The Path of Most Resistance

Almost every day, I walk home from work twice. Once, when I go home at lunch to walk Gertie (lovingly known as The Pissbag) and again when I’m actually walking home after my day, again, rushing to walk The Pissbag.

The fastest way from point A to point B is to take Broadway. For those of you who don’t know, Broadway runs the length of practically the entire city. You’d think, given the length of New York City, that there are parts of Broadway that DON’T SUCK. You’d be wrong.

I happen to live/work all the way Downtown in the Financial District, where Broadway starts. I walk by “The Bull” every day. “The Bull” (an anatomically correct statue of a bull) is the bane of my existence, as there is never any time of day where some numb nuts isn’t grabbing The Bull’s balls while his/her moron friend/parent takes a picture. It’s mob scene. The whole street, from start to finish is an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

So the other day, I leave at lunch to walk Gertie. Imagine every suit still left on Wall Street and their mothers out of their offices getting lunch to go/to stay/or to just eat right there on the sidewalk. Just idea of it makes me tense up like my brothers did on the night of my wedding; I don’t even want to THINK about it.

In order to preserve the sliver of sanity I grasp so desperately to, I generally reject the sidewalk on Broadway and I take the street. The way I see it is that the street (walking the wrong way, against traffic) is the path of least resistance.

It wasn’t until the other day, when I was nearly clipped by a rouge taxi, that I really stopped to contemplate: is the path of least resistance really the best way to go?

I’m 29.8 years old. If I were to think of the M.O. of my life thus far, it’s that I tend toward this path. I’m not generally a confrontational person. I like to have a clear road ahead of me with little drama, small speed bumps, and practically zero obstacle. I like to be the peacekeeper and the voice of reason…even if the reason is that I just don’t feel like having anything in my way between Point A (me) and Point B (content happiness).

People have been so bold as to say that I “smile too much”. Well, I smile, because that’s the path of least resistance. No one, not even the angriest, most aggravated person can resist an honest smile, and an understanding disposition.

In most cases, this has served me well. But is it possible that this has been a disservice?

I mean, think about it - it’s equivalent to walking in the street on Broadway; 99 times out of 100, it’s an aggravation-free route to getting where I need to be. No hassles, no stepping on any toes, no drama. But there’s bound to be that 1 out of 100 when I get absolutely LEVELED by a Downtown bus. And then, in comparison, a few hip-checks and couple episodes of “getting caught behind leisurely tourists” doesn’t seem so bad.

So I ask myself: in life…do I want to risk being leveled by the Downtown bus?

The few 1 out of 100 times I’ve been “hit” has been bad. As opposed to joining the rest of the world on the sidewalks – throwing shoulders, exchanging dirty looks and having it out right then and there, I’ve been walking up a one-way street, smiling. And then, a taxi (or any kind of major issue) pulls over into my personal space and virtually kills me. That one time I decide to fight the fight, I’m outweighed…drastically. And, as it turns out, the repercussions of the path of least resistance are far greater than getting a stubbed toe, or simply enduring a “fuck you” by a random passer-by.

A few times in my older age, I’ve decided to “veer into on-coming traffic” to speak up, or to stick up, or to voice an opinion on what I think is right – even if it meant stepping in front of on-coming cars. Practically every time, it has ended badly. Which leads me to believe that perhaps being on the sidewalk, and speaking up, sticking up, and voicing my opinion on what I think is right on a daily basis is the way to go. At least then, I’m not up against anything I can’t handle…I’m just in the ring with the rest of the world – fighting for Point B.

After all, picking battles is a hell of a lot easier when you’re surrounded by them. Fighting the war from the sidelines is just a good way to get trampled by a policeman on a horse (which, again, has happened to me).

So from now on, I think I’m going to walk up the sidewalk of Broadway. I’m going to push past tourists, and yell at someone for littering, and shoot back a couple of stink-eyes from strangers. I’m going to take the path of most resistance, and when I get to Point B - at very least - I’ll feel like I’ve earned the right to be there.

But no - I'm not going to smile any less.

What is the meaning of this?

I have to say, I'm a little dumbfounded. I'm also incredibly touched, and a little scared. Mostly dumbfounded, though.

Here's the deal: I feel dead inside. Maybe it's the impending holidays (which never fails to fill my creative brain cells with chocolate and Christmas music, rendering them useless for much else), maybe it's the fact that I've been sleeping very little and have literally zombified, maybe it's the shorter amount of daylight...who knows. In any case, and for whatever reason, I'm brain dead, and in a creative coma.

Last night, I contemplated blogging and actually chose to make myself even more brain dead by watching "Bride Wars" (Note to Kate Hudson: bangs aren't your thang, girlfriend) and polishing off the rest of a delicious bottle of wine, courtesy of Chris Tugeau, Mother Extraordinaire.

I'm embarrassed to admit that fact - I am. I should have said that I watched "Love in the Time of Cholera" - or better yet, read it. But I need you to see how desperate the situation is! BRIDE WARS, people!

Don't ask my why Robin is checking my blog while she should be working (busted!) but she just asked me what the deal is. It's been 19 days since my last entry, and I can't tell you what I've been doing instead.

Well, I know what I did one night (see picture).

I told her that I was in a coma and to wake me when the holidays are over and I can once again decipher ass from elbow. But then, I became curious.

I've been radio silent for nearly a month...has anyone noticed? Does anyone care? How can I procrastinate on this invoicing any more than I already have?

I had to know. I had to procrastinate. And so, I checked.

Mind you, I still don't know if anyone cares, (as I am many things, but mind-reader is not one of them) but people - a lot of people - have noticed! Holy Cow! I have hits on a daily basis! Lots of 'em! Even some on the weekends...which surprises me the most, as all the tea in China couldn't get me in front of a computer on the weekend.

Like I said, I'm touched. I mean, look how many "!'s" I just used. That's my LEAST FAVORATE PUNCTUATION! That's how touched I am.

I don't know who you are - but thanks, Friend. Thanks for the love.

That said, it's amazing what a little love can do. I've got a blog idea - it just came to me, and it's practically writing itself.

So...head's up, Loyal Readers...

INCOMING!


ps - To follow up: I went out on Halloween night, and saw more T&A than a straight girl who's afraid of nakedness should ever see in a lifetime. Well done, Women of New York - you have not let me down. You've made me want to gauge my eyes out, but you have not disappointed.

...and Frog.

I just got totally reprimanded.

I have a friend…well, we’ll call him a friend and a FAN…who just sent me an email telling me I HAVE to blog more, because he’s sick of getting all excited for the latest installment, and then sorely disappointed when there’s the same, stupid (albeit cute) picture staring back at him that has been there since the 15th of October.

For shame.

So friends, fans, and people looking to procrastinate - I’m going to attempt to hurtle the obstacle of writer’s block, and please the masses with something we can all enjoy: a little ditty in honor of Halloween…

About a week ago, I was introduced to this: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1715915


Do yourself a favor, watch that (NSFW!), and then come back to me.



Are you dying of laughter? Good.

That, of course, it supposed to be a satirical commercial – poking fun at several things that I, too, like to poke fun at, such as: Hackensack, NJ, guys who are constantly yelling, home-made, low budget commercials (Bob’s Discount Furniture), and…sexy Halloween costumes.

I giggled last week, because I thought this was the ultimate in ridiculous. “Sexy 1800’s Steel Conglomerate Tycoon?!”, I thought. And then…I went costume shopping.

Let me preface this by saying that I am not a Halloween person. I loved it when I was little because of the candy – now I loathe it because of the candy. I loved it when I was younger because of the costumes – now I can’t comfortably wear sweatpants and a winter coat under them anymore. I loved it when I had a neighborhood, friends and a plan of attack – now, I have a neighborhood, friends, and no clue what to do with either.

Over it.

That said, Halloween is on a Saturday this year, and when a friend of mine told me to “enjoy Haloween while I can, because I could be in the ‘burbs answering doors next year for all I know”, I decided to motivate.

Last year, I borrowed a “beer wench” costume from a friend, which included a very little skirt, and a corset. I was all T&A, and although that’s not normally my scene, I enjoyed being like every other American woman for once; using Halloween as an excuse to be extremely underdressed.

As fun as it was to have cleavage, this year, I decided I wanted to be clothed.

So after work the other day, I went where any red-blooded New Yorker goes in search of some fake red blood: Ricky’s.

Ricky’s is another NYC phenomenon. It’s supposedly a beauty supply store, but it seems to carry everything but (and possibly including) the kitchen sink. Around Halloween, it turns into a costume superstore. Much like Duane Reade, there is a Ricky’s on practically every corner in New York. If a Baby Gap closes down, a Ricky’s takes its place. If a bodega shuts its doors, Ricky’s is there the next day. You get my point.

This year, Ricky’s leased a space in the Financial District, strictly for Halloween costumes. I figured this was a sure bet.

Not 3 feet through the door and I had to phone a friend to share the experience. The place was wall-to-wall SEXY. It was like that commercial! Sexy little bags of sexy little costumes as far as the eye could see. Sexy fairy. Sexy Dora the Explorer. Sexy Nun. Sexy SpongeBob Square Pants. Sexy Pirate. Sexy Kate Gosslin?!

Oh, and Frog.

I nearly died.

Turns out, the commercial isn’t satirical at all. It’s honest. Girls were fighting for this stuff! Grabbing at thigh-highs, ripping garters out of each other’s hands, clawing for sexy devil horns, bunny ears and bumblebee antennae. Every chick in there had armfuls of lycra and fishnet, fake eyelashes and glitter. It was a swarm of estrogen…all fighting for the costume that would make their one night of looking like a hooker worth all the fuss.

Although I’m sure I would look ravishing in a prison uniform with the midriff cut out of it, I didn’t feel like getting cat-clawed in the face by some over-zealous financial type in a power suit just dying to let her hair down. So I cruised the aisles, stepping over the debris of feather boas, fake fingernails, and the occasional clear plastic platform shoe, looking for a costume that didn’t carry the potential of having a nipple slip.

I kid you not when I say that “frog” was my only option. I seriously thought I was on Candid Camera.

Are there really no other options? 900 costumes to chose from, and unless I feel like having my butt cheeks exposed to October weather, I have the option of…frog?

Don’t get me wrong, I love frogs. I’d love to BE a frog. But not for $85 – which is how much the FELT costume was.

(Next blog idea: the TOTAL price extortion of Halloween / Halloween costumes)

At some point, my world started to slow down in the way that Tom Hank’s world slowed in the opening D-Day scene of Saving Private Ryan. And not to belittle D-Day by comparing it to Halloween costume shopping, but this was…war. Women were fighting, and running, and carrying (plastic) guns and knives and swords. Little grenades of costumes were going off left and right. And there I was, phone to my ear, stumbling around – just trying to get out of there alive – with a costume that was not the equivalent of a bra and panties.

When I came out of the fog, and life was no longer in slow-motion, I was in front of the wigs. I shook my head, got my bearing, and stared up at the Great Wall of Hair. Blond, brown, pink, green, long, short, curly…again, overwhelming. Again, sexy!

I turned to leave – defeated.

Just then, I caught something out of the corner of my eye: the un-sexiest thing in the entire store…a Joan Jett wig.

Now don’t get all in a bunch, you Joan Jett fans – I’m sure she had her sexy days and she’s totally badass, don’t get me wrong. But on no planet, in any decade, is it/was it ever acceptable – let alone sexy – to have choppy spiky mullet hair. No amount of tight leather can make that sexy.

In other words, with that wig, I had found my costume.

However, the question still remains: will I venture out of my apartment tomorrow night to be the only fully clothed woman in a sea of sexy?

Stay tuned…


And p.s. - The pic? Circa 1990. I believe that aside from Joan Jett, dressing up as "Halloween" (far left) might be the un-sexiest costume of all time. Good thing, too...we were 10.

GERTIE SAYS:

“If I nurture the newness while I have it, perhaps, I won't lose it — at least not for something less. And if I nurture what I keep, perhaps, I won't miss what I have lost.”

Jan Denise

Marking My Territory: By Gertrude B. Ewers, Dog Extraordinaire

On the 2nd of October, my parents (who, I should mention, are incredibly good-looking) moved me. Well, they moved US, but really it felt like just me.

Ever since I was rescued from the mean streets of Harlem, I’ve been living in the lap of luxury (and in the laps of anyone who will have me). After 6 months at 90 West, I knew my way home like the back of my paw. When the elevator doors opened on the 18th floor, I hung a right until I hit the door that smelled like me. That was home. Then, all of a sudden, we didn't go right anymore. They made me go left, down two hallways to a door that smelled like fresh paint.

Confused.

I used to be able to chase a ball from one end of my home to the other in one, quick sprint. But now, there are corners, and doors and umbrella holders in the way, making it a virtual obstacle course on slippery hardwood. I didn't know my way around, and found it totally unacceptable that I couldn't “play ball” in the house now that it might ruin the paint job.

Frustrated.

Not to mention the fact that there was now a blond parent-type lurking about. "Aunt Robin". She’s pretty awesome, but she smells like a boy dog. I think the boy dog’s name is Gus, and from what I could tell, it seemed as though the blond one and my parents were planning an “arranged marriage” between Gus and I, which I found unsettling. I mean, I haven’t even sniffed this Dude's butt yet, and they’re already wedding dress shopping?

Appalled.

Something had to be done.

With all of this change, I started to feel like less of the boss – more like my life was living me. New digs, new faces, new routines – I felt misplaced and overwhelmed. I’d lost all control. So what did I do? I did what any logical canine would do…

I peed.

I peed on the blond's stuff. I peed on my parent’s stuff. Heck, I even peed on the carpet in front of my old place – just to prove that I was there.

Be disgusted all you want, but you know you do it, too. It’s impossible to make sense of change, or a new place, or a new routine without peeing on it a bit. This behavior is true across the species board. Whether it’s hanging a picture, finding “your” local coffee joint, or lifting a leg – the best way to make a house/a city/a life your home is to mark it.

18W? Officially marked. Officially home.

GERTIE SAYS:

And I'll be back 'round again
Yes I'll walk in time with you old friend
And we'll find that place
That we had danced in so long ago

"Song That Jane Likes", Dave Matthews Band, 1993

Our Friendly Neighborhood Terrorist

Every morning, millions of New Yorkers stop for coffee on their way to work. Of those millions, I’d say that most are skipping the swill of Starbucks, and going straight for the chronic: the breakfast cart Joe.

Vendors of all kinds line the sidewalks of New York, but in the morning, the breakfast carts are out in full force – and yet, even if there are three seemingly identical carts in a row, serving the same sugar-topped pastries, squished up against the glass in the front, all three of them will have a line.

This would be a mystery to me – if it wasn’t for the coffee. Vendor coffee is a breed all its own. To me it’s similar to “gas station coffee”, whereas if you were in a blind taste-test, it would take one sniff of the cup to pinpoint its origins. Of course, from there, there are sub-categories (Mobile, 7-11, Love’s, etc. – but I’ll put that in my trove for another time).

I didn’t really believe in the vendor coffee until I tried it, and I must say, it deserves mad respect. Here’s why:

A) It’s a dollar. If you’re getting ripped off, it’s $1.50 for a large cup of Joe. Where can you get ANYTHING for a dollar these days? In a large?
B) It’s liquid crack. It may not even really be ‘coffee’ in the traditional sense – perhaps it’s water and 25 years of residue from the inside of the big silver brewers. But it is…crack-ish. Or so I can imagine…if I knew what crack was like...you get my point.
C) There’s lingo. But it’s not lame lingo like “Tall Decaf Mocha Cappuccino” it’s cool lingo like “Regular, black, sweet.”
D) It’s a dollar!

Much like me with my fruit guy, you’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who cheats on their vendor. Day in and day out of coffee and pastry getting leads to a pretty serious relationship. They know your face, your order, and exactly how much cream to put in your coffee to make your day.

This is a symbiotic relationship that at times, resembles one you’d see on Animal Planet.

NARRATOR: “Watch how the Executive approaches the cart. Notice the exact change in his hand. The Vendor sees the Executive; there is recognition. The Vendor proceeds with his craft as the Executive looks on. Then, an exchange. Notice the head nod as both Vendor and Executive utter simultaneous “Thank yous”. The Executive rushes off, and the Vendor moves on to the next Executive in line. This truly is nature in its purest form.”

This special relationship is why it sent waves of shock, followed by pangs of deception through my workplace upon hearing that our old coffee vendor (he disappeared about a year ago…) was just arrested as a terror suspect.

For real.

The story broke several weeks ago, and as it became a National interest, and pictures of Najibullah Zazi started to surface, several people here at IRG recognized his face. I didn’t – as he was not “my Guy”.

The more we researched, the more it seemed as though this man, who was arrested in Colorado after investigators uncovered bomb-making materials and blueprints in his home, was in fact the coffee vendor who set up shop at the end of our street. The end of our street, mind you, is in the Financial District of Manhattan, just a stone’s throw away from “The Bull”. He was located directly across from the MTA building, which is on our street.

Turns out, it was him. About a year ago, Zazi disappeared seemingly overnight, and was replaced by another man, who remained on the same corner (until this news broke, of course). About a month ago, one of my co-workers saw Zazi at the cart, conversing with the new vendor and said Hi to him; asked where he’d been. Apparently, he was back in New York sorting out some logistics of transferring the business over to the new guy.

Not a few days later, Zazi was arrested in Colorado, and we were all like “Is that the coffee guy?!”

Unbelievable.

You know, this is super unfortunate on so many levels if you ask me. Not only for the obvious reason that a man who worked 50 yards from where we work is suspected to have used his off-hours to plot terrorist attacks, and not only because most people here feel as though they had a friendly rapport with the guy, but because this takes us all back to Square One.

Living and working down here post 9/11 is interesting, to say the least. If you’ve read some of my past posts, you know that New York is still shaking in some respects. Forgetting what happened is not an option, and moving forward as if all’s well is difficult, if not impossible. There are times in which this city feels very vulnerable. This is one of them.

Personally, I want to have faith and trust in humanity. I want to believe that I don’t have to be legitimately afraid of my coffee vendor because he resembles the men who concocted and executed the attacks on 9/11. I refute racial profiling, and try to treat people – all people – in one general way: as I would like to be treated by them.

But stuff like this, Man…really burns me. I mean, what the Hell, Dude?

This clown just solidified and validated people’s fears, and some people’s hatred. He has managed to poison more hearts and has brought justification to judgment. And all I can do about it shake my head, and try to not let it affect me - as affecting us was probably his ultimate goal, right?

I can also hope that his efforts – whatever they were – have been thwarted.

Big sigh.

That said, I've still got "my Guy" - and he's great. I will continue to greet him every morning with a winning smile and a dollar, and I will accept his liquid crack in return. I will appreciate the fact that he knows how to make it just right. I will trust him, and I will believe that he is earning an honest living, and not “casing the joint”.

I will proceed unafraid, and unaffected. Which is, in my own way, giving a good old New York middle finger to people like Zazi.

After all, I have to – I can’t afford Starbucks.


http://www.theledger.com/article/20090926/ZNYT02/909263014?Title=From-Smiling-Coffee-Vendor-to-Terror-Suspect


**UPDATE: Najibullah Zazi appears on the cover (and is featured inside) of the latest TIME Magazine. This just arrived today. Jesus H!