The Felt Shape of a Human Life

“Whenever someone who knows you disappears, you lose one version of yourself. Yourself as you were seen, as you were judged to be. Lover or enemy, mother or friend, those who know us construct us, and their several knowings slant the different facets of our characters like a diamond-cutter's tools. Our lives disconnect and reconnect, we move on, and later we may again touch one another, again bounce away. This is the felt shape of a human life, neither simply linear nor wholly disjunctive nor endlessly bifurcating, but rather this bouncey-castle sequence of bumpings-into and tumblings-apart.”

     -Salman Rushdie [The Ground Beneath Her Feet]

Who Hates Best

"If I was bound for hell, let it be hell. No more false heavens. No more damned magic. You hate me and I hate you. We’ll see who hates best. But first, first I will destroy your hatred. Now. My hate is colder, stronger, and you’ll have no hate to warm yourself. You will have nothing."   -Jean Rhys

Breaking Boundaries

"I can't think in terms of boundaries. Those imaginary lines are as unreal to me as elves and pixies. I can't believe that they mark the end or the beginning of anything of real concern to the human soul. Virtues and vices, pleasures and pains cross boundaries at will."  -Kurt Vonnegut

Real Talk: MTA

I saw this poster in the 2 train Wall Street station on Friday evening, fashioned after the MTA service change announcements:

If you can't read the bottom, it says:

How does this affect my trip?
You're not going anywhere.

Why is service being changed?
We are making service cuts because we want to screw you and make you think there's nothing you can do about it.

I like the campaign; it obviously voices what a lot of us are thinking when it comes to the weak ass MTA. This poster says "we want to make you think there's nothing you can do about it," but what is there to do about it besides complain? Are there any other, more proactive steps we can take that don't require taking time off from work to protest or waiting in line for lifetimes in some hostile government office? I can't think of any, and it does seem like there's nothing you can do about terrible service and higher MetroCard prices because people HAVE to use public transportation to get to work. Alternatives?

Extra Baggage

Today one of those kids was selling candy on the train and I bought some Welch's Fruit Snacks to support his entrepreneurial spirit. I opened the bag and it's less than a quarter full. We all know when we buy a bag of chips or something that it's gonna be less than half full, but why do companies do it? Like, the jig is up. We know how much is in there by now. It's just tons of extra packaging -- which, along with being nonsensical and annoying, is also bad for the environment. Is there anything we can do to get companies to size the packaging so that it's appropriate for the content?

Love & Texting

Provoking piece in the Styles section of the Times today. They've been doing this "Modern Love" series for a while and this column was one of the more interesting installments I've read so far. It's about an American student who moved to Thailand to teach English shortly after graduating from college. One of her students (college-aged) fell in love with her and the story is about their interaction while there and then after she returned to the States. An excerpt:

Text messaging and chatting are the modus operandi, and everybody seems to consider it a tragedy of modern romance that these forms of communication make it so frighteningly easy to say nothing at all, to forge a relationship out of little more than a few well-timed expressions: “Where r u?” and “Want to meet up?” Maybe...expressiveness seems strange to us, or pathetic. But it has something to teach us, too, about the note of cowardice embedded in our romantic culture, about the intensity of emotion we have a right to, about everything we could say, but don’t.

...Word.

One of Those Days

I feel overwhelmed today. I have so much work to get done, and with all these people getting laid off here, the work keeps getting redistributed among those of us left. I just inherited a ton of work on top of the stuff I already have going on, and I'm just barely treading water. I know I need to change a bunch of things at this point in my life, but the process of taking it all on is daunting. Today's one of those days that it seems way more scary than exciting.

Anyway, I normally wouldn't post something like this but I had an interview today. It's for a part time job that starts next month and ends in August. It might seem like a stupid thing to do -- giving up a solid job for something so temporary in this economic climate. But I'm in desperate need of a change, and a break, and some time to think and get my shit together. I'm too young to be stuck in something I don't enjoy or feel good about, and I think I just need to make a quick, drastic move to force myself out. I read somewhere that over 70% of Americans are miserable in their jobs. There's no reason to complain and complain if you don't plan on actively doing anything to change the situation, and I refuse to be one of that 70% - stuck, unhappy, stagnant. Hayyyyl nah. Anyway...just needed to vent.

The Truth

"The truth is like the sun in that its benefit is entirely dependent on our distance from it."

Probably the realest statement in the history of all time. Kind of stings a little, huh?