9/11: Twenty-Five Years Later

Twenty-five years ago to the minute of when I’m writing this, the World Trade Center towers had been hit by airplanes (the Pentagon was moments from being hit). I wanted to write my impressions of whether 9/11 changed everything, but, yesterday I was scooped by The New York Times (“Did 9/11 Really Change Everything?”) - I am sure the piece is better than anything I could write, so I purposefully avoided reading it.

Twenty-five years later, the events of that morning, me myself, and the country as a whole seem like a different lifetime ago. Today it feels like “did 9/11 change everything?” is an irrelevant question because things would have radically changed so much anyway. A.I. is the current anxiety, and it is sweeping away everything that was before, and would have whether 9/11 happened or not.

The events of 9/11 might have been the last time I can remember the country really coming together - I remember the deafening “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” chants, never more so I personally experience than during a GWU basketball pep rally that fall when some soldiers recreated the Iwo Jima flag raising: thousands of upper-middle class mostly suburban college kids would have ripped out Al-Qaeda’s eyeballs if they had been there. Nothing like that has happened since and it’s hard to imagine it happening now. The biggest thing to happen since, the COVID-19 pandemic and shutdowns drove us apart maybe irrevocably rather than unite us: there weren’t any “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” chants (maybe just sometimes performative daily applause for first responders, but even when genuine there was a different intensity than the post-9/11 bloodlust and circled-wagons strength).

Rudy Giuliani was for a short time “America’s Mayor” and now is widely loathed; George W. Bush was in a flimsy position given the 2000 election controversy, became never more America’s President when he gave the  “I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!” speech at Ground Zero on 9/14, became loathed during the Afghanistan/Iraq wars and civil liberties concerns (see: any episode of The Daily Show) but now, in the Trump years, seems to be seen by some as America’s jolly bumbling grandfather.

Technology has changed; 9/11 was the last major event before the smartphones. The documentation gaps in what went on in the hijacked planes or upper floors; it’s almost unimaginable today - if this happened now there would be running video and photos and calls and text. We were so much more removed from each other then. The nascent cell networks crashed that morning, as did websites like CNN for some time.

Twenty-five years ago was more than half my lifetime ago. In retrospect, I was a naive and cripplingly anxious 20 year old; or maybe I wasn’t, but I cringe to read some of my old reflections. A rumor from that morning was that planes had crashed into the National Mall and Old Executive Office Buildings; my reaction was some version of “huh, you don’t see that every day - once I get off my work shift I’m going to go check that out”. I feel like I should be ashamed that my first reaction to tragedy was to seek spectacle, like a driver slowing down to view the highway accident. That might be a little hard on myself, the whole country was glued to their sets. I was also very fatalistic at the time and resigned to the destruction of the city and myself. A key point in that morning was a former student, now working for the State Department, calling the office I was working and *screaming* to get out of the city immediately. The Metro was shut down, I had no car. I was going to steal a bike from across the street at the library and pedal for my life - I had daydream images of myself pedaling furiously across the Arlington Memorial Bridge just barely escaping the fireball blast like the president’s plane avoiding the aliens’ destruction in Independence Day. Some acquaintances had a car and were going to hightail it to the suburbs. Spending a week (or more?) trapped with them seemed like its own kind of torture, at least I hoped the city explosion would be brief. I was fairly calm that morning in spite of everything, I felt safe in the “bunker” of Phillips Hall; I had to bring some garbage out mid-morning and going upstairs to the dumpster was literally peeking out looking up at the sky before I walked out. My roommate Joe punched a hole in the wall later in frustration and that hole remained all year as a reminder of 9/11. The time I lost it - and not against Bin Laden or the terrorists or anything else - was when a kid I knew, M.A., was helping to evacuate the Smith (Student) Center due to a bomb threat, and asking “hey M____, what happened?” he said in a power-trip affect “excuse me, sir, please step aside”. I walked away vowing that if society fell apart I would find him and murder him. I wish I had been more organized to collect the various other rumors of the day: certainty of a car bomb going off in front of the State Department (that must have been the Pentagon crash), the D.C. water supply being poisoned. For a long time many people were (and probably still are) convinced 9/11 was an inside job given the way the towers imploded - if you told me that would be the outcome of a plane hitting the skyscraper I never would have guessed. In my case, I think it was because movies ruined my brain - in the 1990s spectacle blockbuster movie version of the day the tower would have been chopped in half by the plane or the crash would have started a domino cascade through Manhattan (I also think people expected the movie version of COVID with people dying in the streets which also led to hysteria).

It was scary to see military vehicles patrolling the streets of DC (but that has happened again since). For a long time the skies were empty of planes - I took a bus home that Thanksgiving and Christmas (I’m reading that Reagan opened in October which seems soon); when I saw planes again it blew my mind. For all the talk during COVID of people not caring about others’ health, across the nation people were turned away the next day from giving blood (as Karl and I were went we went to donate).

We all have our frozen memories. Many were watching it on TV. My mom was flying and was grounded in Texas and had to drive back to Connecticut with a colleague…it didn’t even strike me to have been scared she was on a hijacked flight that morning, but in typical mom fashion she might not have told me she was on a business trip. That morning was her secretary getting in touch with me that she was confirmed ok, and was IMing with Eric who just started at UConn but seems to have been home? Scott (12) would have otherwise been home alone until the days later before my mom arrived. I was working in the band office listening to the news on the radio, and remember looking in Bari’s face in shock the moment the towers fell. Another girl that walked by had a brother that worked in the towers…early in the timeline she said “tee-hee he always gets himself into these situations” not realizing the gravity I think. A music professor told a student she needed to cancel their lesson to flee. My band director was very like “what’s the big deal, people (like you all) should be working!”. The day started with me passing a guy on the street talking on his phone about the World Trade Center. I thought he said something about an explosion and I assumed he was discussing the 1993 bombing. I heard a  bunch of students (and the professor) showed up to my 11am econ class wondering where everyone was - their version of 9/11 was missing the whole thing.

Father Rob the GWU chaplain later said the churches were packed (and were for a while). Would disaster bring us back to the Catholic church today? Did COVID?

Although the day itself was the acute event, a lot of the legacy of 9/11 was the aftermath - the wars, surveillance, Islamophobia (that econ professor, Prof. Malik, said he was struck by how restrained America was; in India people would be dead in the streets over ethnic cleansing), $2 trillion and countless lives “wasted” - a kid roughly my age from Norwalk Wilfredo was killed in the war and there’s now a bridge named after him, leading to some in-fighting about overdoing it - is that a form of performative patriotism? The era was also awash with American flags (made in China, hawked everywhere), flag lapels, “do you support the troops?”... I’ll tell you how I changed another way: I’m no longer draft age; the next war will have to be a younger man’s fight. We all thought 9/11 would be our Pearl Harbor and were famously just told to stay home and shop. Sometimes I questioned if I should have volunteered, it was the last chance to be a part of something big, and frankly, I stayed in school mostly in “safety”, not physical, but to keep with the “college path” and not deviate from the “plan”. Having gotten my PhD in health economics and realizing I know nothing about how healthcare worked on the ground, I’m so much more open to gap years, work experience, etc., first (although I’m sure I’d do a crappy sweep-the-floor job and wouldn’t get that experience) and army service would have been a chance to have public service…but I later became very opposed to the wars, I guess I’m glad I kept my freedom to not fight.

This blog began in what still felt like the aftermath of 9/11; I was working at the Census and “Terror Code Orange” (or red or yellow) still meant something very real in terms of how thorough the security guards were at entrance. This all seems like a surreal distant dream memory. Coincidentally I’ve been doing a rewatch of The Sopranos; I’ve gone from the earlier seasons when the towers stood and were featured in the intro to the later seasons where they were absent. The vibe and aesthetic is a time capsule - if I was in a time machine I’m not even sure I’d fit into that world anymore, which I’ve noted is ironic because it’s the world I’m from and the one I’m often nostalgic for. There’s probably no stronger evidence of the changes.

Grandma on my Mom's boyfriends

I called home tonight. My mom told me "whenever I tried to tell my mother about the guys I was dating, she always seemed so bored. Like, 'yeah, uh-huh, all right...let me know if there's a wedding or anything planned, but otherwise, I don't really care...'".

I turned thirteen on Friday the 13th

I turned thirteen on Friday the 13th. This was also the name of the first Facebook group I joined.  I felt privileged to be part of such a select group (second only to those born on February 29th); membership was literally written in the stars.

Anyone born on November 13, 2002 is also turning thirteen on this Friday the 13th. Using a list of Friday the 13th occurrences, I subtracted thirteen years from each occurrence date to generate a list of birthdays for people who also turned thirteen on Friday the 13th:

Birthday of People who turned Thirteen on Friday the 13th

• November 13, 2002
• March 13, 2002
• February 13, 2002
• June 13, 2001
• December 13, 2000
• September 13, 2000
• July 13, 1999
• April 13, 1999
• January 13, 1999
• May 13, 1998
• August 13, 1997
• November 13, 1996
• February 13, 1996
• June 13, 1995
• July 13, 1994
• April 13, 1994
• October 13, 1993
• January 13, 1993
• May 13, 1992
• March 13, 1992
• August 13, 1991
• February 13, 1991
• June 13, 1990
• December 13, 1989
• September 13, 1989
• July 13, 1988
• April 13, 1988
• October 13, 1987
• August 13, 1986
• November 13, 1985
• March 13, 1985
• February 13, 1985
• June 13, 1984
• December 13, 1983
• September 13, 1983
• October 13, 1982
• January 13, 1982
• May 13, 1981

Of course that's me at the end.  I turned thirteen on Friday, May 13th, 1994. My golden birthday. I do not recall anything particularly unlucky befalling me. I'm sure, like all my birthdays, I ate crab meat stuffed shrimp and Carvel ice Cream Cake. Owing to this alone, it was a good day.

"You always buy just one tomato,"

...the check-out cashier said to me yesterday as I blushed tomato-red.  Yes, it's true.  I typically buy just one tomato.  One tomato is all I need.  I buy tomatoes only for myself, and I live close enough to the grocery store and eat them irregularly enough that I buy them as I need them and I always have fresh tomatoes on my counter.

I was more taken aback by being noticed.  I grocery shop typically twice a week, and I had myself recognized the cashier.  But I assumed from her perspective I was among the faceless mass of hundreds of produce-buyers she sees each week.  Yet among us all I was labeled as a tomato eccentric.  Walking home I thought to make salsa soon just for an excuse to buy multiple tomatoes at once.

But her one little comment ballooned into social paranoia: who else is noticing me?  Am I projecting other weird, OCD habits?  Robotic regimentation?

During college, I was a regular at Einstein Bagels and my usual order - and I remember it perfectly - was a toasted cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese and a blueberry strudel muffin.  We gave our names like Starbucks as our orders were prepared and pretty soon the manager Stephanie started calling out to me as I waited in line well before the counter, "raisin bagel with cream cheese, T.J.?"  The first time I could only think to call back, "am I that boring?!"  Even if she didn't say it, the cosmic answer was was probably "yes".  I started varying my order after that.

Yesterday's tomato incident might be the universe calling again.  Unfortunately, there are few true substitutes for tomatoes-on-the-vine.  Canned diced don't go well on sandwiches.

Knot Then

At Roberta's helpful suggestion, I've begun (within the past year) always tying my sneaker laces in double-knots.  I otherwise have a problem keeping them tied.  It became embarrassing when twice during a single walk her her I've have to stop to retie them.  I wondered if my laces were of the extra lubricated variety.

Laces are annoying.  Once your shoe becomes untied, that's it - you've already lost.  You look stupid with your laces untied and stupid bending over to tie them.  No amount of cool can save that - Jame Bond's laces never came undone.

I wore Velcro Keds until I was ten years old. I only stopped then because they no longer made Keds in my size.  So, at that time I was then ten and I still hadn't learned to tie my shoelaces yet.  It's not that I had a learning disability preventing me from learning.  I was just caught in a catch-22, where I never practiced tying shoelaces because I always wore Velcro, and because I never learned to tie my laces, at each trip to the shoe store I'd again select the Velco Keds (which I liked anyway).

Eventually, I outgrew kids sizes and Velcro was no longer an option.  I remember that spring recess in the fifth grade on my very first day wearing the lace-up white Reebok's I was forced into.  I felt like I stepped out on a tightrope without a safety net.  I stood off to the side of the playground that day.  I was too afraid to run because I knew that if I accidentally shook my laces loose, I'd have no way to re-tie them.  I'd be helplessly unlaced and exposed as the fifth grader who was unable tie his own laces.  In rare precociousness (in determination if not skill-set), that very night I asked my mother to teach me once and for all and we sat down and practiced until I finally got it.

My current work shoe.  Trying to  keep it classy with a single knot, but undermined by the clownish excess lace material.

Velcro shoes are used now by seniors unable to bend over to tie their laces.  Life sometimes runs full circle.  I'll look forward to strapping on my Keds, a reacquainted friend, for a few last walks together. 

Crewing

I was a paperboy for The Norwalk Hour from approximately 1992 to 1995.  My daily route just went around my own street, and I probably made about $20 weekly.  When the only place I had to spend this money was the Rite Aid around the corner, actually it was more than I could possibly spend (until Mortal Kombat II was released at the arcade - oh, how much much did I waste just to knock cartoon men into the pit?).  Christmastime was extra lucrative with tips or boxes of cookies, and during the summers I often filled in for other paperboys when they were on vacation during the summers.  The ink would run and I remember having hands stained black with ink after I covered three routes on Saturday (and since there was no Sunday edition back then, Saturdays were The Hour's back-breaking thick editions).

Before I became a paperboy, the older paperboys let me know the funnest part about the job was "crewing".  I'm not sure, but "crewing" might have stood for "reCRUITing" or "sending the CREW out".  It was one night a week when paperboys were sent out to go door-to-door to try and sign new subscriptions for the paper.  When I finally got a paper route, I was so happy to be able to eligible for this sacred rite.

Crewing night was very formulaic.  Typically it began like this: all the neighborhood paperboys met at my house to get picked up my our route manager.  During the years when Matt, our disproportionately huge-butted manager, oversaw us, we would hear the sounds of Heavy D's  "Now That We Found Love" echoing off the nearby assisted living apartments, announcing Matt's arrival.  Matt would show up in his car, named "The Bomb".  Only two doors and zero seat-belts were functional.

We were driven to The Hour's building on Main Avenue, and entering there, I have to admit, was pretty cool.  Huge printing presses flanked our left as we walked into the large newsroom floor.  I remember recognizing the name of the sports editor's cubicle.  To twelve year-olds from Norwalk, The Hour might as well have been The New York Times.  The very first time we walked in, my neighbor and fellow paperboy exclaimed "this is where the magic happens" , like it was Willy Wonka's factory.  On the walk up to the cafeteria meeting room through the newsroom, I would hypnotically stare at Matt's pendulating rear.  Seriously, it must have been caused by localized Gigantism.

All the other paperboys going crewing around the city that night were sent upstairs to the cafeteria.  What met us there was from our perspective a pizza party.  From Hour employees' perspective, they needed to make sure we had the sales pitch down pat.  We were each called up to rehearse with an Hour staffer.  Of course, when you're twelve, more important than getting the sales pitch right would be to play it cool in front of our friends, and give a goofy speech.  The adults did not take kindly to that and I was dressed down every other week.  Matt would sit in the corner munching pizza.  One time I through a cup of soda at a paperboy who said I liked a girl I didn't.  Always, on the way out of the building we'd pass the supply closet and steal bags of rubberbands.  We didn't need them, it was just because we could.  If that sounds wrong, at least know that Karma eventually got back to me - the piles of rubberbands in my bedroom were later used as a litterbox my kitten, Cinnamon.

We usually had some time before our manager met us in the parking lot to drive us out (probably finishing up that pizza), and we always made a stop at the convenience store across the parking lot.  My neighbor walking in joke-yelling "yo, I want some condoms!"  I bought video game magazines that promised all the Mortal Kombat II moves (and so spent money which made me want to spend more money).  It soon got time to go, and best to go out with a bang.  That particular store had a walled-off section referred to as "The Corner", and was stocked floor-to-ceiling with adult magazines.  There was a notice reading that no one under 18 was allowed in "The Corner".  When you put a sign like that up, you're guaranteed twelve year olds are going to be running in there.  The store owner would chase us out and we'd run over to meet Matt at The Bomb.

Truthfully, the funnest part of crewing was now over.  We were usually dropped off at some apartment complex and then our manager took off.  We weren't even given a list of current subscribers.  If there was a playground in the complex we goofed around a bit, talked about "The Corner".  One time my brother and our neighbor snuck a dead bird into another paperboy's rolled up sample newspapers, and the bird fell out while he was speaking to a potential subscriber.  We did also ring a lot of doorbells trying to sell The Hour, usually out of boredom, and also because there were about $10 kickbacks for each new subscription we secured.  The sales speech we were instructed to give usually morphed into an unenthusiastic "Do you get The Hour? {No} Do you want The Hour? {No}"  The people we pitched to living in those apartments seemed unaccustomed to interacting with kids.  I remember most often being met by grimy men in t-shirts, seeming-single, probably in the middle of cooking dinner.  They always looked like the strangers in those school videos warning us not to take candy from strangers.  I also remember a lot of smelly apartments: stale food, pee.  One time a dog ripped through a screen door to bark at me...when the owner showed up, I didn't really have anything to do except try to sell him a subscription (he said no).  One time we were dropped off in a complex a little on the ghetto side, were people peaking out out through chain-locked doors, sometimes with beads (at that time, a gang symbol - we all play-scared ourselves to thinking we were going to getting shot - and I never found out in that neighborhood which gang blue beads represented ).

It was rare to sign a subscription - maybe I got one every other crewing night.  One huge night I got two or three.  We were almost exclusively paperboys, but the one papergirl that came with us consistently got more subscriptions that the rest of us combined.  Total sexism - there's something that makes it easier to say "no" to doofy middle schools boys than a sweet little girl.

I can't recall why, but I have an association between crewing and The Simpsons, so crewing must have taken place on a Thursday night.  I think the goal was to get back in time to catch the episode (after pizza was over, the only other thing to look forward to).  So away we went, approaching the old ladies' home in The Bomb, blasting "Now That We Found Love".  I don't think The Hour employs paperboys anymore, so there must not be any more crewing.  I don't think "The Corner" is there anymore, and The Simpsons isn't on Thursday nights now.  Heavy D died two years ago - The Bomb probably died twenty years ago.  With the collapse of local newspapers, I wonder how long The Hour will still be around. It's become a lost era, but a weekly highlight of my otherwise crummy middle school years.  I glad I got to be part of the crew.

Workouts Where You Find Them

On occasion during those cold winter nights I needed to cut weight, I threw on a garbage bag, a couple of turtlenecks, full sweats, and then jogged the mile or so to Naramake elementary school, my alma mater, to run laps of the building.

I'd also use the playground's gymnasium equipment to include a strength training workout.  I'd swing across the ladder bars, do pull-ups, and even attempted some Rocky IV style upside-down sit-ups (in constant fear of breaking my neck).  Basically, I did all the things I wasn't strong enough to do in elementary school ten years earlier.  Ironically, at 17 my height became a bigger impediment than my weight: the equipment was low enough so that I could easily reach up and grab the bars.  Obviously, it was designed to prevent perilous falls for a 10 year-old rather than allow me a full-extension pull-up.

Playground workouts are a thing, now, and I think it's partially about the finding utility in the environment around you - I used the playground because I didn't have a gym.  In this, a related phenomena is people preforming stunts around their cityscapes, finding physical obstacles in the everyday.  Skateboard stunt videos - people flying off stair railings - have been popular since MTV's Jackass, but I prefer the stripped-down, equipment-less spirit of free-running.  The sport has gained much exposurey through Youtube, but especially through Sébastien Foucan's parkour run in Casino Royale (and the best Bond film opening, ever).  To clarify, I'm talking about watching, not participating in free-running.  I'm not sure I'm even the same species as these guys.

Even Stan Lee parkours!  I found this good-humored video via InfinityList.  Highlights are "Lee's" opening neck-crunch warm-up, Spiderman-ing up the wall, a legs-splayed rope climb, and the bird scare run.

Krossed Out

Music news announced the death of one of Kris Kross's two Chrises this morning.  Chris Kelly, 34, was found unresponsive in his Atlanta home yesterday (the suspected cause is drug overdose).

Chris, MJ, and Chris - now only one remains...

Reactions to Kelly's death today elicited a wave early 90's nostalgia.  I was no exception - the one-hit wonders' one hit was 1992's Jump.  The song pitches me back to 6th grade, and my first middle school dance.  I'm standing awkwardly along the gym wall in the vicinity of boys I really wasn't friends with, to at least not be standing alone.  At 11, I played with Transformers while my cooler peers listened to music with the Parental Advisory warning: they knew what O.P.P. stood for.  The moment I best remember most is when Jump started playing.  The other boys went wild, everyone (else) knew the lyrics.  Their mid-step pause to cry out to each other Kelly's "wiggity-wiggity-wiggity-wack" line.  It was like that song cemented their secret fraternity I'd never be apart of.  I attempted a lame Running Man on the outskirts of their circle and certainly just embarrassed myself.

Looking back twenty years and seeing that little boy, it's so sad to think how his story would one day end.

Fasts of Time's Past

'Tis a season of fasting.  Lent is ending for Catholics, Passover for Jews.  I ate like normal: meat on Fridays, on Ash Wednesday, always full meals, definitely didn't give up chocolate.  I will never voluntarily fast again.

Here's where I'm coming from: I have trauma memories of a more secular type of fasting.  My senior year of high school, I regularly cut weight for wresting, once, sometimes twice a week.  I was around 170 lbs healthy, but regularly lost ten pounds (of water? or something?) to make the 160 lbs weight class.  Here there was an varsity opening.  Because quickly losing 10 lbs ruin your body, I consistently sucked.  I may have sucked anyway, but that dehydration and malnutrition certainly didn't help.  Still, I was better even at that cut weight then my other teammates who could have filled in at that class.  So, to maximize the possibility of a win at that class was worthwhile that I cut.

Each time I cut weight, my non-wrestling friends wouldn't believe me when I told them I was down 10 lbs since yesterday.  Ten pounds?  No big deal.  It's not fun, but I did it every time I needed to.  Do you want to lose 10 lbs in a day?  It's actually easy.  Here's how to do it every time:

• Start the practice the day before the match.  Don't drink anything during water breaks.  Instead, splash your head, ears, neck, and wrists in cold water in the bathroom sink.  Before you leave, swish a few mouthfuls around, also - but be sure not to swallow!  You'll feel as good as if you drank water.
• Weight yourself after practice - down a few pounds, you're getting there!  Alternatively, you have more weight to lose, fat boy.
• Eat little or nothing for dinner that night.  A Fresh Samantha protein smoothie sounds about right.  Promise yourself you'll only drink half.  Uncontrollably drink it all as soon touches your lips.  Hate your weakness.
• In a sulky 17 year-old manner, give your mother attitude for filling the house with delicious dinner smells.  Hate your family for eating in front of you without respect or consideration for your suffering.
• Cut arm and head holes in a large trash bag.  Put it over your naked torso followed by double layers of sweats.  Turn up your bedroom's heat all the way up, and plug in multiple space heaters.  Jog in place for an hour while listening to Top 40 radio (the Stars on 54 version of "If You Could Read My Mind" specifically brings me back to these sessions).  Blow a power circuit at least once.
• That night, as you first lie down in bed, stare at the clock.  Wish tomorrow never comes.  Grip your bed and never want to let go.  Enumerate the problems in your teenage life: the fights at home, the crushes that ignore you, the courses you're bombing, the money you don't have, the uncertainty of life after graduation.  Think in addition to all those how you're hungry and thirsty and there's nothing you can do about it.  Want to cry.
• In the morning, don't eat breakfast.
• Allow lethargy to pull you into sleep during class.  Act grumpy to all your friends.  Your stomach will growl so much that people will hear it.
• Don't eat lunch.  Hate everyone you see eating lunch.
• Worry all afternoon that you still won't make weight and all this torture was for nothing
• Head to the match.  Weigh-in successfully, every time, but only barely.  Gulp that you have no margin of error for the next time.
• Immediately eat multiple peanut butter & jelly sandwiches you brought from home.  Fruit if you have it.  Chug a gallon of Gatorade.
• Feel incredibly tired.  Wonder if you can sleep before the match.  Feel the Gatorade re-hydrating your bowels.  Worry that you'll literally crap your singlet during your match.
• Wrestle, feebly.  Suck wind for six minutes due to unnatural dehydration, if you last that long.
• Go home and binge on dinner as if  you'll never eat again.  Remember that the next match is only four days away.  Or three.  Or two.
• Tomorrow, weight-in before wrestling practice.  Hope you've not gained it all back so that in a couple days you won't have to fully repeat.  See that in fact you have gained it back entirely.  Want to cry.

You could not pay me enough to have do that again.  I doubt I even could - at the gym these days I get dizzy if I'm not hydrating between each weight set.  So why did I ever do it a first time?  Unquestionably, out of a sense of loyalty to the wresting team of which I was part.  Self-sacrifice to, in my mind, a greater good.  Incidentally, this is why kids at that age make the best soldiers: they're stupid in this regard.

The following couple years, at college, our cafeteria was "all-you-can-eat" and believe me, I ate all I could.  I also roomed with two Catholics who always made a show of not eating meat on Fridays during Lent.  We'd typically go to Subway those nights and they'd get the veggie sub.  I got a meatball grinder.  Or chicken club.

Truthfully, when I attended regular mass myself a few years later I also abstained from meat during Fridays a couple Lenten seasons; however, it wasn't really "fasting", because I just ate huge pasta or pizza dinners.  Around that time, I kept Passover with Becca the first year of our relationship out of good-boyfriend-solidarity   But again, easily, I just ate steak, potatoes, and Breyer's ice cream for a week straight. 

I once thought that if I ever became a POW, I could be broken in two-day's time by just a gruel diet.  While I don't anticipate that scenario ever occurring  I will never, ever, deny myself calories again so long as I can help it.  Just one wrestling season, probably only three months of my life, and writing this almost fifteen years later my heart still pounds to recall that time in my life.  I think it was one of my most miserable periods.  For certain, however, this small period of suffering gave me greater perspective and appreciation for what I have in life - I know how worse it could be.  And, when I have my own teenage boys, I'll always remember that  when they're acting cranky, they're probably just a little hungry.

My Missed Connections

Craiglist includes a "missed connections" listings, where locals describe brief encounters suggesting a potential for love, hoping the other person felt the same and will read the board and contact them.  Browsing the listings, I'm sure many are delusional, where the attraction was one-sided.  Still, the many other cases illustrate how much more love the world might have had if just one of the two were a little bit braver that day.

I believe this strongly.  So much in love is serendipity.  Roberta's mom, and my Aunt Barbara (I learned this Christmas), both met their spouses walking down the road when their future husbands drove by.  My parents met at a social club one ordinary night.  If either of our parents had instead stayed home that day, had gone at slightly different times, or haddn't glanced up a certain moment, neither of us would be here, I wouldn't be typing this right now, and we'd never make our own connection a quarter-century later.  Just a little nudge another way at a seemingly inconsequential momentum and so much life would be different.

I, too, have "missed connections".  While I have no regrets over how life turned out, I still characterize my teens and early twenties as particularly lonely.  My life suffered from lack of connections.  So many moments would have been richer if shared!

When I think of my missed connections, here is what I think of:

• At the end of high school freshman year, you were the first girl I ever learned had a crush on me.  We had never spoken, never had class together, yet you wrote "I love T.J." on your notebook.  Several people saw it, everyone told me, and actually many warned me against you (without explanation).  But, secretly, I had a crush on you, too, since I first saw you as an acquaintance's girlfriend.  You asked a friend to give me your number and we spoke several times.  You would never know, but things weren't ideal at home, so I never gave my house number to you.  Moreover, the timing was just bad.  We soon entered summer and lost touch.  When sophomore year started and we had classes together I avoided you.  But I still liked you.  This is probably the opposite of what you thought, and I'm so sorry.
• You were two sisters at Epcot.  Giggling, you approached and asked me whether I spoke Spanish.  I didn't.  I wanted to try.
• We met in the Typhoon Lagoon's wave pool.  You came crashing down on me in the middle of a wave series.  We tumbled in the wave, a tangle of limbs.  Afterwards, you faced me flirtatiously giggling; I, sunburn-red blushing and mortified I'd done something inappropriate, repeated "sorry, Sorry!", my face focused downwards while hurrying away.  You were incredibly beautiful.
• You were a horn player from another high school in the 1999 Orange Bowl halftime show, positioned down the line from me.  When our bands were brought to the the beach for a recreation day, you found me as we waited for the buses.  You asked your friend to take our picture.  I was rubbing sand off my feet, not my sexiest moment.  You asked us despite never speaking to me before.  I wish I had a copy of that photo.
• You lived down my hall freshman year of college.  We walked to discussion section together each Thursday that fall.  You insisted we keep that appointment.  I wasn't sure whether you wanted a connection or didn't want to walk alone.  Being shy, it was easier to assume the latter.
• You filled the empty seat next to me, halfway through the ride, on the shuttle bus home from the 2001 Inaugural Ball.  I was clearly dateless, silently despondent.  You said you were headed to Froggy Bottom with your roommates afterwards.  Was it an invitation to meet you there?  Sorry, I can't, just can't do bars.  If any other place.  I could barely see your face in the dark; my roommate called you gorgeous.  
• You sat next to me in an Oslo Internet cafe.  After you sneezed I instinctively said "Bless you" (in English).  You giggled as if I was a puppy peeing the floor, then rapid-fire typed (I assume the experience of my Yankee ill-sophistication).   I wish we could have talked.

Matching the Soul to the Sport

Of course, different body types are more favorable to certain sports. A small man would have difficulty in basketball as a large man would have difficulty in jockeying. It is also just as true that certain sports fit better with particular personality types.

In some capacity during my youth I was involved in two contact sports: football and wrestling. Neither was ever a good fit: then as now I'm nothing if not confrontational. Athletic ability aside - in which I was certainly lacking - I never had the requisite desire to hurt my opponent. Instead, I only felt empathy - here was another kid just like me, who was probably swept up in winds larger than he was which landed him across from me - maybe playing for his dad's acceptance, his peers acceptance, or like me, both. In that realization, how could I want to hurt him? He did nothing to me. Instead of a blood lust, I was nauseated by guilt. My coaches or teammates, on the other hand, actively encouraged the desire to hurt. Undoubtedly this explains how I often viewed my teammates to be bigger bastards than the kids on the other side. And that view extended outside the team: "Get mean! Get tough!  Why don't you go out there and hit somebody?! You'd rather play in the band with all the queers and fags". I heard that at least every week from my father, off-season included.

At least in football, you are just one element of a team and are obscured to anonymity by a masking helmet and large padding. Wrestling had an additionally unpleasant, mano-a-mano element, focusing the center of attention on just two people during a match. Even more than being non-confrontational I was then, as now, extremely introverted. All those eyes that would be on me! I hated the thought. At tournaments I hoped to get called to the small mat, off to the side, where maybe no one else would even notice that I was wrestling.

Looking back, how else might it have been? Was there a sport more geared to my personality? There is a scene in Grease where Danny Zuko successively tries out basketball, where his aggression prompts the coach to push him towards wrestling, where that "he's a hitter" prompts the coach to push him towards baseball, and finally, it is decided that long-distance running, alone and solitary, would fit best. I deeply wished a knowledgeable adult would have taken me aside, working with me to find a sport tailor fitted. I fantasized that both athletic glory and my happiness were only a matter of match.

What could it have been? A non-contact, team sport, in which I'd be indistinguishable from the other players. I'm thinking crew? I'm thinking bobsleigh?

The Lives of Others

City living is always quasi-communal. It's inevitable, our lives' spheres are larger than the tiny apartments we're cramped into. We see our neighbors when glance from our windows, we smell our neighbors when they cook their dinners, and we hear them too often to ever be without earplugs.

When I lived in Washington and New York, my neighbors were close indeed. In New York, my (perpetually broken) bathroom window was arm's length from the corresponding bathroom window of the building next door. Perilously, the other bathroom was always occupied; disturbingly, its occupants (plural) were always in conversation; unfortunately, the conversation was always in an impenetrably foreign tongue. More positively, before our Wi-Fi was installed, we benefited from the unprotected network named "Denize", and over dinner discussed how to best repay the unknowing altruist we nicknamed Denise (sadly, we never found her).

Last month I moved to denser Cambridge, MA. A selling-point when I saw our future apartment is that it is on the top (fourth) floor - no creaking floorboards, heavy steps, or moving furniture from above. Typical city sounds aside, the apartment is blissfully quiet.

My neighbors are still there, however, just in other ways. Where I live is actually a group of buildings under the same landlord, which are close enough that I can easily peer into the rooms opposite mine. Here's what I've experienced so far:

• The male neighbor whose door faces mine, Apartment 44 is passionately arguing politics when I leave for work at 7:15am. The topic is the shooting massacre at The Dark Knight Rises premier in Colorado. He gets the New York Times delivered daily. I only have Sunday delivery.
• The female neighbor who I share a kitchen wall with I've heard while exiting the kitchen back entrance to take out the trash. She consoles her female friend to accept the lack of quality, dateable men their ages.
• The neighbors I most often see live in the apartment across from our kitchen window and two floor downs. There is a pretty young wife constantly in their kitchen. She is always cooking. Presumably its for the middle-aged man who occasionally joins her. From my vantage point he is much below her league - overweight and hairy, which I know because he most often appears shirtless.
• Directly across from our kitchen window is a young lady. She cooks dinner 7-8pm (as do we), and then eats in her kitchen, alone in a chair.
• An occupant of the corner apartment opposite our bedroom's - it would belong to the apartment of the women who eats alone - I saw once when I sat up in bed at night. She walked away (I could not see her face) from her half drawn blinds, in her underwear. I immediately laid down again to give her privacy. Her body type was heavier than the young lady I see eating dinner.
• Not directly across the way from our living room but the room to the right lives a blonde young lady. There is a perfect line of sight between her on her couch and me at my desk. We haven't made eye contact yet. I'm sure it will be awkward when we do. I try to avoid looking out that window an unavoidably into hers.
• The aprtment directly across from our living room, one floor down, is filled with plants and furniture, is always lit, and is always empty. I fear a year from now an elderly resident will be found mummified.
• The other rooms are fainter to see into. A couple apartments have large-screen TVs. I've only seen ESPN.
• Many of the current or former residents were physics and finance majors. Their textbooks fill the shelves of the lending library bookcase in the basement by the washing machines. The lending library is more accurately a textbook graveyard, for materials easier disgarded than packed on moving day.  There is also a copy of Perfectly Normal: Living and Loving with Low Libido, by Sandra Pertot, PhD.
• Although I can't see it, in the afternoons you can hear someone in the building block across the street practicing scales on a piano.
• Directly across from me, but one floor down, lives a cat. It likes to look at me from over a double window fan in the apartment's kitchen. We've engaged in brief staring contests. It's so-far the only neighbor I've yet to make eye-contact with, the only neighbor who knows I'm also looking out.

Ooh, Slow First Day Back at the Gym

Two realizations on my strength and I get older:

1. How much less I've got, and
2. How quickly it goes

Yesterday was my first day back to the Planet Fitness gym after the week off for Thanksgiving, and I was seriously sucking wind.  In times past, I would return from an occasional week off reinvigorated and have a really good work-out.  Yesterday I couldn't finish my usual warm-up.  OK, it was a warm-up 5K on 8.2mph, but still, it's only been a week.

It could be that this break involved a steady diet of Stew Leonard's cheese bagels and ice cream sandwiches with an all-out Thanksgiving gorging, coupled with mostly a lot of lying around on the couch.  Hopefully yesterday I was just working the last of the tryptophan out of my system.

It does concern me that a more rapid loss of gains could be part of a larger downward trend.  I'm definitely sure I can't lift as much as I used to.  The hard thing is that the memory lasts longer than the body.  Years ago I met my thesis adviser at school's gym one morning just getting back into it (guy was probably only a few years older than I am now), and he lamented to me that "you can remember what you used to be able to do", but if you start with that weight again, you're straining out the second rep.

Heading back today of course for some cardio - consistency is the key - my muscles weren't too sore this morning so I think it's mostly my stamina that went.  December is a weird month and I'm already looking at the calendar for when I'll have to miss - it looks like I'll be back home for the last third of the month in the same routine as last week.  It's sad to think at best now at the gym I'm only lessening what the December holidays are going to do to my body.  Playing for keeps starts in January.

Hiding What I'm Reading

The book I am currently reading, London Fields by Martin Amis, contains a fair amount of naughty bits.  I'm only a third of the way through, enough to know the movie version would be rated R for language and sexual situations - today the protagonist of the black comedy insouciantly justified rape.

I'm painfully self-conscious and worry even about the options of complete strangers.  So it was only after I was assured my seatmate was sufficiently conked out that dared to crack open my book on the Amtrak back to Providence this morning.  There's a lot in there that'd be easy to take out of context.

Several years ago I sat down on a plane to read a book entitled White Man's Burden (by Bill Easterly) for an economics class.  Guess who sat next to me?  A non-Caucasian, let's just say that.  If it came up I could have explained that the book was actually about identifying effective development strategies - a noble goal, of course - but it coming up at all means digging myself out of a hole so I simply buried the spine (displaying the title) in my lap until we departed the plane.

Amtrak coach is cramped enough that it's easy to read over someone's shoulder, and books cannot accommodate privacy screens.  Computers can, but no one bothers with them.  On the train home last Monday I couldn't look up without looking straight into the movie some college kid was watching on his laptop (this morning those same college kids were mostly asleep).  All was pretty tame.  The person in front of me watched Captain America, to my right, Titanic.  So, no one's media choice revealed their perversions, only how boring they are.

Now, back when I was in college - on a trip to the NCAA basketball tournament I ended up sitting next to the mascot on the plane.  On his laptop, in loop, he played the scene in Road Trip when Amy Smart takes her shirt off on loop, pausing it at the most obscene point when the the flight attendants passed.  Maybe you don't have to worry about shame when you hide inside a giant foam head.

It was this memorable plane ride I recalled when I heard how over this most recent Thanksgiving travel period a flier was in arrested in Boston after other passengers noticed him viewing child pornography on his laptop.

Certainly, such a gross episode makes all other questionable viewing seem strictly PG-13.  But, I still retain my self-consciousness.  I wouldn't reveal to my mom what I was reading when she asked, lest she seek the book out, read it herself, and confirm my exposure to the F-word (Fiction, Adult).

Bronze Badge of Courage

Walter Dix won a bronze medal in the 200m track and field; he originally placed fifth but a double disqualification - two runners stepped on the lane lines - moved him up to third place.

When he heard the news, his response was something akin to: "but I still lost..."

It's actually a horrible way to win a medal: someone else's screw-up. Deep down he could believe he only won on a technicality - two other runners were really faster than him, and even if any advantage from stepping on the line was accounted for, they still would have had faster times. I wonder if silver medalists promoted to gold after a doping scandal wonder if, even with the drugs, the disgraced athlete really was better. Even if they cheated, perhaps if they didn't cheat, the outcome would have been the same - to receipt of the gold medal is a lie: the cheat should have it. The holder doesn't deserve it. I wonder if these thoughts stir in the promoted-gold-medalist's mind late at night.

The first wrestling medal I ever won was 3rd place...out of three in the weight class. It was the worst feeling - like getting an award for sucking.

It's a funny story now, but I pretended to be sleeping the whole bus ride home. I hid that medal in my drawer: I always hoped my first medal would be a source of pride. I wonder if medals won by others' disqualifications are displayed or hidden?

Never Say It's Over: Forever's a Long Time

Here I am, at 27, starting school in the fall. 10 years ago I certainly never thought I'd be here now. How many summers did I say it was my last summer working at Stew Leonard's, only to return the next fall? I was back at cashier after earning my master's degree. How many times did I think I'd never talk to a certain person again, even ten years ago, not predicting Facebook and all the ways to reconnect again. I've learned to never say never, because the rest of my life is a long time, and a lot can chance that I would never imagine.

A shout-out to Oksana Chusovitina, 33, the gymnast I previously mentioned who took home the silver last night on vault in gymnastics. I'm sure there was one day when she thought she'd never do gymnastics again, and here she is, the second-best in the world (and personally I thought she should have gotten gold - the first place winner had bad landings...).

Swimming for a Cause

On the Today Show this morning the conversation was not about Michael Phelps: The Swimmer but Michael Phelps: The Millionaire. The claim is that with the money he is/will make he will never have to work again. Well, MC Hammer and Mike Tyson probably thought at one point the money would last forever – though Phelps isn’t living such extravagant standards. No pet tigers.

I’m so fiscally responsible that if I won the lottery I’d never run out of money and so would never need to work again…but I’d want to. It’s the boredom, you see.

They talked of Phelps starting a foundation as those with too much money often do. One person interviewed said he will probably want to spread the gospel of swimming: promote a sport that has done so much for him. “The Michael Phelps Center for Kids Who Can’t Swim Good…Yet”. Poetic irony would be a protégé of Phelps breaking his record one day – Phelps knowing the record would still be standing if he never while the former PhelpsPhan stares him down with a defiant rebelliousness: “now the student has become the teacher… “ What I do agree with is their claim that Phelps is probably inspiring a new generation of swimmers.

At least in the short-term.

I’ve certainly been planning to cross-train in the pool, and watching his races makes me think what good exercise it would be; it’s pushing me to get in there quicker. But I’m easily malleable like that. Watching gymnastics in the 1990s, I would run around my house doing summersaults. Yet, when I feel that cold water my interest in swimming will experience shrinkage – and the youngins’ watching the games now have Wii, so how long will it last? I thought I might want to go into politics after staying home sick one day watching the movie “Dave” on TV. It took a year of Advanced Placement Comparative Politics and half-semester of undergraduate political science to make me realize what a dry boring topic it was, just invented for phonies to fill their egos. But I digress. If Phelps inspires many, and only a few stick with swimming, then at least some will have found a calling, and that’s a beneficial multiplier effect we cannot deny.

An update (in case you missed me)

I’m back, by the way. Let me update you on the priorities (God, country, family, school, and wrestling):

I found a church close enough to me to attend on Sundays: Our Lady of Lourdes. I had known about it but didn’t think I was welcome (I’m sorta shy and create nonexistent obstacles for myself) because it is an African-American Catholic church – whatever that means – which precludes me. It turns out that I certainly am welcome (it’s the most welcoming parish I’ve ever been to) and if it’s African-American that’s in name only; the priest and probably over 50% of the congregation are white.

Barack Obama is the presumptive democratic candidate for president. Whoever was nominated was probably always going to win, solely by virtue of being a democrat. I like him better than John McCain – so I’ll vote for him – but I like him less than I did in November. I got really jaded and disillusioned during his campaign against Hillary Clinton and continue to become even more apathetic during his adjustments to intended policy in the campaign against McCain. Unfortunately, I am voting for him now more as an alternative than as an ideal. I think he’ll be good for the country, but I’m a little cautious and wary. As I should be – he’s a politician.

My grandmother and (mom’s brother) Uncle Jim have died. My grandmother died just at the end of December, fittingly ending the crappiest year ever. Uncle Jim died unexpectedly of a stroke in April. When my mother was in Maryland for the funeral, my brother stole thousands and thousands from her, then tried to take out a car – a Lexus(!) – in my name. Police were called and he’s fighting a felony, and I still don’t know where that money was used for. Mom is being a mom and wavering on her anger towards her, and he’s mooching off her concern. I won’t trust him again until I learn exactly what was going on; he says it won’t happen again and that I should believe him – that request insults my intelligence.

I found a dissertation topic. It involves health economics, which I randomly fell into and now must learn; but it does also involve urban. If the poor are spatially mismatched from jobs, are they similarly mismatched from consumption opportunities? And what’s the most common consumption trip?...probably grocery shopping. Access to healthy foods as a problem is understood in the public health literature but not examined in economics. I’m also examining broader sprawl-obesity links: my hypothesis is that sprawl increases requisite travel time, reducing leisure time available for exercising or eating healthily.

My one disappointment (and only failed New Year’s Resolution) is that I didn’t sign up for the July 4th 10K. But…it’s never too late. Dara Torres is setting world records when she’s 41, and I won’t be too old at 28 to run for under an hour…

The plan is to keep the posting up for the duration of the Olympics. First post was opening ceremonies, last will be – yes – closing ceremonies.

Enjoy me until the 24th…

Mausolevm Dentvm

I didn’t make it through the Parade of Nations during last night’s (Olympic) Opening Ceremonies. The dances and fireworks prior to the procession were very cool, but once you’ve seen half the countries you’ve seen the other half. I (correctly) guessed I’d see the torch lighting eight times before I left the apartment this morning, so there was no need to stay up.

Early to bed, early to rise, and being up early enough allowed me the wonders of local news. I’m sure I could find more hick-ish even further out, but prior to the 8 o’clock hour I chanced upon a crusty lady detailing her local shopping experiences with show and tell. She began expounding the cuteness of a baby tooth holder – let me go over this, I’m talking about a baby bone holder! What the body naturally sheds to be worshipped like some relics of a saint?

I think it’s disgusting. Though, I hear parents get excited over their infant’s poop.

But baby teeth bring up unresolved emotional issues for me; I never lost all my teeth – naturally. I was 13 and had only lost the upper-two on top – I had to get four pulled in one session to get braces. If I didn’t look like a beaver with two big front teeth and all baby teeth on top before, I certainly looked like a freakish beaver afterwards with two big front teeth and nothing else. I remember sitting in the cafeteria that next day, probably alone (middle-schoolers are not kind to those with physical “defects”), gumming my pizza.

My real point is that I really got screwed* by the Tooth Fairy. How often friends would shove dollars into my face, bragging about their earnings. Just a dollar is a lot when you’re 10. Comfort that my babies would one day fall out sustained me through those episodes. Instead, I ultimately lost only those few naturally – plus you have to consider the natural losses that I swallowed. Did I look to see if the teeth had come out? {well, I won’t tell…}


*Instead of “screwed” I wanted to say “gypped”, but then reflected on how that would be insensitive to gypsies.

The Return to Atlanta

Atlanta airport's intra-course hallway features a collection of African art. I was walked through the exhbit this afternoon on my return from Norwalk rather than the tram because (1) I like the walk and (2) I need to work off that pie I've been shoveling the last two days.

As I rode past on the Jetsons-style moving sidewalks, I watched an elderly lady viewing a piece of art while her grandson (I'm assuming) played in back of the sculpture The art itself: some Zimbabwean had carved a marble man complete with marble buttocks in the back where the little boy way playing. While the grandmother was admiring the sculpture from the front, the little boy was in the back fingering the marble man's marble buttcrack, poking at his marble butthole!

That's some pretty fucked up shit. I looked around expecting shocks of horrors or at least disapproving frowns, ideally from a group of nuns. However, the hall was empty - no one saw but me. That's how these things always go.

Sadly, my butt-themed afternoon didn't end there. Upon my return to the house, I found 20% remainder of dried poop on my floor, evidently someone did a halfhearted job of cleaning up. I really hope it was dog-poop but my landlord's sloppy Irish relatives are visiting, so who knows.

More sadly, after I cleaned up the dog poop, I changed into my older sneakers, and instantly felt a cool wet sensation as I put them on my feet. Yes, the dog/drunk relative had also peed in my closet, over my sneakers and bag of dirty laundry. So: Laundry time! I don't know if it's OK to put sneakers in the laundry machine, but I did it anyway.