weeatwhatwelike

Wanted: a hobby

joannachristine:

Over a month ago  - at  my brother’s graduation party my uncle asked me “what I want to do with my life” (how appropriate).  I proceeded to tell him “basically anything with people interaction - and anything EXCEPT finance”.  Quite generously he offered to help me narrow down my choices - “what are your hobbies?” What ARE my hobbies? Well, I love sports - and I love competing in sports - especially soccer. But, despite intramurals in college I haven’t competitively played since November 2003 when I broke my leg slide-tackling senior year of high school - swiftly ending my career 2 games early.

Okay - so I love soccer, but it is clearly no longer a hobby. Running? I also ran winter and springtrack my 4 years of high school. Now I run a few times a week and every now and then I’ll sign up for a 5k road-race.  But is it a hobby? No. It’s more for fitness than pure enjoyment and performance.

Well I love people and laughing - is that a hobby? I suppose not - what about Spanish people and things? I love the language and different cultures. Yet, still not much of a “favorite pastime” there. 

Thus, I am embarking on a quarter-life crisis, soul-searching journey.  I am going to utilize the big apple’s resources and take any class/lesson i can find: singing, dancing, drawing, painting, photography - until I find my match.

I WANT TO FIND SOMETHING THAT I USED TO BE INDIFFERENT TOWARDS. I WANT SOMETHING THAT MANY PEOPLE MIGHT NOT CARE ABOUT. I WANT SOMETHING THAT ONCE SEEN IN A NEW LIGHT I WON’T BE ABLE TO LIVE WITH OUT IT ANYMORE. pure passion.

Who knows - the answer could even be in joining my company soccer league after all.

34th Floor

Two gentlemen, whose job it is to wash the windows of our office building, just levitated by our window and scared the crap out of roughly 50 people by banging on the glass as hard as they could.  They laughed, pointed at all of us desk-jockeys, and gave a celebratory high-five as they steadily continued to rise past our window, undoubtably preparing to pull their stunt for the 35th time today.

If I had that job, I don’t think banging on windows would ever get old. 

Also from the game last night

As I stood at a urinal while a fellow fan struck up a conversation with me about the Yankees pitching staff, I realized something about the citizens of this great city.  We are constantly walking the fine line between being complete strangers and intimate friends with each other.  We live, commute, do laundry, drink, eat, pee, walk, sit close to each other.  This physical proximity/intimacy leads to a certain  feeling of emotional closeness among us.  Most often this subconscious affinity lies dormant under busyness and indifference but there are those few moments when you connect with a complete stranger and interact as if you have known each other for 20 years simply because you are constantly living close to 8 million other people. 

(Or maybe the guy was just a creepy old man who likes to talk to people while he pees.  Another, equally/more valid psychosocial explanation for his behavior and commentary on the population of New York.)

Creatures

As I sat in the right field bleachers at the Yankee game last night talking to my uncle on the phone, I realized that Section 39 in its entirety had started chanting “Lose that tie.”  I turned towards them and saw a portly, sleeveless shirt-wearing, Eastern European-looking guy leading the chant, rhythmically pointing his finger at me and my (J.Crew large-dot) tie.  The chant then transitioned into “buy buy buy, sell sell sell,” insinuating that I looked like a “stockbroker or something.”  

After recognizing that I was in fact wearing a Yankees hat and I was one of them, the barrage of fan-on-fan heckling abated and a deal was struck when I agreed to “at least loosen it, bro.”  The crowd went wild.  

God, I love Yankees games, New York, and the right field bleachers.