Peter Lu in lists

On my computer, I have 14 sticky notes accumulating all my wayward thoughts. I’ve organized them into triplets. Here’s what I'm thinking about, in lists of three:

What I am currently listening to.

How to Love, Lil’Wayne

Them There Eyes, Ella Fitzgerald

We’ve Got The Blues, Leo Watson & The Spirits of Rhythm

What I will never have a chance to do.

Create a stop motion of Commons.

Give Dan Turza The Four Hour Body.

A YaleLunch, with Ed.

Three exigent thoughts.

If we all lived in a Manhattan-density area, the U.S. population would fit in New Hampshire.

Soon, we’ll have video profiles for online dating.

It’s cute when you’re five years old speaking broken English, but not so much when you’re 22.

Favorite sayings.

“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”

“Not even Google can satisfy every Search.”

“The best kept secret is one you don’t know yourself.”
extra: "I have a question I mustache, but I'll shave it for later."

Saying I’m not sure are true.

To forget memories, you need to make memories.

To produce great ideas, you need great lighting.

When you know, you know.

Three things I would not normally admit.

Senior year, my NJB team went 0-12.

I want to be Neil Strauss when I grow up.

I could really use a good luck tchotchke.

Advice I will follow in the future.

Don’t follow the latest fashions; wear what the fashion designers wear.
Learn to cook a couple favorite meals, and use premium ingredients. (YW.)

Never buy a dragon egg from a stranger in a bar. 

Books I keep telling myself I will read.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith

1Q84, Haruki Murakami

The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan 

Books I keep telling myself I will read but probably never will.

Starting Strength, Mark Rippletoe

The Bible

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Corey Seymour

Movies that I secretly liked.

Easy A

Just Go With It

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

Off-the-beaten-path books that I unabashedly enjoy.

Beating the Reaper

The Merlin Series

Where's Waldo

Three not-so-famous people I would love to meet.

Cherry Cheva, writer for Family Guy (and Yale psychology major)

(wait, there's no more????) 

Peace and Love.

Cameron D.

Peter C.

Jack "The Man" C.

Squeaky-clean phrases from news articles.

“At first, Shortz didn’t cotton to any of them.”

“She said, somewhat apropos of nothing,”

 “I’m talking about the good condoms, not the shit condoms you get for free.”

Magnificent words I’ll never be able to use.

indigent

butterscotch

hirsute

Favorite phrases I like to slip in whenever the situation calls for it, which is always.

I majored in unafraid.

“How do you feel?” “Like a champion.” (via Warren)

"Hella."

My favorite rose cultivars.

Strike it Rich

About Face

Dick Clark

Three online dating sites I check once every two months.

agurami.com

ivydate.com

howaboutwe.com

I would pay someone for this.

Learning to freestyle.

Learning to tag (montana / techlak).

Learning to sing.

What I forgot to do in New York.

Buy modern organic products, summer paste.

Get fitted at Paul Stewart.

Endure a hypnosis session with Victoria Phillips of NY Health Hypnosis.

Poetry collections I am reading.

Praise, Robert Hass

Blizzard of One, Strand

Shadow of Sirius, Merwin

extra: Averno, Gluck; April Galleons, Ashbery

My favorite fonts other than Garamond, which I use too often now.

Corbel, size 10

Georgia, size 9

Corbel, 10.5

Random thoughts.

What about the infinity that occurred before we were born?

We’ve all time-travelled; we just can’t remember it.

"The last one there farts in a milk bottle!" ~ Ender's Game

Books are not like shoes

yes, there are supposed to be two. apples to apples, remember?

Books are not like shoes. They're just not. Books are rectangular, and in some cases, square. Shoes are oval, and in some cases, rectangular. Books can be shredded; they cause paper cuts. Shoes cannot be ripped; their pain is more dull. Shoes squeeze from the outside, make our feet throb and sweat; books cut to inside, slicing our skin and memories.

Personally, the biggest difference between shoes and books is that I don't care when books get worn.

On January 29th, 2011, I bought Dave Egger's AHWOSG. It's actually the second time I've bought the book; the first was at the end of high school, when I read it in a 12-hour sitting, my mom forcing me off my bed to eat two meals. Second semester senior year of college, I grew nostalgic for it, and ordered it off Amazon. After it arrived, AHWOSG was quickly buried in a stack of 125 other books I had lying in my room.

I didn't ship it home when I packed up my belongings for the last time. It came with me to New York, and I've taken to reading bits and pieces of it on the subway. I'm currently on page 51, when Toph and the narrator are driving through San Francisco. The book already looks beat up. It's been jammed inside my backpack, occasionally crushed by other last-minute necessities. The right side corners are dogeared. The front cover is blazed with white scratches. When I flip the pages, they smell not-new. Within the pages, I've underlined phrases and written myself notes. When the book was sitting in my room, still pristine, it was a trophy of my good taste. Now it's dirty and ragged, and a trophy of of faux literary chops. I've loved it through all of its evolution.

5 days ago, I bought a pair of bright yellow sneakers at Urban Outfitters. They cost $18. I made sure to pick out the size 9 pair that looked the least scuffed. They soon became my go-to shoes. I wore them everywhere. But it rained Friday night. Mud spots colored the bottom white border, and I had to consciously suppress my urge to stop every block to swipe my thumb across the border to wipe them clean. Saturday, at Moma PS1, at the concert, my shoes stood in plumes of dust, inadvertently stepped on, occasionally kicked. And then on Sunday, in the middle of Union Square, one of my friends ran by me and accidentally stepped on them, leaving a fat, dark print on the right shoe, right side. Now they look at least 2 weeks old. The "newness" factor has expired.

I wish all my pairs of shoes would stay fresh forever. I remember buying a pair of running shoes my freshman year of college and wearing them once every two months, only when conditions were perfect. They were shockingly bright, practically glowing. One day in April, I saw Abraar at High Street gate and he said, "Damn those shoes are tight! So clean!" I felt my swollen pride. His words (and words like those) made my decision to slowly mete out usage worth it.

Today, when I look at my yellow shoes, this internal dialogue happens:

"Oh f*ck. Look at this mark."

"Hmm. Maybe I can wash it off?"

"Nope. You're just going to spread it around even worse."

"Great. Now people won't notice they're yellow anymore."

"Well, that's not true. They will see you wearing yellow shoes -- what a fresh color, by the way, don't ever let anyone tell you Asians can't wear yellow -- but then they'll see the mark on it and wonder, 'Why would he buy yellow shoes if he doesn't even take good care of them?'"

"Or maybe what people think is, 'Damn, nice yellow -- oh, wait. They're dirty. Never mind.'"

"Maybe I should get over yourself. Only I can see the stain. To everyone else I'm just wearing yellow shoes."

"Maybe ya should've gotten blue?"

I don't have a moral to this story. If you really need one, try some of these one for size: Don't Buy Yellow Shoes. Books are Better than Shoes. Materialism and Status is Not a Worthy Goal. (Critchlow-isms, if I've ever heard one before.)

Maybe it's about the juxtaposition between material goods and ideas. I'll get back to you on this one.