Roomies

When you're 32 and have lived alone for two years, you tend to be a little picky when comes to choosing a roommate. Deal breakers include:

1. Owning a rat and two parakeets. The possibility of the vermin escaping from said roommate's room is less of a concern than the thought of what kind of care, grooming and quality time happens between the adult female and her rat behind the closed door.

2. Being quarantined to my bedroom during meal times and Jeopardy! Having space is one thing. I also get being old and finding solitude in your favorite programs. (I too enjoy a quiet, uninterrupted evening with a jar of Nutella and The Jersey Shore.) But only being allowed access to my bedroom and the bathroom is a little extreme, especially since my favorite home activity is eating, and eating only happens after a mess is made in the kitchen.

3. Having friends over to play online video games. A group of twentysomething dudes sitting on a faded sectional sofa, huddled over their laptops, screaming, "Slay the droid!" is not only irksome, but downright emasculating and a discouraging glimpse into the future of the male species.

4. Being against your roommate getting laid. When "no overnight visitors" is the first demand out of a potential roommate's mouth, you can't be surprised when she adds, "and no cooking meat." No sex and no bacon equals misery and no one wants to live with misery.

Farm

A few months ago my parents moved out of the family home where I was raised on Oahu. They now live on the country side of the island, on a farm in Waimanalo.

This is quite a change from the police sirens and mopeds that buzzed up and down the main drag of our old neighborhood of Kalihi Valley--chaos relegated to the background, and the price of living close to "town."

If my parents' removal from city life is an indicator of age (or maturing priorities), then their everyday life on the farm is concrete evidence of the give-a-shit, laid-back attitude that comes with age. This is not to imply my parents are cripples or inactive; my dad spends most of his day putzing around on a fork lift, while my stepmom cooks rum cakes and does paperwork as she overlooks the Koolau Mountains. But here on the farm, life, and therefore conversation about life, is indeed simpler, and often straight to the point.

Day 2 of my month long visit home:

[I walk into the kitchen to get a bowl a cereal. My Dad is staring out the window by the stove.]

Me: Good morning, Dad.

Dad: [Turns around.] I've got the runs.

Yesterday, 6:30 p.m., when the day is done but it's not quite dinnertime:

[My Dad, Brother and I are sitting on the front deck watching our two dogs hump each other.]

Brother: You should get Waldo fixed, Dad.

Dad: He is fixed.

[Waldo, a plump Dachshund, mounds Bandit, a slender, graceful Boxer, again and again. After several successful attempts, he eventually jumps off.]

Me: Dad, I don't think he's fixed. He's rockin' a boner.

[My Dad picks up oblong-shaped Waldo and turns him upside down. A pink, rock hard protrusion is indeed jutting out perpendicular to his body.]

Dad: [With deep, hoarse laughter.] Holy shit. Waldo's got a hammer! Look at that! That turkey! I thought he was fixed.

[More laughter. My brother, 23, buries his head in shame. Waldo prances around in front of us.]

Dad: [Still laughing.] Waldo, you've got quite a hammer for a little shit!

[My brother grabs the dog--from the front half of his body--and carries him around the corner of the house.]

Brother: I couldn't take it.

Pop

I knew this would happen: Living a year and half without television has made me dumber. I felt like a complete imbecile last weekend when my brother, a 43-year-old executive with an MBA from Stanford, schooled me on the premise of Gossip Girl. Sure, I read US Weekly every now and then, but I practically have no context for Katy Perry and I'm not sure whether the Jonas Brothers are part of the High School Musical squad or if they're Menudo 2.9. 

So I enlisted the help of my aforementioned 13-year-old niece and my 10-year-old nephew to help me uncover the answer to every pop culture question I've been too lazy to Wikipedia.

This is what I learned:

Lil Wayne is the shit. Even when he raps with a white guy.

T.I. is not.

I see through Lady Gaga’s "poker face," i.e. her Cher mask, complete with a gay dance anthem, Vegas showgirl weave and leather bodysling (ala "If I Could Turn Back Time"). Underneath, she is a less interesting fame whore than Lily Allen in disco drag.

Mad TV can be funny, thanks to a lanky, blushing manchild named Stuart and a hood rat named Bon Qui Qui.

No one is actually watching TV anymore. Instead, they're on YouTube watching millionaire teenage web superstars like this guy:

Which brings me to my final lesson, or revelation, the one my niece and nephew were too kind to say aloud, but instead let me figure out on my own: I'm old. My pop culture ignorance has nothing to do with my cable TV disadvantage. I'm just out of touch. Which reminds me of something else I learned from my young gurus: Those damn annoying Facebook quizzes (What kind of moron are you? Which city should you be castrated in?) are indeed made for a middle school kids. Yup, the same people who dictate which country you should live in also tell you which Pokeman you should be. So may I be so bold as to ask my fellow old folks to pass on this knowledge to their own friends and high school acquaintances who need a misspelled quiz to tell them their aura color? Embarrass them and spare us all from the non-interesting updates, please. Thanks. Class dismissed. Now back to my antiquated playlist on iTunes and my admitted Facebook compulsion.  

Noise

Noise comes up a lot in my writing. I seek loud, musical, buzzing distraction when I want to escape my own head; I absorb sensational disturbances to mask internal ones. For instance, I often put on my iPod to walk three blocks to a boisterous bar because I've been sitting at my desk all day, struggling to admit on the page that I've turned into my mother.

One of the things that's always attracted me to New York is, in fact, noise. But unlike the pretentious noise I succumbed to when I lived in LA--paparazzi flash, celebrity buzz, the jingle of keys given to the valet--NY noise has always seemed more authentic. I romanticized the notion that because one was surrounded by Manhattan's constant chaos--umbrellas clashing down Lexington, the stress of honking cabs, men muttering various languages in front of bodegas--one couldn't help but be aware, alive even, especially as a newcomer. In the only U.S. city that matters, every moment would be The Moment. 

Now that I'm here (okay, I'm only one week in), I have yet to concede my romantic delusions of NY, but now I believe that sometimes noise is just that. Noise.

There's one place I've grown accustomed to quiet--my home. It's my refuge. Currently, I'm staying in a loft where the JMZ trains run one story above me and the tracks block the view of my living room window. 

My view

Alright, so the cheesy part of me loves the sound of trains rushing by every four minutes. ("I am so in NY!" this cheesy part of me boasts.) But I'm also right at a train stop, convenient for traveling, but inconvenient for sleeping. Screeching tires and the recorded voice of "You are on the westbound J train. The next stop is Marcy Avenue. Watch for the closing doors, please," are constants. Although I do admit, it does get a little meditative after awhile.

In a converted loft (under the train in Brooklyn), conversions are made cheaply. I'm convinced that not only the walls in my apartment are made of plywood but so are the walls in the entire building. Apparently one neighbor has a drum set and the another just likes to play Rock Band. On one side of my bedroom wall, my neighbors always seem to either be chatting or cooking bacon, and on the other, I can hear my roommate punching the buttons on her Blackberry, which means that I can also hear every sigh she breathes into the phone and vice versa. Last night, as I lay in bed trying to read (yup, I was home and actually reading), my two roommates had a rant session about their exes after one walked through the door at midnight. "I hate her so much. If she comes back here, I will beat her," one says of the other's ex-girlfriend. About her own failed relationship she adds, "I'm realizing I can be without him. I'm working on my support system. [Phone rings.] Oh wait, I gotta take this. So-and-so just sent me this link on Facebook and maybe I can get into such-and-such for free on Friday."

Nothing against my temporary roommates; they are actually very sweet and accommodating. And living with them here in this apartment is very New York, or very young New York--in a large building with affordable rent in a hip area, surrounded by the sounds of all night partying and trains letting people off at 5 a.m. But my current living situation also serves as a reminder that I'm glad I'm no longer 25. 

Me at 25. Yikes.