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Mon | October 30, 2006
la belle au bois dormant
PUKE. I can't believe I watched this while growing up.
YouTube - Snow White - I'm Wishing/One Song (French)
I remember this one even better. C'est comme la Blanche Neige et les sept nains. Une fille est seule, et un mec la trouve.
Sleeping Beauty (French) Once Upon a Dream
Web/Tech | Posted by Lily at 08:58 AM
Fri | October 27, 2006
si j'avais un travail
If I worked full time I'd tear myself out of bed at the crack of dawn to the tune of alarms. I'd feel dizzy while I dressed, and in the winter my clothes would be cold. I'd wear mostly dress pants and I'd have a dry cleaning bill. And a monthly train pass bill, and lunch, and possibly dinner- I'd have so many expenses my salary would probably hardly cover it. I'd sit in the office all day and either not talk or engage in small talk. The co-workers would talk about their breath mint tin collection. We'd never talk about life, love, writing, or the exploitation of minorities.
At home I do not have health care, or a sense of acceptance of myself. But I can bob up and down and sing Je vais prendre ta douleur! I have a beautiful view out the picture window, of trees. Behind the trees is the street and houses, but the trees mostly block that out. They are evergreen but in the background the deciduous are reddening. On my desk I have my applejack MLP and my orange spice candle. I have the speaker on, or I have my huge padded headphones. I have my yoga mat, so I can do situps whenever I feel like it. I can go for a walk. I get up at noon.
journal | Posted by Lily at 01:49 PM
Thu | October 26, 2006
Yahoo Answers
Yahoo! Answers – Get answers, ask questions, find information - Home
It's now been eight days since I joined Yahoo Answers on Wednesday at around 1 am. I had watched that movie on television, and was looking for the title, and then the ending. Actually I joined earlier, over the summer. But then dropped it after two questions, and now picked it up again and really started looking into it. I think I have wasted a lot of time, like maybe twenty hours' worth, over the past week. Seriously. But I try not to be too hard on myself-- to think of it as a modern web experience, rather than beat myself over the head with it like I have been doing. I really need to stop though. Last night I was up til 4 am just reading people's stupid questions and more stupid answers.
The hooks of Yahoo Answers: a point system. This is something that Yelp, which I've recently also wasted tons of time on, doesn't have. Every day you log onto Yahoo Answers you get a point. You get two points for answering a question, one point for voting on a best answer, and ten points for being voted as the best answer. You spend five points if you want to ask a question. So basically for every thing you ask of people, you have to give two or three things in return. Some people don't care, they ask away and they have negative points. But not me. I have asked several questions and I've also answered many more to keep my balance up. In addition there are levels. I am only ten points from level 2. Then I will stop. Really.
Another hook: the fact that you aren't really doing anything, and yet have the illusion of doing something. Most of the time you are combing the beach for interesting questions, clicking on them and waiting the 2.5 seconds or whatever for the page to load. Not a lot of time but it adds up. Even moving the pointer over to the link, this is time. And most of your time on Yahoo Answers consists of this sort of activity. Then you are reading the full question and the answers. Most of the answers are basically the same. But there is something immediately addictive about reading seventeen variations on a theme. You aren't doing much new by reading each one. And yet there is the gradual progress of reading them. It's a bit OC (obsessive compulsive) I think. To reconsider something in seventeen repetitions. The hook is these very small pieces, this gradual progress.
Finally, most of the questions are things you have on your mind. Where should I eat in New York? And relationships questions. Friends. Television. Dating. Anything. It's all questions asked by people, and the fact is you do have a lot of the same questions on your mind as other people. What I like is that you get questions like Should I quit my job? Why don't I have friends like the ones I see on tv? that aren't "info" questions and yet these are some of the most compelling, and are more important than the ones asking for esoteric facts.
Actually the ultimate hook may be that my mind is naturally inclined towards questions, and focused on the unknown. Yahoo Answers plays towards some of my primary characteristics: the desire to know, for concrete signs of progress (a points system), and to communicate (with the real people asking and answering and reading). Also the organization of questions into categories [some of which are notably lacking (for example the "Dining Out" category is subdivided into countries, which is fine, but then only into the major cities of the U.S. So basically NJ is left out, and falls into the "other" category where you get a bunch of miscellaneous places. You could always do a search for NJ but it should have its own category.)] .
So I spent much of yesterday numbly playing Literati and reading people's questions. At least it took me down suddenly, instead of in a minor and insidious way, like Yahoo Mail does. I only check email once a day now because I realize it's such a waste of time. And I have three accounts to check so that's actually three times. Sometimes I do another round at night. But I try to keep it down whenever I can remember. Eventually I slip and end up checking it several times a day, but then catch myself and realize I'm doing nothing but emailing. So at least the effect of Yahoo Answers is obvious, and I know I need to get off this thing. Forums in general, or research, or anything where you are reading reviews or clicking for answers, for info, take a lot of time. They are all such time-wasters, better not to do any of them.
Plus the people up there aren't that bright. One look at the "sociology" category proves it. And the relationships category is swamped with children. They should really separate it into teens and adults. I can't really say I'm "learning" anything, but instead confirming or meditating on some of my thoughts, and realizing what I do have worked out. There is something beneficial about helping others, because thinking of how to explain it to them helps you sort it out for yourself. Most of the time, though, I am just reading about what people think of sushi.
Web/Tech | Posted by Lily at 05:10 PM
Tue | October 24, 2006
chiens mignons
Cute dogs: pomeranian, pomeranian chihuahua, pomeranian poodle, maltese poodle, maltese poodle + shih-tzu, peekapoo, japillon, japeke, bichon + shi-tzu = zuchon. I would like one of these dogs that is a ball of fur and has the air of a perpetual toddler. They have a lifespan of about fifteen years, so if I got one now I would have it til I was in my mid-forties. It seems better to grow old with a cute little dog, rather than with a cat. I like cats but they are not cute like these little dogs.
journal | Posted by Lily at 01:42 PM
Fri | October 20, 2006
here it comes...
Friday blues. Most people have Monday blues. I don't mind Monday. But Friday is like, what the hell am I doing, and why is everyone's life so fulfilled but mine, why don't I even have a real job, real friends, or a real boyfriend? And more importantly why am I incapable of having a real job? Why do I buckle at every obstacle?
Today I tried to check it by going to get sashimi for lunch and then futilely strolling the mall for a good place to sit and do writing exercises. (noted: the mall has no good places to sit and do writing exercises, except for the restaurant on the third floor of Bloomingdale's, which is guarded by a snobby man, who is behind not a podium, like at a normal restaurant, but behind an entire receiving counter, like at a hotel.) It tempered the misery a little, but I can still feel it coming.
Also, I'm sorta losing interest in French. I mean, I'm not a Francophile. I don't know why I'm learning yet another European language. I don't want to be a dabbler so I won't abandon it just yet, but I'm already on the way out. Unfortunately if I am feeling this way now, French may go the way of the Chekhov project.
journal | Posted by Lily at 05:55 PM
Wed | October 18, 2006
m'envies
A "what the hell am I watching" feature on televisions that tells you what you're watching. Like a button on your remote that you can push and it'll appear on the screen. That channel 15 thing that just scrolls the listings by, doesn't tell me what's on channel 10.
A website that lists how everything ends. especially movies that you're watching on television but know you shouldn't, and are only watching because you're hooked and want to see what happens at the end, and you finally tear yourself away from it, only to find that now you can't sleep and you feel scared, because in your head these people are still in this very precarious, unresolved situation.
envies | Posted by Lily at 03:02 AM
error in judgment
Dammit, I just watched two hours of television. 11:30 to 1:30. Mostly I was hooked on a haunting movie on channel ten about a woman artist, who happens to be Asian, and whether or not she is having an affair with the husband of her psychiatrist. The psychiatrist sent her patient to her husband who is an art curator but didn’t tell her he was her husband. Then she gets all worried because the artist is telling her that she has a relationship with this curator. She gets increasingly jealous and yet doesn’t confront either of them about it. She doesn’t know whether what the Asian girl is saying is true or a fantasy and hires a private investigator to spy on them, and he doesn’t find anything. In the last half hour it turns out that she was worried about the wrong person because her husband has a past as a murderer, and then I turned it off. It was really spooky and is haunting me. But then again I am easily haunted, and hooked, by any soundtrack with a soft gooey melody. I had to tear myself away from it at 1:30 because it was clearly a waste of time. I think it started at midnight. But then I wound up looking on the internet for a summary of the movie, with a spoiler of the ending, which I didn’t find. I couldn’t even find the title of the movie, despite searching imdb and google with “gallery immanuel hotel restaurant new york movie toni eric cheating summary artist asian –roth” Finally I caved in and turned it back on in time to view the end of the credits. At the very end they showed the title of the movie. Now I am like, really nervous, in a nightmarish mood, all from this movie. I am really weak-minded in a lot of ways, I can’t even handle television. Something fell in the kitchen just now and I am even more spooked. Then the alarm clock beeped. Every noise, even that random click (what the hell was that?!) scares the hell out of me.
Livres, films, TV | Posted by Lily at 02:48 AM
Mon | October 16, 2006
m'envies
someone to tell me which literary magazines are good
and:
more friends, better friends, fewer problems, more successes, daily hugs, better productivity, plans for the weekend, the feeling that I will have a nice weekend, which would get me through the week, instead of the doubt that anything will come through, which is supported by precedent; optimism, a daily routine, to speak french, fewer crappy friends, more AIM buddies, fewer AIM updates, a sense of direction, knowing which end is up, less wasting time, more consistency, a good writers group, or two, or three, stability, a set of friends like in sex and the city- stable, loyal- or a disillusionment of that myth, so that I no longer wish for it; more money, or not feeling that I am going to run out of money, as soon as I spend it; better eating habits; to fit into my pants again; not necessarily fewer problems, but more successes; a better haircut; fewer split ends; less oversleeping, which also probably makes me fat; straighter teeth, reduced overbite; no dark circles under my eyes, symmetrical eyebrows; or maybe not that; a boyfriend, one that I am sincere about, for once, or someone to date; a good day, a good week, better benchmark feedbacks, less competition and insidiousness, or better ability to deal with it, because right now, any amount of it is immediately toxic.
envies | Posted by Lily at 11:54 AM
les magazines
The advice I received over a year ago, last last summer, was to go to the bookstore, read all the literary magazines, repeat, until I knew what they were all about, and then and only then, send submissions. However it has been a year and I have not done that, I figure I never will, even though I keep telling myself to. Falling short of that, I have been hoping to meet someone who knows one magazine from another, who could give me a clue or two. But I don't think that'll happen either. So I just submitted a story, "The Fish," to this magazine Juked. I don't know if it's the best magazine I could get published in, but it seems to "fit" more or less. Maybe if they reject me I will send it somewhere else. But I don't think so. I don't know of any other magazines. I don't read them, any of them. I said this already but I'm thinking about it again. I don't think there's any way to get me to read them, and definitely not all of them at once, and I think the advice given me was bad. Impractical. I think I'll probably only read magazines if I'm published in them, a bit of a catch 22 since I am not allowed to be published in them until I've read them. But if I forget about that part of the deal, there is a way into this loop.
Écriture | Posted by Lily at 11:03 AM
Sat | October 14, 2006
Petite Abeille
Je vais ici demain pour dîner. Should be fun, albeit expensive. I figure I can try it once, as long as it doesn't become a habit. I definitely draw the line at around $15 for entrees...
More French places:
Le Gamin
Mon professeur de français dit qu'il va ici.
A.O.C.
This is around the corner from the village apartment where I dog-sit/ house sit.
Chez Brigitte, 77 Greenwich Av. by 7th Ave, btw W. 11th St. and Bank St. Bizarrely they don't have a website. But this is close enough in the village that I could stop by/ find it without too much effort.
Forbidden City This isn't French, but it's a restaurant I found tonight and it has a cool website. That's about where the coolness stops, I think.
liens | Posted by Lily at 12:23 AM | comment
Lily said on Dec 29, 06 02:22 PM:
Petite Abeille near Union Square clocked in at $45 a person, but it was fun, to go to, once, and perhaps I could return, and just get dessert. Joy and I split a calamari appetizer (ehh) and I had raspberry beer (tasted like fruit juice + beer, expensive) and mussels, while she had a salade nicoise and peach beer, and then we split a crème brulée for dessert. The waiters were two lanky guys, un brun, un blond, et ils étaient assez gentils. Charles m'a dit que les Belges étaient tocards, et moi je pense que c'est vrai. Mais tocards mignons et sympas. Il n'y avait personne d'autre intéressant là. Le décor était mignon mais un peu cliché. It catered to Americans, with its posters of Tin-Tin being held up by cowboys. A bit obsequious perhaps.
Lily said on Dec 29, 06 02:22 PM:
Resto Leon
351 East 12th Street btw 1st and 2nd
Je suis allé ici avec Eric depuis un an.
Thu | October 12, 2006
des jours fériés que je ne vais pas célébrer
I don't really like this time of year, because although I enjoy wearing sweaters, it is holiday season. Halloween, Thanksgiving and my birthday, Christmas, New Years, Chinese New Years, Valentines. Now is the time all these holidays will come up one after another and I won't be celebrating any of them properly. Christmas I don't really mind missing, in fact it doesn't make sense for me to celebrate it and I shouldn't. I am kind of against Thanksgiving as well, because it represents colonialism.
But the others I support, and I probably won't be doing anything as cool as what I see on tv, which is depressing. Last year for Halloween I was a jedi, and went to a sparsely attended party at Eric's friend Will's. I also went to a party at Midori's apartment in the Village. Which was better and I should have stayed there just a while longer. I don't remember what I did for Thanksgiving and I'm pretty sure I didn't do anything for my birthday, and for Christmas the only celebration I had was the Kaplan holiday party. For New Years I hung out with Janica at Seth's friend's apartment, and Valentines I was with Josh. That was fun for the sushi part and not the rest.
The sad thing is that I'm grateful I had any plans at all for these holidays last year. Like, I didn't meet Josh until a few weeks before Valentines, and New Years only happened because Seth happened to be visiting NJ. I doubt I'll find my way over to the Kaps party, and even if I did, I'm not sure whom I'd hang out with. Maybe I'd find Ray and catch up with him. And my birthday, last year I recall trying to get a group together, realizing that I didn't have a cohesive group of friends, and giving up. Chrissa is around now so maybe we'll do something. I kind of feel like we did something last year but I have no idea what. This year I'm pretty sure I'm not going to try, for any of these holidays. Especially since I now view them as one bloc of "holiday season" and that way, it seems insurmountable. So I give up now, on all of them. I am just going to wait them out.
It will be half a year before they're all over, and then after Valentines, this particular reason to feel crappy kind of goes away for several months, only to return again the next year.
journal | Posted by Lily at 10:52 AM
Wed | October 11, 2006
l'évaluation
Well I had my second post-observation meeting last night, or "meeting," since I wound up just talking to her on the phone for a few minutes, since she couldn't actually make it to meet me. I didn't even bill them for it because I was like, whatever. There was something fishy going on, because Bryan is always hanging about. or maybe that's a coincidence. But at any rate something fishy was going on because Kiley I think initially had a very positive review and then when I talked to her it was just normal, and the weirdest thing she said was that she was pleased with all the teachers at the Maplewood location. I mean how can she say that all four teachers were great, because I know that Pam is perpetually late, and even from the briefiest peek at her classroom it's immediately evident that her kids want to die, and I overheard one of them lamenting that he wasn't learning anything. And the other girl, whatever her name is, is obviously a newbie, I mean how can she be evaluated the same way. They may even have better evaluations than mine. Last night I looked at this random guy Brian's sheet, because he happened to be there, and I happened to be quick enough on my feet (for once) to ask him for it, which he readily gave me, in all good will, and he got better marks than I did, and he's a newbie. I mean it really doesn't matter what he got, it only matters what I got, really, but now I know that they aren't grading everyone that harshly. I never know what's going on, I haven't understood grades since the middle of high school, when I was disabused of the notion that grades were an objective measure of achievement. I never argued about grades in college when I got less than what someone who knew less than me did. I watched people get A's and let it all go until finally I had absolutely no spirit left and took all my classes S/NC. All it taught me is that I can't win, and I don't fight for the top spot, I just try to nurse my wounds and try to get over it.
And I just wonder because she said she was talking to her boss beforehand. About what? I don't even know whom she reports to. Dave, I think. She asked me if I had any questions and I didn't have any. I should have thought of something on the spot, just to keep the conversation going, and maybe she would have revealed something else. But as it were I didn't learn much at all, and let it all go, let them have their way, however they wanted to evaluate me. It's all a vicious cycle because the more I let that happen, and I always have, on previous evaluations also, the more it becomes a habit and policy of theirs. I don't understand it, which is the worst part, is that I don't understand why.
journal | Posted by Lily at 09:58 AM
Tue | October 10, 2006
nouveau réfrigérateur
We just got a new fridge. The amigos who moved it in were in a big rush. I felt bad for them because they were so nice, and the leader was handsome too. Curly hair, and taller proportions than his homey. They were clearly under pressure to work really fast. As soon as he finished he called a number from the land line and punched in some numbers. He moved the new fridge in and the old one out in under ten minutes from the time the truck stopped in front of the house. His name is Marco, it says so on the card. I kind of wish I could do something to help... but there is nothing. If he wants a better working situation he will have to work it out for himself. I dislike America so much.
journal | Posted by Lily at 10:07 AM
Mon | October 09, 2006
ce soir
Josh signed off one second after I IM'd him. Everyone signed off. Class sucked and I felt crappy. Like I am only allowed to have one good day and then everything turns crappy again. No one is online and no one picked up the phone. Or hardly anyone. I am not going to call people anymore when I am in a crappy mood. It's a bad habit. It only feeds the vicious cycle because then you feel worse when people don't have time to talk to you, or you don't have anyone to call and realize how few friends you have. I am not going to use my cell phone anymore and I am going to stop using AIM. I played chuzzle, that game I just started playing a few days ago, and got to level 12. But didn't feel any better and still felt horrible. Today was unproductive looking back on it and I can tell this whole week is going to be crappy. I give up on everything, I really do. Even this writer thing, who am I kidding. It's a false sense of purpose is what it is. And without it, I am even more miserable. That's great, just when I thought I couldn't feel worse, I had to go and think about that. Now I am just going to stare at my empty buddy list.
journal | Posted by Lily at 11:25 PM
College Board AP World Languages Program
AP Central - AP Chinese Language and Culture Course Home Page
AP Chinese will be offered for the first time this fall. Their current offerings (French, Spanish, German and Latin) are euro-centric, and AP Chinese is part of the World Languages initiative to offer a greater diversity of languages (namely Italian, Japanese, Chinese, and Russian).
It seems like a step in the right direction, but from my second-degree impressions of the program, I'm not sure how much is really getting done. The College Board got a lot of money from the Chinese government in support of the program (in fact I think it's entirely funded by them) and yet I don't really see it happening. My mom is one of the most qualified people who went to their workshops and she's closer than anyone to actually being a high school Chinese teacher, and yet she isn't starting a new job anytime soon.
Also, it's kind of annoying how far Hanban, the Office of Chinese Language Council International of the Ministry of Education in China, is willing to bend over backwards for the College Board. Their latest offering is Chinese teachers who will work for free. That's right, free. So it costs the American school nothing, Hanban gives this teacher from China a stipend (i.e., next to nothing), and a Chinese person drops everything to go teach Chinese to ungrateful American children (yet another infuriating immigrant story).
The problem is that Americans don't get enough grief for being the monolingual assholes they are. If they were treated like idiots for only knowing English, then they'd feel more obligated to change. At a certain point, languages did become cool (or maybe they always were) but they're still treated as a novelty, as something rare and cool, instead of requisite.
liens | Posted by Lily at 11:19 AM
Sun | October 08, 2006
Le festival du New Yorker
I went to hear TC Boyle read at the New Yorker festival. It was kind of like the PEN crowd-- affluent, late middle-aged, complacent. That's what they get for charging twenty dollars for a reading and scheduling it at 9:30 on a Friday night. Or maybe they get that no matter what. The audience sat in the center of the room-- a warehouse turned dance studio, black all around with a small, perhaps makeshift stage in front-- in a block of fold-up chairs with a lot of space on all sides. I had a momentary inclination to sit in the back, where there were two rows of completely open seats, so as not to disturb anyone. Not that it had started or anything. Anyway I got over that and walked up a little more and sure enough found a single spot the third seat in, from the fifth row. Or I didn’t count the rows, but that’s where I guess I was.
The roly-poly in front of me examined her purse with her husband, discussing its features, its clasps. Later in the reading, when I laughed at one too many lines from Mr. Boyle’s story, she shifted, did that quarter turn thing, that means, stop having fun, it's not allowed. And I wasn't even having that much fun but she was having less, or none, is the point. I didn't listen to her, I've outgrown listening to everyone else, and it's not even like I was laughing, loud, or often. In fact I was surprised she heard me. Immediately after the reading she said I'm about ready to go to her husband, but they stayed for the Q&A, probably because no one else got up.
I'm glad I went, because he was cool, and I just wanted to hug him, is all. I just wanted to hug him and be like you're so cool and I love you, and I'm sorry you had to read to these awful people who do nothing but dine out and purchase silk scarves. He was nice, though, to all of them, and didn't reveal any aversion, unlike Andrea Lee, who basically said that readings were a chore. It's like way to push away everyone who just came to see you. I wish I had a question for him, but I hadn't thought about it and I didn't think of any on the spot. I'm not really good at asking questions at readings. I should practice, or something, because it's much better to interact on some level.
journal | Posted by Lily at 03:17 PM
Sat | October 07, 2006
nanowrimo
I have no idea what I will write about.
Écriture | Posted by Lily at 11:58 PM
Fri | October 06, 2006
je suis de mauvaise humeur
In a rotten mood because I got evaluated, or rather, I had a post-observation meeting last night. I always agree, I never argue, but then I go off and sulk over it by myself. He didn't say anything really negative, but the official record-- my evaluation, on that sheet, was not so hot.
Also I have inadvertently antagonized Bryan, the most competitive person at EHKC, by taking on his tutoring student, whom I didn't know was his, or I would not have taken her, just to avoid the conflict. He can't let anyone win anything, he wants it all for himself, and he won't be happy until that's the case.
Sigh, and the person who evaluated me was just another teacher, and not even a better one, from the glimpses I've gotten from walking by his classroom. I can only assume he was impartial, but it's in his best interest to rate me on the low side because it makes him look better.
I also got observed (by someone else) on Wednesday. Apparently it's evaluation season at EH Kaps. I think that location was under question. Or something. Perhaps I will find out when I go to that post-observation meeting.
journal | Posted by Lily at 02:30 PM
Mon | October 02, 2006
le problème avec être malheureuse...
is that I buy stuff. Not these shoes, but I might have bought these shoes, which would have been completely wrong, since it is completely out of my price range, but I might have, and then that would have been bad.... instead I bought some stuff on Amazon France
journal | Posted by Lily at 02:25 PM
J'ai besoin...
A job therapist
More friends
To have fun on weekends
More people on AIM
Writing fun
Writing friends
Daily hugs
Make that, twice-daily, at least
journal | Posted by Lily at 02:09 PM
sigh...
Crappy weekend. Not awful, but I hardly saw anyone. I need to see people, in a productive, fulfilling way. Maybe I need to make things like classes more fulfilling. But really I think I just need to go out more, for fun. Easier said than done. I was busy the whole time so in that sense the weekend was productive. It was a good weekend, productivity wise, because I went to the NYPL on Saturday and wrote some stuff. But it's completely against my nature to spend weekend after weekend essentially alone, and having no fun. Also I need to find a way to more clearly differentiate between fact and fiction on here.
Last night I bought tickets to the New Yorker festival, which were kind of a rip off, because it's just a reading. I mean you can get those for free at Barnes and Noble and just about everywhere. But anyway so I will have something to do on Friday. I wonder if I will be the only one there by myself.
journal | Posted by Lily at 11:43 AM
Sun | October 01, 2006
L'Enfant dans le Metro
I crave small children. I long for them— their toodler proportions, that make them seem like different creatures entirely, like a species of small people. Their quick movements, so many rapid steps taken to traverse all of ten feet. Their chirpy voices, and the fact that they can be enveloped entirely in one’s arms. I wish only to hug one, and kiss it on the cheek—to suction for an instant the luminous infantile flesh.
I look for them at all places—even the somber reading room at the library. Mostly I see adults, and their sagging visages: aged, wrinkled, crumbling, mottled, motley. If I do see children, their parents or nannies are leading them along. One must always see at least one adult.
When I do see a child, I keep an eye on it. And on its surroundings, so that if some danger is creeping close I will be ready to protect it. Often one may make eye contact, and say hello! in that joyful tone used for babies. Sometimes they say hello back. Sometimes they simply stare- which is good as well, because those dilated black pupils are adorable. Sometimes they look away, sometimes they look through you.
Perhaps I crave cuteness. For that woman over there, her need for cuteness manifests itself in a Hawaiian punch-colored turtleneck and a ceramic flower barrette pinned askew above her forehead. I wear dusty sage corduroys, a navy business casual shirt, striped as fine as the wales on my cords, and a navy sweater cardigan. I am not wearing cute things, unless you count my bag, a flowered tote with buttons sewn all over it.
Last Sunday night I got on the A train at 125th Street and I spotted one, standing on the orange seat, next to his father. Of course I sat next to the child.
"Tha train dosa stop there," he gargled, pointing outside the window.
"Yes," I said.
"The train doan stop there!"
"That's right," I said, looking at the tracks.
"The train doan stop there."
"The train doesn't stop there?" I asked.
"The train doesn't stop there."
"That’s right," I said.
The train doesn't stop there! he said at every stop, and I encouraged him, saying yes every time, even though it might annoy the others. I was building something with him, with every exchange. What was the meaning, to him, of that utterance? He said it whether there was a train on the platform or not.
He turned to me, away from the window. He grasped at one of the buttons on my bag, a tote from Old Navy, the fabric already broken in when I bought it, and rendered even rattier from my own use. I had sewn buttons on it- buttons from a small red jar, that I had found in my mother's sewing kit- buttons from "ne shao de su ho." (when you were little) that "ne kuh ee deow diao (you can throw away)."
"No!" I gasped, and shortly thereafter purchased the bag with these buttons in mind.
Those tiny hands grasped at one of these now.
"That's a button," I said.
"Thasa buhuhn."
"That's a button."
"Thasa button."
Since I had sewn many buttons on the bag, the activity repeated itself naturally. He grasped each one in turn.
"Here's a button," I said, showing the snap on my cardigan. And then suddenly I had what I wanted. He was close, and when the train shook and he lost his balance, he fell into my arms. His father pulled him up immediately. Then we resumed the buttons lesson. He attempted to snap them but he was not quite coordinated, nor strong, enough; I snapped them for him. He liked the sound, was fascinated by the snapping. He waited for me to snap them shut and then he pulled them apart, with all his effort, as soon as I was done.
Jay Street. "I'm getting off here," I said to the father. And I said goodbye to the boy but there was no time to get one in return. I missed him immediately, wished that I could have kissed him, have taken him with me, to cuddle with like a teddy bear as I fell asleep.