Blue Lunchbox

Fight Night in Poland

We arrived in Szczecin, Poland in the late afternoon on a remarkably warm and sunny day for January. As the bright orange light fell on its façade, we were amazed at how much nicer our new hotel was than the one in Rostock. Rather than cramped, dirty surroundings, strange smells, and a lack of hot water and edible food, we now had this brand-new, cool-gray, long-hallwayed joint that immediately lightened our spirits. The bus ride was a bit long but we were excited to get out of [the ruins of] East Germany. We had our first free night, so we hurried to have a snack and shower before we went out on the town. Our room was at the very end of the hallway, and it was one of the biggest rooms we’d had yet, with hardwood floors, big windows, and light blue comforters. I sat on the edge of my bed and ate some Ritz crackers with peanut butter as my roommate took a shower, and was feeling rather smug because finding peanut butter in Germany was the most difficult part of the trip thus far. After I showered I met the guys in the lobby/bar—a well-lit open room with glass walls and Polish figurines on shelves—and we drank some of the cheap Russian vodka we’d bought the day before while we played cards. We considered our options for the night and speculated how the Polish would be different from the Germans, while I had this girl that I saw in Lübeck on my mind.

Our whole group went out that night, because we’d decided to check out this dance club down the street. It was this huge purple building that looked like a cube with edges sticking out like the wings of an airplane, with frantic lights and pounding music escaping the elevated windows into the night sky. We were on the outskirts of the city and as the sky turned black everything seemed so flat and desolate; the only two things in sight were this McDonald’s and the club just beyond. Some of us decided to stop in for a snack, and I got some fries and one of those little fruit bags that they didn’t have in the States. I shared the grapes with Anne, who gave me shit for not ordering a cheeseburger or something; I told her I had to stay light on my feet for the dancing, but I was only half-kidding. As we sat there, painfully aware of our conspicuousness, we watched people our age stumble into the club and noted their hairstyles and the way they dressed. I sat there and pondered the sexual tensions between the members of our group, in between getting to know one of the guys a little better by discussing sports and video games.

We walked across the street and mixed with the Polish kids. We felt out of place as their number increased, but everyone seemed drunk enough that it didn’t seem to matter. It was incredible how different they looked than their neighbors—thinner, with more pronounced bone structures and harder eyes—and my head began its inevitable swivel as girls walked by. When we entered the club, we were barraged by green, blue, and purple neon lights amidst blaring music that seemed to be a combination of techno, hip-hop, and some kind of Polish rock. Our group split up into its already-somewhat-designated factions (based loosely on class year), and as I stuck with a few of my guy friends I looked around at the place. The ceiling was two stories high, and the square dance floor was specked with a few go-go platforms and surrounded by an elevated table section, above which was a steel catwalk thing for more dancing. There were big screens on the back wall shouting frenetic images amidst the frenzied rainbow light strips from the ceiling. Pete, Eric and I went down into the floor and started dancing with some girls, taller brunettes who had smiled at us. It was the first time I’d drunk on the trip and I was reeling in this unadulterated sense of freedom in a completely anonymous place.

A couple of the girls we knew got up on one of the go-go platforms and started dancing on each other, attracting the attention of the guys nearby. Our group naturally gravitated around them, and a few of the Polish guys tried to push through, eliciting two of my more irascible buddies to give a slight defensive push, which turned out to be a really bad idea. With bright red faces and flailing arms they started screaming at us in Polish, and we tried to calm them down, but there seemed to be no going back. Jeremy took one on his left jaw, and Pete clocked the guy back on his right. Drunk guy #3 took a swing at me but since I knew it was coming before he lifted his arm, I ducked it and gave him a push. He was so off-balance and/or drunk that he fell back on his ass, and so I started laughing uncontrollably. Drunk guys 1 and 2 didn’t think this was so funny, so they came after me, but by now I had about seven of my guy friends around, who grabbed them and held back their arms until security came and escorted all of us out. Jeremy was pretty heated about getting punched, so he started fighting with the guy again, and actually got him pretty good…the guy ended up breaking his jaw on the curb, and that’s when the rest of us decided to bolt. We escaped shouts in Polish by running into the sobering cold night air, breathlessly alive in the wind that rushed across the otherwise dead night.

Boston, pt. 1

As I’m sitting here on a plane to Boston, looking out the window, listening to Lump Sum from the Daytrotter Session, I move my head forward and look back toward the setting sun. It’s still a little ways up, about the distance of my index finger pressed up to the glass sideways. As the plane creeps over the plots of farmland, varying in their size and color, the light from the sun illuminates what must be the tops of sheds, slowly, in small twinkling clusters of orange light, shining and disappearing just as suddenly. I look up a little and observe the painted layers of earth and sky—the dark green fades to brown and a dark orange, hazy with indiscernible clouds, up to a blue-yellow strip that explodes in a bright yellow-orange just under the white sun half-obscured by clouds. Above that is a fleeting stream, opening to a crystal light-blue sky that gets a little deeper as I strain my head to my knees.

I’m on a “regional jet,” which means I’m cramped. My bare legs are freezing. The air conditioning wasn’t working when we boarded because they had to fuel, so a couple of the women fanning themselves made a note of it to the flight attendant who joked about not becoming a “fireball,” and must have told the pilots to turn it on full blast. I just looked up to see a giant lake outside my window, maybe two, which must be Lake Erie, or Huron, or both. There are some clouds just beyond—at least I think those are clouds—that look like a clump of tiny snow-capped mountains. The sun’s getting closer to the horizon now, so the sky is a much more distinctive rainbow-strip. The terrain has changed: no longer quilted with farms, but covered with deep-green trees over rolling hills. I was deeply affected by the beauty of the landscape while I listened to Bon Iver after reading AHWOSG, which I’m now in love with. Who knew I could identify with this guy? He’s living in Berkeley at this point, raving about California, stressing about what to do with his life…sound familiar? I think I’ll really like the East Coast, but I have a feeling I’m meant to end up in Cali. I keep thinking about that girl that made me skip that one time. All I want to do is tell her everything. And to do everything with her. …But I don’t think she’s the one.

I decided to keep my earphones in as I waited to get off the plane (listening to music in public is something I never do). Tom McRae was singing “dose me up / once is not enough / I can still see the ground” with all the energy in the world as I stood, trapped behind all these people, anxious to discover this new place. The blood rushed back to my legs as I walked fervidly out of the hallway into the dim-blue terminal, and just as I entered, he calmly and resolutely sang “I think that I have / finally come home” to me and a quiet smile grew across my face. I started to wonder: what kind of people live in this city, are they really any different, and what does this city look like? I had no idea. I was fully aware that I was on a quest to find something, and I was more than excited to get started.

Coffee Shop Observations

I watch a postman smile at a passerby as he enters the coffee shop, takes off his blue coat and gloves, and places his cap on the table adjacent mine, revealing his gray hair and a face that looks eerily like my late grandfather’s who was a florist and used to walk to work every day with lunch pail in hand. He saunters up to the counter below elaborately colored chalk boards and points to one of the muffins, saying “I’ll take one of these.” I notice his wedding ring as he fills the mug he brought in and I can’t help but wonder about what led him here. What makes someone want to be a “lettercarrier” (as the patch on his coat indicates)? Does he like the routine? Does he simply like walking? Does he revere the postal system? What does his wife do? He grabs a couple sections of the newspaper lying on a vacant table and suddenly his life seems incomprehensibly simple. All he brought with him was a coffee mug and his wedding ring.

A man with a thick handlebar mustache that regularly sits in the corner gets up from the large book he was reading to look at the clock on the wall, then puts on his scarf and his coat and walks out to the windy street after glancing at me.

A beautiful brunette in her forties with an innocent face has the voice of a twelve year-old as she orders a hot chocolate, and the impression contrasts the chart and table-peppered papers she took out of her backpack. I love how easy it is to form an impression about someone and how accurate or unreliable it can be. I wonder if everyone is as good at acting—hiding what’s inside, I guess—as I am; I watch as they do things that don’t require thought—get up from a conversation with a wife to throw away a napkin, take a laptop out of a messenger bag, pull a flimsy chair out from a table, stir sugar in a coffee—because it’s these moments that offer a glimpse of their underlying character…these moments that involve only them and allow any thought in this infinite universe.

I’d forgotten how bright the sun can be. The last few weeks I didn’t see the midday sun at all; now as I see it bounce off buildings and sidewalks and cars and faces everything seems more alive than I’ve ever witnessed. There’s something about the late night I’d never want to leave, but mornings and afternoons can be so energizing in their freedom of communal possibilities. Suddenly I fall into a dullness, sad at all these people seeking whatever they do and I merely watching. What good comes from that? I’m not influencing anybody.

But then I get a text from a girl and all the colors are back again.

Thoughts, 1 PM

As I sit here in this sunny coffee shop with pastel walls, a surprisingly ornate silver ceiling and a topographical floor, a pronounced calm washes over me from this dark velvet roast that I just finished. They tell me I’m not supposed to drink the stuff, because its acidity is no good for my stomach and its caffeine is no good for my anxiety, but sometimes I just don’t care. I used to put two or three sugars in what was usually Ethiopian but now only one or none in whatever’s dark except for that dirt the French like. It’s predictable to an extent when the anxiety will rise and run through me like the electricity of when I was electrocuted as a boy. Just as debilitating, but without the pain. It’s a different kind of pain, anyway. It’s the pain of retrospect, and the pain of knowing all too well what I continually do to myself. I know everything these psychologists tell me, but for some reason my perfectionism and drive to achieve seems to be lost on the subject of me. Regrettable, yes, but I’m working on the inevitable part. I have some kind of spark within me—something that’s slowly burning and waiting to explode. People that are older and less confused than me have called it potential and brilliance my entire life, but the thing about those words is that they don’t mean much when they’re directed at an empty vessel—a work unfinished or even yet to be conceived. Without work there can be no accomplishment. Without direction drive means nothing.

I’ve just assumed my entire life that people wouldn’t understand what’s going on in my head, but maybe that is just what I tell myself to avoid facing any insecurities I may have. People will believe what they want, and they’ll believe some pretty incredible things if you let them. But there’s been too much conjecture these last two years; there’s been too much talk which is ironic since I’ve hardly talked at all. When a baseline level of expectation is so high for you it’s easy to get down on yourself. When you believe you’ll be great it’s scary to get started. Something inside pushed me to where I am currently, but I think now I need a shove. Stagnancy seems to come easiest when the possibilities are endless. I keep searching for perfection in everything, and because I can’t find it I settle for nothing. But I want everything at the same time. Every time something good comes along I’m afraid it won’t work out before I can even enjoy it. Everything must now go through a seemingly endless screening process, the rules of which it seems only my heart, or my gut knows, but which my mind covets. I’m in my head all the time—I can never turn it off; shutting it out doesn’t work, and the present doesn’t seem to exist. It’s all past and future—that’s the problem…because action occurs in the present.

One Day in Boston

We took the subway to Park Street and walked to Boston Common, passing the kids swimming in the pool and smiling at the girls that walked by. The weather was perfect, sunny. We threw the frisbee around on the lawn with this guy who was waiting for his buddy to pick him up; he was a little weird but he knew how to throw at least. These two girls set up a blanket and had a little picnic on the corner of the lawn, and Dave kept overthrowing the frisbee so it would damn near hit them time after time. After a few displays of my unparalleled catching ability I asked if they wanted to join us…they giggled and politely declined. I told Dave to cut it out then. He didn’t; he thought it was hilarious.

We walked over to Newbury Street and did the shops there. We talked to the valet who was trying to start this incredible Aston Martin on the street, and he told us about how much it cost to replace the front grille. We got sucked into buying things (shower gel, really expensive jeans, lotion) because the salesgirls were cute and talkative and so we drew out the conversations until the stores closed. One girl in the bookstore asked me for the time despite the cell phone in her hand. I was reeling from these encounters, but we had to get on with things. We had dinner outside right on the street and watched everyone rustling about.

After dinner and a beer we took the subway to northern Boston. On our way up to the Italian neighborhood we passed a guy that sounded just like Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting, then turned the corner and walked into another city.

Walking through scents of marinara and smoke we passed round men who all looked a little like Tony Soprano with chains around their necks and cigars in their mouths, being more careful than ever before to keep our elbows in.

We got to the apartment and climbed some stairs to meet up with friends of friends.

We watched some of The Departed and talked of the city

and of drinks

and of school

and of dreams

and then climbed the stairs to the roof,

where we could see the bright spotted skyline of the city to the southeast, and the Garden to the southwest, and the remnants of the sun behind a church to the west,

and we stood around, and talked and drank and smoked and danced and laughed.

I went and stood against the railing, looked down and beyond, thought, and talked with this pretty Indian girl who was doing her master’s in sociology,

about my ideas and her studies and my reservations on grad school and research,

and in her gentle voice she imparted her wisdom on me. She gave me advice that changed how I saw things and within the span of a few days changed my life more drastically than anything else I’ve ever done.

After a couple hours of talking in this exalted wonder of possibilities and risks and truths,

Dave and I raced back to try to catch the last train to Cambridge.

I got one of my semi-annual cravings for a cigar so he followed me into this cigar parlor; when we entered all these Italian mafia guys with hairy arms took giant cigars out of their mouths and stared at us two skinny white kids.

After what seemed like an eternity, one of the waitresses got off one of the guy’s laps—knocking over his drink and inciting a slew of shouting—and came over to us and asked what we wanted; I told her we just wanted to buy a couple nice cigars. This young man that looked much more like us shuffled out of the back and asked if we knew what we’d like, went back, and came back a few minutes later with two AF Hemingways…at least they were supposed to be Hemingways, but we later found out they were not, and even though I signed and left a sizable tip, I didn’t tell Dave that I’d just paid $50 for two cigars until after we’d left. We resolved to make them worth it.

We caught the last train as it pulled into the station and made it to Cambridge and walked the empty 2:30am streets alone, scoping the area for a chill place we could sit and smoke.

We walked through this closed street and decided to see how far we could jump, because Dave had bet me that he could jump the Subway track. So while one of us held the cigars, the other jumped the distance we’d stepped out, and to our surprise we were able to do it. We must have looked like morons, but it felt good to get our hearts beating and to breathe in the dark air with more purpose.

We found a place nearby—I took a picture but I don’t know where it is now—in a plaza where a few wooden tables and chairs were laid out. We sat there and smoked these cigars which should’ve tasted better for the money but we didn’t care.

Everything was wide open for us at that point in our lives. We both had a vague idea of what we would do but neither of us had any idea what we really wanted to do.

So we sat there and talked about engineering, and medicine, and psychology, and music, and schools, and Boston and New York and roadtrips and how I was going to write books and he was going to take all these crazy tests, and the (un/)importance of money and those damn girls we chased but never liked and the ones we liked but couldn’t have.

It was there, in that hour and a half, in the smoke we never breathed in a city we never knew, that everything stood still for us. That was the most uncertain period in both of our lives, but we weren’t afraid of it; we saw it as the freedom to do everything we knew we could.

A New Year (1/1/09)

I wish you’d…

nuzzle up to my face and tell me I smell good

sit here and listen to For Emma and Grace with me by the fire

scream obscenities as we get in my freezing car

laugh at me when I fall on my ass while ice skating

cook elaborate meals, while we dance around to loud music

go exploring with me—walking aimlessly, bundled up, cheeks red, breath afloat, cameras in free hands

sit at a coffee shop next to me, talking, sipping, playing scrabble, laughing, and watching people

go along to the record store and run up to me with stuff you think I’ll like

take me to an art gallery and lose yourself in pieces you like, then find me to see what pulls me in

know how I like my coffee, what I can’t eat, and the kinds of places I avoid

hold my hand, especially when I need it but would never say

ask me endless questions, about anything at all

cuddle with me on the couch, looking up at me periodically to smile or give me a little kiss

lose your balance when my hand presses against the small of your back

find me.

"L," p. 7

One night in particular was pretty great. I wanted to take her somewhere nice, so we went to Campiello in Uptown—a really classy joint; we dressed up—she looked incredible in a black with red flowers strapless dress, and I wore a nice striped shirt and my blue tie. I got some wonderful marinara pasta, and she got some fancy kind of pizza. We talked about each other, and about us, and how well we knew each other, things we had in common, etc. It was fantastic. To be honest, it felt good to be with such a beautiful woman—people would look at us, and I was thinking they must be admiring us…. I paid for her dinner, and then we took a drive across the lake to my club; we got out and I showed her around the outside a bit. A member saw us and smiled, said hello, and I thought, hmm, we fit in here.  We then drove around Lake Calhoun, then Lake Harriet, slowly, with the windows down, as we listened to Feist’s The Reminder (she especially liked “The Park”) and held hands. It was a beautiful night—beautiful weather, beautiful setting (with the evening sun trickling through the vibrant green trees), beautiful girl…. She loved the drive. We came back to my place, then took a walk down to a bench on the lake as the sun set. She left her shoes behind, and though I had mine, I walked barefoot on the woodchip trail because I wouldn’t let her do it alone. We sat on the bench together and hoped the night wouldn’t end…just relaxed. Kissed a little. We eventually came back up, and said our goodbyes. The day after that night I worked a double, and during the day I could not stop thinking about her—it was nuts! I walked into the bar on a mission, then I started thinking about her and completely forgot what I had to do. Later I was walking out of the porch, thought of her, and ran into the door (pushed instead of pulled) hahaha. I texted to tell her of this, and she said she’d been thinking of me too…

Ágætis Byrjun, etc.

I apologize for the length, but this is something I wrote about my favorite album; it’s on my music blog but I’m not sure how much tumblr traffic that gets. It’s the start of a new direction in my musical writing…. I hope you enjoy.

I just did this thing. I was excited that I’d just received an instant message from this girl I like, so with my arms under my chest, I pressed myself up against the desk with eyes nearing the computer screen, like how an eager boy glues himself to the storefront window around Christmas time. I was listening to “Olsen Olsen” and the cyclical, rhythmic bass that drives the song was vibrating through the desk into my bones. It was incredibly relaxing, and I felt like perhaps these guys had thought about the therapeutic value of their music, even though that seems….well, highly possible actually. It reminded me of this concept I recently learned about, called entrainment, in which heartbeats and brain waves, or even people, become synchronized, beating as one….

This album is at once relaxing and energizing. It strips away my sadness, worry, anger, and grief. The music in this album honestly makes my heart double in size; every time I swear I feel it expanding within my chest. That feeling you get when you love something so much, and you’re so happy, that you feel yourself overfilling with joy, like it’s somehow about to edge over the brim… I can never get sick of this album, either. It has slowly become my most-listened-to-album of all, because, like the really great books and movies, it’s more than a collection of words and scores; it’s a memory; an experience. It evokes and creates a set of thoughts and emotions that are too pure to ignore, and too life-affirming to experience once (or not again and again).

It wasn’t always like that: the first few months I owned this, I put it on as relaxing, oft times entrancing background music, usually with incense, while reading. It wasn’t until I took the time to put my headphones on and let it become the only thing in my consciousness that I realized how divine it was. Hearing this, and seeing Jónsi Birgisson sing makes me wonder if these guys are even human. How can human beings make such beautiful music? It’s more than just an amalgamation of noises and sounds and vocals and chords, it’s like a living, breathing being…that wakes up and lives, and speaks, and eats and dances and yells and whispers, that ebbs and flows and pushes and pulls….I’ve listened to thousands of artists, and none of them have created anything quite like this. I’ve seen dozens of shows, and none of them have equaled the vivacity, the ethereality, and the complete absorptivity of their show.

I think one of the—if not THE—fundamental difference(s) is that they’re not singing in English. I’m such an interpreter, such an analyzer and reflector, that I always listen to and decipher the lyrics as best as I can. My favorite sad songs are all by other artists, but for some reason, Sigur Rós makes me feel something bigger and more euphoric than any other band, and that’s one reason why: their unreadable (or nonsensical lyrical) music appeals to the more primitive emotion centers of the brain, rather than the higher-order verbal and analytical centers. This is why their music pierces straight through to their listeners’ souls. (And why they have such a huge following with non-Icelandic speakers). All conscious censorship and blinding perception is thrown away, leaving an open passage for their otherworldly, spiritual music.

This of course makes me think of classical music, which is non-lyrical, but the calculated, geometric compositions by Bach and Mozart and other geniuses are too technical to bypass the higher brain functions. Also, the lack of vocals entirely creates somewhat of a distance between the nonliving instruments and their living listeners, whereas the simple sound of a voice, inflected up and down into each emotion, creates an inherent bond. Perhaps Birgisson’s uniquely high-pitched voice achieves this even more readily: his voice being more similar to a child’s, and therefore, harkening back to when our brains were functioning almost exclusively on basic emotions. Obviously, people all over the world enjoy music in languages other than their own, but I suspect that Sigur Rós knew of this visceral power of their music when they created their own instrumental language.

Eternal Stars, Short Version

Eternal stars hung from above
To witness our fleeting love;
Falling under her eyes’ spell,
Not wind or flood or fire or hell
Could rip me from her trance;
For in that moment I’d chance
To die, only then, a happy man.

I’ve been missing the sun these days
Choosing instead to consort with the moon
Which, in its stoic ethereality,
Has always been a friend to me,
Lighting my way on elated nights
Of wispy love…

But like it does with the tide,
It’s taken hold of me,
And has pulled me further out
Into the murky waters of solitude,
To where the voices of lovers
Can be heard no more.

In my heart’s secluded winter,
I shiver now awake.
Unbeknownst to my sleeping eyes,
The sun keeps me warm.
I try to greet him, to give thanks,
But every day he’s already gone.

In fact, the last time
I watched him go,
He clung to the firmament
As if clutching for his life.
I couldn’t help but wonder,
Was that just for me?

This would all be okay,
I’ve always been the lonely sort.
But being out at sea for too long
Makes one empty,
And I’ve a hunger now
Like never before.

There are people I’d like to see,
But in the darkness they are but shadows;
Mere vestiges of who I knew;
There are things I’d like to say, at least,
But when I’m this far out,
How will anyone ever hear?

I dream night and day,
But they’ve become as cyclical
As the moon’s orbit;
I need a renaissance.
I need new voices, and new bodies,
And a new steely confidence.

Some have begun to pass by in the night
Whispering to themselves,
On the fresh winds from places I’ve never been.
And straining in the dawn’s light at last I glimpsed
That it’s not sounder vessels that make them move about,
But rather the smiles on their faces.

It wasn’t one girl or another,
Or any number, that woke me up.
It was simply the realization
That I could know them, everyone,
In their vibrancy, and madness, and growth;
That they would know me if they could see me.

The wind picked up then,
And I knew I would find her, but not ‘again.’
And that everything twirling in my head
Could now escape its dark prison.
The way back is uncertain; I cannot see the shore;
But for the first time in my life,

I’m looking not back, but fore.

Girl at the Courthouse

I could look at her forever

With her smooth silky white skin
and her auburn hair falling gently
to her delicate shoulders

She smiles at me
through her narrow black lunettes
hiding nothing.

The little black dress she dons
flatters her modest
…perfect…figure.

She mingles but I can’t escape her;
I’ve never met anyone friendlier
or more magnetic in my life.

I muster the courage to approach
and get her talking.
This of course is a ploy

to determine her eyes’ color:
like fresh blades of grass
emanating from the deep rich soil.

She has distinctly soft lips;
perfectly delectable
cunningly tempting.

Her voice has a certain vigor
but with a quiet reserve.
A model of elegance and artistry.

She makes me feel
that being with her
would change everything.

I want to be in her presence
for eternity

and I don’t even know her name.

Don't Smile.

Don’t smile at me. Please.

Don’t smile at me, because if you do, I have to smile back, and then I’m lost,

in this world where we’re talking and laughing and going to coffee and holding hands and shopping in little stores and seeing films and listening to music lying on our backs and making love.

And then I’m in line, paying for my groceries, and you’re gone.

And all I can think about for the next week is that smile, and all I want to do is go back to that world,

but I can’t, because it never existed.

So please.

Don’t smile at me.