gym memberships. And to be honest, it seems like it's all going too well. I'm almost too happy, too content.

Between you and me, I don't think it's hit yet. But I think that you already knew that.

Going Going Gone

2009-05-14T21:22:00.000-07:00

Some people are fussy about their cars. In other words, if you're riding in their car, they let you know that you're on their turf. Don't touch the dials. Don't adjust the vents. Don't mess with the climate control.

For as much as I respect that protocal, I play by different rules: there are none. In the words of a friend, my car is "communal space." I want people to touch the dials and change the CDs and do whatever else they please. Half of this mentality stems from practicality -- I am, after all, driving. The other half stems from a genuine interest in wanting people to feel at home. I don't want people to just be along for the ride. I want them to be a part of it.

In college, I think that my car has become an important way of how I share myself. Each person has a different soundtrack. Some people want Top 40 hits. Some people indulge my love of bad oldies music. Some people want the Lewd Mixxx, Track 20 and 21 on repeat (James' "Laid" followed by Tenacious D's "Fuck Her Gently"). Everyone has a different destination. Some people just go to the airport. Some go to Wawa at midnight, others at 3AM. Some go to the mall. Some go on any errand. But more often than not, these trips are more about the journey than the destination. We just...go.

Tonight, I was on a return trip from Wal-Mart with a friend and we were blasting the Lewd Mixxx, Track 21. It's a really crude song and as usual, we had it up super loud and were singing along with it at the top of our lungs. And I caught a glance of my friend totally rocking out to the "But I'll order it from Zanzibar!" line and I silently burst out into a sob. She didn't notice, probably because the song was up so loud and her eyes were closed because that's what most people do when they sing.

And then she pushed the back button and we did it all over again.

On Society

2009-05-12T09:08:00.000-07:00

Several years ago, my family and I were sitting in the waiting room of the children's cardiovascular wing at Johns Hopkins. We used to spend a fair bit of time there because I used to have a neurocardiovascular condition, but luckily, it has seemed to fade with age. As we were sitting there -- I was probably being grouchy, for the entire medical ordeal displeased me immensely -- we overheard a most peculiar introduction. A man sitting nearby to us was being introduced to a doctor. From what we were able to catch of the conversation, the man was a sort of diplomat to a country in Africa. We googled him when we got home, and sure enough, a whole bunch of hits came up for him.

I often wonder about people. The people you sit next in waiting rooms, the people you pass on the street, the people driving around you, the people on the other end of the phone, the people behind the register.

It kind of reminds me of something that I said in high school. I was writing a paper about Fahrenheit 451 and my sister was going over it. I had used the term "society" and she asked me to define it. I immediately blurted out, "Everyone you don't know." She looked at me in utter astonishment and then we both totally lost it, for what I said was obviously ridiculous beyond belief.

But the thing is, sometimes society breaks down. In other words, one day you meet the person sitting next to you in the waiting room, the person you pass on the street, the person driving next to you, the person on the other end of the phone, the person behind the register. And no matter what end of the interaction you're on, it's strange, because you and the other person are no longer a part of society.

Or something like that.

English: A Unisex Vocabulary

2009-05-10T23:37:00.000-07:00

In many other languages, objects are gendered. For instance, "car" in Spanish (el camino) is masculine. Does this mean that people who speak Spanish immediately think of cars as masculine in nature? Then again, certain ones don't match up so well, like "dress" (el vestido). It's hard to think of a dress as being masculine, at least for me.

Obviously, we don't have the whole gender thing going on in English. And I have often wondered what we're missing out on, if anything.

Sighting: Wolverine on the Schuykill Expressway

2009-05-10T08:17:00.000-07:00

It was about 3:15AM and we were driving on the Schuylkill Expressway, the part beneath the tunnelish underpass with all of the lights. It's a pretty narrow stretch, but people still drive like maniacs there.

I was in that driving mode where you're all alert and paranoid because you know that everyone else around you is crazy. However, for all of my attentiveness, I was scared beyond belief when out of nowhere, I heard a thunderous roar and caught a glimpse of a man on a motorcycle flying by us. From what I saw, the motorcycle was extremely beefy and the guy was dressed in a kickass black ensemble to match it. He looked like an action figure. Within a span of about two seconds, no kidding, he was out of sight. Those types of characters are expected on the Schuylkill, though that doesn't mean it was any less alarming or paralysing. I obviously just kept on driving, but my mouth was definitely agape.

And then, my friend (who I thought was asleep) exclaimed, "It's Wolverine!"

It seemed so obvious. Yes, of course it was Wolverine. But the question was, where was he going in such a hurry?

Toppermost

2009-05-08T21:22:00.000-07:00

I was catching a ride back to my dorm with my professor. He asked his youngest daughter whether she was going to ride with him or his wife.

"Which car is Jessica going to be in?"

"She's with me."

"Okay."

And she raced ahead and ran to his car.

Damn, I just about melted.

The Presence of Absence

2009-05-07T22:05:00.000-07:00

I somehow managed to catch the express train back to campus today. This was facilitated by kind SEPTA staff who, upon seeing me with a "FAIL" thought bubble over my head when I watched my train speed off just in time for me to not make it, ushered me onto a train to Newark. While I am normally skeptical of any advice, I took my chances. Upon boarding the Newark-bound train, they informed me to get out at the next stop and "run like hell" up the platform to catch the next train. And by some miracle, it worked. We all have our moments when we get to be "that person," and this was one of mine. Yes, I was extremely obnoxious young woman in a little black dress plowing down everyone in Suburban Station and half tripping in wet flip flops.

So I burst onto my train, huffing and puffing. I took the first spot I could find, smiled at the people staring at me from my disruptive entrance, and noted that this train car was quiet. Creepy quiet. If you're not intimate with public transit these days, it takes no imagination that with the advent of cell phones, a million people are yapping to pass the time and there's a background symphony (or cacophony) of the burps and hiccups of electronic devices -- not to mention the one or two people who have their iPod on way too loud and they're listening to music that you hope you never have to hear again.

All of that way missing from the car, which sounded like John Cage's 4'33". As I pondered this oddity, the voice of the SEPTA gods descended upon our car and announced that we were in the "quiet car," which is apparently a relatively new concept implemented on peak time trains for commuters. New thought bubble as my breathing returned to normal: "I dig this."

And I also dug the self-enforcing. There was this woman in front of me who wouldn't shut up. First, she was on her phone, and then, she was talking to her husband. They clearly weren't as enthusiastic about the quiet car concept, which did not got unnoticed. Man, the people riding around this pair were shooting them death stares. Eventually, one very gregarious looking man opened his eyes (I thought he had been sleeping), turned to her, said somewhat loudly, "We're in the quiet car," and proceeded to return to his hibernating state.

And we all smiled a little to ourselves -- that is, except the woman, who deplorably pursed her lips, perhaps to keep more words from tumbling out.

For a lot of people, I don't think that shutting up comes easily. They drown in their own textual vomit. Granted, I'm not for silence all of the time, but I also immensely value the space it affords. There's also a lot to be said for silence, for closing your eyes, for absorbing the way that the train gently rocks you back and forth, for realizing that even though you're in close quarters with about fifty other tired people, you're united by the fact that you're all in your own little worlds.

Endpoint

2009-05-07T00:41:00.001-07:00

On Sunday, I went to the I-95 Show, an annual photography exhibition by Philadelphia photographer Zoe Strauss. It lasts from 1PM to 4PM on the first Sunday of every May under I-95. Her photographs, generally be described as Robert Frank plus Diana Arbus plus a whole lotta grit and ugly, hang on each pillar. It's pretty depressing stuff. If you want to learn more about her work, check out her blog.

An important aspect of the I-95 Show is the ultimate removal of the photographs. At 4:00, you're welcomed to take one photograph. I hadn't really thought much about this component, but it pretty much became THE activity of the exhibit.

Aside from strangely punctuating the middle of a very rainy May Day, the I-95 show marked my final class of my undergraduate career. I went with my photography professor for my independent study. So we wandered around the I-95 show trying to pick out what photograph we each wanted. The prospect of consumption altered how we looked at these images. We weren't just looking; we were hunting. And once we found the ones we wanted -- which were coincidentally caddy corner to one another on the same pillar -- we stood there, just like everyone else, staking out our territory and defending the art as ours. It's the only time in my life when I think I will ever be interested in temporarily laying claim to property under a highway.

The act of removing the photograph at 4PM proved to be somewhat anti-climatic. There was no struggle. It peeled easily from the concrete. In my hands, I looked at my selected photograph: a Las Vegas motel room that perfectly captures a million different things that I simultaneously love and hate at the same time.

I never really imagined ending my undergraduate career under a highway in South Philly on a rainy Sunday. Then again, I don't think that anyone would, but that's how it happened.

And it seems like a wonderful beginning, doesn't it?

Playthings

2009-05-05T19:25:00.000-07:00

I think that someone needs to write an academic article that provides a historical analysis of the changing trends in children's food marketing. Yesterday, I was babysitting for a professor's child and she showed me a toy penguin procured from a Burger King children's meal. Soon after, we moved onto playing Webkinz online.

The contrast between these two forms of play prompted me to realize that since my youth, there's been a drastic shift in the incorporation of toys into children's food items. Granted, I don't watch as much TV these days, but I do know that we don't have the same volume of commercials focusing on the latest McDonald's Happy Meal toy or what you'll receive with your Coco Puffs. Those things used to be a big deal for kids. When you walked into a fast food joint, the first thing that you'd look at was the toy display case.

Every now and then, they'd come out with an especially great item, like My Little Pony or Littlest Pet Shop. My sister and I were very into those, so the prospect of increasing our collection via these Happy Meal additions was remarkably exciting. We were pretty avid fast food toy collectors; a few years ago, I remember seeing a case of Happy Meal toys at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago and marveling at how I owned almost every one of them. There's a similar story for cereal. I think that the day we discovered that Kellogg's was doing a "Talespin" theme campaign complete with figurines, my sister and I were pretty much beside ourselves. These days, I can't even tell you what I think that they're putting those fast food meals or cereal boxes.

All of this being said, I really don't like fast food. I avoid it at all costs. And I detest cereal. So for a present day version of me, I suppose that I would want toys with boxes of strawberries and bags of frozen peas.

Stomach As Archive

2009-05-04T20:03:00.000-07:00

When you're younger, your sense of rationality is constructed from limited information. For lack of any other explanation, you just come up with your own reason for the way the things work.

One of my shining conceptions of reality as a youngster concerns the concept of fullness, as in how you know when you've eaten enough. In my mind, there were various compartments in one's stomach that each had a predetermined capacity: pasta, vegetables, milk, and so on. The compelling evidence for my theory concerned how one can be full from one thing and still have room for others. For instance, dessert. You can be full of your main course and still have room for dessert. Of course, this is because all of your main course compartments were full and your dessert compartment was entirely empty.

Pretty imaginative, right? Well, it's a bit pathetic to admit it, but part of me very much so believes that this theory is entirely true. I'm just so in love with the mental image of neatly labeled little boxes inside of my abdomen that I can't get over it and the idea of totally denying it will somehow make my inner five year-old burst into tears.

Dude, where's my car?

2009-05-04T14:09:00.000-07:00

We all have our most embarrassing moments. This is one of mine.

A couple of weeks ago, I drove into the city with a friend on a Thursday night. Not surprisingly, we were going to get gelato. Even though we drove in pretty late, we spent about an hour trying to find parking. It took forever. So once we found a spot, we went on our way.

After enjoying our gelato, we walked back to where we thought I had parked the car. Wasn't there. So we walked around for a very long time looking for my car. Didn't find it. We got in a taxi and drove around looking for it. Didn't find it. Meanwhile, I had called the police and the parking authority. No luck.

We got home around 2AM and I spent forever looking a GoogleMaps. I had a pretty good idea of where I thought it was. I hopped an early morning train to search for my noble steed, my trusty Ford Taurus.

Yes, I eventually found it. I literally hugged it.

To make a long story short about how I lost the car, we had been looking in the right place, but the wrong location. For as much as I felt unbelievably stupid for losing my car, I couldn't help but laugh. And strangely enough, I felt pretty proud, too. Even though I created a pretty terrible situation for myself, I didn't lose my cool or cry. I was calm and collected.

And that's my embarrassing story.

Integrating

2009-04-28T20:13:00.000-07:00

My headphones died. They were the dorky kind. You know, the ones that loop behind the back of your head. I think that they were originally invented for runners, seeing as it's hard to wear the kind that sit on top of your head if you're not sitting still. But the earbud revolution changed that, and so you didn't really need the dorky behind the head kind. I still wore them because I have overly sensitive ears and earbuds just kill them. I have yet to find anyone who shares this problem, so everyone's like, "You'll get used to it." And I respond, "Hell no, it hurts."

So my headphones died and I was confronted with the task of buying new ones. As I stood in front of the rack at Wal-Mart with two friends, I picked up several different ones and examined them. And I almost bought a dorky pair, but then reconsidered. After all, I'm going to be using these things after I graduate...in other words, beyond the safe confines of Bryn Mawr College where everyone is a bit...well, off, if you know what I mean. And most people don't have the guts to call one another out on their dorkiness, seeing as you could throw something right back at them and it would probably become a competition of "I'm weirder than you and I can prove it, dammit!"

I sat on the floor and weighed my options. After much deliberation, I eventually went with Koss earbuds, seeing as they seemed to be built for more sensitive ears like mine. And am I getting used to it? I don't really know.

But they look normal.

The Early Stages of Tree Hugging

2009-04-22T20:25:00.000-07:00

On Earth Day in elementary school, we always received pine tree seedlings. The root system, along with some soil and water, was contained in a bag. For some reason, the bags were chilled when the seedlings were given to us, probably to keep them from drying out.

There was something unexplainably pleasing about the texture of the wet cold roots and mushy soil contained in the plastic bag. So on the bus ride home, you couldn't help but to squeeze the bag in your hands and feel the sensually earthy contents inside.

And when you got home, your parents didn't have the heart to tell you that you'd squeezed the poor thing to death.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

2009-04-21T16:28:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, a new bridge opened on the PA Turnpike that spans the Susquehanna River. I watched it take shape during my freshman and sophomore years of college from the ground level, a view afforded by my frequent Amtrak trips between Harrisburg and the Main Line.

But now I drive over that bridge. From its impressive height, you have a pretty good view of the Three Mile Island towers and the airport. But it's not quite as good as the one from the train, since you were practically riding through TMI and the airport, which my somewhat closeted technology enthusiast can't help but love. Even though the TMI towers have an ugly history, there's nothing quite like seeing them lit up in the sunlight at dawn or dusk...what a sight, like giant pieces from a game board. It reminds me of how my father used to call watertowers "God's gear shifts." And man, there's nothing quite like speeding by on a train and looking out your window to see an airplane accelerate for takeoff. You feel like you're racing the plane, but while you continue to press on your horizontal journey, the plane launches into the sky.

In case you haven't figured this out, I was one of those kids who couldn't get enough of the Industrial Revolution. Trains, planes, and automobiles...bring 'em on. If I was more scientifically and mathematically inclined, I would want to designing cars and cameras and bridges and such.

For as much as I love the bridge and the view it affords, there's a darker side to my journey from shore to shore. In the process of building that bridge, two construction workers died. I remember reading the headlines a few years ago and being horrified that people lost their lives more for the sake of convenience than progress.

And no matter what, that's what I think about every time I cross the bridge. It's like driving through a graveyard.

Mental Footnotes

2009-04-20T16:13:00.000-07:00

When you've been up for more than 24 hours -- it probably begins at 18 hours -- you become what my friends and I call "sleep-drunk." I was thinking about the phrase today and I realized that it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. After all, drunkenness concerns over consumption, but "sleep-drunk" means that you've slept too little, not too much. So it's hard to get drunk on something that you haven't had. I'm also unqualified to really even use the term, seeing as while I have had my share of experiences being "sleep-drunk," I've never been drunk. How can I know what it means to be "sleep-drunk" if I've never been drunk?

And what does this all amount to? Simply, I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm like one of those unreliable sources that you shouldn't cite in your bibliography.

Rubbish

2009-04-18T20:11:00.000-07:00

The entire locker was filled with Del Monte Mandarin Orange Cups. Apparently, he always had one of these cups packed in his lunch and never ate it, so he began hoarding them in an empty locker. I don't know what ultimately became of all the cups, though I do know that the locker was quite full of them long before the end of the year.

For some reason, I received of one of these Orange Cups. I don't recall why it was gifted to me or who imparted it to me. But for four years now, it has been sitting on my desk at home and I occasionally use it as a container in which to burn candles.

What happens now?

If You Give A Girl Some Pasta...

2009-04-17T23:21:00.000-07:00

I figured I would go to bed early. So I did, at around 9:30. But as I was laying in bed, I realized that I needed to use the restroom, which made sense after chugging a significant portion of orange juice from my 128 oz. jug.

On my way to the restroom, I encountered free pasta. College is like that. You just find food and you don't really ask where it came from if you're hungry. Since all I had eaten for dinner was cheese and strawberries at an art opening, I paused in my half-awaken stupor to get some while it lasted.

But then I realized I wanted much more than pasta, and I also discovered that I wasn't the only one. In the span of the next five hours, we found 32 oz. of strawberries, two $3.50 milkshakes, an overpriced grilled cheese and an underpriced egg sandwich, and three 25-cent superballs.

And we also found Tokyo, even though we weren't looking for it.

Landlocked

2009-04-16T19:15:00.000-07:00

It's a shame that the Outer Banks is such a tourist-ridden place. I like it there and all, but there's an awful lot of people. Then again, maybe that is why my family has stayed on the part of the island that's so far north that you need four-wheel drive to get there. It's where the sidewalk -- or more accurately, the road -- ends. And if you're far north enough, you could walk to Virginia. Then again, everywhere is in walking distance if you have the time.

On one of our trips, we went to this place called Jimmy's Buffet, which is probably one of the most famous restaurant establishments in the Outer Banks. During this dining experience, we had the best waiter on the planet. And thanks to my attention to seemingly pointless information, I recall that his name was Patrick. Patrick was so happy in the most genuine way possible. He just glowed. You could tell that that really LOVED his job. He had apparently done plenty of other things by the age of 38 even he looked more like 28 -- but what he liked best was being by the ocean, so he found himself a job that would allow him to do just that. So he stayed. When he told this story with an impossibly heavy tray of discarded crab shells resting on his shoulder -- he made it look so easy -- his blue eyes shone so brightly and you knew that he couldn't help smiling.

The memory of Patrick always stuck with me. Until then, I never knew that anyone could love their job that much.

A few years ago, we went back to Jimmy's. I asked about Patrick. Our waiter, who was nice enough (but certainly no Patrick) said that he had gotten engaged and moved to Ohio with his fiancee about a month beforehand.

I guess she was better than the ocean. And for some reason, that made me sad.

Knocked Out

2009-04-15T21:22:00.000-07:00

It was Thursday, September 16, 2004. I was a junior in high school. Parents were supposed to have "Back to School Night" that evening, but it was cancelled a few minutes after it began when the lights went out. And not surprisingly, school was called off for the next day. After all, having school is nearly impossible when all of the utilities get knocked out.

Then again, the entire town was also without power and water. My family wasn't quite sure what to do without these resources. On Friday night, we went to see the movie "Matchstick Men" in Carlisle. When we arrived home to find our power and water still gone, my father decided that we would take up residence in a nearby hotel until further notice.

The next day, my mother and I went out shopping for my homecoming dress. This didn't take long, seeing as I knew which one I wanted before I even tried it on. It was a simple blue strapless gown that laced up in the back. I don't really know why I liked it so much, but it stood out for some reason. I think part of it was the color. You know the color of the toolbar on Microsoft XP? That was the color, perhaps a bit darker. And maybe it was because it was strapless. Any woman knows that you feel like you're getting away with something when you wear a strapless dress.

I recall taking the gown back to the hotel and twirling around in it to show my dad. And then my parents and I sat on the king bed to watch "Pretty Woman" on television, me laying down on my stomach in my gown and my legs whimsically sprouting from the tulle.

We ate pizza for dinner.

A Career Adviser's Thoughts On Careers

2009-04-14T17:16:00.000-07:00

"I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that." (Lloyd Dobler, "Say Anything")

I wonder where making posters fits into Lloyd's scheme.

Impress Me

2009-04-13T18:04:00.000-07:00

WARNING! DO NOT READ IF ANY OF THESE STATEMENTS APPLY TO YOU:
1) You are religious.
2) You generally dislike things that are "politically incorrect."
3) You don't like art.

That being said, this post doesn't have anything to do with my feelings on religion or "political correctness." It does, however, deal with art that I'm just sharing because I think that it's gutsy and it had an impact on me.

On with the show.

During my freshman year of college, I was required to go to a weekly art seminar as a part of the studio class I was taking. Like most of the other courses I had at Colgate, it was a miserable class and I hated the professor, especially the day that she took a brush out of my hand and painted on my canvas. At that moment, any interest that I had in painting that stupid still life vanished and I think I forgot to breathe for about five seconds, seriously. I was that stunned. This might sound lame, but it was probably one of the most violating experiences of my life. Maybe that sheds some light on my hesitancy to collaborate and how I feel about the creation side of authorship.

However, I do have a very liberal perspective on sharing information. Good things are meant to be shared, so if you put your stuff out in the world, expect other people to use it. (Or according to you, perhaps misuse it.) I'm not supporting plagiarism, but the thought of people bickering over most matters of intellectual property drives me crazy.

It also drives Negativeland crazy, a group of male artists who make video and sound collage from random clips and bytes. How I came to know about them was because they visited as a part of the art lecture series at Colgate. Behind all of their work is the general message, "Let's share this stuff -- it's cool and it can be even cooler when we make something new out of it!" So I guess you could say that in a certain way, they are into recycling. Not surprisingly, they've been sued a couple times for copyright infringement, which I recall one incident concerning this piece, which they sold in stores when U2 was making it big:

Well, they sold it until U2's lawyers came knocking on their door. By the way "U2" doesn't have their name copyrighted. Enough said about that.

Among all of the wild stories and works they shared with us, the craziest and strangest was "Mashin' of the Christ," a video/sound collage that they uploaded online a few days before "Passion of the Christ" was to be released in theatres. They staged leaking their own video online to create a lot of hype, as in "This isn't supposed to be online yet, so don't watch it because it's super offensive!" and it apparently worked.

I could go into a really long analysis of everything that I think is interesting about this in so many disciplines, but I'll just let you think about it.