May 13 2013
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eatin', life lessons

mayonnaise: a love story

One of my fun quirks is that I love dividing the world into two kinds of people. Here are some of the ways in which I divide the global population:

  1. People who don’t eat nuts at bars because they know that nut bowls are the most unsanitary place to put your hand, and people who do eat nuts at bars despite knowing that nut bowls are the most unsanitary place to put your hand.
  2. People who call movies “films” and people who call movies “movies.” (If you read that sentence carefully, you’ll find out where I stand!)
  3. People who call D Coke “Diet Coke” and people who call D Coke “D Coke.” (Again, my views are clear).
  4. Lil Kim fans vs. Nicki Minaj fans
  5. People who think they always choose the longest line at the supermarket, and people who have more legitimate ways of understanding their lives.

(and finally / most importantly)

6. People who love mayo and people who don’t love mayo.

Now, some background on number six, which I consider to be the most important mechanism by which we can understand the goodness of people. There are few things I love more than mayo. Actually, now that I think of it, the things I love more than straight mayo are actually mayo-related (dipping sauces, my curvaceous build, salads where you can’t really taste the leaf part).

yes.

yes.

I also love people who really own loving mayo. No, it doesn’t count when people say, “I mean, I’m not disgusted by mayo. I’ll eat it if it’s mixed in with something, and I can’t really notice it.” I know this is harsh, but I put these kids on the same level as people who are disturbed by the taste/texture/existence of mayo. How could you taste mayo and not want to stand on top of a mountain and scream “I love mayo!!!” for all to hear? I have done this, and it feels right.

One of my closest friends loathes mayo. She doesn’t like to be near it, even. Which is a testament to her character, because she has to be twice as cool for me to call her one of my closest friends. It’s like how on American Idol the black contestants have to be twice as talented to not get voted off.

I had a boyfriend who hated mayonnaise, and I’m not saying that’s why we broke up, but I am saying this says something larger about his character.

Because mayo really is the best of all the flavors: eggs, oil, salt, pepper.  And the textures: smooth, creamy, luscious. So naturally, I’m weirded out by people who DESPISE mayonnaise. And I’m equally weirded out by the less militant mayonnaise skeptics, who need to be tricked somehow, perhaps by an untraditional preparation or the word “aioli,” before they ingest it.

Today I got a text from a guy who I haven’t seen in about a month. He texted me: “It’s May time. It’s Mayo time.”

I’m not super confident. I don’t love myself the way yogurt commercials want me to. But I am so in love with the fact that when this guy thinks of mayonnaise, he thinks of me. At least I’m doing something right.

I want to always be the person people think of when they think of mayonnaise, in the instances (however few) that mayonnaise makes people think of a person.

NOTE: As I mentioned earlier in the text, I don’t hate people who hate mayo. If you hate mayo and we’re friends, feel flattered and honored that you have double the cool qualities. You must be pretty special to make up for your strange and, honestly, disturbing aversion to God’s nectar.

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May 08 2013
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nyc livin', operation empathize with men, thinkin'

errbody a little bit shallow

My friend and I were drinking at a dive bar on Avenue A called Lucy’s, which may be my new favorite go-to spot. Why? Old Polish woman bartender who doesn’t card but asks, “Are you over 21?”. Well-lit. Only slightly depressing rundown-suburban-diner-decorated-for-the-holidays vibe. Extremely generous drinks: by which I mean, I ordered a rum and coke, and was given a glass of rum splashed with about a tablespoon of Coke.

Anyhow, we were approached by a round older man—maybe late 30’s, early 40’s—who kept coming up behind us, trying to trick us into engaging with him. His mouth made noises that definitely weren’t words—sounds that could have been words if language had evolved differently—and none of his body movements seemed deliberate.

In this sort of situation, my instinct is to be nice, to respond to people, but when someone isn’t making words, just insinuating words with slow and exaggerated facial expressions, I really can’t.

I do wonder, if he had been younger and better built, with more hair…and if I had one rum with Coke extract more sober, would I have entertained his antics?

Maybe I would have given him a few more minutes.

For example. The next night, at a different bar with a different friend, a different man (young, blonde, wearing a lime green bow-tie, thus straddling the line between super earnest and super ironic in a way that confused me) came up to me, and asked, “Snapchat?”

“Sorry?”

“Snapchat!” he repeated. He leaned down, put his phone in front of me, and took a Snapchat picture of us. I told him I didn’t have Snapchat, and he urged me to start an account and add him. He said his Snapchat username over and over—and made me say it back to him each time—so I would remember. He then told us to meet him in the back room, and disappeared.

I instantly forgot his username and his name name, but I didn’t soon forget him. I was charmed by his kooky approach. And maybe the difference between charmed and disturbed is a nice face and an irony-ambiguous bowtie.

Like I may or may not have recently hooked up with someone who used the word “vicariously” superrrrrr wrong. Like, inexcusably wrong. (“I was jumping around vicariously from job to job.”) But he was cute.

Still trying to manage the shame of that.

May 08 2013
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Uncategorized

rooftop tuesdays

ImagePeople hate Mondays, but they should hate Tuesdays more. Why? Because Tuesdays are disarmingly terrible. You expect to hate Monday – it’s the first day back to work or school after two days of uninhibited TV watching and snacking. There’s a model for Monday-hating. And there are many platforms on which one can express Monday-hatred to strangers or friends: on elevators, literal platforms (of the subway/train varietal), Facebook, Twitter, lazy stand-up routines, etc.

I’m trying to create a space for Tuesday-hating. Why are Tuesdays worse than Mondays? First of all, you wake up in the morning and there isn’t a new Game of Thrones or Veep waiting for you on the Internet. Second of all, any lingering effects of weekend relaxation have worn off, and the next weekend is super far away. Because the next day is Wednesday, and then there are two more days after Wednesday before the weekend. At least with Monday, there’s been such a legitimization and normalization of dreading it. Tuesday dread hasn’t yet reached the mainstream. It looms over you, but you can’t quite place it. You might just think, Ugh, I feel shitty, or, Ugh, I have to wait 5 more days until the next Game of Thrones. 

Which brings me to my particular pet project – making Tuesdays not only tolerable, but enjoyable.

I’ve been coercing/tricking people to come over to my roof every Tuesday for drinks and star-gazing. Yes, you can see star(s) in Bushwick. And the beautiful Manhattan skyline.

And even though I now wake up on Wednesday mornings – head-aching and mouth parched and/or stuffed with a half-eaten chicken parm – and re-remember why people don’t drink on Tuesdays, I find myself, come Monday, eagerly anticipating Tuesday debauchery.

I encourage everyone to participate in this tradition, whether remotely or on my roof!

Also I’ve discovered a great new summer cocktail, which I’m going to call The Headache: lots of limoncello + lots of andré + ice + little to no respect for your body’s well-being.

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Apr 23 2013
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drinkin'

some bathroom graffiti / thoughts from bushwick’s best and brightest

 

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Apr 22 2013
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thinkin'

performance anxiety

Yesterday, Sunday, I promised myself I would write one sentence.

I had 15 hours of zero obligations. Zero reasons to leave the house or even my bed, except to do essential things, like urinate, buy bacon egg and cheese sandwiches across the street, and investigate the jelly bean drawer in my desk (I have a jelly bean drawer in my desk) to see if there were any cotton candy ones left.

I don’t really know how I filled that whole day, but I managed to fill it with 15 hours worth of activities that were not writing a sentence, the one thing I had set out to do.

I read some sentences, though. I read the first sentences of a whole bunch of New Yorker articles. I read headlines on Nytimes.com and Slate.com.

I picked at my cuticles, painted my nails blue and then pink and then sat on my balcony, looking out at Bushwick and realizing, for the first time, that when I changed in front of the window, as I did every morning and night, I was highly visible.

I went on Youtube and exhausted all of their pug-related material. I ate tortilla chips off of my stomach and thought about how sad it was that I’d already forgotten everything I learned in college. I thought about how sad it was that eating tortilla chips off of my stomach had become commonplace.

But I couldn’t write a sentence. Today, I’m trying to make up for yesterday, and the past month or so, by writing a few sentences. Even now I’m struggling. Between writing “eating tortilla chips off of my stomach” and “had become commonplace,” I spent an hour tweezering my eyebrows and experimenting with old eyeliners. I just drew a butterfly on my cheek.  And then I drew an ice cream cone on the other cheek. (Face cheeks, guys. Face cheeks. Things haven’t gotten that bad.)

I don’t know why I’m having so much trouble writing. This whole predicament sort of reminds me of when a stranger gets on the elevator, and all of a sudden I become really interested in the ceiling. I’ll stare at the ceiling for however many seconds it takes for the other person to leave. I want to look like I’m thinking: Wow, that ceiling is really something, I’m so fascinated by ceilings. This ceiling reminds me of some other ceilings I’ve seen. When I’m actually thinking: I can’t interact with a human right now. I just can’t. There is nothing distinctive happening with the weather. I’ve got nothing.

Only this staring at the ceiling to avoid writing (which was the human in the metaphor…so many layers of meaning, I know) has lasted for months!

its only a matter of time until i give myself a bowl cut

its only a matter of time until i give myself a bowl cut

Has anyone seen the 2nd season of Girls? I feel like I’m about to give myself a strange bowl cut. I’ll do anything, anything, anything, to avoid writing.

I just went to www.pitchfork.com. What??!? I don’t even follow music anymore.

I think I’m terrified of this big writing project I’m considering starting. Once I start, there’s no going back. And how am I supposed to start when I’m not sure I’m good enough?? I mean, I just wrote the phrase “there’s no going back,” surely there are thousands, probably millions, of writers who have a strong enough command of language to come up with a fresh, more precise way of saying “there’s no going back.” And these are the writers who should be starting the big writing projects.

Ok, I’m going to go revisit jelly bean drawer.

If you’ve made it this far in my post…you are the one who really deserves some jelly beans.

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Mar 21 2013
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eatin', nyc livin', snax

yummy tacos and margz worth the voyage northward

Living in Brooklyn has impacted my life in many ways. For example, I’ve developed a complex about not liking Kombucha (am I missing something here?!? What am I missing?!?!). I’ve also developed a complex about my lack of vintage pieces (and abundance of Marshall’s/Target pieces) and my failure to own or ride a bike. But one of the most crucial ways in which Brooklyn has informed my day-to-day life is that I never, ever go uptown, ever. So much so that my notion of “uptown” is 34th street, and midtown, Union Square. In fact, after living in New York for 8 months, I’ve only really been uptown once. It was when I visited the MET for the Matisse exhibit, which I was so, so excited about because I know who Matisse is and even saw some of his paintings in Paris, making me a veritable Matisse expert.

photo courtesy of grub street

photo courtesy of grub street

However, my most recent journey “uptown,” aka 39th street, has totally changed my tune, and I anticipate making the journey many, many, more times. Why? Because I ate at Salvation Taco, the fabulous April Bloomfield’s new taco joint, located in Pod 39 Hotel. I know, I know, hotel restaurants aren’t often tastiest, or the hippest, or the not depressingest. BUT, the vibe here is fun and young and dangggggg the tacos are pretty spectacular (and served family style, for easy sharing or binge eating alone).

Must eat: The tomatillo and Jicama Salad, Chips and Guac, Crispy Pig Ears, Tacos with Roasted Cauliflower and Curried Crema, Fried Fish Taco with Mayan Mayo. OH, and THE MARGZ. The Salvation Margarita is truly perfect: just the right amount of tang, just the right amount of not-over-bearing sweetness, and a rim coated in Guajillo chili salt. If you’re looking for a beverage that’s a little more delicate, I advise you try La Palomita: vodka, grapefruit soda, lime, and vanilla-salt. I honestly could have eaten a bucket of that vanilla salt and would have happily accepted my subsequent death. It was just that delightful.

You win this one, uptown.

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Mar 09 2013
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drinkin', nyc livin', sexy times, thinkin', Uncategorized

the booty tweet

I always think I’ve exhausted all the ways a human can drunkenly humiliate his/herself, and I’m always mistaken. The truth is, I’m constantly stumbling upon new and creative ways to embarrass myself while inebriated. A few antics from recent memory: trying to steal people’s dogs, insisting on eating sandwiches cross-legged on the street, trying to form lifelong bonds with cab drivers who don’t feel like forming lifelong bonds with me, finding innovative places to pee, jogging in heels while inexplicably screaming things like “I was a field hockey major!” or “It ain’t about that life!” These are all relatively inoffensive, and honestly, don’t embarrass me that much. I have a pretty high-threshold for embarrassment. I think once you get eliminated from your 6th grade spelling bee for spelling S-N-O-W-B-O-X when the word was “snowshoe,” shame is just something you learn to manage.

I’ve found that my worst offenses—the ones that fill my hungover mornings with the most self-loathing and self-loathing-inspired donut consumption—is when I text people I shouldn’t—old flames, new flames, old bosses, old crushes, mom?, etc. Sometimes I’m saved by the incomprehensibility of my texts. Like if I see in the morning I texted a guy “youh gfin to 2n!”, I feel relieved that I didn’t totally betray my intentions or have the fine-motor skills to write what I wanted to, “Hey, you still up? Let’s have relations.”

I’ve been trying to work on this, but it’s really hard. It’s really hard to soberly set a system in place that will hold when you’re drunk. Because after a few drinks, all inhibitions go out the window (they so warned me about that in middle school health class), and most things seem like a good idea even though most things aren’t. Three grilled cheeses? Bad idea. Changing your profile pic to a Photobooth selfy that you had dragged into Iphoto and adjusted the exposure to make it look edgy? Bad idea. Eating a whole container of gummy vitamins? Delicious but bad idea.

Up until last night, I thought regrettable texts were the worst kind of bad idea. But yet again, I surprised myself and found a new and way more public bad idea: the booty tweet.

That’s right, the booty tweet. Who knew that was a category of thing? I told my friend this morning about it, and he called me a pioneer. Would I call myself I’m a pioneer? Probably not. Do I see myself as an innovator in the field of drunken embarrassment? Sure. Would I booty tweet again? Never. But probably, because apparently I have no agency over my behavior.

So here’s what happened. To prevent myself from texting regrettable things (“u still uP?” “fuxk u ur an asshole” “;) ;) ;) ”) to regrettable people, I’ll often delete numbers from my phone. You would think that would be enough to prevent me from contacting them, but as I learned last night, it’s not. Because now, with modernity and stuff, we have all these platforms for communicating with people. Definitely too many platforms.

I was at my friend’s house, talking to her friend, who mentioned knowing a guy—let’s call him Bruce—who I had hooked up with way back in August. I hadn’t thought about Bruce in forever, but just talking about him for a second was enough to compel me to text him right away. Oh, and the bottle of wine / multiple beers helped with that, too. Upon seeing that I had long deleted his number from my phone—sober Maria is bright, but watch, she’s about to get foiled again!—drunken Maria remembered that she followed Bruce on Twitter. I remembered Bruce lived somewhere around where we were—by Franklin Avenue in Crown Heights. So I Tweeted at him, “hey @bruce near franklin street, where id hit up?” I can’t say why that had made sense to me. There’s really no way of knowing.

This morning I saw that tweet on my Twitter and almost died. I deleted it instantly, obviously, and saw that he hadn’t responded, obviously. I guess things could have been worse. Way worse. The day was actually looking pretty ok. I had just woken up with a half-eaten eggplant parm sandwich on my stomach. And days that begin with Surprise Breakfast are the best days.

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Mar 09 2013
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nice

reunited with my best friend / co-pilot

right when i entered the house: rocky pre- and post-jump

right when i entered the house: rocky pre- and mid-jump

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Mar 08 2013
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nyc livin', operation empathize with men, operation hold men accountable, thinkin'

operation empathize with men

If you’ve read my blog or met me or know (or are) a similarly embittered young woman, you shouldn’t be surprised when I say I resent men: for a) earning more b) not needing to menstruate c) having statistically lower body fat percentages d) lots of other reasons, many valid and most ridiculous. I’ve even written a few posts categorized under “Operation Hold Men Accountable,” in which I embarrass myself calling out certain man behavior (manhavior!) that I think is fucked up. When I say embarrass myself I guess I mean more…irrevocably mortify myself, especially when I post about specific encounters that I know very specific people will read. Oh, and just like, knowing my parents and Jesus have probably read my thoughts on hand jobs, that’s rough.

But I’ve come to terms with being the Crazy Bitch who calls people out. I realize it might not be a good look, but at the same time, everyone said mom jeans weren’t a good look and now they’re sold in American Apparel and worn by Barack Obama, so yeah.

Yet being the Crazy Bitch can get tiresome—it scares people away. Plus, it involves expecting humans to act in a certain way, and expecting things of humans can never end well. Just refer to all of literature ever, or life. And when it comes to 20-something men, I’ve learned to expect more base-level decency/maturity from my Louie CK poster, umbrella, hair straightener, or really any of the inanimate objects in my room that I’m looking at and randomly listing.

Wow, so that was a super roundabout way of announcing a new series, (of which this will probably be the only entry), called Operation Empathize with Men. Because the more I’ve lived in this city—and been wronged—the more I’ve seen that men have it really fucking hard, too.

Here are some things I suspect are hard for men: a) Many men have mustaches even though it will decrease their chances of sleeping with a woman from decent chance to zero chance, zero chance at all. B) Men have to pay for drinks a lot, and girls take advantage of this, as they should, because men usually get paid more, wait, sorry, sorry, back to empathy C) The pressure to confirm to certain standards of masculinity must be really exhausting. Like, being expected to approach girls and ask girls on dates, rather than vice-versa, invites so many different kinds of ways to be rejected. <-I’ll come back to this. D) Men are mean to each other. Women are obviously meaner to each other—in subtler, more psychologically fucked up ways–but from what I gather, men don’t get to talk about feelings as much in their man friendships (manships!). This is why fat, outcast boys in movies (Up! being the most depressing movie on the planet, even though that old man eventually accepts the adorable, round boy) always make me cry—who are they going to get to talk to about being fat? No one, is who. No one. And they’re going to get picked last for kickball. At least in my middle school, girls could opt out of playing the sports and just walk around the track instead, so we could totally just bypass that trauma.

But back to reason C of why men have it rough. They have to (or feel compelled to) hit on girls, and how creepy they come off is directly correlated with how attractive they are, which is terrible. And even when beyond the superficial—which certainly haunts women, as well—there are so many missteps a man can make as he navigates the tumultuous, choppy seas (sorry for that) of hitting on a woman. To illuminate: a scene from my life. I was at a bar with a friend, and a generally hairy, plump-from-daily-beer-consumption, goofy-toothed young man approached me.

Man: Hey, how are you?

Me: Good, how are you?

Man: Great! The second you two walked in the bar, I was like, woah, girls!

Me: Ha

Man: Haha, I mean no, I mean. There are a lot of dudes here.

Me: Yeah. Very high dick-to-chick ratio.

Man: It’s because, well, you know that if you Google “best bars pick up girls in NYC” this place comes up? That’s why there are so many dudes here! I mean tourists Google that. I’ve obviously never Googled that. I live right next door, I’m not a tourist. Right across the street there! With my buddy.

Me: Wow, cool. (<–I swear I’m being friendly and not sarcastic here).

Man: Do you like sushi? And sake? There’s this all you can drink, all you can eat sushi place near by. We should all go on a double date! The four of us. We’d pay of course–me and my buddy.

Me: (Genuinely excited about any all you can drink, all you can eat opportunities) I love sushi.

Man: We should do it! We would pay.

Me: (am I supposed to thank him?) (…ok, I choose silence)

Man: We could also all go back to my apartment. It’s right there, across the street!

We didn’t all go back to his apartment, but I let him have my number, because I felt bad about (and was pretty impressed by) how horrifically that conversation had gone.

He texted me the next day asking how I was. I said good. He asked if I wanted to go out that night, and I just couldn’t respond. The next day, he texted me a picture of himself at work with a penis etched going into his mouth, and then wrote, “busy at work hahaha.”

I wondered what part of him thought that would be a really smart, suave, even borderline funny move. Once again, I couldn’t bring myself to respond. Praise baby Jesus, he didn’t text me back this time. Because—and I think this is universally understood—once you strike out in any way involving a picture of yourself and genitalia, drawn or real, you probably can’t bounce back from that.

At least when I take textual risks with a guy, it’s already doomed because, well, women aren’t expected to pursue guys—in fact, that in itself is often the deal-breaker.

But guys—expected to pursue—must come up with creative ways to move interactions, text exchanges, and relationships forward.

So I’ll say it here: I empathize with you, and I’m sorry.

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Feb 25 2013
3 Comments
drinkin', eatin', nyc livin', snax

brooklyn wreck room

One of my least favorite parts of New York besides the urine smell and the crushing of many of my hopes and dreams is the relative lack of bars where you can drink and snack inexpensively. Drinking and snacking are two of my favorite pastimes, and they pair exceptionally well together—even better, I would say, than watching TV and snacking, or sleeping and snacking. (Stay tuned for a post on my sleep-eating-capades. People have been known to take advantage of this weakness; one friend, who is definitely reading this (oh heyyyy giri!), once cruelly fed me a baguette in my sleep at a high school sleepover function.)

So back to drinking and snacking—wonderful activities. But I can’t spend a lot of money on it because I need to save my money for things like rent and clothing that doesn’t make me look like riff raff. Fortunately, living in Buswhick means a) it’s okay, even preferred, to look like riff raff and b) there are a lot of inexpensive venues at which one can drink and snack.

One of my favorites is Brooklyn Wreck Room, located at 940 Flushing Ave in my Bushwick hood. This place is literally everything you imagine when I say Bushwick. Really, whatever gross generalizations / cartoonish associations you have with Buswhick is exactly what this place is. Graffiti, DJ sets, lots of different kinds of hats and facial hairs, ironic T-shirts, a face tattoo every so often, etc. Oh, and there’s a wonderful 5 dollar tequila shot and can of Tecate special! But the best part of Wreck room is that it’s ATTACHED to a fried rice ball place called Arancini. They make killer rice balls for $4. My favorite is the Bianco Rosso: a sizeable, crispy fried ball of risotto stuffed with cherry tomato, pesto, and mozzarella cheese. Here’s a terrible pic of it:

oozy goodness

oozy goodness

While this isn’t the place I hit up to shark for lads (oh my god its been so long I don’t even know the expressions the young people are using for this), I definitely met a cute deaf guy there once, and you really can’t beat a place where a shot, beer, and giant fried rice ball cost only $10.

pretty edgy, huh!

pretty edgy, huh!

even edgier!

even edgier!

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