Author Archives: plumpdumpling

My Face is a Target for Hatred

Posted by plumpdumpling on August 5, 2009 – 10:06 am
Filed under stuff i hate
Tagged as

This morning when I left Kamran’s apartment, there was an adorable little squirrel hanging off the side of one of the trees near the garden outside of his building. It scampered off as soon as it saw me, and just as it hit one of the top branches, something plopped down onto my head and shirt.

Figuring it was water, I kept walking, but then I remembered a day a couple of years ago when I walked under a scaffolding near Kamran’s building just as the construction crew dropped some planks onto it from above. I had felt some debris shower down on me but hadn’t thought to look at myself in the mirror to check on the damage. After my 20-minute subway ride to work, some visitors were already waiting outside of the office door, so I got them settled in and then finally caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom and realized that I’d had black dust all over my face the entire time from the scaffolding.

So to be safe this time, I felt around on my shirt for the water spot and came up with a fingerful of bird poop instead. I stopped where I was, popped open my compact, and found the splotch of it in my hair, as well. Now, bird poop in my hair doesn’t really gross me out or anything like it should. Somehow Kamran dropping his feces in my hair or something seems weird, but bird poop in a walking city seems inevitable. The problem is that I don’t have normal girl hair that would allow me to simply pull the stuff out of my straight, flowing tresses; I have very soft curly hair that I’m basically afraid to touch for fear of making it uncurl–as someone once told me it would as a kid–and after living with curly hair for a lifetime, I would have no idea what to do with straight hair.

So I sort of patted the poop out the best I could, hoping that the remaining golden streak made it look as if I’d gotten highlights. And I went on to work, rubbing the poop between my fingers as I walked to dry it out. After riding the train and talking to a couple of my co-workers, I sat down at my desk and got out a mirror to reapply some lipgloss. And that’s when I saw that I had black hairs all over the side of my face. The side that I hadn’t looked at when I was searching for bird poop. I couldn’t remember walking under any scaffolding this morning, so I retraced my steps in my mind and realized that shortly before I said goodbye to Kamran this morning, I saw him trimming his sideburns in the bathroom mirror. Which means that when he hugged me before I walked out the door, he slathered my face in hair and didn’t bother to tell me.

This is going to be quite a day.

A Bus Stop Ditcher Gets His Due

Posted by plumpdumpling on August 4, 2009 – 9:50 am
Filed under funner times on the bus, living in new york sucks so hard, my uber-confrontational personality
Tagged as , , ,

On Saturday evening, Kamran and I reached the M15 stop at 42nd Street to see we’d just missed the bus. As we were the only ones at the stop, we entertained ourselves with rhyming games and musings about what sort of present we could buy at a convenience store to bring to the Williamsburg birthday party we were on our way to.

After a few minutes, a woman with a very stylish short haircut made her way down the street and politely stood a few feet away from us to wait. An older gentlemen in a pink button-down dress shirt and an orange tie came and stood beside her a few minutes later. A couple of grannies rolled up together a second later and pretended to be looking at the map on the bus stop pole, but it was pretty clear they were just trying to ditch us to be first into the bus, so Kamran told me to be wary of getting hit over the head with a purse or walking cane when the bus pulled up.

We all spotted the bus as it popped over the hill at 43rd Street at the same time, and the unease in the air was palpable as we all prepared ourselves for the inevitable chaos of boarding. Usually I appreciate it when the bus driver doesn’t pull all of the way up to the pole that marks the stop, because the people standing there are rarely the ones who have been waiting the longest, but this driver didn’t pull up far enough.

He stopped right in the middle of the crowd, leaving us to separate ourselves into two groups on either side of the door. On the left side was the nicely-haircutted woman, the old man in pink and orange, and this other man who had appeared out of nowhere in rolled-up jeans and a sleeveless t-shirt. On the right was the potentially-lethal pair of ladies, Kamran, and me.

Haircut went into the bus first, which was, you know, incorrect but acceptable, considering that she arrived shortly after we did and perhaps didn’t remember who was there first. I took a step forward to make it clear that I was next, and I know Sleeveless T-Shirt saw me, because he stepped forward after I did and then looked at me for my next move

My next move, of course, was to step onto the bus. Apparently he wasn’t pleased with this checkmate, though, because he took advantage of the extra-wide doorway and clambered onto the bus right beside me. I was totally weirded out. I mean, I may curse about people who hurry past me into the bus during rush hour, but this was 8 p.m. on a weekend. And it was a double-long bus, so there was no chance there wasn’t going to be room for him. Plus, I was there first.

I didn’t even have a chance to think about what to do. What came naturally was to shove all 145 pounds of him back out of the bus, all the while saying, “Oh, excuse me! Oh, pardon me!” in my sweetest voice. The adrenaline rush was insane.

But as fun as that was, the greatest part of the situation was that the guy then turned to Kamran, evidently unaware that we were together. (Or aware and unafraid.) He made a face of incredulity and yammered something unintelligible that was clearly meant to convey how much he wanted me dead. Kamran, of course, didn’t sock him in the jaw as he should have, but he did politely remind him to mind the other people in line first next time.

(also posted on Examiner)

White is a Race

Posted by plumpdumpling on August 3, 2009 – 2:37 pm
Filed under politicking
Tagged as

Tracey and I philosophize about whether or not I can actually label an Asian guy on the bus as Asian:

Seriously, how many times a day do you think about this? I never had to worry about there being anything but white folk in my stories back when I lived in Ohio.

Subway Seat Supply and Demand

Posted by plumpdumpling on July 31, 2009 – 10:06 am
Filed under fun times on the subway, good times at everyone else's expense, why i'm better than everyone else
Tagged as , ,

On the subway, the law of supply and demand is fully in effect: the fewer seats available, the more desirable they are.

I get on the 4/5 after work at Bowling Green, which is the first uptown stop in Manhattan. There are always a few stragglers from lower Brooklyn on it, but most of the seats are empty. Some people still rush into the train, of course, but the majority of us take our time. I usually nonchalantly nab a seat if I’m planning to read, but if I’m going to play my Nintendo DS and don’t want anyone looking over my shoulder to see how terrible I am at Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, I stay standing.

Plenty of other people stay standing at that stop, too, but at Wall Street, the train fills up a little more, and you start to see riders get a little anxious about their lack of choices. They want to sit, but they don’t want to try to squeeze in between the oversize lady with her five bags and the guy with his legs unnecessarily spread three feet apart. People try to look casual, but they’re secretly sneaking looks up and down the entire train to see if there’s anything worth making a move on.

At Fulton Street, there’s no time for pretending. Women rush into the train and plunk down with no regard for how huge their assets are and how small the seat space is. Men who would normally open doors for little old ladies practically push them out of the way. Pregnant women are left clutching their stomachs and fanning themselves with their hands as everyone looks at each other, hoping someone else will volunteer to give up his or her seat first.

I feel very smug about getting to choose whether or not I’ll sit, and I’ll admit that I like to mess with the people who have to stand. I’ve found that if I take off my headphones and turn off my iPod right as we enter Grand Central, the woman standing in front of me will breathe a sigh of relief and grab my seat as soon as I stand. I hate that. So when I want to have a little fun, I’ll take my headphones off as we enter the station before Grand Central, which is Union Square. And Union Square is a full 28 blocks away from Grand Central. Which means that after I take my headphones off and the woman in front of me prepares herself mentally for the joy of sitting down on the crowded train, I’ll make her stand waiting for another five minutes until I actually get off. And if there’s a lot of train traffic or a track fire or anything to slow us down, that five minutes can turn into ten or fifteen. You can imagine how this delights me.

(also posted to Examiner)

(500) Days of Summer is (95) Minutes of Me Wanting to Kill Myself (but in a sort of happy way)

Posted by plumpdumpling on July 30, 2009 – 9:12 am
Filed under there's a difference between films and movies
Tagged as

I went to see (500) Days of Summer with Kamran and my friend Beth last weekend. It was beautiful. And really, really depressing.

I knew that I was going to see the movie when the preview included a scene where Zooey Deschanel makes Joseph Gordon-Levitt take off his headphones in an elevator to tell him that she loves The Smiths. On one hand, I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, who doesn’t love The Smiths?” Please try not to base your entire relationship on one song, folks.

It’s just like in Garden State when that bitch Natalie Portman is like, “You have to listen to this Shins song. It’ll change your life, I swear.” And I was like, “Sucka, I was listening to The Shins before you were born.” But Zach Braff is all taken by her, because guys like chicks with mental illness.

But on the other hand, I also understand it, because I based my entire love of Kamran on the fact that while I was working at a science museum in college, he and his dad visited on their way to move him into Princeton, and I’m entirely sure we spoke to each other that day and somehow found each other six years later.

So, I knew it was going to be overly-indie, but you know I’m into that. I just didn’t know it was going to be so sad. I thought about it for days afterward, and I can’t even figure out why. I mean, for god’s sake, the director’s other credits include a Jesse McCartney documentary and a 3 Doors Down music video!

Maybe it’s that I secretly think of Kamran and myself as the Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel of Manhattan. Except even more adorable when in IKEA.

In conclusion: the costumes were awesome, the chalkboard wall was awesome, and the soundtrack was awesome. Summer was a bitch, although I’m sure I’d see it differently if the movie was told from her point of view. The girl at the end sucked. Please see it so we can discuss.