name that time-space: the facebook update map

Some unspecified time ago - and probably because I was excessively bored - I browsed over all my facebook friends' most recent updates and wrote them all down. I present them to you now, in their full, unedited (save the names, which have been scratched out), schizophrenic glory.

Of course, it's common for a lot of us to browse over people's updates on facebook. But there are some funky things that go on with this kind of activity. It's a lot more than witticisms or frequently pointless announcements ("I had some coffee!"). With any and all social interactions, what we choose to reveal to others in a public setting (even a virtual public like facebook) ends up pointing to a set of experiences specific to a particular time-space. There need not be seamless (or even half-assed) conversations at work; rather, we end up contributing to a map of experience that finds as many points of convergence as divergence, commonality and difference.

Sorry for the academic jargon. Concrete example: during this year's NFC Championship game, practically all my friends' updates had to do with the status of the Vikings and/or Saints. What does such a map illustrate? 1) That I have extensive networks in both Minnesota and New Orleans (which I do). 2) That these networks of friends made updates on a very public event, not to inform people of its details, but rather to bond, argue, or engage in common experiences of the event. 3) That this game, as a virtually-experienced spectacle, ended up capturing much of our attention and interest, and thus served as perfect fodder for a virtual engine like facebook. 4) That other virtually-experienced spectacles (i.e. the healthcare debate) or other everyday, real-life experiences (i.e. coming home from work) were temporarily shelved in favor of facebook update excitement around the game.

That said: can you name this time-space? Do you know the exact year, day, and time when these updates happened? What does this say about my networks? Does this match up with your networks? What does this say about our virtual public life?

I'll have the answer (to the first question, not the others) in my next post.

is watching the master debaters.

would rather be at Skate's On The Bay.

is going home (my friends)...

is watching McCain get spanked. Righteous...

is already tired of her work schedule for the next 3 months...

is watching the debate over pizza and beer. i love being an adult.

is starting to really like his classes.

got a new apartment in the international district!

is going to watch tonight's debates at Hamburger Mary's... wanna join?

is performing at Intermedia on Thurs Oct 9, 7 pm with Ibe and Sun Yung - plus wine

and beer... hollaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...

is busy.

would like a night stand.

is up and at em.

homework done, go to target, buy furniture. Groceries and floor will wait until

tonight.

is lovin rainy nashville, getting ready to crash the debates part 2.

Yay unemployment.

should be in Hawaii by the first of November and in Washington on the 18th or 19th.

wants to be in Osaka with The Boy right now. Only 4 more days...

is made of cool brew mocha & soy milk.

is sick. Stupid con.

is http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/oct/07/pink.floyd.keyboardist.denied.last.wish.

refuses to change his status message just because some people are bitter about the

sun in California.

is glad Steven finally got his charger back!

is thinking you should all visit themelononline.com and if you like what you see,

maybe donate a buck or two to keep us ripe.

really believes that everything IS gonna be alright.

needs to learn to take things one day at a time.

is enjoying a bunfire and chilling with folks at my house.

still loves...and will always love, and will wait until time makes to reconnect our

souls together...

is friggin' exhausted!

is marketing at midnight.

is in Partial Hell!!!

is considering switching back to analog after spending 1.5 hrs on the phone with the

HP people and THEN coming home to find that the printer has done a Lazurus.

is revising a story.

is nothing short of perfectly relaxed in perfect company.

is "NYC, here I come!"

is potentially addicted [to running marathons].

needs to find her winter coat because its looking like its time to start bundling up.

is jealous that her sister is going to Londonium this weekend.

is either kicking of statement of purpose ass or else statement of purpose is

playing rope a dope. We can all guess which is really happening.

hates fax machines!

An Electoral College TIE? Its Possible!!

<http://www.washtimes.com/news/2008/sep/23/an-electoral-college-doomsday/>.

is NERVOUS! and really excited....

is listening to Jane's Addiction and running my dog on a trail under fresh snow!

wants to get out of the city, permanently.

is curious about this years showing of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" as in, is

there going to be one...?

is so frustrated that the internet can't find the server that she needs in order to

transport herself 7 miles today...

is reveling in a lovely full night of sleep...

is bonding with Tori Amos instead of sleeping.

19 dollar airbed is sounding pretty enticing right now. sleeeeeeeeeeepy.

is freezing.

has the ugliest sweater of them all!

is tired from all that fun (i.e. rockband) this weekend.

is back in Seattle.

is smiling...and almost back to health.

is wondering why he had to get a flat tire.

hates Evan. A lot. No...seriously.......jk.

is barely moving.

is playing offense against his head cold.

is back to real life... well school, not really real life.

is coughing.

is looking for manatees in the rio dulce.

is 7 days until home!

head is his only home unless it rains.

enjoyed the rain last night! it's still hard to believe that it goes months without

raining here.

is finding it.

is a drifter.

is mourning the loss of the Cubs. Why has the universe been so cruel to them and

their fans?

is looking for others in the Bangor area who want to play kickball. Possibly in

ridiculous outfits. Are you in?

is Oktoberfest, bitches!

is fighting paralysis.

is listening to noisy rain.

is saying tha world jus got alot less smarter...RIP to my friend & family, tha

"Ghetto Scientist."

is so sick of the bullshit and games that are politics. But be sure to go vote

tomorrow, and register to vote by this weekend if you are not already!

is ohhh minnesoooota.

If I fail pathophys, do I get a second try, like the $700 Billion Bailout? God save

the bankers!

paulson looks like he just robbed a bank...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122304922742602533.html.

is impatient for the 5 day weekend.

is glad to be.

is http://explodingdog.com/title/imamess.html.

is excited that Biden is so genuine. Erica now has a growing fondness for Joe Biden.

would like to start ending all of her sentences in "also"...also.

wants to know how she'll get home now that this has happened on her regular bus

route: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10535521.

is obsessing over one teeny little word.

is going to be in Cali this weekend!

hates anatomy. but she loves you.

Thanks everyone for your birthday wishes!

apparently has hazel eyes. Thanks Wikipedia!

is trying to think of what she's doing right now.

is ready for California. oh wait, that's still weeks away. Pat- bring some Bay Area

love with you!

saw Obama in La Crosse this morning. The heat off that man gave me sunburn.

is grateful to everyone who organized CR10.

is tying up the loose ends of his application to SU.

is finding out that doing nothing can be the most difficult thing to do.

thinks YOU should come to Daman. My latest choral awesome-ness!! Check it out!!

www.theesoterics.org.

snapshots of a six-month hiatus

NOVEMBER

For weeks I get home from work and immediately head to the library. I sit at one of the computers and do nothing but writing and edits for the book, writing and edits for grad school applications. Come midnight the library closes and I take a bus home, make myself dinner. I fall asleep at two in the morning and do the same thing all over again.

Sonya and I have commandeered all the Thanksgiving dinner energy, leaving Mom to relax. We've just finished our first dish, the easiest of all: cranberry sauce. We take pictures and marvel at the glistening red sheen, the luscious smells. Then Mom asks if we remembered to wash the cranberries before boiling them; we reply, a bit hesitantly, in the negative. What follows is fairly comical, frustrating, and more than a bit sad. The obstinacy both of us have learned gets amplified threefold coming from Mom, as she regales us with tales of an entire town that died because someone forgot to wash some food before preparing it. I gently chide, "You have to learn to start giving up some responsibility." She persists. Sonya and I take another picture: all that delicious cranberry sauce in the compost bin. We make another batch; we wash these cranberries thoroughly.

DECEMBER

I finish grad school applications and get a pint of Bailey's to celebrate. I carry it along to a craft night at Alison's and Kim's place on Saratoga. I learn how to make intricately woven snowflakes and garlands out of floss, popcorn, and cranberries. I feel unburdened.

New Years Eve, black and white everything. I slip into a cocktail dress, high-heel boots, jewelry, determined to look gorgeous. Ben fixes me a White Russian; I exclaim loudly that it doesn't seem to have any effect, until later on when I almost slip and fall on the dance floor. Each of us tangos with an enormous gourd, passing it off from person to person. Someone breaks out Set; upstairs there are movies. I meet someone new and get a nice welcome to 2010.

JANUARY

I send off a text message to friends as I ride the bus home. "I just gave my two weeks' notice..." Everyone is so enthusiastic with their congratulations, for a good two hours I frantically engage in multiple text conversations. I make a mental note that it truly says something when everyone is more excited for you to leave a job than to get one.

Over lunch at Obento-Ya, Rick offers up an avenue to get further plugged into the Asian American arts community and work on my own writing. I am stunned and excited, hiding my delight as best I can behind chopsticks and soup spoons busy at work. I say yes and my heart falls immediately. As the bill comes, I look out the window and contemplate the reality of an opportunity which I can only enjoy for a few months, amidst a surplus of opportunities that have already taken hold. That is, an opportunity arrived too late.

Kevin puts me and Craig on a three-way call as I walk home briskly from the library. The zip file of the manuscript has gone off successfully to the press, he reports. We give out short whoops to celebrate the end of an exhausting and debilitating run. After a moment, I say, "It's kinda anticlimactic, isn't it, to see your most important and exhaustive work you've ever done in your life get boiled down into a zip drive."

FEBRUARY

A few days into the family trip to Augusta and all I can really feel is an undercurrent of terror. As we watch the Saints get the lead on the Colts late in the Super Bowl, sealing an exuberant and long-awaited win, I console myself. At least now I've gotten to meet the Chinese community of my mother's roots I've so long mystified and idealized, I think. And now that I have, I can say without a doubt that I want nothing to do with them.

It's the week before I'm set to go on break in New Orleans and I feel awful. My stomach is bloated to the point of pain; I stop eating, but the situation doesn't alleviate. I nap for long periods throughout the day. My occasional walks outside are unbearable. For the first time in my life, my health is caught in an undertow and I have absolutely no idea how to drag myself out of it. Absolutely helpless. This must be what it's like to know you're dying, I think.

Arrive in New Orleans and Renee picks me up at the airport. We spend a good hour trying to make our way back into town and to one of the few grocery stores in the area. By the time we make it home it's dark. I learn that the house has no heat; I figure this is no big deal. Not much later I find out how wrong I am.

Anne throws me a welcome-back potluck at her apartment in the Marigny. Everyone who I thought had left is still here, and they all arrive. They look amazing, content. I head upstairs for what I think will be a short conference call; two hours later I return to the party, only to find most everyone has left for the night.

MARCH

At the Candlelight Lounge in New Orleans, I have a sudden onslaught of digestive troubles again. The toilet lacks a stall; the bathroom door lacks a lock. "You need to go poop?" grins one of the owners at me. "Don't worry, I'll watch it for ya. Just pay me five dollars and we're good." I have no cash on me, nor the patience for a raw deal tonight. I saunter out for a long and uncomfortable walk back home.

At Mardi Gras Zone I scan the aisles for prune juice, aloe vera juice, laxative tea. Later on in the night I head up to the second floor of Mimi's and down some whiskey. Just what the doctor ordered.

I greet Sarah at Jimmy's Diner in Williamsburg, NYC. At many a recommendation I get a load of fried food. The onion rings are amazing; I can only eat three. Later on we head for the Satellite Lounge. It's St. Pat's Day, but we're the only ones here. It's appreciated.

At Bluestockings Bookstore Kevin and I struggle to bind pamphlets with a shitty stapler. I race to take notes for our presentation before my laptop battery dies. I lean away from the sunlight that glares through the window onto my back.

The UNC faculty and students gather with prospectives in a bar; I get chatty. I learn quickly enough that I've been caught in the day's rumor mill; no one seems to understand why I'm still undecided. I start getting courted in a way that is both flattering and undesirable. On his way out, one professor takes an approach I like better. "Let me give you the hard sell," he says to me, waving his drink dramatically in the air at nothing. He pauses, then shrugs lackadaisically. "You come here, you can't go wrong." I join in the others' laughter.

There is an intricately constructed gazebo at the Seeds Community Garden in Durham, cleverly bound together with scrap construction metal, tree branches, and glass. I sit inside alone for many long minutes, watching, listening, breathing. It's the first peaceful moment I've had in ages.

Excited chatter heard through the kitchen door at Sonya and Matt's apartment. The crowd has grown tenfold for the brunch now that noon has arrived. I crack eggs in a potato-sausage casserole, then shove the cast-iron pan into the stove for a final baking. I'm dismayed to learn that the pan's handle prevents the oven door from closing. We open a window and let the oven bake both casserole and kitchen to a toasty finish.

Sonya grips hard at my hand while Lucky works on her ankle. I keep saying "You're doing good," but she seems to hear "You doing good?" and nods fretfully each time. By the time our matching tattoos are completed, she looks in the mirror and exclaims her approval. Once we get outside, her demeanor changes. "I think I'm having tattoo regret." She wears her regret all the way home from Jamaica Plain.

APRIL

Taxi from the airport to UA campus. The cabbie has all of his windows down; the deafening wind pounds at my face enough to be irritating, but I bite my lip and bear it. I pick my battles. We listen to Spanish radio and watch the desert fly by.

Conor is introducing me to everyone at a post-lecture reception. I struggle to remember names, titles. Out of the corner of my eye I see a woman in a black shawl smiling at me. She is either attracted, or amused at my fish-out-of-water scenario.

Long walk in the dead heat of daytime to an anarchist soccer game. We take our time; by the time we arrive it's pretty much ended. We drink lots of electrolyte water. Back home Conor plays Scottish folk music and I read bolo'bolo. A little later we drive as fast as we can down the roads of Gates Pass, hopping the crests of short hills, brushing by cacti.

Nighttime and I am hunting unsuccessfully for the backyard lights. The hot tub was recently repaired and I want to take advantage. Eventually I find a flashlight and slip off the cover, examining the control pad. Someone says - or I think someone says - 'Hello?' I race back into the house and lock the door. I pick my battles.

three strikes and you're out

Practice run: Write a very short story about an incident that is repeated on three parts of the human body.

There was only one good game every played. It happened the day he shot me three times, lung, heart, and nose.

The notion hadn't even occurred to me until the first shot. I wanted to say something, to acknowledge it had happened and that I was upset about it, but I had no breath to draw from. It was as if the air had broken and crushed instantly to the farthest depths of me, and I thought of the young man who took aluminum cans to the parking lot to smash them, armed with a steady foot and a pencil. Which ceased to be entertaining after the first time around. I don't know why he kept bringing those cans out. There were no surprises, only proofs I suppose, or sheer boredom, and we, we always knew how it turned out, but there is little to do in those situations but watch.

By the second shot, breathing was really out of the question and all I could articulate was warm liquid from the sides of my mouth. I knew that feeling, the unexpected drip down the chin, and I thought I must be concentrating very hard, for concentration has often relaxed what control I have over my tears, my drool, my piss. And when I was able to look, I noticed there was piss down there, and a foul smell, and some ink-dark liquid I didn't recognize. I couldn't dissect it, and by that point I couldn't see anymore, and then I could only concentrate on that smell, which was unpleasant in its immediacy. It felt as though I was that smell, I had been reduced to a smell of piss and shit and puke. I tried thinking about the cans again but I forgot what they looked like, and the young man in the business of smashing them no longer had a name or a face or a presence, and I wanted to panic but I gave up, as I didn't have the energy.

It went on like that for a while. I smelled me everywhere and I hated it, I didn't know how to stop the smell, I didn't have the energy. I wanted to say something and I didn't have the energy. It was disquieting, since I did not feel tired, though I couldn't remember when I had last slept. It went on.

And then I remembered it, the only good game. That must have been the third shot. On a jungle gym, cold outside. There is a boy in a pink jacket; I am grabbing for his ankles, he is leaping out of my reach. Then I am the one, in the green jacket, and he is at it on the ground, and I am dashing, I am slamming my body over this icy rail, I can hear laughter and someone is always saying that someone else is cheating. I can taste ozone. There may have been a team, I don't know. Someone might always have won, I don't know if there was any winning. But it was the only good game. All the rest could have their games. None of them were good like this.

And it is a strange thing, but I thought, that's alright. I made out better in the end. I had the only good game splashed onto my brain, played endlessly on the long trek of a bullet's journey, and he, the one who shot me three times, lung, heart, and nose, he missed it all. I imagine he stopped shooting out of boredom. He knew how it would turn out; there is little to do in those situations but watch.

beat-em-up weather

It's one of those times of reckoning and I feel upset right now.

I co-facilitated a training today where all the ninth-graders kept asking me permission to get water or go to the bathroom (good GAWD, are we teaching ninth-graders to ask permission to do everything now? if you need to take a leak or get a drink just GO, how ridiculous is it that I as a visiting trainer have to bless your departure?) and the only group of girls who genuinely seemed interested in what I had to say merely wanted to hit on me and compare my looks to Marc Anthony's.

I just had another weekend where I got NOTHING done on everything I had intended to do--statements of purpose for grad school, formulations of a second interview of Grace Lee Boggs, long-delayed research and revisions to my piece for the book, getting started on a small grant application for creative writing. None of it happened, and it will now hover over me during my upcoming 11-day break, which is feeling less like a break every passing day.

My older sis went quite apeshit on one of my nieces Saturday for pooping in her underwear, a dear friend is reeling from the shock of getting laid off at one of the worst possible times, another dear friend is abroad and I feel terrible for screwing up arrangements for a relaxed evening with her before she left, and there's a very important MTID (Meeting That I Dread) tomorrow morning which is followed by (FUCK!) a potluck, which will likely not be cheery.

In that training I alluded to, two students were telling me about their civics projects working on gay rights. When I asked one of them what they would do if someone didn't care about this issue and didn't see why it was important to them, she didn't offer up a counter-response to try and reel the skeptics/know-nothings/idiots in. She just said, "I'd beat em up."

I think this mirrors my sentiments exactly.

strike a pose, go through shenanigans, do not collect $200

Nearly two weeks' absence on this and you're probably wondering: what the hell have I been up to that's keeping me so busy?

Why, only shifting to a modeling/acting career, that's all.

The green brings out the eyes, don't it?

But actually, no, I'm quite serious. It all started with an innocently posted photo:



Some of you who keep track on Facebook might recognize that this is my current profile pic. Magic Twin Sis somehow managed to capture me in a particularly gorgeous light while I was visiting in Boston a while ago. So I decided earlier this month it was going up for the world to see, because it is framed well, captures a good smile and that peculiar eyebrows-raised expression which could be mistaken for flirtatiousness, and it's hot.

Though admittedly not as hot as these:



Or this:



Damn.

But on a quick and important sidenote: you know how bafflingly helpful and annoying Facebook has gotten lately? There are so many battles going on around invasion of privacy, unwanted advertising, censorship of breastfeeding...and what the fuck is the difference between News Feed and Live Feed?! And do I really need this bombardment of information every time my older sis plays Mafia Wars and needs a pineapple or a duck or an Uzi?

Well, it turns out Facebook has something else going on too. Unbeknownst to me, it has been the latest hotspot for talent scouts. From what I gather, all our profile pics are snatched up by large 'talent databases,' are assigned a rough estimate of gender, age, race, height (unless we throw it all out there on our profiles, which I distinctly don't), then blundered through by overeager scouts who must spend obscene amounts of hours scrolling through thousands of photos in search of a few winners. I want to know: do they take all our pics, or only the ones that are just headshots? Do they take only the hot headshots? Who's deciding what's a hot headshot? I want to know: exactly how many legal boundaries do we have over the things we put on Facebook? Or does the number of boundaries equate to nil? Could my photo be used to sell soft drinks in Slovenia or enmeshed with a few dozen others as a collage background for an album cover out of Japan? I want to know: is this all legit? Am I supposed to be pissed about this? I think I am, but I suppose I'm asking for it, aren't I?

But honestly I have maintained mostly ignorance when it comes to these things. So I was quite astonished to receive a friend request a few days ago from this person named Kasie Delacruz:



Not necessarily because friend requests are out of the ordinary, but when it's from someone you've never met at any time in your life, it tends to throw you.

I didn't accept her request. I believe I sent her a message ("Hi, and who are you exactly?") and then got suspicious. Occasionally people do try and friend me and I really don't know them, but it's clear based off of mutual friends and networks so that they at least know of me. Good ol' Kasie here is not the same. What limited profile I can see of her indicates that she has no wall posts, no photos aside from this one, is single and interested in men, is up for anything, and is approximately my age. In other words: Kasie Delacruz may not even exist.

More research turns up more weird shit. After all, "Delacruz" is not exactly a common last name, what with the three Spanish words mashed awkwardly together like that. Google only turns her up once, as another guy's friend on Facebook, only she looks like this:



This *might* be the same person, and the profile is just as sparse as the first Kasie, only this Kasie claims to be five years older than the other. Oh, and her wall isn't empty like the first one; there are three posts on there, all from guys, which read (and I quote): "heyy !!! ?!?!?!"; "hey do I know u?"; and "yah do i know you".

And I thought my message to 'Kasie' was original.

So by this point it seems obvious: Kasie Delacruz is a plant. Someone/something created a barebones profile for Kasie, slapped on a photo of someone hot, and subsequently sent out friend requests to gullible guys. But why?

I got my answer today. Remember I only messaged her, her friend request is still rusting away unaccepted. But apparently this mere bit of interest from me landed another surprise in my inbox:

Oppertunity in New Orleans contact me immediately!!!

Between You and Christopher Gray

Christopher Gray October 30 at 4:54pm Report

Please contact Christopher Gray, Casting Director (323) 833 5461 via Cell
We found you from Explore Talent search data base…
We are currently working on a new “ABC” movie being shot in New Orleans:
Entitled: “The Business of Falling In Love”…Featuring Hillary Duff”

We Love Your Look and Want You to Participate In the Film

We would welcome your to work with us on the following dates October 30, 31…November 1, 2,5,6,7

If you are available for these days Please contact me immediately at (323) 833 5461 via cell…or contact Zac Foppe (818) 415 1048.

The Movie centers on A Young Cosmopolitan Magazine writer, “Hillary Duff”
In New York Who Dates Men in Business Suits

Also…Please send a head shot and photo to: Fallinginlovecasting@gmail.com
Looking forward to hearing from you ASAP.
Christopher Gray

HA!

Very smart, Facebook scouts. Throw out a hook and fish em into more unexpected shenanigans. "We Love Your Look and Want You to Participate In the Film": great! That string of capitalized words really brings it home! But still: why?

And here's the other weird thing: this Hillary Duff movie is actually being produced, and there will be casting done in New Orleans, and I suppose they offered me the bait because I used to live in New Orleans, I look aesthetically pleasing, and I got duped. And that's the extent of their criteria?

What I thought when I read this: "They can't be serious. They don't even know me. They can't for the life of them realize that, in addition to being gorgeous, I'm also pint-sized, barely own anything resembling a wardrobe, can't speak from my diaphragm, and a freaky radical to boot." But they are serious. I didn't write to Christopher Gray and say, "Yo, this is great, very well done, I'm up for another gag although I'll be more prepared next time. And by the way, no 'e' in 'opportunity' my dear." I mean, I would have, but then who knows how many other Kasies and Sashas and lazy-ass talent scouts would be pestering me then.

And it occurs to me that it must supremely suck to be a model. Apparently they are holding up the bottom echelon in terms of pay and prestige. Even worse to be an extra in a movie. As if you didn't have enough reminders that you are a dime a dozen in your chosen career, you are now facing a surge of competition from hot people on Facebook who don't even know what they're getting into. That's some shit.

Anyway. It was a nice little ride while it lasted, though I think modeling and acting aren't good fits for me. After this, I might just have to go into investigative journalism and uncover more of this Facebook morass. It's so, so juicy. And so very, very unpleasant.

the one who doesn't know dignity

More bus stories.

Roughly a year ago I had a genuinely disgusted moment on the 84 bus: watching, almost hypnotically, a man gnaw and chew methodically on the palm of his left hand, pause to examine his teething work, and then resume gnawing and chewing, ceaselessly. This is the sort of thing which, when viewed once, cannot be put out of your mind. The mere knowledge that someone was chewing--on? at? bits off of?--their hand publicly and seemingly without concern really threw me out of sorts. I even held up my left arm to shield my face and eyes a bit, to feebly attempt to block it out of my thoughts.

Now, I don't know what exactly I found disgusting by this behavior. I assume you had to be there to understand.

But then I had another moment just a few days ago, and this time I know exactly what motivated my revulsion:

Moments after boarding the 16 bus to downtown, I noticed immediately a young man sitting a few seats ahead of me. Stocky, frumpy guy with a remarkably babyish face and no hint of facial hair, glasses, oily hair, and a thick ornament in his ear that seemed wildly out of place with his personality. An AmeriCorps hoodie, untended khaki pants, white socks and big tennis shoes. Clunky backpack at his feet. Posture awkward, yet not imposing (perhaps this is why it seemed awkward). iPod on and going strong, but no signs of enjoying--or even responding--to whatever he was listening to.

The first description to come to mind--and I really hate this, but it might help to picture him--is 'man-child.' Potentially a college-age student, having difficulty appearing his age. Captivating in his obliviousness to the effect of his appearance, as if it were the last of his concerns.

Now, if this was all there was to this guy, I probably would have forgotten about him by now. But he caught my attention because of a particular activity, done methodically, unconcerned, in public, much like the hand-chewer:

He was eating Lunchables. You know. The previously packaged 'meals' of prearranged crackers, 'cheeses,' 'meats,' maybe some cookies. The sort of meal that (correct me if I'm wrong) is reserved for either the insanely busy, or lazy middle-schoolers.

He ate very slowly, and yet voraciously, through that whole Lunchables package. With his hunting-and-pecking thumb and index finger, he would fish out a cracker, then a block of 'cheese,' then a pre-cut slab of 'meat,' place the 'cheese' and 'meat' on the cracker, bring it to his mouth and take a bite, chew, then another bite, chew, and one last bite to finish it off. The hunting-and-pecking hand moved in a careful triangle, from Lunchables plastic tray to mouth to lap and back to plastic tray, while his other hand was steady as an anchor, holding the Lunchables tray in mid-air. He sat, peered down during the hunting and pecking, looked up and around as he ate, listening to his iPod, consumed with his eating and inattentive to everything else.

Of course, eating is not allowed on the bus. People still do it. All the time. Him eating was not the problem for me.

And he wasn't disruptive. He didn't even chew loudly or spit crumbs on the other passengers. He was freaking dainty as he ate. None of this was a problem.

But it fucken tore me up. I mean, I was so upset, I wanted to scream at him to stop, and of course I didn't cuz I really didn't have a reason for him to stop. It was just something about the whole situation--something--that made me think, in big bold letters flashing in my head, THIS GUY DOES NOT UNDERSTAND DIGNITY. Not that I'm going around being the dignity police. But his entire presence--merely compounded by the Lunchables--made my skin crawl. Maybe it was because, when I saw people's lives devastated in the Katrina aftermath in New Orleans, even my poorest neighbors went to great lengths to sweep their porches, dress presentably, and make their hair gorgeous. Maybe it was because, in countless situations where I've seen friends and strangers end up in situations of pure exhaustion, anxiety, desolation, and poverty (especially during this economic crisis), they have still managed to hold themselves in a way that is striking in its confidence and incredible in its subtle fierceness.

Maybe it was because I really hate Lunchables.

But then, when he had finished off the Lunchables tray and set it aside, licking his fingers and hands of remaining Lunchables debris (which I knew he would do), he pulled up his backpack, opened the zipper, rummaged through one of the pockets and pulled out something that nearly made my eyes pop out: a recently purchased, plastic-wrapped loaf of tomato basil and asiago cheese focaccia bread.

As he rested for a moment with the loaf in his hands, looking around half-interested at the passing scenery--like he had been doing the whole bus ride--I stared at him, prayed at him, pled at him: please don't. Please, please, please don't open up that loaf on this bus. Or if you have to open up the plastic wrap, please at least rip off a chunk with your hands before you eat it. Please, please don't bring the whole loaf up to your maw and chew straight off with your teeth. For God's sake, please don't do this.

But this is precisely what he did. He opened up the plastic wrap, brought the loaf to his mouth, and continued with his meal, methodically and obliviously, as he had with the Lunchables, as if it was the most normal and acceptable thing to do.

And I knew then why I was revolted, why, out of all people I had ever witnessed on buses, he would lure incur inner reserves of hatred out of me, why he would cement a place in my memory, a moment still clear and fresh in my head as if just born: for I was looking at me. I was looking at a me from 6, 7 years ago, riding the bus back to campus after a grocery run where the only thing I ever got was focaccia and hummus. I was the one pulling the bread out of my backpack, tearing open the wrapper, and eating straight off the loaf, eschewing meals, plates, cooking, manners, grace. I was the one with the glasses and oily hair, dressed in hoodies too big for me and unwashed khakis. I was the one who believed I was confident because I didn't care what other people thought of me or cared of me, when the truth of it was that I rarely thought or cared of me. I was the privileged son who never knew failure and didn't know dignity. I was the man-child.

the worst place to be

I've determined that one of the worst places to be in this world is that silence in the midst of a conversation you feel compelled to fill with nothing of substance save your own foundering.