Not dead, just not part of the workforce

So there have been some, ah, adjustments in my life lately. Adjustments like "not having a job." That sort of thing. I was considered a temp, even though I'd been there for a year, so the company kicks you out for a few months (exactly how long, nobody can tell me. It involves an algorithm to figure out.) So after a year without vacation, I'm getting a few months off paid for by Uncle Sam.

There are worse things in this world. But I'm a worker bee. I wasn't put on Earth to loaf about and have three-martini lunches in my Juicy velour sweats. I realized within my first day of being away from work that having no job is one of those things that sounds so much better in theory. So far, I've been to the Met, the MoMA, the freakin' U.N. and all up and down this crazy island. Then I got this sexy barking cough, so that's taking up most of my day today.

So far, my goals for my time off are:

Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Walk the 13-mile length of Manhattan.
Learn to skateboard.
Go to the mysterious land I keep hearing about called "Staten Island."
Finish second screenplay.

To that end, I'm writing this at Starbucks to use their wi-fi, and this older man (I'd later learn he was from Puerto Rico and named Joseph) just cornered me and talked my ear off for about 20 minutes. He was teaching English to this woman, and when their session was up, he apparently just couldn't stop imparting wisdom, so he started teaching me English. I learned all about the value of flashcards, mnemonic devices and was instructed to go to Amazon "right now!" and buy a book called "1,000 English words you need to know."

Sounds pretty awesome, since I'll finally be able to understand this code my friends and family have been speaking in all these years.

All suggestions are welcome about how I can occupy my time between Regis & Kelly, and Oprah.

Brooke Shields is definitely not a half midget

Is it possible to be a half midget?

I went out with this guy Tuesday night who was about 5’6”-5’7”, and he would have just been considered what I like to call “short” except that somehow his head was proportional to a guy in the 5’11” range. The whole effect was less hydrosephalic and more like he’d just been poorly Photoshopped together. Also his arms were somehow abbreviated. Which didn’t slow him down trying to hug me. Whatevs. Glad your disability isn’t slowing you down.

So I thought surely I’d win the informal weirdest night contest with my roommate.

Not so much. I walk in and she’s blasting music. She comes out of the bathroom and says, “I was just at a Tupperware party for charity and Brooke Shields kept giving me Champagne and I am druuuuuuunk.”

Fiiiiiiiiiiiiine. You win this time.

I'm the white devil, or: Why I can never go back to the 51st street stop

When I was but a little Kate, I remember an old white man getting out of his car and screaming at my brother, sister and me for playing with our black friends across the street. It’s something a 26 year old can’t absorb, let alone a five year old.

Our town in North Carolina was almost evenly divided between black and white kids. (I assume this was before Hispanics and Asians were invented). After some initial confusion early on, I discovered I wouldn’t turn black if I colored my hands. When I lived in Iowa, I was confused why my class’ entire black population was named Marcus Hester.

Race relations continued rather swimmingly through high school, where I happily studied with, befriended and played soccer with whoever was around. Vakessha and I were going to get rich off our “expanded skin tones” line of Band-Aids.

I’ve learned about the many uses for a peanut and the miracle of the cotton gin, appreciate rap and wholeheartedly apologize for slavery.

In short, I’m the white devil.

It’s been a big week for race relations, what with Don “nappy headed ho” Imus, and the racially charged Duke lacrosse case coming to a close with the charges being dropped. For me personally, the highlight was having “fucking white bitch” screamed in my face for about 20 minutes on the subway platform.

I blame myself. I’d been home for a few days, where people are friendly. The biggest challenge I’d faced was fending off the onslaught of food from my mom. (She would be in her optimum state of happiness shoveling potatoes into our open mouths the entire time.)

So after work yesterday, when I couldn’t find my MetroCard and a pleasant voice calls out “I got you miss” and swiped me through (as people do for each other from time to time) I said thanks and gave him a wave.

“That’ll be $2.”
“I don’t have $2, that’s why I was going to the machine with my debit card.”

I went back through the turnstile up to the booth, and he followed me, yelling about what a spiteful white thief I was, how I stole $2 from him just like I stole this country. It will shock you to know the MTA guy who sold me my ticket watched this man scream at me and just brushed him off with, “You can’t sell swipes here.”

Again I go through the turnstile, assuming my new friend will want to stay at his post and let the matter die down.

He followed me, yelling in my face, less than a foot away. Flipping me off. Shaking his fists. Yelling racial slurs worse than any I could imagine. After my initial protests that I never owned slaves, you’re breaking the law and you didn’t lose money because you have an unlimited MetroCard I did something unusual and just shut up. He kept yelling, like an underground drill sergeant, and I stood there and took it, trying to figure out how to avoid the third rail when he inevitably pushed me onto the tracks.

People around me were looking concerned, no doubt trying to figure out why—and more importantly how—I’d personally enslaved and stolen from this man.

Then the train came, and he got on with me, still shouting in my face. I was impressed to no end how the young business guys around me handled the matter. There wasn’t a big confrontational, “Stay away from the lady or I’ll punch you” show of machismo. One guy took my elbow when the subway doors opened and put himself between me and the guy, then two other guys stood between us too, so there was a barrier around me that Angry Guy could continue to shout through.

I don’t know what made him decide to get off a few stops later, but thank God he did, because I had no plan of action. Start to finish it was about 20 minutes of unhinged screaming in my face. And I didn’t cry until he got off. Then I went to the gym and called the police.


P.S. This is the second time in as many months that I've been called a "Fucking white bitch." The other time was a guy collecting for that bogus homeless charity with the water bottles. Apparently he was new, because the guy training him had to point out "No, no, we don't say that to people." I think this officially upgrades being racially harassed to "On a fairly regular basis."

Uh-oh Fred.

You’ve got competition. Your lack of dedication to the multiple parentheses tells me you’re just not ready for a real relationship, even if I supply full-body non-webcam pictures. You know who is ready for a relationship? Omid, that’s who. His lack of spelling skillz/coherency is more than made up for in his enthused punctuation.

*Hi,...IF U R 4 ((((REAL))))????...I am SINGLE man with strong family values, very haerd working, I love kids & sports,...soccer my (1), looking & very interested for a (real woman) to be in a serios relationship.. I do not like playing the games in todays dating.(((sick of games)))))... seeking nice, fun,((real woman )))...with strong family values .who can undrestand respect and believe honesty above all things, I would love to meet real woman with ((NO GAMES))??? to be my best friend & lover..to shaer the rest of my life with...?...pleaes if u feel the same...I am waiting for u ...with love,,,,,


P.S. Why is “1” there? And “real woman” is in parentheses? Has he been burned by she-males before? This note is even better if you read the parentheticals in a robotic voice, like they were dubbed in later.

A Christmas Story in three parts. Part 3: I hate humanity

Let's start with this e-mail, shall we?

I got it 11 days after I tried to purchase my Fung Wah bus ticket online, eight days after I got yelled at by the Fung Wah woman I called (Me: "Hi, I'm supposed to leave Saturday and my debit card record still says the ticket is pending."
Angry Fung Wah lady: "You come here, buy ticket."
Me: "Well, I already bought one, so I'd like to just try to figure out if that one will come through."
AFWL: "That's what I say, you come to office, buy you a ticket at window!")

And best of all, the e-mail came three days after I completed my trip. I'm still not sure what they want me to do though.

For my return trip to New York, Fung Wah the dance remix was exponentially more horrible than the ride up. It included features such as a seat next to the lavatory, an extra two hours stuck in traffic and a seatmate who wouldn't stop shouting into his cellphone. We all learned a lot about him, including but not limited to what he got for Christmas (a $1,000 Best Buy gift card, a sweater that he didn't really like but it was expensive, so he's keeping it, and a gift card to "Bloomies" among others.), what his plans were later that night (movie with Rachel. "That one with the woman, what's her name....she might be English"), and some tale of woe involving some street urchin his aunt took in for the holidays. ("By the time he opened up his third or fourth $500 present, he had to leave the room he was so touched. It meant a lot for me to remember not everyone is used to that.")

We were also privy to a fight with his sister when she tried to change plans. See, he only gets three weeks of vacation a year, which is not a lot (Editor's note: Screw you, pal. I got one day off for Christmas and had my pay docked.) There was shouting and name-calling and finally a resolution. But there were no winners, especially not the rest of us, who had to hear the story three more times as he called different people to bask in his righteous anger. ("And then I said, Laura, that's not a lot, I work extremely hard and in my downtime I try to pack in as much as I can...I know right?...so finally she saw she was being unreasonable.")

There's $10 that says she just got sick of his whiney, nasally voice and if that’s the case, Laura, you had a Fung Wah full of angry people on your side.

The A train experience

My usual two daily brushes with comedy are the wannabe comedians who accost people in Time Square with, “Do you like standup comedy?” in the hopes they’ll come to one of the myriad clubs and happily pay $32 for a pair of Bud lights to make the two-drink minimum.

(When my brother and his friends came to visit, they weren’t able to avoid the solicitors. Maybe it was because by the time you’ve dodged a full block of people it’s like you’ve just finished a slalom course and your resistance is worn down. Maybe it’s because if you answer “no” to “Do you like to laugh?” it makes you feel like you’re admitting that you like to set fire to the elderly. Whatever the reason, I came out of Starbucks and we had tickets to a comedy show that night. It was actually pretty funny. We got to see Jim Gaffigan, who(m) I like. And the doorman/ticket taker did a set too, which was much better than the woman who actually abandoned her joke before she got to the punchline. (“Just forget it. It’s new material and it’s not funny yet. You’re right not to laugh.” You don’t see that on Comedy Central.) )

The other bit of humor in my day is the conductor on my morning train who calls it “the A train experience.” For some reasons it always makes people smile. Related: My new synthesizer-based group is called Kate and the A Train Experience.

But yesterday I hit the jackpot: Homeless guy standup! Forget everything you know about homelessness because apparently it’s awesome.

I got on the A train (experience) at 59th, and a man got on behind me, mumbling. Nothing out of the ordinary yet. Apparently someone said, “Here comes that guy” because the next thing I knew, he’d launched into his routine, which actually got laughs instead of fear.

Open strong: “You damn right ‘here comes that guy; you in my living room! Look, you got your feet up on my couch. I can’t sleep at night, cause all night the doors go bing-bong-bing-bong-bing-bong. You alls just jealous, you pay $1,800, $1,900 a month for your apartment and it don’t go nowhere. I pay $2 and I go all over the city.”

Be edgy with you take-my-wife-please joke (explain why you’re homeless): “She was 398 pounds! She wanted me to buy her steak all the time. Do I look like I can afford steak? So I left her and went to live here.” Yes that’s right. Homeless on account of steak.

The grand finale (leave ’em wanting more): “And when you leave, please do me a favor and take your newspapers with you. I got company coming over tonight.”

He denied knowing them three times before the cock crowed

I was finishing up some Christmas shopping last week at Borders. (Yes, you're all getting books from me. Because I like paying a lot for shipping, that's why.)

I make my way to the deceptively innocuous travel section and see three oily teenage boys' heads bowed over a book with Talmudic intensity.

I catch a few snippets — Is that hair? Who's that flexible? Where's her hand? — in what can only be described as reverent awe.

None of them spot me at first, then one notices a girl (a real live girl!) in their midsts, and he instantly becomes the all-knowing wise old oak of the trio.

“Geez guys,” Pimply McRetainer says, “It’s a reverse 69.” He is suddenly disgusted by his rube friends, who clearly have not only embarrassed him but also insulted his intelligence.

Then he marches off.