It's a really old city, stuck between the dead and the living

Okay. Let’s call it a place. People and things are too hard to talk about, but a place is more vague. A place is less personal. You can walk away from it, but still go back and visit someday.  

This place feels familiar and strange at the same time. It’s a city, and during the day it’s bustling with people who have purpose in their stride, but at night the darkness explodes with gunshots and at dawn my alarm is the sound of sirens. It snows a lot in this place but I actually kind of love the snow because it blankets the city in this white perfection—at least until the snow melts into dirty slush that piles up on the curbs.

I’ve memorized the map of this city. The roads haven’t changed in years and I know the street names by heart, but new shops have started popping up everywhere and just the other day I visited my favorite café only to find that it, too, was closing soon. There was nothing special about their coffee, but I really liked its down-to-earth atmosphere. And the view from the table in the corner.  

Most of the friends that I met here years ago have already gotten new jobs and are trickling out of town, but I haven’t had any reason to leave. It’s beautiful, this city, it really is. But for some reason every time I try to take a picture of the skyline, the camera just can’t seem to capture what I see. It’s as if this place is cursed with a beauty that can’t last.  

I know I should leave this place. I want to run off to the West coast where the skies are always sunny and the cities are alive, but the truth is, this place is my home. I want to run off, but there is nowhere to run, because this place isn’t even a place. It’s the past.

And no matter how many days or months or years I put between it and myself—no matter how much I don’t belong there anymore—I’ll always live in this place. Despite the gunshots, despite the snow, despite my missing café... I will always live in the past. 

-B.

The search for love in a world of hate

I have never been very good at keeping up with the news, but lately I’ve been making a conscious effort to stay more informed—maybe because summer is making me restless, maybe because the hype of next year’s elections is infectious, who knows.

The problem is, staying informed is damn depressing.

I mean, seriously, the top stories on my Flipboard right now are “Charleston Church Attack Suspect Charged with 9 Murder Counts,” “Terror attacks, deaths up sharply in 2014: State Department,” “Ten dead after attack linked to gangs in northern Mexico,” and “Gunfight in Cincinnati street leaves officer, armed man dead.” It’s difficult news to swallow. It’s bewildering. I want to shut off the TV, close all my news sites, and drink my chamomile tea while watching Game of Thrones. Because at least the violence in that is fictional. The violence on the news is real.  

I’ve lived in a safe suburban bubble most of my life, so call me naïve or even call me insensitive but for the most part I haven’t felt a strong connection to the increased hate and violence in the world—it was never in the local newspapers that landed on my front doorstep. But recently, my Facebook newsfeed has been full of angry statuses condemning the latest shootings (notice the plural) and amid the pretty photography and silly gifs on my Tumblr newsfeed, I was hit with a reblogged condolence speech by Obama.

In a casual conversation with my mom about going to the city, I was warned about a criminal in Manhattan who has been specifically attacking Asian women in the past few weeks. I have always considered myself pathetically oblivious to the real world, and yet the real world is crashing into my bubble with alarming force, spelling out the worst parts of humanity with a vividness that is impossible to ignore.  

But you see, now I am at a crossroads. When I sat down to write this post, I had intended to give it an optimistic twist, for it to be a reminder of the love and the good in the world. To assert that despite the negativity that dominates the news, there is a lot to be happy and grateful about, from the little things in our daily lives to the $358 billion that Americans gave to charity last year. But is this hopeful view a lie? Am I just fooling myself? Would the world benefit more from trusting in the good, or confronting the bad?

Either way, I feel helpless. The problem is too big—in fact, I’m not even sure how I would define the problem. All I know is that when it comes to running away from one, I’m usually an Olympic sprinter—but here, now, exposed to the tragedy that is our reality, I am unable tear my eyes away. But staring isn’t going to help anyone.

What am I supposed to do?

-B.

You have to be always drunk

I went to a bar called The Beerhive the other day, and as I sat there with my friends sipping on an intriguingly flower-scented beer, we suddenly noticed a quote on the wall behind us:

You have to be always drunk. That’s all there is to it—it’s the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking…ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: “It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.”

We laughed as we started to read it, thinking that it was literally only a quote – appropriate for a bar – about the wonders of being tipsy. But as we continued to read we realized that it was not necessarily about being drunk on alcohol, but that it was about finding something you care about so much in life that you are perpetually intoxicated by it, euphorically drowned in it, blissfully consumed by it. “Have you guys found a passion like that?” we asked each other.

Among us we had a physics major, an electrical and computer engineering major, a business major, a psychology and human-computer interaction double major, and a mechanical engineering and philosophy double major, all of whom are graduating from Carnegie Mellon in less than a week. This is a pretty random sample, I think (my statistics major roommate might disagree, but shhh), and yet out of the five of us, not one felt as if we had truly found something we are passionate about.

I’ve always envied the people who take the unconventional path. You know, the ones who move to the city of their dreams and bartend at night while writing a novel during the day. The ones who start a band that maybe makes it big and maybe falls apart but never for a moment was something they didn’t love. The ones who start their own company from scratch and give it their all, despite the risk of failure. And I don’t know, maybe they’re not always happy and maybe their salary isn’t pretty and maybe I’m just being a romantic, but at least they had the guts to chase their dreams, right? At least they found passion.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m excited about my future. I look forward to going to Penn State and getting my Ph.D. and I genuinely hope that the research I do can benefit society in some way. I chose Penn State because the lab group I’ll be working in specializes in organic photovoltaics (in other words, new solar cell technologies!) and I want to be a part of this cutting-edge energy research. “I’m going to save the world!” I tell my friends naively. I think the science is really interesting and I like that it’s an applicable field that could have real-life impacts on the world…but I certainly don’t get drunk off it.

Anyways, I guess we’ll see. The world is a big place – maybe it just takes a while to find where we belong. After all, I didn’t even like beer four years ago, and now I’m going to places called The Beerhive. You just never know.

-B.

You can't always get what you want

A new year is usually a good thing, an exciting thing—but 2015 is a little more intimidating than the others. 2015 is the year I graduate from the college that I’ve sometimes hated but loved just as fiercely. It’s the year I venture outside the little bubble where I live with my best friends, where the Starbucks baristas remember my name, where I know shortcuts around campus like the back of my hand. It’s the year of uncertainty, of dreams that can be crushed just as easily as they can be achieved, of making bigger decisions than I’ve ever had to make before. It’s the year I’ve longed for but dreaded, and it’s the year that is finally here.

There are resolutions upon resolutions that I could make for the new year, like working out more, not skipping meals, and learning how to cook, but if there is one promise that I absolutely have to make to myself for 2015, it is to accept the future as it comes, even if it’s not the future I saw for myself.

Last week, I went to New York City to watch “Beautiful The Carole King Musical,” which was based off the true story of singer-songwriter Carole King’s rise to fame. While she was always a talented composer, Carole struggled with writing meaningful lyrics for her music. As fate would have it, she met and fell in love with aspiring playwright Gerry Goffin while in college and the two not only quickly married and had a child, but Carole’s musical talent and Gerry’s penchant with words made them a powerhouse for top radio hits. The happy couple enjoyed several years of magic and success, but Gerry soon became frustrated with writing catchy radio tunes, wanting instead to create a new style and sound, to be the pioneer of the next generation of music. Gerry’s obsession, though, led to irrational behavior, infidelity, and eventually, the deterioration of his marriage. Without Gerry, Carole felt completely broken—not only did she lose the love of her life, but she also lost the voice and the words behind her music. With time, though, Carole began writing her own songs, and performing them too. It wasn’t easy, but in the end she produced her famous album Tapestry, which won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1972—something that never would have happened if her life hadn’t been turned upside down. I was tearing up by the end of the musical because it kind of hit home for me. The upcoming year is going to be a big one, and I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be a smooth ride, but it is comforting to know that even if your world comes crashing down on you like it did for Carole King, it might just be a blessing in disguise.

For myself, as well as for many of my friends and my peers, 2015 is going to be the witness of our job offers and job rejections, our grad school offers and grad school rejections, our all at once confident and terrified steps into the real world. It is going to be a scary year, but it is a little less scary because of my new years resolution, because I’ve decided to loosen my grip on my expectations and understand that the “perfect” future I want so badly is not the only future in which I’ll be happy. The Rolling Stones said it best: “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, well you might find you get what you need.”

-B.

Here's to Halestorm, here's to love

As much as I like writing and as much as I like concerts, I’ve never written a concert review before — because honestly, I’ve never been so moved by one that I felt the need to write about it. But last night’s Halestorm show at Starland Ballroom, the same venue at which I watched my very first concert? Well, let’s just say that I’m not surprised they sold out the first day tickets went on sale.

First, a brief word about the openers, The Dead Deads and New Medicine. While I didn’t entirely love The Dead Deads’s music, I was pleasantly drawn to their character: a couple of girls from Nashville, Tennessee who formed a rock/metal/punk band with X’s drawn over their eyes, a necklace of lights on the lead singer, and a surprisingly not-out-of-place daisy in one guitarist’s hair. It was all very unexpected, and yet they were fresh, so it was nice, you know? Next up was New Medicine. They came on strong, and finished stronger. If I wasn’t saving up my cash to buy a Halestorm t-shirt at the end of the show, I probably would have bought one of their CDs (and then used that as an excuse to take a picture with the sexy-in-a-humble-way guitarist who is now my new phone background, which is not creepy in any way). One of the best parts of their show was when they played “Race You To The Bottom” and actually brought out two cups of beer and, well, raced each other to the bottom. Props!

Falling in love in a coffee shop

I've often wondered what it would be like

to go on a coffee date, to sip and flirt and smile,

and share our histories for a while.

I've always wanted to hear utensils clink while

I think about the words being framed by your lips,

and slowly, gently surrender my mind —

to the touch of your thoughts along the length of my spine.

I want to kiss you with my wit, seduce you

with my fears — is it possible to hold you near

while remaining a respectful coffee table apart?

I want to love and be loved despite all my sins,

to be looked at in that way without exposing skin —

Tonight, we are young

A conversation I had with a freshman the other day went something like this:

Freshman: What year are you?
Me: I’m a senior!
Freshman: Oh, are you thinking of applying here?
Me:

***

And I mean, I don’t blame her. Besides being five foot two and having a tiny face that is usually half obscured by hair, I simply don’t carry myself like a college senior. I’ve got the jaded, look-what-CMU-did-to-me part down pretty well, but the beaming confidence? the bright, knowledgeable eyes? the I’m-a-real-adult posture? I’ve got none of that.