Marching on Wall Street

So for several weeks I've been on the fence regarding the Occupy Wall Street movement. I hadn't heard much about it at the beginning and as time went on it just seemed to be a haphazard gathering of various idealists of the kind that happen all the time in New York. The mass arrests and pepper-spraying of peaceful marchers made me sit up and take notice, but information about the group itself was still sketchy. The so-called statement of purpose they sent out a week or so ago seemed to confirm all of my fears that the movement didn't have the focus to go anywhere and was doomed to burn itself out sooner rather than later.

In the last week, however, my opinion has changed. As I've read more and more about the group and how it has spread to cities across the country, and as I've seen videos of the occupiers (some - gasp - in button-up shirts! with kids!) speaking clearly about their grievances I've come to realize that it doesn't matter that they lack focus. It's their drive that is key. As their message spreads and is picked up by activists in cities around America, and as labor unions and professional organizers like MoveOn.org begin to coordinate efforts with them, I started to believe that Occupy Wall Street could become a true engine for positive change.

Obligatory Ten Year Post

So today is the tenth anniversary of 9/11. You can tell because for the last several weeks almost every news outlet has been airing retrospectives and today Twitter, Facebook, and most TV station were filled with tributes to fallen heroes/loved ones. And I've spent today trying to run away from all of it.

Not to say that all of my actions have been based around hiding from remembrance ceremonies for the event that is, in my lifetime, the single event most worth remembering. I would have gone to watch football today if it were any other Sunday, I would have drank beer and enjoyed cheap bar food like I have on countless Sundays past. Today, though, what was normally simply entertainment for me became welcome respite from a world that I don't feel I was ready to face.

Over the last ten years I have not shied away from 9/11 analyses or emotional recounts of the events of that day. In fact I've tried quite hard make some sort of sense of what happened, and of everything that's happened since. As today crept closer, though, I've become much more thoughtful and have replayed my own memories of September 11, 2001 several times over. I won't go into what impact it possibly could have had on an 18 year-old kid in Cleveland, Ohio - because writing it seems far, far harder to me than thinking/talking it. I will say that, as today crept closer, it became obvious to me that I would not be able to handle the volume of reliving that today would entail.

It's funny. Ten years is only significant because, through evolutionary chance, human beings come equipped with ten digits and so was born our system of math and, in large part, our conception of the passage of time. But because of this evolutionary trick I can't fathom even attempting to read anything of the New York Times' coverage of the last ten years, and even NPR's snapshot of the music community's shocked reaction was too much for me to work through. I almost lost it several times reading through Brooklyn Ink's fantastic pieces highlighting the after-effects of 9/11, and before today's football game, in the middle of a fairly busy bar, it was all I could do to keep from crying during a pregame tribute to those that died.

I like to think of myself as someone that doesn't run from my emotions. Even if I don't tend to publicly express them I always try to face them. What makes these particular emotions so frightening is my certainty that I cannot handle them. I have no idea how to deal with them. In some ways my emotions today are stronger than they were then because in 2001 all I had to deal with was immediate fear for my family in New York, and immediate sadness for everyone that died. Ten years on I've had to come to terms with just how deep those deaths were felt, and how easy it would have been for one of them to be me or someone I love.

I wrote this in 2001, a few months after the event. It's quite an idealistic piece written by a kid who still believed the ideas of teenagers could change the world. What strikes me as I read it now, though, is how much I wish I could still interact with 9/11 in such a directly reactive way. A non-introspective, progressive way. I wish, today, I could look at it and feel some sense of agency, of action.

Today, however, all I feel is powerlessness and deep, deep sorrow.

Godspeed, Atlantis

I haven't watched a shuttle launch since I was a kid. My memories are a bit clouded now. We took time out of class when I was in elementary school, gathering in the cafeteria as a teacher wheeled a clunky CRT television set into the room. I recall crowding around with my friends; the lot of us holding our breath as the boosters ignited and the shuttle pushed for orbit.

There's a lot I don't remember about that launch. The year it happened. The name of the shuttle.

But when I watched Atlantis' engines light for the last time my memories of how I felt that afternoon came roaring back. The same adrenaline-fueled giddiness I felt when I was 6 (or 7, or whenever that was) poured over me again at 28.

Thanks for the memories, NASA, and the wonder.

July 4th 2011 - In Which We Eat

In Ohio my friends and I ate a lot. I don't mean that we ate unnecessarily large portions though, being from the Midwest, that was also true. I mean we spent a lot of time and effort cooking for each other. Pot lucks were frequent in the year before I left and they're something I really miss. Even before I could properly cook these communal meals were something I always looked forward to if only for the warm, easy social aspects of food. For whatever reason - proximity of great restaurants? difficulty in taking cooked food on the subway? - these exhibitions of communal cookery have not been as frequent since I moved to New York.

So it was that on July 4th it was the food and the company, more than the fireworks which were an afterthought for me, that I really enjoyed.

Of course, since one of the hosts was Asian, these pictures are not entirely accurate representations of the evening. By the end it seemed like we'd hardly eaten anything the platters of food were still stacked high. Higher still were our spirits because, really, what's better than great food with great company?

Here's to more nights like this one.

July 2 2011 - That 'Nature' Thing

Sitting on the Long Meadow in Prospect Park at the tail end of a 7-hour extravaganza of greenery, food, drinks and overlapping circles of friends I breathed deeply of summer air that actually smelled, to me, like summer. The smell of leaves and warm grass; a contrast to the overheated concrete and car exhaust that's the New York norm. I get lost pretty much 100% of the time I go to this park and this day was no exception with my exit taking an even more roundabout, circuitous path than my entrance. As I walked through the paths in the late evening stumbling upon random clearings and piece of mind I caught myself thinking that, with frequent enough visits, the stillness and calm in this park could possibly be enough to balance the chaos that is the rest of this city.

Later that night I saw Bridesmaids and laughed a lot.

Mission: Accomplished

At the beginning of the year I established several goals for myself and lately I've been eyeing one in particular. The first attempt, earlier this week, was an abject failure. As was the second. And the third.

But this morning I can say with pride that I've completed a task I promised myself I'd take on before fall:

I've successfully poached an egg.

Simplicity

So I was in Stuyvesant Square Park today writing a new blog entry and when I was on my way out I passed a small group of high school students. They were clustered around one of the tables, just talking and laughing. No drinking, no added excitement, just happy to waste some time on a nice night with some nice company.

I was jealous.