dear old golden rule days...

Well, I'm back to school and avoiding those urges to overachieve and overwhelm myself with extra activites. I did NOT go up front and volunteer as a mentor for new grads. I decided NOT to join the campus choir which would require my prescence on campus an extra day. I am thinking about auditing a class, however. Mainly I'd like to do a craft class, to keep me reading books. We'll see.

Although the humidity was around 87% this morning, thanks to Katrina--though that is nothing compared to what folks are going through down south--my walk from the trainstation to SLC was lovely. It's nice to be back. At least for right now, when the specter of work is merely that--a specter. I have gotten some inspirations for some stories though. We'll see what happens.

A note about my earlier post:

What I'm most unhappy with our new place, dear as it is, is the end of anonynimity. I'm white in a black and hispanic world. The old woman and the sock guy would've happened anywhere I lived, and I liked those encounters, but the whole short chubby guy thing is just one more example of how otherness I feel in this neighborhood. I'm not wearing spray-painted clothes like a lot of women do here, I'm not calling attention to myself in any way--as far as I know, but I still get comments, and situations like yesterday. I mean, it was sortof funny yesterday, but what if it were night and no people around. What would I have felt then? More than likely he wouldn't have done anything. I still believe in the general goodness of people, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be scared. I definately don't get the amount of shit I did when we first moved--at least in the immediate neighborhood--but once I get past a certain street, I become a target again. I know this is no different than the shit black people often get, but it doesn't make it any easier. I miss the anonymous feel I had downtown. Now I feel like I'm on display every moment that I step out of my building until the subway hits 96th St., where most of the white folks get on.

personal encounters

Encounter 1:

Today as I was minding my own business walking down 135th St. to the M1 bus, a youngish fellow tapped the glass of the Bx33 bus enclosure. I stopped, confused, trying to think if I'd met this guy. He was short, black, a little chubby and had a mustache. Before I could compose myself enough to get away he was by my side. I began to walk. He puffed alongside me, firing questions at me like there was no tomorrow. Of course he tried to figure out my name and when I was coming back up here and so on. (Do men ever expect women to answer these questions? Truthfully?)

We could get together maybe.

I don't think my husband would like that, I said.

He asked me where my husband was. At work. Where does he work? All over. Yeah? I do too. Cause I'm a doctor. Really. (I didn't want to disbelieve him because for all I know he was, but I figured it was really a ploy to get me more interested in him. Who knows.)

I think he realized by this point I wasn't too moved by his doctor business, cause he said, Hey, we got to go! The bus is coming! (He meant the Bx33) I'm not taking that bus, I said. He commenced to a walk-run. For some reason I think he may have thought that I would follow. I slowed down and let him move as far from me as possible. He kept glancing back.

Encounter 2:

I finally got on the M1, having sucessfully lost this doctor fellow. I sat next to a tiny old woman in a straw hat who was hunched over her purse, carefully looking at a set of various cards, from volunteer IDs to AT&T numbers. At around 106th St., someone called on her cell phone, and she pawed through her bag, looking for it. She finally found it, but not before it stopped ringing. She called whoever it was back and began a conversation I didn't hear. But as soon as she got off the phone, she began talking to me. At first I was annoyed at being noticed, since I'd been noticed not long before, but soon she drew me in. She was going on a cruise in the Carribean, and she had to pick up her birth certificate and passport from her safety deposit box at a bank downtown.

Me, of all people! I have to prove I'm an American! She touched her arm and rubbed it. She had to do it a few times before I realized: she means she's black. I mean, I'm an American. P'shaw, (she really said "p'shaw"--it was great and so endearing--I'd never heard anyone say that before in all earnestness) they can look in my bags if they want to.

Eventually we started talking about homeland security and the Trade Center and why they weren't doing these things before.

If I tried to go and get a pilot's license, would they give one to me? No, because I'm black and an Indian. But they gave those men theirs, and look what happened.

(I asked what tribe she's from. Cherokee, she said. I'd recently seen an article about how some tribes don't accept blacks as Indians--but it makes sense to me. Africans intermarried with Indians I'm sure. They did it with whites. Tom's got some Cherokee in him somewhere. Maybe he and this woman are related.)

Encounter 3:

I was waiting at the M86 bus stop to go across Central Park for my PT session when a guy in amazing dreadlocks said to me: I just have to say, I love your socks. You want to trade? (I'm wearing my striped orange, blue, green and white knee highs today.) Mine are just white. I laughed. Sorry. I think I'll keep my own.

A chick with a tiny little mop of a dog walked by. The dog wore a sweater. That thing probably thinks it's too good to shit outside, he said.

And it's too hot for a sweater, I said.

Yeah, he said, the dog's probably thinking, why the hell am I wearing this, bitch?

We laughed. The bus pulled up. He was with a guy in a wheelchair, so they went up on the little elevator. Take care, he said.

Take care, I said.

you have such beautiful eyes...

Five or so years ago when I was living at this convent (named Ece Homo as in "behold, the man"--which is a station in the Via Dolorosa as in "The Way of the Rose" i.e. Christ) in the Old City of Jerusalem, this guy who worked at a carpet shop nearby would accost me almost every day, trying to get me to talk to him. I spurned his attempts as nicely as possible, and it usually worked. One evening (this happened to be on Thanksgiving) I was walking home, alone, and he showed up by my side, asking if I'd like to go to his shop and have some tea. I said, no, I'm meeting some friends and I'm late, and walked on. He did not give up as easily as he had other times. I suppose he felt more bold because of the lateness of the hour and lack of people around, and followed me to the convent door.

You and I have this connection, I believe, he said.

We don't know each other, said I.

But there are ways of knowing each other beyond words, no? Your eyes--your eyes they are so beautiful.

This made me laugh, because I almost always wore sunglasses during the day, and it was now very dark and I wore my regular glasses that evening. You can't see my eyes, I said.

There was a little camera by the door, and I think the guy at the gate saw what was afoot and he buzzed me in and I dashed inside.

He never bothered me again.

I was scared at the time, but soon could laugh about it. To this day sometimes Tom will repeat Your eyes--your eyes they are so beautiful! And we will fall into a fit of giggles.

Today the "beautiful eyes" comment returned. This time from a guy handing out New York Times job market papers for free. I had noticed him earlier in the day, as I sat in a little Starbuck's courtyard on 3rd and St. Mark's, proofreading a training manual for the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center, and had made a mental note of getting one before he left, since I am again on the job hunt. He wasn't around when I left, however, so I sighed and went to Kmart to purchase a swiffer (I didn't get that brand, however). When I exited the store through the subway (people who live here know what I mean), there he was, like a knight in a blue smock. I smiled and took one. He recognized me and said, Looking for one of these?

Yeah, I said. I'm searching for a job right now, so I need this.

Well, you wouldn't have to look for one if you had a degree.

I do. I'm in grad school right now.

Oh yeah? What for?

A Master of Fine Arts in writing.

His eyebrows went up.

So, it doesn't make any money, I admitted.

Yeah, unless you write a book.

But I need to eat before that happens. I turned to leave. He caught my hand and held it to his heart.

Hey, what's your name?

I thought fast. Bethy, I said. I thought--what kind of weirdo name is Bethy?

I'm Malcolm. I'm pleased to meet you.

And I you, I said, trying to pull my hand free. I thought about somehow mentioning my rather tall husband, but this dude was bigger than Tom and I decided I wasn't going to depend on men to get out of this situation.

You have such beautiful eyes, Malcolm said.

Thank you, I laughed. I decided not to question how he knew this since I was wearing my Elton John sunglasses, both at Starbuck's and right then. It was a total game, I knew. Complete bull all the way around. He was fairly good looking, so I'm sure he'd done this before and probably won.

I finally pulled my hand from his and began to walk away. You got to run, girl? His voice sounded disappointed in a jovial way.

Yeah, I got to run, I said over my shoulder, pushing my way through traffic.

By the way, a piece of artwork I wanted to paste but the copyright gods are against me is on a site by the artist. The title? You Have Beautiful Eyes, of course, by a scampering artist who sneaked his own work into the Met.

silence in the city

Monday, after my physical therapy (during which I do fun things like dip my hand into liquid wax, plunge my hand in a box of fake snow and play with "the sand machine"--this is 20 times easier than any other PT sessions I've had in life), I took my lunch in Central Park and admired the quiet grandeur that is usually remiss in the Park. No one was around, it being a workday and all. Well, people were around, but so few and far between it seemed almost creepy. As I walked across the Park to the Upper East Side, I could smell this kind of ancient musk you usually only encounter in ancient forest, and literally felt the silence around me, wrapping me up in a nice cool blanket.

Weird, I thought. Weird this silence in a city filled with constant noise.

Just as I felt myself panicking from all this muffled life, I heard the faint rumble of traffic. Then a siren burst through the fibers and all you could do was hang on as the city triumphantly and violently reappeared.

This may be a stretch, but all the evacuations going on in Gaza right now feels much the same to me. When I was in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank in 1999, some parts of the country were teeming, rumbling with violence and hatred and life and death. Other places seemed serene and out of the way, as if it were not troubled with what went on mere kilometers away. When I was (briefly) in Gaza, a strange kind of insane calm hovered. The hotel we stayed at was like any other hotel in the Middle East, complete with a beach side view of the Sea, but just north of us was Yasser Arafat's compound, which we were admonished not to photograph, decimated mosques, Gaza University with young men determined to believe that all Americans only care about TV and fast food and boys who followed some of the women calling out "bitches! whores!". I never saw any of the settlements, but I did see the cattle corrals that Palestinians had to go through to get to Israel to work or see relatives each day.

I'm not sure where exactly I'm going with this. As I listen to the news and watch the footage of the Jewish Israelis being evacuated (which is a little strange term--it seems to suggest there will be a return), I feel bad for them but I do not at the same time. When Palestinians have been forced from their homes there is no comfy buffer period to prepare, their homes are bulldozed suddenly, giving them only moments to retrieve their children and some belongings. And if one uses the argument that the destruction of the homes punishes the families of terrorists, the IDF has used it as an excuse to create "buffer zones" for settlements, etc. Acres of ancient olive groves are destroyed, and no money is offered as recompense. There is no where for these families to go, unlike the settlers. The Israeli government is offering housing and money to them. Not that it takes the pain away, but it is more that has been offered to others.

No matter what, the pain the settlers are feeling is very real. I truly can't even imagine what it is like. But it is no different than the pain the Palestinians felt when Israel came to Gaza, to the West Bank, to Israel proper. This pain is a direct result of the colonization-mentality the settlers have: enter an area, subdue it, live separate from the population and use all the resources for yourself.

The same mentality that the USA has had on a larger scale. Heck, at least the Jews once lived there, though I believe most of Gaza has no real tie of the sons and daughters of Abraham. Which makes me ask myself: if the Native Americans would insist that we as a people leave land that once belonged to them, what would I feel? This drives the question more at home with me. I would have to agree they had a point. The trees of Central Park would disappear from me for all time. Perhaps the rush of traffic would be permanently silenced. But would I do it?

hot as hades

No, I'm not going to talk about you know what. It's been too hot for me lately.

Even though it was "only" 90 today, here in the city that is hellahot. The humidity was as thick as jello about to melt all over the kitchen counter, and very little breeze to speak of. I slothed around all day, after waking rather energized and ready to tackle the big issues of life, namely: my financial aid package. I have to fill out all these forms and mail stuff off and I've been putting it off and putting it off. Basically, they've given me more money than I really need, so I am unsure of whether or not to just take it and use the money for living expenses, or to tell them to take some of it back. What worries me is they will question the whole package if I say anything. But I don't want the debt on my hands either--though student loans are the "best" kind of debt around. The interest, even though it's going up this year, is still relatively low. What is a girl to do?

heaven, i'm in heaven

Today when I came to the LESHRC, I ran into one of the agency's participants who had just gotten out of the hospital. He was trying not to cry, and kept apologizing for his emotions and asking me if I had anything, anything to take it away a little. Earlier, I was sitting in a park in front of the Natural History Museum, and this little cherub of a girl caught my eye, toddled over and offered me some of her candy, then giggled and dashed away. What a nutty juxtaposition in the space of a few hours. I know that we all make choices in our lives. I don't know him well at all but he seems bent on self-destruction. This man who once was as tiny and perfect as she is. And he wants to throw it away again and again. Somewhere in the Bible supposedly it says that nothing will come to us that we cannot handle. I'm not sure I believe that. Some have gone through difficult times, very difficult times and manage to pull through; others don't. They sink in their choices like sandtraps, each grain weighs them down a little more. At times I think some are simply dammed to make the wrong choices again and again.

I believe in a need for salvation--but not in the traditional sense. It's been a long time since I've been able to accept the notion that only those who believe a certain creed will gain the gates of heaven. (If such a place exists. I, for one, am cheering for the afterlife side. But that's another blog.) Some of us need to be brought out of our dirt roads of self-destruction and be able to cruise the streets of gold with the saints.

temporary temporariness

A few days ago, someone titled our (Thomas and myself) situation here in New York as "temporary." I'm not sure why, but this has been eating a tiny little hole in my brain for quite some time now. It's not like I haven't heard this from various spheres before. So, why this particular comment is bugging me is very confusing. I guess since I've been rather without any kind of paddle these last months. No school to harness my creativity, no job to weigh me down with woes beyond my own personal problems.

I guess I'm feeling sort of in a temporary mode right now. Though I'm in school with goals to gain, I feel like I did in college: wondering when my life is going to start. And I think that it is something I'll always feel. When your "calling" (or some other romanticized term) is writing, there is only one mark of sucess, and that is getting published. And "getting published" is rather a weak mark, really. There is a lot of shit out there under the guise of good stuff with the big names attached to it, and somehow they make the front window at a bookstore. But those marks are far between even if you do get a contract.

So, I've opted for a life not of getting projects done or putting on a show, but of wandering the apartment, the neighborhood, the city, hoping a vision or two will wander my way. Bleh. Even that romanticizes the decidedly unromantic reality.

What does one do to get rid of this temporary feeling? We could have children, I guess. The idea of a child in a studio is rather frightening. Besides, then we couldn't watch certain movies once the kid is old enough to know what's going on. We could move somewhere else, but as Tom and I have said to each other: the more people try to entice us away, the more determined we are to stay. (When I decided to go to EMU (the college in far away Virginia) rather than Tabor (the college in my hometown), the main admissions counselor of TC asked me into his office and he said that many people had tried to leave, but they always came back. Let's just say my decision was sealed by that comment.)

I guess I should start job-hunting again. Sigh. Why can't someone just stop me on the street and offer me one, is my question.

half a beer later

Yesterday was a good day. It rained a real humdinger of a thunderstorm, making car alarms go off incessantly and pelting our window like hail. I had to close the windows and sit in the sauna-like atmosphere until it died down and I ventured outside. I took the subway down to Chinatown, and it hadn't even sprinkled there. Weird how a few miles makes things a different world. When I was growing up I was terrified of thunderstorms, because of the ever present chance of tornados. Now that I'm in New York, I can enjoy a good thunderstorm without that fear. Of course, one must deal with other things here: the constant threat of terrorism, men walking towards you with their pants down, musicians with NO talent crooning in the subway.

Yesterday was good for another reason. For the first time I read in front of an audience of complete strangers (except for my loyal MMF, Menno House and SLC friends) and didn't make an ass of myself. I actually must admit I did pretty well. It helped that I'd had a half of a beer beforehand, to loosen the nerves. Though I only drank half because I wanted to be able to control my tongue. After the reading, which featured Jacob S. of Semisonic, several people came up to me and gave nice, head filling complements. I even got two business cards. One was from an SLC alum who has a lot of SLC contacts and knows agents, the other from a PR person, also an SLC alum, from Knopf publishing. I talked a while with a very nice guy named Bruce, who does a lot of independent publishing. Let me tell you, I did a nice bit of schmoozing, which usually I am very bad at.

I'm glad I did it. Now that my Reading in Front of Strangers cherry has been popped, I can do Sarah Lawrence readings with confidence. Hopefully.

Oh, and you can still read my stuff online.

bus buddies?

Today I was waiting for the bus when I asked a woman for directions. We fell into a conversation, doing the usual yadda yadda--the weather, the unpredictability of the MTA bus system, etc. Well, the bus finally arrived, and we climbed aboard, sat down and giggled about the coolness of the bus. Then comes the conundrum: do you continue a conversation, or act as if the other never existed? Worse, even, is the question of whether you are supposed to at least sit near them, if seating permits? Some may be made uncomfortable by this; others would not. (The bus was half empty, but I sat near, but not too near, leaving the ball somewhat in her court.) What if one is more friendly than the other, that can be a problem as well. Beyond the quick chit chat, I really didn't want to talk any further, but what if this woman, nice and such, wanted more? I didn't know how to proceed. Luckily, we have such things as cell phones these days, and I whipped mine out to check the time and engross myself in the mobile the way I've seen others do. She, too, pulled hers out and actually talked to someone. So, once both cells were stowed, we could act as if the conversation had never happened. I decided that if I got off before she did, I'd at least give her a friendly smile--perhaps, even, a little Well, have a good day! She got off first, and never gave me a glance. I was a little put out by this.