Stopped in My Tracks

At the corner of Lafayette and Great Jones, a somewhat oddly colored door.


I wouldn't have noticed it as much for the color, though, as for the sign affixed to it.


Because this is Manhattan, and people will have opinions, and my guess is that whoever painted that door that color just did not want to hear them.

Barack Obama Hates Me

From this coming Sunday's New York Times Magazine article "Working for the Working Class Vote"

“I am convinced that if there were no Fox News, I might be two or three points higher in the polls,” Obama told me. “If I were watching Fox News, I wouldn’t vote for me, right? Because the way I’m portrayed 24/7 is as a freak! I am the latte-sipping, New York Times-reading, Volvo-driving, no-gun-owning, effete, politically correct, arrogant liberal. Who wants somebody like that?

OK, so I like a latte occasionally, and you pretty much have to sip it, because Starbucks coffee is always really hot. I read the New York Times (self-evident by the fact that I just quoted from it). I don't own a car, but my husband has a fondness for vintage Volvos, so if I did, it might be one of those. I don't own a gun. I wouldn't describe myself as effete exactly, since that adjective is generally applied to girly men; maybe I skate by on that one. Politically correct? I'm sure when I don't laugh at the sexist jokes my boss tells during staff meetings there are one or two people who think so. Arrogant? Yes, about certain things. Liberal? Definitely.

Does that mean I shouldn't vote Obama now?

The Price of Feminism

I am getting married in February, but not changing my name. I wouldn't have thought that was a controversial decision in this day and age, but a couple of relatives have been surprised.

But that's nothing compared to my surprise when my fiance told me that, when he called Verizon to have them put my name on the account (in case, you know, someone calls information trying to find me), they told him that they are charging us $2.50 a month for this "service". If we had the same last name, no charge.

Are you kidding me?

I'm sure they have some super-acceptable rationale for this numskullery, having to do with the extra millisecond or two it might take their computer to parse the two names when someone calls just looking for one of us.

But really, isn't it time for the Verizon to accept that more and more households have different names these days and their system needs to keep up? My mother can manage this, but the phone company can't? Oh wait, they're a monopoly.* They don't need to do anything.

*Yes, Ma Bell was broken up 25 years ago, but if you can only get local phone service from one company, that's pretty much a monopoly. And don't talk to me about cable phone.

Happy Goddamn Halloween

OK, sure, every other woman on the street last night was a slutty barmaid, or a slutty referee/umpire, slutty pirate, baseball player or cat. I even saw a slutty Sherlock Holmes. We get it; Halloween is firmly established as a safe time for otherwise only mildly slutty woman to become full-fledged slutty fantasies for men whose most creative costume attempt is carrying a football while wearing a football jersey and sneakers. If I were 15 years younger, I might think it was fun to do, instead of just funny to ridicule as the sluts pass.

But when the slut parade interferes with my ability to get home quickly, that's when it's gone too far. The cab we were in after the theater last night was held up for several light cycles and meter clicks too many on 42nd Street. The cause of this late-night traffic jam? A Halloween party at Cipriani, to celebrate the launch of Roberto Cavelli's new vodka line (doesn't he know that designer vodkas are so 2004? but get this, it's filtered through crushed Italian marble), at which there was a line of black SUVs standing in what would otherwise be a no-standing zone/bus stop, funneling the traffic into one lane instead of two, their drivers napping while the D-list celebrities they were waiting for slutted it up inside. People like Petra Nemcova and Katrina Bowden. Who? Right; exactly.

At least Petra's costume is a little beautiful. What's Katrina supposed to be? A slutty Donald Trump? Ew.

Sometimes It's Just Not Your Day

I knew I shouldn't get out of bed this morning. I lay there, awake, for at least a half hour, trying to work out how I could avoid it. Why does my job have to be an every day affair?

But I finally did get up, too late to make breakfast at home. I stopped in the bagel store, so far so good. Decided I should have coffee on the way to work, since I hadn't woken up yet. Asked for, as I always do at a deli, hazelnut with milk.

There are people who think flavored coffees are evil. But my thinking is: if I'm not going to have a very-high-quality cup of coffee, in a ceramic mug, sitting down at a table that doesn't have a computer screen on it, I should at least have the softening effects of the toasty hazelnut.

Except that the woman who gave me my coffee gave me regular coffee, which I didn't find out until I opened it several blocks away, too late to do anything about it. This is also the woman who, when I once asked for "not too much cream cheese," gave me the amount you would put on if you were putting on butter at home, i.e., not very much at all. Sure, it's probably better for me that way, but if I'd wanted better for me, I would have gotten up early enough to make my own damn breakfast at home.

Where was I?

Right, so I chucked the coffee, figuring life was too short to drink bad bagel-store coffee and I would get a cup of hazelnut at the deli in my office building. There they make you pour your own coffee, which means you always get what you want, even if what you want is half caffeine/half decaf, with a drop of half-and-half and a swush of skim milk. Not that I would ever want such a thing.

Up at my desk, bagel at my left hand, coffee at my right, I settled in to a day in front of the computer, when, whoops! I knocked over, no, I flung over, the coffee, all over my desk, underneath my monitor and keyboard (fortunately not on the keyboard, or I wouldn't be writing this now), leaving myself with approximately one sip of coffee.

And then, and then, I get a message from the bridal salon I went to last night to try on wedding dresses, telling me I'd left a pair of Spanx in the dressing room. Insult indeed, added to injury.

So I have had a total of three sips of coffee today: two of the bad-woman-bagel-store cup, one of the knocked over hazelnut. Where is my bed?

Two Things I Want To Know About Britney Spears

I'd like to be able to say that I haven't the slightest idea of what's going on with Britney these days, but that would be a lie. I know about the head shaving. I know about the flashing of the unmentionables. I know that she lost custody of her kids to her ex-husband. The "news" about the Britney car wreck is everywhere, and it's hard to look away.

But here's what I don't get. All the media converage has been: Oh, she's so crazy! She's out of control! Just like Lindsay! And Paris! Girls gone wild! Doesn't she care about her children at all???

But there are two things that are never mentioned. The first things is this: At 25, Britney is around the age that, if she were going to have a giant mental disorder, it would appear. Schizophrenia anyone? Manic-depression? She's cut herself off from her family. She's self-medicating. She's acting completely irrational, paranoid, delusional (her performance on the MTV awards was proof of that last). I think she's not "crazy," but actually mentally ill.

Which leads to the second thing I don't hear anyone talking about. Isn't anyone worried that she might kill herself? Especially after her children have been taken from her, possibly her last tenuous tie to real life, if I were her parents or anyone who actually knew her, as opposed to all of us who just read about her in the tabloids every day, I'd be keeping a close eye on her.

God help me, I feel sorry for her. Plus, the entertainment shows have just about wrung out all they can out of Anna Nicole. If Britney commits suicide, they'll be feeding off her for the next five years. And I'll probably have to watch it.

Saving the Environment, Smelling Like Salad

I don't have much personal vanity, but for my hair. It's of the tousled/wavy/curly/frizzy/ messy variety, depending on the weather, which makes it impossible ever to look sleek and sophisticated unless I pay someone a lot of money to style it for me. I'm constantly looking for the shampoo/conditioner/gel/ spray/lighter-fluid combination that will make it look presentable on a daily basis, but every person who has ever cut my hair has exclaimed, "you have great hair!" as if they really meant it, and while I demurely thank them, inside I'm kvelling.

The perfect set of products may actually be those made by Devachan, a Soho salon that specializes in curly hair. The beauty world is actively hostile to curly hair. Before I started going to Devachan, the "great hair" comment would nearly always be followed by a plea that I should try it straight. At Devachan, they would not only be insulted if you asked to have your hair dried straight, they'd probably kick you out. They're hardcore, but it's nice to look around the salon and only see people with crazy hair like yours for a change.

Devachan is a bit cult-ish, though. God forbid you not want to sit under the low heat lamps for an hour with a quart of gel squished into your hair to achieve maximum Shirley Templedom. Their products, though, actually work better for curly hair than anything else, starting with something they call "No Poo", so called because they don't believe in shampooing curly hair, which they believe strips it of... something... essential... to curliness. I generally tune out the dogma while I'm getting my hair washed beneath the graceful mosquito netting that hangs above their sinks.

But the products are expensive, they come in big plastic bottles (recyclable number 2, yes, but I'm trying to cut down on my plastic consumption), and they're not organic. I don't know if a bunch of chemicals you smoosh on your head for a minute or two every morning have much of an impact on your health, but it stands to reason that less of them can't be bad for you, and might even be good.

There are several natural shampoos, but they're all in plastic bottles, too, and once you start down that path, you're into the "frees": cruelty, parabens, petroleum, FD&C color, SLS/SLES, etc. If you buy a bottle of something that doesn't have this list on the front, maybe you're not really going organic after all, and you could drive yourself crazy trying to work out which of them matters. Plus, they're all expensive anyway.

Oh for the days when I blithely used $1-a-bottle Suave and was done with it.

I work at an engineering firm, and we like to debate the NASA imperative to launch missions "better, faster, cheaper." Is it ever possible to get all three? You can get things that are good and fast, but you'll pay a lot. Fast and cheap, sure; but how good is, say, a McDonald's hamburger compared to a three-course meal at a four-star restaurant? And yes, you can get things that are good and cheap, but they often take a long time to procure or execute.

Which brings me to my evolving hair-care routine. It started with baking soda. Devachan is right that you don't really need to wash your hair. Every few days, my scalp gets a little itchy, though, and a handful of baking soda, turned into a paste in the shower and rubbed through, feels and works great. A big box of baking soda is cheap, plus it's cardboard, which seems a better environmental bet than plastic.

But curly hair can't not be conditioned. I'd read that people follow their baking soda with apple cider vinegar to soft and shiny effect, but I didn't believe it. How could something acidic do anything other than strip your hair? And since the claims made on its behalf seemed too miraculous to be true -- drinking it will cure allergies! acne! arthritis! and that's just the a's -- I couldn't help but be skeptical.

Ha. How wrong was I to have waited so long to try this? A few swishes of some organic acv from a glass bottle (not sure of the environmental impact of glass over plastic, honestly; it uses more oil to transport because it's heavier, blah blah blah), and my hair magically detangled. Once dry, it was softer and maybe even a little shinier than before. And though I used more of it than I probably needed to -- it's harder to control than a goopy conditioner, though I suppose I could put it into a squeeze bottle -- it's far cheaper than anything else I've ever used, except the Suave, and that's more expensive these days anyway. I even swigged a little of it to see if it would cure me anything, but so far I don't think it has.

My new routine doesn't take any longer than regular shampoo and conditioner, it's much cheaper, and it's better for the environment, possibly my own personal health, and dare I say, the loveliness of my hair. Ta dah.

Unfortunately, it makes my hair smell like I've been wearing the salad bowl as a hat.

My fiance said he hoped I wasn't going to start adding olive oil. Oh, but do you know my hair stylist said I should coat my hair in the stuff at least once a week and sleep through the night that way? My cats attack my head when I do it, but it does seem to do something nice to my hair. You don't mind, sweetie, do you? Pass the tongs.

When Your Nose is in the Yogurt, Have You Reached Rock Bottom?

I told myself that if, when I emerged from the subway at the southeast corner of 35th and Eighth, there wasn't a line at Starbucks, I would treat myself to an over-priced, and overly precisely ordered (non-fat, half-caf, blah blah blah) iced coffee. There was a line, which, according to my prior agreement with myself, meant I should have just walked on by, but a man sitting in the window caught my eye. He wasn't so much sitting as shlumped, face down into the cup of granola and yogurt set in front of him. Was he dead? It was my responsibility to find out.

I paused for a few seconds inside the doorway; he took a breath. Not dead. But at least three-quarters of his nose was in the yogurt. If he hadn't been sitting in a Starbucks with a six dollar cup of yogurt in front of him, I would have said he looked homeless. I got on line, over precisely ordered, keeping half an eye on the man as I waited. No movement. Maybe he'd had a heart attack? A stroke?

As I was about to leave, I shook the man on the shoulder. He startled, lifted his head about an inch, cocked it my way, gave me a look that said, "ehhhh, leave me alone," then turned and dropped back into the yogurt. No one else seemed to notice.

Fun Sounds

As we turned on to East 97th Street off Fifth Avenue yesterday afternoon, a propos of I can't remember what -- it's weird that I can remember where this happened, but not why, and I'm sure there was a why -- my boyfriend asked if I knew the name of former Providence, Rhode Island mayor and convicted felon Buddy Cianci's wife's name. I didn't, but because whatever it was we were talking about was goofy, I guessed: Nancy Cianci.

Better, he said. It's Nancy Ann Cianci.

Say a few times. Say it during the day when you need to laugh. It's addictive.

Back

After a week's absence, the car alarm is active again, probably because of the rain. The guy parked next to the McDonald's exit, too, insuring a steady stream of cars passing close enough to set off the alarm, in those rare intervals when it's off.

There's a twist this time: In addition to the "whump, whump, whump," of the horn alarm, there's a "dooey, dooey, dooey," squeal on top of it.

We've already called 911 for the day, but based on what happened last week, i.e., the alarm didn't stop until late afternoon, when the guy came back to his car, I think we're in for a long, headachy day.

Feh.

Driving -- or Rather, Parking -- Us Crazy

I hear a car alarm going off right now. Not so unusual for a busy city street, even if I am seven stories up. What is a little unusual is that it's been beeping -- it's one of those horn alarms, rather than a squeal -- for the past three days.

One of my colleagues timed it yesterday. On average, it goes off for thirty seconds at a time, every two and a half minutes. A sample survey taken by me standing at the window indicates that it is set off by either a person or car getting too close to it, which, considering that this is Tenth Avenue near the Lincoln Tunnel, happens at least every two and a half minutes.

Here's what's weird: the owner of the car comes back every day at 2:30, and drives off. He gets the same spot every day because he's a city employee. The same colleague who timed the alarm yesterday took down the car's license plate this morning, and it's an official city vehicle. You'd think in the time it takes for the guy to approach and enter his car the alarm would go off, and he'd realize something was wrong. Maybe he does and doesn't care.

Another colleague called 311 this morning, who put him through to 911. The dispatcher asked, "it's been going off for three days and you're just calling," which is a fair point. We watched a police cruiser pull up to the car five minutes later. A cop got out, took down a number from the car's windshield, and got back in the car. The alarm went off a half dozen more times while the cruiser idled next to it. Then the cruiser drove off, presumably because the alarm was driving the cops crazy, too.

The alarm is still going. We're hoping for a tow truck soon, or maybe an out-of-control semi.

My Head Itches

I could post an overheard cell phone conversation every day, but so many of them are of the "What? Wait, when did she say that? No, you're kidding," variety, that it's hard to imagine rendering them any more interesting than that in print. Today on the bus, though, I got 20 alarming minutes of a middle-aged woman talking to what turned out to be her mother, that began, "I have to take Jamie to get a really short hair cut tomorrow."

The Jamie in question was undoubtedly one of the two little boys she had with her, who were chatting about video games and telling each other dumb little-boy jokes, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there was a lice outbreak at Jamie's school, and while Jamie's classroom wasn't affected, he shares a table with Katie, and Katie's little brother Sean, you know, Melissa's son, has lice, and they didn't even know about it.

"I'm going to have them cut it like a Marine," the mother told Jamie, when she finally got off the phone -- the conversation with grandma had included a lot of F's and A's and D's, presumably standing in for words she didn't want little Jamie and his brother to hear, but inexplicably, it also included a lot of "shits" -- and asked "do you know what that means?"

I couldn't hear whether Jamie did know what getting a Marine haircut entailed, but I did hear his mother warn him not to talk about it at school. I guess she didn't want Jamie to tell Katie that Sean, her brother and Melissa's son, had lice. But telling the entire bus? That's okay.

SOlipSism?

My hero Al Gore announced plans today for a 24-hour concert called Live Earth, taking place on all seven continents this July 7th, to raise the visibility of the issue of climate change. Though the acts have not been announced yet, it promises to be chockablock with big names. After all, is Madonna really going to turn down the opportunity to play a concert in support of a campaign called "Save Ourselves"?

I have mixed feelings about this idea.

Firstly, do we really need to involve Antarctica here? We already gave it a big hole in the ozone layer right over its head. Why not give it a break from Bono and his big sunglasses and all the carbon emissions they'll bring with them?

And really, Save Ourselves? (The campaign itself is labeled Save Our Selves, in order to get the neat SOS acronym, but I just can't bring myself to write it that way.) Could that be any more cringe-inducingly narcissistic?

I have very fond memories of the 1985 Live Aid concert this is clearly patterned after. Tell me you didn't sing along to "We Are the Champions" at the top of your lungs. Oh, poor dead Freddy Mercury; he was such a great performer.

At the time -- I was 17 -- it really did seem like we were, just by watching the concert, doing something about the famine in Ethiopia. And it did raise awareness of the problem, and funds to help alleviate it, and put pressure on governments to act.

But it's not like Ethiopia's problems were solved by it, and the public's attention soon moved on. A lot of big stuff happened later that year: Reagan and Gorbachev met for the first time; Microsoft released Windows 1.0; Michael Jackson bought The Beatles catalog.

I wonder if Live Earth is going to be similarly inspiring and forgettable?

I don't know why I'm so cynical today. I had a lovely Valentine's Day, and the sun is still shining at nearly 5 o'clock. And if Live Earth introduces the idea of dangerous climate change to 2 billion or so people, it's to the good. Certainly anything that raises awareness, and potentially inspires action, is helpful. I just hope we don't have to sit through too many earnest appeals from Britney Spears (I smell a comeback!), who might not be able to find Antarctica on a map.

You have to figure Phil Collins isn't going to replicate his two-continent appearance this time. Even if the Concord was still flying, it wouldn't exactly send a very pro-enviro message, would it? Also, does anyone know who Phil Collins is anymore?

Inexplicable

Shamu is back.

Last June, the New York Times published an article in their weekly Modern Love column: What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriageby Amy Sutherland, who had recently written a book about exotic animal training.

Within a few hours, it was at the top of their "most emailed" list. Modern Love columns frequently make brief appearances on the list -- this week's I Fell For a Man Who Wore an Electronic Ankle Bracelet isn't there yet, but it may be before the day is out -- but fall off after a day or two, replaced by Baby-Boomer health news and righteous editorials decrying the latest Bush Administration outrage.

Not so with Shamu. It remained number one on the list for nearly the entire summer, inspiring countless blog postings, and at least one radio program devoted to its idea.

Which is this: that husbands can be trained out of bad behaviors, and into good ones, by applying the principles used by exotic animal trainers. Your husband doing the dishes, a seal jumping through a hoop -- same thing.

Most of the conversations I had about the article dismissed the idea entirely, and for good reason. Contemporary marriages are supposed to be built on communication and respect. Those things might be undermined if one of you suddenly becomes the star in a SeaWorld show. Have we made no progress at all, or are we stuck in the '50s?

One of Sutherland's approaches is "least reinforcing syndrome," which is essentially not having a reaction when an animal (or a person) does something you don't like; ignore it and it will go away. Which might be okay if your husband is in a different room from you when he's ranting about his lost keys, but across the dinner table, can you imagine? A blank stare when he says something that annoys you? This is the basis of a good marriage?

Shamu has reappeared at the top of the most-emailed list six months after it was first published; I'm not sure why. Maybe the author has written something else that links to it. But I don't think people are sending it to their friends for the inanity factor alone. Aren't we all trying, all the time, everyday, to figure out how relationships work? That's all life is, in the end. Can I make you understand what I want, will understanding what I want make you act in the the way I want you to, and if not, can we at least agree on what we don't agree on and where do we go from here?

But that kind of rational discourse is the ideal. In reality, when you live with someone, they never wash the dishes the way you want them to, or, if you don't care about dishes, it's the pile of mail on the desk, or letting the cat jump on the kitchen table, or staying up too late, or getting up too early, or why don't you just do everything the way I do it because I love you but my way is right and yours is wrong.

Anything that purports to have a solution to these everyday annoyances -- and friends who have been married for as many as ten years say they never go away -- is worth reading, right? But secretly, I think there are more people who think there's something to the animal-training approach to marital harmony, as risible as it is, than are comfortable admitting it. Which says... something.

Piecing it together

I first smelled the burning rubber -- or maybe it was spilt gasoline -- on the 2 train between 42nd and 34th Streets. The entire block of 34th Street from Eighth to Ninth Avenues was evacuated as I walked past on the way to my office on Tenth; people were too calm for it to be anything life threatening, but the smell persisted. A co-worker's F train was diverted to the A line. My 10am appointment was flustered because his building on 32nd and Broadway was full of firefighters and the rubber/gasoline smell. A woman fainted and was carried out on a stretcher.

OK, what's going on?

More Fun with Numbers and Google

Every year, it takes me by surprise: tourists come to Manhattan over the Christmas break. They come all year 'round, of course -- a record 44 million of them in 2006 -- but I never expect them now. Sure, we are experiencing our second unusually mild winter in a row (it's partly to do with strong El Nino cycle, according to my friend Clive, and not entirely unrelated to global warming), making both a visit to the climate-controlled Rockefeller Center skating rink and a saunter through Central Park possible and comfortable. But isn't it nicer to be home, playing video games and eating cookies and staying in your pajamas until noon? That's what I'd be doing if I had the week off.

What really gets me is how early the tourists hit the streets. On my walk to work this morning, before 9am, I had to dart around several packs of them, as they meandered four abreast on the sidewalk, and stopped at the corner as the Don't Walk light began to flash. Don't they know the flashing only means Start Walking Faster? I was on 35th Street, thinking that staying off 34th, with its Empire State Building and Macy's and Penn Station, would mean an uninterrupted walk. Silly me.

Can we just go back to that 44 million number for a minute? That's approximately the population of South Africa. The entire state of California could have visited us, and they could have brought along the state of Virginia. Every American with osteoporosis could have come. Every American without health insurance. Every victim of identity theft. Every woman at risk of thyroid deficiency due to rocket fuel pollution.

Oh, I do amuse myself.