Tag Archives: Life

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.

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.

The Man Who Scratched Too Much

27 May

To Scratch or to Scratch Harder – That is the Question.

I respect men.  I could never walk around with a log hanging between my legs every day.  (Yes, I’m being generous.)  Talk about discomfort.  And, if I did have one, I’m sure I, like most woman, would be obnoxious and feel the need to accessorize it.  Then, J.Crew would come out with jeweled sac covers in light pink and orange, and life as we know it would be over.

The world really would be a disaster if women were the ones toting around a second brain instead of men.  After all, if men didn’t have a penis, what would they think with for half the day?  (Kidding…kind of…)  A man’s world would be turned upside down if he lost his mini-me, but for one man – a particular man at my gym, I believe that life would be oh, so much better.

It’s not that I reject the concept of chaiffage.  I just choose to ignore it.  This, however, is relatively impossible when this man at my gym spends the first thirteen minutes and forty-seven seconds of his treadmill workout scratching and adjusting and wiggling and scratching again.  Don’t worry; I timed him while my jaw dropped as I worked out on the stair climber.

Perhaps this is just the woman in me talking, but at how is it that he, at no point, thought to mosey on into the bathroom and take care of this “situation” in the privacy of his own stall?  Is this act truly acceptable in Man Town?  If it is, please let me know now because I’d like to prepare myself for future episodes.

I digress.

Though I chalked his initial “adjustments” up to discomfort, I couldn’t help but get worried around minute eight when he still hadn’t stopped. I was legitimately concerned.  What if killer ants had invaded his short-shorts?  Would I have to step in and perform some kind of rescue mission?

Pass.

At this point, I did what most people would do in my situation – I looked around for another witness.  If my retinas were going to be burning with this image, I wanted someone else to go down with me.  There was no one – nobody was seeing what I was seeing!  All I needed was one person to non-verbally sympathize with my inner struggle to finish a workout and not barf, yet I was a lone wolf.

It’s funny how people always look at you in the gym when you’re sweaty and gross, but when you’re about to fall off a machine because a man across the room just put his hands down his pants, there’s nobody in sight.  Oh yes, both hands were inserted into his pants in hopes of fulfilling a journey to solve whatever problem was occurring in Sacville around minute eleven.  They failed.  He was back to external scratching a mere seventeen seconds after their removal.

I finished my workout around the same time Scratch McNasty finished, what I’ll call, his warm-up.  I walked quietly into the locker room and gathered my belongings, scarred.  I knew, at that moment, that I’d never be able to mount that particular treadmill again or forget the site of a seventy-three year old man with his hands down his pants.

Perhaps I would have written this incident off as some kind of a daydream had the man been attractive, but that’s just not my luck.

The M35

24 May

Sundays are for rest and relaxation but not for Manhattan women who have the unfortunate luck of being trapped on the M35 bus.

I must preface this by saying that there’s nothing wrong with the bus.  As a general mode of transportation, buses are fine.  Generally speaking, I support their overall impact on our environment and…insert whatever other politically correct statements I need to make here.

All that being said, the M35 is scary as hell.  There’s no other way to describe the voyage from Manhattan to Randall’s Island than with disturbing adjectives.  This has nothing to do with the initial awkward pause during which I can’t figure out how to insert my metro card in the machine or the distinguishable smell of pee looming beneath an unidentified seat – most likely the one closest to wherever I am.  It has everything to do with the mysterious people who ride the bus and the overall ambiance of an insane asylum.

Let me explain with some visual aids…also known as my co-passengers:

The Imagineer: Imaginary friends are fine for children.  Imaginary friends are not okay for adults, especially those within arms reach of yours truly.  Someone needs to tell this to the man who spent twenty minutes talking to the window both through hand gestures and in a language that only he can understand.  Sadly enough, frequent bursts of laughter made me think that this man’s imaginary friend is funnier than most of the real people I meet on a daily basis.

Los Violatadores: I’d truly like to give a shout out to the two men who stared awkwardly at my sister and I for the duration of our travel.  Never in my life have I felt so disgusted by gaze.  Bravo.  And, by the way, we both speak Spanish – we know what you said right before you licked your lips, and it made both of us want to vomit, take showers, and go deaf.  Really, well done.

The Connoisseur: Only a true connoisseur would understand the classiness of drinking a beer in a brown paper bag through a straw while riding along 125th Street.  I guess there’s nothing like channeling one’s inner frat party to obtain maximum benefits of a Bud Light by sipping it like a toddler.  Apparently, that’s how the big guns chug-a-lug, and I’ve been doing it wrong for years.  Noted.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fear for my life on the journey towards the island that God forgot.  How could I not be with all the leers in my direction, the accidental losses of balance that resulted in hands grazing my right hamstring, and the general feeling that I was someone’s dessert?

There are times when it’s nice to get the visual once over – like when you’re dressed up at 230 Fifth or wandering the streets of Meatpacking.  But, the moment you’re trapped between a grabby-handed 5’3” man who’s boob height and a 6’5” man reeking of liquor and garbage, getting ogled is the last thing on your mind.  The first thing?  Running for your life.

She’s on Fire

17 May

What New York women seemingly need to put out their flames is a firehouse in the flesh.

This weekend was gorgeous – or so I saw through the window.  While I was stuck inside doing work during daylight hours, most New Yorkers were gallivanting in the city streets, tanning in the park, or running alongside the West Side Highway.  Though many of you think I suffered inside for thirty-six hours, God decided to reward the dedication I have towards finishing my book and sent me a gift.  Sixteen gifts to be exact.

As I sat in the local sandwich shop, silently cursing the nauseating couple next to me, a beacon of light walked through the door.  One after the other, members of the NYFD walked through the opening and into my academic oasis.  Sixteen suited firemen – the opening scene of a woman’s fantasy.

Apparently, it was the opening scene of a lot of New Yorkers’ fantasies.

As the fire department filled the room, women flocked inside the previously empty space.  Tall women and short women and old women and young women followed their noses leading them to the men like Toucan Sam to his Fruit Loops.  It was as if none of these women had ever seen a fireman before; it was as if firemen existed only as photos or a figments of their imaginations, but on this special day, each woman was allowed to see greatness in person.

I must say though, I was disappointed.  Having been forced to view New York’s finest every day for a year when I walked into my kitchen and saw my sister’s NYFD calendar, I can’t say these men measured up.  Okay, some of them did.  One in particular…woah.

Being a warm-blooded female, I didn’t miss my opportunity to silently watch the men as they filed in, but I kept my observations under wraps and denied eye contact.  (I really did have to get work done.)  I can’t say the same for one woman – a woman who looked as if she was on her way to the park that morning but found herself distracted by and drawn to the massive display of rubber, yellow pants and navy shirts.

It was no act of fate that brought her into the restaurant that day.  I saw it all go down.

First, I witnessed the woman walking by the place and casually peer in through the glass window.  Then I saw her backtrack and walk by in the opposite direction and in through the door.  It took eight seconds for her brain to register the savior mob as a midtown treasure and put herself in contact with firemen  – lots and lots of firemen who would be able to put out the fire that’s been burning in her pants.

It was clear that she came in for no other reason than to watch – to stare.  Having purchased nothing, this woman sat at a table and pretended to watch the news.  She wasn’t watching the news.  Even out of the corner of my eye, I could see her scanning the firemen from a distance and mentally tracking their every move.

For twenty-five minutes, this woman sat at the table, straining her neck as she watched each man exit with their sandwich.  It wasn’t until the last one left that she collected her belongings and left to go back on her merry way.  Or, maybe she continued following them.  It wouldn’t surprise me.

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