You're a Libra, Aren't Ya, Darlin?

As an Aries, I know that the common characteristics of my astrological sign are some of the boldest and most extroverted of any of the other signs. My horoscopes are always black or white. At my last internship, we would sit and read them to each other, and Aries would always have something like, Today is the day you will meet the love of your life. Everyone will love you, and you will somehow win an Emmy. Go, Aries. or Today you will butt heads with people--you will tell them how worthless they are and alienate everyone in the process. Apparently, when it comes to an Aries, things are pretty cut and dry. But that's assuming that you believe in the powers of astrology. My roommate went on a date with a girl who believed in earth signs and astrology more than any religion in the world, so it obviously means something to at least a few people, and even if you don't believe per se, it always leaves a little bit of something in the back of your head: the astrology, the Tarot cards, the palm readings... the results can be pretty tempting.
And though I don't particularly believe in astrology, I also can't help but to agree with the characteristics that are associated with my sign: eager, impulsive, enthusiastic, optimistic, and "doesn't like to be bored." So that's why when I started feeling lonely and bored at a party last night, I knew that I had to use my Aries-ness to turn the situation around in my favor. Better yet, I knew that I had to you astrology to bring the attention back to where it belonged: with Aries. But before we talk about last night...
I'm no stranger in the mysticism circuit. My parents told me to stay away from Ouija boards, and the like. My dad told me to never deal with Tarot cards or palm reading or any of it, and their cautious fear of fortune-telling only made me think of it as a bit of a hoax. My brother Casey and I would go around the house mimicking Miss Cleo, announcing You're a Libra, aren't ya, darlin?! at every chance we got, and when she was brought up on charges of fraud and deceptive advertising, Casey and I were a little sad. Later on, I got my "relationship Tarot card reading" with a friend, so it was only a matter of time before I had to take the cards into my own hands.
While sitting in my freshman dorm, I was waiting on all my friends to come back from their Friday night plans. My night had ended especially early, so all I had was my scarf and a bunch of leftover paper from someone's abandoned art project in the lobby. So with nothing else to do, I borrowed a marker and scissors from a resident and I took the stars into my own hands. In a matter of minutes, I had transformed: I was Swami Justin. I wrapped my scarf around my head and arranged the cards on a small table in the lobby. As people began to walk in, I'd startle them with my forced Mediterranean accent, Oh darlin, you want your cards read, don't ya? It may have been in boredom or possibly just that inkling of curiosity we talked about earlier, but very few people could resist getting their cards read by the Swami. For my first attempt at channeling the future, I kept it pretty basic, with most cards being more of a humor piece than an actual Tarot card symbol. People loved it, and after three hours of disparaging cards referencing people that lived in our building, I hung up my turban and Mediterranean accent and called it a day. Even with my faux cards and ridiculous readings, I knew that my power with the unknown... well, it was too strong.
The swami within had been hibernating for almost five years, and then last night, he reared his ugly, mystical head. My roommates and I decided to go to our friend's house for a birthday party. I had trepidations about going before the weekend even came. I can usually tell when I will be annoyed with a situation before it even happens--we'll just include it in my psychic powers. And it wasn't long into the party that exactly that happened. After a couple rounds of shots and two different renditions of Rick Springfield's Jessie's Girl, everyone started to couple off. Being the self-indulgent person I am, by the time I realized that most everyone was missing, my pickings were slim. I eventually settled on someone who had adamantly protested, and failed, for everyone to go to "da club." After talking for a bit, mostly about her, I said I'd love to hang out with her sometime, and then she got really nervous and apologized a lot. Then as we walked downstairs, we had passed everyone who had been missing, and she told them about how awkward it felt for me to ask her out: a common obstacle that I imagine must be incredibly taxing for her.
I had lost control. The party was quickly spinning out of my social hands. Both of my roommates had disappeared into the night with their lady-friends, and that just left me, a pack of cigarettes, the girl who had become blatantly forlorn at the concept of us hanging out in the daylight, and a feeling... a feeling to change, or rather predict, the future.  I just had to wait. I knew that if I could bide my time, someone would come back downstairs, parched from all the necking and alcohol intake; they would need water, and I would pounce. So when someone walked onto the back porch with his lady friend, I knew I had found my target. Somehow, the conversation had turned to reading palms, and lady friend said, I've always wanted to get my palm read. I felt the Swami begin to take over, but I couldn't stop him. He announced, I can read palms.
After a couple minutes of reasoning as to why I read palms, including a story about how my dad's untimely death was predicted by a palm reader (for the record, I'm pretty sure my dad was sitting at home last night having a beer. I called him today, you know, to keep karma in check), I had finally convinced her that my powers were as real as any other psychic in the world. She asked me to read her palm, so I snatched her hand and held it in my own, softly caressing her palm while I tried to read her "energy." She watched attentively as I traced the wrinkles in her hand, only able to remember that the line from the base of the thumb to the pointer finger is called the "life line." I began to tell her about her life, coming up with the greatest generalizations that I could. I told her that she would have two marriages, one short, the other long, which was a line directly pulled from the book Eat, Pray, Love. Thanks, Ketut. Then, it happened. I traced her life line up and told her that it begins to fade toward the end, and the end of her life would be gradual, not sudden. Death obviously made Lady Friend nervous, and she said, Will I get sick? I responded, I don't know. And she followed with, Am I going to get Alzheimer's? And by this time, I was dizzy from all the power... I couldn't comprehend how this girl was hanging on my every word, so I simply responded, Yes. She jerked her hand away and started to become visibly upset... not with me, but with the damning future that her palm had given her. She looked at her hand as if it had just slapped her in the face. Damn the future! Damn that hand.
As she became more upset, I worried that the jig was up. Someone was going to do me in, I just knew it. Enough people had shown up at this point that someone was going to do me in, so I just got quiet and waited for my inevitable fall. When people asked her what was wrong, she said, He figured it out! He read my palm, and now I'm going to have Alzheimers! I closed my eyes, waiting on someone to put me in my place when a girl walked up and said, I can't believe you can do it! Read my palm! And then I began going to from hand to hand, tracing lines and making up names like, "The Relationship Line," and "The Future Line." I had done it--goal achieved. I may have not gotten my mouth on anyone else's last night, but before the night was over, almost everyone was waiting for the next reading from my lips. The light was mine. My roommate walked up and said, If you can read palms, read mine. I could see the look in his eye, twinkling with a maliciousness that the other party guests didn't have. So I jerked his hand into mine, quickly ran my finger across his palm and said, Looks like you're going to die. Probably at 60. Sorry. Nothing could bring me down--I was simply a psychic, floating among the constellations at that point.
To finish off my astrological high, I texted as many friends from home as I could remember to let them know that the Swami had been resurrected with greater force than ever before... but just as fast as he appeared, he went into hiding again. I don't know when he will appear again, or where... maybe in the tea leaves, or through some kind of new medium, hopefully having to do with food. I can't say exactly where the power comes from, but I know that it's strong, and most of all, it brings the room's attention back to me. But honestly, it didn't take a psychic to see that that's what the future held.

It Don't Matter If You're Black or White

I ran down to the bank in Chinatown so that I could grab my rent money for the month... nineteen days overdue, but what can you do? Living in DC has made me nearly blind, as people are nothing more than obstacles on the sidewalk that I'm trying to dodge while getting to my destination as quickly as possible. I rounded corner, passing under the Chinatown gate, and I always take a minute to look up at it: it's design is so ornate and colorful--nothing like the rest of the city. About a block down, I walked into the BB&T, wiping my face of the 99 degree sweat from outside.
As I stood in line, I was texting my roommate, begging him and his friend to come have lunch with me because no one came into work today, and then it happened. This man turned around and asked me, "What's it like to walk into the bank and not be profiled?" I looked up and there he stood, an African-American, about my height and approximately 300 pounds. I knew what he said, but I wanted to make sure. "Excuse me?" So, he repeated the question, and I couldn't come up with any kind of answer. I felt my stomach drop to my shoes. I looked to the teller ahead for some kind of answer, and she just shook her head at me. She, too, was African American. I looked around, and there wasn't a single other white person in the entire bank; it was as if the public statement of white America had suddenly been laid on my shoulders. As someone in the public relations industry, I assumed that I would be able to handle such a feat, but instead, I broke the most important rule of the trade. I had nothing to say, so I just stared.
He decided to continue without me, "I walk into this bank, and they act like I'm going to rob the place. Last week, I brought a 6,000 check in here, and they looked at me like I had stolen it. They act like they're scared of me." I glanced at the bank teller as she closed her eyes, "It's not right, man." I looked at him and felt my mouth drying out. The television in the corner was reporting on the Trayvon Martin case when I responded, "I agree. It's not right. I hope that one day we live in a world where it's not this way." He stared at me like what I had said was not enough, like there should be something else more qualifying in my words. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I know what racism looks like. I've seen women back home in Tennessee clutch their purses as a suited black man walks into a restaurant. I get it; I know that it's real. But for me, it's not how I live my life. I never thought he was going to rob the bank. I barely even noticed he was standing there. Before I proceeded to the next teller, I looked at him and said, "I'm so sorry," but I wasn't sure what for. Apologizing for the racism of white people when it didn't seem clear that there had been any racism exacted? Apologizing for privilege I never asked for?
And the privilege is complicated because it only carries over until something else takes precedence. Today, I'm wearing a bright purple polo, with matching Chuck Taylors. My voice opened up to the teller to reveal the slightly high-pitch tone that didn't quite fully mature through puberty. My usual demeanor, enthusiastic, is ever present, and on days like this: with the matching outfits and the voice and the demeanor, it's easy to assume the stereotype--he's a homosexual. It's a common assumption I've dealt with my whole life, and one that has, at times, had an effect on the way I was treated. But Abu at BB&T didn't seem to take offense, nor did he seem to offer support or condolences. He simply gave me my rent money, and I left on my way. But this morning, when I stopped to grab a pack of cigarettes, I walked up the counter smiling, and the cashier looked me up and down and pursed her lips together. Afterward, she barely made eye contact. Could I assume what she was thinking? Sure. Will I ever know for certain? No.
I turned on my computer once I had gotten back to my office, and Facebook was pulled up. A friend had posted an article entitled, "What Should Trayvon Martin Have Done?" And my retort to that would be, "what should any of us do?" It's complicated and complex and nearly depressing if you think about it too much. I had this unconscious flow of emotion as this man asked me about my privilege at the bank. It automatically began with guilt, though I had done nothing wrong. I wanted to offer some kind of resolution or apology, without proper evidence that an infraction had been committed. And then it turned to nervousness, similar to when an entire class gets in trouble for one student's actions. I know that there's wrong in the world, but it was me who was having to provide an answer for it. And then, it turned to a confusing mixture of sadness and anger. The anger stems from the fact that someone can look at me and see exactly what he or she wants to see; in this case, a tall, white man. It was assumed from those three identifiers that I had never been profiled. Not for my socioeconomic status or religion or sexuality. It was assumed that I was living the white man's fantasy. But the sadness is even worse because it's the startling realization that the progress we're making toward equality is incredibly slow. We spend so much of our time comparing our circumstances to one another that we get lost in the semantics. We fail to recognize that not a single one of us should take importance over the other.
I wish I had an answer for that man, because other than his painfully abrupt sociological discourse in line at the bank, he seemed like a very nice guy. I wish I had an answer for the Trayvon Martin case, a nauseatingly complex case full of details we've overlooked in pursuit of some kind of racial reasoning. I wish that we didn't judge people based on their race or gender or sexuality or religion or anything else. There's a lot of things I wish for the world because I believe we would better for it. Instead, I just do what I can. As I entered my building, I could feel someone behind me, so I walked in first, held the door for him or her, and closed my eyes. Why? Because it shouldn't matter who you were doing it for; it's a person, and that's reason enough.

One Year Out

Last night, I went on a date that I, honestly, had invested way too much in before it even happened. We had been talking via text for about three days, and--if I can be candid--I thought this was going to be one that I took home to the parents. Essentially, I was Ginnifer Goodwin in He's Just Not That Into You, and it played out exactly how the movie title reads: not. that. into. you. After the date, we had a brief discussion about how I wasn't relationship material, and then I came home and drank a bottle of wine... because that's how you handle rejection. I had never done this on a date before... putting that much pressure on a first meeting. I blame my recent trip home, where I met all my friends from home who are either married, engaged, or about to be engaged: going to Tennessee is essentially the equivalent of visiting a group of 16 year old traditional Indian girls... everyone is getting married off. But, as I was consuming my entire bottle of 3.99 wine on a Saturday night, I thought to myself, What is your life? Look at your decisions. And then I was hungover for work, and that's never cool.

It's been 14 months since I graduated undergrad, 13 months since I started this blog, 11 months since I moved to Washington D.C., and 12 minutes since I last ate an entire sleeve of Oreos. Not to be cliche, but time goes by incredibly fast. I'm not saying that I feel like the past year has aged me immensely, but I will say that I saw a guy in front of me at 7-11 the other day with a pint of Ben and Jerry's "Strawberry Shortcake" and a Coke Zero and thought to myself, "Damn. That looks like a good night. I wonder if he'd want to be friends." The past year has been exhausting, and I had a ton of people tell me that it would be the hardest year of my life that I've faced thus far, and it was.
But there's a caveat to that--it absolutely was the most trying 365 days I've faced in my life, and in the same breath, it was also the most amazing days that I've ever seen. I suppose in comparison to a lot of people I went to school with, the journey that I've taken has been a little bit different. I decided to move to a new place with new people, and with all of that being said--it hasn't gone half bad. On the outside, it looks pretty good, and by most standards, I'm doing okay for a 23 year old: good job, decent friends, solid school record... but below the surface, there's all these questions and issues that you can't know about--the things that we just don't talk about.
But this is not a place where we keep secrets: we established that a year ago. This is a place I come to share with the rest of the world all the things that make us nervous and scared and a little embarrassed. In public relations, we're told about the value of the infographic: a way of conveying data to people that makes them more receptive to actually taking it in. So after I found out that I would be alone at home tonight because my roommates had actual dates, I started an infographic at work. Even I need a picture to describe what's going on in my life. So I jumped in and reflected on 2013, because tackling the entire past year was just too hard for my heart to handle. This is what I found.

And what we can learn from this graph, other than the fact that I turn to pizza when I'm lonely, and that I am a raging chain smoker/wino, is that we shouldn't be ashamed of the things that make us a little less than perfect. The dates and the pizza and the singing and the wine: well, it makes us human. I once thought that I knew exactly what my life would look like once I was at this age, and it doesn't look like that at all. Life is a little bit of a complexity: it can be a tragedy or a comedy, all depending on the way that you look at it. A year ago, if you asked me how I would feel about living with three sports buffs, remaining single, and ordering approximately two Dominos pizzas a week... I probably would have been pretty sad about it. But when you put it in perspective, it's a pretty funny life--mostly because it's the last thing I would have planned.

I think we all try and prepare for things so that we can do our best at outsmarting life. We follow an unspoken syllabus because we think that's what will make us happy. I see it done every day: by people back home, by people in DC, by people everywhere really. But it's pointless because your life is yours, and if you want to go and get a pint of Ben and Jerry's with a Diet Coke... well then damn it, you should. And it shouldn't matter that it makes you feel old or lame or socially awkward because that's your life, and honestly... no one else has any more idea of what's going on than you do. So, for 

you seven year olds that read my blog, my advice is to plan your future very loosely. Know where you're going, but don't Google Maps the directions or anything... because inevitably, you're going to miss a turn or take the exit two before the one you were supposed to take. And for everyone else, myself included, we know the big secret to life: there's absolutely no controlling it, and even more than that, there's absolutely no stopping it. Because very similarly to my car, when you have it figured it out and fixed, something else is inevitably going to break down. And that's okay because we're a resilient species. We do what it takes to make things work.

So, since I've started this blog tonight, I'm about four beers deep, a couple cigarettes in, and about to pee on myself because I haven't taken a bathroom break. It's been almost a month since I submitted my last entry, and even though it's almost 3:00am, and I'm about to pee on myself--there's a satisfaction that comes with writing another post. It's an idea that's sat in my head for weeks, and originally, I anticipated that it would be filled with wisdom and insight, when in reality--it was more of a display of the embarrassing things I do on a daily and/or monthly basis. But that's the point: no one is wise. This world isn't particularly about being smart--it's partially about luck and partially about determination. You have to be at the right place at the right time, but most of all, you have to be determined enough to keep going so that you eventually hit that string of luck. And in the mean time, you can always run down to 7-11 for a bottle of wine.