People Said Brooklyn

People told me I should live in Brooklyn. I didn't have any better ideas, so I moved to Brooklyn. And then I left in a huff...but now I'm back!

My first stint in Brooklyn was in the summer of 2012 when I had just moved to New York from Vermont and didn't know much more about The City than that in order to get to Sugar Hill in Harlem, one must take the A train. Of Brooklyn I knew even less. I was under the impression that I needn't bother trying to live in Manhattan unless I had a trust fund, and that Queens was incomprehensible and the Bronx was too far. So I moved to Brooklyn.

It didn't go very well. My airBnB room in BedStuy was lonely and sterile; my summer sublease in Midwood (for which I was fairly sure I was being profoundly overcharged) culminated in my getting yelled at (by a yoga teacher who claimed to be Buddhist) for not vacuuming the floor when I left and for leaving a single empty water bottle under the bed, and my sublease in Crown Heights ended abruptly when the actual tenant was evicted less than 4 months after I moved in. I was in what would end up being the last year of a near 6 year relationship at the time, and for reasons which are now very understandable but at the time felt like absolute horse-shit, my (now ex) boyfriend was reacting to my struggles with a level of compassion more resembling that of an exhausted school teacher than of a romantic partner.

By January of 2013 I was exhausted and upset and I blamed Brooklyn so I fled to Woodside, Queens after hearing nice things about it from a co-worker. My first apartment there was a windowless but recently renovated basement room which I outgrew in 8 months or so (also my roommate there had recently taken to burning sage on a regular basis), so I moved around the block to a much larger room with a walk-in closet and it's own half-bath. Somewhere in there my breakup occurred, I got laid off, found a new job, quit that job, found another job, and developed a taste for whiskey (not in an alcoholic way, just in a 'I can actually afford to get drunk when I go out now' kind of way). I was still exhausted, but I was far less stressed out because my general mentality was something along the lines of  "Oh? This is where my previous ideas about life have lead me? Well fuck it then. Let's try some different ideas."

By winter of 2013/spring of 2014 things were going surprisingly well, as they tend to do when one gets past the hard parts of a breakup and moves into the "Oh ok that happened and I lived and there are tons of attractive interesting people everywhere and I am allowed to kiss them if I want to!" bit. I felt comfortable in the city, I finally had some friends of my own which weren't at all tied to my former coupled life, and dating was turning out to be more hilarious than it was horrifying (as you know if you read this blog regularly). By summer I was confident, happy, and as secure in my station in life as one can be when one is 26, single, and still figuring out how emotions are supposed to work. So naturally, when a friend of mine had a room open up in his apartment in Bed Stuy, I grabbed the opportunity to tip over my perfectly comfortable nest and haul its contents to Brooklyn again in the name of cheaper rent and not living with strangers for once.

I've felt a lot of things since moving to New York, but "at home" isn't necessarily one of them. It would seem that being "comfortable" isn't particularly important to me- except for where actual physical comfort is concerned...I am the fucking president of Cozy town. I own several robes and am an except in creating blanket cocoons. I think this is a distinctly Vermont skill. The only reason I care about money is because one day I hope to own and have room for an AWESOME couch.

...anyway. I feel good. I once wrote about feeling like I had no roots but I think I was rushing the process. They will come if I can stay in one place long enough to let them dig in.  The Duane Reade in my neighborhood was once inexplicably closed at 7 PM on a Sunday but other than that I'm on board with my new digs. I'm closer to Williamsburg than anything else so you can expect some "Hipsters In Their Natural Habitat" type stories in the coming months. When people said Brooklyn I think they were wrong, but now I'm here because I found my way back and it feels like the right place for me to be.

Diary of a Gluteal Fold: My Day in Super Short Shorts

Into

I don't really believe in fashion trends but I do believe that if a trend is going to exist, everyone should be able to participate. Women are brought up being told "dress for your body!" and "not everyone can pull off____." However, norms are shifting in terms of what one can expect to see out on the streets (of New York City at least) and I think this actually has a lot to do with the anti-slut shaming and universal beauty movement. I'm not sure these are really movements but for the sake of this essay lets assume that they are.

One particular trend that I've been seeing woman of all shapes and sizes getting down with are super short, high-waisted shorts. Now, as we all know, not everyone has the slim, smooth thighs that whatever bitchy fashion designer concocted these articles had in mind. I occasionally see a butt/thigh combo pass and my first reactions is "oh, honey, NO." Recently, though, I've been trying to adopt more of a "you GO girl" attitude- because who is it that gets to tell us which gluteal folds are worth beholding, and which ones should be scorned and hidden away under culottes? It has always been my theory that if the worlds power structure is a conspiracy of rich white men, then fashion trends and who is allowed to wear them are a conspiracy of their thin, cunty wives and girlfriends, and the assholes who design their clothes. I know that sounds VERY sexist against those woman, but let's not pretend that women of privilege are any less to blame for the worlds injustices against women than their male counterparts. Fashion, which should be a means of self-expression, contains an ugly world of elitism, body shaming, and culturally chauvinistic attitudes.

Super short shorts are not something I feel comfortable in, and to be frank I'm not sure why anyone would WANT to walk around with their ass hanging out. I'm 5'2 which means I'm not exactly leggy, and I have the solid physique of a former athlete who kind of tries to work out still so my butt is on the large size and my thighs show the signs of having expanded and contracted to hold muscles of varying bulgitude. Furthermore I am very VERY white and my legs, especially my upper thighs, are roughly the color of one of those lizards that lives in a cave ecosystem and never evolved pigment. One might say, why not go tanning, or use fake tanner? Because fake tanner smells terrible and looks awful and I can't think of a bigger fucking waste of time and energy. If my legs can't handle getting tan on their own during the course of my normal life than I am just not meant to have tan legs.

My cultural conditioning tells me that people do not need or want to see the full force of my glorious quads and hammies, but then I see women out in the world proudly flaunting their non-traditionally beautiful thigh meat and I think "well isn't this how we change things? By those of us who have been told "no" to just do it anyway until everyone gets used to it? So I went to Target (in the juniors section) and bought some off-white, denim, high -waisted short-shorts with a flowery embellishment on the front (pictured above). I chose them because they looked like they were specifically designed for a tan person with no thigh muscles and I figured as long as I'm doing this, I might as well fucking DO this.

Here, for you now is the diary of my day out and about in my daisy dukes:

Stage 1: Prep

When you are very white leg hair is a problem because it is visible the very instant it pokes through the skin. So, in anticipation of my day in short shorts I had to assume some very awkward positions in the shower to make sure I was able to shave anything that might become visible, which is pretty much everything. If I were very brave I suppose I would have forgone this step but smooth legs are something I enjoy having so I don't really consider them a feminist issue. In fact, I feel bad for men because most of them will never know the pleasure of rubbing their freshly smooth legs together or of being able to easily apply and remove bandaids to all parts of their bodies.

Once out of the shower I did my best to inspect the back of my thighs for bumps and cuts. There were many, but I had come too far to turn back now.

Stage 2: Creating the outfit

Highwaisted shorts are tricky because they are cut to enhance your physique in theory, so technically you're supposed to have the waistband exposed otherwise your shorts will just look lumpy under whatever shirt you're wearing. The top options are limited. You can do a very breezy blouse that flows away from your body or a shirt cut sort enough to rest above the waistband. I figured if I was going to do this, I might as well go full force country yokel so I selected a daisy themed crop top. I don't have a problematic midsection, but it's a little on the squishy side, so crop tops aren't something that I own a lot of. I actually bought this top along with the shorts in anticipation of this moment.

Stage 3: In public

When I exited my apartment I immediately caught a stiff breeze straight up the caboose and became stingingly aware that although my ass was not "hanging out", it certainly was in a position to get some fresh air, which is not the usual state of affairs. It was profoundly uncomfortable and I spent most of my walk to the subway tugging at my ass like a constipated toddler.

I walked from my apartment to the subway stop a few blocks away and definitely caught a few glances on the way, both male and female. However, in my part of Queens it isn't unusual for men to openly stare so I'm not sure if this was because of the outfit or just because I had girl parts generally. The women looked fairly churchy so it didn't necessarily have anything to do with the fact that I specifically was wearing the shorts. Even a skinny 12 year old might have gotten a scornful eye dagger.


Stage 4: Transit

Sitting on the subway was difficult. Part of my ass cheek was definitely making contact with the seat and that is NOT an acceptable thing for my ass cheek to be doing. Furthermore, the structure of the shorts caused the limited fabric surrounding the crotch to jut into my vagina while the back of the shorts when straight up my asscrack. This could have been because I bought them at Target, but even a higher quality garment cut this way would have to do the same thing.

I walked through Central Park and there were so many people in so many degrees of ill-advised articles of clothing that I don't think anyone was paying attention to my slightly over-textured thighs, but when I was waiting for the train (I grew weary of said thighs rubbing together as I walked) a man next to me was looking at me like I might be a prostitute and he might have a $100 bill in his pocket so I casually moved down to another area. Then two separate people asked me if I knew whether the B train stopped at 81st street. Apparently tiny shorts make you more approachable? I don't know what the fuck that was about.

Conclusion:
I think this trend is now so pervasive among more voluptuous women that no one noticed or cared that part of my ass looked like it was about to flump out at any moment. Maybe that's a good sign. Or maybe I'm actually so short that my ass just isn't even in most people's line of vision. I'll probably wear these again when I can pair them with opaque tights, or on a day so hot that I just don't give a shit so long as I'm wearing as little as possible. Either way, although I fully champion a woman's right to wear whatever the fuck she wants, I really don't know why one would regularly subject themselves to the Chinese Vagina Trap that is the super short, high-waisted short.

Inside A First Date: OkCupid Edition

Alternate title: The Time I Went On A Date So Boring That Strangers Felt the Need to Intervene

A while back I was sitting on a couch in a bar trying to make conversation with a man who refused to admit that he wanted to leave when a very orange woman in a tiara and a dress that made her torso look like an overstuffed olive leaf suddenly appeared above us.

“Are you guys in a fight or whhhat? You look mizzzzzzrubble.”, she slurred. She then raised an eyebrow, peered quizzically over her martini, and wobbled on her high-heels as she put her non-drink hand on her hip. In any other situation I would have searched for the phrase that would make her go away as quickly as possible, but in this case I was ready to welcome any diversion.

“No…” I began cautiously, “I was going for seductively aloof but I guess I’m giving bitchface instead. I’m not sure what his excuse is but you’re right- HE looks miserable.” I then turned to my gloomy date and made my own attempt at a raised eyebrow. I’m not sure what it actually looks like when I do this, but it can’t be what I think it is because his return expression was one of pure alarm.

“I’m not miserable,” He said miserably, “I’m just really tired.”

“So this is a date? Are you married? What’s happening?” Our lumpy new friend demanded.

“It’s a date. A first date. An ONLINE first date. I don’t think he likes me but he claims that he doesn’t want to leave so at this point we’re both here out of pure stubbornness.” I said, gesturing to the sourpuss in a sweatshirt masquerading as an actual person. In truth we had not discussed his misery at all yet, but I had been trying all night with no success to improve his mood and thought this might break the tension. The deepening furrow in his brown suggested otherwise.

“Ohhhh!” She squeeled, “What are we talking? OKcupid? Tinder? Bagel Meets Coffee...I’ve done all those. And JDate. Are you Jewish? He looks Jewish. I don’t know about you.” She said, eying me suspiciously.  The Gloombot next to me had officially become inanimate, so it’s no wonder she was speaking only to me at this point, but he came to life at that moment and interjected before I could answer.

“Which one did you like the best?” I imagined his thought process at that moment.  I’m so very miserable but I’m too lazy to get up. Maybe if I keep talking to this inebriated sausage garbage my date will get bored and just leave.  I can’t confirm that this is what he was thinking but I decided to be annoyed by it anyway.

While Tanzilla pontificated the virtues of Bagel Meets Coffee, I wondered if maybe I should go to the bar to get a drink and just stay there. I would have left already, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. I still don’t know if that was actually what he wanted, but something about the fact that I was trying to make this sullen motherfucker laugh was just making him grouchier by the minute. Should I just start talking about the holocaust instead? I remember thinking, Or quickly jump on my phone and pull up the first inane celebrity news article I can find and ask his opinion of it? I wasn’t sure what I wanted to happen but I knew that it couldn’t continue in the same track it was going. Then again, I had a seat on the couch. Just when I was thinking Can I just pretend that I’m NOT on this date? That he just happens to be sitting next to me? another overflowing dress with a martini came over and said “Did you figure it out? Is it a date?”

“

Yeeeees!”, the original Whopper screeched, “They’re on a first date. They met online.”

“Oh wow!”, Jr Bacon Cheeseburger responded, now turning to us, “We were debating what was happening over here. You both looked really unhappy so we thought you were breaking up.”

“Oh. We’re FINE.” I said, not finely. “He’s just a little tired and I just have bad social skills.”

“Yeah...long day at work.” It mumbled.

“What do you do?” One of them asked. By this point they had become one loud orange squawking blur. I snorted to myself in advance of his answer, finally appreciating the humor of the situation.

“I’m an aspiring comedian.”

Adult Book Reports: The Phantom TollBooth

I recently reread the wonderful classic "The Phantom Tollbooth" By Norton Juster. This is a book about how most people are shitty and stuck in their ways you should probably ignore most of them. Also don't waste time and being bored is just not really an acceptable thing to be so if you're bored keep it to yourself because you're a drag and no one is having it.

In conclusion, you should read it your fucking self.

A Different Kind of Miserable

A Different Kind of Miserable

We are innately driven to reconcile our loneliness (yes I know I’ve used this sentence before), and some of us seem to sort out the logistics pretty early on by finding someone who is willing to agree to keep you company UNTIL YOU DIE (in theory). I’ve been having some thoughts and feelings about all that.

So you found someone who you trust and adore and with whom you want to share a life and you have faith that you’re going to grow and change together in blissful synchronicity and that you won’t end up estranged and bitter and wishing you had banged more people when you were hot? Congratulations!
That’s really special and I’m glad it’s working out. You might want kids and a stable life and some assurance that there’s going to be someone around to deal with you when you’re old and icky. That’s great because someone needs to be in charge of making more people. We obviously don’t have enough people so I'm really glad you're on board to make that happen. And hey, I’m worried about being old too! Worried enough to feel compelled to sign a piece of paper that says I’m done figuring out what I want in the interim? Not quite. I’m not saying I can’t see myself being very happy in a long term committed relationship, and I know that doing so wouldn’t necessarily undermine my independence, but I have zero anxiety about the fact that I might not find that person any time soon. I don’t believe that the misery that can come with loneliness is any more miserable than the misery that two people can cause one another.
Love is not a prize that you win for being wonderful. It’s easy to fall into the trap of viewing the lack of a romantic relationship as a sign that something is wrong. Following that logic, you might give love away to someone because you do find them wonderful and want to be close to them as a way to resolve your own insecurities. Love isn’t always a generous act. It can be both selfish and extremely detrimental to your own self esteem. If you are enamored of someone because they represent an alluring experience which is outside of your own, then you run the risk of subjugating your own values and interests in favor of theirs, at least while you’re together. You also run the risk of turning the subject of your love into a symbol for what you want your own life to look like, and in doing so you assign him or her to an intangible realm of idealism in which he or she can never become an equal partner. It’s tempting to look for the missing pieces of your life in another person, but if you don’t do the work to make your life look how you want it to while you’re alone then there will always be a crackling void of uncertainty between you and your significant other.
Sorry about that last paragraph, guys. That was a bit much. If you know me you might be scratching your head a bit seeing as I was in what would be considered by most to be a long-term, committed relationship not so long ago. My best explanation for how that happened is that shit was different when I was 19 and the whole long term thing sort of snuck up on me. I really do value intimate companionship and it never occurred to me that I was allowed to have that with someone I wasn’t exclusively beholden to in some way.

Either way, that was then and this is now and what I’m doing now is trying to appreciate the people who come into my life for what they have to offer and not for what I want from them. This approach might not be sustainable, and sometimes I put myself in a position where I am more than likely going to get my feelings hurt because I am genuinely excited that everyone I meet might be in my life in some form and some of those people aren’t so much looking to know me in any extended way so they’re all like “Heeeeeey calm down over there.” and I’m all like... “ :(  K“.

I should probably mention that I have a straight male best friend with whom I regularly hold hands and take naps and who I occaaaaaasionally kiss on the mouth. And we used to date. And I spent Easter with his family? So I might be cheating a little bit so far as the whole resolving loneliness “on my own” thing is concerned but our exchange is far more honest and relaxed than it ever could have been had we continued dating.

 It’s a lot easier to get close to someone in a meaningful way when you really don’t care whether or not you line up with their pre-existing notions of an ideal mate. I'm hoping that I can take a little bit of what I've learned from this friendship about love and mutual respect and carry it over to all of the connections I make in life, even if they're far less involved. The whole thing might be problematic if either of us were in a relationship but keeping someone at a distance just in case a bonafide suitor shows up seems like an awfully silly way to live life.

I know that I'm not the first person to think there might be a better way to do this whole love/relationship/lifeplan thing. I'm not saying that I want to lead a strictly polyamoruos lifestyle(crediting a guy I met online for my use of that particular term), or that I'm even actively pursuing new relationships at the moment. Frankly I'm having a hard time managing my time as it is and I'd like to focus on being as good of a friend as possible to the people I already know rather than spend too much time meeting new ones.  I simply seek to challenge my own understanding about what a relationship "working out" means and hopefully get a little closer to figuring out what I want, and how I can be relatively happy in a sustainable way without leaving a trail of emotional wreckage in my wake.

How I Know That I'm Pretty Much OK

A couple of months ago I went on a date with someone (via OKcupid) who was a little too easy to internet stalk in advance. I found his website, which included videos of his various achievements and artistic endeavors. I had a lot of time to review this various material and by the time we met I was a bonafide fan. I typically find no correlation between my feelings about a person's talent and my feelings toward them as a person (sexually or otherwise) but I couldn't turn down the opportunity to spend time with someone who was, by my estimation at the time, somewhat brilliant.

There was also the small matter of his looks. His face was classically handsome but colored with the intrigue of permanent exhaustion and he had a subtle darkness to his style. His look was (or is I should say, as far as I know he isn't dead) somewhat divergent from my current taste in men, but absolutely everything I was looking for when I was 15. I should mention that he was 31 at the time, so the style I'm describing isn't that of a young man trying to appear wearily recondite on purpose, but an adult who just is that way through circumstance. Or at least that was my impression. Maybe he spends hours in front of the mirror every morning to create that effect. If you can't tell by now I didn't end up getting to know him that well.

We met for coffee in the West Village on a Saturday night which then turned into drinks which then turned into "oh shit its 4 AM and they need us to leave now".  So it at least went well enough that neither of us ran away screaming into the night after the first location. I found it a bit hard to relax and talk about myself normally though. Something about being around someone whose work I am enamored of fucks with my confidence and I also didn't want to spend the whole night telling him how funny and talented I thought he was. At one point in the date we passed a storefront for a crepe shop which was attached to a bar. I pointed this out and he responded by squinting at it for a second and saying "Date crepe". I whole heartedly believe that this is the funniest thing that anyone will ever say to me, and at the time I couldn't even laugh because I was too impressed.

That isn't exactly the end of the story, but the only further important information is that he seemed ambivalent about seeing me again so far as dating was concerned and he kept the hours of a clinically depressed bat* so I didn't see much point in angling for another date*. Rather than being bummed about it not "working out" ***, I was kind of just thrilled to have had the experience. In college if someone to whom I had this kind of positive reaction didn't give me enough attention, I would have fallen apart and spent my nights weeping into a bottle of Andre sparkling wine while listening to John Mayer. Currently it would seem that I am able to appreciate my dating experiences for what they show me about myself, as well as for the simple pleasure of spending time with an interesting person, without escalating into a state of emotional instability. I'm happy to say that I have yet to wake up crying on my floor while puking cheap wine into a paper bag since being single. I wish I could say the same for my 18 year old self.

*The guy wasn't depressed as far as I know. I just think a depressed bat would probably keep similar hours to someone who makes a living writing/telling jokes and creating art.]
** I didn't NOT show up at his door partially unannounced later on, but that was due to entirely unrelated dysfunction.
*** The post after this one elaborates on the fact that I don't know what "working out" even means to begin with.

Just Getting Out

    Just Getting Out

There is a very pulled together woman standing next to me on the subway platform. She is wearing the same shoes as I am and I don’t like it. They are a top brand, blue and purple suede oxford. They are simultaneously eclectic and assertive.  I bought mine on clearance and was very proud of the find but I imagine she paid full price, not because she isn’t thrifty, but because she could. They were in the window and she knew exactly how she would wear them. I found mine by chance and still haven’t figured out how to make them look right. Now here she is, standing next to me, DELIBERATELY undermining my efforts to take on New York CIty in style. Or maybe I’m just grumpy.

It is 9:00 AM on a bleak morning and I am waiting on an elevated platform near my apartment in Queens. I am trying very hard not to be in a bad mood because this is just the first leg of what will be a 10 hour journey door to door. It is bitterly cold, like it has been so far all winter, and I’m feeling generally unimpressed with the whole of the universe and all of its bountiful wonders.  My apartment was a mess when I left this morning but I didn’t have time to straighten up. So I have that to look forward to when I get home three days from now. It really isn’t even my apartment.  I live there and I pay rent, but I’ve dropped no roots. I feel no sense of ownership in the space.  It isn’t home. When I say “I’m going home”, what I mean is that I am going back to Vermont to my parents house, which is what I am doing today, but that’s not right either. I’m a visitor there now. An insider, but a visitor nonetheless.

I ride the 7 train into Manhattan to Times Square. I walk eight blocks through the center of the universe and duck into Penn Station with 30 minutes to kill before my train. Penn Station is, as always, an ordeal. I don’t have much with me -just enough for three days- but I feel like I’m trudging upstream against a raging current of ankle length puffy coats, rolling totes, and human suffering. We’re all here because we want to be somewhere else, and we’re all in each others’ way.

The most stressful minutes of my life to date have been the minutes between when the track number for my train is ESTIMATED to be posted and when it actually is posted. Sometimes its 30 seconds. Sometimes its ten minutes. I have no idea what side of the station the track might be on so I don’t know where to strategically position myself. I squirm in my skin as other potential passengers start clustering in front of the board. I’ve never had trouble getting an agreeable seat, but I feel an immediate sense of competition with everyone around me. What if they also want a window seat near the bathroom, in a back row with extra legroom? What if I have to sit on the aisle and have to lean over the person next to me to get to an outlet? I am aware that the answer to both of these questions is “nothing catastrophic” but I have a 9 hour ride ahead of me and I will do everything in my power to get the seat that feels right.

My track is posted and I wheel around to find it, almost taking out a few small children in the process. I shuffle as fast as my cross-body weekend tote will allow as it galumphs against my thighs. I scoot in line behind the fortunate bastards who happened to be standing near the right track when it was posted. I present my ticket, which I have been clutching in my sweaty little hand for twenty minutes now, and step onto the escalator which will carry me down to the track. Step One complete.

After worming through the crowd and beelining for my preferred seat, I plunk my bags down, find my computer charger and claim an outlet. On a previous ride of the same length my seat neighbor commandeered both outlets before I was settled and I am not willing to go through that again. I reach into my bag, which fits almost comfortably under the seat and produce a fuzzy blanket and my favorite olive-green oversized cashmere hat. Before most passengers are even down the escalator I am seated, situated, and swaddled in comfort. Because I am short, naturally pale and opted against makeup this morning,I look like I belong in the terminal disease unit at a children’s hospital. I smile smugly at a couple who eye me begrudgingly and they struggle to find two seats together. They obviously like the look of my extra leg room and would like to ask me if I’d be willing to move so they can be together in my prime location. Sorry kids. Not today. Today is the day I get what I want...at least as far as train seats are concerned.