aaaaand we’re back!

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.

      -Philip K. Dick

 

Hello friends and foes…I’m back.

Not sure for just how long, but I felt compelled to write this evening. It’s been a hell of a couple of weeks on Stephanie Street. Won’t get into the details, but I think it’s time to refocus. Get my priorities straight. Get all the bullshit out of my life. I’m halfway there, but change is not easy. Change takes motivation. And direction. I really have neither, but I like to pretend sometimes.

I’m trying.

STAY TUNED FOR EXCITING LIFE CHANGES(/musings on nothing productive whatsoever)!

(Love you, mom-mom.)

 

Homeless people need pee breaks too.

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything, and in case you were wondering, I’ve semi-failed at this no smoking thing. I pretty much only smoke in the comfort of my own home, don’t bring them out with me, etc, etc.

Anyway, I was standing in line for the bathroom in Starbucks yesterday, and this homeless guy walks in and gets in line behind me. Nevermind his AWESOME beard, nevermind the homeless-guy stench that overwhelmed my senses as he stood next to me. A thought struck me. Is it appropriate to offer change to this man, standing in line for the bathroom? Isn’t he, technically, on break from panhandling? Now, I would imagine that any homeless man wouldn’t turn down an unsolicited offer for money, but there seems to be something out of place about doing so in that situation. I mean, usually if you give money to a homeless person, you drop some change into their cup and walk away–you feel good cause you helped out a homeless person, and they feel good cause they have more money. And then immediately each of you moves onto the next thought. But say I were to have given the guy some money. Then we’d just be standing there, musing on the exchange that just took place. Likely, I would have felt some sadness for the guy, maybe a little guilt for not giving more when I clearly could have, not to mention non-homeless-person guilt in general. Not that these things aren’t there regardless, cause they are, but I would think that they would be heightened by the exchange of money from my hands to his.

And then other questions started roaming around in my head, questions that I wanted to ask the guy, but just couldn’t bring myself to. Like, do you have a panhandling work schedule? Do you like being self-employed? Is there an unofficial homeless person union? A kind of community? Or is it a dog-eat-dog underbelly of New York? I then wondered if the homeless guy would appreciate me asking these questions. Would he find it rude? I certainly wouldn’t want to offend him, for both my and his sake. I would imagine there’s an element of embarassement associated with being homeless, but I wonder, if you’re homeless for long enough, do you start to become comfortable and accepting of your status?

Is all of this offensive? Homeless people are both invisible and an eyesore, a nuisance and a subject of public concern. I’m just trying to be honest about my experience of being in proximity to a homeless person outside of their…campground?…it really doesn’t happen very often, and it kind of threw me for a loop. Clearly.

 

My status message today

“It’s like bad timing and good intentions are busting in karma’s face” (That ain’t no quote, ladies and gents, that’s a Stephanie original. ba-ba-bam.)

Which means, well, whatever you want it to mean (ooooh, how postmodern of me.)

It means a few things in particular to me, but I don’t really feel like sharing them. I’m sharing that line because, one, I think it’s kind of funny. And two, it just might strike you in a similar way when you read it that it struck me when I thought it. And isn’t that the whole point of writing in a public space? In a lot of respects, it doesn’t matter what it means to me. I appreciate when people ask out of interest what I mean, but meaning is (again, forgive me for being so damn postmodern) so delightfully fluid that if I were to explain to you what it means to me, wouldn’t that take half the fun out of it?

Or maybe I’m just being annoyingly obtuse. Whatever.

 

Brave New World (in the best way.)

Saturday night was one of those epic shitshows that really really belong in sophomore year of college. A joint birthday party, 40 20-somethings crammed into a room fit for twenty with probably 10+ liters of booze and a really sweet karaoke machine and projection screen. And 10 liters of booze, $60 worth of Domino’s, a few games of Slap the Bag, a bunch of hoarse voices, a big hole in the wall, a cinged chunk of hair (yours truly, actually…), one kicked out partygoer with a groping problem, and 4 hours later, the party was winding down and everyone searched for their next location.

Judging from the description above, you might guess that the next location for most would be straight home. And you would be right. You might also guess that some casualties would be found as well. Not just dignity, but tangible things lost. You would be right again. A dear friend of mine lost her wallet. Making it all the way home without cash, credit card, or ID, said friend was seemingly unaware (or had forgotten) about this missing wallet until the next morning when she found a peculiar (and awesome!) facebook message from a complete stranger, basically saying that she had found my friend’s wallet on the street, next to a garbage can, and in a “drunken stupor” decided to pick it up, noting just how horrible it is to lose things like that. She lived in the LES, she said, and would my friend like to come pick it up tomorrow?

WOW. as much as we might be disgusted by facebook, and our use of it, sometimes, look at what it can do!! The address on my friend’s ID was from her parents’ house, no phone number, no way of getting a hold of her at all. Except for facebook! Amazing! My mind is blown! (yours too? yup.)

So my friend made the trek from the UWS to the LES (oh yes, the abbrevs make me sound like a real New Yorker, you know) for her wallet. And despite the post-karaoke fiesta being nearly unbearable, (as it was for pretty much all of us, I believe) I would imagine that this simple little mantra got her through the journey, “thank you, Mark Zuckerberg. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

 Only disappointment of the night: they didn’t have “Heart of the City” by Jay-Z in the karaoke book. With the birthday boy on the verses and me on the hook, oh dear, it would have been the highlight of EVERYONE’S night, that’s for sure. Damn. Maybe we’ll ask them to get it for next time. If we’re ever allowed back.

 

Important!

I spoke briefly a few days ago about how our generation uses words loosely. Well I guess the overarching idea there is that words can change meaning depending on who you are. And the word I would like to highlight is: important. Over the past two days, I’ve come across two usages of the word “important” that absolutely cracked me up, and I had to share them.

The first came at a performance by the Paul Taylor dance company at City Center. Great venue, great dancing, all around a wonderful cultural event. It was apparently one of the dancers final performance before retirement, and at the curtain call, she was showered with flowers and thunderous applause. The moment was incredibly touching, no doubt. (In fact, my eyes did kind of well up a bit. And I had NEVER heard of this woman before. Imagine what her FAMILY was feeling at that moment.) As the applause died down and the lights came up, my mom, my roommate and I started to file out, commenting on how cool it was to be here for that. A man standing in the row behind us then turned to me and said something like, “yea, you really lucked out, seeing the final performance of someone as IMPORTANT as her.”

I didn’t really know what to say to that comment, as I admittedly had no idea who she was. It wasn’t until I walked away that I found myself laughing at that guy’s comment. Important? IMPORTANT?! I suppose he’s a dance connosseur, and for someone who’s a big fan of Paul Taylor, ok, I’m sure she seems very important. But to say that to a complete stranger? Ugh, how…condescending or something. I would have completely understood if he had used a word like….oh, say beloved. Yes, that I will buy. But IMPORTANT? She’s a DANCER. And you sir, (I might have said), are not nearly important enough to throw around the word “important” like that. Or maybe he is. This IS New York after all. Either way, it tickled me a bit.

The second IMPORTANT run-in came today on my way to work. There’s a building going up on the block where my office is. A building full of condominiums. Expensive condominiums. So expensive in fact ($2-10 mill) that someone thought it would be a good idea to call them on the placard on the facade of the building “IMPORTANT Condominium Residences”. Oh. Dear. God. Important as in, “Hey, look at me in my multi-million dollar condo! Everybody look how IMPORTANT I am!”? You have GOT to be kidding me. No, actually, they are stonecold serious. I don’t even think I need to say anymore. I get that they are trying to attract a certain kind of person (i.e. balleerrrrrrr), but really…Get a grip.

One point here is, I suppose, it’s all relative, right? What is important to one person may not be important to another. Still, I can’t help but think that there are so many more important things in the world than dancers (whom I LOVE) and expensive apartments (which are spectacular). Or maybe that’s all so many of us are striving for: art and luxury. That is a pretty great life, I guess. But Important? I’d like to quote one of my favorite books, Le Petit Prince, by Antoine de St. Exupery:

L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

I think that pretty much covers it.

 

Sidenote/Epilogue/Interlude 2/Whatever

I don’t know if any of you are, but please don’t be afraid of what you’ve read here. Or me. I’m just a girl. And these have just been thoughts. And I haven’t done anything but express myself.

Just making sure that’s clear.

 

Sunrise, A New Day, A Fresh Start, yea yea yea

Games can be dangerous sometimes. We play them, thinking that no one is going to get hurt. How could anyone possibly get hurt? It’s just a game! But treating life like a game can bring a lot of damage. I know that firsthand. And trying to repair that damage can be pretty exhausting. But I suppose the conclusion should be drawn that what’s done is done and there’s really nothing we can do about it. And talking helps up to a point, but there comes a time where you just have to say, “enough.”

I’ve been told I need to stop writing. But I can’t stop writing. Maybe I’m a writer. Who knows. Some of the things I’ve written may be scary to people. I don’t know. But I’ve been writing to myself for so long now. I don’t want to keep it all to myself anymore. And IIII think it’s kinda cool. A little crazy? Yea. Duh. But as my good friend David and I like to say, “boys are stupid and girls are crazy.” In some respects, anyway. But I also think that we’re all pretty smart, and the world is totally crazy.

So I (might) be taking another hiatus until I actually finish getting my shit together and can write about something that people actually care about reading. (Though it seems I’ve gotten a bit more popular in recent days. Go figure.)

So for now, laterrrrr.

and p.s. it seems that there’s a whole new generation of hipsters: the anti-hipsters. think about it. (more on that later, most likely.)

 

Lesson Learned?

Be careful with your actions and words, because you never know how people are going to take it.

OOOOOoooorrrrr,

Don’t take everything so damn personally.

Again, talking to myself here, mainly.

 

Who is ME???

To me@aol.com,

Please tell me who you are, if you are still reading. That comment you posted on my post about Armor for Sleep’s song “Williamsburg”, along with the linked video, and the fact that it was from “ME” for christ’s sake, really threw me, and this blog, for a loop. I’m curious. A little freaked out, yea. But now, more just curious, because I trust that your intentions were good. At least I hope your intentions are good. But then you delete the e-mail account? Weak. Stop with the mystery. You may not mean to, but it, combined with a few other things, felt like it almost killed me. I am not fucking around. I am shooting straight. This is what it is. I’m not blaming you. Everyone has their reasons, etc, etc. God knows there’s shit going on, in my head and in the world. But you really owe me. I’m just trying to show you that doing things like this is just not ok. What is this, Internet Terrorism? Ay ay ay, brave new world, indeed.

There are so many things that are out of our control. You can’t control everything. You just can’t. I can’t stop someone from dropping a virtual bomb on my blog. I guess I have to learn to be stronger? No. This is a lesson that YOU have to learn. Please. Do. Not. Fuck. With. People. People who do what you do are the reason the internet is so fucking scary sometimes. I WANT to trust that you meant well, but FUCK, how am I supposed to BELIEVE that? Totally sneaky.

That said, thanks for the compliment. I liked that post too. (though, I suppose it should be stated that I am not, in fact, a man.)

Or if anyone else might have a guess, I’d appreciate the tip. (see e-mail address on the”what is this blog about” page.)

 

Laughing at Yourself Part 1: I Don’t See Race

And now I think the jokes can start. This Near Life Experience that I mentioned earlier contained all kinds of juicy bits of drama: race, religion, music, mother-daughter relations, male-female relations…the whole bit. Race is the one I want to cover right now, in a little list I would like to call: Stupid Things White People Might Say or Have Said to Black People.

“You look familiar.” (Connoting that all people of another race look the same.)

“Well, YOU call US crackers.” (as a rebuttal against the hurt felt by the use of the N-word.)

Black person: “it started on street corners.”

White person: “yea, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Amazing Grace is one of my favorite songs.” (well, I mean, it IS devastatingly, heart-wrenchingly beautiful.)

“Obama is my homeboy.” (No, Obama is BLACK people’s homeboy. Or is there just enough love and hope to go around? I like to think so.)

So, please, if you are not black, do not say these things to a black person. It will just make things a little bit uncomfortable. We can all be friends, but there are just some things you don’t want to say.