endorphins are real?

For Christmas a couple of years ago my mom tried to make a holiday card by cutting and pasting pictures of her, my brothers, and I into one. While her creative intentions/ideas are usually pretty good, her follow through isn't always there. This time was no different. In the final Frankenstein photo, there were cute little floating heads of her, AJ, and Mike, but the picture she chose for me, who knows her logic, was one taken right after a run. Sweaty, sports bra, frizzed out hair. Honestly, I don't exercise that often, that may be the only existent photo of me after "working out" since I played sports in high school. It's almost as if she had to work to find it. "What? I think you look cute!" Ugh.

Where am I going with this?

This was a pretty rough weekend. I'm not one to talk that much about things that upset me. I sort of dissect and internalize them. I realize that's not the healthiest method and am trying my best to open up to and lean on my friends. That being said, I'm not going to loose my cool at work. Still, its hard to prevent emotional stress from affecting day-to-day behavior. The end of last week, beginning of this one, I was sort of short at work. Did what I needed but invested no more energy than that.

Then, finally, Tuesday morning I went for a long walk along the beach. On the phone Jamie reminded me that, while it's easy to use upsetting events as excuses to vegg out, be lazy, sort of shun taking physical care of yourself, exercise can be a catalyst in pulling you out of a slump.

Shooooot, girl was right. Just going for a quick run these last couple of mornings has given me so much more energy and enthusiasm than I expected. Yeah, none of this is mind blowing, but it's sort of nice to remember. Physical health is so obviously tied to mental health, yet it's pretty easy to forget.

people surprise me

"To be a part, that is fulfillment for us: to be integrated with our solitude into a state that can be shared." Rainer Maria Rilke

This confounding dislocation has some pretty pleasant side effects. It's incredibly uniting.

Because we're all in such a funny state of flux and uncertainty, it seems people are uncharacteristically open...to knew things, places, people, ideas. It's refreshing.

I ran into a kid from my high school at a club this weekend. I'm not sure I ever had a conversation with him in high school, but I was thrilled to see a familiar face. We spoke briefly but with ease and enthusiasm, and I left super excited. It's a little peculiar that such a slight interaction made me so happy, but lately I've been animated by a lot of similarly insignificant exchanges.

It's the same with new friends. There's a nice little group of kids from Wash U in LA right now, and everyone continues to sort of come together and meld friends and acquaintances from all over. Maybe it's because we're all on loose ground right now, so judgement falls by the wayside. We're all candid with our insecurities and empathetic to each other's states. That makes this is a pretty unique spot in life, and I'm not sure when or if it'll ever happen again.

We're all at the bottom really, trying to figure out where we're going, why, and with whom. But it's not a competitive latter climb. In a few years egos will set in again and divisions will form or reform. It's probably impossible to prevent, so I guess I can try to just take it for what it is and be happy for now.

ny vs. la

Pretty much all of my friends from college are from New York. New York City. Manhattan.

Yeah, that's an exaggeration, but it sure felt like that. After freshman year there was even a pretty popular facebook group entitled "No, you effing ignoramous, Washington University is in New York"....a play on the pain that it is to endlessly have to explain that our college, despite its name and apparently common logic, is in St. Louis, yeah, Missouri.

And, whatever, I'm all for "The City", I've never had any steadfast LA pride. To be fair, I was born in New York. I didn't move to the west coast until I was 11. Nevertheless, the memory-laden, identity-forming, experience-heavy, adult(?)-half of my life has been in Los Angeles. There are remnants of my roots, sure - my Dad and brother ingrained a sort of default loyalty to the Yankees, Giants, Knicks, and Rangers.....but I'm pretty sure that's the height of it.

I've never been one to argue the virtues of LA though, either. I was pretty bummed as a kid to move here. With some time I got used to it, learned to love it even. But I was sure I wasn't going to be here for any sort of long haul. I needed to go to college far enough away that I'd be guaranteed a little snow and a reprieve from the saturating superficial. After college? I had no answers to any what/where/when, only that come May '09, I didn't want to be back in LA. I needed a change. I didn't think this city would stimulate me any more. Alas, here I am.

And it only continues to grow on me.

But I'm not about to fight you over it.

New Yorkers, though, their hometown pride borders on aggressive. Two of my buddies visited me one summer and spent half the time they were here making comparisons. Enlightening me as to why NY is that much better than LA. Where's the city? We have to get in the car again? Everything moves so slowly. In New York we'd never have to wait this long. Why can't anyone here make a decision?

I can understand that for those who've lived in a typical city all their lives, LA is a hard thing to wrap your mind around. The concept of a city that stretches as far as you can see, composed of various isolated commercial city centers, however many suburban areas, and who

knows what else in between, is pretty wild for someone used to a 22 mile condensed urban island.

Maybe that's where my problem is. In my experience, Los Angelenos are pretty relaxed. Perhaps to a fault, I don't really know. I listened to those guys complain for two days without much in the way of defense. I spoke my mind, but I'm not going to stress about showing them better or worse. In the end, their intense, antagonistic need to convince me of my err in judgement only proved my suspicions. It's an attitude that's hard for me to wrap my mind around.

My theory is: it's such a crowded, bustling, fast-paced city where people are constantly on top of one another that people are fiercely defensive of that little personal space they have. That leaves people more guarded than polite and more abrasive then friendly. In LA, we are all about spreading out. We spend hours alone in our cars, our individual little space bubbles. Maybe we're starved for personal interaction, resulting in fake warmth and forced sociability.

I'm sure that's too extreme, but it makes a little sense to me. I don't know which is right or wrong, and why does it matter? Probably doesn't.

I guess I'm trying to justify still being in LA 9 months after graduation. I have to rationalize it every now and then, because why should I be confident about any decision I've made since college?

photos by Alwyn Loh

how did we get here?

As I left for work this morning, I called to my brother Mike, back in LA for winter break, "I'm off to schoo-- ugh, if only I were still in school." He scoffed and barked something along the lines of "school sucks" or "yeah, right."

After who knows how many years of formal education, here I am...in limbo. Back in LA. Back at home. Waiting for....what? Life after college is the great unknown.

As a kid, teen, young adult...whatever label at whatever point, you imagine that understanding just hits you once you begin your "real life." Life is a progression of stages, vaguely defined by where you are in school....grade school, middle school, high school, college, then ??....and more specifically, you (or I do at least) categorize memory by year...6th grade was all fun and games, 10th grade there was self-discovery and junior year of college were all of those adventures abroad. Now that I've lost the parameters by which I measure my life, am I just floating somewhere in space? That void between events? What happens now? I guess I move out of my mom's house. Do I start to measure my life by decades, or those big obscure milestones - work? marriage? children? retirement?

I'm confused, nostalgic (on the road to that old loopy bag lady living in the dreams of long passed youth?), excited (I'm on the precipice of something big, right?), impatient, anxious, underwhelmed and overwhelmed....but there's one thing that's become abundantly clear?

I'm definitely not alone.

All of my friends feel like they're swimming in circles, my brother, a couple years ahead of me, struggles to get his bearings, even those who appear on a linear path towards their dream of success have untold cracks in those straight-laced seams.

So, I figured, might as well chronicle whatever diluted road I'm taking and perhaps some sort of clarity will follow. It's worth a shot.

Oh, and some apt wisdom from a friend:

Sitting here in limbo

But I know it won't be long

Sitting here in limbo

Like a bird without a song

Well, they're

Putting up resistance

But i know that my faith

Will lead me on

Sitting here in limbo

Waiting for the dice to roll

Sitting here in limbo

Got some time to search my soul

Well, they're

putting up resistance

But I know that my faith

Will lead me on

I don't know where life will lead me

But I know where I've been

I can't say what life will show me

But I know what I've seen

Tried my hand

At love and friendship

But all that is passed and gone

This little boy is moving on

Sitting here in limbo

Waiting for the tide to flow

Sitting here in limbo

knowing that I have to go

Sitting in Limbo

Jimmy Cliff