The Champagne of Beers

“Watch where you’re FUCKING driving!” 

Standing in the middle of a crosswalk, I threw my hands up as a car cut me off. 

I’m tired. 

I’m tired of walking back and forth to the freaking store. I want a car. 

Of course, I had to pick out the heaviest possible groceries – whole wheat flour, plain yogurt, dried beans, six-pack of Miller High Life. 

My back hurts. This can’t be good for me. 

-- 

Sidenote – one of my top 2 influences is David Foster Wallace’s This Is Water, a commencement speech he gave at Kenyon. Sidenote-within-a-sidenote – the other, Mountains Beyond Mountain. Anyways, This Is Water is about two young fish swimming in a hurry. They run across an older fish that asks, “Howdy boys, how’s the water?” The fish continue on their way, but after a minute, one of the younger fish asks the other, “What’s water?” 

I loved the connection to Kenyon, I loved what DFW stood for, and I loved his edge, so I gave This Is Water to all my groomsmen as a wedding gift. I’ve been emailing with one of them about the significance of the book. For me, it boils down to the word, “This.” 

“This” represents the act of pausing and seeing the water around us. The currents flowing, krill swimming, whales giving chase.  

Sidenote2 - I read a couple of Bulls/Lakers/future-Heat coach Phil Jackson’s memoirs. My favorite was Sacred Hoops, a great read about the intersection of spirituality and basketball. What I took from it: 

The 90’s Bulls said the Lord’s Prayer before every game. I figured if it worked for the Bulls it would work for me, so I’ve been saying the Lord’s Prayer every time I shower. I imagine it helps me in the same way it helped the Bulls. Obviously, life gets tough for everyone - even the Bulls had tough losses, but at their core they were twelve guys that wanted to go down in the history books. With the Prayer, Jackson gave the team a few precious seconds to remember that they had to push through the struggle, and keep playing their game. 

That’s why the best part of This Is Water, is “This.” DFW knew the tough moments in life were the most crucial - that’s where the battle between good and evil exists. But sometimes, the hard part is noticing when we’re engaged in that battle. Sometimes it’s about taking that second to see the battle. 

-- 

After a grueling walk I made it home. I slammed my sweaty clothes in the laundry basket, still pissed off about everything. 

I wish I could just buy frozen burritos like my roommates. I wish I could drive to the store like them. 

As I turned on the shower I remembered. 

This is water. 

No, wait. I walked to the fridge. 

This is beer. 

Shower beers. Ah.

See you on the other side, 

from ken 

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

People Helping People

I’ve been excited to write a post reflecting back on my first six months out of college/in Portland (not this post), and one of the things it’s made me realize is that my biggest struggle is the same as it was in college.

I tend to throw myself into too many things, a sort of, my eyes being bigger than my stomach mentality:

Oh yeah, of course I can take on that additional responsibility at church. Learn a new mouse surgery technique? No problem. Dinner on Wednesday night? Sure! Activism group? Sign me up!

I had this exact problem in college, and I still haven’t struck a good balance of giving myself a break.

The other night, I had a few of my friends over. One of them was my friend Maureen, who is a real southern smily girl that says y’all, a novelty in the northwest. As we were chatting she explained her struggles in her job search. She was especially frustrated because she had such amazing work experiences before moving to the young-people-mecca of Portland, aka job-hell.

My other friend Lee, who is the kind of guy that covers his face in makeup and wears a diaper to be a baby for Halloween, chimed in with a similar situation. His first job as a chef was amazingly rewarding, but when his second job didn’t match up to that same level of meaningfulness, he could barely handle it.

I had similar experiences. In my undergrad lab, a bacterial physiology lab, my experiments worked so beautifully that I had myself thinking I had a god-given scientist’s touch. I had ample data to put together a publication within an academic year of working part-time, an impressive feat. However, it wasn’t easy because of my unreal talent as a scientist, which after seeing the hyper-competitive world of biomedical research is admittedly average, but because bacteria are used to growing in weird places like your fridge. That makes them easier to grow and a lot easier for me to churn out good results.

On the other hand, I work with mammalian liver cells now. Have you ever seen mammalian cells popping up in your old milk? No? Well that’s because they’re needy and aren’t engineered to grow outside of your skin. Basically, that just means it’s a lot tougher to handle them. My experimental success rate has plummeted lower than I ever imagined. Seeing wave after wave of failure and troubleshooting is exhausting.

But that night the simple act of sharing reminded me that everyone struggles. I’m not unique in having stress in my life! Of course, that’s intuitive but to share those burdens is a beautiful thing. It not only lightens the load of the sharer, but it was a great reminder for me as the selfish listener that the world doesn’t stop when I’m stressed and that other people have anxiety too.

Maybe chicken little was right when he said the sky was falling, and maybe all we can do is to accept that life is stressful, be nice to each other, keep each other company, share, and laugh a little along the way.

from ken

Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com