Meth is bad. MmmKuey?

Public transit used to terrify me. When I first moved to NYC, I was terrified to ride the subways after dark. And the busses? I was afraid to ride those during the day. In Los Angeles public transit is scary. It's filthy, it's unpredictable, it's full of barefooted people with vomit down their shirts who foam at the mouth while they talk to the empty seat next to them. I thought it would be that way in Manhattan too.

I'd only been in the city for about a week when I found myself needing to ride the subway after dark. It was ten p.m., pouring rain and there were no cabs anywhere, so I held my breath and prayed to God that I would make it home alive. I laugh when I think of that now because riding the subway and the busses has become so commonplace. They are clean (generally), they are reliable (usually) and the crazies keep to themselves (mostly).

A few weeks ago I left Adam's apartment a little later than usual. I usually leave his place around eleven or eleven-thirty, but this particular Sunday I didn't make it out his door until midnight. I didn't think anything of it - I've taken the train home after midnight a hundred times. Though, when I got to the train platform, I started to feel a little uneasy. The train was at the station, it's doors open, and every single car I walked past was empty. It's unusual to be the only person anywhere in New York, so I chalked my nervous feelings up to that. I'm just not used to being alone, I told myself. I found the middle car, the one that always has a conductor in it, and I sat down. I felt safer knowing there was a conductor just a few feet away from me, even if we were separated by a steel door. Just as the train was about to pull out, a man slipped through the closing doors. Despite the twenty degree weather, he was wearing sandals, jeans and a t-shirt. Instead of sitting down, he started pacing back and forth through the car, shaking his hands at his sides as if flinging water from them, shaking his head back and forth as if saying an adamant 'no'. And then he stopped, right in front of me.

"Excuse me, miss. Can you tell me how to get to Manhattan?" He was terribly underweight, his skin jaundiced, his cheeks pocked and hollow, his teeth - those that were left - rotting. His eyes looked like lit flames in his skull. He was standing too close to me. He was clearly very, very agitated.

I looked him right in his eyes because I'd recently read that you're less likely to be raped if you make eye contact with your assailant. Apparently, if they think you'll be able to pick them out of a line-up, they won't bother with you. But I wondered if that was the right protocol for possible knife-wielding maniacs.

"Just stay on this train. This is a Manhattan bound train." I said, trying to sound casual.

"Thank you, Ma'am. Would you happen to have a tobacco product? A cigarette? I prefer menthol. Menthol cigarettes."

"No, I'm sorry. I don't smoke."

"That's all right, miss. Thank you." And then he resumed his furious pacing.

Thirty seconds later he was standing in front of me again.

"Excuse me, Miss. Can you tell me how to get to Manhattan?"

I paused. I looked in his eyes. He seemed to have no recollection of having just asked me that exact question.

"This is a Manhattan bound train. You're on the right track."

"Thank you, Ma'am. Would you happen to have a tobacco product? A cigarette? I prefer menthol. Menthol cigarettes."

Seriously? Did we not just go over this?

"I'm sorry. I don't smoke."

"That's all right, miss. Thank you." And he resumed pacing.

Thirty seconds later: "Excuse me, Miss. Can you tell me how to get to Manhattan?"

OH MY GOD.

"You're headed there now."

"Thank you, Ma'am. Would you happen to have a tobacco product? A cigarette? I prefer menthol. Menthol cigarettes."

At this point, I was smothering a laugh. "I'm sorry. I don't smoke."
"That's all right, miss. Thank you."

When we hit the first stop I got off, walked over to the next car and got back on. Not because I was scared, but because I didn't think I'd be able to give him straight answers anymore.

"Do you happen to have a tobacco product? A cigarette?"

"No, sorry. The little green men stole them."

"Can you tell me how to get to Manhattan?"

"Manhattan? Didn't you hear? IT FELL IN THE HUDSON AND EVERYONE DROWNED."

It happened before I could stop it....

I've often been heard whining about how I think New Yorkers are really lazy because they think it's too much trouble to travel from downtown to uptown. Kids, learn from my example. Watch your mouths. I totally get on the subway now instead of walking ten blocks. I cringe with dread when I know I have to head all the way downtown for something. I have my groceries delivered because walking four blocks with a weeks worth of groceries is too exhausting. I HATE traveling cross-town even though I know Manhattan is only about three miles wide at it's widest point. But the real kicker?

Yesterday I dropped my laundry off to be washed for me. That's right. I can't even do my own laundry anymore. I'm actually paying someone else to do it for me.

I don't think I'm in the Valley anymore....

Didn't their mothers teach them manners?

I was on the C heading uptown today and the assface sitting across from me kept sneezing and coughing, really loudly, which, you know, fine, he's got a cold, but what's his excuse for not covering his mouth? For coughing and sneezing and spraying his saliva all over the people around him? Was he raised by cows? Cows don't have hands, they can't cover the mouths. PEOPLE DON'T HAVE THAT EXCUSE. Even though it felt like he was intentionally spreading his germs, I would have look passed it had he not also been hocking up loogies onto the floor of the train after every third cough.

This afternoon a woman came into the spa and stood at my desk, leaning over me, and started coughing all over me. She also did not put her hand over her mouth, but let her mucousy spittle spray all over my face and neck. I jumped backwards to get away from her and she screeched out in her old-lady-probably-been-smoking-for-50-years voice, "Oh, don't worry sweetheart. I don't have a cold. That's just a tickle in my throat." Then she proceeded to cough all over me some more.

THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN IN LOS ANGELES.

Overheard in New York

You must click here. Now.

Because I'm Not Scared Enough

This happened on the very train that I ride EVERY SINGLE day. Awesome.

The General Public is Creepy

This woman comes in to the spa and she wants to buy some make-up. I am very sweet and nice and smiley and I show her where we keep all our testers and I ask her what she's interested in. She sits down in the make-up chair and curtly says, "I tell you what I want and you go get it for me." I smile even though I want slap her. I walk over to the product closet and she spends the next fifteen minutes ordering me around, demanding certain colors, changing her mind, demanding other things, at one point she says, "Just move! Let me look for that!" And pushes me away from the product closet so she can look for something I'VE ALREADY TOLD HER WE DON'T EVEN CARRY.

When she is ready to pay, I ask her for her name so that I can look up her file. She turns her nose up at me and says, "Oh, I've never been here before." Though from the look on her face you'd think I just asked her if she'd ever eaten a bowl of steaming shit. I sweetly ask her to tell me her name so that I may put her into our system. Her eyes widen and she scoffs, "I don't want to be in your little system. No, you cannot have my name." As she handed me cash for the purchase she got this ugly, smug little look on her fat face and said, "See? I am paying in cash so you can't get my name off my credit card!" AND THEN SHE SMILED AT ME.

Then there's the lady that comes in for a treatment that I've tried myself several times, so I know what it feels like and I know that while it is a little uncomfortable, it is in no way painful. And I'm a total chicken. But this lady sits there and moans the entire time. Moans. Like this: "Ooooooohhhhhhh! Aaaaaaaaahhhhh! Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhh! Oooooaaaahhhh my! Oooooohhhhh! Oooooh! Uuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh! Hmmmmmmm. Uuuuhhhhh! Aaaah!" For the entire thirty minute treatment. It sounds like someone is shooting a bad porno in the treatment room. Afterwards, she refuses to come out of the room for at least ten minutes. The doctor leaves her in there alone so she can get dressed and then she locks herself in and won't come out for ten minutes. Today she was in there for over fifteen minutes. After she'd been in there for twelve minutes I knocked on the door and asked if everything was alright. She replied, "ah.... uh... yes!" I think she's snooping around in there, trying to find where the doctor keeps pill samples or something. Or maybe she's masturbating. Either way, it's really creepy. This is the same woman who is always asking me to charge her iPod for her, even though she knows that charging her iPod requires me to get on my hands and knees, crawl around under my desk, and move my entire computer. And while I'm crawling around on my hands and knees she stands there watching me. With this weird half-smile on her face. Like she's imagining me naked. 

Earlier today, on the bus, my anklet broke so I was bent over with my foot in my lap trying to fix it. This man getting on the bus taps me on the back and puts his face right in mine, so that I could smell his nasty gingivitis breath and says, "it's broken?". I looked at him with as much horror as I could muster (which was actually pretty easy to do as I was utterly horrified) and turned my back to him. Then I checked to make sure my skirt wasn't hiked up showing too much thigh or something, since apparently, accidentally showing a little skin is an invitation to be harassed by douche bags. My skirt was not hiked up. I was not showing too much skin. I fixed my anklet and picked up my book when the guy behind me starts saying, "Miss? Miss? Hello?" then he starts making little noises, little clicky, kissy, whistley, attention-getting noises. I ignore him, thinking he'll give up, BUT THEN HE TOUCHES ME. HE REACHES ACROSS THE AISLE OF THE BUS, OVER ANOTHER ROW OF SEATS AND TOUCHES MY BACK TO GET MY ATTENTION. When I jump, he says, "You fixed it?" I wheeled around, this time giving him the angriest, evilest, nastiest face I could make and growled, "Yes, it's fixed." He spent the next two blocks (and in Manhattan traffic two blocks is equal to about ten minutes) saying, "Fucking cunt. Fucking cunt-whore. Bitch. Fucking bitch-cunt-whore. I was just trying to be nice. Fucking bitch-whore. Fucker. Fucking being nice you fucking cunt." I managed to sit perfectly still, my face buried in my book as though I couldn't hear a word of the foul, vomitous, filth pouring out of his disgusting, rotted, vile mouth, until he got off the bus. But let me tell you. If I'd had it my way, my elbow would have landed a hard blow in his eye socket. And then I'd have punched him in the throat. And then kicked him in his stomach. And stomped on his balls. And then spit on him. Because that is a perfectly normal reaction to that situation, right?

Spring Fever: NYC through the eyes of a Valley Girl, Part II

Things About Spring In NYC That Baffled A Valley Girl

I'm reminded of that old standard, "...I like New York in June... How 'bout you?" I find myself humming it nearly every day as I wander the green shaded streets of Manhattan. As a Valley Girl, I've never experienced the joys of spring that follow a cold, bleak winter. It's really unbelievable. So unbelievable, I had to make another list of unbelievable things. Check it.

1) Blossoms. There was a moment in April when all of the trees still looked bare, but if you looked closely, you'd notice hundreds of tiny buds breaking out all over the branches. I left to visit L.A. for a week and when I came back the trees were just flourishing. I mean, covered in green. Flowers blooming everywhere. Window boxes spilling over with tulips and lilies, the little gated areas around the trees in the sidewalks (what are those things called, anyway?) crowded with pansies and daffodils and daisies. Everywhere is blooming. It's really really heavenly.

2) That old saying "April Showers bring May flowers" finally rings true. I never got that little ditty before because it doesn't rain in SoCal in April. But in NYC, jeez does it ever rain. And rain. And rain. For the first time in my life I had a legitimate need for rain boots. And a rain coat. And an umbrella. And although it might be funny to see someone else have their umbrella turned inside-out by the wind, it is NOT funny when it is happening to you.

3) And we're back to the "legitimate need for an over-sized bag" issue. Please see my paragraph on snow boots and the over-sized bag from Part I for more explanation.

4) The fact that I've become a bag lady. (No, I'm not talking about the over-sized bag now and no, I'm not insinuating that I'm a homeless lady who carries all her worldly belongings in sacks, but a girl who carries a lot of crap with her in lots of bags everywhere she goes.) In L.A., I own a car. I drive this car every day, all over town, from place to place. If I leave at 8 a.m. and spend my day running errands, blah, blah, blah, and don't return home until 8 p.m., I am able to keep all the stuff I'll need for the day in my car. No car in NYC. I use public transit. So, if I leave at 8 a.m. and hit an audition, run a couple errands, blah, blah, head home, I have had to carry all my stuff in my arms. By the time I get home, I'm a bag lady.

5) Aaand Again: ANOTHER legitimate reason to have an over-sized bag. It cuts down on the the number of plastic bags I have to carry with my hands. Not only do the bags start to slice into your flesh after a couple of hours, but it's nice to be hands-free in this city.

6) Let's talk about public transit. It doesn't really have anything to do with spring time, but I love it. Sure, a car is convenient in L.A. because public transit is scary and confusing and unreliable and icky. But in NYC, public transit is awesome. Even though it doesn't have a trunk to hold your stuff. The buses are... Clean. And full of little old ladies in fur coats. (Though why they can't wear cotton or nylon, I don't know.) Taxis are freakishly expensive and I avoid them at all costs. But, when in need, they are there. They are everywhere. And the subways... I adore the subways. Sure, they smell bad sometimes. Sure, they are over-crowded sometimes. But talk about convenient. And reliable. And easy. You know how I spend my thirty-minute commute? NOT feeling frustrated because of traffic. Instead I am quietly enjoying whatever book I happen to be reading. I've gotten a lot of reading done since I've moved here. Of course there are the subways at rush-hour which, at first, was completely surreal. I'm actually used to it now, but at first, it really freaked me out. You push your way into the train with about 700 other people who are all pushing you, and then you stand there, literally crammed in like a sardine and you can't help but be touching about 8 other people. You are pressed up against them on all sides. I always stare at my lapels because if I look straight ahead I'll be nose-to-nose with god-knows-who and that is very awkward. And there is always at least one crazy person who is singing or yelling or pooping on themselves in the corner and stinking up the whole car. But you gotta love it. It's great entertainment.

7) Homeless lady feet. Now that it's warm (read: miserably hot and humid) out, I wear my Crocs  everywhere I go. By the end of the day, my feet are black. My toes are black. I have to use (I'm not kidding) a pumice stone to scrub the icky black grime off of my feet at the end of every day. It's gross and embarrassing. I've taken to pointing my feet out to people, saying, "Hey! Check out how disgusting my feet are! Isn't that gross?" Because at least then they are aware that I am aware of how vile my feet are. 

8) Sweating Constantly. Do I really need to explain that?

We're running headlong into summer and so I'll be posting about that soon, I'm sure. I know, I know, you can barely sit still because of the anticipation.

Winter Wonderments: NYC through the eyes of a Valley Girl, Part I

(This blog was originally posted on Myspace, way back in April. But as I begin to make the transition from once-in-a-while Myspace blogger to pretty-regular Blogger.com blogger, I will be re-posting some of my original Myspace blogs into this account. I know, you're thrilled.)

I once said: "L.A. is home and NYC is weird. But weird in a way that is fantastic and fun and exciting and wonderful." (That's right kids, I totally just quoted myself.) I stand by that statement. Kind of. Except that NYC is starting to feel a little like home. And now that I am beginning to actually get used to the things that seemed so weird about NYC when I first moved here, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge those things before I forget them.

You see, I'm a born and raised Valley Girl. Like in the movies. I basically grew up at the mall. No, Daddy never gave me his credit card, though most of my friends did carry their parents' plastic. Up until recently, I could count the number of times I've seen snow on one hand. And if you asked me to tell you how many times I've seen snow that wasn't man-made, I'd say, "snow isn't man-made?" I like to consider myself a well-traveled individual, having made my way through seven foreign countries and several U.S. states, however, nothing could have prepared me for New York in winter. And apparently, this winter was a mild one, though I wouldn't say so. Before I moved, lots of people warned me that New York was very different from Los Angeles, but they were really vague. They said things like, "NYC is sooooo different from LA" but when I asked what made it different, they just stared at me blankly and muttered, "....uh.... the apartments are really small...." which did not at all help prepare me for the change. So this post is really for the benefit of any other Valley Girls/Boys or born-and-bred Los Angelinos who might be considering a move to NYC in the near future. 

Things About New York City in Winter That Completely Baffled A Little Valley Girl:

1) Old ladies in fur coats with matching fur hats. Seriously. I'm not even kidding. I've never seen so many women draped in dead animals in my entire life. And no one even blinks. No one cringes. No one thinks it's a problem. Somewhere in my head I understand that there are still people who think that dead animals make for good fashion, but I didn't really believe that was the case until I lived on the Upper East Side in February. I really had to restrain myself from buying a can of red spray paint.

2) The actual, legitimate need for snow boots. Who knew they were actually a necessity? Did you know that snow boots keep your feet warm and dry? Because I didn't! 

3) The legitimate need for a shoulder bag large enough to carry one's snow boots. Women inLA run around with these giant bags which is ridiculous since they have TRUNKS IN THEIR CARS to hold all their stuff. But in NYC, in February, if you are tromping to and from home to the subway to work and what not, you have to wear your snow boots. But you don't want to wear your snow boots at work (or in my case, in auditions). So you bring your nice shoes with you and put them in your over-sized bag. Then, once you've put your nice shoes on, you need a place to put your snow shoes. Ah Ha! This is when the over-sized bag comes in handy. 

4) Let's talk about snow that feels like sand being blasted against your face. Holy Crap. Now I know what the mean when they say someone has "weathered" skin. 

5) Automatic heat. Um, WEIRD. I've visited/stayed in at least six different apartments in totally different areas of the city and they all have heat that is controlled by the building. It gets so hot that you control the temperature in your apartment by opening or closing the window. The heat comes out of a radiator. I'd never seen one before. You can drape your soggy socks over your radiator and an hour later they're dry. At first I was worried my socks would catch fire, but everyone does it. You can also put a pot of water on top of the radiator and it helps bring moisture into the room because the winters here are very very dry.

6) The actual and legitimate need to dry clean one's coat more than once a year. In L.A. I barely wore my winter coat often enough to warrant a dry cleaning once every three years. But I wore my coat so often the first few months I was here, and so often while sitting next to a stinky homeless guy on the subway, that next winter I will definitely need to get into the habit of dry cleaning my coat at least once a month. Maybe more often. Which means I'll actually need more than one winter coat because I will need something to wear while the first coat is at the cleaners. Which means I will need to go shopping.

7) Snow. At night, walking home from the subway station, the snow looks like glitter as it falls below the street lights. It's absolutely gorgeous. Icicles form on the street lights too, and they glitter and glisten like diamonds. Breathtaking. 

8) The ability to genuinely say, "The weather is so nice today!" when it's 22 degrees outside. (You know, when it's been 15 degrees all week, 22 feels tropical.)

9) Slush. I now understand why people say snow is only pretty the first time it falls in the winter and then it just sucks balls.

10) Frozen rats. I only saw one. It was on the sidewalk, up against a building on 34th and 8th. I cannot tell you how badly I wanted to pick it up and put it in my pocket and bring it home as a souvenir. But then I thought about the reaction I would get from the people around me and I decided it probably wasn't worth the commotion I might cause. Although looking back on it, it SO would have been worth it.

Perhaps you can begin to understand how all these things might shock a little sheltered Valley Girl like me. I wonder if next winter these things will still hold all the shiny newness they held for me this year? We'll just have to wait and see.

Next up: Spring Fever: NYC through the eyes of a Valley Girl, Part II