A Distant Glitter

Hey James,

2009-09-07T03:02:00.000-07:00

Guess what... I found my camera cord! After, what, maybe six or seven months now of not knowing its location? I can finally take pictures off my camera and put them into my computer— not that I have any images to transfer. I haven’t taken a single shot in the seven months since I lost that cord. I’ve wanted to capture some of my drawings to send to you since I knew you would enjoy seeing the latest ones, but I didn’t bother since the rope tying camera to computer had been stolen by that desperado, Happenstance. I had long ago lost the hope finding it and the intention to go out and get a replacement has been lurking around in the back of my mind. Thank you, by the way, for lending me your camera chord, even if it didn't fit (I did give that back to you right?). I’m so glad I have a brother to borrow things from when I need them!

I found the cord the other day, while packing and cleaning my room: Miranda was scheduled to come over in a couple of days with the photographer to take shots of the house. You would have laughed— there I was with a wet washcloth held around the lower half of my face with a clothes-pin, like some strange bandit, just trying to escape with breathing without a sneezing fit. I was so miserable. The dust had put my nose on the run, my eyes along with it, and it was at least ninety degrees in my room, and you know me— cleaning is one of my least favorite duties. I was attacking the corner with all the dolls (the years-untouched culprits of the dust) and my purse/bag storage area. While packing up dolls and accessories, and going through my handbags I pulled something out and found the rascal cord sitting right in my hand. I realized that I must have stashed it there during the move from my apartment to back home. I would take and send you some pictures today, but I’m afraid that now it is the camera that has been lost— to the depths of some box in the attic. I guess we’ll have to remain pictureless for the time being.

It’s really unnatural having the house on the market. I might sound overly dramatic I know, but I felt like I’d been shot in the belly when I came home the other day to see one of those house-on-the-market signs stabbing the entrance of the driveway. I suppose that compared to how these sign usually look, this one is a pretty decent. It’s the typical bright white, and taller than most I’ve seen, with “Codwin Bankers” in giant blue capital letters printed dead center, and the real estate agent information beneath. There is even a clear box containing an entire stack of information sheets about the house, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. But to me, this sign looks like a ugly wound, and the shape of the post reminds me of the structure you draw to play the hangman word game

I can’t decide whether to envy you or not— living away from the house as you do. I don’t know if it would be easier to handle the loss of our house of fifteen years, away from it or within it. Is it harder not having the chance to say goodbye or dealing with the farewells every day? The creak the refrigerator handle makes every time you open the door, and how it fights to remain closed if it has just been shut (you know, it still takes all my weight to open it sometimes), doesn’t slip by me unnoticed anymore. Every time, I bid farewell and then have to kick the reminiscence out of my mind. Just knowing the house will hold some other family, mostly likely by the time we would usually string Christmas lights upon it, makes me feel as if it has already been taken from me. And I’m one of the thieves— robbing myself of the experience of living at home just in preparation for the actual loss.

I wonder what we’ll do with all our VHS movies. I still can’t believe we’ve got three whole cupboards full of them! Since everything is made on DVDs now, we hardly ever watch any of them. I often wonder how much longer it will be before kids won’t even know what VHS is. I’m sure that there are already a few, but it will be a sad day when everyone except the old fuddy-duddies in retirement homes have forgotten they exist. I wonder if we’ll one day walk into a museum and find a machine just like ours on display with a few VHS’s propped up around it. Can you imagine how old we’ll feel?! Whenever I have the time, I always rummage around and find some classic black and white movie to watch. You should come over and we’ll watch some old Westerns like we used to— it’s been way too long since we last did that. We could laugh at the cheesiness of those Roy Rogers movies, or watch the king of comedy himself, Bob Hope, in Son of Paleface.

You know, I’ve been thinking a great deal lately— I’ve certainly had the time to— and I’ve come up with a lot. Divorce is a striking thing. I suppose cracks began in my image of our family when we all became fully-functioning adults, and especially when you moved out. We had been so close as a family, uncommonly so, that never a once did I allow myself to inspect the soundness of the glass picture. Now, that old concept of family is gone: this divorce having finally caused the image to shatter. What is left are these individuals. Individuals I realize I don’t truly know. I don’t know the trail our parents rode to get to who they are today. I don’t know the path you are traveling now. I don’t know what you experience in a typical day: I don’t know what you think, how you think, who you hang out with, who you like, what you like...at least not like I did when we lived in the same house. One can’t help but know, or have a pretty decent sense, of everything about a person when you all end up in the same square box at the end of every day. I miss having that fantasy that our family was perfect.

Pencils are funny— have you ever noticed that how they tend to disappear? I would swear that there is a pencil monster residing out there somewhere, just as dryers house sock monsters that eat just one sock of every pair. I had three really nice mechanical pencils, not the cheap, multicolored plastic ones, but nicely weighted, classy-looking black ones with erasers that twisted up and down. I reserved them solely for my sketchbooks. But now, mysteriously, I’m down to just one, and I’m keeping a very close watch on it— I can’t lose the only one that, to my knowledge, I have left. Its funny how people have to continuously lose things to learn their value.

I’ve been sketching a lot lately (I really should go dig up that camera). I’ve found that I really like graphite as the medium for the final product, instead of the preliminary one. Maybe it’s because I stopped drawing for that while, and returning to it only emphasized its familiarity. I like knowing how to make it do what I want with the slightest nudge. I like that there are only shades of black and white to use. I always get lost in decisions when colors become part of the process.

I miss you. I know you’ve changed— I have. Remember me when I was the little blonde girl in the pink dress, drowning in ruffles, in the red cowboy boots, and sitting on some stranger’s knee talking up a storm? Now you wouldn’t catch me dead in pink, and I certainly don’t sit on stranger's laps. I no longer have the capacity to be bouncy and talkative, and I wish that ability to be so carefree would return to me. You must call me or write me back soon. Even though there are things I know that I have permanently missed in your life, and you about mine, we can at least try to catch up. And if we don’t quite know who the other is in the present, we’ll always know a part of each other, since we have our pasts.

Your sister,

Audrey

My Father Was Adopted

2009-08-23T05:53:00.000-07:00

In the Spring of 2007, we took the only family vacation that I will even remotely consider successful. We went on a cruise. The beauty of this was the freedom we had to escape from each other. On a ship as large as an island, blissful isolation was easily attainable. The only time we were required to see each other was during dinners. Otherwise, it was every child for themselves. Even these mandatory dinners together were a success, partly since the mere two hours required for the event was not unbearable, and partly because there was live entertainment to distract us from one another.

The most delightful thing about the dinners was the menus; they were priceless. On a cruise, the fare prepays all your meals. Once you step on board, your wallet stays closed.. Nothing limits your gluttony other than the size of your stomach. This “free” food was heavenly as well, an artistic delight to both look at and to taste.

On the other hand, getting to this beautiful cruise is another story. We had to travel from Washington—where we lived—to a port in southern California—where the ship sailed from. As a trade-off for the cost of the cruise we consented to driving in order to conserve financial resources. On this specific trip there were only six children (more would come later), so the task wasn’t impossible, just insanely difficult. We drove in our fifteen passenger van to give ourselves some room (the last time we drove with cramped quarters my brother and sister shed blood over personal space). The van was a deteriorated relic of my parents’ days in youth ministry, but it was more than useful in transporting the Brackebusch clan to and fro. Of course, we couldn’t sleep in a hotel since we were trying to save money, so we decided to travel through the night without stopping.

The drive began wonderfully. Everyone was excited for the upcoming luxuries. Everyone, that is, except my father. He was the only one who was not looking forward to the trip. His idea of a vacation was (and still is) the absence of civilization. The previous seven vacations had been his idea, and we ended up hiking or sailing to the middle of nowhere and then returning home for therapy. This time, the rest of us piped up about our preferences and convinced him to let us go on this cruise. As a concession, we agreed we would take the roundabout scenic route so he could indulge in some small spots of nature.

Our first scenic stop was the smallest town in Washington State. There wasn’t much to do... We bought ice cream from the grocery store and took a few pictures while my dad interrogated literally half the town (that’s his other form of enjoyment). The second stop was the Redwood Forest. The trees were terrifically tall, so we stood around for a half hour getting neckaches while looking at them.

I should note that our family has developed various ways of coping with long drives like these. My brother and I will play computer games on our parents’ laptops; my sisters will watch movies or sleep, and my mom will listen to sermons. Everyone has their own little world to escape to, except my dad. He thrives on conversation, so after a few hours of peace and quiet he usually ends up angry and annoyed. Sometimes he will be able to convince my mom to be his copilot—having her give him directions. This would be logical if most of the directions weren't given while driving three hours on a freeway.

Dad: How much farther?
Mom: A few hundred more miles honey.

If my dad can’t coerce her into that role, he simmers with dissatisfaction until he is ripe and ready for argumentation. Then the following scenario will occur:

Dad: I need to go to the bathroom.
Mom: OK, let’s pull over here at the Arco.
Dad: No, I don’t want to use a dirty bathroom! I’m driving, and I will pick where we will go.
My brother: Dad, just use the frickin’ bathroom!
Mom: Honey, you are being ridiculous, it’s not that big a deal.
Dad: Why? Why does everyone else get what they want and I can’t have my way?
Me: Nobody’s making you do anything Dad, you’re being unreasonable.
My sister: Dad, the bathroom won’t be that bad. We’ve all used it before.
Another sister: Everybody just won’t stop arguing. Hmph!
Third sister (waking from a nap): What?.....What’s going on?
Mom: Fine Kirk, we can go find a nice bathroom. Just make yourself happy.
Dad: You know, this whole trip has been about what everyone else wants, why can’t it be about me for once?
My brother: Whatever Dad.
Me: What! No way! You’re not giving in to him, are you Mom?
Mom: I’m tired, I’m sick of arguing, he can just use whatever *@$#% bathroom he wants. Ughhh!!!!!
Dad: This wasn’t even my idea; I wanted to go to Yellowstone.

These conversations usually continue into shouting matches after my mom gets tired of repeating the same argument over and over (an incident like this can be discussed over the course of an hour). She gets cranky without her sermons.

We ended up being too tired to drive through the night, so at about two in the morning we pulled into a state campground for a few hours. We slept in the van—four people on the seats, two on the floor, my little baby brother slept on my mom, and my dad slept outside (go figure). I have never felt more connected to my ancestors. I felt as if I finally understood the trials they went through when crossing the Atlantic in their tiny, crowded boats. Needless to say, we woke up grumpier than before.

After a few more hours of difficulty, we arrived at the port of San Francisco and boarded our dream boat for our week of splendor. Then we returned home the way we had come—in comparative squalor and misery.

My dad refuses to do another cruise. He wants to go to Yellowstone still, maybe the Grand Canyon (we’ll be driving, of course). I think he knows that most of our family won’t enjoy it; I think he knows we’ll probably come back bitter. Apparently, he values those unsavory memories of being together over no memories at all. For without those vacations, it’s hard to say our family would have voluntarily spent any time together as a unit. Time together seems to bring too many tears and not enough laughs. On that cruise though, we had temporary peace. Dining around the table each night was like a dream come true: For once, we were a happy family for a week. It's too bad that such love costs $100 per person per day (tips not included).

Not Guilty

2009-08-23T04:49:00.000-07:00

A Catholic priest sits in a confessional, waiting. The priest is old and grey; a veteran of spiritual affairs after a life in the service. He hears the door of the church swing slowly open; the penitent has finally come.

I have been the caretaker of my uncle’s home for about two years. When he and my aunt traipse off to Mexico, I traipse off to their mansion. They pay me to housesit, to care for their dog, cats, and plants while making myself at home. They pay me to live in paradise. One evening, I took my friend Sarah to housesit with me. We had been there before together, though always with others. I was looking forward to being alone with her, my dearest friend.

“Bless me Father, for I have sinned.”

After we arrived at the million-dollar home, I got out my uncle’s Grey Goose. We each took two shots; I wanted to feel free with her. We chatted for a bit before I asked her if she wanted to use the spa. She said she didn’t have a swimsuit, and after searching madly through my aunt’s clothes for one to no avail, I told her to simply use her underwear.

“Your penance is to say twenty five Hail Mary’s. I will light a candle in prayer for your soul.”

We slipped into the tepid waters of the hot tub. The heater was broken, so the water was uncomfortably cool. She had taken off her glasses, and I had taken out my contacts, so we were blind. She began complaining; her wet underwear and bra made her feel itchy. I suggested she remove the annoying garments, and I remove mine as well, since nothing could be seen through the foggy air with our blurry vision.

The priest waited till the sound of the footsteps receded and he heard the door thud shut behind the penitent. He exited the confessional and trudged to the altar arrayed at Jesus’ disfigured feet. The icon showed him crucified, head hanging in exhaustion while he handed his life away.

She said the water was too cold, but I made light of the fact for as long as possible. She persisted in voicing her disquiet, and like a reed I acquiesced to her storm. I suggested the bathtub in the house as our substitute. I began running the water into the tub while she waited in the spoiled spa. When the tub was filled with steaming water, we moved.

The priest struck a match, the flame spurting and sputtering before burning slowly and steadily as he reached towards a dead candle while reciting the Lord’s Prayer.

I lit a few candles around the tub, their flames burning desperately towards the heavens. The bathtub was small, small enough so she was close enough so I could see everything in the flash of the second it took for me to slip in beside her into the embrace of the curves of the rippling water. It was glorious.

“and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

We descended into silence after my words ran dry; it was peaceful with her, like a forest before the predator strikes. She began stroking my knee with her soft silky fingers. The candles continued to burn ceilingward while gravity pulled her hand in the opposite direction.

“For Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.”

The ethanol that had been coursing through my veins turned into a trickle. My mind began running like a hamster on its treadmill, my thoughts whirling through trust, love, lust, and the future I wanted her to be a part of. “No,” I whispered, before I opened the drain.

We went to bed, I blew out the candles.

Every Reader Finds Themself

2009-08-21T23:52:00.000-07:00

Christopher R. Beha’s reading and exploration of a collection of books known as The Harvard Classics, showed him that very little of today’s liberal education in today's universities, is the same as that of a hundred year ago. Considering how extensively the world has changed since the nineteen-hundreds, this should not have come as a great surprise. How have I learned of Beha’s discovery? I read an essay that he wrote titled “Every Reader Finds Himself,” in the May issue of The Believer, a literary journal.

Beha, a writer and assistant editor by profession, describes what this collection, The Harvard Classics, is: the types of work it contains, the reason for its creation, and its affect on the readers of it. The Harvard Classics was its more official name, but it was also known as the Five-Foot-Shelf, because the creator of the collection, Charles Eliot, President of Harvard University in 1869, claimed he could gather all the materials that a liberal education was comprised of and fit them on one five-foot shelf. (At that time, a liberal education was what most American students were required to spend their undergraduate years learning.) The result was a collection of fifty-one volumes of literary compositions that ranged from Plato to Shakespeare to Darwinism. Since this collection was readily available to the public, it was a significant factor of the demolishment of liberal education in its original sense.

With the idea that the accomplishment would be something distinguishing enough to write a book about, Beha sets out to read this collection within one year. But as he goes along he realizes that the amount is not so daunting— that any serious, amateur reader could also comfortably complete it within a year. Still, he doesn’t stop reading the collection, he just continues for very different reasons. Reasons that did actually lead him to publish a book about Charles Eliot’s collection. Beha learns that the benefits of specialization (that is, choosing a major) can only be fully realized with the knowledge of the kind provided by books of the Harvard Classics. They provide the tools needed to traverse the road of life. Once these tools have been learned, specialization gives direction to and elongates the road.

The reason I even own a issue of The Believer to have read Christopher Beha’s essay in the first place, is because I am attending a university as an undergraduate. Owning and reading a literary journal was one of the requirements of an English class that I had enrolled in. I have not yet decided my major of study, and the time when it will be required to declare it approaches quickly. One more quarter of a year to explore and then that is it; I have had less than two years to discover what I was passionate enough about to commit two more years of study devoted solely to it. I was pretty close to a decision, but now, after reading Beha’s theory that one needs a sturdy foundation of liberal education before one can truly go on to specialize in anything, has caused my “almost decision” to fall away. I feel like I no longer have correct information to make such a decision. I want another year! Perhaps I’ll get to read the Five-Foot-Shelf and then, after, I’ll know what I want to study. Beha’s title states that “Every Reader Finds Himself” but after reading his essay I only discovered how lost I was.

Child's Play

2009-08-21T23:39:00.000-07:00

Take Dr. Seuss’ strange world, turn everything into plastic, metal or wood, place it into a food processor for a pulse or two, then cast it into the air and let it land how it will. After a few minor touchups, you have a functional playground. Children seem to have an unending fascination with such things. They play on them for years, from the time they are toddlers until they are well into their teens.

Researchers have determined the evolutionary purpose of such play: It is a child’s way of role-playing in order to prepare for life as an adult. The many roles a child assumes—doctor, lawyer, teacher, fireman—are a method of learning what life is like in those uniforms in order to better prepare the child for survival in later years. On a playground, these roles can become more extravagant and rambunctious than a small classroom space allows—dinosaur, robot, Optimus Prime Transformer, bully—but the child also engages in activities that are not role-playing: Swinging on swings, sliding down slides, roaming empty semi tires, spinning till they throw up. Besides the obvious evolutionary benefit of exercise, one could make the case that the child is learning things like physics in these secondary activities. Consider the slide. The child learns that motion occurs when the component of gravitational force in the direction tangential to the slide causes them to accelerate, and they obtain the highest speed when the friction force (and the coefficient of kinetic friction) is lowest. Although such learning may take place subconsciously, for all practical purposes the child has no learning in mind and is simply indulging in pleasure.

Children stop using the playgrounds sometime around adolescence and their ascendance into adulthood. Scientifically, this makes perfect sense. Adolescents are aware of themselves and have a developed understanding of reality, so learning through play is no longer required. Personally, I am baffled.

Instead of playing in the world of make-believe, adults spend every waking moment in a living nightmare of reality—a reality that is not even escaped in T.V. anymore due to the rise of reality shows. Grown people do not delight in pretending. You do not see adults (not ones you think are sane anyway) cavorting about, crying “Tseeew Tseeew. Die aliens! I’m Buzz Lightyear, and I’m the master in this galaxy.”

Imagine the benefits if such play was permitted instead of socially prohibited. America’s weight would drop dramatically; people would be able to vent their emotions constructively instead of resorting to gunshots; friendships would blossom between previously estranged people—almost everyone would be united by the enjoyment of play.

I believe the reason playgrounds are like Dr. Seuss on steroids is to stimulate imagination for as long as possible. Infinite adventures await a child with such imagination. The longer the playground maintains such interest, the longer a child’s capacity for play will survive before it is crushed under the social pressure of being a responsible, dignified adult.

The Way to Keep the Old House

2009-08-21T23:31:00.001-07:00

My house in South Korea was constructed with an inconvenient and weird lay-out: one floor was for kitchen and a living room, and another was for three bedrooms. Then, located in the garden outside, was the Old Korean-style restroom. The only restroom at my house and so whenever I woke up in the middle of the night to use the restroom, I had to wear my shoes and go through the garden to get to it. I’d always become sleepless after visiting the restroom in the winter because I’d still be shivering from the cold outside. The inside build of the house wasn’t great either: a scratched brown dining table diminished my appetite; cracks on the wall served as homes for ants; and a draft in my room made me shiver with cold in winter. When I was a child, I was always complaining about this old house. However, about a year ago, my parents pleasantly told me, “We are going to demolish the entire house including the garden to build a new one.” Obviously, that was what I wanted when I was a child, but I, now 26 years old, didn’t want to lose the place of my childhood.

The garden made my house alive during the entire four seasons: in spring, it was a full of pink and white royal azalea blossoms; in summer, camellia made the house green; in autumn, maple trees changed the colors of their leaves to red; in winter, bamboos still kept their greenish leaves, showing their strength against cold. This garden had always been with my family: My grand-mother, grand-father, father, mother, my two younger brothers, and me. When I was a child, I learned how to prune plants and trees from my grand-mother. Before winter season, my family covered the ground with vinyl to protect plants from the intense cold weather. Furthermore, we transplanted small dwarf trees into a pot, and brought them into a vinyl plastic hothouse to help them resist the biting cold. Then, those plants requited with full-blossom flowers next spring. However, demolition of the entire house including the garden wouldn’t leave me any place to go to enjoy my childhood memories.

A few days after I heard my house would be fully renovated, I watched an interesting TV show, “This Old House,” hosted by Kevin O'Connor. The show was about how to remodel an obsolete house. In the 29th season of the TV show, O'Connor helped the homeowner, Rashida Ferdinand to get back her house, which she had lost when the hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005. They called the type of her house a shotgun house: it was a long and narrow rectangular-shaped single house. An interior designer, a colorist, a landscape architect, a pest control contractor, and volunteers took part in this project and worked together as a team.

The most interesting part of this show was how the carpenters and designers always tried to keep as much of the original plan of the house as they could. Since the house took water up to 5 feet high from hurricane Katrina, everything below five feet including the floor, door, and lower part of the walls were damaged. Even though the ceiling and parts of the doors were still intact, it looked hard to reuse; I thought those areas wouldn’t match with the new building materials, since its color had faded due to the damp. However, it turned out the new floor went greatly with the old ceiling. I was surprised because the carpenters only dusted and polished the ceiling to achieve this effect; they didn’t even paint on it. Furthermore, they reused the old door. The homeowner was pleased to get back her house, still in its original shape. I murmured, “This would be one of the best ways to keep my house in South Korea,” and I grabbed the phone to make a call to my mom. My mom agreed with my opinion and promised to fix the only some of the necessary areas.

One year later, I read the essay “This Old House,” by David Sedaris, first published in The New Yorker, in July, 2007. Sedaris’ house was relatively new, and decorated with new material. However, he wanted to live in an antique house, and ended up leaving his ‘normal’ house to pursue his taste for an old, dilapidated house, which people would normally avoid. He came across a very unique and bygone house, and decided to live there with four out-of-ordinary people at Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

The house he found was actually a boarding house. Its exterior was really old and looked almost collapsed. However, he liked its exterior because of the old-fashioned style. Furthermore, upon entering the house, he really took a liking to its interior due to its antique atmosphere – worn-out furniture strewn here and there.

Before going to North Carolina, Sedaris used to live in an ordinary house with a common, ‘normal’ family. He also used to like his house and relatively new decorations. However, after watching a television show about an old house, he became a fan of that kind of house. He then started to listen to retro-style music and wear retro-style clothing. Finally, in the end, he decided to leave his house.

When Sedaris has first met with Rosemary, the landlady, in Chapel Hill, he thought her method of maintaining the house was unusual - She didn’t want to fix a water-leaked room because she too loved everything obsolete and believed the best way to keep the house’s quality was to leave the room as is. After he moved in, he felt satisfied with his life in the house, and was happy that Rosemary also loved the things of the past more than the things of the present.

Besides Rosemary, Sedaris met two guys at the house. Shortly after his move, another guy named, “Charlie” took the water-leaked room. Charlie was a quiet guy, but moved out of the house after getting his degree. Then, a guy named, “Chaz” moved into that room. Chaz had quite negative perspective about Sedaris’ clothing and room. Furthermore, he annoyed Sedaris everyday. After getting fired from his road construction work, His bothering of the residents became more serious and he started leaving weird notes for the owner and Sedaris. Finally, he got kicked out from the house.

However, this rustic house couldn’t last forever. For years, the university tried to get Rosemary to sign a contract to sell her home, and they eventually got her to sign the contract. However, the university wasn’t after the house property itself, but rather the land that it was situated in. I therefore assumed the university would possibly order a construction company to demolish the house, which would negatively impact Sedaris and Rosemary (Sedaris would lose the place that gave him pleasure, and source of Rosemary’s memory related to the old house was going to be diminished).

In his essay, Sedaris described his experience living at the old rustic boarding house with abnormal people. He loved the experience and even though readers would think that the four people were crazy, Sedaris felt pity for them. One realization he had from the house was that everything he liked was new, and he says, “Given enough time, I guess, anything can look good. All it has to do is survive” (203). Unfortunately, the house survival of the house was questionable because of the university’s plans for construction.

Unlike the old house in Sedaris’ essay, during my last vacation in South Korea, what I saw through my eyes at the porch of my house was almost the same old house: the restroom had still be separated constructed; the house still had its rustic furniture; and the cracked walls still had ants going along with the cracks.

As I looked around the house, I heard the doorbell ring. Since my parents hadn’t installed an up-to-date door bell system, I needed to run to the front door to see who was there. A group of people I’ve never seen before was waiting outside of the house. I asked, “Who are you guys?” They replied, “We are travelers. We just got a glimpse of your beautiful garden and rustic house and would like to appreciate them more closely if you don’t mind.” I didn’t mind at all, and I pleasantly opened the door, saying “Welcome to my Old House.”

-Donghyo Min

A Quiz Journey

2009-08-21T23:15:00.002-07:00

Every time I study for an organic chemistry quiz, I always find myself studying with a new strategy because not all quizzes are alike. Each quiz has its own set of materials to cover; therefore, you have to create your own ways to understand the materials every time you study. In my experience as a college student, running to a classroom just to take a twenty minute quiz is one of the most pressuring experiences that I have had so far, especially on a rainy summer Tuesday.

“What’s that smell?” was the question I asked myself as I came across the forest garden behind the chemistry building, Bagley Hall, on a summer Tuesday. For a second, I thought I smelled peppermint, but then the scent became stronger and stronger as I approach the stairs of the crosswalk. And then the smell turned into a gross rotting pine odor from pine chips that are used to fertilize new plants. The closer I got to the building, the stronger the odor gets, and the heat from the rising sun didn’t help much either. As the surrounding temperature starts to increase, the smell of the moist soil made the decomposing pine odor smell worse than it already was. As annoyed by the smell as I was, I have realized that this was not a good path to take to class. Not only does the smell effect my concentration on organic chemistry as I walk and study at the same time, it also affects my nerves to stay confident. Instead of a nice breeze of fresh air before a quiz, I got an awful breeze of air from decomposing plant fertilizers.

As I tried to multitask studying and walking to class, curiosity flourished my mind. Not only did I wonder what that smell was, I wondered what the molecular formula of that smell is. As hard as I try to avoid the disturbing odor, compounds of hydrogens and carbons bonded together in a molecular structure was all I could think of. This reminds me of what Professor Bartlett once said, “Life is CHIRAL!” Now that I think about it, that is true; all living organisms are made out of organic molecules and those molecules are chiral to each other; therefore, the organic molecules that formed the stinky odor are all chiral to each other. To my understanding, they are mirror images of each other, so I’m inhaling the smell of “life.”

When you think about it, after the fertilizer reacts with the rain (water) from the clouds and heat from the sun, the resulting product will be some form of solid and excess of gases which is the strong odor of the reaction.

As I approached closer and closer to the one way crosswalk between Benson and Bagley Hall, the stinky odor was finally clear. Now I can continue concentrating on my studies again. But WAIT! The quiz starts in less than three minutes, how in the world can I settle my mind? This is all because of the path I took; its odor effected my concentration so much that I cannot properly think. Now what am I going to do? (panic, panic, panic).

Finally, ENTER: Benson Hall room 114, quiz number four… Begin! I’m so screwed!

NOTE TO SELF: next time, new study strategies…

The Emerald City

2009-08-21T23:15:00.001-07:00

Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Now imagine what an “Emerald city” would look like. Green plants everywhere right? Now release your breath and open your eyes. Let’s take a tour around downtown.

First things first, let’s open our ears and listen carefully to the sounds around here. What’s that I hear? A sharp wind, “awk awk awk” closer and closer as we approach the alley; it’s the echo of the seagulls, fighting for food. Let’s have a closer look. Deeper and deeper as we walk into the narrowed alley, trashes and fluids of brown decomposing food drip like blood vessel from a flesh cut scattered everywhere. This looks like a dead zone, no sign of safety here. A conclusion you can draw here is that this is the place where every aggressive bird searches for their food. Anywhere there is left over, a crowd of birds will huddle around and feast and feast like there is a ceremony, fighting with all their might for the best part of the bait and swing their wings like guiding shields to protect themselves from larger birds. This is the scene of death and survival. Away from this cruel scene, let’s have a detour to the west of downtown.

Second thing to see, open your eyes and look around as we elevate up onto the sky bridge of Pacific Place shopping center on the third story. From the top view you can see little children in the size of an ant, trees the size of a strain of grass, and buildings that appears like blocks tacked on top of each other. Further west of the bridge you can see the golden sun setting beyond the hills of West Seattle and Ballard. Akin to that, beyond many buildings, a tall mushroomed shaped tower stands still among a cultural display center. The attraction of its height brings many tourists to this area; from the top of the tower, one of the most breathtaking site around, you can see rocks by the waterfront being brushed off by incoming waves every ten seconds or so.

Finally the sun has set. Time to go home; let’s have a last look around as we walk up to the bus stop, shall we? Up the streets very two intersecting lines make an orthogonal green sign. Signs that read:

8th Ave
9th Ave
Terry Ave
Hewitt St
Olive Way
And so on up to Broadway and beyond the freeway bridge.

Passing through the streets of the Emerald City, instead of green trees, I see signs of streets that are named after old settlers at the corner of every stop light. Green is what this place is supposed to symbolize right? That’s why it’s called the “Emerald City”? But where is the green? It’s not on the walls, not on the floors of the concrete streets, and certainly not up in the sky. What is it that makes this place the Emerald City? Whatever the answer may be, I did had a great time looking around, now let’s take another deep breath here at the Emerald City and take our leave.

The New Yorker - June 29, 2009 - Every Ninth

2009-08-21T23:12:00.000-07:00

$4.99? Are you serious? Do I really have to pay that much for this piece of magazine? What’s in it for me? Why can’t I just borrow it for a day or so to have a glance at it? How obnoxious… Should I buy it or not? I mean, after all it is a dollar cheaper than in any other foreign countries. Oh, why not, I’ll get a 10% rebate under my student account anyway.

Now, a nice comfy chair is what I need, perhaps the Husky Union Building (HUB) launch? Somewhere nice and quiet for concentration. Okay, the HUB it is then.

As confusing as the front page looked as to how I feel, where should I begin my exploration? “The New Yorker” sounds interesting, maybe it’s about a bunch of things that is going on in New York? Or it could just be a collections of New Yorker’s journals that people write everyday in New York City. Well, here’s the plan, lets have a look at every nine page in this magazine, just to spice things out since today’s Facebook horoscope for Scorpio said that nine will be my lucky number, we’ll take our chances and listen to what my fortune has to say.

Page nine, largest word on the page: “HUNG” what does that mean? Let’s have a look, first of all, HBO has something to do with networking and communication along with a picture of a bandaged up leg of an athlete. The line below “HUNG” says “IT’S HARD TO MAKE AN INDECENT LIVING” maybe it has something to do with changing one’s life style? Who knows, this page looks like an advertisement from the HBO company, something for people who will need to have their life style change if they go through such incident. Okay next nine pages.

Page eighteen, three columns of writing, first impression: this must be a writer’s review, perhaps someone’s journal respond to a book or a movie. Top left corner titled: “Critic’s Notebook: Upper-Class Men” sounds like a review to a movie with a picture of Claudia Cardinale and Burt Lancaster titled “The Leopard”. This must be a ---movie’s review advertisement of the movie “The Leopard” which was shown at the BAM (somewhere in New York) June 30th. Middle column, bolded titles “Seraphine,” “Star Trek,” “Summer House,” and “ The taking of Pelham 1 2 3.” These seems like they are all titles of books or movies. Among all these titles, “Star Trek” was the only one that I’ve heard about, a series of episodes that I’ve always ignored all my life about some weird movie taken place in space, somewhere beyond our horizon. Okay next nine pages.

Page twenty seven, another page with three columns of writing looks boring. The only thing that stands out from this page is that big headed picture of a woman on an acrobat swing. Her name is Evan Rachel Wood, an actress with multiple talents and a good review on her acting career. Mainly, this whole page is about Wood’s life and how she builds up her talents along her career since her successful role in the movie “Thirteen” (2003). Okay next nine pages.
Page thirty SIX, more writing extended from the essay “The Age of Innocent” by Rebecca Mead who talked about the life and writings of Edith Wharton. The most interesting thing about this page is the picture of a large guy holding a dog by its collar on the bottom left corner of the magazine. This reminds me of myself once, holding a puppy by his collar because I was scared he might bite me. I am scared of dogs, the reason why? I don’t really know, it’s just that I don’t trust them, who knows, they have sharp teeth and some dogs tends to play around a lot more than obey orders. I remembered being chased by a dog once when I was little, and that was the biggest fear of my life. First of all I was not used to the idea of playing around with animals, especially animals that I don’t know how to communicate with. And second of all, the dog didn’t stop or move away after I rejected him, telling him that I didn’t like his eagerness. The picture of the guy holding a dog just reminds me of my experience with a little puppy five years ago and a dog chase that I had eight years ago. Okay next nine pages.

Page forty five, the last column of advertisements, most attractive contrast on the page. Let’s start on the top right corner: advertisement “on the town” something to do with losing weight and changing life style from the Duke Diet & Fitness Center. Sounds interesting, I have always wanted to lose a few pounds, this might be an interesting solution to get back in shape. Midway right corner: “Marlboro Music,” an advertisement on the Marlboro’s five music concerts that they will be hosting in Marlboro, Vermont summer 2009. A picture with three gentlemen playing the orchestra sounds like a pleasant concert to attend. This might be one of those special concerts for people to spend their anniversary at since it did receive the comment “The most exciting chamber music in the US”- by Time magazine. Below the music advertisement is the “Publish your own book now” for people who want to publish their writings along with contact information and farther more details; something for essayist to look forward to. And finally at the bottom right corner is the advertisement “There’s nothing ‘small’ about them,” an ad about available advertising space on the New Yorkers for anyone who’s interested in adding advertisements on the New Yorkers. Okay next nine pages.

Page fifty four, three long columns of writing continued from the article “Angelo’s Ashes,” Connie Bruck who talked about a man named Angelo who faced financial crisis as the economy crumbles. What’s interesting about Bruck’s techniques of writing is that he bolded the letters “A’ and “M” in his writing to bring out the readers attention, just incase some readers decide to take off, since this was a really long essay just about a guy’s struggle in the declining economy. Oh great! My coffee is done, how do I stay with this reading mood? I’m only half way done with the journal. Okay next nine pages.

Page sixty three, laugh out loud two dogs stitting in a car, what possibility could that be? Since when do dogs start driving? Even I don’t have my driver’s license yet, my reason? I don’t have any reason to pay for car insurance when I don’t even have the time to drive a car around. I live close to campus, so walking is what I prefer, there’s really no reason to pay for bills that I don’t really need right? Well, it’s not like I’ll never drive, I will drive someday when I need to, but for now I don’t want to drive yet. Back to the page, along with the caption “Now, whaddaya say we chase some cars,” what does that mean? Sounds like dog language to me. This reminds me of my first time driving. Sitting behind the wheels for the first time of in my life learning the terms on the wheels was the hardest thing for me to remember, “P” is park, “R” is reverse, and “D” is drive, simple as that. But the hard part was how you control the steering wheel. For my first time “Go for it!” was the only spiritual words that I could think of at the time along with the biggest fear “I hope I don’t crash into something”. It is not that scary when it comes to driving, but the beginning is fearful, since I’m not used to steering the wheels yet. I wonder if that’s the same case with these two dogs too. Okay next nine pages.

Page seventy two, another three column styled writing in essay format: “Love, Iranian style,” by James Wood. Most interesting is to the right of this page, where there’s a portrait of a woman faced side way, orthogonal to another person’s face, who is actually facing straight at the viewer’s perspective. Mysteriously, the face of the person that’s facing straight out has Arabic writings writing all over the face. What’s the meaning of this? I don’t know, but what’s cool about this image is that it draws my attention from actually reading the essay to wondering what is the meaning of this picture? It works as a distracter, but its intention is not to really distract the reader, it is more about making the reader think about the picture. Because as I read the title of the essay “Love, Iranian style,” from the top of my head I’ve already imagined a scene of art work from Iran, something to do with the style in Iran that makes them different from anywhere else in the world and the image to the right page of seventy two is just the right imagery to guide my curiosity. Okay, finally, last ninth page of this magazine.

Page eighty one, “Leyster’s ‘Self-Portrait,’” a painting created in the early 1630s. More over, this page is just a continuation on the essay “A Woman’s Work,” a piece of writing about Judith Leyster’s 400th birthday and her creative art works that where displayed in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C... Out of all the art works that I’ve seen in this magazine, this picture of “Leyster’s ‘Self-Portrait’” is one of the most original artistic image that I’ve seen; the other images are either pictures taken or cartoon drawing. This image is actually a picture of a painting, which makes it unique compare to the other artworks. And since both faces of the painter (Leyster herself) and the person she drew on her portrait are both smiling, it catches my attention with the thought that wonders why both figures are happy rather than serious like most early 1600s portraits that I’ve seen before.

Wow! What a journal, so many interesting things to take from this journal. Not only did the advertisements attract reader’s attentions, but the artistic works that people submitted into this journal help attract readers (like me) make connections with what’s going on and reminds me of pass experiences that I’ve had that are similar to the pictures. And the techniques that some of these writer displayed in their articles really help attract reader’s attentions such as bolding words out and capitalizing letters. This was a great issue to explore; it was well worth my $4.99 after all.

Cricket Fighting Summary

2009-08-21T23:10:00.000-07:00

In the essay “Cricket Fighting,” Hugh Raffles described the experience of walking down the streets of Minhang, Shanghai, which he encountered the discovery of a tourist eye view over Cricket fights; a sport that not everyone in the world has ever heard of. Getting to know and understand how the division of the sport linked together was something that brought Raffles to realize the importance of Crickets. As assisted by Mr.Wu, Hugh and his translator, Michael, was able to have contacts with large cricket fight sponsors such as Boss Xun and learned about the spirituality of a cricket and their behavior.

Having the opportunity to meet with trainers, Raffles was able to extract the plot of a cricket match into a scene that readers can enhance the atmosphere of the situation of the game. The fact that these insects are very tinny, Raffles was able to expand the imagery of a cricket and its appearance as it enters the match into a scene with roaring audience and human sized animals. As discovered by Raffles, crickets that won are able to continue on with their athletic life style as a fighter and crickets that lost are released back into the wild, back to their habitat as a wild insect.

Although crickets are small insects that are about thirteen and eighteen millimeters long, they are highly valued by their trainers and are well studied by cricket lovers; understanding which type of crickets are best at fighting and which are more favorable. Behind their respects, their capability to fight will gain them the chance of making more money to their trainers if they win the match, which will make them the more favorable type of their species. Speaking of more favorable, trust was really important in this essay too.

In order to gain trust from trainers and traders, public houses, in this case Boss Xun’s casino, was kept clean and white so that people will be willing to gamble and make bets on the insects. Also, security was very important for cricket fighting, because winners are granted, therefore trainer will do anything to make sure their insect win the match. Which in Boss Xun’s casino, no one will be able to cheat because of the clean sets up of tables and clear lights in the building, it’s suppose to be a fair game fight.

According to Raffles, fairness is very important, not only does security help prevent any cheating, the opponents has to be about the same weight in order to have a fair match. In which, the crickets are weighted electronically for their exact weight before being match up with its opponent. If some of the crickets are under weight, there are ways that they can gain weight before the weight-in such as dehydration drugs that are undetectable.

As cricket fighting loop around china, the best cricket fighting matches carries on the characteristics of five virtues such as sing abilities, encountering enemies, loyalty under pain, understand shame, and realizing the reality of the situation; all five characteristics are what humans and crickets shared. Shapes, size, and colors do matter, but most important is having self-discipline and understanding the situation is what makes a cricket match more extreme. Even though crickets are just insects, they are trained like animals and human training too; they work just as hard in their abilities just as any large animals. On the behalf of their hard works, discrimination of their genders also played a role in their judgments too.

The popularity of male crickets are understandable because of their ability to fight, they are more favorable by cricket trainers. However, female crickets are looked down on; they are considered less useful because of their inability to fight and sing like males which makes them much cheaper in the cricket market. Even Shanghainese traders don’t sell female cricket according to Raffles, they are only valuable for reproduction, other than that they can’t fights to earn money for their trainers so they are less favorable in the market.

There are much more to know about crickets than just a small little insect, and there are many more similarities between human and cricket behaviors than differences. History stated back to the Ming and Qing dynasties when the government try to control the spread of cricket fighting, many people still manage to continue the sport to these days.

We are the One

2009-08-21T22:57:00.000-07:00

He attired himself in red skinny pants, white flat shoes, a black tank-top, and a brown vest with long, permed hair, but I could see the confidence about himself from his face. He was parading with his friend in downtown Seattle, putting his arms around his friend’s shoulder. Following these two guys, another guy wearing red breeches, a pink jacket, a pair of white boots, a white blouse, and a black helmet was riding a motorbike. Their demeanor was so feminine that I might have not been able to identify their biological sex if I had come across them on a random street and not on this street that was being used for the Gay Festival. The parade gathered crowds of curious people along the street. The festive atmosphere of the festival told me that people were pleasantly enjoying themselves that they were open to the homosexual community.

The article “Stonewall Plus Forty” by Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker, (the 6th edition, July, 2009) helped me understand the history of discrimination against homosexual people. Forty years ago, N.Y.P.D raided the mafia run Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street, in Greenwich Village nearby New York City. The raid was not because of the Mafia’s illicit business management, but because of its homosexual customers, who were publicly and officially discriminated against. Right after that, the first riot broke out to protest about persecution of homosexual community on June 28th, 1969.

In another essay, “The Lesbian Bride’s Handbook,” in New York, (April 23rd, 2007 edition), Ariel Levy shows the anguish she had to go through while preparing her wedding due to the negative social outlook on the homosexual community. Many people in the society did not think a wedding between a same-sex people was ideal. Because of this perspective, Levy is lead to believe that her wedding is not normal; she is forced to think of her wedding as just “a party about love” (136). Levy reveals her bad memory of not being able to call her own wedding, a wedding.

Even though our society has remarkably changed the way we look at homosexual people, many people like Levy who live in a relatively anti-homosexual community are still suffering because their sexual orientation. I realized from Hertzberg’s article that a significant number of soldiers and sailors had been relieved of their jobs because of the ‘coming-out’ of their sexual orientation. Realizing this kind of undeserved difficulties, Hertzberg urges Barack Obama to take action to end inequality for homosexual people by saying, “The president should kick that door open” (23).

Some people tend to think that as long as a lot of people do a certain something, it must be normal; otherwise, any activity not practiced by the majority must be weird. Thus, because power lies in the majority of the people, the thought of what is right is legitimated as a statute. However, I believe we need make an effort to change some of the statutes to protect minority rights as long as they are reasonable, since they too are human beings and are entitled to their rights. I believe the first step to help contribute against homosexual discrimination is to stop staring at them as if they were some peculiar sight.

-Donghyo Min

Nothing is Free

2009-08-21T22:48:00.001-07:00

Five one-dollar bills, two quarters, and one dime in a small and obsolete orange-colored basket were more than the amount of money I needed at that time. A homeless in rags with a long beard was sitting on the sidewalk next to the entrance of the University Bookstore on the University district in Seattle and was feebly imploring me to help him. I sighed and murmured, “You have more money than I do now.” I stepped in the bookstore and checked the price of the journal, The New Yorker required for my English 281 class. It was $4.99, but the balance in my account was $3.06, because I had to make an unexpected payment of $120 for my brother’s medical bill. I asked to the information desk, “Are there any sales for the past journals?” “No! Sorry,” she said. At the moment, my friend said, “I will pay for it.” Before I could ask why, he added, “I can get 2-hour parking validation if we buy that journal now. I was actually going to park around here to go to church for about 2 hours so I would need to pay for parking anyway; the parking by itself would be more than $4.99.” So, I got this journal for free.

A book-review in the journal called, “Priced To Sell,” written by Malcolm Gladwell made me think about the topic in the article: ‘For Free.’ Gladwell reviews Chris Anderson’s book, “Free: The Future of a Radical Price.” The book is about the price trend we need to pay for our needs. For instance, a single transistor used to be ten dollars in 1961, but today we can get it for 0.00055 cents, and like a transistor, information tends to be free. Furthermore, an experiment conducted by MIT explained the huge difference of the price between something that costs 1 cent and something that is free. The experiment was about choosing chocolates. Many people choose 15 cents Lindt truffles instead of 1 cent Hushey’s Kisses. However, they choose Hushey’s Kisses when it is for free. With this example, Gladwell maintains that it is not crucial to sell 1 cent cheaper than its original price; the point revolves around free or not free. Thus, the ‘magic of free’ can help a company become prosperous.

After reading that article, I got a glimpse of a promotional post card, which was between page 76 and 77. The blue-colored phrase with 20 font size tried to persuade me to purchase this journal only for 85 cents by saying, “Just 85 cents An Issue!” From the line below this title, I realized this price was 81 percent off the original price. I could read 47 issues of this journal for 1 year only for $39.95 by checking the box, which was on the upper portion of the post card. Below that box, blank lines for my personal contact information were present for me to fill out. I didn’t even have to buy a stamp to send this postcard. I could just fill out the blanks, tear off the sheet from this page, and put it in a mailbox whenever I wanted to – there was no deadline. All I had to do was buy this journal and send in the card to take advantage of this great deal.

This was indeed ‘A Great Deal’ for me; however, it wasn’t something I really wanted. I flipped through all the pages of the journal. In this 93-page journal, 35 pages included at least one advertisement. On the right side of page 85, a 60 to 80 percent off advertisement for a resort caught my eyes. All of page 9 was for a VISA advertisement. This advertisement had a ‘Buy 1 get 1 free’ promotion for movie tickets that were purchased with the Visa card. However, none of them provided free products or services. I needed at least to pay some amount of money like The New Yorker promotion post card. But what if some of these promotions or The New Yorker were just free? I assumed from Anderson’s argument that if customers didn’t have to pay for it, more people may read The New Yorker, and then this journal could sell advertisements with higher price. However, no company including The New Yorker provides customers with their products for free. I wondered if a company could truly benefit from making products or providing information for free, or if charging some money for their products was actually the most beneficial route for companies.

With this perspective, in his article, “Priced To Sell,” Gladwell does not miss a single loophole in Anderson’s assertion. Many pharmaceutical companies can develop a new drug with better performance while it costs less. However, Gladwell emphasizes we shouldn’t overlook other facilities and processes such as clinical testing and marketing the company needs to pay for before launching their new drugs. The point is that clinical testing is the most expensive part of developing a new drug, so the price we need to pay may be almost same. In this way, he refuses that information is eventually going to be free. He also points out the case of Apple to contradict Anderson’s idea that making free products helps companies make money. In fact, Apple earns money from selling music content; cable companies that offer premium cable TV channels make more money than broadcast television, which is free. Likewise, Gladwell rejects Anderson’s assertion that free information is helpful for companies.

We need to pay for what we want. Then, what about this journal? I obviously did not pay for it. I’ve known my friend for two and half years. In the cases of when we were in a restaurant and he sometimes didn’t bring his wallet, I never asked the server to split the bill in two. He also sometimes did the same thing for me. By doing this give-and-take action, we are building our own infrastructure, which is friendship. I can’t put a price on this friendship, and it’s never going to be leaning toward the price of zero. With that in mind, I realized that even this journal was not truly free.

-Donghyo Min

A Touch with the World

2009-08-21T21:47:00.000-07:00

Yea Eun Kim

My dad was an airman for ten years in South Korea. He served in the air force while in college. Living ten years with airplanes, he knew every diminutive detail - its functions, capabilities and even the blatant sound of the engine running.

Before my parents got married in 1987, my mom applied to become a stewardess because she loved traveling in airplanes. “It is the feeling of being different as if you are living above everyone else.” She would say whenever I asked her why she wanted to become a stewardess so badly. For nine months, she studied abroad in Japan when she was in college; she thought that speaking at least two languages was an imperative requirement. She was tall, skinny, bilingual and had a fulfilling education- someone who would definitely be selected to become a stewardess. Unfortunately, all the judges had to fail her because she had keratoiridocticlitis- a disease of having a poor vision because of an abnormal shape in cornea. Three times, she was rejected.

“Maybe that is why we traveled in airplanes wherever we went.” I thought to myself as I was entering the address on Amtrak. I remember riding the first airplane when I was six; my family was on a vacation to JaeJudo for five days. Leaving from Seoul, it takes about four hours of driving by a car to JaeJudo, a beautiful city well known for its nature in South Korea. Mr. Park, a good friend of my dad’s since college, offered us a free ride on his airplane which took us only 30 minutes to get there. “Short and simple but double the danger,” he said after landing safely and shaking my dad’s hand. This is how my family traveled. Even in short distances, we took airplanes. I never understood what people meant by “car sick.”

But this time was a little different; I had to travel all by myself. I clicked “Done” and printed a confirmation page for my $38.00 ticket as I was beginning to get worried. The worst part was, I had to travel on a train: a train, which is about twenty times slower than airplanes and even cars. For a moment, I resented my parents for not buying me an airplane ticket.

The yellow light flashed. I disconnected the power from the plug and placed the charged battery in my makeup purse with my black eyeliner, lipsticks and mascara. “It will be easier to find if I put it here.” I said to myself as I packed a sleeping pill and a yellow container that reads “Vitamin C.” Drinking a hot mocha latte, I grabbed a red pen and drew a check mark next to the “camera battery” on my packing list. I checked for open windows, computer lights and the heater. Everything was turned off and closed, I let out a big sight of relief- I was finally ready to leave.

The weather outside was hot and humid, indeed it was summer. I got on the bus to downtown Seattle and followed the directions in the map to the Seattle train station. The waiting area at the station was very different from that of the airports- everything was so small and clustered together. I looked around, trying to feel normal to the environment like everyone else. The rancid smell of smoking and the restrooms, noisy vending machines, uncomfortable chairs, unorganized newspapers and the lack of air-conditioning were all very disappointing; I closed my eyes as if I were having a bad dream.

Then there was a tap on my shoulder. I opened my eyes and looked up. A girl in early twenties with a heavy makeup around her eyes was holding a cigarette between her fingers and carrying a black bag on her right shoulder. She was wearing a black tank top with a drawing of a white skull in the middle and her jeans were ripped in an unfashionable manner with a few spots of paints spotted on her left leg. She turned the volume down coming from her headphones and said, pointing her finger to the seat next to me, “You mind if I move that?” Her tone was full of haughtiness- I could tell that if I said no, she would kick my stuff out take the seat as if it belonged to her. I moved my backpack unwillingly and set it down on the floor beneath my legs. Who asks like that? I turned my head away from her and tried to soothe my feelings as I started cleaning the lens on my camera with a handkerchief. I felt like I was the only normal person here- the only one ready to have a normal traveling.

“Train to Vancouver, Washington now leaves in five minutes. Please get in line.” The worker coughed and rang a bell three times to catch people’s attention. I grabbed my bag and got at the end of the line. One by one, the driver collected tickets and signaled for an O.K with his hands for the passengers to enter the train. He ripped the ticket into half and I looked for my seat that reads “34 A.” By the time I got to the end of the aisle next to a trash can, I came across a tag with its ripped corners and the edges full of dust and green duck tapes. It was my seat. As I was about to get myself settled, I noticed a black man already sitting in my spot with his arms crossed, looking out the window. I double checked the tag and the seat number written on my ticket. It was the same number thus, clearly my seat. I faltered for a moment and coughed, trying to catch his attention. “Excuse me, I think this is my spot. The ticket I have here reads 34A.” I showed him my ticket, pointing my finger where the seat number was written as my voice cracked, overwhelmed with nervousness. He smiled slowly and looked at me like a little kid lost in a playground. “It ain’t matter what youe ’r ticket says. We sit where-ever we want bro.”

My face went red. People around me were giggling and glimpsing at my face; I looked down trying to avoid eye contacts. I grabbed a seat in the right corner of the end of the aisle, behind a small restroom. The train started moving and I looked out the window. Everything trespassed in such a close gap as though I could reach out and sense the reality of every movement. I put my hand on the left side of my heart and felt the heart bumping. Slowly and slowly, I begin to become a part of the rhythm in my chest. “Is this the first time riding a train?” A young girl next to me asked innocently. I nodded my head and opened the window, slowly stretched out my arm and felt the rain drops sliding along my skin. I took my camera out and took three pictures. Flash flash and flash. The snapshots of every movement that train made and what I saw through the window- the branches of trees dancing, a boat sailing through the waves in the lake, cars moving abruptly in a busy traffic, and the sound of the rain falling lightly from the sky. “I can’t wait to tell them.” I closed my eyes, drawing my parents’ faces in my head.

The Summer in My World

2009-08-21T21:27:00.000-07:00

Yea Eun Kim

1. Warm up
June 22 2009 Time: 8:13 am

Dear Diary,
When I open my eyes in my bed, I feel the heaviness in my chest like I cannot breathe. The dust in the corner of the wall, the shoes spread around the door, the shape of accessories placed on the dressing closet, and even the position of how computers and books are placed- everything around me, I am longing for like none of them is mine. What time is it? I wake myself from the pink dreams and come back to the reality.
8: 17 am. The time reads. O shoot, I am late for the first day of school!

2. High Kick
July 2 2009 Time: 1:34pm

Dear Diary,
When I do not know if I want to eat lemon or orange, I eat a banana. When I liked it yesterday but when I hate it today, I simply get a different one. When I just trimmed my new dress but put it in the laundry with my dirty socks and shoes, I just give the dress to my little sister. This is how I am. I give it a try without worrying about the results and I keep going without knowing the consequences. Maybe that is why I am sitting at the Odegaard Library right now, trying to finish writing my essay. Why did I take English 281 anyway? I just needed one more composition credit for my biochemistry major and I could have chosen some other 100 level- the easier classes. I mean, you can tell from my writings in the diary that I am not someone who would publish a series of novels, right? I stare at a blank page and my mind is empty. My thought runs like a broken machine; I start making something but it always disconnects in the middle. I always use the word “myriads” because that is the only word that I remember from the list of vocabularies that I studied for the SAT. My creativity comes from the old ideas that I have used in the past. My writing ability is so… UGH! HELP!

3. Triple Axel
July 31 2009 Time: 4:07pm

Dear Diary,
The highest jump and the wildest rotation. A jump you can’t complete unless you give your all- Triple Axel. But what does it mean to give your all? To give my all?

Here is a list of things to do for this summer (from most to least important):
1. Get a 4.0 in Psychology 101
2. At least pass with a 3.0 in English 281
3. At a 100% on all of my quizzes in Stats 220
4. Spend my birthday with him in the most romantic way Y♥H (movie + dinner + a walk at the Gas Works Park at night?)
5. Start volunteering at the Pre nursing center at UW Medical Center
6. Call Linda Brown to schedule my interview for the internship at Boeing center
7. Go down to Vancouver to visit my parents after the summer quarter gets done
8. Finish level 7 for my piano practice in Church praise team

Okay, so maybe this list is not so realistic after all. That was what I intended to do- my original goal before the summer began but there is no way I can do numbers 1, 3 and maybe number 8. I mean I have gotten two midterms that were way above average in Psychology, but I literally BOMED the last one though. I got a 70% which means that I need to get a 100% on the final in order to get a 4.0! (I doubt that will ever happen).

As for number 2, I am scared because I do not think the way how I write matches with this course. à That is what I used to believe at the very beginning of the quarter and I was at the edge of dropping the class. I debated about this for a week, talked to my friends around me and I even had an appointment with my advisor. Eventually, I decided to keep writing because (this might sound weird to you) I kind of liked staring at a blank page. I think it is the frustration of not knowing what to start and which word to begin in my introduction that got me. Did I really give my all into writing this summer? Is writing my triple axel? Or am I just weird?

4. False Uniqueness Effect
August 16 2009 Time: 9:43pm

Dear Diary,
Sometimes I feel that my heart still gets frozen even in the moments of midsummer. Sometimes I feel the wind that blows between our relationships is drearier than any others. Sometimes I find himself closing his heart and building a brick of wall between us because I find him calculating for his own gain from the reflection of my face. And sometimes... I feel like I am getting used to all of this very slowly. The False Uniqueness Effect: If others do it, it is a romance, but if I do it, it is a total throw up. Why is that? Do I just not have enough experiences with dating? Is it me? Or does he not like me anymore? Is it the long distance that is making our relationship so miserable? I press “1” on the speed dial and press “send” on my phone. His voice is full of tiredness.

“Hello…?”
“I want to become a cat.”
“What? What do you mean by that?”
“I want someone to hug me, and to pad me with love right now. But you are too far away from me.”

We were silent for ten minutes. With my teary eyes, I turned the pages in my diary and crossed out number 4 on my summer list with a red pen and erased the initials that I once marked with a red heart, Y♥H. He forgot my birthday.

Cultural Space

2009-08-21T21:22:00.000-07:00

Eduardo

I sit at a high black-lacquered table next to a many-paned window that opens onto a pleasant little brick patio on California Avenue. The C & P Coffee Company is a comfortable old Craftsman-style house in West Seattle, popular with people of a wide range of ages, concentrating on their laptops in worlds of their own or networking in business meetings at big wooden tables. I look up as a tiny bell jingles, and a pretty blonde girl, her long hair in a pony tail and a bicycle helmet under her arm, walks in. A soft breeze wafts through the open window beside me, and I return to my iced latte and the latest issue of my favorite magazine, The New Yorker. I relax, enjoy the ambience, and lose myself in the pages of my magazine.

It’s summer-time. Everyone wants to be at the beach, drinking a cold lemonade and reading a book while getting a tan. If you live in the heart of New York, however, it’s impossible! New Yorkers, who live in the middle of the city, must enjoy reading their books on artificial beaches. A roof-top beach is on the cover of the magazine.

I flip the magazine open to “The Mail,” a section reserved for readers to respond to articles previously published in the magazine. The first letter that catches my eye is titled, “Making a Memorial,” written by a descendant of Federico García-Lorca, a Spanish poet, dramatist, and theatre director, who was murdered at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. The families of some of the other victims of Franco’s troops apparently want to disinter the corpses of those buried in mass graves to recover the DNA which might help identify their loved ones. This is a complaint letter, and it is a complaint that is strongly held… do not disturb the dead.

Throughout the magazine, there are advertisements, cartoons, poetry and doodles. Even colorful prints of covers of previous issues of The New Yorker itself are advertised. My favorite here is a somber but eloquent painting of the Lincoln Memorial and the reflective pool before it, published the week Barack Obama was elected President of the United States. It seems to me Abraham Lincoln’s dream to free the slaves and ultimately elevate them to social, economic, and political equality has finally come true. The “o” in the New Yorker shines like a full moon.

I flip through the pages until I get to “The Talk of the Town,” where Hendrik Hertzberg writes about the righteous anger individuals in the LGBT community feel toward President Obama. The next two articles are kind of fluff, but the last article in “The Talk of the Town,” by Kelefa Sanneh, is written in an artistic and emotional tone about the demise of Michael Jackson. A variety of celebrities, stricken by the death of the star, bemoan the loss of “‘his talent, his wonderment, and his mystery.’” Manu Dibango, a Cameroonian pop star now living in Paris, who had engaged Jackson in a legal debate over the rights to a portion of a song he had written but which Jackson had not credited to him, “mourn[s] the loss of ‘un artiste exceptionnel, les plus talentueux, et ingenieux.’”

I smile, as I always do, when I arrive at the humor section, “Shouts and Murmurs,” and then I am delighted to find that the piece, “Private Thomas,” written by Yoni Brenner, is about the Supreme Court. I am of Hispanic heritage, and I have been following the news of Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to this highest court closely. At the beginning of her piece, Benner observes that Justice Clarence Thomas has not asked a question from the bench for three and a half years. He is, however, quoted as saying, “I have on many occasions or a number of occasions when things were becoming particularly routine gone down to my basement to watch ‘Saving Private Ryan.’” A moment in the courtroom fades into a scene in the movie as Justice Thomas falls asleep and fantasizes that he is Private Thomas, sitting in a foxhole with Tom Hanks, as Captain Miller, Matt Damon as Private Ryan, and two other soldiers named Horvath and Reiben. Bullets fly and bombs explode all around them. Captain Miller is astonished to learn of Private Thomas’s existence. The other soldiers in the squad discuss his reticence. At the end, Justice Scalia shakes Justice Thomas awake.

I am still laughing when I turn the page and face “The Kill Company,” by Raffi Khatchadourian. At the heart of the magazine, a huge photograph of American soldiers wading through knee-deep grass and the menacing silhouettes of helicopters flying over a flat horizon arrest my gaze. It only takes me a few lines to know this piece is deadly serious. It looks like the most interesting article of all, and I decide to save it for later. Still, I’m anxious to know who could risk to expose war crimes in Iraq, so just for a moment I go back and read the short biographical information about Khatchadourian in “The Contributors” section at the beginning of the magazine.

An echo of “Postscript: Michael Jackson” appears as a full-page, black and white photograph of the star in a sparkling costume on stage under spotlights.

I turn to the short story, Lorrie Moore’s “Childcare”, and study the colorful and unusual photographs of a fortune cookie and a beautiful woman on a bed. I wonder what the connection is between the story and the pictures. It turns out the story is about a young female college student in a small mid-western town who wants to get away. She is the beautiful but sad girl on the bed, and the fortune cookie is from a Chinese restaurant near her apartment, a promise of the future of her dreams.

I get up to stretch, like a cat in the sun. The colors of the paintings on the walls gleam in the waning light.

When I sit back down, I turn to “The Critics” section, a series of reviews including reviews of literature, classical music, television, and art. The art review is about an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art of the weird reality James Ensor painted in the late nineteenth century. A scary, unsettling example of his work accompanies the article.

As the sun falls toward the horizon, a breeze riffles through the pages of the magazine. I slam my hand down on the table to catch it. When I lift my hand, I see a caricature of Johnny Depp as an old-school gangster and the movie review, “Tommy Guns and Toys,” by David Denby. Denby briefly summarizes the new movie, Public Enemies, and praises its beauty. He even finds the violence “ravishing.” But Denby criticizes Johnny Depp’s portrayal of John Dillinger, no matter how “extremely enjoyable” it is, because he questions “whether it makes much sense.” Depp, unlike the masters of the genre, Denby argues, is a sensitive and attractive actor, but he cannot portray a tough guy. Because a tough guy, like Dillinger, is “at bottom, a loser.” In a brief nuclear blast at another summer movie, “Transformers,” Denby ridicules futuristic war machines that can “fly, climb, knock over walls, bore holes, change shape into cars or trucks” and even “dance the can-can in the pre-First World War Folies-Bergère.”

I close the magazine, and as I watch the sun set, I reflect that the woman on the cover could be any one of the pretty girls who frequent the café.

The C & P Coffee Company is a concrete cultural space whose customers reflect the diversity that is America today. The New Yorker is a mediated cultural space, whose target audience I would guess to be similar to the clientele of the C & P Coffee Company: diverse, educated, computer-literate, knowledgeable about world affairs, and politically liberal. The authors of the articles in this magazine reflect the same diversity that makes up the world all around me. As I close the pages of the magazine and return to the clever and colorful cover, I reflect on the similarities between these two cultural spaces and the people who inhabit them.

We live in a global community, and New York is a microcosm of world culture. If we are to understand and participate in this world, there is a more and more pressing need for us to be knowledgeable not only about current events from an American perspective but about the different moods and perspectives, whether they be political or artistic, from all around the world. The New Yorker is an attempt each week to bring together that multiplicity of perspectives, from the hilarious to the deadly serious, so that we may assume our responsibilities as citizens of a constantly-evolving global cultural space, captured in the rustle of pages, the muted sound of traffic, the whoosh of the espresso machine, and the tickety-tap of keyboards on individual laptops, all connected to the internet. As I pack up my things and prepare to leave, I am both happy and proud to be a citizen of the world.

Works Cited

Brenner, Yoni “Private Thomas.” New Yorker 6 & 13 2009: 38.
Denby, David. “Tommy Guns and Toys.” New Yorker 6 & 13 2009: 92-93.
García-Lorca, Laura. Letter. New Yorker 6 & 13 2009: 5.
Hertzberg, Hendrik. “Stonewall Plus Forty.” New Yorker 6 & 13 2009: 23-24.
Khatchadourian, Raffi “The Kill Company.” New Yorker 6 & 13 2009: 40-59.
Levy, Ariel. “Nora Knows What to Do.” New Yorker 6 & 13 2009: 60-69.
Lizza, Ryan. “The Contrarian.” New Yorker 6 & 13 2009: 30-37.
Moore, Lorrie. “Childcare.” New Yorker 6 & 13 2009: 70-78.
Sanneh, Kelefa. “Postscript: Michael Jackson.” New Yorker 6 & 13 July 2009: 26.
Simon, Kate. “Share That Beat.” New Yorker 6 & 13 July 2009: 67.

Five Stars on My Neck

2009-08-21T21:20:00.000-07:00

Yea Eun Kim

When I was young, I had the biggest trouble drawing a shape of a star. All my edges were crocked and uneven; ten shaky lines connected in an unorganized manner. It was a form of the lines that bothered me the most because each line needs to be lined up in a certain angle in order to have a perfect shape of a star. This task was impossible for me to accomplish, my hands worked in a disconnected behavior like a broken machine.

By the time I was in kindergarten, I could only draw stars by drawing two triangles; one triangle faced down on top of the other. All my friends at my table during art class called me “the shapeless girl” who only used circles, rectangles and triangles in my drawings. “That is the last time I am going to deal with stars again!” I thought to myself until I received a present from my mom on my 10th birthday.

“The string of the necklace is a real silver.” I remember my mom saying in a prideful tone as she held up the necklace in the air. For me, at an early age of ten, real silver meant that it will never get rusty or smell like an old metal and my favorite part of all, I could wear it even in the shower. In fact, real silvers are not harmful on our skin when contacted with water thus I did not have to worry about reddish and itchy skin from the sweat in the summer.

Despite these imperative qualities of the silver string, what I liked the most was its uniqueness in appearance. When I held it up far away, the string just looked like a long strain of silver but when I observed it very closely, it actually contained little circles that made up a long strain of string. The string itself was formed by connecting about 100 little circles that were in a size of a period. Every little circle was connected by another through a silver string that went through each in a uniform manner. Each circle had exactly the same shape, size and texture.

However, one thing that I did not like about this necklace was its pendant. Five stars of ornaments were hanging as the main pieces suspended from the necklace. Out of all the shapes in the world, the shapes of stars which I hated the most were right in front of me, hanging from a beautiful silver string. I looked at each star with a feeling of vexation from my childhood memories.

Perhaps the first thing I looked for was any error in the shape of the stars, trying to console myself for failing to draw one when I was a child. Each star was in a pure silver form- shiny and glossy as if I can see a reflection of my eyes when I hold it up to my face. Further, each line was connected with another in an angle of 105°, and when these five lines were put together symmetrically, a perfect shape of a star was formed. No matter which way I looked at it, there was no flaw in the length of the lines or in the angles like the ones that I drew when I was a child. Indeed, it was a perfect star.

That night before I went to bed, I asked my mom why she got me a star necklace when she knew that I did not like the shape of stars. “The five stars represent our family. Two for mom and dad, two for your sister and yourself, and the last one for our dog, Peppy.” She said as she put the necklace around my neck. “By the way, I bought a real silver necklace so that you cannot just throw it away just because you do not like stars.” We both laughed in silence and I thanked her.

That was my last birthday, the last gift that I got from my mom and the last night that I spent with my parents before I moved to America with my sister. I never knew that a shape of a star, which I despised since a child, could become such a big part of my life. It is not just one, but five of them that represent the most valuable gift in my life: my family.

White Spirit, Red Death

2009-08-21T21:19:00.000-07:00

Eduardo

I was only 15 years old when I decided to volunteer at the Red Cross during the weekends. I was not capable to do a lot of the things they required, but I was capable to ride standing up on the back of the ambulance. For the first six months, I never saw a single drop of blood because I never saw what was happening inside the ambulance. But that night there was blood everywhere.

If I had not known Fernando, I never would have been there. But since he was a close friend, I could not just hang on the back, the wind flying through my hair. I rode inside with the paramedics and the victim for the first time.

Fernando’s black hair was plastered onto his scalp, his eyelids fluttered, and his breath rasped in his throat. The smell of alcohol was still there. They did not call him Tecate for nothing. A crimson cloud seeped through his t-shirt from the holes where the ice pick went in. Even the gauze under his armpit was soaked red. The blankets were a sea of blood.

The siren screamed through the night. Shadows raced over the walls of the inside of the ambulance as headlights of approaching cars slashed through the dark. The desperate sound of the horn honking at pedestrians to get out of the way echoed inside the cramped space. Silhouettes with babies under their arms ran for the curbs.

Lorena held his hand as tears dripped from her crystal blue eyes. The flesh under her nails was white. A heart-shaped locket with his picture in it around her neck glittered under the fluorescent light just above our heads. Her shrieks bounced off the rusty steel of the floor and the shell of the human cargo van, the cushions on the benches too torn and tattered to absorb her desperation. The metal instruments clattered useless inside the cabinets, the doors slamming open and shut as Fernando’s body bounced on the rickety stretcher on a wooden table between us.

A plastic IV bag of clear saline solution swung wildly from a hook on one of the stretch bars we had to use to hang on. Manolo and Pinga were desperate to help, but they swore under their breath at what they were missing: an oxygen mask and real blood.

But at room temperature blood will spoil, and there was no refrigerator. The refrigerator that could’ve been paid for the frivolous whim of a petty bureaucrat.

They shouted commands to each other, fast and serious, while the driver stomped on the gas and slammed through the gears.

Manolo and Pinga used all the equipment they knew how to use. Beads of sweat glistened on their foreheads, Manolo’s dark and flushed, Pinga’s white as the paint on the ambulance. Their latex gloves were soaked with blood, and so were their shirts.

My heart pounding, I slumped at the foot of the stretcher. Thoughts sped through my mind. Feelings of hope and fear, silver and blood, rubbed against each other inside my soul. The skin crawled on the back of my neck.

Twenty minutes later, Fernando was dead.

I realized that real life in San Andres Tuxtla, a small town in Veracruz, could be as violent as Hollywood movies, but our community was too poor to afford the high-tech equipment they had on TV. After the vibrations of the muffler and the engine were gone, my vibrating emotions remained.

Sangre de Mi Sangre

2009-08-21T21:08:00.000-07:00

Eduardo

It takes scissors to sever the closest and earliest relationship of our lives.

Physically, it only takes a moment. Snip. The doctor clamps both sides. Mother and son become two. It’s the last time they will share their blood. But the spiritual and emotional cord remains.

My mother cuddles me against her breast. The photograph is brown and fading. I hold it for a moment and think about the past…

It was a morning full of sunshine.

“Lalito, ya levántate, ya es hora de ír a la escuela.” I heard my mother’s voice in the middle of my dreams.

But all dreams come to an end.

I got up, and she put on my favorite white sailor’s pants with the little blue braids and laced up my shoes with the painful orthopedic soles. She went back to the kitchen. I could hear her pounding the masa, and then I could smell the corn tortillas on the griddle and the black beans in the clay pot. I could already taste the curds of the raw milk the old man brought in the perolas on either side of his saddle that I would use to make a taco with the beans. On the way to school, she held my hand as I hopped from stone to stone, and told me to respect everyone and do everything the teacher said. It was nice to go to school and walk with my mother, and every day we got closer. My mother’s love shone like the sun all the mornings of my childhood.

When I was fourteen years old, I stood with my mom in a serpentine line woven like seat belts through metal posts in the midst of a crowd at the airport. A display cabinet with all the accessories that were not allowed beyond the checkpoint stood against the wall. There was a red Swiss pocket knife, an aerosol hairspray, and a silver pair of scissors. I glanced at it for a moment, and then I focused on my mother’s eyes. The smell of fresh coffee floated on the air. The metal detector beeped intermittently, and some people were asked to step aside. I couldn’t understand English, so I could only imitate those ahead of me. The security person said something, and the woman in front of me took off her belt. I turned back to look at my mother one last time. I told her everything would be fine.

“Mijo, call me when you get you there.” She held me in her arms.

I left her a few steps behind. She did not say another word, but tears rose in her eyes.

By the time I got through the checkpoint, it was hard to see my mother in the middle of the throng. I turned and waved like a politician to the crowd in the hopes that she would see.

I walked against a current of strangers going home. A mass of souvenirs passed before my eyes. I thought of the scissors and the life I was leaving behind.

The sky cries beside my window seat, and I put the Polaroid back in my wallet. I think to myself… Cut the umbilical cord and go out into the world, enjoy it, learn about it, and love it, love it the way you do your mom.

The engines whine as the plane taxis down the tarmac. The propellers synchronize, and Dallas drops away.

No More Kisses Please

2009-08-21T21:05:00.000-07:00

“Are you gay or straight?”
“Oh! I’m sorry, I’m str-”
Here he interrupted me with his mouth. Or at least he tried to. Using the skills I’d gained from gymnastics in the 3rd grade, I descended into a backbend over the hood of my car while averting my head. The writhing worm that was his tongue passed nauseatingly close to my lips, but contact was avoided. He ended up breathing his beer-stained breath down my neck instead.
“Ummm……” I said.
“I’m sorry, I’ll just go.” And go he did, thank God.

Of course, he is only one of many men to sexually harass me in such a way. I had a hard time finding literature that expressed some of my concerns engendered by such experiences till I read an issue of The New Yorker and found Paul Rudnick’s “True Story.”

In this fictional piece, a man named Mike travels with his family from Utah (yes, they are Mormons) to Massachusetts visit his brother. Along the way, his children spot the first MA license plate, which reads “Massachusetts—The Anal Sex State”. They also see some workmen replacing a century-old statue of Paul Revere with Rachel Maddow (the first openly lesbian news anchor). Later, at a local fruit stand the stand’s owner tells them a 50% discount for gays is the law. After arriving at his brother’s, Mike finds that not even his church is sacred anymore, as the topic of the sermon is none other than the movie and Broadway musical “Billy Elliot”, and there the curtain closes for Mike.

If you have never seen “Billy Elliot”, it is the story of Billy, the son of a coal miner. He wants to be a professional ballet dancer, but his father is outraged by the idea, afraid his son will be a poof. The movie never addresses Billy’s sexual orientation, and people still argue whether Billy is gay or straight.

Along with “True Story,” I also discovered “The Constant Gardener”, by Bernard Cooper, also about homosexuality. Unlike “True Story” though, it is intensely realistic.

The essay deals with the writer (Bernard) and his partner Brian, and their fight against HIV—Brian’s HIV. For ten years they have been battling with the disease, struggling to keep Brian alive. This essay is a sampling of their lives, a glimpse into their pain.

Bernard is the caretaker of Brian’s body and soul. He feeds Brian intravenously through a catheter every night, and keeps Brian’s hope alive, although his own hope is already gone. The HIV is relentlessly overtaking Brian’s body, and they struggle to prolong the process. But Bernard cannot avoid thinking of the inevitable future—a life without his lover. The weight of his role as a caregiver sometimes makes him wish, in a small, tiny corner of his heart, that the journey towards that day had ended. He wishes Brian were dead.

Struggles like those in “The Constant Gardener” do not make my evening news anymore. Their stories are superseded by those of celebrities, who are infinitely more attractive to dwell on. Though people like Brian and Bernard remain anonymous, unknown tragedies in the story of life—their disease is alive and active within our society. Even though the public may have forgotten about them, they will continue to struggle on.

Alone! At last. For five brutal hours I had been trying to rid myself of a pesky perverted 33-year old man. Anybody who attempts to pick up boys 14 years younger than themselves is a pervert in my book. He smelled of carcinogenous smoke, he was short and pudgy, and his fascination with my mouth was unending, even after I told him I was thoroughly uninterested. “Take me to the bathhouse then,” he said after I politely declined to take him home with me (I cited my roommate as the inhibiting factor). “I don’t want to hook up tonight, but I guess I have nowhere else to go” (the bathhouse is purportedly a place where, to put it pleasantly, you pay money, strip, and then interact with many others who have also removed their clothes). I washed my mouth out three times after leaving him. Is that the type of person I attract? Slutty gay men? Oh God, I hope not.

My misery and Bernard’s despair do not easily reconcile with the humorous and satirical “True Story”, until you examine the inner-text. Though it is a world away in tone, hidden beneath the story there is a compelling message of intellectual blindness.

“True Story” is preposterous. The ridiculousness is precisely what makes you laugh. The hyperbole has a function though; it is there to highlight a fact that would have been ignored unless exaggerated to such outlandish proportions. Both right-wing extremists and rainbow-colored members of the Gay Pride Parade can consume themselves with their personal opinions to the point where the welfare of the one is lost. Neither side is concerned with the identity of the individual; it is the political agenda that matters most. Both sides are fighting over Billy Elliot.

As humans, we have great power to choose what we see, hear, and believe by consciously selecting those things we remember and those things we—conveniently—forget. Our memories are subjective; those memories of pain are lost for the pleasanter memories of happiness. The evening news may inundate us with horror stories, but they fade after we leave the high definition television set.

It is understandable, then, that we forget about people in poverty when we are the richest people group in the world: The plight of those addicted to drugs and alcohol pales in comparison to what I’m going to eat for breakfast.

People are dying from HIV while people bicker about civil rights and the definition of family. Do we want to get Brian and Bernard married? Do we want to determine Billy’s sexual orientation? It might be more useful to merely understand some part of their quiet despair.

We label before we listen. In our rush to categorize the world into easily acceptable file cabinets and folders, we ignore the individual. The needs of the human body are universal; the needs of the human heart are not. Caring for someone else means actually addressing that person’s unique struggles and problems. It means giving support that works to mend the tears in a tattered heart.

“Are you gay?”
“Well, it’s complic-.”
He kissed me, twice. The alcohol I had consumed slowed my reflexes. I got out of his car and he drove away, his taillights flashing red beacons in the dark city night. I went to my room and cried. “No one understands me, no one cares.” Then I texted myself my allotted one hundred and sixty characters: Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone.

The Futurist

2009-08-21T20:44:00.000-07:00

Eduardo

Eric Arthur Blair, more commonly known by his pen name, George Orwell, was born on June 25th, 1903, in Bengal, India. His father, Richard, worked for the Indian Civil Service of the British Raj, and his mother, Ida Mabel, grew up in Burma.

Only a year after his birth, his mother took him with her to England, while his father stayed behind.

During his early years, he read extensively and wrote poetry of his own. By the time he left Eton, where Aldous Huxley had been one of his instructors, in 1921, he was publishing his work in college periodicals.

But instead of accepting a scholarship to university, Orwell, having devoted little time to his studies except for his interest in all things French, left school, and, in 1922, was assigned to Burma as Assistant District Superintendent in the Indian Imperial Police, where he remained until 1927.

When Orwell returned to England, he first experienced the lives of the poor in the East End of London. The following year in Paris, he fell ill with pneumonia and later worked as a dishwasher in a luxury hotel. His experiences living in poverty were the genesis of his first major work, Down and Out in Paris and London. Although initially rejected, the book was finally published in 1933, earning him some recognition as a writer.

Orwell’s first novel, Burmese Days, published in 1934, drawn from his experiences in the Indian Imperial Police, established a narrative template he would use throughout his subsequent fiction, including his most famous works, the venomous Animal Farm and his futuristic nightmare, 1984, in its portrayal of a protagonist who is sensitive, conscientious, and emotionally isolated, at odds with an oppressive or dishonest social environment.

I wonder if the psychological underpinnings of Orwell’s literary opus were grounded in his relationship with his first authority figure, his own father. In fact, this is the archetypal relationship in which many of us find ourselves today, cogs in the machine, trapped in a rigid society, our individual identities stolen by faceless, soulless, modernist bureaucracies of power.

References:
Kalechofsky, Roberta. George Orwell. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1973.
Wykes, David. A Preface to Orwell. London: Longman, 1987.

The Truth Hurts

2009-08-21T20:40:00.000-07:00

Eduardo

I didn’t want any more problems, so I took her to Café Ladro.
“I don’t want to make trouble for you or anybody else,” I told her. “But this has been going around and around in my head. You’re very smart, and I want you to listen carefully, and I want you to think about what I have to say.”

“Lalo, you’re scaring me. Please just tell me what it is,” Melissa said.

“Listen, I found out something about your boyfriend, Miguel, three months ago. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to tell you. But I’ve been struggling with it until this moment.

“He disrespected Monica, my brother’s girlfriend. I don’t know want to go into detail, but he insinuated that he wanted to have sex with her several times. He told her things that totally cross the line. He wasn’t drunk or high or anything like that, so it’s not like there was any excuse for what he did. There’s no reason for you to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“When I heard about it, I wanted to punch him in the head. The only reason I didn’t was, my mother was here. My mother didn’t leave until a month later, so I had enough time to digest my anger.

“Melissa, I didn’t want to tell you. But I think your boyfriend is worthless. And I don’t want your brother or me to have any more problems with him. Please don’t tell anyone else. All I’m asking you to do is, think about it. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this.”

She cried.

Now, I regret what I have done. I feel like telling her the truth has not changed anything, and I fear that I may have created more problems for everyone involved.

I hurt her.

I didn’t mean to, but I did.

And I lost a friend.

Center of Gravity

2009-08-21T17:45:00.000-07:00

Eduardo

I needed money, so I went to the Bering Sea.

A crab boat on the Bering Sea is a dangerous place. The temperature of the water is frigid. The weather out there is nasty. The wind bullies twenty- and thirty-foot waves. The waves smash into the hull of the boat and even overwhelm the deck, and you go down like a prizefighter.

But like a prizefighter, you get up. You grab the next pot. You have to move fast, and you have to pay attention. One mistake, and anything can happen. You could be dead.

The crab pots are stacked as high as a house. If you fall off, you’re overboard. It takes fifteen to twenty minutes for the boat to make a turn. A man overboard can survive for as long as a minute. Longer than that, and you’re finished.

Goddamit! Get that son of a bitch! the foreman screams.

You grab the float with a claw. The crane strains under the weight and protests, bap, bap, bap! Your hands are wet and numb. You grab the line, eight hundred pounds worth of pot, and yank it onto a wheel. You pull the lever, get sprayed with salt water, and smell the burnt rubber as the rope grabs and the engine whines.

Hook! you scream.

It’s then you have to move really fast. It doesn’t matter how cold your hands are. You have to coil the rope so it doesn’t knot or tangle.

Hook, you motherfucker! the foreman screams if you miss.

But when you see the pot and it’s full of crabs, everyone yells.

Un chingo de dinero! A shitload of money!

The pot slams against the hull of the boat and rises like Jesus at the Resurrection.

You cut one side open, and the crane shakes it, clanking, to get all the crabs out. The guy next to you takes out the old container of sardine smoothie and replaces it with fresh bait. Another wave crashes over you. Two guys close the door of the pot, tie it up again, and throw it overboard.

You sling the live crabs into saltwater tanks. The deck tilts, and you dig in your toes. If you jump when the wind hits, it’ll sweep you away.

Break ice! The captain’s voice, shrill and thin and high on cocaine, flies over the deck.

You run to the corner where the axe handles are kept, and all of you hammer ice away from the hull.

When you’re done, it’s back to work. Twelve hours later, you’re exhausted. You sit on a white plastic chair and take off your boots. You think about the feelings of all the people in the deck show. Your orange rain gear drips salt water, bait, and crab juice from a hook on the door.

Your feet are swollen and cold, your hands the same way, and you struggle to keep your eyelids open. Everyone hangs up their orange rain gear, some of them still excited about the catch. Cans of Budweiser spurt open in celebration. You stumble toward your room and fall into your bunk.

Life is a struggle. Necessity drives us to do what we do. Sometimes, you put your life on the line. But keep your center of gravity low. You’ve got to stay on board even when everybody’s going nuts.

A Love Story

2009-08-21T17:03:00.000-07:00

Eduardo

It was a gorgeous day, and I was walking from Moore Hall up to Odegaard to hit the books. The refraction of the sunlight in the spray of the fountain painted a spectrum in mid-air. As I mounted the steps on my way to Red Square, I heard a familiar voice.

“Hey! Lalo!”

I turned to see my ex, the wind in her hair.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, gazing up at me quizzically.

“I’m taking classes. I just transferred here.”

“Congratulations! What’s your favorite class?”

“English 281. The readings are killer.”

“What’s the best thing you’ve read so far?”

“Oh, man. Bernard Cooper’s The Constant Gardener.”

“What’s it about?”

“Well, you know… it’s about these gay relationship. One of them, Brian, is dying of AIDS, and his partner, Bernard, has to give him injections every night to keep him alive.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. It’s intense. The story begins with Bernard giving Brian an infusion while they listen to Jeopardy on tv. Bernard, the narrator, has this melancholy, painterly tone that draws you in right away. Then, he takes us back to the moment Brian decides to start home infusions.”

“Tell me about Brian.”

“Brian? He’s funny.

“He’s very unselfconscious, happy, down-to-earth, even silly at times. He loves to do the wave in the stadium. But he’s an unflinching realist. He doesn’t fool himself about his disease. He knows he’s going to die. Bernard is the opposite. He’s more self-conscious, thinks too much. He doesn’t like to face reality.”

“What do you mean, Bernard doesn’t like to face reality?”

“Here’s the thing. Bernard knows Brian’s going to die, but he kind of doesn’t want to admit it to himself.

“They’ve been together for the past twenty four years, but for seventeen of those years, Brian has been HIV-positive, and now his health is deteriorating fast. Just imagine how painful it would be to see someone you love suffer like that.

“Since Brian can’t eat solid food anymore, Bernard has to give him the infusions of paranutrition. But the deal is, M., the woman who shows Bernard how to do the infusions, tells him if he injects a bubble when he does so, he can kill him. But then she tells him if he does it on purpose, they’ll know. Bernard gets angry and offended at her insinuation that he would ever do such a thing. He loves Brian. What he doesn’t realize at that moment is, it’s because he loves Brian that he might do it.

“By the end of the story, they’re back in bed where they were at the beginning. Bernard finally admits to himself that Brian is going to die. Bernard finally feels the shame, as he will every night until Brian’s death, that, just as M. intuited, he struggles between the urge to end Brian’s suffering and the commitment to keep him alive.”

“That’s powerful.”

She was quiet.

“Yeah.”

I didn’t know what else to say.

At War

2009-08-21T16:30:00.000-07:00

Eduardo

Bernard Cooper and Raffi Khatchadourian, in their 2008 and 2009 essays, “The Constant Gardener” and “The Kill Company,” respectively, write detailed accounts of people in extreme situations. Both reflect on circumstances involving death. The inner struggle we as individuals have to deal with is how to reconcile our approach to death with our adherence to our ideals. The authors of these stories address the same fundamental question: Is all fair in love and war, or is there still right and wrong?

Bernard Cooper narrates the story of him and his partner, Brian, a victim of HIV. Bernard and Brian have lived together for twenty-four years, and for seventeen they have known that Brian is a carrier of the virus. Over the years, Bernard has watched him try many medications, but his health exponentially deteriorates to the point that he can’t eat solid food anymore. And now, Brian’s only alternative to prolong his life is to have someone administer infusions of paranutrition. Bernard has learned how to administer them effectively, being sure not to inject any air into his partner’s veins. This tiny mistake would kill him. Bernard, in his heart, wants to believe that one day Brian will be able to eat solid food again. He does not want to admit to himself that his partner is going to die, but in the end, he surrenders to and faces reality. In so doing, Bernard must struggle every night between the urge to end Brian’s suffering and the commitment to keep him alive.

Raffi Khatchadourian reports on Michael Dane Steele, a colonel in the United States Army who has served his country in multiple wars. Steele is well-liked by most of those under his command and widely recognized for his discipline, work ethic, and determination to go into battle along with his men. In 1993, Steele led a company of Rangers called “Rakkasans” during the well-known battle of “Black Hawk Down” in Somalia. The incident ended the lives of eighteen American soldiers and left a black mark on Steele’s reputation. Since that time, Steele has come to a clear decision, which he communicates to the members of his brigade, that they will not hesitate nor fire warning shots anymore; instead, they will shoot to kill. His approach is controversial. Some argue that Steele acts in defense of core principles while others believe he’s a killer and nothing more. Steele has molded and strengthened his men’s instinct to kill in spite of, and sometimes in conflict with, the rules of engagement which govern the laws of war.

Cooper and Steele are both at war: Cooper with HIV and Steele with insurgents in Iraq. Yet Cooper is fighting two wars, one of which he will never be able to win. In the end, the virus must be the victor.

Cooper’s second war is an insurgency within himself. There is a part of him that wants Brian’s suffering to end. The only way that can happen is if Brian dies. This war, Cooper can win. It is a war Steele does not have to endure. Both protect their men, but the insurgency of HIV is internal to Brian’s own body while the insurgency of Al Qaeda is external to Steele’s troops.

Commitment to others is essential for both Cooper and Steele. Loyalty is a very strong quality in and component of both conjugal and military relationships. But it is because of this deep attachment to those they love that both must deal with the emotional damage love entails in the face of death. They deal with it very differently. Cooper softens. Steele hardens. Cooper decides every night not to kill his partner, even though killing him would seem to be an act of mercy. Steele decides every day to kill the Iraqi insurgents who are a threat to his men.

Steele is a killer, and he likewise teaches his men to kill. His only struggle is with regret, regret that in Somalia he did not, while his men suffered the consequences. Cooper is no killer. But he nonetheless struggles with the urge to kill. His only regret will be if he does. And so, because he does not, Brian continues to suffer.

Yet it would seem that Steele’s culpability is shared, collective, while Cooper’s is isolate. He is completely alone. He must answer only to himself, not to a military tribunal. Cooper neither takes nor gives orders to anyone, though he must follow his own rules of engagement, the instructions about how to administer the infusions he has received.

Moral boundaries are difficult to hold at war. Cooper is more flexible, thoughtful, and compassionate than Steele. He re-examines these boundaries every night. While both defend the men they love, Steele draws hard, even geographic, boundaries and kills anyone on the other side. Steele has lost his capacity for moral discrimination. Cooper has not.

These two stories are psychological portraits of men at war. They are pictures of narcissists and their need to control. Only one of them will metamorphose into something more. Steele is never humbled, never lets in the pain. He is stuck. Cooper’s humbling recognition of his even considering to kill Brian is what allows him to grow as a human being.

Works Cited

Cooper, Bernard. “The Constant Gardener.” The Best American Essays. Ed. Adam Gopnick. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008. 22-41.

Khatchadourian, Raffi. “The Kill Company.” New Yorker 6 & 13 July 2009: 40-59.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bus

2009-08-21T14:11:00.000-07:00

With twenty dollars, a metro card, a toothbrush, an assortment of clothes, and a couple hastily drawn maps, I was as ready as I'd ever be to go. I jotted down the last few bullet points of introductory world history from the powerpoint before me, then exited the last class of my week. I was on my own, starting college, and living in New York City, but at the time nothing was as exciting or daunting as the hundred mile distance between my school and Philadelphia, and my plans to traverse it.

Catching the first bus was relatively straightforward. Rallying my generally worthless sense of direction, I managed to not only make it out of campus, but also find the right street to catch the Q46 as planned. Even the horde of pigeons swarming an open pizza box seemed like a good omen for my journey. However, my newfound optimism was tested when I remembered that buses generally run in both directions on a street, and only one of those directions represented progress on my voyage. Perhaps normal people would have little trouble with this, but my directional incompetence combined with my relative newness to the area made it a troubling task. I nervously scanned the sign at the bus stop for the solution to my problem, but found nothing. Unfortunately, I could see no bus stops on the other side of the street. I rechecked the available sign with identical results, then once more surveyed the far side of the street. This time, I met with success. At the edge of my visual range, a bus stop sign stuck proudly out of the sidewalk. After one last confirmation of the uselessness of my side of the street, I dashed across to the other side and soon found myself at the other stop. The second sign was unclear, but seemed to be what I wanted. At the very least, it was more promising that the first, so I set my backpack down and proceeded to wait.

With two lanes plus parallel parking spaces in each direction, Union Turnpike dwarfed the homes which littered its edges. I wondered to myself, what would it be like to live on this street? Are there families here, or only college students? A peeling fence was all that separated one house from the sidewalk and bus stop. A fruit tree and a well-tended lawn were visible from where I stood. Did the occupants sit out there and observe the adjacent bus stop? A bus on the horizon abruptly cut my musings short, and I fumbled through my pocket for my metro card. Disregarding my struggles, it continued past – it was a Q31. A few more moments passed and a few other bus riders gathered at the stop.

When the Q46 finally came, I was ready. As the bus sighed and knelt to the curb, I prepared. The cut corner on the upper left, the colored side facing you, and the end with the hole on the bottom, and just like that, the metro card is properly oriented to be read on the first try. Success! Having maintained the illusion that I was a competent bus rider, I found myself a seat and began worrying in earnest. At each stop, the bus became more crowded and the subway I sought was nowhere in sight. Could I be going the wrong way? The photos of lawyers in their advertisements smiled reassuringly, but I remained unsure of the accuracy of my choice.
As worry tried to solidify into doubt, I pondered the path which had led me to my current predicament. By chance, Ariel had heard about a cheap, if somewhat questionable bus that traveled between our two cities. She inquired further to discover the endpoints and hours of its route. Her excitement was contagious when she described the opportunity to me, and somehow my common sense was overpowered. I enlisted MapQuest to aid me in finishing Ariel's research, and soon found myself with a plan: bus to the subway, ride to Chinatown, then bus to Philadelphia.

It wasn't until I was committed to my journey that common sense returned, bluntly facing me with a question. You get lost in your hometown, Seattle. What the hell do you think you're doing here? I had no answer. All things considered, the trip probably was a terrible idea, and I'd probably end up lost at night in some desolate corner of New York, or worse, in some unfamiliar town. However, even as I admitted that the probability of my success was slim, I realized that I wouldn't give up on my travels. This was my trial, my test, my rite of passage, and it was going to take something much more substantial than a little worry to make me give up. Clinging to this newfound determination, I returned my focus to the search for the subway stop.
Sooner than I had expected, the last stop was announced. Somewhat surprised, I shuffled off the bus with the rest of the sizable crowd. Like ants into an anthill, they flowed in a line into what I realized was the subway which I sought. Joyously, I became an ant and descended into the station.

I needed the F line to take me to my next stop on the trip. The F sweeps horizontally through Queens, vertically down Manhattan, and then diagonally down through Brooklyn, forming a giant C on the map. The route was straightforward; I just needed to stay on the train until it got to my stop, East Broadway, on the south end of Manhattan. I stared at the subway map in the station as I waited for my train, confirming my path in my head. Within five minutes, first a shaking, rattling noise could be heard, then the far end of the tunnel was illuminated. Shortly after the silver train came into view, prominently displaying a glowing orange circle surrounding the letter F.

Plastic benches lined the walls of the car. The benches were slightly indented to suggest seats, with either two or three seats per bench. They were colored in muted orange and yellow. I chose an orange seat for its proximity to the map inside the car. The train operator muttered something which could have been about the closing doors or the next stop, and we were off.

The ride was uneventful. I met no beggars, performers, or talkers. I watched the station signs more than anything else, and traced my progress down the F line. However, after a few stops, I grew tired of staring at the map, and instead tried to watch the graffiti on the walls as it passed by in the dark. I was jolted out of this trance-like state when I heard the name Broadway announced. I frantically looked for station signs – they said Broadway-Lafayette. Was it the place? I rapidly examined the map once more to find that it was not. Broadway-Lafayette preceded 2nd Avenue and Delancy as well as my targeted stop, East Broadway. With a calmer disposition, I waited the remaining three stops, then ascended into Chinatown, New York.

Back in Queens, I had opted to copy down the pertinent parts of a map rather than printing one out. In the south end of Manhattan, my mistake became obvious. My map was excellent, provided that I emerged from a specific entrance of the station. Since I did not do so, I found myself on the corner of two streets which were not represented on my map at all. Presumably only blocks away from my next destination, I was lost in an area where the most common language I heard was Chinese. After a couple moments of panic, I started systematically wandering, cursing my unwillingness to use my ample printing allowance when I had the chance. After a ten or fifteen minute long eternity, I found myself at Canal Street. The name sounded familiar, and, hardly daring to hope, I looked at my map. Scrawled next to a horizontal line near the top was what I wanted to see: Canal. My map suddenly became useful and I found myself at 88 East Broadway. Contrary to my information, there were no buses to be found. Of course, it couldn't have been that easy. Resignedly, I chose a new direction. More wandering was in order.

Around the corner and up the street I found a few white tour buses parked together. As I approached them, a slim, middle aged Chinese woman in a pink baseball cap approached me and yelled something which sounded more or less like “Philadelphia?!” Taking a guess, I nodded, and was immediately asked “One way two way?” She charged me twenty dollars for my round trip ticket, and pointed me in the direction of the conveniently labeled Philadelphia bus. I later learned that not only were there Chinatown buses to other places, like D.C. and Boston, but there were a variety of competing companies that ran them. Apex had captured my attention that day, though I ended up preferring the equivalently priced and generally faster New Century bus.

The bus seemed nice enough, if a little unsanitary. There were two spacious seats on either side of the center aisle. The windows were smeared with almost amusing regularity by the facial oils of previous bus riders, a spot for each sleeping head. The bus was about one-third full, so I was able to select an empty pair of seats. The middle armrest was broken, but the seat was comfortable and the price was right. The bus filled for the next ten minutes, until only a third of the seats were open. The seat adjacent to mine remained empty.

A cry of “Tickets! Tickets!” announced the start of the leaving process. Following the lead of the people around me, I had my ticket ready. Soon, all the passengers were verified, and we started to go. Unfortunately, rather than accelerating to normal speeds, we spent the next half an hour sluggishly traversing the city.

Traffic was terrible all the way to the Holland Tunnel. I tried to enjoy the slow tour of the city, but had little patience for the lack of progress we were making towards Philadelphia. Fortunately, the roads cleared once we arrived in New Jersey, and we made good time after that. I admired the golden-orange forests as we raced down the New Jersey Turnpike. Directly in front of me, an aspiring actor talked excitedly about people I didn't know and shows I hadn't heard of. This was his big break, he explained into the phone. This was his opportunity to show the world what he could do. I lounged across my two seats as his voice sounded over the many Chinese conversations in the bus. The voices mixed together and became meaningless, background noise as I started to read my history assignment.

Before I knew it, I was crossing the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. Philadelphia, in all its glory, was laid out before me. A huge painted American flag on a building side welcomed me to the city. I had done it. I had grown from a directionally challenged individual into someone who was able to make her way through the streets of New York to Philadelphia, and for less than twelve dollars each way. I was the victim of another city traffic experience as the bus crawled towards its destination, but finally it parked in Chinatown, Philadelphia.

My worries were not just subdued; they were annihilated. With the sound of Ariel's greeting and the feel of the concrete of Philadelphia, my task was over. The rite of passage was complete. The world seemed full of potential, and, together with Ariel, I set off to explore it.

The Easy Way Out?

2009-08-21T14:09:00.000-07:00

Why not seek the simplest solution? People are often accustomed to doing so, and it is usually an effective choice. However, when one becomes too dependent on the strategy, it is easy to assume that a simple solution exists when that is not the case. Illustrator Roz Chast and writer Atul Gawande use their respective crafts to demonstrate that making such an assumption can be extremely tempting, but ultimately leads only to disaster. Chast shows that people can be lured into this assumption by perceived rewards, like extreme financial, physical, and personal success. In Gawande’s writing, the consequences of not assuming are unpleasant: the consideration and acceptance of the body’s constant decay and eventual death. With either motivation, it is difficult to give up on the hope for an easy answer. Gawande and Chast give the same compelling reason for not falling for the temptation: the consequences will eventually catch up, having only become more severe during the time in which they were ignored.

Roz Chast’s cover art for the April 6, 2009 issue of “The New Yorker” conveys this warning using humor. Titled “April Fool,” the page emphasizes the human desire to fix a problem as quickly as possible with the minimum effort required, be it poverty, stupidity, or simply bad luck. The page consists entirely of advertisements of products for winning the lottery, predicting the stock market, staying young, having great sex, losing weight, and reading minds. Each implies that buying the product makes a previously difficult or unattainable thing not only possible, but also effortless. The cover is a collection of miraculously simple solutions. The ads are clearly over-the-top and the price per item ($25,000,000) is extravagant, inviting the reader to deny their own gullibility and blindness to such techniques. However, the order form in the lower-right-had corner, with its reference to “Madoff Industries” on “Ponzi Boulevard” reminds the readers that, in face of unbelievably attractive rewards, people are surprisingly willing to suspend disbelief and suspicion.

Atul Gawande takes a more serious tone in his essay The Way We Age Now. Rather than issuing a warning against the unrealistic need for an indefinitely extended youth, he describes the damage that mindset has already done. He starts from a biological perspective, describing the breakdown of the body as an inevitable and ongoing procession of decay. The body is presented as a complex machine with backups and redundancies, but, like any machine, enough small breakdowns lead to a system failure. Gawande plainly states, “This is not an appealing prospect.” He describes the result of this mindset: instead of focusing on the admittedly grim topic of human decay, society zealously pursues the extension of youth, seeking out the miracle cure. Unfortunately, this unwillingness to acknowledge aging only aggravates the problem. Society is slow to assist the elderly, and individuals neglect to plan for their own old age. Further complicating the situation is the issue of numbers. As people work to extend their life spans, the population “rectangularizes,” with the proportion of elderly compared to the young growing. Gawande concerns himself specifically with geriatrics, which has become increasingly necessary and increasingly unpopular. He states that the disproportionately small number of people left to care for the elderly is smaller still due to the relatively unglamorous nature of geriatrics. The number of geriatricians trained per year is unable to match the number retiring per year, to say nothing of the increasing need for professionals in the field. Gawande adds the grim fact: at this point, it is effectively impossible to train sufficient quantities of professionals to accommodate the growing elderly population.

However, Gawande’s essay is hopeful. His description of his local geriatrics clinic shows that the resources in place are extremely effective in improving the quality of life for the elderly. In the appointment he observed, the geriatrician addressed several seemingly trivial or non-medical issues which might be overlooked at a normal clinic. When combined, these little things prompted a lifestyle change that eliminated major risks more effectively than a medication or operation would have. To get another point of view, Gawande interviewed 87-year-old Felix Silverstone, who spent fifty years as a leader in geriatrics. His attempts to understand aging and maintain his independence throughout his life provide an inspirational counter-example to the first half of the text. Silverstone’s ability to lead a fulfilled life in harmony with his age is an insight into a different perspective on elderly life: that of acceptance, not denial.
The human ability to ignore uncomfortable aspects of life and blindly invest faith in what is attractive and convenient can lead to serious problems. Chast refers to the Madoff Scandal to make this point clear. In return for initially high payoffs, investors ended up losing huge sums of money. In Gawande’s essay, the cost of the concentration on youth is a society which is unable to handle the realities of aging. In both situations, much of the damage is permanent. It is impossible to train enough geriatricians fast enough to meet the needs of the current elderly population, and much of the money lost to Madoff by investors is irretrievable. Although some efforts have been made to alleviate both problems, and alternative solutions have been pursued, people still willingly blind themselves to the realities of their situations. In the end, both pieces serve as warnings to the reader. Each provides one more reason not to thoughtlessly succumb to the temptation of the simple solution.

No Pressure

2009-08-21T12:36:00.000-07:00

It ached profusely, throbbing with surges of pain in rhythmic unison with my elevating heart rate. With every inch of the airplane’s descend, I felt something inside my ears grow larger and larger, pushing the limits of elasticity of my inner ear canal. Landing was the reason I’ve often refused to travel on an airplane, ever since my eardrum nearly burst due to the harsh change in cabin pressure during the aircraft’s descent.

Thrust

The plane is small, seating only twenty-five passengers. It is crowded and stuffy, the air uncomfortable and sticky. Every step each passenger took aboard the aircraft produced a slight but unnerving squeak from the floor.

The seat I am assigned is one next to an emergency exit, as the flight attendant immediately informs me. “This means that you are in charge of opening our one and only cabin door in the case of an emergency, Miss,” she said, “do you understand?” No pressure.

As I look around me, I notice the lady seated directly behind me with an infant on her lap, a youth in stark contrast to the oldness of the jet, which I had hoped would be more refreshing. “His name is John,” she said proudly as her child slept peacefully, hugging her for warmth. His calm was quickly challenged, though, by the rattle and rumble of the rubber wheels against the concrete as the plane picked up enough speed to take off.

At my seat, I see the propellers of our old-fashioned jet rotating rapidly. It reminded me of those industrial-sized fans my family used to have when we used to live in the scorching weather of Eastern Washington. Right now, our plane was trying to create sufficient thrust, which aerodynamically must overcome the drag, its opposing force. This was the only way our plane could take off and get moving.

The last time I saw my mother she had tears in her eyes. She hugged me tightly and murmured a few things in my ear when she could fit them in between her sobbing. She didn’t know why I was leaving, though I tried to explain it to her over and over again. I just needed my independence.

Drag

As baby John awoke, his perception of the plane’s ascend must have provoked his discomfort further. I don’t blame him - it’s really a strange feeling, being away from the ground, rebelling against gravity, almost feeling as if you are, for a moment, floating. Within seconds, he begins to cry.

We were up in the air now. I heard the buzzing sounds of the wheels retracting back into the body of the plane. It was important to do this to reduce the air resistance of the aircraft while it was traveling at very high speeds. The amount of drag produced if the wheels had not been retracted would be forceful enough to rip them right off, making it unable to land safely later on.

During the flight, drag and thrust are in a constant battle. While thrust tries to move us forward, drag resists the forward motion. While they work in opposite ways, both are needed, balanced for a proper flight.

We lived in a small town where there weren’t any colleges within a 100-mile radius. My high school graduating class consisted of thirty-five students, all of which were going to stay home and not go to college. Everyone was so used to this. It was so normal to just end with a high school diploma. It was so normal not to be able to further pursue your dreams. That’s just the way it is.
What about me? I think I wanted to be a doctor. Or, maybe I wanted to be a teacher. I don’t know. At that point, I think I just wanted at least the possibility of those things, and possibility simply did not exist in our town. I felt its suffocating grip on my future. I knew I had to get out, even if it meant leaving my family behind.

Flying

In order for an airplane to fly straight and level, many physical relationships must hold true. It’s a complicated process full of endless calculations and brilliantly strategized mechanics. I remember briefly learning about this in physics class. One of these requirements is that thrust must equal its opposite force, drag. The plane will slow down if the value of drag is significantly greater than the value of its thrust. We wouldn’t go anywhere. On the other hand, if the thrust overwhelms its drag in magnitude, the plane will speed up, to speeds that can be hard to control. The two, like most things, must exist with each other, creating a balance.

Landing

Within minutes, our flight attendant would come by with her silver cart, giving us a few pretzels dressed in a silvery shiny pouch with a large logo of the airline plastered on its exterior. She would also fill a clear plastic cup with a complementary beverage of our choice, which was composed of roughly 85% ice, 15% beverage. And just in time for our bladder to physiologically fill slightly, we’re told we can no longer use the restroom. It’s already time to land.

At the captain’s announcement, beads of sweat formed at my palms, my hands turning clammy and moist. My legs began shaking, like a commercial I once saw for a treatment for restless leg syndrome, something I never thought could be real. I looked at my fingernails covered in No-Bite, a bitter polish designed to deter my persistent habit of nail-biting.

With every inch of descend, I felt my body pump blood furiously as my anxiety kept building. This time, it wasn’t because of pressure build-up in my ears.

I attempt to distract myself, looking out the window, remembering all of Seattle’s lights. Minute by minute, mile by mile during the flight, I saw the city quickly strip away. The lights started to slowly diminish as we left them behind in the distance. There was something beautiful in how my mind painted the picture – the idea of the plane making its way across the state, drawing a diagonal line across the northwest to southeast tips of Washington, turning off lights along the way as it revealed the progress of my journey.

As the only child, and even though they had tried to convinced me not to, I had moved out and left my parents with an empty nest, feeling the need to establish my independence. In my seat next to the emergency exit, I felt uncomfortably vulnerable, like John, who for the first time felt what it was like to be up in the air.

There was turbulence. It knocked over the cup I still had on my tray table. As the flight attendants tried to calm the passengers down, I wondered: had thrust gone too far from drag? Were we cruising at too high of speeds to be able to slow down and land?

The moment kept filling with anticipation, guilt, or worse, maybe it was regret. They didn’t know I was coming to visit - this would be the first time I would see my parents in years.

Intricacies of Attachment

2009-08-21T12:33:00.000-07:00

Last summer, ten of my daily twenty four hours were spent cleaning other people’s blood. We had twenty patients in our hospital’s kidney dialysis unit, and as a dialysis patient-care technician, I was directly responsible for five of those precious lives every day. These patients had kidneys which had failed them, making them physically unable to excrete the toxins and excess fluid in their bodies. As a result, they resorted to dialysis treatments at least three times a week, each a four-hour session which involved me connecting their veins and arteries to a dialysis machine which would flush and detoxify their blood for them. One treatment missed meant hours of unfiltered blood circulating through their nutrient-hungry human bodies, dirty and infested with potentially-fatal levels of calcium, potassium and sodium. Dialysis treatments became a routine the patients grew to hate, but had no choice but to depend on.

It is often challenging to find strength when battling a terminal condition, for sometimes the courage you seek is somehow undermined by the love you carry. In “The Constant Gardener,” Bernard Cooper writes of his challenges coping with his partner Brian’s lifelong battle with AIDS. Every day, he proceeds to push the plunger of a syringe filled with paranutrition, sending “nutrient-rich super milk” running through the veins of his partner’s diminishing body. At a comparable rate of infusion is Bernard’s deeper understanding of the new roles of their relationship. Brian, who was once stronger in every way, is forced by his failing health into the weaker, more dependent role which Bernard had been fulfilling for as long as they could remember. Day by day, they are both perishing: Brian, physically, and Bernard, emotionally and mentally. The chronic illness is a large burden to Brian’s lifestyle, as are Bernard’s persistent feelings of grief to his feelings of love. Bernard expresses, “The recurring image of Brian’s diminishment is also, I’m ashamed to admit… a wish for everything that has been protracted and incremental about his illness to be hastened, accomplished, over at last, the advent of his death transformed into something as ordinary as a loose thread, as easy for me to break free of.”

Over the years, the idea of soul-mates remains popular and hopeful. Something about this idea seems comforting, to know there is someone else in the world that exists like you, breathes like you, feels like you. The idea often falls short, though, when realization hits. There are nearly seven billion people in this world – what are the chances you’d ever find this person? In “Great Encounters of the Metafictional Kind”, Garrett McDonough writes in Issue 63 of The Believer of his fascination with Bret Easton Ellis, an American novelist. His appreciation for the author stemmed from this feeling of being intimately connected, even prior to meeting him. He had been enchanted by this writer for many reasons, but most importantly because he saw himself in Ellis, and Ellis in himself. Garrett found their connection eerie, yet astounding – he would often write in his personal journal only to later rediscover those same written ideas, down to the last detail, through Ellis’ latest piece of writing. When the day finally arrives when Garrett gets a chance to meet his hero at a book-signing at Barnes and Noble, he is overwhelmed with angst. Much to his own surprise, as Ellis is signing his book, Garrett explicitly insults him with a loud, rude remark. Within moments of realization of his offensive action, he quickly enters a state of shock. Why did he just unwarrantably insult the single most inspirational person in his life?

Whether it is an emotional partner or a lifelong role model, people tend to become attached to others which they see themselves as having a connection with. They depend on this person to reassure the feeling that they are not alone. For Garrett, he saw himself within Ellis’ writing style, a meaningful, unique connection to another mind, one he was unlikely to find again. For Bernard, Brian was his other half, someone he heavily relied on to make him feel complete. He fulfilled one role and Brian fulfilled another, which, Bernard writes, “reminded [him of] how much [he’d] need [Brian’s] presence to survive his death.” We become close to a person because we see ourselves as having a significant position in the other’s life.

It is when this role becomes unwillingly distorted that this personal attachment gets sticky. When one tries to tug at the connection, it creates tension. When Brian’s condition forces Bernard to take on a role which he is not comfortable with, he becomes frightened and overwhelmed, so much so that he wishes Brian would just pass away. The role reversal is forced upon him; because there was no mutual agreement of a switch of dominance in the relationship, Bernard feels violated, making the situation painfully uncomfortable.

Garrett finds the same discomfort in his new role when he finally meets Ellis, a person who he truly believed he had a connection with. As Garrett eagerly stood in a long line at Ellis’ book signing, he realizes the blunt situation: all he is doing is waiting for a couple seconds of this man’s pen on paper, a scribble meant to permanently signify that he, just one of the many lowly fans, had the honor of meeting the magnificent author himself. He writes, “I felt animosity toward Ellis because I liked him so much, because he reduced me to a sycophantic slavering fan-boy.” Attachment can be hurtful because it sometimes acts as a silent promise that there is a structure and an expectation in a relationship, one that is not to be disrupted or carelessly pushed aside.

Through Bernard and Garrett, we see that we can grow to hate someone we once loved (or still love), because of the sharp loss of control in the relationship. Suddenly, we’ve become vulnerable - our role is reduced and altered in a way we didn’t quite approve of. Suddenly, we are reduced to the role of ants getting stepped on by a daunting shoe, and when we see its large, dark shadow, our first instinct is to run for dear life in the opposite direction.

As a dialysis technician, I’d see the same faces every day, until one day I wouldn’t. That would be the one day they decided to stay home and skip treatment, the one day they would call in and say “I’ll see you next Monday instead.” And when “next Monday” comes and the chair I prepare for them is empty, I am reminded of the reason I could not become attached to these individuals regardless of the fact that I’d spend most of my waking hours caring for them. I could not bear the strings of attachment knowing that if I got too close, I would be empowering them to cut me off whenever they decided they were ready.

Dehydrated

2009-08-21T12:30:00.000-07:00

Water vapor from her lungs condensed to form a white cloud with every exhale. The break of dawn had barely arrived. At the front of the line, just like every other day, stood the woman with the pulled-back hair, jogging in place and grasping tightly her red water bottle. She was waiting for the doors to open so that she could begin.

She stood before an imposing edifice, a gray construction of rigid walls and rectangular glass windows. Its architecture somehow resembled that of a filing cabinet, strict and unyielding towards design and creativity. Behind it was a beautiful reminder of what it once was: a lush, green open landscape. It now existed merely as a backdrop, pushed out of the way by the thick slabs of concrete which were inhabited by a diverse array of parked vehicles. Their only similarity was the plastic recreational center parking permit which hung on each rear-view mirror.

Her alarm clock had disrupted her dismal four hours of peaceful sleep only thirty minutes ago, and it was only ten minutes ago that she had taken her daily caffeine pill. This, she often told herself, was simply to take the place of a morning’s cup of coffee (or two, or three.) She convinced herself she had to take these pills; she needed it, she depended on it. Without it, she felt lifeless. Still, today, she had dark bags under her eyes, giving an empty stare underneath her heavy eyelids. Nevertheless, she walked quickly to a machine and began her daily routine.

For the first few minutes, she walked at a comfortably brisk pace on the treadmill. She soon increased the speed on the machine, ordering the pad beneath her feet to move more and more rapidly in the opposite direction as her body. After a mile or so, she began to feel her body pulling energy violently away from her muscles. Her physical strain was causing every vein to dilate, unable to sufficiently constrict again to send the pumping blood back up to her head. As her blood pressure dropped with every step she took on the treadmill, she could feel the lightheaded feeling build as she grew increasingly dizzy with exhaustion.

She knew she was pushing herself too hard, too often. She knew that one of these days, her lack of sleep would win. She would go on to hit the snooze button three times, until eventually she would turn off the alarm altogether. One of these days, she would give up and get off the machine ten minutes early. It was to be expected – eventually, her discipline would fail her.

Twenty…more…minutes… she tells herself, panting so hard her lungs ached. By now, her chest was throbbing rapidly, undulating like the waves of a violent sea. Gasps of air from her hoarse throat were coming faster and faster. Red hot blood rushed to the surface of the skin in an effort to radiate the overwhelming amount of heat produced by her body.

As the clock came to the top of the hour and the timer on her stopwatch beeped the rescuing beep of relief, she eagerly pressed the “pause” button on the machine. She had finished her exercise regimen for the day. She wiped off from her back dripping beads of sweat and picked up her water bottle to rehydrate her thirsty body. Having jogged ten miles, she was still in the same spot she was an hour ago.

The next morning, just like every other morning, the lights flicked on and the cardio room was filled with a wealth of machines. Although they varied in structure, they shared a common alluring inscription etched in the bottom-right corner: “Bigger. Faster. Stronger.”

In a matter of minutes, the biological secretion of plasma filtrate would soon again begin its beautiful process. From one of the 216 million sweat glands in the average human body, the glistening moisture would form perfectly-defined beads of perspiration on the surface of the skin. It would then tease the body, cooling only the parts which the single drop of relief contacted. And simultaneously, the body would become weaker, for every drop of cooling relief was a drop of nourishment expelled.

Still out of breath as she walked out of the room every morning, she would use her last energy to wave goodbye to Janine at the front desk. “See you again tomorrow.”

Broken Kingdom

2009-08-20T19:59:00.000-07:00

Saturday, August 15^th, 2009 11:46pm

There I sat,

at the end of bridal party’s table, looking down at my interlocked hands like I was about to start a prayer. My hands rested against the ugliest bridesmaid dress in the world: a brown strapless. How could I feel so lonely in a crowded room full of people? How could I feel so miserable amongst the countless smiles on this day? I look up at my dinner plate directly in front of me. The plates are a rich ivory color with a faint ring of robins-egg blue. The plates are beautiful, but in my eyes only ugliness seeps through, for they bring forth the memory of my sister-in-law dragging me along with her to pick out the perfect dinnerware for this day. Couldn’t she tell from my rude rejection of her invitation that I didn’t want to spend any more time with her than I needed to?

I look down the line of bridesmaids to try and catch a glimpse of my older brother. As the groom, he didn’t have any spare time to sneak away from the spotlight to give me his reassuring look that told me everything was going to be all right. As I watch him in his crisp tuxedo conversing with his bride, his eyes are locked on hers and his gleaming smile never ceases to fade. I used to know that smile.

My older brother, five years above me, has been my personal protector since I was born. My parents would nickname me the “ice princess” and him my knight. And on this day, where I’m supposed to be overjoyed for his marriage, I am completely miserable as I face the reality that he will no longer be my shield, but somebody else’s. I don’t think I would mind as much if my defender was leaving me to protect another princess worthy of his love, but this is not the case. The girl he married today is my age. In fact, we were in the same high school graduating class. Back then, she was known as “the LKP girl” (Legs Kept Open) and it seems like not much has changed since then. She has already cheated on my brother one and a half times and I’m quite sure that the number is higher; she’s just perfected the art of not getting caught.

After expressing my rocket-fueled opinions about his back-then fiancée, he said that he began to see the ugliness in me come forth. His words cut me open as he sharply accused me for failing to see what love truly is. And since then, little by little, he has slowly stepped away from my palace leaving me to wonder if I kept my mouth shut, would I have been able to hang onto my knight a little longer? Marriage strengthens the bond of a couple, enough so that people lose touch with their friends and family, this I know. But losing someone you’re close with to someone so undeserving is heartbreaking. How can he say that I fail to know love when I refuse to let him marry her? However, his mind was set.

As I continue to be fixed on the wedding dinnerware, my eyes become wet and the tears spill over and fall onto my uneaten chicken breast. I am too weary to hide my loss and it is too late now anyhow, so what does it matter if someone sees me? I don’t dare to look up to notice the stares forming my way. Instead, I continue to examine my chicken and the red and green spices that it has been cooked in.

Suddenly, I feel a powerful, but familiar surge of warmth touch my bare right shoulder. It’s the hand of my younger brother. And although he is three years below me, for the time being, he has become my new shield, as he directs me away from the bridal table and away from the public to a secret place where I can sink into my hurt. For now, there is nothing more that I can do except to watch my kingdom fall apart.

Dissolve

2009-08-20T19:57:00.000-07:00

Potato Salad
Chicken Kabobs
Grilled Corn
Coleslaw
Hot Dogs
Marion Berry Pie
Fage 2% Yogurt with Strawberry?

What the..?

“It’s part of my new diet,” she says, as my younger brother and I stare at each other in a mixture of disgust and confusion. That’s my cousin Shanel, as she refuses to eat any of the delicious food my aunt has prepared for our traditional Fourth of July family reunion. But this is nothing new, if I’ve been counting right, she’s been on 28 “new diets” since last summer’s reunion. Apparently her current diet exists of just Starbucks Coffee and this Fage Yogurt she has brought to the backyard dinner table with no shame. I for one am embarrassed for her. This yogurt, looks like a block of fake chunky tofu covered in artificial strawberry jam. “See,” she says, “it’s popular! There’s an ad for it here in The New Yorker!”

I’ve never understood Shanel’s need for a diet, as she is definitely underweight for her height. She claims that she’s trying out to be on the next season of “America’s Next Top Model” so she needs to shed a few pounds. Each time I see her, she slowly resembles a Halloween skeleton. However, I’ve learned not to comment on her interesting nutrition choices.

As I take the magazine from her to take a closer look, I try not to make eye contact with her, as I am afraid that she will see in my eyes what I truly think of her diets. As I flip through The New Yorker the familiar white and green of a Starbucks ad catches my eye and I smile back to Shanel and tell her if she ever comes to visit me in Seattle, I will take her to the first ever Starbucks. She tells me that would be cool and cheerfully walks off. Then, when her back is turned, my brother whispers in my ear,

“I swear that girl’s anorexic.”

I respond to him with a wide grin. He says that every year.

I had arrived in the Big Apple that morning on flight 499 from Seattle. Every year, my mom’s side of the family gathers at my aunt’s house for a traditional Fourth of July family reunion where we simply gather to eat enormous amounts of food. Well, except for Shanel. Most people are filled with overbearing excitement to visit the city of New York, however, not me.

During my six hour flight across the US, the only feeling I had when thinking about entering the JFK Airport was dread. This is not because of the city itself, but because of the relatives I would have to face. Each summer, these lively characters refuse to disappoint in proving how odd they can be. It’s like God secretly told everyone but me that these reunions were a contest of who could be the strangest and only the winner goes to heaven. And let me tell you, the bar is raised every year.

After my encounter with Shanel, I search for refuge from the humid sun as the copy of The New Yorker I was holding was now flimsy as I had exhausted its use as a fan. As I flip through the magazine pages on my way to a stone garden bench submersed in shade under a willow tree, a sleek advertisement swallowed in midnight black catches my eye as the word “go” is illuminated in clear blue as the contrast of colors help it to sparkle. When taking a closer look, the word “go” is composed of a continuous film roll consisting of uninterrupted scenes of various people, places, and colors. Strangely, it is an advertisement for Visa. As my eyes continue to graze downward onto the ad, I fail to realize where I am walking and run straight into another contestant of this secret contest God never told me about.

It’s my cousin Frodo.
No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. His name is really Frodo. Like from the Lord of the Rings books by J.R.R. Tolkien. Apparently, his dad, a crazed Lord of the Rings fan, refused to name their first son anything else. My poor aunt who married the fool agreed to it and my cousin was pretty much cursed for the rest of his life. All throughout his school years he was teased brutally for his name and outcasted from all social groups. And not only that, he sort of looked like a small, squishy elf, which caused bullies to brand him as a true hobbit forever.

However, the most tragic part of Frodo’s childhood is that his dad left my aunt for another woman he met at a Lord of the Rings national convention. My aunt took the separation pretty well, except for one thing:
“I can’t believe I let that shithead name my son Frodo!”
However, it didn’t seem like my cousin really minded his name.

He came to the reunion wearing all black: a long sleeve cotton black shirt with midnight black skinny jeans, a black cashmere scarf, jet black hair that draped his forehead making his eyes barely visible, plus black nail polish and eyeliner. Did I mention we are in New York City, during July and it is 87 degrees? I swear, all that social isolation as a kid, really messed up his brain, because he never speaks. Ever.

But, even amongst all his oddities, I have a soft spot for Frodo, and I enjoy being around him even if he never peeps a word. Frodo and I are the same age and before he became mute, when we were very young, he was a normal kid. We would play together as our no-boundary imaginations connected us with a bond that is still felt today.

One thing that proves the strength of our bond is that I am the only one in the family who knows of his passion: he is an artistic genius. He takes pictures and creates films out of them. He has won numerous awards and recognition for his work, but uses the undercover name ASIV. His work is absolutely breathtaking, as it shines like a bright light amongst the midnight sky of over-processed art. In fact, he refuses to let anyone know. Except me.

After enjoying the shade, my stomach begins to guide me to the dinner table once again. As I decide to grab a plate to pile on mountains of food, I begin to set my magazine down. But before I do, a picture of the White House catches my eye. I quickly turn to the page and wonder if there is anything on Obama, however, it is just a boring and conservative advertisement of a documentary of the White House. The picture is solemn and simple with just the White House in the center with its uneventful surroundings. The border is traced with beige and monotone colors that you can find on old people’s shoes.

My eyes, which were pleased by the earlier Visa ad are now disappointed and are searching for something better to look at. Because of the lighter tones of the White House ad, another picture on the backside of the ad begins to seep through with richer colors of ebony, cream, royal blue, and bronze. Curiously, I flip the page and it is a photo from a play, where two women, one dressed like a colonial solider, the other like a servant are kissing each other and a third figure in the picture, a man, is resting his cheek on the shoulder of the woman dressed like a solider and holding a sword above her head; his expression is one of regret and despair. This was my second what the…of the day. Behind the dull and conservative White House advertisement, was this odd, lesbian play picture? My thoughts are then interrupted by Uncle Marcus’ ever booming voice, “Hey little lady! You can’t stand in front of the potato salad like that forever! Make some room for the rest of us will ya!”

One word can sum up Uncle Marcus. He is a b i g o t.

He thinks he knows everything and puts on a façade in how he’s always politically correct when really he doesn’t know shit. He looks like at any moment he’s about to spend the weekend in the Hamptons with his khaki slacks, polo button-ups, and cashmere sweaters of light beige and sepia. I have never met anyone so conceited in my life. He dumps his opinions on us like a broken faucet that continues to overflow with water. Nobody can turn him off. Nobody can shut him up. At the end of the reunion, everybody wants to put a gun to their head just so they can escape his voice and close-minded opinions.

No wonder he’s still single at 46 years old.

But Uncle Marcus never bothers me. Because one summer, when I was ten years old, my parents decided to take a short trip for their anniversary and left me and my brother at Uncle Marcus’ house. I had accidentally walked in on Uncle Marcus in front of a full length mirror in a silver sequenced dress, with matching sparkling silver high heels, and a Tina Turner wig accompanied by a thick layer of make up and scarlet red lips. Although I didn’t know what it as called at the time, that summer I found out that snobby-nosed, “politically correct”, conservative Uncle Marcus was a d r a g q u e e n.

And that’s how I came to hold power over him throughout the years. I keep his secret, if he isn’t a douchebag towards me. So as I load some potato salad at the dinner table, Uncle Marcus nervously laughs away at his comment and retreats to the other side.

As I finishing grabbing my food, I slowly step back from the dinner table and examine my family. I wonder if all of my family members have an inner side to them that they are reluctant to expose; one that is opposite of the public side that they show. If they only knew what Frodo and Uncle Marcus were really like on the inside…but for some reason, they don’t let them know.

Their private sides refuse to be shown. But these private sides are the ones that embody who they really are. These sides are the ones that express our true passions as people and for some reason, Frodo, Uncle Marcus, and even I refuse to let them shine through; which is a shame because Frodo’s artistic ability can only add beauty to the world, whereas, many would rather converse with Uncle Marcus the drag queen than Uncle Marcus the bigot. Either way, as I look at my family gathering around the dinner table shoveling food onto their plates, I wonder if these reunions would be more bearable, or even enjoyable, if we could all dissolve the outer surface layer and reveal our true selves; the ones that we hide in fear of rejection of our real identities.

Metamorphosis

2009-08-20T19:50:00.000-07:00

The Constant Gardener

When reading Bernard Cooper’s essay, The Constant Gardener, you will be taken into the point of view of the author, as he reveals his experiences and thoughts as a caretaker whose lover is slowly deteriorating of HIV. The author begins to describe the medical equipment that his partner, Brian, uses to help him stay alive. The image of the metal hook atop the IV pole and the pair of purple Safeskin examination gloves within their home exposes the intimate relationship this couple has with health care. Each day is filled with syringes and PICC lines, as well as reminders of what little life Brian has left due to his illness.

Past the surface of the description of Brian’s daily life and wasting strength, the author begins to reveal his personal feelings towards being a caregiver of HIV. He makes it clear that he would do anything he can for Brian and be the pillar of strength in their relationship in order to persevere and fight till the end.

However, the author slowly begins to become more transparent as a weakness behind his strength gradually surfaces and is made clear towards the end of the essay. A weakness that he is afraid to speak out loud because of the power his words might have; he wishes that the HIV would already take over. He wishes that Brian were already dead.

Child Care

Tassie is a young college student going to school in Illinois. It’s December, and she is trying to find a job for the start of spring term in January. In Lorrie Moore’s fictional essay Child Care, Tassie is the main character that the readers are welcomed by as they are exposed to her raw thoughts and experiences. The essay describes her awkward occurrences with Sarah Brink.

Sarah Brink is the woman who hires Tassie to become a caregiver for Sarah’s unborn adopted child. Before being hired, Tassie describes her first impression of Sarah as she comments on her unique dress style which she describes as looking like an experiment. The eccentric and robust Sarah Brink explains that she and her husband are planning to adopt a child and are looking for a babysitter for the new born infant. For the job, Sarah also asks that Tassie becomes a part of the family’s adoption process such as accompanying Sarah to meetings with the birth mother. Tassie accepts the job with indifference as it seems that no other offers have come her way. No excitement is shown from Tassie with the obtainment of her new job as she mistakenly assumes that her new role will be repetitive and dull.

However, her times with Sarah are far from it as Tassie later finds out, the child is being adopted from a teenage mother on probation who has an electric bracelet attached to her wrist which my have been due to drug dealing. As the bleached blonde, country accented birth mother and Sarah Brink meet for the first time, Tassie is dragged along as she begins to contemplate the oddities of the situation and how different other people’s lives are from hers.

Tassie shares about her background having grown up in the Midwest on a farm with her parents and having never eaten Chinese food before. When she first moved to Illnois, she describes it as entering into the light for the first time from her dark cave. Tassie begins to analyze the differences she sees in her employer Sarah Brink and herself. Sarah, who is a chef at her own restaurant, is about to adopt a child being carried by a juvenile delinquent, and whose opinions are forcefully put upon others, contrasts greatly from Tassie, who is a shy, small town girl, who nonchalantly accepts whatever comes her way. As she realizes these stark contrasts, an uncomfortable feeling settles in as Tassie begins to rethink her decision of accepting the job.

Messy

Life seems to end the same way it begins. When we are born, we wear diapers and when we are dying we wear diapers; the reason being the same as well: not having control of our own bladders. Eww.

There is something else in common with the very young and the very old. They seem to have someone in their life as their caregiver.

The Dictionary’s definition for care.giv.er [kair-giv-er] -noun states:

1. a person who cares for someone who is sick or disabled.

2. an adult who cares for an infant or child.

Why should only the sick and children have caregivers? It seems to me that everyone is a little bit sick in some ways and I know many people who possess infant-like tendencies where mature adult intervention is desperately needed. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that regular, day-to-day people need caregivers too; someone to give emotional and physical support when things become overwhelming. Because there are a lot of messed up things in this world, probably due to all the messed up people in it: meaning all of us. Nobody is perfect, we’re all a little crazy here and there, but sometimes I wonder if we can just look past the craziness and take care of each other, life might have a better result.

Maybe if the boy down the street received assurance from his parents that they loved him no matter what sexuality he practiced, he wouldn’t have jumped off that bridge to end his life. Maybe if they were better caretakers, it wouldn’t have happened. Or maybe that girl in my seventh grade bible study class who gave it all away too easy to someone new each week might’ve turned out different if she received better care from her caregivers.

Perhaps a caregiver isn’t a role that one takes on only for a certain period of time but maybe it’s a life long concept from preventing hurtful experiences from happening. And even when painful things are encountered, care is available to help one through it.

But then again what do I know? The only lives I’ve partially been a caretaker for is my little brother, some babysitting kids, and my cat, which I can’t really take full credit for either. However, I’ve never heard that giving or receiving more care can lead to a bad thing. Perhaps we should try it.

This Quantifiable Life

2009-08-20T17:59:00.000-07:00

252 seconds left. That's sixty arc-minutes, about the time it takes for Antares(1), the star that is two million times the volume of our sun, to glide across the view of a small telescope. I'm sweating, my pencil in my left hand is scribbling madly, vomiting marks onto the page of my final exam in search of some arbitrary number. But if I choose the right number, if I don't forget to carry the two or leave out a minus sign, I will be rewarded with a high grade, a numerical representative of my qualification, my intelligence, and my dexterity. 210 seconds left.

Numbers seem to rule so much of our lives. I shouldn't be thinking about this right now, I should be trying to finish this math problem so I can pass my calculus final. But how could I not think about it? If what this test is saying is true, and the universe operates according to numbers, where does that leave me?

Chaos Theory says that the universe is an extraordinarily complex dynamic system which can ultimately be reduced to one single equation, making it entirely predictable and deterministic. This is supported by contemporary science, which holds that the universe is an enormous and intricate playing out of fundamental physical laws which began operating after the Big Bang: Gauss's law, Huygen's principle, Newton's laws of motion, Snell's law, all of which are simply numerical values functioning and governing what we call the universe and everything in it.

And I'm no exception. Those physical laws operate in me as well, they create who I am, and my behavior is subject to them just as any other piece of matter is. I'm a complex assortment of molecules, vibrating and interacting according to these principles. I'm just a collection of oscillating atoms, moving along until the molecules they create degenerate and rearrange to no longer compose what I call “me”. 168 seconds left.

The novelist Bernard Cooper once mused about the melancholy of countdown, the government of numbers over our lives. He wrote about it in his his essay The Constant Gardner, detailing the struggle of his AIDs infected partner, Brian. Particularly, he detailed their struggle as a couple as Brian held on to the last days of his life.

Cooper makes numerous references to the functioning of numbers which govern Brian's life, and ultimately his as well. He notes that “[Brian's] T cells have dwindled to the triple, then the double, then the single digits,”(2) using Brian's T cell count as a measure of his life-force; with the words “triple,” “double,” “single,” Cooper initiates a countdown, the next number of which is zero. To further the point, other characters, such as a nurse, create a numerical overtone: “'Come in twenty minutes sharp,' she tapped her watch for emphasis”(3). The fact that the nurse “tapped her watch,” which runs according to the force of a spring constant, is a gesture communicating that time is running out. Cooper is again observing that the numbers are dwindling, that Brian's time is limited, that this “twenty minutes” is a part of the fixed and determined countdown until Brian's death, until the electrochemical interactions in his brain cease, and Brian expires. And in emphasis of the laws, Cooper adds that “Brian's life was lived by the milligram, the precise titration.”(2) The word “titration,” which is a chemical procedure, is reminiscent of the chemical principles by which the AIDs virus(4) operates by.

84 seconds left. I'm scribbling harder and faster, never having imagined that mathematics could induce an adrenaline rush. My hand is on the page of my exam, but my mind is on the numbers. If Brian was subject to some larger universal equation as Cooper points out, being infected with AIDs was out of his control. It follows that Cooper's choice to court Brian was not really his decision at all, it was the interaction of a group of particles set up by the Big Bang(5).

It makes complete sense, but in a way it doesn't at all. If Cooper was governed by the way the Big Bang set up the particles that composed him, he has no choice in what he does. But if he has no control over what he does, how can I hold him responsible for his anger toward Brian? How can I honor him for his excellent writing? And what exactly then are these emotions I have while reading his writing, or this anxiety of taking a math test? Can I even be held accountable for my performance on this exam?

My hand is stopping. This isn't working - my approach to this problem isn't getting me anywhere. I need to try a new perspective, a new way of looking at things. I start again, my hand bursting into a new direction on the paper, my mind still racing.

I remember another writer, Patricia Brieschke, also once discussed the conundrum of numbers controlling our lives. Her essay, Cracking Open, is the tale of her first born son, Oliver, and his effort to stay alive as a newborn from an array of complications. As she watches him grapple with his health, she takes the liberty of facing her own struggle as a young woman who was born into a horrible and abusive family.

Brieschke actually works with numbers in order to answer questions. She represents her awful mother numerically:“By eighth grade I killed her 107 times, the Blessed Virgin 13 times, and God twice”(6). Noting earlier that she “killed her” whenever she hid under the porch after being hit, the number 107 is the number of times she was abused by her mother before eighth grade. Following this theme of quantifying her pain, she goes on to “kill” the “Blessed Virgin”, whom she relates herself to earlier, a symbolically unfortunate thirteen times. She is using the number thirteen to reflect on her own misfortune, justified by her abuse tally and the idea that she gave birth to Oliver, an imperfect “Baby Jesus”(7). Next, she “kills” God, playing on the notion that God is an omnipotent being, killing him not once, but twice. Brieschke mocks the idea that she is simply a gear in the cosmic formula, taking the arrow of God and throwing it back at him.

Meanwhile, I'm integrating, crossing, substituting, deriving more and more numbers to get to that answer. The bell begins to drone, ringing at 420 Hertz(8) across the room, the toll indicating that my time is up. I need to pick an answer. Chairs and papers are rustling, the door is swinging open and closing as people are leaving. My calculation is winding down: The square root of 1,543 plus 1,373 is fifty-four, multiplied by seven is 378, divided by three squared, and finally there is the nugget of numerical value that has exhausted my sweat glands: forty-two.

The only problem is that I know it's wrong; forty-two can't possibly be the time, in years, that it takes Jack to drive to Jill's house. It just doesn't make sense. Yet, I circle the number, tired and ready to forget the problem in its entirety, ready to ignore the swinging of the cosmic pendulum.

1. Pronounced “an-tair-eez”
2. As in Gopnik's Best American Essays 2008, pg. 32
3. As in Gopnik's Best American Essays 2008, pg. 37
4. According to most biologists, viruses technically aren't even alive.
5. One could argue using quantum theory that the movement of particles is not discrete, but probabilistic, and that therefore free will lies in this probability. But when observed more closely, this motion is probabilistic because it is unpredictable and completely random; thus, this mode of “free will” is determined by random movement, rather than one's own discretion.
6. As in Gopnik's Best American Essays 2008, pg. 9
7. As in Gopnik's Best American Essays 2008, pg. 3
8. It's one of those new digital single-tone “bells” they have above the red glowing block numbers.

Apprehension, Retention, Ascension

2009-08-20T17:57:00.000-07:00

Apprehension

I saw him at the bookstore. At a distance, he was shuffling his feet, eyes fixed on the wood rack while his body gently swayed back and forth on the cheap green carpet. Suddenly his head turned to peer in my direction as I continued to gawk at him. Now he was walking toward me. And then it happened: he noticed me.

“Well, hello,” he said quietly as thoughts raced through my head. Who was this guy? Had I met him before? Maybe he was just asking for directions. But if he was, he could have asked anyone else. Why was he talking to me? Was he going to keep doing it? He didn't look familiar; not that I would have really wanted him to look familiar. He was too young, his facial hair was just turning dark, just getting over the baggy pants and videogames, I could tell. So I told him my name.

“I've heard that name before,” he said to me calmly, his grey iris fixed to me in front of his pasty white eyeballs. He's heard of me? What could he have heard? It couldn't have been too bad if he was talking to me. He liked my cover, whatever that means. It's colorful? Looking down, the words suddenly carried more meaning. It was a cartoon of a woman on a vibrant rooftop amid orange skyscrapers – she was lying in a hammock on reading something; from my perspective though, it looked more like she was holding on to the red striped cloth for dear life, saving herself from falling into the heavens. Perhaps we could do that sometime, he told me. For a moment, I was hoping he meant falling off the face of the earth. Either way, I was too embarrassed to reply, so I just pretended I didn't hear him.

He invited me for coffee. Of course, I was just too flattered to say no, so I accepted, but I made sure it was of minimal enthusiasm. Though somehow, I felt more curious of him than he obviously was of me. I admit, this guy was no Gerard Butler; but he did look exactly like Haley Joel Osman, just a little older. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

I sat facing him, resting on the light wood table along the window of the bookstore cafe as a metal pillar shaded me from the sun's burn. I told him that I'm from New York, the city, he replied that he could have guessed. Maybe because we were in some Seattle suburb, it made my vast knowledge of New York rather useless, and made me feel virtually the same way. I made sure he didn't know that though.

After coffee and cream, Haley Joel Osman told me he'd like to take me to his place. For a moment, I heard the ears of people around us flick up like a deer's when it hears a twig snap. I could feel a few eyes dart, a few heads turn toward us as I still rested on the beige wood table top. I suddenly felt guilty for all those times I'd eavesdropped on other people in this same cafe; the thirty year old man in a business suit trying to convince his mother not to throw away his porn collection no longer made me chuckle, the control issues of the hipster couple that should have broken up years ago was suddenly no longer worth knowing about. The entire world was waiting for my answer. I paused for a moment, the crushing weight of the silence bearing down on me. And with no excuse on hand, I said yes. Why not? I wanted to see what he had offer. Maybe he was rich.

Retention

The next time I saw him, we layed down in a red-striped hammock on top of his apartment building, him holding me in his arms, and we swayed with the wind. We weren't exclusive, and it bothered me. So I gave him my card, and told him I wanted a relationship. He said nay; just like the other three times I had already handed the little card with my information on it.

We started talking - well, I started talking. I talked about yogurt. I talked about Lipitor and hybrid cars, Morgan Stanley and Vogue, IBM and credit cards, Reuters, soybeans, and Ford cars. It seemed natural for me to blab on about, but he just skimmed over it, barely paying attention. He asked me if I was trying to sell him something. Then he told me that since I'm full of advertisements, I should go befriend the billboard we passed down the street. It was still there, he added, pointing to it with his eyes. The top of it was just barely visible, its vibrant red crest just over the edge of rooftop. It was one of those billboards that shape-shifted, a giant washboard made of rotating slices with multiple facets. That means it slammed people with several advertisements if they're around long enough to look at it. We were, and its color slithered into a lime green; I turned away before it could change again.

Advertisements have always bothered me, perhaps simply because I often feel mistreated. The one I carry around with me is my personal favorite: it's a window into a flat surface of yogurt, which looks much like a chunky plaster wall. In the middle, someone carefully imprinted a strawberry into the yogurt; the imprint is complete with dark holes where the matrix of seeds were on the surface of the fruit. They looked like a set of monster eyes, except made of yogurt. In the bottom right hand corner is the real product: a small cup of frozen yogurt, probably loaded with the proper ingredients for heart disease.

“You don't care about me,” I told it, “you just want to sell me some yogurt.”

“That's not true,” it replied, the strawberry imprint watching me with its series of arachnid-like seed eyes. “I want to make you happy! Yogurt will make you happy!”

“I have diabetes and a weight problem,” I snapped back - and the awkward silence began. I don't have diabetes, nor a real weight problem. But I wasn't afraid to make it feel bad – anything with that many eyes couldn't have a soul. And that is why it's judging me, using me for its own personal benefit so it can implant its eggs into my stomach and expand its kingdom of yogurt arachnids.

But then again, what if it does have a soul? What if its just trying to feed its creepy little kids? Maybe it has a wife, a family, a mortgage to pay, some hobbies to get back in touch with. Maybe it plays badminton. It would be pretty good with all those eyes. And it if it can barely take care of all of that, my health no longer means anything to this thing, as long as I'm stuffing its lardy yogurt into my face with a smile. Meanwhile, here I am, making an ass out of it, saying that it only cares about selling me something; just like Haley Joel Osman here thinks that I'm trying to sell him something – I'm not – I'm just trying to get by.

“What are you thinking about?” he interrupted.

“Nothing,” I lied with a smile.

Ascension

He left. Haley Joel Osman left me. I felt like someone had just shot an apple off my head. It was another bright sunny day when it happened. Maybe it was the sun that made me think he was joking, but by mid-afternoon, I had reached a state of denial. Doesn't he know who the fuck I am?

I knew back at the bookstore when we first talked, he was coveting me, watching other people notice him with me. He was proud of it, proud of being with me, holding me in other people's face like a trophy. I was the prize of his intellect, his almighty knowledge, soothing me into his hands so that I would open to have my pages read - I was a symbol of his insight and intellectual curiosity, the announcer of his savvy thinking. And beyond the image, I know he enjoyed being with me. I made him laugh, and I made him think. And so I knew he would come back. I just waited, sitting among a few other magazines.

To help pass the time, I looked at the card I had offered him only to meet his decline. I looked at my name: “The New Yorker,” it said, the tails of the R's and K's twirled upwards to make it look more professional. It was already pretty professional anyway: above my name it declared itself “Business Reply Mail,” flanked on the edges by bar codes of various sizes. The other side was even better. It had my name again, but this time below it was an offer even I couldn't refuse: only eighty-five cents an issue. He'd be able to see me forty-seven times a year for just thirty-nine-ninety-five. He could even see me for two years, ninety-four times, at an even lower rate of just sixty-nine-ninety-five. I left room for him to put his name, in print, and his address.

It was around the time that dew began collecting against the grass in the darkness, that I realized he probably wasn't coming back. Maybe I freaked him out. Maybe he just wasn't ready for a subscription yet. I shouldn't have pestered him for a commitment. Or maybe it was my product-laced mode of communication that turned him off. He wasn't coming back; the message was clear: I didn't live up to what he thought I would be.

So then what's next? Well, I suppose I'll start over. I'll find another mask, another face among the crowd, or maybe they'll see my cover, and approach me. And together, we'll slowly peel them off, open up and expose ourselves to each other, frightened and exhilarated, constantly questioning each other's motives as we sniff each other's asses like dogs to see if there's some way we could possibly get along. Maybe we'll even learn something along the way. Then we'll look at each other again, look at that mask or that cover, those yogurt strawberry eyes or the whole face, and see for a second time what it really means, what it's really saying. And if we like what we see, we'll subscribe to each other for an entire year... or maybe two for the reduced price.

A Constant Cringe

2009-08-19T22:57:00.002-07:00

Tonight, I watched my mom rapidly cut onions in the way that I saw all of the chefs do it on the Food Channel: with the quick up-and-down motion of the knife, effortlessly chopping from left to right in small increments. For a brief but piercing moment, I see a vivid picture: the blade has cut her finger. It bleeds profusely – we can no longer include the onions in our dinner. I cringe.

I cringe in the same way I cringe when I make left turns at stoplights. With the blink of an eye, I’m instead in the passenger seat. It’s ten years ago, I’m eight years old, and my brother is driving. With the turn of the steering wheel, the oncoming vehicle crashes forcefully into my side of the car, leaving an imprint in the metal frame of the vehicle’s passenger door, the only thing coming between me and the drunk driver. His alcohol-infused blood had him step on the gas pedal instead of the brakes. Our car begins to spin, hitting two other cars nearby. And just like that, the moment is gone. I hear loud noises. The drivers behind me are honking, eagerly waiting to turn left.

I’ve been told flashbacks are “normal” after situations of intense trauma, especially if the event occurred during childhood. Because young children physiologically lack the cognitive abilities to define and properly process the trauma at the age at which they experienced it, their emotions are known to be later relived involuntarily. Unfortunately, I’m never quite satisfied with all of that psychology-textbook regurgitation.

Maybe Dan would understand me. I remember when I used to visit him at the senior home every week. Dan rarely had visitors and even his caretakers learned to avoid him. After fighting in the war, he would periodically become violent, lashing out curse words and sometimes throwing objects in rage. And no one ever knew what exactly provoked his sudden behavior. His identity soon diminished into nothing more than four letters: PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sometimes he’d yell, then moments later turn away and cry, and then we’d finish our game of chess. To everyone else, he was just senile. But to me, he was the most unique friend in the world, one I learned a lot from: about life, about himself and perhaps most often of all, about myself. At first, I thought I did it out of pity, because I’d often see him staring at the blank television in the lounge with sad, blue eyes as everyone else had their family over for the weekly Sunday visit. I later realized that maybe it was because we had a lot more in common than I thought. I’m just like him, except I’m in the body of an eighteen-year-old girl instead of an eighty-one-year-old war veteran.

I have only recently tried to really identify what happens in those moments when I am, just for a few seconds, in a different world, a hypothetical world, a world in which I actualize my fears or am brought back to them when they have managed to exist in my life. I can’t help it - I imagine bridges breaking as I drive across them, getting cuts in the crooks between my fingers as I sift through papers, a car hitting me as I cross the street. These situations may have never happened; sometimes they are purely inventions of my imagination. There’s no blood on the cutting board, no wound by the knife. Sometimes, then, these aren’t flashbacks anymore-- perhaps they are just the opposite.

In the short eighteen years I’ve experienced the world, I’ve been shocked and helpless during the deaths of three family members and my best friend, all separate accidents no one could have foreseen. I don’t know for sure, but maybe this is why I see the moments I don’t want to happen. I find myself meeting the dread prematurely, in hopes I will beat it to the punch, rendering it impossible in the real world since it has already been lived in my imagination. This has become my one way to attempt to foolishly challenge the ever-changing spontaneity each day brings forth.

As I walk into the senior home, I see two male nurses restraining Dan as his family members, who have not visited him in years, try to escape his violent episode. They might as well have been restraining me. Is it our fault we’re the only ones who can see it? With every day Dan wrestles with the past, I wrestle with the future.

Twenty Things

2009-08-19T22:51:00.000-07:00

“I know how you're feeling,” she stated sympathetically. “It's called a quarter life crisis. You look behind you at your vanished teenage years and realize that you have to be a responsible adult...” Get a job, a house, a family – my thoughts crowded awkwardly in my head as I really thought about it. Twenty. Meg had trailed off, perhaps pondering her own recent ascension into the ranks of adults, but I kept fine conversation with myself, trying to absorb the newly invoked images. It was futile, and eventually they slid back down into the abyss, whispering twenty as they descended. With the approaching end of my childhood successfully ignored, Meg and I drifted back to trivial conversation.

With many similar experiences, the countdown to twenty continued, until there were only two weeks left and I sat down to talk to my mother. She had just run for a triathlon for the first time, and was delighted with the race and its participants. “I talked to this one lady there,” she said. “She had just turned 60, and had resolved to do 60 new things in that year. This was one of them.” The world inverted and exploded into hundreds of new events. Had I done nineteen new things last year? I was ready to try for twenty. The number was no longer forbidding, but instead a symbol of potential discovery. I was ready for twenty, and my twenty things.

My Way in a Dark Night

2009-08-19T14:48:00.000-07:00

All creatures had already fled to their homes from the dread of the night. Nothing remained on the freeway WA-520 east bound. Exploding with a thunderous engine sound, the speedometer on my car’s dashboard went up to 90 miles per hour. I had finally arrived at my friend, Dana’s house in downtown Bellevue, WA at 3:20 A.M.; it was two hours after a call with her had been mysteriously dropped. Her car, a red Honda Civic, was parked in front of her house. I saw her silhouette made by a lamp in her room through the window of the room, and I heaved a sigh of relief.

When I called her two hours ago, she had almost arrived at her house from a dinner party with her friend’s family. While driving, she said through the phone, “I wish my parents could live here too. I miss them so much.” To help relieve her homesickness, I reminded her of what she had now: studying with prominent professors; being able to speak English better than her friends living in South Korea; being able to go to world-class superstars’ concerts. However, instead of being cheered up, she continued to bring up sad memories from her mind, and said, “Last Thanks Giving Day, most of my friends went to their home to enjoy their holidays with their family. But I was alone.” All I could say in response to her was, “But, you are running for your dream, and your hardship will pay off.” However, at that moment, the call was suddenly cut off with a squeaking sound from her car.

I thought perhaps her battery had died and that she’d call me back after charging her battery in 30 minutes when she got home. However, even after 30 minutes, I didn’t get a return call. I pressed the ‘call’ button to make a phone call to her, but, she didn’t answer. I called her again and again, but I was just transferred to her voicemail box. Intervals between the calls were getting shorter: 15 minutes, 10 minutes, 5 minutes, and then finally 1 minute. I heard an ambulance siren outside of my house and I started to become seriously worried about her safety. I grabbed my phone and texted her, “Hey, it’s ok if you don’t feel like talking to anybody, but just please text me and let me know if you made it home okay.” To my dismay, nothing returned.

I felt a dread in the dark night. Something evil whispered in my ear, “It’s none of your business. Just go to bed. It’s already 2:40 A.M. You must be tired.” I hesitated to give up my conscience to the evil for my rest, and the evil added, “Nobody knows you just talked to her, so you are not responsible for what happened to her.” Then, I murmured, “No, I’m the only one who knows about this situation and I care about her because she’s a good friend.” I was worried about her and left to make sure she had gotten home safely!

As I stood outside, I was relieved that she was at home, and that there was no damage to her car. I pulled over my car on the shoulder in front of her house, and looked up the sky. The night was so murky and my surroundings looked as if a black-colored blanket covered everything. I lighted my cigarette. As I smoked, the twinkling stars above reminded me of my family: my father, mother, my two younger brothers, and my country, South Korea. The last time I went to my country was 2 years ago. At that night, the good memories I shared with my family made me miss them so much.

-Donghyo Min

Love, Excitement, Stress...

2009-08-19T09:41:00.001-07:00

So Giving, so adoring, so loving… I hear this all the time from my girl friends about me, but that one special person seems as though does not yet believe these factors are true. Noticing things is not hard, especially with him, who notices the smallest detail. I try to show him love and care, but it seems as though he wears magical glasses and only sees what he wants to see. I’m confused, what more do I need to do?

The other weekend he was gone camping with his friends. Before leaving for camping, he didn’t ask for his keys and I didn’t bother to give them back either. He left on a Friday and said he would return on Saturday. Saturday morning, like a robot that had brand new battery, I woke up to call Enterprise car rental at around 10:35 am. Luckily there was a car available, a Silver 2008 PT Cruiser, 536 - YEY. I rented it and decided to show that special person some more love and care and see how much of it he would really appreciate. This decision making happened in no time. I feel as though I am writing this without breathing and giving my fingers a chance to have a break, but it really did happen in less than one hour. I went to farmers market bought some vegetables and gorgeous pink lilies. Stopped by Safeway, did more grocery shopping. Went to Whole Foods Market got a double chocolate cake and made a special order of writing on the cake which said:

Alexandro,

Dustet Daram [I love you]

~Mahta.

-------

During the entire time as I kept going in and out of his studio apartment, I was worried, excited, and stressed all at the same time. I was worried that he would come see me there and not happy about me being at his place without telling him; was excited because surprising my close friends and special people, is my favorite thing to do. And I was stressed because I was scared that something would go wrong. After all I considered Saturday to be quite lucky. I know for a fact that if he was in town, I would have not done any of the things I did. So everything about Saturday was just perfect. For me it is a day to remember. Sunday around 11:30 am, he called and rudely said that he will pay me back for all the grocery shopping I had done for him. As his girl friend, his ex-girl friend, or whatever he considers me as to relation to himself, I did not expect that from him. I was very saddened that, “paying me back” was the next phrase he said after saying hello. I responded with “no thank you, I did not do this to be paid back; I only did it just because I wanted to do something for you.” As a single way of appreciation, in a single sentence he said, “I got home at 2:00 am last night, as I opened the door to enter my place, the smell of lilies took my breath away, and it was fabulous.”

-------

Was this the only way of showing affection and appreciation, only in a single sentence while he could have showed more emotion? What about all the emotion and feeling I put into all that I did. I don’t expect thank you, but a little excitement in language tone would have made me even happier! But knowing the person he has became to be, I was even happy that he used a single sentence to express his feelings in showing appreciation. That I took as an excuse to have a fabulous day, to be happy, to be excited that he showed some sort of appreciation and that he remains to notice what I do for him, but majority of the time I do think that he wears that magical glasses to only see what he wants. Meanwhile I remain to be confused as to what more do I need to do.

Friends

2009-08-18T23:05:00.000-07:00

August 17, 2009

“HI AIDAN! Fhafhafdalhadhh…BYE AIDAN!” was a call I received at midnight. It was no prank call; it was a drunk call from my friend Kevin. A red flag went up in my head and this call translated into “pick me up.”

When I arrived at the party, Kevin gave me the signs of a “Crazy Drunk” greeting me with a spaced out grin before promptly twirling in a circle going “Lalalala.” Getting him into my car conscious was a mistake since he decided at that moment to play “Tag” with me being “It.” Running up and down the neighborhood through front yards, bushes, and back into the party house trying to “tag” him made me consider knocking Kevin out as the solution. Yet, I didn’t and the whole situation got worst. Getting “bored” of “Tag,” Kevin decided to serenade me as his inebriated way of saying “Sorry” for the trouble as I drove him home. He even resorted to hugs, resulting with me stiff-arming him so that we would not topple over the bridge to our deaths.

For 45 minutes I was subjugated to a poor rendition of “I’m Too Sexy” being sung a.k.a screamed to me with the windows rolled down. We must have looked like psychos when I arrived to his crib in Magnolia. I was surprised the neighbors didn’t call the police. Dragging him into his house, Kevin decided that I could not leave! Sitting on the floor, he grabbed a hold of my leg whining with no intention of letting go. Grabbing a hold of the doorpost, I yanked my leg, swatted at him, threatened him, but nothing worked to release his grip.

Finally I fell down on the floor beside him and trying to calm myself. During those few minutes Kevin had finally stopped whining. I decided at that moment to teach my friend an important lesson, “You know…you’re lucky we’ve known each other for years Kevin, years. Because there is no way in hell I would go through this for anyone besides family.” The grateful response I received? A loud snore. Diary, why did I respond to that call?

October 17th, 2008

2009-08-18T17:33:00.000-07:00

I caught a brief glimpse of him today. He was on a bus sign on the main street near campus, the black ink twirling and looping with arrows pointing on the ends, the same graffiti style he was obsessed with since fifth grade. “Psyk,” it read.

I never understood what K saw in tagging, taking a paint pen or spray can to a wall to write down the signature of some alias he created for himself. Maybe it was his way of telling the world that he actually exists, that he's still alive somewhere out there.

On my way to class, I checked the health sciences library database for studies conducted on tagging. The only available research was done by an Australian named Emma Russel. In her abstract, she briefly states that the meanings underlying tagging “encompass motivating aspects of fame, belonging, risk-taking and status.”

As far as I'm concerned, this “status” K sought had been suffering ever since we got out of high-school; or I should say, ever since he got kicked out. The last time I saw him in person, before he changed his number, he told me he was being evicted from his apartment. Maybe it was all his punishment for having the genes of alcoholism, having a mother who was an incest survivor and was dragged into prostitution, having a father who was in prison, for having chronic depression and anxiety, for being brown, and for being my best friend during my childhood.

I took the bus home, sitting in a pair of seats near the entirely empty back. As I was getting out my book, I froze. There he was again. This time, scratched into the seat in front of me. I feel like everywhere I go, he's there, yet another reminder of what “equal opportunity” really is. I see him, the person I spent every day with in elementary school, hidden on the back of stop signs, plastered on the brick wall of the alley above the dumpsters behind my favorite restaurant, concealed underneath the pedestrian bridge I take to get to the university; always somewhere, always in the corner of my eye.

-Josef Turecek

Dear God.

2009-08-18T11:50:00.000-07:00

Dear God,
I took Sarah to housesit at my uncle’s. We’ve been before, though always with others, so I was looking forward to being alone with my best friend. We arrived at the million-dollar home around 10:00 P.M. I got out my uncle’s vodka and we each took two shots; I wanted to feel free. We slipped into the tepid waters of the hot tub around 10:45 P.M. The heater was broken, so the water was uncomfortably cool. I had taken off my glasses, so I was essentially blind. She began complaining about her lack of a swimsuit, how her wet underwear and bra made her feel itchy. I suggested she remove the annoying garments, since I couldn’t see anything anyways. I took off my swimsuit as well; it was logical at the time. It was 11:27 P.M. She said the water was too cold, so I suggested the bathtub. I began running the water into the tub while she waited in the spa. When it was hot, we made the switch. It was 11:38 P.M. I lit a few candles, their flames burning desperately towards the heavens. The bathtub was small, small enough so she was close enough so I could see everything in the flash of the second it took for me to slip in beside her into the embrace of her curves. It was glorious. It was 11:43 P.M. We descended into silence after my words ran dry; it was peaceful with her, like a forest before the predator strikes. She began stroking my knee with her soft silky fingers. The candles continued to burn skyward while gravity pulled her hand in the opposite direction. The ethanol that had been coursing through my veins turned into a trickle. My mind began running like a hamster on its treadmill, my thoughts whirling through trust, love, lust, and the future I wanted her to be a part of. “No,” I whispered, before I opened the drain. It was 12:37 A.M. We went to bed, I blew out the candles. Thanks God, for listening.

I love you too much to taint what we have, Sarah. Everyone else who has touched me is gone; I cut them out of my paper heart—a project I’ve been putting holes into for the 19 years I’ve been alive. You’re the only one I’ve been able to say no to though; I didn’t light any candles for the others.

Revolution Time

2009-08-13T18:04:00.000-07:00

~~~>***<~~~

It was late afternoon, around 4ish I believe. I wanted to go to my all time favorite coffee shop close to my house, Revolutions Café and Bakery. As a habit, while preparing to head out of the house, I continuously talked to myself making sure I took everything I needed,

“Wo! Did I take my Persian eraser? LOL okay maybe it is made in china, but hey, I bought it from Iran! Yet I keep forgetting to take that with me every time I am headed to study...Did I take my lucky mechanical pencil?”

I always have to make sure that it is always placed in my right inside pocket of my coach purse next to my eraser. I took my bag that had all my books in it “Oh man that is some heavy bag!” I squeaked as I picked it up, not kidding you it was heavy. Every time my bag is heavy full of books, I always remember what my dad used to say in Farsi:

“if you don’t become a successful person in the future, you would make a great worker.”

He would always say this as a joke to my brother and I when we were much younger.

“Oh good old days, I miss you baba! It has been a year since I saw you last!” I sighed as I looked for my IpodTouch but came across a picture of my dad and my grandmother. “Oh G-mom I miss you too!”

Just before I was about to leave the house, I checked the weather forecast on my Ipodtouch before I lose the Wifi internet at my house. As I scrolled to the weather icon and it showed the Seattle weather as 92 degrees, a reason for me to get happier and be in a better mood as leaving my house. As I opened the door, a cool breeze touched my face gently and took my breath away for a slight moment. After just a few seconds, I opened my eyes and the sun shined in my face and deep inside, I felt as though it was like a welcoming gesture to the outside world, the world that was more than my loneliness, my feelings, my personality, rather it was the world of connections of meeting neighbors, people, connecting with nature. A world that was not just about me and my life, rather it was about everyone who lived in it. I liked that idea, and as I was thinking about it, a smile appeared at my face that when my neighbor saw me, she happily greeted me,

“Well hello there Mahta, How are you today?” She responded while she was playing with her kitten, seated at her doorstep.

“Thank you, how are you, how is little Diva doing? Where is her little brother, I saw him earlier in the morning, but he seems to not be around.”

“Oh, Damon? He is running around chasing butterflies as a habit of his, but spoiled Diva is being lazy and laying next to me for now.” She answered looking down at Diva and petting her.

“It was great seeing you, but I have to go study, hopefully I will see you when I come back.”

“Oh Definitely, good luck on all your studies and take care”

“Thank you, see ya!”

I started walking away after I glanced at Diva for a quick second who laid down on her back on the soft, green grass getting some tan. I just loved the central setting of our little house complex. A total of five single bedroom-ed house complexes built in a U-Shape just made this living surrounding be very different from the rest of the houses close by. Everyone’s main entrance door opened to a green, countryside looking setup, which more reminded me of Villas built at the north of Iran by the Caspian Sea. It just had that feel to it; it had a different setting compare to all the houses and townhouses I had lived in. As I approached the main street, 5^th Ave NE, I took a left and walked until I reached the set of townhouses that my uncle’s owned, I saw my older uncle’s black Nissan truck right outside the garage, but there were no one in the car. I looked around and went close to the garage and saw he was moving some things around and seems a little busy. As a sign of respect, I approached him,

“Hi Amu! Chetori [how are you?]”

He looked up and gave me a warm welcome as I further approached him and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek, which is typical in Persian culture.

“Bad nistam [Not bad], to chetori [how are you?], how is school?”

“School is okay, I have only a few more weeks of summer classes left and I finish on August 21^st, my last final is on that day…”

“Insha’Allah [God willing] it will be a successful quarter for you.”

“Thanks amu, I am actually headed to go studying at Revolutions, Kari dashti, baham tamas begir [If you needed anything, just give me a call], my phone is with me.”

“Bashe [okay], take care and be safe.”

I hugged him, kissed him on the cheek, said bye to him, and started walking towards the café. As After a little walk, I reached Woodlawn Ave and turned right, kept on going straight. At the second stop sign I walked on the crosswalk and turned right again. After passing couple of stores, I finally reached the café without seeing any familiar faces. While I was happy that I finally reached my destination, I was wondering where all the familiar faces disappeared to. Where they hiding behind the windows in their homes? Or were they close to the lake, getting some sun tan and enjoying the weather. “Definitely the latter” I talked to myself as I opened the café’s door.

After stepping inside, I noticed there were people sitting, some reading some talking to each other, I stopped talking to myself. I thought to myself, who would sit inside, do homework and study in this lovely weather? Only I would. But on the bright side, the café’s atmosphere was not crowded and my favorite seating spot was empty and automatically a smile reappeared on my face “Yeyness” I murmured to myself. Next I saw the three Latino brothers, the owners of Revolutions Café and Bakery behind the counter ready to greet me. They were my all time favorite people to see at the café and the most amazing ones too. Scott, Damon, and Phil I have known these brothers since I was a sophomore in high school, back in 2003-2004. Ever since then, they have considered me as a younger sister. Every time I go there when they are there, they spoil me, adore me, and tease me like no other.

“Hey Stranger, How have you been!?” Scott said in a loud voice.

“Hey you!” Damon said in a lower tone.

Phil was at the espresso machine and I guess it was his turn to talk, but funny thing, these guys never give me a chance to talk unless all of their questions are asked. LOL.

“What would you like to drink love, the usual?”

“Yep! Caramel Macchiato sounds just about perfect.” I responded.

“So how are summer classes treating you!? No boys in your life, right? I told you Mahta, if there are to be any boys in your life, they have to go through us three first!”

Scott went off talking about boys in this manner as though he really is my brother.

“No Scott, my life is crystal clear; there is sometimes a cloud that chills upon it once in a while, but no rain that would bring the ideal guy along with it!”

I hated to lie, but I had to. I could not mention a single word about my boyfriend; it just was not a time to do so. I had a lot to do and could not risk wasting my time. You can’t really call it time wasting, but I’m sure there would be a better time to discuss this matter than this time. I mean I was so very behind on my studies that I needed to get caught up.

“Okay, well when you do so, and when there a guy appears in your life, you be sure to bring him here for one of the first dates so that we can see him too.”

Then he curled his hands into a fist then started slowly punching the palm of his other hand with it. Right then I started thinking to myself, “No way Scott, you are going to scare the crap out of the poor guy!”

I grabbed my coffee, put a lid on it, thanked the brothers, and went back to my favorite seating spot. I sat down, cleared the space in front of me, opened my laptop, turned it on and started checking my email, facebook, and instant messengers to see who is online. My boyfriend was online, but invisible, he started messaging me online. For the third time in a single day, there appeared another smile on my face. There is a saying that when certain thing happens for the third time in a short period of time, it means something positive…I believe they say: Third time is a charm. I looked around and noticed that everyone is paying attention to their own work and it seemed as though no one had noticed my smile. I chatted with him for ten minutes, and as understanding as he is, he said to call him when I was on my way back to my house. He made sure to repeat “Make sure to go home before it gets too dark, I don’t want you to walk home in the dark” three times. After I assured him that I will do as he said, he said buy and in his convincing manners, encouraged me to focus on school work. I tried to focus even though facebook was a great distraction.

“Mahta, if you finish your math homework, you can surf on the web for fifteen minutes, promise.” I murmured to myself in a convincing way.

I found that always encouraging. To tell myself if you do a certain thing, such as homework, I would give myself a bonus for it. And this time, the bonus was not chocolate; rather it was chilling online and looking through my facebook profile as part of my addictive habit.

I finished all my work at about eight pm. I was super surprised that I was able to focus so greatly and achieve my goal. I put my laptop on hibernation, closed all my books, placed everything in my bag, threw my paper cup from the Caramel Macchiato in the garbage, said hi to the brothers and left the café. It was sunset time; I called my boyfriend back and talked to him until I reached my doorstep. What a beautiful day, what a positive day, a day fulfilled with good attitude, good people and away from negative energy. The thanks to go to the beautiful shiny sun, the infamous Revolution Café and Bakery, Scott, Damon, Phil and my beloved! A day like this is nothing but a revolution in my life, as a result of visiting Revolution, I see the changes it has made in my life too.

Seattle’s Great Place: Coexistence of the Two Different

2009-08-12T23:11:00.000-07:00

August 7th, 2009, Friday night

At 11:00 P.M., a lady attiring herself in a 12’’ long, punky-plaid-pleated-wrap skirt with a tank-top and a man wearing low cut jeans, a black shirt, and a white jacket were in the line to get into the club and dance on the illuminated stage with thumping beats. A Mustang with thick, black-colored window tinting and body that was playing HIPHOP music stimulated my ears and caught my eyes. A police car pulled over due to an incident with a lady that was in front of the entrance of the club called, “The Last Supper Club.” She took out her ID despite no request from the police officer and showed it to him.

“The security doesn’t allow me to get in this stupid club even though I am not a minor and holding this valid ID. The reason they are blocking me is because they think I look like a totally different person from the picture on my ID. But it’s me. Take a look at it, please,” she asked a police officer politely but with a tinge of anger.

“The club is not my business, it’s their business. So if they don’t let you in, you can’t go in,” the officer said in a stiff way.

I guessed she turned around either to try another club or to go home. Across the street from the club, one of the homeless people picked up a cigarette butt and deeply smoked it just one time, then passed it on another homeless guy leaning against the wall of the brown-colored old brick building. It was impossible to imagine clubbers’ Saturday night without this area – the last life-jacket in a sinking vessel – known as, “Pioneer Square.”

August 8th, 2009, Saturday morning

At 10:30 A.M., I am at the same spot with different sight: parents are holding their children’s hands and taking pictures; an elderly lady wearing jeans and natty t-shirt is taking a picture of her friend with the antique-style porch of the brown-colored brick building as the background; for the signs, instead of using typical boring signboards, stores labels themselves with graffiti art such as the stores ‘Bookbinding & Restoration,’ ‘The Pottery School,’ ‘Apanda Rug Gallery,’ ‘Handmade Paper,’ and ‘Hand Weaving’; a red-colored ‘Gray Line of Seattle’ tour bus is waiting at the traffic signal; totem-polls representing native American look down on people. I don’t smell alcohol or see any drunk people; instead, aromas from coffee and baking shops stimulates the nerves of my nose.

A couple of days ago, I read an article, “Coffee shops pull the plug on laptop users,” by Erica Alini in The Wall Street Journal. While reading this article, I was frustrated with the café, losing their unique merit as being a snug place. Coffee shops in Brooklyn, N.Y., have started not allowing customers to take a rest or work using their laptops during lunchtime unless they order a lunch menu; people aren’t allowed to take tables with their laptop with only an order of a cup of coffee. Some coffee shops have already locked their electric outlets. I understand the economy is still under severe recession, and the shops are struggling with running their coffee shops without deficit. But I believe a coffee shop shouldn’t lose its family members: a writer, composing a poem and an essay; a business man, having a meeting with his partner; a student, doing homework; an old gentleman, reading a newspaper with a coffee along with tranquil music. By coffee shops doing this kind of ‘lockdown,’ they take away the element that makes the shop such a cozy place to customers which some would regard as their second home.

Exactly 20 tables and 40 chairs occupies along the walls of the three sides of the café, named “ZOKA.” Under every single table, an electric outlet is ready for laptop users. People are taking time as much as they want using their laptops. In the middle of the café, three brown-colored leather sofas and some tables along with chairs are taken by people reading newspapers or books. Every single table and chair has distinct scratches – not like sleek tables in Starbucks - and I feel hot because of no air-conditioning. Walls are unpretentiously adorned with Black-and-white photograph frames. However, the café is full of people. Even though Starbucks – full of air-conditioning, neat with tidy tables, and faddish decorations - is at right across the street, the people are enjoying their pastime with these antique decorations and ornament here –the last oasis in a desert, at least for them. I am also relaxed and feel at home.

I order a pastry and a 12-Oz size coffee, named ‘cozy latte’ made of orange, hazelnut, caramel, and whole milk. This is the only café that has this latte. Considering me a tourist after getting a glimpse at my camera hanging on my shoulder, the barista talks about her pride of the café: roasting coffee beans by herself; baking everyday and providing people with fresh pastries, croissants, and bagels; fresh lettuce, tomatoes, chickens, cucumbers, and onions from the local farmers for sandwiches; donating leftover bread and sandwiches for homeless people. Her confident voice, speaking in a polite way and her thick makeup help me to realize that she is the lady who was talking to the police officer to get into the club yesterday night. Who’s to say that baristas working for a café listening to classic music a whole day cannot go to a club?

Pioneer Square is like the lady ‘Cinderella’ in a classic folk-tale: at night, it becomes a haven for clubbers’ night lives; in the day, it becomes a peaceful atmosphere with people enjoying the unique and antique environment. I wonder if Pioneer Square’s own historical identification is fading because of the clubs. However, the clubs I saw yesterday were not ornamented with splendor neon sign. Furthermore, what really amazes me is that I can’t find any trash or cigarette butts in front of the clubs which look like old stores. It seems as if the people working for clubs are pretty cooperative to build up a clean, historical atmosphere. The clubs might help this old village alive even at night.

-Donghyo Min

Travelogue Dialogue

2009-08-12T06:45:00.000-07:00

“You know I’m really kind of looking forward to meeting up with you this time. I don’t always, you know.”

“Meeting up with me? I’m already here,” Journey remarked.

“Oh.

“I guess we did begin when I decided to not start out on the trail in Snohomish, as I usually do. I should have realized you were here when I had to pull out the map. I knew where I wanted to start, I just didn’t know how to get there,” I commented. “The road winds around a little bit, but I don’t have to switch roads very many times— just turn right when this one ends, then go straight again ‘till I hopefully recognize where I am… … I always love you come around: uncertainty becomes fun with you.”

“Hmph. Then why don’t you join me more often?”

“I know, and I’m sorry. Being human, I forget how much fun we can have together. But, I have been purposefully not bringing my ipod for these roller-blading outings so that we could spend some more quality time with each other.”

“I don’t understand why people so often ignore me, or forget me,” sighed Journey.

“I don’t either,” I answered. “Maybe we’ll figure it out today. I just love these county back roads. Hardly any other cars, no bicycles to watch out for like in the city, and it’s all foliaged with ferns and bushes and trees.”

“I like the drive. The curves and the acceleration— the velocity kind of acceleration— the change in direction not just the change in speed. I wish you’d drive faster! Come on,” Journey urged.

“No! There’s no hurry, and I’m going fast enough to enjoy the thrill without the danger of ending up in a ditch, or squished into some other car. What would I do if that happened? I wouldn’t be able to look my parents in the face ever again.”

Journey grumbled. “You’re the one who always complains that her life is boring. You know if you just let loose a little more often you’d have more friends.”

“Hey! Just because I’m lonely and bored doesn’t-mean-I’m-going-to-humiliate-myself-by-acting-stupidjusttofitinorhavesomefunor—”

“Ok, whoa! Stop sign ahead!” Sigh. “Ok, I’m sorry. I know you’re sensitive about that, and, I think you’re right to keep your individuality. One day someone will love you for just that. It’ll just...take longer.”

“I know. Ah! See, I knew I would start to recognize where I was. Here’s the trailhead we usually blade to from Snohomish. Why do they call it ‘trailhead’ anyway? It’s certainly not the top of the trail. It’s more of a ‘trail-middle’ or ‘trail-stomach.’ ” I smile.

“Doesn’t sound as cool I guess. Right, so go change and we’ll be push off.”

I climb out of the car and walk around to lean in to the trunk and pull out my exercise garb. The ground grates and crunches under my shoes until I cross border from gravel parking lot to paved path. As I approach the restrooms an older gentleman watching the children romping around on the other side of the trail comments to me, “Doesn’t it make you wish you were that age again?”

“That, or just have one of those,” I look over to the playset, “blown up to our size.” I smile at him before I continue on and disappear behind the door labeled with a faded “LADIES.”

“You may say that, but would you really play on one if it were made to your size?” Journey criticized.

“I might… If I was with the right people. Or if nobody was around.”

I change quickly and efficiently in the grimy, cool restroom, then head back to my car. The gentleman was no longer sitting where he had been. I look ahead to see a car pulling out of lot and him in the driver’s seat; he glances my way and I give a smiled nod in acknowledgment.

I plop down on the ledge of my now open trunk and proceed with my ritual of precautions: first the almost knee-high socks, to keep my lower legs from chafing on the upper portion of my roller-blades. Then, the pair of ankle athletic socks, to protect my wide, flat feet from the blisters that attempt to form on my arches, get pulled on. Then come the knee pads, the roller-blades— secured snugly— and lastly, the wrist guards.

“You know, I’m still surprised you don’t put those elbow pads and a helmet,” Journey mocked.

“Its not that likely I’ll fall on my elbows, or especially my head, without first catching myself with my hands.”

“Or butt. Do they even make butt-guards?”

I push the trunk down and press a button on my keys; I hear the satisfying ka-chunk of the locks engaging, and lights wink at me. As I awkwardly make my way across the stones, I wedge the keys between the palm of my left hand and the wrist guard.

I launch off from the coastline of gravel, freed from the jerky gate having of having to walk in roller-blades. Not far beyond the trailhead, I pass five-mile marker, “Guess that means we should go at least to mile nine— that’ll be sufficient exercise right?”

“Better still to go to ten— lets see how far we can go. But for sure, mile marker eight or nine is good enough if you get tired.”

I soon get into the tempo of, “one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three-Mississippi… You know I’ve occasionally wondered how it is that my parents taught me that way to count the seconds. Everyone else I know seems to have been taught the ‘thousands-theme,’ which is just not as fun or creative if you ask me. Do you think they made it up on our family trips down the Mississippi river?”

“Possibly. You were around about seven for those trips, right? The timing could be right with teaching how to count the seconds. You could always ask them.”

“I feel like I’m boating down a river right now on this trail. Its shaped like one, and when the pavement buckles, its like going over a wave, and the wind passing by my ears is like sailing. Even the way these roller-blades creak remind me of the groaning of ropes of old ships.

“Roller-blading is such an amazing mode of transportation— it’s so smooth it makes walking look jarring, and running even worse: all that bouncing and pounding on the pavement, it looks painful. Why would anyone do that to their body? And its slower too. It’s not so boringly direct or monotonously circling like ‘cycling. The motion of roller-blading is almost hypnotic— the swaying back and forth as you push side to side, from one leg to the other; its like the steady gentle rocking of ship. Soothing”

“What are you? Turning poet on me now?”

“I can if I want to. And I think do want to right now. The fields and pastures were pocket oceans as she floated past, peering across at the occasional shipwrecked and collapsing barn; pondering whether treasure troves were possibly closeted within.

“While she went, her open oceans wandered away, and in their place, a restricted river ran, cliffed in by chain-link fence and depressed by weary warehouses and —

“—Wouldn’t dreary be better? Make the alliteration not quite so blatantly obvious?”

“… and depressed by dreary warehouses and cheerless lumber yards. Yes I suppose that might be better. She sailed by a duo of ugly whistling seagulls while the miles scuttled by.”

“Those were two men giving you the wolf-whistle.”

“What was the last mile marker?”

“Eight.”

“So we’ve gone three miles. Not too bad, but what do you say we keep going? It’ll give those two back there time to fly off.”

“Sure, why not. We’re not tired yet anyway.”

“The river stretched miles on, and fewer fellow seafarers passed by as the buildings petered away. The waterway became private once more. Leaving no wake, she left behind a lake, her legs steadily rowing away the pavement. Wait. A lake?”

“Yes, a lake. You just passed it.”

“I didn’t know there was a lake up here.” I turned around rolled back the distance I had travelled past. “It’s kind of marshy looking. Reminds me of the Florida Keys in way. If the Keys were under gray overcast skies like these and cleared out and shrunken down a bit, I think it might look like this little lake.”

“Since when does the Florida Keys have coontails?”

“It was just an impression. It not like I really remember the Keys— that trip was way too long ago.”

“Well, read that information board or go out on that dock? Which first?”

“The board is right in the way of the dock, so might as well check that out first.” I rolled around the square information structure, skimming as I went and learning the lake’s name: Cassidy. Then I began down the small dock that stuck out through the marshy and tall vegetation to just reach onto open water. “Wow, docks are treacherous for wheel-footed pedestrians.”

“Did you expect planks to be easy to roll across?” When I reached the end, I made my way cautiously, and awkwardly, down to a sitting position, draping my legs over the edge to let my feet hang heavily over the water.

“I read on the board back there that this lake has a watershed of over twenty times its own size. Just imagine: if those clouds up there decided to cry, the land for probably four square miles around would soak up the tears and drain them into this lake.”

“Perhaps you have a large watershed too, and that’s why you feel you have to seclude yourself from lots of people; you have to protect yourself from pollution.”

“But it is really so important to be so well protected? It’s such a lonely lake.”

“But those that come here are so much more rewarded by the beauty.”

“Beauty? The sign confirmed it had the darkest waters of any lake in the county.”

“But isn’t the way it can perfectly reflect things beautiful? And the dark color means it’s really high in algae and nutrients, which leads to happy fish and plants, and even happier fisherman, and botanists.”

“Lake Cassidy suffers from excessive algae and nutrients according to the sign.”

“Argh! Ok, you know what? I give up. I’m tired of trying to love you!”

“Well, you’re not the only who’s tired of it! Its not easy with you either. See, this is why people have boyfriends and girlfriends.”

“Since you can’t seem to clear your murky waters enough to let anyone see what's inside you, your stuck with me.”

“Will you just shut up?”

“You know I can’t, nor won’t, until you have a conversation with someone.”

I heard a scuffle and click from behind me. I jerk up from my folded over position, unaware that I had become so unaware of my surroundings, and look behind me. A biker had come more than halfway down the dock with me noticing. He spoke. “Ah, I though maybe you were fishin.”

“Uh? oh. ha! No. I’m not fishing,” I blurted out, and before I had truly become aware again of the rippling water, the lily pads, the tall coontails, the splintered wooden dock, and the gray light, he had already mounted his bike again and ridden off. I remained gazing a little while down the dock where he had so suddenly appeared and disappeared. I turned back to stare at the water. The miniature waves all crowded up next to each other, traveling steadily to the left. The constant movement made me feel as if I too were being pulled along with them. It was discerning to feel in motion yet stationary.

“Perhaps I should be fishing.”

“Perhaps you should.”

“You never do shut up do you?”

“No.”

“I guess I can’t turn my own brain off. I don’t even think I know how to fish. I think I’ve been hoping a fish will just fall into my net.”

“Its possible. It will just...”

“Take longer. I know.”

“But, it’ll mean that the fish will have really wanted to be your fish.”

“Or it’s just a really dumb fish for jumping in a net in the first place,” I joke.

“Are you ready to head back yet?”

“It’s so peaceful.”

“You can’t stay here forever. And I’m getting a little bored. Come on let’s go.”

“But… I… sigh… I wish…sigh… Okay.”

I make my way back across the dock as I had before, with my wheels barely controllably slipping and then catching on the planks. “Before today, I hadn’t realized how hazardous docks are to roller-blades. I hope don’t I fall in.”

“A lot of good all those knee pads and wrist guards would do you then. Not to mention those heavy roller-blades— no hope of swimming with those things strapped to your feet.”

“I guess I’ll be really careful then.”

“The challenge is awfully fun though, you must admit.”

“Yeah, it is.”

Beach 4: Oh the Memories...(-_-);

2009-08-12T00:27:00.000-07:00

Gusts of wind whipped across my face, sending the loose strands of my hair up, down, left, and right. My windbreaker clung to my form uncomfortably not only from the wind, but the cold ocean spray. My hiking shoe clad feet feeling for every crack and crevice within these boulders were aching from constant exertion. As I trekked and squeezed my way through these rocks, all I could think was, “Don’t fall Aidan. Oh my god...WHERE IS NGUYEN?!” They all varied in sizes of “large,” all were wider and thicker than a man, but their heights differed. Some only reached my knees while others were the height of 3 story apartments. These gray and brown giants stood imposing on the beach offering any visitor a challenge…or at least something to do here.

Beach 4 is not postcard pretty compared to its more popular neighbors Kalaloch and Ruby Beach. Its neighbors offer casual strolls with the waves gently rolling in and out along its smooth expanse of sandy coast. Beach 4 is not like that. Not at all in this little secluded beach. Casual stroll meant waddling through uneven pits of sand mixed with odd sizes of pebbles and seaweed for an extra slippery feel. Pale weather beaten logs are strewn across the shore with the majority resting against the cliff encircling Beach 4. Instead of sitting on the sand (the rocks in it hurt your bottom), you would sit on these logs, which occasionally had a termite or row of ants crawling about. Why I liked Beach 4 was because its hulking boulders offered great views of the ocean, but I needed help getting to the best spot. I seriously regretted asking my brother because this was not the help I imagined getting.

“Aidan, what the hell?! Hurry it up! It’s almost high tide!” Nguyen hollered, his narrow eyes squinting to protect his vision from the wind and water. There my brother stood wearing Nike sandals, t-shirt, and shorts staring across at me from the gap that separated us. Squatting down he beckoned at a small rock below between the two much larger rocks we stood on. “Jump on that and then climb up here,” he ordered not caring for the fact that I had to hop onto a rock the width of my shoes while the waves-coming in stronger and higher-pushed through between our two stones. I was going to get either 1) swept away into the ocean or 2) slammed into a larger rock by the waves.

“ARE YOU CRAZY?! I CAN’T JUMP FROM UP HERE ONTO THAT MIDGET ROCK! I’LL FALL!” I wailed flailing my arms angrily before gesturing toward another safer, but longer route on the shore. He looked unfazed as I had a panic attack.

“…Just do it and hurry, we need to get there”-he pointed toward a lone colossal beach rock-“do it. NOW.” He commanded. Perhaps it was that innate obedience of a younger sibling to listen to everything her brother commanded-no matter how stupid-but I jumped on “now.” Before my mind even registered the fact I landed on the narrow rock safely, I already leapt forward digging my shoes into a crevice on my brother’s rock before hauling myself onto it. Nguyen looked down at me shaking his head before running across the other rocks not even bothering to watch his step. All those gaps, slippery seaweed, and waves slamming against the rocks did not even faze him as he sprinted across, widening the distance between us again.

Each boulder is smooth under patches of dry mussels, barnacles, and seaweed. These patches were like sores on the stones causing the careless wanderer scratches or slips. That’s why not many run across these rocks except Nguyen, and now me. I hated that pity look my brother gave me. It was that kind of look when a sport fanatic father realizes his son would never be an athlete. A deep disappointment. I became angry and reckless.

Thump, thump, crick, crick, crack my shoes crushed the barnacles beneath my feet after each hop and step. Every gap posing a significant distant I didn’t bother to second-guess myself. I just jumped, grasped, climbed, pulled, and ran. All the while thinking, “That jerk! Leaving me behind like that. Fine! Don’t wait! I’ll get PASS you AND I’ll climb to the top of that thingy before you. Mwahahahaha!”

Before long, I was one leap away from Nguyen. Jumping onto his rock to announce my arrival, I took a few steps toward him grinning with my eyes closed in glee. I shouldn’t have closed my eyes and walked forward for all I heard next was “Hey, watch-“ before sinking one of my legs-thigh deep- into a tide pool. Half my shorts were soaked in murky seawater and I was positive that squishy feeling under my shoe was a poor sea anemone crushed. My other leg on the surface was at an odd kneeling angle. I looked like someone attempting a poor front split. Nguyen doubled over with laughter.

“HAHAHAHAHAHA…”
“Help me out! It actually hurts!”
“PFFT! Hold on hahaha I need to laugh a bit more hahaha.”
“Quit it! HELP ME!”

I attempted to swat at him with my arm to get him to help me. Calming down a bit, Nguyen reached forward and yanked me up. Before I could open my mouth to complain, he pointedly looked up. Following his gaze, I realized we made it to our destination. It was HUGE close up. At least the height of a 3-story apartment complex. There was no way we could climb to the top.

“HOLD UP! We can’t-“
“We’re just climbing near the middle,” he pointed towards a long narrow gap in the column, “Besides, the tide is already coming in pretty far.”

I nervously eyed the shore and noticed how the waves crashed dangerously close to the logs near the cliff. Noticing how calm Nguyen was I figured if he was okay about this, I should be too. I mean he wouldn’t put either of us in harm? Right? Nguyen leapt onto the base of our obstacle and looked over to me, “Well, are you going to try first? Or are you too scared?” I was scared and now I didn't want to be ahead of him.

“well…”
“Forget it, I don’t want to be behind you anyways. I don’t want to die if you fall off onto me.”

He went first wiggling his sandal-clad foot into each crack and crevice before heaving himself higher. I followed his lead sticking my hiking boot in the same spots feeling for places to grip. It was like rock climbing but with water splashing on you. We had no other stones around to block the waves; each came down on us mercilessly. Each smack caused both of us to brace ourselves with our faces either looking down or in the opposite direction of the wave. Before long, both of us were shivering, wet, and covered with sediment. Still, we climbed on eyeing the center of our rock as the safe haven. After a few more steps involving a close slip, and three slaps by the waves later we reached right below the center. Nguyen hauled himself up and sat on the ledge before looking down at me with something akin to surprise that I was still there.

Tch* he probably thought I would have gave up or something.

Nguyen extended his arm out to me waiting as I simply stared at his hand. Ummm...What? Was this a trick or unforced display of sibling care? I was actually contemplating this in my mind while he waited. Snorting at my delayed response, he reached forward to grasp my upper arm and yanked me upwards.

"Ouch! That hurt!"
"Whatever, you were taking too long."

I settled myself down next to him pulling up my knees to rest my chin on them, while he dangled his legs over the ledge. We both stared out at the ocean with its white ridges rippling on the surface and seagulls flying across the cloud-laden sky. The ocean stretched far to the point where I didn’t know where it ended. Neither of us said anything to one another but that was okay, it felt nice up there just chilling quietly with Nguyen. After five minutes, Nguyen pushed himself off his seat before crouching down to leave.

“What we’re leaving-“
“You want to get stuck here? Go ahead, just know that I won’t come get you even if you cry.”
“Whatever, too bad you would otherwise Dad would kill you.”

Ignoring my last comment, Nguyen began his trip downwards with me closely behind. Funny enough, getting down was much easier than going up.

“You know Nguyen, the ocean looks a lot bigger for some reason up here.”
“Being up here, what else can you do but notice how big it really is?”

He was right. When you’re put in a place completely out of the norm, only then do you fully realize some of the simplest things. When we reached the bottom of the rock, Nguyen punched my shoulder before propelling himself forward and leapt onto the sand. He turned and grinned at me before running off, widening the distance between us again.

-AiDan Tran

The Hill People of the North American Continent

2009-08-11T21:27:00.000-07:00

The air was humid as people stood shoulder to shoulder amid the thick crowd; I could feel the warm breath of exhale on my neck, and the sweating skin of others as I stood looking forward with the other sea of heads fixed on the musicians in the distance. Above, the sky was dark and suitably moonless.

When the moon has rotated twelve times around the earth, one can find the tribe locally known as the Hill People in one of their most admired community celebrations. Tonight, July 25th, is the last night of the final moon, which merits the celebration I'm visiting. The celebration is a grand assembly of local men and women in a gathering for music, dancing, and festivities, an event unfamiliar to scholars and anthropologists. I was fortunate enough to befriend one of these Hill People at a young age, one who was kind enough to be my guide as I travelled through this bizarre congregation of the emerging masses that he called his kin.

I knew the young man in highschool. He was tall and lanky, his hair was brown and explosively frizzled above his pale skin. He often stole wind instruments from the band room, running through the halls blowing as hard as he could while randomly mashing keys. Sunny, though not his real name, wears a long sleeved black shirt with red letters splaying DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education); he often accompanies this shirt with either a tobacco or marijuana cigarette, or if he feels jaunty, a combination of the two which is aptly named a “spliff”. “It helps me jive,” he tells me in a rough translation. His pants are somewhat tight, and his shoes are colorful with a swoosh on the side. He also carries a pack slung over his shoulder, the contents of which he has yet to reveal to me.

Located at about forty-seven degrees North and one-hundred-and-twenty-two degrees West, the Hill People are a subset of a more general population that lives in the northwest region of the United States, particularly in Seattle, Washington. They live on what is more formally known as “Capitol Hill”, which is just a few blocks, a stone's throw, away from the towering twenty-first century buildings of downtown Seattle. The Hill People have been somewhat swallowed by the city. Most of them walk among the crowds of normal residents of Seattle, generally as college students, artists, freelance writers, musicians, and environmentalists. Some may have more normal jobs, and thus are actually considered to be employed. However, such status among outsiders is often looked down upon in Hill culture.

“I don't just wanna be a part of The Machine,” Sunny put more clearly, adjusting his thick- rimmed glasses. We entered his realm under orange street-light and passed an enormous white banner which hung overhead reading the words “Capitol Hill Block Party”. He was taking me to the stage where music is played, which was placed at the end of a wide concrete street. It was flooded with his people. There were thousands of heads, crawling, moving in the street as puffs of exhaled smoke curled upward at random. Many of them had body art, tattoos which made their white forearms dark, or they had piercings which shone silver just below their noses. One held a primitive mode of transportation above their head: it was a board with two wheels on each end.

The red-brick buildings that bordered the streets funnelled the people to the tall scaffolding of the stage. These buildings were their dwellings, and above me, young men and women burst onto the rusting metal fire-escapes to get a better view from their apartments. One woman, scantily clothed and properly pierced, stood on the railing, screaming at the crowd below as she balanced herself with a beer can in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

Pushing through the crowd, like a ship breaking through ice, we approached closer to the stage. The music was no longer a tune, but noise which vibrated my chest cavity and one has to scream just to be heard by the person next to them. Sunny removed his pack and opened it.

“Hold this” he yelled over the music, handing me a tall bundle of vegetables labelled “organic”. The leaves tickled my face as I held celery sticks, carrots and spinach. Others around us looked at me for a moment with their pierced noses and eyebrows, then smiled in understanding. The smell of the carrots was refreshing from the sweet odor of vomit, as well as the raging humidity rising from the crowd.

“Are we making soup?” I asked, realizing the sarcasm of my question was unnatural and awkward when I yelled as hard as I could.

“Nah, man, we're smokin'.” He revealed a loaf of bread. Ripping it open, he pulled out what I realized was a sandwich bag filled with green nuggets of drugs. And in the spinach head, he had hidden a glass smoking pipe. When I asked later what the carrots and celery were for, he cleverly admitted that he used them “to throw off the old dude checking bags at the gate.”

Although the Hill People's annual block party is theirs, the city of Seattle still technically regulates it with police and mandates security. This means that all bags must be checked upon entrance to the festival, a controversial requirement which puts certain aspects of Hill culture underground.

Consequently, many a part of the culture consider themselves to be highly progressive, far more progressive than the rest of the society they are surrounded by. In this case, they are considered very progressive in the legalisation of drugs, particularly marijuana. It follows that they do not care much for the structure of tradition and heritage, particularly in their own family lineage. This can explain why many Hill People seek spirituality in Eastern religions such as Buddhism, rather than in the Christianity of their ancestors. Many actually see Christianity as backwards and consider Christians to be brainwashed. Yet, despite their progressive thoughts, they are not well represented in U.S. federal government, and items such as drugs, drug paraphernalia, and musical instruments are not permitted during their own festival. Possession of these items will result in prosecution.

“You're going to do drugs out in public?” I asked.

“Yeah dude, it's a ritual,” Sunny assured me.

“You got a light?” He continued after a pause of ear-piercing music. I pulled out my cell-phone, offering its bright light.

“Nah, man, a lighter,” he replied with a smile; he asked a neighbour when I replied that I did not. After inhaling, he handed me the pipe.

“I don't smoke,” I replied.

“You sure?”

“I'm sure.”

I stood there, feeling my lower spine straining, my skin wet with sweat. As I watched the band through the backs of hundreds of heads, I suddenly realized that virtually no one spoke to each other. All attention was given to the band. This is less an ideal of respect as it is an ideal of individualism. The Hill culture is highly individualistic, and few would consider themselves to be part of a larger homogeneous group.

Despite their belief in the distinguishment of individualism, they also believe strongly in equality. On the surface, many from the Hill culture believe that individuals should be treated the same through a measure of value or status. Yet, this creates problems and tension as each one believes that they are different from everyone else, and selectively surround themselves with others who they also view as distinguished from the rest of their society.

As a result of their personal belief in individualism, many would also strictly separate themselves from what they call the “Typical American.” When I asked Sunny his thoughts on the matter, he scowled at the idea of what he saw as “getting married and raising some shitty Christian family in a McHouse with two-point-five kids.”

After staring at the band for some time, Sunny's eyes, now pink and only half open, lazily swung over to me. He stared down at the carrots I was still holding out in front of me.

“You gonna eat that?” he finally asked in a dull voice.

Tired of holding them, I handed over the orange bundle of vegetation.

I looked up at the sky once again, watching the faint light of an airliner slowly pass by. I felt envious of its passengers: comfortably sitting, watching a fine selection of Hollywood films, enjoying a complementary dinner of peanuts with a fork and knife. If I was old enough to drink, I could even have my own bottle of cheap wine to help me pass out.

I’ve had particular interest in the Hill People’s knowledge of food and its healing power, particularly in the form of potion. Before we had arrived at the celebrations, I had been in what Sunny calls his home, a walled den in a red brick building, much like the ones we were surrounded by. I had asked to use his restroom, but became intrigued by the artefacts I encountered along the way. Perhaps the most interesting one was a soup bowl which contained colorful fruit-like pebbles, suspended in a thick white, sour substance which I later identified as aged milk. A silver spoon rested in the mix, crusted onto the rim of the bowl. “That shit’s good medicine for a hangover,” Sunny said, noticing my intrigue. Unfortunately, he took the bowl away before I could retrieve a sample.

Perhaps that’s what has intrigued me about the hill people: their profound ability to survive - to find nourishment and healing in a mixture of cow’s milk and processed sugars, to be able to live in compartments of primitive tall brick shanties, and to be able to find amusement and pleasure in the destruction of their ear drums and lungs.

There is much to learn from this neglected tribe. And so I stood among them that evening, staring into the bright spotlights of the stage as they twirled to briefly illuminate the audience, watching as the light glowed in dyed blue hair and twinkled in an array of thorned piercings.