#4: food trucks, monotony, and internet friends
reflections on routine and spontaneous connections
Work
(this is the part where I discuss work and things I learned)
This week at work was about 1. adding features to our prototype before final user tests next week, and 2. starting our paper submission for the C+J (computation plus journalism) conference.
The prototype right now consists of individual pages that rank all the counties in a state by a given metric (for example, most to least interesting based on voter registration rates). We originally listed only the top picks on each page, but some reporters wanted to see everything, so I worked on an ‘expand list’ button that would render the whole list, as well as the ability to search.
When I made the expand button, I started to have more complex ideas for filtering (such as filtering by state, date, metric, etc.), but Nick and I realized that we shouldn’t add a bunch of features all at once because some of them might be superfluous. Instead, we should just ask the next round of users what they want added.
The Chinese language has a bunch of 4-word idioms called 成语 (chéng yǔ). They’re very succinct, and my mom and I use them as a fun way for me to learn new vocabulary. One that comes to mind is 画蛇添足 (huà shé tiān zú), or ‘drawing legs onto the snake.’ It comes from a folk tale: an artist was competing against his non-artist friends to draw the best snake. He finished before them, so he embellished it by adding legs. But then he lost, because snakes don’t have legs, silly. My mom says this phrase to me a lot, the first time being when I was drawing something and started to fidget and draw too many details.
A similar idiom in English is ‘gilding the lily,’ but I don’t think there’s a fun story behind it.
Life
(this is the part where I tell anecdotes and introspect)
The Washington Post’s building is right by Franklin Square, a common spot for food trucks. I’m sure this is similar in other cities, but food trucks in DC have to get monthly location-based permits. Many trucks have a weekday rotation of 5 places, keep that schedule for a month, and then switch it up.
After almost 6 months, I’ve decided my two favorite trucks are Yori Story and Pepe’s Sandwiches, because during the months that they didn’t show up, I realized I was deeply missing something. Let’s unpack.
Pepe’s Sandwiches
The Pepe truck is metallic gray and serves Spanish flauta sandwiches. The menu headers are spelled out with colorful fridge magnets. During my first week, I asked my coworkers for lunch recommendations, and they unanimously told me to get the pollo frito.
Most of my team gets this sandwich every Monday. It’s fried chicken, homemade mayo, spicy tomato sauce, lettuce, and banana peppers. That’s it.
When they introduced punch cards at the end of October, the cashier, Jose, saw my team and told us to get some, “because you guys come a lot.” We do. He then proceeded to give us two punches each that day, and the week after.
Yori Story
Yori Story is an Asian fusion truck. I didn’t discover them until mid-July, but ever since then I’ve gotten it every Friday.
The only thing I’ve ever had from Yori Story is the bang bang shrimp box. I get the same thing every time. It’s lightly-battered, deep-fried shrimp, topped with what I believe to be sriracha mayo (?), laid on top of veggie fried rice and served in a box with salad and edamame. It makes me so happy. So colorful. So yummy.
And don’t get me started on the truck itself. It is the cutest truck ever. LOOK:
The smiles.
Yori Story didn’t come to Franklin Square in November, but I saw on their Twitter that they were at Metro Center, which is a 7-min walk from the office. Because I missed them, I went there a couple times, including last Thursday. The man recognized me. “You are usually at Franklin Square, right?”
“Yeah!” I said, and then added, “Next week I leave until summer, so if you don’t see me, it’s not because I don’t like your food.”
He chuckled and said they were coming back to Franklin Square tomorrow (Friday).
The next day, my coworkers wanted Yori Story, so we went together. As soon as the man saw me, he burst out laughing at how I was back, despite being there the day before. I started laughing too, and so did my team.
He’s told me his name twice now but I can never hear it over the sound of the truck. I’m going to ask him again this Friday before I leave.
I used to be obsessed with variety and spontaneity: always doing something new in my free time, never eating the same thing at a restaurant. Working for 6 months has required me to become a creature of habit. Actually, come to think of it again, I was a ‘creature of habit’ before, but my habits were bad before—sleeping at 4 am, procrastinating—and now they’re normal, if not good: be in the office at this time, leave by that time; walk this path to work; eat at these trucks for lunch; go to this place for coffee. I used to think routine was lame, but in some ways, it’s lovely. I like being a regular at places.
Am I becoming boring? If so, do I mind? I dunno yet. My coworker Simon talks about the monotony of adult life, and 6 months is very different from 6 years.
We’ll see if I keep this up when I go back to school. Right now, I want to.
This week, I also saw the NPR jazz piano Christmas show, the play White Pearl, and the US Botanical Gardens.
On Friday, my coworkers had a holiday party. ‘Twas very fun. Although, looking back, we just stood around and ate and talked and somehow 6 hours went by. It was weird. Felt like a dream.
Play
(this is the part where I throw you some links or blab about media I read this week)
I apologize, because I usually try to have shorter reads that you can consume on the spot, but I only have a couple of those today (the first two). The third piece is long, and the last one is a book. I’ll do better next week. In the meantime, if you do have time to check out at least the first two, I think you’ll like them.
This Outline piece by Zoe Dubno that profiles a married couple that met on Chatroulette 8 years ago. It also provides commentary on what I’ve been thinking a lot about lately: the ‘old’ internet, pre social media. I keep recalling it as a time of spontaneity and a way to bring strangers together.
“Perhaps James and Karen’s story plays so well because it feels like folklore from a previous iteration of the web. As the internet is winnowed down to a few gargantuan, all-seeing websites, it feels a bit fantastical that something so ‘random,’ so pure, can happen online . . . By siphoning users from the maelstrom of internet chatrooms — in which random, anonymous encounters abounded — they have enclosed people in their preexisting social circles. What these social media platforms lacked was the old internet’s id, the chaotic, random, anonymous, and often prurient spaces that typified the early internet. Sure, social media made it easier to keep up with friends, but you couldn’t meet strangers, tell secrets, and wile out like you used to. In protecting users from creeps, phishermen, and scammers, the internet has lost a feeling of serendipity.”
It makes me think about my friend ‘Urhot13’ from Runescape, who I used to stay up late with but who one day logged off and never came back. Or those random people I met on League of Legends who I probably still have added on Skype, because those were the pre-Discord days. Or my Colombian friend from Minecraft who I have on Snapchat, but we’ve never met, and who uses Snapchat anymore?
Subtle Asian Traits (SAT) and Subtle Asian Dating (SAD) briefly injected a little bit of that missing ‘serendipity’ back into my internet experience. If you’re unfamiliar, SAT/SAD are huge Facebook groups that went viral last year for relatable memes about the Asian experience. Almost every Asian person I knew is/was in those groups.
Aside from memes, certain types of posts were particularly exciting. There was one type similar to Craigslist missed connections—people would post about a cute person they saw on the train, or at a concert or bar or whatever, and then the whole Facebook-accessible Asian diaspora under the age of 30 would come together in the comment section to find that person (usually a success). Another type became the SAD group, which is where people would write dating profiles for their friends. Many couples actually came out of it.
These posts still happen, yeah. But I think I missed the serendipitous connection train. The hype around SAT/SAD has died, and they’ve mostly become places for people to tag each other in memes or become Instagram famous.
I think I’ve been searching for spontaneous internet love ever since. I quite regularly wonder about that Runescape guy and how he’s doing now. I use dating apps partly because of this weird quest for virtual serendipity. In fact, a year ago, on Tinder, I matched with a guy from London. He was in Chicago for a layover and sent me a message, which I didn’t respond to until a month later, when he was long gone and back across the Atlantic. I do consider this to be a beautiful moment of internet happenstance, because we still talk today, but even so, we’re just friends.
You may have already seen this, but Wait But Why’s visualization of the events you have left in your life. My friends and I discussed how it feels rather pessimistic, and it fails to show all of the time spent with new people and new activities that will come into your life. The real main takeaway should be how little time you have left with your parents.
17776, a mixed-media, interactive, web-based, science fiction piece by Jon Bois and published by SB Nation. It takes 1-2 hours to get through, but I think it’s 100% worth the time. The first page requires you to scroll down. I read it a couple years ago right after graduating high school and was reminded of its existence when my college friend discovered it. The premise is that the year is 17,776, we have solved every problem in humanity, and all there is to do now is play football. It’s amusing and thoughtful. The author has a Q&A where he cites Breath of the Wild as a huge source of inspiration, and I realized that the reason I enjoy both of these works is because of the way they make me feel: slightly lonely, and deeply nostalgic for a world that doesn’t exist.
I’ve begun reading The Idiot, a coming-of-age novel by New Yorker writer Elif Batuman. Simon recommended it to me, linking this glowing NPR review:
“Many of the people in the book remain flat, while inanimate objects take on golden, gorgeous warmth. Like a croissant, ‘crisp and soft and flaky at the same time. Just biting it made you feel cared for.’ Or a room, with ‘great acoustics, liquid and precise.’ Or a train, ‘rumbling closer, bringing the feeling of aliveness and plenitude brought by incoming trains.’ You want to eat the croissant, enter the room, ride the train — they all sound like some clean, enveloping, thrilling idea of love. Reading The Idiot, I always forgot to care about Ivan [the protagonist’s partner]. But I've eaten three croissants in three days.”
The review also quotes Batuman saying, "Write long novels, pointless novels.” Young adult fiction is snappy and flashy to hook young people on reading—which is great and effective, but the older I get, the more attracted I become to realistic writing (fiction or nonfiction) like this novel, or books by Kazuo Ishiguro, or essays by Samantha Irby.
Real life is exciting and honest and fun. I mean, there have been times where I hated it, where I saw no point, and there will surely be future times where I feel that way again. But right now, I’m satisfied with what is in front of me.
See you next week.
Madison