As fate would have it...

I received Sea Monkeys this morning as a gift. These days they are GUARANTEED to live for two years. I told the giver, my uncle, that I really wasn't prepared to make that kind of committment... but it does make it a more serious kind of gift for a significant other. Two years is like giving someone a cat. Or at least a gerbil. Chrismakkah gerbil?

STRIKE!

This is my only proof that I walked to/from work 3 times. I love extreme circumstance (so long as no one is in danger) and so severe weather, blackouts and transit strikes are right up my alley... but this got old. Luckily, it's a good excuse for the sparsity of Chrismakkah presents I'll be doling out this weekend. I felt once again very distant from most people I spoke to about the strike while it was going on, there seemed to be so much anger and frustration and it was solely aimed at the union. I'm sure it's my pinko upbringing, but I was always taught never to cross a picket line, regardless of what the union is or what they're requesting-- a strike is a huge, costly, dangerous, difficult thing that folks don't arrive at lightly, so you have to assume whatever they're asking for it worth a whole lot to them. Maybe I also feel torn between the sense of purpose I felt while cresting the Brooklyn Bridge on the second morning, accompanied by thousands of New Yorkers and Billy Bragg singing "There is power in the union" on my ipod and the fact that I was trudging all that way to a job that provides no such sense of purpose and probably more undermines things I believe are important. Looks like I need my own labor negotiations.

MTA War Stories

Well, it happened. The subway is on strike. I know that several of you blog from New York and I am interested in harrowing and humorous tales of how you're getting around.

I'm in Minneapolis and when the buses here went on strike a couple of years ago, the only thing that changed for me was that I had to drive this really tedious and annoying co-workerto work every day. And my most harrowing transportation experience recently is having to scrape off my windshield every morning in -20 windchills.

Anyway, let's hear your stories as I don't believe Katie Couric's experiences really sum up those of the average New Yorker. And while you're at it, let's hear your plans for getting the trains moving again. I'll be there in 9 days and I don't have money for cabs.

Holidazzle

So apparently Bush is totally booked for the next 3 weeks or so. I wonder when he'll observe Kwanzaa.
Also, speaking of religious pluralism, I read an article this morning about Hindus wanting New York to make Diwali another Alternate Side Parking Suspended day- so the normal rules of "no Parking on Tuesdays" don't apply on those days. Bloomberg vetoed the bill to make Diwali one of those days, unfortunately it seems the NYC DOT has gotten themselves into a little bit of a pickle since there are already something like 45 of these days including "Solemnity of Ascension" and "Shemini Atzereth" (observed at the end of Sukkot, marked by a service in memory of the dead and a special prayer for rain.) The city argued that the other holidays represent a large number of people and are holidays that prohibit driving (so folks can't move their cars,) which I guess makes sense except in cases like "Lincoln's Birthday" and "Lincoln's Birthday (observed)." The cars are moved to allow street cleaning and so this was another point raised, if parking weren't enforced in Diwali, the streets would be dirty... but what about the one-two punch of the 7th and 8th days of Passover immediately followed by Holy Thursday and Good Friday!?!? The streets will be filthy in late April, book your vacations now.

Funny 'Cause Its True?

Saturday night, mostly because it was cold there were no options of parties of people we knew, we went to a party locally of someone we didn't know. (We being myself, Erica, Rob and our two friends visiting from Boston.) I thought they had kind of an odd aesthetic sense-- the living room ceiling was covered with those nets of christmas lights (excuse, holiday lights. Um, I don't think they were kwanzaa lights, though) and those little styrofoam model airplanes that you might get as a prize in a cereal box or buy as some kind of souvenir from a flight-related tourist destination-- kitty hawk and cape canaveral come to mind. After being there for awhile, someone mentioned that this was a "Pearl Harbor" party.
Excuse me...? All of the sudden the Kamikaze shots made sense.
Granted I think I have a pretty liberal interpretation of whats funny. And I generally appreciate inappropriate humor. And I didn't think it was "offensive." Just really weird. I mean, I guess I understand we're all supposed to be over Pearl Harbor. Not even very many people alive today were alive or concious of what was going on at the time- but where is the line? At what point is it ok for an attack that claimed 2,390 lives to become the theme for a party for a bunch of twenty-somethings in Brooklyn. So if September 11th was the Pearl Harbor of our generation, will there be September 11th parties in 60 years? Should we start having them now so even when we're old and senile, our grandkids will think we were really cool and cutting edge? Is anything sacred or does enough time pass and allow anything and everything into the public domain, allowing us to do with the symbols what we want? I don't think anyone would suggest a Holocaust party. Or a Tsunami party. Hurricane Katrina? How about a party themed "massacre" and everyone could come dressed in the theme of their favorite massive loss of life. These ideas seems totally abhorrant, but why is one ok and the other isn't? Are we being ironic when we drink wine and eat chips with a tragic theme? Is it ok because no one who was impacted by the event was going to show up to the party (I assume the organizers didn't invite any grandparents...)?
The thing about liking inappropriate humor is that I understand that it's hypocritical for me to draw this line. I hosted a "cowboys and indians" party sophomore year, Freshman year we played a drinking game called "Beer Hunter" (a russian roulette of drinking based on the film about Vietnam) I think jokes about stereotypes are funny and while it's "ironic" because it's not what I believe and I don't condone people who believe those things... they are reflective of real problems and issues real people face.
But something about this rubbed me in a weird way.

iPod: Protection from Myself

After 15 months together--most of which were blissfully happy--it's over between me and my iPod. On a bus back to New York over Thanksgiving weekend, songs kept skipping, and so I restarted it only to discover that all 2500+ songs were gone. When I try to plug it in to Sarah's computer, I am told that "The system cannot read the inserted disc" or something devastating like that. My reaction has been surprisingly mature. It's been a week now and life has been okay. I'm getting a lot more reading done on the subway, and walking down the street I do feel more a part of the world.

The trouble, as I found out yesterday, is the bus. My work takes me to various places that make it necessary to ride the M86 back and forth across town. I can't read on the bus for fear of vomiting, so this had been prime iPod time. I'd look out the window and lip-synch to myself, ignoring the people around me. But now I have nothing to do on the bus. Yesterday I found myself reverting to an old habit that I associate with the summer of 2003, when I first moved here: I stare at people. I like to look at what people are wearing, what they're reading, what they're writing, etc. Obviously the people who are most fun to watch are the ones who are a little bit crazy--the ones who draw fellow passengers in sketchpads, the ones who have facial tics, the ones who pray, and so forth. Yesterday I happened to be across a woman in fur and a ton of makeup who was talking to herself, so naturally I stared. It didn't take too long before we made eye contact and I got freaked out and concentrated hard for the rest of the ride on not looking at her. One day I'm going to stare at the wrong person and get my ass kicked. Or mugged.

So that's why I need a new iPod (or to wait the five hours it will take to get it serviced at the Apple store in SoHo): too keep my mind busy enough that I don't have to stare at people and therefore put myself in danger.

Or, I guess I could start using one of my three portable CD players again. But that just feels so backwards now.

11215 Dialect

This morning, at the intersection of Union Street and 5th Avenue, I jumped the gun. Although there wasn't a walk signal, the path looked clear. The woman in her late 20's next to me seemed to think so too. We both started walking, then looked both ways, realized there was in fact oncoming traffic, and said at the same exact time, "Maybe not."

Maybe not. Is this just what people say in that situation? I doubt that most would find it necessary to talk to themselves/impress the strangers around them with their take on what has just gone down. If I were a linguist, I might trace "maybe not" back to the same language group as "I feel like."

More questions. Is it possible that our using the same words at the same time indicates some sort of shared lifestyle? And given the fact that I found this incident to be worthy of a blog posting, is it a lifestyle that could use a little spicing up?