T-Time!

I probably should have bought a bicycle when I moved to Boston.

I use the T, Boston's subway system, to get pretty much everywhere (for the first month I was here I kept calling it the "El," a la Chicago). I usually forget to charge my mp3 player, hence I'm helplessly trapped listening to whatever tinny "mmpsh mmpsh mmpsh yeeeah" the teenageer next to me is plugged into. People listen to their devices at such a high volume; I often want to demand them to "Change the channel!" like when I was a kid and wanted to watch Sesame Street but Mom was watching Oprah or Antique Roadshow, or like now when certain friends of mine still want to watch Susan Boyle sing "I Dreamed a Dream" over and over...

It's just that I like walking so much, and I fear a bicycle would get stolen anyway, even though I think it looks cool when someone walks into a party with one pant leg rolled up, all red-faced and tote-bagged: "Augh, man, I totally just biked here from Jamaica Plain in the rain but I still stopped at the co-op to pick up some organic freekah grains and IPA!" Well, I'll buy a bike in Madison for sure. And I will be rolling up one pant leg.

I've struggled with how to use my time on the T. I make a minimum of one round-trip to and from work every day, and there are at least two occasions per week when I take the T to work (about six stops), take the T back home, and then retrace the stops later en route to Harvard or Porter Square. That's like at least two hours invested in transport. I try to read or write or do something "productive", but usually end up wondering where the lady across from me bought her shoes, eavesdropping on Spanish-speakers (for practice!), trying to decide whether or not that guy by the pole is slyly executing a creepy up-and-down look in my direction (I get very defensive of my womanhood on the T)... Sometimes drunk people try to befriend me, which is humorous if I'm with a companion but a little frightening if I'm alone. In response, I pretend I don't speak English, or I just nod and stare absently at the window just above my intoxicated acquaintance's head until he or she starts to feel the cold, sobering drops of self-consciousness pooling. Kind of cruel, I know.

I was looking through my journal the other day and came across some of the experiences I've shared with the Good, the Bad, and the Insane of Boston.

1. I like the guitarist at the Arlington Green Line stop. He plays originals, I think, or maybe they are Mexican folk songs that I've just never heard before (not that I've heard many). The chords take their time echoing off the rounded tunnel walls, slow tunes as we all scurry to above or below. The overall effect makes me feel like an actress in a low-budget "indie" film, the part where she has something really heavy on her mind and is probably wearing fishnet stockings and smudgy black eyeliner and a corduroy blazer, or something with elbow patches anyway. His speakers are cheap, the acoustics suck, but the hollowness of the sound makes me feel both lonely, and hopeful and young.

2. Today when the train doors opened at Downtown Crossing there was a laughing couple holding the shrunken head of a wig mannequin between them. I did a double take because I thought a small face had sprouted through their armpits. The man was fumbling a pack of cigarettes and one of them fell on a sweet little girl in a stroller. The mother grumbled, "She's too young to start" in front of the perpetrator, his girlfriend, and the grinning bodiless head. The child was making earnest and purposeful gestures towards my red purse and the mother said "She has no sense of boundaries" to which I replied, "It's ok. She shouldn't. She's a child."

3. Sometimes I wish it was more acceptable to speak to people on the T--we're all so smug and sad, shouting into phones, busily entering and searching data in blackberries like foraging insects.

4. (February 10, 2009) I get so distracted on the T. Today a swaggering, disheveled man boarded on at Stony Brook and immediately started spraying air freshener all over the car, holding a pint of brown-bagged mystery in the other hand. He tripped on a woman's backpack, who previously hadn't dared to bend over and pick it up for fear of attracting attention to herself. He looked with disgust at the offending strap and thrust it aside with his dirty leather boot.

And he stood there, adopting a wide-legged albeit unsteady stance, King of the Car, surveying us common, coarse commuters. Of course, the next logical thing to do as Ruler was remove the can of air freshener (with a flourish!) from his jacket. Within seconds the entire car wreaked of chemical-drenched potpourri. The wide-eyed woman and I simultaneously migrated to the opposite end of the car, ducking as though in military retreat. She remembered her backpack.

When I reached Downtown Crossing, I quickly exited the orange line, feeling a bit light-headed, and bolted for the red line that would take me to Cambridge. I could hear the train either approaching or leaving, and the doors closed dramatically when I was just a few steps away. When this happens, I usually feel like spitting on the door and stamping my foot, but I kept my tantrum to an irritated exhale. THEN, a normal-seeming middle-aged man approached me and said "I wouldn't have missed that train if I hadn't been staring at your boots."

Perhaps on any other day I would have assumed that "boots" was an entirely different plural noun, but today I was wearing my very special Lobster Rain Boots. They are black with red soles and and tiny lobsters printed all over them. Even I can't stop staring at their waterproof glory.

"Oh. They're cool, right?" I replied, nonchalently.

"Yes." He proceeded: "I like your hair."

I said, "Thanks man."

Then, eyes narrowed in a sudden display of skepticism, he asked "Are you Jewish?" to which I offered a completely blank star and answered, "No, no, not Jewish. Ummmm....sorry?"

He let out a slight sigh of relief and nodded, staring back, perhaps waiting for me to articulate my Roman Catholic roots and small-town Wisconsin upbringing. But I didn't. I stared him straight in the eye for a solid five seconds before relocating focus to the Greek crossword puzzle I had been working on before the two-faced compliment. I almost wished I had lied and claimed false ethnic heritage just to see what he would have said. But I didn't, and he moved on to the next young-ish woman who sat alone two benches down from mine.

Anti-Semitism and a failed attempt at womanizing. Is there no shame in Boston's underground?

Fishy Forays in the Aegean

So my "Greek blog" didn't bear fruit as I had planned. We traveled very quickly and with limited internet access, and I didn't much feel like sitting at a computer when there was always so much to see (and so much fried cheese to consume). Whatever aversion to dairy I had acquired in Thailand quickly evaporated with every fresh plate of sizzling saganaki.

There were also many hours to sleep. I slept an average of 10 solid hours per night in Greece, as opposed to the 5-6 I tend to get in Boston. This could be due to the heat and strong Mediterranean sun, or to walking all day with bags. I think also the removal of one's usual daily schedule can function as a sedative of sorts. Without the skeleton of working hours, social hours, work-out hours, etc, I sort of fall apart into a drowsy, gelatinous, jointless being. Schedules keep me coherent. I am American.

Not to mention the fact that sheer beauty is totally distracting for my REM. Every day I saw something stunning and unique; I have had 17 continuous days of stunning and unique in my life. I feel privilaged. In Athens I looked up in the middle of a small, empty road and there was the Parthenon, floating unassumingly above the city, donning a partial metal cast of scaffolding but glowing the breath of the ancients nonetheless. In Tinos we saw worn old men crawling up a tall hill on their knees to beg the Virgin Mary for forgiveness. I stood in an empty hallway, strung with white linens drying in the breeze, the sea beckoning from the window at the opposite end. We saw a quiet, blue and white artisanal village tucked away in the folds of the hills, and hitched a free ride to the vacant beach on the other side of the island. In Chios, I realized that I could see Turkey, and I couldn't stop staring at it. I jumped off a cliff into the ocean on the island where Leonard Cohen used to live. I drowned bread in olive oil. I frequently dragged Dio out to eat fresh spinach pies at breakfast.


A few weeks ago, I posted on Facebook that while in Greece I had eaten seafood for the first time in 12 years. Within minutes, childhood friends began calling and e-mailing to inquire about why I had decided to eat a creature with a spinal cord. I honestly hadn't been expecting a reaction, but people seemed shocked. After all, I was the kid who ordered environmental t-shirts bearing sentimental logos from thin catalogues printed on recycled paper (think: "love animals; don't eat them" or "fur is most beautiful on the animal to whom it belongs"). In middle school, I spent considerable time in the basement, rummaging through plastic bins of my parents' clothes from university, looking for holey bellbottoms and flannel shirts. While everyone else in 8th grade was listening to TLC and Green Day, I was fervently memorizing the lyrics to "Aquarius." In high school and part of college, I was a frequent visitor to PETA's website, and at one point was trying to convince the girls in my sorority (the sorority-bit lasted only a year) that beer was healthier than BGH-infused skim milk (quite a popular argument, actually).

However, lately I've been realizing how little I function on an easy-going hippy mentality. Some people allow most aspects of their lives to rely on limitations: a "good job" with clearly defined expectations and someone to answer to (and from who to obtain approval or disapproval, or crystal clear definitions of success and failure); a religion that defines morality and hence a life planned around rules; a restrictive diet that makes eating a less controversial or self-indulgent affair. I'm not saying that any of these things are wrong, or even always limiting. Jobs can lead to promotions. Many people benefit from practicing a religion. Some of the people I have looked up to the most in my life also have a strong faith and adhere to dogma. Maybe I mean more of a predictable framework.

I've been realizing that I build my personality and plans a lot around limits. I don't much like that, as I'd like to be a person who accepts change and all of the unclear, fluctuating and vivid challenges and opportunities that life can bring. Especially since, according to one of my dear co-teachers, we will only become more cemented in our "ways" as we get older.

One thing that righteously bugged me is that my vegetarian status had developed into a source of pride. In high school and college, I was "unique" (not many vegetarians in Wisconsin or central Illinois). In Chicago, it was fashionable and "healthy", similarly to Boston. In Thailand, a reaction that my roommate Jen and I often derived was one of admiration (well, after the initial confusion--"Not even fish sauce?"). A vegetarian diet is a sign of discipline in some Buddhist sects. Most people eat vegetarian food, for example, on certain holidays or if they go to a temple for meditation. Abstaining from meat is widely considered a sacrifice of the corporeal pleasures.

But pride isn't what initially made me want to go veg when I was 10 years old. Initially, it was a child's impulse to "not-want-to-hurt." In the years that followed, I began to read more about the environmental impact of coorporate farming, inhumane treatment of livestock, and the usual spiel of eco-friendly, healthy, ethical-type thinking. These are still points that I strongly believe in, and so I won't be eating meat in the States.

However, what about in a country like Greece, where a local butcher swiftly slaughters the goat in the backyard? Or where the evening's fish was caught that morning by a local fisherman whose whole livelihood depends on people eating his product? In many countries, there is no negative environmental impact resulting from public consumption of fish and meat, no life of misery in an over-crowded pen. And I do believe in a natural food chain--wolves eat lambs. Whales eat plankton. I know a guy who spontaneously ate a grasshopper out of pure frustration. We don't accuse them of murder. Pain is part of every animal's life.

Also, my own lack of consistency makes my diet difficult to justify. I own leather shoes, and according to my friend Eric of Proctor and Gamble, nearly all of my toiletries have been tested on animals in one way or another. Also, as a human-lover (as well as animal-lover), wouldn't I be wrong to protest local businesses? Not to mention that I still eat dairy products, and who says that the dairy industry doesn't operate similarly to the meat industry?

So with these thoughts swimming over an empty stomach and under the stars, I asked for a small, glistening sliver of the daily catch on the island of Hydra. Tired, I thought, sand still clinging to my clothes, as my hosts chatted back and forth, drinking Mythos beer, switching from Greek to English to Spanish. I am so tired of clinging to unexamined ideals that still govern my life. How can we know a principal, a value, a love, a friend, if we don't step out for a moment and realize how free we can be, if we choose? That being a human doesn't mean we have to define everything about ourselves, that sometimes our moral absolutes become relative? I can pull up the anchor and cast it out again. I can always go back.

Oh--and apologies to my carniverous friends, but I'll never be a mammal or bird-eater. I didn't even like the fish as much as a solid square of tasty teriyaki tofu. But I'm keeping an open mind.

Ela, ela, ela Ellatha.

Today is the end of my first day in Greece. This trip was a bit last-minute. Just a month ago, we sat down on a Friday night and went shopping for tickets. I cleared some dates with the director of my school, and here I am, a mile or two from the Acropolis, looking forward to another 16 days.

We got in this morning and proceeded to crash in Dionysi's grandmother's place for about five hours before heading out into the city. This is probably the first time I've gone somewhere without doing substantial preliminary reading. I don't really know how many eras there were in Greece, or their corresponding architectural styles. The philosophy and rhetoric courses I took in college are stored in some foggy recess of my brain, and haven't been dusted in awhile. Instead, I've been studying the language for a couple months whenever I have a spare moment--on the T, waiting to meet someone, waiting for a break in the Boston rain under some corner bus stop, cooking a solitary omelette. I have stopped reading novels and poetry for the time being. My spoken Greek is still pretty terrible, but I can sound out written words and sometimes understand what's happening around me. As expected, I hear a lot of "Ela, pethi mou!" (yes /what's up /come on my child). My guess is that Rihanna's hit "Umbrella" must have been big over here, given the popularity of the all-purpose "ela".

So I've done no research, but I'm going to read the signs and ask questions and eat more than the recommended amount of fried cheese that one should consume in a day. Dio told me that "finite" is the best single-word description of Greece. It doesn't have the tallest mountains, or the widest variety of fruits, the strongest economy, the largest temples. We climbed the Acropolis this afternoon, and could see where Athens ends, confined by three mountains and the foggy sea port. Greece has moments of perfection, he says, points of precision which can be experienced in anything from an ancient statue of Apollo to a glass of your Grandmother's fresh orange juice.

old blog

I think the address I had entered before was incorrect. This is my old blog: http://www.myspace.com/bright_tights

So go there for the past two years.

BONSAIS

The bonsais have mysteriously reappeared in Arnold Arboretum, and I'm taking this as a sign that Boston is officially convinced in the presence of spring. I really love the Arboretum. It's a park maintained by Harvard about a kilometer from my doorstep in Jamaica Plain. There are paths and marshy trails and a special little hut just for gutsy little bonsai trees. I was alarmed, back in October, when I had gone running to the top of the hill upon which the bonsai hut is perched only to find that they had been relocated indoors for the winter. Every time I've been jogging since then, "let there be bonsai" has been a prominent mantra in my adrenaline-deprived brain as I plod towards the arboretum.

Last weekend, I was walking around Harvard Square on Saturday morning, wasting time before I was due to play soccer with Dionysi and the physicists. Together, this team leaves theory at the office and transforms into an unstoppable force christened "Impertinence." The team name makes cheer-leading a much more interesting affair: Impertinence triumphs! Impertinence scores again!

Anyway, the city's transformation in the midst of springtime made me feel like I was in a different country--tulips had emerged, the occasional ant timidly scurried out from a sidewalk crack, and the bushes were slowly fleshing into brilliant green. I was, however, more amazed at the emergence of humanity: hairy shins, flowing hair, cracked elbows, pasty white legs freshly de-coccooned from scuffed-up Uggs, and of course, lots of cleavage bouncing about in every which way. Seeing as I've spent the last few springtimes in more conservative parts of the world, the revealing tendencies of the western sundress are a bit shocking. However, I feel that the donning of a sundress is a contagious bug for many women. Despite my immediate disdain for my American sisters' lack of restraint, I couldn't resist going out and buying a feisty blue number for myself that same morning. .

I've also joined a gym, thanks to the coercive nature of my co-worker, Sharon. I guess I didn't make it too difficult for her. I heard "next to the T" and "unlimited yoga" and I was pretty much sold. Gyms do give me a slight case of the heebie jeebies--something about people scampering about on indoor machines reminds me of a metaphor in a post-modern novel. We'll see how this experience progresses.

For Heit

I don't even quite know how to begin blogging again. This resurgence of emotional outpour via cyberspace is the result of the vexacious but clearly effective nagging tactics of Shannon Heit, my dear friend who continues to station herself in Seoul, Korea with one Kyoungseok Lee. I visited her there once. I still maintain that lunch at the temple in Insadong was the finest meal I have ever had ever ever forever. And I doubt that anyone in the world besides KS will ever bestow porcelain dolls of Korean villagers craddling kimchee in their tiny frozen arms as a parting gift. Mm. Kimchee.

So now I've been living in Boston since September, after a summer spent traveling to the larger dots on the map in the midwest, teaching yoga to my mother's coworkers, and reading The Economist on the backporch in Beaver Dam, WI with a New Glarus Spotted Cow beer clutched between my knees. You see I can't make things simple for myself, so the logical thing to do after coming back from Asia was to rebound geographically in one way or the other. I will say that I love Boston, despite the stress and challenges I've faced here. My group of friends is small but wonderful, there are poetry readings everywhere, and after two months at a terrible internship and another month of job-searching, I've landed a lovely teaching post at a small ESL school located on a college campus in a swanky area of the city. I mean, we're two blocks from Valentino. That's serious swank.

Boston also gave me a swift kick in the boot-ay towards applying to graduate school. I've been accepted to the programs in Southeast Asian Studies that I applied to at Cornell, Ann Arbor, and Madison, and it's looking as though I'll be back in the land of fried cheese and beer brats come January of 2010. I'll write more about grad school at a later time. Or maybe not, as the decision has already taken up the greater portion of my year thus far.

I live in Jamaica Plain, which is southwest of downtown Boston. It's a great neighborhood; I don't think I could compare it to any place in Chicago at all. Or any place I've ever lived, actually. It's a nice mezcla of families, students, and we working folks, and there is just so much green. Well there is now after a harrowing arctic winter from hell's most frozen tundras. There's a large pond about half a mile from my house, and I've been running around it each day after work. Today I saw lots of Canadian geese sitting calmly in pairs, and emerald-dipped mallards fighting over the lady ducks. I look pretty ridiculous when I run; I still haven't bought an ipod (mine was stolen a couple years ago), so I use a discman that's maybe seven years old, along with headphones that are larger than your average-sized tufty earmuffs. I like to think I'm a neo-hipster or "retro" rather than a freak.

Thus concludes my first blog out of Boston. This weekend I plan to run the pond, co-host a cook-out (you're all invited), study Greek, and finish at least one of the five books that I've started since February. Love, Hilary

Blogs from the Beav

I've recently returned from two years living and teaching in Lampang, Thailand. I miss my life there every day. For example, I miss my rather eclectic bunch of friends, my rental motorbike, and how you can buy delicious tropical fruits anywhere and how the vendor always chops it up and serves it to you with two sticks so you can share the juicy goods with a friend. I am very interested in continuing to study Thai language, and have been spending some of my copious downtime trying to re-memorize the approximately 28 vowel forms. Currently, I am unemployed and living in Beaver Dam, WI , where I was born and raised, with the exception of those rogue five years in Baton Rouge.

I wrote on a myspace account when I had time during my years in India and Thailand, so feel free to check that out as well http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=24548775