Stream-Of-Consciousness Questions Upon Having My Phone Snatched

 Y'all, what’s the best carrier in Chicago?  Should I get another iPhone or some other phone?  Should I wait for the iPhone 6?  Should I just get a really crappy un-smart phone? What's the crappiest phone I could get that still has WhatsApp capabilities? Or should I get a landline?  Should I rely on carrier pigeons to reach my beloved ones?  Walkie-talkie system?  Or should I work on training cockroaches to carry messages, as they did in Orange is the New Black?  How will I take so many pictures now?  Disposable camera?  Really amazing camera?  Take up sketching and painting?  How will I share said images with the world?  Invest in a scanner?  Make replications of every image and snail mail them to my friends?  Post them randomly in public places, such as in the Walgreens pharmacy waiting line area or on the Bean?  Should I just move to the top of a really tall building such as the Sears Tower and shout with all my might to talk to my folks back in Virginia?  Would that be illegal?  How will I wake myself up in the morning, y'all—alarm clock, or invest in a rooster?  Will the rooster get along with my roommate's chihuahua, Buddy?  If my roommate is a vegan who never feeds Buddy meat, will he still try to kill and eat the rooster?  Nature or nurture?  How will I know how fast I am running without my RunKeeper app—stopwatch, or borrow someone's small child to place on my shoulders as I run, and said child can just count loudly?  How far can children count at the age they are where they are small enough to sit on my shoulders?  How will I know in the mornings if my hair is in place or if I have lipstick on my teeth without using the camera on my phone—purchase a compact mirror, or just ask everyone on my morning commute, "Do I look hot today?  Like, would you date me based on how I'm looking right now in this moment?"  How will I tweet?  Wait until I have access to a computer and the Internet to log into Twitter, or just verbally offer up my unsolicited thoughts as they pop into my head to every casual bystander, businessmen and schoolchildren alike?  How will I listen to music (because my headphones fell out of my iPhone as the thief ran away, so at least I did not lose those)?  Should I buy a cassette tape player, or a portable CD player?  Are those items considered vintage now and therefore more expensive than in my youth?  Do I give up music on my commute entirely, or should I just create my own music by snapping my fingers and singing in my off-key voice?  Will my wretched sounds reach the ears of the fellow who stole from me, and will he then curse the day he ever laid eyes on me and my pink-encased phone?  How will I ever navigate my way in the city when I get turned around?  An old-timey compass?  Just wander until I cross county lines and state lines and, feeling haggard and hopeless, give up entirely on civilization and become a lady of the wild?  But how will I navigate the darkness in the deep, thick woods and rugged terrains of this planet without the flashlight app on my phone?  Do I carry matches around everywhere with me, and would my life then end sadly, much like Hans Christian Andersen’s character?  Should I carry sparklers in my bag should I ever want to shed light with a little pizzazz?  If my phone was so easily stolen, will people try to snatch my bag as well?  If I crawled over the ground like a tortoise, with a sack attached to my body much like a shell, would my personal property be protected from stealers, or would they just scoop up and run off with my entire self?  

Things I Found While Cleaning My Room

Any brave soul who has ever helped me move knows all too well what an impossible mess I occupy.  I say anyone who has helped me move and not "anyone who is my friend" because often I am too embarrassed to let friends into my room, lest they see months-old receipts crumpled on top of bookshelves, ticket stubs and program pamphlets peeking out from under the bed, and bras strewn everywhere except the drawer where they belong.  Mind you, I never leave repulsive things such as moldy dishes or old beer bottles lying around, but for some reason clutter always accumulates.  I have attempted to apply the organizational skills I have learned while working as a secretary and sales associate to my private life, with mixed results.  I have a true problem with holding onto things for "sentimental reasons."  

But I digress.  For your voyeuristic pleasure, here are some of the most interesting and bizarre items I uncovered while cleaning my room in preparation for my big move!  Enjoy.  

An ashtray made from the hoof of a deer that my great-grandfather shot and killed.  This is, by far, the most Southern thing I own, and perhaps my most prized possession.  A friend once remarked, "It is really kitsch, but also very classy."  For a team-building activity at the beginning of City Year, they asked us to present to the entire corps an object that symbolizes who you are.  I presented this masterpiece, because like me, it is Southern and unapologetic.  It is what it is.  

A list written in my loopy cursive from the seventh grade, "Reasons for not getting Braces":

1.     My teeth told me they don't want them.

2.    The purple man in the corner told me I don't need braces.

3.    "It's against my religion." "What religion are you in?" "You don't want to know!"

4.     I might pick up radio signals and get in trouble for having a radio at school.

5.    I'll bite you if you come anywhere near my mouth! 

6.    My toothbrush will get stuck in my braces.

7.    If I throw up, it'll get stuck in my braces.  

8.    My mom needs braces more than I do.

9.    You're just after my money, you don't really care how straight my teeth are.

10.  Queen Elizabeth I and George Washington had horrible teeth, and they turned out just fine!

11.   I'm not vain; I like my teeth.

12.  My braces will rust so I'll need oil to open my mouth.

13.  I have bad reflexes; I might kick you.  

This dental impression of my teeth pre-braces, made sometime in the fall of 2002.  PTL (this is an acronym I learned from a coworker since moving back to the South, meaning "Praise the Lord") my parents forced me to go through with getting braces in spite of my compelling list.  

My calendars from 2001-2008.  Yes, I know.  Why on earth would I hang on to these?  I asked myself the same question, my cheeks flushing with shame as I confronted my glaring shortcomings—my inability to let go of the past, my complete failure to organize my life in a logical way.  That is, until I opened my calendar and read their contents (another problem I have when cleaning: I spend more time pondering each item than is reasonable or healthy—I am utterly incapable of making a rapid decision in what stays and what goes).  I had forgotten how faithfully and painstakingly I recorded moments and events on my calendar.  

On April 12, 2001, for example, I noted that ballet was cancelled, yet I still had a "Stinkin' math test" that day.  I burst into hysterical laughter when I saw that on May 31, 2001, I had written (and misspelled), "Deodarant Day" with an extremely cross frowny face.  This one completely baffled me, until I finally remembered that "Deodorant Day" was my euphemism for the puberty talk we all got in the fifth grade—girls in one room, boys in another.  They handed out deodorant and pads at the end.  What would fifth-grade Anna make of her college-aged self teaching middle-school girls about sexual health?  

The week of November 20, 2005, appeared to be a bad week for animals named "Houdini."  I had written in the square for Monday, November 21, "No Dance, Houdini the Ferret Dies," while Wednesday, November 23 read, "No Piano, Houdini the Mouse Dies."  Houdini the Ferret was the pet of my beloved ninth grade art teacher, Ms. Smith, whom I idolized.  We remained pen pals for many years after she left my junior high school to follow her British lover to the ends of the earth (literally, to New Zealand).  I had once pet-sat Houdini the Ferret while Ms. Smith was away--he was old with matted hair and reminded me of some creature from The Secret of Nimh.  I still have no clue who this "Houdini the Mouse" character was.  Deaths of animals named Houdini and the cancellation of my extracurricular activities—correlation, or causation?!  These are the important questions that gnaw at my conscience and keep me up at night.  ("Gnaw" perhaps being an insensitive choice of words in the context of our deceased rodent friend.  In addition to being hopelessly disorganized, I am also a monster.) 

The calendars themselves, apart from my scribbles inside of them, brought back lots of memories.  My 2001 calendar (pictured above) contained drawings and quotations from The Little Prince, in French, English, German, and Spanish.  It was a present from my grandmother Meme, infamous in our family for her terrible unique gift-giving.  (For my eighth birthday, she gave me a candlestick holder.)  Still, this calendar inspired me to read the book, which became one of my beloved favorites.  I had a couple of Emily the Strange calendars from my angsty teenage years, as well as calendars of fairies, as my best friend and I would spend hours building tiny fairy houses out of twigs and magnolia leaves in our gardens.  

Cards people sent to my mom in the hospital after I was born.  I am not sure how these wound up in a drawer in my room—presumably Mama put them there after I moved away to college (as though I need more things stuffed into every imaginable space in my room!).  

The messages were surprisingly moving.  One letter was from a friend of Mama's who had recently miscarried and who had written to apologize to Mama for missing my baby shower, explaining that it was too painful for her.  The above card was from Gran Dot and Papa George, my mother's parents who passed away when I was very young.  The inside of the card continues, "...to a world that's been waiting for you!  Congratulations to the happy parents!", with the handwritten note: 

Dear Anna, 

        We are so pleased you are here to be with our family.  You have many loving arms waiting to hold you!  

                                           Love,

                                                                              Grandpa + Grandma Akers 

As someone who has struggled with depression, I was deeply touched to read messages from so many people welcoming me into the world, celebrating my birth and existence.  I think that this feeling is ultimately why I hang on to so many seemingly insignificant things--packed with papers and trinkets, my room becomes a treasure box of memories, a kind of map to my existence.  At the simple opening of a drawer, I am transported to childhood years; through reading old letters, I hear the voices of loved ones long gone.  

Cheers to building more memories and accumulating more calendars and cards in Chicago!  

So I didn't blog at all in 2013, oops!

"Kathryn, what should I blog about?"

"How you're at the lowest of the low in your life...PSYCH!"

We hear our two dogs bark outside the window.  A car drives up.  "That's my ride, see you later!"  Kathryn tells me after complaining about how mom won't let her go to the movies.

"Wait, WHAT?"  I exclaim.  Even at this age I still worry about incurring the wrath of my mother.

"I'm just playin'!"  The car turns out to be our neighbor. 

These are the snippets of conversation that characterize my life living at home with my 15 year-old sister.  I currently work and live in my tiny hometown, population well under 2,000, in Virginia.  It has been a difficult transition living at home after being on my own in the big cities of Chicago and Seattle, but time spent with my littlest baby sis makes things exciting even while living in a town with no movie theater, no bar, "AND NO STARBUCKS!", Kathryn emphatically adds. 

Wearisome Thursday

A series of haiku that describes my Thursday:

isn't it horrid

how sleep debt accumulates

never pay it back

nervously pacing

clothes strewn about my whole room

business casual

interview feedback:

i might "just die on the vine"

anna the raisin

black eyelash on cheek

whispering, laughing on bus

make a secret wish

my jaw really hurts

chewing the same piece of gum

for over three hours

"a faraway love

is never a good love" says

miss ruby tuesday

i would much rather

write haiku that no one reads

than do physci work

natural hazards

naturally hazardous

"natty hazards" bro

Ash Wednesday in Chicago

Yet again, it's Ash Wednesday—almost a full year has gone by since I last wrote in my blog on Ash Wednesday in Oaxaca, Mexico. I'm back in Chicago for now, finishing up my fourth year at UChicago. I've decided that, for Lent this year, I will write once a day (something non-school-related—BA drafts do not count!). I will either post my thoughts here on my blog or in my diary. We'll see where this goes.

Ash Wednesday

I don't consider myself to be very religious, but I'm culturally Episcopalian. My favorite time of the year in church is, oddly enough, not Christmas or Easter, but Ash Wednesday and Lent. The gospel for the Ash Wednesday service inspires me: "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." I think these words are beautiful, about treasuring things that are more important than material objects.

Lent for me has always been a time for discipline: a cleansing, introspective process. Since I was 14, I've seriously committed to giving things up for Lent. At age 14, I gave up meat, which prompted me to become a vegetarian that summer. I usually impose strict rules upon myself: no sweets, junk food, chocolates, or soda of any kind, deactivation of Facebook. But here I sit in my room, late Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning, pondering what to forgo.

List:
-Go back to being a vegetarian after becoming a degenerate vegetarian while trying loads of meat in Spain and Mexico.
-Give up sweets, chocolate, etc. (This will not start until after I leave Oaxaca, as I must enjoy the delicious hot chocolate while I'm still here!)
-Check Facebook only once every week. Well, maybe every other day. Not checking it will start tomorrow...no, the day after tomorrow! Maybe limit to checking it once a day? Man, do I have an addiction.

Last year at Brent House, the Episcopal Ministry at the University of Chicago, I heard someone say that, instead of giving something up for Lent, he makes sure that he writes every day. Following these lines, I could:

-Write in my diary daily. When I was a little, I kept a diary religiously, from the time I was in kindergarten until my first year of senior high school. I'd like to start writing again.
-Read the New York Times every day, along with El País to keep up with my Spanish.
-Go out of my way every day, even if I do something very small, to make someone else happier and his/her life a little more beautiful.

I think that, in the past, I've been way too masochistic about Lent; at any rate, I think it's much harder/more beneficial to learn how to moderately indulge in temptations, be it bars of dark chocolate or celebrity articles on Jezebel, than to completely deprive yourself of them. Furthermore, I think the idea of Lent is not deprivation but personal growth and introspection. This past year has already been a huge growing experience for me, working in Chicago on my own over the summer, immersing myself in Spanish in Spain, and continuing to learn and expand my horizons in Mexico. As I prepare to leave Mexico this weekend, we'll see where Lent takes me into the next chapter of my exciting third year of college.

Things I Did Tonight Instead of Reading

I'm behind in my discussion questions for the week. (Tell me something new!) In fact, I was so stressed today, that when I talked to nuestra profesora about the final project with the other members of my group, she told me not to look so sad and scared about the final, and I started crying. I cried when I got home because I was stressed, sick, overwhelmed, and sad about leaving all of the people I've grown to love in Oaxaca. Tonight, I made progress in The Underdogs (original Spanish title: Los de abajo) while sipping on a chai latte in a cafe, but here are some of the things I did instead of staying cooped up in my room reading:

-Met a 102 year-old woman named Teresa (her 103rd birthday is this month!). Her cheeks are still rosy, but her eyes were tinted blue, and she's not aware of her surroundings, so I suppose it's a bit of a stretch to say that I "met" her; I more just sat across the table from her and stared intently while chatting in Spanish with the nurse taking care of her. Her skin was like white paper stretched over her face, and it looked very soft, almost like a fragile white butterfly wing.
-Went to a restaurant that was on the second floor of a building, with white scarves draped over the windows and a light that cast shadows like crescent moons over the walls.
-In said restaurant, I met an incredibly friendly hairless Mexican dog (Xoloitzcuintle) named Haiku. She even had her own little embroidered shirt!
-Ate some kind of delicious dish: chicken, rice, black sauce, corn. Scrumptious! And mezcal...to kill all these germs I have from being sick, of course!
-Danced salsa for two hours with my friend Juan and his hermano mexicano Saul, an incredible dancer who gave us our own private lessons! I had fun laughing and being twirled around by Saul and Juan.

And nobody gets to tell me that my night would have been better spent reading—not nobody, not no how!