vous êtes un étrange une trina, mais c'est pourquoi je vous aime

I got up at 5 a.m. this morning, hours before the sun came up.

I finished a test at 9 a.m., came home, pulled off my clothes, and got right back in to bed. Here, I’m lying on my back with my keyboard on my lap, my tired eyes glazed over, wondering (for only a fleeting moment), if it will benefit me again later in life to know about Henry VIII. It’s doubtful.

On my walk home from the ad building, I passed by a guy I know through some mutal friends named Tyler, whom I first met at the barn party back on Halloween. While everyone else was dressed like a fireman or a cowboy, he wore a black velvet unitard, boasting unusual tricks like lifting his leg behind his head, and thriving off the attention. My friend Darcy works with him in the theater, telling me once, “I heard he’s an actual contortionist, and his parents made him come to college so he wouldn’t join the circus.”

And as I stood at the crosswalk, hitting the silver button again and again, waving at him from a distance, I hoped so much in that moment that life would take me somewhere unconventional, to a ridiculous job that few others could have, and most would never appreciate. Like design sets where robots wrestle bears, write about esoteric hobbies (that we’re half ashamed we care about), or become a Thai boxer in Bangkok. And when/if my name comes up in random conversation, they’ll say, “I remember Trina Yeo, I can’t say I know her well, but she certainly never seemed boring …”