Don't Let the Bed Office Bugs Bite

Whenever I hear or read about someone with “bedbugs” my skin immediately starts itching.

I outwardly feign sympathy but secretly jump for joy on the inside. At least - at least, I assure myself - my bed is bug free.
Cockroaches, water bugs, flies...bring em on. Well fine, I exaggerate. Everyone knows that I will totes forever be terrified of all things creepy crawly.

But bedbugs. BEDBUGS are in a league all their own.

And apparently that league has decided to play a few games in NYC. And by a few, I mean a LOT.

There are obvious rules when it comes to bedbugs. Numero uno simply being to NOT take mattresses or couches or chairs or, really, anything at all from the street.

My good friend Ri learned this lesson the hard way. She was given a pull-out couch that was, sure enough, infested with da buggies.

Seeing her swollen, bitten up skin on a daily basis was positively petrifying. But even more painful was witnessing the ordeal she had to go through in order to rid her studio of bedbugs. The dry cleaning bills, the throwing out of linens, the tossing of furniture, the endless exterminator visits.

She joked later that her apartment was so pesticide-ridden that any bug who trespassed over the threshold would be on their back in a matter of seconds.

I, perhaps optimistically (shocking, I know), believed that bedbugs would not bite the same place twice. Even though they weren’t chowing down on my blood, they were blocks away at my friend’s apartment feeding on her.

And I didn’t - thank GOD - end up with those little apple-seed assholes in my apt.

But last week my three or so degrees of separation disappeared, poof, in a cloud of insecticide-tinged smoke.

Yup. Bedbugs have struck again - this time hitting even closer to home than Ri’s old King Street apartment.

Office. Invasion.

Ohhhh yes. My fledgling insectophobia was dearly tried upon receipt of a mass work email informing us of an “insect issue” at 375 Hudson Street.

Issue? Issue? Immediately my thoughts settled on mutant water bugs, my go-to worst nightmare. But when my co-workers and I read the email more carefully - when we saw these instructions:

1) leave your office doors, files and desks unlocked;
2) leave in place any items that have not been recently used, rather than take them home; and
3) make accessible the perimeter of your office/cubicle as much as possible

...we got scared.

After a few phone calls to HR our worst, most pessimistic assumption was confirmed (thanks to those sweet, cute, bedbug sniffing doggies).

Indeed, there was a bedbug infestation in “some areas” of “certain floors”. What? WHAT?

Those goddamn, bloodsucking bastards have set up shop in our OFFICE.

OMFG.

My coworker Bea sent around this LOL cat. Made us laugh, but still. Monday morning blues just took on a whole new meaning. And got a hell of a lot more painful.

You're Such a Punk, Parsley

I like food…a lot. Obviously. I especially like food that has been scrumptiously seasoned to perfection (if you have not tried the lemon and herb seasoned tilapia from Whole Foods – well, you simply must! Wow I really like Whole Foods a whole lot, don't I?)

As with food, so too with seasonings - I'm just not picky when it comes to herbs and spices. In fact, some people may argue that I’m quite heavy handed. Especially with garlic, freshly ground pepper, and Parmesan cheese. But as far as herbs go, there is one I positively cannot stand.

Parsley: you’re pernicious.

Flat or curly, Italian or French, this ternately compound leaf lacks dignity and distinction. It is nothing but a bitter, listless, pungent, prosaic fern. Yes, parley, you are a FERN. You are a GARNISH. Oh, the humanity! In no world do you deserve to be eaten.

Carrie, I completely agree with you, Jack Berger be damned (no matter how cute you are)! It's the most brilliant idea ever to tell the waiter you're deathly allergic to parsley so they don’t sprinkle or garnish or embellish your dish with those loathsome green flakes of dried vomit. Why do restaurants think parsley, a sickly little plant, beautifies a presentation?

I. Don't. Get. It.

Seriously. Parsley is the most egotistical, self-centered, miserly herb in the world. It ruins e.v.e.r.y. dish. Some foods have such great potential, they could really be something. Something sublime. But parsley overwhelms them, spoils them. Don’t you have a conscience, parsley?

Take tabbouleh for instance. I think tabbouleh would be excellent if only – if ONLY – the second main ingredient was not parsley. Bulgur: delish, mint: delightful, tomatoes: divine (at least now I think so), scallions: delectable, other various herbs along with lemon juice, olive oil, black pepper: well let’s just say I had to go get a tissue to sop the drool from my mouth.

And the list goes on. You are such a weasel, parsley! Why do you feel the need to smuggle yourself into chicken noodle soup? Get OUT of my Mediterranean feta salsa, be expelled from my frittata, expunge yourself from my gremolata, goddamn it! And don't even get me started on parsley pesto. As if you don't desecrate enough dishes and sauces, you really have to creep in and steal basil's thunder? Really, parsley? Really?? YOU DON'T BELONG IN PESTO! It brings tears of passion to my eyes (good thing I have that tissue), why oh why must you spoil perfectly good foods, parsley?

You are by far the most terrifying green monster in all of existence. Far worse than Swamp Thing or Slimer or Oscar. The Grinch has got nothing on you, ya hear me?

Please people. There are beautiful green herbs out there that are far more lovely than parsley. Rosemary is rapturous, thyme is transcendent, dill is deific, fennel is fabulous, cilantro is celestial - cardamom and turmeric, well, you're both spelled funny but I love you anyway.

The point is: PARSLEY SUCKS. So don't buy it. And tell the waiter you'll go into anaphylactic shock if it so much as speckles your plate.

Yes Bitte! Spring Done Sprung

And all I can say is YAY!

Perhaps I’m biased. Perhaps because like a little baby lamb, I was born in the spring. (And if it means anything, yes, my favorite number is 2. Got a problem with that?)

But seriously, spring is the most wonderful time of the year.
Aside from the bikini-baring-body countdown (yikes), ‘tis the season to be chipper. How could one not be, what with all the chirping!

I spent Easter at my parent’s house in Connecticut - and while they’re way behind us in terms of flora and fauna, they are leaps and bounds ahead in nature. Namely nature of an animalistic kind. And I saw quite a bit.

Papa P texted me right before I got on the train on Friday, saying I should look in the tree at the top of our road. Apparently there was four bears chillin in it. OK Dad, I thought, like they’ll be there three hours from now.

Little did I know I would be greeted at the intersection of Lucas and Fairchild by DEP with tranquilizer guns, police officers with real guns, barricades, and paparazzi - of a country bumpkin variety.


Mama Bear was up there with her yearling and two itty bitty baby cubs for 12 hours - no food, no water, no nada. (Though they do hibernate all winter so whatever, they’re experienced.)

Then, on Sunday afternoon we had an Easter egg hunt (obvi...but it was a good one, those eggs were full of cash!) I didn’t find the golden egg but my uncle spied what he thought was a cat. Or a rat. But oh, it was too small for a rat.Then my aunt Lissette screamed, “It’s a bunny, it’s a bunny! It’s an Easter miracle!” We laughed and jumped up and down like we were five years old.

Yes, it was a miracle to see a real live bunny rabbit on Easter - but it made me really think about the real miracle of spring: Nature reawakening (cheesy as that may sound).

I love spring. A lot of people like fall but I, for one, loathe it. Everything is dead or dying. It gets darker every day, colder every day, bleaker every day. And what do you have to look forward to? WINTER. I think everyone agrees that winter is just plain painful. Especially when you’re a pedi-commuter in this city.

But...but...then spring comes along. Ceaselessly. Without fail. Sigh. We can take a deep, long breath at last, without the air freezing our nose hair, without getting sick off whiffs of stinky street soup and melting garbage (oh summer). Sure there’s some pollen but whatever, there’s a med for that.

I don’t think that we realize how the weather affects us until it’s actually, genuinely nice outside. Think about it: In the wintertime people are so rotten and miserable and mopey and want to stay all sorts of holed up, no one wants to leave the comfort of their home or apartment. And no one really realizes why.

But that first nice day of the new year, people remember how to smile. They remember how to laugh, how to be polite, how to be happy. So fine, so that sounds a little melodramatic, but you get what I’m saying. You know it’s true.Spring is so alive, so beautiful. Waaaay prettier than every other season (though I daresay when May 2nd rolls around from now on it’s gonna be ugly...I don’t waaaant to grow up!!)
I love walking down the street and seeing a myriad of blooming tulips, cherry blossoms elegantly weighing down limbs, trees with bright green buds. I love waking up to the sound of birds chirping - even if they’re dirty NYC birds and they’re screeching. I love how the air is warm and everyone is escaping from the wintertime-woodwork, how every restaurant and bar sets up tables on the sidewalk, how everyone is carefree and genuinely jolly.

I love so much about spring. But most of all, I suppose I love how it makes me feel - awake and present and like anything can happen. And methinksknows lots is gonna happen this spring.

Cue Mr. Bowie: Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes. I can’t wait.

Sans Carbonation = Certain Devastation

Mmm mmm ahhh. The wonderful world of soda.

Who knows what the sugary, carbonated empire would be like today if it hadn’t been for Mr. Pemberton and his cocaine laced Cola drink. Probably nonexistent.

A disclaimer before we begin: I’m not a huge soda fan. I go days and days, weeks even, without so much as a sip.

But if the mood strikes, I love me some A&W Rootbeer, Diet Coke with Lime - even the occasional Fanta (omg pineapple!) and Welch’s Grape. Oh, and cream soda, birch beer (remember that??), and ginger ale (Canada Dry only).

On the flip side, I very much dislike Dr. Pepper. And Mountain Dew (sorry Fred) - especially their 9 million red varieties. And I could totes do without Sprite and its sad little impostor, Sierra Mist. Even 7Up.
Nevertheless, be it tasty or disgusting, purple or yellow or brown (boring!), all of these sweet, syrupy concoctions have one common denominator:

Carbonation, baby.

It don’t matter that I inevitably hiccup each time I crack open a can-o-pop. I love me some bubbles. Lots of bubbles, in fact.

Champagne! Beer! Seltzer! Spritzers! Soda! Alka Seltzer! Bubbles just make everything better. Really they do. (Even hungover tums!)

I wish Willy Wonka was hiring for positions in his Bubble Room. Fizzy Lifting Drink taste tester? Yes, please!

And that, my friends, is why I am misery personified if my soft drink – or hard drink, for that matter – is flat. GASP. The absence of effervescence is cause for antidepressants, I tell you. No joke.
Because of all the hootin and hollerin and anti-soda/anti-caffeine lobbying, we the people have been programmed to regard soda as the enemy. 


Well, girls and boys, I am here to tell you that the enemy, in actuality, is supine sucrose. Soda that’s flatter than tap water. I’m talking sans bubbles blasphemy.

It’s just not fair! I so look forward to my one-soda-per-week allotment (FINE, it’s sometimes two...or five, if I am so inclined) – and cannot even savor its fizzy deliciousness because I know I’m on the clock. I’m rushing against the carbonation wrecking monster.

And it is a monster.

What’s the sense of drinking a bubbly beverage if the bubbles don’t last? Why hasn’t anyone invented a beverage with carbonation staying power? Instead we get measly crappy CO2 trap contraptions.

Remember those rubbery can caps from the 80s? Junk. Those newfangled can-topping tricksters Trissi fell victim to? Junk. (We could NOT even get them off the can!!)

Those fizzy little globules of deliciousness are tricky sheisters for sure. I know, I knoooow. Once the bottle seal is broken, the can top popped, the champagne stopper unstopped, it’s CO2 Gone Wild. Carbo buddy doesn’t know what to do in the presence of less pressure. So it desolubilizes and...poof!...vanishes nearly completely before I can before I can gulp it down.
I loathe bubbleless soda. So much so that oftentimes, in my mad dash to keep as little effervescence as possible from escaping, I fumble the cap, losing precious fizzy seconds.

Or sometimes, I successfully get the cap on but drop the bottle. And you know what THAT means - invaluable bubbles galore exploding and frothing before their ticket is up. (Those are the times I really just despise my beyond-klutzy self.)

It’s unfair. It’s not right. And there’s nothing we can do about it!

I hate you stable pressure! I hate you oxygen! You carbonation wrecking monster, you! Greedy little bubble sucking bastard! Leave me and my effervescence alone!

Capish?

Fishy-Smelling Graveyards

I was a vegetarian for three years. But when my hair started falling out and my nails began ripping and peeling, I decided it was time to give up my Mom’s special-made veggie chili and veggie meat sauce. I dove right back into the world of meat, eagerly devouring chicken nuggets and filet mignons and pork dumplings (pre-Swine, obvi).

Seven years later, my affinity for turkey tacos, mi amore for my Mom’s (real) meatballs, my absolute relish in annihilating foot long hotdogs – let’s just say it’s still going strong.

However, as creeped out as I get when I pass through the meat department (because really who likes thinking about all those dead animals), it’s the fish section of the supermarket that I find most frightening.
Does Whole Foods (there I go again) really have to put whole fishes on display? The Striped Basses and Red Snappers are macabre enough to keep me away. But seeing row upon row of crass, cloying carcasses is ridiculously revolting.

Bleh.

Why do they have to flaunt the flesh? Remove that skin, please! Pop out those elephantine eyes! Scrape off those scales! Snip, snip those fins and goddamn tails! And the tentacles. The tentacles! I love me some fried calamari but rings only, please.
Those poor orange crustaceans with their little groping antennae – prawnies and crabbies and shrimpies, so sad! And the lobsters – oh boy. Yes, yes, it’s one of my faves too, especially dripping in butter. Or baked with breadcrumbs. So delicioso. But to be boiled! Alive! The humanity.

Now let me just clarify: I do love fish. Especially tuna. Especially raw. Swordfish, tilapia, scallops, mussels – love, love, love, love. However, I just wish the fish counter wasn’t so scary. Why does it have to be such a morbid, ghastly, eerie experience? I don’t want to feel like I’m visiting a fishy-smelling graveyard. I want to feel like I’m shopping for food – like how I feel when I'm buying chicken breasts or flank steaks or turkey burgers. They're nice and trimmed and displayed in such a fashion that I forget it's animal flesh I'm looking to buy. It's so much easier to pretend you’re not consuming something that once mooed or oinked or gobbled or SWAM when it’s not bam, eyes/fins/tails/scales in your face! Poor Flounder. Poor Sebastian. Poor Nemo!

So please, please, please – take away the carcasses. Make the fishes look neat and pretty and like they never were alive. Conceal them like those Cajun and lemon herb tilapia fillets. Yes, more of that, please. Thanks!

Holey Shit!

I find it interesting and utterly annoying that tights are beyond disposable – yet their prices are NOT.

Stockings are a fairly one-and-done commodity. Which is infuriating because they’re kind of g-d expensive. I can’t even tell you how much money I’ve spent this year alone on tights - $8.99 a pair, $10.99, $15 – and from T.J. Maxx and Marshall’s, those prices are totes on the cheaper side of the spandexy spectrum.

My friend Shannon had a terrible, horrible, no good very bad tights day last week – she went through two pairs in as many hours. Whattawaste!!

Why do we subject ourselves to spending, spending, spending on tights?

We spend our time picking out the perfect pair; we spend mucho moolah every time we spy a cute new design; we spend countless embarrassing moments hitching up the shit outta them; we spend tedious instances patching them with clear nail polish. And seriously, I am SPENT.

It’s a crying shame that I’m so taken with tights. 
The entire bottom drawer of my dresser is dedicated to them. And it’s overflowing (as you can see...yep that’s my drawer). Pink and purple and blue and brown and black and printed and patterned and fishnet and flowery and me oh me oh my – siiiigh.

Why oh why do manufacturers have to make such charmingly cute ones? Such super seductive ones? Such alluringly appealing ones? ‘Tisn’t fair, I say!
I know I’m not alone in my ripped-tights trials and tribulations, my runny-stockings soap opera. And for that I am thankful.

In fact, I deem me and my clumsy, klutzy, oh-shit-guaranteed-rip gals the rule, not the exception. Some people are just naturally cautious...prosaically perfect, even. But I, for one, am not so very scrupulous when it comes to stockings.

My tricky, traitorous legs always seem to find the stray splinters under my desk – hellooooooo Snagsville.

Low-rise tights are a lowly enemy. For reals. I have a hitching problem – I’ll admit it (whatevs! who doesn’t feel the constant need to hike-em up??) Alas, I’m (apparently) an overzealous hitcher – sometimes my thumbs poke pull-up holes. Guess I can’t really say “I’m a big kid now” cause apparently I haven’t learned to yank gently.

Kitchen tables. Fingernails. Wooden chairs. Velcro! Brushes. Bushes. High boots. Purses. Shopping bags. Zippers. Your pretty little kitty.

Even the most benign, mundane item can become your biggest adversary. Everywhere you go, everything you face – is an enemy. An enemy of your nylons.

Now as much as I’d love to haterate on tights alone, I can’t rightly discuss holes in leggy garments without mentioning my disdain for…can you guess (besides Miley Cyrus and her stupid wannabe trend)?Holey socks.

Sorry gentlemen – but really. As if it’s not enough to don off-white socks with dress shoes and slacks (yes, dirt has been accounted for), said socks are undoubtedly riddled with big-toe n’ heel holes.

Holey sock? Holy shit. Mayjaaaah no dankes.

Though I am a lady, unfortunately I’m not immune to this most loathsome phenomenon. It seems that my shoes vilify viscose and cotton and wool.

Heels and toes, toes and heels, holy HOLES all around.

I suppose the one saving grace of disgraceful worn-out socks is the fact that they hide in your shoes, snug as a stink bug in a smelly rug, safely out of sight. You don’t have to immediately discard them. Take them off and throw them in the trash.Tights, on the other hand, are ready and raring to be judged. They get a little snag, a slight run, a teeny tiny hole and they’re done for. 86 or else.

Facebook Follies: Relationship. Status. Updates.

There are so many status updates to talk shit about. All kinds and shapes and sorts. I’ve already written about The IS Factor - people who simply write “is” as their status update (losers).

But we’re here today to discuss that oh-so-common breed of people, the people I so love to hate - the ones whose relationship status is their reason for being. Their everything. Their all.
I’m talking life or death, oh-dear-GOD-I-have-to-change-my-relationship-from-“Single”-to-“In-A-Relationship”-right-this-second-or-else-I’ll-die kind of obsessed.

They live, breathe, eat, and sleep relationship status updates. 


The second a guy asks them to be their girlfriend, these chicks go on and update their relationship status. They are bursting at their 7 jean seams with excitement over being part of the Taken Elite.

It is quite clear to me (is it to you?), that this brand of homo sapien prefers their relationship with their Facebook account over their actual brand-spanking-new boyfriend. They need their friends and family and exes (ESPECIALLY exes) to know asap that they are now IN A RELATIONSHIP.

Like, totally omg!!!!

Why don’t those dummies understand that what they're really doing is exploiting a fledgling coupling for all of cyberspace to see?
It’s sickening how warped our relationship-centric, pseudo-reality society has become. How we’ve let it become.

My friends and I cannot possibly talk enough shit on this topic. It is a bottomless ocean with deep, cavernous volcanoes full of shit-talking possibilities. Really, it is.

When I mentioned that I wanted to write a blog about how pathetic people’s relationship status updates are, I truly believed I’d had a stroke of brilliance. A little writer’s license, if you will. I would conduct an experiment. A test. 



I would go on Facebook and change my relationship status to “Engaged” and wait for the responses to flood in. I was sure my page would be inundated in a matter of minutes.

Seriously, some Facebookers live for that shit. They plan their days around Facebook stalking. Each piece of juicy hookup/relationship/engagement/breakup-gossip is an exquisite, exceptional gem in their eyes. A ginormous, King Size Snickers Ice Cream Bar. They go positively goo goo for it.
My plan was to then copy and paste the most outrageous of comments - names removed, of course, to protect the (extremely naive and gullible) identities of those “friends”-o-mine.

Alas, when I mentioned this idea to my actual group of friends, they were split. Some thought it was a hilariously ridiculous means of proving a point - namely how crazy 78% of the Facebook population is about relationship updates. While the other half gasped, told me no, that it was a bad idea. “People will actually think you’re engaged,” they gaped, horrified. Like a practical joke was the worst thing in the world.

In the end, I obviously decided against it. Maybe this particular blog’s subject caught me on an off-day, a day where I didn’t really feel like facing the Facebook hoards, the incessant comments and that quasi-exclamation-question catastrophe, “WHAT!?!”

My friend Michelle is one of those need-to-update-now!! people. She is also a very good sport when we make fun of her about it. (She was indeed my numero uno opponent when it came to the “Engaged” idea.)

Anyway, her take on the situation was that a relationship isn’t “official” until it’s been declared and updated on Facebook.

I believe 78% of the Facebook populace agrees with her.

But I will bet money that those devotees are filled with nada but hatred of their relationship status come doomsday.

Cause when they gotta change it from “In a Relationship” to “Single”, it’ll be in the Highlights section of everyone’s mini-feed.

And I...I will be laughing.

A Case of the Chronic Car Alarms

I live in a world where there exists...drum roll...car alarms. Chronic, resounding alarms.

It was kind of a tough transition from apartment-overlooking-courtyard to apartment-overlooking-street. Hence my constant white-AC-noise (and sleep mask, for that matter). But it’s really quite difficult to be a recovering insomniac when there are car alarms going off all night every night.

Last Sunday, I had a little funday with my lady friends, Kelly, Jill, and Dana. This last hilarious lass flicked her cigarette butt, it hit a parked car, and she immediately joked, “I hope that doesn’t set the alarm off!”

Amidst laughter, a conversation began on how car alarms are sooooo 90s. And they ARE!! They are beepers in a Blackberry world. Encyclopedias in the Kingdom of Wiki-Google. Bonafide handwritten letters in a society of ecards. For reals.

What purpose do car alarms serve? What is their means to an end? What act do they actually accomplish?

Perhaps they spook away dogs who are trying to piss on their shiny paint. Or maybe they prevent bar patrons from sitting on their hoods, tailgate style.

But really, people: They don’t keep hoodlums from breaking and entering your fancy schmance set-o-wheels.

If your car’s gonna get robbed, it’s a gonna get robbed. It happened to my father on 7th Avenue in broad daylight. Punched out his lock, swiped his wallet, wham bam thank you ma’am. Hundreds of dollars later - hmm. Did the alarm prevent it from happening? No.

There’s no point to the alarm institution. They’re good for nothing but inflicting pain on our poor human ears. Has anyone else noticed how the shrieking of car alarms has grown infinitesimally more torturous with the passage of years? Now there’s not only horns honking at frustratingly close intervals - oh no.

There’s the deep, belching sirens. The short, stabbing squeals. The vibrating emissions that sound alien...or radioactive...or a combination of the two.

Where’s the voice saying, “Step away from the car!” - at least that one provided some comic relief. Too much to ask for, apparently.

In fact, car alarms are so outdated, so archaic, that they’re inventing new uses for them. JUST YESTERDAY, I received an email from one of my high school teachers. No joke!!! Some highlights (copied and pasted...I swear, I kid you not):

“Put your car keys beside your bed at night…If you hear a noise outside your home or someone trying to get in your house, just press the panic button for your car...The alarm will be set off, and the horn will continue to sound until either you turn it off or the car battery dies…If your car alarm goes off when someone is trying to break into your house, odds are the burglar/rapist won't stick around. After a few seconds all the neighbors will be looking out their windows to see who is out there and sure enough the criminal won't want that.”

Oh no, that criminal surely won’t want that.

Come ON, you rich, Village-dwelling peeps. Turn those stupid, shitty car alarms off at night so we can get some SLEEP!

I crack up every morning when I walk by those super famous, cutely painted apartments on my street (where Anna Wintour now lives). It’s a block of nada but Jaguars and Mercedes the occasional Rolls.

Dummy, dummy, dumbass. If you’d rather not have your expensive ass car broken into, don’t park it on the streets of New York City. Because we the people, us regular ole folk, DO NOT want to hear its chronic shrill alarm go off all night every night.

Thankyouverymuch.

Sidewalk Rage

Don’t fret ya’lls. The snarkster is back.
(Though I must say I did enjoy a brief, blissful stint in the clouds the other night after seeing Bright Star again. Seriously, you need to see it. It will forever change your opinion on just how passionate the touching of a wrist can be.)

As badly as I wish it was, unfortunately this isn’t England circa 1818. This is crazy 21st century New York Citay. And though we still have to deal with the occasional pile-o-poop, the sidewalks here are a tad more crowded. Around 8 million times more so.

And navigating them, unfortunately, is no simple feat. In fact, it’s quite irritating. Infuriating. Exasperating. Aggravating. A simple walk on a lovely day can be positively ruined by a slow-moving person. Ruined. I kid you not.

Trying to steer your way through a New York sidewalk is like trying to find your way through a maze. Blindfolded. Behind a pack of abnormally large, mutant snails.

Oh yes. Walking around the Village, especially, (or anywhere in Midtown) will drastically diminish your faith in the brainpower of a Homo sapien. In their ability to understand, to comprehend. To grasp the simple unspoken rules of NYC pedestrianism.

Why don’t people get it?

There’s nothing like being stuck behind a group of slow-moving folks. It makes me want to scream and push and punch someone.

True, these offensive people probably don’t live here. Chances are, they don’t know that we New Yorkers have tacit speed limits for walking. (Especially during peak hours.)

But, that being said, what is so difficult about keeping to the right? Huh? HUH? Do you drive on the left side of the road? No. Do you walk down the left side of a staircase? No.

The left side is the passing side, people. Not the lollygagging side.

Being stuck behind a gaggle of people is probably the worst thing ever. And I mean stuck. Cars lining one side (and you know how NYC cars park - with mere inches, centimeters, to spare), buildings lining the other. No where to go stuck.

It could be three or four or more people blocking your path. It could be. But all it takes is two to trap you.

And if it’s not cars on the other side, then it’s garbage bags. Or couches. Or recyclables. Bam, you’re trapped.

My eyes dart around, I become an assassin planning an escape route. How the hell am I going to get around these stupid, snail-paced peeps?????

If there’s no escape route, I start breathing very loudly. Sigh obnoxiously - I am passive aggressive, obvi. I start fencing in my mind, trying to get by, find a way through the human-traffic-wall. Feint, parry. Feint, parry (coolest last name ever).

Then finally, when I burst beyond the slackers, I double up my gait. I try to show them how we New Yorkers roll - and yeah, it’s quickly.

“...Is Romance Dead?”

Now let me preface by saying this topic was not something on my “No Dankes” list. Well actually, that’s a lie. It probably was something I didn’t know I didn’t like.

But now, after seeing Bright Star recently, a strong aversion to present-day courtship customs arose within me.

How do we ladies stand it?

Keats wrote to his beloved Fanny:

“I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion - I have shudder'd at it - I shudder no more - I could be martyr'd for my Religion - Love is my religion - I could die for that - I could die for you. My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet - You have ravish'd me away by a Power I cannot resist: and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I have endeavoured often ‘to reason against the reasons of my Love.’ I can do that no more - the pain would be too great - My Love is selfish - I cannot breathe without you.”

Seriously? What? I mean, I know Keats belonged to the Romanticism literary movement and all. But what?


Perhaps I idealize and idolize a bit. Perhaps irrationally so. I know men - and women for that matter - are fairly incapable of writing such poetic, romantic prose these days.
 
What, with Facebook and Playstation and Football games diluting our heads and offering never-ending distractions.
 
And I’m sure we ladies, as recipients (or gentlemen for that matter), would laugh at such amorous endeavors as love letters. Like Carrie laughed when the Russian composed a song for her, getting her to thinking later that day, “...is romance dead?”
 
Yes Carrie, methinks it is.
 
Obviously I can be a judgmental bitch and would most likely say “See ya lata” to any Creepy McCreeperson calling me their religion. But a thoughtful handwritten note never hurt no one. Instead, we modern lassies get texts. Texts. 

“What r u up to 2night!?” hardly compares to “When you are in the room my thoughts never fly out of window: you always concentrate my whole senses.”
 
Those opposite-spectrum examples don’t even deserve to be in the same paragraph together.
Kelly, a fellow Bright Star-goer had an interesting thought. Maybe the passion of yester-century had to do with the anticipation. The waiting. I mean, we’re talking pre-snail mail. Like, amoeba mail. That shit took weeks, if not months to get where it was going.
 
Can you imagine the patience? The yearning? We modern kids think it’s been forever and a day if we haven’t heard from someone in two hours.
Maybe the lack of immediacy enabled the eloquence. Maybe drafts upon drafts were written to one’s beloved while they waited (and waited and waited) for a reply letter to arrive. 

Perhaps all those moments of waiting simply snowballed and magically manifested their heartbreak into things like: “I will imagine you Venus tonight and pray, pray, pray to your star like a Heathen.”
Yet we wait and wait for a text. A text. Or an email. And even with the passing of a day or two - forever in our interminably high-speed world - that is just so unsatisfying. 

Sorry’s yo. I’m sure once I stop reading Keats’ letters and sonnets and poems, I’ll return to my snarky self. Rest assured.