Unapologetically Mundane » my uber-confrontational personality

You Push Down Everyone Around You

katie ett — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:00:23 +0000

Sometimes I feel more powerful than most women. Sometimes I feel like I’m more capable, that I’m stronger and better able to handle myself in tough situations. That I’m quicker-witted and slower to get used or walked on. Sometimes I think that being sharper, better at arguing, funnier is the most important thing. Sometimes, when I look at really snarky, dry, biting women like Gena or Sandy or Ellie, I think about how lucky the world is that all women aren’t cutesy. They’re not all “girl power”, unshaven-armpits-exposed-as-they-sway-their-arms-back-and-forth-over-their-heads-at-Lilith-Fair, either. And these women are intimidating. They require “keeping up” with and “being on” with; you don’t just leave any old comment on their Facebook posts, because their cleverer other friends have already said cleverer things than you were going to. I’d be scared to date either of the Mean Kims, as much as I love both of them. And if I feel that way, how must nice, normal girls feel about them?

Sometimes I feel much less powerful than most women. Sometimes I feel like I’m so busy being sharper, better at arguing, stronger and better able to handle myself that I forget to just be nice. There’s a moment in “Friday Night Lights” where Coach Taylor says to Jason Street, “You lift up everyone around you.” That line hit me so hard in the place in me that was raised by the sweetest, kindest mother who never said a bad word about anyone and was still considered by everyone to be hilarious. She never said anything shocking. She never cursed. She never made fun of someone just to get a laugh. (Mrs. Bachelor Girl reminds me of her in that way.) I know that people respond better to positivity and cute pictures and women in frilly lace dresses with shining hair and winning smiles than to uppercuts to the vagina, but I don’t know how not to point and jab! And I worry that the alternative to snarkiness for me is lameness.

I have a friend who has approximately 2.6 million friends on Facebook and never says anything remotely interesting but is “spunky” and “full of life”. If she’s not posting a motivational quote, she’s posting a motivational typographical image. And people eat. that. shit. up. I post mean things about Jason Segel? I lose a Like on my Unapologetically Mundane Facebook Page. She posts the picture of the cat on the rope with “hang in there!” written on the bottom? She gets 200 Likes and an award for Krazy Kool Friend or something.

I want to die.

But in a way that will lift up everyone around me.

Do You See?

katie ett — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:00:24 +0000

This morning, a woman ambled out of the bus and onto the sidewalk in front of me without checking to make sure she wasn’t cutting anyone off. I wasn’t in a hurry, but she was walking so-o-o-o-o-o slowly that I couldn’t bear to match her snailish pace. She walked in the middle of the sidewalk, though, not leaving room to pass her on either side. Just as I was stepping off the sidewalk and into the street to get around her, she decided to cross right in the middle of the street, cutting me off again. I was like, “Ohhhhh, no,” and excused myself as I sped around her, hoping she’d notice what a dick she was being but realizing she probably wouldn’t.

And I realized then that that’s the thing I really hate about New York. I can deal with tiny apartments that cost twice what whole houses do elsewhere, and it’s worth it to have to brave subway altercations to not have to drive anywhere, and I’ve learned to cope with having to shop at three different grocery stores because a single one isn’t big enough to carry everything I need.

But I can’t stand feeling like I’m invisible. When that woman stepped in front of me not once but twice, I wanted to yell at her, “DO YOU SEE ME?” When I’m crossing in front of someone and she’s crossing in front of me, and I hang back a second and let her go ahead because she’s wearing some five-inch heels and I realize that my life is much better than hers, and she doesn’t acknowledge me, I want to yell at her, “DO YOU SEE ME?” Or when everyone is waiting in a line to go up the stairs from the subway platform, and one guy comes from the back and cuts right in front of me, I want to tap him on the shoulder and yell at him, “DO YOU SEE ME?”

It’s like the episode of “South Park”, a riff on the movie Manhunter, where the killer ties Cartman to a chair, Clockwork Orange style, and shows the boy a projector slideshow so Cartman can see “all the things he has done”. You think the killer means all of the murders he’s committed, but the slides are all of the man at the Grand Canyon, at Niagara Falls. “DO YOU SEE?” the killer asks as each slide is displayed.

Because my being invisible has to be the reason for these crimes against humanity, right? The only other explanation is that these people somehow think they’re more important than I am, that they have somewhere more pressing to be. And maybe this is why people get mean living here. How many times can someone step in front of you just as the train arrives before you start doing it back?

The Time I Lost My Cool After the Biggest Jerk on the Bus Called Me Fat

katie ett — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:00:57 +0000

The last time we left our hero (yes, me), I had accidentally been engaged in a fight with a man so feebleminded that the only comeback he could produce to my most snide comment was, “You need to go on a diet!” I suppose he was one of those men who thinks the surest way to offend a lady is to insult her weight, but little did he know that I’ve achieved my current level of pleasant plumpness by enjoying dinners at the very finest restaurants in town with my beloved. I thought about returning the insult:

“I could lose weight, but you can’t lose ugly.”

“I could lose weight, but you’ll never get back your hair.”

“I could lose weight, but you’re stuck with that tiny–” Brain. Tiny brain.

But I figured that someone who isn’t clever enough to argue without immediately attacking outward appearance–pointing out that someone is black or gay or handicapped as if that person doesn’t realize it–isn’t worth my time, and I really didn’t want to lose any more of my cool, so I just said, “That’s very adult of you.”

“Keep stuffing your fat face, lady!” he called back from four rows away. “Maybe it’ll at least keep you quiet.”

I laughed, because at that moment, I was eating a low-carb, low-fat nutrition bar. It couldn’t have been more ironic.

Read the “exciting” conclusion here!

The One Time I Didn’t Speak Up on the Bus Pays Off

katie ett — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 16:00:02 +0000

In theory, I love everything about public transportation, but in practice, there are those days when I just plain want to be left alone, when every sound anyone makes annoys me, when friendly conversation going on around me seems as grating as an alarm clock at 6 a.m. One of those days was a couple of months back, when a gaggle of older women were clucking around the front seats of the Select M15 bus, where I like to sit, finding something to say about everything. This one’s hair. That one’s purse. This one’s son. That one’s dog.

And then a lady from Australia or New Zealand (sorry that I can’t tell you apart, Aussies and Kiwis) got on the front of the bus and tried to use her MetroCard with the driver to pay, not knowing that you have to pay outside at the fare collectors on the sidewalk. The bus driver told her to stay on the bus to save time and to get off at the next stop to pay, and that set the ladies off on a race to determine who could say the most negative things about the way the Select Bus Service runs. I’m so used to riding the Select bus and being able to pay outside and enter through all three doors that I get confused as to why everything seems to be running so inefficiently when I find myself on a local, non-Select bus. Why are all of these people entering through the front door? Why are they all stopping by the driver, and why are we sitting for minutes at a time at every stop? Ohhhhh, right.

But after a year and a half of SBS service, apparently these women were still having a hard time coming to grips with the ease of use of the thing and took the opportunity to unload onto this poor, unsuspecting woman who nodded understandingly to all of them in turn and consoled them in her charming accent. I was going to speak up and ask them to pipe down, but I decided not to add to the hullabaloo and just quietly put on my headphones.

Then, just as we were pulling out of the bus stop one night this week, the woman in front of me turned and said, “Your hair is looking really good. I like it that way.” I said, “Oh, you see me on the bus often?” And then I realized that it was one of the ladies. The loudest one, the alpha complainer. I said, “Actually, I recognize you, too.” She asked, “You get on at 23rd Street in the mornings, right?”, and I told her my actual stop. “So you’ve seen me in the mornings?” I asked, adding, “I’ve seen you at night, but I’m always in such a trance in the mornings.” “Oh, please, I’m always still asleep,” she said, “but I sometimes see you, and you seem very nice.”

Read the rest here!

And This is Why All Dogs Should Be Kept in Strollers

katie ett — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:00:51 +0000

Kamran and I had failed to reserve a bigfancydinner for Saturday night, so we were doing a very romantic load of laundry at 10 p.m. in the basement of his apartment building. We stepped onto an elevator that already had two women and a little dog on it, and I smiled at both of the humans, and neither of them smiled back, but it’s sometimes hard to make your mouth muscles work in the two seconds you have between the time you notice someone smiling at you and that person looking away, so I didn’t hold it against them. They made some mundane talk behind us while Kamran and I chuckled over the fact that his laundry bag was splitting down the side seam so badly it was a wonder the thing could hold any clothes at all. (I tell you this little detail because it shows that I’m able to talk and laugh with at least one person in the world while I’m not busy abusing animals.)

I could see out of the corner of my eye that the dog was rarin’ to get out of the elevator, but Kamran and I were nearest to the door, so I let him step out first and then followed him, a little bit pleased at myself for making the dog wait. I feel the same way whenever I get into the bus in front of an overeager child who’s trying to go out of turn. I just need the excitement taken down a notch, you know?

But as soon as I stepped out of the elevator, the dog let out this horrendous howl/yelp/yip noise that hurt my ears, and I thought it was upset at me for cutting it off, so I turned around and just stared that thing down. I’m a little bit proud of how cold I can be sometimes, and I put every bit of cruelty I have into that glare. I wanted to show that little mangy rat who the alpha dog was. And it barked at me! It was kind of thrilling. I really felt like I’d threatened the thing and that it had felt it.

The elevators in Kamran’s building are rigged so that you take one set down to the lobby and another set down to the lower floors, so I stepped across to the other bank, where Kamran was already waiting. The owner of the dog told the other lady, “She stepped on his foot.”

I said from the other elevator, “No, I didn’t.”

She said, almost apologizing for me, “It was accidental.”

I leaned out the elevator door and said, “NO. I didn’t.”

And our elevator doors closed, and we rode to the laundry room in silence. While we unloaded the bag into the washers, my blood was still boiling, but I had this sudden, overwhelming feeling of guilt. I was only wearing flip-flops, so I’d think I’d feel a dog paw under my foot, but what if I hadn’t? What if I really had accidentally stepped on that dog, scrawny and yippy as it was? On one hand, Kamran’s building is overrun with dogs who get treated better than people and are allowed to sniff and lick whomever they want on the elevators at will, and it was the owner’s job to keep her dog back until the path was cleared, but on the other hand, I handled the situation so badly.

It would’ve been so easy just to say, “I really don’t think I stepped on the dog, but please accept my apologies just in case.” And the woman might have thought I was clumsy or reckless, but at least she wouldn’t have thought me a total DOG-HATING BITCH.

The Voice, Erin Martin, and Why I Should Be the Judge of All Things

katie ett — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:00:44 +0000

Did anyone else see this singer on “The Voice” and feel really, really betrayed by the judges?

They claim that this is a completely new sound, but if you heard (and were annoyed by) Macy Gray in 1999, Erin Martin’s voice shouldn’t seem the least bit exciting to you. And they, the music professionals, should recognize that. Instead, they pressed their buttons in awe, they stood up in their seats, they said things like, “THAT is cool!” She has foot-high hair, a foot-long skirt, and a headband on her forehead. Not. Impressed.

Now, I actually like “different” voices. I love being able to recognize a vocalist. Jack White, Chris Cornell, Andrew Bird, Thom Yorke, Rufus Wainwright, Neil Young, Beck, David Bowie, and of course Adam Levine—these are voices you know in an instant no matter what they’re singing, and I love them all.

Last season on “The Voice”, Dia Frampton was a huge hit with her whispery vocals, and I thought she should’ve won:

The difference is that Dia’s voice sounds genuine. I get really tired of voices that sound “put on”. Like, I can sound exactly like Macy Gray and Erin Martin if I try. By forcing myself to sing with a baby voice while purposely mispronouncing letters.

It’s the same thing with Duffy, Eddie Vedder (although I think I like Pearl Jam because they got to me at an age when I was still an innocent non-hater), and basically every single person who auditioned for “American Idol” this year after of the success of vocal-weirdos Haley Reinhart and Megan Joy Corkrey.

I know different people have different tastes and that Erin Martin will probably do well on “The Voice”, but I wish the judges would just call a baby-voiced spade a spade.

Secret-wish-to-be-a-rockstar-fueled rant complete.

The Formula for Style Blog Success

plumpdumpling — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:00:07 +0000

Something got me started on craft and style blogs late last year. Despite being a total androgyne and not having any access to/room for crafting supplies, I like looking at the pretty things other women are making, the pretty things they’re wearing, the pretty things they’re decorating their spacious out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere houses with.

But man, those things can tire me out pretty quickly. There seems to be a formula for them, and this is it:

1) Blog names involving animals: Kittenbear, Saturated Canary, Dainty Squid

2) Cutesy words for everything: “love this cardi”, “swooning over these sunnies” (that’s cardigan and sunglasses, for those of you who don’t read stylespeak)

3) Faux-awkward clothes-modeling poses that have obviously taken the “America’s Next Top Model” advice to “try to look like a broken-down doll” way too much to heart

4) Opening up a shop to sell handmade or thrifted items, usually on Etsy but more preferably at Renegade Craft Fair but even more preferably in a 1949 Airstream camper painted pink with white trim:

photo by Little Chief Honeybee, whom I actually really like despite my fun-making

5) Being very young or trying to act like it: dressing up their Blythe dolls, owning everything rainbow-colored, loving hearts and sparkles and baby pandas

6) Describing themselves as “awkward”. Or “wonderfully awkward”. Or “adorably awkward”. (I AM ACTUALLY AWKWARD! You have 15,000 Facebook subscribers who are trying to mold themselves into you!)

7) Closing every post with an image that says “love, [whatever cutesy name the blogger has, because they're all cutesy]” in a signature font:

8) Having long lists of “likes” in their sidebars that include puppies, cuddling, and a dessert of some sort

9) Inserting their URLs at the end of every comment, making it clear that they’re only commenting to plug themselves:

10) Strategically moving nearest to the thrift store in town that always manages to have designer clothes with their tags still on, mismatched but perfectly coordinated vintage plates that will be glued together to make a cupcake tower, and an array of mason jars dating from 1885 to present, all bedbug-free

Of course there are plenty of really original craft and style blogs, including some awesome personal blogs that I read daily. And I know that people complain about the fact that blogging women apparently have nothing to talk about but the clothes they wear and the homes they make, but even the most militantly feminist among us is still pinning cake pops and salad-in-a-jar recipes on Pinterest.

Even I have a little Kittenbear inside of me trying to get out.

Bus Stop Line Jump

katie ett — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:00:13 +0000

Kamran and I were in Hell’s Kitchen Sunday night, having traveled to the exact opposite side of the island to pour our months of collected pocket change in one of those machines that exchanges it for gift certificates. We were waiting at a bus stop with our riches in hand, staring longingly at the side-by-side 99-cent pizza and Gray’s Papaya, when a man approached with a large instrument in a case strapped to his back. We were standing just to the left of the bus shelter, leaving enough room for someone to slip past us in line if he wanted to be a jerk. But he stood behind us instead, avoiding the waist-high pile of garbage bags on our other side.

We stayed in that configuration until the bus arrived some minutes later, when the man with the instrument came out of nowhere to stand in front of me in the line of people waiting to get on the bus. I couldn’t even help myself when my blood took a sudden surge; I simply had to march around him and insert myself back into the line where I rightfully belonged. The fact that he had waited until the last second to make his move made me so much angrier than if he had just done it from the moment he came to the stop. At least then he could’ve pretended to be looking for a seat or a place to rest his instrument in the shelter.

Read the rest here!

Insulting Jerks the Classy Way

katie ett — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:00:09 +0000

Last Saturday, Kamran and I were out for a pleasant jaunt around the city to enjoy what seems like it may be one of the last days of nice weather. We were crossing 42nd Street on 5th Avenue in front of the Main Library when an aging compact car rounded the corner from the left and attempted to cut in front of us before we could slow him. We were perfectly within the limits of the crosswalk sign, of course, and continued ahead as such. This clearly displeased the driver, who kept not just inching toward us but, like, feeting toward us threateningly.

We were sipping bubble tea, and I had my camera slung ’round my neck, so maybe the guy thought we were a couple of podunk tourists, but this queen bee of the city doesn’t get messed with like that, so I bored a hole in the guy straight through his windshield and said, “Hey, F*** YOU!”

Because my mama, god rest her soul, raised me to be classy.

It took him a couple of seconds to recover from these words he most assuredly had never heard come out of the mouth of such a sweet-looking lady, but then he retorted, “Same to you!” while finishing his turn and continuing down the street. I felt fine about yelling at the dude, because you get your car out of my pedestrian city, a-hole, but I was a little upset that the first thing I resort to in times of crisis is cursing. (Not that you didn’t know that.)

I first decided I should’ve yelled, “Come at me, bro!”, but then I remembered that the guy was in a car and would’ve killed me had he come at me. I asked Kamran what I should have said instead, and he suggested, “I’m going to tell your mom on you when I see her later tonight.” Which are pretty strong words from someone who enacted a rule that I can only insult his mom once a day.

Well, luckily, my friend Sarah posted this on Facebook yesterday to help me out, from Tastefully Offensive:

So next time someone attempts to plow me with his car, I’m going to look him square in his beslubbering little elf-skinned eye and yell,

“THOU GLEEKING FAT-KIDNEYED WHEY-FACE!“

Accidental Racism is Probably Still Racism

plumpdumpling — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 16:00:57 +0000

Sometimes I pass the one black lady with natural hair on our floor at work and think about that sign I put up that one time on the bathroom door about going to stall #4 “if you want to see the longest pube ever” before I knew there was a long history of black people’s hair being compared to pubes, and even though it could’ve totally actually been a pube, it probably was her hair, and she never says hi back when I say hi, and I kind of understand why.

Cover Up That Caesarean Scar, Fatty

plumpdumpling — Thu, 12 May 2011 16:00:09 +0000

I’ve never worn a bikini. I burst forth from my mother’s womb at 145 pounds, already wearing footie pajamas to hide my shame, so my beach attire has always included one-pieces and t-shirts. Well, my friends and I are soon going back to the Hamptons beach house we rented last year, and I’ve been actively searching again for the perfect swimsuit after last year’s tankini disaster at Laguna Beach.

I think I finally did find a suit that I’ll like, but more importantly, I was reminded that everyone else likes the wrong suit. For reference, here is the only person who should be wearing a bikini:

I don’t mean to be anti-feminist here, but seriously, if you don’t look like that, why are you wearing one?

Do you just looooove the way the water feels on your stomach? Hey, guess what; water actually soaks through swimsuits right to your skin!

Were you hoping for some awesome bikini tan lines? TAN LINES ARE NOT SEXY.

I imagine you’re not doing it to show off your love handles or the fact that no amount of padding will give you sideboobs.

And I kind of doubt you want people noticing that your midsection’s shaped less like an hourglass and more like one of those fat pencils we used to use in kindergarten.

You know what hides love handles, weird foam padding, and your giant potbelly that sort of reminds one of a poisonous growth on a treetrunk?

ONE-PIECES! For me, even models look better in them:

I guess I’d just rather see less and imagine perfection than to be assaulted by how imperfect everything is. And don’t try to tell me that imperfections are beautiful, you bikini-wearing sap.

QUIT TRYING TO MOTIVATE ME

plumpdumpling — Fri, 06 May 2011 16:00:54 +0000

Lately, I’ve been seeing them everywhere, but especially on Pinterest. These supposedly-inspirational quotes in stylized letters that are so nice to look at that they kind of make you forget how incredibly pointless they are.

I actually liked them for a while and even briefly considered making my own Pinterest pinboard for the ones I liked most until I just became overwhelmed with how many of them they are and maddened by how . . . just . . . fake it all is. No one’s going to be called to action because of these things. No one’s going to “DO IT” or haul up their anchor on the past because of some dumb poster.

I blame the British for starting all of this, naturally, when their totally hott Keep Calm and Carry On poster was discovered ten or so years ago:

But I don’t think that would’ve worked on anyone, either. At this point, I’m refusing to like anything other than kinetic typography like this illustrated dramatic reading of a video game review that Tracey showed me:

Or any of the not-meant-to-be-inspirational, just-meant-to-be-awesome design Lisa of Elembee.com is doing:

Otherwise, it’s all demotivational posters for me.

I’m Really the Victim Here, When You Think About It

plumpdumpling — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:00:51 +0000

The other day, I had just bought some pastries from the Financier in Grand Central and was standing against the marble column outside its doors to text Kamran a question about electrons that had just hit me when some elderly gentlemen passed by and said, “You get the prize for stupidest person! STUPIDEST PERSON!” I think he was hitting on me.

The other night, I was walking up the hill to Kamran’s apartment behind a mother and her three kids. The two oldest ones, a boy and a girl, were wearing backpacks that were almost as big as they were and were holding hands. They started lagging behind their mother and saying, “We’re too weak to go any farther!”, and the other reason I didn’t speed up and pass them is that they were Asian, which everyone knows is the most adorable brand of children. (I mean, up until a certain age, of course, when they get too precocious and start babbling nonstop about math on the bus in the loudest voices possible. Stereotypes!) At a certain point, though, they were just walking too slowly for me to maintain any distance, and as I got right behind them, my shadow fell over them, and they turned around and yelled, “KIDNAPPER!” and ran to catch up with their mom. As if I would purposely acquire children.

This morning, I had to be at work early to make nice with the sales team, so I was hungry for a seat on the bus at 7 a.m. But after helping a rather frail old woman with the ticketing machine and having her tell me how nice I am, I was eager to keep the good times rolling and let her go ahead of me to get an open spot. The only remaining option was next to a very . . . large . . . hulk . . . of a sleeping person who was taking up three-quarters of a two-seater and was allowing his or her coat to spill onto the rest.

Usually I would’ve just stood, but I really want to relax, and I almost wanted to punish this person for having the audacity to be heftier than I am. (I have issues, I know.) So I plopped right down on top of that coat and scooted myself as far into that seat as I could, not caring how uncomfortable my closeness made this person. I figured it was a woman judging by the impeccable tweed of the coat and the amount of bosom it had to take to create such a soft pillow in which conceal the lolling head, but it also smelled distinctly of men’s cologne. He or she spent most of the ride snoring, coughing, and gurgling, and all I could think about was what sort of diseases I was being exposed to and would be bringing home to my delicately-immune-systemed boyfriend, godblesshim.

At Fulton Street, a heavy arm reached across me to the metal pole on the outside of the seat in front of us, and I thought it was aa hint to me to move so the person could hoist his or herself out of the seat, but you know I wasn’t moving without an “excuse me” and a “thank you”. So I continued on with my Hunger Games (what a ripoff of The Giver and Gathering Blue, right?) and ignored the hand. When it came across me again, though, this time with an “I’m sorry”, I wondered what was up and looked over at the person.

It was a lovely older lady with the nicest smile, and she explained that she was trying to push the button to signal for a stop but that it wasn’t working. I tried the button myself to no result and suggested she try pulling on the rubber yellow tube that runs the length of the bus high against the windows. Of course she couldn’t reach it, though, because I was sitting on her coat. We had a little chuckle, and then someone hit the button in another part of the bus, so I got up, and she scooted past me with some effort and many thanks.

This is your fault, other New Yorkers! If 4/5 of you weren’t awful, I wouldn’t have to treat you all with disdain just to be sure.

Hey, He Started It

plumpdumpling — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 17:00:42 +0000

Last night, I was at the drugstore in my new neighborhood. It has one of those queues that starts at one end of the store with a little “Enter” sign, and if you’re at the opposite end, you’re met with a little wall that tells you you’re not in the right place to join the line. So I entered at the end of the queue lane like a good little girl with my new toothbrush in hand, but just as I got to the line of cash registers, this dude cut in front of the wall, slipped ahead of me, and sidled up to the cashier who should’ve been helping me.

Now, I don’t blame anyone for not going to the end of the queue when there’s no one in line–I get a real kick out of going around unnecessarily long ones, actually–but you’d better be sure your rule-breaking isn’t going to end with you cutting in front of someone like this guy. And of course the cashier didn’t notice what he did or care to do anything about it, so I said, “I know you know what you just did.” But he either didn’t hear me or didn’t care to let on.

A second later, I heard him turn to the racially-similar guy next to him and ask him to “help a brother out” with some money to cover his purchase. The guy next to him said, “Don’t play me like that,” and the ditcher said, “I have kids to feed!” His cashier pulled his item away from him, and he said, “When you have kids, you’ll understand!” And then another lane freed up, and I paid for my toothbrush and assorted other entirely unnecessary trivialities with my loads of cash.

Let My People Gooooooooo

plumpdumpling — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 17:00:41 +0000

I don’t know if it’s my dark, curly hair or the many Michael Chabon books I’ve read, but despite my feelings about the U.S.’s totally wack Israeli foreign policy, I sometimes feel a weird kinship to the Jews.

Which is why, last night, when I heard a Hispanic dude on the corner of 42nd and Lexington saying, “She kept trying to jew me into coming to that party!”, I wanted to turn and say, “Listen, you spic, my people have been enduring stereotyping and ridicule from a-holes like you for thousands of years now, and it ends right here, right now.”

But then I remembered that I’m a regular, old white girl from Ohio. Minorities get to have all the fun.

Can My Karma Withstand Altercations with Two Old Ladies in One Week?

plumpdumpling — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:00:29 +0000

I was alone at the bus stop yesterday morning and standing at the far corner of the glass enclosure, which is where I always like to stand when it’s available, because it shields me from the wind coming off the river. A younger man approached, and rather than walk past me to also stand in the enclosure, he stood just on the outside, as if he was lining up beside me. A few more people walked up as we waited, and all of them also stood outside in line, and I was thinking, “What a civilized people we are.” I moved to the other side of the enclosure so all of them would feel free to move over and come inside, too.

When the bus pulled up moments later, it stopped directly in front of me, and I casually stepped forward to claim my rightful position as first on, when out of nowhere, this older lady rushed over from the right and attempted to intercept me. I have no idea how long she had been waiting there, because the right side of the bus stop enclosure is covered over with an ad for an opera singer who looks like Russell Crowe. All that was clear to me was that I had been the very first person at the bus stop, so no matter how long she’d been hiding, I’d been there longer.

Read the rest!

The Only Person to Apologize in All of NYC Still Gets Trash-Talked

plumpdumpling — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 16:00:10 +0000

A friend recently asked me how I managed the adjustment from smalltown Ohio to big city culture, and I told her I was prepared for everything but how truly out-for-themselves people are in NYC. I told her that in Ohio, there seems to be more of a collective conscious, a bit of an “if I do this horrible thing to this person, everyone’s going to find out” mindset, and a bit of an “if I do this nice thing for this person, both of us will benefit from my niceness, and the world will be a better place” mindset. She asked if I think NYC has changed me, and it just so happened that I had the perfect story to illustrate my very definite yes.

Last Saturday afternoon, my boyfriend and I took advantage of the end of Summer/start of Fall weather with brunch at Bar Boulud, a stroll through Central Park, wrestling with giant stuffed dogs at FAO Schwarz, and buying a pound of chocolate-covered everything at Dylan’s Candy Bar to start getting our blood sugar prepared for Halloween.

We hopped on the downtown M15 bus around 4:30 p.m., and it was packed, as usual, with elderly people, because only elderly people leave the house before 8 p.m. on weekends. We stood for a couple of stops, sat down for a couple of stops when two seats were freed up, and then stood back up when we saw a feeble-looking couple board the bus.

Read the rest.

It’s Not My Fault You Hate Your Job (and Your Life)

plumpdumpling — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 16:00:31 +0000

On Friday afternoon, I got an e-mail from my manager, who works in our Chicago office, saying that “someone” in my office complained to HR that I’m late to work “all of the time”.

This shouldn’t have affected me. The peon-y nature of my job shields me from a lot of the corporate bullcrap that other people have to deal with. On the other hand, because my job is so peon-y, if someone makes a complaint about me, you know he or she had to dig reeeeeeally deep to find something to complain about. This is obviously the sort of person who sues McDonald’s for not printing “Caution: contents hot” on their coffee cups. Or takes his next-door neighbors to court because their dog bit him in the butt after he shot it repeatedly with a pellet gun.

I don’t want to be the waitress who accuses her table of being cheapskates when their poor tip is based entirely on her terrible service, so I’ll admit that I’m often not in the office right at 9 a.m. Because I take public transportation, I can arrive anywhere between 9 and 9:15. But everyone in my office takes the same public transportation, so everyone‘s arriving between 9 and 9:15, and in fact, many people are arriving between 9:15 and 9:30.

What really bothers me is that I have a personal relationship with every single person in my office. We’re a huge software company with thousands of employees worldwide, but my office only has 20 employees, and every single one of them knows the details of my life outside of work, and I know theirs, too. So the idea of someone not only complaining about me but going behind my back to complain to HR seems pretty unbelievable.

And really, I don’t so much mind being complained about. If the worst thing someone can think to say about me is that I’m not always at work at 9 a.m., then I figure I’m doing pretty well. The problem for me is that because I don’t know who did it, I’m going to be deprived of the joy I’d get out of ruining this person’s life in small ways. “Accidentally” forgetting to order his lunch on Fridays when the company buys for all of us, making sure we always happen to be out of whatever coffee he enjoys drinking, not ordering cakes when I know it’s his birthday. Fun, right?

I had two people pegged as possible suspects on Friday, but every time I asked one of my co-workers if they thought it could be one of those guys, they all said no way. And unfortunately, they all offered up the alternative of this group of visiting employees from another of our offices. In particular, they were blaming this guy who had come to my desk shortly after I arrived, and I had tried to make nice with him by asking him polite questions I didn’t at all care about the answers to, but he couldn’t have acted less interested in talking to me. Likely because he felt guilty about having just reported me to HR in our Canadian office.

Since those guys only come to our office once every couple of months, I’m going to have a really hard time properly punishing him for his transgression. About the most I can do is “forget” to add his name to the security list so he has to wait in the lobby until I decide to call down to tell the guards to let him up. I know you have to discipline a dog within moments of its wrongdoing for it to properly learn its lesson, but at least I’ll feel better about myself.

Wait Your Turn, Grandma

plumpdumpling — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 16:00:22 +0000

I met a friend for dinner Tuesday night and told her I was so glad to be seeing her just so I could get this story off of my chest and never have to publicly admit to it, but of course I have to publicly admit to it. It’s not that I think I was in the wrong, because I know I was in the right, but I still can’t help feeling guilty about physically intimidating an old lady in the train. Yes. You read that right.

I was on the R coming uptown from work. As the train neared Union Square, I turned off my Kindle and casually headed for the door. I don’t like to rush right over and potentially block someone who might be in a bigger hurry than I am, but I also need to make it clear that I’m getting off so I don’t get trapped inside the car by all the crazy people coming in. Because they are always crazy.

So by the time the train came to a stop, I was firmly in front of the doors and ready to plow through the group outside on the platform who were inching closer and closer like classic horror-movie zombies in a feeding frenzy. I could see that there was this wiry white-shirted person right in front of one of the windows, but I didn’t make eye contact, because it’s easier to make people think I might cut them if I don’t show them my innocent, doe-like eyes.

Read the rest here.

I’m GLAD You Were Bitten

plumpdumpling — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 16:00:40 +0000

I was on my way up to Kamran’s apartment last night after the first meeting of my bowling team. In the elevator was a guy about my age with one earbud and a Chihuahua on a leash.

(I have to mention the leash part, because people in Kamran’s building love to let their dogs loose in the elevators, which I of course find extremely fun but Kamran finds kind of annoying, as he’s allergic to anything cute.)

Across from me was a slightly older woman who reminded me of an even uglier version of the detestable designer Ivy Higa from this season’s “Project Runway”. They were both looking at the floor. The Chihuahua came to sniff my jeans, and I said, “Hello!”, which usually inspires dog owners to chat with me, but this guy continued to stand quietly.

We were still waiting for our elevator doors to close when the elevator across from us opened up, and an elderly lady and her dog stepped out. It seemed like some sort of Beagle mix to me, small and kind of dopey-looking, and it made a beeline for the little Chihuahua. The lady let out her leash a little so the dog could come over to us, and the two pets sniffed each others’ noses adorably for a second until . . .

The icky woman across from me suddenly said, “Okay, I need to fucking GET OUT OF HERE. I can’t handle this,” and began jabbing at the button that closes the doors. The older lady quickly gave her leash a tug, and the two dogs were pulled apart.

I thought maybe she was in a real hurry or something, but even so, I was pretty grossed out by her display. As our doors began to close, I said, “Woooooooooooow. That was really . . . angry.” The woman just stared at the floor.

The guy with the Chihuahua said, “She was bitten by a dog.”

I said, “Oh, you two are together?” in what I’ll admit was a disgusted voice, and he said, “No, but she just told me that.”

I had no idea how to respond. I mean, I can be the queen of irrational fears when it comes to spiders and weird things at the bottoms of swimming pools, but I couldn’t help thinking this woman was dumb. It’s one thing to be afraid of some rabid 80-pounder baring its teeth at you, but this was a CHIHUAHUA politely sniffing things. GET A GRIP and go get yourself another elevator.

We got to the guy’s floor a second later, though, and I cheerfully said, “Goodnight!” as he exited, and he completely ignored me, so maybe it really is me who has no idea how to act in public.

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