In Japan, there's a nasty little phrase: "Christmas Cake". If you're a single woman, no one wants you after the 25th (birthday/of December/trip to the clap clinic). After that, no amount of icing can cover up the fact that you're not as tasty as you're supposed to be, that your currants are shrivelling and you're not even particularly rich.
Well, dear readers, I'm officially Christmas Cake. The last time I was ID'd in England was the week before my eighteenth birthday, after which I had to trudge back to boarding school alone, crying into my ramped-up cleavage. Since those heady days I've toned done the make-up, abandoned the wobbly high-heels and somehow etched a "surprised" line deep across my forehead. Now every night I practise looking more credulous in front of the mirror.
So I figured I was pretty safe leaving my passport at home for a Friday night trawl through the East Village. After all, I would be squired by the boy, with his distinguished sworls of gray hair and media glasses. Throw in the retro English accents and we were positively vintage.
The entrance to Otto's Shrunken Head was blocked by a dwarfish man, with long stringy gray hair. "Can we see some ID please?"
We pantomimed big tourist shrugs. "Don't have any I'm afraid."
"No driving licenses?"
"Nope."
"No passports" He was clearly losing patience.
"Well, they've got our visas in, and we didn't want to risk losing them..."
"Then can't help you I'm afraid."
"But we're... but we're OLD"
It didn't cut it. At the next bar I smiled warmly at the bouncer, and willfully misunderstood his "Can we see some ID please?" gesture. Chris got in too, on the wave of my misdirection. This was a very different kind of joint. Dolly Parton blared from the juke box, and a rowdy group of aspiring Palinites were lining up to shoot moose on a video game. Tacked to the roof was a rope, so that when drunk girls danced on the bar they had something to hold onto. That seemed like a thoughtful gesture; one that you wouldn't find in many Tokyo dives.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
Hey, I'm walkin here
"If you're wife can't cook, don't divorce her. Come to Mario's instead, and then you'll both be happy."
You can tell from his face that he's pretty happy with the way he's said it. Stretched mouth and nasal tone; a comically overplayed Italian-American drawl with accents of Scorsese and Cornish Pirate. He does it in one big shrug, palms raised to the sky, irony levels tuned to the max; then does it once more to make sure he's done the restaurant sign justice. It's an escalation of the "hey, I'm walkin' here" game we've been playing all afternoon, and I'm pretty jealous at how good he's gotten at it.
Except this time we didn't see Mario stepping out of the restaurant. Didn't realise we were mocking his accent, his sign, his goddamn heritage, while he was standing right behind us.
"Louie, come ower heeere for a secund."
At the sound of his voice we freeze, too scared to turn around. Running our eyes over the reasonably priced veal dishes, we stand stock still in front of the window. Maybe if we don't speak again he won't realise we were taking the piss. Maybe he'll think that's how we speak. Or maybe we'll look so much like potential customers that he'll let us go without a fight, figuring that he'll get to spit into our veal escalopes at a later date.
Mario and Louie are deep in discussion - something mob related? - so we scuttle away, vowing to be more careful next time.
When we got home there was a horse's head on the pillow. We were not as upset as you'd think. The meat at the co-op isn't up to much.
You can tell from his face that he's pretty happy with the way he's said it. Stretched mouth and nasal tone; a comically overplayed Italian-American drawl with accents of Scorsese and Cornish Pirate. He does it in one big shrug, palms raised to the sky, irony levels tuned to the max; then does it once more to make sure he's done the restaurant sign justice. It's an escalation of the "hey, I'm walkin' here" game we've been playing all afternoon, and I'm pretty jealous at how good he's gotten at it.
Except this time we didn't see Mario stepping out of the restaurant. Didn't realise we were mocking his accent, his sign, his goddamn heritage, while he was standing right behind us.
"Louie, come ower heeere for a secund."
At the sound of his voice we freeze, too scared to turn around. Running our eyes over the reasonably priced veal dishes, we stand stock still in front of the window. Maybe if we don't speak again he won't realise we were taking the piss. Maybe he'll think that's how we speak. Or maybe we'll look so much like potential customers that he'll let us go without a fight, figuring that he'll get to spit into our veal escalopes at a later date.
Mario and Louie are deep in discussion - something mob related? - so we scuttle away, vowing to be more careful next time.
When we got home there was a horse's head on the pillow. We were not as upset as you'd think. The meat at the co-op isn't up to much.
Friday, February 6, 2009
The Brooklyn Ferry
Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking upon you;
Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the hasting current.
The hurry of people is different here. No-one tuts behind me as I fumble for my metro card amongst dollar bills and business cards I should have discarded. The bus driver waits - infinitely patient - as I stumble down the bus with two dining room chairs and a dinner service in my arms. In the narrow-aisled supermarket, shoppers throng and queue as if they'd had warning that the siege of Brooklyn was about to begin, or that they knew for certain that they were clutching America's last ever pack of S'more Pop-tarts.
Stand up, tall masts of Manhatta! Stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!
Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!
I don't know why there are so many mad people here, shouting in subway stations, faces contorted with rage and confusion. They leer up suddenly into your face, like B-movie zombies, then shrink back into the shadows. Do they need insurance to get sectioned, or can they not afford their meds. Perhaps like Victorian hysterics, of World War One shell-shock victims, there is a modish method of madness available to dispossessed New Yorkers, and London lags behind the fashion once more.
I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,
I too walk'd the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the waters around it,
I too felt the curious abrupt questions stir within me
Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the hasting current.
The hurry of people is different here. No-one tuts behind me as I fumble for my metro card amongst dollar bills and business cards I should have discarded. The bus driver waits - infinitely patient - as I stumble down the bus with two dining room chairs and a dinner service in my arms. In the narrow-aisled supermarket, shoppers throng and queue as if they'd had warning that the siege of Brooklyn was about to begin, or that they knew for certain that they were clutching America's last ever pack of S'more Pop-tarts.
Stand up, tall masts of Manhatta! Stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!
Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!
I don't know why there are so many mad people here, shouting in subway stations, faces contorted with rage and confusion. They leer up suddenly into your face, like B-movie zombies, then shrink back into the shadows. Do they need insurance to get sectioned, or can they not afford their meds. Perhaps like Victorian hysterics, of World War One shell-shock victims, there is a modish method of madness available to dispossessed New Yorkers, and London lags behind the fashion once more.
I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,
I too walk'd the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the waters around it,
I too felt the curious abrupt questions stir within me
Thursday, February 5, 2009
The table by the door
Another girl walks in - dark hair, leggings - and it looks like she's looking around. I shift in my seat. This could be her. She's scanning the room, glancing everywhere but in my direction, so I go back to peeling the label off my bottle of hard cider. I'm loitering near the door like I said I would. I'm the only person sitting at a table on my own. I'm practically wearing a pink carnation. She can come find me.
As the girl stalks over to the bar my confidence slips. She looks a bit young, nothing like the fuzzy Facebook picture I'd stared at before running out, getting into an apprehensive frenzy and arriving a full, painful ten minutes early.
I picked my bag up, and placed it down again. There was no way I was going over to the bar. I'd already had my card marked once tonight.
It seems my poorly veiled natural awkwardness has been thrown into pitiful relief by this world- weary city, and I felt as all-elbows in this Billyburg hipster hangout as I did in the Upper Westside dining rooms with their attentive staff and winter views over Central Park. Earlier, faking it, I had strolled over casually to the bar, picked up what looked like a menu, and started scanning it for inspiration.
"Excuse me." The pixie-like girl to my right tilted her head at me.
"That's mine. That's my cheque. Can I have it back please?"
"Yeah, sure, whatever." I said, as if she was being totally unreasonable, and I had every right to keep tabs on her alcohol intake and nightly expenditure. "I'll just have a hard cider, I guess." The barman's moustache twitched, and the pixie snatched back her bill. With all the nonchalance I could muster I strolled back to my table and waited for my blind-friend date to show.
Turns out it wasn't the dark-haired girl after all. I wonder if she clocked me sitting at the table by the door, trying to look approachable.
As the girl stalks over to the bar my confidence slips. She looks a bit young, nothing like the fuzzy Facebook picture I'd stared at before running out, getting into an apprehensive frenzy and arriving a full, painful ten minutes early.
I picked my bag up, and placed it down again. There was no way I was going over to the bar. I'd already had my card marked once tonight.
It seems my poorly veiled natural awkwardness has been thrown into pitiful relief by this world- weary city, and I felt as all-elbows in this Billyburg hipster hangout as I did in the Upper Westside dining rooms with their attentive staff and winter views over Central Park. Earlier, faking it, I had strolled over casually to the bar, picked up what looked like a menu, and started scanning it for inspiration.
"Excuse me." The pixie-like girl to my right tilted her head at me.
"That's mine. That's my cheque. Can I have it back please?"
"Yeah, sure, whatever." I said, as if she was being totally unreasonable, and I had every right to keep tabs on her alcohol intake and nightly expenditure. "I'll just have a hard cider, I guess." The barman's moustache twitched, and the pixie snatched back her bill. With all the nonchalance I could muster I strolled back to my table and waited for my blind-friend date to show.
Turns out it wasn't the dark-haired girl after all. I wonder if she clocked me sitting at the table by the door, trying to look approachable.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Telling lies at the Park Slope co-op
"So do you live on your own?"
This was awkward. I'd only met the girl five minutes ago and we'd been swapping the usual personal shorthand: where we lived, why Brooklyn was 'way more awesome than Manhattan', and why, on a Wednesday morning, we weren't in the office like proper grown-ups. I may have massaged the truth a little about my work situation (if I was that busy and successful would I really spend two hours of my day learning about shift rotations and the ethics of selling organic beer?) but it seemed a little early in our friendship to be out-and-out lying, especially since both of us were sober, and neither of us were crying. On the other hand I'd seen my new friend herself put through the ringer during the q&a.
"Does my roommate have to sign up too?"
"Yes. Every member of your household has to become a co-op worker member."
"Even if we don't share food?"
"You don't share food at all?"
"No, not really."
"Not really? Not even oil, or salt, or toilet paper?"
"Well..."
"Because if you do you both have to join. Otherwise it's not fair. It'd be like we [wide arm sweep] were subsidising her food. And toilet paper." This was clearly a heinous co-op crime.
I'd already decided to pretend I lived on my own. The boyfriend could always come shop as my guest, and after all, we weren't made of money. But it's one thing lying to a not-for-profit community enterprise, and quite another telling fairly structural untruths to a potential new friend. In the long run it would be would be pretty hard to hide Chris. Admittedly, he might sometimes got left out of the conversation when I met a particularly beautiful man, but I usually fell pretty quickly into the smug-married "we" trap. And he did pay the rent.
"So do you have a roommate?" The girl was waiting for me to reply, but we were at the front of the queue, right next to the school-marmish administrator.
"Ermm... no. Just me. On my own. For now, I mean, until we, erm, I see how the money goes."
With that I stepped forward with my registration form, and fraudulently joined the Park Slope Co-op with a big fat smile and a terrible weight of bad karma.
Really, she should have known better than to put me on the spot like that. I'm not sure she and I are going to work out.
This was awkward. I'd only met the girl five minutes ago and we'd been swapping the usual personal shorthand: where we lived, why Brooklyn was 'way more awesome than Manhattan', and why, on a Wednesday morning, we weren't in the office like proper grown-ups. I may have massaged the truth a little about my work situation (if I was that busy and successful would I really spend two hours of my day learning about shift rotations and the ethics of selling organic beer?) but it seemed a little early in our friendship to be out-and-out lying, especially since both of us were sober, and neither of us were crying. On the other hand I'd seen my new friend herself put through the ringer during the q&a.
"Does my roommate have to sign up too?"
"Yes. Every member of your household has to become a co-op worker member."
"Even if we don't share food?"
"You don't share food at all?"
"No, not really."
"Not really? Not even oil, or salt, or toilet paper?"
"Well..."
"Because if you do you both have to join. Otherwise it's not fair. It'd be like we [wide arm sweep] were subsidising her food. And toilet paper." This was clearly a heinous co-op crime.
I'd already decided to pretend I lived on my own. The boyfriend could always come shop as my guest, and after all, we weren't made of money. But it's one thing lying to a not-for-profit community enterprise, and quite another telling fairly structural untruths to a potential new friend. In the long run it would be would be pretty hard to hide Chris. Admittedly, he might sometimes got left out of the conversation when I met a particularly beautiful man, but I usually fell pretty quickly into the smug-married "we" trap. And he did pay the rent.
"So do you have a roommate?" The girl was waiting for me to reply, but we were at the front of the queue, right next to the school-marmish administrator.
"Ermm... no. Just me. On my own. For now, I mean, until we, erm, I see how the money goes."
With that I stepped forward with my registration form, and fraudulently joined the Park Slope Co-op with a big fat smile and a terrible weight of bad karma.
Really, she should have known better than to put me on the spot like that. I'm not sure she and I are going to work out.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Stuffed pittas
They're having one of those conversations that are designed to be overheard.
"I just don't hear him talk about grassroots activism. Where are the issues? After twenty years in this game I don't feel so hopeful."
The game is social consciousness - or perhaps, a devil whispers, performative smugness - and the player they are talking about the great He, Obama. His handsome face smiles out of every window in our Brooklyn neighborhood, advertising special lunch deals and cut-price sales racks, and his Dreams of My Father is propping up our three-legged coffee table.
We arrived in New York the day before He was inaugerated. In Times Square in the snow I stood behind a middle-aged woman who was scratching a pen across a grubby notebook. It looked like a child's angry scrawling, so I inched backwards, not wanting to catch her particular strain of mad. As the whooping and pantomime booing gathered force, I glanced again at the woman's pad and saw a starkly rendered line drawing of the crowd. There are lots of crazies in New York, but probably she wasn't one of them.
Back in the back room of Stuffed Pittas, a grey-haired woman with a sharp nose was cross-examiner her neighbour.
"So you were working in Chicago for ten years? I'm amazed our paths never crossed... What organization did you work for again?"
"Well I did youth work, outreach work... all kinds of things. And I was in California for a while. All over really."
To me and the sharp-nosed woman, it sounds like he's lying, although I'm sure he isn't.
Across the room we speculate on who the group are, with their right-on mix of age and ethnicity, and their cloying earnestness. I plump for a singles' evening, a Guardian Soulmates social, stripped of all irony and stuffing its face on babaganush. I hear in New York they have the Brainiacs Dating Club. There are no formal entry requirements - not even an IQ test - which I find strangely worrying.
"I just don't hear him talk about grassroots activism. Where are the issues? After twenty years in this game I don't feel so hopeful."
The game is social consciousness - or perhaps, a devil whispers, performative smugness - and the player they are talking about the great He, Obama. His handsome face smiles out of every window in our Brooklyn neighborhood, advertising special lunch deals and cut-price sales racks, and his Dreams of My Father is propping up our three-legged coffee table.
We arrived in New York the day before He was inaugerated. In Times Square in the snow I stood behind a middle-aged woman who was scratching a pen across a grubby notebook. It looked like a child's angry scrawling, so I inched backwards, not wanting to catch her particular strain of mad. As the whooping and pantomime booing gathered force, I glanced again at the woman's pad and saw a starkly rendered line drawing of the crowd. There are lots of crazies in New York, but probably she wasn't one of them.
Back in the back room of Stuffed Pittas, a grey-haired woman with a sharp nose was cross-examiner her neighbour.
"So you were working in Chicago for ten years? I'm amazed our paths never crossed... What organization did you work for again?"
"Well I did youth work, outreach work... all kinds of things. And I was in California for a while. All over really."
To me and the sharp-nosed woman, it sounds like he's lying, although I'm sure he isn't.
Across the room we speculate on who the group are, with their right-on mix of age and ethnicity, and their cloying earnestness. I plump for a singles' evening, a Guardian Soulmates social, stripped of all irony and stuffing its face on babaganush. I hear in New York they have the Brainiacs Dating Club. There are no formal entry requirements - not even an IQ test - which I find strangely worrying.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Baggage
It was my second trip to Ikea in three days, and I'd been happy to spot the 'American Stevedores' sign as the bus took a sharp left. Not only was I on the right route (rhymes with gout, not boot), but I was almost in series two of the Wire. I felt like drinking in the daytime and donating a window to the nearest church - the one on the corner of my block had rung out its bells this morning, making me smile. Being on buses on my own makes me nervous. I compulsively check road signs off against my mental map (invariably faulty) and, where possible, an actual map. I always seem to be in the crease of my guide book's Brooklyn map. Serves me right for needing a crutch I suppose; there's something deeply suspect about using a guide book at all, when I'm supposed to be living here. My new apartment's not on the map, but I know where it is. Just not which way to turn out of it. Or which bus stop is closest.
Having gotten a little trigger-happy with the stop-bus-tape (not just buttons here, my friend), I got out far too early. Trudging along Atlantic Avenue with my bright blue Ikea sack slung over my shoulder, I had to move to let a woman past. She didn't bother to stop and look at me or my innovative storage solutions. Her bulging plastic bags were arranged on a metal pole which she held over her shoulders, as if she were harvesting rice rather than heading home from the 99 cents store. She was slight, wizened, and, in my head at least, wearing a faded blue Mao suit. I only wish she'd been there the day before, when my arms had given way in the street under the weight of two free dining room chairs and a brown 70's dinner service.
Having gotten a little trigger-happy with the stop-bus-tape (not just buttons here, my friend), I got out far too early. Trudging along Atlantic Avenue with my bright blue Ikea sack slung over my shoulder, I had to move to let a woman past. She didn't bother to stop and look at me or my innovative storage solutions. Her bulging plastic bags were arranged on a metal pole which she held over her shoulders, as if she were harvesting rice rather than heading home from the 99 cents store. She was slight, wizened, and, in my head at least, wearing a faded blue Mao suit. I only wish she'd been there the day before, when my arms had given way in the street under the weight of two free dining room chairs and a brown 70's dinner service.
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