Just My Luck

"Boy, what a world. Could be so wonderful, if not for certain people."

—from Woody Allen's Radio Days

I'm pretty sure the character who said this in the movie was referring to Hitler, but I’m thinking it also applies to the people who decided it was okay to break into my old apartment that I wasn’t completely moved out of yet and take things. When my sister, her boyfriend, and I all packed up our JP apartment, we left a few things behind we didn’t want to lose in the shuffle. We were moving out three weeks early, so we still had time to go back and pick up the rest and do a thorough cleaning. We took a week off between the move and the return visit, but once we stepped back inside it took about two minutes to realize, “Hey, someone has been in here. Hey, that window is propped open and the string from the blinds is stuck beneath the screen. Hey, our internet router, my expensive company phone, the little kitchen shelf, my full-length mirror, our vacuum and Swiffer, our can opener (and other random kitchen things), and all of our cleaning supplies are gone..." 

The Sister: They took your soap?!
Me: They took the roll of toilet paper out of the holder. Of course they took my fancy soap!

Yep, they even took our toilet paper. Although I have to admit, they were considerate enough to leave at least one roll behind in the other bathroom. Because all of our cleaning things were among the stolen items, I had to walk down to the small corner store where they sell random things for suspiciously low prices. I bought a box of garbage bags, a roll of paper towels, and the most legitimate-looking bottle of all-purpose cleaner I could find. But then we discovered the sprayer didn’t work on the bottle, so we had to take the cap off and just pour the liquid either on a paper towel or right on the surface itself. Needless to say, it wasn’t our best cleaning experience and we just wanted to get. out. of. there.

What I don’t get is, if they took everything else, why leave us the dead mouse on the counter? It would have come with an extra bonus of maggots… They also didn’t touch anything in the freezer or fridge, including a brand new, unopened bottle of pickles. You take a mostly empty bottle of soap, but our pickles aren’t good enough for you?

I realize I’m coming off as angry and bitter at the moment, but really, I do recognize how lucky we are this never happened while we were actually living there. And it was kind of a nice bonding moment with The Sister and The Boyfriend while we tag teamed the cleanup of the dead mouse. I’m more grateful than anything. Grateful to be away from the mice. Grateful to never have to walk by the neighborhood park where my phone was stolen off my stomach as I lounged on a blanket on a sunny June day. Grateful to not wake up at 5:30 every single morning because every single morning seemed to be garbage day on that street. 

Plus, my new home is every bit as wonderful as I imagined it would be.

p.s. Mr. Clean Magic Erasers are amazing. Go buy them. Go scrub your walls and be astounded at the scuff marks and Pepsi stains you can erase. I thought about taking before and after pictures (and maybe even one in between with the streak of white in the dirt like in the commercials), but I decided that was a little too pathetic. That may be one of my most prominent traits, but even I have a limit.

Lost In Furniture Candy Land

Even though it was utterly exhausting to watch those men move all of our stuff on Saturday and then later have to dig through the stacked boxes to find the damn silverware so we could eat dinner (my life is so hard), the next morning my sister and I decided to run some errands. We rented a cargo van from Zipcar for 15.5 hours (for just $130 for the day, gas and mileage included—I freaking love Zipcar). We wanted to take advantage of Massachusetts’s tax-free weekend and trek out to Target and IKEA to fill our new places with even more stuff while also making a trip up to New Hampshire to store a few things at my uncle’s. Plus, I just really like to drive.

Once we clambered into the tall van and finally discovered where the release to the emergency brake was hiding, we were on our way. But apparently I have been a pedestrian for too long, because at the very first stop light I encountered I attempted to go once the WALK signal came on. Oops. But no harm, no foul. I was able to switch into driver mode and it was smooth sailing from then on.

Kind of. I must say I drove that huge cargo van around like a champ. I was able to finagle my way into some impressive parking spots and even avoided the stupid Massachusetts drivers intent on pulling out right in front of me. But getting around the Northeast without getting lost, even with some form of GPS, is almost damn near impossible. I made the probably-terrible yet slightly-amusing decision to have my sister be the navigator. Any of you who know her also know her lack of directional skills. There were a lot of incidents that went something like this:

Me: Which street do I turn on?
Her: That one (as she points behind us).

And traffic circles. WHY DO THEY EXIST. Even our weird sister-talk (where we know what the other is trying to say even though she’s failing at actually saying it) didn’t help me here.

Me: Where do I go? Which exit?
Her: The right one!
Me: They're all right!

But we survived. And it felt good to get out of the city and drive with the windows down. (See? It’s the simple joys in life. I bet you non-city people take your daily driving adventures for granted.)

Once inside, though, it seems I’m the directionally challenged one. Who here has been to an IKEA store? Then you know it’s not entirely my fault that I got completely lost. I made the mistake of separating from Sarah at one point in search of a cart and then the even bigger mistake of walking through a door in an attempt to bypass the long line of people shuffling down the aisle. By the time I found an abandoned cart to steal, I had absolutely no idea where I was. Now some of you may be thinking, What’s the big deal? So you walk around until you find your sister. Thanks. But this is a very daunting task in a store that’s 350,000 square feet and makes you go through all of the different departments on a winding path that looks suspiciously similar to a Candy Land game board. I tried to retrace my steps, looking for something familiar, and occasionally going through a door promising a shortcut and rainbow color gumdrops. After what felt like half an hour but was probably three minutes, I broke down and called The Sister—for help? for moral support? I don’t know. But I do know I was for some reason almost in tears as I tried to make my way back to her. “I’m lost. I’m like really lost. What are you near?” Couches. “But I don’t see any couches. All I see are beds and there’s a big room of lamps back there and I’m going the wrong way down the path and everyone is glaring at me and—Oh, sorry!—and now I just ran the cart over some woman’s toe.” She stayed on the phone to help calm me down as I continued ignoring the large arrows on the floor pointing the opposite direction and passed the clocks and dishes and—couches! I found her.

It turns out I was not the only one to find IKEA a little too intense that day. We later walked by a 20-something girl crying in the middle of the aisle, telling her friend, “I’m just so overwhelmed.” Granted, she could have been talking about her life or her boyfriend or her student loans or something, but I still felt her pain.

All was right again in the world once we made it out of the maze and up into New Hampshire where my aunt and uncle had all the fixins for root beer floats. Yes, root beer floats can make everything better.

And beautiful views aren't too bad for the soul, either.
Boston's Zakim Bridge

No One Grows Up Saying They Want to Be a Mover

The movers showed up at 10:00 Saturday morning, and despite a few minor setbacks—having only three boxes packed just 24 hours before, pausing Friday night for one last trip to Doyle’s pub down the street, and running out of tape to put together our boxes until 9 a.m. Saturday when I could run to the store—I still managed to be ready for them. I know. Miracle.

Let me just stop right now to defend our decision to hire movers. First of all, well, we’re lazy. I got winded climbing the stairs to our third-floor apartment just carrying a small bag of groceries. There was no way in hell I was going to run up and down all day (or multiple days, most likely) carrying shtuff. Plus, the price of the movers included the big moving truck, gas, blankets, security tape, large muscles… It took them six hours to empty our apartment in JP, unload at my sister’s new place, and then bring the rest to my new place. If we had rented our own truck, after six hours we would maybe have brought down the beds and couches and be halfway down the stairs with the kitchen table. Well worth it in my book.

The three guys from the local moving company in JP were all fun and friendly. There was Eric, the manager of some sort, or at least the guy with the clipboard. Mid 30s, short dark hair, increasing number of fingers wrapped in tape throughout the day from constantly finding things to cut himself on. He spent most of the time down in the truck rearranging, so I didn’t get to talk to him much.

Rick was the “runner,” doing most of the legwork, grabbing boxes from our apartment and running them down the stairs. He was probably late 20s and had black shorts, a black tank top that still managed to get darker from sweat, a short Mohawk with the sides starting to grow out, and a tattoo of an elaborate cross on his left bicep. As he walked through the kitchen where I was standing awkwardly with my sister and her boyfriend, unsure of what to do while they hauled our stuff out, he commented that we sure do have a lot of books (packed in very heavy boxes, even though I specifically told The Sister and The Boyfriend to split them up). Rick told us he couch surfed across the country for years, and now that he’s been stationary in Boston for awhile now, he’s excited to have a shelf devoted to books again. We also learned he used to live in our JP neighborhood and had helped create the community garden that I love walking through to take pictures of sunflowers. Small world.

And then there was Hale. Plain white t-shirt, short dark blond hair, big nose and red, puffy eyes. He showed up two hours late and then introduced himself by saying, “I apologize if I smell like alcohol. It’s sweating out of me. …Don’t worry, I’m not drunk right now, but I went out last night. It was a rough morning.” I’ll admit, I’m pretty awful at judging age, but I figured Hale was in his late 30s. But as the vodka sweated out of him in the next four hours, he started looking more like mid/early 30s. He was surprisingly fast and agile for a middle-aged hungover man nonetheless.

After Hale carried down the last load, I went out and sat on the front step to see if they really could fit everything into the medium-sized truck (opposed to the large truck we used to move out here) like they claimed. “We’ve picked up some tricks over the years,” Eric had said to my raised eyebrows. There were just two boxes sitting out on the sidewalk next to one of The Boyfriend’s amps and a large white box fan. As Eric and Rick rearranged the boxes in the back of the truck like Tetris pieces, Hale lit up a cigarette and sat on the steps next to me. He wanted to know where was I from and why did I move to Boston and what was I up to, so I gave him all the incredibly exciting facts of my life. He told me he had majored in journalism at a college in Vermont—or maybe it was Virginia, I can’t remember—and then moved to Boston and worked for an ad agency for eight years. But when they laid off 700 people, he was SOL: “And now I’m here. No one grows up saying they want to be a mover.” He flicked the cigarette down onto the sidewalk and hoisted himself up to go help the other two just in time, helping to balance the fan on a box inside as they quickly shut the door.

When they pulled up to my new place two hours later, Hale hung his head out the passenger-side window and yelled, “Hey kiddo, nice place!” They parked and Hale and Rick climbed out, each exhaling smoke from another cigarette. I’m a little amazed they’re able to smoke so much with such a physically demanding job, but who am I to judge.

I had them unload all of my stuff into the larger room right next to the one I am moving into. See, my new room is a tad bit smallish. The roommate who will be in the room next to mine won’t be moving in until the end of the month, so I’m taking advantage of her space as I unpack and settle in. And her room just happens to be about three times the size of mine. Or maybe the better way to explain it is to say my room is only a little larger than her room’s closet. (But have no fear—we have split the rent fairly, and my room is nice and cozy, so I don’t mind.) So I thought it was somewhat genius of me to have the guys bring all of my boxes into the room next door, pretending it was mine. I know, that’s a weird thing to lie about. But #1. I knew there was no way it would all fit into my room anyway. They could have stacked the boxes literally wall to wall, floor to ceiling, and they would still spill out into the hallway. (Yes, I have a lot of stuff. No, my plan to go through and get rid of unnecessary stuff failed.) #2. Maybe I was a little embarrassed to admit I was delusional enough to think everything would eventually fit in that room, and I wasn’t sure if the movers would find that amusing or pathetic. #3. It made sense; I can set up my room and then bring in all my crap at my leisure. But Eric, adding another piece of tape to his thumb, said, “This is kind of a tight squeeze for you, huh?” I looked around the spacious room, thinking of my little nook one door over, and thought, You have no idea.

The Useless Days Will Add Up to Something

I made my way to the Harvard Bookstore Wednesday night for a reading by Cheryl Strayed, promoting her new book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar. Although I could undeniably use such advice (considering I spend most Saturday nights alone on my couch), I mainly went hoping she would talk about Wild, her memoir on hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (and her spinning-out-of-control life that compelled her to do it). I wasn’t disappointed; she read and discussed both books, and it was definitely worth standing in the hot and crowded back room of the store for an hour and a half.

She first greeted us by saying Boston holds a special place in her heart. I immediately assumed she said this to every city she visits, but I think I actually believe her now. To begin with, she was in Boston on her spring tour when she first got the call that Wild landed on the New York Times bestseller list. I can’t speak from experience, but I’m guessing that’s a moment not many authors forget. And then later that day after she completed her reading and opened up the floor for questions, an older gentleman in the front row shot his arm in the air. “Have you ever had sex in exchange for food?” She said the audience went silent (unlike ours), not knowing how she would respond. She answered, “No, but do you want to get dinner tonight?” Turns out he already ate. So now she begins each reading with this little story, and she said being back in Boston feels like she’s back at home.

She managed to read from and talk about both of her recent books because, as she explained, both address “all the different things we grapple with: grief, love, confusion, kinky sex…”

Perhaps I should explain. For those of you who have not read Wild (you should), it’s a brutally honest, humble, humorous, and charming memoir on a twenty-six-year-old’s adventure of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and all of the reasons she decided she needed to try (her beloved mother’s sudden death from cancer, her desire and decision to sleep with men other than her husband, her subsequent divorce from her husband, her experimentation with drugs, her lack of direction in life, etc.). She needed to get away and clear her head—and what better way to do that than to literally almost kill herself by backpacking 1,100 miles with absolutely no previous hiking experience.

Tiny Beautiful Things, a collection of articles from her advice column “Dear Sugar” on The Rumpus, also grapples with the list of things above. As she read through a few articles, the one that struck me the most was her answer to one reader’s question What would you tell your twenty-something self?

• “You’re not fat. Or rather, you’re sometimes a little bit fat but who gives a shit?”
• “Understand that what you resolve will need to be resolved again. And again.”
• “The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs… The long meandering walks—” (this is where she paused to tell us all 336 pages of Wild were summed up in this phrase) “—the hours…wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not…”
• "...you believe you no longer have a right to such tiny beautiful things. You're wrong. You do."

Strayed admitted she was surprised to find this book in the self-help section, but I can see it serving that purpose. And I will definitely be adding Tiny Beautiful Things to my “Currently Reading” list (because hey, a little humorous but down-to-earth self-help advice never hurt anyone). 

I had to opt out of getting my copy signed... seeing as I bought the Kindle edition
and didn't want to ruin it with a scratched-in signature of some sort.
But she was extremely kind and friendly to every fan.

Will I Ever Stop Being a Tourist?

I'm coming up on my one-year residential anniversary with this city, and yet just this morning I was snapping away pictures right alongside the tourists in their Harvard and “I’m the real Green Monster” t-shirts. I was walking along the outskirts of the Common, rushing to the Park Street station to get to my lunch meeting at least somewhat on time, when I looked to my left at the picturesque Massachusetts State House with the golden dome (that is covered in real 23k gold leaf, as I remember from my duck tour eleven years ago) and decided I couldn’t pass without taking a picture. What a tourist.

But I do this quite a lot. And I justify my frequent trips to American Eagle and Urban Outfitters because they’re located in Quincy Market, and the H&M is mere steps away from the old state house. So obviously I should be spending time in these historic places, no?

One of my favorite things to do downtown is to see how long I can walk on the Freedom Trail inconspicuously. I mean take each step right on that wide red line—without mowing down little children who get in my way.

At least I find a way to have fun every day, even if it makes me no better than a tourist. I like to think I see the good in things and try not to take even the simple little joys for granted.

“If you awake every morning with the thought that something wonderful will happen in your life today, and you pay close attention, you’ll often find that you’re right.”

(I’m not sure who first said this, but it’s on a lot of yoga and meditation websites…)

And vitamin gummies? Best invention ever.

Fresh Air

Every morning I’m greeted with a fresh vase of flowers on my desk from my boss's garden. Today’s holds one bright orange flower - he loves me, he loves me not petals surrounding a fuzzy red center. The smaller petals in the middle are deep orange, the larger petals beneath are more faded, as if the color forfeits its intensity as it spreads. Purple flowers that remind me of caterpillars are arranged behind it. There are also three large leaves forming the bottom layer of the arrangement. Pale yellowish olive green, with translucent lines like on the palms of my hands.

I have this strange urge to take a deep breath every time I see a beautiful flower. When I walk through the community garden near my apartment, I’m afraid I’ll one day hyperventilate. But I think I’m just trying to breathe in the fresh and innocent beauty (those tea bags for the dark bags under my eyes are not working their magic anymore). The tall sunflowers in the garden have been especially enchanting lately. Isn’t there just something about sunshine and flowers and a warm breeze that makes you want life to stand still?

Laundromat Language

I feel like a fairly observant person, but if you ask me to explain or describe to you what I’m seeing, hearing, smelling, etc., I’m at a loss for words. This is a bad thing for an aspiring writer to admit, I suppose. Earlier today, I was in the wonderful land of the Laundromat. So I started thinking, How would I describe this place? I could tell you about the cold, hard seat that was hurting my bony butt. It was in a row of other colorful seats (blue, yellow, orange) to disguise the dread of having to use a Laundromat. Look, while you’re here you get to sit in these rainbow chairs! Or I could describe the whir of the washing machines, a row of different cycles and stages and this one is permanent press and this one is gentle. I wish they were louder. I want the rushing and spinning to cover the sound of the Channel 7 Local News coming from the TVs on all four walls. I’m not in the mood to hear about the little girl who was saved from the creek—her rescuer first thinking she was a dog. Or about the Florida residents in an uproar because peacocks are destroying their cars.

photo source

Or maybe I’ll tell you about the man across the room. He’s standing in front of the big Eco-Friendly Dryer, staring at the spinning dark colors. He’s tired. How do I know this? He’s somewhat slumped over, with his right arm resting across his stomach and his left arm squeezed by his side. His left hand is supporting his chin, with his neck stretched out, as if to peer into the dryer even deeper. He hasn’t shaved today. He’s wearing white painter’s pants and an off-white t-shirt with sponsors on the back, like the ones they give out at festivals or minor-league baseball games. But I’m still missing something. I don’t know how to go into more detail on how the man’s body language tells me he’s tired. Instead I can only imagine what has exhausted him in the first place. Or why his stomach sticks out over his pants like it does. I could go into a story on how he works eleven hour days and when he gets home he just wants to sit on his couch, because although his painting job is not exactly exercise it is still physically tiring. And his wife doesn’t have the energy to join a gym, so how can she tell him he needs to lose a couple pounds. She may be a nag, but she is not a hypocrite.

Well, anyway. That will be my Last. Laundromat. Visit. EVER. My new apartment will have a washer and dryer unit all to itself. No more hauling suitcases down the street or having to watch the Maury Show. No more accidentally flinging underwear on the dirty floor three washers down or watching clothes catch on fire in the heavy-duty dryer and then turn to black char. Just six days ‘til the big move!

"I believe you should live each day as if it is your last, which is why I don't have any clean laundry. Because, come on, who wants to wash clothes on the last day of your life?"  —from a fifteen-year-old contestant in a newspaper challenge to imitate Jack Handy's Intimate Thoughts

On Honesty

Honesty should be black and white, right? You're either honest, or you're not. It's a virtue, a quality, a characteristic, a myth... The truth is that honesty is swirls of gray.

Honesty is like a pane of glass, or a window. It lets you see through to the other side, to the reality and truth. But sometimes it’s distorted or smudged or cracked. What then? You can still see through to the general outline, get an idea of the full picture, but you can’t make out the crisp details or the complete story.

But what’s more important anyway: the nitty, gritty cold facts, or the way you feel about them? When recalling memory, should we be honest to the events or to our emotions? And what is more honest anyway? What is more real? Our reality is made up of our experiences—our understanding of how things were, are, will be. Honesty is personal to each of us, and we therefore all have our own versions of the honest truth. So how, then, can there be any universal truth? Ah, but truth and honesty are two different things, aren’t they.

Maybe honesty is what comes from us naturally, unavoidably. How can we live a dishonest life? Our very being is the honesty of our self. Every breath begins honestly. But we twist things to please ourselves, and in the process turn them into lies. Honesty is easy, even if blurry at times. But through the blur, honesty should be ever present. 

This was an exercise for my Nonfiction Workshop on Memoir: Simply write "On" at the top of your paper, then add an abstract noun. As I've worked on exercises throughout the semester, it was nice to remember that the word essay (as in a personal essay) comes from the French verb essayer, which means "to try."

Oh, The Memories

I hate that I have to start every blog post with something along the lines of I’m sorry I fail at ever writing blog posts.* But c’est la vie.

I first have to give myself a shameless pat on the back for surviving almost a full year living with my sister and her boyfriend. Living with any couple is hard, as I’m sure you can imagine (or perhaps know from experience). But I feel it’s safe to say this particular couple is a special case. They are unbelievably corny and weird and lovey-dovey (and all of the things you hate to witness in your roommates). And yet I really like them and enjoy hanging out with them… so I have no choice but to put up with the torture. Who else would I watch back-to-back-to-back How I Met Your Mother episodes with? But I’ve made it, and I’ve even learned enough from my experience to craft this handy little how-to guide for other third wheelers out there. You’re welcome.

But Hallelujah, the Zs have stopped. Or at least have been drastically reduced. They informed me of a meeting they held the other day (meetings, apparently, will continue) where they talked about their use of Zs and realized it was annoying each but thought the other liked it. They still slip with an occasional “foodz” or “sleepz,” but I’ve learned to let it go.

I fear what The Sister and The Boyfriend will become once I unleash them to live on their own, though. In less than two weeks we’ll be parting ways and moving into two separate apartments in Cambridge. And although I’ll undoubtedly miss the mice** and noise and traffic and stabbings in my current lovely neighborhood, I’m mostly pretty freakin’ excited for the move.

I’m finishing up my summer class, a nonfiction workshop on memoirs. And despite one of my friend’s observations—“aren’t you a little young to write a memoir?”—I have come up with nearly forty pages of solid gold writing material along with countless ideas for future musings. And by solid gold I, of course, mean eh, it’s okay. But it has been fun wading through my memories, deciding which ones are real and which ones were manufactured, and talking over my pieces with classmates. If any of you out there are aspiring writers, I highly suggest taking a class or meeting with a supportive group of like-minded people; it’s very rewarding and motivational.

I love this quote from Willa Cather:

"All my stories have been written with material that was gathered—no, God save us! not gathered but absorbed—before I was fifteen years old."

I believe my own memories were absorbed, too. Some things I don’t want to remember (like the day I came home from school and found my cat dead on my bedroom floor). Some things seem to have happened solely to entertain me all of these years later (like the time I thought I was going to die from eating baking soda). But all of my memories have been absorbed and tucked away, ready to be dug out and explored when I’m ready. Or when I have fifteen pages due in 48 hours. You know, whichever comes first.

*Yes, I realize it's really pathetic that I only have 7 posts for the year and a half that I've had this blog.
** "Guys, we really shouldn't leave the bread on the counter because the mice might Aahhhhh!"

The Price I Pay

I haven’t yet decided if the entertainment my sister and her boyfriend provide is worth the pain I must endure as the witness.

New low: She called him last night from the bedroom to the living room. I mean, our apartment is kind of long, and sometime those 30 feet can seem daunting if you’re feeling extremely lazy. But calling him? Their bedroom is close enough to my couch that I could hear both sides of the conversation.

“Where are you?”

“The couch. Where are you?”

“The bedz. You come to the bedz meeting soon?”

Let me explain. #1. They’ve gotten into a nasty habit of ending every word they possibly can with Zs. Like lolcats but much, much worse. Example: of all the things he could have said when she showed him her new phone last month, he says, “Gasp, you haz the fancy phonez now?” And of course she answers with “I knowz!!” When she came to the living room one night empty handed, he asks, “You no find the cordz?” I think they’re just doing it in an ironic, sarcastic kind of way. I think. (I hope!) But it’s very possible it could also just be in a weird kind of way. Saddest thing about this: I’m not even exaggerating.

#2. They like to conduct “meetings” whenever they can. The first of this was early in the fall when they decided it was essential for them to have a book club meeting on my bedroom floor that I was not invited to. This “weekly meeting” has since only occurred once. They also frequently have “couch meetings.” Meaning they both sit on the couch. This one happens on a regular basis. And of course the “bedz meetings” I mentioned before.

I must say, though, she’s got it pretty good. Many of their “couch meetings” involve her stretching out with her feet on him and him arranging his laptop or dinner plate to accommodate her. He’ll also cover, uncover, wrap, or unwrap her feet with a blanket at her every wish (which is very frequent, especially it seems through the quiet parts of movies). And from my outsider’s view, her biggest frustration with him is that he occasionally sits too close to her on the couch. As if the fact that he wants to be near her is a bad thing.

And speaking of The Boyfriend, I have to admit I also have it pretty good. You know the worst thing about this roommate of mine? He does the dishes way too often. I’ve literally had to go out to the kitchen and yell (or speak sternly) at him to “put that dish down! That’s not yours!” Sigh, it’s a tough life I live.