Vote!

I voted in today’s local elections and was saddened by the absolute dismal turnout. At 8am I was the ONLY person in my polling place. I live in NYC….you are never ANYWHERE without a hundred other people.

Vote people! Not everyone everywhere gets to!

The New Employee Health Care Plan

I was in the need of some retail therapy last week so I hit up some stores and did some shopping after work one night. I decided on my purchases (a little black dress, some jeans, a sweater coat and a new handbag) and took them to the register.

A young woman started ringing me up. As she is touching my clothes, this is the conversation we have:

Salesgirl: “I threw up this morning”

Me: “Uh….um that’s too bad”

Salesgirl: “I have a fever now…” She proceeds to LEAN OVER THE COUNTER. “don’t I feel warm?”

Me: “uh……..uh huh….feel better”

I jetted out of there SO FAST and immediately threw my clothes in pile to be washed.

I feel like I should have at least gotten a co-pay for that.

I’m beginning to think I’m a one date pony.

Really Senator Wilson? REALLY?

Old Chatty Coffee Men

For those of you who don’t know me in real life, I have a bit of a reputation for being….shall we say less than pleasant before I’ve had my morning coffee. At work, people have been known to cancel meetings with me if the coffee maker is broken. Most people know not to try to engage me in conversation before noon.

There is one exception to this rule. No matter what time of the morning I go to Starbucks on Sundays, I ALWAYS seem to end up in line next to an chipper, chatty old man who wants to engage me in coffee nostalgia. “When I was young, we didn’t have all these highfalutin choices!” “What’s wrong with just a plain ole cup of joe” “What do we need all these fancy high tech machinery just for makin’ coffee”.  It takes everything I have to just smile and nod.

Until I hear the barrista take his order: “A skinny vanilla latte, no foam extra hot”.

Regular cup of Joe indeed.

I don’t believe in Regret

But I REALLY wish I had turned around and punched the guy behind me on the escalator this morning who kept touching my ass.

Cinematic Perfectionism

I’ve been making my way through the classic movies of the 1980s recently. My weekends lately have been a marathon of Top Gun, 16 Candles, Pretty in Pink, Say Anything and of course, The Breakfast Club. I am amazed at how timeless they all seem. Thankfully, the antics of youth and dramatic brushes with love seem to transcend the era of tight rolled jeans and blue eyeshadow.

I can’t remember the last time I went to see a movie in the theatre. I don’t have the stamina for the emotional manipulation and heart attack inducing effects of most 21st century movies. Present day movies strive for a level of perfection that turns me off. Every scene is over edited, every character controlled and flawless. The movies of the 80s have a raw, pureness to them that I can appreciate. The focus back then seemed to be more on the characters and their story and less about making the audience uncomfortable by the exploitation of shock value.

Society’s ongoing inclination to accept nothing less than perfect pains me. We airbrush out wrinkles, freckles and frizz. We squeeze ourselves into Spanx to achieve that “perfect” hourglass shape. We augment, wax, whiten, tan and tweeze to achieve a singular look that is visually pleasing to others. The notion of plurality clearly lost amongst the shelves of Sephora.

Sometimes I long for the days of untucked flannel shirts and ripped jeans. The blue eyeshadow I could certainly do without though.

Iconoclast

My penchance for the news includes celebrity news and gossip. I work primarily in the music/entertainment industry and try to keep as current as possible. I have been following the Rihanna/Chris Brown abuse story since the beginning and find my heart breaking a little more each day as new details emerge.

When I heard last week they had reconciled, I was saddened. Not just for Rihanna, but for all the girls and young women who now have the message that it is acceptable to live with abuse. So few women leave after the first beating and I wish she had been able to serve as an example to millions that preservation of self worth needs to be valued above all else.

I was struck once again yesterday when I read the actual warrant and affidavit (PDF) from the night of her beating. Her self-defense strategies were perfect. Locking her hands behind her head and shielding her face with her elbows, pretending to talk to friends on the phone asking them to send help, hiding the car keys so he couldn’t get away, these are not simply instinctual strategies. These come from experience. I fear that she has been through this before and will likely endure it again.

As women we don’t walk away when we should. We don’t stand up and say enough when we should. When someone takes our choices away from us all too often we don’t fight hard enough to get them back.

I know I didn’t.

Fallen

I fell into the trap of daily monotony today.

But hey, at least I have wine and candles

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Contradiction of the Worst Kind

A ran into a coworker in the elevator this morning who was carrying his tux and he mentioned he was going to a charity event tonight for New Yorkers who live on the streets.

Black tie benefits to help the homeless.

Normally, I am the biggest proponent of contradiction, but this is just ridiculous.