tweens are clever.

My bus route takes me past The Boston Globe and Boston’s WB headquarters. Or maybe they’re branches. At the very least, they look official enough to be important extensions. Occasionally, if the timing’s right, I get to witness flashes of various promotions for shows like 90210 or Hellcats where teenagers dress up, picket, and make choices they’ll most likely regret. If I’m really lucky, like I was today, my bus hits a red light and I get to stare in total disbelief.

This evening, girls and boys lined the sidewalk dressed as vampires to advertise tonight’s episode of The Vampire Diaries. Dozens of signs boasted heavy red and black ink, all with the same catchphrase: “Catch VD!”

Might wanna rethink the slogan, guys.

park it.

About a week ago, I tripped over a chair. To be fair, it was sitting on the street about two feet away from the curb and I was scrolling through the artists on my iPod. I walked away unharmed, intact, but puzzled about the placement of the faded green wooden chair. But it was snowing and cold and I was too nervous about school to think about the chair.

On my way from the T four days ago, I noticed another chair on the sidewalk, a neon pink camping chair that folds sorta like a tripod and is carried in a nylon bag. I’ve accumulated hundreds of hours sitting in identical chairs on camping trips and at ball games, and because it’s an outdoorsy chair, I thought, “There have been a striking number of birds nesting in and fluttering about our neighborhood, so…?” But it was dark and snowing, and I’ve been watching The Wire and am therefore afraid of everything, especially in the dark, and especially in the dark when my vision is compromised by snow. So I hurried home.

Such heavy snowfall in Boston has left little space on the streets. My neighborhood is comprised of a long, narrow road that loops, most of which is one-way. Cars drive too fast, typically, and too close to the curb. As the snow has encroached on the already modest street space, drivers have gotten more aggressive and more territorial, as demonstrated by Old Smoker Guy’s inability to wait for Middle-Aged Lady to back out of her driveway. He tried to hop the curb, but his sedan couldn’t make it past the preliminary snow bank.

Given the median-like snow stacked along the street, too many drivers and cars have been displaced. Instead of parking bumper to bumper, vehicles are separated by five-foot snow banks. And all I can think about is when they’ll melt and how the whole street will sound like water.

It snowed a bit on Sunday, and watching it from inside my home (still freezing, btw) was beautiful. Unexpected winds dove in and blew the snow off the flat New England roofs, shaking loose a gorgeous, dancing dust. The downside, I suppose, is that the city of Boston requires us to shovel all that beauty within a certain time frame.

I don’t mind shoveling the snow, so I’ve taken care of it since I got home. My roommate J, who I’ve tried to like but just really don’t, doesn’t think she should shovel snow because “I’ve done it once before already.” Well I’ve done it five times, so zip it. The point is that I tucked my sweats into my boots, slipped my gloves on, and grabbed the shovel.

For some reason at 3 p.m. this Sunday, the streets were absolutely deserted. No bodies, no cars, just snow. And chairs.

Chairs.

White plastic lawn chair. Broken bar stool. Navy square-back wooden chair. Neon pink camping chair. Wooden footstool. Markers. Chairs near the curb, not always on all fours, but staking claim to the precious blacktop.

the week my electric blanket busted.

The heat in my apartment’s not working. Hasn’t been for about a week, but I suppose that’s not the whole truth. The heat kicks on if we jack the thermostat up to just past 80 degrees, but even then the heat is patchy, poorly circulated, and more expensive than anything I own. I voted to shutoff the heat altogether, but should the pipes freeze and burst (which is likely in sub 20 degree temperatures), it’s on the renters. What this means is that we must keep the heat on without any actual heat. In short, we’re each paying hundreds of dollars to freeze.

The landlord is slow to act, as a professional assessment of the heating system will cost her money; and also because “if you can’t see you breath, it’s not that cold.” Last night when the temperature dropped to minus 7, I saw my breath. And then said the F word.

My hopes that this gorgeous, snow-packed city would warm up have been smothered. By more snow, in fact.

When I left the house today it was three degrees below zero. I opened my front door, and my first breath choked me. I hacked and gasped for a few seconds on my porch worried that my lung may collapse. That’s what three below will do to ya.

My wussy .3 mile walk to the T numbed my face, hands, and legs, despite the long underwear Mom got me for Christmas. Tiny stars crystallized on my scarf just below my mouth. This cold, it’s a whole different kind of beating.

My teeth are still ringing.

PS: thanks Heidi and Meg for reading this gibberish. Though, me in person is much worse.

a nighthawk throwback. or, why i’m a pathetic human being.

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. My early drafts usually involve grand plans to drastically change my lifestyle and financial state with a better body and more time to travel. A once-over forces me to eliminate “volunteer in Nepal” and “backpack through Europe.” Later, Whitney. Later. A third look drops the goal “save 2,000 dollars”, as it’s a significant percentage of my overall income, most of which goes to paying rent. So this year, I’ve narrowed my scope.

As I sat by the fire tonight watching River Monsters and talking to my siblings, they began listing their own resolutions. M wants to “treat people better. Maybe. If they deserve it.” K is setting a goal she believes to be impossible: to “relax and quit taking responsibility for everyone’s actions and feelings.” True, it’ll be a doozy. S wants to finish school with a 4.0., to which he quickly added, “and get my leg press over 1000 pounds again.”

This sparked a landslide of goals committed to physical excellence, a realm I can’t very well understand. I think that’s a problem. I can hop on the elliptical machine for 30 minutes or play a (semi) competitive game of soccer, but when it comes to basic physical fitness, I’m embarrassingly out of shape.

Two days ago, as I rooted through old boxes of pictures, yearbooks (which I threw out), and old board games, I found my Presidential Physical Fitness award from the sixth grade. The Presidential award was the highest (and most meaningless) award given, and it required specific times and numbers for pushups, pull-ups, the mile run, and sprints. I can’t imagine my soft, tricep-less, 26-year-old body taking that test today. In fact, I haven’t attempted a pull-up since the sixth grade, a realization I confessed to S, after which we both descended into giggles.

So this year, I will. And I will succeed. I will complete a pull-up. That is my resolution.

orem landing.

I’m sleeping in my old room but without the comfort of handmade bookshelves, a 17-year-old desk, or the navy banana chair I gifted to my brother S before I left. No pictures, trinkets, ticket stubs, and no change on floor. The whole setup feels austere and deserted, except for my luggage in the corner. My duffle bag looks like a murder victim: deflated and gutted, the contents spilling over onto the carpet; and my scarves make for a convincing likeness of the 20+ feet of intestines once neatly coiled in my bag.

I’ve lived out of a bag before. After my parents split, we all packed up every week to cross the boundary between Lindon and Orem, different towns for each parent. Still, I can’t get used to the chaos of scattered and piled clothes, or the mingling of dirty shirts and clean jeans.

But I like my yellow room, and I’ve liked visiting Utah. I like long lunches with friends that demand a tip that almost matches the bill because, really, we sat there for three hours. I like dancing with my family to songs synonymous with seedy stripper joints. I like buckets of good food, and violent indoor soccer games that leave me winded, sweaty, and bruised. I like reading Blankets in bed until 4 a.m. I like the general warmth of people, even at 1 a.m. in the grocery store. Utah people’s good people.

But just as Utah has reminded me what I miss, it has reminded me why I left. Explaining why I’m 26 and not married has proven to be just as irritating as it was five months ago, as are the assumptions that I’m both politically conservative and an active member of the dominant faith.

They’re honest mistakes, I suppose, I hope, and though I’d never claim that Utah people are homogenous, there’s definitely a commanding mindset, and I doubt it will change much. But it’s my home, a place with a vacant room waiting for me to drop my luggage. And even in moments of sheer frustration, I can skip over to Ridley’s and get a six-pack of Apple Beer and watch The Mighty Ducks with my siblings. And that makes all the difference.

maybe i'll ask Freud.

I’m not home sick. The past two weeks and impending finals have kept my focus from everything except J.M. Coetzee, post-apartheid South Africa, rape, lesson plans, and how to convince my professor that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is worthy of academic inquiry. Evidently the landslide of scholarship isn’t an effective sell.

It’s not that I don’t miss my family and friends. I do. Dearly. But location wise, my brain’s in charming Boston with the rest of my freezing body.

Last Thursday, the freezing bodies of my classmates and I convened in our classroom located in the sinking, mold-infested humanities building, just as we’ve done every Thursday night for four months. We sit at a rectangular table in a room that doubles as some kind of banquet hall. We know this because of the crumbs and empty water pitchers.

I brushed the proof of earlier meetings from my chair and settled in for an evening of presentations. I gave mine the week before, which was kind of a disaster. Maybe “disaster” is a little dramatic. My classmates were interested in Buffy, but my professor was disconnected and critical. And I, poor public speaker that I am, sat hunched and angular and digging at my palms like a meth addict, trying to explain Spike’s gender as performance. And we know it’s not just Spike, right? It’s everyone. But Spike’s fascinating. And sexy.

But I’d paid my dues, so I sat back and listened to my classmates discuss Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, and James Joyce. J began his presentation on architecture and its role in literature. His handout circulated while I dug through my bag for a working pen.

Then in J’s very gravely, very Boston voice, he said, “Whitney, I put Salt Lake City as a shout-out to you.”

Next to maps of Dublin, London, and Denver was Salt Lake City in all its grid-like, Mormon landscape glory. I ran my finger from one landmark to the next. Temple Square, Pioneer Park, the Salt Flats, and the Delta Center. Redwood Road. Places I’ve been; places rich with texture and steeped in memory. I wanted to grab B’s hand and sit on the floor with my legs crossed and tell him about my first Jazz game, or about taking a nasty spill in Temple Square while racing to Meghan’s wedding.

I haven’t been able to shake the strangeness of Salt Lake City in a Boston classroom. It’s a collision I hadn’t expected, and I still can’t make sense of why I got so sentimental and a little protective. And why, for a moment, I wanted to tell someone, anyone, about my Utah narrative.

J and I hopped the same elevator after class where we both expressed general relief that class is over. “And hey," I said, "thanks for the shout-out."

“Little bit a home, huh?”

Little bit of home.

sorta like Leonid Afremov

My neighborhood houses some gorgeous triple-deckers. Admittedly, I was easily seduced by their structure and stained glass windows. By their colors. And Boston’s city landscape didn’t offer much by way of color.

I miss Utah landscape every day: green and gray mountains, red rock, even Utah Lake in all its filth. But in the few years before I left, Utah County’s affinity for all things beige was on the rise. Neutral brick, stucco, moldings, shutters, the works. All the same. Antique Beige. Whispering Wheat. Navajo Sand. Golden Coast. The housing developments west of 1-15 near the point of the mountain are proof of the worship of the subdued.

The older homes or bolder owners still use color. My favorite house back home boasts peeling turquoise trim and burnt orange brick. There’s a wheelbarrow leaning against the north wall, and I’ve never seen anyone go in or out.

On the days I take the train to school, I pass my favorite house on the block. It’s deep teal with white trim and a red brick staircase. Tiny, stained glass diamonds accent the corners of every window; they glimmer like fish scales in the sun. The house to the left ranks in my top ten: royal and light blue with open, welcoming windows and white pillars. It looks a bit overdone with its double porch, but I’d take my tea out there if they’d let me. The house two doors to the right is burgundy and has a broad porch that wraps around the house like folded arms. In my brain, the burgundy home has authority, is somehow in-the-know about the rest of the neighborhood. I wonder if it knows what the hell is up with the house across the street.

The house in mourning. It may have been blue once, but now it’s only a suggestion of its former color. It’s impossible to see anything inside. Pillows, clothes, hangers, dressers, sofas, and boxes press against its windows. My roommate says she’s seen a Vietnamese family hustling their kids off to school, but I haven’t witnessed any movement. It’s always still.

I wonder how they live. Where they sleep. Why the clutter. I think about how many Hefty garbage bags it would take to clean the house. How long it would take to paint it rusty orange with turquoise trim.

When the sun’s out, the paint still looks wet. But when it’s overcast and the ocean reflects the gray skies, Boston reminds me of Utah housing—Granite. Charcoal. Stone.—and the colorful houses are the fluorescent hang gliders soaring from the point of the mountain, airborne over the muted neutral.