Category Archives: Strangers outside of New York

I support Clinton, and you support Sanders, and that’s okay (as long as none of us supports Trump)

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Hillary Clinton was a different kind of first lady. She wasn’t a Nancy Reagan, married to the patron saint of the Republican party, or a Barbara Bush, married to…okay, I got nothing on George Bush, Sr. She was a politician first and a wife twenty-third. And that’s when people started hating her, back when sexism was rampant, unlike now when it’s completely eradicated, and women enjoy all the same privileges as men do. Unlike the other first ladies, she did STUFF. And then she became a senator and did more stuff. And then she became secretary of state and did even more stuff. And you know? I am sick and tired of people hating on her because she dared to be a person back in the 90s and had a vagina at the same time. She not warm and fuzzy, and, as I’ve come to realize, you cannot be a powerful woman and be warm and fuzzy at the same time. Our society does not accept that. But you also can’t be a powerful woman and avoid being called a bitch, because our society does not accept non-warm-and-fuzzy women; only men are allowed to be the opposite of warm and fuzzy. So in summary, women should not be powerful.

I say all this because people are so set in not liking Clinton and finding a lot of ways to avoid supporting her without having one central argument other than she just rubs them the wrong way. Some people say they’re against this whole idea of a Clinton dynasty. Guess what: only one Clinton has been president. And Hillary isn’t even an actual Clinton; she just married one. If you want to talk about Benghazi, I would just like to say of course she’s had some foreign policy issues, because she is the only candidate with any foreign policy experience. No, Sanders never made any international errors, because he’s never been responsible for dealing with other countries. If you like Sanders, that’s okay, but I hope you support him for what he stands for and that you know what he stands for and just how viable his ideas are in the real world. That is, I hope you didn’t just become a diehard Bernie fan because you don’t like the alternative.

And if you really love Bernie Sanders, I accept that, and I hope you can accept me, too. Just as long as neither of loves Trump or Cruz.

Cruz wins the Iowa Caucuses, scares me

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Last night ended with a dual cliffhanger for me. (I go to bed at 10:30, because I’m secretly eighty years old.) First, The Bachelor culminated in a “to be continued” BEFORE THE ROSE CEREMONY. Also, Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz had marginal leads in the Iowa caucuses. When I woke up this morning, I found out that those marginal leads had become clear victories overnight, and that Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow, which means early spring and also that people will be quoting Bill Murray all day, but that would have happened whether he saw his shadow or not. There was still no resolution to the Bachelor conundrum.

On the plus side:

-Hillary’s emails addressed to me personally with the subject “hi” and “no subject,” in which she warned me that Bernie Sanders was outspending her and implored me to donate money, were ultimately just scare tactics. God, Hillary, I already gave you $15.00. What more do you want?

-Early spring! How early? I’m not clear on that. Somebody tell me the rules?

On the minus side:

-I still have to hear a lot about a twenty-two-year-old movie.

-I have to wait until next week to find out to whom Ben is giving roses, except for Jubilee, the army vet, who already got kicked off.

-A man who embraces carpet-bombing is a serious contender for president.

So yeah, rough day.

My new year’s resolutions and a word about people who camp out at Times Square on NYE wearing adult diapers

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Happy New Year! I paused Married at First Sight just to check in because it’s been awhile.

First, a word to the people who just had to see the ball drop last night. Please take a long, hard look in the mirror. Is this who you want to be? Let’s start with the fact that you spent your vacation in New York at Times Square. I know you don’t live here because nobody who lives here goes to Times Square EVER (except in the case of real necessity), and never ever ever on New Year’s Eve. Also, you stood in the cold for hours and hours so you could watch a ball drop, a ball you could have watched on TV like I do every year, and it was so vital to your happiness that you wore Depends. If you didn’t wear Depends, you waited around in your own filth for hours and hours, or you have the strongest bladder known to man or womankind. Next time you come here, please do me a favor and hit up a dive bar in the Village. We’ll all be happier.

And now for my resolutions. Last year’s didn’t go so well. I resolved to write non work-related material for at least one hour a week and to compliment myself once a day for the sake of my self esteem. Resolution 1 broke down around February. I think resolution 2 went a bit further, but once I started paying myself compliments like “resilient liver,” I decided maybe I don’t have 365 amazing qualities. This year I’m going for more attainable things like:

-Eating meals off of proper plates rather than out of containers

-Eating said meals at appropriate meal times rather than snacking around the clock

-Crying less (I’ve only cried once this year so far, so things are looking up!)

-Buying new clothes no more than once every three months

-Keeping my orchid alive (this is the first one I’ve ever gotten to re-bloom, so fingers crossed)

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-Figuring out why my laptop keeps waking up in the middle of the night after I put her to sleep/stop worrying that she’s going to attack me

-Maybe stop naming inanimate objects and referring to them with pronouns like “she” and “he,” but probably not

New Orleans: where people drink like they just got their first fakes

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I had the pleasure of visiting New Orleans for the second time last week. This time was better. The number of drunk people in the streets was roughly equal (high).

One night, my friend and I ate dinner at a distinctly New Orleans establishment, where we were crammed into a picnic table next to an extremely drunk couple in their mid-forties. They drove all the way to Alabama for a funeral and stopped in NOLA on their way back. I know all this because they told me. Here are just a few statistics about our hour-long interaction (I’m calling them Fred and Candy for the sake of anonymity, and also because despite our being best friends FOREVER by the end, I’ve already forgotten their names):

Number of times Candy showed us pictures of her hotel room: 3

Number of times Candy ran her fingers through my hair: 4

Number of times Fred crapped all over New York: 3

Number of times either of them seemed sad about whatever friend or relative had passed away: 0

Number of times I had to justify being a vegetarian to them: 2

Number of drinks Candy imbibed during this one hour: 3

Number of drinks Candy had likely consumed prior: 5?

“I’m a hairdresser,” Candy told me as justification for touching my hair. Okay, but she’s not my hairdresser.

Fred: “New York is so dirty.”

Candy: “There are so many homeless people here.”

Fred: “Show them the picture of our hotel.”

Candy: “The bathroom looks like my grandmother’s bathroom.”

In fairness, it did look exactly like my late grandmother’s bathroom–all blue plastic toilet, seashell soap.

Later in the evening (20 minutes later): “Look at this picture of our hotel.”

Candy: “Our nineteen-year-old daughter is too good. She never gets into any trouble. She always makes curfew.”

My friend: “What’s her curfew?”

Candy: “Well, she doesn’t have one.”

Candy: “That pasta looks so good. It almost makes me want to be a vegetarian. But I love meat. I’ll eat anything.”

Fred: “No you won’t. But you’ll drink anything.”

Candy: “That’s true.”

Candy left her sweater on her chair. They were already outside by the time I caught up with them. I’m glad I did, because I got an eyefull of Candy’s six-inch leopard print heels. Also, they both hugged me after the sweater exchange.

I think my favorite comment was uttered by our waitress when she brought us the check: “So those people were real sober.”

I’m not as excited about Boehner resigning as you might think

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John Boehner and I have a few things in common. We both cry a lot, for instance. Republicans think we’re too liberal. (Admittedly, one of us is probably a little more liberal than the other.) We’re both into the government funding Planned Parenthood (Again, one of us may be slightly more excited about that than the other.) That’s probably where the similarities end. But now that the Boehner is resigning because the GOP is like, “You aren’t exercising enough control over women’s uteruses” (or is it uteri?), I’m concerned. Mostly because I’m terrified to find out whom they will choose next. Wikipedia tells me that Kevin McCarthy, the most likely pick, was one of the three founding members of the GOP Young Guns Program, which I didn’t even know existed but sounds scary as fuck. Also, he has pledged to vote against any Global Warming legislation that would raise taxes (as you do). And finally, homeboy wants to ban all abortions foreva and eva, pinky-swear. Where did they find this guy? It’s almost like the GOP crafted this dude out of clay and imbued him with a wish list of attributes Pygmalion-style.

Anyway, I’m foreseeing a future in which he is Speaker and Marco Rubio is president, and now I need to practice the deep-breathing exercises my therapist taught me.

Chatty Kathy’s visit to San Francisco, and also mine

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Guess what, kids? Annoying people exist everywhere! I learned this when I visited San Francisco recently. As I waited for the Muni, a very loquacious lady struck up a conversation with me. Apparently this is something people do on the West Coast.

“I’m visiting from Berkeley,” she told me (what an adventure! That’s like me visiting Queens.). “And I never drive here. The drivers are just terrible. When I first moved here I got into an accident, which was my fault, but it was with a kid my son’s age.”

So much to unpack here. So the terrible drivers to whom she was referring would be herself, who lived in the Bible Belt before (we covered a lot of ground in these four minutes), so it’s not really San Francisco’s fault, now, is it? I don’t think the city requested her presence.  Also, the accident was San Francisco’s fault because it was with a kid her son’s age (which I presume is young)…so somehow that’s worse even though she caused the accident, so it could have been with anyone? Like it should have been his fault even though it was hers?

Anyway, I commented that the driving was worse in New York.

“You’re from New York?” she asked.

I told her that I lived there, but originally came from New England.

“Oh, that must be why you’re friendly then.”

However, the people on the West Coast still aren’t friendly enough for Chatty Kathy. Apparently everyone in big cities is cold.

“They have Muni in New York, too, don’t they? Or what do they call it?”

“The subway.”

“Right!”

My ex got fat and I got happy

Strangers outside of New York,

I may be a little late to the party here, but let me tell you about this amazing Facebook function where you can search for photos of someone with whom you are no longer friends. My brother showed it to me last night, and we discovered that my ex from five plus year ago is now fat. Anyone who’s not Jesus knows how thrilling that is.

A few months after we broke up, my friend ran into him and told me he had gained weight, but I assumed she was just being nice to me, which I certainly appreciated. Now I have confirmation in the form of pictures from (get this) his graduation. As in, it took him nine years to finish college.

In conclusion I won that breakup.

To the people who stand up at the fireworks to “get a better view”

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You’re not getting a better view by doing that. The fireworks are in the sky. You look dumb.

Here’s why Roberts is worse than scalia

Strangers outside of New York,

Scalia is like that villain on your favorite tv show that you’re supposed to hate. S/he is so one dimensional that it becomes boring and cliche to hate him or her. Like Franny on Greek. Or what’s her face on Orange is the New Black season 2 whose name I can’t remember. Or Bill O’Reilly. Anyway, Scalia is that person. Like, okay dude, we get it, you’re a dick. You’re SCOTUS’s Dick Cheney.

Roberts is that asshole who thinks he’s a genuinely good guy. In my opinion, that’s the worst kind of asshole. He sits there all Aryan and condescending, and says things like, “It’s really great that people get to celebrate today, and I don’t want to put a damper on that. But FYI, it’s also super wrong in the eyes of the constitution.” You know he’s that guy who’s always saying, “I have lots of gay friends. I just don’t want to have to see them being gay.”

What really bothered me was his attempt to shame gay rights advocates today. Putting an end to same-sex marriage bans is not up to the Supreme Court, he argued. What we really need to do is try to convince our bigoted peers to see our point of view, and maybe they’ll come around. Because that’s been working so well. Everyone knows if we just talk it out we’ll all agree in the end.

That’s why Roberts is worse than Scalia. Of course nobody cares today, but I worry that because he comes across as rational, he’s dangerous as an evil person.

But today is a good day, so I’ll put the loathing on hold. I’ll leave you with a final question: if you were in a bar and Ruth Bader Ginsberg happened to walk in, what drink would you buy her? She seems like a scotch on the rocks kind of girl to me, but maybe you feel differently.

White shirt guy, you’re not playing tennis

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Last night, while riding the subway home, I happened to be sitting across from a man roughly my age, which is 25 plus 24 months, and he was such a ridiculous human being that I just had to take out my phone and write down a description of him. This is what I wrote:

The man sitting across from me is wearing white mesh shorts with a white striped polo shirt that says H2O. Oh, and white sneakers. It doesn’t help that he has super blond hair artfully done up in one of those Justin Bieber styles that’s meant to convey stylish nonchalance, even though it obviously took hours. I hate him. He’s sitting with his legs spread wide apart, big feet firmly planted on the ground. He’s probably going to scratch himself soon. He’s not reading a book because duh. He has the stubble of someone who hasn’t shaved in days, but you know he’s grooming that facial hair. Now he glances at his Rolex.

Then, I started thinking about how I strongly dislike so many strangers in general. For example, tourists. I live in New York, where tourists are the worst, but I can imagine they’re pretty bad in other cities, too. As a person who lives in New York (I’m not allowed to call myself a New Yorker yet, because I haven’t lived here for ten years), I avoid Times Square like the plague. But sometimes it’s unavoidable, like when I have to take the bus from Port Authority. These people stand in the middle of the sidewalks with their cameras taking pictures of the M&M store, because they’re never seen an M&M before, or a billboard, because they’ve never seen an ad before, and I have to walk around them because they’ve never used sidewalks before, and Sweet Moses it’s so annoying.

But people who live in New York are also the worst. Everybody is the worst here.

So I’m looking at this as an outlet for my rage about people I don’t know. Do you hate people you’ve never met, too? If so, let’s be friends.