My iPod died this morning. I was walking down Westland Avenue, singing softly along with Arcade Fire, when it shut off.  Just like that.

“Shit,” I muttered. What was I supposed to do? I dreaded the thought of riding the train without my headphones on, without a soundtrack to guide my thoughts. It would be so … quiet. So boring. Would strangers talk to me? I walked faster. I reached the station in under five minutes and sat impatiently on a bench. I watched three outbound trains come and go. I checked my phone. I flipped through a magazine that someone had left on the ground. I wondered if I looked as uncomfortable as I felt. I must have looked approachable enough because a tiny, elderly woman walked toward me, frowning. I was wearing the dress that always unbuttoned on its own. She’s coming over to tell me to cover up, I bet. I looked down, but my dress was buttoned. She was so close now that I could hear her breathe. She opened her mouth to speak, and the words came out in Spanish. How did she know? My freckles and blue eyes hardly scream, “Latina!”

“I’m so embarrassed,” she spoke softly, “But I need one more dollar to get home. Would you lend me a dollar, please? I’m so embarrassed,” She repeated.

I stopped carrying cash mostly because I don’t have any money. But I wanted so badly to help. I fumbled through my bag, my fingers finally found a dollar bill. I held it up, grinning, then placed it gently in her hand.

“Bless you, child. Bless you. The favor will be returned to you someday. I’m so glad I asked you for help. For a moment, I thought you were a little Gringa,” She laughed. I laughed back.

Soon, the train arrived. We sat together, and she told me about her family, and how different living in Boston was from living in Ecuador. She said that finding work was hard at first, but that she had managed to find a job as a caregiver for a family in Malden.

 “I’m very lucky,” She said.

 And then it was my stop.

“Bless you!” She touched my shoulder as I got up.

“Take care of yourself,” I smiled.

My iPod died today, but I lived. And for the first time in a while, I had something to write about.

“I’m going to pierce my nose.” I say to my roommate, Callie. It’s the third time I’ve told her this in the past week, but my nose remains unpierced. She takes a sip of her ginger tea and nods. 

“Okay, let’s go do it then.”

“No,” I shake my head, “I can’t do it.”

“Okay,” She takes another sip, “Don’t do it.”  

“It will look unprofessional. People will judge me. My parents will be mad. This is something that I should have done in college, not now. Not when I’m entering the professional world. Right?” I look to her for confirmation. 

“I guess so. But you want to be a creative professional, not a boring professional.” 

“I know!” I nearly scream. “So I should do it, right?” 

“You sound like a crazy person. Listen to yourself.” 

“I’m going to do it. Let’s go do it!” I stand up and put on my jacket. 

“Can I finish my tea first?” Callie asks. 

“Yes.” I sit back down. 

While Callie finished her tea, I thought about the last time I had the urge to get a piercing. I was a sophomore in college and on spring break in California with my roommates. I decided that I wanted to get my eyebrow pierced, so one afternoon, as we strolled around Pacific Beach, I stepped into a tattoo and piercing shop, and I did it.  

I looked different. Tougher, maybe. People looked at me differently. My grandmother shuddered when she saw me. “Why would you do that to your face?” She asked, shaking her head. I called my parents to tell them what I had done. They were horrified. 

“If that thing isn’t out by the time you get home, you can pay for college with your own money,” My mother said. 

So that was that. Three days later, My uncle Raiko took me to his friend’s tattoo and piercing joint, and a guy named Eddie removed the piercing for me, for no charge. 

“That was short-lived,” He chuckled. I faked a smile. 

The truth is, I wasn’t upset about having to remove my eyebrow piercing because I’m not sure that I really liked it. I’m not sure that it was really me. What I was upset about was that I felt judged, not just by strangers, but by the people that I loved, by the people that knew me, and knew that I was so much more than some girl with a pierced eyebrow.

An hour later, I walk out of Chameleon Tattoo and Body Piercing with a pierced nose. I don’t feel any different. That’s because I’m not any different. I’m still me. It’s just that now, I have a tiny little sparkly stud on my left nostril. And it feels nice. 

Maybe I should be worried about the way that I look to other people. Maybe potential employers will hesitate to hire me because of my nose ring. But do I want to work in an environment where self-expression is frowned upon, where I am judged for something so trivial? No. 

I am worried about what my parents will think. I know that they won’t be happy. But they will get over it. I think they will realize how silly it is to get mad over something so small, unimportant, and non-permanent.

There are so many things in my life that I can’t control. This is something that I’ve wanted to do for a while. And I did it. And I’m happy. 

I pierced my nose, and I like it.

“Feliz cumpleaños, Sam!” My roommate, Marisela grinned as she stood over my bed. She held a traditional Spanish pastry, which she had decorated with twenty-one candles. She seemed pleased with herself.

“Gracias, Marisela,” I replied, still half asleep. I blew out the candles and smiled. I had spent years dreaming of this day, and now that it was here, I wasn’t sure that I felt any different. When I was underage in Spain, I could still do all of the things that I wasn’t able to do in the United States. I could drink wine with dinner. I could get into any bar I liked. I could rent a car. I felt free. I wondered if I’d still feel this way when I returned to the United States. In Spain I was outgoing. I was confident. I was adventurous. Nine months ago I was a shy midwestern girl who had only ever lived in Wisconsin. I was afraid of leaving home, of living in a small town where few people would speak English, of attending a Spanish University. My only fear now was that when I returned to my old life, I would lose this confidence.

“I’m going to get a tattoo.” I shouted into the computer. Everyone in the Internet café stared at me. I could feel my cheeks flush. 

“A tattoo of what?” My best friend asked. I liked her response. I liked that she didn’t ask me why I wanted one. I imagined having the same conversation with my mother. “No you’re not!” She would yell, and then she’d probably fly to Spain and try to stop me.

“The charro. It’s the symbol of Salamanca. I want to always remember my time here. A tattoo will remind me. Even when I go back to the U.S., the tattoo will be with me.”

“Yes, it will. That’s what permanent means.” She laughed. “I’m going back to sleep. It’s 1 AM in some parts of the world. Good luck, and make sure they use a new needle!” She hung up. I left the Internet café and walked toward the tattoo parlor that I pass every day on my way to school. A group of teenage boys sat outside the front entrance, in a cloud of smoke. They had pierced ears and noses and faces and their arms were covered in ink. Despite their rough exteriors, they greeted me with smiles as I approached the front door. I wondered why they had chosen to cover their bodies with tattoos. Were they trying to remember something, like me? It didn’t seem like it. Were they trying to appear tough, wild, nonconformist?  Was that even possible if they all looked the same?

Javier, the tattoo artist, handed me a book of images. I already knew what I wanted, but I looked through the book anyway. I was curious. “This one’s my favorite!” he exclaimed, pointing to a black Celtic pattern. In the picture, a girl had gotten this tattoo on her lower back. In high school, all of the cool girls had tattoos like this. I didn’t want a tattoo that everyone had. In fact, I wasn’t sure that I wanted a tattoo at all.

As Javier filled out some paperwork, I analyzed the tattoos on his arms. On his left arm, he displayed several cobras, and the initials “JPS.” His right arm was covered with a scene of a dragon spitting out fire. I wondered why he had gotten these tattoos. I wondered what was so important about a dragon, or a cobra, that he wanted it permanently inked on his body. “You could get this one,” he pointed to a tattoo of a skull. “That would make you look tough!” He flexed his muscles and laughed.

 “No thanks,” I replied. “Maybe I should think about this a little more. I’ll stop back later,” As I walked out the door, I knew that I wasn’t going to come back later. I didn’t need a tattoo to look tough, or unique, and I didn’t need a tattoo to remind me of my time abroad. Living in Spain had changed me, and I didn’t need a tattoo to prove it. I knew it, and that was enough.

“Sam? Are you up?” My mom yells from the bottom of the stairs.

“No,” I mutter, pulling the covers over my head. A minute later, I can feel her standing over my bed.

“Wake up! It’s 10 o’clock. Let’s get breakfast!” She pulls up my window shades, inviting the sunlight into my bedroom. It makes my eyes hurt.

“Come on, Sam!” She whines. She sounds like a child. But she’s so excited that I can’t bare the thought of disappointing her. 

“You really don’t know how to wake somebody up,” I say, as I kick off my blankets.

“I think I do. You’re up, aren’t you?” She smiles. “Get dressed. We’re going to Heinemann’s in 5 minutes.”  

Fifteen minutes later, we pull into the restaurant parking lot.

“Go get a table!” My mom nearly pushes me out of the car. As I walk toward the front door of the restaurant, I notice a group of elderly ladies huddled around the entrance.

“Such a tragedy!” One exclaims.

“Stan and I have been coming here for 60 years!” Another cries.  

“What’s going on?” I ask the ladies.

“Oh dear. Heinemann’s is closed. For good!” She points to a sign on the door. The font is tiny and cursive, but the word “closed” is bold and capitalized. 

“Heinemann’s Restaurants is sorry to announce that all Heinemann’s Restaurants, our Commissary and Office have closed. Heinemann’s thanks all of our great customers and employees who have dined and worked at Heinemann’s for the past eighty-five years.”

Another woman taps me on the shoulder. I turn around.

“Where will we play Mahjong?” She asks.

“I … I don’t know.”

“Are they closed today?” My mom asks, walking toward us.

“Closed forever!” The Mahjong woman yells.

“What?” She doesn’t believe them. She shoots me a look that says, “These ladies are just old and confused, right?” I point to the sign.

“Oh no.” She whispers. Her eyes fill with tears.

“Mom? Are you crying?” I ask, touching her shoulder.

“I’m not crying.” She sniffles.

“Okay,” I reach into my purse, “Here’s a tissue, though. Just in case. I know you’re not crying, but …”

“Let’s go, Sam.” We walk in silence to the car, then we sit for a few moments in the parking lot.

“Your dad and I took you to Heinemann’s for your first breakfast when you were just a week old.”

“So you didn’t feed me breakfast for a week? Isn’t that kind of neglectful?”

She snorts.

“When you and Jordan were kids, we had breakfast with Grandpa here every Saturday.”

“I know. I loved that.” I grab her hand.

“And now that Grandpa’s gone, and you guys don’t live here anymore, your dad and I come here every Saturday. In fact, we were just here last week. I don’t even think the employees knew. That hostess, Mary, was talking about her plans to finish up her degree at UWM. Those poor employees. They’ve been there for so long. I’m sitting here, feeling sorry for us, but what about them?”

She shakes her head, and turns on the car. We drive across the street, to a corporate coffee shop. My mom spends most of the meal on the phone, breaking the news to our friends and family members. I pick at my scrambled eggs while I think about change. Everybody’s talking about change, it seems. Barack Obama talks about change. My friends talk about change. Change is good. Vote for change. But what happens when change is bad? When change makes you lose your job? When change makes you cry?

Can you like change selectively? Can you like good change: the kind that teaches you new things, takes you to new places, helps you grow?

My mom hangs up the phone.

“Sorry, honey. I just wanted to tell Aunt Cindy and Uncle Max what happened,” She explains.

“What’d they say?” I ask.

“They didn’t care so much. They never liked the food there. You know what I’ve learned, though?” She pauses.

“What?”

“Never become a creature of habit. You’ll get stabbed in the heart.”

“You’re being very dramatic.”

“I mean it!” She slams her hand on the table.

“I think you can. Become a creature of habit. But I think you have to prepare yourself for all kinds of change. Change is like … it’s like the weather. You’ve got to dress appropriately.”

“Interesting theory. Can we go? I can’t stand this place.” She says, a little too loudly. “I’ll make us pancakes.”

It’s been five months since my grandfather died, and I’m still hurting. One weekend, we were together for my uncle’s wedding, and the next, he was gone. Just like that. My grandfather was 82 when he died. He lived to see each of his children get married. He formed close relationships with his grandchildren. As an OBGYN, he delivered over 10,000 babies in the Milwaukee area, including me. He was able to retire at a relatively young age and spend his winters painting on his porch and playing golf in the California desert.  You’re probably thinking, this sounds like a pretty nice life. And it was. So I should be grateful. I should be grateful that I got to spend 22 years with my grandfather. I am grateful.  But that doesn’t mean I’m not hurting. I’m sad, and I’m angry, and I’m wondering why nobody taught me how to grieve.

In elementary school, I learned that drugs could kill me. Our D.A.R.E. officer, Officer Joel, warned me about the dangers of cocaine and heroin. I was ten. Three years later, I learned exactly how to make a baby. I had to memorize the names of ten sexually transmitted diseases, and their symptoms. I scored 100% and was the only girl in my class that spelled Chlamydia correctly.

I realize that programs like D.A.R.E and Sex Ed are important. But the thing about drugs and sex is, we can choose whether or not to do them. We have the power to “just say no.” When I found out that my grandfather was going to die, I reacted by sobbing and shaking my head, “no, no, no.” But it didn’t make a difference. He died. There was nothing I could do to stop it. 

In Judaism, when someone dies it’s customary to sit Shiva. You spend several days mourning at home while friends and family members stop by your house with large amounts of food. It’s almost like a party. Sometimes, you wonder if people have forgotten why you’re all together in the first place. When we sat Shiva for my grandfather, I spent most of the days in my bedroom. I only came downstairs to grab food, or to say hi to someone who was too old to walk up the stairs and come to my bedroom. Each time I came downstairs, I was disgusted to hear people laughing, gossiping, and overindulging in baked goods. I wished that instead of showing up with a Bundt cake, or a noodle kugel, that each of these people had come with a memory of my grandfather. I wished that instead of asking me about graduate school, or my impending move to Boston, they’d tell me something that I didn’t know about his life.

So the question I ask is, why are we so afraid to talk about death? Would it be inappropriate to teach children how to grieve when they lose a grandparent, or any loved one, for that matter? Maybe if someone had told me what to expect, I wouldn’t have been so shocked. But maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference at all. Maybe there isn’t a good way to prepare somebody for grief. 

“I guess I just need to go out with guys even if I don’t like them.”  Rachel sighed before taking another sip of coffee. I looked at her carefully. She was pretty. She was nice. She was smart. Then I realized that I had been staring at her for over a minute without saying anything. I laughed uncomfortably and muttered something about needing to mail a letter.

As I walked through downtown Boston, I thought about my conversation with Rachel. Like me, Rachel was single and new to Boston. 

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with being single. I love being single. I really do. Sleeping alone is much better than sharing a bed, especially if your bedmate is a sleep kicker. Besides, I’m probably too busy to be in a relationship anyway. But let’s say that I wasn’t busy. Let’s say that my days were filled with free time, free time that I wanted to spend with a significant other. Who would I pass my afternoons with?

I sat on a bench in the Boston Common and observed the first guy that walked past. He wore a t-shirt that said, “Life is good.” I cringed. I really don’t like these sorts of t-shirts. My feeling is that if you need to tell the world how great your life is, on a t-shirt, your life probably isn’t that great after all. 

Was I being too judgmental? Maybe this guy’s life was actually really good. Maybe he traveled around the world on a private yacht and was only in Boston for the afternoon. Maybe he was a prince. Who was I to write him off as being lame just because he wanted to share his happiness, his good life, with the world? 

Maybe I am too picky. Maybe Rachel was right. Maybe I should go out with guys that I don’t like, because maybe, they could turn into guys that I do like.  

I thought about some of my own friends and their dating preferences. Maya refused to date any man shorter than 6 feet. Leah only dated dark-haired guys. Veronica just said no to mustaches.

“The problem with women is that they usually date a specific type of guy and refuse to consider dating anyone who doesn’t fit this mold,” My friend Jack once told me, “As a result, they miss out on meeting someone really great.”

I think Jack is right. I think men and women are both guilty of being too specific when it comes to dating. I am not suggesting that you settle for anything less than the best. What I am suggesting is that you try something new.

Imagine that you are at an ice cream shop, and you see your favorite flavor. Maybe it’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, or maybe it’s Rocky Road. You tell the awkward teenage boy behind the counter that you’d like a scoop of the usual. It seems like the right decision, because it’s what you like. But is it? Maybe if you tried Pralines and Cream, you’d discover that you liked it even more than the usual. Of course, there’s always the chance that you could have an allergic reaction, but love is about taking risks, and I think we could all stand to be a little bit riskier. 

“Sam, we’re screwed!” Lara yells, running toward me. She drops her backpack on the floor and points to my laptop. “We’ve got to get off Twitter!” 

“Huh?” I take off my headphones. Everyone in the library seems to be staring at us. “What’s going on?” I ask. 

“Twitter. When you Google our names, all of our status updates come up. Our potential employers can see that!” Lara looks concerned, which makes me wonder if I should be worried too. 

“And our blogs! They can see them. Take me off your blog roll, okay?”

“O .. Okay.”

“Thanks, Sam! It’s just so scary. I don’t want to mess up my chances of getting a great job, you know? Well, I’ve got to go home,” Lara grabs her bag and heads out the door, but not before shouting, “don’t forget to take me off your blog roll!” 

I put my headphones back on and try to return to my marketing research, but I can’t focus. I open the Google home page and type in my name. Sure enough, my Twitter updates are the first results, followed by my blog, and a few random websites. I imagine Lara’s panicked face. She’s right. Potential employers will be able to see this. All of this. I should be worried. So I log onto Twitter and delete my account.

Three hours later, I’m eating dinner in my apartment while browsing the internet. I can’t help but Google myself once more. Three of the results are from pages on Saul Alinsky, the late American community and labor activist whose students include Cesar Chavez, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, and me. 

Me?

Yes. 

According to DemocratsSuck.com, Encyclopedia.stateuniversity.com, and Theabsurdreport.com, I was a student of Saul Alinsky. 

Never mind that Alinsky died 14 years before I was born.

When I was a sophomore in college, I went through a Saul Alinsky phase. I was young, living in Madison, and I found social activism appealing. As a joke, a friend edited the Wikipedia entry on Saul Alinsky, adding me to his list of students. He removed me a couple of weeks later, but it was too late. A handful of websites had already cited Wikipedia’s article, and I was permanently linked to DemocratsSuck.com 

Maybe this should make me nervous. But it doesn’t. The bottom line is, if a potential employer is naive enough to believe that I was actually a student of Saul Alinsky, I probably don’t want to work for them anyway. If they’re not willing to hire me because of my blog, or my twitter updates, then it’s their loss, right? Maybe.

Facebook, Twitter, blogs.. these are all tools that I use to represent myself. I don’t write inappropriate updates on Twitter. I use Twitter to network. And I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve written on my blog. 

This post is long, but it has a point, I promise. In kindergarten, Miss Davis told me to always be myself. I often wondered how I could be myself if I didn’t know who I really was. I’m still not sure who I am. I’m growing and changing every day. But if I stop expressing myself, stop sharing my ideas, then I stop being the person that I’ve become. 

After dinner, I logged back onto Twitter and reactivated my account.

It’s the night of the last presidential debate before Election 2008, and I’m scared. It’s not because I’m going on a date tomorrow night. It’s not because I found another mouse in my kitchen. And it’s definitely not because the man down the hall just called me, “little sugar mama.” 

Lately, I’ve been feeling like not enough people truly care about the future of this country. It’s got nothing to do with supporting a particular candidate. If you’re passionate about Obama, vote for him. If you’re a fan of McCain, go for it. What really matters, is that you educate yourself on both candidates, and VOTE. 

It blows my mind that anyone would choose not to vote. Too many things in life are beyond our control, but this is something that each and every one of us gets a say in. 

I’ve been reminded by many people that tonight is the season finale of Project Runway. That’s cool. It’s not a bad show. But I urge you to watch the debate instead, especially if you still feel uninformed about the candidates. BRAVO will replay the Project Runway finale a trillion times. I promise. 

But this, this can’t wait. The presidential election is just three weeks away. 

I’ve got the facts, and I’m voting. Are you?

Lately I find myself feeling incredibly nostalgic. I yearn for the days when life was simple, when I ate and slept and played without a care in the world. Sure, there were days when I would have given anything to grow up. When I was eleven, I cried for an entire week because Max Cohen told me that freckles were ugly and that no boy would ever like me. He now works at a Verizon kiosk in a mall back in Wisconsin. But that isn’t the point. The point is, I miss being a kid. I miss going to birthday parties at Skateland, trick-or- treating on Halloween, playing capture the flag at the park. I miss being told what to do, and not having to figure it out for myself.

It’s not that I’m incapable of making my own decisions. It’s just that, I’ve never really had to before. Until now, each of my moves has essentially been made for me. After kindergarten came elementary school, then middle school, high school, and college. How am I supposed to become an adult all of the sudden? I don’t feel mature at all. I laugh when my professor writes the word, “porn” on the whiteboard. I cry when my parents leave me after visiting for a weekend. I scream when I find a mouse in my kitchen. I am a 12 year old girl trapped in the body of a 22 year old … woman? 

I remember when my brother was born, and I held him for the first time. All I wanted to do was have a conversation with him. I asked my mom how long it would be before he could talk to me. She told me it might take a couple of years. I was furious. She may as well have told me that he’d never speak at all. Two years was almost half of my existence. I couldn’t imagine waiting that long. Two years later, he began talking, and soon after, he was verbally harassing me on a regular basis. Now he’s almost 20 years old.

So the question I ask is, do we have to grow up? Do we have to sacrifice our childish tendencies in order to become adults? What does it even mean to “grow up?” Physically, I haven’t grown since I was 14 years old. Emotionally, I’ve definitely matured since then. But I still don’t feel wise enough for someone who’s been alive almost a quarter of a century.

Everyone around me seems to be great at growing up. They’re getting married, starting families, buying homes. Not me. Maybe it’s because I’m immature. Maybe it’s because I’m not trying hard enough. But ultimately, it’s because I don’t want to.

I laugh because I’m nervous. I laugh because I’m uncomfortable. I hardly laugh when it’s appropriate. Today, in class, I laughed during a video on research methods. You’d laugh too if you heard someone say, “Firemen aren’t made. They’re born.” So I did. 

On Saturday afternoon, I got in trouble for laughing. I was reading on the floor of the Harvard bookstore, when I heard a peculiar noise. It began as a light cough, but evolved into a disgusting sound, the kind someone makes just before they’re going to, you know…puke?

I couldn’t find the source of the noise. I was scared. I was nervous. I was very uncomfortable. So I laughed. I looked at my best friend. She was laughing so hard that I thought she might stop breathing. I imagined having to perform CPR on her. Except I didn’t know CPR, so I probably wouldn’t be able to save her. I imagined having to tell her parents that she had literally died of laughter. 

The noise stopped, and a moment later, a middle-aged woman appeared before us. Her lips were pursed tightly, and she glared at us for several moments before walking away. 

I looked at my best friend. Her smile was gone. “Grab your things, Sam!” I tried to move quickly but I felt guilty leaving books on the ground without putting them back in their original places. “Come on!” She whined, grabbing my arm and leading me to the store’s exit. 

As we walked home, I couldn’t help but feel guilty for laughing at someone else’s coughing attack. I meant no disrespect. I laughed because I was nervous. 

In America, when people are nervous or scared, they commit far worse acts than acts of laughter. They discriminate, start wars, spread hate. So what if I laugh because I’m nervous? Life is short, and so am I.