Grace.

I’m sometimes an angry person. I’m angry that I’m not Michael Chabon, that my sentences don’t always sit like trophies on mantle places, that I don’t have five years to sit at home and write, that I don’t have the kind of talent that would merit giving up a career in order to risk it and take a chance for the big time.

This piece should be titled “What I could Have Been.” It should be written in a very nostalgic way, in sort of a regretful tone, very melancholy. It begins with a still shot of a child’s room that looks aged, perhaps the carpet spells out “Made in the 80s” and you know in the pit of your stomach that children’s beds aren’t made that way anymore because of liability issues. You know the room isn’t yours because the walls are covered in certificates of accomplishment, and they’re framed and dusted. Someone’s been keeping them up, someone’s proud of…someone, but not you.

You know it’s not your room because no one you know encouraged you to pursue your talent, not with any conviction at least, not someone who carried enough weight in your world to push you. Not until it was too late. Sure, there were teachers along the way. Some friends, once in a while. But you dismiss the teachers, because you’re certain they see you as a child, and what do children know? And you dismiss the friends, because one of them was your cousin, and the other was a boy who liked you, and they had to say those nice things. And you dismiss the woman you know who writes professionally, because, well, she just doesn’t understand how you’d have to turn your world upside down to pay for the cost of honesty. To write from deep within you, the way you know you want to, the only way that matters. And you see that you’re wrong: she’s the only one that knows the cost of such writing. How isolating it can be. How frightening honesty can be. How dangerous it can be to have something to say.

Deep down, you know. You feel it in your gut—your desire to be a writer. It’s obvious to you because when you see something happen before your eyes, something special, you know that if you were a photographer, you’d pull out your camera and start taking pictures right there. It doesn’t matter that you are late to work, and you’re now running down the street half naked, in the rain. You’re thrilled that you got a picture of a torn wedding dress flying like a flag from the back of a garbage truck. It’s totally worth it.

I made my mom repeat the word sumerki in Russian fifty times because I liked its texture. Dawn. The velvet sound of the word is like petting a rabbit. And I understood the meaning of the word in the pit of my stomach; I understood it through my own way of classifying what a word means to me. When I see something, I feel its consequences in the pit of my stomach. It’s a picture of a brief moment that hangs in the air, and it’s something of a clincher sentence to a very long essay, something that pulls the last string in a knit hat, and closes off the hole at the top. It’s a moment that seems to put a very long string of events before it into perspective, sort of like a lesson that can be easily overlooked if you’re not paying attention. And unless you see the world a certain way, unless you feel it in your gut—you just miss the lessons, and you’re no worse off for it. Maybe even happier. But for those of us who see it, who see things in a different way, we have to write them down. We have to record them. At a cost.

You know that if you tell things the way you see them, you might push people away.

Some friends of mine wrote a musical about calculus and they’re traveling around the country, performing it at educational institutions, fringe festivals and people’s living rooms. Basically, after selling most of their possessions, they’re living out of their car and staying with friends all over the US. They’ve been at it for about eight months.

At first, I was thinking to myself, “What would drive a person to such madness?” I thought of the job I’d be giving up, the comforts of having a closet, a bed, a place to come home to every night. And then I thought about how I break even at the end of the month financially. Living in DC is not cheap. So, it’s turns out that I’m working full time, getting paid for it, and then spending everything almost right away.

In several months, I’ll be living at my parents’ house again. It’s a transition, once more. The benefit to that is I’ll finally have a chance to start saving again. The downside? I’ll be insane and I won’t have any use for the money in a loony bin.

Back to the friends… so why was I so judgmental of them in the beginning? I thought that living the hobo lifestyle was something you couldn’t do in your late 20s and still be considered a “fully functioning member of society.” What’s with the criticism? I’d do just about anything if I could take a break from my job and just travel. It’s because I’ve been conditioned to feel that I’m nothing without a job, and I’m no one without possessions: clothing, a car, a house.

I listened to the radio today for the first time in a while. It was some random DC pop station, and the hosts were talking about sitting on some deck, celebrating Mother’s Day early with some lights strung up around them. Lights shaped liked bottles. And I wondered who the hell cares about that plastic, wasteful crap. There are people hungry, dying somewhere. Not hungry here, in front of me and you, but tucked away in some other country, some other street in some other town.

My parents’ driveway was full of cars this morning, which were all blocking my parents’ garage. Dad had a dentist appointment to get to. My boyfriend, being the nice guy that he is, offered to lend his car to my dad. Dad said no. And he walked to his appointment.

That’s sort of a big deal in terms of the way that people live in Suburban Maryland. It’s rare that people walk anywhere, let alone to a dentist appointment. He walked back too, with a half-frozen face. Anyway, I’m not sure what my point is. Maybe that people can survive just fine without many luxuries, which are often painted other things, like essentials, must-haves, weird-if-you-don’t-haves.

Today, my friend mentioned that producing edible meat is actually very machine-intensive. Who the heck thinks about this on a daily basis? I wonder if eating meat equates to owning a car in terms of damage to the environment. I also wonder why this information isn’t advertised, like, “Milk is good for you.”

I can see it now, “EDIBLE COWS ARE BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT.” Man. I’m tired. I need to go to bed.

Here’s the truth. Several weeks ago, I was walking home from the metro. I marveled at the beautiful blooms on a massive tree that looked like an oak. I know, oaks don’t bloom, but the tree seemed oakish because its trunk was very sturdy and it looked like it belonged. Oaks seem like they’re the cool kid on the block, or maybe the hot senior boy who smells good, and you knew he was going to be that hot even in third grade when you’d pretend to trip behind him when walking single file, just to run your nose into the back of his head so you could smell his hair.

It was sunny outside, one of the first days of spring. And I was walking past the local school in Adams Morgan (that’s the neighborhood I live in), and I saw something that made me look away in shame, and at the same time, made me feel old and terribly unhip.

Kids were playing soccer in the front of the school, the way they usually do. Kids of all different shapes and sizes and colors, just all sufficiently tiny to still constitute being called “kids,” all proper appendages and clothing poised for future adulthood..

The tiniest ones were chasing a soccer ball, kicking it out of bounds, laughing at the poor sucker who had to chase it down the sidewalk. The bigger kids were playing basketball and flirting with the girls on the sidelines. I almost turned the corner with an image of purity before my eyes: white blossoms flowering and flowing all around, like some scene from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. When all of a sudden, I saw something earth shattering, and I could hear the brakes of this euphoric feeling come to a screeching halt.

A teenager leaned on a railing by the edge of the basketball court next to his girl and poured something from a brown, paper bag into his Coke bottle. I saw it. I swear, it happened.

Another pedestrian saw it too, and he smirked at the kid, but the kid stared back at him, eyes saying, “What? Like you’ve never seen this before?”

I hadn’t. And then, I walked home the rest of the way, slightly dejected because I had finally discovered where alcoholics uncover their fondness for inebriation, and their need for it. Apparently, it starts very young.

As a random aside, I had a dream last night that I was eight months pregnant. And I remember the feeling of having a round belly (which wasn't entirely made of fat). Holy crap, it was so real. Ever had one of those dreams?

I saw a pregnant woman at work today, and I told her about my dream. I also told her it creeped the hell out of me. I hope I didn't offend her.

I just watched the documentary called "Street Fight" about the mayoral race between Cory Booker and the other dude who rigged the elections, Sharpe James.

Naive as it sounds, I didn’t realize that black on black hate was actually real. Here’s an excerpt from the director, Marshall Curry’s website on the film:

"The battle sheds light on important American questions about democracy, power and -- in a surprising twist -- race. Both Booker and James are African-American Democrats, but when the mayor accuses the Ivy League educated Booker of not being "really black" it forces voters to examine both how we define race in this country. "We tell our children to get educated," one Newarker says, "and when they do, we call them white. What kind of a message does that send?"

This documentary left a gross taste in my mouth. It could’ve also been the bucket of grease that was on my pizza that made me feel queasy, but something tells me it was, in fact, what I was watching.