ms. thingk

hello friends. i’ve been MIA a while because all of my neighbors have locked their wi-fi networks. the nerve! what, they didn’t like me using their signal to download five albums/day from OiNK? hmph. stingy, stingy. so, until my roomies and i start paying for our own internet access, this blog will see little action. we’re working on it. does anyone in the nyc area have wireless service that they like and isn’t too expensive???

til i can get online without having to purchase a $4 latte down the street…..

Filed under: ms. mixalot, life in nyc
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i saw the most adorable bike thief today. he was one of the bums in the park, the ones you see so often that you feel as though you ought to start saying hello. he is always pushing around a shopping cart with a painting inside that he uses as a drum, and when he drums he is a study in concentration. woe to the person who dares to interrupt his rhythm.

so, back to the adorably simple way he tried to seize a bike. he noticed that a man nearby put down his kickstand as he stopped to chat with a friend. not one to miss an opportunity, the wheelbo (hobo with a shopping cart, don’t give me a dirty look, i did not invent the term) scurried over, kicked up the kickstand, and casually started walking the bike back to his shopping cart. the bike owner called over, in a super-queeny voice, “ex-CUSE meeeee! that’s my BIIII-ike!”

and, without a word or acknowledgement of the reprimanding, the wheelbo wheeled the bike BACKWARDS back to the gay dood. not a peep. just put ‘er in reverse and park ‘er, put the kickstand back again, and walk away. that is one smooth wheelbo. and the queen went on chatting with his friends as though nothing had happened. it’s just another day in the park.

Filed under: life in nyc
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so what new york blogger isn’t making a september 11 post today? who isn’t trading stories about “where were you when…”?

five years later and for the most part, things go on as usual for those of us fortunate enough in our losses to continue going on as usual. the subways this morning held fewer passengers and more cops. on my commute to work, i was trying really hard not to think about it, but that’s difficult when the woman across the aisle is reading a copy of the new york post and the cover isn’t plastered with the usual celebrity pic or pretty girl that disappeared but with two simple numbers on a stark black background:

8:46

9:03

so i stared at those numbers the whole hour uptown, acutely aware of when they matched the numbers on the subway clock and how the weather today is just like it was five years ago, all stunning blue sky and sunshine and brisk air. i wondered if everyone else was thinking about it too or if i was being unnecessarily dramatic and too easily chilled, saddened, still holding so much stake in an event that, at that moment in time, i only witnessed on a tv screen while getting ready for communications 101.

there seems to be a strong desire among new yorkers to lay claim to 9/11 grief. if you weren’t in new york city that morning, your feelings and observations are moot. if you were there, then you can talk, even more so if you knew someone that died or if you watched the towers crumble from your bedroom window. so i feel a little guilty that i have such a hard time with this day because my distance from the tragedy was much greater than most of the people around me. but now look at the scope of the tragedy– nearly everyone can lay claim to it. you may not have lost a loved one in the attack but you probably do know someone who was shipped off to iraq in our horribly misguided response to it, etc. maybe you’ve looked at the iraqi civilian death count lately, and you happen to care. today you don’t have to remember the smell of the smoke to hurt, not just for new york or for the US but for the whole world that is increasingly scary because of the way our government used fear to build support for a war that is doing nothing but breeding more hate. it’s no fucking wonder new yorkers are touchy about who lays claim to or grandstands on 9/11 grief. it’s like taking their name in vain, you know?

Filed under: life in nyc
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last night i met a man who opted to shit his pants rather than use the restroom at CBGBs.

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One of the joys of living in New York City, for me at least, is the high level anonymity and privacy, if you want it. While I enjoy running into friends around the city, for the most part I appreciate being able to go about my business in a quiet and independent fashion, without people being nosy/intrusive/judgmental. And this preference is generally respected—we may be a city full of privacy-seekers, in a way—we don’t raise our eyebrows at crazy and we expect the same courtesy in return (I’m ignoring the fact that my bedroom window stares straight into my nudist neighbor’s bedroom window). You can always draw the curtains. And when I walk down the street, I realize I’m in a public space, but I like to think I can always (metaphorically) “draw the curtains.” When I am wearing dark sunglasses and am walking purposefully and clearly am not out to socialize, I expect that self-set boundary to be respected. It usually is. But not always. My recent experiences lead me to believe that there are a number of people out there that have difficulty respecting a young woman’s preference for alone-time.

So earlier this week I’d had a terrible day and was feeling depressed, so I figured I’d take a quiet, solitary walk to the East River. I don’t hide my emotions well, but so what? Why should I bother hiding the way I’m feeling when I’m on a walk by myself? You’d be surprised how many folks have a problem with this. No less than 3 (THREE!) men admonished me to “SMILE, honey!” and “oh cheer up, it’s not THAT bad!” This, of course, just added to my grouchiness. First, what do they know about a stranger’s life? How do they know “it’s not that bad”? And what makes them think that their assession of something they know nothing about is somehow valuable and worth verbalizing? Second, and perhaps most annoyingly, I don’t think they’d give their advice to just anyone. They don’t hesitate to step into my bubble, but I betcha they wouldn’t say “smile, honey!” or “oh cheer up, it’s not THAT bad!” to some grouchy-looking tough guy on the street. No, this type of intrusion is reserved for women. It’s as though some people are offended by the sight of a woman not constantly smiling and looking eager to please.

I think it sounds like I’m overreacting… and I may be. But this is not a rare occurrence. I’m generally a happy person, and I smile easily and often, but in the occasional event that I’m not smiling, some man INSTRUCTS me to smile, sometimes even DEMANDS it. (At a ticket booth window: “I’m not giving you this ticket until you smile for me!” on the street: “c’mon, give me that big beautiful smile!”) I’ll feel less annoyed by it when total strangers start demanding that my male friends smile for them.

Filed under: sassifesta, life in nyc
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all summer long i’ve been pompous about how i can survive a new york city summer without wasting money and energy on air conditioning. well, my arrogance came back and kicked me in the ass today, the hottest day of the year and one of the hottest on record, when the lock on my door decided to stop working and trapped me inside my sweltering, 120* apartment all afternoon. when i couldn’t get a hold of any friends in my ‘hood, my sorta-ex-boy came to “rescue” me, bless his heart, but he still couldn’t bust the lock. finally two of the supers came and fixed it. they were so cute– one was polish, one puerto rican– and neither was able to communicate with each other or with me. i wanted them to tell me what was wrong with my lock and assure me that it wouldn’t happen again, but the only things they said here “hello,” “we will fix lock,” and “it’s good now, it’s good now.” then i ate lots of popsicles.

holy boring story… i swear the heat slows my mind and lowers my IQ… anyways, if i were tiny enough, i wouldn’t be blogging right now, i’d be hanging out here:

Filed under: ms. mixalot, life in nyc
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i want to live in a place
with a fire escape,
tall dirty windows
and a heater that shakes.

Filed under: ms. mixalot, life in nyc
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i’m such a lucky! less than a week after canadian brooke graced my futon with her presence, i now get to host the irish newmexican sebastian! he wears a hideously awesome ronald reagan belt buckle 24/7. we pub-crawled last night and conversation got pretty deep in the backyards of various williamsburg bars. for example, we made lists of our favorite things in the WORLD.

sebastian:
1. encyclopedias
2. fermented things (beerwinecheese)
3. traveling
4. listening to the white album when you’re 8 years old and finding everything you knew about the world was wrong
5. connecting with people
honorable mentions: boots, languages

me:
1. poking at squishy things
2. jewish boys in hoodies (zip-up)
3. people having excited conversations in other languages, the kind so animated that you know what they’re saying even when you don’t understand the language
4. cheese/kaas
5. train rides with strangers, i myself a mysterious stranger to somebody
honorable mention: hypomania

i dunno, did we forget anything crucial? discuss.

Filed under: ms. mixalot
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yes. an ice cream truck. i used to have a fondness for ice cream trucks. that was before one circled my block playing the same obnoxious song 18 hours a day rain or shine!

and it’s just not fair, because the rest of brooklyn doesn’t have to suffer with me! i was comparing notes with my friend about the “kool man” trucks (there is a whole fleet of them) when i learned that some people actually have relatively pleasant ice cream songs in their neighborhood (bushwick).

nickers said, “yeah, our kool man truck plays the ‘children’s medley.’”
“LUCKY!!!”
“why, what does your kool man play? ‘turkey in the straw?’”
“i wish…”
“ohhh man, tell me you don’t have ‘do your ears hang low.’”
“it’s the truth, buddy.”
sympathetically, he patted me on the back.

and i thought i’d never have to hear “do your ears hang low” again, not since i stopped riding the school bus in 5th grade. i might ask my neighbors to crank up their reggaeton even louder.

Filed under: ms. mixalot, life in nyc
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…of a kitten. check out this precious little critter:

also, have you ever heard that people have a tendency to look like their pets? i always used to think, “well, that’s unfortunate” but i think i am perhaps not immune to the phenomenon:

inquisitive peering!

head possibly a bit too large for body!

i know we will be the best of friends. we already have so much in common.

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lack of swimsuits, broken hose, we ripped the plastic, ain’t nothin. the hardest part about drunkenly operating a slip n slide at 2am is finding a brooklynite with a back yard. so far i know… just one sod-advantaged boy!

Filed under: life in nyc
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says almost every nyc-based news and blog source: “all the REAL artists don’t live in williamsburg anymore… they’ve all moved east, unless they have a TRUST FUND.” such sentiments are always conveyed with derision, the newsprint version of a smirk directed toward any and all young, hip people in williamsburg who are busy spending “daddy’s money” (why don’t they ever spend mommy’s money, i wonder?).

it is true that my neighborhood gets much more expensive every year, with every new condo that replaces a building with bars on every window and every boutique that crowds out a bodega. the privilege to which these sidewalk sociologists allude DOES exist, i don’t dispute that (though honestly i don’t have a single friend with a trust fund, or even a checking account above $500). but, since we’re talking privilege, may i point out…

that unfortunately it is a PRIVILEGE and NOT A RIGHT to feel safe in your own neighborhood, especially if you’re a young woman? you point the “privilege” finger at me for living in williamsburg, i point it right back. i’d enjoy the privilege of feeling safe at night. i’d like to walk home at night without mace and a whistle. i don’t live here because i want to feel hip, i live here because it’s where my budget met (relative) safety in a little venn diagram. and like many other young women, i pay 60% of my income on rent in order to live in the safest place i can afford. hardly a “trust fund” lifestyle. i’d move out to a cheaper, more crime-ridden area in a hot second if i could feel as safe as my male friends who made that move.

it’s bullshit, isn’t it? women often don’t work the higher-paying night shifts because of safety concerns. and women often pay a much greater percentage of their incomes on rent than do men, because they want to live in a place where they feel safe. ta-daaa! fucked once, no, twice!

Filed under: ms. mixalot, sassifesta
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i’ll admit it right now, it takes a village voice-sponsored indie rock concert to get me out to coney island, but i’m glad i did it. once. i can see how it appeals to urban families with beach-loving children, but to me it is like hell on a boardwalk. garbage everywhere. lines everywhere, especially to get a nasty $3 hot dog. “coney island whitefish,” aka used condoms floating near the shore. bathrooms with an inch of urine on the floor. i am barely exaggerating.

but there were highlights. the character of the place, a sense that little has changed since the park’s heyday in the first half of the 20th century, but what was exciting then is merely kitschy now. there’s still a game called “SHOOT THE FREAK,” but instead of someone with an oddity of some sort, some ordinary joe runs around taunting “you can’t get me, nyah nyah nyah” while people point paintball guns at him. and the characters of the place, like a man who danced for my friends and i, exhibiting a very penis-centric bump-n-grind routine before dropping to the floor for about 100 fast-motion pushups. then he said to us, “are you ladies gonna dance with me or just sit there like barbie dolls?” we gave a half-assed barbie pose and skedaddled.

oooh and you see those pink bracelets there? VIP passes, sucka. those got us right up in the front row for every show, and if we tired of shows, we could go drink cold beers with the bands and other “industry people” backstage. i was pretty giddy about it. much love to a friend of mine who hooks me up in ways that tend to make me feel a bit more awesome than i actually am.

hello tapes n’ tapes, i could have touched them if i were feeling sassy!

some photo props to bruk.

Filed under: life in nyc
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living in nyc, you get a lot of company. your roommates get a lot of company. rare is the weekend when your futon doesn’t have 1, 2, or 3 people crashing on it. and it’s cool, really. i love showing people the city i live in and love and the things i love in it. i very much want them to love it too. but i’d be lying if i said having company doesn’t exhaust me to some extent. a lot of people are fascinated yet a little intimidated by new york, and they want you to guide them through it… i.e., entertain them and give them a push off the futon into this big big limitless city. and if they’re not totally enthusiastic and smiling the whole time, i feel like i’m not doing my job.

but… i am about to have the ultimate houseguest! guess who is visiting… the one the only the brilliant BRUK! the amsterdam to berlin to toronto to nyc bruk!

if you don’t know her you should. because she’s everywhere blogwise and photowise and travelwise and i cannot wait til she’s brooklynwise! and she’s just the kinda girl i need more of, you know, chill and independent and adventurous and loving of people and life. she needs to be around more so she can shake some sense into me more often, and by shake some sense i mean just exude her presence because she reminds me of how i want to be living. refreshing and real. so, new york, look out come the second weekend in july. we will be tearing up the streets from boswijck to haarlem with our digital cameras and sno-cones and brightly colored shoes and wind and sweat and dirt in our hair, with one eye on the street and one eye on the boys and enjoying life in the most simple and most precious of ways.

back back back in the amsterdam days. when biertjes were 1 euro!

Filed under: ms. mixalot, life in nyc
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it’s not enough that 80% of the young women in new york city are smokin’ hot aspiring models and actresses. it’s not enough that young women outnumber young men in the city by a 3:2 ratio. now i have to deal with men and their ridiculous and arbitrary dating requirements!

said the dominican man to me as i walked home from the subway:
“HEY! you got good credit? cause i need to date a white girl with good credit!”

i told him i only fulfilled half of his demand; sadly, we are not meant to be together.

Filed under: the menfolk, life in nyc
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i am a fruitfly and proud of it! and i have so many fruitfly opportunities this week, since it’s PRIDE week in nyc and there are tons of faaaabulous events going on. my favorite event name so far: “Way Gay: Gayer Gay Gayness.” last night i caught the radical faerie parade in tompkins square park. i’m back in love with new york.

the parade kicked off with some mime action. after their dance routine, they ran over to me and “sucked my brains out” with a giant straw. then they handed me a promo postcard that said, among other things, “so cute but terrible virus!!!!”

then the men in drag started showing up. this guy was negotiating with the NYPD over parade logistics.

the cops were trying to be all hard-ass with the parade organizer, but they just sounded like assholes since everyone in the parade was well-behaved and their spokesperson was very diplomatic. truly, this was a family-friendly event. i got such a kick out of the wee new yorkers mingling with queers in drag while their parents ran around taking pictures. i felt fuzzy inside for all the opportunities these kids have to experience all kinds of people, and what kind of people that will make them someday. then i felt for all the kids whose parents would whisk them away from a drag parade, the kids who would be taught from birth that to be gay is to be disgusting and disgraceful. sad. i found the whole event to be so life-affirming: a celebration of friendship and camaraderie and community and individuality all at once. the paraders even incorporated the ubiquitous tompkins square bums into the fun. when one of the crazy homeless dudes started being a little shkeevy in the crowd, they simply made a circle around him as he danced, so that he could have his moment in the limelight. everyone was welcome.

and look, this nice guy bought ice cream for the children:

he’s also got a pink undies wedgie, i don’t know if you noticed that or not. the look on the ice cream peddler’s face was priceless.

a reporter for the occasional fag:

and the only thing funnier than a guy on a scooter is a guy in drag on a scooter.

Filed under: the menfolk, life in nyc
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back by popular demand*, i am continuing the “doors to the cool kid buildings” series!

*kevin.

Filed under: ms. mixalot, life in nyc
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i went to a nude beach in jersey this weekend!!! it’s part of the sandy hook beach stretch. but after a day at the nude beach, my boy said, “sandy hook? more like sandy NOOK!” about which i snickered the whole ferry ride home.

today i was telling my friend about it, she said, “ugh, who wants to see naked jersey people?”

exactly. and that is what made it so awesome. seriously, i know you’re supposed to act like you’re not people-watching at a nakey beach, but puh-leeeze. everyone is, and it’s fascinating. not just people’s nakedness; the novelty of that wears off rather quickly. one can only look at so many wrinkly uh-uhs (boys, what you have to look forward to in your old age is not pretty). the fascinating part is the way that people respond to nakedness. some, ain’t no thang. they’re just doing normal beach things like sleeping and reading. i imagine that they go home, eat granola, and tend to the garden in their birkenstocks. but most people are looking around a lot, even the prevalence of dark sunglasses cannot hide that. some are looking around nervously, strategically hiding their nakey parts, like, “i want to say that i’m cool with this but… oh god can we please go to the regular beach now!” then there are some that are brazen lookers. this one little gnome-like man must have walked by my towel about six times. and, no surprise here, the manhattan gay boys were representing. i’ve got to give them credit… they know what they’re looking for and they know how to find it. cruuuuuisers! they were also the most attractive people there. interestingly, the people who were most likely to be naked were the ones with the bodies that are considered least attractive in american culture. old, plump, saggy. ain’t no cancun. but it makes you wonder about the kind of wisdom and self-acceptance that comes with aging.

on the way out of the beach, there are shirts you can buy that proudly proclaim “GUNNISON BEACH”, which strikes me as a little ironic.

now i can cross another thing off my “must do before i die” list.

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oh, the charms of city living. i just witnessed a screaming match between someone who lives in my building and a person who lives in the new building that faces my building’s “backyard.” thanks to dull architecture and dorm-style windows, people in either building can spy on those in the other building all day long, often without even trying to.

so the girl in the new building yelled across to someone in my building, “what are you DOING?! don’t you know you’re by a window? put some CLOTHES on!”

the guy yelled back, “i’m painting my apartment!”

“NAKED?! do you know what that is? do you know what that’s called? that’s called a WINDOW! a fuckin WINDOW! people can see through it!”

“it’s MY apartment! i do what i want!”

“yeah well i WANT you to get some BLINDS. ever heard of those? other people get BLINDS. i shouldn’t have to see your junk hanging around!”

“well stop looking! i’m in my own apartment, biiiiiitch!”

etc. i thought it was kinda funny… i mean, if i don’t want to see someone naked in their own apartment, i’d probably just stop looking out the window. funny that the woman thought it was her duty to police for decency in the neighborhood. and although i think she was totally rude and obnoxious, i have a little bit of admiration for her style of vigilante taking-care-of-business… i wouldn’t dare scream obscenities at some strange dude who knows which building i live in. and of course, there’s the funniness involved in the mental picture of a dude painting his apartment in the nude. jerry seinfeld’s distinction of good naked vs bad naked comes to mind.

but the funny part ended when the guy started getting really mean too. maybe this is what it’s really about:
“fuckin BITCH! you think you can just move into this neighborhood and tell people what to do? i’ve lived here for 25 years!”

ooooooooooooooooooh. there’s the rub. i quickly stopped spying and hid behind my curtains. nothing to see here.

i’ve never lived in a place before where people spent so much time resenting and bitching about other groups of people, and i am so uncomfortable with it. i don’t like playing any part in it, yet i am inevitably a part of it as a young white person who wears thrift store clothes. voila! you’ve been typed. now spend the rest of your time here feeling guilty about being one of the hated ones, simply for trying to live in the most decent place you can afford that’s not too far from work and where you can feel somewhat safe walking home after dark. spend the rest of your time sticking up for yourself when people find out which neighborhood you live in and mock you for being a trust fund kid who doesn’t do anything but drink, shoot up, and hook up at bars. it’s so hard to contribute anything of worth to the neighborhood when you feel like the majority of its residents–including the ones who are supposedly exactly like you– are resentful of you. this place has such an unhealthy vibe.

Filed under: sassifesta, life in nyc
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last week it turned into christmastime in my neighborhood! complete with hollywood-purchased christmas lights and fake snow around lamp-posts.

my block was chosen as the site for a “gritty crime scene” from an upcoming $300 million feature film starring edward norton and colin farrell. yeah! go neighborhood! way to wow them with the grit!

a lot of new yorkers brag about how it’s just no big deal to see film sets and movie stars in your neighborhood. but i don’t think that’s true for my hood and its residents. it was like a family event. people inched in as close to the set as the crew would let them. one man standing near me said to me, “hey, wanna get on tv with me? let’s run into the scene yelling “WOOOOOOOOO!!!!”" he waved his arms and jumped around when he said it. i didn’t say we were the brightest bunch… just enthusiastic.

lucky for me, a good friend of mine is a production assistant for the film, so i got the grand tour. i met the creepy sound guys who insisted on buying me a spongebob ice cream treat from the mr. kool truck, i peered into the set (the bright lights you see in the photo were to make it look like it was light outside– the shoot-em-up is supposed to occur in daylight though they always seemed to film at night). i went inside the makeup trailers and saw ed norton’s “continuity shot”– the one makeup artists use to make sure he looks the same from scene to scene. i hear that ed norton is very smart, thinks he’s very smart, and has a big head on a little body when you see him in person. after i saw all the workings of just one tiny day on the film, i couldn’t believe the movie’s budget was only $300 million. so many people, so many bitsy individualized jobs.

the following photo illustrates the type of film crew and budget i am more accustomed to seeing around these parts:

yes, that’s right, those are robots (nyu film students?) robbing a car underneath the williamsburg bridge. coming soon to… nowhere near you.

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those are sandhill cranes and great horned owls in the second set. you have to hold them up to light to get the full effect.

i made em by cutting up some old slides sent by my dad, an avid bird watcher/ orchid hunter/ photographer. these earrings are my first attempts. i love them because they are special michigan memories to me, and of course for the dad connection, but i wonder if i honed my skills a little bit if anyone else would dig them?

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one thing i will not be sad about is the eventual but way-too-slow demise of the written phrase, “that is all.” i get slightly red and angry every time some turd (often one of my friends) ends a message or a livejournal post with a couple skipped lines and… oh, scroll down, scroll down, what is the oh-so-deep conclusion of this post?

“that is all.”

just in case i couldn’t tell “that is all” from the fact that the last sentence ended with a definitive mark of punctuation. just in case i couldn’t see that the entry, oh i don’t know, ended when no further text appeared on the page?

i wouldn’t be so annoyed if the “that is all”-ers weren’t so prevalent. it’s really the thing these days. when i find the person that spawned this trend, they will run and hide (ie change their IP address). because i will also blame them for other overused phrases like “not so much” and “i know, right?” and that day will not be a pretty sight.

i am a bored insomniatic geek.

that is all.

Filed under: ms. mixalot, sassifesta
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i’ve noticed that my “recent keyword activity” (i.e., what people google to end up at my shitty blog) doubles as a
SHITTY BAND NAME GENERATOR.

behold!

“opossom papaya”

“the windy skirts”

“bud’s man made rock”

“my computer smells like b.o.”

ok, so that last one is a bit of a stretch… but in general, i could be supplying all the indie bands of brooklyn with a new band name every time they switch bassists!

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i finally have furniture in my room! two shelving units– one of which will function as a makeshift sewing table, a funky orange chair, and a fan so powerful it could blow away a small dog– for the sweltering summer. all for $20.

that is where the good news ends. the reason i was able to furnish my room for $20 is because my neighbors got evicted. a whole building full of neighbors, actually, mostly artists– the building’s owner pushed them out to make way for luxury condominiums. the ex-tenants dragged all their stuff to the curb in hopes of making a little money for it. it was sad to see the possessions they were parting with– keyboards, sitars, speakers, workbenches, chairs and tables. all of it very worn with paint splatters and my “new” desk seems to have once been a cat’s scratching/gnawing post. i was concerned about the people who were suddenly pushed out and asked where they would go now– they said bushwick, queens… a common tale. the people who made this neighborhood so vibrant cannot afford to live here anymore. my favorite indie bookstore closed this week, too. i expect a high-end boutique to take its spot within a month or two.

and here i am whining about gentrification again when really it is the most natural, and in some ways, healthiest of urban cycles (i.e. safer, cleaner streets, better schools, more people investing in the neighborhood). but it is always hard to see people you know have trouble because of it, and it’s uncomfortable to realize that you’ll be next. i doubt i’ll be able to afford to continue living here within a year or two, and when i get priced out, i guess i’ll just set all this furniture out on the curb again. only i bet the people replacing me will see little value in recycled junk.

(my “new” chair and “desk”)

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i am sticking with the hasid theme for one more day, just because i love this picture.

Filed under: ms. mixalot, life in nyc
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stereotype, shattered.

it is interesting how we get these ideas in our heads– whether we admit to it or not– about people who make us feel safe, not safe. comfortable, uncomfortable. does anyone remember the “safety kids” program from the 80s? i still remember that little song that tells you what to do if you get lost: “look for a MO-ther with CHILD-rennnnnnn…” which of course could be good advice for the shorties. but today, i am all grown up, and i’m still on guard and i still have these stereotypes in my head about who i can trust and who i cannot trust, regardless of whether i know them personally.

so, when a hasidic (very orthodox jewish) man pulls up next to me in his minivan, leaning out the window, i figure he is desperate for directions. no problem buddy! i know you’re nice and incredibly moral and you’re not allowed to touch any woman except your wife, and even your wife you can only touch for two weeks out of the month– and shit, you’re driving a blue minivan– sure, where do you need to get to?

but instead… he wants to know if i want a ride somewhere, he’s going my way (nevermind that he’s driving the opposite way i’m walking). no? ok, well maybe i just want to go for a little ride anyway? then i start feeling angry and sassy and i say, “for what?” and he said “you know… talk… make you feel good.” he starts to blush a little, as though he wishes the sexy things would just HAPPEN so he doesn’t have to grasp at any sexy words. i say, “oh, is that cool with your religion?” i twirl my finger near my ear to indicate little tendrils like his. crass, i know. i don’t know what i was thinking. but then when he said that making me “feel good” was cool with his brand of orthodox mystical judaism i got really riled up and called him “an embarrassment to God.” i only wish i knew how to say it in yiddish! eff with him a little and make him think i’m not just some shiksa to harrass, nope, i am some girl in-the-know who’s gonna go tattle to his rabbi. get him nervous. get him moving so fast that the tires on his blue minivan squeal around the corner!

in conclusion, another group of men i’ve decided not to trust. of course there is a nicer moral to this story, too: don’t judge a group on the behavior of one of its members. so to remain both safe and non-discriminatory, i will not trust any individual of any group. happy day!

Filed under: sassifesta, the menfolk
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attention all readers in the nyc area: if you see a girl limping around the city wearing ugly winter boots and with a face that looks like she got punched numerous times, you should say hi. it might be me!

the ugly boots are the only shoes i have that will fit over my fat swollen foot. my hair has been strategically styled to hide my fat red cheek, but i don’t think i’m fooling anyone.

why the sorry state you ask? oh, i just reacted to some mosquito bites, that’s all. i wish i had a more dramatic story. all of the sudden i am terribly allergic to skeeters; yesterday i even had a mini-asthma attack as the bites started reacting. this is going to be a loooooong nyc summer if every little skeeto bite swells to a tomato-like mass and tightens my lungs. i hate it! i am feeling so bad for myself! i should be out for thrifty thursdays happy hour right now, but noooo, some evil insect had to suck my blood in order to make more evil insects (one bite, twice the evil!). it’s just me and my ice packs tonight.

i am also crabby, for some silly reason, at the boyfriend. i think it’s because he was with me when i got bitten, and i asked him to help me catch and kill the mean bugs and he said, “ohh, don’t worry, i’m sure it’s a friendly little bug. he’s just buzzing because he’s HAPPY!” grrrrr. ya see what happens when ya get cutesy?! ya SEE?!?!

anyhow…. no pictures today. obviously.

Filed under: ms. mixalot
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