After all this time
Completely incomplete
I'll take your invitation;
And watch me run with it
With all the strength that you could lend.
LIFEHOUSE, RELIENT K
We are afraid
What the universe is for and why
It is here
Hopelessly boring and endlessly fascinating,
Would you like to stay forever?
If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
DOUGLAS ADAMS, ALBERT EINSTEIN, JOHN GREEN, MULAN
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
make & believe: a lovely conversation
Dentist: So you're in college? Where do you go?
Me: I go to U of M.
Dentist: Wow, what do you go there for? (What kind of question is that? I go there for an education, thank you very much.)
Me: Um, I'm an English major?
Dentist: Huh. Which campus?
Me: Ann Arbor.
Dentist: ..Oh. I thought you were going to say Dearborn.
WOW. I think next time I'll say Harvard.
Me: I go to U of M.
Dentist: Wow, what do you go there for? (What kind of question is that? I go there for an education, thank you very much.)
Me: Um, I'm an English major?
Dentist: Huh. Which campus?
Me: Ann Arbor.
Dentist: ..Oh. I thought you were going to say Dearborn.
WOW. I think next time I'll say Harvard.
Friday, July 23, 2010
comfort (3/4)
(unrevised)
Mom called me ten minutes before Stats class; we were going to take an exam today and I was cramming like mad since I had been up all night comforting my roommate Daisy, who had recently got into some kind of big fight with her best friend or boyfriend or somebody. My recollection of details on such a topic would have been clearer if I were
1) not overcaffeinated
2) to have gotten more than two hours of sleep the night before
3) not studying for statistics.
Unfortunately I was none of the three, and I ignored the phone call as I flipped pages in my lecture notes, nearly tearing the bind off. A few seconds later, I got a text message from Mom so I opened it. It said: "CALL BACK IMMEDIATELY. Thanks :)."
"I have an exam in nine minutes," I snapped when she answered, without looking up from the formula for how to calculate standard deviation.
"Wonderful! I called to wish you good luck," was her cheerful reply.
"Mom, you don't even know my major, let alone the dates I have exams."
"You're a film major," she said easily, and I was too distracted to correct her this time. "But anyhoo, Allie darl', I have great news! I've decided to visit you this weekend! Being cooped up alone in this ol' Chicago hole has really drained my youthfulness, and I need to get out!"
My mind was cloudy and half studying my notes and all, but it definitely managed to catch and process this absurd new information pretty quickly. "Really--visit me? You're pretty funny." I checked my watch. Six minutes.
"Am I? It must be because of my new psychiatrist! He's got quite the sense of humor. How 'bout you pick me up at eleven in the morning at JFK this Friday?"
By the specifics of her ramble, it was clear that Mom had already booked a plane ticket and, due to her recent obsession with being in control of her own life for once, was probably already all packed up as well. I closed my notebook and sighed, defeated. There was no reason to deny that she was more excited to see Ella than me. This past Monday, she nearly choked while popping her pills when I told her over Skype that I might have found the girl. Or woman. Whatever.
"Fine," I said, deciding that I would deal with the worries of how to pay for a cab to take me all the way to JFK and back, later. "See you then."
"Yippee, I'm so excited! Love you!" Mom yelled before I snapped my phone shut and set it on silent just in time for class. The hallways were getting crammed as students filed out of the lecture halls, and it was a miracle that I could still hear myself think.
"Sixty-three, ninty-five, ninty-nine point seven," I whispered to myself. "Ella Moy, The Stirrer...Dad."
The good thing with taking exams though, is that it isn't like in the movies when the sleep-deprived, troubled character gets too distracted by personal issues and ends up failing. Instead, the stuff on the test is all you can think about while you take it, and it's only afterward when all the problems of the world catch up to you.
Mom called me ten minutes before Stats class; we were going to take an exam today and I was cramming like mad since I had been up all night comforting my roommate Daisy, who had recently got into some kind of big fight with her best friend or boyfriend or somebody. My recollection of details on such a topic would have been clearer if I were
1) not overcaffeinated
2) to have gotten more than two hours of sleep the night before
3) not studying for statistics.
Unfortunately I was none of the three, and I ignored the phone call as I flipped pages in my lecture notes, nearly tearing the bind off. A few seconds later, I got a text message from Mom so I opened it. It said: "CALL BACK IMMEDIATELY. Thanks :)."
"I have an exam in nine minutes," I snapped when she answered, without looking up from the formula for how to calculate standard deviation.
"Wonderful! I called to wish you good luck," was her cheerful reply.
"Mom, you don't even know my major, let alone the dates I have exams."
"You're a film major," she said easily, and I was too distracted to correct her this time. "But anyhoo, Allie darl', I have great news! I've decided to visit you this weekend! Being cooped up alone in this ol' Chicago hole has really drained my youthfulness, and I need to get out!"
My mind was cloudy and half studying my notes and all, but it definitely managed to catch and process this absurd new information pretty quickly. "Really--visit me? You're pretty funny." I checked my watch. Six minutes.
"Am I? It must be because of my new psychiatrist! He's got quite the sense of humor. How 'bout you pick me up at eleven in the morning at JFK this Friday?"
By the specifics of her ramble, it was clear that Mom had already booked a plane ticket and, due to her recent obsession with being in control of her own life for once, was probably already all packed up as well. I closed my notebook and sighed, defeated. There was no reason to deny that she was more excited to see Ella than me. This past Monday, she nearly choked while popping her pills when I told her over Skype that I might have found the girl. Or woman. Whatever.
"Fine," I said, deciding that I would deal with the worries of how to pay for a cab to take me all the way to JFK and back, later. "See you then."
"Yippee, I'm so excited! Love you!" Mom yelled before I snapped my phone shut and set it on silent just in time for class. The hallways were getting crammed as students filed out of the lecture halls, and it was a miracle that I could still hear myself think.
"Sixty-three, ninty-five, ninty-nine point seven," I whispered to myself. "Ella Moy, The Stirrer...Dad."
The good thing with taking exams though, is that it isn't like in the movies when the sleep-deprived, troubled character gets too distracted by personal issues and ends up failing. Instead, the stuff on the test is all you can think about while you take it, and it's only afterward when all the problems of the world catch up to you.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
the remedy
He looked at me and said these words: "You are cured."
He was the same person who threw a truck at my heart and told me to drive it while I was down, fake-heaving, asking for one more minute, one more chance, one more shot at cleaning myself up but-may-I-first-take-a-break after years on break.
And I glanced at him in return and said, "How?"
Because my future was no different from the dirty clothes in my bedroom, behind a closed door. Hanging on a chair, under the bed, in plain sight, on my desk on top of my Bible to hide it from my atheist parents. I want to be a teacher, a lawyer, a federal forensic science research associate with an emphasis in phonetics. I want three kids, but I want the least of my worries to be money, which will either result in a strike through the possibility of becoming a teacher or convincing two of them to avoid college. Or not having three kids. But then I remember that all kids have dads, and hopefully theirs will stay. And speaking of teachers, who talk a lot, I need to talk more, and write less, or I might as well become a mute struggling writer who loves writing until I end up on the streets with not a dime, much less three kids to raise.
I fear forgetting to pay my rent, when I haven't even moved into my apartment.
I fear that break sucks all the productivity I have in me, and maybe that's why every time I transition to the next step--middle school, high school, college--I don't know what to make of my summer to prepare and end up making the biggest mistakes my first year. Then I don't know what to do with myself after the first year, before the second year, so I flip a coin, heads for change, tails for change.
And that's when he pointed to the trash can of my mistakes and said, "I can show you how to learn."
The trash can is under my desk, on its side, contents half-spilled out. I can pick up my clothes, I can throw them in the laundry basket, but the trash can is too dirty to touch. Sometimes I'll have to resort to throwing things away in another room's bin, which my parents oversee. Other times, I don't want to get up so I'll just throw them in the lopsided trash can with an overhand instead of an underhand, because I forget, and that's why I miss so often. And even if I make it in, the trash can is still lopsided and I can see everything in it without having to walk up to it and peer down.
After all these years, I still didn't know how to learn. You pick it up, it falls back down. You try to ignore it, and it shrieks for your attention. You do learn, but you don't get how you got there, and that right there is the problem. You can't just go to sleep in a sea of your clothes and wake up to find them washed, dried, and folded neatly at your feet. You can't get rid of your trash if the trash bin is on its side. You can't live with your parents forever. You just can't.
So I said in reply, "I'd like that."
And then: change. He didn't tell me to clean my room. He didn't ask me to uncover the Bible or find my missing sock, and he didn't advise me that forensic science with an emphasis in phonetics is not the best path for a person of my eccentricities. He left my trash can alone, and I didn't think to pick it up. But I knew then what I never knew before, and that was that I was cured.
He was the same person who threw a truck at my heart and told me to drive it while I was down, fake-heaving, asking for one more minute, one more chance, one more shot at cleaning myself up but-may-I-first-take-a-break after years on break.
And I glanced at him in return and said, "How?"
Because my future was no different from the dirty clothes in my bedroom, behind a closed door. Hanging on a chair, under the bed, in plain sight, on my desk on top of my Bible to hide it from my atheist parents. I want to be a teacher, a lawyer, a federal forensic science research associate with an emphasis in phonetics. I want three kids, but I want the least of my worries to be money, which will either result in a strike through the possibility of becoming a teacher or convincing two of them to avoid college. Or not having three kids. But then I remember that all kids have dads, and hopefully theirs will stay. And speaking of teachers, who talk a lot, I need to talk more, and write less, or I might as well become a mute struggling writer who loves writing until I end up on the streets with not a dime, much less three kids to raise.
I fear forgetting to pay my rent, when I haven't even moved into my apartment.
I fear that break sucks all the productivity I have in me, and maybe that's why every time I transition to the next step--middle school, high school, college--I don't know what to make of my summer to prepare and end up making the biggest mistakes my first year. Then I don't know what to do with myself after the first year, before the second year, so I flip a coin, heads for change, tails for change.
And that's when he pointed to the trash can of my mistakes and said, "I can show you how to learn."
The trash can is under my desk, on its side, contents half-spilled out. I can pick up my clothes, I can throw them in the laundry basket, but the trash can is too dirty to touch. Sometimes I'll have to resort to throwing things away in another room's bin, which my parents oversee. Other times, I don't want to get up so I'll just throw them in the lopsided trash can with an overhand instead of an underhand, because I forget, and that's why I miss so often. And even if I make it in, the trash can is still lopsided and I can see everything in it without having to walk up to it and peer down.
After all these years, I still didn't know how to learn. You pick it up, it falls back down. You try to ignore it, and it shrieks for your attention. You do learn, but you don't get how you got there, and that right there is the problem. You can't just go to sleep in a sea of your clothes and wake up to find them washed, dried, and folded neatly at your feet. You can't get rid of your trash if the trash bin is on its side. You can't live with your parents forever. You just can't.
So I said in reply, "I'd like that."
And then: change. He didn't tell me to clean my room. He didn't ask me to uncover the Bible or find my missing sock, and he didn't advise me that forensic science with an emphasis in phonetics is not the best path for a person of my eccentricities. He left my trash can alone, and I didn't think to pick it up. But I knew then what I never knew before, and that was that I was cured.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
comfort (2/4)
There's an especially bizarre small cafe in New York's Lower East Side, where the abandoned little brokendown houses once occupied by immigrants meets the newly renovated store buildings and more cheerful graffiti-slathered alleys. The cafe is called The Stirrer, and it's the last recorded place where an alleged Ella Moy linked to Chicago worked, according to our family lawyer. I had already gone to a law firm and a night club looking for an Ella Moy but the law firm said she quit almost two years ago and the night club's Ella Moy, a bartender, was patient with me but had no idea what I was talking about.
Inside, dim Christmas lights lined the ceiling, and the geometric walls were painted either red, purple, or yellow. Purposely mismatched but equally leveled chairs and tables sat next to each other in what appeared to be a strategic mess, and all the baristas wore sleek brown uniforms and hats shaped like teacups.
I had gone there twice although chickened out both times on asking for Ella Moy because the people there seemed so hostile. The coffee and pastries were surprisingly good for a rundown cafe in a rundown neighborhood, but this time, I promised that I would request not for a vanilla latte but a person.
The stone-faced cashier with unbrushed brown hair greeted me sourly at the counter. I said, "Um hi.. I'm looking for someone named Ella Moy. I think she might, um, work here?"
She made a face at me. "What do you need her for?" she asked suspiciously.
"Uh," I said, expecting a vague, passing answer. "I just need to ask her something?"
The cashier stared at me for a few silent seconds before she, without turning her head, yelled: "Vana!"
"Okay!" A blonde woman in her mid-twenties immediately ran out from behind the Employee Only door, panicky. "What's the matter?"
"This girl wants to see Moy," the cashier said, pointing at me, and they both gave me the once over, twice.
"What's it about?" Vana asked, gesturing us to move away from the counter. The man behind me took a step forward to order, clearing his throat.
"Well," I said, thinking that I might as well tell the truth. "Apparently my father was supposed to meet her a year ago, but he passed away. So they sent me here to see her."
"Ah huh," Vana crossed her arms and ran her tongue across her teeth. "Who's that?"
"My dad?" I repeated, and she just smirked at me. "Um, his name is William Parkley?"
"Oh...ohh! Billy?!" Vana exclaimed in a high tone, dropping her arms. "Noo! He's dead?"
"Do you know him?"
"Billy Parkley, I know him," Vana told me, suddenly nodding intently and putting a hand to her mouth. "A good man. Wow, I'm sorry for that. What happened, eh?"
"It was a motorcycle accident," I said, turning towards the purple wall next to us. "How did you know him?"
"What a pity." Vana just frowned at me. "Okay, I tell Ella. She'll meet you come next Sunday."
"Well, okay," I said slowly. I didn't know what else to say as Vana was already teetering off in her 6-inch brown alligator skin stilettos. The sour cashier turned to look at her.
"Billy Parkley's daughter," Vana told her, and the cashier raised her head towards me, surprised. "And guess what? He's passed."
"For real?" was the shocked reply. Vana nodded gravely, smiling wistfully at me, before disappearing back through the door she ran out from.
I took one last look at the mismatched colors of the cafe, and then I left.
Inside, dim Christmas lights lined the ceiling, and the geometric walls were painted either red, purple, or yellow. Purposely mismatched but equally leveled chairs and tables sat next to each other in what appeared to be a strategic mess, and all the baristas wore sleek brown uniforms and hats shaped like teacups.
I had gone there twice although chickened out both times on asking for Ella Moy because the people there seemed so hostile. The coffee and pastries were surprisingly good for a rundown cafe in a rundown neighborhood, but this time, I promised that I would request not for a vanilla latte but a person.
The stone-faced cashier with unbrushed brown hair greeted me sourly at the counter. I said, "Um hi.. I'm looking for someone named Ella Moy. I think she might, um, work here?"
She made a face at me. "What do you need her for?" she asked suspiciously.
"Uh," I said, expecting a vague, passing answer. "I just need to ask her something?"
The cashier stared at me for a few silent seconds before she, without turning her head, yelled: "Vana!"
"Okay!" A blonde woman in her mid-twenties immediately ran out from behind the Employee Only door, panicky. "What's the matter?"
"This girl wants to see Moy," the cashier said, pointing at me, and they both gave me the once over, twice.
"What's it about?" Vana asked, gesturing us to move away from the counter. The man behind me took a step forward to order, clearing his throat.
"Well," I said, thinking that I might as well tell the truth. "Apparently my father was supposed to meet her a year ago, but he passed away. So they sent me here to see her."
"Ah huh," Vana crossed her arms and ran her tongue across her teeth. "Who's that?"
"My dad?" I repeated, and she just smirked at me. "Um, his name is William Parkley?"
"Oh...ohh! Billy?!" Vana exclaimed in a high tone, dropping her arms. "Noo! He's dead?"
"Do you know him?"
"Billy Parkley, I know him," Vana told me, suddenly nodding intently and putting a hand to her mouth. "A good man. Wow, I'm sorry for that. What happened, eh?"
"It was a motorcycle accident," I said, turning towards the purple wall next to us. "How did you know him?"
"What a pity." Vana just frowned at me. "Okay, I tell Ella. She'll meet you come next Sunday."
"Well, okay," I said slowly. I didn't know what else to say as Vana was already teetering off in her 6-inch brown alligator skin stilettos. The sour cashier turned to look at her.
"Billy Parkley's daughter," Vana told her, and the cashier raised her head towards me, surprised. "And guess what? He's passed."
"For real?" was the shocked reply. Vana nodded gravely, smiling wistfully at me, before disappearing back through the door she ran out from.
I took one last look at the mismatched colors of the cafe, and then I left.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
short: spiritual flavors
Today, I was catching up with an old friend, whom I'll call Jane here. Jane's my year, so eventually we were going over the highlights of our first year at college. She's also Buddhist so when I brought up church, she was really surprised.
"Wow so you are not...open anymore?" she asked, and I assumed she was referring to my old days of switching on and off as a Unitarian.
"Um, I guess I'm still accepting of other religions?"
"Really? But Christians are pretty intolerant."
"Um, well I mean, that's because we want everyone to get saved, right?" She knows, maybe more than I do, about all that; she and her father used to be pretty into Christian spirituality themselves.
"So you now believe in heaven too." She stared me up and down like I had physically transformed because of my beliefs, as if she hadn't noticed before that now my clothes and skin and expression apparently screamed "Believer in Heaven- Beware!" Then after a brief moment, she said, "Are there Buddhist temples at your college too though?"
I said, "I don't know. Probably."
"Why don't you go to those and try it out?"
I made a face. "Because I'm not Buddhist?"
"Well how do you know you're Christian then? If you don't try all other flavors of ice cream, how would you know chocolate's your favorite?"
"It's not a matter of favoritism, Jane," I told her. (By the way, chocolate is far from my favorite.)
"How would you know God wants you to be a musician and not a writer, if you liked music and writing equally?"
That was tough. "I don't know--I guess He tells you through prayer, right? And He provides the path for what He wants you to be?"
"That sounds right." Jane shrugged. "Well apparently, He wants me to be Buddhist."
"Wow so you are not...open anymore?" she asked, and I assumed she was referring to my old days of switching on and off as a Unitarian.
"Um, I guess I'm still accepting of other religions?"
"Really? But Christians are pretty intolerant."
"Um, well I mean, that's because we want everyone to get saved, right?" She knows, maybe more than I do, about all that; she and her father used to be pretty into Christian spirituality themselves.
"So you now believe in heaven too." She stared me up and down like I had physically transformed because of my beliefs, as if she hadn't noticed before that now my clothes and skin and expression apparently screamed "Believer in Heaven- Beware!" Then after a brief moment, she said, "Are there Buddhist temples at your college too though?"
I said, "I don't know. Probably."
"Why don't you go to those and try it out?"
I made a face. "Because I'm not Buddhist?"
"Well how do you know you're Christian then? If you don't try all other flavors of ice cream, how would you know chocolate's your favorite?"
"It's not a matter of favoritism, Jane," I told her. (By the way, chocolate is far from my favorite.)
"How would you know God wants you to be a musician and not a writer, if you liked music and writing equally?"
That was tough. "I don't know--I guess He tells you through prayer, right? And He provides the path for what He wants you to be?"
"That sounds right." Jane shrugged. "Well apparently, He wants me to be Buddhist."
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