My Invitations

A thought has been lingering, “Whose weddings would I be invited to?” At my age, it’s a fair question to ask.

Spoken to a couple of people before about my tendency to section off parts of my life somewhat arbitrarily. It’s unlike me, the part about these boundaries being defined without a set of rules, because I typically like to operate in a system with patterns to note. But I think this was developed out of necessity given that the only constancy that I have known is change.

For illustrative purposes, I imagine this to be like when steel doors on the Titanic begin to descend, locking the watertight chambers and sectioning off the flood. It might be because my older sister loved the movie and I watched it many times when I was far more impressionable (side note: To this day, I could still probably freehand Kate Winslet’s breasts with a pen) but there is a shot from it that still stays with me: the back of a crewmember left behind, sealed is the chamber and his fate. I imagine the immediate seconds of his life after James Cameron has already cut to the next scene. What he must feel. Certainty. Helplessness. And what he means cinematically. A tribute. A forgotten, secondary dramatic device. A necessity.

Like so, I have compartmentalized the past in messy little packages—sectioning off the people, the words, the thoughts. Unbeknownst to them, or anyone really, I am in a constant state of retrospection. Reliving and reimagining moments. Things that were said, weren’t said, and things that should have been said.

I am constantly thinking of you, friends. And I would really like you to know that. 

It would be nice to say that this is as if the crewman had never died. It’s left ambiguous and you never do see him drown in the movie. But just because you’re the type of person to look back as you walk forward, it doesn’t mean what you’re looking for is still there, or was ever there.

So back to my original question on whose weddings I would be invited to.

The ones that matter, I think.

My Zuckerberg Moment

I had a Zuckerberg moment… back in 2001.

I didn’t know it, but I did.

It was just before what we would call our daily morning meetings. As sixth graders, we started our school day sitting together in a circle as a class, Indian style. I guess sitting like that in itself is worth commemorating because I’ve just been made aware that style of sitting apparently no longer exists. It’s now called criss cross applesauce now, which sounds all sorts of absurd to me.
A morning meeting is pretty straightforward. Instead of talking non-stop about the N Sync VMA performance from two months ago or if you were like me, the Newgrounds assassination short that let you shoot up all the Gap kids, we would share somewhat more intellectually engaging stories on topics decided by our teacher Mrs. Stephens. This was a pretty good way to jump start our day before going off on a rigorous academic day of watching Bill Nye the Science Guy.

The dynamic of that classroom was as you would imagine. Kids had their cliques and there was a definite hierarchy of who was considered cool and who wasn’t. I’m sure that you’re well aware of how sixth graders— or rather kids in general—can be pretty shitty. But now that I reflect back on it, the kids in my class weren’t the shittiest in the world on the shitty scale. I mean yes, the guys gave each other bro nods and snickered when Mrs. Stephens’s nipples poked through her dress and girls… okay I had no idea what girls were doing or thinking about then. I even had to make up that N Sync example at the beginning of this paragraph. My point being that kids didn’t know much better, and to our credit, Mrs. Stephens was pretty bangin’. Nevertheless, I’m still surprised that how well received these morning meetings were.

The staple of the morning meeting was the agenda: the plan for today’s meeting was written on a 22” x 28” flip board, usually with a question with empty space bubbles underneath for kids to respond to. Sometimes it would be something along the lines of, “If you could have dinner with anyone alive or dead, fictional or real, who would it be?” (Alfred Pennyworth) Other times it would be a simple poll like “Pizza vs. Fried Chicken” (Fried Chicken.) Interactivity and engagement in the analog age! One day, I asked Mrs. Stephens whether I could do it for a particular meeting. I wrote the shit out of that agenda. Injected energy and liveliness into the words, decorated the board with different colors and even included an inspirational quote from Chicken Soup for the Preteen Soul. I would frame that fucking poster if I still had it.

This is the prestige… The question I wrote down for the day?

“What is your AIM Screen Name?”

I wrote the agenda because I wanted to holla at the girls in my class but had no idea how to get in contact with them. I knew that I had game (I didn’t) and if only I could get them to talk to me, I would be able to charm their face off (I couldn’t). I think at that time, I had maybe five people on my buddy list. The “Shoutoutz” section of my info was pathetic with or without sticky caps. This was the perfect ploy. I wasn’t going to be the most popular class, but you bet your sweet ass I was going to have more people to chat with while I surfed the web and watched WWF (second screen experience, anyone?)

Does the perfect ploy ever go well? Maybe I was too obvious, writing the screen names down blatantly in front of everyone, but my question were met with little enthusiasm with a low response rate—and worse yet, I got people’s AOL screen names. You know even if they had AOL that people still downloaded AIM for all the extra cool features.

At that point, I thought, “The world would be better if people and things were more accessible and transparent.”

Okay, that wasn’t exactly it and I merely thought “lol” after every sentence written in green font was going to charm the person at the other end of the screen but the sentiment was there. I felt the need tell stories, no matter how nonsensical they were. I wanted to share and had no one to share it to. If I were a brilliant twelve year old, I would have conceptualized Facebook right there… or less brilliant, MyFace (trademarked TacoCorp.)

There’s that quote about luck, opportunity and preparation that has been plastered on corporate posters around the world and passed around more often than the Michael Jordan urban legend on being cut from his high school JV team. The reason why I decided to rehash this story is to remind myself how the really good ideas solve the really simple, and thus most important problems. More importantly, to keep looking at the problems that need solving.





As a side note, a big shoutout to E.H. Greene Intermediate School class of 2001. It’s been a while.  Hope everyone is doing well. The last time I checked (read: stalked), a lot of you are republican and married.

My Connection

At what point is someone worth listening to? What is the scale of measurement to gauge the validity or relevance of someone’s perspective? It’s strangely refreshing when another living and breathing human being echoes your own sentiment. The connection… it’s a straight shot that punches you in the chest, resonating with you and makes you feel like you’re not alone. That’s the ticket.

I long for the day to come when my words, whatever form they decide to take, to transcend the human touch. For each sentence to feel like a hand on your shoulder on the worst day of your life—words colliding together, friction from which creates heat to create warmth. I want the serifs of the typography to dance with you in moments of ecstasy. Enjoy your youth together in a grand crescendo and in silence when you don’t want to give single thing to the rest of the world. I want my words to be indirectly responsible for your sorrow. 

It’s all because I recall memories not by events, but rather in glimpses of imperfect recognition when feelings just barely begin to register. I don’t remember the restaurant where we ate or the time of the reservation, but forever ingrained is how comfortable it felt to be uneasy because I was able to share something that I never have before. I couldn’t tell you the color of the dress that you dieted for a week to fit into for the wedding, but the smirk on my face when I held your waist in elation as you posed like a flamingo? I still have that same smirk right now. My life is measured in heartbeats, not locations and possessions.  

I want nothing more than to communicate in feelings.

My Aphasia

It seems to me that the Broca’s area of my brain is damaged, if not underdeveloped.

Words coming out of my mouth are jumbled, crude arrangements of the thoughts that reared them. I want to be articulate so damn bad, but the sentences escaping my tounge lack any trace of structure and it’s every word for itself. Instead of forming a cohesive whole, the nouns and verbs fight each other in epic battles to destroy any traces of meaning. It really is madness. Each time I try to verbalize what’s running through my mind, I unleash a terrifying flood of undecipherable, yet relatively well-annunciated mumblings. I just picture a little kid barely tall enough to ride a Disneyland roller coaster standing in front of a giant claw machine, picking the words I’m about to gift to the world, hooking little blocks of lazy transitions and unclear subjects.

Well, I guess I would be that little kid then… which might just sprinkle a bit of tragedy on this bit. I think if word bubbles appeared every time I talked, “their” and “their” would somehow be used interchangeably. 

This might be why I’ve always preferred writing. On a blank piece of lined paper, I can cross out and restructure. I have the luxury of staring at a blinking cursor on my screen as I take my sweet time in constructing anything resembling to something that I feel or wish to convey (The two things are not one of the same at times.) I love the freedom and the ability to erase. Nothing is of permanence, unchanged indefinitely. I am at my own pace and if I remember my grade school education correctly, they taught me that slow and steady wins the race. If need be, I am welcomed to take a sip of my red wine blend straight from the bottle. No one is waiting for my thoughts because no one knows that I have anything to say. Honestly, sometimes I really don’t have anything to say.

Asdfjkl;.

And I’m back.