Strange Times with Strangers

Recently, on one of my innumerable plane rides to Los Angeles, I had a heart-to-heart with a stranger.

As you probably know, traveling on a plane is dreadful. It seems like we’re always put in the center seat, sitting next to someone who either doesn’t talk or won’t shut up, surrounded by crying children and their mothers trying desperately to keep them quiet, the occasional bitchy stewardess, or the ten year old who relentlessly kicks the back of our seat. Personally, I’m a fan of teleportation, we should get that worked out as soon as possible. Jokes, anyone?

When I got to my seat, I noticed the airline gods had blessed me with a slightly older, but quite attractive nonetheless, woman with blond hair and penetratingly blue eyes. As I put my carry-on in the overhead compartment, I put an endearing smile on my face, looked her in the eyes and said, “hey, how’s it goin’?” Not only did she not give me an answer to the question, she looked at me square in the eye, then turned her head back to the complimentary magazine provided from the back of the seat in front of her. I wondered to myself how she would get off pulling that maneuver, knowing that we would be spending the next five hours or so less than twelve inches away from each other.

Like most every flight I’m on, I started drinking excessively. I must choose between one of two vices on an airplane: 1. Sleep for as long as possible, hopefully until I reach my destination, or 2. Drink myself into senselessness, until the airline workers are poking me to make sure I’m indeed alive at the time of our arrival. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the former predominantly never happens, as I am a light sleeper. So, you can count on me to be hoarding the Jack Daniels and Ginger Ale (an exceedingly underestimated cocktail, might I add).

Before I knew it, my neighbor chimed in and asked me, “drinking to forget someone over there, or what?” Startled that she spoke to me after over an hour of not engaging me, and somewhat taken back by her icebreaker, I responded with “what, did you pick up that line from a movie or something?” I realized after I said it, I was kinda tipsy and most likely didn’t have a smile on my face, even though in my mind I framed the question to get an awkward laugh. It was obvious she didn’t know what to do with the question. I apologized for responding so imprudently, introduced myself, and offered her a mini bottle of Jack. I guess Whitney wasn’t a drinker, she politely declined. I explained that I was definitely not drinking to forget someone, that I was bored, and time was passing painfully slowly.

Whitney was warming up to me. It seemed like everything I said she laughed at, even when I thought for sure I’d hear crickets. About another hour later, I noticed the rock on her her finger that was suited for Aladdin’s buried treasure. It was similar to mount Everest. The diamond itself was so big, I probably could have hired an excavation team to drill and dig to find a diamond field within. Let alone the diamonds surrounding it, that surely any woman would be happy with one of them as the cornerstone for their wedding ring. I began prying, asking for how long she had been married, what she was doing in Hawaii, and where she was from on the mainland. She explained to me that she was doing business in Hawaii, and she had been married for seven years, she was a workaholic, married to a workaholic, and they lived just outside LA. Whitney’s tone changed, beginning to tell me how she had grown tired of the monotony of her relationship and the stagnancy of her social life. Continuing to tell me that in the seven years she had been married she had only been on seven dinner/movie dates with her husband; they never ate dinner together; and she would only see her husband for approximately two hours a day. I didn’t ask her for this information. I was merely making small talk, thinking she’d answer and we could both go back to our ipods, when she blindsided me with all of this. She was reaching out, surprisingly. She was 26, successful, and attractive. Why was she involving in her married life a 22 year old, broke student, who has never had a significant relationship? I don’t know, either. -I poured myself another drink -

Whatever she was thinking, I figured by this point she was asking for my advice. When I told her it sounded like she wasn’t having any fun and probably needed some kind of change in her marriage and lifestyle management. I thought I’d keep everything self-evident because, really, I don’t know the first thing about giving marriage advice. Give me a break, lady. We went back and forth on ways to dually remedy her social life and married life. Mind you, by this time, I was legitimately drunk.

I ended up giving her the most implausible and unfounded advice anyone could have ever given her: “It sounds like your husband doesn’t try hard enough to do things for you. It sort of sounds like it’s his fault. You should talk with him about adding spontaneity to your relationship, etc.” Shockingly, she agreed with me, and that was that.

I couldn’t believe that a drunk kid on a plane to LA could shed light on someones marriage so easily. I’m not saying my advice was profound, by any means. But it was interesting that Whitney appreciated my input and perhaps gave her the extra incentive to work things out.

The lesson learned: Get drunk and start chatting with people. You may learn something useful about yourself or a situation that may benefit you in the future.

Nicholas Loren Foster

I wouldn’t say I know much about art. To me, art is one of those tricky things that is interpreted differently by everyone. I do know, the principal idea of art or the main intention behind a work of art, is to convey an emotion or sentiment from the originator to the viewer. There are many channels of art for this exchange to materialize: Paintings, drawings, photography, music, writing, etc.

Nick Foster, or as his close friends call him Fick Noster, has been one of my best friends for as long as I can remember. He is by far one of the wittiest people I know, and at the same time one of the most caring. Our group of friends did everything together. We learned how to surf, skate, snowboard.. well, pretty much every action sport. Since we were in middle school, Fick would find these hobbies that, soon enough, would completely consume him. He always had the best snowboards, nicest BMX bikes, and a collection of videos to constantly inspire him.

As college rolled around and our friends went separate ways, Fick ended up at Point Loma Nazarene University, in San Diego, CA. The campus is conveniently located atop the beautiful Sunset Cliffs and an ample amount of reefs, only a stone-throw away. He began taking skateboarding and BMXing more seriously, spending a lot of time sneaking into skateparks in the SD area. But, in the next couple years, these activities would be drowned out by two things that are currently consuming his lifestyle: Fixed gear bikes and painting.

I remember very specifically a call I got from Fick around three years ago, when he was on vacation from school and at home in LA. He asked me if I wanted to come to his house in Westchester and paint. I remember being really excited at the idea. I think all of us are, in a sense, infatuated with the idea of being recognized as a good artist (in any of its forms). Fick was always creative and would always draw little sketches of random things (monsters, robots), but until college I don’t think he ever took it seriously. When I got to his house, he ripped apart a cardboard box, handed me my makeshift canvas, set me up with some brushes and paint, and began going at his masterpiece. It took me probably ten minutes to speak up after blankly looking at my cardboard and tools, but eventually I got it out, “Fick, what do I draw?” He looked with a sort of smirk on his face and said “Dude, draw whatever you want. Whatever comes out of your mind onto the paper.” I remember thinking how I hadn’t attempted to allow thoughts freely escape my mind and into the world since I was a little kid. Over the years, as we grow up, we tend to impose some sort of filter in everything we say or write down or any actions we take in general. And now, after all of this filtering, he expected me to let it all hang out, for lack of better words. After an hour or so of attempting to paint my heart out, I ended up with a charcoal background along with some very poorly painted birdlike animals. It was truly pathetic. I have held on the painting until this day. This is my first memory of Fick painting.

Now, Fick is a senior at Point Loma. Needless to say, his painting has come a long way since that day in his living room. His work is transforming into a unique and noticeable style, vibrant with color and texture. I am proud to see how his work has grown in the last few years, and the deserved notoriety he’s received.

Here are some awesome pictures Fick took of his work:

If you want to contact Nick Foster or view some of his art more thoroughly, you can click the link at the bottom of my blog or simply click HERE

This is new to me

To begin with, I’ve never blogged before. In fact, until tonight, I don’t think I’ve ever read a blog or visited a site such as wordpress.com. I’m hoping to use this as an outlet, to not only jot thoughts down, but to better my writing, as well. I feel I owe some credit to two people: Nick Foster and Pia Arrobio. After visiting your blogs tonight, you have inspired me to create my own. I aspire to make my blog as interesting as yours. Another initial note I’d like to mention, is that I assume in my first writings, all text will lack any syntax, good use of grammar, or any literary gracefulness whatsoever. I encourage you to keep this in mind, and to please remember the best is yet to come. With all of this said, let me start with something simple:

As I sit here in my living room, disgusted by the innumerable pieces of paper littered about my coffee table, I’m beginning to wonder.

In May, I decided to leave Newport Beach and my home state of California to pursue a degree in Business at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The decision was easy. As a surfer, Hawaii is an ideal destination. It seemed only right that as I challenge my mental capacities, I also have an avenue of expression to fall back on. To me, finding myself in middle America somewhere, well anywhere far from the ocean, sounds similar to the deepest, fiery trenches of hell. That may be going a bit far.

I did not set about my college career studying business. I began studying something quite the opposite, Philosophy. After speaking with many influential and convincing business people, I decided change majors to something more ‘practical.’ Perhaps the most substantial problem to me was fulfilling the business prerequisites. I had already completed all of the liberal arts graduation requirements and prereqs, leaving only the upper division and core courses to be completed. Now, I’m dedicated to taking at least a years worth of prereqs before I take any upper division business classes. When I got to Hawaii, I enrolled in two economics courses, public speaking, and computer science.

-I’m sure you are beginning to wonder what I’m getting at, so I’ll just get to it-

It’s finals week. This accumulation of papers on my table is my material to know by tomorrow, and what I’ve began to wonder about is whether the business program is the right change for me. I’m sitting here not learning anything. To be truthful, this whole semester has been about studying to get grades, not to acquire a knowledge of or familiarize myself with something I can use or even like. I can look at these hypothetical microeconomic models and memorize countless definitions of computer science jargon, but none of this will be useful to me one month from now. None of this will be useful to me one week from now, merely because I wont remember it. So, I’ve been asking myself over and over why I’m continuing to study this, why I’m wasting another year in college, why me and thousands of other kids study to get competitive grades, for the piece of paper that verifies I indeed studied business, when I have absolutely no recollection of what this shit means outside of these classes.

After more contemplation, I hope to arrive at some sort of solution. When I do, I’ll jot it down. hah