Riding the Subway, Living the Dream

8 Oct

Today I was sitting around thinking about my love/hate with the New York City public transportation system.  As any good New Yorker does, I have lots of complaints about the system’s shortcomings.  It runs slow basically all the time but especially when you’re in a rush.  Because of snow.  Because of rain.  Because it’s too hot.  Because someone didn’t drink enough water and passed out.  Because of train traffic ahead of us.  Because of a police investigation at 34th street.  Despite all the frustration some of my funniest, or at least most memorable, New York moments have happened on the subway. Let’s climb into the way-back machine and walk through my most favorite ever subway experience.

Thanksgiving weekend 2007. I was on the subway on my way to work the night shift at my bar.  It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving and I was weighed down with bags from spending a good 4-5 days at home in New Jersey.  I smelled something funny and looked over and saw a guy huddled in his seat eating what appeared to be heated up Thanksgiving leftovers.  Okay.  Not my most ideal venue for eating but whatever, that’s cool.  I went back to staring blankly through the window into the darkness of the subway tunnel.  All of a sudden I felt something small hit me.  Then again.  And again.  I looked down at the floor and saw, rolling around, a few green peas.  I turned around and saw that the man with the leftovers was sitting there, staring at me, holding a plastic spoon in his hand and methodically launching his overcooked peas at me across the near-empty train car.  I was stunned.  I looked around, trying to see if anyone else had (a) been the victim of assault by pea or (2) had seen what was happening and could give me some clue as to the best way to respond because this guy was clearly a little looney.  No one seemed to have noticed.  I got hit in the forehead with another pea.  I said, loudly, and to no one in particular

Hello?  Anyone?  Does anyone see what is happening here?

An older lady who I had previously thought was sleeping lifted her head ever so slowly, looked at me, looked at the man, looked back at me and said, calmly,

He’s flicking peas.

I threw my hands up in the air, sending a pea that had gone unnoticed on my shoulder tumbling to the floor.

Yes! Exactly!  He is flicking peas!

And then, at a loss of what to do I looked back at the window, catching the man’s reflection in the darkness and watching to see when he might launch his next attack. My stop couldn’t come soon enough.  I grabbed my bags, looked over my shoulder in utter disbelief, and hustled off to my job.  I arrived at work a few moments later, anxiously awaiting the opportunity to share my experience.  I greeted my co-worker, wished her a happen belated Thanksgiving.  She smiled for a second and then screwed up her mouth and said,

Um…what is in your hair?

Clearly, it was a pea, nestled safely into one of my braids.

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The day my cat convinced me to never have children

2 Oct

First off I would like to apologize to all my millions and millions of fans out there for the time between my last post and this one.  I was busy not fasting for Yom Kippur and hearing about my grandmother’s week long stay at a dude ranch in the Catskills, which she found out about in an AARP catalogue which is, and I quote, “an organization for old people.”  Her words, not mine.  For those of you who are wondering, she did not ride a horse but she did take a photo standing near one.  She also played a lot of bingo.  She will not be going back next year.

And now on to the subject at hand:  cats.  I have two of them, Clark and Grete.  Grete is named for the great Norwegian marathon runner Grete Waitz who passed away last April, a few weeks before I brought home the kitties.  Clark is Clark because, hey, why not?  So there are a lot of things that are awesome about my cats.  (The following is not an exhaustive list.)

1. Snuggly.
2. Warm.
3.  One time when I was crying Grete sat on me and purred and it made me happy.
4.  Clark jumps really high.
5.  When they find a fly and then everything is crazy!
6.  I think they eat bugs.  I don’t like bugs in the house so this is great.

There are also some things which are not awesome.

1.  Scooping the box out is pretty gross.
2.  Also, changing the litter.
3. Basically everything having to do with the box.
4.  Then there was that time they ate something they found and proceeded to vomit everywhere.
5.  Also the time we fed them later than usual and we walked into the room to find a puddle of cat pee in the middle of our path.
6.  Clark loves breaking glasses.  I mean loves it.

Today, however, was basically the epitome of  the downs of cat ownership.  Just for a little information, I have noticed over the last few days that one of the cats has, shall we say, loose movements.  I got worried.  So I went to the vet down the block (so convenient!) and asked at what point I should get worried enough to do something about it.  The girl behind the counter told me if it kept happening I should bring a stool sample down.  Ew.  I really hoped it would stop.  And then today as I was getting ready to head into the city I heard it.  It sounded like this:

Scratch, scratch, scratch.  Gurgle…gurgle..gurgle.  Scratch.

And then the smell.  How can something that big come out of an animal so cute, small, and furry?  And then the favorite animal maneuver:  walk funny and then proceed to rub butt against floor which, subsequently, has to be mopped because gross.  I took a deep breath with my head out the window and investigated the box to find exactly what I knew I would find there after the noises I had just heard.  I called the vet.

Me: Hey, so, I came in yesterday because one of my cats has been having…cough cough…diarrhea for the past few days.  I am pretty sure I know which one it is.

Vet Tech:  This has been going on for a few days?  Okay, just bring down a stool sample and we’ll run some tests.

Me:  Oh, okay.  So, how should I get it down there?

Vet Tech:  Just wrap it in some tin foil and bring it on down.

Ugh.  Ew.  Ew ew ew.*  I did a dance of disgust, made some choking sounds, glared at the offending cat, sent some texts requesting support, and then I did it.  I took a LARGE piece of tin foil (sorry, environment), wrapped runny cat shit in it and brought it down to the vet.  So, that happened.  And now, after dealing with the less-than-solid stool of another creature, I have decided I will never have children.

*I know one of my readers specifically is all “whatever, that’s nothing!  I deal with animal poo all the time!  Diarrhea, shmiarrhea.”  And to you I say this:  You = rock star; I = pussy (no pun intended).

Cosmetics and Ice Cream and Morals, Oh, My!

24 Sep

In doing research for my thesis — which I have been working on forever it seems like oh my god when is it going to end! — I came across this quote:

Americans spend more on cosmetics than it would cost to provide basic education to the two billion people in the world who lack schools, and Europeans spend more on ice cream than it would cost to provide water and sanitation to those in need… – Richard Peet with Elaine Hardwick, Theories of Development

Now I like ice cream as much as the next person (my stomach, sadly, is not a fan), and cosmetics less than your average woman but perhaps more than your average man, but, wait, what?  Really?!?  That’s crazy.  Okay, so usually I don’t like to put up quotations that are intended largely for shock value.  I always have this nagging feeling that there is something misleading in the comparison.  That somehow numbers on one end were inflated, and on the other deflated, in order to make a point.  I get nervous that a little Micheal Moore-ification (of the post-Roger and Me version) has occurred.  Also, it’s not like someone is gonna be like “oh, hey, rather than buy this $25 mascara I am going to donate it to the creation of primary schools in Liberia” or “Cherry Garcia ice cream?  Hell no!  More toilets in India!”  But then I shook my head and thought, whatever, stop being such an over-analytical, judgey cynic.   Just go with it.  So here is what I have been thinking about.

We are going through a campaign period here in the good old US of A and we all know what that means:  lots of money is being spent!  Especially now that Citizens United happened and now corporations* and unions can make all sorts of ENORMOUS donations.  Also, SuperPACs!  Scary!  And so here we are, listening to two presidential nominees talking about this big debt we are in and how it’s Obama’s fault!  No, Bush’s fault!  No, social spending!  No, the defense budget! No, because Romney didn’t pay enough taxes!  No, the old people!  No, immoral women wanting to abort their babies!  No, the immigrants!  No, that dead panda cub!  (I’m really sad about that, actually.)  And then I read about the amount of money Obama and Romney, and their supporters and detractors, are spending on their campaigns and I’m like woah.  I know that however much they spend would only be a drop in the bucket, but still.  One of these guys is going to lose and what will he have to show for the hundreds of millions of dollars he spent to try and get elected?  This?  This?  A scrapbook?  Sadly, no.  One of them will be happy and the other will have a giant sadface surgically implanted where his old face used to reside.

But then I’ve also been thinking about this other thing which is the way that we all live our lives, myself included.  We live in a world where there is this overwhelming pressure to do well financially, to make money, to be “successful.”  As much as I personally try and fight against assessing my life in those terms, I still religiously squirrel money away in lieu of going to that BBQ, that birthday party, that camping trip.  There is something alluring about that sort of quantitative success.  I can track my progress.  But the question is, am I actually better off** than I was 7 years ago when I started saving?  I mean, sure.  I’m happier, I’m more educated, I have more concrete goals and interests, I’m a faster runner.  None of these things, however, are connected at all with the fact that I have more money in my savings account.  I mean, it’s great that I have the option to buy $25 mascara (or a new pair of running shoes) without doing too much “creative accounting,” in the words of a good friend of mine, but probably I would be better off with less defined lashes and a more defined sense of moral responsibility.

Or, I could just drive down the BQE and look at this billboard because, funny:

photo
*Corporations do not have blood and therefore are not people and therefore should not be afforded first ammendment rights.  QED.
** I am reading too much Amartya Sen.  Help.

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Donald, Revisited.

20 Sep

As anyone who read my previous post knows, I think Donald Trump is a complete idiot and an embarrassment and someone who should just do us all a favor and shut up.  But apparently, Donald Trump just keeps talking.  So, as a follow-up to a tip from my friend Michael, I bring to you complete gender-bias, a la Donald Trump.

After his tweet regarding Kate Middleton sunbathing topless:

Kate Middleton is great — but she shouldn’t be sunbathing in the nude — only herself to blame

he added these wonderful words of wisdom on, of course, Fox and Friends:

Who wouldn’t take Kate’s picture and make lots of money if she does the nude sunbathing thing. Come on Kate!  While we’re all fans of Kate, can you imagine why she would ever be out in the nude? Why would she be standing in the nude in a swimming pool or wherever she was. She’s Kate. It’s terrible what they did, it’s terrible to take pictures, but boy, how can you do a thing so stupid?

I just have to add here that me.  Me and all the people I know.  (I’m pretty sure.)  I wouldn’t take Kate’s picture and make lots of money even though it would really help me in paying off my annoyingly stressful student loans.  I would, personally, rather have debt and be able to look at myself in the mirror and feel good about how I didn’t violate someone else’s privacy and then make money off it.  Donald, obviously, even though he has a lot of money (I think?  Or is he bankrupt again?  Who can keep track?!) would take her picture and make lots of money, even though he is a “fan” of Kate, whatever that means in his fucked-up misogynistic Trump mind.  (Which makes me wonder.  Is he a fan of Kate all the time?  Or only when she gets caught sunbathing in the nude?)  But it gets worse!  He then said the following thing in regards to all the hooplah surrounding the sale of photos of Prince Harry’s penis to the tabloids (which, for the record, I also think is really morally wrong.  See?  I care about the menz, too!):

The Harry thing you can almost say he was less… his security did a pretty bad job. But to be outside at a swimming pool without a top on and you’re Kate… you know. Maybe they can stop it but it is a very, very foolish thing she did.

Harry’s penis?  Security should have stopped that!  Kate’s boobs?  Her fault!
I just…ugh.  I am going to sit in the corner and watch this until all the frustration goes away.
Copyright BBC and Urban Myth/Toto. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED.
Also, I learned how to insert video into my blog.  Let the fun begin.

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Donald Trump is a Dope

18 Sep

There are very few people, famous or otherwise, that get my blood boiling quite like Donald Trump.  To me he is the epitome of everything that is wrong with the United States and at least some percentage of what is wrong with the world.  He is excessive.  He is greedy.  He is a total misogynist.  And good god that hair.  Seriously.  What is with that hair?!  I am so annoyed by Donald Trump, in fact, that I don’t even like to say things like “you trumped me” because there was a time in my life when I was fairly convinced that the word “trump” was actually Donald’s last name repurposed.  (That time was up until about 6 months ago when my mom assured me that the word “trump” actually predated Donald Trump.  I am still not fully convinced but I will give my mom the benefit of the doubt because she is really smart.)  I mean, let’s be frank, what could be more ego-boosting than having a word created using your very own last name?  (Get it?  Frank?!?)  So what has brought about this sudden Trump-inspired outburst?  No, there wasn’t an Apprentice marathon on TV.  No, I didn’t go to midtown to have my eyes assaulted with the myriad Trump-named properties.  No, I didn’t attend a beauty pageant.  I simply went online and noticed the following tweet, compliments of Donald Trump himself:

Kate Middleton is great — but she shouldn’t be sunbathing in the nude — only herself to blame

Ugh.  Nothing like a little victim-blaming to get the heart rate up!  Way to be, Donald!

I actually had a conversation this past weekend with one of my customers in which he, also of misogynistic tendencies, said roughly the same thing as Donald but, being aware of his audience (read: me) attempted to tone it down a little.  He failed.  Basically he said that she is famous now and should know better than to go sunbathing topless to which I responded with strongly worded opinions.  And then I thought to myself, why should I waste my brain-space worrying about images of the breasts of famous people?  Well, here’s a little bit about why.

This issue is symptomatic of something way bigger which is that famous people and, let’s be honest, all women, are generally thought of as public goods — anyone can look, touch, snap pictures.  Famous people and women have no grounds upon which to object because we should know better.  Well, I am calling bullshit.  Just as I should be able to walk up a flight of stairs without a nagging fear in the back of my mind that some creatch is going to snap an image of my underwear, Kate Middleton should be able to sunbathe topless in an environment in which she has a reasonable assumption of privacy.  She wasn’t walking down Broadway in the middle of the day.  She wasn’t standing outside of the Palace in London.  She wasn’t on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.  She was in a private, isolated French chateau (is that what they’re called?) that she and her princely husband rented for the purpose of enjoying some peace, some quiet, and some not photographs.  So some asshat with a long-lens camera comes and takes some photos and suddenly it’s her fault?  At what point are we going to take the weight of responsibility and place it squarely in the hands of the person who made the immoral decision to violate someone else’s privacy rather than on the shoulders of the one with no actual control over said decision?

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about how I had been in my bed and some guy yelled at me through my window.  One of the first things I felt was the weight of responsibility.  It was my own fault that some guy noticed my open shades and, rather than avert his eyes, decided to look through my window and yell at me.  Upon further inspection, I realized how ridiculous my logic was.  Sure, it would have been better if I had remembered to close my blinds, but it is not my fault that this man watched me sitting on my bed.  I didn’t invite him to look.  I didn’t hold a gun to his head.  The only person at fault, clearly, was him.  There is no way in which my logical brain will allow me to see the situation any differently. That knowledge, however, doesn’t make me feel any less violated.  But the scope of my violation was so much smaller than Kate Middleton’s.  If I felt as strongly as I did about this one person I can’t even imagine what it must be like to know that millions of people are looking at images of your naked body that you did not approve, did not ask for, did not want taken.

Now normally, I think that talking about famous people is a colossal waste of time.  I think that people who make a living off of analyzing the lives of people they will never meet are lame.  This, I think, is different.  First of all, I am not making any money off my opinions at all (although I would like to say at this point that if someone would like to pay me for being me, that’d be awesome and I accept with a resounding YES!).  Second of all, this incident is something that I think a lot of women can relate to, even if it might not seem like it at first.  We’ve all been there.  We’ve all felt violated.  We’ve all read stories about women being masturbated to on trains, had photos taken of them, been touched inappropriately.  This, in my mind, is not much different than that.  Just because she is famous doesn’t mean she should be expected to give up her privacy, her rights, her anger.

Also, Donald Trump is scum and I wish he would go take a long walk in the ocean.

(I would  also like to add that I am annoyed that I spent any of my free time at all on Donald Trump.  He is a turd.  And!  Someone found my blog by searching “Rebekah Frank bartender” and it wasn’t me!  Rock!)

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Dear Senator Kyl, Please Stop.

13 Sep

So this is something I (surprise!) find annoying.  Annoying being an understatement, as it usually is, but I am trying this new thing that I call toning down my language.  I think that maybe if I explain things and think about things in a less anger-inducing way then maybe I will go through life being less, well, angry about things I have no control over.  Like the words that spew out of the mouth of Senator Jon Kyl.  (By the way, if ever life is getting you down, and the idiocy of our politicians seems too much to handle, please visit this sketch by the wonderful, the hilarious, Stephen Colbert and everything will regain a sense of normalcy, if only for a short time.) Most recently, the esteemed Senator from Arizona (poor, poor Arizona) decided to respond to a statement released by the American Embassy in Cairo which, in itself, was a response to understandably negative reactions throughout the Muslim world to an American-made movie that denigrates the Prophet Mohammed.  (Word to the wise:  comparing a very important religious figure to a pedophile is generally neither advisable nor received well.)  The original statement, released hours before an attack in Libya that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and 3 other Americans in Benghazi, read as follows:

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.” (My emboldifying.)

Senator Jon Kyl, along with a lot of other politicians who seem to enjoy ignoring timelines — as in this thing happened, and then this other thing happened afterwards meaning that the first thing that happened could not be construed as an apology for the next thing unless people in the American Embassy in Egypt are actually time travelers in which case, can you guys be my friends? — have issued all kinds of misguided statements.  Mitt Romney said some stupid things.  Jon Kyl, however, probably issued my favorite statement of all (read:  If I ran into him somewhere I would totally push him down a set of stairs and not feel bad about it at all).  Just to be clear, this is a statement made by Jon Kyl criticizing the US Embassy in Egypt for their statement condemning the release of a hateful movie.  Here is the statement:

It’s like the judge telling the woman who got raped, ‘You asked for it because of the way you dressed.’ OK? That’s the same thing. ‘Well America, you should be the ones to apologize, you should have known this would happen, you should have done — what I don’t know — but it’s your fault that it happened.’ You know, for a member of our State Department to put out a statement like that, it had to be cleared by somebody. They don’t just do that in the spur of the moment.

Um, no, Jon Kyl.  Releasing a statement condemning a hate-filled movie is in no way like blaming a woman for her own rape.  You know what’s like blaming a woman for her own rape?  Actually doing that.  Actually blaming a woman for where she was, what she was doing, what she was wearing, how much she was drinking, who she was talking to.  And you know what else Jon Kyle?  That happens a lot.  I think that generally when we make comparisons they should either be (a) accurate or (b) so inaccurate so as to make them funny.  This is neither of those things.  And, seeing as how women are blamed for their own assaults all the time by men and women alike, and that this is very well documented, maybe before you make a ridiculous and inaccurate criticism of a statement that was not vetted through the White House, you should get your statement vetted by your handlers.  Maybe then I wouldn’t think you suck so hard.  I mean, I probably would anyway, but whatever.

Also, while I am on the topic, I would like to propose the following thing.  How about, from now until the end of time, none of us ever compare anything to rape unless it actually was rape in which case you wouldn’t have to compare it at all?  Like, when you say “ugh, I ordered this thing from this place and it was totally overpriced and I feel like I got raped.”  No, you don’t.  You don’t feel like you got raped at all.  Because you know what?  You didn’t get raped.  And probably, if you are comparing price gouging to rape then you have never actually been raped because you wouldn’t trivialize that experience.  So, yea, let’s see if we can make that happen.

Thanks for reading.

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Pedestrians have Rights, Right?

11 Sep

I was a curious kid.  One day when I was little and in the car with my mom, I wondered aloud how all the port-o-potties got moved from place to place.  I knew they were temporary, but they always seemed to appear as if by magic.  More than likely, I figured to myself, they were moved around by cover of night because, really, who would want to be caught moving toilets around.  Embarrassing!  No more than 10 minutes went by when, in the right lane of a 2-lane local street, a pick-up truck lugging 3 port-o-potties in its bed went lumbering by.  Mystery solved.  It’s strange how things like that happen.  You puzzle something and <BAM> the world responds!  Likely it’s just that once a thought enters your head it awakens some passive awareness and you’re more likely to notice anything with relevance to that thought.  But then again, I am pretty sure whether or not I wondered about the method of transportation of port-o-potties I would have noticed 3 of them traveling by car down the street because, to me as a 9-year-old kid and also to me now, that’s hilariously funny.

This sort of precipitous presentation of information happens all the time.  For a recent example, fast-forward to yesterday.  I headed out for a run on the first real fall-esque day of 2012, feeling sad about the end of summer and the inevitability of fall turning to winter, and also enjoying the fact that I could, painlessly, go out for a run at 3:30 in the afternoon and return home only slightly wet with sweat, with a little water still left in my handheld bottle.  I also spent the majority of the run from my house to the park thinking about an incident that had occurred at work the day before when an especially problematic (read:  anti-semitic, racist piece of shit) customer called me a cunt about 15 times.  I was thinking about how I could write a blog post not about the experience but about the word itself.  What would be my angle?  Would I compare it to other words that drip with hatred and anger and violence?  Would I contemplate the use of gendered insults to convey ideas of power?  I was running through questions and ideas in my mind as I crossed 7th avenue near 16th street.  Seeing I had the light, I cut the corner a little in order to make it into the crosswalk.  There were no cars coming.  No bikes.  And then, a car came speeding down 16th street to make a left onto 7th, almost cutting me off, almost hitting me.  I was far enough into the intersection that the driver was forced to stop but I looked at him and lifted my arms, angrily cocking my head to the side as if to say, helloooooo?  He rolled down his window and screamed out the window

Get in the crosswalk, you prissy bitch!

And he drove off.  First of all, I was in the crosswalk. Second of all, I had the light.  And third of all, why’d he have to go there?  Clearly he was an angry dude and, in order to cool myself off, I tried to focus on the mantra that I always focus on in times like these:  at least I’m not that guy.  I think about how awful it must be to go through life that angry, temper flaring at the drop of a hat, feeling so put upon and at the same time so entitled.  It must be hard.  At least, I thought to myself, I don’t automatically assume the worst of people and yell at them at even the slightest imposition on the forward-moving trajectory of my day.  At least I won’t give myself a heart attack within 10 years.  And then I thought about the reality of the situation:  him in car, angry, me on foot, also angry.  Him controlling 4 tons of steel, me controlling very light running shoes and a 12 oz water bottle, good for throwing.  I think he probably wins.  But then I thought to myself, there are witnesses.  I am in the right.*  If something were to have happened, if he were to have hit me, he would be in the wrong, not me, because I had the light.    The law would be on my side.  Right?  Maybe not.  Today the answer came in the form of this article in the New York Times.

Apparently the New York City Police Department has an Accident Investigation Squad slated with investigating all manner of traffic accidents, both fatal and nonfatal.  That’s great.  The problem is there are only 20 people in the Squad.  Slightly less great.  And those 20 people, last year, were meant to investigate all 3,000 nonfatal accidents that occurred in the city last year.  Significantly less great.  In reality they really only investigate when a victim is considered likely to die.  So I guess if I got hit but it wasn’t life-threatening the angry man would get away scot-free? Hrm.  Also, “I didn’t see her” is a credible excuse in New York state. (I am left to wonder whether “I didn’t see the prissy bitch” would also fall under this theme.) According to Streetsblog.org, in many cases when drivers hit a pedestrian or cyclist and flee the scene, no charges are ever brought against them.  Not even a charge of leaving the scene of the crime.  I mean, I have never hit a person before but I have hit a squirrel and I noticed.  There was a bump.  I am unclear as to how you can hit a person and not realize you have hit something.  If I felt a person-sized bump under my tires I would immediately stop driving, pull over, try to keep myself from pissing my pants, and walk over to see what it was, hoping against hope that it was a garbage bag or a rolled up carpet, discarded on the side of the road.  In the case of Roxana Buta, a young woman whose death is highlighted in the aforementioned NY Times article, the driver of the DOT dump truck that killed her (and left the scene, it was all caught on video) was identified and, as of yet, no charges have been brought against him.  If past cases are any indication, charges will never be brought.  Now this is not to say that the knowledge of having killed someone isn’t punishment enough.  It isn’t to say that this man doesn’t feel remorse.  It clearly wasn’t intentional.  He couldn’t have known she would be there.  Maybe he really didn’t see her.  What I am trying to say is that, in my initial breakdown of my experience, I was wrong, the law is not on my side.  Apparently, as so often is the case, the onus to protect oneself lies in the hands of the party least able to do so.  Up against a car I am no match.  Up against a car driven by a man with an anger-management problem and a clear ax to grind, I am even less of one.  If he had hit me, I would have gone down in his memory as the prissy bitch who got in the way of the progress of his day.  And by the way, I am by no stretch of the imagination prissy.

*And yes, if you are wondering, I was still running at this point in the thought-process and was probably about 1/2 mile into the park loop.  I was also, completely absurdly, imagining what would happen if he was really angry and chased me down in the park and punched me really hard in the face, breaking my cheek bone and maybe even my jaw.  Then I would have a black eye and I would have to get a wire in my face and it would be terrible.  How would I work?  How would I finish my thesis?  And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how the mind of Rebekah works.

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Here’s to Strong Women. Here’s to Sandra.

6 Sep

Sometimes, while I make my rounds of news sites, both mainstream and not, I feel hopeless.  I read about statements made by members of our government, legislation passed, Planned Parenthood centers closed, mainstream “cancer research foundations” whose actions tell me that maybe they don’t care as much about women and women’s health as they claim.  I learn about the victimization and revictimization of young girls, the blame placed unduly on the mother rather than on the perpetrators of the crime and the society that spews its truth of “boys will be boys.”  I get sick thinking about how money and power go hand-in-hand and how so often they land in the hands of white men, born to privilege into a world where they live by rules different than the rest of us.  I shake with anger when I think of the women who are dehumanized and tossed aside at the hands of these men and then how they, and not the victimizers, are forced to defend themselves, are accused of lying.  Because how dare we place those who have achieved the ultimate dream — success, wealth, power — anywhere other than on a pedestal.  But then sometimes, I remember that it’s not just me that feels this way.  There are a lot of us.  And at the Democratic National Convention we were handed the microphone and able to speak.   Our voices were heard through Sandra Fluke.

So, here is her speech from the DNC.  I was going to write a little about the speech given by Cecile Richards, who’s President of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, but I was just so taken by Fluke’s entire speech that I couldn’t choose pieces.  Everytime I listen to it I have the same reaction:  a little bit emotional, a little bit goose-bumpy, incredibly proud.  She said what I have read in different articles by different strong women online, what I have heard representatives say on the floor when forced to face-off against the horribly bigoted statements made by male co-workers, and what friends have said to me in endless conversations about the realities of being female.  She put it all together and she spoke to that room and she got them on their feet.  So here’s her speech.  Maybe it’s just me, but I think it beats the hell out of an empty chair.

“Some of you…some of you may remember that earlier this year Republicans shut me out of a hearing on contraception.  In fact, on that panel, they didn’t hear from a single woman even though they were debating an issue that affects nearly every woman.  Because it happened in congress, people noticed.  But it happens all the time.  Too many women are shut out and silenced.  So while I am honored to be standing at this podium it easily could have been any one of you.  I’m here because I spoke out.  And this November, each of us must speak out.

“During this campaign, we’ve heard about two profoundly different futures that could await women in this country.  And how one of those futures looks like an offensive obsolete relic of our past.  Warnings of that future are not distractions, they are not imagined. That future could become real. In that America, your new President could be a man who stands by when a public figure tries to silence a private citizen with hateful slurs.  A man who won’t stand up to those slurs, or to any of the extreme, bigoted voices in his own party.  It would be an America in which you have a new Vice President who co-sponsored a bill that would allow pregnant women to die preventable deaths in our emergency rooms. An America in which states humiliate women by forcing us to endure invasive ultrasounds that we don’t want and our doctors say that we don’t need.  An America in which access to birth control is controlled by people who will never use it.  An America in which politicians redefine rape and victims are victimized all over again.  In which someone decides which domestic violence victims deserve access to services and which don’t…. We know what this America would look like.  And in a few short months that’s the America we could be but that’s not the America that we should be and it’s not who we are.

“We’ve also seen another America that we could choose.  In that America we’d have the right to choose.  It’s an America in which no one can charge us more than men for the exact same health insurance.  In which no one can deny us affordable access to the cancer screenings that could save our lives.  In which we decide when to start our families.  An America in which our President, when he hears that a young woman has been verbally attacked, thinks of his daughters, not his delegates or his donors.  And in which our President stands with all women, and strangers come together and reach out and lift her up.  And then instead of trying to silence her you invite me here.  And you give me this microphone to amplify our voice.  That’s the difference.

“Over the last 6 months I’ve seen what these two futures look like.  And 6 months from now we’re all going to be living in one future or the other.  But only one.  A country where our President either has our back or turns his back.  A country that honors our foremothers by moving us forward or one that forces our generation to refight battles that they already won.  A country where we mean it when we talk about personal freedom or one where that freedom doesn’t apply to our bodies or our voices.  We talk often about choice.  Well ladies, and gentlemen, it’s now time to choose.”

And…standing ovation.  How Sandra Fluke managed to get through that without breaking down I will never know.  I can’t even read it aloud for type-o’s without getting a little misty-eyed.  To hear her voice say all the things I have thought, that my friends and I have talked about, and in such a well thought out way was really amazing, a breath of fresh air.  Sometimes it is easy to feel frustrated and alone sitting here behind my computer, preaching to the choir.  But then there are people out there who are doing the leg work, who are making a difference, and then I get shivers and realize that some day, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next year, it will be okay.  We just have to keep speaking out in whatever ways we can.

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Green Juice!

5 Sep

So, I am in a CSA.  Every Wednesday, me and/or my boyfriend Pete trudge over to Flatbush Avenue (it really isn’t that bad, I am just being dramatic) to retrieve our bags of goodies.  Generally it’s all we can do to eat it all before the next bounty arrives, what with our work schedules and random social events coming up here and there.  We usually make it through most the stuff; although, to be fair, we have about 3 pounds of radishes languishing on the bottom shelf of our refrigerator.  Well, last Wednesday afternoon, pre-CSA pick-up, Pete went out of town and left me the sole care-eater of all the veggies.  For the first few days it went okay, but then the weekend and a number of social obligations came up and now, all of a sudden, it’s Wednesday again and I have a fridge full of perishables! Corn!  Eggplant!  Cucumbers!  And, perhaps the most troublesome — and the biggest space hog — lettuce!  What’s a girl to do with all that greenery?  Why, drink it of course!

 

Rebekah’s Green Smoothie!

1 head green leaf lettuce
1 – 1.5 cups orange juice (I used orange tangerine)
1 large mango
1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger

Throw all the ingredients into a blender, turn on, and voila!  A space open upper and enough fiber to get you through the next 3 days.  If you want yours a little sweet, add some honey or agave.  The mango I used today was a little under ripe and I probably could have stood to add another, but I wanted to use up my ingredients, not buy more!  So, bottoms up!

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In Solidarity with the 22 Former Juventino Employees

30 Aug

I have been mulling over a number of posts this past week or so.  Mostly they are in draft form, requiring the kind of editing that I tend to be too lazy and too attached to specific sentences to really undertake.  I suppose it’s the difference I find between writing about a personal experience, or an issue that I have personal experience with, and those things I feel very strongly about but maybe don’t feel entirely qualified weighing in on.  It’s mostly a fear of misrepresenting an issue, coming across as an enemy rather than an ally due to a poor choice of words, or inadvertently insulting someone I care about because I lack the depth of knowledge I really need to adequately express myself.  My post on Chik-Fil-A met this fate, abandoned to draft status after being alerted by my wonderful sometimes-reviewer that one of my paragraphs could potentially be misread by someone who doesn’t know me and my liberal social leanings.  The topic today, however, does not fall under that category.  It is something I know very well indeed.

While perusing Jezebel this morning, I came across this article written about sexual harassment in the service industry.  (The complainants have a blog which you should check out.  Hopefully more hits will let them know they are supported.)  As I have written here before, I am a bartender and have been for the past number of years.  Ever since my senior year in college, when I was 21 years old, I have been working some sort of food-service job.  I was a barista, a hostess, a server, a cocktail waitress, a reservationist, a bartender, not necessarily in that order.  I have done it all.  Over the years I have come across all types of sexual harassment, usually at the hands of patrons, but occasionally by bosses and coworkers.  One specific instance I remember occurred when I was in my early 20’s working as a server at a crappy Irish pub in the West Village.  I was working 6 days a week — 5 nights and one lunch shift — for a man who, for lack of a better description, totally sucked.  He lived in Bay Ridge and had the entire restaurant outfitted with cameras that live-streamed to his television set at home.  He and his family would watch the non-events of the restaurant unfold while eating dinner.  We got admonished for wearing sweatshirts over our tops during a particularly chilly week and there were rumors that the wife and kids watched one of the male bartenders (women were not allowed behind the stick) change clothes in the basement.  I regularly came into work paranoid, afraid that an errant coffee ground would send my boss into an unreasonable abuse-session where he wouldn’t fire me, but would certainly point out my lack of intelligence and poor work ethic, making me aware that I was lucky he wasn’t sending me packing.  He, however, knew how to keep his hands to himself.  One of the bartenders — different from the downstairs changer, he was a standup dude — did not.  One instance during my weekly lunch shift I went to the end of the bar to get some sodas for my first table.  The bartender on shift slapped my ass to get my attention and when I turned around he shoved me against the wall, out of view of the cameras but not of the 5 men sitting at the bar, and kissed me, tongue and all.  I turned bright red and stormed off to calm myself down, chalking it all up to “industry culture.”  The men at the bar hooted and hollered.  The bartender was about 15 years my senior and expecting his first child.  After the attack, he routinely sent me text messages requesting we play a game of strip poker at my house.  I never reported the harassment to anyone.

As any regular reader of my blog knows, I am not one to keep quiet about harassment.  Currently, I work at a bar with incredibly supportive bosses who would (a) never behave in a manner such as Juventino Avila has been accused of and (b) are supportive of me when I call a customer out on inappropriate behavior.  It is a luxury in this industry to work in such an environment and I feel incredibly lucky.  That being said, the industry as a whole needs to change.  Inappropriate touching and comments should not be allowed and employees should be better protected when voicing complaints about the behavior of employers and coworkers.  The 22 former Juventino employees who wrote this blog should be commended for coming forward.  It’s a much overdue step towards acknowledging and challenging the overwhelming belief that sexual harassment is an inevitable, and acceptable, aspect of the industry.  I only hope their complaints get the attention they deserve and that residents of Park Slope and beyond hold Juventino Avila accountable for his abhorrent behavior and withhold their business from his establishment.  I know I won’t be eating there.

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