"My Chick Rad" by Easy Z

My boyfriend Daniel is ridiculously good looking, but in addition to his charm, humor and wit, he's also a badass MC. A lyrical gangster, if you will. He makes my knees wobble. Maybe you didn't already know...but now you do. I am pleased to present you with the best birthday gift ever to be received in the life of yours truly.

Jen Goes to South Korea

....GASP. I wake up suddenly with a sharp intake of breath. I feel around next to me and with wide eyes straining to make out shapes I only gather the blackness of the room and wonder where I am. Just nights ago it seemed I had been given a glimpse of the most amazing future that awaits me; that future being my other half, Daniel, and my trip to see him in South Korea.  But the familiar “thud, thud, thud” of the heating pipe in the corner draws me slowly out of sleep and into subtle consciousness. I’m in my bed on Sullivan Street, at 4:16am, vying to believe that the past two weeks really happened.

For the longest time I couldn’t really write. To write I’d need to be still, I’d need to think. I’d need to feel that I was no longer in the experience. I was back home, back in my life, back in New York…but nothing was ordinary. If I had to start somewhere, I’m not sure where I’d really begin. But I guess I could start somewhere around baggage claim, at the Busan Airport…

It seemed like my luggage toppled onto that turnstile before anyone else’s did. The second I made it through customs, as if there was no more time to waste, my bags just toppled out, first in line, no more stalling. Six months had been leading up to this. Six months, and I suppose, 26 years. The layover in Tokyo even took less time than I had anticipated. I knew that the second I walked through those big doors at the Busan airport, everything was about to change. I struggled to pull my bags off the belt. One, two…I guess that’s it. I dragged them away from the crowd, but out of viewing distance from the automatic doors. I only had to show my passport to customs and then I’d see him. He was there, waiting for me just 40 feet away.

When I saw him walking towards me, I started shaking. I couldn’t control it! I couldn’t feel my legs and as I was staring up at him I held on to his sides for fear of collapsing onto the linoleum flooring. He was so handsome. And everything I was worried about before just disappeared.  

Yes, there were things I couldn’t have known before I spent time with him in person, and found out while I was there. But it wasn’t the small annoying habits people warned me about; neither the behaviors nor the expectations. It was more so things like…we’re always late, Daniel and I. It’s not that we don’t start out on time--we do. We always leave exactly when we need to. It’s the rest of the world that gets in the way. Also things like…we laugh at the same moments, all of the time. And we each pick up where the other leaves off. He cooks when I’d otherwise eat whatever is cold in the refrigerator…and I find his lost keys and wallet. He also really, really loves me. And I am thankful for that each time he reminds me. My time with him was the most natural time I've ever spent with another person. I was my best self, and he catalyzed that. I still can't believe he's in my life. And I want to spend the rest of it with him.

On the day I was supposed to leave, we woke up early and it was still dark. Painfully we got ready and I pulled my suitcases near the door. It was only when we were about to leave when we noticed the aggressive snowstorm that was happening just outside the window. This never happens in South Korea. It was a magical coincidence, though I'd like to think the universe just realized we deserve special treatment. If you asked us, we'd say we do. My flight was indeed cancelled, and though he asked me to stay forever, a few extra days was all I could manage. Never enough. But I did leave, and while the separation is hard every day, nothing could take the place of all that he is, and all that he is for me.

I’m back in the city for good these days and rocking it. I'm still dancing, drinking red wine, and keeping excellent company. Real estate is incredible, I love my job. I was on the front page of the real estate section in the NY Times twice in the past three weeks, and am working hard for my customers and clients. I love real estate; I love New York City. Mentally and physically, I can't imagine another place I'd rather be.

Happy Birthday Daniel, I love you.

The plums in Korea

So the thing is…I fell in love. 

There’s really no other way to put it. I can’t think of an easier way to explain, because there’s actually every way to explain. But I guess that doesn't do it justice, does it.

I wanted to tell this story. Really, I did. And I tried, more than once. But it all came out in a mixture of horses in stables and plums on the table and even soup, in a bowl. It just wasn't working because I couldn't remember correct punctuation and whether or not exclamation points come before or after the quotation mark. It happened over time yet very quickly, both of these things at once. And what it came down to was really only the difference between ellipses and dot-dot-dot. Because I realized there wasn't an ending to complete the story I wanted to tell. So I kept waiting, long enough to realize that the thing about an ending is, if it's really the story I hope I’m telling, there won’t ever be one.

I could tell you lots of things. Things about how he exceeds all of my impossible standards and how we're on the same team and how he enriches every part of my life and, how I never knew what it really meant to love someone because now I see respect and admiration never go missing. But, what I'd really like to tell you is that I'm going to see this person in one week…for only the third time…and on a third continent. And that makes complete sense…if you knew us. Because if you knew us, you’d know how emblematic it was that we first met by the slightest of chances in Africa, and that I met him for a second time the next year in California, where we are both from, having grown up only two hours away from each other and never knowing it. So when I tell you that in one week I’m boarding a flight to South Korea, where he is living, you can see how this is clearly the most characteristic of ways in which I shall see him again. Yet despite the circumstances, or perhaps because of them, all I can think about is how thankful I am for the simple fact that he exists in my life, and the amount of happiness he brings me, every day. 

It's a beautiful thing, this soup and these stables. And the plums. Definitely the plums...