Alcatraz in New York

13 Feb

Give us your tired, your hungry, your poor, and your prisoners.

New York City prepares you for everything.  Seeing people intentionally slam into each other?  Seen it.  Bathrooms so gross you would rather die than touch the doorknob?  Seen it.  Guy in a blue taffeta dress walking down 42nd Street?  Saw it last weekend.  Yes, New York takes the shock factor out of almost everything, so it shouldn’t have surprised me that nobody acknowledged a prisoner walking down Madison Avenue during rush hour a few days ago.

But it did.

Under typical circumstances, I might understand how people would overlook him, seeing as how it was rush hour.  But, this wasn’t typical.  It wasn’t a hunch; it wasn’t racial profiling; and, it certainly wasn’t a Colombo-style act I can take credit for.  No, right there on the sidewalk was a man in a bright orange jumpsuit with a black number plastered on his chest, holding a black garbage bag I can only assume was filled with his “personal items.”

Really, New York?  You scare me more than felons.

They day we start overlooking America’s Most Wanted is truly the day I question ourselves as a people.  A people so focused on staring at the sidewalk while walking that they don’t bother to see that the man who just brushed their shoulder is wearing a jumpsuit that practically glows in the dark and screams, “Freeze, and put your hands where I can see them!”  Perhaps we’re just liberal.  Or, perhaps, New Yorkers really have seen it all.

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Who Makes These Things!

22 Mar

If men had to wear stockings, they’d be undoubtedly abolished.

Waking up for work is hard enough.  Add having to pick out a fantastic outfit just in case the hot guy on the 6th floor happens to be in your elevator, and it’s just too much for a rainy Monday morning.

As luck should have it, the frock I picked out actually wasn’t half bad.  During the seventy-six second period between pushing the elevator button, balancing my phone and coffee, and the elevator’s arrival, there was a brief but glorious moment when I glanced in the mirror and thought I’d pulled off the impossible – a fashion victory in just under twenty minutes of preparation.

I should have known it was all too easy.

Not five minutes into my 9AM meeting did my boot of doom somehow grow claws, latch onto my tights (the same ones I’d prided myself on not ripping during my sunrise extreme makeover), and rip a hole just big enough to become the bane of my existence.

9:02 AM – boot defeats stocking in the battle of good versus evil.

I sat in my chair, helpless yet plotting how I could stop the rip that was growing faster than a chia pet.  (Note – when you’re only resources are pen, paper, and boredom, you’re shit out of luck in all wardrobe malfunction remedy attempts.)  Of course, nail polish would have fixed said rip from spreading immediately, but who carries clear nail polish with them all day!?

Answer – me (and you) from now on.

Sans nail polish and pride, I ran (fine, walked briskly) to the local drug store to buy what turned out to be the world’s smallest pair of stockings.  It took ten minutes of tugging and pulling and praying to get those bastards on in the bathroom, all the while gagging because the woman one stall over couldn’t say no to beans on her Hale and Hearty salad for lunch.

Truth be told, I made it out of the bathroom alive, but the damage was done.  I’m never wearing stockings (or looking at that woman the same way) again.

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Coming Soon…

14 Jun

Surviving Stilettos is undergoing a facelift and will return with a fresh glow in a few weeks.  Please be patient as the procedure/recovery process may take a while – damn complications.  In the meantime, feel free to send any suggestions for the new layout to info@survivingstilettos.com.

Trees Please

7 Jun

Since when do leaves count as a vegetable serving?

I’m all about the organic movement.  Though I don’t know the difference between locally grown and “other” types of vegetables, I’ve been sufficiently brainwashed into thinking that the former are better (and therefore, justifiably more expensive).  Whole Foods – 1; Me – 0.

In spite of my regard for the mad dash towards plane-free produce, I feel as though something must be said to the specific New Yorker I saw taking social reform to extremes yesterday in Riverbank Park.  While she appeared normal at first glance, this woman’s inner desire to be a koala emerged as she stood next to a tree, pulled down a small branch, and started noshing on some leaves.

Yes, she ate leaves right there between the Hudson River and the West Side Highway.

While “Sexy Bitch” played in the background, courtesy of my ipod (don’t judge me), I was moderately disturbed in watching the black-haired woman in a white t-shirt and denim chow down on Mother Nature.  It was dinnertime, so I had to respect her hunger, but leaves?  Really?

There are two restaurants that serve “people food” within a five-minute walk from the innocent tree she violated.  Would it have been so bad to order a plate of lettuce instead?  I mean, are we boycotting Romaine now?  If so, I demand my memo immediately.

I’d genuinely like to know the point when people stopped bringing snacks to the park and instead starting saying to themselves, “Oh, if I get hungry, I’ll go just eat off that American Beech over there.”  What’s next?  Squirrels for farm fresh protein?

Gross, and no thank you.

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Hand Washing 101

3 Jun

Perhaps if learning how to wash ones hands became an admissions requirement, NYU could feel confident in the sanitary nature of its students.

NYU is a highly selective school, which makes me think that only relatively smart students make it through the door.  Well, smart students and legacies.  Regardless of how a particular student made it into the “yes” pile, I’m sure the university feels pretty confident that he or she can succeed in the classroom and later in the workforce.  Students prove that they can survive philosophical theories, theatrical critiques, and hundred page theses, but the one thing that seemingly holds them up is washing their hands.

Yes, according to the recent hanging of “Hand Washing 101” posters throughout the NYU library, the nation’s eighteen to twenty-one year olds can run the world by computer but cannot master the same mundane task that five year olds accomplish on a daily basis.

If that doesn’t keep you up at night, I don’t know what will.

How is it that any human being can actually make it to eighteen without knowing how to wash his or her hands?  Is that even possible?  And, on what planet is washing one’s hands a six-step process?

I must say, though, that the first step is what really got me.  Only the brightest in the nation would make step one on a how to wash your hands poster, “wash hands.”  Bravo.  At least if you’re going to make a how to poster for the one of the easiest tasks a person could possible accomplish, make it legitimate.

Tell me what you think.  Here are the steps.

Step 1: Wash hands (see, I wasn’t kidding)

Step 2: Soap up

Step 3: Scrub hands for 20-30 seconds thoroughly

Step 4: Rinse well under running water

Step 5: Dry hands

Step 6: Use your towel to turn off faucet

If a student is “misguided” enough to not know how to wash his or her hands, this process can’t possibly help.  Think of the task from the mind of such misguided students – all the questions that could run though their minds!  How much soap should I use?  The entire bottle?  Scrub hands with what?  Wait, water?  You need water to wash your hands?  What?  Dry hands with what?  My shirt?  What if I used my shirt to dry my hands, should I leave the faucet running because I don’t have a towel?  Washing hands is too confusing – I must get back to reading Darwin.

Seriously NYU?  I’m sure you could have found something better to do with the space on the back of the stall doors.  Like teach students how to pee in the bowl – now that would be an accomplishment.

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