Christmas Spirit

The smell of burning wood seeps through the dorm window. I stand on my roommate’s bed to pull the window down and stick my nose against the clawed screen. I close my eyes. My memory transports me to my living room at home in California. The slanted Douglas fir tree shines with colorful Christmas lights and decorations collected throughout the years. The glowing angel stands proudly at the tip of the tree. The fireplace crackles as my dad arranges the burnt wood to make room for the new. My mom and sister bring sweet potatoes and potatoes wrapped in aluminum foil. I grab the tongs from my dad so that I can put in the wrapped potatoes. After I am finished with my small yet important task, I plop onto the couch. I doze off listening to "White Christmas" before I get a chance to eat my sweet potato.  

Dear TV

Lyrics of "Dear Tv" by Tablo

Dear TV, desensitize me. Gimme more genocide please. The world is your aphrodisiac, so you stay turned on every minute, every second I breathe. You weaponize greed, kill me with incessant I needs. Got me checkin' out those, and checkin' out these. Mainstream me, disinfectin' my breed. I'm lookin' for nirvana but you Geffenize me. Point me to the skies till heaven's eye bleeds. Anoint me with your lies then divinize me. If heaven is a show, well, televise me. But I won't lie my way in, no fakin' IDs. I'll die standin'. Try breakin my knees. I'll do a handstand like I'm breakin'. Now freeze. Don't act like you know me 'cause you recognize me. You sell my record, not me.

Why we shouldn't diet....

What is the derivative of f(t) = diet in terms of t?

= die

Why??

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Someone

There is no one amongst everyone. The flurry of students conquering the sidewalks and eateries on St. Paul Street blur together. It is the same. It is the North Face backpacks or the tote bags embroidered with Greek letters. There is much talking. A delicious Apple occupies one ear, while a white earphone is settled in the other. Blue eyes. Brown eyes. Two eyes. Four eyes. Dark circles accentuate them while a Starbucks cup accessorizes the hand. The lit scarlet hand does not stop the cluster of students from crossing the two-way 32^nd Street or the extended one-way St. Paul Street. They look to be in their teens or twenties, although some look like the extreme ends of the age spectrum. They walk with a purpose to reach their destination, either to meet a friend or to grab a carnita burrito at Chipotle.

There is someone. A Caucasian male has a mysterious face that can pull off forty or sixty years of age. He is of small stature and frame. He wears a pair of light blue jeans, a size too big, matched with a moth-eaten white T-shirt tinged yellow, especially at the collar and near the armpits. Bushy gray eyebrows and a silvery scruff that looks like it hasn’t been groomed for weeks obscure his face. He shuffles and pauses. His territory lies between the one block between 31^st and 32^nd Street on St. Paul. He loiters on concrete pavements with a cigarette clenched in his mouth or in between his index and middle fingers. He sits at Coldstone’s table or on the steps next to Subway taking long drags on his cigarette and puffing out the smoke in the path of walking pedestrians. The man throws his cigarette butt on the ground without bothering to step on it.

“How are you?” The Asian girl walking past looks confused. Her ponytail whips back and forth as she looks around to see if he is talking to someone else. She is the one closest to him, but she does not bother to slow down or stop. Instead, her pace increases. A few minutes later, he shifts his position from the front of University Market to the Korean restaurant, Ajumoney. There is a brunette girl chatting with an ebony-haired female connected by the same sisterhood advertised on their handbags. They are sitting outside the restaurant and their table is bare, absent of food. The abrupt appearance of the man interrupts their conversation. He puts his wrinkled hands on their table and hunches over. “Do you have any change you can spare me?” He is nonchalant and not a bit chagrined. The girls exchange glances and look back at the man with slightly larger eyes than before. The man flashes his crooked, yellow, and incomplete set of teeth as he sees the brunette open her sorority bag to pull out her wallet. Her black manicured nails rummage through several bills before she pulls out one dollar. He says, “Thank you. God bless,” as he grabs the money, shoves it into his back pocket, and saunters away.