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Category Archives: adulthood

run ragged and happy

Sunday, June 21, 2009

This is a meandering post about life and stuff. Content that’s all focused like a laser mounted on a deadly shark may or may not resume tomorrow.

This weekend E headed up the NNJ/NYC to play a show and help with some solstice cleaning along with the sibs at her mother’s house. I wanted to tag along to see her concert and reap the sib-time, but my life was in need of some cleaning up as well.

When I woke up on Saturday I felt like my to-do list was a litany of random drudgery. Organize this, scrub that, upload stuff to here. Even as I was crossing things off it didn’t feel very big picture. Typical: artist-, writer-, marketer-me trapped under a Sisyphisian list of uncreative to-dos. The only thing keeping me sane was my Twitter pipeline to the outside world.

As the day wore on I kept feeling like I was behind the boulder until I caught a social network update from my dear musical friend Vicky Spaeth, which read:

Simplify, simplify, simplify! I think we over-complicate our lives way too much.

I read that, then took another look at my list, and realized there was a big picture. It was all “simplify.” Organizing shelves and wires so my creative space is less cluttered, so I can create. Clean out the house so I don’t have a worry of other things to do nagging me when I want to create. Upload what I’ve created to as many places as will have it, so people can actually hear it.

I finally have the simplicity that provides one big picture. I have focus. Finally everything I’m doing points in the same direction.

I look back at the 2000 me. Within a two month span I started a blog, shot digital video of myself, and was the only songwriter on the whole internet uploading a concert every week. And it all came easy. But it was over-complicated. The technology was a tangle. The life was a tangle – pulling As and paying for my first apartment and squeezing in music beside theatre.

Maybe I was on the verge of conquering the world, but it wasn’t simple. There was no picture to focus on. Which was fine – I was in college! But that’s why we grow up. And hopefully get less complicated, instead of more.

It took the weekend and the twenty-seven years before it, but I am really almost there. Almost to the point that I can just flip a switch and empty my thoughts and songs directly onto the internet without a fussy mess of wires and files and wasted time.

And be worth watching.

It feels cool and satisfying, and I’m happy – happy sweating my ass off and mopping the floor, or putting away the umpteenth load of laundry, passing out on the couch while I wait for my wife to get home. Happy without any descriptors or mitigators, because there’s a point to it.

Just happy.

Also filed in betterment, college, day in the life, thoughts | | Comments (0)

Arcati Crisis takes Trevose

Friday, January 16, 2009

“In 800 yards. Make. A U-turn.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Gina, it told you to make a U-turn.”

“What if that’s not legal here?”

“Then we just tell the police officer that the nice British lady in your GPS told us it was legal, so it’s totally cool.”

“Okay”

Gina commences epic U-turn across Street Road.

“Whaoooooo!”

.

Sometimes as Gina and I wander around being – well, us – I catch myself wondering: why are we allowed to do this?

At no time has this question been more present in my mind than today, as Gina chauffeured me around the city to cross last-minute to-dos off of my wedding prep list. Right now we are sitting in a hotel room on a key-protected floor looking at the ridiculously awesome costume jewelry Gina will be wearing tomorrow in my wedding.

This is after nearly crashing our luggage cart in the hotel parking lot, surviving our epic U-turn, me almost pitching my electric guitar through a display case at Bluebond, buying seemingly a hundred travel-sized personal condiments, earlier wandering around a masquerade store discussing the logistics of whether Moses’ crook is effectively the same thing as Little Bo Peep’s crook, and general driving all around the city wailing along to my official last-day-of-bachelordom CD, Pinkerton.

We are two fairly ridiculous human beings on our own, but we don’t typically verbalize or act upon any of our ridiculousness. As a pair both of those impulses are actively engaged. Which makes it clearly insane that I am getting married tomorrow, and Gina is captain in charge of making sure I get married.

We have not trashed the hotel room yet, but I believe that option to still be in the cards.

We are, after all, rock stars.

.

(As to where I’ve been: I was really sick. A week before my wedding. It wasn’t fun. And I got a chest x-ray. That’s about all that needs to be said.)

Also filed in Engagement, Philly, Year 09, gina, shopping, stories, thoughts, weezer | | Comments (2)

Are you the me you always wanted to be?

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Did you ever have a teacher that made you write letters to your future self, and then promised to send them in five or ten years to remind you of what you used to aspire to?

I didn’t, but I do have a blog, which functions in a similar capacity if you keep it around long enough, minus the postage.

It’s affirming to read that the me of eight years ago was worried that in half that time I’d give up playing guitar and turn into some vacant, corporate, brown-nosing shell of what I had hoped to be.

It’s affirming because in half that time I had almost given up playing guitar, but I realized the insanity in that and reversed course. It’s affirming because I got corporate, but it just made me more comfortable being myself.

It’s affirming because I imagined myself saying, “none of my friends even really knew i was into it that seriously,” and I don’t think I could accuse myself of that anymore. It’s affirming because I think the current me is exactly who the younger me would have wanted me to be.

And, it’s affirming to know that it’s okay to wonder if I’m going to fail spectacularly at the future I want for myself, because just the practice of worrying means I’m on the right track.

What worries did the you of 2000 have about the you of today? Do you think they’d be pleased to see how you turned out?

Also filed in betterment, thoughts | | Comments (1)

Preoccupational Hazards

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Tonight was my one night off for the week, except I wanted to spend it on – do some blogging, maybe start my next Trio.

That wasn’t meant to be. I had some more pressing concerns to attend to, such as washing dishes and laundry. And, I’m not just talking about from a normal “chore” perspective. No. This was a no drinking glasses left and completely out of pants situation.

You might laugh at my situation. Ha!, you might think, he seems to be so together with his podcasts and his Groom Team, but it’s an illusion! You might continue to gloat, Aside from his yuppy job he’s living the slovenly, disorganized life of a lazy bachelor.

Yet, that’s just not the case – and not just because I’m living merrily in sin with Elise. I’m certainly spending time being clean, orderly, and tenacious outside of my yuppy occupation – it’s just that the time is invested in all of my yuppy pre-occupations.

At this point I have so many non-occupational jobs that it’s not unusual for a week to go by without me even finding the time to do a single load of laundry. Take this week, for example.

I spent half the weekend recording and mixing the four songs in the last two posts, and the other half working on an arrangement for Drexel’s all-female acappella group. Monday I spent a few hours cleaning up the back-end CK, and then I went to a concert of someone who is playing at my wedding. Tomorrow night I’ll be co-hosting an open mic with the other half of Arcati Crisis, and on Thursday I’m the artist liaison at our Lyndzapalooza Fall Mixer.

Did you catch all of that? Recording engineer, transcriptionist, network administrator, event planner, rock star, and A&R rep. That’s six hobbies that I’ve turned into part-time jobs. Hobs? Jobbies?

At least with the latter half of wedding, AC, and LP I knew from the start that I was getting into something that was both time-consuming and rewarding. However, the former three – CK, arranging, and DIY recording – all started out as innocent distractions from the rest of my life. I never meant for them to become staying up until 3am, working until I nod off in my chair sorts of engagements. It just turned out that way.

Is this insane or just slightly abnormal? Do you have jobs aside from what you do for a living and taking care of your home and family? If you do, did you choose to make them a priority, or did they sneakily transform into one over time?

Also filed in bloggish, cleaning, day in the life, lyndzapalooza, mess, over-achievement, thoughts | | Comments (1)

Living Marginally

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

As I’ve alluded to in recent posts, an interesting confluence of events has lead Elise and I to begin searching for our first house a full six months before we intended to undertake such a project.

As we both combed through our finances in anticipation of applying for pre-approval for a mortgage, a certain fact about the two of us became abundantly clear: we are living marginally.

That’s not the same as “living on the margins,” a phrase you might use to describe the forgotten Americans our politicians are currently busy vying over. We are hardly teetering the precipice of hopelessness and debt. Thank goodness.

Instead, what I mean to say is that our lives just don’t cost very much to live, and by extension we have assets but not much equity.

The cost of being us is marginal. We began our adult lives by leaving college with a manageable amount of personal debt. We haven’t owned a car in years, and don’t own our own home. We don’t have any children or pets, or other family members to support. We consume uncomplicated food, and not much of it. We have a finite collection of housewares and consumer electronics that we don’t frequently expand. I quite adamantly dislike vacations, and neither of us participate in a particularly costly hobby or habit aside from music, which is at times a second career.

Essentially, in any given month after rent, food, utilities, and student loans we’re in the clear.

If it sounds like a charmed existence, well, it is. We’re living risk-free. But, that comes with a downside that’s subtly dangerous: we’re naive about how much life costs, and we’re reticent to find out. We have no concept of car insurance or property taxes, or even of paying for parking or needing a lawnmower, and it would be easy to stay this way

Yet, we can’t stay this way if we want to become upwardly mobile adults. No risk, no reward.

Therein lies the thin line between living marginally and living in the margins. You must make the leap into adulthood just right or else you become a forgotten American. You wind up making an effort to make ends meet, and tying up your entire livelihood in the upkeep one major asset – your home – living in fear that its value might drop out from under you. And if the bottom falls out from under your life you don’t just become forgotten – you disappear completely.

.

We had to be cajoled into applying for our pre-approval, because we assumed we would be laughed out of the realitor’s office. We read the news – we knew about how bottom fell out of the mortgage industry, taking thousands of forgotten Americans with it. We didn’t think we had a hope.

Well, owing to living marginally, we did; though we don’t have any equity, we don’t have any bad credit either. In the mind of a reeling industry we still represent a good risk – a possible reward.

For a few weeks the potential mortgage check in my pocket made me feel immune to any financial woes. But, now that the euphoria has worn off the sticker shock is settling in.

Can we afford the homeowner’s life? Are we equipped to go from marginal to mobile without falling into the margins?

While I don’t think we will become invisible or disappear completely, both outcomes now loom tangibly, if remotely, over our house hunting. I’ve been invisible before, when I was a child visiting the corner store with a fist full of food stamps. The prospect of returning there – no matter how incredibly remote and unlikely, sets my stomach to roiling.

Life without risk may not be rewarding, but at least it’s comfortable.

Also filed in betterment, elise, house, news, thoughts | | Comments (2)

Happy Birthday To This

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

I.

Lately I’ve been struggling with the concept of success – specifically, how to discern the difference between progress and success.

I am always progressing – I do not do well with sitting still. Nevertheless, moving forward doesn’t equal succeeding. Motion doesn’t equal a milestone.

Or, at least, that’s my typical mantra of over-achievement.

It can be hard mantra to upkeep; over-achievement requires a lot of regular achievement to maintain, and that requires plenty of milestones to mow down while you’re in motion.

It’s an especially hard mantra to have when no new milestones are in sight … when it starts getting tempting to view motion as a milestone. It’s akin to the kid who wants a teevee break just for doing the first page of his homework. Should I reward myself just for learning one new song, or completing one workout? The slope from those minor successes to learning a new chord or doing one push-up is treacherously slippery.

This was the quandary that stopped my progress cold last week, grinding my life to a halt. I spent a long night of discussion with Elise, reviewing the successes of the past year, and trying to figure out how to translate further forward motion into more milestones.

Elise is the panacea to those inconsolable moments, and as we laid in bed talking it became apparent that part of the problem is that I had forgotten the other, single, proven solution to all of my various doldrums – eight years of Crushing Krisis archives documenting every success and failure, and all the moments of paralysis found in between the two.

Eight years of proof that I am always in motion, and always finding a new milestone.

II.

As of today Crushing Krisis is an alarming eight years old – absolutely ancient in blogging years, and still the reigning longest running blog in my fine city of brotherly love.

I have a blog old enough to be in third grade. If that’s not a major milestone, I don’t know what is.

Not only is CK itself a milestone, it’s a collection of them – a chronicle of my greatest hits, the succcesses that sketch my evolution from aimless straight-A college student and hapless singer-songwriter through hopelessly overcommitted yuppy and emerging artist.

The amazing thing about the last twelve months is how many successes they encompassed. I played a show at the Tin Angel with my band (two, actually). I got engaged to the love of my life. I completed six months of voice-lessons, emerging with newly revitalized vocals. Lyndzapalooza threw not only a hugely successful music festival, but two modestly awesome off-season events. I finally became the senior member of my team at work. I’m planning the most kick-ass party I’ve ever thrown, which coincidentally happens to be my wedding.

In hindsight I feel as though the vast majority of my personal greatest hits record is contained in the last year of my life – like I’m one of those artists who has one big album and that ten years later my record company will release a 21st Century Masters collection of me that regurgitates that one album end-to-end, plus some random cover I did for a soundtrack.

In the midst of all those hits I could easily lose track of the progress I made, but that’s exactly what CK is here for. I already chose the best of them to feature in the Year 8 topic, but my most indelible memories extend far beyond the posts I’d deem as “best.”

Our band got censored for the first time. I had two of my most memorable taxi-driver conversations. I played a game of “what if I managed Britney?” I conquered my quarter-life crisis. I co-invented (and later conducted) an Upscale Bar Crawl. I blogged daily for an entire month for no reason at all, highlighting my favorite (remastered) Trio Tracks along the way.

I dissected Radiohead’s record release, along with the entirety of the “blogosphere.” I became fascinated for an entire night by a trick of photography. I learned valuable lessons from my longest period of bachelorhood in the past half decade.

I began telling the story of our engagement, further chronicled here and here. I disclosed my previously deeply personal delight in hot food eaten cold. I saw Elise’s brother make his theatrical debut. I posted a rare Trio that I liked as soon as it was recorded.

I contemplated being a real band. I reflected on my childhood masquerade as a born-again Christian. I posted yet another awesome-right-out-of-the-box Trio. I celebrated Gina’s birthday by recounting our first time singing together. I cultivated an ulcer. I learned about sibling rivalry by way of working out regularly for the first time in my life, and in the process got to know Elise’s sister a little bit better.

I almost shattered the fragile, bird-like skeleton of one of my SVPs. I taught the entire internet how to edit their MySpace Music profiles (seriously, you should see the referrals I get on that one damn post). I nearly got laughed out of a coffee-shop due to my savant-like knowledge of Clue.

I played my band’s first honest-to-goodness solo gig, and made friends with 13-year-olds. I spoke at my mother’s wedding, and reflected on how just a few decades ago mine would be illegal in some states. I became a big brother, and started becoming my mother, all in the span of a week. I reflected on GBLT rights in Iraq by way of Ani DiFranco and teenage theatre. I posted the best and worst of my teenage poetry.

And, still fresh in my mind, I was the victim of a crime of hate.

Other things happened too – good things and bad things left unsaid as I skipped a few months of blogging while I was out succeeding a life.

I never finished our engagement story. I haven’t been blogging about wedding prep, including dress shopping and invite-making. I didn’t relate how I got chewed out by a co-worker for bashing Jesus on our last Live @ Rehearsal disc. I continuously redacted a post entitled “Figure Skating Pants” because it never turned out as funny on-screen as it was in my head. You haven’t yet heard about house-hunting.

A hundred other things.

If Crushing Krisis is as much about progress as it is about success, as much about motion as it is about milestones, it’s also as much about silence as it is about sound. My evolution is sketched as much by the words I withhold as the ones I write.

III.

I write these birthday posts each year … letters to my future self. Internet time travel.

Last year I said:

If Year 6 of Crushing Krisis was about finding stability, then this past year has been converting stability into happiness.

To amend that quote, if Year 7 was about converting stability into happiness, this past year was about finding a way for happiness and success to finally co-exist in my life.

In their own quiet way, those successes have brought me as close to quitting CK as I’ve ever been. Even though this blog documents my successes the actual act of blogging is all progress, and progress without success in sight can be daunting.

On and off, I plotted CK’s demise. Merge it into a band blog, I thought. Not as important as wedding planning, I decided. My writing has already peaked, it’s time to focus on other things, I resolved. Not saying much of importance anyway, I mused. It’s not as if anyone’s reading it, I whined. Blogs are ubiquitous and thus unremarkable, I opined. I’m out of things to say, I worried.

Yet, here I am, still, heading into Year 9.

Why? Because Crushing Krisis is one of the best ideas I’ve ever had, one of the best things that has ever happened to me, and the best way I know to show that I am not only progressing into adulthood but slowly and surely succeeding at life.

And because of you. You – indefinable and intangible, yet indefatigable.

Not just you – singular you, tu – you there on the other side of the screen reading this now, so much as you – plural you, vous – all of you. The royal you. The Schrodinger’s Cat of you. The mere potential of you.

“You” could mean you – now, in the present, two seconds after I post this; you – far in the future, maybe after I’ve gone; you – both of you; or you – neither of you … some other you entirely.

Thank you, no matter which you I am addressing. Thank you for being a part of and a party-to my never-ending progress and my continuing success. Thank you for reading, listening, commenting, and linking. Thank you for your time, for your attention, and for being you.

Thank you. And, happy birthday to this.

Also filed in Engagement, Year 08, arcati crisis, august 26th, betterment, corporate, elise, essays, gina, lyndzapalooza, memories, over-achievement, resolve, self-critique, singing | | Comments (4)

Crisis = Danger & Opportunity

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Last year I approached my 25th birthday with trepidation – I’m on the younger side of my group of friends, and I’d watched each of them struggle with some variety of a quarter-life crisis. Who am I? What am I doing with myself? What am I spending all of my time and money on? The questions seemed as endless as they were answerless.

To boot, the end of my first quarter was off to an inauspicious start: I had recently quit the acappella group that was my only after-work activity. I wanted to perform my original music, but I had nowhere to play and no one to play with.

And, right on my birthday, Elise and I had a hideous fight, a rare thing for us.

I love a crisis, because it represents both danger and opportunity, so I made my quarter-life as a challenge. In a year where most twenty-somethings freaked out about lacking direction I would turn my meandering life into a pure vector, improving every aspect.

The whole endeavor sounded ridiculous last September when I conceived of it – how could I better every aspect of my life without some cataclysmic change, like winning the lottery or developing telekinesis?

As it turns out, if you want to truly alter your life you have to treat it like a weather pattern – starting with the proverbial flutter of butterfly wings and winding up on the other side of a hurricane of change.

It yielded some results I couldn’t have possibly anticipated, many of which I already touched on for CK’s birthday a month ago. I performed live in almost every month of the year. I rebooted my blog, creating something I adore more than ever. I’ve saved more money than I have in my entire life previous, but I still found a way to afford voice lessons. I’m eating healthier than I ever have before, but it’s not just a tacit attempt to jump start my anorexia. And, as evidenced by my yet-to-be-recounted Thursday night as a rock star, Gina and I are finally a band.

The list goes on and on, but it ends with the most important item: I’m happy right where I am.

Last night at dinner my mother asked me if I felt any older, and I think I surprised her by saying yes.

I feel older in the best possible way.

Also filed in Year 08, betterment | | Comments (4)

Happy Birthday To This

Sunday, August 26, 2007

I spent the majority of my day yesterday moving my best friend & bandmate Gina and her boyfriend Wes into their first house.

We were a small team of movers – just five, plus one in the truck – yet the move went as smoothly as it could possibly go… with the exception of one instance of Gina and I collapsing into giggles while trying to carry her futon around a bend in the stairs, and the fact that the laws of physics bar them from sleeping on a queen-sized box spring anywhere other than their living room.

Gina and I have now known each other for over half of our lives – through middle school, high school, college, post-college, and now whatever this is. It was amazing thing to be a part of her big move yesterday, just it continues to be amazing to be able to see so far into the past of someone, someone with whom silliness comes so easily, and with whom I am the epitome of comfortable, willing to speak my mind even when I know we disagree.

Crushing Krisis has now been alive seven years – since August 26th, 2000. That’s more than half as long as I’ve known Gina, and nearly as long as I’ve known the rest of my best friends.

To the best that I can discern, Crushing Krisis is the longest continuously running blog in Philadelphia, and has been since 2003. It’s an amazing thing to contemplate, especially considering that Philly was recently measured to be the second most bloggingest city in the United States. It also means that CK is increasingly one of the most established blogs on the face of the internet.

Just as significantly, since it’s inception Crushing Krisis has been a home to my original music, featuring the original (and, correspondingly, longest-running) singer-songwriter podcast, Trio.

Maybe more significantly than either of those distinguished roles, Crushing Krisis is a part of me – a persistent virtual reflection that helps me to see myself as I am, as I once was, and how I wish I would be.

This page is a lot of things, and a lot of me, and for each year that passes it gets a little more important, because I am getting older and starting to forget feelings from certain moments or stories from specific parties.

I long ago accepted that birthdays and new years days are not inherently transformative experiences – you don’t come out on the other side a new person more than you would emerge reborn from any other day of the year. Yet, they can mark your graduation into being a changed person.

As I wrote last year’s birthday post I felt as if I had finally reached a stable place in life, and if Year 6 of Crushing Krisis was about finding stability, then this past year has been converting stability into happiness.

Some of that conversion was literal. I went from writing and editing letters to managing publications and ad campaigns. I went from being a house-bound recluse of a songwriter to a semi-regular at area bars. and open mics. I transferred Crushing Krisis from Blogger to WordPress on November 12, in the midst of participating in the amazing National Blog Posting Month. I vowed to have a consumerless Christmas (and succeeded). And, Gina and I finally became the band we’ve always teased at being.

And now I am actually, unequivocally, at an equilibrium of happiness – which, if you read through as many hundreds of old posts as I have in the past few weeks, you will realize is a state I wasn’t sure I would reach. Not so soon, at least, and maybe never.

Year 7 of Crushing Krisis includes a slew of favorite posts. I cursed at the television. I had a headache so profound that I gave it a name. I reinvented myself for NaBloPoMo. I recounted my first heartbreak. During a single Trio I redefined one of my favorite songs, and debuted one that had been incubating for half a decade.

I almost burned down the house baking cookies in the microwave. I finally told the story of my life-altering nap at Bonnaroo. I recorded a perfect version of one of my favorite songs. I took my first trip to a casino. Septa carried out an act of terrorism against my favorite garment. And, I finally celebrated the 4th of July the way I’ve always meant to.

But, for every favorite post there’s another that’s just as essential. I offered the most succinct description of myself ever made. I retold the story of the Queen of Darkness, complete with soundtrack. I mercilessly deceived a toddler to get him to eat his vegetables. I contemplated six years of knowing (and reading) Rabi. I listened to the Beatles entire catalog while racing through my last letter of NaBloPoMo reading.

I examined my role as a narrator in my own songs, comparing it to that of an inanimate object. Elise and I found a new favorite restaurant, where we’ve since become regulars. I documented my seemingly endless struggle with organizing my home office. I started documenting my visual life. I reflected on how far my 2004 resolutions have got me.

I recorded my favorite Garbage song, as well as one of Madonna’s most obscure. I reflected on how feminism sometimes makes me cry. I drank a lot of limoncello. I helped present the fifth annual Lyndzapalooza with hardly a hitch. I recorded my catchiest song, ever. I nearly lost my mind in the middle of Broad Street.

After recapping my year in words or links I usually spend the penultimate paragraphs of these August 26th posts talking about what Crushing Krisis is to me and what I hope to make it in the future, but I don’t know if this iteration warrants the introspection.

After seven years of blogging Crushing Krisis is me or, more accurately, an integral, inextricable part of me that I hope will exist as long as I do and beyond. Ultimately it doesn’t matter how many posts I make in a year (105), or how many unique songs I feature (37), or how many times I tell you how I really feel (?). This is just what it is, and I wouldn’t want it to be anything else.

While the penultimate paragraph changes, the final sentiment never really does: thank you. Thank you, no matter how many posts you have read, or how many songs you have listened to.

Thank you, because each of our identities are half about our self-perception and half about others’ perception of us, and if this is a form of me it would only be half-alive without a you to complete it.

Thank you. And, happy birthday to this.

Also filed in Philly, Year 07, august 26th, betterment, gina, moving, rabi, self-aware, songwriting | | Comments (3)

Of Undergarments

Sunday, August 5, 2007

For a significant portion of my adult-shoe-sized life I consented to own only a single sort of sock. Gray Hanes socks.

My time, I reasoned at the tender age of fifteen, was too precious to be spent sorting and matching socks.

(Of course, at the time my mother was sorting and washing socks; I only did laundry when I wanted to work out something on guitar without anyone being able to hear me.)

And, socks were a utilitarian piece of clothing – their selection hardly factored into my fashion sense. Between boot legged jeans and tight vinyl pants no one would ever know or care what color socks I wore

(Around the same time I had deemed that all of my underwear be black, which seems contrary to the whole “utilitarian piece of clothing” argument. Except, nothing spoiled a good semi-goth outfit than a tiny peek of the angelic elastic of a pair of tighty-whities. Trust me.)

My single-sock philosophy developed a chink at Drexel, where our job-interview coaches put our impending job interviews in a plain and dire light: if your interviewer caught you wearing gym socks under your dress pants they would turn you out on your ear, having already seen for themselves your greatest on-the-job weakness and deemed you unworthy. And, if Drexel caught wind of it you could be expelled.

Or something like that.

I carefully shopped around for a black sock I could stick with, eventually settling on Dockers. Generic, easily bought in packs of three or nine. The perfect complement to the gray Hanes. With only two colors, sorting was still not an issue, which I appreciated much more now that doing my laundry involved sitting in molded plastic chairs and sorting on card tables.

I’ll spare you a sock-tinged journey through the remainder of my collegiate and professional career and just cut to the chase.

Friday morning I spent ten minutes rustling through my laundry basket seeking black socks. In the literal sense my quest was fulfilled – I came away from my hunt with eight socks. Yet, practically it was unfulfilled – none of them matched. I have designer black socks, gold-toed black socks, black socks with subtle patterns, and two subtly-different sorts of black Dockers socks.

What’s the moral of this tale? I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps that all of those fussy teenaged whims usually have some sort of obstinately sound reasoning behind them, and if you don’t wind up as an entirely different person as an adult you might find yourself wishing you had never let down your guard.

Although, for the record, I still do not own any white underwear.

Also filed in college, fashion, high school, ocd, stories | | Comments (0)

How To Stream Satisfaction

Monday, May 28, 2007

I have not left the house since Friday night – since dragging my sorry self in from the humidity with guitar and amp and bookbag after what maybe would have seemed like one of the longer days of my life had I not just helped to put on a music festival last weekend.

I unapologetically turned on the central air, flopped on the couch, and that was that.

Waking up the next morning – and, in fact, all the way through the weekend until earlier this evening – I couldn’t quite tell if I was sick, or just “under the weather,” or if my body was simply mounting all possible protests at once: sore from lugging amp and guitar around the city, voice fading after a week of talking and singing, stuffy from allergies (also: I need to change the filter on the central air).


I’m being paid to help an acquaintance write and record two songs.

It’s a peculiar arrangement – even beyond the peculiarity of being paid to do something that I spend the majority of my non-working life doing for free. She has words, and melody, and even some chords, but she needs help translating them into a coherent, performable, recorded song.

On her first song we completely clicked, suggesting the same exact chords to each other, minus our personal flourishes. The exception is a single, recurring section where she hears the accompaniment as happy and major, whereas I just feel it as minor and unresolved. She sees where I am coming from, but she doesn’t hear the song that way.

She’s the (paying) client, so I’m doing it her way, but it hurts a little – the song is losing a layer of nuance that only I will ever know. It’s a peculiar direction to head in, given I’ve spent the last year or two mercilessly deconstructing my own writing, trying to eliminate all of the nonsense whims to drill down to the perfect song underneath.


I’ve been reflecting on how my threshold for wasting money seems to be pushing in two opposite directions, leaving a vast middle ground of amounts to waste.

On one hand, I won’t even spend $.99 on a song I like on iTunes, whereas in the past I used to buy albums just based on cover art. On the other, a $400 piece of furniture or recording equipment is a necessary evil, whereas three years ago it took months of prodding to get me to buy my first brand-new electric guitar for that amount.

Is that normal? As we grow up are we all at once more willing to nickle and dime and more willing to throw money at seemingly inevitable larger purchases? It seems like the sort of thing I couldn’t understand as a child, but I feel like I live an entire life that I wouldn’t be able to understand as a child, so the finer points are getting harder to discern.


Last night I watched Battlestar Galactica on the floor of my room/office, head propped up by cardboard box because i was too sore/sick to wander downstairs to find a pillow. It was thing infinity-n on my list of things to do, but I did it anyway.

What is more modern-day than being able to download exactly the thing you have a whim to watch at 3am on Monday morning?


Do you remember when blogging was about recording that instant gratification? Now we have Facebook status and MySpace walls to record the instant – the offhand comment, the spurious wish – while our blogs sit in silence, waiting to catch a thought that is more fully formed.


Lying on my floor somewhere around 4:37 a.m. I thought, fuck that. If my modern adult life says I can stay up all night watching television on my floor because I am too impatient for the DVD to arrive in September, then I’m allowed to blog about whatever damn errata I want to.

It’s not the errata that is alluring and readable, in the same way that watching that one episode doesn’t mean that I am modern and adult. It’s that watching that episode was any of a thousand possibilities of things I could be doing at 4:37 a.m. – a range expanding from sleep to flying to Kansas City just to get drunk.


It’s that enough amassed errata is defining – maybe even arresting – but the only way to find that out is to collect it all in one place, instead of squandering it on everyone else’s internet page.

Also filed in Year 07, day in the life, thoughts | | Comments (1)

The Belly of the Beast

Monday, January 15, 2007

The closest I had ever been to a casino prior to Saturday was my twice-yearly reading of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, so when we stepped onto the floor of the Tropicana I half expected a neon carousel full of lizard-people to greet me.

It would have been better than the real thing; shabby carpets whose patterns snaked from side to side as they stretched across a hazy room filled with a fleet of leggy middle-aged waitresses in weird black corsets and hundreds of chain-smoking, hollow-looking gamblers, with a few cigar-smoking rotund gamblers thrown in for good measure.

I suppose I could have inferred the haze and the zombie-like patrons from Hunter, but i had been hoping for something more psychedelic.

In Vegas, maybe, but the nine of us were in Atlantic City. Wes and Karen sat down for winning streaks at black jack while I milled back and forth, nearly having my legs broken when i mistakenly wandered into the service-space between two active craps tables.

It occurred to me that there was really no instruction for the beginning gambler; I couldn’t have even sat down at a black jack table, let alone craps or some poker variant. While the hollow-cheeked undead of Atlantic City elbowed their way past me to get a closer look at the craps game I wondered if they all just expected me to buy some chips and lose until I understood … until I realized that anyone who spent any amount of time wondering about that wasn’t fit for gambling in the first place.

Eventually the more serious boys headed to poker while the rest of us made a pass at the slot machines, where I spent my first (and perhaps only) $3.25 on gambling before declaring that the fleet of corseted grandmothers were not going to keep me inebriated enough to make my gambling cost-effective.

We retreated towards the sports bar and, as the whir and hum of the shabby casino room faded behind us and as the ceiling gave way to rows of wicker fans and then impossibly-bright false-clouds, I thought that perhaps I liked casinos very much so long as I didn’t have to go into the casino part.

Either that, or calculate just how much I had to gamble in total to have my drinks and roomage completely comped and spend exactly that hour-by-hour over the slow course of a day. Because I’d rather spend my money on a steady and sure flow of Southern Comfort than whip it away on the whims of an eight-deck shuffler.

Eight hours later and we were all thoroughly drunk (some of us already hung-over) and mourning our poor Eagles while singing karaoke, me and Gina and our entire table screaming back the pitches of Bohemian Rhapsody at the pitch-deaf lump who had the (intentional) misfortune of selecting the song, and then carrying our scream-singing into the cool night air and back to Philadelphia as i sang the pitches i still could with my husk of a voice.

It took me the better part of Sunday to recover from the experience – just sleep and water, no speech or food, until finally this morning I felt as though the rest of me had returned from AC, where it had somehow become entangled in the hazy air on the casino floor.

Also filed in Year 07, alchohol, books, day in the life, events, gina, stories | | Comments (5)

Taking Back Giving Thanks

Thursday, November 23, 2006

I don’t enjoy celebrating most holidays. They aren’t really holidays anymore – just treacly Hallmark imitations of the celebrations they once were.

Part of my resistance is societal – a rebellion against Hallmark and Christmas radio stations – but part of it is familial. As children we are subjected to the whims of our family’s traditions with little room for our own opinions. When i hit college i decided i’d start having things my way – i rebuilt my holiday schedule from scratch.

I usually deign to observe a standard July 4th, since it holds historical significance, and Cinco de Mayo, since it kicks off my Corona-drinking season, but everything else is fair game; one particularly defiant year I celebrated Passover instead of Easter.

However, I haven’t fucked with any holiday as much as today’s – Thanksgiving – because i didn’t really feel as though i had been giving very much thanks. It had turned into Turkeyhaving and Footballwatching or, worse, LaststopbeforeChristmasing.

Rather than touch any of that, i co-opted it for my own, never doing the same thing twice. Once i carried a balloon in the parade. Another year i dined with Gina and her family and friends. Two years ago i spent Thanksgiving alone, drinking martinis and watching old movies. Each iteration was superior to the alternative of a dead bird and getting stuffed just to get stuffed.

Over the last nearly-five years i have been gradually assimilated into Elise’s family, which dichotomizes every holiday between a split set of parents (a phenomenon with which i am all-too familiar). I am now an expected guest at their holiday celebrations and, as a result, here i am in NJ celebrating a second Thanksgiving in a row for the first time since the nineties.

At first i was reticent – this was exactly what i had been trying to escape! Yet, the view, the culture, the traditions, the food, and the thanks are all different here than what i gew up with. Admittedly, I don’t like them all – i was especially upset to realize that not every family in America accompanies every holiday turkey or ham with lasagna or baked ziti – but in total they have definitely refreshed my thanks… thanks for who i am, and where i am, and that i am free to choose both and everything in between.

I think holidays should be what you need them to be, especially a holiday about thanks. And sometimes the best way to realize why (if at all) you are thankful is change your perspective.

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, elise, family, gina | | Comments (1)

The Curse of Smart

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

I don’t necessarily think of myself as “smart,” but the evidence often points in that direction.

When I was very young I was always bright. Good grades were effortless, and thanks to that over-achievement I attended one of the best public middle- and high schools in the state (and the country).

It was a shock to my system: my peers weren’t just peers in age, but in intelligence. I was no longer the smart one, just a smart one. I increasingly saw myself in the middle of the hyper-intelligent pack figuratively and, in class rank, it became literal.

College was that shock in reverse – i was no longer surrounded by a crowd of smart.

It took some time to adjust to being above-average again. I expected to still commiserate about having a hard time and getting average grades, because that was who I accustomed to being.

In retrospect, as my confidence and ability increased so did my aloofness as a student – i eschewed or altogether ignored classmates in an effort to insulate my ability to be right without feeling guilty. In a way it was like returning to grade school, where I had free reign to wield my smarts with no regrets.

I have been dismayed to learn that in a post-collegiate world the insulation of isolation just doesn’t work; you don’t get anywhere by eschewing possible connections or alienating co-workers with your know-it-allness.

That’s the curse of smart – everyone respects your intelligence until you are a peer or, worse, a competitor, and suddenly “smart” is a derogative term, and you are left scrambling to cover it up.

As a result, I often find myself feigning misunderstanding or painting myself as a little bit bumbling … handicapping my A-Game just to fit in to this so-called “real world,” and living in constant fear that the facade is starting to stick.

Is that the line that separates smart drones from smart successes? Am i supposed to stop caring about people, and start caring about being right?

I guess i’m just not smart enough to understand.

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, self-critique | | Comments (2)

Happy Birthday To This

Saturday, August 26, 2006

With less than a month until my twenty-fifth birthday I am left pondering – am I ready to be an adult yet?

The conclusion would seem to be foregone. I’ve certainly been paying my own way for years now; I have a steady job (actually, a new one, as of Monday). I live in a beautiful house. I’m in a long-term relationship. I own plenty of adultish toys I could never before afford.

In short, I would seem to have attained some sort of stablity. A steady state. Does that make me an adult? How do I measure my adultness? How can i quantify it.

The answer to that quarter-life birthday riddle lies in this day, also a birthday – the birthday of this blog. At this moment I have been blogging continuously under a single title for six years, now entering my seventh.

That has nothing to do with being an adult. But, my blog tells me all sorts of things about the person i used to be, in contrast to who i am now. It tells me about slogging away at a coffee shop for CD money. It tells me about living in dorms rooms and ghetto apartments. It tells me about uncertain crushes and the blossoming of a more permanent romance.

It reminds me of when I only owned one ugly, thick-necked, out-of-tune guitar.

Obviously i’ve seen some progress. And, if you’ve stuck around long enough, you’ve seen it too. You’ve also seen the evolution of my writing – both in what I finding inspiring, and how I get my message across.

This year you’ve seen some new things – two out-of-state, out-of-comfort-zone adventures that I documented via my camera phone. You’ve also been left out of a few details, like my joy in seeing friends and co-workers experience the thrills of marriage and childbirth, my re-emergence at local open mics, and my excitement over my new position at work. I just don’t have the will – or the time – to report it all.

And, the nature of the internet has fundamentally changed. No one wants to wander out a domain blog when they can stay in the safety of LiveJournal or MySpace to read about their friends. And, with that centralization comes the dawning realization that all of this is in fact permanently archived (duh), leaving everyone frantic to carefully cover their electronic trails so future dates or bosses can’t find out every dirty little secret.

Has that changed me? I can’t really say. I’ve always tried to blog what’s important to me, even if only to remember something that might otherwise drift out of my memory. So, while other blogs are created and deleted, while other bloggers become LJ-checkers and MySpace addicts, me and this digital mirror still remain.

I wish I had time every day to devote to this. I wish i had tricked out special features and new songs for you every day. But, i wish that every year. No matter what i wish for, what i already have is what this means to me, and what you mean to me for still caring about it. And, if you need to go away for a while – to your MySpace or your real life – that’s okay. I’ll still be here, still growing. If it weren’t for this, i might not realize just how adult i’ve become; if i don’t keep it up, how will i ever know how far i have left to go?

Thank you for watching (and sometimes listening) as i’ve inevitably and inexorably grown up. And, happy birthday to this.

Also filed in Year 06, august 26th, guitar | | Comments (1)

Never Again To Enter the Cabbage Patch

Saturday, May 27, 2006

With the Lyndzapalooza landmark passed on my yearly calendar i’m in a bit of a drift. Bonnaroo, maybe, St. Louis in July, and then my birthday and Christmas and the whole thing starts all over again.

It’s a bleak outlook on the rest of a pretty good year, but i can’t seem to help that i’m starting to understand why everyone loves to complain about their jobs and longefor their weekends. You know what i mean; as a child they’re half the grownups you know and the majority of the adults on sitcoms, and even now it’s half your friends and half your co-workers.

My job is actually enjoyable, and it’s not that i like Saturday or Sunday any more than any of the other five days of the week. It’s just the centripetal force of circling around and around each week in the year. If you work a 9 to 5 job you can help but be drawn to the weekend like water circling a drain.

But what’s in that weekend? If you’re some people i know, the weekend is so packed full of activities – otherwise unachievable on a weeknight – that it’s just as much work as work. If you’re me the weekend is the same wasteland of exhaustion and listlessness as any weekend, just without intermittent workdays to break it up.

I’m starting to think that the key to adult happiness is staying away from both of those poles: don’t waste your weekend, but don’t lay yourself across it like a martyr either. Because, those fifty consecutive hours of “off” aren’t any different than the sixty-some non-consecutive hours of off you get during the week, which aren’t even that much different than the forty-some hours of work except that you get to do exactly what you want to do with them instead of what you should do with them. Except, maybe if you did what you should do they’d be more satisfying.

What do i know? I’m still pretty new at this grownup thing.

Also filed in Year 06, thoughts | | Comments (0)

Ikea & e-tailing, the twin inflators of my revolving debt

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Inexplicably, we now seem to be in possession of lawn furniture for our concrete back yard. This is possibly linked to our cultivating what has now become a mid-sized container garden. (I found out that it’s just not chic to call it a pot garden. go figure.)

Being the son of “Elaine of the Black Thumb,” my experiences with gardening are limited to vicarious horticultural exploits with my father and grandmother. My father and I have the same way of needing to know everything about specialized or slightly obscure topics, and one of his major topics is growing tomatoes and peppers. At some previous point I seem to recall him having a pot garden in his basement, but I was always assured it was specifically for making superior quality rope.

In any event, i’ve managed to decimate a trio of strawberries, grow a tray of marigolds and eggplants from seeds, and keep alive a cheerily expanding blackberry bush that’s so cute that i might buy another.

Equally as inexplicable as my participation in the greenery, i am days away from being the owner of a brand new acoustic/electric guitar. I’m still not really sure how it happened. Something about having a day off of work, homemade cocktails, and eBay. I’ll report later this week on the results.

Also filed in guitar, mom, shopping | | Comments (0)

I Need More Morals

Monday, November 7, 2005

Sometimes i am completely capable of doing something right even when i am sure that i’m not.

Our wireless network was all sorta of wonky. Elise’s laptop was connecting with a wire, her desktop’s connection was dotty, and my computer suddently disconnected from the network every time i checked my imap email. Taken singly the problems might have seemed surmountable, but not all at once. Feeling utterly helpless, i disconnected the wireless modem last night and made no attempt to fix it.

Fast forward a little over 24 hours, and i have a hankering to check my email. I could just plug into the wired connection… if i wanted to be a fucking wuss. But, no. This is simple consumer technology. The only thing standing in my way are three separate operating systems. Everything else is a matter of logic. In some instances logic and instructions written primarily in German. So, mostly logic.

To make a long story short, an hour later here i am posting wirelessly once again. I could be doing the same thing from either of Elise’s computers if i felt like it. Was it simple? No. Did i break and mistakenly delete things along the way? Of course. But i figured out the problem my damn self.

Between this, riding my bike to work, crashing my bike and not dying, subsequently exchanging my bike with no argument, throwing a successful wine & cheese party (wait, i’ll get to that one), and not going to the ER despite being convinced i had broken my hand (although i most certainly hadn’t) i have had a very capable seven days.

Moral which i already knew: you can’t succeed at what you don’t try. Time to employ moral: Seven days down, lifetime to go.

Also filed in betterment, health | | Comments (0)

All We Owe, We Owe Her

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Work was as productive today as work can be with Ace of Base’s hit single “Don’t Turn Around” lodged in your brain for eight hours.

My title changed as of yesterday to better represent the incredibly intangible, incredibly invaluable project management service i continue to provide for our company. What’s funny is that i thought my job change would actually reduce the ridiculously large scope of my projects by honing my attention onto more specific, more completeable projects. In fact, I’ve actually tripled my scope just in the last day, and it looks like tomorrow will add some more scope to the pile.

In the wake of the change, i am left wondering if I love what I do. I loved what i did when I started this job, and i still love what my department does. But, do i really love being a project coordinator?

Regardless of the answer to that question, i definitely stopped loving what i was doing sometime between Autumn and Spring. Everything about my job and the people i did it for became twisted so that it was completely unrecognizable. Suddenly, work became the null-time that it is for too many of my co-workers – nothing remarkable or exciting or energizing. i liked what i was doing, but not the reasons i was being made to do it.

Now that’s all been resolved, and i’m doing project management for good, healthy reasons – and learning more about it every day. And, i do enjoy project management – it’s something i have a natural bent towards, to an extent. Yet, it’s so far removed from what i went to school for, and what i came here intending to do, that i am beginning to wonder if i’ll ever love it the way i want to love a job.

What am I interested in anyway?

Also filed in corporate, memories | | Comments (0)

Nostalgia Attached

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Packing always makes me feel like blogging, perhaps because my first week of blogging featured ongoing packing.

Packing for me is never just about putting things into boxes. It is about reviewing, reflecting, and reconsolidating. Boxing my CD collection goes fast (four boxes, now), desk stuff slightly slower. Slower still is looking through a box of “peter papers” to see if anything can be disposed of yet. Nothing can be, of course, but i take the opportunity to reread almost everything inside.

At the bottom, wedged beneath a battered purple binder containing a hand-scrawled short story that only Gina has read, is a summary of a day of media-deprivation i did for my first class with Ron Bishop. My sentences are sprawling and glib (a clear precursor to this diarrheal exercise), and reading through their words to their naiveté is pure nostalgia.

I was tempted to throw this paper out, as it was just a glorified diary, but something i say in the conclusion stopped me. Feeling as though all intrusive messaging had been flushed from me at the end of my media deprivation day, i apparently sat down to write a song.

Attached to the back of my paper, for Ron’s perusal, is what had to have been the first ever printed copy of “Under My Skin.” He might have even been the first person to read the lyrics.

Amazing. So, yeah, i’m keeping that paper, and all of Ron’s wry comments therein.

Somehow, this move feels as if it’s already over. Maybe that’s too much faith to have when my solution to every problem so far has just to throw money at things, but the idea of moving into an entire house where Elise and I rule every room and closet is just too tingly and wonderful to be diluted with any anxiety about the move itself.

I keep saying that we’re moving to a house, and i keep wishing that we were buying it instead of renting it. All in good time, though.

Also filed in Year 05, college, elise, moving, under my skin | | Comments (0)

I Thought Wrong

Friday, June 11, 2004

I thought … A few weeks between the end of school and the beginning of work… sounds like a life of leisure!

Little did i know.

I don’t think i’ve had five minutes of downtime so far, and the closest i’ve come to leisure is drilling the top harmony part of “Granted” for half an hour while Elise watched in bemusement. None of the dozens of CD reviews or decadent acappella arrangements i had been planning. Half of the friendly get-togethers i had scheduled. Plenty of lifting things i did not know i could lift two weeks ago, and subsequent showers.

I am determined that this is our adult apartment. We will have adult things. We will organize things in an adult way. I bought a very adult tooth brush holder at BB&B that’s a perfect blend of stainless steel and imitation porcelain, and it gives me a little thrill every time i walk past the bathroom door.

Every time i think we are settled i unsettle something. The new taller-than-us bookcase upset multiple neatly packed boxes. The router had me dragging computer parts around the room in circles. The front door is currently barricaded with hundreds of dollars of unbuilt IKEA furniture, necessitating shuffling of ladders and shopvacs in the kitchen.

I love it. The first space i have a complete command over. And no television. And now DSL! And a toothbrush holder! I am nearing the pinnacle of delight.

Now if i could only find five minutes to enjoy it.

Also filed in elise, moving | | Comments (0)

Wednesday, November 12, 2003

Aim refused to get drunk before our interminable night class on Monday, so instead we stuffed ourselves silly with bubble tea and made a list of think I could do in June.

1. Graduate; get a job in Philly. Pros include staying in the same physical area with the same social network, which incurs lower cost and promotes mental stability. Cons include feeling as though i’m starring in my own personal version of The Truman Show or, alternately, reminding myself how pathetic my life is on a weekly basis. (Note: Cons do not apply if employed by the University of Pennsylvania or Philadelphia Magazine)

2)Graduate; get a job away from Philly. Includes the major benefit of living independently somewhere other than here. Detractions include lack of startup capital, moving all of my stuff, having to buy a car, and the fact that I don’t think my dozen closest friends are going to set-up a schedule where at least one of them is crashing on my couch at all times. At least, not without some prompting.

3)Graduate; attend grad school. Combines academic challenge with possible relocation. My already-existing student loans and the fact that the letters G, R, & E often induce a panic attack are definite detractions, as is the fact that i’d rather gnaw my arm off than go to class lately. (Note: Detraction #2 is waved if I pull a Martha).

4)Graduate; go abroad to do something worthwhile. Pros include buying a backpack guitar and getting a new passport photo. Oh, and changing the rest of thr world a little bit while potentially padding my resume. Cons include putting the rest of my life on hold for a year, airfare, immunizations, the fact that I barely speak anything other than English, and paying hiked-up import prices for new records.

5)Graduate; become a Rock Star. I know that almost everyone wants to be famous but, lets face it, most people have no particular reason to get famous no matter how much they want to be. I used to be most people; in high school i had a recurring fantasy invoked while singing in the shower. It involved me singing in the shower (wait for it…) only to be interrupted by an astute questions posed by my interviewer from Rolling Stone, who i had permitted to join me in the bathroom to facilitate his interview but promptly forgotten once faced with my audience/shower-fixtures. I could conceivably make this a reality. Pros to this include the fact that there’s really no reason for me not to be famous – i’ve got decent songs, a decent voice, and am decently cute (which is more than i can say of any new band i’ve heard/seen within the last month). Cons include that since becoming a rock star is not a definable career choice, and i can’t obtain job security or a future through attempting it, i have relegated it to a back burner for over half a decade so that it’s never really close to reality. Also, it’s a lot of hard work, and schlepping around with my guitar, and believing in myself.

This is what i do while i’m supposed to be blogging, if there is such a time of day. Feel free to share your opinions, additional pros and cons, or alternate options.

Also filed in aim, college, martha, my music, rollingstone | | Comments (0)

Thursday, August 28, 2003

We spoke about it intermittently, about how after next June my life splits into a dizzying kaleidoscope of shape and color, with each alternate option representing it’s own crystallized shard of possibility. There are very few common themes between them, save for music, which i refuse to give up after it took me this long to acquire it.

Turning off of Wall Street, Rabi said, “Well, at least yours aren’t entirely fantastical,” which struck me as ironic, because the image of me – emancipated from family and school … having a real life – is fantastical in and of itself. She was apparently comparing my options to her favorite from this Spring, which was to be a rag picker in 17th century France.

“At least yours,” she remarked, “do not require time travel.”

Implicitly they do, though, because i can never make a decision without a chance for a second guess. The second chance is always best, but we choose the first, so we’re fucked. I sang the line so convincingly the next morning, walking down a Brooklyn street strumming my guitar, that she giggled amidst the little old ladies and all the men with their yamacas. I laughed to, and the next line was lost on me for a moment, And we assume the worst and hope the best, but it always turns out in the end, but i think if i could keep it in mind this would all be a lot easier.

The Waverly was too perfect to end the day, Rabi and Hillary and i singing “Frank Mills” under our breaths the whole way there, then sipping too-sweet sangria and watching me eat my incongruous bacon veggieburger. I turned to Rabi with a mischeivous glance at some point before 2am, grinning. “So, we’re finally having our drink.”

Central Park was all about acting, or lying, or maybe how i always thought i’d be a good actor just by lying, but really that it’s more about telling the truth. I’m not sure that i’m good enough at either anymore. The impromptu jazz band that greeted us on Park West seemed to be playing an improvisational version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” sloppy but with a sort of irrepresible joy hidden underneath. They were definitely telling the truth

I wondered out loud at the lack of buskers as she bounced down the stairs to another muggy MTA platform, but we found them as soon as we came up nearer to the Village — like South Street with all manner of sundry cute little shops amended to its edges in a snowflake cutout of hip. I ogled ties, aprons, and chess pieces, but the wood shop was my favorite, with its weathered dark wood (oak?) piano just inside the stoop for $750 dollars.

Slipping my fingers beneath the lid to tickle the keys, i was surprised at the tuneful noise that emerged from the antique. “I could buy that.” I turned back to Rabi. “That’s an amount of money that i could spend on a piano.”

It was then that i found a new tiny pearl of resolve. That, barring circumstances that involving a passport or a raft, a piano would be chief amongst my post-graduation plans. A sort of anchor to my future, a small point on which i can focus while the bigger ones are too blurred to make out.

Although i was sure before, now i am convinced that i could never live in New York, no matter how cute their hardwood floor and yellow walls are. Last night Elise earnestly reminded me of the yearly Baldwin Piano sale in the theatre. Maybe i should take a look? But, no, i laughed, because you pick up one thing and the next comes right to you, no matter if you took the first or second chance.

That is why it always turns out in the end.

Also filed in Year 04, nyc, piano, rabi, resolve | | Comments (0)

Thursday, June 19, 2003

Dear sweet lord, i graduate in 360 days.

This occurred to me about halfway through Lindsay’s graduation ceremony on Saturday: Lindsay is finishing school a year before me, so i will graduate a year from now.

That’s the first time i’ve ever actually gave the span of time between myself and being an adult an actual quantifiable number.

Man, there’s some bone crushing pressure for you.

Also filed in college, lindsay | | Comments (0)

Tuesday, June 17, 2003

But, what if being a good corporate employee is not all about knowing who to say yes to and how loud to say it, but knowing why they want to hear yes and if they could be convinced to hear it at a different volume.

This is the reason i, with my year of college left over, am not jealous of my friends from high school who graduated last month: i’ve had a year and a half of nine to five to learn working logic, against their optional three summers of internships.

Well, plus i’m not ready to be a grown up yet.

Also filed in college, corporate | | Comments (0)

Wednesday, May 21, 2003

Recently I’ve had a couple of people tell me that you start to feel old when one of your exes gets married. Of course, I really only have the one ex, and we all more or less lovingly refer to her as the Queen of Darkness, so that particular trauma has already passed for me. I didn’t feel old, though – I think she had been betrothed to the dark side even before she started seeing me.

I guess the thing that makes you feel old when a former significant other ties the knot is that you could have, theoretically, stayed with that person, forcing them to wind up knotting with you rather than some other person. Instead, not only have they successfully replaced you (with their spouse), they are several spins ahead of you in the game of Life.

Despite not having an ex for this to happen to, this weekend someone told me something that still managed to make me feel old in that same way – only a little bit different. Because, you see, I found out that a girl who I had never even kissed got married.

Of course, if I was counting the social evolution of every girl I ever had a crush on but never kissed against my own I would have to have some sort of leader board hung in my room to keep track of it all. In fact, this girl is a little bit different because I could have kissed her. I really almost did – as I remember it, we were all lined up for the moment, lips aimed and everything. We didn’t kiss, though. I didn’t kiss her because she was seeing a very nice boy who she seemed to like a lot, and I didn’t want to make myself a chink in their relationship’s armor.

I didn’t kiss her, even though I wanted to, and wound up thinking about it for the rest of the week, hovering by my computer in case she sent me a message of any kind. I’ve talked to her since, hugged and laughed with her, slept on her couch, and rode in her car.

I haven’t heard from her lately, though; we haven’t spoken in months. But, this weekend at our (yet-to-be-blogged-about) cast party, a friend of hers who was in town stopped by to say hello, and she off-handedly informed me that this girl, who I never even kissed, got married. Married to the boy that kept me from kissing her.

It’s not quite the same feeling of being old. Instead, as her friend’s words reached my ears, they manifested as a strange quiver in my stomach. Something about fate? Or karma? Would that kiss have made a difference? Would she have really kissed me if I had leaned in? Would I have been a bad person for doing it? Could it have ever even happened In the first place? Would I be who I am today if it had?

I really ought to save the tough questions until after lunch, huh?

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