Cooper Chronicles: I.19

(An ongoing series for the month of January, these are letters written to my family and friends during my college years in New York, when I discovered my love of writing.  Introduction here.)

for my whole life, i’ve been the one at the table in the Chinese restaurant that gets the convoluted, enigmatic fortune in my cookie — “your life is a paradigm of successions,” or something similarly obscure.  then two weeks ago, at lunch with daddy, i actually smiled after cracking open the vanilla-flavored cardboard.  there was an epiphany on my plate: “you are a lover of words, someday you will write a book.” 

little shivers of excitement ran through me.  not because the idea of being destined to write a book was particularly thrilling (or true.) despite my friends’ flattering-but-biased predictions, i don’t think that lies in even the distant future.  it was the first part of the grammatically challenged sentence that inspired me to keep the little slip of paper with orange printing in my wallet long after i had committed it to memory.  a lover of words. 

i believe in a Divine will, not in fate; and i’ve never put stock in horoscopes or superstition.  somehow, though, this fortune got to me. it’s funny that it should take something that silly and insignificant for me to realize what so much of my personality is made of.  i love words.  they have power — think of a good speech or a really strong set of lyrics.  a simple sentence can move someone to tears, drive two people to blows or inspire a lifelong drive for something.  they can express complex things like feelings, concepts and intangible forces with perfect clarity.  they seem simple but are actually very difficult, and then they seem very involved but are really relating something quite straightforward. 

i don’t write because i think i have anything more to say than the next guy, or because i think i’ll say it any better than he will.  i write because i love to tell people what i’m doing and thinking and feeling and *be*ing at this moment in my life — and because i can.  because i have these wonderful tools available to express myself with.  it’s not enough for me to have these bizarre and sketchy and wonderful experiences and then keep them inside my own head.  they itch to get out.  they pound on the door of my brain until i sit down and tell somebody, two people, ten people.  i want to share my impressions, and words are my medium.  i don’t paint, i don’t compose.  i remember, and then i write.

this has always been who i am.  it was not until i moved to new york, though, that it became so obvious.  here, with the constant stimulation of the living, breathing city around me, i have so much going through my head that it would be silly and selfish of me to write it in a journal and keep it locked up and hidden away.  i don’t need any justification for taking a few hours a week to indulge in the pleasures of e-mail.  when you’re a lover of words, you can’t help it.

of course, there is a danger in loving words too much. it is possible to indulge, to cheapen them until they mean nothing but a bunch of letters put together on a page — something that i’m probably guilty of a lot more often than i’d like to admit.  there’s the rub.  “use them with care,” warns the little emily-angel on my left shoulder.  but the emily-devil on my right goads me, tells me to throw caution and grammar rules to the wind and just write the unedited impressions as they enter my head.  i think they’re both a little right.  and i enjoy the struggle.  it’s part of what makes words so beautiful.

it’s nice to finally know *why* i’ve been writing so religiously, isn’t it?  now i have a ready answer, and substantial proof to back it up. (if the fortune cookie said so, it must be.)  and there have been some delightful consequences.  you don’t have to imagine the endless debauchery and moral degradation that i’m experiencing in new york, because i explain it to you in detail.  and no one gets mad at me for grumpiness on account of having to tell the same story ninety-three times (can you believe there are ninety-three of you?)

and (deep breath), some exciting news … you all know frederica mathewes-green, my beloved pastor’s wife and dear friend.  she is the author of the books Real Choices and Facing East, as well as numerous other articles and NPR radio spots (also, i hear she’s slated to make a guest appearance on Delicious Dish sometime soon. the topic is “cabbage.”)  always looking out for this indigent college student, she forwarded one of my letters to her sometimes-editor john wilson, of Books & Culture magazine.  he asked me to write an article; i wrote one about the eric fischl lecture i attended last november.  when he liked that (it’s set to be published in the march / april issue), he sent me a few more possible topics and asked me to try being a columnist for one year.  i was stunned, amazed and a little scared.  and although “try” is the operative word, i said i would do it.  we’ll see.

when i arrived at my apartment last wednesday (school didn’t start until the following tuesday, but i wanted a little free time up here before the mad rush resumed), i was shocked at the state it was in.  perhaps someone had broken into my bedroom and ransacked it in a mad search for something valuable?  it took a few minutes for me to realize that *i* had left my room in this state.  rather embarrassing.  as i cleaned, friends dropped in to welcome me, and it was comforting to see everyone again.  most people think of new york city as an unfeeling place, but i’ve come to find that within the large, impersonal masses of people are little areas that have the same hometown feel of catonsville or ellicott city.  when i came back, everyone seemed overjoyed to see me — starting with  the guard at the desk downstairs, who insisted that i come and give him a hug before resuming his taunting about “mah haahtbeat,” and extending all the way down St. Mark’s Place to the falafel man, who nodded and beamed and asked me about my vacation.

the next days were spent in gleeful recklessness, watching foreign movies and going to quirky-but-cool restaurants.  my favorite was the one in little italy that greg harrigle and i picked out; when we asked teasingly whether they had “l’ambiance” here, the foreign waiter looked a little perplexed.  “well,” he offered helpfully, “i can see if it’s on the menu!”  we went to see “sonatine,” a japanese film that was only enjoyable after i realized the futility of trying to understand the plot and concentrated instead on the humor of the seemingly random slayings mixed in with shots of frisbee games.  “the general” was about an ordinary thief’s rise to head of a ring, and his skirmishes with the law along the way.  his witty comments (though not intended as such) and constant need to cover his face with his hands when in public were what kept the movie from being overly depressing.  “dr. akagi” covers the work of a japanese doctor during the second world war; he diagnosed every one of his patients with hepatitis, which he believed was the disease that would end the world.  i think the reason i love foreign movies is the way they can be funny without even seeming to try — a refreshing change from the American wit, which is only funny because it’s too obvious.

milos asked what i was doing on saturday night, and i told him that my family was coming up to new york for the weekend and i was going to hang out with them.  “what are you, some kind of nerd?” he sniffed disdainfully.  “yeah, she has a good relationship with her family.  isn’t that weird?”  raquel put in.  well, the orens have never been accused of normalcy.  in just over 30 hours we fit in shopping trips, FAO Schwarz, trips to all my favorite cheap restaurants (mom’s favorite was the mexican place with the neon orange sign in the window proclaiming “Burritoville: Elevation 1000 Ft.”) and the off-Broadway show “Stomp!”, which was unbelievably cool.  the team of 8 urban dancer / comedians beat out a rhythm on everything from kitchen sinks to matchboxes, and they even allowed their extremely ungroovy audience a chance to feel the beat.  you walk out of the tiny, crowded theater with imaginary drumsticks in your hands, and spend the rest of the night tapping your feet.  a must-see for anyone passing through the Village.

the day before school started, penley and i took the early-morning train to long island city to see what might be the most radical piece of architecture in new york city: a presbyterian church that was designed completely on the computer.  it’s been compared to a spaceship, and certainly held a surreal quality in the drizzly gray atmosphere of the railyards and warehouses that surrounded it.  on the way home we stopped at a café in west village that reminded me of paris: dimly lit, dark walls with framed prints of the Old Masters, groups of two or three parked at tiny tables and a restroom with a bright bottle-green door.  the people were holding small coffee cups and great big tumblers and looked as though they had been there all day, and had no intention of leaving.  i sighed and wished we led more of a European lifestyle.  penley wanted to stay there all day, but after ordering lunch and finding that the prices were cheap only because a “salad” meant two pieces of lettuce and a wedge of tomato, we decided to move on.  we spent the rest of the day walking all over the city, going café- and bookstore-hopping in the rain that went from drizzling to pouring and back again.  the weather was very thought-provoking, and good conversation always seems even better when you’re totally soaked and don’t care.  (i’ve paid for it, though, with a nasty cold for the past four days.)

tuesday it was back to the grind, dozing in descriptive geometry.  my literature class is slightly different this semester: called “texts and contexts,” it studies great works of literature in conjunction with the history of the period.  our textbook, “Millenium,” is ostentatiously written but entertaining.  i read with particular interest the chapter on Eastern Orthodoxy, which (although not altogether accurate) i’m sure will provoke some interesting in-class discussions.  and since i don’t have much time to read for fun, i’m enjoying reading for school.  i love finding unexpected little haunts that are always open and parking there for a few hours over a cup of tea; it’s so much more enjoyable than reading in the brightly lit studio or among the many distractions of my own bedroom. 

my first architecture history class was cancelled, but we have a different teacher there too; drawing is the same, and so, of course is architectonics.  after the last semester, when i found out what it was like to get a big, ugly “C” on my report card, i was a little nervous about facing my professors.  but they had conferences with us individually, and discussed where our strengths and weaknesses were and how we could improve our grade the next time around.  they told me, among other things, that i’m not focused enough — i chase around five ideas at once instead of carrying one all the way to completion.  (it was interesting to note that the professors had noticed my participation in the art-history lectures and were much impressed with my knowledge of Biblical history.  hmmm. ) 

i’m glad that i got the C if for no other reason than to be able to talk with them frankly, not worrying about what they will think of me.  when i said that i often felt lost and without an answer to the problem, they expressed sympathy, but as abraham put it: “if you’re lost in the woods, you have to find your own way out.  we can’t help you.”  tough love, i guess.

resisting the urge to be afraid — of people, of situations, of my own shortcomings — has been a hard thing for me, and only now am i starting to get a handle on it.  one night, as abby and i were walking down St. Mark’s Place (despite the name, it’s one of the scariest blocks in the Village — the favorite hangout spot for green-haired crossdressers), we were accosted by the King of Piercings.  in one glance at his face, i counted eight or ten.  he informed us that if we felt inclined to punch a hole somewhere he would give us 50% off the normal price.  when we refused politely, he offered to hold my hand if i was scared.  four months ago, i would have screamed in terror; last weekend, i burst out laughing — and tightened my hold on abby’s hand ever so slightly.

Cooper Chronicles: I.18

(An ongoing series for the month of January, these are letters written to my family and friends during my college years in New York, when I discovered my love of writing.  Introduction here.)

“Most of the people who make it into history are hungry, driven, and not-so-nice.”

-Sue Gussow

after the most stressful week of my life, i prepared to flee home for the winter break.  penley kindly came with me to the bus station — i guess he saw that my psychological state was not-quite-stable — and waited the extra hour with me after i missed the 5:30 bus.  exhausted, we sat down on the surprisingly clean floor of the hallway and stared, zombie-like, at the passers by.  he looked from me to himself a few times, then went and got a paper cup and set it in front of us.  “i want to see how much we can make in an hour, just sitting here,” he explained.  i suppose with my hippie garb and philodendron plant, and his army fatigues, we looked like the kind of people who would be asking for a buck.  but my sense of spontaneity was almost completely depleted after finals week.

the line to the bus depleted into a mob after it left the organized waiting area, and when it started to move forward, i heard a loud exclamation behind me: “you can’t get in front of me!”  i jumped back, startled.  the man who had formerly been behind me brushed past, muttering to himself.  “you’s tryin’ to get in front of me.”  “i wasn’t trying to cut in front of you,” i assured him.  he eyed me suspiciously.  “well, you was movin’ mighty fast!”

i was a little nervous to learn that i would have to arrive at the bus station, in the seediest and most dangerous part of baltimore, at 11:00 at night.  a short, defenseless, free-spirited college girl whose only weapon appears to be a house plant in a plastic bag makes for an easy target.  “yes,” observed penley, “but you come from new york.”  true.  i guess that makes me officially hard- core.

I survived finals week, after all.

those of you who are college grads (or students) can certainly understand that i have very few memories of the last seven days.  they exist only as fragments: hurrying out of the studio at 7 AM to avoid the dean, who comes in every morning to make sure nobody has spent the night there; literature essays written in a stupefied state, dozing off between sentences; a different assortment of architecture students crashing at our apartment every night; “going to bed” referring to a one- hour nap; forgetting to eat breakfast and lunch, and around 7 p.m. wondering what that strange feeling in the stomach means; living off of strongly brewed tea and 4 AM “bagel runs.” 

i’m glad it’s over.  that’s all i can say.  at cooper, there are no tests, and most of the professors don’t give final exams.  that fact is deceptively simple, however.  it means that instead of spending two hours trying to recall terms and concepts onto a sheet of paper, you pin your work up on the wall and stand back while your professors tear it apart in front of the class.  whether they rip you to shreds or exalt you with never-ceasing praise is an (often arbitrary) act of judgement.  if your voice carries the wrong connotation, or you’ve failed to pick up the high-flown architectural jargon that they rely on so heavily, professor abraham can be the scariest man alive.  thankfully, he seems to like raquel and i a lot.  during our last crit, he said everything (including the negatives) with a huge grin plastered across his face.  it made me more than a little suspicious, but i guess blessings come in all sorts of disguises.

i had two final exams this week.  the first was architectural history: we had seven essays, written in class, about slides of historic buildings, and a paper written in advance.  not a bad load, really, but when it was squeezed into twenty-four hours’ time … well, you get the idea.  the second was a literature exam.  i’m proud to say i didn’t study a lick, and besides falling asleep at the end of every paragraph, i think i did all right.

there were other “final things,” too: our individual drawing crits, where the professor selected her favorite drawings for the end-of-the-year show, and a portfolio of work for descriptive geometry (including a carefully constructed lattice, our own design, which took about five hours longer to create than most of us had counted on.)  but the main thing to worry about, of course, was the final crit on thursday.  raquel and i worked feverishly to prepare, doing drawings, sketching, discussing, taking photographs that didn’t turn out, taking more, and generally stressing out.  by thursday we were an emotional heap of rubble, but we had a presentation that was “beautiful,” if a little too artistic for abraham’s taste.  “it’s more like dancing than architecture,” he explained.  we had taken black-and-white photographs of ourselves in dance clothing, then cut our bodies out of the background and manipulated them into strange positions in the cube.  it was great fun, and we decided that when this was over, we would use them for refrigerator magnets.  (we *didn’t* tell abraham that.)  most of the students did okay.  some were pretty severely reprimanded, and one group was told flatly to start over from the beginning.  my friend eliot, who knows more about cooper union’s policy and tradition than most of the faculty and staff there, estimates that one- third of the class will drop out over break.  i think that’s a little severe, but a few will almost certainly leave.

after the crit, abraham invited us all to his studio on Bond Street for a dinner party.  “you’re all twenty-one, right?” he joked.  it was a true European-style gathering — wine, cheese, grapes and homemade stew — and we were free to roam about the lofty space, with low drawing tables, stacks of books (including, for all you CMD fans, a copy of Architects’ First Source, which i was too shy to comment on) and a stereo system playing Billie Holliday.  (also included in his CD collection was a Rolling Stones album, which was just too weird to think about.)  attached to his desks were black table lamps that were lettered, suspiciously, in the same exact style as the lamps in the Cooper studio.  one wonders …

the semester is over.  one-tenth of my undergraduate career is behind me.  has it really happened so quickly?  i feel as if i didn’t learn a thing, but also that i learned much too much to even imagine.  now i look at the month before me — thirty days, nothing to do in them but what i want to do.  i’m going to work, but having a job (at least, at my level) is so different from being in school.  you can leave your work at the door, go home and relax and forget about it until tomorrow.  and other than that — well, i hope to get a lot of reading done.  and i *don’t* mean textbooks.

well, dear readers, i think it’s time to give the Chronicles a break.  i won’t be in the city for the next month, anyway, and we all know that there’s *no* possible writing material in catonsville. :) i shall resume when school does, and you can spend the next month in a safe haven from my random thoughts and long-winded histrionics.

Cooper Chronicles: I.17

(An ongoing series for the month of January, these are letters written to my family and friends during my college years in New York, when I discovered my love of writing.  Introduction here.)

“i have a new motto,” sara announced brightly as she flopped onto the bed beside me.  i looked up from my to-do list, which was growing depressingly long.  “what is it?”

“no fun until work is done,” she said with mock seriousness.  i looked at her strangely for a minute, and then we both burst out laughing.  “no fun until work is done,” i repeated.  “i like it.”  we bothe wrote it on the little dry-erase boards on our bedroom doors.  mine stood out from the white background in bold purple letters: “NO FUN UNTIL WORK IS DONE.”  i left it up there to remind me.

in a school like Cooper Union, full to the brim with overachievers, almost everyone has a list like the one i titled “plan of attack on the next week.”  especially now, with the end of the semester dangerously close at hand.  it makes me feel a little better to know that i’m not the only one who can’t function without a list, even though it is a known property of to-do lists that you can NEVER accomplish everything on the list, no matter how simple it is. (penley claims the solution to this is to put twice as many things as you *want* to get done on the list, and then you’ll be able to do everything.  i’m not so sure destiny can be tempted that way. )

so, this week has been completely boring.  work all day, chill for an hour or two (if i’m lucky) in the evening, work all night, sleep all morning, repeat.  i’m having to tie up loose ends that have been hanging over my head for weeks.  we don’t have final exams at cooper union, except for in our humanities classes — so i have a take-home exam for architecture history and an in-class one in literature.  then there’s the lit paper, the descriptive geometry lattice and portfolio, and the drawing portfolio and final assignment.  oh, and the king of all-nighters, the architectonics pinup on thursday before vacation.  i actually got about 85% of yesterday’s stuff done, and am hoping to finish it — plus today’s stuff — this afternoon.  but you know how these things are.

our architectonics project is still my favorite.  we’re still dealing with the idea of floating bodies in motion, so raquel and i took pictures, twice, of ourselves in different positions.  then we cut the pictures out with an exact-o knife.  now they would make excellent refrigerator magnets — with all the odd contortions and motions we were going through to get the pictures, it’s tempting to put them in strange positions and laugh hard instead of working hard.  our teachers have liked them so far, but one can’t be too sure about holding their approval for long. 

also, as part of an experiment with light, shadow, time and the trajectory of the sun, we set up a camera on a tripod in the lobby of the studio.  we were planning to stay all night and take a picture every hour, but then i discovered the wonders of interval shooting and we just left it on all night.  the next morning i got off the elevator and was greeted (not literally, thank God) by a naked man standing about four feet away from me, in the middle of the cube.  the saturday-program students were drawing him.  i sighed piteously and prepared to remove the camera and wait for a time when people would not be so plentiful, but then the director of the program approached me and told me the entire process was moving every hour when the timer started to go off, so that we would have clear pictures of what the light was doing every hour.  i was moved almost to tears by that display of kindness (well, that and i was really tired.)

last night sara and i took a two-hour break and went shopping all over this beautiful city, even more beautiful this time of year.  despite the crushing crowds and commercial / materialist atmosphere, you can’t beat it for old-fashioned Christmas spirit.  we visited fish’s eddy, our favorite home-decor store that buys dishes from diners across the U.S. and sells them dirt-cheap.  we also saw quite a few unhappy dogs that were being walked (or dragged) against their will with ugly doggie-sweaters on them.  maybe we should ask the Petition Lady to take up their cause — if anyone could help, she could.

maybe i’ll take a nap really quick.  i was so tired this morning that i almost fell asleep in church WHILE standing, singing and sightreading music i was seeing for the first time.  that might be a sign that i need some sleep. what a short letter this has been!  a refreshing break for you all, i’m sure.  sorry i don’t have time or energy to go into more detail.  i apologize also for not having written to anyone in the past couple of weeks — when this is over and finished with, i’ll have time to chat.  no fun until work is done.  

Cooper Chronicles: I.16

(An ongoing series for the month of January, these are letters written to my family and friends during my college years in New York, when I discovered my love of writing.  Introduction here.)

“life is annoying.  art is better.”

-sue gussow

in many ways, cooper union is a bed of roses; but it’s also thoroughly sprinkled with thorns, earwigs, and other distasteful surprises.  often it can be so intensely beautiful … but occasionally i just want to take a bottle of very strong herbicide and douse the whole thing.

sometime last week (it’s mostly a blur in my memory) i talked to my mommy on the phone.  (when things get really weird at this really weird school, i love to call my house and hear normal things happening there: the piano being played, dishes being washed, the cat meowing, somebody throwing a chair at somebody else.  it’s so comforting.)  i was telling her how moody i had been feeling recently — every day was a rollercoaster.  i hate this school, i’m learning so much, abraham is a jerk, i love my drawing teacher, the program is too strange, i can’t believe i’m lucky enough to be here, i’m so glad i’m in new york, i want to go home.  the overwhelming stress and irritation didn’t matter as much to me as my own ambivalence; i couldn’t stand not knowing how i felt.

i was trying to voice all this to my mom without making her think i needed to go on treatment for schizophrenia, and (as moms *so* do) she understood.  

“i feel the same way about teaching piano lessons,” she said.  “some weeks, when kids practice and play well, i feel so gratified … but when someone throws a tantrum, or won’t sit still, and i feel like i’m not getting through to them, i wonder, ‘what am i doing here?’” 

her words were exactly what i think sometimes.  what am i doing here?  this college is for the intelligentsia, the supereducated.  i can’t hold a conversation with abraham about dialectics or anticipation in form or diametrical opposition or any of those other phrases that they love.  descriptive geometry comes to me, but it takes awhile.  i’m always asking the second-year students how to fill my ink pens or which side of the mylar to draw on or what the professors told them last year, hoping for a grain of insight on what the heck i’m supposed to be doing.  i’m full of insecurities.  but this is my first shot at the real world.  my mom has been a piano teacher for years, and she’s played all her life.  surely she has more confidence than i have.

when i chose architecture, people reassured me time and again that this wasn’t a final decision.  i could always change my mind.  i know that; i tell myself that all the time — but it started to mean something completely different when i heard my mother say it about herself, being twenty-five years ahead of me.  this constant state of flux might actually a good thing — i wouldn’t *want* to know exactly how my life is going to go when i’m only eighteen.

“i’m sure,” my mom said, “that teaching piano is what i want to do.  i have doubts, but that’s part of my maturing process as a teacher.  i love this.”  i’m not nearly as sure that architecture is my “thing.”  but even if it’s not, i’m sure that i’m in the right place for *now*. 

i’m learning.  that’s the good part.

i’ve become increasingly convinced that all of the teachers here (and many of the students, for that matter,) are really characters in an unpublished novel.  you already know gussow, the extremely quotable drawing teacher.  during crits, i keep a notepad and scribble constantly, biting my lip when necessary to keep from laughing.  last week she threw in the “life is annoying” quote, which i thought appropriate to begin this letter.  it could be a bumpersticker — but the fascinating thing is that she really doesn’t think she’s funny. she’s just being truthful.  then there’s betts, the architecture history teacher who gestures constantly and uses oxymoronic phrases like ‘very kind of.’  “this building is very kind of rounded,” she says in her oh-wooooow-ex-hippie voice.  it’s one of those things that isn’t noticeable right away, but once you discover it, you can’t think about anything else. i keep track now — she once said it six times in under an hour. 

the architectonics professors, on the other hand, are just plain weird.  they could easily be the subjects of a modern one-act play.  abraham loves to use words like “immoral” and “sacrilegious” to describe design principles he doesn’t agree with.  last year he called one of the girls “the enemy of architecture” because she designed a modern house.  he philosophizes, waxes eloquent, elbows gersten in the arm at least five times a minute and says, “eh?  eh, david?”  gersten, the yes man, nods stoically.  the one non-architect, who is a painter, is addicted to symbolism — she’ll take it from wherever she can extract it.  and the youngest professor has few distinguishing characteristics, save her bright red Dorothy shoes.  together they make up the peanut gallery.  i respect them tremendously as architects, but as people they make me laugh.  that’s good, though — i think it’s the only way to stay sane here.

thursday was our first crit on this stage of the project.  raquel and i didn’t get an overtly positive or negative rection to our work, but they had lots of suggestions that helped give us some more direction.  we’re taking lots of pictures and doing very conceptual drawings — reducing the human figure to lines, planes and circles.  it’s fascinating, when i can understand what i’m doing.  :)  after the crit was over, an immense sense of relief turned into giddiness, and we spent most of the rest of the night getting rid of pent-up nervousness in strange ways.  (i acted like a lunatic at Smoothie King and then asked the manager for a job application.  he looked frightened.)

next day — friday — dawned warm and sunny.  it had to have been seventy-five degrees, safe to wear my birks without socks for the first time in months.  penley and i walked the whole length of central park, ended up at the Met, and wandered around for hours exploring all the places i had never seen before.  he still knew some of the staff (he used to work there) and remembered the many floors and winding galleries with perfect clarity.  i love the way the Met seems to match *exactly* the personalities of the pieces and the personalities of the rooms they’re shown in — they’re perfectly attuned.  there’s nothing more irritating than a good piece of art displayed in the wrong room, and i don’t think i’ve ever seen that at the Met.  (the one thing that annoyed me was the musical instruments section — hundreds of painstakingly handcrafted violins and pianos and guitars, capable of the most beautiful music, locked up in ugly display cases.  the whole section felt eerily like a prison.)  we had dinner at yet another eclectic, funky restaurant with really good food — they abound in this city, and i don’t know whether to be excited about the prospect of finding more, or desparate because there’s no way i’ll ever get to see all of them.

this morning at church Father Michael told me i looked cool.  “you look like one of my generation,” he explained.  with my black leather jacket, long skirt and orange silk head scarf, i suppose i did.  still, one never knows what to think when complimented by a man in a long black dress.

it’s taken me much too long to write this letter; it was riddled with interruptions, as when sara ordered me to sit still so she could draw me, and the time she and raquel were involved in a major tickle-fight on the bed next to me, and when i was finagled into doing the mr. bean hypnotizing-teddy-bear trick, which they all laughed hysterically at and made me repeat again and again.  ahh, dorm life.  i’m going to miss it next year.

Cooper Chronicles: I.15

(An ongoing series for the month of January, these are letters written to my family and friends during my college years in New York, when I discovered my love of writing.  Introduction here.)

“one thing i’ve learned today:” says the girl standing in front of me.  “chivalry is dead.  stone dead.”

we all giggle.  “are you sure you don’t want to sit down?”  i point to a slightly non-occupied spot next to me on the floor.  “no, thanks,” she says. “i’ve been sitting just like that for the past six hours.”

it’s the day before the day before Thanksgiving, and the Northwest Express train from NYC to Baltimore is beyond crowded.  we’re in there like a can of very claustrophobic sardines. 

now that the uncertainty of finding a seat is past, i begin to look around; there are about 15 of us, mostly students, clustered into a space meant for a few suitcases.  the girl next to me, a law student at Fordham, was the first to sit down.  i asked gingerly if there was anyone sitting next to her.  after that, i could hear everyone else thinking, “hey, great idea” — and down they plopped.  someone is playing music.  the few that know each other are talking quietly.

i suddenly wonder how bad of a fire hazard this must be, and i ask the Fordham girl what she thinks.  “i don’t want to think about that,” says a girl across from me.  a boy who was lucky enough to get a *real* seat starts talking about an Amtrak crash, and there is a general groan.  “well,” i venture, “maybe if it’s our time to go … “

“at least we’ll all die together,” the girl to my left says melodramatically.  she is blonde, with a backpack that could fit several small children inside. 

“i can’t believe we’re paying to do this,” says the corporate man, who’s taken up residence in the bathroom and seems to be enjoying it.  “cattle do this shit for free.” 

“hey, don’t get too comfortable in there!” someone calls to him, as he puts his briefcase down and hangs up his coat.  we begin to cast sidelong, amused glances at each other.  then a boy sitting next to the bathroom door reaches out and gently closes it.  “i think i’ll give him some privacy,” he deadpans. “he’s got a lot on his mind.”

the car has started to move, finally, and people are beginning to filter through the tangle of bodies in search of a soda from the snack bar.  “nothin’ like takin’ a walk at a time like this,” grumbles a man who has set up his laptop in the exact center of the aisle, but seems to think he has the right- of-way.  there is a series of suppressed smiles.  now the two boys who have seats are talking about driving.  “my dad won’t let me drive anymore.  last time i was home, i totaled his car.  and it wasn’t even my fault!”  complains one.  the other mocks him: “yeah — officer, the stop sign was *definitely* not there before.”

we’ve stopped, and one girl gets out.  “looks like it’s emptying out back there,” says Bathroom Man hopefully.  “oh, it’s quite roomy,” i assure him.  more giggling.

Bathroom Man’s companion, another uptown-type who looked in horror at the slightly-less-than- pristine floor before sitting down disgustedly, is getting restless.  she begins to drop names of major european cities and events in hopes that she can at least see some people get jealous.  “Oh, you think *this* is bad.  you should have seen the train from amsterdam to paris on Bastille Day, 1989. *that* was absolutely awful.” 

it doesn’t work.  we could care less.  she tries celebrity- dropping: “are you getting kate for the part?” she says to her restroom friend, who seems to be some sort of agent.  he’s reading a script.  “or meg?  i keep forgetting.” 

a sense of camaraderie builds among the floor crowd as we begin to chat about college, visiting home, our majors, and how we like the city.  there are connections everywhere; one girl was friends with another girl’s current roommate, another knows one boy’s childhood sweetheart.  i meet another art student from cooper, a transfer that i *knew* i had seen somewhere before.  

Name-Dropper returns from the snack bar with news: “um, you guys… there’s a bunch of seats in the car behind us.  rows and rows.”

we look at each other, calculating.  slowly, we all shake heads.  “naaaah.”

“i think they’re bonding,” says Bathroom Man.  we hardly hear him.  we’re having too much fun being silly to care.

this was my train ride home on the day before the day before Thanksgiving.  it was a last-minute decision to leave on tuesday night; taking a friend’s advice, i had decided to miss both of my wednesday classes so i could leave early to catch the train.  the thought of traveling the day before thanksgiving struck fear into my heart, but it wasn’t until class that i realized i could leave *tonight* during a lecture on the painter Tintoretto.  my fingers drummed impatiently on the desk; i lost interest in the discussion; i began to look longingly at the door, itching to jump up and run out.  as soon as class was over, i raced home, threw some things into a bag (without really paying attention — i came home with one pair of socks and three toothbrushes.) and, after a futile attempt to reach Amtrak by phone, i decided to take my chances with going to the station uninformed.

i caught the NR train to Penn Station (does EVERY major city in the US have a Penn Station, or just the my two hometowns?) and, after asking several people for directions, made it to the Amtrak terminal.  the ticket line was depressingly long, so i bought mine via one of those new- fangled machines that you pay for by credit card.

i didn’t tell my parents i was coming until i was 30 minutes from the station, thinking i would enjoy the shock value.  and i *did.*

well, i don’t have much to say about life in new york, considering i barely spent two days there this week … i go back on tuesday, for three weeks of *extreme* crunch before the end of the semester.  (did someone let december in while i wasn’t looking?  i can’t believe how close i am to being halfway through my freshman year!)  i will work hard.  i will work hard.  i will work hard.

Cooper Chronicles: I.14

(An ongoing series for the month of January, these are letters written to my family and friends during my college years in New York, when I discovered my love of writing.  Introduction here.)

sara and i were snuggled onto the floor at barnes & noble, drinking juice and reading poetry to each other from books selected at random.  we had picked the most deserted corner of the store — the ancient asian history corner— discarded our winter coats and scarves, and were attempting to shake off the remnants of the descriptive geometry (yes — that class is every bit as bad as it sounds, and worse) and 2-dimensional design (hours of welding in the noisy and messy shop) that still plagued us after a hard night’s work.  the store would be closing soon.

“oh, you’re having a picnic!”  came the enthusiastic voice of a barnes & noble employee.  “looks like fun.  enjoy yourselves.  oh, good, wearing your winter boots [a gibe at my birkenstocks] — gets cold here, you’re gonna need ‘em!”  i smiled politely and turned back to sara.  undaunted, he continued: “i had a brother-in-law that did that.  wore sandals all year round.  called ‘em his winter boots.  yep.  don’t your feet get cold?”  actually, i was fine.  “yeah, but how will you be next month?  ever had a real new york winter?”  no, i had not.  “oooooh, i gotcha.  probably florida, right?”  baltimore, actually … “oh — ” with a dismissive shake of the hand, as if they were practically the same thing — “yeah, i love baltimore.  great little city … “  now we were best friends.

for the next fifteen minutes, sara and i got to hear all about the great partying in ellicott city, the even better partying, rock concerts and “other forms of culture” (his words, not mine) right here, and his free tickets to see Morphine last weekend.  he even showed us his handwritten list of all the bands that were playing this month, and the neat little red checkmarks that he had placed next to each one he had attended.  where did we go to school?  oh, cooper union.  had we heard of peter cooper?  (nooo, peter who?)  i only wish we had had the presence of mind to tell him everything we DID know about peter cooper, from jello and steam engines to presidents and telegraphs and the first night classes in the united states — but instead, we listened to the Elevator Story again.  (when building the Foundation Building of cooper union, peter cooper knew that elevators were going to be invented, so he left shafts for them even though he didn’t know how to build them yet — one round and one square, because he wasn’t sure what shape they would be.  one of each are still there today.)  from there, we moved on to philosophy: “i  believe in a kind of fate — coincidences don’t just happen.  there’s a reason for everything.  if you keep an open mind, good things *should* be happening to you.”  advice to live by, my friends. 

suddenly came the voice over the intercom: “attention, barnes & noble shoppers, the time is now 11:55.  the store will be closing in five minutes … “  D’OH! we thought silently as we “heh-heh”-ed our way to the door. we hadn’t gotten to read any more of keats or that funny woman poet who wrote about tinfoil collections.  but we definitely weren’t thinking about school anymore.

i seem to meet the most interesting personalities when i’m with sara.  on our way back from NY central (one of four art supply stores that we frequent) one day, we encountered another homeless person, begging for change.  today he was a cancer victim.  other days, he was “not a bum, just a guy who needs some help.”  apparently, he had just about had it with the human race as we were walking by, for he was yelling at the general population: “BOY, you people STINK!”

when i stop meeting new yorkers like that, i think it will be time to move again.   

this week has been a whirlwind of culture, work and silliness.  on sunday afternoon, sara and i had an acute attack of cabin fever (after just a few hours of being here!  i think that’s a bad sign.)  tuesday was our class meeting, which was supposed to be individual group conferences; but when the professors discovered that everyone was coming to the same (wrong) conclusion, they decided to address us all at once.  raquel and i left in a cloud of elation, because we were the lone group that had guessed right.  unlike the others, who were trying to continue with the geometry and physics aspects of the tilted cube, we had gone a distinctly different route — extreme abstraction.  it turned out that that was what they wanted.  since we were the lone group of two, we knew that our solution would be different from everyone else’s anyway; now, it just gave us more freedom.  we made a long list of opposites one night and tried to incorporate them into designs that might be impossible to create, but are fun to play with (exactly what they want at this point;  abraham told us that, for now, “we are in the world of imagination.”)  light and shadow, transparent and opaque, round and straight, even fire and water — the crazier, the better.  and we must not forget the bodies — the little disproportionate 12-inch mannequins that will only pose in certain body positions and have to be bound with masking tape to conform to others.  ours have flown, huddled, bent, stretched, scrunched, reached and done countless other things.  i am unbelievably relieved.  *this* is what i thought i was getting into when i went to architecture school — the creativity that would eventually be tempered by practicality of physics and math, but was allowed free reign for a little while.

my friend penley and i went to see james fenton (the british modernist poet) lecture at the Frick collection on tuesday night.  his talk, which had an interesting title (“What is it?  Where Does it Come From?  Why is it There?  Three Questions to Ask Any Work of Art”) was remarkably similar to the dry, flat, slightly stale pieces of melba toast we were served at a diner afterwards. he didn’t have much to say about the subject, but instead delivered a collection of witty comments taken straight from Anglican sermons, and stories about various art collectors throughout the ages.   we went exploring uptown after that, and ended up at a theater, where we paid the manhattan price of 9.00 for a movie — “elizabeth,” the new flick about the Protestant daughter of Henry VIII.  it was disturbing at times, and very dark throughout, but extremely well-done.  the lead actress was great; in movies like that, she has to be or the whole thing flops.  plenty of comic relief, too — i won’t spoil it for you.

wednesday we went to another lecture, this one by the artist eric fischl, whose work (though controversial in some of the subject matter) was fun to look at and even more fun to hear him talk about.  he described in detail the process he went through in a few of the paintings —  how he added and removed characters, changed positions, scenery and props before arriving at the final product.  perhaps it was his egotism that made him such a confident speaker, but i enjoyed listening to him.  penley had talked with some of his students previously, and they described him as completely full of himself, the kind of teacher that wandered around the studio with a cigar and didn’t do much teaching at all.  sounds remarkably like *another* professor i can think of …

at the behest of our drawing professor, a group of us went to visit the special jackson pollock exhibit at the MoMA on friday.  i had never been much impressed with his stuff, but looking at it up close changed everything.  the sheer volume of the thick gobs of paint, enamel and various small objects stuck into the canvas was amazing.  he had prints, too; little doodles that looked just like something any artist would do in a spare moment, and the enjoyment he got out of these less monumental paintings really showed through.  after several hours of hard thinking, though, museum fatigue had set in (or maybe it was just psychological; no sooner had i insisted i wasn’t tired at all, then i began to feel my feet aching and my eyes glazing over.)  so we walked out onto the drizzly streets and went to dinner, then on a whim stopped at the Godiva chocolatier, where we cheerfully endured the slights of the snobby girl behind the counter. later we met beth at juilliard and saw the second half of their opera, “the Italian straw hat,” which was beautifully done — but the sweet melodic voices made it difficult for me to keep my eyes open after a late night doing drawing homework.  somehow i made it onto the subway and back home.

yesterday was spent catching up on sleep and descriptive geometry homework, and the aforementioned excursion to the bookstore.  this morning Archbishop Peter was at church, and there was even more of a tangle of romanian, slovanic, greek and other foreign-sounding phrases than usual.  when i went up to venerate the cross after the service, following the usual “the Lord bless you and keep you,” he asked, “Ça va bien?”  caught completely off-guard, i answered, “très bien, merci,” without even thinking about it, and moved on; then i turned to jeff and said, “i’ve never spoken to him before.  how could he know that i speak french?”  jeff grinned — “maybe he could see it in your face,” he said poetically. 

later i asked the Bishop how he had known my love for the French language, and his answer was almost identical: “i could see it in your eyes,” he said.  “when you’re an old man [here he pointed to himself] you know these things.”  he asked my name, where i went to school, and told me i was welcome here anytime.  Father Gregory’s description of this holy man was completely accurate; he was exactly the sort of wise, gentle man that little old russian ladies would call “an old sweetheart.” 

my “how i learned to drive” paper is begging for attention, and though i’d much rather write to you, i think it’s justified in demanding some help.  in closing, a final anecdote: we were eating at victoria’s diner, the closest thing to east-village ambiance in classy uptown manhattan … right in the middle of our moussaka, there came a loud thump on the window behind me.  i turned to see a huge wet splotch on the glass, where an angry customer had thrown a tomato and was now in the midst of a tirade of expletives, which were directed at the cowering waitress.  he then slammed the door on his way out.  “think he paid?” i wondered aloud.  “probably not,” penley guessed. 

“hey,” he interjected later, after thinking at length, “that would be a really good way to get free dinner.  you could go to a different place every night, enjoy your meal, then throw a fit and leave without paying.”  sounds good to me!

Cooper Chronicles: I.13

(An ongoing series for the month of January, these are letters written to my family and friends during my college years in New York, when I discovered my love of writing.  Introduction here.)

wednesday night at eight o’clock, the entire freshman architecture class filed into the lobby of the third floor.  one was missing from among us — the first dropout, a chinese student named wei chang who had decided that architecture wasn’t for him.  thirty-eight faces stood silently, waiting.  the cube lay in pieces on its base; eight pre-assembled joints and twelve beams, each labeled at the ends with a numbering system that would facilitate assembly.  hours and hours of work had been put into cutting, sanding and drilling the pieces — for the second time, after the first attempt failed last week.  this round, there had been a “foreman,” as he was affectionately referred to by the professors — adrian, whose natural leadership skills were evident when he took over without stepping on anybody’s toes.

the two woman professors circled the crowd, wielding video cameras, and recorded our actions (for future laughs, probably.)  our drawings were pinned up all over the walls together with the blood, sweat and tears that went into them; our models of various joints stood beneath them, the metal glittering under the fluorescent lighting and the wood smooth and straight.  their extensions jutted out at ninety-degree angles, like tentacles of an extremely tense octopus.  we all felt the seriousness and gravity of the situation, but an atmosphere of lightheaded giddiness prevailed.  after months of work, we had arrived at a conclusion, and that conclusion was about to rise up thirteen feet in the air. 

adrian broke the silence.  “okay,” he said simply, and moved forward.  we began lifting the pre-assembled joints and  setting them down, finding the matching beams and fitting them into place.  two boys took charge of electric screwdrivers and began drilling, as students on both ends pushed against each other to ensure that the screws went in straight.  it went like clockwork — like any good cast of actors, we had rehearsed this.  we finished the first square and lifted it high, rotating it and placing it against the wall.  adrian stood at the back,

yelling instructions: “higher!  higher!  okay, slowly … slowly … ” we finished the second one and began attaching the squares together with the last four beams.  finally, finally we gathered around and lifted the massive structure, rotating it onto the corner and sliding it into the hinges that were bolted to the base.  then we let go, slowly, reluctantly loosing our hold on the object that had become so important to us.  we stood back and looked. the cube rested on one corner, eight and a half feet to each side, quivering ever so slightly in recovery from our touches.  then it was still.  we regarded it with wonder — the product of two and a half months of sketches, drawings, ideas, models large and small, and many frustrations.  we had become real students — students who stayed in the studio often on friday and saturday nights, students who fell asleep during drawing crits because they had stayed up all night working, students who knew how to work together and still retain their individuality.  we didn’t know whether to laugh, or cry, or run screaming from the room.  we just stood.

and then professor abraham, the scary, intimidating professor abraham, the one who hadn’t yet burned any of our models or threatened to kick some of us out just because the class was too large (although these might come later) began clapping furiously.  we all joined in, hooting and hollering like junior-high delinquents, releasing the tension and nervousness of the past few weeks in an applause that was like a giant sigh of relief.

after the exhilarating experience of erecting the cube, we had the new assignment to look forward to.  it involved dealing with the space inside the cube — “interventions” in the space that didn’t touch the cube.  even more abstract and art-like than our last assignment, but i think it will be even more fun.  our group underwent a change, as well; after several uncomfortable confrontations, we decided that it would be better for all concerned if the third member of our group, raphael (that’s “haahtbeat” to all of you), went his separate way.  raquel and i will continue to work together, though.  we’ve already filled pages of our sketchbooks with ideas for the next phase of the project.

i had the experience of coming down from my weekend high at home, which wouldn’t have been nearly so bad had i not contracted a virus while riding home on the greyhound.  not a pleasant experience.  it was good, though, to unpack all of my new stuff and get re-settled in my homey little apartment with my friends.  i realized i had missed them.

it has gotten colder and colder in the city.  adding to the confusion is the fact that my apartment is always very hot, so often i dress for much warmer weather than is present.  as my dad so wisely put it when i was at home last weekend: “the secret to keeping warm is LAYERS.”  he had stood holding a jacket in one hand and a polar fleece in the other, with that father-knows-best look on his face.  i listened meekly as he explained the geothermic reactions that caused body heat to be trapped under layers of clothing, and why it was the superior method of dressing.  *after* this lecture, he explained that the coats were for me … i had thought that maybe he just felt it necessary to give me a sermon because i wouldn’t be around for awhile to hear one.  :)

well, mom, you remember how you worried about the type of company i’d be keeping while living among the baser forms of humankind?  i’m glad to report that i’m becoming friends with “naked bill”, the resident nude model.  after hearing some of his john cage-like “modern” music at the party, i asked who was playing — only to be subjected to a long discourse on his music, his philosophy on beauty and many other things.  as i tried to slink away, he asked me if *i* was a musician, and upon learning that i played the piano, promptly proposed to bring some of his piano music for me next week.  he was true to his word, and at the next class when he did give it to me, it had his phone number written across the top.  help …

here in the world of endowments, the school can afford to be generous with aspiring young students who want to start clubs.  more and more freshmen are discovering this, and i went to one of the “meetings” of the cooking club last week.  it was great: fun people, creative minds, and — you guessed it — free food.  we cooked fresh fettuccine with made-from-scratch sauce, loaded with vegetables and garlic and spices.  we also had spinach salad with baked beets (although the beets held the whole process up quite a bit, as the oven wasn’t as powerful as we had hoped.)  it was hard to refrain from uttering, “good times, good times,” as we chopped onions and washed zucchini. 

went to see “arsenic and old lace,” the cooper dramatic production which my stressful major denied me the time to partake in, on friday night.  mistake.  years of being in my own plays and having mrs. bonnell’s caviling eye upon every performance have made me into quite a critic — it was all i could do to keep from jumping onto the stage and *fixing* all of their mistakes.  many of them did the “give-my-line-and-STARE-at-the-person-whose-turn-it-is-to-speak-next” thing, and some even answered questions before they were all the way out.  

i continue to sing with the choir each sunday.  i’m even getting the knack of the romanian “Lord have mercy;” it’s pronounced “dom-nih-me-lu-yesh-teh,” if i’m hearing it right.  it’s still pretty much a whirlwind of sight-reading from start to finish, but i’m picking up some of the tones.  the other members, and especially the director, are very sympathetic and understanding, though.

i spent saturday night in the studio — only taking a break to run to ben and jerry’s — and must go back tonight.  i’m really liking this school right now, thanks to all of your prayers and words of encouragement.  and, even though i’ll probably feel differently tomorrow, i can enjoy myself today.  :)

Cooper Chronicles: I.12

(An ongoing series for the month of January, these are letters written to my family and friends during my college years in New York, when I discovered my love of writing.  Introduction here.)

professor gussow held two postcards before the class, one in each hand.  both were portraits of the artist giacometti, a surrealist painter / sculptor from the early 20th century that is best known for his later works — elongated sculptures of figures.  his early work, though, is what we were working from: figures that were very realistic, investigative of the different planes on the surface of the body. 

she shook the first postcard.  “this was a self-portrait done when the artist was 21 years of age, younger than some of you.”  it was done in oil; exuberant, vibrant colors danced across the canvas, globs of paint whose three-dimensionality seemed to reflect the optimism and energy of youth.

the second was a black-and-white photograph of giacometti as an old man.  he was slumped in his chair, eyes downcast with his head in his hands.  “this was taken in his later years.” he looked, in a word, defeated.  the cumulative bad experiences of sixty years were nearly tangible in the picture; they seemed to weigh on his shoulders like a sack of lead.

we looked at the pictures for a long time.  my friend penley grinned.  “the moral of the story is, Stay Away From Art.”  we all giggled. 

gussow didn’t crack a smile.  “no, no,” she shook her head firmly.  “the moral of the story is, It Never Gets Easy.”  you will work and work and work.  and you’ll get better.  but it will never get easy.  you will never be satisfied.”

she paused.  “if you don’t like hard work and struggle, there are other careers that are much more noble … i mean, you could actually *help* people (more giggles) … and you could feel gratified, appreciated.  but if this (she gestured and took in the room, the building, the college in its entirety) is what you want to do, it’s sweat and it’s labor and it’s toil until the very end.  it never, never becomes simple.”

drawing has become my favorite class, mostly because of the teacher.  she is a short Jewish woman in her fifties, with a flat, ironic voice and a style of dress that is eclectic and very stereotypically art-teacher-esque: bottlecap earrings, bright green shoes and a brown fedora that she wears almost every week.  i was wary of her bohème at first, but gradually grew to admire it.  she demands hard, hard work out of her students, and nothing else.  anything less will be met with disapproval.  she is honest about the quality of her students’ work; if it’s bad, she’ll say so in no uncertain terms.  but she can always find some redeeming qualities — and she will, and she’ll pull them out and show you how to work with them until they take over the drawing.

last week, as a perfect example of her beneficence, she gave us a party instead of a midterm exam.  the walls of the studio were taped up with brown wrapping paper, and the easels pushed to the center of the space.  there were tables laden with piles of sandwiches and chips and huge oil pastels.  we were told to grab a sandwich, find a spot and draw each other.

even though we had recently switched to 24 x 36” paper, the brown “canvas” stretched on and on, and it was a psychological relief to make large, sweeping strokes with colors of pink and green and blue.  we layered pastel, chalk, tempera and charcoal.  then we moved to the right and set about “improving” our classmates’ drawing.  eventually the process disintegrated into painting on anyone’s drawings with soda and mustard.  gussow just watched it all with amusement, even taking a brush and joining in towards the end. 

days and days of studio work melted together until thursday, when (after three different extensions) we *finally* pinned up our work in the lobby.  wednesday night had been somewhat of a disaster; the full-sized cube had been built and assembled, but when it was rotated on its side the defective workmanship became obvious as it started to buckle and splinter.  the group that had supervised construction (and worked harder than any of us) stared, ashen-faced, as professor abraham joked about the failure of the project and offered to take the carefully sanded pieces home as firewood.  so, the cube will be rebuilt this weekend — and we have a sabbatical until tuesday, when the next phase of the project will be introduced.

after the pinup on thursday, we needed a break; raquel and i went out for falafel and then dashed off to the filming of the new “Cosby” show in queens.  our RA roommate’s boyfriend, sanchez, had gotten about 15 tickets. we felt very high-class as we went through a metal detector and were seated in a small section of risers overlooking the set.  we received a personal message from dr. cosby, who came out and talked to us before the filming began.  then, just as things were starting to get interesting, an extremely lame-o comedian came on and plagued us in between scenes for the rest of the night.  the experience was a good one overall, though.  mostly it was a treat to watch cosby himself, who is a master of improvisation, as he made up jokes spontaneously and poked gentle fun at the other cast members.

of course, the highlight of this week was the weekEND — when i made my first trip home so far.  my darling roommate went with me to the greyhound station to buy my ticket and see me safely onto the bus (to catch the one i wanted, i had to skip my first class ever — a shop class.  not a big loss to my education, i guess.)  despite my worries, the bus was nearly empty and i didn’t have to sit next to any weirdos — i was free to stretch out and take catnaps, from which i woke every twenty minutes or so due to massive antsiness.  i couldn’t sleep from excitement. 

driving back into baltimore was quite an experience; i realized, for the first time, that cities (like people) have distinct personalities.  the baltimore skyline looks nothing like the new york skyline.  their ports are different.  their stadiums are different.  even their street-corner vendors are different.  (in my opinion, nothing can eclipse the honey-roasted peanut guys on Broadway.)  and, also like people, it’s so cool to be able to know many of them. 

dad picked me up at the bus station downtown, which is in one of the worst neighborhoods; there were several arrests being made right outside the door.  (i stayed *inside* while waiting for him.)  drove home, where i received a celebrities’ welcome and an authentically Mommy dinner; stayed up late talking and catching up — dad had been to china and broken his ankle (not simultaneously!) since i saw him last.  saturday was spent in errands, running around to buy all the things i had discovered i needed after moving in.  that night, i went to see my friend keith’s play — he had several minor parts in “hamlet,” my all-time favorite shakespeare play.  anna came with me — driving into the city felt just like old times, except i hadn’t driven in over 2 months and felt like i was going WAY too fast even when under the speed limit. 

and, of course, visiting my church again was like walking into a room of long-lost friends.  much as i have grown accustomed to parish life in manhattan, there can never be another Holy Cross.  for that i am eternally thankful.

i rejoiced at the comforts of a shower big enough to turn around in without bumping your head, a truly quiet night in which to sleep (although it was creepy at first to have NO background noise) and an outside carpet of big, shiny brown oak leaves.  i marvel at the little changes that have taken place since i left.  the couch in the family room, recovered; a new wallpaper border in the upstairs bathroom; and my sneaky way of avoiding a certain traffic light on route 40, dubbed “the trick,” has been outlawed by two very nasty no-left-turn signs.  sigh.  you can’t come home again. 

Cooper Chronicles: I.10

(An ongoing series for the month of January, these are letters written to my family and friends during my college years in New York, when I discovered my love of writing.  Introduction here.)

my roommate sara and i have a weekly ritual: each sunday, after i return from church, i sit down in front of her computer and tappity-tappity-tap for the next two hours or so.  she sits on her bed and studies, and i try to remember everything strange, funny, or meaningful that occurred in the past week - often asking for her help in recalling the exact circumstances.  every once in awhile i’ll laugh out loud in remembrance of some odd character we met on the street, or an unintentionally humorous comment made by one of our professors.  usually our “work” disintegrates into chatter and giggling, and it takes about twice as long to accomplish.  that’s the fun part, though.

some of my friends know about my weekly letters, and they express surprise that i haven’t “missed one” yet.  i guess it *is* a little unusual for an architecture student to have even one regularity in her weekly schedule.  what keeps me faithful to my “ritual” is a combination of stubbornness (refusal to let my more cynical acquaintances sneer “i told you so”) and sheer delight in doing it.  i love collecting the scraps of paper i’ve scribbled on throughout the week, assembling them into a semi-coherent form, and sending them out to 82 different addresses all over the country — something about that instant connection still fascinates me, even though e-mail has been around for so long now.  and, of course, i would have lost most of my motivation by now if you, my angelic readers, weren’t being so thoughtful and writing to check up on me during the week. 

today i’m nibbling on mommy’s oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookie — the very last one in my very first batch of college-care-package goodies.  my joy upon receiving the little slice of home life was translated, perhaps, into over-generosity; i shared liberally and was soon faced with an empty tin.  (d’oh!)  happiness is expecting winter garments in the box and receiving homemade baked goods.

“jello,” the resident deep-thinkers club, had its first open-mike night on monday at a BAR two doors down from the dormitory.  it was late afternoon / early evening, so most of the “pierced, dyed and PO’d” crowd hadn’t shown up yet.  we saw a pair of incredible breakdancers, another pair of just-as-amazing swing dancers, stand-up, some very scary singing (started out with nice bluesy guitar chords and ended up in a screamfest — yikes!) and the inevitable abtstract “theatric poetry,” which everyone applauded loudly in an effort to convince themselves that they understood it.  actually, the best part of the meeting was the free mediterranean cuisine (spoken like a true cheapskate cooper kid.  )

i continue to visit the met weekly to sketch rodin’s “burghers at calais,” and my pile of multicolored “M” admission buttons is slowly growing.  i relish giving them a “donation” and getting the required receipt, which probably costs more to print than the penny i contribute.  i used to pay the full “suggested donation,” which is $4.00 for students.  then my drawing teacher gave us a lecture one week: “unless you kids have money to burn, please don’t give them more than a penny.  trust me.  they don’t need it.”  she went on to explain that the museum was supported through taxes and donations of rich benefactors, and they certainly weren’t hurting for funds.  my friend penley added that, as if that weren’t enough, they treat their employees like dirt (speaking from personal experience; he worked there for a year.)  it’s funny to see the reaction on the attendant’s face when i drop the single copper into their palm; some roll their eyes in disgust, and others give you the slightest hint of a smile, as if at some kind of shared joke.  it’s always an adventure (as is life in general here.)

my feet have recovered from last week’s beating, but my left arm still experiences pain often from a bad nurse’s blood test.  i went to get some bloodwork done at a lab last week and, apparently, the temp worker who was drawing blood that day hadn’t been too well-schooled in how to take a blood sample.  she inserted the needle into my arm *first* and searched for the vein *second*, and in the process punctured a nerve in my left forearm.  OUCH.  i still feel a shooting pain when i bend to touch my toes, and raquel’s mother (a physician) said it could take months to heal completely. 

i’m making a concerted effort to do more cultured things with my spare time, as opposed to just going to Smoothie King every friday night. so, on tuesday, i went with dave to “rio days, rio nights,” a brazilian music concert starring floutist paula robison.  it was entertaining to watch her prance about onstage (not only was she an amazing musician, but she never kept still while playing, and if she missed a note, i sure didn’t catch it!)  the whole show was made sweeter with the knowledge that i got in free, thanks to dave’s newspaper-staff status (i became a journalist for an hour, and took copious notes for the upcoming article.) 

then, last friday, i went to “six blind men and the moon,” a dance / vocal performance in whom my friend beth knew the choreographer, and most of the performers.  our tickets were student-discounted, and we enjoyed the crowded, cozy atmosphere of the tiny theater.  the music was good — mom, he was working with something called “just intonation” that he partially explained, but i didn’t understand completely.  it involved a lot of drastically different parts which sounded cacophonous at some points, but meltingly beautiful at others.  the odd thing was that in between these innovative and pretty pieces, he stuck long, melodramatic ballads in which *he* was the sole singer (and, i might add, i wasn’t too fond of his prima-donna voice — somewhat akin to “i am a tenor!  my voice is marvelous!”).  the dancers were the only interesting part about these pieces; they performed with somewhat minimalist, pedestrian moves that would have been even better to watch without the soundtrack of his bellowing.  oh well — it gave us something to giggle about on the way home.

“maintenance crew” is becoming an increasingly vile term here; there are untold little things that need fixing, from the leaking kitchen sink to the dusty air filter to the shower, which is still puckered from the leak in the first week of school.  the elevators are rarely both working, and on friday when beth came to pick me up she was told that neither was in service and she would have to take the stairs 14 flights up to my apartment.  (thankfully, i had started down already, and met her halfway there.)  then after the concert, we were suddenly evacuated from the building and had to stand outside the dorm in the freezing cold while the fire trucks poured in to inspect the building and make sure it was just a malfunction in the system.  i suppose it could be worse; at the NYU dorm across the street, this happens almost daily.  it’s completely normal to look out the window and see masses of them spilling onto the street, grumbling.

my literature class is continuing on its rollercoaster course.  after handing in a paper that i thought was well-revised, i got it back with a whole host of new problems — and no grade.  confused, i e-mailed the professor, and haven’t heard back from her yet.  i was a little disappointed by her comments.  one in particular aggravated me — she suggested that i get a tutor to help me improve my logic.  the fact that i shouldn’t even have to be *taking* this class is adding to my disgruntledness.  well, chalk it up to experience.  i’m working twice as hard on the next paper, due tomorrow. 

our art-history lectures are becoming more and more interesting.  we’re focusing on a particular set of Giotto frescoes that are much more “symbolic,” in my opinion, than Rodchenko’s “two-circle painting” (which is just that — two black circles on a white canvas.  ooooooh.)  that, coupled with my architecture-history classes’ study of ancient Greece, is making my european-traveling itch grow worse and worse.  my second-, third- and fourth-year friends tell me tantalizing stories of living on meager budgets, staying in youth hostels and seeing the sights of england, spain and italy for much less than one would think possible.  STOP!!  i have at least two years before i can think of taking a semester abroad.  (or do i … ? :)

saturday brought yet another trip to the union square greenmarket — we’re going an average of twice a week now.  it’s so wonderful to take a brisk walk and see the vendors selling fresh bread, cider, vegetables, herbs and flowers, and the people of new york city flocking in all their colorful diversity to buy this weeks’ produce.  sara and i spent most of the day doing homework, and then in the evening fixed a romantic dinner for two — except it turned into four when we took pity on our friends ben and milos, RA’s who were on duty for the night and couldn’t leave the building.  then we got a foreign film and stayed up talking until late, talking full advantage of our extra daylight-savings hour. people here have this refreshingly unconcerned attitude; they think nothing of walking into your apartment and saying hi, even if they’ve never met you before.  they’re so much fun to hang out with - and it doesn’t have to involve an expensive evening on the town, just the mutual ability to chill.

i’m still well, functioning, and missing you guys.  i’ll be visiting in two weeks - that’s no time at all, when i consider that i’ve been here for nine already.  (has it been two months?  it doesn’t seem possible. )

Cooper Chronicles: I.9

(An ongoing series for the month of January, these are letters written to my family and friends during my college years in New York, when I discovered my love of writing.  Introduction here.)

is it possible to fall in love with a city?  if so, then i think i’m completely smitten with this one.  its loud noises can be intimidating; its smells are not often the greatest, and its sights not always classy or artistic.  but, just like a boyfriend that you fall head-over-heels for, these seeming flaws only serve to make it more endearing.

there was a thought-provoking comment sent to me right after the second or third letter i wrote.  it said that, supposedly, it takes three weeks for a person to become psychologically accustomed to something — and the sender wondered how long it would take for me to become used to the city that was then leaving me in wide-eyed wonder.  after last week’s letter, then, the same person wrote again and said that it looked like i had gotten “used” to new york.  maybe so; i’ll grudgingly admit it.  but not so used to it that i don’t love every minute of living here.

the transition has been from a love-at-first-sight euphoria to a close-friend rapport.  you know how completely enamored you are when you first meet someone you really like?  there’s a mystery about them that fascinates you.  you want to spend every minute of your time being with them, getting to know more about them.  then — sooner or later, it’s bound to happen — they disappoint you.  you discover a flaw.  you’re temporarily disgusted with them, but you gradually forgive. and, eventually, you grow to love the flaws in their character as well as the good points you fell in love with in the first place.  better still, whatever disagreement you’ve had serves to bring you closer together, and you become even better friends than you were in the first place.  i still don’t know as much of the city as i would like to.  but hey, i have five more years to do that — and i love the suspense of not knowing what lies around the corner.  literally.  i don’t know whether it will be an ethnic grocer’s, an upscale jewelry shop or another interesting bum.  but even if it’s something distasteful, i can accept it.  nobody — or no city, for that matter — is perfect.

no, i’m not doing a psychoanalysis of my relationship with the city.  i’m NOT, i tell you!

so, this week was supposed to be the *big* critique, the deciding vote.  but instead of mercilessly terminating this project, they gave us two more weeks to adapt, refine, and polish.  in the words of charlie brown, “AUGHHHHH!!”  (the final crit will be on october 29, for those of you who want to start praying in advance. :)  we worked and worked on our joint for this crit.  we built an entirely new model with refinements, took black-and-white photos of its inner workings, and made a new set of drawings.  the crit was neither harsh nor overtly positive; like most of them, it was encouraging and helpful, while so abstract it left my head swimming.  i love how your joint is so <insert random high-flown architectonic term>,  they would say.  ah, yes, we’d answer, we tried to make it that way.  all the while, we were wondering WHAT they — and we — were talking about. i suppose part of the class is picking up the lingo … and that must include some degree of faking it.  sigh.

our drawings were our weakest area, as was the case with all of the groups.  i suspect it might be because, perhaps, oh — they never TAUGHT us how to draw.  hey, i like to learn on my own, but it’s frustrating to spend a long time on something and have it torn apart because your “presentation” or “conceptualization” is slightly off.  i remain optimistic, though, and resolve to work harder and seek more advice from elders on the next set.  again, we stayed in the studio past closing time.  this time, though, i took some alternate advice and signed the list — using my best friend as an alias.

dorm life continues to be oh-so-exciting.  it seems that every week the R.A.’s plan a special event to make our lives more interesting; last week was the infamous Pasta Night, and this friday was the Dating Game.  i actually didn’t go to the latter — nuff said.  call me crazy, but i think i *probably* had something better to do.  (although all my friends that played ended up with free movie passes and restaurant gift-certificates.  maybe it was a bad call.)  instead, i did some reading for literature class and relaxed.  then raquel, sara and i had a “girl’s night out” and went to see “practical magic,” a movie that looked like a chick-flick but had too much occultish-based themes to be all that charming.  we had fun being together, though.

our apartment is looking more and more classy, too.  each week, it seems, one of us buys a new poster or wall decoration or set of dishes.  sara and i found a wonderful shop called “fish’s eddy,” (it sounds backwards, doesn’t it?  “eddie’s fishes” would make more sense, but that’s new york for ya.)  which buys dishes from authentic diners all across the country and resells them for very little money — 75 cents per plate, to be exact.  we bought a bunch to supplement our meager supply of kitchenware, while ooh-ing and aah-ing over all the things we couldn’t afford.  i fell in love with an Henri Matisse (print!  not original!) at the Met, which hangs behind our kitchen table.  we’re always slightly shocked when we visit friends’ apartments that don’t feel the necessity to “decorate”; for us, it would be simply appalling to come home to four white walls and a few pieces of boring furniture.  

on saturday, i had the delightful experience of seeing my two dear friends jenny and toby again.  jenny’s class was coming to the city to see “chicago,” and toby came along for the ride.  jenny’s friend nina was with them, and it was great fun to show them around “my” city — times square, central park, fifth avenue, etc.  i felt a bit like a proud parent.  after a day of walking in dress shoes, though, my feet were not very thankful for the experience.  after the show, toby and i met the girls and the four of us took the subway to east village.  it was jenny’s first underground trip ever — she kept asking,”is it supposed to jerk around like that?  why are we stopping?  should we get off?  is this safe?”  (of course, we couldn’t give her a straight answer.  “well, it’s probably the driver’s first time, but it’s okay.  there *might* not be anything to worry about.”)  i showed them my school, my apartment, and my neighborhood, and we had dinner at a quaint little malaysian place, with bamboo furniture and a running waterfall in the dining room with goldfish swimming about underfoot.

that night was my friend jeff’s birthday.  kadar and i, along with jeff’s friend olga, celebrated by going swing dancing at a club in times square.  i almost had my first-ever experience being kicked out of a club for being underage — i had been under the impression that it was okay for under-21-ers to come if they didn’t drink, but apparently that wasn’t the case.  jeff copped a new-york attitude with the bouncer, who promptly copped one right back.  (“ya don’t like the rules at my club, buddy, ya can get out!” with that great accent.)  then — a masterful stroke — jeff backed down submissively, and once the bouncer saw that he had control of the situation, he grew benevolent and let us in.  awed, we stood meekly as the woman marked our hands with black X’s to prevent us from buying any, ahem, *adult* beverages.  (not to worry.  we just wanted to dance.)  we had, as always, a great time — even though the atmosphere was a little more subdued than other places we’d been to, we twirled and dipped to our hearts’ content in the tight crowds.  somehow, swing dancing is even more fun when you bump into other people.  we left early (my feet were screaming bloody murder after a day of semi-athletic activity in high heels!!)  came home, put in a movie, and promptly fell asleep in front of it.

today i limped to church — not once, not twice, but *three* times.  at Liturgy this morning i was accosted (in a friendly manner) by the choir director, who had met my mom, our choir director, at a conference in washington last week.  she invited me to stand with the choir, which i did, with mixed success.  the russian tones were easier to pick up than i had thought, but the foreign-language singing was a little beyond me.  i must have showed it, too — she offered to get me a pronunciation guide before next week.  after church i was invited to the rehearsal for a wedding that would take place that evening.  i was (again) much less confident of my sightreading abilities than they were, but showed up anyway.  after rehearsal, i had lunch with jeff at a ukranian diner (ah, the cultural richness of the city!) and went home, only to turn right around and come back for the wedding.  it was beautiful.  the cathedral was darkened except for scores of candles all around, and the music — hushed, sweet, and moving — fit the atmosphere perfectly.  afterwards, the reception turned decidedly ethnic.  champagne was distributed liberally (don’t worry! i was good!) and the more Slavic element of the congregation took to pounding the piano, dancing and belting out Russian folk tunes.  it was a sight.  i’ve been tapping my foot all night, humming, “aay-aay-aay-aay-aaaah …”

well, kids, i have work to do.  i’m counting the days until i go home for the first time.