The Schwaste Basket

Text — Fungal

Mushrooms remind me of my father.

Text — Obsushion

Last week, I lay awake in bed. It was 1:48 am, and something I craved so powerfully was keeping me up: sushi.

Yes, that’s right. I longed for the seaweed, raw fish, and rice combination that every middleclass white person longs for. But it wasn’t just desire—I needed it. I sent a quick text to my roommate Nick, who was separated from me by half a foot of drywall.

“I need sushi, and I need it now,” the SMS read. Nick, awake thanks to a profound and unhealthy obsession with Angry Birds for the iPhone, immediately replied. “I. Would. Kill,” came in first and was immediately followed with “Unfortunately no one delivers sushi at 2am.” In a mess of fabric I’ve come to call bed sheets, I stuck up my nose. I take pity on the greater Medford/Somerville area, I thought to myself, that it lacks the cultured sushi snobs like myself.

The remedy was simple: I fell asleep (though sad) and awoke (still hungry) and went about my day (lacking Japanese culture in the size of raw bite-sized bits). I organized a dinner to go to one of our favorite sushi restaurants with friends. My week was transmuted from Wednesday, Thursday, Friday to how long I would have to wait until Yoshi’s.

Reflecting, now full of spicy salmon and sweet potato rolls from the dinner a few nights ago, I understand the influence sushi has had on my life. It is odd because normally white people just use it as an excuse to seem culturally competent. “Oh yeah! I love Asian culture. Hey, you ever have sushi?” Or, “Well, this spaghetti and meatballs are good, but not as good as this shrimp maki I had the other night.” Or even, “The War in Iraq? Well, listen, it’s—well, it’s sort of like sashimi, if I can create a culturally rich metaphor here.”

My unhealthy obsession with what-I-didn’t-know-was-one-of-my-favorite-foods was first pointed out by my friend Rachel when she came to stay with me over Thanksgiving break. Every time I passed a sushi restaurant, or any establishment that was decorated with a sort of Japanese font and promised some sort of seaweed variant, I had a habit of saying “Oh, that looks good!” or “Yes!” or even “Let’s eat here immediately.”

“David,” she told me.

“Yes?” I told her.

“You’re obsessed with sushi restaurants.”

It’s hard to come to terms with addictions. But it makes sense. Trace back. My favorite restaurant at home before my foray into bubble tea was the Plum House. It had miso soup, warm towels you were supposed to put on your face, green tea, and sushi. It had bento boxes. It had love and support when I needed it.

Fast forward into high school. My friends and I would routinely visit a restaurant called California Rolling in the Village Gate—sometimes even termed the occasion Sushi Sunday. This place had Skanky Thursdays (where the chefs could dress as skimpily as they wanted) and even three-dollar-rolls Monday (where the rolls were three dollars on Mondays). But to top everything, California Rolling had dessert sushi. The best way to envision this is to think about everything that’s ever made you happy and then top it with chocolate syrup. It is an incredible combination of the traditional seaweed sushi outside with fried berries, rice, chocolate, and coconut shavings. No English words can do it justice. But if you’re skeptical, I understand. Some day, long ago, I was as well. And then I tried it.

Eventually, my life goals included having fun, getting into a good college, and doing a sushi tour of Rochester. My friend Emma and I hopped around. We went from Wegmans to Piranha to Plum Garden. It was our graduating goal to make it to the new sushi establishment: The Sakura Home. We did. It sucked. Yet, even so, this Japanese Tour de Food continued when we both went to college in Boston.

I found friends at Tufts—I suppose they found me too—but it was comforting to know eventually all of them (except for one weak link) enjoyed the succulent rawness that was my seaweed delights. Thank God Tufts’ global awareness goes into a knowledge of cultural foods, too.

We celebrated Nick’s birthday at Tapei Tokyo. One dish, topped with Bacardi 151, was set aflame. Another was entirely pink. It was delicious, though a little expensive. Who can complain? My improv troupe, here, too, understands the social and stimulating significance of sushi. Most of our reunions with alumni take place either a Japanese establishment or a Mexican one (the former because of the food and the latter because of the ability of the seniors to order margaritas and make us feel bad).

So it seems like sushi’s stuck to me like a fresh ball of rice does to its green, crispy encasing. It’s an odd little delicacy to be oddly attracted too, yet I don’t mind. Each bite is a combination of fond memories and deliciousness. Sushi’s become, I think, a little more than food. It’s friends, it’s home, and it makes me seem really understanding of culture. Right?

Text — Being Nosey

There’s a girl in one of my classes who is rather pretty. She has a set of sophisticated-looking eyes that imply business but could hint at something greater. And her hair looks like soft and feathery even carefully assembled in a ponytail.

She’s smart too, or at least that’s what I infer from her class discussions. She always takes notes, and she always watches the professor with attentiveness. But there is one thing so striking it tends to hide the rest of her features.

It’s her nose.

I hate to be rude and superficial, but go with me. My first thought was of the movie version of Roald Dahl’sThe Witchessince it was so protruding. It even hooks at the end like a talon waiting to swipe at you. And it’s about seven sizes too big for her face, plumping her profile like a cruel portrayal of Pinocchio.

As the professor rambles on, I can’t keep myself from thinking of all the big noses that have schnozed into my life. They aren’t the piece of broccoli in your braces nor are they the “Kick me!” sign on your back. They’re something else and greater because they’re a part of you for forever in some way or another.

I am sure she knows her nose is as big as it is. Perhaps she’s gotten used to it by living with it for the last twenty years, but I’m sure it eclipses most of her view when she looks down at her notes. And that doesn’t help anyone.

For a while in my high school years, I had extremely long hair. Why, I will never know, yet the allure of never getting a haircut and the exhibition that was my shiny and lustrous lockes seemed to point me in the right direction. My parents sometimes inquired about when I was planning to get it cut, but I merely shrugged it off because I liked it.

Looking back, the hair—though maybe fine at the time—gives me groans as I glance through my past Facebook pictures. I cringe the type of awkward romantic comedy mishap humor cringe when I see each bouncing strand on my sophomore self. Why didn’t anyone tell me? I ask myself. Why do I want to erase this little bit of my life to save myself from the embarrassment in the future?

Now, my hair is the shortest it’s ever been. I suppose I can look back at my timeline and be proud with the journey my hair has been on. But even so: nothing seems to have changed. I am still me, and people are still acting the same way towards me. I may even gag in the future reflecting on my pictures of the ’do of my college years.

So I bring us back to the well-endowed schnoz on the girl in the first row. Unlike a hairstyle, her elephant trunk is with her forever lest she consider plastic surgery (which only for her have I ever strongly, mentally recommended). But even so, in years to come with her new button nose that makes her features shine brighter than ever, she’s just going to stare at her digital picture frame worrying about what people thought. People will talk to her the same post-surgery—some bold ones might congratulate her, but it will be as if nothing changed.

No one ever tells you what you really need to fix, and, when you do fix it, people will never really want to tell you what to fix next. It’s all on you. Whatever your big nose may be, you’ll find it and adjust it in time. So what’s the point in worrying?

Text — Reflections on My Retainer

I.

I was given a menu of options for retainer customization. Zebra stripes, glittery, sport team icons. He told me I could submit a picture, too. “It’ll take a few weeks extra, but you can put any picture you want on it,” he said. I thought about bringing in a picture of Sophie. But what are the ethics of having a recreation of your dog in your mouth?

In the end, I ended up going with glow-in-the-dark and billiards. I rarely play pool.

II.

In my senior year, my schedule involved staying at my Mom’s for three days a week and my Dad’s for the other three days, switching the extra day in the week every week. Sometimes I think God purposely made weeks uneven just to make things awkward.

Every Wednesday, I’d drive from my Dad’s in the morning to my Mom’s after school. Normally, my Volvo, Otto, would be stuffed with homework, books I needed, clothes from odd laundry exchanges, mail or files between my two parents, contact solution, you name it.

One day, my lime green retainer went missing. I checked cabinets and behind the toilet (I mean, there aren’t many places where you can lose dental ware). It was winter when I eventually found it—two weeks after a huge snowstorm.

I exited Otto some night after seeing a movie with friends. As usual, I parked in the middle of the length of the driveway on the right side near the grass. Rochester—some weather apocalypse—was as dark and cold as ever.

It was when I dropped my keys that I saw something seemingly nuclear. After all, it was glowing. And there I found it, frozen in a dirty snowball to the side of my car, mixed with the muck and mud.

I think I washed it.

III.

At college, I endured a space crisis. Though my cement dorm room had been decorated and made homey, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I was living in a dirtier, whiter form of a jail cell.

I eventually decided to lift my bed up to its maximize height and turn the burrow below the bed into a Christmas-light-lit cove of blankets and a beanbag.

When my retainer disappeared during the second semester of my freshman year, I looked explicitly in this area, thinking it obvious that my retainer would fall from my mouth to the spot below it. Well how else would I lose it? Forceful removal? That’s unfortunate and non-consensual. I’d rather not think that way.

It was a few months later when my friend Emma came to visit. As she snuggled in my sleeping bag below me, we said a few words before sleeping. I mentioned the story of my missing retainer as a passing joke—that it was gone and nowhere to be found. Again.

At morning, she woke me.

“I found your retainer,” she whispered, pulling it out from the bag in all its atomic green glory.

The best part is that sleeping bag had been slept in by four people and had traveled to three different states since the loss of my retainer inside of it.

IX.

Now, my retainer has become a symbol of order. It’s odd to think that way, especially for something as neon as it that gets shoved into my mouth and put back into its case as soon as I get up. Sometimes my teeth hurt when I wake, and when I go back to bed I ask myself if I should wear it or not.

But without it, I feel a little chaotic. Like the miniscule movement of my teeth in the course of six hours would change the greater organization of my life.

Let’s just hope I don’t lose it again.

I think Tumblr’s gotten too viral for me.