There are no screens in our windows now, so in the mornings we lean out and people watch while we drink our coffee. E imagines what it would be like to be a field mouse living on the supermarket’s green roof – he wants to make a video game about it. I mostly ogle other people’s dogs as they walk down the street. We watch the trains going in and out of Ostkreuz station. And if we look left we can see the TV Tower, but only when we’re leaning out the window. Hi. Hello. Welcome back. Everything is different now. E got a job as an educational video game…
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He’s Dead So I Can Say Whatever I Want About Him
Do you ever come up with titles for your unwritten memoirs? The only reason I’m writing this post is because the title struck me as I was walking home. Its subtitle will be “And Other Pithy Essays About My Family.” It will be my second book – a slightly more sophisticated follow-up to the fresh voice readers fell in love with in my debut, It Starts and Ends in Barcelona: A Memoir of Grief and Travel. “Holliday’s work reads like Wild if Cheryl Strayed were snarkier and had a less interesting story to tell…” –New York Times Book Review I’m taking a writing class and today one of my classmates’…
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Future Focused
I asked my partner, E (pictured with me above), a scary question the other night: “What do you want to do before we have kids?” He half-laughed, half-groaned and didn’t answer me. I let the subject drop. To be fair, we’d been watching the new episodes of Gilmore Girls Netflix just released and I was teary-eyed and emotional and it was late and there were basically no good reasons for us to have that conversation at that time. Additionally, E finds talking about the future stressful, which is fair. I’m pretty sure the future is objectively stressful. And yet… that doesn’t stop me from thinking about it all the time.…
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Literally Escaping Into a Fantasy World
The day after the election, E and I walked to work, and for most of the two miles we talked about D&D. When we saw our coworkers later, E joked that we were coping by “literally escaping into a fantasy world.” I have since made this joke to countless other friends and acquaintances so apologies if you’ve heard it from me already. Here’s the thing though: D&D is a great coping mechanism, and I highly recommend it. E and I have a game we’ve been playing every few weeks for several months with my brother and his partner, RJ. They live in Vancouver so we play via skype, and it’s…
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Let’s Talk About My Apartment Fire
On Saturday, August 9th, my apartment burned down. I’m going to tell you the story, but first I need to work through the semantics of what happened. “Burned down” feels wrong because the building is still standing, if structurally unstable and unlivable. I can drive by my former apartment and see one tattered curtain still hanging in the living room window. “Burned up” is the more accurate phrase when we think about how fire actually spreads, but it also seems to imply whatever has been burned is now gone. “My apartment caught fire and burned for several hours” is a truthful description of the events, but it doesn’t convey the…
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A Year of Self-Actualization
2013 didn’t suck. I mean, for God’s sake, I started the year by living in Hawai’i for two months (and it cost less than $1500 — yeah, read that post if you haven’t already) — obviously, 2013 didn’t suck. I’m writing this post from my apartment outside Boston where I live with a wonderful man who loves me and a grumpy cat who also loves me. We sent out Christmas cards that featured this photo: 2013 was not perfect. There were months when I felt unsure of myself and unhappy with myself, and I spent an inordinate amount of time in my pajamas watching tv online and avoiding people. I…
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And then I got published in a newspaper
Remember my list of 25 thing to do before I turn 25, which I wrote back in April? Of course you do! You’re a loyal reader of An Opportune Moment! (Aren’t you?) Well, over the last couple of months, I’ve been chipping away at that list, and I decided it was high time you all received an update. The first item I’m officially checking off the list is #8: Get paid for any sort of writing. I included this on the list because I thought that once I had been paid to write, I would feel confident calling myself a writer. Well, I’ve been paid for something that I wrote.…
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Let’s talk about my dead dad
(Note: As the title would suggest, this post is not about travel, nor tea, but rather, my dead dad. If you’re interested, read on, but if you were looking for travel or tea, come back next week.) Tomorrow is Friday, June 14th. The two-year anniversary of my dad’s death. And this Sunday is father’s day, which is not a large, in-your-face holiday, but its closeness to my dad’s death feels a bit liked being kicked when I’m already down. It’s been a rough week. Every task has seemed wildly difficult, and I’ve been on edge. My mother and E have been patient while I’ve stormed around the house on the…
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Travel is a bit like acting
Throughout high school and college, I did theater. I loved being on stage with an audience watching, but unlike many of my friends, I didn’t want to pursue acting as a career. For me, acting has always been a fun hobby. I think one reason I like traveling is because it’s a little bit like acting. When I travel, I assume a travel persona, and this persona is different depending on where I am and how I’m traveling. I noticed this most obviously while living in Hana, Hawai’i for the last two months. Hana is located on the Eastern end of Maui, and is only accessible by plane or driving…
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Thoughts on One Month of Travel
Wednesday was October 10th, which means I’ve officially been traveling for one month, and traveling alone for two weeks. So this seems as good a time as any to do a little reflecting. Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly from one month of travel. The Good AKA The easier than I thought it was going to be In case you need convincing, here is one big argument in favor of traveling–it’s not that difficult technically. By which I mean, I have found the technical aspects of travel easy. Booking flights and hostels and finding your way around a foreign city don’t need to be intimidating. Almost everything can…
