Sometimes it gets ugly

New York is my home, its the only home I've even known. No other place in the world feels like New York does, loud and crass while at the same time maintaining elegance and class. To live in this great city is to carefully walk the tightrope of a thousand oxymorons all at once. To play both ends all the time pretending you're too good to engage in any of it in the first place.

There are times when we show ourselves to be a lowly sniveling bunch. (Please don't flame me on this I'm lumping myself in the above mentioned group.) This strike, these three days have broken my spirit more then they've broken the soles in on my shoes. To browse Craigslist looking for opinions on this strike one will come across racist rambling and hateful diatribes.

I grew up in a world of granola crunching culturally aware teachers and lesson plans that revolved more around world atrocities then math or English. As I grew I understood that not all people get along and that not all groups get along. But reading posting after posting I'm beginning to believe that if I look outside I may find men with white hoods burning crosses in the middle of Columbus Avenue, or angry mobs pulling white people out of cars to beat them for being in the wrong neighborhood. To be honest I'm slightly confused, the bus drivers seem to be of all races, and the last train I took was piloted by a white woman. Are we truly so narrow minded? I'm being led to believe that no matter how progessive we may be that it's all like "Holiday Inn" when Bing Crosby sang in blackface about how great Lincoln was for freeing the "darkies."

On a different note, I came home from Christmas dinner to find that my shower drain had burped sewage into my shower stall. If bad children get coal I have to wonder how bad does a person have to be to get sewage? Oh well Merry Christmas to me, maybe next year I'll get nuclear waste.

Strike

"Good luck getting around today..."

Ah, what a lovely way to wake up this morning. The smug tones of the morning anchorman ready to tell me what transportation hell awaits outside the confines of my safe warm abode.

"And we'll update you on the strike as new information comes in. Now lets turn it over to [token hispanic on the street reporter] who will give us all the info for our morning commutes."

It's not our morning commute you smarmy rug wearing asshole, it's my commute, my commute from the Upper West side down to Jersey Fucking City. No yellow cabs can be hailed, no cars can be driven, and I don't have the pleasure of working from home like those who work above me.

I shouldn't be dealing with this, the only thing rug boy should be instructing me on is how to shop for everyone I love in one great place, or how a little town has tapped into the Christmas spirit, perhaps the over caffinated blonde can show me how to make it a festive holiday with tinsel. Maybe a hard breaking news story like how saying happy holidays could get me stabbed by a religious zealot.

That's another thing, I'm half Christian (the roman catholic version, heavy on the guilt) and half Jewish (the cultural kind, no temple no Hebrew) and I say happy holidays. I know its a CHRISTMAS tree, a true Jew knows that if they want a CHRISTMAS tree they call it a CHANUKAH bush as a joke but never a holiday tree, it takes all the irony out of it. But Happy Holidays, well that's another story. I'm sure Jesus would want all those Christians out there to picket Wal-Mart and other secular business to celebrate his birthday. I'm sure Jesus is real happy that you are devoting your time and efforts into making it difficult for people to get into the HOLIDAY spirits, when you would be working for a charity (like buying presents for operation Santa Claus, Google it you might be interested) or helping those who have no one else? No, I'm sure the hatred that you have demonstrated makes Jesus happy. I hope you get coal in your stockings.

Be Afraid

I've heard things about company holiday parties, I've been warned and talked to by friends and my father about what actually happens. I've seen commercials, television shows and movies that reference the "crazy times" but I had yet to see for myself. I'm no corporate advocate, if you can make a living on your own or by doing something that completely avoids the corporate world, then more power to you, its true my benefits are better, but chances are you're a happier person than I. But get yourself a corporate job around the winter holidays, if only for a month, so that you too can experience what I can only say is a must see.

I had been to Rob's work parties before, a bunch of teachers shooting the shit at some local bar playing a few games of pool and sharing a couple of baskets of greasy bar food. Talking shop and personal business, everyone content and everyone paying there way. It's nice, friendly, very calm and absolutely nothing like what I've experienced twice in the last week.

The Scene: The Waldorf Astoria on a Cold Wednesday night.
The Time: 6 - 11PM
The Place: The Grand Ballroom

I walked in and was herded into a line of co-workers waiting around to check their personal belongings. I had not ever been to anything like this before and due to my injury I have been cumbersome and groggy. Looking around at those who surround me I already feel the self doubt creeping up into my head leaving a ring in my ears and a flush in my cheeks. I forgot to pack a change of clothes and I can't wear heels because of the pain in my knee. I see ball gowns and shiny shirts, suit jackets and blouses of silk, I tug at my shapeless sweater and paw my scalp hoping my fingers can do something with new haircut I got a week ago in hopes it would raise my spirit. I am used to feeling out of place at work, but here and now I feel as if I'm someone's tag-along daughter. I scan the crowd hoping to spot a familiar face some one to cling too until I can get enough alcohol in me to simulate courage or acceptance.

Dinner is bland but I'm not really paying attention to the food. The grand ballroom is resplendent with ornate gold leaf in the ceiling and intricate balconies which hold tables for people to sup at while they look down at the sea of coworkers mingling and drinking on the company dime. I have seen frenzies at open bars before, but none so unusual as this, mailroom clerks stand side by side with CEO's trying to fill their bellys' with as much free booze as they can consume before they get ill. The room is dim, which gives a youthful glow to the aging faces of Vice presidents and directors, I think I must look like an embryo in this ambiance.

I walk around like a child searching for her mother in a crowded mall, pausing to greet unfamiliar faces who utter my name as I pass. I gulp my glass of red wine and pause to take a tylenol 3 to ease the pain in my leg. (Side note wine and codeine may be lots of fun, but perhaps reserved for a non work related setting.) After returning to the bar for a refill I make my way out of the ball room to take a peek at the other two attractions for the evening. I have been told there is a Kareoke room and of all things a "hip-hop" room.

Kareoke is interesting to say the least. I don't believe there was enough alcohol in the building or codeine in my purse to ever get me randy enough to sing 'Summer Loving' in front of at least 100 co-workers, but our security managers version of Meatloaf's 'Paradise by the Dashboard Light' singing both the male and female verses will stick with me for a very long time. The night progresses, people continue to imbibe and talk closer than is normally comfortable. I have taken to placing my hand on shoulder of my male counterparts, not to flirt or lead them on, but to steady my balance and maintain an arms length between the two of us. A manager from another department cues me in on his plan to transfer me to his group (I cross my fingers and say a silent prayer to the investment banking gods that this transfer goes through.) And bravely make my way to the "hip-hop" room from where I can hear bass thumps emanating.

I feel like I'm walking the green mile complete with a dead mans limp and brace myself for the worst. There are no words for what I witnessed. I worked in clubs for four years. I've seen everything from public sex and urination to 60 year olds with twenty something barbies on their arms. But nothing I had ever seen could have prepared me for the abundance of white man's over bite I encountered that night. (For those who don't know, white man's over bite is the facial expression that most Caucasian males display when dancing to a particularly fast paced song. The eyes squint and the upper jaw protrudes over the lower lip resulting in a quite amusing/pained expression that remains plastered until the dancing concludes.) Bankers, accountants, stock brokers and assistants all bumping uglies in some sort of uncoordinated mating ritual. Mind you that come daylight all these people will shed their costumes and return to the work place pretending that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred the night before. I stood affixed to my spot on the floor hoping no one would approach me, and why should they when 90% of the women had their racks proudly displayed while mine remained sheltered under the safety and warmth of an oversized sweater? By now the wine and codeine had created a nice buzz and the warmth of the sweater seemed too much too take especially when mixed with all the body heat generated by the gyrating professionals in my midst.

It was all to much for me, and I'm no prude, however this all seemed like a last ditch effort for those who have surpassed beyond their "carefree" years to pretend that they too had no worries. Though I too possess such burdens nothing was worrying me more then what would happened should I stay until 11 and like Cinderella dashing home before her dress turned back into rags I swiftly (well I was hobbled so it was swift considering) and quietly slipped into the night hoping to return home to my safe apartment to peel away the layers of adulthood until I was just me again.

Out of Commission

Not to be cliche, but I do love New York. It's where I was born and raised. The contaminants of its thick, smoggy, summer air have permanently lodged themselves in my lung tissue and who knows what odd mutations flow through my veins from imbibing the local water. You can hear New York in the way I drop my r's just slightly, enough to inform you of where I'm from but not so much that you would mistake me for some one taking your order at McDonald's. I love those months in the summer and fall when its not hot and smelly and you can see the bits of nature waging their eternal struggle with the concrete and steel. I even love the city in the dead of winter blanketed in snow and for a moment, if only five minutes, looking clean and pure like some Mormon bride on her big day. I love how we fall into a state of paralysis with every "major storm brewing" and react like an oversize woman jumping on her desk and clutching her skirt hems at the sight of a small rodent across the room. For a bunch of tough New Yorkers we sure do over-react to a bit of frozen water from the sky.

I'm in awe at how we deck ourselves out for every major holiday whoring our true beliefs and standards to a bunch of overweight Midwestern gawkers who come to see Mama Mia and eat at the Applebees on 42nd Street. I relish in walking five blocks and encountering someone from each of the continents (well the 6 that are populated anyway, but if those 5 blocks happen to cross the central park zoo then you can meet some penguins and your trip around the world is complete.) I understand now that only in lower Manhattan am I more intimidated by the presumed gang members in a Chinatown bodega then I am by well coiffed mobster types dining at Grotta Azura.

However to the MTA I have only one thing to say, concrete stairs with metal inlays are not particularly forgiving when they make contact with the human body. A simple slip and fall has left me limping and damaged. Thank you New York for a lasting impact!

That pretty much sums it all up

"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that ones work is terribly important."
-Bertrand Russel-



And though I hate to fly this makes it worth all the stress and valium.