alone

It is commonly said of New York City that you could easily go through everyday life here, in this city of 8 million people, and still feel like the loneliness person in the world. We live alone in this culture, most often in our solitary apartments, on top of other solitary apartments, forming no real connections to the masses that surround us and only interact with them in the shallowest of manners. We push through each other in the crowded subways and streets everyday, fight for reservations at restaurants and tickets to shows, and lay awake at night unable to sleep while a zillion car horns blare and pedestrians chatter excitedly on the sidewalk outside our windows. There is life all around us, and somehow we are so removed. I can put on my Ipod and tune it all out.

Mark Twain called it “a splendid desert—a domed and steepled solitude, where the stranger is lonely in the midst of a million of his race.”

New York Magazine's cover story this week is about this so-called "Urban Loneliness," and how recent sociological studies are proving this to be more of a myth than we feel. How so? Humans are social animals with a hypothesized biological need to interact, ultimately ensuring the survival of the species (i.e. sex). Really, that's all it comes down to? Everyone needs someone to love them. Woop!

That's the ultra-simplified analysis. Read more here.

hola atcha puerto rico!

Phone call to Mom:

Me: Hi Mom! How are you?
Mom: You sound happy. Do you have good news for me?
Me: Yes!
Mom: Oh! You got a job!!!
Me: Um no. But I'm going to Puerto Rico!
Mom: *sigh*

So yes, I still am without job. It is frustrating beyond belief, but my new Zen-like, sanity-maintaining philosophy for everything is: if you don't laugh, you cry. Right? So. I enjoy my time off and I take trips.

This time, destination Puerto Rico. The self-described Caribbean paradise where wanderlusty Americans can flee to without the hassle of passports, learning Spanish, or converting dollars.

It was a last-minute trip, impulsively booked only 3 days prior. Hardly enough time to plan out a solid itinerary and brush up on my (very) rusty Espanol. I shouldn't have even bothered. My feeble attempts were answered to in perfect American- accented English (after some snickering, I might add. Renewed goal for this year is to relearn Spanish!).

Ohh the beach! It was so good to see it again and taste the salt in the air. I could spend hours there, dreaming and sighing and thinking of nothing at all, at peace under the tropical sun, and so I did. I prostrated myself on the sand and watched the local life pass through. Schoolchildren ran by kicking a soccer ball through the ebbing waters on shore, and a lone figure spun over the sand in a flurry of limbs to a capoeira beat all his own. A rolling salsa beat out onto the prone sunbathers across the beach. Slippery, glistening surfers glided by, darting in and out of the waters and harnessing the wild waves with a grace and skill that I can only dream of mastering one day.

Yet I jumped right in. Inspired maybe in a fit of delusion and conveniently forgetting that I'm still a terrible novice, battling the ocean with some of the best. But the rush of adrenaline I get from a split-second atop a board atop a crazy wave is well worth the week of pain I feel afterward. The current that day was the strongest I've ever had to surf in, and I exhausted myself just trying to paddle out to the waves. Actually I was paddling without going anywhere, huffing and puffing with exertion and willing my arms to keep working, and finally my instructor was fed up and sighed "just walk." Unbeknownst to me the water was 4 feet deep. Doh. Later I took a massive wipe-out full-force to the shallow ocean floor and busted my knee. Again and again I am reminded what a life force the ocean itself is- powerful and monstrous and utterly beguiling in its beauty. And I just can't stay away for very long.

Viejo San Juan was lovely as well, with its old crumbling architecture and somewhat romantic, somewhat creepy ambience. It made for some expensive (but yummy) cocktail hours and some tripped out photos.

But for a more authentic, Anthony Bourdain-style experience of the city, this isn't it. The Carnival cruise boat docked that night, unleashing a rampaging hoard of Mid-western American tourists and suddenly we were in Disneyworld.

On an afternoon trip slightly off the beaten path, Sophie and I found ourselves in the area of Piñones, a stretch of pristine coastline dotted with simple thatched hut eateries and patches of sand, where one can sit and immerse in nature and solitude and think deep and meaningful thoughts about the universe at large. It's that kind of feeling. Where lovers go to cuddle and mothers bring their babies for their first taste of salt water on their baby skin. We sat at Soleil and ordered our best meal of the trip- Mofongo with the works. A van parked next to us and a group of people emerged, dressed up in colorful dresses, kicked off their shoes and spontaneously danced on the beach, as if it was a private recital for us. I have no idea what that was about, but it doesn't matter. It was the highlight of the entire trip.

All in all, a few days well-spent. Then back to reality and banging my head on my computer for hours on end looking for gainful employment. Until the next getaway, of course. It won't be too long. :)

barack and roll!

Welcome Mr. President...

... and thank you God!

i believe

I met a guy who already voted for McCain. We were in Puerto Rico, swimming in the waves of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of a San Juan beach. He looked young. He told me he's an original Nuyorican, that is, a Puerto Rican born in New York but whose family later relocated back to the motherland. He was on an 8-week break from his military service in Iraq. McCain wants to give him and his military peers more benefits, he argued. But, I countered, Obama wants you all completely out of Iraq. He was more concerned with the here and now. And actually, I should have been too, floating in those gloriously piss-warm salty waters underneath the gorgeous tropical sunshine. "We didn't come here to discuss politics now, did we?" he said.

But it's all-encompassing. No matter what light we shine on it, from whatever coordinates we are in the world, it is no exaggeration to say that a whole lot of my future, and everyone else's, rests on the outcome of tomorrow's election. I'm actually nervous. I'm turning down invites to "election viewing parties" at bars and friends' houses, because it almost feels too... personal? I have so much emotion invested in it that I may actually wail if things don't go the way I feverishly hope for them to. And it is so evident that I'm not the only one. So many times I've heard people say that tomorrow is everyone's election-- just not everyone gets a vote.

The whole world is watching us! The Economist even conducted a Global Electoral College to tally votes if the American elections were opened up to the whole world. It closed today as such:

So now I am not quite sure why Algeria, the Congo and Iraq are Republican (random!), but the incredibly overwhelming rest of the world would vote Obama. I pray everyday that we will too.

When I was growing up in the Philippines, I can't even count how many times I've been told how fortunate I am to have the freedom to come and go easily by virtue of my blue American passport. In a 3rd world country where human labor is cheap and plentiful, human rights are often violated without question, and a large percentage live on US$2 or less a day, it's easy to dream of better living conditions. And most often, people dream of America. They are eager to escape and work hard for many years just for that chance to infiltrate the so-called "Land of Opportunity" and get their own slice of the "American Dream." It's because of the alleged great American democracy that allows you to achieve success as big as you can dream it, but only if you're willing to work for it first.

I guess it really did take leaving for a bit and returning to this country to make me truly appreciate what I've taken for granted in the past. This is the country that puts such a premium on higher education that it has systems in place to reach even the most remote children, and adults, and offers them financial support to get them there. That allows women to have access to safe and accurate reproductive health information and options that best suit their individual lives. That takes its title of "World's Superpower" seriously enough to intervene with money, labor, moderators, and yes sometimes artillery, when other nations are in turmoil... clearly with varying degrees of success. That every year welcomes in foreign immigrants and refugees looking for better lives with this alleged "freedom." That is a veritable, incredibly diverse melting pot of all sorts of cultures and colors and lifestyles, and for the most part, we all do get along.

And then we squander all of that by voting in idiots who cannot possibly appreciate all these joys that America bestows on us, because they are born into wealth, they surround themselves with people of the same background and mentality, they have never left the country, and whose foreign policies are informed by the proximity of Russia to their house in Alaska. They want to instill in Americans a permanent sense of fear and defensiveness against foreigners and abolish the gains of Roe vs. Wade.

And year after year after year, I find it harder and harder to be proud to be an American. Whenever I travel I am constantly having to defend my government's bad decisions, and why? I don't support them myself.

So basically if McCain wins tomorrow, pass me the nearest shot of cyanide please.

If you're American, find out where and how to vote here. If you're not, pray for us please! We'll all just have to wait and see.