Archive | November, 2012

The day after I didn’t win the 550 million dollar Power Ball

29 Nov

So last night my boyfriend and I went to two different stores that “felt right” and bought $10 each worth of Power Ball numbers.  Each $10 purchase came with a free set of numbers.  That meant 12 chances in all.  Despite the fact that I was told I would be more likely to either get attacked by a shark or contract a flesh eating bacteria than win this particular Power Ball drawing, I was still fairly convinced I was going to win.  I started thinking about what I would do with the money.  Donations!  Real Estate!  Traveling to all the places!  A new pair of sunglasses since I broke the ones I found last year!  So, so many possibilities.  Needless to say I did not win $550 million.  After the shock wore off I went to sleep.  And now here I sit, at my computer, the day after I didn’t win the 550 million dollar Power Ball and you know what? Despite the huge shock and letdown of last night, I feel basically the same as always.  I will tell you about my morning.

First, I woke up in my normal bed with those comfortable flannel sheets and a $45 Bed, Bath and Beyond comforter that should have been replaced about 2 years ago.  There was no Egyptian silk. There was no expensive leather headboard.  Just the unadorned metal bed frame that I inherited from my sister-in-law in 2005.

Second, I looked down the bed to find my two cats lying there, sleeping.  The same old striped cats I’ve had for two years.  No fancy hairless cats.  No trained lion cubs.  Just Clark and Grete, snuggling with the free straw that came with a soda last week that they fell asleep playing with at 4am, approximately 5 hours after I didn’t win the 550 million dollar Power Ball.

Third, I poured myself a cup of coffee from my BRAUN coffee maker with the beans I bought last week.  No special Fair Trade beans flown in specifically for me from a farm in Honduras after paying a more than fair price to the farmer herself.  There was no fancy Italian espresso machine equipped with my very own Barista where my coffee maker used to be.

Fourth, I made myself a piece of toast and I ate it dry.  Dry toast.  No caviar.  No butter directly from the Hudson Valley.  No compote.  Just bread that I toasted too long so it was more like a dry rye-flavored cracker.  Again.

Fifth, I sat down at my computer and started reading the news.  I Googled myself just to make sure that the internet didn’t know something about my 550 million dollar win that I did not.  No such luck.   As usual the only person by my name that came up was the much-cooler-than-me designer of really crazy looking metal jewelry that looks more like torture devices than anything else.   I looked at pictures of lion cubs and thought about what could have been.  I read a depressing article about Courtney Stodden and felt happy I wasn’t her.  Then I started writing this blog post.

The following is what I did not do this morning because I did not win the 550 million dollar Power Ball:

1.  I did not pay off the mortgage on my parent’s house.
2.  I did not pay off all my school loans in full with a little note enclosed that said “if you thought you were going to charge me $20,000 in interest over 10 years you thought wrong.  SUCKERS!”
3.  I did not buy my friend Clayton an apartment complete with a private karate studio like I promised to do if I won the Power Ball.
4.   I did not buy new sunglasses to replace the ones that I found for free at the bar but which cracked in my bag last month.  I will just continue feeling thankful that I have dark brown eyes and therefore am not as sensitive to the sun as my blue or green-eyed brethren.
5.  I did not contact a travel agent to figure out exactly how I could travel to every single place.  Every.  Single.  One.
6.  I did not plan how to take 10 of my closest friends out to a really nice dinner instead of working my bar shift until 4am.
7.  I did not hire someone to write my thesis.

So, I guess today, the day I am still not a multi-millionaire is basically the same as every other day in which I am not a multi-millionaire.  I’m procrastinating, same as always.  I’m drinking too much coffee, same as always.  I’m playing imagination games, same as always.  I’m warm and happy and have all the things I need (except sun glasses) even if they are maybe a little bit rattier than I might ideally like, same as always.  So, I guess it’s not so bad.  Until the next time the Power Ball gets really big.  Next time I am totally going to win.  Next time I will write a blog post called “I totally won the Power Ball” with no content at all except maybe something that looks like this: skdjfblksdfhkhsfd!!!!! because that’s what it looks like in my brain when I get too excited to string words together into a sentence.  Just wait.  It’ll be totally fantastic.

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A small ‘Thank You’ to some of my public school teachers

24 Nov

While “watching” the University of Michigan vs. Ohio State game on television because I am a good and dedicated girlfriend, I read an article in The New Yorker all about education policy and specifically what one woman, Diane Ravitch, sees as the unfortunate effects of No Child Left Behind.  I don’t know too much about this, although obviously I have my opinions, so without more independent research I really don’t want to go on a whole rant-like analysis of the goods and bads of No Child Left Behind and the rise of Charter Schools.  Perhaps I will leave that for another day.  I do, however, want to say one thing:  thank you.  As a product of public education in New Jersey, I would like to take this opportunity to thank a few of the teachers I had growing up who really left their mark.  So, here goes.

Thank you Mrs. Early, my third grade teacher, for showing me that learning can be fun.  Although you were demanding, you made everything interesting, teaching us the importance of art and science in every day life.  And I wrote my first published book, The Attack of the Friendly Aliens, under your tutelage.  It’s destined to be a classic.

Thank you Mrs. Murphy, my 5th grade teacher, for showing me to never judge a person by her reputation.  I was scared when I found out on my last day of the 4th grade that you were going to be my teacher, I even tried to switch out of your class, but I soon learned that being tough is not necessarily a bad thing.

Thank you Mr. Piza, my 7th grade social studies teacher, for teaching us about Africa.  Leading up to your class, and for many years after, the history and relevance of that entire continent was taught as an afterthought.  If it wasn’t for your desire to share with us your interest in African history and current events, I don’t know that I ever would have started thinking about what it said about us in the United States that Africa was not deemed relevant enough to be a focus of our education growing up.  I don’t know that I would have become interested in the things I am interested in today.

Thank you Dr. Jooma, my 9th grade English teacher, for showing me how amazing Shakespeare can really be when you take time to read it and really think about it.  And thank you for giving me a lifelong love of MacBeth.

Thank you Dr. Miron, my 11th grade Algebra II teacher for listening to me when I talked to you about the importance of having a lower level Algebra II class for those of us who just couldn’t keep up.  And thank you for letting me take the class pass/fail after seeing how hard I worked and understanding that without the option of a slower paced class I simply could not do well.  Thank you for your compassion.

Thank you Mr. Palladino, my 12th grade elective teacher, for putting an exclamation point on my interest in the world.  It was you who really taught me to question what I read in the news, to try and see all angles, to think about the possible reasons behind the actions.  It was you who taught me never to point a finger because things are always more complex than we know.

Thank you Mr. Fox for taking the time, even though you weren’t my teacher, to re-explain math concepts to me over and over again even though it probably seemed like I would never understand them.  I am still terrible at math but I know that with a patient instructor I can enjoy it, even if the answers never seem to be right.

I’m sure I missed a few along the way and as they come to mind I will add them to the list.  The point is that these are all people who I think of fondly, if not often.  People who did their jobs with passion, skill and a love of teaching.  People who listened to their students and learned from them.  I don’t know whether, with the new direction of public education, these teachers will be as appreciated in the future as they were in the past and that would be a damn shame.

And also, to all my friends who teach:  thank you for the time, the energy, the work.  I’m sure things are heard right now.  I’m sure it’s not fun being stuck in the middle of this national debate, as you see the federal money to your programs decreasing and people wondering why our students seem to be faring worse.  But if you love it, keep at it.  Who knows, maybe you will be the one to influence a student’s future.

And…cheesiness over.

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Breast is Best Fundamentalism, Take 1

21 Nov

I read this article at work this past Saturday about a topic that has been bothering me on and off for the past 6 months or so:  the so-called “Breast is Best” movement.  I am going to treat this as the first of a series of posts on this topic with the hope that I come back to it on other occasions.  No promises.  Also, I get there, as usual, via a rather winding road so bear with me.  Okay, here goes.

In the article, titled “After Hurricane Sandy, Helping Hands Also Expose a New York Divide,” author Sarah Maslin Nir discusses the post-Sandy emergence (or really highlighting), of a racial and financial divide between those largely seeking help and those providing it.  In Nir’s own words,

Hurricane Sandy, the cliché of the moment goes, created a city of haves and have-nots; those New Yorkers with power and heat and the many other assurances of modern life, and those without. But the storm simply made plain the dividing lines in a city long fractured by class, race, ethnicity, geography and culture.

We are a diverse city.  We are a city that has come a very long way.  But we are no means existing in some utopia I have heard people describe as a “post-racial society.”  So here we are, a few weeks out of Sandy, looking at who needs help and who is in a position to provide it.  Help.  It’s an interesting conundrum and one worth thinking about.  I remember taking a class in high school that talked a lot about aid and charity and wondering why, if we have it we can’t just give it.  Why should donating my time and money be such a weighted issue?  Why can’t it just be easy?  As I got older I started thinking about all the different nuances of help.  What’s the difference — racially, culturally, geographically, financially, historically — between those who need and those who provide?  I started realizing that I have to put the idea of help into a much larger conversation, one about race and class, about access and opportunity, about history.  I also realized I had to start thinking about motives.  For some, donating time and money might just be about responding to the obvious.  It might be about acknowledging a need and addressing it.  For others, though, it’s all about what helping says about you, how it can help you, what you can gain from it.  For some, it’s about some sort of incredibly problematic curiosity.  Again, in Nir’s words:

Those coming to (the volunteers) for relief worry that their helpers are taking some voyeuristic interest in their plight, treating it as an exotic weekend outing, “like we’re in a zoo,” said one resident of a Rockaway project — echoing a complaint often heard in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina — as volunteers snapped iPhone photos of her as she waited in line for donated food and clothing.

I honestly can’t even talk about this paragraph.  Okay, I sort of will.  First of all, who does that?  And what do those people do, run back to their friends and show them pictures of those “poor, poor people?”  Then they talk about how, “oh, it was just so awful how those people are forced to live but I mean, look at the lines in her face?  Isn’t it also sort of beautiful?”  I just made myself throw up in my mouth a little.  Sometimes I think that in this world of technology and smart phones and Instagram and whatever else we all just think we are observers rather than active participants.  Or that when we are looking at our phone, when we are doing things in our personal internet space, that we are no longer visible to others, that our actions no longer impact those around us.  Well, I can tell you that just because you are looking at someone through the lens of your camera phone does not mean they cannot see you.  They see you and they think you are an asshole.  You’re there to supposedly help, not to help yourself to images of people’s lives.  Get a clue.

Anyway, I got off topic.  To the point! So, this:

As she gave out diapers and cases of infant formula to storm victims, Bethany Yarrow, 41, a folk singer from Williamsburg who has been volunteering with other parents from the private school her children attend, said she was shocked by the many poor mothers in the Arverne section of the Rockaways who did not breast feed. The group, she said, was working on bringing in a lactation consultant.

“So that it’s not just ‘Here are some diapers and then go back to your misery,’ ” she said. (Bold text mine.)

(Deep breathing exercises.)  I want to start by saying the following thing:  fuck you, Bethany Yarrow.  Seriously.  Bethany Yarrow, you have no idea what you are talking about.  How dare you presume to know anything about how the residents of the Rockaways live.  How dare you assume that, without your help and your “lactation consultant” that they live in “misery.”  That sort of thinking is exactly the problem.  Let me just travel down here in my big, fancy SUV and wave my magic milk wand and make your lives like mine, which is so wonderful and blessed.

So there are a few things.  Women, in general, are smart.  IQ smart or not, there is a desire, within most parents I would say, for their children to do well, to have all the possible opportunities available, to be happy and healthy.   Women care about their children and they want the best for them.  That means that they make the best decisions for them based off of their lives, their information, their opportunities.  To assume that poor women do not consider different options is simply incorrect.  But also, to assume they have the same abilities and constraints to come to the same conclusions as their financially wealthy peers is also incorrect, woefully so.  Bethany Yarrow is a folk singer.  I imagine that in her specific career, for the most part, she is able to make her own schedule, meaning the ability to be around to breast feed her children when they are hungry.  If she isn’t able to be around, I imagine that she is able to pump.  Good for Bethany Yarrow.  The conversation about breast feeding is contingent on other things than simply personal preference.  It exists within a bigger context.  (Let’s put aside the women who are unable to produce enough milk to sufficiently feed their children.)  A lot of women have to work in order to provide for their families.  A lot of jobs don’t provide maternity leave, pumping rooms, child care.  So is it your belief, Bethany Yarrow, that women should forgo their paycheck in order to breast feed their children?  That doesn’t seem like a particularly realistic solution.  Is your lactation consultant somehow going to change the perception of women in the workplace?  Not only is the system not set up for women generally, but it is not set up for poor women and it is certainly not set up for pregnant and nursing women.  Being the giver of life gets in the way of productivity and efficiency.

I am going to make a maybe unpopular comparison.  When all of us talk about a woman’s right to choose in the abortion context we are operating under a certain set of assumptions.  We are assuming that women are capable of making important decisions.  We are assuming that women know what is best for them, their bodies, their families.  We are assuming that women have access to clinics, for the making of a decision to even be possible.  Those assumptions should hold true regardless the topic at hand across the board, no matter the color of skin, the god(s) worshiped or not believed in, the economic position.  That means that all women, yes, even poor women of color Bethany Yarrow, are capable of making a decision about whether they want to breast feed and, perhaps more importantly, whether it is even possible for them.  Maybe they, like women living in North Dakota with its lack of abortion clinics, aren’t in a position to even make a choice about their own bodies because the resources they need to make those choices are not available to them.  I just don’t see how women being condescending and forcing their own values on other women in the sphere of breast feeding is any different, on an intellectual level, from male politicians forcing their pro-life agenda on all of us.  It takes away control over our own lives and bodies and it ignores realities of the world.

So, Bethany Yarrow and friends, think before you decide to help.  Think before you assume that your lactation consultant is either welcome or appropriate.  Maybe use your “good intentions” to advance the conversation about requiring break rooms for breast feeding women, protecting the rights of women working in minimum and hourly-wage jobs, and listening to those around you.  Your approach to parenting might be the best for you, but it isn’t the best, or even possible, for everyone.  Look around yourself and figure it out.  Because, as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Romney’s Logic, or lack thereof

15 Nov

I’m having a very hard time today.  Sometimes I feel like there is this thing called logic, and then all of a sudden something happens and I think that maybe my logic isn’t the right logic afterall because someone who is someone in the grand scheme of things, and not just in a little corner of the internet, says something that is so contrary to my logic that it’s like, wait, what?  Confused?  Let me explain.

I just read this article in the Times that has been going around in different forms about a conference call that Mitt Romney had with his donors and fund-raisers.  In this conference call he accused Obama of winning the election by giving “gifts” to different minority groups.  Okay, so when I see the word “gifts” I think Christmas, Channuka, birthdays!  Last year for my birthday I got this amazing new lamp shade* from Anthropologie (don’t mock me) and a great cherry red stock pot from Le Creuset.  So, did Obama run around giving people fancy new home accent pieces?  Perhaps some useful, and colorful!, kitchen items?  Maybe a sweet new pair of kicks?  No.  Here’s what Obama “gifted” the “minorities”** of this country:

“With regards to the young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college loan interest was a big gift,” Mr. Romney said. “Free contraceptives were very big with young, college-aged women. And then, finally, Obamacare also made a difference for them, because as you know, anybody now 26 years of age and younger was now going to be part of their parents’ plan, and that was a big gift to young people.”

And then there’s this.  Romney was very concerned that the president used his healthcare plan as a tool in mobilizing black and Hispanic voters:

“You can imagine for somebody making $25,000 or $30,000 or $35,000 a year, being told you’re now going to get free health care, particularly if you don’t have it, getting free health care worth, what, $10,000 per family, in perpetuity — I mean, this is huge,” Mr. Romney said. “Likewise with Hispanic voters, free health care was a big plus. But in addition with regards to Hispanic voters, the amnesty for children of illegals,*** the so-called Dream Act kids, was a huge plus for that voting group.”

So now I am going to think back to when Bush did that stimulus plan.  Remember that?  When all of a sudden we all got a check for some money that we were then supposed to spend out in the world to stimulate the economy?****  A lot of people thought that was  good idea.  A lot of people might have called that a gift.  Same goes, I think, for the money a family is “gifted” through access to healthcare.  All of a sudden here is this money not being spent on incredibly costly healthcare that can be repurposed.  It can go towards buying a car, saving to send a child to college, starting a business, or any other number of things.  Or! That family that now has been “gifted” healthcare has healthcare for the first time and is able to seek preemptive medical care rather than relying on emergency room visits or costly procedures to take care of something that could have been avoided.  Now people who previously had to suffer unnecessarily with treatable ailments can get the needed, and widely available, treatment.  It’s the gift that keeps on giving!

All sarcasm aside.  Here’s the thing about all of this.  I find Romney’s comments to be amazingly condescending and rude not only to the man that bested him in the election, but to all of us who voted for that man.  By using the word “gifts” Romney was intentionally playing into an understanding of the word within the political realm as equivalent to a bribe.  There were no bribes involved.  Romney lost the election because while he was yammering on about non-specifics concerning job creation, foreign policy and military strategy, Obama was listening to people and trying to figure out what would actually make this country a more reasonable place to live.  Lack of equal access to birth control and concerns about unwanted pregnancies?  Here, free contraception (not to mention a continuation of Roe v Wade).  Concerns about pre-existing conditions and sky-rocketing healthcare costs?  Here, the Affordable Care Act.  Children of undocumented immigrants not getting a fair shake at the American Dream?  Here, the Dream Act (co-written by Republican Orin Hatch, by the way).  What Obama did was present himself as a man capable of leading this country.  What he did was he listened to the people, and he came up with, or supported, feasible solutions.  That’s not called giving people gifts, Romney, it’s called governing.

So here’s maybe an idea, rather than trying to make up ludicrous, and inaccurate, excuses for why you lost the election, why don’t you look actually at why you lost.  You lost because you were non-specific about things that mattered.  You lost because you listened to the party establishment and aligned yourself with the uber-conservatives rather than the majority of the country.  You lost because you failed to realize that things have changed and you have to convince more than just the white men of your ability to lead.  You lost because you erroneously believed that the person who raised the most money would win the biggest prize.  You lost because you dismissed so many of us.  It sucks, Romney, because like John McCain pre-2008 I always thought you were one of the good guys.  One of the listening guys.  I don’t know, maybe my logic is all wrong.  To me, the logical thing to do would be to bow out gracefully and go back to the drawing board.  Rather than calling sound policy ideas gifts, why don’t you and your party think about how to answer the people’s needs using sound conservative principles.  The Republican party, as far as I know, isn’t about hanging people out to dry.  It’s about a much needed alternative to the Democratic approach to governing.  Although I am a lifelong liberal, I honestly believe that the only way to make this country work better is having a healthy debate.  It’s like an athlete.  An athlete uses the talent, drive and abilities of her biggest opponent in order to become better.  For the Democratic, or Republican, party to live up to expectations and possibilities, for this country to live up to expectations and possibilities, there needs to be drive.  The Democratic party can only be its best incarnation when it is striving to be a better alternative to the best incarnation of the Republican party.  The opposite is just as true.  Unless we have two (more would be better) healthy and functioning parties, we can not have the best governing strategy possible.  For this country to get on a better road, we need some good debate and some healthy competition, not a bunch of blamers and a party-wide abandonment of the needs of the majority of the country.  It’s called logic, Romney.  You should try using it.

*My lamp shade looks sort of like this only significantly more awesome.

**Sometimes use of the word minorities annoys me because it’s not accurate.  Rather than an explanation of numerical fact, it’s more like a forced state of being.  I, as a female, am not actually a member of a group that makes up a minority of the population but am still considered a minority.  Why don’t we call a spade a spade.  We “minorities” are not necessarily the “minority.”  We are the oppressed.  The overlooked.  The intentionally ignored.  The annoyance.

***I despise, I mean despise, the term “illegals.”

****This girl totally took that check and put it straight in her savings account.  Totally against the rules.

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Protected: One Lawyer, One Gym Goer, Both Assholes.

13 Nov

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Let the freak out attacks continue

8 Nov

I feel compelled, in this blog post, to acknowledge that I know that I am freaking out about things much less BIG than not having heat and electricity, or having my house washed away or burned down, or not having access to food, or having lost friends or loved ones. I am sitting here in my lit and warm apartment, my cats meowing hungrily (they are totally thrown off by the time change and subsequent early darkness and think it is time to eat, it isn’t), and with home-cooked food in the fridge.  All that being said, I am freaking out.

I have just recently articulated to myself, and now to all of you, the fact that I am completely and totally self-sabotaging.  Not to the point where I am incapable of being a reasonable human being in the world, but to the point where if I don’t do something I will be bartending forever… not that there is anything wrong with that but it just isn’t for me.  For example, I am really bad at applying for things.  Like, really bad.  I will find a job or an internship or a program and be like

Yea!  That is perfect for me!  Wow!

And then I will go for a run and have an imagination adventure where I get that job or internship, or get accepted into that program, and I am so super awesome at it that the head promotes me, or moves me somewhere really cool, or tells her friends about me and then all of a sudden I am this really fantastic and successful person with this job that I love and everything is great.  Only then I look at the qualifications and see that I need relevant experience.  Don’t have it.  Unless they need someone to shake some cocktails.  And then I look at the recommendations and I fall short.  Who would want to write me one?  What professor would I ask?  What professor would even be willing to write it?  Would they even remember me?  Do they know enough about me to make it work?  Do I even like them?  Does a recommendation from my boss at the bar count as a professional reference?  And then I sit there and stare at the computer and then I decide,

Okay, maybe I will do it tomorrow.  I will send out the necessary emails and put myself out there.  Can’t hurt to try, right?

But then tomorrow comes and goes and then the deadline is past and, voila!, I have not applied and there I am imagining what could have been rather than what could be.  Or, another example!  One of my friends will be like

Oh!  Hey!  This is perfect for you and I know someone who would hook you up and you should so totally email them and drop my name!

And I’m like sweet.  So I look into it and it seems great and then, guess what?  Don’t reach out.  Think about how cool it would be.  Then get nervous about not being a good fit.  Or doing something stupid and having it reflect badly on my friend.  Or I worry that I won’t interview well and that I own absolutely zero business/business casual clothing.  And then I’m like,

Well, let me sleep on it and email them tomorrow

And then guess what? Tomorrow comes and goes and I don’t do it.  I sit there and feel bad about how I’m not doing it but I still don’t do it. And then I realize my friend has put herself out there by offering to put me in touch with someone and I am the asshole who doesn’t follow through.

Or!  This!  I am like inches away from getting my master’s degree and all I need to do is write one thesis (70 pages) and one final paper (20-25 pages) both very manageable and both things I can do, and what happens?  I get so distracted by learning all of the things that I fall into this black hole of information, most of which is not relevant to what I am theoretically working on.  And then I have piles and piles of papers that I have mostly read and lots of blank pages.  Or!  Lots of pages that are written but may or may not be connected to the other pages or the overall theme of whatever project I am working on.  This is a problem I have never had before.  Usually, if nothing else, I can sit on my ass for 8 hours a day, 6 days a week and knock out whatever it is I need to knock out.  But now?  No.  And then I am like

Great, here I am with almost this degree that will make me feel, if not be, more qualified to do something other than pour a pint of beer and what am I doing?  Obsessing over farmer’s rights, downloading Ever Note so I can save everything that ever seems interesting and read it later (but really I read it right away) and downloading real crime books on my Nook (okay, that last part only happened once, about 15 minutes ago).

But then I think

Okay.  How about this?  How about I just finish my thesis and then I travel and try and get my head on straight.  And then I realize I don’t like to travel alone and basically all of my friends are doing things and therefore can’t fuck off for a few months.  And also, I get very stressed out about money and I have to pay off the loans I took out to finish this degree I can’t seem to finish but has to be finished in 5 years otherwise all my work was for naught.

And so now it has been 30 minutes and rather than working on an application for a really cool language program in India, or a conference in Switzerland, or a scholarship to do research, I am writing this blog about how I am incapable of doing anything.  And now I am going to publish this blog, read my newly downloaded nonfiction crime book, and occasionally stress about how I am not doing anything productive.  And then I will go to work until 4am.  Maybe I’ll see you there.

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Basically the most awkward shift EVER

5 Nov

In honor of my favorite day of the year, Marathon Day (basically a national holiday in Rebekah-land) I switched my normal Sunday day shift for the evening so I could stand on my corner in the cold, screaming my voice raw and clapping my hands so hard I bruise them.  Man, I love Marathon Day.  But this year there was no Marathon Day.  No waking up in the morning like it’s Christmas, jumping up and down on the bed screaming “Marathon Day! Marathon Day! Marathon Day!”  No frantic run for coffee before the elite runners fly by.  No crazy costumes.  Instead, I woke up a little late, played around the house, went for a run and did the laundry.  Then I went to work, or tried to anyway.  Besides all the other effects of Sandy, the F train is running a little…er…slow.  I waited on the elevated train platform for 40 minutes, arriving at work at 8:30 for my shift that was supposed to start at 8.  Damn.  I finally got there and the bar was dead.  Like, dead dead.  We’re talking crickets.  I figured it would eventually pick up.  It didn’t.  What did happen was probably the most torturous, awkward and uncomfortable shift I have ever worked.  Curious?  Read on.

At approximately 11PM a tall brunette walked into the bar, ordered a Guinness and took a seat.  She sat right in front of my dish washing sink which, as events unfolded, became problematic.*  About 10 minutes later, a shorter blonde woman came in and walked right up to the brunette.  This is what happened (names changed because I think that’s what people do in situations like these):

Blonde:  Morgan?

Brunette:  Yes.

Blonde:  I’m Allison.

Morgan (awkward silence): Do you want to chat?

At this point, readers, I figured this was an internet date.  I mean, why else would two people who clearly did not previously know each other have this sort of awkward introduction at a bar?  Well, I will tell you.

Allison:  Chat?   About what?!?  You ruined my life.

Um.  Okay.  So now my interest was piqued.  Having done all the dishes trying to figure out whether these two ladies were on a date, I had no other reason to hang out right in front of where they were sitting.  (Why did you fail me, dishes?!  In my one time of need!)  I positioned myself slightly down the bar, standing near my only two other customers who also happened to be the only other customers in the bar for the rest of the night and who also happened to leave me about 10 minutes later.  Alone.  In what I can only imagine is something akin to hell.  I eavesdropped on the next bit of the conversation.  From the bits and pieces I got, Allison’s husband was sleeping with Morgan.  Not only was he sleeping with Morgan, but Allison had gone on a business trip only to come back and find out that (1) Morgan was basically living in her house while she was gone and (2) at some point during the stay Allison’s 7-month old baby was in the bed with her husband and his side piece.  The two women then sat there talking for about 30 more minutes, with Allison trying to explain to Morgan why what she was doing was wrong but how Allison doesn’t really blame Morgan but instead blames her lying sack of shit husband (not a direct quote) and Morgan saying that part of the problem was that Allison wasn’t having sex with her husband and that’s probably why he looked elsewhere.  Allison then told Morgan that the reason they hadn’t been having sex was that Allison had given birth to 2 children in the previous 3 years and was basically either pregnant or breast feeding at all times.  Also, she was tired.  At this point, dear readers, I would like to interject two points.  One, I was very unclear as to why Allison was sharing with Morgan any details at all of her sex life (or any other portion of her life, for that matter) with the woman her husband is banging and two, if I ever found myself in that position I would take the opportunity to live out a dream of mine:  pouring my drink over someone’s head in a public place and storming out.  The conversation was painful to hear.  And then, it got worse.

Enter the lying sack of shit husband.**  So just to be clear, we now have the husband, his wife, and the woman that the husband has been sleeping with behind the wife’s back.  And me.  Alone.  At the end of the bar with wine and disbelief.

The conversation then devolved into the weirdest thing I have ever witnessed.  And it went on and on and on.  And then on some more.  The husband, Brad, called Allison a crazy bitch, accused her of raping him, accused her of slitting her wrists and then pulling her sleeves up to show Morgan the scars.  There were none.  Apparently, or according to Allison anyway, this had all happened in the middle of a drug-related melt down on the part of Brad.  Morgan spent most of the time laughing nervously while Allison kept saying “this is the worst thing that has ever happened to me, why are you laughing?!”  Morgan then talked about the number of people she was sleeping with at the same time she was sleeping with Brad which then sent Allison into a rage about whether or not they used protection which Morgan “wasn’t sure about” but Brad assured her they were.  I am fairly certain Allison got tested for everything today.  I know I would have.  I kid you not, this went on for 2 hours.  Two fucking hours.  I was sitting at the far end of the bar, staring at a full glass of wine with my hood up, whispering to myself in a lame attempt to cover up the awkwardness.  Brad noticed and yelled down the bar “to” me in a bullshit attempt to acknowledge the horrible scene I was witnessing.

Brad:  Ugh, she’s wearing a hood!

Me:  I am trying to block everything out.  Just pretend I’m not here.

Brad:  No, you should hear this.  It’s hilarious.

Me: (silence…scowl) Um, yea.  Not so much funny from where I’m sitting.  I think I’ll get some fresh air.

I only lasted outside in the cold for like 3 minutes. I came back in.  It was still going on.  Eventually, Allison stormed out but only after she had paid for all of their drinks.  Brad then turned to me and said

Brad:  Well, she should pay for them, she’s been pulling all the money out of my checking account.  $40,000 this week!

Me:  I do not feel bad for you.

The adulterous couple then stayed for another bit, rehashing the evening with Morgan claiming that she wasn’t really sleeping with a million other people, including an Australian for those who care, and Brad making sure that his crazy bitch of a wife hadn’t ruined his awesome new relationship.  At 5 minutes to 2 I finally kicked them out.  I was secretly wishing they would ask me for my opinion so that I could look at them dead in the eyes and say “I think you two are possibly the worst human beings I have ever had the misfortune of sharing a space with” but they never did.  Assholes.  And they were lousy tippers.

Also, this experience was SO MUCH WORSE than I could ever capture here.  There was so much more awkwardness.  So much more horrible.  Oh, like when Morgan decided to tell Allison that on her and Brad’s 15th anniversary when Brad said he was working late he was actually screwing her.  Oh, and also when Morgan recounted a dream she had about Allison and how she had given Allison a hug and then they were friends and it was great and can’t they be friends in real life too?  And also the time Brad told Allison he married the wrong woman and she poisoned everything she touched.  And when Morgan assured Allison she would be fine because “she’s still young and attractive and has nice clothes.”  Nice clothes.  Seriously.  Okay, I’m done.

*You see, non-bartender readers, I have to spend a lot of time at the dish washing sink because I have to spend a lot of time washing dishes.  Even if there are only 3 people in the bar I somehow manage to rack up dozens of dirty glasses.  I think we have a poltergeist.  This means that if there is an annoying person or an incident of some kind in front of my dish washing sink, there is no way for me to avoid it.  I have to stare at it all will I dip my hands into scalding hot chemical water.

**When he walked into the bar I literally almost yelled “this guy?  All this hubbub over this guy?!” but I restrained myself.

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The day I beat an ambulance by foot

1 Nov

On Tuesday evening, the day after Hurricane Sandy hit, I went for a run.  The subways were still out and I was dying to see Lower Manhattan without lights.  I hoofed the 3 miles over to the Brooklyn waterfront, seeing downed trees and scattered debris on every side street.  I reached as close to the water as the Parks Department would allow, stood on a big block, and just looked.  What a strange sight it was. The city that never sleeps, dark.

The following day I decided to take a different route.  I was interested to see what kind of damage had been done to Prospect Park, a place I have run through countless times in all kinds of weather.  My boyfriend pointed out that running through the park, what with all the severed branches and uprooted trees, was probably not the safest thing.  What if the wind blew and a branch fell?  What if a tree, already dangerously leaning, lost its last bit of support from the soil and toppled over?  I decided to run alongside it, glancing in every now and again to see how different it looked.  So, I set out.  I ran towards Atlantic Avenue, made a turn on Flatbush and started running uphill towards the park, dodging walkers and trick-or-treaters along the way.  The traffic was insane.  I had seen photographs of highways turned parking lots all over the East Coast.  I had, myself, taken a photograph near my house with cars lined up for miles in the middle of the day.  Who knows how long the rush hour drivers on Flatbush had been trying to get where ever they were going but I’m sure it was hours.  Then I heard it:  a siren.  I looked over my shoulder and saw an ambulance for New York Methodist hospital trying to make its way through the mess.  I kept running, expecting the ambulance to overtake me any second.  I figured people would pull their cars to the side, allowing space for the ambulance to get through.  Only, people didn’t.  I stopped and looked, the ambulance wasn’t really getting anywhere.  People were just sitting, stubbornly, not willing to give up their hard-earned space on the road, ignorant to the existence not only of the ambulance, but of the person requiring immediate medical care.  There was nothing for me to do, I kept running.  I got a few blocks further and realized that, again, the ambulance had not overtaken me.  A man driving a Senior Care ambulance turned on his lights, got out of his vehicle, and directed the Methodist ambulance through a busy intersection.  The ambulance, finally, passed me.  I started running again and quickly overtook it.  This happened several more times.  Me stopping at a light, the ambulance passing me, me getting the okay to go again, running up the hill, and easily passing the ambulance by foot.  It was heart breaking.  I could only imagine the frustration of the EMTs trying to get to their destination, and the anguish being felt by the family of whoever it was that needed such urgent care.  I couldn’t believe that, after what this city has been through, people were so concerned with getting where they were going that they were able and yet completely unwilling to allow the ambulance to pass.  It was crazy. I stood on a corner next to another woman, in shock.  We looked at one another and just shook our heads, she couldn’t believe it either.  I thought about whether there was anything I could do, tried to imagine myself directing traffic.  Every scenario I thought up ended in disaster, an even bigger traffic jam and me squashed in the middle of the road being cursed by angry drivers.  I continued on.   As I finished my run up Flatbush and saw the ambulance pass, only to get stuck in the mess that is Grand Army Plaza, I quietly voiced the hope that it could get where it was going on time and that none of my loved ones need urgent care over the next few days…they might not be able to get it.

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