Tag Archives: awkward

New Orleans Diary: Week Three

16 Dec

Goal: To keep a weekly, running diary of my time here in New Orleans. I have hopes that this will sometimes cover some serious topics but so far I mostly have been talking about driving and plastic bags. That should change any week now, maybe even this one! You can read Week One and Week Two if you want to know all about it.

The Ferry: For the first almost two weeks that I was here I stayed with my super awesome, sparkly, magical friend Carie at her great spot in Algiers Point. As previously noted, I have a car, something that makes getting around a city with rather limited public transportation significantly easier. Especially considering that in order to get into the New Orleans you guys think about when you think about New Orleans you either have to drive or take the Ferry from Algiers Point to Canal Street just on the other side of the river. The ferry ride itself is rather nice. It’s like the Staten Island Ferry’s much smaller, somewhat lazier sister. It’s not lazier because it only runs twice an hour from each side of the river for most of the day. It’s lazier because sometimes it just doesn’t run. At all. For no real reason. So the other day I was driving back from the city, listening to the radio, when I heard an announcement that the ferry wasn’t running.

Oh no!

I thought.

Carie is at work on the other side and she doesn’t have a car. How will she get home? I had better go pick her up so she doesn’t spend a bunch of money getting back to the house!

So that’s what I did. No big shakes. But then the next day I decided that I wanted to go into the city and I didn’t feel like having my car. I wanted to just, you know, go there, wander around, drink too much Southern Pecan Iced Coffee from PJ’s and then make my way back home, twitchy from the caffeine overload but pleased that I didn’t have to drive. So I laced up my big girl boots and sashayed my way over to the ferry landing where I was stopped by a few men in bright orange vests who appeared to be in the middle of eating lunch.

Orange Vested Guy: Ma’am, the ferry isn’t running today.

Me, after I got over being called ma’am and feeling like an old fart: Oh, I see. How come?

Orange Vested Guy: Because the captain is sick.

Me: You just have the one?

Orange Vested Guy: Mhmm.

He went back to eating his lunch. I suspected he was lying to me but with no proof I sadly turned around and meandered back to the house, this time with considerably less pep to my step. Was the captain really sick? Do they really have only one captain? And was it possible that the captain was, in fact, among the orange vested men sitting there eating lunch but his lunch was just so good that he couldn’t be bothered to drive the boat 5 minutes across to the other side of the river?  So many questions. So few answers.

But that’s not all! There is another thing about the ferry that maybe, maybe explains the first thing. So the ferry costs $2 a ride. There is no discount if you live in Algiers like how there is if you live in Staten Island and have to take the Verrazano; there is no card like there is for the subway in New York; there is no ticket counter. You simply go to the ferry and drop your $2 in this big plastic container thing and someone in a bright orange vest sits there purportedly supervising the transaction. The thing is though that you have to have exact change because the orange vested person doesn’t have access to the money inside the plastic container so if you give them, say $5, you just overpaid by $3. But they also never count the money before you drop it in. It’s all on the honor system. So, theoretically, if you were a dishonorable person you could just drop a whole handful of nickels in the container that only amount to like 95 cents and no one would be the wiser. So maybe too many dishonorable people underpaid for their ride and the captain got miffed and decided to not come to work. Or decided to come to work but instead of working eat his lunch. Although I heard that the ferry operators make a fair bit of money so perhaps this logic is flawed. I will research this and get back to you.

Apartment (!!): I was really anxious about finding an apartment because I grew up in the North East and spent the last 12 years living in Brooklyn. Apartment hunting there, like basically anything else in NYC, has some element of cut throat involved. First of all, you basically have to promise your first born to whoever the fuck is renting the apartment out in order to secure it. Second, you have to give them all this information and practically a million dollars. And third, you basically end up living in a closet somewhere in a neighborhood no one has ever heard of but is maybe going to be “cool” AKA gentrified in the next 5 years at which point your closet will be too expensive and you have to move again. Not so here! I looked at 3 apartments and all the home owners were like

LIVE HERE

And I got to be picky about it and ended up getting a fully furnished apartment with a washer/dryer and a private yard in a great location.It’s basically a nothing walk from everything (nod to Jessy Caron for highlighting that little speech nugget). It’s so big I got lost in it the first day even though it is a railroad apartment, or a shotgun in New Orleans parlance. I discovered after speaking with some other people that it is easier as a single woman to find an apartment. I imagine there are some other factors at play here too but I don’t know enough about racial relations in this city to feel comfortable weighing in on all that. And so I will just say, phew, what a relief. And also, hey, does anyone need a kind of awesome room in Brooklyn? Because mine is going to be available January 1st. No promising of unborn children required. The neighborhood is actually cool and not only is the room bigger than a closet, it has a rather sizeable one all for you. I’m pretty sure I even left a bunch of hangers in there. Message me for details.

Job Interview: I had a job interview at an about-to-open restaurant. I knew when I agreed to go to the interview that it was a mistake. I have been on the opening staff of a few restaurants in my day and it always is a fiasco. Too much staff, not enough money, lots and lots of micromanaging. But whatever, I need a job so I went in and tried to have a good attitude about it. The third question the interviewer asked me was what my ethnicity was. Needless to say I turned down the job. (I will write a stand alone blog about this later, me thinks. Once I assess whether or not writing about it is wise or unwise given my need for a job. Speaking of, does anyone want to pay me?)

Bags: I discovered that you can, in fact, get paper bags here. Granted you still end up with A LOT of bags, but not nearly as many bags as you would if you were to opt for plastic. This further strengthens my theory that it is not that people here love bags, like I at first assumed, but instead that there is a general mistrust for the strength of plastic bags and so baggers here just put one item per bag for safety purposes. Paper bags, in comparison, seem to have more heft to them. They are the safer bet. And easier to recycle, it seems. So that might just be that. And this might be my last installment about bags. Maybe.

Conclusion: Some other things happened this week also but I fear that I spent too much of my real estate this post talking about the ferry and I might have lost some of you. But in case you were curious about some of the other things, they were fun! I went to AcroCats, something I highly recommend. Also, the Abita Mystery House, the Abita Brewery, Fountainebleu State Park that has some pretty baller trees, and I ate Tachos, something that I will be working to undo for the next month. If you care to know anything more about any of these events, please leave requests in the comments and I will be more than happy to expand upon them in my New Orleans Diary: Week Four post. Until then (and maybe sometime in between when I write about something of potentially political substance) I bid you adieu.

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How Melvin Got his Head Back

24 Jul

This is going to be a three-part post updating you about various parts of my life.  The first two parts are mostly harmless fun.  The third part should probably be avoided by anyone who doesn’t like knowing about my period.  You know who you are (ahem, Dad…also, one other person who I will not mention because I don’t want to embarrass her but probably the third part will make you queasy).

An Update on Melvin:

Hey guys.  So, first thing’s first.  I know many of you were wondering what happened to Melvin the Snail.  Remember Melvin?  Remember that time he wore a jacket?  How about that time he posed in a bra?  Or the time he was giving a lecture to a bunch of kitties?  Well, an unfortunate thing befell Melvin.  He was traveling in my bag en route from Tucson when one of his antenna fell right off.  Luckily I was able to put it somewhere for safe keeping.  Then, a few months later, one of my kitties (my money is on Clark), knocked Melvin’s upper half off the place where he was magneted and BAM!  Instant decapitation.  I put him in a safe place while I mourned the loss of my travel buddy.  But then yesterday, in a fit of procrastination, I used some of the Krazy Glue that I borrowed because I am far too disorganized and forgetful to remember to buy it myself (hence why Melvin was in such a sorry state for so long) and I reattached Melvin’s head, and his antenna, back to his cute little neon body.  Here he is, happily mugging for the camera:

20140723_220710I guess maybe you can’t really tell that he is mugging because I didn’t get a good angle on his face, but suffice it to say that he is.  He always is.  He even had a cheese-eating grin on his face when his face wasn’t connected to the upper half of his body.  Now that’s a guy I’d like to grab a beer with, ya know?

Catastrophe!

So, as some of you might know, I am catastrophe prone.  I am also prone to being spit on.  Which really is a catastrophe all its own only a far less silly one than other catastrophes I have experienced.  Being spit on is actually rather infuriating.  I angry cried on the street the second time it happened.  It was the same guy both times by the way.  A few months after the second incident, after I had filed a report with my local precinct, I saw him at the Atlantic Center opening the doors with his elbows and almost spit on him.   I didn’t, though.  It seemed likely to blow up in my face especially considering there were cops outside and the most recent instance of him spitting on me was like, 2 months prior and I don’t think that revenge is covered by the law.  I probably would have gotten arrested.  Now that would have been a catastrophe.  Anyway, moving on.

The reason I bring up my having been spit on in the past is because of what happened yesterday when I was in the midst of running errands with a friend.  We were en route to buy some paper towels when I felt something wet on the outside of my right ankle. I walked a few steps, realized it was also maybe a little bit slimey, and looked down.  Obviously there was a huge wad of bright green gum stuck to my leg.  Not only was it stuck to my leg but during the 3 or 4 steps I had taken before I realized what was happening one portion of the gum had dislodged itself from my leg and fallen underneath my heel onto my shoe so when I took a step there was like stretchy green shit running between my foot and my sandal.  Also, another piece had gotten on the sole of my shoe and was creating the same mess of stretchy green shit between the bottom of my shoe and the ground.  It was, quite possibly, the biggest piece of gum that has ever existed.  Also, it was green apple.  I know this because fruit flavored gum has a very strong aroma.  I bet it was like, Bubble Yum, or something, only this person decided to chew the entire pack at one time.  Or it could have been Big League Chew.  Do they make green apple flavored Big League Chew?  It was really gross.  And, of course, this happened before I bought the damn paper towels.  Life doesn’t make it easy, ya know?  In case you were wondering, I am not entirely sure how the gum got onto my leg, although I do have a few theories.

1.  One of the dudes in the group milling on the corner that my friend and I had passed spit gum out at exactly the wrong moment (or the right one, depending on whether or not you’re an asshole) and it stuck to my leg.
2.  A cycler cycled past and, rather than being a good person and stopping at the garbage can to spit his or her gum out just spit it out into the world, sort of like a gift, and I happened to be walking by at that very moment, ready to receive it.
3. The universe thought I had been surprisingly catastrophe-free that day and, knowing my utter distaste for fruit-flavored chewing gum, dropped a piece of gum from the sky at exactly the right speed and in exactly the right direction to create maximal hilarity with minimal gum stuck in my hair.

I think probably option three is the most likely.

Not Safe for Dad (NSFD)

So I just now decided that I don’t think I want to write this third part at all.  I don’t think I feel like sharing this particular embarrassing story about myself just at the moment.  Maybe some other time, if you’re lucky.

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Happy Bloody Valentine’s Day, Folks.

14 Feb

It’s Valentine’s Day which, as far as I can tell, is just as good a day as any to get my blog rolling again.  So, here we go.  I have no plan (except to stir up zero controversy) so let’s just see where this takes us, shall we?

Things have been stressful around here recently but, never fear, while all of the stress has been raining (snowing?) down on my head, embarrassing things have not stopped happening to me.  I don’t know if you have noticed but embarrassing things happen to me often.  And I find that I become less embarrassed if, rather than skulking around feeling like an ass, I broadcast my embarrassment to all who feel compelled to read about it.

Before I continue I should probably let you know I am about to write about my period.  For those of you who are weird and don’t like reading about such things, you should maybe just stop reading now and then go in the other room and grow up a little.  Then come back and try again.  You’ll get there eventually.  I believe in you.  (Dad, maybe you get a free pass on this one.)

This past Tuesday I returned from my annual friends-visiting trip to New Orleans.  My period always comes on vacation.  Always.  No matter what time of the month I go, no matter when my last period was, it always always always comes.  I know this and yet I never pack accordingly.  It’s like a game of chicken I insist on playing and my period always wins.  Every single time.  When I was packing I even thought to myself, “Self, you should probably pack some tampons. Nah. There is no way it’ll come.” Stupid.  I was just like willing it to arrive.  Taunting it.  You know what periods don’t like?  Being taunted.  Take my word for it.  So there I was, on Monday morning, realizing that perhaps it was coming.  But did I do anything about it?  No, of course I didn’t.  I just went about my day, casually passing all manner of store, not stopping in to buy the appropriate gear.  I made it through Monday unscathed and then Tuesday came.  All morning I was good to go.  I decided that it would probably be in my best interest to buy a box of just-in-case tampons.  But I was on a time crunch so instead of walking to where I knew there was a pharmacy with all kinds of choices, I went to a little store in the Quarter to buy a box of “regular” tampons which, when I am in the midst of my flow, are utterly useless.  But did I think about that?  No.  And did I think about the impending danger when I put one, yes one, useless little tampon in my shoulder bag and the rest of the box in my bag that was checked under the plane?  No, if course I didn’t.  Because I am a smart and reasonable human being.  I bet you can guess what happened next.  But in case you can’t, I will tell you all about it.

Cue dramatic music.

It was exactly halfway through the flight when I decided to stretch my legs and take a walk down to the bathroom.  I stuck the one solitary tampon in my pocket and moseyed on down the aisle.  I got into the bathroom and wouldn’t you know it, blood everywhere.  This, ladies and gentlemen, is my worst nightmare.  Being on an airplane in a teeny tiny bathroom with a toilet that I am always afraid is going to suck me in and spit me out into the open air, impossible to use sinks, no maneuvering room, clothes packed up and locked under the plane, and one stupid ass tampon with the absorbancy of a fucking cotton ball.  Obviously I had a mini panic attack.  And of course there were like three dudes waiting to get into the bathroom when I emerged after trying, in vain, to blot all the blood away.  And to bring the trio of terrible home, there was only one female flight attendant and she was without supplies.  I took a stack of napkins to sit on for the rest of the flight in an effort to not run the upholstery.  She looked on in pity and said “we’ve all been there.”  I don’t know if we’ve all sat in a pool of our own blood on the plane for over an hour, but I appreciated the sentiment.

And then the plane landed. Hurrah!  I felt lucky that I had worn my darkest pair of jeans but sad that my sense of style did not allow me the foresight to wear a long enough top to cover my ass.  I also cursed the vanity that simply would not allow me to tie my sweatshirt around my waist.  I figured if I walked really fast to the bathroom people would be none the wiser.  Only do you know what they no longer have in the bathrooms at John F Kennedy International Airport?  Tampon and pad vending machine things.  Do they think only bionic and pre and post-menopausal women travel by air?!  Clearly yes.  Obviously all of the women in the bathroom fit into the latter category.  As I ran to the door to go to my flight’s assigned carrousel to check and see if my bag had miraculously not been the last one to emerge from the depths of the plane, a woman appeared, as if from heaven itself, and handed me a pad.  Oh, happy day!  Of course I was wearing a (ruined) thong which meant that when I stuck the pad to my underwear and walked around it just burrowed further and further up my ass.  Not terribly comfortable but better than blood dripping down my legs, am I right?

Anyway, I retrieved my bag, got in a cab, got home, threw my underwear out, used that shout stain guard stuff that works pretty well and also gets this song stuck in my head for days (still singing it!), and took a shower.  I haven’t had the guts to look at my pants to see whether or not they are ruined foreva.  They probably are.  And that, my friends, is what happens when you taunt Aunt Flo.  She eats you alive.

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Basically the most awkward shift EVER

5 Nov

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

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

Blonde:  Morgan?

Brunette:  Yes.

Blonde:  I’m Allison.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brad:  Ugh, she’s wearing a hood!

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

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

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

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

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

Me:  I do not feel bad for you.

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

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

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

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

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