Sand

A favorite paragraph from a favorite novel:

--I read the first chapter of A Brief History of Time when Dad was still alive, and I got incredibly heavy boots about how relatively insignificant life is, and how, compared to the universe and compared to time, it didn't even matter if I existed at all.  When Dad was tucking me in that night and we were talking about the book, I asked if he could think of a solution to that problem.  "Which problem?"  "The problem of how relatively insignificant we are."  He said, "Well, what would happen if a plane dropped you in the middle of the Sahara Desert and you picked up a single grain of sand with tweezers and moved it one millimeter?"  I said, "I'd probably die of dehydration."  He said, "I just mean right then, when you moved that single gain of sand.  What would that mean?"  I said, "I dunno, what?"  He said, "Think about it."  I thought about it.  "I guess I would have moved a grain of sand."  "Which would mean?" "Which would mean I moved a grain of sand?"  "Which would mean you changed the Sahara."  "So?"  "So? So the Sahara is a vast desert.  And it has existed for millions of years.  And you changed it!"  "That's true!" I said, sitting up.  "I changed the Sahara!"  "Which means?" he said.  "What?  Tell me."  "Well, I'm not talking about painting the Mona Lisa or curing cancer.  I'm just talking about moving that one grain of sand one millimeter."  "Yeah?"  "If you hadn't done it, human history would have been one way..."  "Uh-huh?"  "But you did do it,  so...?"  I stood on the bed, pointed my fingers at the fake stars, and screamed: "I changed the course of human history!"  "That's right."  "I changed the universe!"  "You did."  "I'm God!"  "You're an atheist."  "I don't exist!"  I fell back onto the bed, into his arms, and we cracked up together.--

-From Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer

The F Train Diaries

A weeks-worth of observations of what/who I find myself among on the F train as I take it betwixt Brooklyn and Manhattan.

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Re-selling items of human necessity is a very popular past time on the train, apparently.  

~An old, withered man who looks like he belongs in the 1800's is selling batteries for a dollar. They're probably expired.  I pass.

~A younger man is selling condoms for 25 cents.  Again, probably expired.  I let him walk by.

~Two teenage boys are selling candy - probably from the mid-nineties but I haven't had Swedish Fish in years and the boys are adorable.  Why not?

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People need more sleep.  I'm sitting across from three people who seem to be in deep REM.  The gentleman on the right of the triple-seated row is probably a student at NYU, with his earbuds and his Aeropostale hoodie.  He lazily clutches his North Face backpack and I watch it as it slips slowly down his lap.  Every few minutes he pulls it up, half opening one bloodshot eye, then lays his head back against the wall.

The woman on the left is surely dressed for a corporate job.  Her black skirt and suit jacket are finely pressed, and her dark red pumps shine in the train's fluorescent morning light.  She holds an over sized black leather bag in her lap, which her nodding head bobs precariously over.  The paint on her eyelids glows as I watch her eyeballs drowse back and forth slowly underneath them.  Her head is literally almost in her $1000 bag when she sudden she suddenly wakes, stands, smooths her skirt, and walks out the 2nd Ave. stop.  

On the middle seat perches a tiny Japanese woman who dozes politely and soundly.  She holds a Japanese newspaper in one hand and a coffee in the other.  I watch the coffee, tottering on her knee, as she sleeps with her hand over its top.  Her hair is a perfect proportion of salt and pepper, and her feet barely touch the floor.  I wonder if she's dreaming about home.

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From an invisible compartment between the cars, an announcer comes on the speakers at each stop.  "This is a Manhattan bound F, next stop Delancey please stand clear of the closing doors."  This morning, I'm convinced, that announcer was Morgan Freeman.

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I steal glances at all the books in my vicinity before starting in on my own.  I'm reading Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven."  He stole my heart with "Into the Wild" and is hurting it with this chronicle of the roots and effects of Fundamental Mormonism in America.  I read it on the subway in the morning, and out of the city at night.  I always get excited when I see someone who has a book I've read.  I look at the person, if this does happen, and size them up to see of they would be comparable to a friend.  A lot of the time it's Harry Potter or some other mass-market fiction so usually I just smile at the 8 year old reading the Prisoner of Azkaban and go back to my own book.  Lately, I haven't been able to help feeling embarrassed while reading "Under the Banner of Heaven."  Not only are disturbing sex scenes portrayed, but they're being put on by the most unlikely of characters.  Father and daughter.  Grandfather and his sister.  Cousin and cousin.  You know.  Normal Mormon stuff.  If it makes you want to want to vomit, it's there.  But when these scenes occur I have a tendency to close my book a little bit, bring it closer to me so that the lad next to me reading Potter won't glance at a sentence and take me for some zealot and move across the aisle.  

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I wish that everyone's iPod earbuds could be removed and turned into speakers.  About 80% of the train today has happy listeners.  I just want to hear what it sounds like if all of the music from each of the headphones could be heard in unison.  

D-Bags?

Today on my lunch break I called the voter registration offices in Wisconsin to see what the deal is with absentee ballots these days. I sat on a bench in Madison Square Park next to a burly fellow with a white goatee. I scrambled for a pen when the man on the phone told me the website I needed to access, and the friendly gent gave me a pen from his pocket. After I had gotten off the phone and returned the pen, the man told me a few things, un-prompted, but interesting nonetheless. He said, "You know, I would prefer Obama over McCain if I had to choose but I used to be a paramedic, and I always say I would never let either of those douche-bags into my ambulance." I chuckled and nodded, "Alright, understandable." He said, "I'm voting for none of the above, or I should say none of the below if you don't mind my rhetoric." Sometimes, I get really excited for November 4th to be over.

Trader Joe's at Last

With their puffy fall vests zipped over their orange and brown sweaters, their chucks tied loosely and their colorful canvas bags hanging from their thin frames, Brooklynites enjoy an October afternoon in the brand new Trader Joe's.  Controlled chaos.  Slow, happy, politely comfortable.  Accidentally bumping into each other's Achilles tendons with red carts, waiting for the throng to subside in front of the cheese section, sipping the creamy tomato soup samples and gazing through aisle after aisle of organic color.  One cannot be in a hurry here, they would pull out their hair in frustration with the crunchy, earth-toned 20- and 30-somethings meandering through decisions between either peanut butter or caramel filled pretzels.  Even with 18 registers, the line takes an average of 45 minutes, but that only gives us time to drink small cups of coffee and smell each other's lavender-scented hair.  People spill out as others spill in, and Joe's pockets grow deeper and deeper, money falling into them like leaves from trees.

Run On

With my pony tail up and my pumas on, I'm off down the stairs through the gate and past the man digging through the trash on Butler then right onto Smith with its cafe fronts and men in suede shoes smoking Camels and over the subway vents, left onto Warren with its chain link fence surrounding the chipped-green floored basketball court and the shouting kids in big jackets and saggy pants, right onto Henry with its dark brown sidewalks and dark brown brownstones and comfortable women in their comfortable sweaters walking their small dogs and smiling up at the branches, across Atlantic stinking of sea and spit and diesel and up the hill for a left onto Remsen, dodging walkers and strollers and runners so many runners and finally down down down to the dead end where the sidewalk curves into the Promenade and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh the city is there with its brightness and the sea hugging it and the twinkled bridges and the cut out square lights against the dark blue sky, past the benches with the blonde haired lovers and the brown haired lovers and the black haired lovers, holding hands and smiling at the city with their sweetnothings in their ears and on their lips, with the city the river the statue on my left and I turn around to go home, my heart and my shoes pounding.

The Draughon Cronicles

I rarely learn as much in a span of 24 hours as I did when spending them with the dynamic Sisters Draughon.  As an evening with Maggie and Whitney unfolded, I found myself repeatedly baffled and amazed at the ideas that came from their charged minds.  And at my own kitchen table, no less!  I can't imagine if I'd had the complete trifecta, which would include the youngest, and I think we can all agree most enlightened, Kate. I will provide a list, which is abridged, that explains just a fraction of the phenomenon that is the collective brainpower of the Sisters Draughon.

. At the end of my days, will I be proud of what I have accomplished for the greater good, or will I be more proud of a family that I have created?  With this in mind, are there two types of people in this world?  Those who feel satisfied with their life in terms of their job or those who are content with what they have procreated?

. "Glee," when said in place of "yay" or "huzzah" is the new form of expressing excitement.

. Art as something not only at the Metropolitan, but also in the pallet that is everyday backdrops.  Color.  Texture.  A walk in Central Park can be a stroll through an art museum in itself.  

. Bean dip and Red Hot blue corn chips make an excellent gourmet snack.  So does Jamba.

. To jump in with both feet always and with every aspect of life.

 

Winning New York

The night after Robbi and I skidded into New York on our U-Haul's three good wheels, we decided the occasion called for celebration.  That Saturday afternoon, with our armpits in rare form and our entire bodies out of breath, we lay on my new living room floor laughing at life.  Two girls who hadn't driven regularly in nearly 5 years, had no experience driving any sort of oversized vehicle, had no radio signal (except one shining beam of light in a Journey song) and no CD player, hadn't ever changed a flat tire, hadn't ever driven into 8 million people's city that never sleeps, MADE IT.  A few beers were in order.

We met a couple friends of ours from Wisconsin at a nearby tavern, still sweaty and delirious.  Without realizing what was happening, we came upon a classy rooftop party in the middle of Manhattan.  What a view!  The majority of the guests were dressed in slick blacks and strappy shoes.  Robbi and I had our moving clothes on.  [Note to self: Always look good in New York.  You live in New York now, Lisa.  Step it up.]  Apparently the posh partiers weren't too swank to play a good old fashioned game of flip cup... This is a game of precision and accuracy, of concentration and reflex.  After our momentous trek across the country, we had no problem winning the gold, and kicking off this ride in New York in style.