The Occasional Flowers of Newark

It was a beautiful day in the city, with the sun finally making a more permanent appearance. I had just shipped a box of bagels to my mom for Mother’s Day (apparently my whole family shares a similar obsession with these circles of doughy deliciousness) and was walking down 30^th Ave towards the subway. Newark, NJ was my faraway destination.

As I was crossing the street WAM! I was hit – not by a car, a bike, or even a person. I was struck by a small spec of dirt.

Unfortunately, the results were devastating.

After several hours of rapid blinking, painful attempts at flushing out the mysterious partial, and a few unintentional, watery tears, I decided my swollen eye was indeed the one ailment I didn’t want to deal with: a scratched cornea. My sister had somehow accomplished 2 or 3 of these little devils before she was 16, so I knew the symptoms and the annoying procedure to heal the ripped wound.

But let’s flashback to another epiphany I had during the searing cornea pain.

I sat on the PATH train with a watery stare as I traveled to Newark and then walked 20 minutes to Trinity Church. The after school program I have come to know and love over the past 5 years was about to begin its usual chaos, and I was excited to have a day off to partake in the madness.

Though I looked like a fool (or looked high) with one red eyeball, a small happiness crept up inside of me. It wasn’t raining, it wasn’t cold, and the sky was a brilliant blue instead of that despicable gray I’ve come to loathe. No coat was necessary as I strolled down the concrete streets, with greenery and splashes of colorful flowers bowing their heads towards the sun.

And yes, believe it or not, there IS the occasional flower in Newark.

As I arrived at the church, the children were already organized into their groups painting, gardening, or completing a Bible crossword puzzle with surprising meticulousness. Though I roamed between activities (blinded ever so slightly by my irritating eye), Miss Kortlyn’s gardening group was my most undeviating position.

“Miss Kortlyn what can I dooooo!?” one child said, hopping up and down like a typical ADD elementary school kid. “Ah! A worm!” another girl screamed, as she unearthed the slimy bug. An older boy simultaneously backed away from her, not afraid to admit he was in fact very afraid of the small creature.

“Look how the plant grew, Britney!” the 4^th grader next to me exclaimed. I squinted at the green stem she pointed to, and nodded with excitement at the Trinity Church garden. But another thought was on my mind…

The children – my children! – were growing. The kids who I’d first worked with were no longer in the after school program and had moved on to middle or high school. Now their siblings or fresh faces replaced the first bunch of crazy ones. Are they doing okay? What was in like in high school? Could they read any better than before?

And then what… these kids would go too! They would leave the safe (well safe-ish) confines of the church and be attacked by the very real and harsh world of Newark. In fact some were already attacked by the harsh world of home. What could I do?

In all honesty? Not much. Particularly with little access to NJ, trying to hold down a job, and an internship, there is very little I feel as though I can do.

Except maybe hope.

I can hope with all my heart that these children will be like the seeds they are planting. When faced with difficult decisions in the future between what is right and what is wrong, I can hope the moral seeds from their past are deep-rooted and spring forth. And I can hope the kids will spread more loving seeds throughout their community and home. And I can hope that this garden will continue to grow until it’s bursting with vibrant and ever-lasting life.

And I can hope these kids will aspire to be the occasional flowers of Newark.

Prepping.

Planting.

Growing.

Oh and PS – My eye was fine after an emergency room visit, throwing up, a good night’s sleep, and prescription eye drops.

Thursday's Things New Yorkers Say: Words Best Unspoken

I don’t know who reads my blog.

Professionals, parents, friends, Virginians, New Yorkers, Canadians, kids – I’m not sure of the details, but statistically I know a few hundred tune into this website over the course of a week. And I truly thank you for the support.

That is why I’m also giving your fair warning; this is probably my raciest post to date. But it’s one of those stories that just must get told. So here is your chance to pull out… no? Okay.

Then let’s start at the beginning…

First you should know that I live in a very safe neighborhood. My roommate and I have never encountered any problems, even late at night. This is why yesterday, on my walk home around 10pm, I was surprised to stumble upon a persistent heckler.

I had just gotten off the phone with my sister, who was going to call me back in a few moments. Turning on Steinway, I passed two boys (and yes, I use the term “boys” in the most belittling of senses here) who were probably between ages 20 – 22.

“Hey… hey,” the one furthest from me says. I turn my head only slightly, keeping my pace.

“Are you an angel?” he asked with a serious face.

“Oh my gosh,” I say, rolling my eyes and passing him on the sidewalk. Not original. Not cute. Not anything I want to hear on my way home from work.

“I like your boots,” he calls ahead at me. This guy really wants to be heard. “But they clash you outfit! Oh burn…” he continues. Now I’m a ways in front of him and no longer interested in this child’s whiney request for attention. And I’m hungry.

Not a good combo.

“You look like Brittany Stone! You know who that is?” he says loudly. I didn’t, although I just Googled her. Turns out he either meant a past American Idol contestant… or a porn star. You decide.

Then he went there. He really pissed me off.

“Hey. HEY! Do you want to give me ****? HEY! Umbrella!” he shouts, I’m guessing because I’m holding my large plastic umbrella – which I’m now considering using as a weapon. “HEY UMBRELLA! DO YOU WANT TO GIVE ME ****!?”

You can interpret those 4 little stars any way you please, but let’s just say he was screaming an insulting, demeaning sexual request at the top of his lungs.

Now… I’m tired. I’m starving. I’m coming home from Bloomingdales after a long evening. And presently, someone is yelling at me. So no, I did not take the high road. No, I didn’t shout, “My body is a temple!” or “Back away from me crazy devil boy!”

I swiveled abruptly on my heel and screamed:

“DUDE. Shut the F*** UP!!”

Yes, I said that. I don’t curse at people very often – but this warranted something more powerful than a “Hey, can you stop that?” I wanted the whiney devil boy to know that it is not okay to scream insults at anyone who wonders by. It is not okay for women to walk home thinking they could be verbally harassed. It is NOT OKAY because you don’t treat human beings that way. And I wanted to be very loud about the whole situation so everyone on the street would know “I. Am. Not. Okay.”

He looked like a deer caught in headlights. I pivoted back around and saw a group of 5 guys appear out of nowhere. “Hey whoa – okay, we’ll take it from here,” one of them says. Another tells me to “just keep on walking.”

I don’t look at any of them. The offenders, the defenders – they’re all behind me now. My phone rings and I continue talking to my sister, like nothing happened. Just a regular night in New York.

Could I have handled the circumstances better? Yes. My anger attacked any form of reasonable vernacular. Would I suggest my outspoken tactics? No. Though I will admit, there was something very freeing about “talking back” to a force that degrades your existence.

In fact I have an exceedingly positive feeling about standing up for my standards of respect. Maybe one day I’ll have the matching maturity to not drop the F-bomb?

Eh. Well it’s a start.

So this “Thursday’s Things” is about the time Britney cursed out someone on the street and how she was a little embarrassed and a little proud of that fact.

All time favorite sign - Virginia Beach, VA.

Music for Your Soul

I wake up most mornings with my hair on top of my head and a hungry stomach. Generally there are three things that will get me out of bed (and no, a warm shower is not one of them).
1. Food – more specifically a bagel and coffee.2. “The Price is Right” – but only on late mornings since it’s on at 11am.3. Music – especially a happy, epic, good-morning-kind-of playlist.

I want to leave my apartment invigorated and optimistic. Everyday I have to take on the world! You do too, right? And what better way to conquer life than by enjoying a personal playlist comparable to the score of a movie, beating continuously in the background of reality.

So today I’m sharing with you one of my more current wake up mixes. I’ve been in a “discovering” mood all week… aka I’m not working on my thesis, and instead I’m digging through online databases or twitter accounts for free music downloads.

Expect more tunes to come your way this week… thesis isn’t due till Friday.

What songs help you wake up and conquer the world?

The News In New York: Osama's Death

The Path train skidded into the station sometime around 9:40pm. Once above ground, I briefly surveyed my surroundings. It was a quiet night at the World Trade Center on the lower side of Manhattan.

I was traveling home from Virginia, and on the last leg of my trip. From Staunton to Charlottesville with one friend, from Char- lottesville to Newark, with two other friends, from Newark to New York by the Path Train.

And finally I’d ride from the Financial District’s World Trade Center stop to Astoria, Queens by the subway’s N Train.

My rolling bag clinked loudly behind me in the calm night air. People were going one place or another, but the small groups and individuals moved in a typical hushed formation.

The light turned red. I stopped briefly at the crosswalk, noting how much colder it was here than two days ago and longing for some sort of jacket. I hugged my bare arms and swayed from side to side. Maybe if I moved around, I could warm myself up.

During one of these side-to-side motions, I caught sight of the new World Trade Center building currently under construction. How crazy to think two huge edifices used to stand here, and within a matter of 100 minutes or so… they were gone.

What if I had been here? What if my friends had been coming into NYC on the Path Train? Would they have been crushed and buried forever under debris?

I don’t think about these things. You cannot live in constant fear of the unknown, particularly in a city with this many variables. New York is filled to the brim with possibilities for locals and visitors alike, yet both optimistic and vile outcomes can arrive with such promise.

So I turned my head from the destructive hole seared into the collective psyche of many Americans. It was time to go home.

The light turned green and I moved. There was one transfer from the R to the N train, and then the 15-minute walk to my apartment. By 10:30 I was back in Astoria, and before 11pm, I had checked my email and clicked on CNN.com.

And there it was - the news many had hoped for throughout the last 10 years was printed on a yellow banner across the top of the webpage. “Osama bin Laden, rumored to be dead.”

Soon the news was official, and the White House issued a statement. Obama spoke with authority and ended his impromptu speech with the last lines of the “Pledge of Allegiance.” Meanwhile, citizens gathered outside the White House and in Times Square. Some were also embarking on late night trips down to the World Trade Center, saying they “just wanted to be with everyone else.”

I didn’t go all the way back down to the Financial District, but I watched as every local network attempted to cover the events of the evening. And of course one of the most entertaining moments of the night came from constant Twitter feeds, buzzing 4,000 tweets per second (a record high).

New Yorkers seem bittersweet. Some are happy, others saddened by the reminders of the past. The NY Times literally stopped presses last night to change the front page, while local TV channels broke into regular shows to dissect the news as it occurred. Police have already inspected a strange box left in Time Square, and the nation has been told not to travel abroad because of anti-American sentiment.

So life spins on, and the battles of yesterday will continue to haunt the present - maybe more so now than before. Increased police presence in the subways and airports are not-so-subtle reminders of what happens when 3,000 people parish on their way to work.

But...

At least we can admit that some form of justice has been served, and hope for a future unstained by the same blemishes of our past.

Poor in New York: A Night "In"

Subway fees. Cover charges. $11 mixed drinks, $7 beers, $20 meals, $12 desserts. And that’s if you went somewhere relatively cheap for dinner. New York is certainly the city for food and entertainment, but these luxuries add up quickly throughout the span of an evening.

Hence the night “in.”

Throwing a little soiree can be more difficult than just meeting up somewhere in the city. She lives in Woodside, he’s in Brooklyn, she’s on the Upper West, and they live in Murray Hill.

Not to mention that little thing called a schedule. Most nights I’m not even off work until 9:30pm. Who wants to commute an hour to my place so by 11pm we will unquestionably be enjoying ourselves? Eh, anyone?

No.

But if by some magical coincidence of timing you’re able to host a few friends in your tiny apartment, by all means, do it and save the thirty dollars you were going to spend for buying food not consisting of peanut butter or ramen. 

Some of my favorite city nights have been spent in my living room, or in someone’s studio, or in a random hole in the wall in the Lower East Side, or lounging around in the Upper West.

Here are pics from my favorite New York nights "in."

Thursday's Things New Yorkers Say: She Speaks

I was carrying two grocery bags from Whole Foods.

It was finally a blue-sky kind of day, though deceptively chilly when the wind whipped around a building. But that's typical spring weather, and I was simply content to wake up to something besides the miserable, ever-present grey.

So when I was asked to walk several avenues across the island to purchase party supplies for the editorial department, I didn't mind in the slightest. Pesky sunshine rays had been whispering in my ear, "Come indulge!" all day long.

The green Amex felt heavy in my wallet, weighed down by purchases I couldn't even dream of making as a poor grad student. I was sure that today's $60 shopping spree was nothing in comparison.

Ow... These bags were getting heavy.

I rounded the corner, and glanced up to see 601 W. 26th in the distance. Despite the commute, I had come to enjoy this looming building full of all types of important people, from book publishers and magazine companies, to Homeland Security.

Oh no. These bags we're going to break. "Just make it the elevator," I told myself. "Just make it there, then put...bags...down."

Ha! Made it.

I slumped against the elevator wall and massaged my fingers. We zipped up the floors, only stopping once. I was alone in the car when the 9^th level button lit up, signaling my arrival.

Ding ding.

As the doors slid open, I reluctantly grabbed the heavy Whole Foods bags. I heard footsteps rush to catch my elevator followed by a set of slower yet more pronounced clip-clops.

I glanced up and saw a woman stick her arm out, as another blonde lady walked my way. She spoke right as I leaned over to secure the packages around my wrist.

"Hellooo," she said, almost with a smile.

I probably looked frazzled. The wind had blown my curls around for the last hour, and heavy bags pulled my arms down, bunching up the sleeves of my coat. I had a guest pass in one hand and my phone in the other.

But it didn't matter.

Because MARTHA STEWART was talking to ME.

Yes, a millionaire was gracing me with conversation. The owner of her own omnimedia corporation was acknowledging the poor, lowly intern, who at the moment, also happened to look like a crazy bag lady.

Ah!!!

Now…. that was about the extent of our dialogue. I did manage to mumble out a "hiiiii," or something along those lines.

But that one simple phrase? That little "hello" with an extra emphasis on the "hel" and a slight lowered tone on the "o?"

I'll never forget it.

And that's all New York needed to say this week, my friends.

New May issue, just out on stands.

Poor in New York: Parents Visit

Since you're poor, you don't always get to enjoy the chic hot spots of the city or the tasty delicatessens that line Lower East Side streets. Never the less, there's a certain moment in your twenty-something squalor destined to propel even the penny pinchers towards meals over $5. You've previously snubbed tourist attractions on account of your new "local" status, yet curiosity overwhelms even the born and raised, and a little financial assistance will have you snapping pictures like you're from Wisconsin.

This moment is when... the parents come to town.

Hallelujah!

Here's a list of what must be done:

Have at least one over-priced but exquisite dinner.

Sardi's Restaurant on 44th Street

In fact, eat food that is usually considered excess.

Chocolate covered cannoli from Caffe Palermo in Little Italy

Spend some quality time with the stars of the weekend.

Mum in NYC and...

Dad in NYC

Do things you can't typically afford to do.

About to take the NBC Studio tour to see the SNL stage, Jimmy Fallon's studio, and the Dr. Oz set

And try the "touristy things" at least once. Yes, you'll be mad if you skip out of them permanently.

Uncle and Aunt on the "Top of the Rock."

Check out the historical landmarks.

St. Paul Chapel near World Trade Center

But eat the local food too.

Katz's Deli huge pastrami sandwich

See a movie set or star sighting.

The table where "Harry Met Sally" was filmed

And above all, enjoy your time with the parents.

Thursday's Things New Yorkers Say: Parks and Lunch

It had been a busy day at Bloomies.

I sought relief in my lunchtime, spent outside at a "park" of sorts near Lafayette and Spring. Subway sandwich in hand, I left for my much needed hour in civilization, without the thousands of questions and constant queries about restrooms or sale prices.

Of course everyone in New York had a similar idea.

I was lucky to find a seat on a park bench facing the sun. As I munched on my meal, I casually read a magazine and observed the world around me.

What it world it was...

First, two girls appear lost. They are looking for a street nowhere near our location, but seem to be working through their directional problems via iPhone. Suddenly, an Asian man who had been sitting near me jumps up to assist them.

"What are you looking foooor?" he shouts like a deaf man learning English, with his head stretched forward and his arms moving the opposite way of his body. It almost looked as though his clenched fists were propelling the words from his mouth. The two girls couldn't even pretend not to hear him. The whole freaking park could have listened in on this conversation if they so desired.

"Uh...er. Christopher Street?" one of them says, trying not to laugh. The other woman has her face turned away from the little man, chuckling despite herself.

"No. Not here," he says abruptly shaking his head once.

"Yeah, I know," she continues. "That's why we're looking for it." Somehow over a three-minute time period, they figure out where they're going. The Little Man is pleased with himself as he waves them onward. When the girls walk away, I hear one say, "What the heck was that?"

Then it was my turn for a little craziness...

A woman pulls up in a cab next to me, stopped at a red light.
"Excuse me!" she shouts out the window.
Surely she's not talking to me."Uh, um excuse me?"
I look up from my magazine, and catch her eye.

"The guy next to you..." she says twisting her head, trying to get the obviously foreign twenty-something's attention. He's laughing with his friend, speaking another language quickly, and oblivious to crazy taxi lady.

“Um… she wants you,” I say to the guy
“Where’d you get your hat!?” she says loudly.

“Wha?” the Foreigner says.
“Where’d you get your hat!?” Taxi Lady asks again.
Still no understanding registers on the man’s face.

Great. Now I'm involved.

“Where did you buy hat?” I ask him slowly, pronouncing each syl-lab-le.
“Um. Wha?” The Foreigner really doesn’t understand, and Taxi woman is beginning to look desperate because the red like is about to change.“Where – did – you – (insert me motioning “money” by rubbing my fingers and thumbs together) – buy – your – hat – (insert me pointing at his leopard baseball cap).

By the way, did I mention this was all over a leopard baseball cap?

Suddenly, out of nowhere Little Man jumps in the middle of our conversation, his head stretched out again, arms propelling him forward. “Where you get your hat frooooom?!” he yells.

This makes the Foreigner almost laugh, and I am beginning to giggle at the general situation. “Where you buy hat?” I say one last time.

“Oh,” he picks up the cap. “Japan.”

“Japan!” I shout to the Taxi Lady.
“JAPAN!!” Little Man shouts even louder.
“Oh. Thank you!” she says from the car. Little Man happily goes to talk with her for a moment. He then returns to me and ask, “You. Speak Japanese?”

Keep in mind; I’m just trying to eat my sandwich.

“No, haha not today,” I say. He smiles and walks away, ready to assist anyone on the street – and whether you want help or not, he will assist you.

I try to not laugh as I replay the scenario in my mind. The man on the bench next to me looks my direction, and out of the corner of his eye I see judgement! I know what he’s thinking. His stare is basically shouting, “I thought you were normal. That’s why I sat next to you. Just wanted to read my paper… and then people started screaming about Japan. I can’t believe you got involved. You were supposed to be normal.”

Well, buddy. This is New York. That was pretty freaking “normal”… whatever normal even means. And maybe, I don’t want to be as normal as you today.

********

This was a week full of...

fashion shows...

taxi rides...

phone snatchers...

birthday parties...

fabulous food...

and friends.