Parallel Lives

Rush hour on public transportation is sort of a democratization of human closeness. A stranger does not have to know me to sit so near that our thighs have practically melded together. This isn't a story about the posters that read: "A Crowded Subway is No Excuse for an Inappropriate Touch." Rather, this post is a simple observation of two gentlemen who stood back to back for 50 blocks.

They were so close that they we touching, but they never made eye contact. I was close enough that I was basically breathing down both of their necks, and could closely observe them both.

They seemed to be from different walks of life. One was wearing a well-cut suit and tie and reading The Economist; the other was in a yellow hooded sweatshirt and a trucker hat reading a religious magazine in Spanish. By my estimates, they were approximately the same age--late forties, early fifties. They seemed so different, and I naturally made assumptions that could be totally wrong (because you know that saying "when we assume we make an ass of u and me.") But it got me thinking about an assertion Joan Didion makes in an essay about New York. She says that it is a town for the "very rich and the very poor." I may pose the addendum and the young (who are sometimes also poor-ish). These two men and I may have been that trio.

The men were standing so close that they probably would have been able to feel each other's back sweat if they hadn't been wearing a sports jacket and a hoodie, but they actually never talked or saw the other's face. As I let my contemplation of them consume my mind for the better part of my commute, I found myself wishing I could follow them both home and see how they lived.

Or better yet, I wanted a Freaky Friday scenario and to have these two men switch lives.

But the thing is, besides being crammed tightly together in the subway, their lives will never touch.

Kurt Vonnegut

I really like that guy. I wish he was still alive.

Here's one of my favorite quotes from the above novel:

There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look. I am proof of that.

Actually, that phrase develops a hint of sadness a couple chapters later, but honestly, the character who said it probably wouldn't take it back.

 

Hey, Fall. You Beautiful Season, You.

Today felt legitimately autumnal. I woke up and was actually cold as I wandered about the apartment in the morning. However, despite the morning temperatures, it was one of those perfect autumn Sundays. It seriously felt like all of New York City was out on the streets, but it was such a divine day that the crowds made me want to embrace greater humanity rather than hide in an underground bunker.

I decided to hit up Washington Square Park, since that would have likely been a regular haunt of mine if I ever attended college at the New York University home campus.

I felt irresistibly drawn to this cupcake and made it mine. It was good, but my official cupcake critique would be that the cake itself was dense rather than fluffy and was rather bland.

 These guys were great. The trio consisted of a saxophone, double bass and drum kit and their seemingly imporvised jazz provided the perfect ambiance in Washington Square.

When I came home, I fully embraced the autumnal chill by digging my flannel pajamas from the depths of my dresser. I'm sure the cold will rattle my bones and earn some scorn eventually, but right now I am absolutely loving donning warm socks and my favorite pajamas.

I Made a Hat with My Hands

I've had a two year hat-making hiatus. However, during autumn of 2011, I spent many hours in front of the warm glow of the television with a crochet hook in my hand. That Christmas family members got crudely made beanies. Some of those hats turned out better than others. The one I made for my father was more suited to sheath a prize-winning watermelon than a human head. Hopefully, he just took it as an indication of how I perceive his cranial abilities. In Revolution-era America, they painted men of high esteem with ridiculously massive foreheads because having a large "brain-space" was suppose to be a sign of intellect.

Anyway, this morning I made myself remember how to crochet a hat. I told myself I wasn't allowed to shower or leave the apartment until I made a presentable product.

My first attempt was a mess of yarn. I kept thinking, "Maybe this will eventually mold into a hat shape."

 Then, I had an epiphany.

Gray blob is attempt #1

The epiphany was that I was basically doing everything wrong. And I can't even semantically explain was I was doing wrong because I know zero crocheting terminology.

In the end, I created something resembling a cap, and although it is definitely not the finest piece of hand-craftiness, I donned it to go into the city--after I took the shower I'd been withholding from myself.

Trivia: Beanies were originally called "watch caps" because they were worn by sailors during their "watch." Then those skateboarder types took to wearing them as a sartorial symbol of their subculture and started calling them beanies. According to the Oxford Dictionary, the etymology of the term beanie is uncertain, but they thing it could be a called that because apparently somewhere in the world "bean" is a slang term for head. And actually, the very first beanies originated in a village in Wales in the 12th century. I could actually tell you even more because I just spent an inordinate amount of time researching the history of the knit stocking cap.

The Best Flashback Post Ever: College Crushes

I was exuberant to find a cache of photos from an afternoon Amanda and I passed in a library study room during our Junior year (I think) at BYU.

I lived off-campus and between our work schedules (I was dishing out burritos and delivering pizzas, and Amanda was educating beginners on the finer points of film and staffing the grounds office) and earning ourselves college degrees, dedicated friend time was hard to come by. One fine day we orchestrated an hour or so to hang out, and to be able to discuss our many flights of fancy and girlish whims, we reserved a library study room so we could divulge secrets and analyze the desires of our hearts in privacy. 

Reserving library study rooms became a pleasure of mine; once I realized they didn't police them to ensure you were engaged in scholarly pursuits, they became private oases (that's the plural of oasis, I just learned) in a school teeming with tens of thousands of people. 

Later on, I reserved a room so I could interview Amanda's then-fiancee, now-husband before her bridal shower.

Amanda and I were varsity-level M.A.S.H. players. For those not familiar with M.A.S.H., you have missed out on a vital ritual of American girlhood (and apparently for Amanda and I, American young adulthood--as we are at least 20 here...) You make lists of potential husbands, potential careers, the number of children one may potentially have, the age at which one may be wed, and the acronym M.A.S.H. refers to the type of dwelling you will occupy (Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House). Then you choose a random number, and begin counting and crossing out names when they land on the number until you have only one option in each category, and--BAM--your future is made clear. 

Everyone plays this in elementary school, but Amanda and I resurrected the art of M.A.S.H. on our yellow legal pads as we waited in hallways and rode buses to debate tournaments as high school upperclassmen, and as evidenced by the above photographs continued our practice of the art of M.A.S.H. into our college years.

Apparently on this occasion, post-M.A.S.H. we graphically analyzed our affection for various men in our lives. This sort of calculation of seems sort of clinical and unfeeling, but I assure you, we were full of feeling. Hence, the need for the feeling to spill out into charts, so the data could be discussed among company well associated with the subject matter in a way that yielded clear-headed conclusions. (Okay, maybe just a little unfeeling.) 

Actually, I am kind of embarrassed by my chart. Obviously not embarrassed enough to keep it off the internet. But if you look closely the dotted line running parallel to the X axis is labelled "Nice Guy" and the Y axis is labelled "Scale of love (in degrees of hotness)". I'm sure even at the time I was being a little hokey, but it is now forever recorded on the internet.

Anyway, good friends are a wonderful thing to have. I think that's why I was so jubilant to find these pictures tucked away on a file in my external hard drive. 

***Okay, and can everyone please note how I so considerately obscured the names of the boys who made it onto our lists? Actually, I mostly did it for myself, since I am too private a person to ever so publicly declare the names of boys that have been objects of my infatuation. However, it took me like 30 minutes to figure out a way to edit them that I didn't think made the pictures look totally stupid.

Recurring Dreams

Last night, I dreamed that, for some reason that seemed perfectly logical in my dream, I had to go back to high school. I was expected to keep up with English reading and be sitting at a desk at 8am every morning and dream-Roni was exasperated by this and decided to sleep in and skive off classes. When dream-Roni reached her breaking point, she exclaimed, "This is completely illogical! I graduated from college! Twice! Why do I have to do high school again!"

I believe I could psychoanalyze this dream.You know, like maybe I make career choices that aren't commensurate with my experience? Or at least I feel that way subconsciously. 

Most of the time I don't place deep significance on my dreams. However, sometimes I do think they are a manifestation of stressors that I am not coping with. Like when I feel a lot of pressure and expectation, usually around the time that I am making some sort of "big decision," I dream that I am getting married. The dream typically opens on my wedding day, and I have no recollection of my courtship with the groom and do not want to get married but feel like I will disappoint everyone who has gathered for the ceremony (not to mention my betrothed) if I don't say "I do," and I feel compelled to go through with the vows despite a terrible sinking pit in my stomach.

Make of that what you will, Freudians.

Chinese Food Panacea

As I began my walk home from East Harlem, I felt a sudden, fierce craving for Chinese food. These cravings aren't rare occurrences, and I believe they are partially fueled by the cheap and easy availability of Chinese takeout in New York. However, lately I find the craving especially potent when I yearn for some kind of comfort food, and as I am not a native of the Orient (sorry, I know that term is politically incorrect) that feels sort of odd. Upon further contemplation, though, I realized it is perfectly logical that I should gravitate toward saucy rice dishes when I want something homey and familiar.

I'm sure the Chinese takeout I frequent most regularly (I think it is calling Jin Xiao) is far from authentic cuisine, but I don't think authentic cuisine would be as comforting.

When I was in grade school, my dad started work as a server at a restaurant called China Lily. Naturally, we used to go there ALL THE TIME. We got in the habit of calling Sweet & Sour Chicken "Chinese Chicken Nuggets." Later we would joke that my sister was weaned on egg drop soup. My dad worked there for 6 years. My mom also would pick up some weekend shifts. Often they both worked Fridays and Saturdays, and when we were too young to be trusted at home alone, our parents would tote my brother, sister and I, and we would stay in a small apartment above the restaurant where the cooks lived. I remember watching the Star Wars trilogy in that dank apartment. Eventually, my parents allowed me to be the steward of my siblings and left me alone to watch over them at home while they worked the weekend.

I remember on one occasion where I was allowed to look after my brother and sister, they tied me to a desk with tape.

But when my parents would return home after that weekend shift their uniforms (light blue button-up shirts and khaki pants) carried a strong stench of Chinese food.

After those six years, my dad decided to return to the profession he'd been trained for in college and became a middle school math teacher. There was a famine of Chinese food in my life until I was a high school student and my parents unpredictably enough decided to open up their own Chinese restaurant. (At this point one should note, that as far as we can trace, we carry no hint of Asian ancestry). We were reunited with an unlimited supply of Americanized Chinese food, and  you can bet that we consumed fried rice, chow mein, curried noodles, beef and broccoli, black pepper chicken, salt and pepper chicken, kung pao, and shanghai noodles like there was no tomorrow. But, the time of our Chinese restaurant was short-lived. Even though our Chinese dishes could be ordered with pizza and both would be delivered to your door in the Payson suburbs, business never took off. (Once one of my classmates mentioned how peculiar it was that the only Chinese restaurant in the town--at the time--was owned by white people).

As I reflect on all this, it doesn't seem peculiar that Chinese food should be what I crave after a long day when thoughts, questions and insecurities occupy my mind.

In reflecting on all of this, I also have immense respect for my parents and all that they've done in their lives. What sort of crazy people open a Chinese restaurant when they are not Chinese? My parents are bold and brave people, that is for sure.

For now, I will just shovel this food into my mouth and let it eradicate my hunger and all of my unanswered questions--just for a moment.

Get Me Off This Island!

Fact: The Bronx is the only of the five boroughs of New York City to be part of the contiguous United States. Manhattan is infamously its own island, Staten Island's geographic status is part of its name, and Queens and Brooklyn are part of Long Island.

Post-work I decided to join the proactive hoards that run the trails of Central Park. I donned my running attire (a blindingly chartreuse shirt and some bright red pants--the sort of outfit that makes me look like I am about to start a Christmas countdown), hopped on the subway, and ran around the park. After running for the duration of about four songs, I decided to leisurely walk and enjoy the autumn evening. Eventually, I began the sojourn back to the subway station, only to realize I had lost my metro card somewhere along the way.

I endeavored retracing my steps with no results. I tend to limit what I carry when I run, so I also had no means of accessing money. And found myself stranded on Manhattan.

Okay, I wasn't actually stranded, but I had never found a way across the Harlem River into the Bronx except by going under the river in the metro. Surely, there would be a way I could cross on foot.

And there was. I don't know why I have never walked before. There was a lovely bridge and I was able to stand above the water looking at the billboards and lights on both sides. Interestingly, this far north in the city, the tallest buildings you see are the public housing towers.

Sans metro card, I may actually walk to work tomorrow to save the $2.50 fare, and watch as much as possible until my next monthly card is issued.

Potpourri

Miraculously, I have kept up with my self-imposed mandate to publish a blog post everyday. I've written 14 days without fail. Kudos to me.

I can't say all (if any) of my posts have warranted any literary praise. But they exist in the world as testaments of my ability to put letters and symbols in patterns that can be understood by my fellow human beings.

To be honest, my thoughts are a swirling incoherent mess. I'm struggling to determine would I could congeal into a lucid entry.

How about I tell you about how I went to see the $2 palm reader of Gramercy today (you know, the one with this sign)? She told me that I needed to open my heart chakra and that I "was smiling with my face, but not my heart." However, when my friend, Silvia, and I compared notes on our readings, we found she used the same smiling line. Maybe Silvia and I are just close-hearted people. She also told me that I would die at a ripe old age of natural causes and would have a very satisfying and fulfilling life. She said she saw writing, drawing, and creativity figuring prominently in my life and sensed that I had a sort of dissatisfaction with my current line of work. Altogether, I was pretty pleased with the reading. It felt accurate, but not terrifyingly so.

Also, this song on never ending repeat is the soundtrack of my life currently:

I have loved the Wilco original for quite some time. My first week in New York after everything in the world was falling apart, the algorithm on my music playing device selected "Jesus, Etc." by Wilco while I was on the subway, and I fell apart. You know, the kind of falling apart where you are trying not to cry while a patron of public transportation, but feeling like it is okay to cry, as the lyrics "Jesus, don't cry, you can rely on me honey" played into your ears. Because really, things were going terribly wrong. I'd been told the lease had not gone through on the apartment I was suppose to move into, a piece of my tooth decided it no longer wanted to be part of the whole and chipped off, I learned I most likely have a blood clotting factor, and I was a new kid in one of the most isolating cities in the world. Even though this song was sort of a breaking point, it was just a nice release, and by the time I got to the apartment of the wonderful cousins-of-a-friend who had taken me in I felt capable of dealing with the world. (Even though I got lost after taking a bus later that evening.)

Anyway, the song is great and Norah sings it real good.

Asphalt Love Letters

"Spanish Harlem are not just pretty words to say." --Elton John, "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters"

I was strolling around East Harlem after my Central Park run (I'm active and I get around the neighborhoods--sometimes), when I encountered the first bit of sidewalk chalk art. I work in Spanish Harlem and have never heard or seen the geographic zone referenced as Spanish Harlem, except in the  Elton John song quoted above. On maps it is always labeled as "East Harlem." According to Wikipedia, the source of all human knowledge, it is the neighborhood with the highest crime rate on the island of Manhattan (do not tell my mother, please), but I work with so many great people at the school and in the surrounding community organizations that it is hard not to see the good in the place. There is struggle, sure, they have one of the highest concentrations of public housing (read: projects) in the nation--and world for that matter--but there are so many good people.

Anyway, I thought it was peculiar seeing "I <3 Spanish Harlem" written on the ground. Not because I don't think someone could love the place, but the nomenclature was off. Spanish Harlem feels forced and outdated. That's why I was so happy to see, several blocks from the first chalked-up declaration of love for the zone "I <3 El Barrio." "El Barrio" is Spanish for "the neighborhood." And for some reason that just felt more authentic to the place than Spanish Harlem.

 Nevertheless, I was very happy to see so much love for the place on a Sunday afternoon.

Phobias

1. Aliens
2. The ramifications of time travel
3. Evil ghosts
4. Contributing to economic and cultural imperialism
5. Bees
6. Failure
7. Undercooked meat
8. Having to make awkward small talk
9. Apocalypse
10. Getting into trouble

Missing things

Two of the multitudes of people I miss 

The list of people and things I miss about Utah is exhaustive. I thought about writing a post about all the stuff New York lacked, but that just seemed like an exercise in sadness.

And New York is great, don't get me wrong. Sometimes I am just filled this overwhelming sense of awe at the fact that I am living in the city. But then something reminds me of home. For example, last weekend a thought occurred to me and I texted my brother and sister a ridiculous message.

My brother, sister and I have labored at our family pizzeria since we were old enough to hold a job. One of our current coworkers at Fat Jack's bought himself a house. He rents out the extra rooms and has lovingly christened his abode "Thug Mansion." In the place where one might spell out their surname on a mailbox, a passerby can see "Thug Mansion" neatly painted. My brother has devious plans to repaint their mailbox and paint something offensive in place of "Thug Mansion." Somehow while walking down the streets of the East Village my thoughts wandered to Thug Mansion, and I thought the greatest possible defacement would be simply painting over the T, so it would read "Hug Mansion." I had to let them know and sent a text explaining the idea.

Delicate Cycle

Don't let the title confuse you. I do not think I have ever washed anything on a delicate cycle. Today's laundry strategy involved putting every article clothing and towel I own in a suitcase, wheeling it to the laundromat and stuffing it all into one machine regardless of the spectrum of colors.

I figure if you run the cycle on cold everything will be fine. My whites may not be the whitest and my brights may not be the brightest, but hey, I have clean underwear.

I have actually never had to frequent a proper laundromat until now. All the other times I have lived in an apartment situation, we had facilities tucked away somewhere in the same building I dwelt. Having to trek a half mile with my soiled vestments creates a sort of ritual. I can't say I look forward to the ritual. It is a tedious chore that I put off until the last possible moment, but when it comes down to buying new clothes or washing the ones I own, I opt for the cheaper and gear up for the experience. I grab a book and consider how I will pass the roughly ninety minutes among the whirring machines and stench of detergent and kitty litter.

And once I actually make it there, I sort of enjoy the time. Even though today the soda machine ate the dollar I had intended to spend on grape soda.

This song may have (read: definitely) influenced my opinion of laundromats for the better.
Beware: The dogs in the music video made me cry. Not necessarily sad tears, but if you watch it, you'll see.

The music video is lovely and the song made it on to my official "Quarter Life Crisis Soundtrack." It also was the obvious inspiration for the title of this post.

For those of you who listened to it, don't you just love when Kimya sings about how there is something like "a sense of community that comes from hauling your big old load out in public and airing  your dirty laundry in the company of other people who don't have the same type of amenities"? And it gets you thinking that maybe it isn't the best to live in a place "that is so set up that you never have to leave"?

Anyway, while in the laundromat my literature of choice was Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. I'm sort of in love with the idea of Ernest Hemingway. An adventurous, booze-loving expat with a soft spot for Italy--sign me up as his sidekick. But this is actually the first book of his I've ventured to read.

Then he starts throwing out racial slurs like it's 1926, and I think he could use just a little modern enlightenment. But, hey, the authenticity of an age is captured.

But reading about Parisian walks and bar-hopping makes my feet itch to be on distant soil. My opinion of the actual book is forthcoming. Seventy pages in, I am still forming opinions on its literary merit.

Solid Questions and Honest Answers

A gem from my text message history:

I stand by my answers.

Fortemente gli anni passano

So those words in the title are lyrics from a Laura Pausini song. She's sort of a goddess of Italian pop. I wrote about going to her concert in Florence once upon a time.

The line I took means "the years pass forcefully." I've always liked how it was worded. Not just the years pass inevitably or quickly, but forcefully. We can't stop it. It may be the strongest thing there is, time.

Anyway, I've been waxing reflective thinking about the chapters of my adult life. There are so many ways I could subdivide the last seven years of my existence, based on my interests, my jobs, my choices, but what sticks out to me most vividly is geography. I divide the segments by where I lived. Hence the table of contents to the story of my life would read like this:

Chapter 1: Adventures in Zoobieland, The Semester in a Freshman Dormitory in Provo
Chapter 2: Return of the Native: How can Payson Function Without Me?
Chapter 3: If I Could Be Born Italian, I Would Choose to Be From Siena: A Semester Abroad
Chapter 4: Home Again
Chapter 5: The Godfather II: Taking Florence by Storm
Chapter 6: The ReReturn Home
Chapter 7: London Called (And I Actually Picked Up My Phone)
Chapter 8: Salt Lake City, I've got nothing witty (just a bad rhyme)
Chapter 9: NYC Baby!

It is funny, because each of those chapters seems so different to me. Even the three chapters in which I lived in tPayson--the town I will forever consider my hometown--were distinctly different from each other. The bright-eyed and ambitious 18-year-old college freshman of chapter one feels different from the idealistic yet cripplingly uncertain young lady of chapter 9. But I'm glad for each segment and the people, conflict, resolution, growth and everything that it brought with it.

And sometimes chapters collide.

This weekend facebook, that magical binding which keeps so many of the characters of my life from slipping out of my story all together, informed me that my old friend Jessica was in town. There are many wonderful Jessicas in my life, but THIS wonderful Jessica was part of the cohort of Americans that volunteered in London with Winant Clayton. We were instant friends because of our inherent nerdiness.

So, I'll keep trying to wrestle the years back to no avail. Maybe as more and more of them pass I will devise I different way to subdivide my days, but until then it will always be about the place where I temporarily rest my head.

I Read a Book! The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

I've been reading this wonderful book The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. I finished it on the subway this afternoon, and I feel like I could go back and read it from cover to cover. Partly because I feel like maybe I wasn't smart enough to get everything the first go-round. I was expecting a bit of a love story. A younger girl with an older man, but not too Lolita-esque. I can't say the plot was necessarily compelling. But by the time I was half way through I was so taken by the characters and their rich emotional lives--oscillating from seeming overwrought to being completely relatable--that I couldn't stop and wanted to see what new insights into the human condition the next page would bring up.

Anyway, I love the book. That is why I am sort of devastated I just spilled strawberry milk all over it. I am slowly peeling the sticky pages apart in order to preserve this copy.


The book was a lot about human relationships and misunderstandings and the unending complexity of love and fidelity and relating to another human being (against the backdrop of a Russian-occupied Czechoslovakia).

But it was also about a dog. A dog named Karenin (after Anna's husband in Anna Karenina).

Karenin is one of the most beautiful characters in the book. Tomas gets him to keep Tereza early in the novel.

Reading about Karenin, I was sappily reminded of how important my dogs were to me. I found this passage really beautiful, and sort of a small encapsulation of so much of the book as the relationship between Tereza and her dog is assessed and represented as a pure, undefilable sort of coexistence.

It is a completely selfless love: Tereza did not want anything of Karenin; she did not ever ask him to lover her back. Nor had she ever asked herself the questions that plague human couples; Does he love me? Does he love anyone more than me? Does he love me more than I love him? Perhaps all the questions we ask of love, to measure, to test, probe, and save it, have the additional effect of cutting it short. Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved, that is, we demand something (love) from our partner instead of delivering ourselves up to him demand free and asking for nothing but his company.

Now that I am overwhelmed with affection for dogs. Enjoy this small collection of pictures of my two favorite canines in the history of creation:

A Hazy Shade of Sunday

The world of New York City was beautifully ominous today.

A cloudy mist cloaked the the tops of skyscrapers, and the whole ambiance of the morning lent itself to the listening to mildly melancholy acoustic music.

I know weather talk is the apex of boring conversation, but isn't kind of beautiful how weather is an experience universally shared by everyone in a common sector of the world? (I could talk about how today had sort of a humid chill, where I was perpetually reassessing if I was hot or cold, because the air was cool, but my body would develop a thin sheen of sweat and feel warmer than the actual outdoor temperature.)

I'm also exuberant about autumn. As much as I love pumpkin spice, scarves, and colored leaves, I think the biggest reason I love fall is because the world is in such a state of change. In my student life, fall was the brink of a new year with new beginnings, new knowledge to be acquired, new friends to be made. Fall seems resplendent with the possibility that a new academic year always brought. I also love bundling up and ordering hot drinks and soups. I also start to relish the sun setting earlier. It is easier to have a night life when night begins at 6pm.

Anyway, here are some photos that captured the essence of this Sunday:

Commitment

I told myself that in October I would commit to blogging every single day.

And today, that mandate seems tedious. Nonetheless, I had my reasons for this assignment.

1. I like to write. 

I really do. I aspire to make it my living, except I don't aspire very well because I write rarely. Granted, I do keep diaries that detail feelings and exploits (many of which I do not intend to make available for public consumption), but I rarely create things other than sentence-long facebook or twitter posts that are "published" in the world for others' eyes to see.

2. My ideas are worth recording, I guess.

I am an avid reader of blogs. I especially like those written by childhood friends that give beautiful glimpses into their adult lives and evolution of their person. So, I guess whatever I have to say may be enjoyed by people who know me and care about the person I am becoming. Also, I believe that every person's thoughts, ideas, and feelings have intrinsic value, so by default--so do mine.

3. I'm trying to be a more disciplined person.
I feel that I can descend into epic laziness. I blame television for being so good, and the internet for revolutionizing my entertainment experience. And, boy, I do love consuming media, but I find that the barrage of quality programming and the demands of life make it easy for me to put off pursuits. So, if I have to write one entry every day for 31 days, I proved a little something to myself. (And can get off my case a bit.)

4. Self-Indulgence

Like my friends far away may not know that I cut my bangs. All summer long I mulled over whether to let these cluster of hair follicles grow out, and eventually decided that summertime bangs are a terrible idea, because they just become a sweat rag. However, these are fall/winter bangs. My hope is they will keep my forehead warm through the coldest months. How would I have shared this "evolution of my person" with the world, if it wasn't for this blog...(oh, wait: facebook, twitter, instagram, to name a few.)

Flashback Friday: High School Debate

My dad's collegiate education was funded through a debate scholarship, so it seemed natural I would follow in his footsteps and be a forensicator. My sophomore year in high school, I entered the debating fray full-force. I researched political issues and philosophical ideas and learned how to "flow" and "rebut" and control my too-often excessive hand gestures. I developed a debate arch-nemesis, a fellow sophomore from American Fork High School named Stephen Richards. I'll forever consider that tow-headed conservative the one person I must excel over. The extent of our rivalry deserves its own space in the annals of my life. Perhaps some other day I will detail it.

I would say my greatest high school friendships were forged in the fire of debate. Particularly the Todd Monday quartet of Roni, Eliza, Amanda, and Tayla. However, I would be remiss not to throw in how intensely we loved Maddie Jo and our fearless leader, Mrs. Baker. In our bellies burned a fierce testimony of the glory of speech & debate and we on-boarded all of the promising youngsters we could.

In those days, I stayed very concurrent with the latest news and had formulated opinions backed by researched facts. I still try to stay fairly up-to-date with the world's happenings, but I feel like any stalwart debate kid could school me in my facts.

Anyway, really, this has all sprung up as I've been looking at old pictures on my computer. I was an awkward acne-pocked teenager, and those were some of the greatest times of my life with some of my best friends.

Thanks everybody.

Oh, Amanda, do you remember passionately defending the right of NBA players to don do-rags when the NBA dress code was the monthly topic of crossfire debate?

The crew during the state tournament my senior year.

"The Losers Pyramid." These folks did not have the scores to qualify for  the final championships rounds. Technically, I didn't either, but someone had to take the picture. 

This was an attempt at a debate action shot.

Amanda was always a goddess of speech and debate. Steven participated in tournaments every year of high school and didn't place until the very last tournament of senior year. It was glorious.

Yeah, Amanda always woneverything. I think it is because she was born in the D.C. metropolitan area. 

Divination

"Don't go to a mind reader, go to a palmist. At least I know you've got a palm." --Snappy Put Downs and Funny Insults, a hallmark of American Literature.

I feel like the legitimacy of this practitioner is only enhanced by the bad spelling on this sign.

Once at a little thing called the Hugh O'Brien Youth World Leadership Congress, a met a girl from India named Seema. She asked the cadre of American attendees a slew of questions about our mathematics education, determined to prove that India was outflanking us. I think we even got down to writing equations on napkins, but I don't remember which nation's 16-year-olds came out on top. She also became one of my best friends through the week-long camp and read my palm. (She also gave me a bunch of face massages, which was kind of weird, but really relaxing...) To date, Seema is the only person who has given me an interpretation of my hand's markings, and she was really just a novice.

What she said though was absolutely perfect: my success line (is that what you call it?) was deep, indicating I'd accomplish important things, and there was someone who entered my life and never left (be still my beating teenage heart).

I really do not need another palm reading after that wonderfully (albeit incredibly vague) optimistic one.

Nonetheless, as I get older and older and less assured of the course my life will take, I feel like I wouldn't mind some sort of psychic guidance. I have thought it might be nice to schedule an appointment with some stranger that could give me some possible inkling of what I can expect of my coming days. Sure, we write our own destiny and all that, but how about creating some positive self-fulfilling prophecies?

However, my cousin's fiance was told by a psychic that he would die young. I'd like to avoid that sort of declaration. We all decided that she must be a charlatan.

After Seema read my palm and taught me the very basics of palm reading, I attempted to make up life narratives for my church cohorts at our girls' summer camp based on the lines and their palms. We weren't allowed to bring face cards, presumably because they were evil, but no one got on me for practicing a form of divination.

I really may have stopped in when I saw the sign proclaiming $2 Palm Readings that could illuminate my past, present and future and explore the themes of "love, carier, health, family, travil," but I didn't have any cash.

Next time.

Brooklyn Bridge: Don't Jump!

"I'm riding the subway to the Brooklyn Bridge to have an existential crisis" --Roni Scheidler, journal entry, October 2, 2013

You know, to be completely honest, when I imagined myself becoming a New Yorker, I imagined I'd be a waitress/dog-walker making ends meet while I composed "The Great American Novel." Not to bash what I am doing now, which is, "oh, helping students at an underserved school have more meaningful classroom experiences and gain real-world, 21st-century skills by creating opportunities for them to provide service meeting real needs in their community that line up with curricular goals." It's not like I am a sell-out or anything, but I think I've fallen into another rut.

That guy Rumi that everyone seems to like once wrote, "Let the beauty you love be what you do; there are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground." Of course, doing a year of volunteer service for a youth-based nonprofit is noble, but it is not the only way to live a meaningful life. I always liked that Rumi excerpt because I took it to mean that if I followed a true passion, I would make the world a better place--even if my passion wasn't deworming orphans.

Anyway, I planned to ponder all of this at sunset on the Brooklyn Bridge. Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge always reminds me of why I want to live in New York. From where it spans the water, you can see ever-glowing lights of the financial district, and the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings in the distance. You can also hear a whole plethora of languages and the chiming of bicycle bells as cyclists warn tourists to get out of their lane. Somehow all of this convinces me of the infinite possibilities of New York City. That someone gets to work in the top floors of those glamorous buildings. That this very night, dreams are probably coming true for someone.


Here are some photos of things that I found lovely on the bridge. To be honest, I sort of found everything so lovely that I actually forgot to have my existential crisis while I was there.

A Prose Ode to the Subway

Subway, I love you and I despise you.

I love you when I see that one of my fellow riders has brought their ferrets along. Fortunately, they are caged because I hear ferrets are crafty. And who knows, they could be trained by a devious owner to pick-pocket. However, the ferrets of last Sunday evening were a delight to behold. I even saw one lady take a photo of them with her smart phone camera. I think she thought she was being sneaky, but that ridiculous artificial shutter sound went off when she captured the moment. I don't think she even realized it though, because she had headphones in.

Subway, I love you when I see babies eating pancakes in you. And when I see troupes of tourists taking selfies or plotting their next New York City excursion with their noses deep in travel guides. I even love you when your occupants are bold and brazen and act like the rod in the middle of the car is a stripper pole and take sexy pictures of their city sojourn. Even though they are loud and sort of obnoxious, I can appreciate that they are having a good time.

I love you when one of your riders exits, passes by an adjacent car, notices a friend, and runs in to fist bump the friend before continuing to the exit.

I love that a delivery boy for a floral shop had to transport a large, colorful funeral wreath from 68th Street to Bleeker in your cars. I love staring at "Beloved Grandmother" written in purple glitter on the ribbon and remembering that I need to call my grandmother. I also like smelling the flowers.

I love that when I ride you on a Saturday morning you are full of families.

I love you when someone gives up their seat for someone elderly or a pregnant lady.

Actually, subway, I love you a lot. I don't know why I said I despise you.

Except that sometimes I can't observe all these interesting people because my eyes are pressed into the cotton fleece covering someone's spine and I become part of one steaming human clot travelling through the veins of the underground.

That's when I hate you.