Wednesday

Wednesday was pretty interesting. Let me tell you about it:

8:30 am

Yawwwnn, should I go exercise or should I lie in bed…?

9:30 am

I ran to Pershing field pool and swam laps for an hour.

11 am

Ubered back home, then took the Path train to West Village for a quick lunch.

1 pm

I got a call from Holy Apostles Food Bank that they were looking for last-minute volunteers. I went, and it was surprisingly fun. You’re basically serving clients at a food bank– you take their orders on an electronic kiosk, pack all of their produce and meats and grains and dairy into three bags, and help them load it into their pushcarts. (Bananas and eggs on top!)

There are hundreds of clients, and you’re pretty much going nonstop, at full speed, for an hour and a half. By 1:30 pm the parish hall is full of commotion and chatter– clients are looking for their missing bananas, or they want this brand of cookies instead of that brand, or they get antsy thinking that the computer system has dropped their order. Some clients speak very little English, so I, as the resident Chinese volunteer, tried my best to keep up with their Mandarin, but my speaking skills were terribly rusty. 🤣 I spent 7 minutes trying to translate one question between a particular client and my supervisor, and I eventually gave up and had them shout their question into Google Translate.

It reminded me of when I tried to join a Chinese choir last year, and I could only understand 80% of what was said at rehearsal (and 50% of what was said at dinner).

But it felt really nice to step into a foreign community and do a simple and valuable task well for a few hours. I’d love to grab a couple of folks and go back another time.

As I was leaving, I was struck by the contrast in the skyline: a two story brick church in a patch of garden nestled between glass skyscrapers, with Hudson Yards on one side and the Empire State building on the other. It was a reminder that, even in the middle of the richest city in the world, there is so much more food insecurity than meets the eye.

Source: Jerry Fung NYC

3 pm

Went to the office, took a nap, and answered some emails.

6 pm

Ate a quick dinner and then took the subway down to Trinity Church to watch Brahms Requiem. Since it was a free concert, I had planned to arrive 30 minutes early to guarantee a seat. Yet somehow I arrived 30 minutes… late. All the seats were gone, it was standing room only, and I spent the second movement thinking to myself Gosh, Elbert, your head is so full of grass. What are we ever going to do with you?

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.

The concert was an absolutely tidal acoustic experience. This was the biggest choir I’d seen in years, and the chamber orchestra was augmented by a very large organ laying down Earth-shaking pedal tones. I was standing in the very back of the parish hall with waves of sound washing over me. A few sharp sounds dramatically pierced through this ocean of resonance– most notably the timpani hits at the end of the third movement, and the crisp consonants of the baritone soloist (which were crystal clear even from the back of the hall). The baritone was practically spitting those consonants. It was very German and I loved it.

Herr, lehre doch mich, daß ein Ende mit mir haben muß, und mein Leben ein Ziel hat, und ich davon muß! und ich davon muß.

It reaffirmed my belief in the magic of live concerts. I had listened to this piece a hundred times through headphones while doing laundry. But in person, the contrasting timbres of the different instrument groups were so much more vivid. It felt much more spiritual.

Also, since this was New York, it seemed to me like almost every person in the audience had sung Brahms Requiem before. 🤣 Even back in the “cheap” seats, folks were mouthing along to the words and taking out their phones to record the exciting part in the sixth movement, like it was Coachella.

7:30 pm

After the concert, I tried to find someone to socialize with, but as I did not know a single soul in the choir or the orchestra or the audience, I went to the bathroom instead. (This is my go-to move as an introvert.)

I loitered around in Trinity commons, answered a few emails, and took the LIRR to Queens.

I got a text from my childhood piano teacher, which was heartwarming.

9:30 pm

Played tennis at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. The BJK NTC is a big deal; it’s the home of the US Open and the world’s biggest tennis stadium. I was booked for Court 7, the same court where, a decade earlier, I watched teenage phenom Denis Shapovalov make his US Open debut.

It’s wild that they allow regular old chuckers to play on these hallowed courts.

Unfortunately it began raining after 15 minutes. My stomach lurched at the thought of cutting it short after having traveling 1+ hours to get there. But (thank god!) the staff gave us a refund and we got to play out the rest of our session indoors.

Finding tennis court time in New York City is comically difficult. The BJK NTC online court reservations open up 48 hours in advance, and when they do, the open slots disappear faster than a guppy in a piranha tank. If you try to book even a second late, they’ll all be claimed. You have to click at exactly 48 hours (plus 500 milliseconds or so to account for network latency)– that way, you’re only competing against the other piranhas. It’s crazy. I’ve heard rumors of people writing click bots. Perhaps someday somebody will build an underground fiber-optic cable directly from their desktop to the NTC’s servers, like the Hummingbird Project.
This system design is highly unfortunate– if you’re not “in the know”, you have no chance. It’s unintentionally gatekeepy. NYC is not without its upsides, but if you value easy access to tennis courts, NYC is not the place for you. Try literally anywhere else in the country.

11 pm

I took the LIRR and Path train back home.

By the time I got out at Hoboken, it was pouring. I had no umbrella, so I ran. As I watched lightning arc over the downtown Manhattan skyline and rain pummel the choppy Hudson waters, I felt like I was in a Percy Jackson movie.

And then I saw something truly disturbing. A guy was collapsed on the boardwalk next to his overturned bike. Another guy was trying to help him like, “Sir? Sir? Can you hear me? It’s pouring rain.” The guy was unresponsive and moaning pathetically.
I was running and tired and it was midnight and I don’t know what I could’ve even done. So I kept running. But I felt shook.

A few minutes later, I encountered a whimpering lost dog outside the elevator on the 17th floor. Still in a daze, I beckoned him back into the elevator and took him down to the front desk. He was shaking (I don’t know whether from fear or cold), but luckily the front desk guy recognized him and held him until his panicked owner arrived a few minutes later.

I took the elevator back up, showered, and went to sleep. But I could not sleep well. My thoughts were racing and I woke up several times. So I decided to write this blog post to try to digest everything that happened that day.

This is New York.

In a single day, you’re exposed to the full spectrum of human experience; the good, the bad, and the ugly. You witness beautiful music that raises your spirits, and you confront the immensity of the food insecurity crisis. You’re surrounded by incredible people and you’re also incredibly lonely. You feel inspired to do good productive work, and you also spend hours checking email. You’re having more cool experiences than ever, yet you feel more intense FOMO than ever.
It’s like somebody has turned the “Life” dial all the way up to 11.