Tag Archives: New Year

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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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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I’m Sorry!

7 Jan

You guys, I have been the absolute worst at this blog recently. The fucking worst. And for that I apologize. I actually don’t think that I have gone this long without posting on this site since I caught my stride like 2 years ago. But fear not for I have returned. And also I am full of excuses for my recent absence which I will now fill you in on.

I have started a new writing project! Yay! So here is the deal. As many of you avid readers know, I had a shit year in 2014. Oh it was the pits. But now it is 2015 and everything is different. And by everything I actually mean my mindset. Now if something bad happens I won’t just attach it to all the other bad things that happened to happen within the same 365 days. The bad things will just exist on their own, as independent events that sort of blow but don’t have any huge meaning or impact on my happiness or sanity. Or so I hope, anyway. And, to be entirely honest, it is going rather well. I feel upbeat! And part of this, I think, is due to my project!

So since I am an adult, I have many years of experience in being me. And one of the things that these years of experience have taught me is that I need a project. I need something to focus on, something that has an end goal, something that is forward moving. Because if I don’t have something like that, then I focus on what is right in front of me and what is right in front of me is bartending. Well, not literally at this moment. At this moment my cat, Grete, is right in front of me and making typing this blog extremely difficult but you know what I mean. So here’s the thing about bartending. I actually kind of like it. But the only way I can like it is if I don’t care too much about it. I want to do my job well, make money for myself and the bar, but I also want to leave work at work. I want to lock the gates, go home and go to sleep and not really worry too much about it until I am back at it again. But in order for me to be able to do that, I have to have something else going on, something that I am in control of. I mean, I am in control, to some extent, of the bar when I am working (or so one would hope) but I am not in control. I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them. I make money on the front-end when I am working, not on the back-end because I invested. I am replaceable. All of these things are key. And so to make the way that I earn my money sustainable and palatable, and to make me a better, more zen-like bartender, I have to have something in my life that is using up my need to be spearheading something that, in some ways, matters to me personally in my journey of being a Rebekah. And so, without further adieu, I bring you my new blog,

ChafingIsReal.com

So here is the deal. Over the course of 2015, I, along with some 10,000 other people worldwide, will be running 2,015 miles. That is the equivalent of something like 77 marathons. It’s a lot of miles. And I will be writing about it every single day whether I run or not. I am hoping to keep it Rebekah-style, meaning full of funny things, snark and maybe a little anger at the inevitable street harassment I experience along the way. I am also hoping to see bunnies. There will be a little bit of cheese, of course, but I really don’t want this to be one of those silly fitness blogs that is all full of “fitspiration” and lame quotes and me saying things like “working out is so great and everyone should do it all the time!” Because honestly, sometimes working out sucks. Sometimes I hate running. I ALWAYS hate lifting weights. But I am going to do it anyway and gripe about it on the internet. So check me out over there. It might take up a lot of my time, but this blog is not going anywhere. It will be reserved for stories of me getting shit on, feminist rants and letters to random people who wrong me. Also maybe some new bartending tales, if I work up the courage.

Alright, guys, happy new year and welcome to 2015! I think it’s going to be a hell of a year.

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Coney Island Shenanigans

26 Aug

I was going to edit this for Dad-safety, but really, Dad, you should just skip this one entirely.  It’s like that one time I wrote this blog post and warned you about not reading it and you read it anyway and then you regretted it.  Don’t make the same mistake twice, Dad.  Just, yea, close the tab and slowly back away from the computer.  That’s right, ever so slowly…

For the rest of you, there are two very important things that you all must know about me.  First, I love Coney Island.  It is one of my most favorite places in the world.  No matter what time of year, what time of day, that you go to Coney Island, something crazy is always happening.  Good crazy, mostly.  I really believe that Coney Island is one of the only places where people just sort of let their freak flags fly.  Even those people who go about life trying to fit in and be normal, when they get to Coney Island that shit goes right out the window.  People who are still too repressed to let their inner weird-o see the light of day?  Well they steer clear and I feel sorry for them.  Such a boring life they must lead.  Second, I embarrass myself all the time.  Or, well, seemingly embarrassing things happen to me but I think that for the most part being embarrassed is just sort of a waste of energy and so I don’t feel embarrassed.  I just sort of carry on.  Like that one time I ran 10 miles and then worked out at the gym for 45 minutes before realizing that the light blue string hanging out the bottom of my running shorts was not attached to said shorts but was coming from the tampon that was, at that time, shoved inside my body.  I could have been embarrassed but no.  I continued right on stretching until I gathered the energy to make my way down to the ladies locker room to tuck the string back where it belonged.  Life, ya know?

Anyway, normally my love of Coney Island and my tendency to get myself in potentially embarrassing situations don’t really overlap.  Only today they totally did.  So there I was, all by my lonesome on the beach waiting for my friend Kendra.  The sun was strong so I thought to myself, “self, you really ought to put on some sunscreen.”  So I went about putting sunscreen all over, even taking care to get some under the strings of my bikini so that I didn’t end up burning the skin just around the edges of my bathing suit.  I always, always, always burn the area of my butt right where my bikini ends.  Every fucking time.  In fact, I even did it today.  That is not important.  What is important is that in the process of trying to get the sunscreen on around my bikini top I totally managed to, initially unbeknownst to me, flash those sitting around me on the beach.  And, obviously because it is me, rather than just quietly putting my boob back where it belonged I said, to no one in particular, and while tucking it back into its temporary home, “get back in there!”

Sigh.

Sometimes it’s like I have no control.  In all the hubbub happening with the right boob, I didn’t realize that the left one was also exposed.  So there I was, on Coney Island, before noon, boobs out.  Good work, me.  I was almost hoping that, since I had already exposed myself, at least someone could enjoy the show.  But not like a creepy someone.  Just someone who would be like “oh, breasts!  Well isn’t that a nice little surprise for a Tuesday!”  I imagine this person with a British accent.  Perhaps thankfully, now that I am thinking about it, the only people standing near me were a dude in a Speedo standing up and meditating while leaning on his bike and a woman flailing around listening to music and drinking Cannabis Energy Drink.  I fucking love Coney Island.  And so now I am left to ask the age-old question:  if a girl flashes the beach at Coney Island and no one is around (or conscious enough) to see it, did it even happen?  I am not so sure myself.  I guess I’ll find out if a picture of my tits show up on the internet.  God forbid.

But that’s not all!  After Kendra arrived and I told her all about my misadventures in sunscreen application, we decided to go for a swim.  So we went over to the life-guard protected area and hopped in.  There we were, swimming, when all of a sudden I saw what appeared to be, at first glance, either a tentacle-less jelly fish or a very small shark.  Then, upon looking again I realized that it was the biggest condom I have ever seen.  Like so big.  I screamed, obviously, and Kendra and I quickly ran out of the water.  Here’s the thing though. I partially screamed because, ew condom in the water and what if it comes near me and sticks to my leg and then I have some sort of crazy horrible disease because that’s how it works, right?  But also I screamed because that condom was so goddamn big.  I mean, I know there is that thing that people a lot of times think that bigger dicks are better but I’ll tell you what, I would not like to meet the dick that belonged to that condom.  No way Jose.  Once, when I first moved to the city I had sex with this guy with a huge penis and I swear the second I laid eyes on that thing I lost all color in my face.  My lady parts are fucking delicate, you know?  I had trouble walking the next day!  And I think this condom, if memory serves, was even too big for his penis.  If I ever had sex with the penis that fit into that condom I would never be the same.  For real.

By the by, does anyone else think that the sentence construction I just used was really weird?  It’s like, through this whole thing I have not imagined a penis attached to a dude.  I have imagined just like, a free-standing gigantic penis kind of going through life, unattached, waiting to find a similarly unattached vagina or else someone in possession of a vagina who didn’t run the other way when faced with this particular phallus.  I would say poor penis only, judging from the condom which appeared to have been used, it did find someone that wasn’t afraid of it.  I hope she, or he, enjoyed him or herself.  Until that last sentence there this imagination game I had was totally heteronormative.  Not cool, Rebekah, not cool.

So, that’s what happened on Coney Island today.  People may or may not have seen my boobs without a bathing suit covering them, and I definitely saw a condom that was, at that moment, thankfully lacking a penis.  Also, I have learned that I do not have a future in erotic fiction, so that’s a career path to cross off the list.  Happy Tuesday, everyone!

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My Final Post

31 Dec

In 2013!  I got you there, didn’t I?  You thought this was my last post ever.  PSYCH!  Ha.  Okay.  Moving on.  Seeing as how this is the very last day in 2013, I thought maybe I would try to squeeze in one last blog post.  So, here it goes.

On my way to work yesterday, and having recently turned 30, I was thinking about all the things my also recently-turned-30 friends have been posting about being 30.  Like, how to know you’re 30.  Why your 30s are better than your 20s.  And things to stop saying in your 30s.  Sorry I didn’t link them all but after skimming through half a dozen such lists my eyes glazed over and I sort of just wanted to melt into a metallic puddle sort of like Alex Mack did on that show.  Come to think of it, I often fantasize about melting into a metallic puddle and sneaking out of, and into, places but that’s a story for another day.  So here are a few things. First of all, and maybe it’s because I wasn’t an avid social media user when I turned 20, I don’t ever remember there being lists about the things one should and should not do and say and think when maturing from teen to after teen.  Second of all, shut up.  I don’t know who made these people the authorities on the ways people should behave when they reach a certain age but I would like to see some credentials.  I would then like to take those supposed credentials, rip them up, throw them on the ground, and jump on them sort of like the bubble wrap my friend Carie and I discovered on a street corner a few years back.  There we were, two adults, one in her 30s, jumping up and down like lunatics on a giant sheet of bubble wrap, giggling and generally causing a scene.  We were, as some may say, acting “totes cray” and it was fantastic.  In fact, I wouldn’t mind jumping on a sheet of bubble wrap right about now.  Anyway, back to the list.  I agree with my friend Peter who, on a Facebook post mere hours after I was initially thinking about writing this post (get out of my HEAD, Peter!) said the following (much better than I ever could, mind you):

“There’s an article on Huffington Post about things you should not be saying once you’re over the age of 30. And I just thought, who is this punk to tell people what they should say and shouldn’t say? There are all these ways that people tell each other that they’re not good enough, that they’re unknowingly foolish and our minds get filled up with these corrections. Don’t write about this subject. This is how you ought to be. Don’t do this, don’t wear that hat, quit posting this, it’s too long, it’s too political…so for this New Year, my first resolution and wish for all of us is that we banish these little voices that seek to gain power or status over the “foolish masses” by shaming us for innocuous habits.”

Granted, there are things that people say that I don’t like.  It has nothing to do with age or anything, I just think these things are cliche, sound stupid, or make basically no sense.  But you know what?  I personally just don’t say them.* Anyway, I don’t know.  I am 30 and I sometimes say stupid things.  I also still have stuffed animals on my bed, do not own an iron, have no professional clothing, and sometimes I even eat junk food in the middle of the night (apparently all no-nos according to the internet).  I think I am still doing okay.  I also think that I shouldn’t just wake up one morning and be like “oh, I have turned this entirely arbitrary age and now I have to start behaving like An Adult.”  Whatever.  I like behaving like me.  So, I have compiled a list of things that people should stop doing altogether, no matter the age (this is in no particular order):

1. Stop making lists telling people what they should and should not do.

Oh, well, I guess according to my own list the list should just stop there.  That was a close one.  I just totally almost made a complete fool of myself.  But seriously.  I love The Internet just as much as the next person who enjoys cat videos, but I am oftentimes shocked by the things that go viral.  So that list, which obviously originated on Huffpost Women because shaming women is like a national pastime, must have been posted by like a dozen of my Facebook friends.  And I just kind of think that maybe there are other things that people should refrain from saying in casual conversation at all ages.  You know, things that hurt other people.  Things like saying something is “gay” or “retarded.”  Making jokes about rape.  Calling someone a whore or a fatass or a faggot.  Using racial epithets.  I don’t know, words like “adorbs” seem comparatively harmless.

So, anyway, that is all from me in 2013.  Thank you everyone for reading.  It was a banner year!  And I think next year will be even bannerier!  I’m looking forward to it.  Good things are coming down the pipeline for me.  And maybe for you.  Who knows.  In summation, this coming year I hope to write more, be nicer to people who are nice to me and meaner to people who aren’t, and check my email more often.  Try sending me an email sometime in mid-2014 and see what happens.  Hopefully something.

*Okay, fine, there was a recent time when I posted on a friend’s page my annoyance with the phrase “says nobody ever” but I didn’t write a post about it.  And I also don’t judge people for saying it.  I just think it is dumb, not funny and overused. But keep right on saying it if it strikes your fancy!

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