Twenty Fucking Sixteen

2016 began at the Transmitter Park pier in Greenpoint, with raucous pomp, noisemakers, a veritable dream team of friends, and my very own bottle of champagne. brooklyn was cold for december, but i felt it was blissfully harmonious with my sparkling wine-sodden body temperature. i had just turned 26 and was scared to death about it. i was living with my ex-girlfriend, who was one of my best friends at the time, and still is, only a couple months after our breakup. i was no longer new to my first career, and my academic life was nothing more than a feverous memory from when i felt both younger and more absorbent. i had ambitions to challenge and tests to take, and i had to prove myself despite lower than ideal confidence with respect to the pursuit of such an endeavor. i was also knowingly at the forefront of a slow-burning, staggering crack-up during which it felt like i tripped and stumbled but never regained my footing; i kept falling but i was never felled, all the while trying to regain alignment only to learn that, after floundering for so long, my foot was broken from the start and i would have to let it heal first. but i met the new year head-on and vulnerable with a faithful heartbeat. i kept my eyes sparkling and open wide that night until they closed when i passed, hard, out on Davis’ chair in his living room in the very middle of the party, with my hand still clenching my second personal bottle of sparkling wine upright and against my chest. davis sent me a picture the next day. it was funny, and i was a little embarrassed, but i looked comfortable. i thought that sparkle was lost for good at multiple points during the year. but it wasn't. it's always there.

as the new year erupted and spewed forth roaring concern over my identity and capabilities as a newly formed adult, i raced with floundering haste toward nervousness and cognitive misalignment. somewhere along my way i became desperately confused, like i hadn’t known since i was a child, about my identity, my capabilities, and my feelings. the circumstances that coalesced about the turn of the year gave way to an unhealthy level of introspection, and i saw many of my selves tumble one after the over until all i recognized was useless defensiveness, doubt, and misguided guilt. and somewhere further along the way i determined to rebuild all of it, piece by piece, and even with the myriad worldly atrocities of the year—the deaths, america's embrace of fascism, the shootings, the police, the worldly and domestic neglect, the tolerance of rape and intolerance of progress, and the racism—i slowed myself down and learned how to be confident again. getting help from a psychiatrist, trying prescriptions for generalized anxiety disorder, seeing a therapist, and sitting myself down to intimately think certain thoughts through until i could find some sense of resolve saved me, and i cannot be thankful enough for the progress i made this year, and the people who helped me.

So fucking much happened i mean jfc MATT GOT MARRIED, and graham and i were best men. the three of us danced with mom. there were so many points of love connecting all around, and i still think about it every single day. i'm so happy for matt and julie--there's no way to put this one in words. i got to celebrate my parents' 30th anniversary with them over drinks and dinner in rhode island. i felt so privileged and honored and i felt so much sweetness. the relationship i have with my parents as we've gotten older has become something so cool, sweet, and supportive--i'll never take it for granted. i got to see my whole family four separate times, and that hasn't happened since we were all still living in iowa. 

i started dating again after a long transition out of a relationship. i actually liked someone after just meeting them—a lot—and i really needed that feeling; it was so nice to know that it does in fact happen, even if it didn't work out and it sort of fucked me up in the process. geoff shared a screenplay with me that i read while taking a train home from my parents'. it was SO GOOD . i was blown away. and so happy to have a chance to read it. i went to carnegie hall for the first time with lukas, whom i hadn't seen in years. alyssa visited. i got to see Radiohead with rick. michael and kendall came with me to rhode island and we lived like kings. michael got an awesome new job where i think he feels a new sense of challenge, and i assure you he's killing it. 

i saw piebald, and kyle kowalsky was there. i got to see kyle several times, and i really think he’s just the best. he had a rough year, like a lot of us, but he's the kind of person who can be down, for a while, and yet never out. my parents came to visit and helped me make my new apartment my own. my dad visited when my mom was in rochester, and we drank and played pool with kendall all day. i visited chris and kathryn! it was one of the sweetest and most inspiring experiences of my life. they are the best, and i'm impressed with and proud of the family they've created. ben was here twice and holy fuck do i love that guy. i made THREE trips to iowa and saw jason every time. he's the best guy i know, a god amongst humans. 

i became comfortable in my office, and i made strides in becoming comfortable in my skin. i started to feel confident in my writing, which changed everything. i dated a lot, letting brooklyn show me a good time every time. i walked a lot, almost every night. i sort of lost my mind a few times. maybe several times. maybe countless times. but i found it each and every time, even as it got harder, even if it took months. davis and rachel became my neighbors! claire moved, then visited, and now, thanks to the nyc gods, she'll be back in brooklyn soon. kendall and i helped brandt and nicole move, and we spent the day with them in Flushing. and later in the year we spent a night at their new place listening to music, getting tanked off silver bullets and playing beer pong in Suffern. 

2016 by the numbers:

• 3rd year in brooklyn, 3rd year in bedstuy
• 1st time living alone
• my parents' 30th anniversary
• MATT GOT MARRIED, becoming the 1st of us brothers to do so and it was probably the best day of my life to-date
• i got my 1st sister-in-law!
• i went on 16 first dates. jesus.
• i had 9 first kisses
• reached 1 full year at reorg
• i had 2 dinners at applebees, your neighborhood bar and grill
• i went to carnegie hall for the 1st time and saw conor oberst for the first time
• i earned 5 chin stitches (you know, for falling (like, in the night)) 
• 1st time visiting a best friend who had a baby (thanks chris, thanks kathryn, thanks ginny, thanks darla)
• 1st time sleeping on my bathroom floor at 3 a.m. because a cockroach crawled by my face before vanishing into the night
• 8 psych appointments (thanks dr. yanowitch), 7 therapist appointments (thanks dr. pabon)
• 11 donuts in one day (thanks, america)
• i saw jason hall 3 times (thanks, god)
• christian’s 1st visit
• ben’s 1st visit (thanks, groovy q), and 2nd visit
• 1st and 2nd time at Madison Square Garden
• 2 tattoos of desserts
• i paid off 10 grand in student loans (jfc)
• 1st time seeing piebald (!!!!!!!)
• 2 catheters at the same time and i don’t want to talk about it
• i ran 275 miles, including one half-marathon
• 1st significant presidential upset (and, oh, what an upset it was)
• 2 blackouts (in which i blacked out, not the power)
• i went to 26 shows this year (thanks, new york)

and i learned some things. i learned to take my headphones off every once in a while so i can hear myself think. i learned that sometimes hanging out at home with just myself, a good record, and some tallboys on my bed can be just as good as a night out at a bar. i learned to embrace and admire—with newfound confidence—my feminine side, which is my sensitive side, my empathatic side, my compassionate side, and my brave side (thanks, mom). i remembered how cool it is to be unapologetically different (thanks matt, thanks graham, thanks mom, thanks dad). i remembered how fun going to shows is even when I’m by myself, and sometimes especially when i’m by myself. i learned that i’m no where close to being ready to raise a child, but i also learned that I truly want to (thank chris, thanks kathryn; you’re both heros to me). i learned that i can in fact cry—sometimes when i want to and sometimes when i really don’t, which taught me to get help with my anxiety and my general mental health. getting help for my anxiety taught me how to be honest, with people and with myself. being honest helped me learn to get better. and i learned to not get so ahead of myself about getting better. i learned that grad school did pay off in myriad ways and i’d trade it for nothing and i still adore the new school. i learned a lot about being a friend. i learned a lot about what makes relationships work. and what doesn’t. i re-learned how to be love being alone. i learned that sometimes it’s okay to be unforgiving. i'm learning to speak up. i'm learning to trust my gut. i learned that enduring a cyclone of consternation or some shotshell of misguided guilt is not an inescapable sentence or some looming specter but simply a robbery, one that i have to and can defend against.

i was in a few ruts this year, and at one point i was excited for one to be paused for a brief spell by a weekday to myself in bedstuy in celebration of my third year anniversary of living in new york. before i left i took a photo of myself on the roof, smiling with sincerity and holding a beer slightly upward and angled as a celebratory cheers to new york. it had been a very hard, very frightening, very weird, and very fun three years, and three years of which i was truly proud. so i wrote a long caption, one poetic and cheesy and genuine, posted it on,  and then headed out the the fort greene steps. i walked the route i’ve walked since my first apartment on pulaski street, where i lived three years ago when i was a baby to brooklyn and still a kid to the world. i bought two tallboys from the bodega near South Elliot Place and made my way to the top of the stairs. i sat down, breathed in deep and took in the view of downtown manhattan, framed by tall trees that were parted perfectly by the towering staircase. and out of no where my core turned to tar and i was struck by an absurd but unwavering fear that what i had posted on instagram earlier on the roof was stupid and people would be disappointed in my petty, conceited offering for attention, and i became so disappointed in myself. i became so frustrated, and i became so sad. i felt pathetic. my night, my whole day to myself, my celebratory date with my city, all en route to ruin over an instagram post. because to me it meant that my intuition was wrong and i couldn't trust myself to be cool. i sat there atop the stairs, my place of zen and appreciation of life, trying to find confidence in my night, in the skyline, in the monument, in the soft roar of the taxi on Saint Felix, but i couldn’t carve out from my atmosphere anything more than loneliness and separation and defeat. my stomach was doubling its knots and my body started to shake, somehow torrid in the cool air. why do i always do this? why can’t i just chill? why can’t i just trust in my actions and emotions and let me be me, regardless of judgment from peers. then i remembered what my therapist told me. i remembered what i told myself: that i’m on my team. “same team.” i remembered my anxiety brings out not the worst in me, but something separate from me altogether, something that’s not me, something that is cruel and insidious and i have to stand up to it. i thought about how far i knew i had come. i stood up, and i looked up at the tops of the trees and then onto the beam projecting from one world trade center and i breathed in, with purpose. then i smiled. to say the least it was a weird night, but i won, and i had a great time. i was proud of myself, and i'll never forget it. i hope i remember it forever. i awoke that morning to look at the post and saw all of these wonderful comments from people i love. i was doing alright, and for once i truly felt it. 

i did a lot of stupid shit this year, too, but stupid things i’m proud of, either because they were scary and i did them anyway or because they were fun. i took molly for the first time on a date with a girl i barely knew. i tried to jump over a heap of trash in LES and got stabbed deep in the hand by literal trash. i got a tattoo of a chocolate frosted donut, and then i got a tattoo of a strawberry milkshake. i went out, and i stayed out, getting tanked with co-workers. i neglected to heed advice from my neurologist and got too drunk on new meds and fell on my face in the middle of the night, earning five stitches and a very weird story to tell a girl on a second or third date at the times square applebees (your neighborhood bar and grill). i let myself be vulnerable and i took risks. i forced myself out of my comfort zone at every show, at every house party, at every bar, and with every late night walk home. 

i'm starting 2017 with a stabilized brain and an absorbent heart, wide-eyed and twinkling under the gleam of my city. new york projects whatever enchantment or despair i choose to feel. this year i'm going with the former. 

Swallow

Swallow

by

Ian S. Howland

It’s a Tuesday night and I'm in Paris, but I'm not sure why. I'm sitting with a naive level of comfort—perhaps due to the fact that I'm stunned by my blatant lack of prudence and responsibility—on the steps of the entrance to my hotel building which I know I cannot afford for more than tonight. The Hotel Du Collectionneur Arc de Triomphe. Perched atop a bended incline in the cobblestone road, it looks as spectacular as it sounds with an impressive appearance of elderly wisdom, dignity, and confidence. Suddenly my shock-induced calm and comfort dissolve into a tempestuous, forceful anxiety and a yearning to figure out how my present circumstances unfolded. Why did I book a one-way flight to Paris during one of my busiest school and work weeks? How will I afford my flight back? I have three unread emails from work, where I was supposed to be an hour after my plane departed out of JFK, with the subjects “Work today…”, “Where are you?”, and “Is everything OK?” I should have been at my desk advising nervous undergraduate students about their lack of financial aid options. I have no practical way of calling my bosses back. I suppose I can email them, but I won't. I have class tomorrow—I had class today—, and I need to be there for it, but I won’t. I take a drag of my cigarette and inhale as deeply as I ever have, counting slowly and assertively to five before exhaling. I'm trying to breathe in Paris through the smoke. I probably look like shit and really all I want is some weed so I can level out a little. My jean jacket has coffee and beer stains from the airport cafe and bar. The nice thing about jean jackets is that they don't really get dirty; they just acquire character—that’s the kind of logic I’ll need to go with tonight, anyway. 

Why am I here? Why Paris? This is ridiculous and devastating yet so spectacular—I keep going back and forth on that last part. Looking around, the air that surrounds me is perfectly dense and temperate, I can see warm light emitted from street lamps that extend onward down the winding road to infinity. But they’re not endless lights like back in New York—I think it’s the warmth and how old and bathed in character everything is. Everything is so busy yet so calm. Everything is so beautiful and quaint, and there isn't trash everywhere. More importantly, it’s all new to me. Certain cities are, on their own, beautiful works of art, and Paris feels the rarest and most exquisite. Tonight I will be walking through Van Gogh’s ‘Over the Rhone’. 

As guests of the hotel check-in and check-out, they notice me, not quite sure what to think of my curious presence. That sounds about right; I’m a piece of Brooklyn street-trash, dirty and alone, sitting with poor posture on the steps of a grand hotel in Paris, chain-smoking. Some of them make eye-contact with me and I provide them with an expressionless look—I think just to emphasize the peculiarity of it all. After I finish my cigarette, I light up another, and then I start walking. Wait—I should probably check-in, put my backpack away, and take a look at my room. I put out my cigarette after one drag then put it in the left chest pocket of my jacket. I turn around, walk into the lobby, and check-in at the front desk. The hotel staff provides impeccable customer service here, but I don't want any reminders of how much money I spent on this, so I try to maintain a state of palpable obliviousness. I reach the door to my room and suddenly I’m nervous. I quickly open it, without looking, throw my bag in after making sure I have everything important in my jacket pockets, and immediately close the door; I didn’t want to see the money I just wasted or the future I just probably devastated.  

I don't have a map, and I have no cell-service and thus no means by which to direct myself. I noticed earlier the brilliant gleam of the Eiffel Tower from where I sat on the outdoor hotel steps, so I’ll just head in that direction. I start walking at a leisurely pace. I feel like keeping my head down merely out of self-disappointment, but I force myself to look around—you know, because I’m in Paris for some reason. The tower is probably about a mile and a half away, which seems like the perfect walking distance for my weary state of mind. Much to my enjoyment, it's quieter than I anticipated. There are just enough people out to make me at ease walking in an intimidating area of no familiarity to me. I can hear the soft, coupled footsteps of passers-by, harmonized with the comforting roar of taxi engines as they leave the hotel—even the superfluous car horns feel right and justified. The breeze is complementing my attire spectacularly, and I can’t help but notice how everything is so perfectly illuminated, but now I need alcohol. 

I see a bar called The Freedom and Firkin across the street, but I can understand what that means so I'll have to find something else. I walk into a bar a few blocks down that is perfectly noisy, as noisy means I probably won’t be noticed. I cannot even attempt to pronounce its name; I only know that its title is very French-looking and the ambiance is excessively dark, and that’s really all I’m looking for at the moment. It just started raining, and part of me wants to walk through it, but the other part just wants to get good-and-drunk and see the blurry lights of Paris through the rain covered bar window. Rain or starry sky, though, once I’m requisitely inebriated, my feet are going to carry my beer-sodden brain and my whiskey-sodden heart around these sidewalks until the sun rises (or until I channel my inner Atlas and shrug the heavy pair off). I walk in and no one notices my entrance—perfect. I take a seat at the half-empty bar. The bartender says something to me in French I do not understand—oh yeah, I don’t speak any French whatsoever, the only exception of which is what I’m about to say to her in response. With pitiful delivery, in French, I say, “I no to speak French. I am to apologize.” She laughs, smiles, and says, “American?” After I affirm, she says, quite simply but with outstanding accuracy, “Beer?” 

I have a beer—it’s darker than I’d prefer but I really could not care less, as I’m drinking not for leisure but for strict utility—and ask for a water before leaning back as far as I can to look around for a moment. My nervousness, consternation, and self-bewilderment escalate with every minute I spend trying to figure out why I would risk my job and scholarship to be in Paris for one night—or forever? Maybe I’m just losing my mind.  Maybe it’s because of Eveline. I find myself drifting frequently. Through conversations with close friends, through work and school, through parties and dates, my mind just drifts and relinquishes all orientation. I just feel very not present. Without a mentally traceable source of causation, I’ll sink into a state of total disorientation during which I cannot remember what I’m doing or why I’m doing it. I’ve always done this to some extent, e.g., I’ll fail to remember whether or not I just washed my hair in the shower, so I’ll start washing it (just to be safe), and realize, while feeling the distinct sensation of shampoo being massaged onto my scalp, that I definitely already washed my hair. Sometimes it’s not the sensation that triggers my memory; sometimes I don’t realize it until I am already at work and it just hits me. But running out of shampoo too quickly is the least of my worries. Now it’s different and much more constant, perhaps because so much has changed and I’m under more stress than I’ve ever been. Graduate school is more difficult than I expected, so my traditional scholastic method of desperately trudging through each semester is in full-swing. I’m intimidated by my life—or what I want out of it, at least. More specifically, I’m intimidated by my city, I’m intimidated by my academic program and my peers, and I’m intimidated by my own ambitions. Maybe that’s why I’m here. Maybe I’ve just lost my footing like I have so many times before, but now it’s as if my foot is broken and I can’t realign and I haven’t given myself the requisite time to simply let it heal. The academic and vocational consequences of this trip are excruciatingly ominous, so I stop thinking about them and steepen the angle of my beer as I pour it down the back of my throat. 

I never received my water. I smile and say, in remedial English, as she seems to speak the language somewhat, “I’m sorry... water?” She’s now looking at me bemused, and it’s a specific form of bemusement quite familiar to me. Within about a second I realize that the look she’s still giving me is the look you give someone when you don’t want to answer a question because you know you’ll embarrass the questioner by answering it truthfully. She smiles and gestures toward my left hand which is currently clenching the cup of water she had already given me. Shit. I wonder how many people noticed that brilliant exchange. Perhaps a single night of floundering through Paris on my own is all my mind can afford tonight. 

A young girl who looks close to my age, and whose beauty sends blissful shocks of excitement through my nervous system, stands next to me at the bar. The rain-soaked crowd with whom she entered had proceeded to the back of the bar to hang out in what I’m assuming is a private seating area. She wore the rain in her hair like a little girl wears a crown of flowers at a picnic on a sunny day. She’s ordering a bunch of drinks, leaning over the bar with her elbows and hands pressed against the countertop and only the toes of her shoes touching the floor. Her light brown hair is disheveled but with staggering confidence, and her resting facial expression makes it hard for me to believe she could ever truly be sad. She looks to her left and makes eye contact with me, and then she manages to stumble in place without having attempted to step anywhere, as one of the drinks spills over the counter and the floor. Her face looked far from drunk, so during her stumble I chose to see only the confluence of clumsiness and comeliness for which I’ve always yearned (for whatever reason). I’m feeling slightly more confident after having consumed much too quickly my first beer, so, after she cleans up her spill, I muster up a half-smile, and she does the same. Her teeth are white, her skin is soft, and her lips are drenched in red lipstick. She steps toward me to ask, in both the most pleasantly soft, mellifluous voice I’ve ever observed and American English, if I was American. I smile and say, happily, “Yeah. I’m from New York.” 

She replies, “I love New York! I hope to be living there within the next year. I’m from L.A., but I’ve been here since last fall.”

“You have no idea how happy I am to hear an American voice. I speak no French, so it’s been a very intimidating experience thus far. Also, I don’t think you’re allowed to be jealous of anyone living anywhere if you live in Paris…”

“Yeah I suppose you’re right. I think any city can get old after a while, though, no? So you don’t speak any French?”

“No. I didn’t really plan this…” I’m pausing for a second because I’m struggling to figure out what to call this absurd excursion of mine. Should I even mention it? “…trip very well.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Since seven this evening. I’m leaving in the afternoon, I think.”

“You’re here just for tonight?”

“Yeah,” I say with no confidence whatsoever, so I put on a half-smile, look to the bartender, and motion for another beer.

“That’s insane! No one goes to Paris for one night. Are you here for business? I hope this isn’t offensive, but you certainly don’t look like you’re here on business. Are you a musician? Should I know who you are? Why are you here?”

“You’re probably right about that first part. I’m not here on business. To be quite honest, I should be back in New York. I was supposed to be at work today. I have work and class tomorrow, both of which I can’t really afford to miss. I don’t know why I’m here. I was—I am—having a rough time, so I decided to do something both idiotic and awesome, albeit I haven’t yet convinced myself of the latter.”

She gives me a look of intrigued curiosity, which slowly wanes into the most mollifying, sweet, smile I’ve ever seen. For a short moment I feel like this terrible idea of a trip is worth it, and maybe I’ve found the “awesome” part I was looking for, but then I look down and notice the coffee and beer stains all over my jacket and the soothing transition which just began is now unraveling.

“I don’t normally wear clothes covered in beer and coffee stains. I just need you to know that.”

“Oh, that’s too bad, actually. I like when guys wear jackets covered in beer and coffee stains; it adds character.”

That sounds pretty fucking familiar. My brain halted for a moment, its action thwarted by one of those instances that feels like destiny, until I remember that I do not believe in destiny, so I hope only that the universe manages to align itself in a way such that I’m able to, like I am about forty percent of the time, respond in kind to her cunning wit.

“You are right about it being too bad; I was thinking you were kindly overlooking the beer and coffee because you thought that maybe tonight is just an aberration for me… but, now that I know you actually like the stains, your generosity is no longer impressive…”

It was not great, but it was not terrible. She smiles. Thank god. “Well, then, I suppose it’s a good thing you’re leaving tomorrow.”

I smile back. This is one of my favorite moments in a long time. Why am I sharing a conversation of flirtatious small-talk with another American at a bar in Paris on a Tuesday night? I can feel my heart pounding through my chest but in a way that relaxes me to the bone.

“I wish I could pester you with some more questions because I have several, but I have to take these drinks to the back room. My rotten friends left me behind. What’s your name?” 

The best moments are always short-lived. My body has returned from excitement back to its normal state of indifference.

“Ian.”

“It was nice meeting you, Ian. I’m Emily. I know this is odd since it’s hard to imagine we’ll see each other again, but can I have your phone number? I’ll be trying to move to New York when my next term is over and I’ve graduated. It would be nice to know someone there if you’re still around.”

I provide my number and say, “It was nice meeting you, too. As strange and probably silly as this will sound, I feel a lot less weird about being here right now—in Paris, that is; not this bar—I truly appreciate it, you speaking to me, more than you know.”

“A bit weird and a bit silly for sure, but I actually think I do understand. Enjoy the rest of your night in Paris, Ian.”

“Yeah I think I might.”

I need to get out of this bar. I didn’t expect to talk to anyone tonight. I thought about the possibility, but mainly as an impractical fantasy. I feel okay, I think. I ask the bartender for another beer and a shot of whiskey. After she obliges I ask for another round of the same recipe and then start walking through Paris. I have four cigarettes left, so I better make them count. I’m inhaling with purpose with every drag. Evy is probably sleeping right now in extravagant repose. I wonder how cold it is there. Since the break-up I've felt somewhat dead. I figure if I let myself feel, I'll feel sad, so I just decide not to feel at all—emptiness is better than loneliness, right? Maybe that’s just what happens when you lose your grasp on everything. Or maybe when you lose your grasp on the “why” behind everything, or when every light you’re used to seems a little dimmer, as if each bulb lost its sense of purpose and stopped trying so hard, and it stays on solely because it is used to it. You reach that point where your routine is some sort of peculiar result of Newton’s first law of motion. Maybe that's why I'm here. Maybe I just need to feel alive. 

I’m feeling alive after that conversation with Emily, but now my plan has backfired. I’m looking around at all of the people. They’re in Paris, laughing, holding hands, hugging, kissing, going out with their boyfriends and girlfriends and husbands and wives and friends and co-workers whilst I meander, alone, in Paris, on a weeknight with no agenda. Suddenly I’m crushed by a boulder of anxiety and my heartbeat takes off. I yearn to speak to someone again. Maybe I should go to another bar. I won’t. I need to be alone. Remember, Ian, you can get yourself through this. Fuck your feelings because you are choosing to have them. You’re smarter than that. You are better than every anti-stoic, impetuous imbecile in this world who can only feed off his or her own emotions in any adverse circumstance. Fuck. Who am I kidding? You let your brain lose control of itself as soon as you purchased that god damn plane ticket. You are better than no one. You have to let all of this go. Instead of letting it go I’m taking a seat on the steps of a closed shop so I can bite my fingernails to the skin and let my legs shake until they’re numb. I say to myself aloud but quietly, “Breathe, Ian.” You are better than this. Keep yourself together. Keep breathing—deeper. 

I count to ten in my head as I breathe-in deeply whilst imagining that I’m lying on the roof of my old Jeep in the middle of campground in the middle of the night, staring upwards toward the sky, waiting for a meteor shower to appear. I place my hand firmly over the left side of my chest to see what my heart is doing— I need to slow it down more. I think I need help. I need someone to help me. I cannot do this on my own. I am not as smart or stoic as I ignorantly thought. Why did I come here alone? I attempt to swallow but I can’t. I hate when this happens. Dysphagia. Sometimes it’s anxiety and sometimes it’s just my health. Focus, take a deep breath, and swallow. I still can’t, which makes the anxiety worse. I don’t even need to swallow, so why is this such a big deal? If you can make this happen, Ian, you can get up. If you can get up, you can get close enough to the Eiffel Tower to be perfectly overwhelmed by it, and then you can go back to the hotel and sleep like a baby. And then what? And then you can go back to New York—your home—,try to make amends with your bosses, get your shit together for school, and keep your scholarship. Just settle yourself down, and get some of the saliva that’s in your mouth down the back of your throat. That’s the first step.

I take one last deep breath and now I’m back in the airplane row I shared with my brothers on the way to London to see our parents a few years back. My head is resting on my oldest brother’s shoulder while we share a pair of earbuds. My older brother is fast asleep under a blanket and leaning his head against the window as the setting sun descends over the Atlantic Ocean. I can feel my heartbeat slowing down. I open my eyes, one at a time, slowly, to stare at the gleam of the Paris streetlights all around me, and then I look up at the real and present sky above me, the moon sleeping contentedly atop a hazy bed of clouds that appears to be intentionally constructed exclusively for the fickle nightlight of the sky. I realize that I didn’t even notice until now that the rain had stopped or the sky had mostly cleared. I swallow. I swallow again for good measure, and then I exhale and pick myself up off the ground. Life is going to start tonight—maybe not right this second, but at some point tonight, I am starting fresh.

Sitting down and soaking in the cool air of the Paris eventide suddenly reminds me of last January when I sat atop a fire escape just below Chinatown at one in the morning with Chris and Anne, drinking tallboys and staring up at the few stars we could see, while the liveliness of lower Manhattan waned to a quelling silence, interrupted scarcely by the soft roar of a passing taxi. I remember feeling elated, as if I were in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. Suddenly everything about Paris feels right. But that feeling wasn't to last any longer than two cycles of the nearest pedestrian crosswalk signal. Certain feelings seem as if they are never meant to last. Happiness—pure happiness—isn’t meant to last. The happiness of the Chinatown fire escape night ended as soon Chris and Anne got tired. They headed to their Clinton Hill home, and I would spend the night walking toward the moon and away from my feelings. That January was inevitably crushed into nothingness by February, which lasted twenty-eight days too long. The happiness of evenings spent at my parents home, with my head resting on my older brother’s shoulder as I would fight to stay awake while the seven of us talked about anything—I didn’t want to miss a single sound from the dulcet voices of my parents and brothers. But then my parents would go to bed, my brothers and their girlfriends would go to bed, and I would leave the house and spend the night walking toward the Boston skyline and away from my feelings. 

It’s time for me to get up.

I stand up and look around to notice that to the left of me I can see a winding road descending into a marvelous view of the Eiffel Tower. The view… it’s been right here all along. If only I had stood up sooner I would have seen it. My heart suddenly feels like it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to—it’s beating with purpose. The Eiffel Tower is truly spellbinding. The Chrysler building is my favorite landmark in New York, refined and glamorous and classic, but the Eiffel Tower defines “majestic” more effectively than any phrase you’ll ever read or hear in any dictionary or on any website. Seeing it glimmer from a distance atop the Parisian metropolis is like looking at a harvest moon (or a meteor shower). I got the view I wanted, and now I feel pretty alright. I feel alive. I can feel in my cheeks a half-smile revealing itself with increasing confidence. I’m smiling not simply to show it to someone, or to convey a feeling; I’m smiling because happy. I truly amuse myself. Why did I come here ? I suppose I probably know the answer to that now, but it’s quite funny to look to myself for an explicit answer. I’m happy to be here tonight with myself in Paris. 

I told myself earlier that my life is starting at some point tonight. If the rest of my life starts now, then I’m starting it at 1:30 AM on some steps in Paris, looking at the Eiffel Tower before I return, in the same direction as the face of the moon, to the exquisite hotel bed I still have yet to see. I will get the best night’s sleep I’ve had in years—and I’ll need it; I’m heading back home to Brooklyn tomorrow. Inhale. Exhale. Swallow.

Survival

I went to a show in Brooklyn by myself tonight to see two bands that I've come to really enjoy as of late: 'The Sidekicks' from Columbus, Ohio and 'Hop Along' from Philadelphia. Going to shows by  myself is always fairly awkward for me, but, depending on who I'm seeing, I can get over it almost immediately as soon as the band starts playing. Thankfully, that was the case tonight. 

Just as I have a romantic relationship with New York City, I have one even stronger with the concept of sinking my mind—my entire being, really—into a really good song or a live performance of a band with which I have a very personal, musical relationship. It's the auditory equivalent of a drug for me, and it's a feeling for which I so desperately yearn on an hourly basis. Fortunately for me and my precarious budgetary situation (I have no source of income and I live in a very expensive city), good songs are easily accessible and cheap. An awful platitude, to be sure, but I honestly don't know how I would deal with the world around me if I didn't have access to music. 

More specifically, I am referring to the kinds of songs that can completely overwhelm me and consume every ounce of attention I can pay in a single moment. Some people don't understand this concept, and I'll never understand that or support it. I can't. Have you not ever acquainted yourself with a song so powerful that it changed your entire state of being? A song that prevented the continuation of whatever you were doing, no matter what you were doing, until it ends? To be sure, with certain drugs this is much more easily observed, so maybe you aught to try that first, but, for me, many songs are powerful enough to need nothing else. For example, the song 'Weird Fishes/Arpeggi' by Radiohead is so substantially captivating that my entire mind is consumed by it. It's not just the song; it's the lyrics and the emotionality. The honesty of the words is overwhelming while the guitars that pick up as the song progresses seem to have their own agenda, as if disconnected form the other instruments entirely, yet they piece together to suck up every ounce free worry I can muster. As it builds up, it devastates me, and, at the same time, it comforts me to know that something so simple (simple as the concept of a song is simple) can take my mind off of everything awful for five minutes.

  Five minutes might sound quite trivial, but it saves my life. I guarantee it. My mind is always trudging—I can't really explain why, but it is—and often the world around me is just too much for it to handle. With live music in particular, it's so much easier to have my worries sidelined in majestic transience. I can focus entirely on the music, letting my mind sink into my heart and be swallowed by it, and even let my body take a break by letting the crowd push me and pull me in whatever direction it wants. I don't brace myself; I let go in every sense of the phrase. 'The Sidekicks' have songs that are so genuinely honest and passionate that I got to embody them for thirty-five minutes. You could tell it meant a lot to them that the crowd had a good time, but it meant so much more to me just to experience it. Sometimes I feel like no one knows how much these things mean to me. Today was rough for me. The past week has been rough for me. I have no job, no prospects of employment, impeding rent-checks to be written that linger over my insufficient savings account, more homework to do than I've felt like I can handle, and the stresses of feeling like nothing is working out after a making a major change in my life. Tonight music got me through it. Tonight music allowed me to transcend every problem I have, even if only temporarily.

During Hop Along's set, some asshole tried to start a fight with someone that accidentally shoved him. When the accidental-shover committed the apparent atrocity, the asshole head-butted him in a way I've never seen off the big-screen. I was feeling too happily sedated to let a fight break out, so I put myself between them, smiled, and told them that we're all alright and that everyone's having a good time. They weren't cooled off, but I hate fighting, so I persisted. Eventually one of the asshole's friends got the asshole to leave, so I'm sure I played no part in alleviating the situation, but it was scary for me and it made me feel very, very alive. Nothing beats that. This excitement, derived from a (likely unwarranted) sense of bravery and genuine fear, paired with my alleviated worries from Hop Along's set, left me floating in satiated bliss.

After the show I walked a little less than a mile to the nearest subway station. It was about 15 minutes after midnight. I could see very closely to my right the Manhattan skyline. The Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, the Bank of America building each glimmered as airplanes blinked and flew by, tracing the city overhead. They looked stunning and I felt inspired. To my left I saw the peaceful, yet awake, well-lit Greenpoint street that guided me to my station. It was about 70 degrees with a heavenly breeze, and I put my earbuds in and listened to some comfort music. I started off with 'The Last Lie I Told' by Saves the Day. Although I knew things wouldn't be shortly after I got home, everything was alright, and I couldn't have asked for anything more than that. 

Addendum: Listen to 'Young and Happy!' by Hop Along and '1940's Fighter Jet' by The Sidekicks.

Do Better, PLS.

Two concepts I have never liked regarding passive racism and insensitivity toward the gay community  have been on my mind a lot lately. The first is when my non-black peers feel the need to refer to black people as "this black guy" or "some black girl". There is no need. I cannot count the number of times in which a peer of mine has recalled some trivial banality of a story in which one of the persons involved happened to be of color and the person telling the story felt compelled to point it out.

To be sure, this often happens when the story-teller is trying to convey that the person at hand was either thug-like or intimidating in some way, but these are simply ludicrous, hyperbolic stereotypes that do nothing but perpetuate said stereotypes and influence peoples' reasons to falsely acknowledge and declare these absurd racial distinctions. Even if you think it adds flavor to your story, leave it out because you are, in every way, part of the problem if you don't. It's some form of passive racism in which people have no idea of the implications of their statements. Go ahead and refer to the person as "thug-like" or "gangster" or "reminiscent of U-turn from Showtime's 'Weeds'" for all I care, as these terms could have white-non-hispanic representations as well, but don't suggest that the color of ones skin need be suggestive of any of these qualities. I used to think this awful phenomenon was defensible because people just did it out of ignorance. That perhaps it wasn't intentional racism but just a cultural component, but I cannot abide by it any longer.

(Addendum to the first half:

I recently found out that Queens County in New York City is the only large county in the United States in which black incomes are higher than white incomes. The fact that this is the case for Queens is great. I love Queens. But the fact that this is the only large county in the entire country to boast such a statistic is quite troubling for me, to say the least.

During my orientation at the NSSR, one of the speakers mentioned a recent study that showed the effect of making students declare their race (as well as sex) on standardized testing. It found that black students fared worse on math and science subjects on tests in which stating race was required, while it found that black students fared equally to white students on tests in which there was no question about race. I thought this was amazing, and also very disconcerting. It shows how much the labeling of the black community (perhaps not of itself to itself, but of itself to the rest of the word) affects its well-being. Making awful implications out of bullshit generalizations perpetuates this labeling and this separation, so, please, think about that next time you're about to do it.)

The second concept which yields great contempt from me is when people defend gay marriage or gay-anything by arguing that people do not decide to be gay. Don't get me wrong, the likelihood of deciding to be gay has got to be very low given the moronic nature of mankind and its propensity to loathe everything one might deem "weird", but whether people choose to be gay or not should be irrelevant. So what if someone chooses to be gay? If that person is happy doing so, so fucking be it. Why does it need to be about excuses? Would you argue the same about ethnicity? I would hope not. The overlying issue of morality here is that people should be able to do as they please as long as they aren't harming anyone else in the process. Some might argue (and many do) that same-sex marriage has the capability to harm someone psychologically (e.g. the sanctity of one's marriage is threatened by the sinful nature of another's same-sex marriage), but these are simply terrible, atrocious people to whom you should not afford any attention. For the record, if you would like some analogous social-libertarian (the good kind of libertarian) literature on the matter, read the superb John Stuart Mill's 'On Liberty' and his "harm principle". He doesn't talk about same-sex marriage per se, but his remarks on polygamy can easily be extrapolated to make the same point.

Embrace and celebrate homosexuality for all that it is: unadulterated beauty. If you don't, you're just an asshole and you're furthering the idea that heterosexuality is right and normal while homosexuality is wrong and weird. I've reached the point where I can't accept any defense of gay-marriage simply because it's a defense. Do the right thing. Be a good person. I love living in New York City for a myriad of heartfelt reasons, but one of the most prominent is how comfortable they gay community is here.

Addendum: the Yankees won tonight in comeback fashion (ignited by Derek Jeter) and I had a great group-iMessage conversation with my parents during it while I was drinking too much at a bar. It has left me feeling cozy and spirited in a way only my family can achieve.

The Vast Spoils of Losing Your Mind

I'm sweating through both my clothes and my mind at the Laundromat on Nostrand and Willoughby (I'll have you know that I've already googled two questions and asked the laundromat attendant and a random woman folding clothes three questions about general washer/dryer operations) and all I can think about is the prescience of the impending change in season. The transition of the summer into the fall means two things for me. The first is that I am going to become a lame, shitty friend. The second is that I'm going to become more and more independent as fall wanes to winter in a way that is both spiritually enlightening and socially devastating.
The summer to fall transition means that school is beginning. Indeed, it already has and I've already acquainted myself with a few friends and, in some cases, I've already met quite a few friendly acquaintances. This has happened because I'm quite sociable, amiable (I try to be, rather), and I have a good time in most any situation. Furthermore, most of the people in my program seem to be of the same temperament. I've already had several memorable, indeed drunken, days with my peers and I've only been here for two weeks. I can't help but think about how different my experience would be so far had I not this affable, quasi-confident disposition–especially since it will be all for naught come the fall. During the summer I am as care-free as I can be, which isn't all that care-free, but it's a remarkable difference relative to my frame of mind during the school term. I am intimidated and overwhelmed during school–I normally feel like I'm trudging through each semester. This year I am, just as I presumed, at a cognitive disadvantage relative to my peers in my program (I know this already before having a full week of classes), so I know I'll need to work harder than the rest. I do this simply (yet it isn't simple) by sacrificing camaraderie almost entirely.
Based off of a myriad of previous experiences, this is what's going to happen: I'll get behind in school because I'm not very smart, people with whom I've become quite close will ask me to hang out, I'll want to hang out, I'll decline the invitation, and I'll spend half of the time studying while the other half will be spent feeling lonely, being obnoxious on Twitter and Snapchat, finding some form of pornography, and drinking beer. Once this happens, I'll feel narcissistically accomplished, as if I nobly overcame some form of impossible adversity (having fun), which it clearly is not. Shortly after, though, I'll establish a feeling of isolation that I will maintain is worth it, for even if I only worked half the time, it would still, one would hope, help me approach a more favorable position within the class.
Sometimes it will make me go moderately crazy; I'll talk to myself, laugh at myself, entertain myself, and vehemently vex myself for a lack of focus and intelligence, a surplus of sexual frustration (for the record, any amount of sexual frustration is to be considered a surplus), missing out on a good time (as shown on several Instagram photos or tweets), or general restlessness as a result of idling for too long while consuming endless amounts of caffeine. Sometimes I'll get so caught up in reassuring myself that abstaining from fun is the right choice that I'll begin to embrace my loneliness and sadness. Indeed, I think, oddly, there can be value in such things. When I'm sad I write better, I feel more passionately about most everything, I think a whole lot more, and I'm more grounded. It's like when Chris Conley was young, singing for Saves the Day at age 16 (or something absurd like that), writing:

"Every day seems the same to me

I sit around and think about how alone I feel

Then I wind up rather enjoying loneliness 

Because it's the comfort of being sad—sometimes it feels so right

And sometimes I'd like to be around no one for ten straight years"

To be sure, he does add after those lines, "...but I know this feeling can't bring me places, and I know I'm losing lots of ground," but in way that idea can almost strengthen the lines before it when one is feeling like that. 

Anyway, it's not as if I abstain completely from fun. I don't have excuses to drink in bars by myself after baseball season, so I'll agree to a minimal amount of outings. The only problem with that idea is the fact that I'll so desperately yearn for an amazing time that it's hard to have anything but incredibly high expectations. Fortunately for me I have fun doing most anything–even linear algebra or, more realistically, staring at the ceiling. Right now I'm sitting on a windowsill inside the laundromat, trading rain-soaked skin for sweat-soaked skin, and I am genuinely in love with this place; the diversity is astounding and brilliant, mischievous children are everywhere, and most everyone is spectacularly kind, albeit the emphasis on "most" should be quite strong. If I can have a good time doing this, why can't I have a good time shutting myself in?

New York City

Living in New York City, as I have since the 17th of August, is quite spectacular. As someone who has loved this city in a rather romantic fashion since he first visited when he was 14, my level of awe and excitement has yet to decrease even marginally. Essentially, I am Kevin McCallister living it up by himself in the world's greatest city, seeing pigeon ladies, running away from Tim Curry, fucking up Marv's nose repeatedly, receiving large cheese pizzas that are just for me, and having one of those little refrigerators you have to open with a key, et cetera. It is actually not like that at all, but it is still pretty rad. However, the size of this city can be quite overwhelming. Not in a too-many-people-and-cars-and too-many-loud-noises kind of way, but in an isolating kind of way. For example, if I wanted to get out of this city–to experience the vast spoils of quiet suburbia, I would essentially have to travel sixteen miles to find some pompous Long Island neighborhood, or I would have to go to New Jersey. To be sure, both options would be far from simple and would require substantial timing and planning. In Boston, I could hop on the train or simply walk a couple miles and be in a more suburban atmosphere–far from the case here. Regardless of its incessantly overwhelming nature, there is something very uplifting about living here. New York City has its own heartbeat and, if you do not feel it, you are not paying attention. This city is ceaseless, grand, frightening, humbling, inspiring, intimidating, loud, obnoxious, and, above all, perfect.  

I cannot help but think, though, that the last three years of my life have simply been me saying goodbye to people about whom I care a great deal. When I moved to Boston, I said goodbye to my girlfriend since high school, my best friends of eight years, and my two brothers whom I have missed so painfully much that I often feel like I am missing a limb or a part of my mind when I acknowledge our separation. In Boston I made some great friends, friends whom I grew to admire more and more the longer I knew them. To be honest, I grew to like them more than I posited was possible upon my settling in the city. Just as I was becoming incredibly close with some of them, I moved away. I have already met a few friends here, but it always feels wrong—or adulterated?

Moving to New York has been particularly difficult because, even though the difference in distance is quite marginal, it feels like I am moving even farther away from my Iowa friends and my brothers. Additionally, this time I moved away from my parents. They are only four hours away, but it hurts. My parents may not have represented the paragon of parenting by most standards, but they represented nothing short of perfection by mine. They raised three boys who care about each other more than they care about themselves. They have supported me and encouraged me to do anything I have ever wanted to do, regardless of how ludicrous or stupid. Living with them for two and a half years was an amazing experience, and I say that as an absolute understatement. 

I am currently in a situation in which I have a one-year lease, a precariously modest savings account, no job, and a masters degree to attain. Undoubtedly, I am in over my head. I trudged through my advanced mathematics courses during my undergraduate studies and thought of myself as nothing more than "the little mathematician who could" from Calculus I through Linear Algebra; I am not very smart, but I would like to believe that I worked harder than anyone else in those classes to just barely succeed. But I worked harder out of necessity, and I am not sure if I carry with me the temerity or willpower to work as hard as will be required of me come this fall.

That is where New York City comes into play. New York is so intimidating and humbling that there will always be a myriad of people substantially more successful than you. For some people that might be a source of great disparagement, but for me it establishes an incessant (I hope) urge for me to work as hard as I possibly can in order to gain some ground. My main hope is to stay positive and motivated even during times, like right now, when it is 86 degrees in my bedroom, three unanswered job applications are lingering about my head, I am somehow still hungover from an entire day of binge drinking (and very little eating) and presenting myself as a drunken piece of shit in front of several very cultured peers from my department at NSSR, and I am already struggling with the math in one of my courses. 

There are two things helping me right now: my dear friend Chris Byrd told me about a record called 'I'm Rich Beyond Your Wildest Dreams' by a band called Diarrhea Planet (despite the discordant name, you will like it or you're a monster—start of with the song "Kids" when you're drunk or high or both or neither). The second thing is that, if I look out my window right now, it's New York City out there. And, to me, that is still really fucking rad. Over and out. 

(Also Derek Jeter is playing again, and that's rad. (Even though he's batting .170 and the Yankees worked as a team to blow a 3-0 lead in the 7th.))

I have recently decided, for the sake of cultivating and refining my writing skills (to an extent further than economics graduate school alone will afford me), to start a blog. I plan on writing with regard to a variety of topics: economics–mainly in attempt to present it as a science much less boring than my general peer group would believe, morality, the perils and consternation derived from a lack of wealth whilst attending graduate studies in a field too advanced for my own intellectual capacity in the intimidating and humbling City of New York, and personal issues–to be sure, issues too personal–that I endure on a daily basis. 

My goal for this is not to earn any sort of following; my thoughts are modest at best and, likely, will not be very well formed or articulated, but the only way to improve one's writing is for one to write as much as one can. Indeed, I could simply keep a journal, but the polishing of my own prose is always more effective when I present it to the my peers and the general public (even if no one actually ends up caring to read a single post). I implore anyone who, out of sympathy, curiosity, or a welcomed love for proofreading, decides to read any of my entries, to provide any feedback or corrections. That being said, it is time for me to talk about how much I fucking despise Ayn Rand. I have to run to class right now, so I'll leave with just my introduction and write about the dastardly philosophy of economic libertarianism tonight. Who's excited? (Me. Just me tbh.)