The Sense in Life

You know, when I moved to Upper East side, I thought this was the most non-happening place I could find in Manhattan. But after seeing police cars, ambulances and now fire engines outside my door, it just seems that peace is not something one can find in New York!

It reminds me of this time I went to San Francisco for my first job interview. I was at my hotel room feeling hungry, and found a popcorn bag in the drawer. So I put it in the microwave for 2 minutes and went to watch tv. After a while i smelled something burning and opened the microwave to see black smoke everywhere. I made the mistake of opening the hotel room door to let the smoke out. Bad move – that triggered all the alarms on the floor, and people started rushing down. After a few minutes of listening to the alarm, I thought maybe I should let them know it was me who did this. So I went down to see all the hotel guests standing in the doorway looking sleepy and angry, and I softly made my way to the front desk. I almost whispered to him that I might know why the alarms went off, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He told me to just wait in my room for the fire brigade. So I went back, and within a few minutes the firemen came to my room, opened the microwave, threw the popcorn in the trash, said something in the walkie-talkie, and left. That was the most embarrassing fire incident of my life! Oh well, lesson learned – dont make popcorn at home!

Every morning at the subway station, I see this group of elderly men singing old songs, always smiling, and I enjoy it a lot. Well, today a lady (maybe one of the passengers) wanted to sing. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and started to sing the words out loud. She started well, but after the first sentence, her voice became a little weaker – perhaps from the silence around her, perhaps from the fact that she felt conscious of being the only one singing. And every word became quieter and quieter. But then suddenly, one of the elderly men joined her, and started singing with her. And she smiled, and her voice grew stronger, and stronger. And she sang the song with all her enthusiasm. For the first time, I realized how important that second voice is, encouraging, guiding, giving new power. I mean I’ve always been very irritated at being dependent on someone else for anything I do or anything I feel, but this incident brought a warm feeling within.

So I tried to finish my “nest” today (as one person called my furniture adventures). And man, this is turning out to be a nest that just doesnt want to be made! After getting my stuff together, I realized I lost some of those wooden connectors. But, not wanting to give up now, I still went ahead and tried to assemble the bed. For some stupid reason, I thought it would be easier to fit the long side bar vertically. And for some even stupider reason, I decided to hold the bar at the base while doing that. What I didnt factor in, was that the bar might slip, hit my head, cut my finger and smash into the lamp. Thankfully, I didnt get hurt too bad and just had to put on a bandage. Now, any sane rational person would have stopped this craziness right there. I mean, why would any human being continue with something that almost killed him? But no, defying all the rules of self-preservation, I had to just continue with my mindless innovations. This time, I figured that vertical was dangerous (thankfully), so tried horizontally. But I couldnt fit 2 ends at the same time on my own, so put a trash can under the bar to balance it. But by the time I got to the other end, the trash can slipped, the bar fell down, broke its connectors and the screws ripped out of the wood. So instead of a bed, I was left with a broken side bar and screws without any wood to go into. I just sat there, looking at my cut finger, at the broken bar and wondering why I even bought the bed.
You know, I have this belief in signs (not from god since I’m not that religious, but from nature). That life is trying to say something to you through simple omens. But the only problem is I interpret these signs in the wrong way – as in when life says “you need to stop working on this bed”, I interpret it as “you need to work harder on this bed”. And that I think is my biggest problem with life… and just as if to reinforce that, when I stood up, the other side bar fell down almost wrecking my laptop.

This was so irritating…

Things feel surreal (as they have been in the past few weeks). I woke up, and felt I made the worst decision ever by choosing this apartment. The basement hammering, dryers in the laundry room and people banging the front door on their way in, I dont know how I can take this for the next whole year…
I reached the subway station, and there are ppl waiting. The entrance to platform is blocked. No one really knows whats happening. A man is wheeled out, unconscious. A woman gets worried about whatever it was being contagious. Now ppl are rushing to get onto the platform, onto the train.

For all the things in life that make you wonder if there is any…