I Am Not What I Be
“I’m NOT!” I bellow. Not going to school, that is. My homework isn’t done, it’s already 9 am (school started at 8), and I’ve yet to shower. But my mother is up and worried, and my father is done yelling, and I’m about to break. Soon, I’ll remove myself from self-isolation and go down to breakfast. I’ll wash my face, talk to my father, and head to fourth period photography.
Our Brains, Ourselves
It’s been hard to miss the photos from the “What I Be” project popping up on our newsfeeds and around campus these past weeks: up-close and intensely personal shots of fellow students staring unapologetically into the camera, with their deepest insecurities scrawled onto their skin in capital letters.
Consider the Lobster Club
“Lob-what?!” Preston bellowed. “-ster club?” I ventured. I was backstage before my first Lobster Club performance and was unfamiliar with the club cheer. Everyone else had been through this before, but the response was far from unified.
Shaking Down the Shake
There’s a new dance craze sweeping the nation, folks, and it puts all the rest to shame. Look around: no one’s “wobbling” anymore, the “Cupid shuffle” is long gone, and the “one-two step” died with Ciara and Missy Elliot’s music careers. Right now, it’s all about the Harlem Shake.
Real World Anthem
While it was released in early October, the video “First World Anthem,” created by the nonprofit organization Gift of Water, has only recently started going viral. The video shows children and adults wearing slightly tattered clothes while standing in front of destroyed homes and desolate fields, reading phrases such as “I hate when my phone charger won’t reach my bed” and “I hate when my mint gum makes my ice water taste too cold.”
A Day in This Life
Beep Beep. Sun’s up 9:32. Ugh. Going to hit snooze button—where is snooze button? Let’s just palm entire alarm clock and see what happens. Beeeeeep. 9:41. Was that really nine minutes?
Sunday Matinee
Blind Guy sits on park bench, looks out, the day reacts: A Man jogging by with his buxom new Bride envies a Widower, lonely old fat— propelled by gravity, on a skateboard he glides sips a milk-shake, hits a hidden bump, flips splashing blood on the trees and ice cream in his eyes. Twins bike […]
What’s in a Name?
My full name is Lily Rosalind Offit. It sounds relatively neutral in terms of nationality, but I am 100% Jewish. The Offit clan hails from Lithuania— Benjamin Ofceotowitz came to the U.S. in 1888, to escape persecution. Immigration officers changed his name at least five times due to misspellings: Ofsiowitz, Ofseoyowitz, Ofgeoyowitz, Owseverwitz, Ofsavitz…. Finally, in March of 1917, Benjamin settled on the simple spelling “Offit.”
Throwback Soundtrack
I don’t remember why I started listening to RadioNow 93.1, Indianapolis’ Top 40 radio station, but I know exactly when. I was nine, and it was the summer after third grade. Before this, I had basically stayed away from pop culture. I didn’t really get it, or like it, and there was a girl in my school who told me she was receiving shots to delay puberty because she had watched too much Britney Spears with her older siblings and it had somehow tricked her body into pressing “skip” over the last part of her pre-preteen years.
Facial Hair, Don’t Care
While brainstorming what to give up for Lent, my friend Spencer suggested foregoing facial hair. This would probably be an entirely inconsequential Lenten sacrifice for the vast majority of the male population. For a stubborn, barely post-pubescent boy such as myself, however, this is no easy endeavor. For some inscrutable reason, and to the consternation of friends and family, I persist in growing absolutely disgusting facial hair.
What I Like
I like full lips. Not so that the mouth looks large, just lips that look a little heavier than mine, so that they fall almost into a pout, curling, hanging. I like lips that say, “I’m here, I’m here to do something,” and spread to reveal a smile of wide, white teeth.
The Lapse
When a boy reaches a certain age, he can make mistakes that stay with him for much longer than one night. It was the third day of frosh week, and I was a wide-eyed freshman reveling in the newfound freedom of college life.