So Predictable

     

      The Psychic of the Village sat on a plush red chair inside her shop on 6^th Avenue right off Houston St. She was wearing a purple tracksuit and chewed gum as she stared at her iPhone. On the small table next to her were a stack of tarot cards and some candles. She was going to tell me my future. Not my whole future. That would require a $75 tarot card reading. Instead I opted for the $10 face reading. She would tell me all about myself just by looking at my face.

       She looked at me and told me I will live a long and happy life. That’s a relief. I will have a successful career and my work will involve people. That’s so vague, how could it not be true? And there was more good news: I have many admirers.  One in particular stood out to her. There was an age gap between the mystery admirer and me. I asked if the admirer was older or younger. The Psychic of the Village told me it could be either one, she wasn’t sure. Nobody’s perfect.

Thanks For Nothing

Unfortunately, none of us were high on heroin in this picture.

       I grew up with a secure, loving family in a nice suburban area. This is the worst possible way for a writer to grow up. If I were raised by drug addicts in the ghetto I'd already have the makings of an interesting memoir. Unfortunately, there's no built-in struggle to the story of my childhood, and it’ll probably be a while before I’m able to write a memoir and become a famous writer. My parents encouraged me to follow my dreams and made sure I always had everything I ever needed and more. I never worried about having a roof over my head. I never went hungry and anyone who knows what I looked like from ages 8 to 16 can attest to this.

That Signature Look

     I need to be more like Hitler; he had the right idea. Right now I’m too much of an Osama. In case you’re wondering, I’m referring to appearances. I’m not referring to these men’s ideologies; let’s keep this superficial.

      I was on the subway last week and a Muslim man got on the train, dressed to the nines. He had on the full garb (yes, I know I am being insensitive by not using the proper terms for Muslim clothing, but I do not know the actual terms and “garb” is a lot better than calling someone a “towel head,” so we’ll stick with “garb”). The second this man stepped on the train, I immediately thought “Osama Bin Laden!” It wasn’t as though I thought this man was a terrorist but my thought was more of a “Hey, that’s how Osama Bin Laden used to dress.” Still, making this immediate association was a disappointment to me. “Really Chris?” I thought, that's what some Kansas hillbilly in New York for the first time would think. I wanted to go up to this man and apologize and tell him that I respected his religion and maybe buy him some ice cream. But then again, I’m sure almost everyone else in the subway car thought the same thing I did. If I didn’t offer him guilt-ridden ice cream, then someone else would. 

Cats Who Speak English

A FAREWELL TO THE SPANISH LANGUAGE

      I never have to speak a word of Spanish again, which is probably a good thing since I haven’t retained all that much of it. As of the end of this semester, I have officially achieved exit level status in my studies of the Spanish language. But if I had my way, I would have been done with it 12 years ago.

     One day in the second grade, without warning, a small Hispanic woman who was most likely an illegal immigrant came into our classroom and started speaking to us in broken English. She was there to teach us the Spanish language. I was familiar with Spanish from my younger years, when Big Bird tried to shove it down my throat every few months on Sesame Street. Other than that I had very little interest in learning a new language. I was seven, I had just mastered reading and writing in English and already I was being forced to start from scratch with a weird alphabet where some of the letters had marks or squiggly lines above them. This was not all right.

Hidden Talent

    

     By the time I was in seventh grade, my parents began to worry I was useless. I had no discernable hobbies or talents, and I showed early signs of being unemployable and homeless. My parents always told me how much they loved me, but I doubt either of them planned on spending their retirements taking care of the 30 year old on their couch. So, my mom decided it was time I developed into better person, and she had the perfect way to do it. She forced me to take guitar lessons.

       I use the word “forced” for a reason. I did not do this willingly. To me, it seemed pointless to take up a hobby. I was perfectly content with my musical inabilities and saw no reason to change things. I tried rationalizing with my mom. I was already 12, I told her; if I had musical talents we would’ve figured it out already. I was too old to be learning new tricks. At the time, I honestly thought I had fully developed as a person and that I knew everything there was to know. Shockingly, this turned out to not be true. Do you guys know about that secret arrow in the FedEx logo? That shit’s crazy.

Story Books

      

        In America, if you want to visit a bookstore your choices are simplified to either a Barnes & Noble or Borders. Wait, what? Borders is no longer a thing? Ok, so your choice is Barnes & Noble. There you will find lots of information about the newest edition of the Nook Tablet along with calendars, stationary, games, puzzles, coffee, muffins, magazines, and DVDs. A trip to a Barnes & Noble ensures a shiny pamphlet with lots of Nook related information, a coffee frapp with whipped cream, and a Seinfeld version of the Clue board game. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll see some books there too.

      But in London, for some crazy reason, the books are the primary focus of bookstores. And your choices are not limited to one chain store. During my summer in London, I made sure I visited every bookstore I saw. If I was with a group traveling somewhere and passed an interesting bookstore, I made a mental note of its location and revisited it another time. There was the used bookstore on Kensington Church Street on the walk to school, a few other shops in Notting Hill, and perhaps most impressive, the block in Covent Gardens that had four bookshops.

Santa Hates Poor People

      I first became skeptical of Santa Claus at the age of seven. Never mind that I had no visual proof of his existence and that the fourth graders on my bus told me he was fake, the real reason I began questioning him was when I learned he neglected poor people.
     Every year my elementary school held a present drive for poor families. Each classroom was assigned to one family and each student would get a family member along with their age, a list of things they needed, and their clothing sizes. Our teacher told us that by getting presents for this family, we would make them very happy and give them a Christmas to remember. In first grade, I didn’t think to ask why we needed to buy things for these people; I was too busy studying the Sears Wish Book with a marked determination to leave no toy un-circled.

Poor Eleanor

     In fifth grade, I was given an assignment in which I had to write about one of the US presidents. I can’t say I was particularly excited about this since I preferred book reports. Book reports were good because I would pick one of the Harry Potter books that I had read a year ago and would refresh my memory by watching the movie. This president essay wouldn’t be as easy. I actually had to read about one of the presidents since I couldn’t imagine how awful it would be to watch a movie about one of them. None of them interested me, so I figured I would write about Abraham Lincoln. Our school’s closet-sized library was out of the Lincoln books, so I chose Franklin Roosevelt.

Always Be Prepared and Stuff

     

       The motto of the Boy Scouts of America is “always be prepared.” While at first this might sound like a warning against the perils of unprotected sex, its real purpose is to drill into young boys the value of thinking ahead. I think this is perhaps where I went wrong when my Boy Scout troop visited a local nursing home at Christmastime when I was eight.

TB Determined

     In my senior year of high school I decided that it was time to become an even better person. Obviously, this would be difficult for me since I was already so wonderful, but I was up for the challenge. I was in a course which required me to do some type of community service. Most of the guys in my class opted to volunteer with school children. Helping black kids learn algebra didn’t exactly have much of a zing to it. Anyone could do that. Me? I wanted to volunteer with hospice patients. I was pretty sure at the time that if there was a heaven, volunteering with dying people pretty much means you have a guaranteed spot up there. It would be difficult, sure, but I would have so many stories to tell and people would praise me for my bravery. It would be like Tuesdays with Morrie or Driving Miss Daisy or something like that. I would connect with a patient and they would connect with me, and we would change each other’s lives (that is, of course, until the person died and I moved on to the next life-changing bundle of death). So, without even considering helping school kids, I signed up with Grace Health Care Services. Give me my badge, and I’m off to meet some dying people. Unfortunately, there was training. A lot of training. Training that required me to rub oil on a 65-year-old woman’s veiny hands. Training that also required medical tests. Medical tests that would reveal, or seemingly so, a startling fact about my then current state of health.