On the move again
I’m surrounded by way too much crap to fit in the few boxes I have. I thought I’d saved more of the many boxes my parents have sent over the past eighteen months. It certainly seemed at times like I couldn’t turn around without stepping on cardboard. Yet here I am, packing once more, sticking [...]
How I got engaged — and why
In early August, I believe, Drew took me on a dinner date to Chinatown, where I had chicken curry in a coconut and he made fun of me for using chopsticks. (He’s just jealous of my hand-eye coordination.) We strolled around outside for a bit, enjoying the summer evening, eventually ending up on the 18th [...]
Heartstrings
When I was four or five, my parents acquired a piano out of sheer misfortune. Someone owed them some money, and instead of paying, gave them an old, untunable piano that had sat in a church somewhere for the past half-century. It had misshapen legs that didn’t touch the ground, and the ivory on the [...]
Deadline in five minutes? That leaves four minutes to drink coffee.
I am continually running late, to my own dismay and that of the people around me. No, that’s inaccurate. I am continually just in the nick of time for things. I’ll get to work two minutes before our morning meeting starts (at 9:30). I will underestimate my commute, though I have been making it for [...]
Trib Apps in tiaras
I looked at my boss, sitting next to me in a hanging acrylic bubble chair, and then at my project manager, enthusiastically showing off her astoundingly large tiara collection, and back at my boss. “Sometimes,” I began, and shook my head. “Sometimes I’m pretty sure my life is actually a sitcom in another universe.” He [...]
Shopping for the silly
He’d had way too much coffee; he admitted that much. So as he hugged me, kind of swaying to his own internal beat, I grabbed his hand as if we were dancing. “What is this? Are we doing this?” I asked, grinning. He twirled me in the frozen food section. A cart-pushing lady nearby laughed: [...]
Hulk goes ninja
I’d expected to eat too many sweets, sing an off-key “Happy Birthday,” and stand around awkwardly at the party. I hadn’t anticipated to be furtively asked to “meet us outside,” and then to be coaxed, amongst many giggles, to strike a wacky pose with a wooden samurai sword. I still don’t know the story behind [...]
Happy anniversary, Chicago <3
On Sept. 11, 2011, Mom and I took a redeye to Chicago. I started work Sept. 12. Today, I felt the fall chill in the air for the first time this season. I stood out, waiting for the bus, nearly too cold in my fleece jacket. The man in the T-shirt in front of me [...]
Normal
It’s been so great having Mom here for the last couple of weeks. When a visit lasts a weekend, or even the better part of a week, the urge is always to cram as much as humanly possible into the time you’ve got. Maybe that’s not a bad thing, but it’s not a sustainable thing. [...]
Falling down and getting up
“I can’t believe you were carrying an ice pack,” said the injured cyclist, holding my pack of Blue Ice to his bleeding eyebrow. He’d need a few stitches to hold together the deep gash over his eyebrow. “I used to be a Boy Scout,” I said, not joking. He laughed. He’d flown off his bicycle [...]