ITISONFIRE

November 21, 2013

Homeward Bound

As of last year, I have lost my status as a permanent resident of New York City. I have in many ways become a stranger to the concrete jungle that taught me that the world contained more than my five-person family and two-bedroom apartment located in the scenic neighborhood of Parkchester, centered in the middle of the Bronx, a borough known for little more than its poverty and baseball team.

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My Friend Mike

I first met Mike a year and a half years ago, in the month following my high school graduation. I was spending the summer in Manhattan and, for the first time in my life, my youth didn’t feel burdensome or constricting; I no longer wanted to be just a little bit older. I was studying Jewish texts during the day, and puzzling out the ancient Hebrew and Aramaic felt intellectually challenging and spiritually exciting in a way that my overcrowded public high school classes never had.

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An Invisible Minority

I spent this past fall break on a Pace Center Breakout trip in our nation’s capital, visiting congressional lobbies, vocational employment centers, and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where I saw, firsthand, those who had experienced the casualties of war. Eating in the hospital cafeteria, I sat among masses of amputees, the people who actually comprise the looming, abstract statistics we hear always on the news.

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The Biography of Meryl Streep

A poem in 8 acts.

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H, to O

Dear Oxygen,

I haven’t seen you in a while. And I suppose you’ve never really seen me (remember, I am just one proton). Though I periodically get lonely, I manage to stay positive. This is a joke, Oxygen. You see, I am always positive in an electromagnetic sense (I am a proton!), but my morale—well, with a relentless positive charge comes a great burden. O—may I call you O?—nothing comes easily to me.

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Mommy Says

Once a month, my mother would choose a single-parenting experience she thought to be humorous or poignant and would write it down for the whole world to read (or at least the subscribers of North Texas). My mother didn’t just archive my brother’s and my childhood, she created public records of all our most embarrassing moments.

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Rouse

Dearest Cynthia, / What could I offer you / that would drag you / from this cardboard crypt / you’ve contaminated with your presence? / Oh, Cynthia.

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Mortem Ex Machina

I remember the first time someone I knew died. My sister’s friend had gone missing, and when the news finally came that her death was sure, I privately went through my phone, which had previously been my sister’s, and searched for the friend’s name.

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Butts in a Name?

My name is Austin deButts, and although my surname is not all that complicated, living with it for the past 20 years has been.

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Through the Glass Ceiling, Seeing Stars

Professor Gillian Knapp and Professor Neta Bahcall speak about being women in scientific careers.

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Anatomy of A Single Girl

Not long ago, Random House sent a number of free books to the Nassau Weekly in the hopes that we would exercise our considerable influence on campus to publicize and review their products. One volume in particular (a bright pink thing called Anatomy of a Single Girl) caught my eye. It wasn’t just the garish cover or the titillating title, it was—actually, no, it was mostly those things.

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The Earl of Knuckle Sandwich

Someone punched me in the face.

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Under Construction

Life at Forbes has been a generally positive experience for me. I have a great room with a view of the golf course and easy access to the Wa, and I’ve come to love the leaf-crunching, peaceful walk. I wasn’t even annoyed when, a few weeks ago, I saw the construction site taking over my neighborhood. While my fellow Forbesians complained about the growing number of orange traffic cones, bulldozers, and walking detours, I was secretly excited.

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A Tribute to Lou

On November 8, Titus Andronicus, a New Jersey punk band, finished their set at Terminal 5 opening for Lucero with a cover of the Velvet Underground’s “Sister Ray” as a tribute to the late and great Lou Reed.

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Verbatim

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Overheard outside Frist

Freshman making out with lax bro against a wall, responding to catcalls: It’s called being beautiful! I’m sorry you’re not very good at it!

Overheard in Starbucks

Woman with infant: We went to middle school together in New Brunswick. She looked like a big lesbian trucker so we called her “big lesbian trucker.”

Overheard in text to Nass staffer

Girl: Hey, would you be ok with [redacted] borrowing your DustBuster? Someone’s proposing in his room tomorrow so he wants to clean! Haha

Overheard on Facebook

Nass editor’s first-ever kiss: just got back from jail.

Overheard in Wilcox

Theta sophomore, on her love interest: Recently he’s taken to communicating entirely in cat photos.

Overheard in Terrace

Senior: This music makes me sad.
Chef: It’s Cajun Night. It’s supposed to be sad.

Overheard in Pyne

White female: I just really can’t handle adversity in any way.

Overheard at a Nass Meeting

Blonde editor: I would accept a small deformity in exchange for safety from meningitis... Like, I would take brown hair maybe.

Overheard in Woody Woo precept

WWS junior: As much as I’d love to save the Third World, I just don’t think it’s something we can do.

Overheard en route to the Street

Drunk bro, to Theta, wisely: Instagram likes aren’t everything, you know.

Overheard the morning after

Hungover sophomore male: I just smelled my hand and it indicated to me that I did not stop smoking.

Overheard at Homecoming

Aesthete Ivy alum: Do you mean rake as in, a rakishly handsome man? Or the garden implement?

Overheard in Lewis

White man: How do you spell “misogynistic?”

Overheard in the Opinion section

Meningitis skeptic: Perhaps, semantically speaking, based on statistics and calculations by the Center for Disease Control, this is technically an outbreak.

Overheard in Frist

Ivy SAE, wooing female: So I just started really lifting again...

Overheard in Bloomberg basement

Disembodied female voice, singing: I wanna go to Aaasia and meet Aaaasians and eat Aaaasian food and get diarrheeeeeaa...

Overheard in the Nass office

Pi Phi sophomore: Emily Post would be freaking out right now.
WASP female: Yeah, she so would.