Tag Archives: Brooklyn

I really, really hate Yelp

14 May

I know that I have already blogged about Yelp on here and that maybe one blog about Yelp is enough but whatever. Fuck that. I am angry at Yelp. In fact, I despise Yelp. If I was really good at computers and could hack into Yelp and just make the entire thing fold in on itself I totally would. And if Yelp were a person, He (and Yelp is for sure a he because he makes space for entitled fucktards to air their oftentimes bullshit grievances without any fear of retribution) would be my arch nemesis.

Anyway so you know how people say you shouldn’t read the comments? Well as it turns out that rule also applies to reading Yelp reviews about the place you bartend at. Friends, I have amassed quite a number of negative Yelp reviews. And generally speaking I would say that maybe, given that knowledge, I should look inward and analyze my behavior and think to myself,

Self, perhaps you are in the wrong business. Perhaps all of these negative Yelp reviews are actually realistic and this entire time when you thought you were good at your job and nice to people and a positive influence in the world you were actually a horrible, horrible asshole who deserves to move into a cave and die there, cold and alone.

Ordinarily I would think that. But the thing about it is that the Yelp reviews about me are so asinine and so not even true that it’s like,

No! I should not die in a cave cold and alone! Unless that cave is the only place in the world without Yelp in which case, where do I sign up?

Okay so let’s get down to this. Is it true that I am starting to think that perhaps I should move on to another career that is not so unkind to my body, not so shitty for my sleep schedule and social life, and not so full of Liar McLiar faces? Yes. But moving into a cave? Absolutely off the table. For now. (Unless, as aforementioned, there is no Yelp.) So what has gotten me all in a tizzy on this beautiful Saturday morning? Well, I will tell you.

Last weekend before going to meet with friends I thought that I should just scoot around The Internet for a little and for some reason that scooting involved me looking at Yelp reviews of a bar I work at on the weekends. Stupid, I know. It’s like walking around in a dog park blindfolded and wondering why you stepped in shit. Anyway so obviously I came across a bad Yelp review about myself because people just loooooooooove to write bad Yelp reviews about me apparently. And what made this Yelp review different from all other Yelp reviews? The fact that along with the review there was a picture of me, from behind. And why did she take a picture of me? Was it because I was rude? No. Was it because I had ignored her? No. Was it because she didn’t like her drink? No. Was it because I was so super nice and also she really liked my outfit and wanted everyone to know? Also no. It was because I was changing the beers listed on our chalkboard and in order to do so I had to stand on the back bar. There were two alternatives to me doing that.

  1. Bring a rickety-ass ladder behind the bar at like 11pm on a Friday night and somehow not kill myself while my coworker tried to squeeze around the ladder in order to serve drinks and in the meantime someone would take a photo of me doing that and post it on Yelp.
  2. Not change the beer board which would have meant that my entire evening would have consisted of every single person at the bar ordering the only beer we no longer had and me having to explain that no, we don’t have that beer any more but we have this one instead and I just couldn’t change the beer board because changing the beer board could result in a picture of my ass ending up on Yelp

I wasn’t into either of those alternatives. (Truth be told my ass ending up on Yelp never would have occurred to me prior to this incident but now I will worry about it all the time. Thank you, Christina T.) So I changed the beer board. I got up on the back bar, I erased the writing on the board, I rewrote something else, and then I got down off the back bar and went back to doing the other parts of my job. And all the meanwhile someone, in her infinite wisdom and because her life is so hard and her observations so massively important, took a photo of me and then took time out of her night to go on The Internet and post it. Along with a review asking why I was standing on the back bar. And I want to be like

Bitch, I have chalk in my hand. I was clearly in the act of actually writing when you took that photo. Are you so daft that you cannot use your powers of deductive fucking reasoning to figure out that I was clearly changing the beer board you stupid, stupid asshole?!

But I couldn’t say those things. Nope. Because on Yelp customers get to go online and post bullshit about us in hopes of, what?, getting us fired? and we have essentially no recourse. All we can do is ignore Yelp, go about our business, and hope that people don’t write reviews of us doing such horrible things as putting a lime on a glass with our bare hands (ugh! ew!), or asking them to present ID with their credit cards (what a fucking cunt!), or cutting them off when they become aggressive or look like maybe they might vomit on themselves or someone else (what is she,allergic to fun?!). We have to go to our jobs fully aware that we might wake up to text messages from our bosses asking what happened with the dude who has taken to The Internet to claim that we stole his change when it is clearly shown on video that his change was returned, and with a smile no less. And we have to then read long diatribes by that “wronged” person calling us unprofessional and rude and racist for something that didn’t even happen. And it’s like, fuck! You guys! Seriously!

So in summation, I hate Yelp. I think Yelp is a horrible website and the people who write drunken bullshit on there are dicks who should have their Internet privileges revoked. Maybe they should be the ones to go spend some time in a cave, cold and lonely. I’m not saying that I am perfect. But don’t you have something better to do than feel a certain way about an experience and then make up flat out lies about a person you don’t even know who did nothing other than pour you a beer, charge you for it and then return your change? And also, please don’t post photos of me online. That’s rude. Oh, and also, don’t bring your own booze into my bar and then write a bad review about me when I kick you out. This isn’t self serve! Stay home! I hate you!

Yelp. I am coming for you. And when I find you it will not be pretty.

 

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Living that Hive Life

20 Apr

It has been a rough go in Rebekah-land recenly, friends. Why? Well, the title of this blog is a dead giveaway. That’s right, I keep breaking out in hives and oh my god it is terrible. It all started on Monday, March 21st in a small place in Iceland called Geysir. Yes, Gey-sir. (Chuckle, chuckle, snort.) My constant travel companion Carrie and I had just finished walking around this super prehistoric-seeming landscape, oohing and aahing with other tourists as the earth shot a buttload of water like a hundred feet into the air every 6-8 minutes. It was a sight to behold and a smell to experience. Iceland, in case you were wondering, has a nasty case of the sulphurs.  Anyway, so there we were in Gey-Sir, (chuckle, chuckle, snort) walking through the gift store when all of a sudden my knees started itching something fierce. They were the itchiest knees I have ever had. And then my hands were itching. And I looked at my hands and I had these little red bumps all around my knuckles. I wrote a whole thing about it here that you should read if you really want all the background information. But to make a long story short, basically I broke out in hives over my entire body and Carrie and I had to race across the Icelandic tundra to this random pharmacy that was about to close and the lady there asked me if I had tried to wash the hives off. I mean, I had washed my hands a few times but obviously the hives had not gone anywhere because they were attached to my skin. Hives aren’t something akin to dirt. You can’t just wash them off. And if I’m being completely honest it did give me a little bit of pause that the only lady available to me in my moment of need was someone who thought I could wash the hives off my hands with sulphur water but whatever, I was desperate. Anyway I took some Icelandic antihistamine and they cleared up. Hooray!

But the relief was short lived. Dun dun DUUUUUUN.

Over the past 4 weeks I have broken out in hives at least a dozen times. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. I can’t seem to identify any common factors. (Except for the fact that I am certain I am dying a slow and itchy death.) I haven’t changed my diet, detergent or lotion. I am beginning to think that perhaps breaking out in hives, as opposed to always getting shat on by animals in trees, is my real superhero power. Wouldn’t that be a gas? But of course as I was formulating that hypothesis I realized that I had put my cell phone down in a fresh pile of bird shit so, you know. That theory is still up for debate. It’s almost as if my other superhero power, my actual proven power, was feeling the pressure of being ousted from its position in my life and was like

Nah, I gotchu. Just put your cell phone down right…..there. That’s right, girl. See? We’re good.

I am not certain when I determined that my superhero power was actually an independent being with its own voice, personality and motives but I am just going to go with it.

So here is the thing: breaking out in hives really sucks. Like really, really. First off, they are super uncomfortable. They like morph my hands into a giant mosquito bite. Second, they look really gross. Third, they make me feel like I am this freak of a person because itchy red bumps just sprout up all over my hands and knees at random. Who wants to be friends with the girl with random itchy red bumps? No one, that’s who. And four, they are like a total mind fuck! It’s like, I know I am poisoning my body with something because my body is all,

Wait? What is that? WHAT IS IT?! SOS! SOS! TELL HER! TELL HER THERE IS SOMETHING WEIRD! MAKE HER SO ITCHY SHE WANTS TO SAW OFF HER OWN HANDS AND THROW THEM INTO THE OCEAN!

And then I’m all like

Yeah, but how am I supposed to know what it is if you don’t use your words, body? Use. Your. Words.

But my body has no words. It only has horribly itchy red bumps.

So my favorite hive experience was this past Saturday when I was out for lunch with my friends Katie and Shannon. Katie, it just so happens, is a nurse. So when I met up with her I did a very similar thing as when I encountered the Icelandic pharmacist: I put my hands in front of her face and looked meaningfully between her and them. Katie looked a little worried and proclaimed

Oh! Hives!

because she knows shit. I told her I had taken some Claritin so I was pretty sure it was going to be better any minute. She looked doubtful and concerned. Over the next 45 minutes or so, my hands got progressively itchier. So itchy, in fact, that I kept sticking them in my armpits in hopes that somehow doing an imitation of Mary Katherine Gallagher would fix everything. It did not. This was the first time this approach has ever failed me. As we were sitting down to brunch it only got worse. I looked at my hands. What had started as small, itchy bumps on my knuckles had spread to the palms of my hands and the insides of my wrists. I have learned in my month of living the hive life that when the wrists go, certain doom follows. I panicked. I jumped off my seat and said, as dramatically as I could,

Order me a coffee! I need topical cream!

and rushed to the local pharmacy where the pharmacist did not ask me whether I had washed my hands but instead said that a trip to an allergist and perhaps some Benadryl was in order. This, of course, was in response to me practically breaking out in tears in front of her because I was so itchy and also freaking about randomly having horrible allergic reactions to an unknown source when all I was trying to do was have a Bloody Mary with my girlfriends on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. I couldn’t buy Benadryl because I had to bartend that night and it makes me super sleepy so instead I got this crazy topical cream which I now carry with me at all times like a weirdo. A hive producing weirdo.

So, anyway, I haven’t gotten any hives since Monday night so I am feeling pretty positive about things in general. And I have an appointment with a doctor today who helped me with my stomach problems in college by doing some shit with magnets. I feel like life is looking up, friends. I feel like although hives might be winning right now, I am going to make a late-in-the-game comeback. I am going to show them who is boss! I am going to say

Fuck you hives! You are not my superhero power!

and hopefully get shat on by a bird. Just to prove the point.

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When Persistence is Rude

4 Apr

I heard a scuffle and realized there was a fight. Again. It’s almost as if a weekend night cannot pass by without some sort of absurd and unnecessary shake-up. The warm weather only makes it worse. That reality causes my life to be sort of at odds with itself. I’m a summer baby so I spend pretty much all my time either being appreciative of the heat or counting down the days until it returns. You’ll almost never hear me complain about being too hot. But when a spring or summer weekend rolls around, my love for the heat morphs into an acute sense of foreboding. Hot days lead to hot tempers. Mix those tempers with close quarters and lots of alcohol and you’ve got yourself a party.

It was about 1:30, maybe 2 in the morning. Apparently some guy tried to go into the bathroom with his girlfriend because he “didn’t want anyone seeing her in there.” I’m not entirely certain what that even means, to be honest. I don’t know whether he has some sort of disbelief in these things we call locks or he thinks people somehow develop laser vision when they get within two feet of a bathroom when his girlfriend is inside. Whatever the reason it turned into a whole big fiasco. (By the way, I am fully aware that he wanted to go into the bathroom with his girl for some sexy time, but I refuse to truly engage with that thought because the bathrooms at my bar, especially late on a warm weekend night, are straight out of a horror film. I have to pee in there on the regular and it has changed me. No joke.)

Upon hearing all the noise I obviously made the poor choice to walk out from behind the bar to go investigate. I did this under the guise of trying to usher those not involved in the fight to safety. You never know when an elbow, or a glass, might go flying. So I gathered intel while I let a few dudes out through a second exit. As I turned to go back behind the bar some guy grabbed my hand and got in my space. If you know me at all you know that I hardly like to be touched by people I love, let alone some asshole at the bar I work in. At first I thought he was going to say something about how I should stay behind the bar where it’s safe and not get too close to all the yelling, especially considering that just moments before the guy who was trying to join his girl in the bathroom violently grabbed her by the neck for “running her mouth.” (Have I mentioned recently how much I hate everything?) Dude probably would have been right but I still would have been miffed about some guy essentially scolding me for not staying behind the bar. But no. He didn’t say anything about my safety or the fight or share in my horror about the way a man so casually grabbed a woman by the neck in a public place, under the watch of cameras, without any pause or remorse whatsoever. Made me nervous about how he behaves in private. Instead, while holding onto my left hand, he whispered in my ear

Why you gotta be like that with me?

Anger shot through my entire body. Why was this person touching me? Why was he in my space? Why the fuck was he whispering in my ear? And where the fuck did he get the idea that he was at all entitled to my time or an explanation as to why I wouldn’t give him any of it? I’d love to say that this was the first time such a question had been hurled at me but that would be a lie. People regularly ask me why I am “like that,” whatever “that” means. From what I can gather, they think I am pretty but I don’t flirt with them. Because guess what, I don’t flirt. Not my jam. Not that there is anything wrong with being a flirty bartender, it totally works for some people. But I hate when people ask me for my phone number at work and I hate how some people get possessive over a girl who they think is interested, even if all that girl is interested in at that moment is an inflated tip. My dream is to be the efficient half of a bartending team. Making drinks and putting them over the bar quickly, the conversation limited to an economic transaction. Let my partner be the personality. I’ll be support staff. But I couldn’t respond with all that so instead I said,

Be like what? You come in here for beer. I sell it to you. That is my job.

He held my hand a little tighter. I shook it free.

I told you before I liked your vibes.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to be like

Oh! You like my vibes?! Well why didn’t you say so??? Please! Grab my hand again! Please! Whisper into my ear like a total fucking creep! Because now that I know you like my vibes I am totally down for whatever you’re down for. I hear they have some really clean bathrooms up in this joint. With locks that work, even.

But I didn’t say any of those things. Instead I turned and looked him in the face and said

Don’t you ever put your hand on me again.

My night continued. But then the next morning I got to thinking, once again, about entitlement. About how men feel entitled to touch women and how we as women are not even entitled to autonomy over our own physical presence. I cannot walk through a space, even a space I work in, with the assumption that I will not be touched in either a sexual or aggressive manner. And, when that happens – not if but when – there is virtually nothing I can do. Sure, I can make a smart remark, assuming I feel safe doing so, but there is nothing intimidating about me. I cannot, by sheer force of size or movement, make someone back off. I can shoot them down, but that does not necessarily result in a change of behavior. This is something like the 4th time this same guy has tried to, I don’t even know, get me to pay him more attention than pouring him a Smuttynose and taking his money. It’s as if he thinks persistence is key and let me tell you something, I find his persistence insulting. His persistence completely ignores a very important part of the equation: my interest, or lack thereof.

To me, when someone isn’t interested, they aren’t interested. Back the fuck off. Life isn’t like the movies where the guy likes the girl and she isn’t interested but by his sheer will to get what he wants, what he deserves, he is able to convince her to be his. He is able to, for lack of a better term, break her. This dude can tell me every single fucking day for the rest of time that he “likes my vibes” and I will still tell him to go take a walk in the ocean. Because the thing is, he isn’t listening to me because what I say, and what I feel, does not matter to him. In his journey to get what he wants, I am incidental. What I want is incidental. My feelings are incidental. What matters is him, what he wants. And he doesn’t think there is anything wrong with his persistence. Maybe he thinks I should be flattered. More than likely, he doesn’t think about how I should feel, or do feel, at all. That can be overcome. I can be broken.

Being female can be a real mind fuck.

 

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Tip #16 on Being a Good Bar Customer

2 Mar

Alright, kids, I’m back with the tips. And I think this one might be exceptionally snarky although honestly, at this point, my snark gage is all off and I can’t even tell anymore. After doing some (admittedly non-exhaustive) research on the topic, I am not going to link to my other tips here because pretty much no one ever clicks on those links. If you want to read more tips, I think there is a search tool somewhere around here. Or you could look at the “A Bartending Life” archives for all your bartending related content. If you disagree with the outcome of my study, feel free to comment below. Or don’t. Either way. So without further ado, your next tip.

If any of you have read one of the multitude of stupid Buzzfeed articles entitled “Ways to Get Your Bartender to Hate you” or “Ways to Behave in a Bar” or “This Man Orders a Drink. You Won’t Believe What Happens Next!”* which are basically always written by people who (a) seemingly have never bartended before and (b) cannot really write, this next tip will not come as a surprise to you. For those of you who have somehow managed to avoid all that clickbait: well done, you are my idol.

So last night some dude came in on the earlier side of my shift, sat down at the bar and looked confusedly around the room. His eyes, eventually, landed on the whisky selection. I would classify our whisky selection as pretty standard New York. We have a fair bit, but it’s all the usual suspects. Basil Hayden, Bulleit, Buffalo Trace.** You get it. If I had made a bet right then and there, I would have put money on him ordering a Bulleit Bourbon on the rocks. I was wrong. Not so wrong, as you will come to see, but wrong enough. I feel like betting is sort of an all-or-nothing proposition which is why I don’t like to do it. Shades of grey are totally my sweet spot. Anywho, instead of going the predictable route, he looked at me and said,

“Do you know how to make a Clint Eastwood?”

Ugh.

I replied that no, I did not, in such a way as to try to dissuade him from digging out his phone, Googling a ‘Clint Eastwood’ and then handing the phone over to me. I failed. He immediately reached into his pocket and started tap, tap, tapping away at the screen. Moments later he handed the phone to me with a meaningful look.

Why do people do this? First of all, the drinks that people want either contain something that most bars don’t have like velvet falernum or a raw egg or they are something made up by a bartender at some place like Little Branch as a result of some dude walking up to the bar and saying “I want something with gin that tastes like cloudberries and cotton candy but comes in a manly glass.” Second of all, whenever this scenario happens (not the cloudberries but the recipe googling) and I ask people what is in the drink, generally so that when they say Batavia-Arrack I can tell them I don’t have that and we can move on, they have absolutely no idea. And not just no idea like,

“well, it has gin, lime and the tears of a baby narwhal, I’m just not sure the proportions.”

No. They have no idea like,

“Oh, I have no idea.”

I begrudgingly took the phone while he looked at me, waiting for the moment when I would excitedly take out my shakers and my jiggers (kindly remove mind from gutter) and maybe bust out the suspenders that I have left hanging from my pants, eagerly awaiting the opportunity to suit up and get down to business. (He totally wasn’t expecting any of those things. I am just being a dick because the image I conjured made me giggle.) I looked at the screen and here is what I saw:

INGREDIENTS
1½ oz. Bulleit bourbon
¾ oz. Vya sweet vermouth
2 dashes Regan’s orange bitters
1 Amarena cherry, for garnish

INSTRUCTIONS
Combine bourbon, vermouth, and bitters in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled martini glass; garnish with cherry.

I want us all to just take a moment and look at this recipe. Really just take it all in. Think about what it might be similar to. Something that maybe you have had before? Because I don’t know but this looks to me like a variation on a Manhattan. Granted this one calls for different bitters – Ragan’s orange as opposed to the more common Angostura -and there is of course call liquor here and different proportions but that’s what makes it a variation. Also you’re supposed to shake this? Who shakes a Manhattan? It comes out all cloudy and weird when you shake it. (And this is where my inner snob comes out. I firmly believe, and this is my own personal thing so whatever I won’t impose it on those around me, that Manhattans and Martinis should be stirred. Always all the time. And that James Bond was an asshole. Although now I have done a little bit of research and apparently in Ian Fleming’s books Bond actually ordered his Martini “stirred not shaken.” Can anyone verify that for me? And can we count this as another example of a film adaptation being a lesser version of the book it is based on?)

Anyway, while in my head I was hearing Sean Connery say “shaken not stirred” on constant repeat, I broke the news to my customer that I didn’t have Ragan’s bitters or vya sweet vermouth but I could do the next best thing: seeing as how the “Clint Eastwood” was surprisingly similar to a Manhattan, and it just so happens that I make a pretty mean Manhattan, I offered to make him one of those instead. He seemed dejected and asked if he could see my selection of bitters. I placed the bottle of Angostura directly in front of him. And then it all seemed to click. He looked around the room and noticed the television, the lack of cocktail paraphernalia, the weird photo collages on the wall, the Christmas lights that are, for no real reason, still attached to the mirror, a mirror that is not intentionally aged to make it look all vintage. He was not in a cocktail bar. He begrudgingly agreed to have a Bulleit Manhattan but requested it be on the rocks.

*By and large these are my least favorite articles. The second I see something titled “Man tries to hug a wild lion, you won’t believe what happens next!” I become angry and storm away from the computer. Chances are I will believe what happens. And, as a direct result of that stupid title, I will not care.

**Unintentional alliteration!

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Happy New Year to Me

26 Feb

Have you ever spent a minute thinking about New Year’s Eve? How we all make plans, go to house parties, get noise makers, make resolutions, wear stupid hats and stupider glasses? It’s a nice thing, I guess. A night when all the world comes together (albeit at different times) to celebrate the beginning of something new. We all enter the next calendar year with a (perhaps slightly hungover) pep to our step, with a commitment to a new and improved us, and of course  with a firm grasp on that clean slate we promised ourselves. We’ll go to the gym, we’ll find new jobs, we’ll spend more time with our family and friends, we’ll stop wiping our noses on our sleeves because goddamnit we are adults (that last one is my resolution every single year. I have yet to succeed). But this fresh start is, when you really think about it, entirely arbitrary. It is a random day that was chosen as the day the Earth begins its annual journey around the sun. But really, any day could be that day. So in the spirit of randomness, or I suppose more accurately, in the spirit of personal ownership of my place in time and space, I declare my New Year to have begun on February 23rd.

February 23rd. How random, right? Wrong. February 23rd of 2016 marked one year since the last horrible thing in a string of horrible things happened. It marked a year after an exclamation point of awful was dotted on my personal history. It marked a year since, at 2:30am, on February 22nd, 2015 some guy who thought he was tough threw a glass at my face. It marked a year since I woke up the next morning and, eye swollen almost entirely shut, cut above my eye that is now a scar, I made phone calls to family and close friends to let them know that I was okay, more or less. It marks a year since I left an hysterical message on my friend Ashlie’s voicemail that likely almost gave her a heart attack. It marks a year since she and I went to an urgent care in Bay Ridge, where we were met by our friend Katie, and where the doctor looked at me and said

“I am really curious about what happened to you.”

You and me both, Doc.

It marks a year since I tried to act strong and not afraid. It marks a year since the start of dealing with everything that followed being violently assaulted and then threatened. It marks a year since I thought I had it together and could handle whatever came my way – turns out I didn’t and I couldn’t. It marks the beginning of the end of me feeling as though this is a thing that happened to me recently because, at this point, it has been over a year and that’s not nothing. I feel as though I can finally go back out into the world with a positive outlook rather than being bogged down by all of the bullshit that happened, one after another after another, in 2014 and right on into 2015. It’s funny, actually. At the end of the disaster that was the entirety of 2014 – beginning with quitting my job under absurd circumstances, dealing with a break-up, continuing through turning down a new job in hopes of a dream job that didn’t only seem too good to be true but was because the man who offered it to me was a total fraud, and ending with a breakdown when I came to the conclusion that I would never be able to do anything other than bartend and UGH everything was terrible – I somehow had hope. And my friend Carrie, in keeping with our tendency to see the humor in everything, sent me this link to a Tumblr post that said,

The whole of 2014: Something went wrong.

And we laughed. And then I went into 2015 with this hope that somehow the randomness of the New Year would cleanse me of my shit luck and then <BAM> black eye. And I lost all hope for that year. It was over practically before it started. And I went into the year just thinking that this endless stream of setbacks was going to be my life. I accepted the fact that I was no longer the happy, driven person I had always thought of myself as but instead I was this person existing in a cloud, waiting for the next completely unpredictable and wild thing to happen. And those things did happen. But now, looking back, and acknowledging the fact that I believe in the power of outlook, I wonder how much I brought those things upon myself. Not that they were my fault, more like because I was expecting them I almost invited them. I started seeing them in places that maybe they wouldn’t have existed if I could have gotten out of my own head. I am thinking specifically about the day that I gave myself a full-blown panic attack – I’m talking shortness of breath, tingly legs, inability to regulate temperature – on my way into work one night, a night that ended in complete disaster which, months later, led to me having a follow-up argument with someone which resulted in me having a complete meltdown the following day and having to drive myself to my parents house. After I stopped crying long enough to drive, that is. Pathetic, I know. So in a way, maybe I had a hand in those things. I let myself feel like a victim of the world and thus I became one.

But no more! It’s only been 3 days but this new year has been going well. I had dinner with a dear friend of mine last night and the waiter gave us free dessert just, you know, because we are awesome. I have plans to go to the American Cup (it’s gymnastics, don’t judge me) with my friend Glen in a few weeks and then there’s a trip to Iceland on the books for March and in April I will be officiating a wedding between my friends Emily and James. Then there’s a half marathon in Poughkeepsie in June, a Frankation over the summer and then, who knows? Whatever it is, though, it’s going to be great because why? Because it’s got to be. Because I believe it will be. Because I say so.

 

 

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I Thought We Were Friends

2 Feb

Sometime in the late spring, early summer of 2010 I rode the B63 bus down Atlantic Avenue from my bartending job towards home. I was drunk. I was drunk a lot that summer. I was heartbroken and in complete free fall. I sat staring out the window, tears silently streaming down my cheeks as they often did, wondering what I had done wrong, how I could fix it and when the pain – so emotionally present that it turned into physical hurt – would stop. I was pretty sure it never would, that the pain was my new normal. The bus stopped and a man, probably around my age, appeared in front of me. He smiled and gave me a hand-written note before he walked off the bus and into the night.

You’re beautiful when you cry. Call me.

The tears stopped. I held the note in my right hand between by thumb and fore finger and stared blankly out the window. I took it with me as I exited the bus and looked at it as I made my way home. At the first trashcan I found I spit violently on the small slip of paper – imagining it was the man’s face – crumpled it up and threw it into the garbage. Being mad at him and all the other strangers who seemed to smell my vulnerability that summer was so easy. It felt as though men – anonymous men, not the men I knew – were all dogs.

The pain eventually dulled. I fell in love again.

***

Going on two years ago my most recent relationship ended. We were together for almost four years. What do they say in all those articles about break-ups, that it takes half the length of the relationship to get over it? Maybe there is something to that because I am just now about back to normal and by normal I mean that the idea of being involved in the dating scene makes me want to scream. This guy at work last night asked me how I meet people to date and my honest response was that I don’t. I just don’t.

I could chalk it up to my work schedule. That being almost entirely unavailable on weekends makes it near impossible to meet someone. I could blame modern dating and the rise of internet dating sites. As someone who works in a social setting with already precarious power dynamics, the idea of some guy seeing me on the Internet and then walking into my bar and thinking he has some kind of leverage terrifies me. I could blame my most recent dating experiences and the assumption men seem to have that if a date is going halfway decently it’s their cue to try and come home with me. Good fucking luck. But the reality is that I blame my friends. Or, more accurately, people I thought were my friends. I blame the people that made me feel like my only value is in my body and what it can offer them.

Let me quote an article from Salon that finally gave me the strength to write this post, this post that I have been writing over and over again in my head but never wanted to actually put to paper, so to speak, for fear of hurting the feelings of people who never had any consideration for mine.

When the bad things that happen are normal, you become tough. It’s devastating how tough I am.

So, as a 30-year-old woman who has been through a range of horribly exploitative sexual and emotional experiences—you know, just like pretty much every woman you know—I really don’t want to know anymore if a stranger finds me attractive. Not right out of the gate. Hell no. There are so many more interesting things about me than my body… This is why I cherish my friendships with straight dudes who would never try to fuck me even if we are trashed, and is probably part of why I hang out with a lot of queer people. 

This is why I’ve gone home in tears after someone I respect says they think I’m smart and funny and interesting and they’d like to have a drink and rap about the world, and then just tries to fuck me after I patiently dodge their advances all night. Were they not even paying attention? … I am still, as a grown woman, trying not to mentally respond to that situation by thinking: “Well, that person just wanted to fuck you. Maybe you are not really that smart or interesting.” That precise feeling is one that I don’t really think straight dudes can fully relate to: You are invisible, but they still want to fuck you. They do not see you or hear you. They still might rape you. This is why somebody putting their eyes all over me or immediately telling me they like the way I look is no longer flattering. Because it makes me feel fucking invisible.

The woman who wrote this article is a bartender in her 30s, like me. And she, too, is fucking exhausted by how much she is sexualized at work. This past week, I have been given 2 phone numbers, been told by a customer that he has wet dreams about me, had a coworker hit on me by alluding to the version of 50 Shades of Grey that we could make together, and had to tell someone that my tits could not pour him his beer so if he would please look at my face when requesting service it would be appreciated. Sometimes I leave work feeling like a pair of boobs and a hole to fuck, with arms conveniently attached to provide liquid courage. The thing I make my money off of is the same one that empowers men to disempower me and managing that disempowerment, that power dynamic, is tricky. It is intertwined with my ability to earn a living. And it is exhausting.

When I leave work at 4am, I try to leave all of that behind me. I try to reenter a world where I am valued for more than my body and my ability to pour liquid into a cup. Of course, I want people to find me attractive but I want that to be attached to the fact that I am smart and funny and interesting. Those are the things I value about myself. So when I read this line — This is why I have gone home in tears after someone I respect says they think I’m smart and funny and interesting and they’d like to have a drink and rap about the world, and then just tries to fuck me after I patiently dodge their advances all night. Were they not even paying attention? — I was like, finally, someone else said it. Because I, too, have gone home in tears. I have spent the better part of the last two years thinking my taste in (male) friends sucks because one after another after another after another of my straight male friends have tried to fuck me. I barely have any left. To those who have been my friend all this time I value you more than I can really say.

Somewhat recently I met up with an old friend for a drink. We hadn’t hung out in awhile because life took us in different directions but I was happy to catch up. It took him about 2 hours to try and fuck me. I told him about my life, what I’ve been up to, what I’ve been thinking about. He told me how he always thought I was so hot. He thought he was flattering me. I have never felt so cheap, so misled, so socially inept. How did I not know? How did I ever think this drink was about us catching up as friends? How did I not see this coming? How stupid can a person be?

I, like the well-trained woman that I am, blamed myself. Over and over again.

My ex-boyfriends all knew that the best way into my pants was through loving my brain, not lusting after my body. But of course, they were listening. There was more in it for them. I was visible. Me. I was more than just  a conquest, or the fulfillment of a long curiosity. I was a human being with unique value. And I am done feeling as though I did something wrong to mislead people about what I was looking for. I have always been clear. So be my friend or don’t be. But if you’re just looking to fuck, move along. I’m not interested. Stop wasting my time. Stop making me feel like garbage. Because after all these years it takes me more and more time to rebuild myself after work. If you’re really my friend, you should be supporting me. So stop tearing me down.

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2016: My Year So Far

14 Jan

A few things have happened since I last posted on this blog.

(1) It became the New Year! 

That’s right. It is now, and has been for the past 2 weeks, the year 2016. It’s kind of wild, right? Do you all remember Y2K? That time when everyone was certain that computers, despite their abilities to do all sorts of crazy things, would not be able to comprehend the fact that the year section of the date line would all of a sudden read 00? We were pretty sure the world was going to end. Well, some people were, anyway. Some smart people, as it turns out. I was pretty sure we would all be okay despite my not knowing anything about technology. I was right. All that being said can we agree that (a) we are happy that the world didn’t end but at the same time (b) it has been a pretty fucked up 16 years and 14 days? And things are only going to get more fucked up from here, I am afraid. So let’s brace ourselves, friends, for the rest of our lives.

(2) I went to Puerto Rico with my friend Dee and it was great!

It was kind of a last minute thing. Basically, Dee said she was going to Puerto Rico, I said I was jealous, and she said, “well, why don’t you come?” And so I did. That is one of the perks of my job. As long as I can get my shifts covered (and of course can afford it) I can more or less do what I want. The downside of all that is that I am oftentimes unable to sleep because I feel as though my life has no meaning. So, you know, there is always a trade-off. (This does not, of course, detract from the fact that I have the most kickass friends in the universe who invite me to join them on all kinds of incredible adventures.)

(3) I decided to reread Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America”* and holy shit.

Oh my god. So for the record when I started rereading the book I was totally PMSing and when that happens I get more teary than normal. And if you know me, like really know me, then you know I am tearier than the average bear. Not that I cry a lot, but I just get really emotional about the state of the world. It is such a fucked up place and we do really horrible things to one another. Anyway, so the book. Have you read it? Because you really should. It is basically about what would have happened if Charles A. Lindbergh had defeated FDR in his third bid for the presidency and kept the United States out of World War II. Lindbergh, if you recall, was the first person to do a solo transatlantic flight and also his first son was kidnapped from his crib and murdered, causing Charles and his wife to go into voluntary exile in Europe. Anyway, in real life Lindbergh eventually came back and, as it turns out, was very busy impregnating women the world over. In Roth’s book, his (real life) beliefs in isolationism and anti-semitism led him to become a Nazi sympathizer and almost co-conspirator which, as you can imagine, led to some really fucked up situation for the Jews in the United States since he was the president. It was very upsetting. Not only because I am Jewish and still sort of believe that everyone (okay not everyone but a lot of people) secretly and also not-so-secretly hate the Jews, but also because the hysteria brought about by Lindbergh’s rhetoric reminded me very much of what is happening in the United States right now with Trump and his anti-Muslim sentiments. It’s really scary and against what supposedly makes America, well, America. I really don’t like the idea that to some people the slogan “Make America Great Again” means let’s deport all the brown people. And I especially don’t like the idea that there are a lot more people who believe that than I had originally thought and that Trump has cleared them all out from under their rocks! Well, anyway, read the book. It made me cry on the train and this really nice man in a 3-piece suit saw me looking all upset, touched my leg and said it would “all be okay” before he exited at Jay Street. I thought that was a little to optimistic from where I was sitting but his heart was in the right place. Thanks man in the 3-piece suit. You’re swell.

(4) I have further solidified my status as crotchety old person.

But for real. So I came home from running errands yesterday and I noticed that my downstairs neighbors had, at some point in time, received something in a box, emptied the contents of the box and then disposed of the box. No big deal, right? Wrong! Because you know what they didn’t do? They didn’t take the bubble wrap out of the box nor did they break the box down and put it in a bag with all their other paper recycling. They simply carried the box down the stairs and dumped it on the ground right in front of the paper recycling bin that is conveniently located for us to dispose of our things in a reasonable fashion. And here’s the thing. We don’t live in some doorman building or like one of those places where you pay a maintenance fee. We live in a regular building with regular people where we pay regular rent and we take care of regular things, like our garbage, ourselves. But not my downstairs neighbors, no sir. They are too special to break down their boxes and dispose of the bubble wrap (or jump on the bubble wrap and then dispose of it, like we do in my house). And that is what is wrong with this city nowadays. People think they are too good to do things themselves and so they make someone else, who is not getting paid to do those things, do it for them. Entitlement. Man, it’s the pits.

(5) I have an infected hangnail on the thumb of my right hand and it really hurts.

I don’t feel the need to expand on that. It just hurts. I don’t think I will have to have it amputated if that’s what you were worried about. Because last night when I couldn’t sleep because I felt like my life had no meaning I also kept thinking about what would happen if I had to get my thumb amputated. Nothing good except that maybe, maybe, I would get to be a guest on Ellen which as we all know is my one life goal.

Okay, that’s it. Here’s to the many more exciting things 2016 has to bring.

*Wordpress changed the way the blogging feature works which sucks on so many levels. One of those levels is that the option to underline no longer exists. What if I want to underline and book title, according to the rules taught to me in grade school. Or what if I want to bold and underline something in order to bring double attention to an important point? I can’t do those things. Fuck you, WordPress.

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Tip #15 on Being a Good Bar Customer

21 Nov

Hello friends and happy Saturday to you! And here we are, back to some helpful tips from your friendly* neighborhood bartender on how not to make me and my fellow bartenders hate you. Feeling a little rusty in bar etiquette? Well, feel free to freshen up with some past tips. Tip #1, tip #2, tip #3, tip #4, tip #5, tip#6, tip #7, tip#8, tip #9, tip #10, tip #11, tip #12, tip #13 and tip #14. And don’t forget about this non tip which is one of my favorites. Alright. Let’s go.

Where to begin? I guess by saying that if you look at this story in a certain way, it can maybe be a little bit sad. But don’t look at it that way, okay? Because there is so much sadness happening in the world and sometimes it’s nice to just forget about it for a minute. And, of course, to feel fortunate that we have the luxury to do so. So last night at about 8:45, give or take, an older woman walked into my bar and ordered a double gin and tonic. She was very clearly a woman suffering from a very long fight with alcoholism. I could see it in her face. I had a moment where I thought maybe I shouldn’t serve her, but she wasn’t misbehaving at that point and I had to remind myself once again that it is not my job to save people from themselves as long as they aren’t an immediate danger to themselves or others. It’s something I have to remind myself of time and time again and, honestly, I never feel less shitty about it. Moving on. I made the drink and she reached into her wallet and handed me a credit card. I said to her, as I say to everyone who tries to pay by card at this particular bar,

“I just need to see an ID with your card.”

I am routinely met by four different reactions when I request ID:

  1. People simply don’t give a fuck and hand me the ID (love them)
  2. People are happy because
    1. they think I doubt they are of legal age to drink and in their heads they begin celebrating their chosen skin care technique; clearly it’s been working!
    2. they realize I am verifying that they are the rightful owner of the credit card they are presenting and are pleased that we are taking precautions to safe guard their identity
  3. People feel inconvenienced or miffed for some reason and reach into their wallets to pay cash, which is actually better for me
  4. People are mad because they were IDed at the door and pulling out the ID again is really hard even though it usually lives in their wallets, right near where the credit card lives

This lady fell squarely into category four. First she got irritated and said that she had been drinking in the other bar (there are two bars at this particular spot) and that she hadn’t been IDed which I called bullshit on. And, upon speaking with my coworker, I found out he had cut her off which was why she came to me. Second, she tried the old “I don’t have my ID” routine which quickly fell apart when her ID made itself clearly visible when she opened her wallet. Third, she got mad and called me stupid. That’s right, folks. After taking the time to explain to her that it is bar policy that I cannot run a card unless I check ID she decided the most expedient way to get the drink she wanted was to call the person in control of said drink stupid. Bad move.

This is actually a two-part tip. The first part of the tip is don’t call your bartender stupid. I mean, let’s be honest. Calling people stupid is rude and also we’re all adults with imaginations here. We can totally come up with something better. Calling someone stupid is so recess.

So I did what anyone would do and told her that she couldn’t have the drink. She started shoving her ID and credit card at me and saying

You want ID? Here’s ID!

To which I responded,

Yea, that’s great, but actually that’s no longer the issue. You called me stupid. You could present me your birth certificate and social security card and I still wouldn’t give you this drink. Have a nice night.

I walked away and dealt with the other customers at my bar at which point she left and went back into the other bar. Then I got security and told him to escort the woman out because seriously, who needs to be called stupid at the beginning of their night, or at any part of their night really? No one, that’s who. I then watched from behind the bar as she puffed up her 5’4″ frame and kicked a few chairs as she walked next to the security guard, Gino, who’s about 3 times her size and like 50 times nicer. I could tell that she was yelling some nonsense at him and I imagined it had everything to do with me and how stupid I am. I couldn’t wait to find out what it was. As soon as the coast was clear and my customers were sufficiently beveraged, I hustled to the front gate to get the lowdown. Apparently she was very upset that I had kicked her out and said that she has connections to the mob and that she was going to have those connections come back to the bar and blow it up and that, and this is a direct quote,

“when this bar blows up it will all be because of that girl in the little bar! It will be her fault!”

I said to Gino that if the bar blows up they can put that on my tomb stone. RIP Rebekah. It was all her fault.

So here’s the second part of the tip. Don’t threaten to have your mob connections, real or imagined, blow up the bar. Especially not now, when people are on high alert about things being blown up. It’s totally fucked up. Admittedly, it’s more creative than calling someone stupid, but puts you at risk of being reported to the police for making a threat of violence. And all because you didn’t want to show ID.

So yea, just show your ID. Keep your feelings about my intelligence to yourself and don’t threaten to blow up my place of employment.

The end.

*Friendliness is in the eye of the beholder. Just remember that.

 

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The Real Life Sherman McCoy

17 Nov

Have you ever read Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities? It’s one of my favorites. One of the three main characters, Sherman McCoy, is a stock broker in 1980s New York, a self-proclaimed “Master of the Universe.” Without giving too much of the book away in case any of you want to read it, McCoy, heading back from the airport to his Park Avenue apartment, makes a wrong turn and ends up in the Bronx. When his car is approached by a few young black men McCoy makes the assumption that they are going to try and rob him and his mistress and takes off, hitting one of the men in the process. He flees the scene, not knowing whether or not “the skinny one,” as he is referred to, survives.

At this point I could, obviously, take this post in myriad different directions. I could point out the racism and classism, make a comparison between the New York of the late 1980s and the one that I live in today. I could note how much has changed or, more accurately, how much has not. I could go on about how the in-your-face biases that existed then have, in many ways, been replaced by something slightly more hidden but certainly more dangerous. I could talk about all the people who believe, because they live in some alternate universe of privilege and ignorance, that we are living in some sort of a post-racial society. Those people, of course, are all white. But I won’t. Instead I am going to tell you a story.

The other day at work these two middle aged women came into the bar, sat down and ordered some drinks. They asked me my name, which always makes me a little nervous — that request tends to lead to more annoyance than anything else — and settled in to chat and laugh and enjoy the afternoon. After about an hour and a half, give or take, during which time some guy who was clearly on pills tried to bolt on his bill, one of the women left. The remaining one told me that they were sisters and that they were up in New York from Philadelphia. As she spoke a heart-breaking story emerged. Her sister’s son, her nephew, had just moved up to New York in June and was working in film, living in Bed Stuy, commuting by bike. About three weeks earlier, on his way home, he had been struck by a car and then, while he was on the ground, he was struck by a second car and dragged down the block. Both cars left the scene. A by-stander called 911. I immediately asked about his head, his spine, she assured me they were both, miraculously, fine. She and the doctors attributed his survival to his sheer size: 6’2″ and solidly built. But he still wasn’t out of the woods. The accident broke his arm clear through, fractured every one of his ribs which in turn punctured his lungs. His spleen ruptured and the skin where he was dragged down the asphalt, well, I am sure you can imagine. Gone. This poor kid. He had been here for 4 months.

So I thought back to Sherman McCoy. I remember when I read that book I simply couldn’t get past the not knowing. I couldn’t understand how a person could continue with his life with the knowledge that he may have killed someone and, even worse, that if he hadn’t fled the scene he could potentially have done something to help. Accidents happen but how do you leave? It’s not really an accident anymore, is it? It morphs into a choice.

When she finished telling me the story she asked,

“How did they sleep that night?”

And all I could say, in some attempt at comfort, was

“I hope they never sleep again.”

I meant it. I hope their days are consumed by looking at the news, searching the internet wildly for any information about an accident that occurred on a specific night, in a specific place, clearing their search history as they go for fear that their secret will be discovered. I hope they find nothing. They should continue to wonder. I don’t hope that anything in kind happens to them but I do hope that they have souls because, if they do, then this will eat them alive. As it should. Sean — his name is Sean — will be okay. His Aunt convinced me of this and it seems better to believe it than not. But those assholes? I hope they suffer for the rest of their lives. There is no way they could have mistaken Sean for anything other than he was, is: a human being. And yet not one but two different drivers decided to protect their own asses rather than stop and help. It was an accident. But now it is a choice. And it makes me feel a little sadder about the world I live in.

 

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An Open Letter to a Developer

16 Oct

Dear Ryan Pedram,

Hi, my name is Rebekah and I live down the block from the luxury condominiums you are currently constructing. Let me tell you a little bit about myself and my street. I have lived on this block for over 10 years now. Even still, even with all these young kids from where ever they are coming from moving into Brooklyn in droves every month and saying they are “from” here, I don’t think I can actually call myself a New Yorker. It never feels as though I have been here quite long enough to call this city my own without feeling like an impostor. Even still, I love my block and it is more my home than probably anywhere else. Despite what people say about the anonymity and lack of community here in New York, I know my neighbors if not by name then certainly by face. I wave at them and chat with them when I go about my day and they notice when I leave on some adventure or other for an extended period of time; they notice when they haven’t seen me running in a while; they just notice. Well, those who are left do, anyway. See, my block has changed quite a bit in the past few years. It seems like every few months one of those familiar faces is forced to sell their property under the pressure of constantly rising property taxes and in response to the threats made by developers like you.

Now listen, I am not going to sit here and pretend like my arrival over 10 years ago wasn’t a canary in the mine shaft to some of the people who have lived here for decades, generations, even. When young, white kids start moving in, you know shit is about to change. I did my best to respect the place I was moving to, the neighborhood that existed before my arrival. I never once acted, like so many newcomers do, as though I “discovered” something. Talk about some language reminiscent of colonialism, ya know? I know now that my young, privileged face read as an upcoming rent hike to those that lived here then. Like the beginning of the end. Like gentrification (which it was). To those people, I apologize. Seriously. I know it doesn’t make it better but I am truly sorry. Even with what followed: all the new faces, the new bars, the coffee shops, the thrift stores, the bike shops, the bike shops, the bike shops — all the trappings of Hipster New York that have made Brooklyn a brand and paved the way for a Banana Republic to open on Fulton Mall (like, what?!) — this neighborhood has, in many ways, remained itself: low key and unassuming. A lot of the people on my block have managed to hold on.

But now the new New York that has been plaguing neighborhoods all over the city, but most notably Brooklyn, has arrived here. (Thank you for that, Bloomberg.) And you are responsible for the building currently going up on my block. This past spring and summer, men in suits descended on my street, trying to buy up whatever buildings and lots they could. A house that had gone down during Sandy, one which was never cleared away, suddenly looked like dollar signs. Buildings with residents — houses where people lived — were condemned by the city and those people forced out to look for new housing in a place where rent prices seem to climb by the second. Then those houses were leveled. And then silence. Until this past week.

This week has been horrible. I, like many people I know, live an off-schedule. I am a bartender and a writer. I keep odd hours and I work from the table in my (usually relatively quiet) kitchen. I understand that I cannot expect the world to kowtow to my abnormality. But the construction has made my home absolutely uninhabitable. Noise I can handle. I live in New York and share this space with millions of people and I understand what that entails. If I wanted pitch black nights with stars and crickets and to be awoken by birds in the morning, I would move to the country. But Mr. Pedram, everything is shaking. The work your contractors are doing up the block, which, by the way, they said they would be done with by 6pm on Tuesday when I first spoke with them (it is currently Friday at noon), is causing things to fall off my refrigerator, my coffee to dance across the table, my cats to cower, fur standing straight up, under the sofa for hours. When I called you on the phone just now you said that the Department of Buildings had been called to the site 2 dozen times and that this portion of the work would be completed in 45 minutes. As if the fact that you aren’t breaking any of their bullshit regulations should offer me some solace. I mean, I know this is crazy but how about you offer us some compensation? I am paying rent on a space I cannot be in. You stand to make millions and millions of dollars. Do the math.

I am not going to act as though my experience has been any different from, worse than even, the hundreds of thousands, hell, millions of New Yorkers who have watched as their neighborhoods become unrecognizable, as the homes they’ve rented for years become unaffordable, as the mom-and-pop shops they have frequented close and make way for banks and pharmacies, banks and pharmacies, more banks and more pharmacies. And I know, it is a lot worse for other people. My roommates and I are still able to afford our apartment, for now. And I am so incredibly thankful for that. But when those starry-eyed newcomers with their strollers hogging the sidewalks, their cars taking our parking spaces, their money closing our neighborhood businesses arrive, how long do the rest of us have? They will have “discovered” this neighborhood that existed for so long before them and before me and it will start to look like everywhere else.

I know that it is all money to you. But just for a second, can you acknowledge that people live here? More than that, even. Acknowledge that people have lives here. Lives that they have worked hard to establish. Lives that deserve better than apartments that shake because you need to make way for the new hip neighborhood. Because after you do that, after you throw up this shottily-constructed building that, if the other new construction in this neighborhood is any indication, will begin falling apart within 3 years, you will move onto the next thing, pockets lined with cash. And those of us who live here now, probably won’t be able to afford it anymore. And where do we go? Where do any of us go? Where do all of the people — in Crown Heights, Long Island City, Harlem, East New York, Astoria, Mott Haven — go? And how much longer can this really go on? How many more newcomers with money can there be?

I’m sure you don’t have the answers any more than I do. And I am not going to act as though this is something only affecting me and the neighborhood I live in. I know this has been going on for years, that I am lucky to have avoided it so long, that other people, specifically people of color, have it worse. I know that I am partially to blame. But fuck, man. My house is shaking and the only thing I have to look ahead to is an ugly new building going up on my block. Assuming I can still afford to live here.

So thank you for taking the time to answer my phone calls today, for speaking with the contractors about my complaints, and for saying that you “understand and feel for what I am going through.” Thank you, in short, for attempting to placate me. But just so you know, I think you, and all the people doing what you are doing in the name of personal enrichment, are assholes. I think you are all destroying this city. This city that gets slightly less awesome with every single personality-less building that clutters the skyline. And by the way, it has been more than 45 minutes and my house is still shaking.

Sincerely,

Rebekah

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