Why is it that poor people always have somewhere they HAVE to BE at six o’clock? Is there some kind of poor people deadline every day? While I’m working, are poor people jumping through a complex system of errand-running in order to survive?
I’m on the bus at 5:50 and stay on it until just after six, so every day, I have the perfect vantage point from which to view poor people freaking out over their soon-to-be-missed all important deadline. There’s lots and lots of yelling into outdated cell phones, screaming about who’s going to pick up the kids and who’s got the check and please yell down to the basement and tell Marcus that the bus was twenty minutes late and I’ll be there in just a minute. There’s always a dude pacing up and down the bus aisle, leaning at the front to see through the windshield, reporting each street that passes to someone who must be urgently waiting for his arrival. “Western! We just passed Western, dog.”
I am going to conduct the research. I am going to get to the bottom of this. I will find out why everyone in sweatpants loses their damn mind circa 6pm every day.
der Footenwaren
I just found out that the shoe company I used to work for was started by someone who was active in the Nazi party. Seriously. You can look it up on Wikipedia and everything. I’m not sure how I feel about it. I mean, not great, but when it comes down to it, isn’t the entire world run by three giant companies? And every other little company is a part of one of the big ones? And how do we know what’s in the closet and the origin of every person who started every one of those companies?
I always thought that the company-penned company history was a little vague. It starts in 1948 with a guy who decides to make a running shoe, and that same year, it just happens to get big. Uh huh. Like there were no other running shoes that year. Apparently, and in reality, this guy was a Herr Bigdickschtein in the SS or something. And his brother, also an SS guy, went on to start his own shoe company, too. Therefore, the “adi” in Adidas stands for “Adolf.” Adi for short (and for PR reasons, no doubt).
I just think it’s interesting that a formerly Nazi-owned shoe company has a store in the middle of the most upper-class Jewish neighborhood in this city. And all of those old Jewish ladies stop by after hitting up the deli next door to pick up some fly kicks made by Cambodian women and children (you know, where they HAVE labor laws, but no one to enforce them).
It makes me wonder how often someone buys an apple at a farmer’s market that was grown and sold to them by the ancestor of someone who killed and cremated their ancestor. I’m sure that in some nasty way we are connected by the things we buy.
Yesterday at work, I heard this woman talking about how her trip to Europe went. She was telling everyone that she’d really reaaaaalllyy been wanting to see the concentration camp sites, but getting there was “just a real hassle.” She talked about how convoluted the transportation system was, “Just bus after bus and so many trains!” I think they should take all complainy visitors and cram them into a cattle car and bang ‘em off to Bergen-Belsen in the old-timey way.
If you’re lucky, you get to make the trip in winter, when you can pay someone with the gold watch you stuck up your butt to scoop some snow off the window sill for you to eat.
Seriously. Don’t be such a fucking deutschbag.
Bring in the big guns.
So last night, new roommate Agent Big Guns and I went half a block or so down to my favorite little bullshitty dive bar to play the jukebox and pour Hacker Pschorr down our throats. I was happy to get Big Guns out of the douchetarded neighborhood where she lived before, and into the hipstertarded neighborhood where we are now.
We weren’t there for ten minutes (standing at the jukebox, our backs to the door) when I realized that this boy I hung out with once last year and his roommates were sort of hovering by our seats. Trapped. So we went back to our seats, and this dude saw me, and remembered me, and spent the rest of the night making it as awkward as possible. He didn’t say anything to me, of course, but expected me to approach him, I suppose, because when I didn’t, he started saying loudly to his friends, “OHHH YEAHH, SO LIKE, I’M NOT EVEN HERE. AWESOME. NO, THAT’S COOL. THAT’S FINE. I LIKE, DON’T EVEN EXIST, OR WHATEVER. SURE. FINE. I LIKE, WON’T EVEN LOOK OVER THERE. LIKE THAT SIDE OF THE ROOM? DOESN’T EVEN EXIST ANYMORE, MAN.”
It was gruesome.
I don’t even remember anything about this guy, just that he stared at me for about two hours one night, then came up to me and put his beer bottle down between me and my friend, then just stood there. Tired, drunk, and wanting to continue with my conversation, I said, “Did you want my number or what?” And I gave it to him. And he called me the next day, and I told him where I’d be hanging out that night. He came out with all of his roommates and sort of hovered nearby. He complained about how early he had to get up the next morning. He mentioned that he was 23. He had that fluffy ironic crinkly Jesus hair and skinny hipster stache that all the Skinny Jean Club boys are after. He had the worst dog breath I’d ever smelled. He was about four inches shorter and thirty pounds lighter than me. I mean, he was nice, but holy God in a pink car in Heaven, nuh uhhhh.
So when he called me the very next day, I didn’t return the phone call.
Sitting there in the bar, with the Spurned Date Show going on in full color behind my roommate’s head, I started thinking about how maybe I should have called him back and told him I wasn’t interested. But I can’t imagine how that conversation would have gone. Probably not well. But then he would have known I wasn’t interested, and probably would have refrained from making a drunk telenovela scene in a dive bar on a Sunday night. So I was thinking about both sides of it, and how the Text-Messager sort of pussed out, and how that felt, and how from now on I am going to be totally upfront with this kind of shit.
I mean, it happens. Someone turns you down (or leaves you hanging, or develops a crush on someone else simultaneously…all completely legal in the game of Dick-Around Dating) and you spend a day thinking you’re the ugliest, fattest, sluttiest person in the world, and completely worthless, and then you come out of your bedroom and eat a piece of cheese or something, and while you’re standing there at the kitchen counter, you remember that you’re kind of cool, and then stuff the person said or did that you thought was dumb but chose to ignore at the time becomes REALLY OBVIOUS.
For instance, I think every guy I’ve ever hung out with has made the comment, at one time or another, “Oh, so you’re that kind of girl.” This comment is prompted by everything from how I like my coffee to what I watch on TV. It’s like they’re trying to nail you down or figure you out, or fit you into one of the categories in the filing cabinet of females in their heads. Like if they can’t put you into one of those, you’ve got some kind of power and control. You’re a fucking space alien until they have a label for your forehead. Well, that’s goddamn weird and annoying. Lots of people like their coffee with cream and sugar. THAT IS WHY THEY PUT CREAM AND SUGAR ON THE TABLE AT THE RESTAURANT.
So my response for that is usually, “I’m not a kind of girl…?” And they look at me like they’re thinking “oh, so you’re actually THAT KIND of girl…” It goes on and on, over and over. Like you are perpetually just a facet of a million different girls who are a total possibility for them.
I think some of this might stem from the way people describe themselves, how they try really hard to fit into certain categories to make it easier to connect with other people. Like matching DNA. Like building a Lincoln Log house. People just want things to be easy, to fall together. They don’t want to know anything.
This is why, on that terrible online dating service, men swap around and mix and match the following phrases, in abundance, to describe themselves:
career oriented
pretty laid-back guy
easy going
look on the bright side of things lol
passionate
sincere
don’t take things too seriously lol
down to earth
driven
focused
sarcastic and funny
love the city
new to the city
looking for someone to show me around the city
know how to treat a lady lol
lol
lol
lol
The BNDs
We live across the building from a bunch of bros, the Bros Next Door. They have a ping pong table in their kitchen, on which they eat and iron and play ping pong. They invited us over for a barbecue, but we didn’t go because all of them have their ass cracks hanging out and their beer bellies hanging over their pants and while they talk they scratch their dirty fingernails through their beards. But last night they were blasting some Ludacris, which filled our kitchen, so you know, they’s aaigh wit me.
Stay away from them scrapeys.
Here are some conversations I overheard during my now slightly longer commute:
Fucking spaced-out hippie man, to chick with wilting dandelions stuck in her nasty hair:
“When I was doing my ummm…teacher training. I had to do these observations. Uhhh. Umm. This one teacher was like, You should think about cutting your hair and shaving your beard before you go out to look for jobs. Worst advice I’ve ever gotten. If I had done that, the kids would have missed out on…on so many learning opportunities. When I come in, in the winter, and my beard is long, they can see it, you know, growing. And they learn how hair grows? And then you know, I put my hair in a ponytail, and they learn like gender stereotypes. And what they are. And then when I shave my beard on the first day of spring, the kids always, always say, “You look like a girl now.” Because to them, long hair is for girls. You know? So that, you know, breaking sort of that gender stereotype is something that’s really valuable to their learning experience.”
Two loud black guys, fucking screaming at each other with only one seat between them:
NIGGA I GOT THIS T-MOBILE SHIT. FOR REAL. IT’S FOR REAL. THIS SHIT, THIS SHIT, YOU KNOW I GOT VOICEMAIL! INTERNET! MOTHERFUCKIN TEXT MESSAGING. CALL WAITING! YOU KNOW HOW THAT BE LIKE? I BE LIKE, TALKING TO ONE OF MY GUYS. MY PHONE RANG. I SAY HOLD UP! PRESS A BUTTON! HELLO? HEY SHAWTY I’M TALKIN’ TO DE’SHAWN. LEMME CALL YOU BACK. I’MA SEE YOU AT THE CRIB LATER. YOU KNOW? WHATEVER. PRESS A BUTTON AGAIN AND I’M TALKING TO MY GUY DE’SHAWN. I GOT EVERYTHING. LIKE FIFTY DOLLARS A MONTH AND SHIT.
YO BUT FUCK THAT. MY COUSIN, MY COUSIN HE GOT THEM, WHAT THEY CALLED? SCRAPEYS? MY COUSIN GOT THEM SCRAPEYS. HAD EM ALL UP ON HIS BALLS AND EVERYTHING. HAD TO GO GET EM REMOVED. THEY LIKE THESE LIL BUUUUGS AND SHIT. THEY BE UP UNDER YOUR SKIN! THEN THEY COME OUT! AND WHEN YOU SCRATCH EM, THEY GO HIDE! THEY HIDE UNDER YOUR SKIN, DOG! NAW, HELL NAW, THAT’S NASTY! YOU GOTTA STAY AWAY FROM THAT SHIT!
Turn to the left
I am tired of fashion bullshit. It’s really really really dumb. Do people know how dumb it is? I don’t think they do.
There’s this one girl who works for the RedEye. She rides my bus. She has the boy-style middle-part bowl-shaped haircut I had when I was eight years old, only now it’s fashionable or whatever. Her clothes look more like an experiment in a high school sewing class. Her column is this little half-page spread where she copies and pastes phrases like “new looks for fall” and “spring ing to spring with oversized sunglasses.” The page is splattered with pictures of clothes you can buy, if you’re so inclined, and where to buy them, and how much they are. Guhhh. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, she stands there, in her Outfit, reading and re-reading her own column, apparently for inspiration for the one she’s going to write that day.
This season’s hot looks
Check out these sweet picks for summer sandals
This year’s fashion faux pas
Hit the town in these day to night looks
I can’t stand it. It doesn’t end.
I mean, I know people who are into what they wear, and how it’s worn, I’m just kind of sick of people who obsess about dressing themselves. Or people who hit on a theme and fucking run with it. And I hate when I go to a bar and there’s a chick there who is so far into her Look that she could pass as Madonna on Halloween. I can’t stand people who just go out and buy everything they need to put together their Fashion Costume, and they end up looking like goddamn clothesfags.
Like the girl who always wears Accessorieeeees! She read an awful article in Lucky magazine once (the article they run on every page of every issue) about How to Brighten Up Your Look with Fun Accessories! Try These Quick Fixes to Spruce Up Your Fall Look! So on the page there’s a scarf, a hat, a shitload of bracelets, and some fake glasses. So now every time I see this girl, she’s wearing a different fake glasses/big hat combination. And everything that comes out of her mouth is about as useful to the human race as a fucking dog fart.
Or the girl who’s obsessed with “vintaaaaage!” And when you tell her you like her dress, she says “It’s vintaaaaage.” Like when something is old, it’s automatically cooler than something new.
Yeah? Well, my dead grandma’s asshole is vintage, but I’m not going to wear it around my wrist and talk about it like it’s a “serious find.” Ugh, shut up. Be into that shit all you want, but shut the fuck up.
And now that I’ve done nothing but be a salty motherfucker, check out these shits:
I'd eat the shit out of these shits.
Cupcake Heartbreak 