Tonight After Work

Tonight after work I went to Chinatown. I wandered around, admiring paper dragons, Michael Jackson t-shirts and roast ducks in window displays. I stopped in a random little restaurant, and - as is always the case when I go to Chinatown - found really great food for next to nothing. Congee with pork and preserved eggs. (How do these restaurants pay their rents? Sometimes I worry for them.)

I eventually found myself in a little park.

It was like being back in Beijing. The trees and the pavement, the faintly dingy feel of the place. Elderly Chinese people sat together, chatting in Mandarin and playing card games. I half expected people to begin a mass Tai Chi exercise or break out in unison into a dance set to Mandopop. Neither of these things happened, of course.

The old women dressed the way I remember old women dressing in China. At the same time though, they interacted in a way that reminded me of my Grandma and her friends - maybe it was the fact that they were playing cards. I was in Beijing, I was in North Dakota.

And then I was home.

Kwik Meal

I'm at the halfway point of my summer internship, and I switched departments this past week. I now work in Midtown Manhattan - about 10 blocks south of the place I worked last summer. Ah, last summer. The world's most boring job, made bearable only by the great people I worked with.

Stepping outside yesterday for lunch, I decided to make the trek 12 blocks north to the cart Adam had introduced me to last year on one of our 15-minute lunch breaks. In a Midtown full of overpriced lunch places selling mediocre food ($9 for a sandwich? Are you serious?), the carts are a godsend. Little portable restaurants, many of them have "dibs" on a certain corner and develop a real following. "My" cart, on the corner of 45th and 6th, always has a line at least a half dozen people long. The owner used to work at The Russian Tea Room, and makes amazing Middle Eastern-style food.

As I stepped into the line yesterday I felt as if I was back in a familiar place. New York is still something of a mystery to me, and I often feel the whole "stranger in a strange land" thing. Jersey, Brooklyn, Manhattan... I don't actually belong to any of these places. They've all let me in for a peek, but the golden gates to the fields of acceptance have yet to be flung open. My school/work/housing situation has also been one of regular change. Graduate school has been a time of transition for me, where I try out different situations and work towards that final goal of (semi) permanence. I love it - it has allowed me to collect a number of really interesting experiences. At the same time though, it can be unsettling.

Standing in line at the cart then, felt good. I used to come here all the time. I know this tiny patch of sidewalk. I can claim it as my own.

"Have you been here before?" a woman with a heavy New York accent asked me. She showed me a blurb she had clipped out of a magazine. "Time Out New York says this cart is really good."

"Yes, it's definitely good, " I replied. "Make sure to get extra white sauce. That stuff is the best."

Beach Vacation

That's what it felt like anyway - a beach vacation. In reality it was just a bike ride, a few hours in the sun, and a bike ride back home.

Coney Island. A place I had been itching to go see since we moved here, but had never gotten around to. The appeal, you ask?

It's a great place to bring the bikes. 9 miles from apartment to ocean. Not bad.


Also a great place to sit and enjoy the July sun.


You can dip your toes in the water...


... and also get a feel for the local color (read: cigarette butts in the sand).


Cigarette butts aside, the beach! The Atlantic Ocean! Dark bronze, oiled, speedo'd old men not pictured. But definitely there - trust me.


And a boardwalk to boot. It feels vaguely "late 19th Century Atlantic seaside" to me. As though there should be men in straw hats selling tonics.


Latin dancing on the boardwalk. Merengue? Salsa? I can never tell.


Kitsch. And rides. And great people watching.


And seaside food. Clams!


Carnival games.


The parachute jump. Looking geometric against the clouds.

4th

The summer of 2006 was not the greatest for me. Oliver and I were doing the pre-marriage / pre-green card distance thing, living hundreds of miles apart in separate countries. I was living in Chicago, where I knew almost no one and worked for a man who, to this day, is still the most horrible person I have ever met. It was the kind of work environment where you get to work in the morning and sit in your car for an extra five minutes, trying to will yourself to get up and go into the office.

I visited Oliver up in Toronto that 4th of July weekend. I was just coming off an especially horrid week at work, and when it came time to board the plane back to the States I actually cried. (People see my wedding pictures and ask why I was so thin: 6 months of stress and misery, my friends. Stress and misery.)

I got it together eventually. I dried my tears and turned my despair into anger as the flight progressed. F@$#ing long weekend, coming to an end. F@$#ing holiday. F@$#ing country. F@$#ing everything.

I turn now to my journal entry from that night:

"My flight landed in Chicago a little before 10pm, and this being the 4th of July I saw tiny bursts of fireworks peppering the landscape. Right underneath me, far off into the horizon; everywhere. Celebration! Happiness! Freedom! How much harder could these symbols hit you in the face? The city was alive and vibrant in a way that isn't usually visible from 5,000 feet. I stared blankly out the window, angry with my country and city for making me so aware of the place I was returning to. A part of me also felt this longing to connect with the celebration, this great big, crackling reminder that there is so much to celebrate... but I just couldn't."

I thought back to previous 4ths last night as I watched the fireworks: Running around the Wendy's parking lot with my brother, sipping our frosties and waiting for the big show to start. Hangin' with my high school crew down by the lake, tuned in to the local radio station that played patriotic songs while the fireworks went off. Holding a port-a-potty door closed for a friend on the Mall in DC while the fireworks reached their climax. Mostly though, I thought about 2006, and how I had nashed my teeth as the plane descended. All I had wanted then was for Oliver and I to be together like normal people. And now we are.

When the festivities were over last night, we took the subway home. I tried to convince him that he was drunk because his eyes were bloodshot (he wasn't. Just tired). He talked about how much fun it would be to get a cat. We got back to the apartment and finished the last bits of the carrot apple salad. We watched 15 minutes of Cosmos before falling asleep.

Giving Birth

It was a difficult labor. 3 full days of constant (and I mean constant) pain, preceded by almost a full week of false starts and serious discomfort. It's all behind me now, thank goodness. And I have my little website to show for it.

My baby.

My Multimedia Production class is just now coming to a close, and I look forward to getting my life back. I will turn off the computer and walk away... but may come back for the occasional glimpse at the website I created.

Really, it's nothing spectacular. A professional certainly wouldn't be impressed. Still, it's mine. I've never made something like this before, and it feels nice, like I crossed over into new territory.

Click here to see it

Or, if you don't have the latest version of Flash installed on your computer, please enjoy these screenshots:

Slow but Steady... and Hopefully Continual

Do you like my new banner? It's a little something I've been working on, in an attempt to bring more of two different things into my life:

1. photography
2. website design-ish stuff

I'm going to try and change up the banner photos once in awhile. The current photo is the Mayer Rexall Drugs (Federal!) building in Kenosha, Wisconsin - my hometown. The building reminds me of the lake, and of my brother.

In recent weeks, a list of places I wish I could be has been running through my head. Maine. Martha's Vineyard. Anywhere on the western side of the North Atlantic. Nepal. The Greek Islands. A forest in upstate New York. More than any of these though, home. I haven't seen a summer day in Wisconsin (or a fall or spring day, for that matter) since 2006.

Ah well. Someday.

Such Sweet Sorrow

I've been a-postin' on Craig's List quite a bit lately. Moving from a small to a smaller apartment means getting rid of some things... sigh.

Here is a paragraph where I piss and moan again about what a hassle this all is. How every year I have to do my little contortionist act when we move to a new place: The Amazing Steffkin sets up a kitchen that has zero drawers! Stuffs three hiking backpacks, a sewing machine, and two laundry hampers into the small closet that holds all her clothes! Sits and whines because she knows she'll have to do it all over again in one to three years' time.

And here is the paragraph where I admit to myself that I really don't mind it all. I like keeping things small and simple. My apartment is a sleek, lean jungle cat. A sleek jungle cat that doesn't have the option to spend a Saturday at Target, buying a bunch of unnecessary crap for its apartment. Nice. And hey, maybe in a couple years we'll move to an even smaller apartment, just so I can challenge myself all over again: how much stuff can I fit in a small space and keep it from looking cluttered?

The big things all fit. Both our couches, our dining room table, our bed (though the box spring almost didn't make it). We only had to sell a couple, smaller items. Farewell kitchen cart and extra chair. You'll be missed.




More apartment photos to come...