juliaipsa {the blog}

Peek-a-boo

2013-05-08T23:54:00.001-04:00

I want something.

Moonlight.

That's what I want.

I want soft moon rays to stream through the window and settle on my duvet cover. I want the moonlight's company in the deep quiet of my city nights.

I'm in love with the idea of a skylight above my bed, or a paneled window running the full width (and height because, why not?) of the wall against which my bed lies, but since neither is a possibility, a little moonlight seems like a reasonable compromise.

I'm pretty sure I feel this way because I've been wasting a lot of time lying awake at night when I should be sleeping. I would so like to drift into a deep, heavy slumber, but it eludes me many a night.

At first I was frustrated at my powerlessness, but that has passed. Now I'm waiting quietly for this spell to pass. My cycle is taking a long time to reset, but once it finally does, I'll be able to rest my body and mind the way I should.

The New York Bagel

2013-05-07T19:33:00.000-04:00

I walked twenty city blocks for this monster. Correction: twenty city blocks and four avenues. The things I do! Only, uh, I had intended to get a bagel. As in one. And a couple more for the folks back at the apartment. But I walked out with a dozen. Technically thirteen, because you know, bagel shops do their business by the baker's dozen. The guy behind the counter made me do it. No, he didn't. But he asked and that's almost the same thing.

Bagel anyone?

Fifteen

2013-05-01T23:58:00.000-04:00

I had a friend in college who turned to her out-of-state physician father when she was desperate. She needed a script for the morning-after pill. Awkward? Yes, but girlfriend maturely picked up that phone and asked mom to hand the phone to dad. Not once, but twice. It's tough being a girl.

It was announced last night that one brand of the morning-after pill, Plan B, will be available over the counter to women 15 and older. They dropped the age from 17 to 15.

Fifteen.

The fact that more childbearing-aged women now have access to Plan B is excellent. But am I in the minority as someone who finds the idea of girls being sexually active at this age downright scary? I mean, have you ever met a 15-year-old? One that was emotionally prepared for sex? Because I certainly haven't. And I interact with more kids in this age group than most people my age! Also, do you know how many pimples they have? Braces? How surprisingly awkward and gawky and downright kiddish they all look? Humans look like we're 13 until we near 20. I'll tell you what: the power of raging hormones sure is something.

It doesn't seem right that our bodies are ready to conceive at an age when we aren't emotionally prepared or socially ready to handle the task of raising offspring. Why are our biological time clocks so off synch with our social expectations? There's not a single American in their right mind that would endorse a girl getting pregnant when she's fifteen, and yet, she could have been menstruating for years by then. In other words, why are we fertile when we are ourselves still children?

While evolution's catching up, Mayor Bloomberg is trying to scare our teenagers into not getting pregnant. The message is pretty brutal. NYC currently has a public campaign that plasters the faces of the most adorable, but miserable-looking toddlers inside subways and buses. These children have been haunting me for weeks now. I try to turn my back to them when I'm on the train because they're that distressing. You can check out the ads here {+}. The one that hit me the hardest was the one that reads, "Honestly, Mom... chances are he won't stay with you. What happens to me?" Wow.

Banana Bread +

2013-04-29T17:03:00.000-04:00

As I'm typing this up, the banana bread is busy doing its thang in the oven, but I'm realizing that I plum forgot the 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt. It isn't the end of the world, but let's give the type A control freak part of me a minute. She'll be all right.

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter (that's 1 stick) at room temp
1 cup granulated white sugar
2 large eggs at room temp
1 1/4 cup (3 large bananas) mashed bananas at room temp
1/4 cup milk (I used 1%, but whole is best)
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 cup golden raisins (optional)
1/4 cup dried cranberries (optional)
1/4 cup of chocolate chips (optional)

Word to the wise - room temp ingredients will prevent lumpy curdling weirdness when you mix your wet ingredients, but if what you use, with the exception of the butter, is cold, the bread will still turn out just fine.

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350° and grease an 8" x 8" pan, or line with parchment paper. I do the parchment. You may use whichever pan you'd like. Muffins (yields 12-15), mini loaves (yields 4), whatever you have, it'll do.

2. Cream butter and sugar with mixer. Combine first on low speed until combined and then increase for 3 minutes until light and fluffy.

3. Add eggs to the mixture one at a time, incorporating after each addition.

4. Add bananas to the mixture and blend on low until combined. If your mixture looks less creamy than you'd like, like a globby mess of banana bits and fat that refuses to mix together into a decent-looking batter, that's all right. Chances are, your bananas, eggs, and / or butter weren't at room temperature. Not a big deal at all.

5. Add the milk and vanilla to the mixture and mix just until combined.

6. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt to the mixture. (I don't mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl before adding to the wet and it turns out just fine every single time.) Mix on medium speed until just combined. Please do not overmix. That's asking for trouble. You might want to take a spatula and check for any patches of flour that might be hiding.

7. Use your spatula to add dried fruit, chocolate chips, nuts, whatever your heart desires into the batter. Or none, if that's what you prefer. I put my fruit into the batter and saved my chips for the next step.

8. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth surface. I sprinkled chocolate chips atop half my pan, only because the chips were starting at me in the face and well, how could I ignore them?

9. Bake for 50-55 minutes, until a toothpick in the center of the pan comes out clean. No wet goop on that toothpick and you're good to go. If you use a muffin pan, you'll only need 22 - 30 minutes, so check the oven after minute 20.

10. Take your banana bread out of the oven and let it sit for 10-15 minutes. After this initial settling period, if you greased your pan, wedge a butter knife around the edges to release the bread from the pan. Move to cool on a wire rack. If you used parchment paper, you can lift the bread out of the pan and set it to cool on the wire rack.

Serving
It's tasty served warm immediately, cooled and served later, or can even be frozen and brought back to room temp two weeks later. I'd recommend bringing it to the office so that you don't eat the whole dang thing on your own. I speak from experience.

Cucumbers Gone Korean

2013-04-22T23:54:00.000-04:00

I realize that I haven't posted a recipe here in a while, so here's one for a ridiculously simple, common Korean banchan. This photo is of nothing more than sliced cucumbers, not anywhere close to the final product, which is sparkling red from the hot pepper flakes, so please do not be misled. There's a picture here {+}.

I've seen this dubbed as a Korean cucumber salad by American food writers, but it's not. I swear, we Americans need to do something about our dearth of vocabulary. How does one douse egg, macaroni, or tuna in mayonnaise and then use the same term to describe a bed of leafy spinach and vegetables? If there ain't no leafy greens, it ain't no salad, ya' hear?

Oh-eeh moo-cheem translates into seasoned cucumbers: oh-eeh is cucumber and moo-cheem is seasoned. As strange and awkward as these foreign sounds may be received by an American ear, I'm gonna stick with the Korean. At least it's accurate. Also, please don't ever let me catch you calling this a Korean cucumber salad. Because it ain't.

Oh-eeh Moo-cheem or Oi Muchim (transliteration sure is tricky)
오이 무침

Ingredients
6 Persian cucumbers
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons Korean hot pepper flakes (gochugaru)
2 tablespoons scallion, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 teaspoons brown rice (white is fine, too) vinegar
½ teaspoon sugar (sometimes I omit)
2 teaspoons sesame seeds
2 teaspoons sesame oil

Directions
Thinly slice cucumbers (1/8 to 1/4-inch thick). Toss gently with salt and set aside for 15 - 20 minutes. Gently drain excess liquid. Mix well with all remaining ingredients.

Serving
Can be served immediately. Can also be chilled for as long as you want before serving (a few hours, overnight, whatever).

Carry On

2013-04-19T23:24:00.000-04:00

I know this sounds unimportant and trite, but I am impossibly tired right now. I feel hungover and if I'm honest, a bit loopy. I was up until 3:30 working late on Tuesday night and then working late again until 5:30 last night. Not enough sleep is a bitch, yo. I don't remember the last time I sunk into my pillow as the sky woke up. This must be what it feels like caring for a newborn, only add to that your lady bits healing and your breasts feeding that newborn and well actually, no, I guess I'm wrong - that's probably much more trying than my current state of exhaustion.

This morning, thrilled that it was finally Friday but unable to scrounge up the willpower to act like an adult, I did something that I'm rather shameless about sharing here: I opted out of my daily shower in exchange for fifteen more minutes in bed. That all the senior folks were out of the office attending a conference several time zones away was all the justification I needed. When I finally stepped into the shower tonight, I turned the knob to the maximum hot water setting. I drowsily leaned against the tiled wall. After a few minutes, I turned my back to the water and sat down in the tub. It felt odd sitting there facing the back wall, but I was off my feet which felt heavenly. Before long, I closed my eyes and let the steaming stream pelt my back. I massaged my neck, in the best way one can manage on her own. I could have sat there all night.

And now that I've deliberately stayed awake for as long as I have, midnight is finally near, which seems like a reasonable time to turn in so that I might awake refreshed, bright and early for my day tomorrow. Saturdays are my hardest days, but they are also days when I witness a lot of good people doing good things. Especially this week, with all that's been going on, it seems right that this is how my week will end. On the train home tomorrow evening, I know I'll be spent and maybe even unusually quiet from the tiredness, but I'll also have spent the day being reminded that among humans, as ruinous and harmful as some may be, there are also those, too, that carry on with the radiance of love and kindness and respect.

Entrance to the Met.

A Man I Knew

2013-04-08T23:58:00.000-04:00

Madison Square Park.
Yesterday. 7 April. 2013

I was so hurt last week. You probably were, too. The news of Roger Ebert's death left me a heaping pile of aching in a way that felt almost unnatural. This is so often the case with me, that I remain oblivious to how strongly I feel about someone, or an experience, or an opportunity, or an idea, until our time together suddenly expires and the closest I can get to that goodness again is by reawakening memories.

I can't articulate why I'm grieving the passing of a man whom I had only ever known on a screen, and most recently and more memorably, via the written word. This was a man who produced work so satisfying and accessible, his essays so full of humanness (is that a word?), that he'd carry you into, out of, and back into your very own senses. How could you not fall for such a man, for someone whose work exuded such depth and candor? I loved how this writer shared his own love story with us, the fact that he married later in life, to a woman whom he admired for her strength and wits and intelligence and beauty. I loved how this husband who had lost his voice to cancer blogged a love letter to his wife last summer {+}. I loved how eloquently this professional film critic navigated the impossible range of human needs and emotions, with a clear conscience and sure footing, no matter the topic or political or cultural climate.

It had only been a couple days since his last blog post had scuttled across my screen, his announcement that the cancer had returned and that he would be taking a step back, taking A Leave of Presence {+}, as he so cleverly called it. A Leave of Presence. This phrase, it's just so wildly beautiful. I had grown accustomed to his way with words, the uncomplicated tone and cadence of his prose. I will miss it. I will miss him.

Defiance Pays

2013-04-02T23:59:00.002-04:00

At the Guggenheim.
Friday. 22 March. 2013.

A short, round, elderly lady with a heavy accent scolded me when she saw me raise my phone to take this photo. But because she didn't make eye contact as she delivered her tired speech in a dull monotone, I went ahead and tapped my phone's screen anyway as I paid her some lip service. "Oh, I'm allowed from the ground floor only?" [Click.] "You got it."

I'm so glad I was in a defiant mood that day because I just opened the picture on my desktop and the first thing I spotted was the couple on the bottom right. Too cute! It's the best when I capture silly antics without even knowing it.

Booking It

2013-04-01T21:07:00.000-04:00

After hoping for years that I'd be invited to join an established book club by an unknown someone (could have been anyone, really), somewhere (preferably within three subway transfers), and somehow (e-mail, posted letter, singing telegram, I'm not picky), and then pathetically failing at obtaining such an invitation, I caved. I did the only thing I could do: I pulled a classic nerd move and started my own. At our first gathering, someone pointed out that the subject line of my e-mail invitation was "Booking It." Have you ever heard anything so clever? Our second meeting is scheduled for later this month.

This, this is a good thing.

Chuck Is Right

2013-03-29T13:20:00.000-04:00

Before I head out on Saturday mornings, I skim over Chuck Klosterman's column, The Ethicist {+}, in the Times Magazine. This weekly ritual reminds me that maintaining grace, poise, and humility in the way we manage our relationships is a meaningful exercise.

The following is an excerpt from one of Mr. Klosterman's pieces that was published earlier this month {+}:

Don’t end a friendship because someone acts in a way you never would. Part of being a good person is being open to people who are not so good, and part of being a friend is making flawed acquaintances feel as if they can tell you about their flaws (without fear of abandonment or persecution). In fact, if you’re the type of person who wants to associate exclusively with those who perfectly mirror your own ethical worldview, you’re reducing significantly the scope of your potential life experience.

I lost touch with a friend years ago. She had thrust herself into a relationship with a married man. When the inevitable happened, everything went up in flames as his wife took back what was rightfully not her husband's to give away. I was relieved that she was finally free; she deserved better than a relationship with an unavailable man. My friend, however, she fell apart night after night, after week, after month. A year later, even with the support of professional help, she struggled to move on. Our conversations were stagnant, hung up on the memories of their time together. I learned to take a step back. I stopped calling. I had no intention of breaking ties; I just needed a break. A few weeks passed, then months, which then turned into years. Had she called, I would have answered, but she never did. Whenever I told myself to pick up the phone and be a good friend, I was overcome with grief at the very real possibility of being asked one more time, "Julia, what is wrong with me that he would end it the way he did?" And then I wouldn’t actually call.

On Valentine's Day of this year, I did something unusual. I sent separate text messages to everyone in my phone's contact list. As I went down the list of names, I was surprised to see hers. I hit the send button and she replied immediately. We set up a video chat date. A week later, three time zones apart, we caught up in front of our computer screens. It was good to reconnect. The next time we spoke, she would mention that she had just gotten back from a weekend… with the same man. He had flown her out again. He was helping her with something. Her tone trod carefully around my reaction. I had none. Instead, my mind immediately went back to Chuck’s words. Don’t end a friendship because someone acts in a way you never would. She is not any more or any less flawed than me. She is a good person. Be a good person as well and act as a friend, Julia. Do not abandon her.

Looking out at MoMA's Sculpture Garden. NYC.
Saturday. 23 March. 2013.

I am holding myself to a simple task: to be and act as a good person would. I know that it makes my day when I hear the voice of a faraway friend. I'm hoping that I'm doing that for her every time I call.

I Could Live Here

2013-03-21T23:56:00.000-04:00

I spent my afternoon at the Met today. The special exhibition wasn't keeping my attention, so much so that I was considering making a run for the exit. Luckily, as I started scooting around all the grannies (seriously, so many sweet old ladies today!), a painting stopped me in my tracks. I couldn't place it at first, but it looked so familiar, I couldn't walk away until I did.

You see, this piece lives in the Musee d'Orsay. I had last seen it in person maybe, ten years ago? The image had stayed with me all these years. There was something about the woman's facelessness, about the wind pulling on her white dress, and the lightness that surrounded her. Do you ever see something and then suddenly feel like you haven't breathed in a while, but don't realize it until that very moment? And then you start breathing? That's what seeing this painting again did for me. I inhaled slowly. And then I smiled. It felt good to reconnect after all this time, even if we were an ocean away from where we first met so long ago.

On my walk home, some good news arrived in my news feed. The Met had announced earlier in the day that they will open seven days a week starting in July. This is big, people. Huge, for me at least. Now when I have a rare weekday off, the Met will always be an option. What a wonderful gift to the public.

The Met {+}. NYC.
2:08 pm. Today.

Love Song

2013-03-20T22:32:00.000-04:00

"She's married to the simplest man on earth. To her, he's the best man in life. He stammers. Mm-m-m-m-Mmmarie. For her, it's a love song. She loves the sound."

~ Elle, on her sister Marie
Copie Conforme {+}

What the world labels a speech impediment, a woman hears as her husband's love song. This aching purity of love, it is humbling and touching and beautiful. It is what keeps our spirits whole.

NYC. Today.

2013-03-07T23:28:00.001-05:00

Every Sunday until I left for college, I spent at church with my family. I can count on one hand the Sundays when this wasn't the case.

The first, because I had missed so many Sunday birthday parties that I finally gathered up enough courage to ask if I could skip church for Beth's pool party. Just this once, please. Perhaps because her oldest never asked for anything, my request struck a chord with uhmmah. I was made to wait a day or two for the decision, and my father surprisingly granted permission. Even more shocking, this nine-year-old was spared both a lecture and warning. My parents knew what I knew, that this was a one-time deal and that I was not foolish enough to ask again.

The second was actually before the first. My sister and I were sent to church on our own. I wasn't able to get my mother to explain why she wasn't going; or why, since she was insisting that her daughters attend but wouldn't herself, she couldn't drop us off and pick us up. Leaves rustling around my dress shoes. Sunday dresses. The deacon's coat, a light camel tan. My mother and the deacon quietly, just barely, bowing to one another before he walked us to his car. My father missing once again. Twenty some years later, it's just now dawning on me that there might have been an abortion that day. I don't know if clinics had Sunday hours in the eighties.

For the past three weeks my body's been waking up between four and five every morning. Like clockwork. The cold urges me to stay nestled in bed, so it is there, curled into a ball, that I wait for the light to take over the living room. Only around seven does sleep finally return. The daily radio alarm streaming from my sister's bedroom is the only thing that stops the vivid, unsettling dreams. There have been naked people that I don't care to see naked. There have been insignificant replays of recent conversations. There have been snippets of childhood memories that I unquestioningly follow without hate or regret or pain. It's only when they spur revelations like this one that my indifference momentarily disappears.

2013-02-23T14:30:00.002-05:00

It's decided to rain the entire weekend. That's a bummer seeing as how this is my last free weekend for a while, but you can't win 'em all, you know? After five hours of sleep, four of them on the living room couch in a failed attempt to mute the incessant thuds from the apartment above, and at least two spent begrudgingly inhaling the stink of wine and liquor that permeates from Soeur and her man when they return from a night out, I arose from ~~bed~~ the couch this morning feeling less than cheery. Sometimes I hate that I can't afford my own place. And that my ceiling is my neighbor's floor.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I will move on.

I should be at the office today to mitigate the madness that is scheduled for next week, but procrastination slapped me hard this morning. There is now a surprisingly tasty tray of scones hanging out on the kitchen counter. After patiently working with the delicate demands of cold butter, I'm very pleased that these turned out so well. The chocolate morsels, littered and smashed across the tops of each dough wedge at the very last minute, were a brilliant afterthought.

I think I'll put off my work for a little while longer and run to the market. I feel like some chopping and sautéing in the kitchen will be good for me.

Brr. It's Just Me.

2013-02-20T23:54:00.000-05:00

No point in sugarcoating this one: It's a bitch of a winter we're having over here. The wind chill has stayed above zero for the most part, but I'm still running to indoor, heated sanctuaries every chance I get. Piercing cold winters are routine parts of the East coast experience, but I think I got too comfortable with the milder winters of the past few years. My spoiled body finds it a nuisance to don wool socks before crawling under the weight of four blankets at bedtime. It's true: I curl up into the fetal position every night under the protection of first a flat sheet, then a comforter, a wool blanket on top of that, and then a dense cotton blanket at the very top. The weight of the cotton helps keep the pile of blankets from moving around too much at night. Have I shared one too many boring details of my winter bed's textile choices? Perhaps. Have I shared useless information? Most certainly. But there it is in all its mundane glory anyway.

This, I took by accident earlier tonight. My frozen fingers were having a fantastic time trying to get my phone's screen to respond to my touch. If the train hadn't whirred by at this very moment, you would most certainly have been spared this rather dreary reflection of yours truly.

Stay warm out there.

UWS. Manhattan. Tonight.

Papa Steinbeck

2013-02-14T11:17:00.001-05:00

The words below are not my own. They are cut and pasted from a January 2012 Letters of Note blog post {+}. The letter is from Steinbeck: A Life in Letters {+}. It's a heart warmer, fitting for a day like today. Happy Valentine's Day, y'all.

//

In November of 1958, John Steinbeck — the renowned author of, most notably, The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and Of Mice and Men — received a letter from his eldest son, Thom, who was attending boarding school. In it, the teenager spoke of Susan, a young girl with whom he believed he had fallen in love.

Steinbeck replied the same day. His beautiful letter of advice can be enjoyed below.

New York
November 10, 1958

Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.

First—if you are in love—that’s a good thing—that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second—There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you—of kindness and consideration and respect—not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.

You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply—of course it isn’t puppy love.

But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it—and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.

If you love someone—there is no possible harm in saying so—only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.

It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another—but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.

We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.

And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens—The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Love,

Fa

Ugh.

2013-02-13T00:00:00.000-05:00

My sister is so bossy sometimes.

The Dance

2013-02-12T00:35:00.001-05:00

Matisse at the MoMA {+}. 3:43 pm. Sunday. 10 February. 2013.
Does anyone else get sad thinking about what life would be like without blissfully spur-of-the-moment MoMA visits? Or echo-y strolls through the Met's Greek and Roman wing after nightfall? I don't know how or when I'm going to leave this city, but my mouth quivers at the thought of the emptiness I will inevitably feel when it happens.

If you've been meaning to go, go now. I will even bring you. And if you want to go alone, that's cool, too. Just go.

Paths

2013-02-07T23:37:00.002-05:00

Remember how much I dislike the Facebook (yes, the Facebook)? Well, there was a flurry of conversation around photos in which I was tagged this week. I sat and watched my inbox's message count rapidly climb from two, four, seven, to eleven, and then some. The next morning, more. I finally clicked to see what was stirring the lively thread. What was my login again? Right.

Little squares of little people faces looked out at me. Yikes. My first and second grade class pictures. Who has time to scan and upload these things?! Mothers of two young children, apparently. As I took in the photos, names I didn't know I had tucked away suddenly resurfaced, all but two whose first initials were all I could manage.

I thought about what might happen at a potential reunion. Many years ago, my sister bumped into a former classmate of hers. George openly shared about what he had been up to. His line of work was lucrative; all cash, little work, easy money, with a touch of risk. "Good for him," I remember saying as she told me about her run-in. "Not really," she had responded. "He deals crack." Oh. We grew up in a working class neighborhood of West Philadelphia. At school, the bathroom stall doors were missing. Poor district > poor kids > poor career choices. Heck, even wealthy district > wealthy kids > poor career choices. It was more than plausible.

My science teacher opened homeroom one day with the announcement that our classmate Roxanne had perished in a fire the night before along with her five younger siblings whom she had been taking care of. Her parents, who were not home at the time of the fire, survived. She missed so much school already that none of us thought twice about her absence that morning. Roxanne, the one who would never do her homework, the one who was always lost in class, the one who uh, was far more mature than us physically, yeah, that Roxanne. It wasn't until this turn of events that I realized that this poor chum had been preoccupied running a household. No time to do schoolwork or even go to school, only time to feed the babies. We were eleven, twelve, maybe? Gah. I think about Roxanne every now and again. It's hard not to. What she'd be doing now, had a responsible adult been at home with them that night.

Years later, on my way to my parents' one day, I bumped into a close friend of Roxanne's. A baby not yet old enough to hold its own head up laid in the stroller Shannon was pushing. I was so happy to bump into this old school friend. She was a kind soul. As I heard myself ask whose baby she was watching, it clicked. We were so young. I was in college. She blushed as she explained that she was looking at community college.

It's amazing how different our futures looked at that very moment. Shannon may be leading a very fulfilling life right now, but there's a part of me that wonders how much easier it might have been to get there had she waited to have children until after school. And George, how much more rewarding a career he'd have today had he pursued a different profession at so young an age, one that didn't harm his community or threaten his own safety.

It's hard not to wonder why my path wasn't theirs. Or theirs mine.

Next to the Chocolate Shop

2013-01-29T19:41:00.001-05:00

Sixty dollars for a pound of anything seems absurd, but for certain occasions, a bit of extravagant spending on Belgian chocolate seems fitting. So does gawking at the handsome fellow manning the counter at the Neuhaus flagship store. He's, how shall I put it? Easy on the eyes: beautiful smile; the kindest of demeanors; quite tall, but compared to me, who isn't? He's probably in his mid-twenties, maybe twenty-five, which is absolutely horrifying because my youngest brother turns twenty-four next month. Let's move on.

52nd-ish & Madison. NYC. December. 2012.
Next door to the fancy European chocolatier with the chocolate hunk is an antiques dealership with funny little porcelain statuettes in their windows. I'm not sure if they're still there, but these creepy figurines were hanging out there in December. I thought they were cute for about half a nanosecond before they suddenly made me want to hide under the covers.

The Lovely Pomegranate

2013-01-21T14:46:00.000-05:00

Before the time of my brothers, my sister and I would sit next to our mom and patiently watch her crack open one of these guys. We three would sit on the floor looking down into a big bowl. On the floor sat a newspaper hoping to catch the inevitable scarlet spatter that escaped the bowl. Sometimes, a neighbor would be over, one of uhmmah's girlfriends, and the four of us would share. This is the memory that pops into my head whenever I see a pomegranate.

This, and the story of Persephone. The goddess of the underworld sounds like a powerful title, but Greek mythology actually holds that Persephone was kidnapped by Hades, the god of the underworld. She was tricked into staying there...because she ate a few pomegranate seeds. The gods struck a deal: Persephone would split her time between the earth and the underworld. Her mother Demeter, the goddess of fertility and harvest, objected, but nothing could be done. And so, when Persephone is with her husband Hades in the underworld, Demeter sees to it that the earth doesn't produce crops, but once Persephone is reunited with her mother on earth, the lands become fertile again. Hence, the ancient explanation for the cycle of seasons. Perhaps also, the ancient belief that the pomegranate had contraceptive properties.

If you have the opportunity to get your hands on a whole pomegranate, please do so, if only to learn what it looks like before it's sprinkled on your salad, or reduced into a sauce for your chicken. Be patient, handle the insides delicately, and maybe you will be rewarded with two bountiful cups of ruby red capsules like this one yielded.

There Was That One Day

2013-01-18T00:53:00.002-05:00

I had just spent my first Thanksgiving weekend alone. It was unsurprisingly uneventful. I suspected that after a long weekend on my own, I'd be in dire need of some company (any company, even a stranger's!), but come Monday, it was oddly not so. I was puzzled. What I craved, what I needed, was to be outdoors. But I couldn't do the concrete and shadows of the city. Not on this day, at least. I didn't want tourist-packed Central Park either. What I really wanted was an uninterrupted hour on a beach. To turn my back to the land and look out at the horizon - yes, that's what I needed. I stood in a piping hot shower and tossed around the idea of hopping on a train to Brooklyn, to Coney Island. The subway had brought me there once, surely it could do so again. But I had no patience for a long train ride today. A rental car, maybe? Too much work. Instead, I pulled out my wool coat and left my place as fast as I could. Wet hair and all. I let the door slam behind me.

I walked. For five hours straight, I let my feet patiently carry me. I wove in and out of quiet streets, sometimes retracing footsteps, sometimes not. There was SoHo, the West Village, glimmers of the Hudson, chilly hands, and a mind rammed full of endless, disconnected thoughts. The city still felt empty from the holiday weekend. That helped.

Finding a small pocket of outdoor empty and quiet in this life, my life, is a tall order. Most of the time, I don't even recognize just how much I'm aching for it until I walk into it. When your head's so clouded you're afraid you might implode, it's a good idea to walk it off. Head out somewhere, anywhere, that will center you again. On this occasion, there was no sand or blustery sea wind or breathtaking horizon, but that's not the point. You don't always know how you'll get to where you want to go, but make an effort and eventually, you'll get there.

From that day I took for myself back in November, looking westward from the High Line {+}:

3:20 pm. Monday. 26 November. 2012.

:D

2013-01-16T23:59:00.000-05:00

I can still see your chubby index finger pointing at the cupboard, your blond head tilted just so, while you earnestly asked, "Coooooo-key?" "Coooo-key?" Those stinking, pleading, blue eyes would pull me in every time. I'd come this close to giving you another cookie, before stopping myself knowing full well that your parents would wonder why you were so wired instead of sleeping when they got home. When you finally learned the difference between pointing at something and bleating "neeeeeed?" and pointing at something and bleating "peeeeez?," well, that was it. I was done for. You had your babysitter, a sucker for good manners, wrapped around your little finger. It's a good thing I'm Asian and know how to draw the line. Until, of course, you batted those blue eyes at me again. Damn those eyes. If I didn't know that it's genetically impossible for my own children to have blue eyes, maybe I wouldn't find them so mesmerizing, eh?

I don't know you anymore, what with the distance and the time that flies and all, but I still have fond memories of reading you stories while you patiently turned the pages, scolding you for sitting on the cat when you were old enough to know that was bad but couldn't talk yet, and how, even before you held the bottle on your own, you drank that milk with more gusto than any kid I knew. You were a terrific baby. Do you know that my sister would stop by to say "hello" occasionally? She didn't even like babies. You guys made her nervous with all your wiggling and nonverbal-ness, so it took her a while to become a fan. But you, she took to you pretty quickly.

If you're anything like your parents, I'm sure your Mad Libs antics are straight up witty. Your drawing looks just like the city. It is spot on, little dude.

I'm going to stop acting like a weird old woman now. I just wanted to remind everyone that babies grow fast. One minute they're hobbling along like drunken sailors and the next minute they're drawing urban skylines and signing their names on thank-you cards. And do you see the ":D?" Crazy.

A Good Wife

2013-01-09T23:50:00.003-05:00

I sat at this piano for hours at a time as a kid. Every minute was a temporary reprieve from the crazy in our household. I could never quite articulate what drew me to the piano, but now I realize that it was the one noisy activity that did not set my mother off. I craved not the activity itself, but what engaging in the activity offered: a brief moment of solace between the long days in and days out of a childhood that in many ways was not.

As a toddler, I stood on my tippy toes (well, except for those pinky toes - what's going on there?) to reach the keys. Let's skip over the fact that my head's the size of a bowling ball and that the right side of my diaper looks precariously loose. And those hammy pint-sized legs? Good grief. You can't see it, but the front of my t-shirt reads MOMMY AND DADDY DID IT. Apparently my loudness started even before I knew how to talk.

That is some major baby pudge.
One of the last exchanges I ever had with my grandmother took place as I sat on this very piano's bench. Halmoni was visiting my parents from Toronto. Restless, I found myself at the piano. It sounded flat, the keys stuck a little, and there were a lot more knicks on the wood than I remembered. Away from the noise of the family, I stared down at the ivory row before me. My fingers pecked suspiciously while my brain tried to catch up. The circle of fives eluded me. I gave up and turned my back to the keyboard. I sat squarely across the piano bench, cross-legged, before I realized that my grandmother probably wouldn't think that very ladylike were she to see me. I threw one foot down and crossed the other over my knee. That was better.

Unbeknownst to me, halmoni had quietly made her way down the stairs and taken a seat on the couch across from me. She caught my gaze as I looked up from adjusting my sitting form. Her look said that she wanted to talk. The thing is, we had never really done that before. In all my twenty-some odd years, the majority, if not all, of our interactions during her occasional visits consisted of prayers. When our heads were not bowed, she would give gentle reminders. God loves you. You're a good girl, how much you help your parents. Keep studying. Pray. These formed the foundation of our relationship, if you want to call it that. They are what I associate most with my father's mother, these instructional reminders of our family's faith.

She addressed me by my Korean name, the only name by which the elders in my family know me, and when I looked at her with a blank face, she asked me something that she had never asked before. In fact, no one had. Maybe she was too afraid of the answer. Now that her husband had passed, maybe it was time.

"It was hard, wasn't it?"

She caught me off guard. I knew exactly what she was referring to. But was this really happening? I didn't know what to say.

What could I say? That your son is terrible? That he is a lousy excuse for a human? That I was constantly thrown into the middle of my parents' issues? That I was cooking on the stove by first grade, laundry soon after, and bottle-feeding infant brothers at night? That I struggled to keep my eyes open in the classroom after a night taking care of a newborn? That I'm sitting here wondering why I feel the obligation to come spend time with a grandmother whom I maybe saw once a year until I was twelve around which time you and his father, your husband, disowned your miserable son through a posted letter makes my brain rattle. You're asking me how life's been now? Really? We're going to do this now?

"Things were hard for you, weren't they?" She repeated herself and patiently waited for my response. I could feel my brows furrowing as I returned her gaze.

"Yes. It was." I had nothing more to say.

"I know. I know how hard it was for you. Doing what you did. Your mother..."

And then she caught herself and stopped. More silence.

"I'm sorry I didn't help."

Now that last verb, I don't quite remember if she said didn't help or couldn't help. Ahn doh wah joh suh or mot doh wah joh suh. Ahn or Mot? Funny how one syllable can alter the meaning so. But it doesn't matter because even if she could have helped, it was probably her husband who forbade it. Halmoni took her duties as a wife seriously. She was loyal. She followed her husband's lead. She was what they called a good wife.

I can still hear it, her voice. I can still see them, her soft eyes set against the lines of her aging face, peering at me. I tried to make sense of what was happening. Was I hearing her correctly?

"I'm sorry I didn't help. I know how hard it was for you."

There it was again. So halmoni knew. All this time, she knew? I felt like someone had taken the chair out from under me. I was speechless. And then, before the tears could fall, I dabbed the corners of my eyes, stood up, and walked away quickly. I heard myself say, "It's ok, halmoni." The timbre and volume of my voice remained unaltered. "It's ok," I repeated.

My grandmother is gone {+}. She prayed endlessly for her babies and her babies' babies. I know because she told me every time I saw her. But prayers aren't always answered, not even halmoni's. Sometimes, you pray and pray and pray and live with the faith that something will finally change. Later on, when that's no longer enough, and the strength and clarity of hindsight settles, you might even apologize to the little girl who isn't a little girl anymore.

Checked Out

2012-12-26T16:53:00.001-05:00

My jeans tumbled around for forty-five minutes in a dryer set on its highest setting. They had never seen the inside of a dryer before. That fateful moment two weeks ago wasn't supposed to happen. This week, I tossed the same pair into the dryer. Again. For another forty-five minutes. Breathing while wearing these jeans has officially become a multi-tasking activity.

On Sunday, I baked two loaves of banana bread. When I released each cooled loaf from its respective pan, pools of liquid butter curiously formed along the bottom. I checked the recipe, the one I had been using for years. I picked up and stared at the measuring cup that I had just washed. It was a 1/2-cup, not a full cup; I had used *half* the amount of flour the recipe called for. Unable to bring myself to chuck the loaves entirely, I thought of creative ways that one might eat buttery banana bread pudding. I came up empty.

My sister had a birthday last week. I accidentally shipped her gift to a Connecticut address. Thank you, Amazon, for saving my shipping history. I didn't realize my mistake until four days later when the tracking information said her boots were last scanned in Norwalk. Oops.

As a fairly detail-oriented individual, I find these recent events alarming. What's happening to me? I should be able to execute simple tasks like laundry, baking, and online purchases without major hiccups, right? Apparently not. My head's gone on vacation and didn't bother to tell me. Let's hope that it didn't permanently relocate because honestly, this dazed and confused feeling isn't cute.