Today I Displaced My Rage Onto a Line of Hair Care Products

7 May

So my mom, knowing my tendency to get angry about things, saved me a super stupid advertisement for the got2be line of hair care products.  Due to recent events that I don’t feel like going into just at the moment, I felt the need to blow off some steam and so I wrote a letter.  Here it is:

To whom it may concern,

I am currently standing at my kitchen counter, looking at a two-page coupon/advertisement for your got2b line of hair products, a line I have used many times. On the left hand side, is the advertisement geared towards women; on the right is that for men. I would like to describe to you, in more detail, what I am seeing.

The advertisement for women is, of course, done in pink and features an overly made-up young woman in a low cut gold halter dress looking suggestively at the camera with her lips slightly parted. In the back, super imposed upon an imagine that I can only imagine is an attempt to associate your product with Hollywood and all of its glitz and glamour, is a dapper man standing in front of a parked limousine, looking at the girl. The tagline – “all eyes on you!” – is meant to promote the three products that hold down the bottom right hand corner of the ad. They are the “Body + Gloss” line of hair products and include the “glistening full blow dry cream,” the “radiance bounce whipped mousse,” and finally the “luminous lift hairspray.” That the bottles are also pink and adorned with stars and sparkles (what woman or girl doesn’t want that?!) is really just the icing on the cake.

On the right hand side of the page is the advertisement for the men’s products, done mostly in yellow. It features a young man with a tall mohawk, the sides of his head shaven, looking like he’s just gotten into some trouble, and indeed he has. The three photographs in the ad are in succession and show him doing a front flip off of a high, graffiti-covered stone wall, only to land on the ground of some east coast city smiling, not a hair out of place. He wears jeans and a grey t-shirt. What allows his hair to stay in place with all this hardcore fun he is having? It’s the “his” line of hair care products like “blasting freeze spray” and the “ultra glued invisible styling gel.” They have the power of, as you call it, “screaming hold.”

The problem with these two different advertisements goes beyond the color of the pages, the names of the products and the styling of the models. What you are selling to young men and women is the idea that men are active and independent and that women are passive and dependent on the approval of men. You are telling young people that men’s hair should be able to withstand a front flip and women’s should be able to impress and, more dangerously, still look good after what is inevitably going to happen once she gets inside that waiting car. You are playing, and not at all subtly, with deeply entrenched gender stereotypes that are not only damaging to the young women and girls that see them everyday but also to the men and boys. You are simultaneously telling women that they should wait for men but also men that they should expect to be waited for. You are telling women that their value comes from their level of sexual appeal but also men that they should only view women through that lens. On the other hand, you are telling men that they are should be more macho, more daring, more athletic and women that this is what they should be looking for in a prospective partner or, more in keeping with this ad, in a date to a party. You are telling impressionable young people that if they don’t fit within this narrow gender framework then they are unattractive and weird.

This might seem a strange bone to pick and, perhaps, if this advertisement was the only of its kind it would not be quite so alarming to me. The reality, however, is that this is only one example of the many ads and images put out by hundreds of companies annually that further reinforce our closed-minded and dangerous ideas of the correct roles of men and women. People don’t just look at these ads and move on, they internalize them and remember them and you know that, that is what you are counting on to sell your products. Don’t be another company that benefits off of the objectification of women and men.

Sincerely

Rebekah Frank

I then received the following lame ass response that made me even more annoyed.  Not only did this person spell the word “research” incorrectly, they also did not sign their note with an actual name which, had it not been for the obvious type-o, would have led me to believe the person responding to me was not a person at all but instead was a robot.  That being said, my well-argued message was clearly thrown in the email garbage.  Anyway, here is the response:

Dear Ms. Frank,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us.

Your comments are appreciated because they help us to understand how we can better serve our consumers.

We appreciate your feedback. We will forward it to our Marketing and Reaserch & Development Team.

Again, thank you for contacting us.

Sincerely,

Henkel Consumer Affairs

I will not be buying anything from this company (not that I really did before anyway) but I will also mean mug their products as I ever-so-slowly pass them by in the aisle at the pharmacy.  Feel my rage, Henkel.

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No Room of Glass

2 May

Sometimes you just have to run.  Or, well, sometimes I do. I discovered running when I was a freshman in college.  My college didn’t really suit me so well.  It ended up being fine but sometimes I do think that if I had it to do again I would have done it differently.  I would have taken my mother’s sage advice to take a year off between high school and undergrad and gone and worked on a farm.  I would have used the time to really think about what I wanted out of my college experience rather than just going along with something that was expected of me.  It’s not that I regret it, really, because had I chosen differently I wouldn’t be here now and I wouldn’t have done the things I’ve done, met the people I’ve met and learned the things I’ve learned.  Sure, I would have done different things, met different people and learned different things but I guess I am happy with the end result.  I am happy, generally, with who I am.  The process, though, could have been fine-tuned.  Even still I feel, overall, thankful and content.

But then there are those other days.

There are those other days when all I want is this thing that I have daydreamed about for as long as I can remember.  This might sound insane but I have always wanted a spare room with brick walls, no windows and lots of glass items.  I have wanted some safety goggles and maybe some sort of a suit that would protect me from flying shards.  And then I have wanted to take those glass items and hurl them as hard as I possibly could across the room and just watch them shatter everywhere.  I don’t want to hurt anyone.  I just want to break shit.  I just want to have 10 minutes every once in a while, when the build-up of impatience and let down and frustration and confusion becomes so intense that I just want to scream but instead I could lock myself in my brick-walled room and just fuck shit up.  And then I would take a deep breath, call in a cleaning crew (because in this daydream I would have them on speed dial and I would be able to afford their services) and I would go back to my normal life as if nothing happened.  No tears.  No pillow punching.  Just a lot of broken glass, a sore arm from the force behind the throw and a better outlook.

Unfortunately that is not in the cards for me at the moment and so instead I run.

I have been, over the past few weeks, nearing that breaking point where I need the glass.  I have been maybe not taking the best care of myself.  Eating too many omelets and scrambled eggs because I am too lazy too cook something legit.  Watching too many episodes of Gossip Girl.  Today I hit sort of an apex of frustration with stuff and thought that maybe what I needed was to just go out, have a bunch of drinks, pass out like a sad sack and worry about it all tomorrow.  But I did the thing that I do, which is that I thought about how that would make me feel in the morning so instead I went for a run.  I ran by the water and there was, at that moment, nothing that could have been better than feeling the sun on my skin after a long and cold winter, feeling the cool breeze coming off the water and smelling the wonderful smell of salt water.  I couldn’t help but smile as I ran by the men with their fishing rods set up to catch whatever it is that swims there.  I didn’t even have an ill-fantasy about one of them casting without looking properly and accidentally snaring my eyeball which was, I have to say, a first for me.  I had one of those moments where I honestly felt like I could run forever.  My legs felt, I don’t know, springy.  It was like they just knew that they had to shut down the exhaustion and the soreness and the heaviness that sometimes aflicts them when I hit the double digit miles and just go with it because there is no room of glass (yet) and there are not enough drinks in the world to calm me the way a run can when everything is just right.

In those moments when I think about the decisions I made in the past and maybe start slipping towards regret, I try to think about some of the positive things that happened as a result of those decisions that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.  There is always something.  Always.  On top of the friends I made, the abroad trip I never would have gone on otherwise, my decision to move to the city and into an apartment with my best friend in the world, and all the other things that I just don’t want to bore you with, I found running.  And honestly, had I not I wouldn’t be half the person I am today.  And I would be a hell of a lot drunker.

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A Spill in West Virginia Speaks to Inequality

27 Apr

So I read this article in an old issue of The New Yorker the other day (okay, not that old…it was from April 7th of this year but they just arrive so damn fast!) that really struck a chord.  The article was by Evan Osnos and was “Letter from West Virginia, Chemical Valley:  The coal industry, the politicians, and the spill.”  It was all about this chemical spill in West Virginia on Thursday, January 9, 2014 near the Elk River in the city of Charleston.  It was a chemical called MCHM — 4-methylcyclohexane methanol — something that the mining industry uses to wash rock and clay from coal before it is burned for energy.  Apparently, it smelled vaguely of licorice and contaminated the local water source such that people were forced to purchase bottled water or else face the possibility of rashes, headaches, and other unpleasant side effects.  Of course, the long term effects of such a chemical on the human body has never been tested, despite the fact that the drums that hold this material can be found near water sources used by nearby localities for drinking, cooking, and bathing.  Smart, right?

There were a few different quotes in the article that really stuck out to me.  The first was a quote by West Virginia Senate Majority Leader John Unger.  He said,

“Martin Luther King said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.  Why should anybody care about what goes on in West Virginia?  Because it’s the canary in the mine shaft.  If you ignore it in West Virginia, it’s coming, it’s going to continue to build, and the issue is:  Should our country have the debate about our rights to the very basic infrastructure that sustains us?  Or should we continue to ignore it?”

It seems like such a simple question, you know?  That we should be able to turn on our faucet and know that what comes out does not have the potential to cause us harm or death.  We should know that our water is free of harsh chemicals and carcinogens and whatever else could be in there.  In the aftermath of the spill, the former Governor (now Senator) Joe Manchin did not do right by the people of West Virginia.  He instead did right by who it seems everyone does right by these days:  business.  Rather than beef up the state Environmental Protection Agency and say enough is enough, we need to hold these companies accountable, he decided that taking the coal industry to task for lax safety processes was just too big a risk for employment in West Virginia, despite the fact that the coal industry employs merely 3% of the state’s workforce.  What Manchin cared about was not the health of the population or their employment opportunities, he cared about his own reelection.  Lobbyists are a bitch, you know?  And here’s the thing.  Not to get preachy but we, as a species and not just as a country, are so obsessed with our own self-preservation and with gaining more power, money and influence that we are completely incapable of seeing the forest through the trees.  Ignoring the canary in the mine shaft, as Unger described it, is as stupid now as it was 100 years ago.  And yet we do it, again and again.

So the question still remains, I suppose.  How dangerous is the MCHM leak?  Well, when asked by Osnos, Dr. Rahul Gupta of the local health department had this to say about the outstanding scientific questions surrounding the safety of the still licorice-flavored water:

“What is the metabolism and excretion of this compound in humans?  Does it accumulate?  Where does it accumulate?  What is the carcinogenic potential?  What is the teratogenic potential?  What does it do to home pipes?  How does it interact, if at all, with other compounds in water, such as chlorine?  Does it form harmful or harmless products?”

The state of West Virginia told the population that the water was “appropriate” to drink without having the scientific community answer all of the pertinent questions.  They decided it was safe and that if people wanted to buy bottled water, they could, but there was really no reason to.  But what about the people who can’t afford to drive for hours to buy pallets of water because it was all sold out in local stores?  What about bathing?  What about children, the elderly, pregnant women?  What about people who no longer feel safe living near Elk River but now, after this spill, are unable to sell their homes?

For Dr. Gupta, this spill seemed like a separation from the ideals that he thought America held, ideals involving equality, safety and expected standards of living.  He said,

“The 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act allows every resident of the United States to have access to safe drinking water.  So how do we say that, for three hundred thousand people in this part of West Virginia, it’s O.K. to have ‘appropriate’ water?  Do we understand the path we’re taking here, by defining two different classes of water, for two different classes of people?  Do we really want to go down that path?  In the history of this nation, it doesn’t end well when we go down this path.”

Sadly, I would say we have already gone a ways down that path.  The question I have is whether it is too late for us to turn back.

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The Full Monty

22 Apr

Sometimes I rack my mind thinking about what I could possibly write about.  I start a whole bunch of different posts and none of them really go in the direction I want. I spend hours on them, and then simply discard them uttering to myself the now familiar “that was stupid anyway.”  Then other times, I wake up in the morning simply FULL of ideas.  Well, not exactly full if you want to get specific.  Yea, let’s try that again.  Then other times, I wake up in the morning with an idea!  That’s better.  Anyway, this morning was one such morning and I wouldn’t quite say that I had an idea as much as an idea was sort of given to me.  Right when I woke up.  Thanks to my cat.

So my cat, Clark, has spent a fair amount of time over the past year attacking the shades next to my bed.  It’s as if he thinks that maybe all the slats are going to band together in the middle of the night and kill me with their blunt edges and their flimsy constitutions.  He has been so concerned about this that slowly, one by one, he has broken the slats in half, leaving them hanging off sadly until I get sick of how pathetic they are and throw them in the garbage.  RIP slats.  This slow and pain process has left my shades essentially useless.  The top is still robust, full of slats, but at the bottom, right next to where my head is while I sleep, there is a big gaping hole, an area devoid of any sort of protection.  I have toyed with the idea of purchasing some nice curtains – useful accent pieces, if you will – but have never found quite the right ones.  Also, I need a paycheck but that is a gripe for another day.  Suffice it to say that at this very moment, there is quite a bit of space on and around my bed where I have to be aware of my state of undress in case there is a Peeping Tom out there somewhere.  (Which, by the way, there is!  He talked to me once and it was terrible.)  Anyway, the Peeping Tom can see through my other window when I am irresponsible and don’t pull the shades down which, arguably, is my own fault.*  The lucky thing about this whole scenario is that the view by the broken shade is unobscured by other apartments, meaning that no one can really see through because I don’t have any neighbor-windows. The closest apartment window at the level of mine is a whole block away and unless someone sits there day in and day out with a telescope they would never be able to see me.

Oh my god what if someone actually DOES sit there day in and day out with a telescope.  I just totally creeped myself out.

Okay, moving along.  So this morning I woke up, looked out my window, and noticed that on the roof closest to my window there was a construction guy, just walking around.  I took note and was like

“Okay, Rebekah, whatever you do do not get dressed in front of that window.”

I think we all know where this is going.

I went down the hall, brushed my teeth, started the coffee machine (why would I drink coffee right after brushing my teeth?!) and then came into my room to get dressed directly in front of the exact window where I had, a mere 5 minutes earlier, told myself not to get dressed in front of.  Not only did I decide to get dressed there, but I also decided that my skin was dry so obviously I should stand, entirely naked, in front of the window putting on lotion.  Obviously.  About one leg in I realized the err of my ways, screamed, and ran to the other side of the room directly in front of the other window whose blinds I had left wide open because I was changing in an area out of the line of sight of any Peeping Tom’s who might use that window as their peep zone.  Also, by screaming, I potentially drew the attention of any additional construction workers who might have not already seen me in my birthday suit.

Sigh.

So anyway, I am fairly certain that this construction guy saw me naked and putting on lotion this morning which was not exactly the way I wanted to start my day.  But then I had this sort of descent into hilarity where I thought about how funny** it would be if the dude started like, yelling work out tips or brands of lotion that he thought might help me with my dry skin.  Like,

“Girl, you ever try that Jillian Michaels’ shit?” (and then he would demonstrate some of the moves)

or

“Girl, Jennifer Aniston swears by that Aveeno and her skin is positively radiant!”

Anyway, it was funny to me right when I woke up.  It was also funny to my sister Lucy who said, via text,

“Were you acting lude with food?  In the nude?!”

She told me she was quoting from a Flight of the Concords song but I like to think she was just quick on her feet.  Then she sent me a photo of herself looking “angrily disappointed” in a birthday hat when she was like 5 and that made me happy.

The end.

*I should say something here about victim blaming and stuff but I am too lazy so I just want to acknowledge that my starred statement was slightly problematic.

**Theoretically funny because in real life I would get mad about it and write a blog and a strongly worded letter to anyone who I thought responsible for the construction workers on the roof next door

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The Internet Does it Again

16 Apr

So I am having this funny thing happen right now which is that my blog has been getting lots of hits.  And it’s not because I have been writing lots of new and really great posts.  It’s because I wrote a letter to my Dad on his birthday and apparently there are a lot of non-creative people out there who are searching for a letter to a dad.  And it has left me wondering…has anyone given the letter I wrote to my dad to their own dad?  And like, what would their dad say about that?

Um…that’s really nice and all honey but I don’t remember any of these things happening.

I suppose that could work if this person’s dad has amnesia or is an alcoholic or drug addict and therefore doesn’t remember certain details of their kids’ upbringing.  But even still.  I mean, I called out my siblings in my post and I would be very, very surprised if there was someone who had a dad who was an addict or had amnesia who also had siblings (and a super awesome sibling-in-law who is more an actual sister than a sister by marriage) named Aaron, Lucy and Claire.  It’s possible, I suppose, but extremely unlikely.

I mean, I don’t know, I just can’t imagine going on The Internet and being like

Wow, it’s my dad’s birthday and I want to write him a letter. Maybe someone else has written a letter that I can use.

And then coming across my letter.  I then wonder whether upon reading my letter they are like

Wow, this girl is strange.

Or if they say

What an interesting letter!

And then they go ahead and read other posts on my blog and come across this one about poop or this one about the time I accidentally maced myself in the face and then they’re like

Wow, this girl is strange.  Also stupid.  And totally disgusting.

I don’t know.  The possibilities are endless, really.

In other news, did anyone else learn about the US Airways tweet containing a photo of a girl with a model airplane stuck in her vagina?   I just…The Internet.  It has so many things.  So many weird and inappropriate things that just pop up randomly in very unexpected places.  Sort of like there you are, lying in your bed, and BAM! Boeing 777 in your vagina!  And you have no idea how it got there!  That’s what The Internet is like.  It’s like, you start searching for something about population growth.  Then you end up on something about population control.  And then you wind up on some article about forced sterilization.  And then you find a horribly racist conversation between a bunch of skinheads saying terrible things and you just want to go hide in a cave because, as I have said before, they let anyone on The Internet these days.  And then you berate yourself for reading the comments because you should know to never, ever, ever read the comments.  Even on an article about how cute bunnies are the comments are not safe.  Somehow someone will take bunnies and go somewhere incredibly racist with it and you won’t even know what happened and then you will look down and BAM!  Boeing 777 in your vagina.  Well, not literally but you get the picture.  No pun intended.

I don’t know how I got from people reading a letter I wrote to a girl with a model airplane stuck in her cootchie.  See?  The Internet did it again.

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Can I Smell Your Feet?

13 Apr

As any of you avid readers already know, I have gotten a new job.  Well, I think I have.  I am sort of waiting for all the details to sort themselves out.  So in the meantime I have been running around like a crazy person trying to get things done.  You know, buying clothes with my friend Meredith (who totally saved my fucking life, by the way) and doing important things like having an impromptu shredding party with my friend Ben!  So, get this.  I am subletting my room while I am away to a friend, and former roommate, who is going to double as a catsitter!  I decided that the most important thing to do before his arrival was not to clean out space for his stuff in the closet but instead to shred all the paper that has been piling up around the room.  I had noticed when I was at Staples the other day that they have a shredding service and since the drawer in my shredder is jammed shut somehow I thought I would lug all the paper to Staples and have them do away with it.  But first, I had to go to Ben’s to help him out with something.  So I walked up the block with all my shreddable things, figuring I would ask him if he needed anything shredded and I could just take it with me to Staples.  So he opens the door to his building and you will not believe what happened.

Ben: So I have to show you my new toy.
Me: Oh?
Ben: Yea. Well, I already maybe jammed it but look at my new shredder!

I kid you not.  Ben was sitting in his house shredding!  And I needed to shred!  What are the odds?!  It was like, totally meant to be.  Anyway, after two hours we had over-heated the shredder and had to call it quits but we both felt totally accomplished and I felt like we were really meant to be friends, you know?  I mean, who else but a real friend would (a) be shredding when you needed to be shredding (b) invite you to shred with him and (c) play kickass tunes while shredding?!  No one, that’s who!

Anyway, none of this is the point.  The point is that while I am waiting for my job to come through I have been picking up a bar shift here and there to make some extra cash and keep myself busy.  So last night I picked up a shift and it was really fun!  The people were nice, it was chill, I did some chatting, I caught up with an old friend who I hadn’t sat down with and talked to for quite some time.  It was all really good.  Except for this one thing.  They have a creepy prank phone caller!  So there I was, behind the bar, minding my own business when the phone rang.  I answered.

Me: Good evening, (insert name of bar here).
Creeper: Mumbles something incomprehensible.Me: Come again?
Creeper: More incomprehensible mumbling.
Me: Dude, you really are going to need to enunciate a little better than that if you want me to help you with something.
Creeper: Still completely incapable of speaking comprehensibly.

I hung up the phone.  I then walked over to my coworker and told him that someone called and I couldn’t understand what the hell he was saying and my coworker said,

“Did he ask if he could smell your feet?”

I realized just in that moment that that was exactly what he had asked!  I was immediately disgusted and went on one of my “what is wrong with people?!” downward spirals.  In mid-spiral the phone rang again!

Me: Good evening, (insert name of bar here).
Creeper:  Can I smell you feet?
Me: Dude!

I hung up. Then my coworker informed me that this guy only calls when there is a female bartender working.  Like, what?!  So then I was even more grossed out cuz he is like, chilling outside maybe.  Or he lives across the street and spies with creepy little binoculars while wearing a satin robe.  I mean, if you are going to do all that at least ask everyone if you can smell their feet.  I mean, it is still a totally creepy thing to do but it is maybe less creepy when it is like an equal opportunity thing, am I right?  So I decided something had to be done.  I simply could not stand idly by and allow this weird phone creeper to keep calling, creeping people out and being a weirdo.  So I waited, patiently, for the phone to ring again and when it did I was ready!

Me:  Good evening, (insert name of bar here).
Creeper:  Can I smell your feet?
Me:  Sure.  But only if I can shit in your mouth.

And then he hung up!  I out creeped the creeper!  I don’t know if this is something that I should necessarily be proud of but, you know, I felt as though there was a job that needed doing and I was the one who could do it.  If anyone can out creep someone by using statements about fecal matter, it was this girl.  The funny thing about all this is that the people around the phone when I answered really didn’t know what was going on so all they heard was this:

Me:  Good evening, (insert name of bar here).
Silence as I awaited the response I knew was coming.
Me:  Sure.  But only if I can shit in your mouth.

And then I had a big smile on my face.  So there was a moment there where I wasn’t a woman in battle with a creeper, I was the creeper!  It was me.  Rebekah the creeper.  Obviously I cleared up the situation and we all laughed and laughed but there was a moment there where I really saw the fear in their eyes as if they were thinking

“if she would shit in the mouth of some random caller what else is she capable of?!”

I felt what it might be like to be a creeper and I didn’t like it.  I didn’t like it one bit.

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Got a Job. Time to Dress the Part.

11 Apr

As I mentioned in this post, I am going to be leaving for India sometime in the extremely near future.  Like, as early as Monday.  Right now it is Friday and do you know what I have to do?  All of the things.

So as it turns out, working in the food service profession for years and years leaves you with a lot of really awesome tank tops, brightly colored shorts and, of course, a pair of Chucks or two but leaves you with absolutely no “professional clothing.”  Do you know what I need, as it turns out?  Professional clothing.  But here’s the rub.  India at this time of year is very hot.  Does this mean that I can wear professional clothing that is weather appropriate?  Nope.  Still have to make sure to get pants.  And jackets.  I am going to sweat so much and all my clothes are going to smell terrible.  I am going to go into a business meeting and they are going to sit me on the far side of the room away from everyone because the smell of my jackets will be so ripe that people will not be able to concentrate.  Or at least, that’s how I imagine it happening.  Me and my power point presentation on one side of a long wooden table, all the other people on the other side with clothespins clipping their noses shut so no noxious gas (AKA my stench) can enter.  I bet by the end of the first week my suit will be able to stand up on its own.

Maybe I am exaggerating but prepare for the worst, you know?  Then when I only sort of smell and hopefully I can cover it up with some tasteful perfume it’ll be like a win for me.  And everyone around me, honestly.

So today my friend Meredith is taking me shopping for Adult Clothing.  Not the XXX-rated kind, if that’s what you’re thinking.  Just like, the sort of things you can wear to an office that has more conservative tendencies.  So, yea, basically as far from XXX-rated as one can possibly get.  I am hoping to buy approximately 4 outfits.  Or maybe, like a bunch of mix and match clothing so that I don’t always have to wear the same thing.  And then I am also going to bring this really awesome dress that I have that almost goes down to the floor and I will wear it with a tasteful jacket.  Tasteful, that’s the name of the game.  Tasteful, understated, and neat looking.  It’s a good thing I am going to have Meredith with me* because otherwise I will go shopping for neat and tastefully colored clothing in various greys, beiges, whites and blacks and up with like neon purple striped tank tops and some shorts.  My entire current wardrobe is in various shades of blindingly bright stripes with some blindingly bright solids thrown in for good measure.  I basically always clash.  It’s part of my thing.  I have cultivated a wardrobe that clashes and blinds people constantly and I love it.  LOVE it.  It won’t kill me to take a few weeks off of bright, right?  Right?!

Anyway, so I have to do that.  Also, I have to make some flashcards to learn some things.  I have become good at flashcards because last week (the week before?! It all bleeds together!) I made flashcards to learn the entire menu of a crab restaurant I was planning on bartending at.  I made 84 flashcards and learned them all, trained one day and didn’t end up taking the job.  Partially because I found out this guy drinks there and partially because it simply was not a good fit for me.  (Do you like how I have been linking to that one post in almost every single one of my recent posts?  Have you noticed?!  I’m pushing buttons!)  Anyway, I made a lot of flashcards and then I learned them all.  I plan on doing that again.  Tonight.  Which is Friday.  Tonight, Friday night, I will sit in my house with a pen and flashcards and write and write and write and then I will watch Nashville and then I will go to bed.  And then tomorrow I will get up, lad my super awesome and fun running group on a 6.7 mile run (their longest yet!), go home, shower, learn flashcards, go to a going away picnic for my friend Monica and her family because they are moving (insert sad face here), hang out with my friend Lee during the picnic and maybe for a bit after, and then I will go home and learn flashcards.  And read about drought. Uplifting!

Hopefully it will all go well and then I will be in India and I will know all the things and I will look smart and organized and not blindingly bright.  And I won’t stink.

Do they have laundry and dry-cleaning services in fancy hotels?  Does anyone know?  Also, does anyone have a small checkable rolly bag that they don’t mind lending out for a month to someone who is going to India? I promise I will return it.  I’ll even bring you back something nice.  Like some bangles!  If you’re a girl.  Or if you are a guy who likes to wear bangles!  Bangles are so great.  Everyone should wear them.

Okay.  That puts an end to the most boring post ever.  I promise there will be funny things here at some point soon once the Things that Actually Happen quotient starts rising and the Things I Have to do to Prepare for the Things that Actually Happen quotient declines.  Stay tuned.

*Meredith has a very good style sense and although she does wear bright clothing sometimes, she does not ALWAYS wear bright clothing and she will do a superb job of keeping me away from all of the orange stripes that I am sure will be on offer this time of year.

I have some NEWS

9 Apr

Hey so you guys.  You know how the other day I said that some crazy things were happening which had led me to looking at reviews for the InterContinental Hotel on Marine Drive in Mumbai?  Well, I feel as though now I can offer you all some (extremely limited) information.

I got offered a job.

And I took it.

So here is basically how it all went down.  I had gone over to my friend Emily’s house to talk to the super about some shit that has been going on in the building.  I also had to talk to some people the building brought in from outside the management company about the shit that has been going on.  Apparently, I scared the person in charge of the people brought in about the shit. How do I know this?  Because the guy in charge (who, I have to tell you, was a little scary himself) said to me:

Guy: On a scale of 1 to 10, how serious do you think you are? Because to me, you seem like a very serious girl.
Me:  Well, I mean, it really depends on the circumstance.  I can be pretty not serious a lot of the time but this is a serious matter so I would say I am about a 9 on the serious scale right at this moment.
Guy: Well, I have to tell you, and I don’t intimidate easy, but you are actually scaring me.

I felt really proud.  I was like on cloud nine.  I have always wanted to be a little bit scary.  It was like I had reached my goal in life and everything else was just gravy.  I celebrated by eating a spinach pie from my favorite store.  Then I took a big long walk over to visit my friend Kendra.  In the midst of this walk I received a call from a number I didn’t recognize so I ignored it because I get oh so many spam phone calls.  But the person left a message!  So I listened and it was this entrepreneur who my Uncle Scott had sent my CV to earlier in the week and he wanted to talk to me about the job.  So I called him back and he told me about it and it sounded really amazing.  And I was like, wow, this is really amazing.  It cannot possibly be true.  But you know what? IT WAS!

I get to go traveling!  And talk about ways to help the environment with these really amazing new products!  And I get to do all this while I am getting paid!  And all the while I am not serving drinks to people who throw things at me!  It is like, a dream come true!

So I don’t have all the pertinent information as of yet.  Like, you know, when I leave.  But the answer, as far as I can tell, is very soon.  I will still be based here so I am not moving, just taking a small leave of absence.  I will fill you all in as things start happening.  I am sure there will be some fun adventure stories.

I am telling you all this because the tenor of the blog might change a tad.  But I am pretty sure it will be even more awesome than it is now if you can imagine it.  So keep reading!  I can’t wait to fill you all in on the next exciting chapter!

Dear Naughty

5 Apr

So I have been having a very weird week.  Things are maybe on the cusp of happening and when they do, or don’t, I will inform you all about it.  But in the meantime, and sort of related to this whole thing, I have found myself on the website of the InterContinental Hotel on Marine Drive in Mumbai.  I decided to look at the guest reviews because, for whatever reason, I always find it really amusing to see reviews of really fancy places.  I like to see what people who can afford these places complain about.  I know this makes me sound a little bit like an ass because, I mean, just because you have money does not mean that you don’t have the right to complain.  Maybe you have more of a right because you pay so much for the places you stay or the things you do?  Of course, as a percentage of income maybe it really isn’t that much at all.  Maybe, relatively speaking, staying at the InterContinental Hotel on Marine Drive in Mumbai is equivalent, percentage of income-wise, to the time me and my then-boyfriend stayed at a Super 8 Motel off the highway in Dallas.  Let me tell you about that disaster.

Okay, so this was like, 2009 or 2010 or something like that.  We had flown down to Dallas for the wedding of an old friend of my boyfriend’s that was being held at the friend’s sister’s super awesome house.  We decided to stay at the Super 8 because I really liked saying “Supah 8!” and throwing my hands up in the air.  Seriously. That was the one and only reason we stayed there.  Anyway, so we get there late after our flight, after renting a car and after getting lost and the hotel had somehow lost our reservation.  We were tired.  We were maybe a little bit grouchy.  We were being helped by someone who, it seemed, had no idea what he was doing.  We also happened to have arrived on the weekend of some really super important college football game or something so all the rooms were booked up with bros toting cases of Miller Lite.  The only room that was available at the point was a smoking room.  Let me tell you this room reeked.  It was the smelliest room I think I have ever been in.  But whatever, we were tired and figured we could maybe move into a different, less stinky room the next day.  I got in my pajamas, I crawl into bed, pull the covers up to my face, breath in and holy hell.  The sheets smelled like fucking dead people.  Serisouly I am not kidding.  I shot up out of bed, covered my mouth and pointed at the sheet.  My boyfriend, not overly shocked by my behavior, smelled his portion of the sheet.  It didn’t smell.  I told him to smell my portion.  He smelled it.  Dead people.  I mean, to be honest, I don’t think either of us had ever really smelled a dead person up close and personal but if I had to tell you what a dead person smelled like, you know, if I had to imagine it, it would be that portion of that sheet in that Super 8 in Dallas.  No joke.

So the next morning we woke up, after switching to the other double bed in the room and not getting into the blankets obviously, and I saw a roach run across my pillow where I had literally just been sleeping.  Just then.  Like a second before.  With my head.  On what was in actuality maybe a roach highway!  It was horrible.  Obviously, we switched hotels.  I have never been the same.

Anyway, that was a complaint.  What sorts of complaints are on the review page for the InterContinental Hotel on Marine Drive in Mumbai?  This one:

Really not happy with the Room service.Had ask for curd and change of buttery in remote of Set top box.
No body has turned up for the same.Very Very disappointed with the room service.

I think I would be sad if I had to ask for curd with my food or a buttery remote.  (Don’t make fun of spelling errors, Rebekah, it is not nice.)  The thing about this that was SO amusing to me is that this person called himself “Naughty” on the complaint.  I think what he meant to do was imply that he found the room service to be “naughty,” which is kind of a weird and sort of dirty way to describe it.  I am assuming this is an English as a second language situation.  But what makes it funniEST is that the hotel then responded to the complaint and addressed their response to Naughty.  Like, as in, “Dear Naughty…”  I have a lot of respect for Dhan M, the Case Manager of the InterContinental Hotel on Marine Drive in Mumbai for taking Naughty so seriously and writing Naughty a letter.

I wonder what Naughty would have said if he(?) had been sleeping in death sheets on a roach highway.

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When Big Money Comes to Town

1 Apr

Just last night a bar on Atlantic Avenue that opened its doors 16 years ago announced it will be closing them at the end of this month.  I never worked there and, to be honest, I haven’t hung out there all that much in the last couple of years.  I always kind of thought it was one of those places I “lost in the divorce,” as they say.  Whoever “they” are.  I guess we all should have seen this coming when the Barney’s Coop opened up a few years ago.  Followed by a Sephora, a Lululemon, a Splendid, Gap and Banana Republic Outlets, talk of a J. Crew and who knows what else.  There isn’t so much room for character when big money and condos come to town.

It’s a weird coincidence because I was literally just thinking about this yesterday.  (My life, by the way, has involved a lot of coincidences recently.  Maybe I’ll tell you about them someday.)  So I have a few friends, two in particular, who oftentimes lament the loss of the old Brooklyn, the Brooklyn they grew up in.  One of them posts in this blog here which is really awesome and you should check it out.  No, seriously, check it out.  Anyway, I didn’t grow up in Brooklyn, or New York City for that matter.  I grew up in the suburbs in New Jersey, a place that has a lot of trees and doesn’t really change all that much.  You don’t hear too much about people losing leases on storefronts.  Generally, stores close because whoever owned them either gets sick of doing it or gets old and dies.  Then the store closes and a nail salon goes in its place.  There are A LOT of nail salons in my hometown.  You also don’t have the same brand of blind development as in the city.  Here, luxury condo after luxury condo just sort of go up over night, oftentimes cheaply built, overpriced, and under filled.  Eventually people move into the doorman, gym included building.  Usually they are transplants from Manhattan, previously transplants from somewhere else, looking for something more affordable.  Their “more affordable” prices-out the people who had lived in the neighborhood previously, many of whom priced-out the people who grew up there.  In my hometown, a lot of people knock down houses to build bigger houses with more rooms than they can possibly use.  I really don’t understand the appeal of getting lost in your own home but that’s just me.  My mom calls them McMansions.  They are pretty much just the architectural version of a big dick contest.  I digress.

So I grew up close to New York City but not in it and even though I went to the city quite a number of times my memory of it is pretty limited.  Here is what I remember:

1.  Going to Take Your Daughter to Work Day with my Dad and spending most of my time at the Museum of TV and Radio watching old episodes of PeeWee’s Playhouse.
2.  My Dad’s one office that had those really cool pipes that ran throughout the floor so you could deliver messages to other people.  You would put the message in a little tube thing and then put it in the pipe and it would get sucked away and end up where it was supposed to go.  I loved those pipes.
3.  I’m pretty sure we went to the Thanksgiving Day Parade once?  Or did I make that up?
4.  That one time me and my friend Gina cut school and went into the city for the day.  We felt SO cool.
5.  My Uncle Mike works at The Met and I got to go see The Temple of Dendur when it was still closed to the public.

We never went to Brooklyn.  Honestly, I don’t think I even knew what Brooklyn was when I was a little kid except for as it was represented by Spot Collins in Newsies.  Spot Collins and the boys from Brooklyn really saved the day in Newsies so I always figured that where ever it was it was pretty damn hardcore.

Over the last almost 10 years that I have lived here, I have seen my neighborhood change quite significantly.  And that is nothing, I am sure, compared to the changes that came before.  I have wondered sometimes what it was like in the 1990s, before trendy bars and restaurants opened and before the hipster invasion of 2011.  I was wondering exactly that thing as I walked home from a hardware store across a busy avenue in the less developed, slightly rougher, area.  I walked past a scrap metal collection place and stopped at the light, right next to some guy who I guess had just disposed of his metal and was waiting for his buddy.  Then, this:

Guy: Damn, you lookin’ sexy mama.
Me:  (Eye roll, unimpressed head shake.)
Guy:  What?  Bad day?
Me: It was fine until you said that.
Guy: Well, how are you supposed to know if I don’t tell you?
Me: I already know.
Guy: How about I take you for a drink? Some coffee? There’s a bagel store over there.
He gestured at a storefront that has been having constant grand openings for the past 8 years at least.  I am 100% certain it is a front for something nefarious.  The light changed and I walked away.

So here’s the thing.  I never felt intimidated or scared talking to that guy.  A few years ago, I would have been petrified because it might not have been one guy, it might have been 3 and he might not have found me quite as amusing.  There certainly would have been less people walking around.  More than anything I was annoyed that this guy called me sexy while I was holding a bottle of Draino* to, once again, unclog the shower.  I mean, without the Draino I would have also felt annoyed but for some reason I felt like sharing that with you.  I just found it amusing because, like, I was hungover, I think I still had a little makeup on my eyes from the night before, my hair was filthy and I was carrying Draino and some drier sheets and yet still with this guy.  But the point of all of this.  The point is that this gentrification is a real mixed bag.  I miss the days when big chain stores didn’t come to Brooklyn, when everything was family-run, when spending money locally was really the only option rather than some trend that only wealthy people can afford.  I miss my neighborhood being less trendy.  I miss hearing more Spanish than English on the streets.  I miss having sunlight on my street, the sunlight that was blocked by the fucking ugly 13 story building they built on my corner.  What I don’t miss?  Walking home from the train alone at night.  My neighbor getting jumped on the front steps.  Another friend getting beaten up by a group of marauding women.  Feeling afraid.

Here’s the thing.  I know that when Big Money Brooklyn takes over my neighborhood I am not going to be pleased.  I know I will get priced-out.  And it will be one more step in the direction of making all of New York less affordable for the people who always lived here.  I feel like I can’t really be mad about being priced-out because I, unknowingly at 21, did it to others.  At this point I am aware of my own privilege and the impacts it has.  It will suck, though.  So I don’t know.  I mean, I’ll take the improved safety but I wish you would keep your condos, your Barney’s, your expensive cars, your $15 bottles of pickles.  My hometown, and towns like it, could use a little business diversity.

*I was feeling very guilty about this because my landlord, who I ADORE, told me not to use Draino because it messes up the pipes.  But every time he comes to unclog the drain he tells me to use a drain cover because I have so much hair.  But I do!  And it clogs anyway!

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