A Bird's Eye View

I took the subway to work today. I walked up the same blocks to the same station that I walk up every day. Then I sat on the train for the same amount of time that I do every day. And got off at the same station I get off at every day. I suddenly felt bored. The monotony of the day, the doldrum, sunk in as I realized that I walk the same walk every day.

And for some reason, I remembered when I was a wide-eyed, bushy-tailed intern in New York. I took the subway every day, went through the same motions, but it was all so exciting and full of possibilities. And every morning, I went to the coffee shop on the corner (which, sadly, is no longer there) to see my boyfriend-at-the-time. He worked there and always gave me an iced latte for the morning commute. That was a nice way to start the day. But that wasn't the only nice thing about that time in my life. I was just starting out, so full of optimism that I was going to do fun, exciting things with my life. Now I just feel mediocre and mundane. Maybe it's my impending birthday, I don't know.

As I was walking up the escalator, exiting the subway station, I saw a bird perched looking down at all of us. And I wondered, as we all want to be free like the bird, to fly our way through the world, is the bird watching because he wants to be like us? Sometimes I feel like the grass is always greener, and I'm not sure how to escape that feeling.

I was reading a devotional the other night which mentioned the following verse -

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead."

And that, I think, should be the focus. Not thinking too much about the good old days, but concentrating more on what's good about the here and now. In reality, that's what the bird is thinking about. Birds, I recently had to explain to my grandmother, have very short lives. That bird was not thinking about the lives of the commuters he gazed down upon. He was thinking about whether we would leave crumbs behind for him to eat. Or he was thinking about the cool shade he was sitting in at the moment. His life is too short, after all, to spend time thinking about the nevers and maybes and could've-beens. And ours are too.

Love in an Elevator

I always have funny elevator conversations. For some reason, I always have weird conversations in elevators. Our office building is all swanky now, marble floors that my high heels echo off of and a fancy flat screen in each elevator updating you on the weather and the day's top headlines. But you can take the girl out of Hicksville, but you can't take the Hicksville out of the girl, right?

I'm usually walking with one of my co-workers, and at the moment we step into the elevator, we're talking about sex. Or analyzing a date she went on. Or complaining of love woes. Today, I was filling a co-worker in on some salacious celebrity drama about when Clare Danes cheated on sweetie crooner Ben Lee with Billy Crudup who was cheating on Mary Louise Parker while she was pregnant with his unborn son. It could have been worse, I suppose, if I was relaying the twists and turns of a real life sex scandal I was personally a part of. But either way, odd conversation for strangers to overhear.

In fact, my friend and I were talking about a recent dating disaster she had while we were waiting on an elevator, and a man in the lobby decided to wait for the next elevator to avoid hearing any more of our girlie gossip.

What would someone think of me if the only interaction we ever had was in an elevator? Take a few sentences out of any conversation, and you could sound like a total moron or insensitive brat. Which is how the MTV editors make The Real World so darn addictive and entertaining.

And then I think about all the funny Metro conversations I overhear, like the time I heard a man on the phone explaining in great detail how to order a sandwich at Subway. "First you choose the bread. You know, white, wheat, they have a cheese something-or-other. Then the meat selections. Chicken, ham..." Snore. How does that guy have a social life? Who would be the wanker and invite him along to bore everyone at happy hour? But then again, what do I know? Maybe he's telling his 80 year old grandmother that cousin Harry is opening a sandwich shop and not a mass transit system.

Just the other day, I had a phone conversation with my boss about the definition of rape while I was riding the Metro. Who knows what the other passengers thought of me. It's all just an entertaining part of thousands of lives overlapping in a small metropolitan area. Living in a big city is just like being on a reality show. Without the prize at the end.

DC = Fancy New York

The other day I was on the Metro thinking about DC. I love New York, you know, and DC is just…well…it’s different. Sure you sometimes see the same characters like the woman in animal print sitting across from me conducting an invisible orchestra. Or the man on the city bus selling CDs and DVDs out of his backpack.

“If it’s hot, and it hadn’t dropped, I probably got it.”

New York is easier to navigate, but DC is smaller. New York City apartments are smaller and don’t come with closets. Sometimes they don’t even have level floors. The subway stations are cleaner in DC with their fancy escalators and rules against eating and drinking. But there’s a charm in New York’s grit. The gum stained concrete floors, the urine soaked stairs and that guy that’s always singing ‘Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone’ from the subway platform. I love that guy. I don’t know what his story is or why he’s always singing that song, but I make up different romantic scenarios every time I see him. The 77th Street station, Lexington Avenue line. Check him out.

This morning, as I was walking up the escalator, I saw an overweight Latino woman wearing a tight wife-beater with a large red stop sign on it. Underneath the sign, it said “Bitchin.” She was also wearing a denim miniskirt. And suddenly, I felt like I was back in Manhattan. Add some long nails and sassy attitude, and she might just waiting on the train to Queens.

In DC, the politicians and lawyers have separated the grit into different sections around town. So overlaps with Miss Stop Bitchin’ are rare. While in New York, the city dwellers embrace the grit, the dirt, the singing homeless, and it’s all part of the magic and charm of the world’s greatest city. DC’s a fancy pants’ New York. I bet the ‘I Heart DC’ shirts even are made out of 100% cotton.

Awake is the New Sleep

Maybe it's the weather. I keep telling myself. The weather really does, I think, have a tremendous effect on my mood. I'm always sadder and more inside my head during the winter months. And I keep telling myself that the sudden awareness of my mood also has something to do with the weather. Spring is a time of awakening, isn't it? The flowers, the animals and all that jazz. Everything coming out of the dark dirt or the dark caves. But it's not easy at first. Because the first step out of that cold, dark cave that's kept you sheltered and cut off from the rest of the world is, well, a bitch. You have to ease back into the warmth and the light that spring brings.

I finished a book last week. A sad and beautiful book. About a woman who shared an amazing life with a man she deeply loved. That's all I want. But so many of the emotions and life experiences that she shared are foreign to me. And I don't know, somewhere in between reading about life and death and love and loss and the full range of human emotions, I felt dead myself. Asleep. As though I've spent the past few months asleep. I haven't done laundry in far too long, my room's a mess, I keep procrastinating about the smallest things. Reading about someone else's life and fully functional emotions made me realize that I've been in a cold, dark cave of my own lately. Realizing that is the first step, I suppose, out into the world where the light blinds your poorly adjusted eyes and the warmth isn't warm enough to fully thaw you.

I feel like the past six months have been a total blur. What happened? Where am I? What do I want? Am I doing okay? So many questions. One thing happened. I realized what little control I have over my emotions and the course of my life, and in that, I gave up trying to control anything at all and just...simply...gave up. And fell into sleep and fell into the comforting darkness of that cave and the laziness it permitted.

Awake is the new sleep. Awake is the new sleep. SO. WAKE. UP.

My Fantasy Boyfriend Says...

Everyone has fantasies. I took mine a step farther and now have a photo of George from Grey's Anatomy up in my cubicle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. But at least I have clean fantasies!

I also have a fantasy boyfriend. All my friends know about him. We always make jokes about it. Like, "Oh, I hope my boyfriend will be out tonight." Or "Is your boyfriend going to the show on Saturday?" It's pathetic, but amusing. This week, I came up with things that my fantasy boyfriend would say to me.

"Who cares about her big, beautiful round breasts? Your tiny ones are the most beautiful in the world. And you have a great ass."

"Good morning, beautiful. Your voice just had to be one of the first sounds of my day."

"Good night, beautiful. Your voice just had to be the last sound I heard before I fell asleep."

"I like that band too! Let's go to their concert!" (because my boyfriend and I have a lot of music fun together.)

"Let's dance!" (he loves to dance.)

"I have a surprise for you, baby! We're going to New York for the weekend! I sure do love it there."

"Go Vols!"

"When do I get to see you again?" (he loves being around me.)

"I love your cooking - everything you make is perfect."

"Anything you want, baby."

"I love going down on you. Can I do it again? I just want to see how many orgasms I can give you!"

"I would set myself on fire for you." (No, I don't want that, but it is the funniest band name I've ever heard.)

::sigh:: Alas, I haven't met my boyfriend yet. We keep missing each other. But doesn't he seem swell?

Aw man, don't judge me! You have fantasies too! And ok, ok, fine. There are two pictures of George from Grey's Anatomy in my cubicle. But he's just so darn funny and nice! And fictional, I know, just like my fantasy boyfriend. Hmph. My fantasy love life is just way better than reality, and at least it's keeping me entertained while I wait.

Come Pick Me Up

Ryan Adams is a music god. I should start by saying that. His musicianship, his creativity, his lyrics that speak when your heart can't find the words and his ability to morph perfectly into any genre, any sound, any feeling he gets a hankering to shape into a song.

When they call your name,
Will you walk right up
With a smile on your face
Or will you cower in fear
In your favorite sweater
With an old love letter?

What do you do? Why is it that it's always so much easier to give into the bad stuff? The good thoughts, the good memories are so much harder to hold onto. There's a lot of good, but the bad is just easier to feel. The good is harder to keep, like it comes in short moments, in fast forward, while the bad seeps into you, chokes your every breath and moves in slow motion.

There's actually not a lot of bad. There are a lot of laughs, so much to be proud of, so much to take in and enjoy. But there's this ghost that's always with me, always haunting. "What's a six letter word for a broken heart?" I'm just "lonely." I miss intimacy. I want intimacy. I want hands holding mine, someone to talk to while I'm riding the subway. More than that, I want arms snug around me and legs tangled in mine while we sleep, and I want to feel wet lips against mine. I want. And that's ok. It's what makes us human, this condition they call loneliness.

And you don't have to give into it. You can smile and dance and laugh. You should and you do. But the fact is, in the darkness, in the silence, you can still feel its breath on the back of your neck.

How Do You Support the Troops?

As I listened to Buddy Bush this morning tell the American people that his goal for the war in Iraq was to achieve victory (phew! I thought the goal was to lose, not win! Thanks for clarifying!), I thought about someone asking me last week whether you can be against the war, but still support the troops. Yes. In fact, I feel that by being against the war, you’re supporting the troops even more than anyone who’s for it.

A friend of mine from high school lost her father in 1998 to a long battle with Hodgkin’s disease, which he had been fighting for decades due to the poisonous Agent Orange. He fought in Vietnam. A war that everyone now agrees was fought for too long and for weak reasoning and with poor planning. A war that many have compared to the war in Iraq. And it is also a war that is memorialized, not with a statue of a gallant military victory or of a brave general who motivated his soldiers to fight an unwinable battle.

No. It is memorialized with a long, giant silver plaque, listing every single name of every single soldier who lost his/her life. To remind us how many lives were lost for such unclear justifications. Every one of those soldiers was loved by many people, many people who still mourn the loss of life. Every one of them mattered. And every one of the more than 2,100 soliders who have already died fighting “the war against global terror” matter. As do all the others who are fighting over there now. It is our duty as citizens of the country they are fighting for to make sure they are well-prepared, fully supported and that the war they’re waging has strong and clear justifications.

Fear is not an admirable way to lead. It is the tool that cowards use. September 11th is one of the single greatest tragedies in all of human existence. Reminding Americans of the fear and pain and confusion they felt on that day and the weeks following is not justification for war. It is distraction. And it will only work for so long. Because it may take years or decades, but I have faith in the American people and one day, we will all see the strings behind the puppet show, and we will all be saddened for the troops they did not truly support by saving them.