Thoughts on the Umbrella

I woke up late this morning and saw the rain drizzling outside the slanted windows of the tower room I was occupying. I was supposed to meet my cousin at Union Square at 2:30 p.m. It was already noon. I remembered I hadn’t brought an umbrella with me and wondered how I was going to get to the train station without getting too wet. A newspaper did the trick.

I knew that once I was in Manhattan I would be able to find those umbrella vendors who showed up in cities all over the world whenever it rained. The umbrellas they sold were usually around 10 dollars. You could count on the vendors to show up right outside a subway station on a rainy day - be it Paris, London, Shanghai, Seoul, and I was betting New York as well.

The train from Bronxville (basically Westchester) to Grand Central took about thirty minutes. I thought about the umbrella during that time. The umbrella is an interesting device. It’s universal and timeless. Even with all the new technology and savvy scientific developments, the umbrella remains the same simple invention. China had umbrellas in 21 A.D. Not to mention that Ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt had umbrellas as well (Thank you, Wikipedia). I also thought about the umbrella vendors all over the world. Did they keep tabs on the weather 24/7? They always looked very happy when somebody purchased an umbrella. Not like regular street vendors. Maybe they could smile because it was a part time job, and a pretty lucrative one at that. Was selling umbrellas their sole occupation, or did they had other jobs on the side? If so what? Did they rejoice and grab their stash of umbrellas in the closet when the weather forecast would predict rain?

When I finally got to Union Square and climbed the steps to the ground floor, my expectations were met. There he was. The umbrella vendor. I’ve noticed that these vendors, no matter what city they’re in, all sell a variation of the same black umbrellas. The one I bought in London (which I still have in my closet back in Los Angeles) is black with a cheap brown wooden handle. The one I bought in Seoul is black with a silver handle that gets scratched easily. The one I chose today was a black one with a shiny new silver handle. No scratches. It was five dollars. Half the price of what I remembered it to be. That made me happy, as if I had just earned five dollars.

I opened my new umbrella and stood under it, and looked at the time. 2:25 pm. Perfect timing.

Aboard the Lucky Star Bus

Yesterday, I was in Boston. Then from Boston, I took the bus to New York and I spent a night in Brooklyn, in an all African-American neighborhood, crashing at a friend's boyfriend's house. Now I'm at my friend's place in Westchester where Sarah-Lawrence is located. There's a castle (a real one) across the street from where I am staying. I've been told that it's been on the market for years and nobody wants to buy it. These are two very different neighborhoods, for sure. In any case, I'll be going back to Boston on Friday. When I go back, I will be crashing with a friend in Jamaica Plain and not with my sister in Somerville.

While on the bus to New York from Boston, the Lucky Star pulled over at a McDonalds for fifteen minutes. I sat in the bus and watched people get off and buy their McDonalds and sit at the picnic table outside smoking and eating. The warm sun was shining down on the scene, melting away the New England winter. One of the Spanish speaking teenage girls went over to a Chinese boy and asked for a light, and he lit her cigarette for her. It was a casual exchange that didn't need much verbal communication.

There were all sorts of people. Different colors, different sizes, different ages, and most of them were speaking in different languages. I detected various accents in the languages as well. The Chinese people were speaking Mandarin and I surmised one man was from North Africa because he spoke French with an accent and he was black. He sat next to a fussy white lady on the bus (she didn't understand at first that this was the $15 Lucky Star bus from South Station to New York Chinatown, not a $150 American Airlines ticket from Logan to JFK) and by the time we got off in New York the two were friends.

I sat on the bus soaking all this in and I thought it was beautiful.

Viktor the Car Dealer

I told him we were in Los Angeles and that we weren't up to driving all the way out there if the leasing prices weren't any good.
"We lease cars," he had said, when my roommate and I had called to check. "When you come, make sure to look for Viktor. Viktor. Look for Viktor, okay?"

As many of them had been, Viktor also sounded a bit desperate on the phone. Rightly so. It was clear that not many people were buying new cars in this economy. In fact, I've been told it's a great time to be buying a Mercedez because dealers are willing to sell them for the bare minimum.

My new roommate Diana had just moved from New York City to Los Angeles. She needed a car. We had been to three different dealerships, driving all around Los Angeles. We had spent the past several days packing, moving and unpacking. By the time we called Viktor we were tired. I was tired. Extremely tired.

Yet, we drove all the way to "Los Angeles" to find out what deals Viktor could offer us.
(The dealership was clearly NOT in Los Angeles. It was on the very outskirts of Glendale.)

"We don't lease. We only sell. Who said we leased?"
This is what our buddy Viktor told us when we finally got to this dealership in "Los Angeles".
I looked at Viktor who was either Eastern European or a member of the mafia (Diana's input) complete with greasy hair. At first, I was confused. It slowly dawned on my tired brain that Viktor was a liar. How surprising. Lying care dealers. I wasn't even angry. I was just tired.

Diana and I got back in my car and silently drove back to our apartment in Los Angeles.

New Apartment

I moved into my 12th floor apartment today.

In the morning I went over to the leasing office to talk to my leasing agent Craig. I had to sign some paper work and get my keys. Because of a faulty (former) roommate situation and a lazy cousin situation I'd been bombarded with all sorts of problems since I had moved out here last summer.

Craig, my leasing agent, was aware of some of them as I had been trying to sort out these problems directly related to rent and the leasing conditions of my former apartment.
Craig had been very helpful and had more than once lent a listening ear. Every time I looked at him, I was reminded of the hackneyed phrase "peircing blue eyes" because that's exactly what they were.

We were on friendly terms by now and had chatted about hybrid cars, facebook groups that had people burning hearts on Valentines Day, nice places to hang out in the neighborhood (the Whisper Lounge) and where to get good furniture at an affordable price, as well as how much to tip movers and delivery guys. We also agreed that people moving into the city should not complain about rent being expensive. "If it's too expensive then go back to the Valley" - we both agreed.

This morning, Craig offered to show me the new place that was ready for move in.

It was gorgeous.
The smell of fresh paint welcomed us when I stepped into my new home. Granite kitchen table tops and brand new fixtures greeted me. The wooden floors in the living room were waxed letting out a shiny warm glow. The windows that lined the entire side of the living room didn't have a spot of dust and a panoramic view of the Hollywood hills could be seen.
The view from the master bedroom was even better. I would get a direct view of the sunset because the room was facing south.

Craig and I stood side by side in the master bedroom, looking out into Los Angeles.

I could not help but stammer. And I only realized later why there was such an awkward silence while I tried to string together the sentence.

"I, I don't know how to ask you," I was drawing out the sentence unnecessarily because my brain wasn't working and all of a sudden I could not think of the word "subtle."

Finally, it hit me, "without being subtle, but-"

Craig looked at me. I realized there was no "subtle" way of going about this.

"Uhhh, are you guys allowed to accept gift cards or what not as a token of thanks?"

Craig blinked and then opened his mouth, "No, no, no. Absolutely not."

Only later, while we were leaving the new apartment and Craig was holding the door open for me did I realize what I must have sounded like in that bit of conversation in what was to be my bedroom. Some sort of confession of love. Oh, God.

Shortly afterwards, I ended up dropping off a Starbucks latte at the leasing office with Craig and Rosa (another wonderful lady who helped me.) While dropping off the latte at Craig's desk I stepped back and accidentally rammed into the divider behind me, almost knocking it over. Everybody in the office looked up to see me and the divider swaying back and forth. My face turned crimson. I was suddenly aware that I had not washed my hair that morning due to lack of time and that I was wearing sweats and looked like crap.
"Oops," I laughed nervously and rushed out of the office.

I am a clueless, hapless, world-class klutz.

But I love my new apartment.
I wake up to the sweet kiss of the morning sunlight enveloping my entire room.
California, thou art growing on me.


(Hmmm. As I write this a loud car alarm has gone off in one of the parking lots. It's 4 am. What? Argh!)

Explanation of My Profile Picture

*This is an entry explaining my profile picture

I was a junior in college. My school was and still is 6,000 miles away from where I am now in Los Angeles. Some friends and I were camping out at school, pulling an all-nighter. Doom and gloom filled the classroom we were occupying. We were in an impossible situation.

We were all taking a drama class from the very famous Professor J. He was an actor turned professor, a Shakespearian scholar and a true 师, 스승, if there ever was one. None of us wanted to let him down.

The following day was the day of our production. My team had chosen to stage an adaptation of Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest. Other teams had chosen their plays and had been rehearsing for weeks.
Believe it or not, we didn’t even have our script. Yes, and it was the day before our performance.
This production was supposed to make up 40% of our entire grade that semester. There were 6 of us. We were good friends. We were certain that the next day would be the end of us all. Suddenly, Sari, who had gone to tutor for an hour, pushed open the door to the classroom. She was known to be Miss. Optimist.

“Hey, everyone! I brought cookies! Chocolate chip! My favorite!”

I ripped open a bag, pulled out a cookie and passed the bag around the room. I stared at the blank Microsoft Word page on my laptop. I couldn’t type because the creamy chocolate from the cookie was making my fingers sticky. I put down the cookie and glanced at my fingers. I blinked. Then I looked again.

“Everyone, look!” I laughed as I thrust my fist forward.

It looked like I was giving everyone the thumbs-up signal. My friends looked at me as if I was stir crazy. There was absolutely nothing to laugh about. But when they saw the perfectly shaped smiley face on my thumb, complete with the dash of curly hair and freckles, they too, burst out laughing.

Kelly had her new digital camera with her and documented the moment.

We all went back to work. Kelly and I finished the script at two in the morning. It was a play with just six chairs on stage and no other props. The next evening at the English Department’s Drama Festival, we witnessed six other fantastic pieces. Students from that same class went on to pursue acting degrees at the New School or at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts - this wasn’t a casual, low-key drama workshop. But guess what? Guess who won 1st place that night? Team Choco-smile. Team Choco-smile that didn’t even have a script 24 hours prior to the production.


This is not based on a true story, it is a true story.





ps) There is no adequate English translation for the word 스승 which I've employed in the text. It is a word with implicit veneration for the one who the word is used for. It means "a true teacher."

Rice Cookers and LA Tap Water

I spent three hours and went to four different stores in Koreatown today trying to buy a reasonably priced rice cooker.

The last time I had gone rice cooker shopping was on the other side of the world. I was running an errand for my mom. She had asked me to pick up the largest rice cooker I could find at the largest home appliance store in our neighborhood. My purchase ended up being a rice cooker for twelve people. It looked like a mini spaceship. It was apparently the rice cooker from heaven or something. Or you would think so, the way it was commercialized. It actually had gold bits in the pot (or something like that) that helped the rice taste better. Don't ask. I don't know.

Today, in K-town, I found myself thinking, 'It's essentially a pot with a heating device attached to it. I can't believe they're making buyers pay so much money for such a simple device.'

I swear, it's the Asian sellers banking off of the Asian buyers' mentality.
Rice is an essential part of life and defines a large part of the Asian experience. Thus, the rice-cooker, no doubtedly, is an essential part of life.

Conclusion? Make it look super high-tech on the outside and put a ridiculous price tag on it because Asians care about looking good on the outside and saving face, and nobody wants a poor man's rice cooker.

Well, I found it. The poor man's rice cooker standing in the far corner of the fourth store I showed up at.
In relation to the rice cooker, I also figured out the answer to a daunting personal mystery today. One of the guy's (he was about my father's age) at store No. 1 told me that I should make sure to use drinking water when preparing the rice.
"Don't use tap water," he said in Korean.
"Really? Why not? I've been using tap water since December when my sister came from Boston and chastised me for using drinking water for everything that I cook including ramyun."
The man looked horrified,
"LA water is terrible! Beware of the calcareous in the water!"

Calcareous. There is a word that rang a bell. Melissa (one of my closest friends from college) and I had been in Paris for language studies during our sophomore year. During the first month, her skin had broken out like crazy to a point of physical agony, due to the calcareous in the water. (She had super sensitive skin.) The word stuck with me. Until that point, the only other time I had come across that word was in geography class way back in middle school.

I usually never have skin problems but these past few months it's been puberty all over again.
(Well, I never really had skin problems even during puberty.)
I was concerned and had dug into emergency funds to purchase such things as 'Clarifying Cream' from Shiseido but to no avail.
Well, there you are.
All along it had been the water. Mystery solved!

How interesting. New York City has the opposite water effect from Los Angeles.
Not too long ago, I read an article in The Los Angeles Times about a man who was bottling New York City tap water and selling it and making it a profit out of it. While reading that article, I remembered how when I was in the 3rd grade, I thought it was odd that Stacey used to drink water straight from the tap, in her apartment in New York City. This is Stacy from The Babysitters Club.
Now I believe that Ann M. Martin, the creator of the series, is a conlady who sold millions of her "airport-fluff books for pre-teens" to innocent children like me so that she could live in her New York City apartment and drink her Perrier and San Pellegrino. My children will not grow up reading The Babysitters Club. But I'm sure there's greater evil out there now than Stacy, Claudia, Dawn, Mary Anne and Kristy's world of babysitting.

Lifestyle on a Budget

One thing I do that I can’t give up no matter what my bank account says is brunch. The Little Next Door, is a laid back French restaurant in the heart of LA with a cute little cat logo. I dine here somewhat frequently. People complain that the service is slow and crappy at The Little Next Door, but others believe that this is the mark of the bona-fide French experience. C’est vrai. Most of the waiters at the restaurant are French and the best part here is the dessert.

Soon my brunch friend, Jessica pulled-up in her spanking new beamer and handed her keys to valet. Jessica Collins shared the same name as the business school at the university I was attending. This is because her family had donated $110 million dollars to the b-school which resulted in a name change of the school that matched her name.

As soon as Jess sat down, she crossed her legs, leaned over and exclaimed, “Addison, seriously. How do I let my life-style happen on my budget?”
When she said this, I pulled out my quotebook and documented her quote. It was a good one. It summed up one of the dilemmas of my current life. And my solution to her question would be starving or eating cereal.

Jess usually valet parked her car, worked out at Equinox, tanned regularly at tanning bars, lived in a high rise in west LA, and hung out at the most trendy restaurants and bars in Hollywood. Once Leonardo Dicaprio had summoned his bodyguard for her, to fend off a rude lady who was cutting in line to go to the bathroom:

Jess:
(to herself)
I really really need to go to the bathroom.

Leo:
(to himself)
I wonder if I can wait. I hate co-ed bathrooms because the lines are longer.

Rude Lady:
(cutting in front of them and shooting Jessica a nasty look before she hurries into the bathroom)
You’ll live!

Jess :
(mouth gaping open)
I can’t believe she did that!

Leo:
That is so rude! Do you want me to do something about this?

Jess:
Yes, please!

(Leo gestures for his guard to come over.)

I generally don't have a problem with people living by the standard they were born into, unless they impose it upon others. I know that some people think that other people are snobby and ungrateful, but I think if you were to look at it that way wealth is ALWAYS relative. It's like an average American saying that people like Jess have nothing to complain about. Well, if you put it that way, the average American has nothing to complain about compared to the children in rural Cambodia.

Anyways, back to brunch in Los Angeles, California with my friend. On a different level from the Collins family I was thinking the exact same thing. Today, I found myself having a bowl of cereal near midnight. There wasn’t much in the fridge. I realized this was my second meal today that consisted of cereal. I wasn’t on a diet, I was budgeting. Perhaps if I didn’t go eat out at The Little Next Door twice this week (but it was brunch!) and didn't have to pay $160 for my phone bill I would have more money for regular meals. Yeah, whatever. Life is about sacrifices.

The concise version of my story is that I am now a poor student and I wasn’t either before. But because I’ve chosen to pursue a form of pure art, it might get even worse in the future. I have a long lost artist cousin that I recently got in touch with. He lives in New York. He lives with his brother who graduated from Columbia law school and is a high-flying lawyer who can afford many things that he (the artist cousin) can’t. I told him that I hope my sister at Harvard will graduate soon and start rolling in the money so that I won’t have to pay rent and I could go live with her. We both laughed for awhile (online) and then there was a long (online) silence. It’s hard to go from steak to bologna. I can’t stand bologna so I’ve been eating a lot of spam lately. I see a lot of spam down this road that I’ve chosen.