Ladies!

The Problem:
I intensely dislike this greeting.

The Cause:
I would like to say it comes from an adult feminist perspective like that eschewed* by Sloane Crosley, she describes her response to an e-mail that begins with ladies (the very same thing that prompted this rant for me!)

An e-mail arrived from Francine. It began, as all e-mails pertaining to this event did, with a "Ladies:". Ladies. Large masses of girls are often prone to this salutation. Once is fine, twice is acceptable, any more and I feel like I'm having high tea at Windsor. I hate being mollified with this unsolicitad "ladies" business. I know we're all women. I am conscious of my breasts. Do I have to be conscious of yours as well?

I do identify with this statement. But I think that for me it really stems from the fact that the most frequent time it was used in my life was when they were separating us from the boys to teach us about the changes in our bodies, or when a large group of girls was giggling. I also haven't really heard it since elementary school college so it makes me feel as though I am being talked to like a child. This happens frequently at my work where the office staff is predominantly female. So the second a person possessing a set of testicles leaves the building people just start throwing "Ladies:" around like it's confetti.

*I really like the word eschewed because it sounds like they are sneezing their statements out.

Solution #1:
Develop a series of pamphlets advocating the use of the phrase "Hey, guys..." Stand in Grand Central and hand them to passers-by. Maybe engage in a knife fight with a Jews for Jesus representative in order to acquire primo pamphlet handing real estate, which apparently is the tunnel between the 4,5,6 and the 7 because heathens want to get to Flushing in the morning!

(A piece of trash a Jew for Jesus handed me. A cursory glance at the pamphlet reveals that they feel the transmogrification of Jesus into crackers is too complex for your average commuter to grasp and instead choose to explain the Jesus is like 5 hour energy drinks because unlike chocolate he makes you feel good without the sugar crash afterward.)

Solution #2:
Become a supervillian in order to raise enough money to build a secret lair in which to invent and build a mind control device that will allow me to wipe the knowledge of this word out of the minds of every living human on the planet. This may make labeling bathrooms slightly more difficult, but in the end it will be for the greater good.

Solution #3:
Make piece with y'all and hope that it's gender neutrality will allow it to spread far and wide. Yes, I've spent 4 years mocking it in order to patch together a unique northern identity to make myself feel special during college. But I'd be willing to swallow my pride and give y'all the respect it's due for being the most widespread consistent version of the 2nd person plural. I'd feel dirty, but as South Park taught us sometimes the difference between a douche bag and a turd sandwich is all the difference in the world.

A picture of a bug I killed

(Dramatic Re-enactment)

I bravely decided to sacrifice one of the orange cups I stole from my college roommate.I then flushed him down the toilet and yelled "Sorry!" at him, which I think Karma wise does me no good.Afterwards LN figured out that house centipedes kill cockroaches and I felt sort of dumb for killing him, but then I remembered that he was a creepy little dude who was gross and I stopped feeling dumb.

I think the ice cream trucks are full of drugs.

Who needs ice cream at midnight?

(Also I find ice cream truck music to be really creepy at night. It sounds like Chester the Molester just had himself a "real good ideer" and simply forgot to factor in normal bedtimes for children)

The Mike Birbiglia Show

Went to a Mike Birbiglia* show for essentially free, because I haven't paid my roommate back yet. I am going to try to watch more shows in the UCB space because it has a nice black box feel and it has $3 beer. The show was good, Birbiglia's set was more like a one man show than a stand-up routine compared to other routines I've seen on cable television. Although I felt engaged the whole time, there were a few moments where his choice to be serious and level with us came off as really rehearsed, which they probably are but... because of the one man show feel the rehearsedness was sort of jarring. But that gripe refers to two moments in an hour long show. It was really funny, really solid, and I would watch him again. Also, the confessional monologuey aspect to it worked really well in a small Black Box theatre style studio space, and I would be interested to find out if his delivery changes in different venues.

Leaving the house to go to the show there was a pretty kick ass sunset and as usual an eight year old trying to run me over with a Razor scooter. Apparently shouting "Excuse me!" really indignantly when you're about to hit someone with your scooter removes one from all liability and remorse. It was an 11 o'clock show and we stopped for a beer afterwards, but I had work the next morning so I needed to leave the group early. This resulted in a solitary subway ride back to Brooklyn, which was also the first late night solitary subway ride I have actually enjoyed. The trains go local late at night and that makes a trip that was 25 minutes trip take an hour on the return. The A train however has the really fancy seats that allow you to curl up and stare at the walls of the subway tunnel and just space out. It creates a thinking environment that is very similar to the nighttime long distance driving, basically it is really conducive to brooding. I still don't have a coherent 5 year plan, but I think I know where and when I'm going to develop one.

*A note to Mike Birbiglia if your google alert finds this blog: You are not pudgy.

7-11s vs. Bodegas

Current City Challenge:

Adapting from a 7-11/WaWa culture to a Bodega culture.

Things I learned I can find at a 7-11, but not at a Bodega:
Batteries

Dairy Products that aren't Milk i.e. cream cheese, cheese cheese and eggs

1 Liter Bottles of a variety of soda

A wide variety of Ben & Jerry's ice cream more specifically Cookie Dough Ice cream.

Creepy suggestions of co habitation from the 50 year old clerk who apparently is tired of commuting from Paterson to Rutherford.

A Big Gulp

Largish Bags of Potato Chips

Overcooked sausage based monstrositys that remind me that I am still alive.

Things I learned I could get from a Bodega but not a 7-11:












(Image Stolen from google because I felt weird about standing in front of the bodega with a camera, but this is what it looks like.)

A wider selection of Beer than at the full on supermarket 4 blocks further down the street, and quite possibly more than most supermarkets I've been to.

Sodas with labels in languages I can't read.

A half melted pint of Ben & Jerry's Phish food from the freezer in front of the counter, that happened to have been the only pint of Ben & Jerry's available, which I desperately need because my apartment lacks air-conditioning (to be discussed in a future post not so much the lack of it, as other people's reactions to my lack of air-conditioning).

Exposed to the latest in Latin radio.

Looked at funny when I ask if they have cream cheese.

My Agenda.

I'm tired of trying to force friendships with people who don't share my interests. I want my nerd friendships back. I want people for whom a weekend of playing the Sims with the TV on in the background in the den while they sit there occasionally talking is on their personal short list of top weekend activities. Seriously. I once spent a very excellent Spring Break at the Outer Banks doing this. I don't want to lie about how much time I spend playing video games. I want to talk about Hellboy and the Hulk and Iron Man and Constantine and Frank Miller. I also want to talk about quantum physics and php vs. java vs. C. I want to get into arguments about Macs and PCs and use phrases like unix shell and telnet in common speech. I don't want to settle for gossiping about office politics and talking about the city and the weather and current events. Fuck current events I want to talk about the things I care about. NERD THINGS. I want to use the word tepid in a sentence without having people react like I just tried to pass off disestablishmentarianism off casually. To a certain extent I already have these friends its more that I want some replacement ones that live within a 15 mile radius of my current location and aren't related to me.

However...

I hate sci-fi nerds I don't wish to discuss Star Trek or Star Wars extended universe with anyone and I don't want to interact with anyone who has ever LARPed.

This may be to much to ask of chance meetings with friends of co-workers and roomates. So I have decided to embark on a plan to create these friends. I will prompt my non video gaming roomate to join me in a round of Wii sports. I will leave comic books (all 4 that I own) out "accidentally" for general perusal. I am however open to suggestions on how to behavior modify my office co-workers into talking about things I am interested in. Perhaps hijacking their browser settings so that their home page is now slashdot? Or kidnapping them and forcing them to come see Hellboy with me? All of these are good options.

Cutting the hair this length may have been a mistake...

Am being mistaken for a man more than usual. So much so that have developed new strategy of lowering my voice when responding to storekeepers questions so I don't have to deal with the inevitable apology from the convenience store proprietors once they hear my girl voice. Of course the mens polos, the being flat chested, general dykishness, and my "distinctive" walk are not helping the problem. But I like all that stuff.