For Matt (and maybe someone else)

Dear Friends,

My relationship with blogspot has been fraught from the start, and the intense frustration I felt when posting my previous entry (it took me far longer than it should have, and still came out poorly formatted) pushed things to the limit. Realizing that it's not too late to break, make a fresh start, hit the open road with nothing but the shirt on my back and the scent of freedom, I've taken a decisive step:

http://joelsinensky.wordpress.com/

I think it's much nicer looking, I'm launching with a brand new entry, and wordpress is just a helluva lot slicker and more fun to use. I can even monitor how many people visit the page every day, which is too damn sweet. And if any of you are about to tell me that blogspot offers that same feature and I was too stupid to find it, stop right there. It's easier to find on wordpress, and that's all I need to know.

I hope all of you will continue reading in the new locale. I can't promise to update much more than about once a month (in fact, that's a pretty good goalpost to set for myself), but hey, some people like those kind of dragged-out, subtly abusive relationships. Are you one of them?

with love,

Joel

Eyes Wide, Mouth Low

I like to read. In the last year I've read over thirty books, and started a great deal more. Because books requires so much more of a time commitment than any other form of entertainment, it's very easy for me to jump ship. Just a couple weeks ago I started reading Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis, absolutely loved it at the beginning, read 290 pages in (that's about four fifths done), and thought it got so stupid that I just stopped reading, and I'm not sure when I'll pick it up again. So just to finish a book is a testament to it's quality. Now I present my top five favorite books from the last year (note: this are just books that I read in 2009, not necessarily books that came out in 2009; there is one 2009 release on my list, and it's actually in the number one slot, but the other selections run the gamut.

In case anyone is curious about my movie pics, I didn't feel compelled to make a list because there were so many releases I didn't see, but my favorites of the year were The Hurt Locker and Fantastic Mr. Fox, two vastly different releases that both provoked very strong, visceral reactions in me. I can't think of any other movies that kept me so completely engaged, physically as well as mentally- watching the Hurt Locker I was shifting in my seat, sweating, gasping... for most of the movie, I had half of my own shirt in my mouth. Mr. Fox, meanwhile, slapped a permanent, goofy grin on my face. When it comes down to it, all of my favorite movies are the ones that cause these kind of uncontrollable physical reactions. Any other considerations come after that.

Looking over my final list, it's an interesting assortment. The selections run pretty dark, as does my taste, but they're also pretty dense. Several of the choices are among the most difficult reads I've had all year (numbers five and four on this list may very well be numbers one and two on that one). Now, this could just be because the harder reads left me with more to think/write about (there are several books that could just as easily have filled the number five spot, but I read Blood Meridian recently, so it was fresh in my mind and I wanted to write about it). Or maybe I'm just getting to be more of a prick in my older years, and I find that if a book isn't a tough nut to crack, then it isn't worth reading. Fair warning.

5. Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy

“Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work”- Judge Holden

I find it funny that Cormac McCarthy, a notoriously private, seventy-something novelist who writes uncompromisingly dense books about mankind’s capacity for unspeakable evil, has suddenly become the “It” Author in America. This new level of fame began with No Country for Old Men (more due to the uber-faithful adaptation by the Coen Bros than the book itself, which is generally regarded as a minor work), but then went into hyperdrive when he released The Road, a short, incredibly sad novel about a father and son traveling through the apocalypse that deservedly won the Pulitizer Prize, and has since been endorsed by Oprah, made into a pretty good movie, and become the most translated book since The Bible. I read The Road last year, and it’s incredible. If you’ve never read a Cormac McCarthy book, start there. It’s a fairly easy read, it’s short, and the horrors (of which there are plenty) are counterbalanced with lots of moments of sweetness and compassion and genuine beauty. It’s a hard book not to like.

The same can not be said for Blood Meridian, Cormac’s breakthrough novel from 1985, and a different beast altogether. While his elevated writing style remains consistent throughout his career, whereas The Road is a perfect introductory look at McCarthy, this is the hard-hitting advanced course. Blood Meridian tells the nightmarish story of a group of Scalphunters heading West in the early 1800’s. That is, people who’s occupation consists of murdering Indians, scalping them, and selling those scalps to the local government. The writing in the book is often breathtakingly beautiful, even as each scene is more unbelievably violent than the one before. It is about a group of men who’s entire life, day-in and day-out, consists of murder, a constant, unrelenting stream of violence that has twisted them into something truly inhuman. The leader of the bloodthirsty army, an outsized presence named Judge Holden, has been described by the literary critic Harold Bloom as “the most frightening figure in all of American literature.” That’s a very heavy claim, and it’s hard to gauge how frightening a character is, as fear is such a subjective and deeply personal sensation. I would, however, go as far as to say that the Judge is one of the most fully-imagined and absolutely compelling villains I have ever encountered, in any medium. I don't want to say anything more, as the character's nature is very slowly and meticulously revealed over the course of the book. But needless to say, we are talking about a very, very, very bad man.

The violence in this book is truly horrifying; the only book I can think of that operates on the same level is American Psycho, but the violence in that (also brilliant) novel comes in short, concentrated, incredibly disturbing bursts. In Blood Meridian brutality is a constant. Which of the two is more unsettling is a topic for debate (a very upsetting debate, but debate nonetheless).

This is not a book for everyone. It starts off pretty slow (most of the main characters, besides the protagonist, don’t even show up until about a hundred pages in), there isn’t much in the way of a traditional plot, and I can think of a number of friends who would be instantly put off by the book, either the graphic violence or the purple prose. And it does take a good deal of concentration to read (much moreso than The Road, which holds McCarthy’s same lofty style but is composed entirely of really short paragraphs and reads more like a long prose poem than a novel proper). But if you’re up for the gauntlet and don’t mind delving into some murky waters, give this book a shot. I honestly can’t stop thinking about it. And I also can’t name many other books where you can literally open to any page (any page) and read a turn of phrase that knocks the wind right out of you. McCarthy is truly a master of wrenching poetry out of the hideous. Which, in all honesty, I find a lot more interesting than someone finding poetry in flowers or sunsets or any of that sappy shit.

4. Consider the Lobster – David Foster Wallace

“ " "The American Academy of Emergency Medicine confirms it: Each year, between one and two dozen adult US males are admitted to ERs after having castrated themselves.”

In general, I’m not a huge fan of nonfiction. I appreciate it, and know how difficult it is to making it compelling (just look at this blog, if you aren't already fast asleep), but I've always found it much, much harder to get hooked into a nonfiction book. Fiction has always felt more fun to me; nonfiction is more formal, staunch, a representative of education and homework and Reading for Information rather than Reading for Pleasure. Maybe part of the problem is my own psychological mindset. In any case, when a nonfiction book really compels me, then it must be something special. This year I found two books that I think, in their separate ways, represent the pinnacle of what can be achieved in journalistic writing. One of them is We Regret to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families by Philip Gourevitch (a definite Honorable Mention for this list), an absolutely shattering account of the early-90’s genocide in Rwanda. It’s a brilliant book, and what makes it work is Gourevitch’s voice, which manages to be deeply empathetic and relatable, while at the same time incredibly informed and eloquent. Basically, he sounds like a good guy – nice, funny– who also happens to be incredibly intelligent and perceptive about the world around him. It's a tough book to read, but it's absolutely worth it.

But that’s neither here nor there. That book didn't make this list. What did was Consider the Lobster, a bravura collection of essays by David Foster Wallace. I’d dabbled in DFW’s work before and always liked it, but he also always seemed a little dense and intimidating to me (much like Cormac McCarthy, oddly enough). Then this year I read an incredible profile of him that ran in Rolling Stone right after his suicide, and I resolved myself to read more of his work. I’ve now completed both of his nonfiction collections (the first, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, contains a couple of his best and funniest essays, but overall I think Consider the Lobster is stronger). In this collection Wallace writes about a vast range of topics, but his real subject all along is what it is like to be alive today, in this batshit crazy world we live in. There are lots of things I could say about Foster's writing, but nothing can do it justice. The man can literally make any topic compelling. The one thing I really discovered about him this year, though, is how funny he is. Yes, his style is extremely dense, and yes, he is prone to go off on lots of hyper-intellectual tangents and he layers footnotes on top of footnotes until the font is so small you practially need a microscope to read it, but you go along with him the whole way because the guy is so unbelievably fucking funny.

When he’s writing about an ostensibly funny topic (one of the essays deals with his trip to Las Vegas to attend the Adult Video Awards) the humor comes in effortless waves, but it’s the times when it emerges unexpectedly that really got me. Get this: While reading this book I laughed out loud – let me repeat, that’s me laughing out loud while reading a book – at an essay about linguistics. Let me repeat that: linguistics. Yes, this man can make a fifty page essay on the history and nature of word usage not only compelling, but bend-over, laugh-until-you’re-red hysterical. I know, you probably don’t believe me. Neither would I if I’d never read this work. Truly one of the greatest minds of the last hundred years. Next up: Infinite Jest.

3. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Diaz

"As I'm sure you've guessed by now, I have a fuku story too. I wish I could say it was the best of the lot - fuku number one - but I can't. Mine ain't the scariest, the clearest, the most painful, or the most beautiful. It just happens to be the one that's got it's fingers around my throat."

I’m going to start grouping this book with Confederacy of Dunces (one of my all time favorites) under the moniker of Great Literature About Grotesquely Overweight Nerds. The central character of this kaleidoscopic book is Oscar De Leon, a Dominican Male who subverts every single masculine/virile archetype of his heritage. Oscar is fat, nervous, and socially awkward in the most horrible, pervasive, life-crippling definition of the word. His greatest passion is Genre and Fantasy, because it allows his imagination to escape from the barren realities of his world.

The book isn’t just about Oscar though, not by a long shot. It tells the multi-generational story of his entire family. There are sections about his mother growing up in the Dominican Republic under the almost unbelievably awful dictatorship of Trujillo. There are sections about his sister, trying to fuse her own identity. The narrator, writing in a baroque, massively entertaining Spanglish, even becomes a character in the story later on. Still, the central axis around which the rest of the narrative spins has to be Oscar himself, who could be the “loser” character in any number of goofball Frathouse comedies, yet who also manages to be a deeply tragic, almost Shakespearean figure. This is the only book on my list that I would recommend unequivocally to absolutely anyone. It’s so fun to read, yet has enough thematic heft to please any level of pretension. It has violence and grit, yet it’s also deeply romantic. And if the only thing you ever read is cheesy sci-fi, well, it’s got plenty for you too!

There are so many different levels to this book, it really is astonishing how perfectly they all fit together, how it tells ten different stories at once yet it effortlessly meshes into a singular, complete work. It’s both deeply tragic and full of slapdash, low-brow humor. It quotes from The Fantastic Four and Derek Walcott. In terms of a shifting, complex plot, you really can’t beat my number two choice, but this book is certainly the most thematically adventurous on my list, walking an incredible tight rope throughout and jumping from one character to another, from one time period to another, from one thing to another until, somehow, it becomes about everything.

2. The Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe

"She was right. The Master of the Universe was cheap, and he was rotten, and he was a liar."

A classic, epochal book from the 80’s about an unassuming investment banker and the vast, hierarchal forces that destroy him. I will say up front that Wolfe, as a prose stylist, is not the most elegant guy in the shop. This is a big, fat book, one that aspires from it's opening pages to greatness, and Wolfe lays it on pretty thick: lots of excitable words, lots of exclamation points. But you don’t read Tom Wolfe for the poetry. This book features about twenty characters on all different levels of social and economic hierarchies, and it’s incredibly elaborate, perfectly calibrated plot shows how all these different people affect one another, how power dynamics subvert themselves, and how insignificant issues of vanity and jealousy can lead to cataclysmic, destructive effects.

I would go as far as to say that this book, thematically, is the closest thing I’ve read to The Wire, the greatest television show ever made and my personal lord and savior. But where The Wire is deathly serious, Bonfire is a crazed, rollicking satire, full of elaborate comic set pieces and outrageous characters. More than anything, this book is just an absolute blast to read: it’s about eight hundred pages and I tore through it in less than a week. Every time I got on the subway I was literally itching to pull it out and read. It’s not that often that I find myself so unstoppably addicted to a book, and it’s always a great pleasure when it happens. Also, the book is all about New York City, which is certainly an added perk at this time in my life.

Also, extra points for one of my favorite titles ever.

1. Say You’re One of Them – Uwem Akpan

" "Selling your child or nephew could be more difficult than selling other kids."

Here we go again. Now, after getting Oprah’s sanctified seal of approval, this book and it’s unassuming author (a Jesuit Priest from Nigeria who does a little writing on the side) have become media darlings, deeply embedded in the popular culture of the moment, and placing it at the top of the list seems about as original as some wannabe intellectual saying that they loved reading Salinger and Fitzgerald in High School, but always found Hemingway a bit dull.

But let me explain: I read this book on a friend’s reccomendation last summer, before any of that jazz. I read it over the course of four days, and when I put it down at the end, shaken and exhausted and ready for a stiff drink, I thought to myself that this will be the best book I read all year. Six months later, it’s still true, and I certainly won’t bend because of my desperate desire to seem edgy. This exact same thing happened with me with The Corrections, Johnathan Franzen’s demented family saga that I tore through a few years ago and then watched as it was also anointed by our lady Oprah, and also became a temporary media sensation. This isn’t to say that a book being chosen for her book club means it’s bad (quite the contrary, if these two serve as our examples), but it does attach a certain stigma among young, hipness-minded literari who wear vests over their t-shirts. I’ve had a hard time convincing at least one friend to read Say You’re One of Them because of her. Johnathan Franzen also understands this unfortunate trend, as he came out in opposition to The Corrections being placed in Oprah’s clubhouse / jail and was (I’d argue unfairly) ripped to shreds by the media (On the other hand, I’ve read and seen some interviews with Franzen that make him seem like a bit of a prick. But then, on the other, third hand, he’s a genius so who the hell cares? I feel like I already wrote about this…)

But we’re getting off-topic. Maybe that’s because there’s nothing I really want to say about this book. It’s so brilliantly written, so unique, so completely and utterly devastating, that nothing I write will come close to approximating the experience of reading it. Here's the basics: it’s three short stories and two novella’s. Each is written about a different region of Africa, and all but one center around children. It has the unmistakable power of actuality, which comes from the author’s intensely personal familiarity with his subjects. The dialogue, a mixture of English and Africana, is poetic and gritty and is like nothing you’ve ever read. The characters captivate and shock you. The prose is written like a dream. I think at core the reason any of us read any books (or really, watch any movies or TV shows, listen to any music, play any videogames…) is the desire to be transported to a new place, to inhabit somewhere wholly different from our reality. This book took me to a place I’ve never been before with an incredible, all-consuming clarity. Read this. It’s magic.

Anyone else out there keep a running list of every book they read? Is that weird?

Where She Glows Like a Grain on the Flickering Pane

Here’s a story:

Friday, November 20 - 3:00 A.M.

Through various circumstances, I find myself alone, riding uptown on the subway, positively drunk as a skunk. I’m feeling woozy, sleepy, leaning against the shaky door as we slowly climb towards 137^th street. I’m thinking about the past evening, one of those very long, winding, multi-tiered nights with several cleanly deviated chapters (bound together only be the residual alcohol in my blood from one location to the next).

There is a young lady standing next to me. This is not to say that I noticed her while I was riding- I was too consumed with my own thoughts, as well as the ebb and flow of the train itself. However, at a certain point, she initiates a conversation. I don’t remember too much about it, but I believe she was from The Dominican Republic (with an accent to prove it), hoping to attend Columbia to get her masters in something (don’t ask me what), and lives up around 171^st and Broadway, a few stops past me. I do recall that her age was a bit of a mystery, even then. She could have been twenty-five or she could have been thirty-five, it was hard to tell. In any case, we talked on the train for awhile (for the most part, I believe, she talked; I nodded and tried my best to stay awake and disguise my slovenly state). Then, at the very end of the train ride, right as we were pulling into my station, I asked for her phone number. This ranks as just about the ballsiest thing I have ever done, and as I stumbled home I was exceedingly proud of myself.

I should try and clarify why this was such a momentous event for me. In all my life, every girl that I’ve ever dated (that vast, untold sum) has been someone who I knew, previously, as a friend. In fact, now that I’m thinking about it, I would say that this applies to not just any girl I’ve ever dated, but any girl that I’ve ever done anything with (besides, you know, sit next to on a couch and talk about Wes Anderson movies). For a time I was under the impression that this was just the way of the world, that a gestation period was a necessary component for me when it came to any kind of seduction (if seduction is the right term for this arduous process, defined more by perseverance and gamesmanship than anything resembling charm).

Lately I’ve started to reconsider this stance. This idea that I can’t be considered romantically until I’ve been accepted platonically is born out of the kind of crippling low self-esteem that plagued me for years. When I was younger, the idea that any girl would ever consider me attractive was completely absurd. I approached even the most meager gestures (walking side-by-side to the lunch tables, asking for a dance, etc) as though I was waging war against insurmountable odds. The idea that a girl I liked could feel the same way about me, could look at me and see any semblance of the same thing that I saw when I looked at her, was completely out of my frame of reference, as wholly unbelievable as any fairy tale. I’m exaggerating, but not by much.

Needless to say, this was not a particularly healthy way to live. I knew it then, and I certainly know it now. In recent years I’ve been making a concerted effort to obliterate every trace of this twisted self-image. I’d hardly call myself the most confident guy in town, but I’ve made a lot of progress.

I’m funny. I’m smart. I make a good first impression. Why can’t I just meet a girl and sweep her off her feet, straight away? And here we have the genuine article, a perfect New York moment, a meeting of like spirits on that soothing underground love boat, the Number 1 Train! Plus, I was a drunken mess, exhausted, rambling, coated with the sweat and grime of my night. If I can successfully seduce a woman then, perhaps even one that’s ten years older than me, then the sky is the limit!

So, that is why I was so excited about receiving this number. Here’s what happened next.

The Weekend

What I didn’t count on during that blissful, mildly nauseous stumble home was the next task at hand. I had to actually make the phone call.

Calling for a date in any capacity is always a nerve-wracking proposition for me. In this day and age of hypercommunication, a phone call remains the most daunting option. None of the reassurance and comfort that comes with being face-to-face, but none of the organized strategizing that’s afforded in front of a computer screen. It’s just you and that other voice, present yet obscured, suspended in the air.

On top of that, this call had several other uneasy factors at work. Our meeting on the subway had been so bizarre. Will she even remember giving me the number? Did she give it to me as a joke? Was she anywhere near as drunk as me? And beyond that, I knew absolutely nothing about her. Every aspect of our subway conversation, from her looks to her age to whatever the hell it was we talked about for twenty minutes, was pretty much lost in the haze. The image of her in my mind became stretched and contorted beyond recognition, to the point that I started to wonder if I would be able to identify her at a restaurant.

Maybe this wasn’t me. Maybe obtaining the number was the whole thin. In this case, the number was the goal. There was no point pushing my luck any further.

But no! That would be the same thing, the same cowardly behavior that traces back to those days on the Middle School playground. The times when every time a girl locked eyes with me my stomach started churning. I should call her! Take a risk! Be that guy! You know the kind I’m talking about. Those guys. The golden boys who can talk to anyone and anything, who spent their teenage years with a surplus of girlfriends and pool parties and riding in the backseat of jeeps with iced beers in their hands, rock music pouring out the open windows, feeling the wind against their face as they screamed to the sky in exultant cries of youth, beauty, freedom.

Monday night, I decided to call her.

Monday, November 23 - 7:30 P.M.

After pacing around my room for about twenty minutes, an experience horribly reminiscent of High School, I dialed the number.

It rang. Maybe it’ll go to voicemail, I thought. Rang again. If it went to voicemail, I could leave a message. Ring. Or even better, I could hang up and then text her! Ring. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Texting right off the bat seemed like the wrong move, especially if she’s older, but if I’ve already made a conscious attempt to call her and it goes to voicemail, then it would be completely appropriate for me to text! Ring. Oh man, that would be great, I wouldn’t have to pronounce her name!!

I heard the familiar click of a phone going to voicemail, and instantly felt waves of relief wash over me. Yes, I was feeling mighty good, for a whole two or three seconds. Then the actual voicemail came on. It was a man. A man with a very thick accent. I could barely understand what he was saying, but he sounded older. Definitely older. Certainly old enough to kick my ass, probably even old enough to kill me

I hang up. My heart is still beating pretty hard, and I’m confused and disappointed and relieved and, perhaps more than anything else, desperate to tell someone. Mike is home, so I let him know what happened. He asks, reasonably, what the message said. I tell him that I didn’t really pay attention. I ascertained that it was a male voice, and then hung up. But maybe this was a mistake. Mike assures me that it was definitely a mistake. Who knows what the voicemail actually said? It could have been anything!

Hi, this is Tony, you might not recognize my voice, but that’s because I’ve been through some sort of really awful tragedy and lost everything that matters to me, and now my really generous sister has allowed me to live with her and use her phone. She is also available and extremely attractive, even in the sober light of day. Leave a message.

After a very short deliberation, I decide to call again, this time putting it on speakerphone. That way, Mike and I can both listen to the message (after all, four ears and two brains are better than two and one, especially if the latter combination belongs to me). I call again. Put it on speakerphone. It rings a few times.

Then she answers.

Hello? I turn to Mike with a look of sheer horror. Hello? Answer it, Mike mouths to me, his arms in the air. Hello? I look to the phone as though it’s a ticking bomb, then back to Mike. His eyes are big and white and he looks ready to burst. Hello?

Hi, is this Katarina? I turn off speakerphone and yank the device to my ear. I throw out one possible pronunciation of her name, caution already in the wind. Hi this is Joel, we met the other night on the subway. It sounds so trite when I say it. But at the same time, my breathing has suddenly steadied itself. I’m talking calmly, confidently. Something has changed. In the old days, I would be shaking like a goose in preparation for calling a girl, but then it was the actual phone call that really tortured me. Pacing around the room, sweating, regretting everything I said the moment after I said it. I had been nervous as hell right before making the call, nervous in a way that really felt like High School, but now I was doing fine, hell, better than fine!

Oh Joel yes how are you? She laughs as she says it, clearly surprised that I called. Her accent is also a lot thicker than I remembered it. No wonder the details of our conversation on Friday night had been so foggy. She’s hard enough to understand without any alcohol. Images of us our dinner flood into my mind; every sentence she utters punctuated by a sharp “WHAT?” from me as I lean forward, cup my ear, and perform every other stupid perfunctory gesture to try and make it seem like the issue at hand is volume and not, in reality…

Well Katarina, I don’t usually do this, but I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner with me sometime? Not bad, not bad. I shouldn’t have said “I don’t usually do this.” That’s such a cliché, makes me seem unsure and weak. But other than that, I kept my voice steady, I didn’t garble any words or stutter or go up into a creaky falsetto on accident. I said it, the band aid was off.

Ok! She says. Why not?

There it is. Why not. She says this, and I pump my fist, because that’s what you’re supposed to do in these kinds of situations. But in reality, inside, I don’t feel especially happy. I feel uneasy. All that nervous energy and anxiety I had right before the phone call starts to come back. I still won’t be able to recognize her, I think to myself. And now I know for a fact I won’t be able to understand her. And there was a man at the end of her voicemail. And for God’s sake, she’s probably forty-five years old and married with a big family!

We talk for another thirty-forty seconds. She tells me that she’s at a bar with friends from the Dominican Republic, information that I didn’t ask for, so for a moment I’m terrified that she’s inviting me to meet her there. I try to set a night for the date (because at this point I am committed, the sweat caked my forehead notwithstanding). She says she'll call me tomorrow. I hang up the phone. That’s that.

The Rest

I wish I could tell you that this story goes on and culminates, as it would if my life had any kind of solid dramatic construction, with the actual date. But this mysterious young- slash-old lady did not call me the next day, or the day after. And say what you will, but at this point I wasn't going to reach out again.

I’m surprised that I wrung this much out of what, really, doesn’t amount to much of a story. Thinking back on it, though, it was definitely a memorable experience for me, at least psychologically speaking. I guess this is the closest thing to time travel that we have today, feeling like yourself eight years ago and yourself in an idyllic future and yourself today all in the span of a weekend. Sort of. Don’t think about that analogy too much, it starts to fall apart almost instantly.

What can I say? Maybe a good conclusion was just too much to hope for.

The Job Will Not Save You

I didn’t go home for Thanksgiving. I did this because I’m just about to start a new job, and I thought that I would have too much to do this week. Going home, it seemed to me, would complicate things needlessly. In retrospect, I could have gotten my work done very early in the week and easily gone home. In fact, it would have been a pretty ideal time. And if I had really wanted to find a way to go, if I had made any kind of concerted effort, then this would have been clear. But I never did. In this time in my life, when so many disparate bits are rotating around and I’m trying so hard to piece them together into something solid, finding a time to return to the nest registered at the very bottom of my list of priorities. I definitely understand why. Back in school, I never cared much about going home for thanksgiving- I did it every year, sure, but it always felt like an inconvenience more than anything else, a forced removal from Northwestern right in the midst of finals (and, often, a show) when in just another two weeks I would be home for a real vacation.

In case you can't tell, I wish I had gone home. My time in New York City is reaching a breaking point, the moment when all the excitement of living here temporarily dissipates and I find myself feeling homesick and tired and wishing for nothing else but an escape. New York is an impossible place to get sick of, because for everything you see there are a hundred things you haven’t, but it’s certainly possible to get sick of my day-to-day life here.

I’ve always had a tough time adjusting to change. This is one of the few constants of my life. When my family moved across the country in eighth grade, I spent months and months in the same miserable routine: I would wake up, cry, go to school, hate my life, leave school, cry, and then spend the rest of my afternoon watching Food Network, often crying. During my first year at Northwestern, I considered transferring to another school about five thousand times. The primary reason I never pursued this option was sheer laziness (after applying to about sixteen schools during my senior year of High School, going through that heinous process again was truly a final, do-or-die scenario). And now here I am, somewhere new once again. The adjustment has not been nearly as painful as those in the past, but it’s still new, and it’s still scary, and lord knows it’s still exhausting. Going home would have been a good thing for me. I wish I had realized this earlier.

But then, maybe I’m just being sentimental. I think about an alternate reality, one where I spent the last week back in sunny Oak Park, CA, and (as alternate realities are prone to be), it is incredible. I see a bunch of old friends from High School, and they are so taken by my new sociability and confidence that they barely even recognize me (I’ve lost a bit of weight since High School as well). I passionately reconnect with everyone I’ve ever known, and all the different versions of myself, the current and the past, somehow come together in a magical confluence. I, for perhaps the first time in my life, know exactly who I am, and my destiny appears before me in perfect, startling clarity.

Maybe, in my wildest dreams, I would find a romantic connection with one of those miscellaneous pretty girls from my High School. Some girl who considered me only in vague, platonic terms (if she even considered me at all), but who, when confronted with this new, vibrant manifestation of myself, wouldn’t be able to control herself. We would spend every night of break ravaging each other, staining all my old hangouts with new, charged memories, and I would leave Oak Park with a freshly formed legend trailing in my wake. At the same time, I would have a fantastic weekend with my parents, their pure, unadulterated love reaffirming everything I’ve ever loved about myself. All of the doubts that have plagued me the last few months would be wiped away, disappearing like smoke in the wind, and I would return to New York re-energized, brimming with passion, seeing this great, sprawling city as if for the very first time.

And, on top of all this, I would have a great big thanksgiving dinner as well as several other good meals. I would also go shopping with my parents one day and have lots of things purchased for me, including several new pairs of pants, which would be greatly appreciated.

It’s a nice thought. But in reality, none of that would happen (except the pants). It would have been a pleasant, uneventful trip, just like pretty much every other Thanksgiving for the past four years. None of these grandiose ideas about would have even crossed my mind. It’s the fact that I didn't go, the deviation from the norm, that has made the whole “Thanksgiving at Home” register in my mind as such a hallowed, rejuvenating tradition, and has, in turn, made me feel these waves of self-pity about missing it.

In any case, whatever the circumstance, whatever the ratio of reality to fantasy, intuition to imagination, I’ve been pretty depressed the last few days. Which is too bad, really, because I was on a pretty good streak for awhile there, last weekend being an especially pleasant combination of productivity and fun. There’s just a sort of emptiness I feel inside. Not all the time, certainly, but often enough that it merits attention. Of course I think about all the things that would help, that could fill this void- a trip home is the flavor of the moment, but just as often I think that I would feel better if I did more stand up, or if I exercised all the time, or if I had a clear schedule each day, or if I had a girl to wake up next to, or, barring that, a girl to call after the sun sets and smile through a conversation But the reality is, none of those things can change me. They all of these things pass through my mind, and then they all disappear. And I'm left, as always, with myself.

I don’t know what I want. Sometimes I think I just want to be back in school, to have some sort of structure grounding my life, some clear goals to work towards. Then I think I want to drop everything and do something crazy, live in Korea, ride a bike across America, something where I have absolutely nothing holding me to the earth. But see, even that life, with its complete lack of definition, is more clearly defined than the one I’m in now. Maybe that’s why I wanted to go home. Not because of some half-baked romantic ideas about carousing through Oak Park in the backseat of a Jeep with the guys I took AP Euro with or sitting down to dinner with my family and feeling warm inside, but because it would give my life, at least briefly, some real definition. Visiting my hometown feels nothing like it used to, but when I’m there at least I have a clear picture of who I am, where I am, what I’m doing. In that context, it makes sense. When I look at myself here, in New York, does it make any sense? But then, what am I even talking about? How can I make sense in one place and not make sense in another? Why do I always feel like I need to attach these labels, these fucking definitions to everything I do? That the only way I can ever be satisfied within is if I’m able to step back and cleanly analyze my life from afar?

Happy Thanksgiving, friends. I’ll feel better in a day or two. I always do.

The Life of the Mind

The other day I had an unfortunate experience. I was getting ready to go out for the night, and I put on my nice pair of jeans (a.k.a. the only pair I own that doesn't have a huge tear at one of the knees). But they didn’t fit. Or rather, they fit, but were uncomfortably tight. I bought these jeans for a stand-up show back in February and they fit great then. What could possibly have happened in the last few months? Did they undergo some sort of shrinking process?

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. The truth was right there in the mirror, starring back at me, a sickening grin on its face: I’ve gained some weight. Not much, mind you, but definitely a few pounds. This came as a terrible shock to me. Because these last few months I have been living the life of an unemployed, twenty-two year old male, a lifestyle I always figured would be akin to having the Flu: it’s not very pleasant, but at least you’ll lose some weight. Seriously, aren’t poor people supposed to be skinny? Isn’t that just one of the things that goes with being poor?

This kind of thinking, I have realized, is deeply flawed. My traditional ideas about the poor (scrawny, long-haired men with newspapers for pants and a wild glint in their eyes) is based on outdated, romanticized notions, and really has no place in today’s world. And after much deliberation, I have realized that my weight gain has not occurred in spite of my unemployment, but rather as a result of. Allow me to explain:

THE LIFESTYLE CHOICES AND LONG TERM GOALS OF THE UNEMPLOYED (NOT INCLUDING GETTING A JOB)

The primary goal of the Unemployed Male (the UM, if you will) is to not spend any money. This is tantamount. Obviously there are the other, more ambitious goals (ex: getting a job*), but when you've sent out your hundredth email in a week without a single response, or maybe when you've been informed by the sour manager of a candy store in Times Square that you aren't qualified to sell chocolates, you reach a breaking point. These other goals seem a bit too lofty, and we must settle for something less.

This new goal, in turn, makes one's day-to-day priorities very different. For instance, there was once a time when spending an entire weekday playing Nintendo 64 would be deemed uneventful. But, for our intrepid UM, this is an exceedingly fruitful use of time. Because there is one defining principle that can still guide you through these hard times, one truth that remains absolute: when you sit in your apartment all day, you will not spend any money. On the other hand, when you are out there in New York City, no matter how frugal you plan on being, you are probably going to spend something. Doesn't matter what you're doing, doesn't matter if you're just going for a crisp stroll. You will spend money. At a certain point you’ll walk past so many pizza shops and cafes and guys selling books on the sidewalk that you just can't help but succumb. It is the curse of this city.

Now I'm not saying that spending entire days sitting around your apartment, your unwashed skin wrapped up in an unwashed robe, is an especially romantic way to live. Nor is it especially healthy. But when you go to bed at the end of the day having not spent a single cent, having managed to keep your rapidly diminishing bank account in a precious moment of stasis, then I’ll be damned if you don’t go sleep with a smile on your face.

THE ARGUMENT FOR BREAD AND CHEESE

New York City is not a difficult place in which to find something to eat. You could be anywhere in the city, and there's a very good chance that you can find food within a block. The problem is, almost anything that’s cheap enough for the UM to eat is also, inevitably, very bad for you. For example, right across the street from my apartment there is a Burger King. It is there every day when I wake up, taunting me, laughing at me, every bit my old nemesis. I frequently complained about Burger King being the only fast food restaurant back in Evanston, but let me say, I gave in and had some the other day (an angry chicken tendercrisp, thank you very much) and, well... it tasted like home. A disgusting, gloppy, fattening home, but home nonetheless. Seriously, though. I bash BK sometimes, but they actually have some extraordinary deals there. For under six dollars you can get a full meal that not only fills you up, but, at least briefly, makes you feel like you never want to eat again. What a bargain!

But see, those brief forays into hard fast food are not a normal occurence. They are regretful benders, most likely fueled by marijuana smoke and sado-masochism. They are not my day-to-day. For the day-to-day, there is something else: pizza. The single most omnipresent food in NYC and, in a cruel twist of fate, also the most consistently satisfying. No matter where you are, there will be a pizza place down the street that provides you with a meal that’s several dollars cheaper and several degrees more delicious than any of the alternatives. There are exceptions to this rule, obviously, but for the young diner with both a light wallet and a discerning palette, New York pizza is really where it’s at.

Now, from the very start, that’s a large amount of bread and cheese in your diet (note: I will be referring to “bread and cheese” collectively as if it was it's own autonomous food group which, given the state of things these days, it pretty much is). But that isn’t even the half of it. Sure, pizza is a cheap thing to eat out, but by far the cheapest way to eat is cooking at home. Assuming that you’re buying your groceries from that super-cheap Supermercado down the street (smiling at the pounds of chicken thighs for a buck fifty, grimacing at the plastic-wrapped chicken feet mere inches away from them), it’s possible to eat at home for something like fifty cents a meal. And while yes, sometimes you do enjoy experimenting in the kitchen, sometimes cooking can be therapeutic and rejuvenating and a perfect stress-killer. But cooking takes time and effort, and those are both precious commodities indeed.

So even for those (like me) who like to cook, there are plenty of nights when the prospect of slaving over a hot stove, of chopping and peeling and smashing and smelling, of eating your entire meal with the dire knowledge that there’s a huge mess in the kitchen waiting to be cleaned as soon as you're done... there are times when that whole shabang just doesn't seem all that appealing. So all the dishes that require actual cooking, all the salads and soups and risottos and roast meats and grilled fish and puttenesca/arrabiatta/chimichurri sauces and pastas that you were thinking about making, all of those go out the window. But we’ve already covered how financially gainful it is to cook something at home, so even though you don't want to be makin’ anything too fancy, you can still make something, can’t you? You can still whip up something that's satisfying and filling and won't mess up the whole kitchen or give you a migraine, right? Are you that inept?

Well, let’s see. You’ve got all that super cheap chicken, which you probably cooked all at once right after you bought it. And you have tortillas, or if you don’t have tortillas then you probably have some bread, and if you don’t have either of those then I’m sure one of your roommates has some, and will they really notice if a couple fucking slices of bread are missing, really? I mean, I’m not saying that you should go all communist in your kitchen, but a little sharing never hurt anyone.

Okay. Some type of sandwich. But do you have lettuce? Tomatoes? Onions? Anything like that? No, you don’t (see: The Argument Against Vegetables). And you don’t just want a piece of cold chicken in between bread, do you? You may be experiencing some financial difficulties these days, but you don’t have to live like a fucking animal. But wait, wait… you have cheese! You always have cheese, that’s one of the essentials. So why don’t you just lay some chicken and cheese on top of your tortilla/bread, pop it in the microwave, and presto! Not only is that easy, and cheap, but your mouth even begins to salivate at the prospect (because no matter what they might say about cheese and bread based concotions, they are undoubtedly delicious). And not only is this delicious, but it takes less than a minute to prepare, and your prep work ranges from incredibly minimal to (if your cheese is pre-shredded) absolutely nothing.

And there you have it. More bread and cheese. And so gradually, without you even noticing, bread and cheese takes over your life. It becomes your primary source of nutrition. Your body becomes accustomed to it, and so does your mind; you begin to inadvertently order quesidillas and tuna melts at restaurants, choosing to indulge in cheese and bread even when you have a wealth of other possibilities, finding a hateful comfort in that soft, gooey taste that fills your mouth and expands your waist. The constipation comes later.

THE ARGUMENT AGAINST VEGETABLES

There are many arguments that can be made against vegetables. A lot of people just plain don’t like the taste of them, so their argument is easy. But lets say you are one of the proud few who do enjoy the taste of vegetables, who find them peppery and savory and exciting and fresh, a spa treatment for the inside of your mouth. However, there is a harsh truth that you can’t escape: vegetables need to be cleaned. Whether you are buying them at a boutqiue grocery, an outdoor farmer’s market, or a gas station, the vegetables need to be cleaned. And this cleaning process is, more often than not, a categorical “pain-in-the-ass.” And it doesn’t matter how you’re planning on preparing them. If you’re eating the vegetables raw, adorned with nothing more than table salt and the sweat of your palm, they certainly need to be washed. And if you’re cooking them, it's also a real good idea. You can delude yourself into thinking that by putting broccoli florets over heat all their dirt andgrime will evaporate into thin air, but the reality is it will just become darker and grittier, a more concentrated, pungent form of its' already disgusting self. Still hungry?

Now, here's another misconception about the life of the UM: it may seem like you have a lot of spare time these days, like you have literally nothing but spare time. In fact, your time right now is more precious and regimented than ever before. For instance, any amount of time that you might spend washing vegetables could just as easily be spent applying for jobs, which is the single most important thing that you can be doing and which should take up a sizeable portion of your day, every day (if for no other reason than to the assuage the throbbing guilt that eats away at you any time you think about that incredibly expensive education that you spent the last four years of your life accruing, and that nowadays is getting about as much use as that Bowflex in your parent's closet).

This is not to say, obviously, that your entire day should be spent applying to jobs. No sir. No man can live like that. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re bent over a shining computer screen in your underwear or peddling your resume door-to-door, spending too much time only applying for jobs will begin to eat away at the very fabric of your soul. You’ll know when you’ve reached your breaking point for the day, because the same job-hunting that was working to feed your guilt (and, thus, marginally improve your rapidly diminishing psychological health) has now begun to demoralize and depress you. All of the sudden, you’re five times worse than when you started: you’re crouched in the corner of your room, shivering in a blanket, wishing that you lived three hundred years ago and had been forced to learn a proper skill or trade at a young age. Wishing that you now had the facilities to perform an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, and would never have to think about cover letters or resumes or informational meetings or cold calling or interviews ever, ever again.

Those are the bad days. They are inevitable. But as the barren winter approaches, how can we try and guarantee ourselves just a few more good days? The answer is simple: the times that are not spent applying for jobs should be spent, in effect, recooperating yourself. This recooperation can take the form of activities that are entirely mindless (playing videogames, watching the Glenn Beck Show) or therapeutic and rejuvenating (reading, writing, watching Barton Fink on Instant Netflix). Peeling and cleaning vegetables, unfortunately, does not fall into either of these categories. To do it properly you need a big sink (bigger than we have), and lots of clean dishrags (psshaw) or paper towels (the environment!). And, when it comes down to it, you’re just washing and scrubbing crusted old dirt off of ragged shit that comes from the ground. It isn’t a fun thing to do, and the inclusion of this kind of non-fun / non-productive activity into your schedule could really wreak havoc on your extremely frail psyche. And maybe it won’t really make that much of a difference, but honestly. Things haven't been going so well. You’re in a tender place right now. Why risk it?

THE EXERCISE ENIGMA

Of course, some people would say that it doesn’t really matter what you eat, especially for a strapping young man such as yourself. These people will say that you can eat pretty much anything you want, provided that you exercise. And there have been times in the past where you exercised on a semi-regular basis, and despite the mundane pain of the whole thing, you found that every time you left the gym you felt refreshed and powerful and just goddamn good about yourself. And now, with no job, no hope, no future, that kind of refreshed/renewed feeling could do a whole lot of good for you. But it isn’t that simple, is it?

Gyms cost money. Lots of money. Even the one that’s a few blocks away, one room, no showers, no locker rooms, a hole in the wall with treadmills, even that one costs lots of money to join. Perhaps it all seems like lots of money because you are more financially aware right now than you have ever been before, because you understand the value of the dollar in a visceral way that no amount of civic class theorizing or folksy talks with your father would ever approximate. But still, whatever the case, it’s a lot of money, and this is a time where money just can’t be spent on nonessentials (and as a member of the male sex who does not flex in front of the mirror every night and feel comfortable slapping strange girls in the ass when they pass you at the club, a gym membership does not quite register as “essential’).

But that’s fine, isn’t it? Who says you need a fancy-schmancy gym membership to get in shape? You can just go running outside, do push-ups in your room, create the perfect sculpted physique and do it by utilizing your own muscles and the sweet power of gravity. Problem is, you live in Harlem, and since you already feel a bit self-conscious just walking around outside, you can only imagine how miserable you’ll feel dressed in your gay little running outfit, running these hilly streets as you sweat and pant like a bitch (which is precisely what you’ll be doing the first time you run after four months of perpetual sitting-on-your-ass). You could still do push ups in your room, sure, but as the lack of running packs on the pounds, push ups will become more and more difficult, and the lack of forward momentum in your exercise regime (a perfect parallel to the lack of forward momentum in every other part of your godforsaken life) will be very, very frusterating.

Perhaps it’s better to just accept your physical decline and know that in order to be fit, you might just have to wait til you’re rich. And maybe that will also coincide with becoming well-adjusted and popular and joyful and you’ll start to dress better too. It’s an all or nothing world, friend. Grit your teeth and accept it.

______

So there you have it. Circumstantial evidence that my weight gain is an (almost) inevitable result of my current unemployment, just a part of the natural order of the universe. Granted, there are ways to work around these issues; for instance, the gym membership quagmire can be temporarily solved by making use of all the free trial memberships that are offered at just about every health club in the city. This works great, so long as you don’t mind lying to the face of friendly people. But those strategies are for another day. For now, I have some sitting around to do.

*Note: For those of you who are curious, I am actually hot on the trail right now for a really, really, stupidly great job, but I don’t want to jinx anything by talking about it. All I can say is it would be a real trip if I got it, after spending several months unsuccessfully applying for the type of jobs that I was trying to get in fucking High School. Either sweet irony, or positive proof that success in this life is based entirely on blatant, vacillating chance. I'll take either.