Constellation

I don't need you to complete me, because I am not comprised of individual parts that can be removed and reassembled at will. I am a whole entity, an existing body that isn't missing any vital piece. You do not hold the final piece of the puzzle, for I am not a fragile, irregularly shaped hole without you.

I am a mass of stars that shines with its own intensity, I burn with my own incandescence and I am bright even without you. But I need you. I need you to point out the constellations within me, to show me what's beautiful in me, that which even I do not see. I need you to make sense of the mess that I can be, the mess that another would see, but no, not you. You make sense of the senseless and with your fingers, you trace beautiful patterns of warriors and heroes. You are not another star that completes me, you have to be more than that - you have to be the one that truly sees me.

My Hatred of New Year's Eve (A Loony-Cuckoo's Rant)

We place so much emphasis on celebrating those last few moments of a year. That last final day is so important, because this year will never come again. The past is behind us, let us look forward into this brand new year that we have yet to screw up! A fresh slate, finally, the stink of 2011 was getting unbearable to be around. 

But what makes the 31st of December that magical? If the Mayans had decided to finish the Calendar a day early, or to give February a few extra days (those stingy bastards), the New Year's would come a day later, or a day early. This essentially makes celebrating New Year's Eve completely arbitrary, because a calendar is based on the assumption that one can effectively quantify time. Time isn't a moving river, flowing on a linear scale, as people would have you believe. Clocks give us 24 hours in a day, and broken down into a second with every tick. But isn't the measure of a "second" really man-made? How can we define time as a ticking, moving entity when it has existed long before our planet has? Time isn't the thing that is passing, we are. Time doesn't exist in clocks or calenders, time exists in the growth of a child, in the wrinkles of a grandmother, in the changing leaves of a tree. We cannot celebrate the end of a cycle of "time", because it has never moved to begin with. As William Faulkner said, "Time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stop does time come to life."

To me, the belief in the the flow of time is the same as believing in religion. The Bible and the clock, both handiwork of men, created to explain what we did not understand. You might argue that the existence of day and night time surely means that time has to be moving in order for there to be a difference in the amount of time we receive sunlight. But the difference between day and night, of course, is simply caused by the rotation of the Earth; once again, we are the ones that are moving - not time. The very fact that we can simply declare Daylight Saving Time, to casually shift an hour forward or backwards, shows us the fickleness and flimsy nature of "time". If time can truly be measured, like a length or a weight could, we wouldn't be able to just announce that we'd take an extra hour here and there. Time zones present another issue for the argument for time. Two people standing on opposite sides of the globe are speaking on the telephone. They are in the exact same moment, and the guy in China has arrived in the new year, but the guy in America is physically denied from entering it, just because he's standing somewhere else? It was, once again, arbitrarily decided that US follows Asia as far as time zones go, so if once upon a time we decided that US should lead, then Americans would enter the new year first. Of course, quantifying time is a very essential tool, it gives us a reference point as we plan our days. However, to base our whole lives around the concept that a new calendar year means anything is just silly.

But people do celebrate New Year's Eve, that's irrefutable. I believe they celebrate it because they need to. They need to believe that next year will be different, that all their promises to themselves will materialize and come to fruition through no effort of their own. They need to look forward after miserably screwing up everything they had in the previous years. People want to believe that this would be the year everything gets better, this will be the year they lose some weight, this will be the year they find true love, this year just has to be the year of all years. And then a year later, we're at another lame, noisy party, drunk. We're back where we started, making the same empty promises for our same empty lives.

Countdown! ... 4, 3, 2, 1 *Happy New Year!* And ... you're still a screw up. 

This isn't meant to discourage people from trying to make a change in their lives. All I'm saying is, it's pointless to wait till a completely random date that ancient civilizations came up with to do it. Every moment brings new opportunities and challenges, it is only human laziness and procrastination, dabbled with naive hope, that makes us believe in the magic of a New Year. Go out there and make that change, don't let some silly Mayans stop you.

Pop, Six, Squish, Uh-huh, Cicero, Lipschitz! (NYC Day 2)

The absolute best way to start a morning off is to talk a walk in Central Park and let the pungent aroma of horse droppings smack you awake. Sidestepping horse-drawn carriages, my local tour-guide Alex, whom I recruited off the streets of NYC (who says New Yorkers aren't nice?), took me on a hour-long guided tour around the most celebrated park in the world. Everything in the park is planned, he says, from every curve in the path to each unique tunnel, from every contour of the lakes to the positions of each stone. "No shit Sherlock," I reply. "You mean a park didn't naturally confine itself into a perfect rectangular smack in the middle of a city?" What a dumbass. Should have sprang for a real trained guide. 

As I walked along the man-made forests of Central Park, I couldn't help but feel oppressed. Everything was beautiful, for sure, with all the gazebos and terraces, but everywhere you looked, buildings obstructed the fringes of the park. I suppose the beauty of this park was that you could escape the bustling city-life for a quick dip into nature, and you could just as easily get back into the city if need be. What I felt, however, was this sense of confinement and restriction, as if some higher government power had set regulations on how much nature we could have, which of course, was exactly what the early settlers of NY did. The buildings framed the park so perfectly that even though you were surrounded by nature-y things, you can't really bring yourself to feel like you've been immersed in it. Surprisingly, the only place where I felt a sense of claustrophobia wasn't in the city, but felt it instead in the park where one's supposed to be able to escape from it. It's amazing what you notice when you're looking at it again with adult eyes. 

But of course, I'm letting my neurosis get in the way of a perfectly beautiful experience. I saw where Charlotte and Miranda went jogging, where Carrie fell into the lake after a heated argument with Big, where that guy proposed to his girlfriend on a bridge with a 4-piece band in that viral video, where Joseph Gordon Levitt did a big dance number in 500 Days of Summer. It was idyllic and restful, yet architecturally stunning and classy, the kind of place where young passionate romantics as well as old wrinkled lovebirds can both enjoy equally.

The main event for that night was Chicago, the Broadway show I've been dying to see. Now Chicago holds a very special place in my heart. From the first time I saw the movie, back when I was 10 and my sis was forced to bring me on her date, I was hooked The full story is that she lied to our mom about where she was really going, but my mom, being a mom, figured it out and used me to ruin sis' plans. Yup, I've been a pawn in my family's mind games since I was born, my manipulative personality is a product of their actions. Just a little note to the future judge who'd be trying my case. 

So anyways, there I was, ten years ago, on a date with my sis and her schmuck of a boyfriend - and I was completely enthralled by the glamorous, murderous vaudevillians. Apart from The Sound of Music, this was one of the first musicals I've seen, and my perception of a musical was that it was supposed to be all cheerful and Switzerland-ish. People were supposed to sing about how their favorite things consisted of kittens and mittens, not how much their exes deserved ten stabs in the chest! My ten-year-old mind was completely blown by Chicago's dark satire of our society's tendency to glamorize crime, although of course back then I didn't have such pretentious thoughts. I was just simply enchanted.

My seat was 5th from the stage and an excellent view of all the gratuitous skin that was on display. I was a tad disappointed with the almost non-existent props - I had been so spoiled by the movie version's elaborate sets that I forgot that Broadway shows simply don't use such detailed devices. A lot of it is implied, a little like how in the Shakespearean plays the audience is invited to imagine their own sets. For two and a half hours, I was living and loving the sexy, gritty world of glamorous danger, set to witty lyrics and impeccable footwork. I'd be so happy up there, I thought. That was my world. 

Times Square (NYC Day 1)

As it turns out, it is completely possible to plan a ludicrous Christmas vacation just one week in advance. The insignificant detail that the planning occurred in the midst of my finals did little to hamper my efforts. I don't think I can stress enough how little philosophical musings and key journalistic standards mean to me when there are Broadway shows to be booked and itineraries to be compiled. Minute details like budgets are petty annoyances and must never be taken into account for crazy-fun holidays. A five night stay at the Hilton? Yes please. Best seats for the Phantom of the Opera and Chicago? God you're turning me on. A sex-filled extravaganza in the greatest city in the world, getting swept away by the bustling energy of famously jaded New Yorkers, all while having tongue-related pleasure-spasms from NY chilli dogs? Hell to the yes.

After a three hour flight behind a guy who's two decades too old to have a multi-colored, dangling, flaccid mohawk, I was whisked into a shuttle cab that drove me into the heart of Manhattan, dodging bluetooth-wearing businessmen that enjoy weaving in-between cars on the road. I stepped into the lobby of the Hilton with my prepared shades and leather duffel (Coach and Fossil, in case you're wondering how impossibly classy I looked and wanted to emulate it for yourself). I was in the metropolis that gave us Sex and the City, I must do Carrie proud. (This is only the beginning of many, many SATC references, toss back a cosmo and brace yourselves.) 

Times Square was the subject of my hunt that night. The genius thing about NYC's streets, of course, is in the grid-like numbering. You could never get lost, simply follow the numbers as you would a grid. Each street intersects with a perpendicular avenue, and as long as you knew the intersection you can navigate the streets like a pro. That is, unless, you manage to untangle yourself from the surprising number of Elmo furries on the streets coaxing guileless children into taking photos with them. 

People in mascot costumes always freaked me out. Just the thought of knowing that some poor sonofabitch is in there, humiliating himself for a few tips from boisterous tourists while putting on a creepily cheerful disposition is enough to turn my stomach. What are they thinking as they put their furry arms around our children and wave at the camera? God I hate kids, if these paw-hands weren't obstructing my fingers I would snap each and every one of their necks ... Or worse, what if they were sweaty pedophiles with their greasy hair plastered onto creepy grinning faces? Who knows what kinda psychos lurk beneath the innocent mask-face of stupid, slow Elmo.

I didn't stumble upon Times Square as much as it sprang upon me and ejaculated its load of insane energy, lights, crowd, smoke and noise on my face. You don't walk onto Times Square, you get thrust into it. Billboards, giant screens, bright, flashy lights. Every time you turn your head it only gets wilder, every step brings you to something even cooler. The huge smiling face of Janet Jackson looks down upon me as I float about in a daze, soaking in the sizzling atmosphere of it all.

Partaking in a very new yorkish tradition, I purchased my dinner from one of the Halal street vendors. Apparently, there's a world famous one right by the Hilton, where people would wait ridiculously long for some silly chicken over rice. I, instead, went for the cart right next to it with much fewer people. This is the ugly sibling effect. It's not as famous, probably because it's just not hyped up by some food journalist who has never really had authentic Muslim food from an Asian country anyways, but still tries hard to please its customers because of the pressure of its much more popular sibling. In any case, it was still delicious and definitely still over-priced. 

Coffee

Lower that cup of coffee right now. You were going to just drink it all up right away, weren't you? The hasty way most men skip foreplay and just dive into the sex. No. That's not how we do things around here. 

Hold it in your hands. Feel its warmth in your fingers, just knowing it's close. Now, close your eyes and think about tasting it. Think about its earthy aroma swishing around your tongue. Picture the eclectic bite, the comforting familiarity. 

Now smell it. Just a little. 

Mmm. 

Pull it away. Just tease yourself a little. Let the aroma of coffeebeans go through your nose and straight into your head. Up, and down. Up, and down. Take a longer sniff. Don't rush it. 

See that foam? Lick it off and roll it around your tongue. Feel your heart pounding for it. Edge yourself till your hands are trembling from the anticipation. Now bring it up slow. Real slow. Put it up against your lips. 

Now sip. 

Oh yes. 

-Adapted from Ally McBeal's Drawing The Line

December

I wished for you as the days got colder

Specks of white hail the dawn of winter

To Santa and his band of reindeer

I send a carefully crafted letter

Every night of every hour

Let me still remember

Your sweet laughter

This silver

December