I don't own an iron.

I never really thought about this before. Whenever something needed to be straightened out, I would just hang it in the bathroom during a hot shower and use my hands, a la Loretto choir dress style. I never really had much need for an iron, anyways--just one more thing to move around.

But when I was back in Sacramento recently, I was watching my grandpa iron his shirts before we went to lunch, and it occurred to me how weird this was to me. The last time I used an iron must've been high school, and only because my mother told me to. Sure, there are times now I'll be sitting on the metro and I'll look down at my slightly wrinkled shirt and think, "Shoot, I look like a slob," but then I move on with life, and nobody comments (out loud, at least).

As I rolled up my clothes and shoved items in my suitcases to prepare for the next chapter of life in New York, all I could think was, "I'm going to look like I rolled out of bed when I get to work." What a great first impression, huh?

I suppose the lack of an iron is representative of instability, not so much a symbol of an unkempt demeanor. I'm not a slob (normally) and I always get my work done at the end of a day. So don't judge my appearance, world. I promise I'm clean, just a little off track right now.

Right now, every Starbucks on every street corner in every city is piping Christmas music into your daily dose of caffeine. Cities appear to be alive and teeming with holiday cheer: Christmas tree lots are appearing, Salvation Army bell ringers are greeting you outside of Macy’s, and Fifth Avenue in New York City is sparkling with holiday displays. While the weather is unseasonably warm (nearly 70 degrees in D.C. at the end of November! ), now is still the time to curl up in front of a fireplace (or the TV Yule Log channel) and sip hot chocolate as you wait for rain, hail or snow to fall from the sky.

Tinsel and candy canes aside, December for me is more about the end of a year—the end of 12-months of laughter and tears, of dreams and failures. It’s a time to reflect on both the good and the bad, and to embrace all that we’ve endured as struggling, imperfect human beings.

Perhaps it’s depressing or morbid to be drawn to sad winter songs, but there’s something beautiful about the raw, emotional honesty in these songs and the way the artists dare to reveal such sadness during a time when we don’t want to think about sad things.


“River” by Joni Mitchell
Despite only minor references to the Christmas season (and a “Jingle Bell” intro), “River” has grown into one of the most popular songs you might hear at this time of year. It is largely a song about heartbreak and angst, and what better way to weather emotional turmoil during the holidays than with a little Joni? “River” is also one of Mitchell’s most covered tunes, with artists from Barry Manilow to Michelle Branch performing their own versions. The appeal of “River” lies in the melancholy imagery its lyrics evoke, with wishes of “a river I could skate away on” and trees being cut down from their natural homes to be taken indoors and loved in a new way.


“Winter Song” by Ingrid Michaelson and Sara Bareilles
If the song doesn’t make you think of snow and peppermint hot chocolate, then the music video will be enough to warm your heart. It’s a sweet and simple collaboration, with distinct harmonies and a sad story. “Winter Song,” like “River,” is another song about heartbreak around the holidays.


“Winter Bones” by Stars
The simple repetition of the instrumentals behind Amy Millan’s airy vocals strips away the traditional holiday cacophony of sleigh bells, carols and the “Auld Lang Syne” fanfare of the season. “The sun settles hard in the south, winter lives in my bones,” Millan sings. It’s as if Stars is begging us to embrace the hardships we’ve endured throughout the year so that we can prepare to begin anew.


“Winter” by Tori Amos
“Winter” is a nostalgic dedication to a father figure, and it’s something that I’m sure everyone can relate to (the desire to make somebody in their lives proud)—especially during the holidays, when everybody is taking the time to catch up with loved ones who’ve spent the year running around busy with work and school and life in general. But for me, there’s just something about Tori Amos’s voice that makes me want to curl up in bed with my unicorn PillowPet and read Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris. That’s really all I have to say about this song.

There's an episode of Private Practice I can't get out of my mind, and has been on my mind lately because of the story I'm working on. Perhaps I report on topics that I'm familiar with--not because they're comfortable or easy, but because they're difficult and terrifying, because I feel like talking about these issues will help me understand. "It isn't about moving on," I told Jenny the other day. "It's about moving forward."

I hadn't followed Private Practice at all when the episode came to my attention last November. I had no clue where these characters were because I'd stopped watching the show when life got busy and TV became an afterthought. I didn't care -- the show was entertaining for its ridiculously unbelievable stories and dialogue. I had no reason to take it seriously.

I was reading a blog or saw it trending on Twitter, I don't remember. The episode was called "Did You Hear What Happened to Charlotte King?" and it contains one of the most graphic depictions of rape that I'm sure has ever been shown on network television.

One of the show's main characters--a very strong female--is brutally assaulted and raped in her office by a disgruntled and unstable man who had come to the hospital. The episode deals with the reality of rape and the aftermath too. Charlotte's reluctance to report the rape and her refusal to be identified as a victim are not uncommon to real life situations. The strength in "Did You Hear What Happened to Charlotte King?" lies in the show's ability to present something so terrifying in an honest way. There's nothing sugarcoated and they certainly don't shy away from what rape is, and why it's so difficult to report it.

"If you keep this secret, it will eat you alive, I know it," Addison, the show's main character, says to Charlotte when she finds out about the rape. Addison's hesitation to even say the word 'rape' shows on her face and is reflected in her dialogue as she avoids the word, but Charlotte doesn't hold back as she delivers a powerful monologue that describes what rape is really like. And when another doctor asks Charlotte where the pain is the strongest in her body as he treats her wounds, she responds with an answer that every survivor can also identify with: "My soul."

"Did You Hear What Happened to Charlotte King?" is one of the most important episodes of network television because it does the very thing that is so taboo in our society today: it takes the controversial and horrifying subject of sexual violence and pulls it forward into a spotlight that immediately turns to avoid these kinds of topics. But it makes it a point of discussion and we can ask ourselves, as a society, "Are we turning away?" Because I think we often do. I think we don't want to talk about this stuff, or we don't know how.

I don't know if we'll be able to live in a society someday that will address these issues head on, but, for the sake of all victims of sexual violence, I can hope.

Wall of front pages detailing the attacks, as seen at the Newseum's 9/11 exhibit.

I woke up on the morning of September 11, 2001 to a changed world. The attacks began before I woke up on the west coast, and I had to take the time difference into account as my mother turned on the TV and the New York sky was lit in flames. It was still dark in California and the sun was just rising. As I put on my uniform, no one in the house could turn off the television. We kept the radio on all the way to school and, as my mother drove, I remember looking outside the window of the backseat and seeing people silently in their cars looking concerned as they fumbled with their cell phones. I couldn't understand exactly what was happening, but I couldn't get the image out of my mind of that tall, glistening tower in flames.

At school, the older kids were talking and asking each other what happened. I was in the 7th grade, and us junior high students were considered "the adults" of the school. But the day went on as usual: recess, classes, lunch. We didn't turn on the TVs. We didn't pull up the news online. We didn't turn on the radios. I don't think the teachers or administrators knew what to say or do, and that was the common theme of the day, wasn't it? Nobody knew what to say or do.

That afternoon when we got home, the TV was on again and every channel was streaming the same images. News anchors spoke about when the first tower fell and speculated on when another building would fall. I watched 7 World Trade Center crumble live and there was only silence coming from the screen. And even then, we still didn't understand: why did this happen?

This was all before the "social media age," when Twitter and Facebook took over our lives. We turned to the newspapers and the reporters to tell us what was going on. A few months ago, I learned of Osama bin Laden's death through Twitter and Gchat hours before watching Obama's speech on TV. As I sat on the couch with Amanda, watching the president tell us that this man who had architected one of the greatest tragedies in recent American memory was dead, it felt like a weird closing of this circle that was my academic life. 9/11 affected every aspect of American life, and I can barely even remember a time before all that--before the TSA commanded the airports, before this unspoken fear of "the other" was re-instilled in everyday life. I remember going to the airport as a child and seeing my father off on business trips. Na and I would watch his plane take off from the window of the terminal. Nowadays, you can't get to the terminals without a boarding pass and an intrusive security screening process.

Remains of one of the broadcast towers that stood atop one of the now-fallen buildings (also at the Newseum's 9/11 exhibit).

With the 10th anniversary of the attacks just a couple of days away, news has been pouring out about this generation of students who don't remember a world before 9/11. Yesterday on NPR, Michel Martin spoke with a teacher and student from The Living Textbook Project about teaching the events of September 11th to this generation, and at Education Week, the writers have been reporting on this too. The problem, some have said, is that 9/11 is so complex, and something that is still trying to be understood and figured out today. I wonder if children in schools were taught about the Vietnam War as it occurred, but it was different then because children in the 60s didn't have the same tools children of the 21st century have at their disposal (internet, cable television, etc.).

When I think back to September 11, 2001, all I can remember is that feeling of watching the towers fall and the silence that seemed to fill every crevice of the country. I don't remember where I heard or read this, but the issue of the New York Times that came out that day was the least read in the newspaper's history. That gives me chills. The world stood still that day and watched America essentially crumble--at least that's what it felt like. The following years brought rise to moments in a blur: the start of war, the threat of terrorism entering our everyday lives...this is what growing up in the 2000s was like. What stories will I tell my potential offspring? Will it all be tinged with the effects of what happened on 9/11? The more I think about it, the more it feels relevant to every aspect of daily life, and then that leads me to wonder: how can classrooms not teach what happened and is still happening? Maybe we don't have definitive answers behind it all--behind the attacks, the terror and the aftermath--but we can start a dialogue about it so that maybe one day, we can collectively move forward.