While walking home tonight, an ex-boyfriend from four years ago wandered into my train of thought for no apparent reason. I was listening to the Beastie Boys on my iPod and the next thing I knew...BAM! There he was right in my stream of consciousness.
I got to thinking about heartbreak and what exactly constitutes a broken heart. This boyfriend in particular broke my heart. Matter of factly, he is the only one that has the privilege of earning that title. And man...did he break it good. Nice and good. He might as well have ripped out the organ like Robert De Niro did in "Frankenstein" while attacking Helena Bonham Carter's character. That's what it felt like at least (disclaimer: This boyfriend did not look like a gimped up Robert De Niro).
Anyway, when I got home I looked up "heartbreak" on Wikipedia. There is actually a pretty extensive entry on the subject. They even have a list of symptoms (I had 18 out of the 20 listed after the aforementioned break up):
A perceived tightness of the chest, similar to an anxiety attack
Stomach ache and/or loss of appetite
Partial or complete insomnia
Anger
Shock
Nostalgia
Apathy (loss of interest)
Feelings of loneliness
Feelings of hopelessness and despair
Loss of self-respect and/or self-esteem
Medical or psychological illness (e.g. depression)
Suicidal thoughts (in extreme cases)
Nausea
Denial
Fatigue
The thousand-yard stare
Constant or Frequent crying
A feeling of complete emptiness
Feelings of being sad
Feeling of emptiness
However, my point is this: Wikipedia does an excellent job of summing up heartbreak by pin pointing how much it sucks. Kudos Wikipedia. You've done it again.
Showing posts with label Edinburgh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Edinburgh. Show all posts
Friday, July 18, 2008
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Homesick for wheat fields... (originally posted January 29, 2006)
This morning I woke up at 9:30 a.m. I'm pissed for several reasons, but mainly because it's Sunday and I have to work tomorrow. I relish by weekend sleep schedule must like Ethiopians relish...hmm...lets say food. But at 9:30 a.m. on the dot, the sound of drums filled my apartment. I thought to myself that if some asshole construction worker downstairs, working on one of the numerous new eateries or shops that is set to open on my beloved Orchard Street, is banging on the wall to a break beat, I'm going to be in court charged with murder before Monday dawns. Peaking out my window, I observed my street was abandoned with only a few random families and young Chinese children running. Where was this drumming?
Remembering that at some point this weekend, according to my good friend Damien, the Chinese New Year was to be celebrated. With a hazy Sunday morning conclusion, I guessed that the drumming must be related to this festivity, so I threw on a zip up hoodie and a scarf and set out. Hey, at least I would get my full day's worth of doing nothing important i.e. actually ENJOYING a day in New York City, instead of having to go into the office.
About a block from my apartment, I spotted a group of teenagers outside the Chinese Tao Association office. They were dressed in red hooded sweatshirts with a Chinese emblem emblazoned on the back. A red sash hung from their individual hips, revealing just enough to show that elaborate costumes were hidden underneath the hoodies to keep these kids warm. A small group of them were playing a mix of instruments. I did not recognize most of them, so it's safe to guess that they could possiblly be allocated to Chinese culture: something I find utterly fascinating. Maybe because it's a mystery to me and I've never been farther than Germany, but something about this music was alluring. I joined a very small group of three to four Westerners on the other side of the street, watching a display of culture that we literally live on the fringe of. And by literally,I mean it in the truest since of the word: My street is considered a border of China Town. so on some days when I'm certain that I'm an unidentified genius, I'm surprised I haven't picked up on one of the numerous Asian languages I hear on a daily basis.
As the music went on, two dragons danced on the sidewalk. The red fringe of the dragons matched perfectly to the sashes of the band, so no one can say that the Chinese don't know the importance of color coordination. The dancing and music went on for another ten minutes or so, and the conclusion was a tiny explosion of paper and streamers. It was not a grandiose ending like Americans are used to, but for a girl who was raised smack dab in the middle of midwestern culture, waking up at 9:30 in the morning to see a trifecta of chinese kids playing drums, dancing dragons, and streamers was something I was pretty amazed by.
Deciding that since I was up, it would be a good morning to check out the new coffee houseon the corner of Delancey and Orchard. It was bound to be cheaper than the cafe two doors down from my apartment, so the extra crosswalk had the highly probable chance of pleasing my dwindling checking account. Also, those bastards on the corner don't accept debit cards, and I believe that 2004 was the last year I regularly carried cash on me.
The new coffee house turned out to be the sibling of my favorite coffee house in New York, Kudos Beans. The owners wanted to branch out from the East Village, so alas, The Bean blessed my neighborhood in the Lower East Side. Not only can I buy my favorite apple cinnamon bread and small coffee for $4, I don't have to walk eight blocks to do it. Waking up early on Sunday morning isn't so bad after all. It was only 9:55 a.m., and I had been to the far East and then back to the Lower East Side.
As of late, I have become somewhat obsessed with Myspace.com. I blame this primarilly on the fact that I work in a cubicle, and anyone who has experienced this professional work environment, you know on most days you'd rather dick around than look at one more Microsoft Office Excel sheet. Instead, you dick around on the Internet. It's like a little oasis trapped inside a box. A little oasis that helps you forget for a few hours that you are trapped in an office, something that almost two years ago while still in college, you never imagined that THIS would happen to you. I'm going to be a writer. I'm going to travel. Fuck Corporate America. Then you recieve your diploma the same day your first rent check is due, along with your cell phone bill, electricity bill, and possibly a massive credit card bill, and the realization that a cubicle might not be so bad finally inches its way into your conscious. It's only after you are sitting in said cubicle in above mentioned office space that you realize that you have been going down the wrong path: the horribly wrong path lined with time sheets, bitching bosses, CEOs, and human resource managers. The road cluttered with pay stubs raped by taxes. Essentially, you look back and try to sort out what happened,and this morning I found out where I, as my dad likes to say, screwed the pooch.
In the summer of 2003, I participated in a study abroad trip, sponsored by my school. And to make a long story short, I not only fell in love with Edinburgh, Scotland, I fell in love with a boy. This boy and I decided that love at first sight wasn't quite as absurd as most people liked to believe, and we decided that we could make things work. And we were right: Things did work, and the day after I graduated (literally the very next day) I was on a plane moving to Edinburgh to be with him. He still had a year or two of university left, so it made sense for me to be the one that packed up and travel across the Atlantic. When the time came, we would come back to the U.S. and settle in New York, at least for a bit. Well, shit happens, and anyone that knows me knows that I settled in New York eventually, but I was alone. Not technically alone because said boy was still very present in the tears and late night phone calls and text messages, but if you were to peak into my apartment on any given moment, I was the only person there.
One would think it would have struck me then that I had perhaps not thought things through, but it was this morning, this early Sunday morning where drums from China woke me up to find a friend request from an old friend. An old friend who I had been very close to. And with this friend request, I was reminded of my old life in Lawrence, KS. Although I didn't grow up in Lawrence, and in truth, I only lived there for four years, I consider that brilliant city my home. Everything I love, with the exception of my family, is sandwiched between The Kansas Turnpike and 23rd Street. Almost every fond memory from the past six years of my life revolves around early breakfast at Milton's, late night parties in the Student Ghetto, where people will not only give you free beer, they'll loan you a smoke without even batting an eyelash (something completely unheard of in New York City). Every joke, laugh, and frienship wrapped up in the Replay Loung, the patio and bar stools of the Bourgeios Pig, the giant pitchers at Louise's Downtown, and the endless, endless stackes of vinyls at The Love Garden. The point where I fucked up was the day I left Lawrence without looking back. Although I don't regret moving to Edinburgh, because the love I felt for E was real, I still miss every day I skipped in Lawrence. I miss the all night coffee houses and the late night mexican food at La Parilla. I miss the summer afternoons spent in the park downtown, followed by spontaneous front lawn barbeques with frisbies, pot, and soundtracks that ran the gammut of Hendrix to the Gorillaz. I miss the ever present Lawrence music scene, and all the snobs and bands that went with it. I miss the jazz band in the basement of the Taproom, and the red light bulbs that lit the mood perfectly. I miss 1960s soul dance parties on the patio of the Replay, and truth be told, not one of those dance parties either before or since beat the dance party started by myself, Brian Anderson, and a Ms. Laurel Woodhouse. Lawrence is a city where everyone from hipsters to engineering students like University of Kansas basketball; A city where everyone owns at least one album from The Love Garden and everyone has at least one friend who has played at The Bottleneck.
I find it funny that I had to travel to Scotland, then to New York, then to the East (at least in the non-literal sense), and then back to New York to realize that I missed a small city in north east Kansas. I'm sure the intellectuals at the Pig would find this hilarious....
Remembering that at some point this weekend, according to my good friend Damien, the Chinese New Year was to be celebrated. With a hazy Sunday morning conclusion, I guessed that the drumming must be related to this festivity, so I threw on a zip up hoodie and a scarf and set out. Hey, at least I would get my full day's worth of doing nothing important i.e. actually ENJOYING a day in New York City, instead of having to go into the office.
About a block from my apartment, I spotted a group of teenagers outside the Chinese Tao Association office. They were dressed in red hooded sweatshirts with a Chinese emblem emblazoned on the back. A red sash hung from their individual hips, revealing just enough to show that elaborate costumes were hidden underneath the hoodies to keep these kids warm. A small group of them were playing a mix of instruments. I did not recognize most of them, so it's safe to guess that they could possiblly be allocated to Chinese culture: something I find utterly fascinating. Maybe because it's a mystery to me and I've never been farther than Germany, but something about this music was alluring. I joined a very small group of three to four Westerners on the other side of the street, watching a display of culture that we literally live on the fringe of. And by literally,I mean it in the truest since of the word: My street is considered a border of China Town. so on some days when I'm certain that I'm an unidentified genius, I'm surprised I haven't picked up on one of the numerous Asian languages I hear on a daily basis.
As the music went on, two dragons danced on the sidewalk. The red fringe of the dragons matched perfectly to the sashes of the band, so no one can say that the Chinese don't know the importance of color coordination. The dancing and music went on for another ten minutes or so, and the conclusion was a tiny explosion of paper and streamers. It was not a grandiose ending like Americans are used to, but for a girl who was raised smack dab in the middle of midwestern culture, waking up at 9:30 in the morning to see a trifecta of chinese kids playing drums, dancing dragons, and streamers was something I was pretty amazed by.
Deciding that since I was up, it would be a good morning to check out the new coffee houseon the corner of Delancey and Orchard. It was bound to be cheaper than the cafe two doors down from my apartment, so the extra crosswalk had the highly probable chance of pleasing my dwindling checking account. Also, those bastards on the corner don't accept debit cards, and I believe that 2004 was the last year I regularly carried cash on me.
The new coffee house turned out to be the sibling of my favorite coffee house in New York, Kudos Beans. The owners wanted to branch out from the East Village, so alas, The Bean blessed my neighborhood in the Lower East Side. Not only can I buy my favorite apple cinnamon bread and small coffee for $4, I don't have to walk eight blocks to do it. Waking up early on Sunday morning isn't so bad after all. It was only 9:55 a.m., and I had been to the far East and then back to the Lower East Side.
As of late, I have become somewhat obsessed with Myspace.com. I blame this primarilly on the fact that I work in a cubicle, and anyone who has experienced this professional work environment, you know on most days you'd rather dick around than look at one more Microsoft Office Excel sheet. Instead, you dick around on the Internet. It's like a little oasis trapped inside a box. A little oasis that helps you forget for a few hours that you are trapped in an office, something that almost two years ago while still in college, you never imagined that THIS would happen to you. I'm going to be a writer. I'm going to travel. Fuck Corporate America. Then you recieve your diploma the same day your first rent check is due, along with your cell phone bill, electricity bill, and possibly a massive credit card bill, and the realization that a cubicle might not be so bad finally inches its way into your conscious. It's only after you are sitting in said cubicle in above mentioned office space that you realize that you have been going down the wrong path: the horribly wrong path lined with time sheets, bitching bosses, CEOs, and human resource managers. The road cluttered with pay stubs raped by taxes. Essentially, you look back and try to sort out what happened,and this morning I found out where I, as my dad likes to say, screwed the pooch.
In the summer of 2003, I participated in a study abroad trip, sponsored by my school. And to make a long story short, I not only fell in love with Edinburgh, Scotland, I fell in love with a boy. This boy and I decided that love at first sight wasn't quite as absurd as most people liked to believe, and we decided that we could make things work. And we were right: Things did work, and the day after I graduated (literally the very next day) I was on a plane moving to Edinburgh to be with him. He still had a year or two of university left, so it made sense for me to be the one that packed up and travel across the Atlantic. When the time came, we would come back to the U.S. and settle in New York, at least for a bit. Well, shit happens, and anyone that knows me knows that I settled in New York eventually, but I was alone. Not technically alone because said boy was still very present in the tears and late night phone calls and text messages, but if you were to peak into my apartment on any given moment, I was the only person there.
One would think it would have struck me then that I had perhaps not thought things through, but it was this morning, this early Sunday morning where drums from China woke me up to find a friend request from an old friend. An old friend who I had been very close to. And with this friend request, I was reminded of my old life in Lawrence, KS. Although I didn't grow up in Lawrence, and in truth, I only lived there for four years, I consider that brilliant city my home. Everything I love, with the exception of my family, is sandwiched between The Kansas Turnpike and 23rd Street. Almost every fond memory from the past six years of my life revolves around early breakfast at Milton's, late night parties in the Student Ghetto, where people will not only give you free beer, they'll loan you a smoke without even batting an eyelash (something completely unheard of in New York City). Every joke, laugh, and frienship wrapped up in the Replay Loung, the patio and bar stools of the Bourgeios Pig, the giant pitchers at Louise's Downtown, and the endless, endless stackes of vinyls at The Love Garden. The point where I fucked up was the day I left Lawrence without looking back. Although I don't regret moving to Edinburgh, because the love I felt for E was real, I still miss every day I skipped in Lawrence. I miss the all night coffee houses and the late night mexican food at La Parilla. I miss the summer afternoons spent in the park downtown, followed by spontaneous front lawn barbeques with frisbies, pot, and soundtracks that ran the gammut of Hendrix to the Gorillaz. I miss the ever present Lawrence music scene, and all the snobs and bands that went with it. I miss the jazz band in the basement of the Taproom, and the red light bulbs that lit the mood perfectly. I miss 1960s soul dance parties on the patio of the Replay, and truth be told, not one of those dance parties either before or since beat the dance party started by myself, Brian Anderson, and a Ms. Laurel Woodhouse. Lawrence is a city where everyone from hipsters to engineering students like University of Kansas basketball; A city where everyone owns at least one album from The Love Garden and everyone has at least one friend who has played at The Bottleneck.
I find it funny that I had to travel to Scotland, then to New York, then to the East (at least in the non-literal sense), and then back to New York to realize that I missed a small city in north east Kansas. I'm sure the intellectuals at the Pig would find this hilarious....
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Ass sweat for the weary. (originally posted December 27, 2006)
Last night, I sat on a plane for 3.5 hours. It was a small plane, just three seats across, so ultimately, you could say it was designed to be one of the most horrendous transportation vessels created. To top it off, the small air valve above my seat wasn't working. As a result, I learned first hand how hot airplanes can be.
About an hour in, I realized my ass was sweating. Now, everyone has experienced this if you've ever been in temperatures above 80 degrees. It's a state of anxiety almost, as you don't know if you will have wet stains on the back of your clothes once you stand up, and because of this you panic and in the end sweat more. It might be the bitchiest of the bitchiest catch 22 situations.
So for 3.5 hours, I endured a sweaty ass. I couldn't get comfortable because of the heat, so somewhere above Iowa, I gave up the idea of napping and assessed my situation. I was hot. Everyone is asleep around me. I'm in a capsule to hell. Check. Considering that I was essentially alone, I stared out the window and found myself eventually thinking about my current situation, not just what was presently happening.
I share a love/hate relationship with airplanes. I'm not afraid of flying, but I sort of dread boarding planes. Nothing good has ever come of walking through an airport departure terminal, and I consistently find myself with a knot in my throat every time the security checkpoint checks my ticket and allows me through to the gates. For me, I'm always leaving something behind. More importantly, I'm leaving someone behind.
My hatred of general aviation began the winter of 2005, which subsequently was the worst year of my life thus far. That January, I had traipsed unwillingly through the departure terminal at Edinburgh International Airport for what I didn't know was the last time (at least for the next two years). Unfortunately, there were things I couldn't store in the overhead compartment or check in at the ticketing counter, and as a result, the most important thing in my life at the time was left behind, standing in the general common area of the airport, waving goodbye and eventually walking away. Part of me knew that things were finished, but the definitive end was still three days away. Leaving your heart overseas is difficult. Passport control makes it very difficult to retrieve.
Because of this experience, I'm constantly reminded of a broken heart every time I'm in an airport. Instinctually, I look around the terminals when I find myself in such a place, scanning for that one familiar face I lost two years ago, always keeping my eyes open for that chance meeting. Every passenger passes through my vision, but to no avail. The person I'm looking for is never there.
Sitting on the plane from Oklahoma City to Newark, I realized that I'm in a constant state of flux. My plane rides are a transitory period where I have no boundaries, no limits, no home. I'm neither here nor there, and all it takes is one airline ticket to change this status. Because of this state of nothingness, one can take on roles. No one knows you; no one knows where you're from or where your ultimate destination is. Trying out new accents, various stories about where I'm going and why, etc. are some of my all time favorite activities. I don't completely lie to these strangers. I just, how do you say, make myself more interesting? Basically, who wants to hear about an average girl from the Midwest who has done nothing really to speak of when they can hear about a young Australian who grew up in six different countries with seven brothers and sisters and is now traveling to London to take up her course at the London School of Art? I'm proud of my ability to make up these stories, and as far as I can tell, people believe them. Maybe they just want to believe them, because same as me; their lives leave something to be desired in the adventure department.
Last night, however, I had no one to talk to. No stories to tell, no fake accents to perfect. For 3.5 hours, I lamented on the people I've left behind in all those departure terminals, fighting the loneliness I feel somewhere above empty spaces I can't identify from being so high up.
About an hour in, I realized my ass was sweating. Now, everyone has experienced this if you've ever been in temperatures above 80 degrees. It's a state of anxiety almost, as you don't know if you will have wet stains on the back of your clothes once you stand up, and because of this you panic and in the end sweat more. It might be the bitchiest of the bitchiest catch 22 situations.
So for 3.5 hours, I endured a sweaty ass. I couldn't get comfortable because of the heat, so somewhere above Iowa, I gave up the idea of napping and assessed my situation. I was hot. Everyone is asleep around me. I'm in a capsule to hell. Check. Considering that I was essentially alone, I stared out the window and found myself eventually thinking about my current situation, not just what was presently happening.
I share a love/hate relationship with airplanes. I'm not afraid of flying, but I sort of dread boarding planes. Nothing good has ever come of walking through an airport departure terminal, and I consistently find myself with a knot in my throat every time the security checkpoint checks my ticket and allows me through to the gates. For me, I'm always leaving something behind. More importantly, I'm leaving someone behind.
My hatred of general aviation began the winter of 2005, which subsequently was the worst year of my life thus far. That January, I had traipsed unwillingly through the departure terminal at Edinburgh International Airport for what I didn't know was the last time (at least for the next two years). Unfortunately, there were things I couldn't store in the overhead compartment or check in at the ticketing counter, and as a result, the most important thing in my life at the time was left behind, standing in the general common area of the airport, waving goodbye and eventually walking away. Part of me knew that things were finished, but the definitive end was still three days away. Leaving your heart overseas is difficult. Passport control makes it very difficult to retrieve.
Because of this experience, I'm constantly reminded of a broken heart every time I'm in an airport. Instinctually, I look around the terminals when I find myself in such a place, scanning for that one familiar face I lost two years ago, always keeping my eyes open for that chance meeting. Every passenger passes through my vision, but to no avail. The person I'm looking for is never there.
Sitting on the plane from Oklahoma City to Newark, I realized that I'm in a constant state of flux. My plane rides are a transitory period where I have no boundaries, no limits, no home. I'm neither here nor there, and all it takes is one airline ticket to change this status. Because of this state of nothingness, one can take on roles. No one knows you; no one knows where you're from or where your ultimate destination is. Trying out new accents, various stories about where I'm going and why, etc. are some of my all time favorite activities. I don't completely lie to these strangers. I just, how do you say, make myself more interesting? Basically, who wants to hear about an average girl from the Midwest who has done nothing really to speak of when they can hear about a young Australian who grew up in six different countries with seven brothers and sisters and is now traveling to London to take up her course at the London School of Art? I'm proud of my ability to make up these stories, and as far as I can tell, people believe them. Maybe they just want to believe them, because same as me; their lives leave something to be desired in the adventure department.
Last night, however, I had no one to talk to. No stories to tell, no fake accents to perfect. For 3.5 hours, I lamented on the people I've left behind in all those departure terminals, fighting the loneliness I feel somewhere above empty spaces I can't identify from being so high up.
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