Spiderman in Penn Station

Sometimes parents really seem to amaze me with how to deal with their children. I was in Penn station the this weekend and saw these two little boys literally full out fighting each other. Don't get me wrong it was really cute but also really scary for the boy that was loosing the fight. As in most fights that happen there was crowd of people surrounding these boys as they fought each other. I don't think that many people whole have been watching them besides the fact that they were wearing spiderman costumes. 

These kids weren't gentle with each other at all. They were really going at it, rolling on the floor and everything. Now these kids were around 5 years old so there punches to each other probably didn't really hurt that much but they totally seemed like they wanted to kill each other. They were yelling and screaming at each as if they were in their house, everyone could hear them. It was nuts. 

What really surprised me the most was that the mother was right there in front of them watching her kids beat each other up in public and didn't care or try to stop them. She was laughing and talking to her friends the whole time. I don't know how long they were there for because I only walked past them but they looked like weren't leaving anytime soon. 

I thought the whole thing was funny especially since they were in spiderman costumes, it was your typical NYC  mom who was more focused on her social life than her children. After living here for about 2 years now I've now come to good understanding on how NYC moms like to live their lives having children. What I saw in Penn Station was a great example of that. 

2nd Avenue Accident

This post will stray from tradition, however I find it to be important enough to make the exception as it is an experience I will surely never forget. On March 19th, Tuesday night, there was an accident on 96th and 2nd. On my way home from class, I had been intercepted by a few friends that said, "we're going to investigate!". Eager for adventure, I joyously followed.

Upon inquiring on what we were pursuing, I was somewhat disturbed. Apparently at 8:30 a worker had fallen 75 feet into a construction hole. He survived the landing, but debris began to collapse around him. As if things couldn't get any worse for him, the mud beneath him began to act as quick sand and sucked him in. 

When we got there, the streets were filled with fire trucks in the preliminary stages of the rescue. We wondered to find out more information and as time passed we found ourselves surrounded by Fox 5, ABC news, Pix 11 and NBC. There was a certain adrenaline that went with seeing all these broadcasters but was quickly replaced by what we had saw after.

Things began to get chaotic. Fire trucks were filling the streets and we were trapped in the media line. As we escaped, we saw a fireman carrying another fireman. The second was coated head to toe in mud and was trembling. The bottle of water he held in his hand was splashing in every direction until there was hardly any left. He was barely audible,  but all we caught from him was, "He's down there... he's down there," with exasperated breath. 

I found it to be inappropriate to snap a photo of that man, but I did manage to take a few pictures of the scene. It was all very overwhelming.

The Dapper Man that Saved My Day

I woke up to the sound of my door buzzer this morning. Half-awake, I descended to the front door and was warned by my landlord that our garbage cans were in organizational disarray and a fine from the sanitation department was eminent. Before I was able to bathe, eat, or change my clothes, I was on my scooter to get regulation trash bags from the grocery store. It was a stressful morning. I was also very dehydrated and when I get dehydrated I get very cranky.

I purchased my garbage bags and was walking out of the store in a pessimistic mood. It's difficult to feel good about your living situation when the demanding recycling habits of the city require you to ride a child's vehicle half a mile to find a store. I felt a weight in my chest pulling me down, figuratively, until I looked up and saw this man:

This older gentleman adorned leather shoes, slacks, a knee length woolen coat, and a freaking top hat. It took me a second or two to register the top hat when I saw it. It was a very real, non-ironic top hat. Something about that made me feel immediately better. It was the whole moment, I should say. I was behind the man, shuffling through a Spanish-speaking grocery store between rusty gumball machines and an ill-positioned movie rental kiosk while morning sunlight shone in from in front of us. Nowhere else, I thought, has this moment ever occurred to anybody else. The mild absurdity made me feel lucky to be alive right there, and no amount of sanitation scolding could make me question the eclectic beauty of my city.

Pets are People Too!

                So I am a babysitter for three children who I cannot tolerate any day of the week. They are so awful I am praying for June to come so I can quit and hopefully never see them again. However this is not what I want to discuss as my topic for the day.
                Since I am these demons sitter, I typically take them to and from places because their mother is too lazy to do it. I can either pick them up or drop them off from school (which is 99% of the time), a friend’s house, religion school, the park, or even the tutor. It is okay, you can feel bad for me because I do. Although, I take them all over the city I tend to meet a lot of people and beautiful strangers. For example, one time at the tutor’s office the cutest and very well spoken four year old had a great conversation together. That is when you know I need more things to do in my life when I claim I had a great conversation with someone who is not even 3 times my age. But that just proves it is always possible to talk to literally every kind of person. Anyways, this example is leading up to the story I want to share today.
                It started off a typical day; the “mother” texting me to pick up the 2 other kids at school instead of the usual oldest kid who I have to pick up. Let’s keep in mind, that I really cannot tolerate the younger 2 children because they are annoying beyond belief; on the walk home they always ask to get McDonalds because it is on the way.
                Besides that I always show up to the school earlier then I have to be there since I do that I typically sit on an extremely cold step and literally freeze my ass off. For some reason that day was different. It was almost like fate really.
                As I am sitting there is a woman’s ass to the left of me, right in front of my face fortunately she didn’t fart and moved. I discovered the reason why her ass was in my face: she was tying her dog to the fence! And he was so precious! I don’t know anything about dogs when it comes to their race or species but he was black and white and medium sized (not that you can’t see for yourself).
                It was like something from a movie when we connected. Like there was that cheesy sentimental music playing in the background and everything. I blew a kiss at him and he came to me; he was attracted to me like bug to the light. At first I thought he was just being polite and courteous to me and thought to himself, “look at this pathetic bitch, sitting all by herself.” I started to caress him and stroke his back for a quick second and then I stopped. Shortly after I stopped paying him attention he jumped on me and practically begged for more of touch, I couldn’t say no, that face was too precious. Thus, I caressed him some more. It was nice too; he was enjoying it, I was thinking that I just made a new friend but then he changed quickly.
                I was petting him I must have hit a spot that is a no-no because he had the nerve to snap at me! Like I was being all gentle with him and he had the audacity to snap at me. So offended. He felt the need to snap at me, so I felt the need to stop petting him, but he didn’t think that we should end on those kind of terms. What does he do? He shows that real puppy dog face and my heart melted so I go back to petting him. Yes, I am a sucker for the puppy dog face. Only on dogs.
                Now round 3 of petting my new friend and I noticed his collar. The collar had his information on it! Now I could call him by his name or return him if he broke free of the fence and followed me home (the chance of me calling him by his name was extremely unlikely, you know what I mean?). I found out that his name was “Dyson” like the vacuum cleaner, and Dyson lived on 66^th street somewhere. I don’t remember the important stuff like his owners or where to call if he actually got lost but I remembered his name and street number and that is good enough for me.
                So now when I pick up the two kids that I hate the most I now have Dyson to look forward to, to help brighten my day.

I Now Have Friends in Small Places

        What started out as a halal date with Ambrina's boyfriend turned into meeting someone I hope I have a chance to see again.

Now where do we begin:
The night before I recieved a phone call from Ambrina telling me that Colin, his friend from home, like Ohio home, herself, and I that we were all going to go the famous halal truck guys on 56th and 6th avenue. This is was considered the date that Colin owed me from this past summer; so I was all gung -ho about going. I had no clue or interest in Colin's friend from Ohio because those Ohions' can be a little "out there."

The day of:
We had all decided to meet up with each other at the infamous halal truck. Right on the corner of 56th and 6th. Without a doubt, I arrived first. I was slightly nervous if anyone was going to actually get there on time because the goal was to meet at 3pm; with our group the idea of meeting at a specific time was unheard of.

Moving on:
I arrive right on the corner in front of some weird fountain. Approxiamately, 2 minutes go by and I turn my head and I see Colin and his friend. We meet and greet each other. Colin's fellow Ohio homie was Nesral, Kevin Larson, as it says on his identification.

Party Pooooper

"GET OUT!" that's not something you want to hear as soon as you walk into a party. 

This past weekend I went to a party in Brooklyn, it was my friends place that I have been to before so before going I was so excited to go to this party. We got there around 11, the usual party time, and as we walked in I noticed that so many people were there. Immediately excitement just rushed through my body!

I was having so much fun! All of my friends were there and everyone was drunk and having a good time! All of a sudden this 40 year old bald short buff man walks in the apartment and starts screaming"GET THE FUCK OUT!" He turned off the music and started screaming again. Now as a grown man he should have known that if you not the police, drunk college kids aren't going to listen to you. It's just a known fact. So naturally we all just stood there and stared at him really not knowing exactly what to do. Meanwhile the host of the party, Austin, kept telling us to stay yet this old fart kept screaming at us telling us to go. We were confused. 

Since no one was moving the old fart then threatened he was going to call the police and as soon as he said that half of that party stormed out, mainly because we are all underage and none of us wanted to get arrested. It was more of the "randoms" that ran out all of the people who were actually friends with Austin stayed but not for much longer. 

This guy was so determined to get us out that he literally walked to where we were all standing and started screaming right in our faces to get out. It was really scary. He then started yelling at a group of guys and got so pissed at them for not moving that stormed away from them in doing so he pushed my roommate, Anna. She was furious and really scared that a grown man pushed her. At that point I knew the best thing for  us to do was to just leave. 

We left appalled at this man for handling the situation the way he did. I personally have never been in a situation like that before nor do I ever want to be again. 

The Story of the Marymount Kitchen

Once upon a time in a land called Marymount Manhattan College there lived happy students who received happy meals from happy employees. This was the Kingdom...

The kingdom was ruled by the Richard, the top chef. Everyone morning I would venture into this land for a breakfast sandwich made delicately with love and competence. He would listen to my order and converse with me and whoever I was with until the food was properly prepared. It was a harmonious period and all prospered.

Then one day, Richard vanished. Nobody knew where he had gone, but he had been replaced by a terrible monstrous demon! This demon's name was Willie...

Willie (depicted on the left) was the complete opposite of the beloved chef Richard we came to know and love. I will tell you the tale of our first encounter that I wished was our last.

It was a Monday morning around nine in the morning. I walked in happily with my room mate bustling with energy and positive vibes. Richard wasn't there but this man bearing a name tag with the name Willie upon the metal plate. We asked first where Richard was and he grumbled how he won't be coming back (it was kind of scary...). I put in my normal order, an egg and cheese on a roll with American cheese. After nearly 20 minutes of waiting for one of the most simplistic orders one could give, he handed me a breakfast sandwich crammed with bacon. I apologized and said I actually didn't order bacon and he flat out yelled at me in the middle of the cafeteria. Yelling things like "How could you not want bacon!? Everybody likes bacon!" This wasn't in the joking or humorous manner, I just stood there and took it petrified in fear. I thought it was just a one time thing... maybe he was just tired, so I just took the sandwich tarnished by bacon and scurried away in embarrassment.

Later that day a few friends of mine and I went up because it was BURRITO DAY and I freaking LOVE Burritos. We all go up there excited and pumped for our burritos and there is Willie, arms folded glaring. He lined us up and had us shoot out what we wanted in order as he prepared it, except he didn't ask this of us, he demanded. He would yell at someone of they changed their order and then he would refuse to change it after a point. My friends and I were joking it was the most stressful burrito experience we've ever had, except we weren't kidding at all.

Honestly, if you're going to be rude all the time and have a short fuse please consider working somewhere else where you don't have to interact with students first hand. The atmosphere he creates is negative and uncomfortable. This attitude never changes, it's been about a week and a half since this experience and I still don't want to order from him. There have been some mornings where I just don't get breakfast because I feel like its a hostile environment. That's not fair for me, this is one of my biggest sources of food throughout the week... am I supposed to go about it uncomfortably? Maybe it's time for me to say something to someone at a higher level because it's getting ridiculous.

No One Understands Me

The L train runs from Manhattan to Williamsburg. Williamsburg is the northern chunk of Brooklyn and understood home of the hipsters. It's a free thinking area, a place where young people live and enjoy denying everything mainstream. On the platform of the L train, bound for Williamsburg, you can expect to find many personalities. There are many thrifted clothes, cool haircuts, and this guy.

This is a street performer. I guess you would have to call him a platform performer, though. His performance is atypical. As you can see from the video, he adorns tights and a face mask, inflates balloons and lets out their air with a a squealing sound above his head while he undulates his body. Around him are various objects, all unrelated and seemingly useless but hinting at careful selection for ambiguity. There is also, most importantly, a small chalkboard on the ground in front of him that reads, "no one understands me." It was later erased and rewritten with,"I am worthless." The onlooking crowd watches him and laughs, questions, and generally feels uncomfortable. I think that's the point.

As we stare and question the reasoning for his performance, we are directly succumbing to what I assume is its goal. Whether or not this guy truly feels the calling for balloon wiggling is unknown, but I would like to think he doesn't. I think his decision to perform this way was more along the lines of, "I wanna do something really weird that people can't help but stare at." And it works. He was making some money too. His opened bag was bursting with dollars. Perhaps they came from people who enjoyed his spectacle or others who just respected him for his bravery. I saw a man donate some change and give the performer a fist bump. The fist bump seemed to say, "I understand you, bro."

After my initial indirect mockery of giggling, I look back on that performance with an increasingly positive mindset. Something about it made me feel really good, like it was ok to be ridiculously unique. Perhaps I should have given him a dollar.