Happy Holidays

This entry is going to be fairly boring (of course, this is based on the assumption that previous postings are fascinating). My previous posting generated a fair amount of reaction from people here and there. It’s cool since it clearly evoked feelings from readers, something I did not plan to do. And I like that piece a lot.

Anyways, but to address a variety of emails, yes, I am OK. And yes, I was fucked, or fucked over, however you want to look at it. Maybe I put my guard down, maybe I really fell head over heels, maybe it just looks that way because it ended, who knows. I can’t tell you whether I’ve moved on, it felt that way a few days ago, it did not feel that way today.

To make everything even worse, the “not being able to move on” is augmenting the sickening aspect of the current situation. I am literally trapped and I am trapped in something that to any outsider, or any normal person, looks good and wonderful. I am pretty sure I am in a companionship for the sake of companionship.

If you don’t believe me, look at it this way - I wrote “companionship.”

So I am waiting for that moment where I become intolerable and the companionship will end. It is sickening. Or masochistic, however you want to look at it.

On that note, no, I am not depressed. No worries, I don't sit around the house, staring at a wall.

This was on my mind since last night

It started off as an experiment. No one makes eye contact any more. And if there is eye contact, it’s short, lasting three seconds the most. If you stare into someone’s eyes long enough, that person is bound to feel something. So I stared intensely, curious on what will happen. Did I objectify? Maybe. Yes.

I feigned interest in stories meant to impress. I found them clichéd. I spoke about shit that, according to every dating rule out there, people really should not bring up their first dates. I didn’t care; I was on my high-horse. And I am not much of a rules person.

When we first fucked, it was just as clichéd. Boy pushing and tugging, girl squirming and giving reasons not to do it. Then giving in since it was easier. It wasn’t impressive. I felt lonely after.

I am not sure when I let my guard down. Maybe when I was freaking out in front of my friend, complaining of feeling overwhelmed by all the attention and the friend told me to take it easy. That struck a cord since I never take it easy. Maybe I gazed too long and got lost in what I saw before me.

The fucking got better. I still felt lonely though; I felt lonely standing in the same room with him. Not lonely, that’s not the right word. Objectified.

It was the eye contact that gave it away when things were changing. When we fucked, instead of staring back, he started to turn his eyes to the left. It’s the classic body language when someone is lying or feeling guilty. Once a woman asked me for money, explaining that she need to buy a calling card for an emergency. I shifted my gaze left and said that I didn’t have any change. I lied.

These are all generalities. It’s not about you, don’t be so pompous. None of this is true and there is no meaning. And it’s all so clichéd.

For Montauk, It’s Lighthouse vs. Surf’s Up!

What surfer has a tan at this point? Mine faded months ago!

Doug Kuntz for The New York Times

The Montauk Lighthouse, which Army engineers want to save from erosion with a $14 million sea wall of boulders.

By COREY KILGANNON

Published: November 14, 2006

Doug Kuntz for The New York Times

A passing storm meant that the surf was up Thursday just west of Montauk Point. The surfers fear that the sea wall will end exciting waves.

MONTAUK, N.Y., Nov. 10 — The Montauk Point Lighthouse was commissioned by President George Washington and completed in 1796 and may be the most recognized landmark on Long Island. If left unprotected, it could also be a few good storms away from falling down its steadily eroding bluff into the ocean.

So the Army Corps of Engineers is embarking on a $14 million plan to save the lighthouse by building a sea wall of boulders to protect the bluff. But a group of surfers say the boulders that would save the lighthouse would ruin Alamo, the world-renowned surf break just beyond its shadow, and they have a counterproposal.

Dude, just move the lighthouse back.

“I know the lighthouse people feel the current location is hallowed ground, the spot George Washington built the lighthouse on, but we as surfers feel the same way about Alamo,” said Tom Naro, the chairman of the eastern Long Island chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. “All of our research and science has grown out of protecting the wave, and it all indicates that moving the lighthouse is a much better and cheaper option in the long run.”

The Corps of Engineers has assured the surfers that its sea wall would not ruin the waves. It considered moving the lighthouse but decided it would cost too much to transport the delicate structure over severely sloping terrain.

Though the officials in charge say it is too late to change gears, the surfers — whose organization and efficiency around this issue run contrary to their mellow stereotype — have in recent weeks met with politicians, distributed fliers and commissioned studies to block the Corps of Engineers’ plan to drop a wall of 12-ton boulders on their surf break. The corps says the surfers’ proposal to move the lighthouse back 800 feet instead would cost $27 million.

In a 35-page position paper, the surfers argue that the sea wall — 840 feet long, 40 feet thick and known as a revetment — would imperil not just the Alamo but also another favorite break just down the beach, at Turtle Cove.

At a restaurant here in Montauk on Friday night, Thomas Muse, the environmental director of the Surfrider chapter, gave a slide-show presentation to a roomful of 50 tanned, long-haired surfers, many of them taking notes as he indicated with a red laser pointer how the revetment would interfere with the waves.

“We’re building a groundswell and we’ll get some attention,” Mr. Muse promised. He pointed out that other historic lighthouses — including Southeast on Block Island, Cape Hatteras in North Carolina and Highland on Cape Cod — have been moved successfully. “It’s not like we’re barking up some radical tree here — there are precedents all over,” he said.

But Greg Donohue, erosion control manager for the Montauk Historical Society, which owns and maintains the lighthouse, said that it was simply too fragile — “it would have to be taken apart brick by brick” — and that the location atop Turtle Hill was integral to its history. He criticized the surfers for raising their concerns after the Corps of Engineers’ $1 million study was completed and for threatening the largest anti-erosion project in the lighthouse’s 210-year life.

“Suddenly, they come along and think they know better, and they’re trying to stop this,” he complained. “They have no scientific dialogue, they just say, ‘We’re for saving the beach.’ To me the lighthouse is more important than Alamo, but to them Alamo is more important than the lighthouse.”

Montauk Light, on the eastern tip of Long Island, was the first lighthouse built in New York State and is the fourth-oldest active lighthouse in the country, according to Mr. Donohue. When it was completed on Nov. 5, 1796, on the Turtle Hill plateau, the edge of the bluff was about 300 feet away. Erosion has been eating away at a rate of more than a foot a year, and now, at its closest point, the bluff is about 75 feet from the lighthouse.

In 1946, the Corps of Engineers installed a 700-foot stone revetment, which was overrun by storms a few years later. The bluff seemed to be hopelessly deteriorating until Giorgina Reid of Manhattan began a one-woman crusade to shore it up with her own methods of terracing and planting. Local residents have conducted vigils and concerts starring the likes of Paul Simon to raise money to help prevent erosion. In the mid-’90s, Mr. Donohue helped build a ring of boulders as a sea wall, but erosion continues.

Montauk, meanwhile, has become increasingly popular as a surfing spot; the champion longboarder Joel Tudor surfed here regularly last summer, and local surfers see more and more visiting top pros. Though surfing is officially prohibited at the point, the ban is enforced only sporadically.

There are three main breaks: Alamo is best in big surf, but some surfers favor the clean waves of Turtle Cove, and when winds howl out of the southeast, the area northwest of the point is one of the few good surf spots on Long Island.

The Surfrider Foundation, with 50,000 members nationally, has grown into a lobbying force. Earlier this year, it helped defeat a large dredging project in Long Beach, in Nassau County.

The group’s leaders say it is easier to organize opposition against a project that involves typical preservationists’ issues, like historic buildings or open space. It is more difficult, they said, to persuade public officials to save a wave.

The surfers argue that in the long run, moving the lighthouse would be the most cost-efficient option, even if it costs $27 million as the corps estimates. “It’s a better deal for the taxpayer to move the lighthouse,” Mr. Muse said. “You’re done for 300 years.”

Joe Jakubik, a project manager for International Chimney, a Buffalo company that has moved several historic lighthouses elsewhere and has repaired this one in the past, said moving it would be complicated by the softened mortar between its stones.

He estimated that the lighthouse weighs 3,000 tons, and said it could be lifted off its 13-foot-deep foundation by dozens of hydraulic jacks so a platform could be slipped underneath. The hydraulics would keep the tower level while rolling along uneven ground, he said, and the chief danger would be uneven pressure creating stress cracks.

“That lighthouse is extremely fragile, but there are methods that would put limited stress on it,” Mr. Jakubik said. “There’d be some problems moving it, a greater degree of difficulty, but nothing that couldn’t be overcome. It’s just a matter of expense and work.”

Mr. Donohue, who lives in Montauk year-round, has been working on the erosion problem here for 25 years. He criticized the surfers’ group for stirring up controversy that could endanger a project that is based on decades of careful study, including wave-tank analysis at the University of Delaware that showed Alamo would not be seriously affected by the revetment.

“A wave is something very difficult to pin down, the dynamics of it,” he said. “If they had hard scientific information on how our work is going to destroy their wave, we would look at it. Instead, they’re just beating a drum and playing the politics of beach erosion. They are spreading propaganda and innuendo and false information to politicians.”

“We’re not destroying a wave,” Mr. Donohue added. “We’re preserving a lighthouse.”

QUICK QUICK

Awww, those South Africans!

I'm a pirate!

Not that long ago, I was talking to this guy. I am not going to write much about this guy because I found him really boring. I found him boring not because he was quiet or that he lacked energy. I found him boring because he had completely nothing interesting to say. The worst part of our conversation was the fact that he didn’t even bother to engage me in the conversation. He would just blabber and blabber and I would stare at him, stare at the clock, stare at the people around us; apparently, a girl sitting across the table staring at everything around her is not a clue enough that she is completely bored.

The reason why I started this posting is not to bore you with the boring conversation. It’s more to make fun of what a boring moron he was. At some point toward the end of the conversation, he mentioned that NPR broadcasted a piece about a test that gives a good glimpse into a person’s character.

The test is:

If you were given a choice between the power of flight or the power of invisibility, which one would you choose? In other words, would you rather be able to fly or be invisible?

I’ll give you a couple of seconds to think about this one.

Ready? State your answer.

OK, so apparently, people who choose the power of flight are free and have nothing to hide. People who choose invisibility have something to hide and have low self-esteem since being invisible means “having a desire to know what people have to say about you.” According to this boring moron.

Some say that choosing the power of flight is a sign of a hero, while a villain would choose invisibility. This is based on a quick Google search.

I chose invisibility. Just for the practical reasons of being able to get onto a plane and still fly wherever I want to. I can also get into a show that’s sold out or is way too expensive. Oh, I can even sit on the stage!

Why would you want to fly places? Yea, I am sure it’s cool to spontaneously fly in general, but why bother if a variety different transportation options can take you places practically anywhere you want to go. And if you’re invisible, it’s not like the cost is going to matter.

Now, last time I checked, it is very hard to be invisible. Yea, you can be ignored (and I have first hand experience in this one), but you are still not invisible.

I just don’t see how invisibility will doom a person to doing things that are so awful that they would be viewed as crimes against humanity. C’mon, I would just play a few pranks here and there and then jet off to South East Asia. And then Africa. And New Zealand (I hear surfing there is great!).

So the boring moron dude said that I failed the test because I didn’t take it seriously. Clearly the moron doesn't have an ounce of imagination! Not to mention the fact that he actually believes in these stupid tests. The funny part is that I actually did take it seriously and took about a minute (a minute!) to decide which choice is the better one. At least, for me.

I think a better test is: are you a farmer, a cowboy, or a pirate? Quick, pick one!

For my mom and dad

and maybe Elsa.

(Press the arrow on the cartoon)

Oh man

Oh man oh man oh man. I am getting such a bad feeling about this one. Mark my words.

Whatcha doing?

So I know, I haven’t written much. And I really don’t have any excuse for it. Or at least a reason worthy an excuse. Suppose I’ve been working a lot. And dealing with people exhausts me so whenever I get home, the last thing I want to do is sit by the computer and write. The other exhausting thing about my job is that I don’t have my own space – an office, a desk, a chair – anything. And since I don’t have a place to retreat, I am “on” the entire time I am there, and that makes me feel spent. Suppose this job proves that I really am not a people person.

The slightly amazing thing about the job is that I now work in Red Hook which is an up-and-coming area in Brooklyn. It’s a bit cut off from the rest of civilization since the only way to get there by public transportation is taking a bus that takes forever. Or, as in my case, take the little choo-choo train that goes from nowhere to nowhere and then walk 20 minutes through the projects while dodging piles of dog shit on the sidewalks. The amazing part of this story (well, at least to me amazing) is that my highschool English teacher used to live on Van Brunt street which is where my work is located. I went to visit him when I was in college and I distinctly remember taking the bus and getting off at the location he specified on Van Brunt Street. I went with my friend and he fed us blueberry waffles and we climbed onto his roof to take in the stunning view of the Statue of Liberty and lower Manhattan.

Of course, like many areas of New York City, Red Hook is slowly being populated by hipsters, artists, restaurants, and art-bars. There is even a Fairway organic food store in the area where my teacher used to live. And there is an IKEA on the way.

Anywho, not to change the topic but another funny thing is that friends/relatives/random people I barely know don’t believe that I’ve been surfing. Yes, I know, this web thingee doesn’t have pictures of me riding a board but I swear, I have an eight foot T&C sitting in my living room right now. Of course, that’s no proof of me surfing. Unfortunately, lately I haven’t had a chance to surf, mainly because the board is in my living room instead of being stored in Rockaways and since I don’t have a car, it’s really difficult to lug it on the subway. I’ve had offers to go out surfing but sadly I’ve come to a realization that these offers are a bunch of hot air, so no surfing. Besides, since I have all those cracks in my board and the water is leaking in, I should wait for the board to dry out so that I can fix it sometime in the spring.

It’s a little weird not to be surfing. And since I’ve managed to completely fall from the face of the earth this summer due to surfing, no one ever calls me to go out any more. And I just can’t figure what to do with myself during weekends. Yea, so if you’re reading this and I haven’t talked to you in a while, call me! Because clearly I am a loser and cannot pick up the phone.

Yea I know I am lazy

And I haven't updated this thingee for a while. But I blame it all on surfing, it's more addictive than crack. Here is a quick update: 5+ foot waves - a no-no for Betty McBoob. Anything around 3 feet is fun, in a scary type of way. Oh, it looks like I will be fixing my own dings soon. Cowabunga!





South Africa 'breaks' surf record
A group of South African surfers say they have broken the record for the number of people riding a single wave.
Organisers say that 73 surfers managed to stay upright for five seconds, beating the previous best of 44.

The event was organised to raise money for spotters who watch the sea to raise the alarm when sharks are seen on Muizenberg beach near Cape Town.

A lifeguard recently had his foot bitten off by a great white shark in the area.

"We have broken the world record," said organiser Dene Botha jubilantly.

"We don't know exactly by how many, but we have a record."

The record still has to be confirmed by the Guinness Book of Records.

Still not sure what to say

I ran across this while reading someone else's blog. Well, not exactly, but when I saw a reference to vagina dentata, I quickly looked it up to Wikipedia. Which led me to anti-rape condoms.

They're weird. And somewhat fascinating. And confusing.

Anyways, here and here and here is what other people say about it.

I'll never learn

In an attempt to fulfill my fantasies about a hipster with a beard in short shorts and tighty-whities, I took a leap of faith and reached out. To my own pleasant surprise, I got a lengthy response full of promises of future socializing. The very same promises I received a while back when I started noticing hipsters in short shorts and tighty-whities. To my further surprise, a few days later, I receive a third party confirmation of excitement about my reaching out from the said hipster with a beard in short shorts and tighty-whities.

So far, so good.

Of course, in all this excitement, I forgot all of the previous patterns of promises but little follow through.

But clearly, I am a sucker for self-inflicted punishment. Because I reached out again. But prior to any action, I conferred with a friend who agreed that a modern day woman should be able to do whatever she wants rather than adhere to some preconceived and outdated social standards. She also reminded me that many hipsters with beards in short shorts and tighty-whities happen to be boobs. But I chose to ignore that small piece of rather important reminder.

And I got – “Awesome! Let’s hang out soon.”

That’s it.

I guess the bigger question is: where are all the manly-men with no beards who don’t wear short shorts with tighty-whities? I have no clue where to start looking for them.

And a word from the Government

For the three people who read this blog, it's about freaking time! Not to mention, just in time for me to enjoy those short shorts!

FDA News
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
P06-118
August 24, 2006

FDA Approves Over-the-Counter Access for Plan B for Women 18 and Older
Prescription Remains Required for Those 17 and Under

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced approval of Plan B, a contraceptive drug, as an over-the-counter (OTC) option for women aged 18 and older. Plan B is often referred to as emergency contraception or the "morning after pill." It contains an ingredient used in prescription birth control pills--only in the case of Plan B, each pill contains a higher dose and the product has a different dosing regimen. Like other birth control pills, Plan B has been available to all women as a prescription drug. When used as directed, Plan B effectively and safely prevents pregnancy. Plan B will remain available as a prescription-only product for women age 17 and under.

Duramed, a subsidiary of Barr Pharmaceuticals, will make Plan B available with a rigorous labeling, packaging, education, distribution and monitoring program. In the CARE (Convenient Access, Responsible Education) program Duramed commits to:

* Provide consumers and healthcare professionals with labeling and education about the appropriate use of prescription and OTC Plan B, including an informational toll-free number for questions about Plan B;

* Ensure that distribution of Plan B will only be through licensed drug wholesalers, retail operations with pharmacy services, and clinics with licensed healthcare practitioners, and not through convenience stores or other retail outlets where it could be made available to younger women without a prescription;

* Packaging designed to hold both OTC and prescription Plan B. Plan B will be stocked by pharmacies behind the counter because it cannot be dispensed without a prescription or proof of age; and

* Monitor the effectiveness of the age restriction and the safe distribution of OTC Plan B to consumers 18 and above and prescription Plan B to women under 18.

Today's action concludes an extensive process that included obtaining expert advice from a joint meeting of two FDA advisory committees and providing an opportunity for public comment on issues regarding the scientific and policy questions associated with the application to switch Plan B to OTC use. Duramed's application raised novel issues regarding simultaneously marketing both prescription and non-prescription Plan B for emergency contraception, but for different populations, in a single package.

The agency remains committed to a careful and rigorous scientific process for resolving novel issues in order to fulfill its responsibility to protect the health of all Americans.

For more information on Plan B and today's action, please see: http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/planB/default.htm.

Who likes short shorts?

Ahh Williamsburg, not only did you bring gnarly looking beards to men’s latest fashion but now the trend includes hotpants for men. And let me tell you, judging by the legs I’ve seen at the McCarren Park Pool shows, I like it! Who knew that skinny hipster boys have smooth thighs and wonderfully sculpted calves.

I’ve always been a fan of tighty-whities, which I used to think were actually called tidy-whities until someone pointed out the misfortune of skid marks that seems to plague some men. I was then told that the term “tidy” is inappropriate when applied to snug men’s undies. But back to my point, since it’s virtually impossible to wear boxers with hotpants (I suppose it is possible, but boy, will that look stupid!), one is required to go commando or sport some tighty-whities. Although I suspect it is ill advised to go commando when wearing hotpants because you just never know when lil’ buddy will decide to sneak a peak at the outside world.

Of course, the added bonus to the hotpants is a nice preview of what’s inside them. Hence double the pleasure – hotpants with a preview and tighty-whities. What else could a girl ask for?

Clarification

So apparently there is a minor buzz about me being "head-over-heels in love." The situation is that I am in love, but I suppose it's not in the traditional sense. This slight confusion may be due to me, a foreigner, writing in English.

Or perhaps this is due to a foreigner reading a blog written in English by a foreigner, who knows.

So to clarify, I am completely head-over-heels in love with surfing. Going to the beach and getting beat up by a hard board that's about 10 feet in length is my idea of having an amazingly fun time. I am not that much of a fan of being pummeled by the ocean, I am not really loving salt water up my nose, twisted ankles, or bruises on my knees/hips/elbows. But riding a wave for the five seconds is worth it all. I guess that's what women in violent relationships say. Great. Not to mention that my mother called this a sport for men.

But, just for my mother, below I have several examples of women surfing. One of the best surfers on the beach where I attempt to surf is a woman. She's really good, every time I turn, she catches a wave. Most others, predominantly men, just float about.

Summer time

So in case you were wondering if I am so bummed out about the French World Cup loss that I've sunk into deep depression and can no longer update the blog... well, that's not the case.

The situation is that I found a job. Sort of. It's a short temp thing, chatting with prostitutes. It's right up my alley. And it keeps me super busy.

Additionally, I've discovered and have become head-over-heels crazy in love (not sure if that's the right term to use but heck, it works for me) and addicted to surfing. I've been going every weekend. Well, except for one weekend when I had pink eye. But despite being knocked over by waves, despite getting liters of salt water up my nose, and despite being completely banged up by the surfboard (people are now asking me if I am experiencing domestic abuse...), I love it. Sun, surf, and sand... no, more like drunken boys with a bungalow in the Rockaways. That's where I am spending my weekends instead of updating this blog.

So surf's up. For now.

Bwahhh...

Oh those Italians...

I wish the French won.

Ronaldo, part II

In the midst of the FIFA World Cup fever, there are about a gazillion newspapers and magazines that contain (predictably) witty articles about how football (soccer…) is not popular in the United States. And although I have not read all gazillion of them (I read two), it seems that most write about how football is a low-scoring game and therefore it cannot capture the attention of an average American.

Clearly the writers of these (two) articles smoke crack. Because last time I checked, baseball, an American favorite pastime, is a low-scoring game, too.

I like playing softball, the girlie version of baseball. It’s fun. And it’s fun mostly because there is a lot of drinking involved while waiting for your turn to bat. Being a girl, I am usually the catcher and the consumption of alcohol contributes to the antics behind the home plate. Most the antics involve falling down when attempting to catch the ball. Also, since I grew up amidst boys, I have minor athletic skills so when I swing a bat, it actually hits the ball. Which, of course, doesn’t mean much because most of the time, the ball doesn’t travel far.

Contrary to playing softball, baseball is the most boring thing in the world. There is a lot of waiting, gigantic ass-scratching, and spitting. It takes forever for teams to change field (or whatever that is called), it takes forever for a batter to bat, and, most of the time, there is a lot of looking around. Not to mention that there aren’t that many home runs.

In football, there is tons of running up and down the field. All the running (which, as I established before, contributes to rock hard bodies) builds to a stressful suspense for the observer who hopes that someone will get the ball close enough to kick it into the field goal. Yes, most of the time, the ball is either high or wide or both, but to anyone who is watching football, it looks like the ball might just make it. It’s also cool to watch some of the amazing footwork that is required to avoid an opponent trying to steal the ball. Is there a bicycle kick in baseball? No, sir! It’s also amazing to watch an economically “underdeveloped” (have you noticed that no one says Third World anymore?) country (Ghana) kick the ass of a “world power” (US). For once, a country’s GDP does not correlate to its athletic ability like it does in the Olympics.

Football is also a lot more civilized game. The referee has the power to kick a player off the field for something minor as a hand flip protesting a referee’s call. In baseball, it is acceptable to throw chairs and bats onto the field or, even worse, onto fans.

Land O Lakes, Part II

Boy: "I am an accomplished filmmaker."
Girl (rolls her eyes): "Um, so, I want a Brooklyn Lager. Thanks!"

Is Ronaldo too fat?

I am not going to write much about the FIFA games because I really don’t know much about football. Or soccer, if you, the reader, are an American. But since I am Latvian, by default, I will refer to it as football.

But the thing that I can write about is that football players make the best looking athletes. My argument is rooted in the fact that football players have the most proportional bodies. And considering that they have to run up and down the field for 90 plus minutes, I can only imagine rock-hard bodies under those shirts. A case in point:





Think about it, basketball players are long-armed, long-legged tall freaks. I am 5’5” on my tallest day; anyone above 6’1” is really, really tall to me. And apparently, an average basketball player in the NBA is 6’6” – that’s super duper tall to me!

Baseball players. For whatever reason, perhaps this is due to the tight uniforms, they all have huge asses. Being an ass person myself, I can’t complain too much, but the thing is, I have the typical incurved white-girl butt. So standing next to a gigantic ass would be really intimidating. The only exception to this argument is Randy Johnson of the New York Yankees. But he’s tall so he automatically falls into the tall freak category.

American football players fall into the same category as hockey players. They are all huge. And some are even tall. And hockey players are always missing teeth or have messed up looking noses.

Cyclists - they shave their legs. Swimmers take it further, they shave every body part that has exposed hair. And I like hair. Beards especially.

Speed skaters? Have you seen their enormous thighs? Figure skaters? Well, they wouldn’t like me anyways.

I can go on and on and on. But you see my point. Football players are in shape but none of their muscles are freaky looking. Some are tall but they don’t have to be freaky tall. They don’t have missing teeth or busted noses. And if you’re David Beckham, well then you’re extra super dreamy to millions of girls.

Ha!

So I've been working on this new-ish project where I take pictures of men sitting on subways with their legs spread wide apart. Unfortunately, since I am unemployed, I have the world's crappiest cellphone plan which does not allow me to send pictures from my phone to a computer/internet. So that project has been on hold until future notice.

But I was excited to learn that the New York Magazine came up with the Urban Etiquette Handbook which briefly talks about men spreading their legs while sitting in the subway car. Here is a glimpse:


Rules of the underground: (1) Knees may be no more than six inches apart. (2) If you can't control your offspring, watch as a stranger does it for you. (3) What did we say about checking out the girls? (4) The Post is only 25 cents—buy your own. (5) Holding the subway door makes everyone on the train love you. (6) As does loud music. (7) Lie down on subway only if dead.

Hope Land O Lakes doesn't sue me

I am always surprised at the level of buttering up that oh-so many guys go through in order to get into a girl’s pants. Not only does the buttering up sound insincere but it’s also the same technique used over and over by every other guy out there. And more pathetically, these techniques seem to cross every social group – from the typical blond and wholesome frat boy from Ohio to the skinny Williamsburg hipster in his skinny jeans and designer t-shirt.

Maybe I am wrong, maybe all that buttering up works on a 22 year old girl fresh out of left-wing liberal arts college somewhere in the woods of New York State.

At age 28 and having survived many harrowing years of being buttered up by men of local and international representation, it just doesn’t work any more.

Perhaps there needs to be some sort of an intervention (ah, social work…) informing desperate men that they are in great need to change their lines. Perhaps there needs to be a brainstorming session with an easel and a dry-board marker. Perhaps there can be a top secret focus group to test the lines.

Or how about this:

Boy: “Hey, want go home with me and have sex?”
Girl: “No.”

Chances are we’ve decided long ago whether we want to sleep with you.

Just a little steam

This entire job search situation is driving me completely bonkers. Not due to the fact that I cannot find anything half-way decent, but due to the fact that people who are recruiting potential employees are unbelievably stupid. I don't know, maybe I should look into Human Resources positions, seems like any old moron can work there.

More later, I just needed to let off some steam. It's finally sunny outside so I am going to take a walk to get away from the computer.

Well, I couldn't resist

Slight break

I haven’t written in a while for several reasons. I was away for a week which was really nice. Any chance to get away from New York City is always a plus. Especially since it has been hot and humid around here.

I am also in the full swing of looking for some sort of employment. I am still on that high-ground where I am being selective and holding out for a great job. I really don’t want a crummy 9-5 behind-the-desk job. Well, I suppose the doom day will come and I will have that crummy 9-5 job. Although nowadays I think it’s going to be more like 9-6 plus financially uncompensated extra hours during rush projects. You know - those projects where your boss gets to leave at 5pm and you’re stuck sitting in the office in agony until 8pm only to return at 9am the following morning.

As a side note, I used to have a manager who not only left at 5pm on the dot no matter what the situation, but also spent most of her days researching nurseries for her soon-to-be-born baby and printing letters of invitation for her baby shower. I even had to order mailing labels through the company’s vendor for her baby shower invitations. Looking back, I am actually surprised she didn’t have me print those things out.

Anyways, so I really don’t want a job this summer in general. It would be great to bum around, visit friends who don’t live in New York, take some time off in general. Plus I am still planning to write another editorial and I want to finish writing my research report so that I can finally send it out for publication. At the same time, after hearing of stories from friends who have spent months and months looking for jobs, I am beginning to wonder if I should find some sort of easy no-brainer part-time job. Work in a bookstore or an easy-going café. Plus it would be nice to get out of the house once in a while.

So the next few posts will be about stupid job searches. In fact, one of these days, I am going to start posting the number of resumes sent vs call-backs.

In the meantime, I need to take a shower.

Oh boy!

Social work has many little dirty secrets. The obvious one is that most social workers (that is, individuals with a Master's level social work degree) are economically-speaking well-off white women trying to rescue the poor. If they are not rescuing the poor, they are opening their private offices to address the needs of the more desirable clients - those with private insurance or those who can pay $150 or more for therapy sessions.

Another little secret is that most social workers enforce conditions where social work is necessary or that is continues to infinity. So instead of ending the need of social work, social workers ensure that social work continues so that social workers have steady jobs.

Another little secret that I found out in the past year or so is that most social workers are not the brightest stars in the world. The level of nincompoopery that occurred at a Master's level program is flabbergasting! There were times when I was embarrassed for some of the stupid shit people said in class. And this also applies to faculty. Here is a small example:

So, as every social worker knows, social work school is all about "process recordings" and "journals." The student writes about her "feelings" that arise as a result of experiencing events/interactions with clients and it's a way to "discover" oneself and possibly "resolve" any ambivalence. Bullshit like that. I think I wrote about this before - it's an easy way for a supervisor or a professor to check in with the student to see how she is doing without having to spend any time talking to her. It's cheap social work-style therapy. So, of course, in one of my classes I had to keep a journal where I had to make an entry for each week. One week, the professor briefly spoke about pornography and that it greatly contributes to male violence due to its objectification and degradation of women. The professor did not permit the class to argue her point due to a "time constraint."

Ok, that statement in itself can be argued either way. But in my journal I wrote that this is a poor statement to make by a social work professional who is a dean (yes, a dean, not THE dean) at a school where there are about 700 female students. Her comment to my journal entry was: "It never occurred to me that some of the students could have been sex workers - but statistically they very well could have been and I want to be more careful in addressing the topic."

So great, a small "victory" for me. But here is how her statement is completely asinine: tuition of the school where I went is about $26,000 per year plus living costs. So make that at least $35,000 yearly expense. Why in the whole wide world would she not think that of the 700 women at the school, there is at least one person who is stripping/dancing/making money in the sex industry while in school? After all, the job has flexible hours and pays well.

Money is everything

I have been somewhat unaffected by money throughout my life until I went to grad school. Not to say that I ever had any money but my social circles consisted of people in the same socio-economic class. Most of them were white and most came from families where higher education (and I mean college and post-college education) was highly valued. Most also came from middle-class working families so no one flaunted money. After graduation from college, most of my friends were working in non-profit, thus no one really had any money either. Or at least, had enough to pay for daily living but no one was saving anything. Occasionally there was a person or two who was either in a relationship with someone wealthy and befriended a wall-street type. But this was really rare.

Then I went to graduate school. Mind you, I went to a school of social work. Social work has a history of white priveleged women helping poor people. It is also an easy and flexible career, a social worker can open her own private practice with a schedule tailored to her lifestyle. It also doesn't require a lot of schooling and none of the school-work is intellectually challenging.

All this is still present in modern day social work. I have never seen that many huge diamond rings in my life. And I live in New York city. Also, it seemed that everyone was in a relationship with a financial analyst at the newest and hottest investment company or they were married to some hotshot lawyer. One of my closest friends is married to a real estate investor. At their last party, he was contemplating buying an apartment next door to their loft so that they can have exclusive access to the rooftop garden. My friend, his wife, will never have to have a job to make ends meet.

The NY Times ran a great article touching on some of this issues. It's a little long but it hit home for me.

Money Changes Everything

By JENNIE YABROFF

GRETA GILBERTSON was caught off guard recently when her 9-year-old daughter, who attends a private school on the Upper West Side, requested a cellphone.

"I sort of snapped at her," recalled Ms. Gilbertson, an assistant professor at Fordham University in the Bronx. "I said, 'Don't think that you're one of the rich kids, because you're not.' " Though her daughter rarely expresses envy of her more affluent friends, Ms. Gilbertson said, it was an "unedited moment" revealing her anxiety over being in a world where other parents have more money than she does.

Carol Paik, a former lawyer who is married to a partner at a prominent New York law firm, found herself on the other side of that money equation. When she returned to school in 2002 to get her M.F.A. in creative writing at Columbia, her diamond engagement ring attracted particular attention from her new group of friends. "When I was working," she said, "I never thought about the ring, it seemed unremarkable."

But at school, she said, "People said things like, 'That's a really big diamond,' and not necessarily in a complimentary way." So she began taking off the ring before class.

If, as Samuel Butler said, friendships are like money, easier made than kept, economic differences can add yet another obstacle to maintaining them. More friends and acquaintances are now finding themselves at different points on the financial spectrum, scholars and sociologists say, thanks to broad social changes like meritocracy-based higher education, diversity in the workplace and a disparity of incomes among professions.

As people with various-sized bank accounts brush up against each other, there is ample cause for social awkwardness, which can strain relationships, sometimes to a breaking point. Many find themselves wrestling with complicated feelings about money and self-worth and improvising coping strategies.

"The real issue is not money itself, but the power money gives you," said Dalton Conley, a professor of sociology and the director of the Center for Advanced Social Science Research at New York University, who studies issues of wealth and class. "Money makes explicit the inequalities in a relationship, so we work hard to minimize it as a form of tact."

For Ms. Gilbertson, that means not having her daughters' friends over to play because, she said, her apartment in Washington Heights is small and in what some parents might consider a marginal neighborhood. For the same reason, she had a pizza party for her daughter's birthday at the local Y.M.C.A.

For Ms. Paik, that meant avoiding inviting her classmates to her prewar, three-bedroom co-op on the Upper West Side, because many of them lived in student housing and she feared they would think she was showing off. "I didn't want to introduce that barrier," she said.

Money's discomfiting effects are explored in the recent film "Friends with Money," in which three of four female friends are well off while one is barely getting by. In an early scene the friends are gathered for dinner when Olivia, a former schoolteacher played by Jennifer Aniston, announces that she has started working as a maid. A few moments later Franny, played by Joan Cusack, says she and her husband will be making a $2 million donation to their child's elementary school. When another friend asks why Franny doesn't just give the money to Olivia, everyone laughs uncomfortably and the subject is changed.

"Money is talked about with such discomfort; it's so taboo," said Nicole Holofcener, the writer and director of "Friends With Money." "With close friends it takes work; I have to make a conscious effort to talk about issues of money that come up between us."

Economic barriers to friendship have come about in part because other barriers have been broken down, sociologists say. College, where people form some of the most intense friendships of their lives, is a melting pot of economic differences. Students from country-club families and those on scholarships are thrown together as roommates, on athletic teams and in classes.

"There has been an incredible expansion of higher education," Professor Conley said. "More people from more varied backgrounds are going to college. There are also more meritocratic admissions among elite institutions."

According to data compiled by Thomas Mortenson, a senior scholar at the Pell Institute in Washington, 42 percent of young adults (age 18 to 24) from the bottom quarter of family income were enrolled in college in 2003, compared with 28 percent in 1970. Enrollment for students from the two middle income quarters also increased. Participation of students from the highest-income families changed the least, with 80 percent attending college in 2003, compared with 74 percent in 1970.

Once college friends leave campus, their economic status can diverge widely depending on their careers. While 20 years ago a young lawyer and a new college instructor might have commiserated about their jobs over coffee and doughnuts, today the lawyer would be able to invite the assistant professor out for a meal at a restaurant with two sommeliers and a cheese expert.

At New York University, for instance, instructors make $35,300 for the current academic year, up from $24,500 for the 1985-86 academic year, according to the American Association of University Professors. A first-year associate at a large New York law firm, however, can earn as much as $170,000 with a year-end bonus, compared with about $53,000, including bonus, in 1985.

"In New York City we're on the front lines of the rise in inequality in income because it's happening at the top half of the income distribution ladder," Professor Conley said. "The difference between the middle and the top has grown incredibly."

Although the wealthy can wall themselves off in buildings with doormen or in high-tax suburbs, other trends in society lead the affluent to brush up against the not-so-affluent. Gentrification, an urban movement from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn to downtown Los Angeles, moves the professional class into the neighborhoods of the working class. They mix when their children attend the same school or participate in athletic leagues.

Feeling awkward about the differences in net worth is not just an issue for those on the bottom of the equation. Some wealthy people — especially the young — have trouble admitting that they are different.

"We are allegedly a classless society, and that's obviously completely untrue, but people don't want to acknowledge that those differences exist," said Jamie Johnson, a 26-year-old heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune. He explored attitudes about money among his peers in his 2003 documentary, "Born Rich." His new documentary, "The One Percent," which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 29, looks at the political influence of wealthy Americans.

Mr. Johnson said that some of his moneyed friends act like they have fewer resources than they do, making a show of taking the subway and saying they can't afford a cab. "It's to avoid that awkwardness of seeing the distinction of social class," he said.

The pressure to fit in economically can be especially intense for teenagers and young adults. Marisa Gordon, a 27-year-old account executive at a midsize Manhattan advertising agency, recalled that as a student at Syracuse University, her roommate resented that Ms. Gordon had more spending money than she did. The roommate made comments when Ms. Gordon brought home a pair of Diesel sweatpants and cried because she couldn't afford the same Issey Miyake perfume.

Though she and the roommate are still friendly, Ms. Gordon said money issues contributed to the fact they aren't as close as they once were. Now it is her younger sister, a freshman at Syracuse, who is feeling the sort of competitive pressure Ms. Gordon's roommate felt. The sister recently asked their parents for a Louis Vuitton bag, Ms. Gordon said, because, "Everyone at school has a Louis bag."

Suze Orman, a financial writer and speaker whose latest book is "The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous and Broke" (Riverhead Hardcover), said young adults can go into debt trying to keep up with their friends.

"I call them 'money pods,' " she said. "Look at a group of female friends walking down the street. They're often all dressed identically: the same shoes, the same belts, the same handbag."

But what is not easily apparent, Ms. Orman said, is that one of the women may have saved for months to buy her one expensive handbag, or more likely, put it on her credit card. Her identically dressed friends, meanwhile, may have the salary or the family money to afford a closet full of designer purses.

"That is how we get in trouble," Ms. Orman said. "We think our friends are just like us, and if our friend can afford something, we fool ourselves into thinking we can afford it, too."

Mary Ochsner, a stay-at-home mother of three in San Clemente, Calif., ended a friendship after money issues came to the fore. She had befriended a woman after college when they were both, as she put it, in "very affluent periods." But their paths diverged when Ms. Ochsner married a Marine and her friend married a man whom Ms. Ochsner described as an ambitious executive. She said her friend became increasingly status-conscious and would brag about home improvements.

The final insult came, Ms. Ochsner said, when she invited the woman to a birthday party for her daughter. The woman barely socialized but tried to poach her babysitter by offering $5 more an hour than what Ms. Ochsner was paying. Ms. Ochsner decided the friendship wasn't worth it.

"It wasn't about the money," she said. "The money made me realize she had different social ambitions."

Perhaps the most fraught social ritual of all when it comes to money and friendship is the settling of a restaurant bill. "I know wealthy people who are extremely troubled by the whole idea of who's going to pay the bill," Mr. Johnson said. "They're terrified for hours before it happens."

He said he has found himself arguing over the check with a dining companion who was not as wealthy. "Sometimes people feel obligated to buy me dinner because they don't want me to think I'm expected to pay for the meal," he said. "I don't really appreciate it. If anything, I think it's unfortunate that people feel that uncertainty."

The uneasiness is also acute on the other side of the income divide. A 30-year-old book editor in Manhattan who earns less than $40,000 a year recently went to Miami for the weekend with two friends from high school who both work for hedge funds.

"We're staying at the Shore Club, in a suite they've booked; I'm sleeping on the pullout couch and they're paying for it, which is hugely generous of them," the editor wrote in an e-mail message. He has not been identified to avoid offending his friends. "However, tonight they've booked a table at Nobu, with Mansion" — an expensive night club — "to follow. I'll end up spending about a week's pay in the next two nights, probably more. It'll feel worth it while I'm hanging out with them without any of the unpleasant reminders that our lives have seriously diverged since high school, but it's going to sting when I get back."

Mike Seely, a 31-year-old journalist in Seattle, recently arranged a lunch date with a wealthier friend who works in politics. He said he suggested a diner "where nothing's over $10, right in my price range." She countered by suggesting the Dahlia Lounge, an upscale restaurant where a spinach salad costs $14.

"I said, 'Sure, as long as this is on your dime,' " he said.

It was one of the few times he has felt comfortable addressing the issue so directly, he said, because his friend was the one to press for the more expensive place.

Even those who study the topic for a living have a hard time when it comes to divvying up the check. "I have friends who are economists who are comfortable getting down to the last decimal point of who owes what when we go out," Professor Conley said. Yet he feels compelled to keep quiet when he finds himself across the table from a friend who orders three glasses of wine to his tap water, then suggests they split the tab.

"It's probably because I don't want to appear petty," he explained. "I'd be battling pretty strong social norms."

This was my day on May 2nd

I woke up snuggled in my bed to find Greenpoint on fire. I sat on the train staring into space with a big smile on my face. I watched an old couple help each other get into the E train at Lexington and 53^rd. I watched iron-willed breathtaking women talk about being raped in Rwanda. I stepped over a tiny animal fetus. I sang and I stretched. I slept. This was my day.

Omg, my two most favorite past times!

I love baths. And I love beer. Now I simply must go to Germany!

From NYTimes -- Beer Spas: Yeast of Eden

Here's a picture-less link in case you cannot open the one above.

That's just brilliant!

So Russia and the Republic of Georgia have on-going back and forth conflicts. It's like that annoying bickering couple that you want to avoid at all times. I am not familiar with the details of it but it ranges from Georgia breaking away from the Soviet Union to kicking Russian troops out to becoming best friends with khinkali eating President Bush. And Russia has retaliated in a variety of ways, including sabotaging gas pipes thus preventing gas from being delivered to Georgia to banning import of Georgia’s wine.

Georgia is fairly well known for its wine, at least in the former Soviet Union and now European circles. It’s not your vintage Italian variety but some of it is quite tasty. In Russia, Georgian wine is regarded highly and therefore it is often faked. Russia is now claiming that Georgian wine is too polluted for human consumption therefore it should not be sold to Russian consumers. Georgians are up in arms about it since parts of its income in generated from wine exports and exports to Russia make up a considerable chuck of the total wine revenue.

Now, as much as I know, Georgians are going about the typical way of negotiating with the Russians. The usual government minister talking to another minister. Or something like that.

But a small group of Georgians and expats living in Georgians staged the most brilliant supra (Georgian feast) in front of the Georgian Embassy. Below, I am copying an article from the Messenger, the daily English language newspaper in Tbilisi, and a link to TV report of the feast where you can catch of glance at slightly drunken people toasting to the greatness of wine. I’d give an arm and a leg to have been there!

Link to the video is here: http://www.rustavi2.com.ge/news_text.php?id_news=15408&pg=1&im=main&ct=3&wth=

And the article from the Messenger:

Supra on Chavchavadze: international Georgian wine enthusiasts try to show
Russia what it's missing out on
By Tiko Giorgadze
The Messenger

As the Russian embargo on Georgian wine stretches into its second month and the government scrambles to open up new markets for Georgia's second largest export, a small group gathered in front of the Russian Embassy in Tbilisi on Thursday afternoon to discuss the situation.

With the generous cooperation of the Krombacher restaurant on Chavchavadze Avenue (home of some of Vake's best khinkhale), a long table and approximately 15 chairs were transported to a spot on the wide sidewalk facing the embassy and the World Association of Wine Lovers (WAWL) - an informal organization made up primarily of foreign wine enthusiasts residing in Georgia - sat down despite the current cold spell that has made the city feel more like November than late-April to hold their version of a traditional Georgian open-air supra.

"We decided to hold this public supra - in which we are drinking some excellent Georgian wine - to show the world that we support Georgian winemakers, and that we are against the aggressive politics behind the ban," WAWL Vere chapter president John Mackedon, told Rustavi 2.

According to the organization's manifesto, WAWL was established in 2006 in Tbilisi. It is committed to protecting the right of all law-abiding individuals to purchase, possess and drink quality wine as well as preserving the diversity of global viticulture through appropriate PR and
cultural understanding.

"WAWL prides itself on its ability to communicate peacefully and to quench the fire of ignorance and misunderstanding with its two primary Vine Lover's Pillars (VLPs): wine and conversation," the organization's manifesto proclaims.

The association has over 12 members - a number which has more than tripled since the Russian Federation banned Georgian wine imports. If restrictive wine control legislation is proposed at the local, state or international level, WAWL members and supporters make use of their efficient grassroots email network to alert one another and discuss the best course of action.

"In this case we decided that the best thing we - as foreigners living in Georgia - could do, would be to drink some quality Georgian wine in plain view of the Russian diplomatic corps. This shows that it's not only Georgians, but members of the international community who feel that the ban is wrongheaded," explained a WAWL member who preferred to maintain
anonymity.

The mood at Thursday's supra was festive with a number of toasts being proposed in Georgian, English and Russian, as WAWL participants sampled a variety of wines, both homemade and factory bottled. WAWL members provided the wine themselves and the event was not sponsored by any company, although one large jug of white wine from the Borjomi region was donated by Georgian friends, Mackedon explained.

"Georgian-Russian relations will be only damaged if cultural relations are blocked. I don't know anything about Saakashvili's relations with Russia but I came here to support Georgian wine and I want to make it clear that this is not a protest against Russian culture. We are just reminding both sides that Georgia and Russia have known each other for a long time and there's no reason why they should not be able to sit down and drink wine together," association member Kieth Mellnick told Rustavi 2.

WAWL believes that the best way to solve this problem is through civilized negotiation - something which a well-placed table laden with some of Georgia's finest wines could contribute to significantly.

The association's manifesto makes it clear that WAWL is categorically against of any sort of falsification and strongly believes that wine counterfeiters and their activities should be eradicated, but through counseling and education rather than stonewall legislation.

WAWL Vake chapter co-chair Tim Blauvelt finds the ban to be beyond comprehension. "I cannot understand why Russians are depriving themselves of the chance to partake in this excellent wine that we are drinking here. We want show them what they are missing out on and to invite them to come get pleasure from the drink that they are banning," Blauvelt declared, raising his glass.

A rumor spread that the Russian Ambassador had been invited to the event and periodic movement was spotted between the slats of the vertical Venetian blinds covering the embassy windows although no representatives of the Russian diplomatic corps ventured out to join the group.

Katrina/Rita and sex work

Has anyone seen anything published by a somewhat neutral media source about the victims (male or female) of either hurricane turning to sex work (prostitution, stripping, escort services etc) in order to pay bills, provide for the family, basically survive? I have found a slew of article about sex work before the hurricanes but nothing after.

I know there has been increase of sex work activities after the tsunami in East Asia and was wondering if similar is happening in the U.S.

from NYTimes

April 27, 2006

Letter From Brazil

She Who Controls Her Body Can Upset Her Countrymen

By LARRY ROHTER

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — She goes by the name Bruna, the Little Surfer Girl, and gives new meaning to the phrase "kiss and tell." First in a blog that quickly became the country's most popular and now in a best-selling memoir, she has titillated Brazilians and become a national celebrity with her graphic, day-by-day accounts of life as a call girl here.

But it is not just her canny use of the Internet that has made Bruna, whose real name is Raquel Pacheco, a cultural phenomenon. By going public with her exploits, she has also upended convention and set off a vigorous debate about sexual values and practices, revealing a country that is not always as uninhibited as the world often assumes.

Interviewed at the office of her publisher here, Ms. Pacheco, 21, said the blog that became her vehicle to notoriety emerged almost by accident. But once it started, she was quick to spot its commercial potential and its ability to transform her from just another program girl, as high-class prostitutes are called in Brazil, into an entrepreneur of the erotic.

"In the beginning, I just wanted to vent my feelings, and I didn't even put up my photograph or phone number," she said. "I wanted to show what goes on in the head of a program girl, and I couldn't find anything on the Net like that. I thought that if I was curious about it, others would be too."

Ms. Pacheco parlayed that inquisitiveness into a best seller, "The Scorpion's Sweet Poison," that has made her a sort of sexual guru. A mixture of autobiography and how-to manual, her book has sold more than 100,000 copies since it was published late last year, and has just been translated into Spanish.

At book signings, Ms. Pacheco said, "80 percent of the public is women, which I didn't expect at all," because most of the readers of her blog appeared to be men, including customers who "wanted to see how I had rated their performance." As she sees it, the high level of female interest in her sexual experiences reflects a gap here between perceptions about sex and the reality.

"I think there's a lot of hypocrisy and a bit of fear involved," she said. "Brazilian women have this sexy image, of being at ease and uninhibited in bed. But anyone who lives here knows that's not true."

Carnival and the general sensuality that seems to permeate the atmosphere can give the impression that Brazil is unusually permissive and liberated, especially compared with other predominantly Roman Catholic nations. But experts say the real situation is far more complicated, which explains both Bruna's emergence and the strong reactions she has provoked.

"Brazil is a country of contradictions, as much in relation to sexuality as anything else," said Richard Parker, a Columbia University anthropologist who is the author of "Bodies, Pleasures and Passions: Sexual Culture in Contemporary Brazil," and has taught and worked here. "There is a certain spirit of transgression in daily life, but there is also a lot of moralism."

As a result, some Brazilians have applauded Bruna's frankness and say it is healthy to get certain taboos out in the open, like what both she and academic researchers say is a national penchant for anal sex. But others decry her celebrity as one more noxious manifestation of free-market economics and globalization.

"This is the fruit of a type of society in which people will do anything to get money, including selling their bodies to be able to buy cellular phones," said Maria Clara Lucchetti Bingemer, a newspaper columnist and professor of theology at Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro. "We've always had prostitution, but it was a hidden, prohibited thing. Now it's a professional option like anything else, and that's the truly shocking thing."

But Gabriela Silva Leite, a sociologist and former prostitute who now directs a prostitutes' advocacy group, argues that such concerns are exaggerated. "It's not a book like this that is going to stimulate prostitution, but the lack of education and opportunities for women," she said. "I don't think Bruna glamorizes things at all. On the contrary, you can regard the book as a kind of warning, because she talks of the unpleasant atmosphere and all the difficulties she faced."

Part of the controversy stems simply from Ms. Pacheco's forthright and unapologetic tone about her work. Traditionally, Brazilians feel sympathy for the poor woman selling her body to feed her children; she is seen as a victim of the country's glaring social and economic inequalities.

But Ms. Pacheco does not fit that mold. She comes from a middle-class family and turned to prostitution, she said, both as rebellion against her strict parents and because she wanted to be economically independent.

That a woman is now talking and behaving as Brazilian men often have may also offend some. Roberto da Matta, a leading anthropologist and social commentator, noted that even though role reversals were an important part of Carnival, other areas of Brazilian life, including sexual relationships, could be quite rigid and hierarchical.

Under the system of machismo that prevails in Brazil and other Latin American countries, "only a man has a right to command his own sex life, and that control is seen as a basic attribute of masculinity," he explained. "So when a young, attractive, intelligent woman appears and says she is a prostitute, you have a complete inversion of roles, leaving men fragile in a terrain where she is the boss, not them."

For all her willingness to break taboos, though, Ms. Pacheco's current life plan is conventional. She has a steady boyfriend and hopes to marry him, and is studying for the national college entrance exam, with a mind to majoring in psychology.

"Being Bruna was a role that left its mark on me, but I can't abandon her," Ms. Pacheco said. "There are people who still call me Bruna, and I don't mind, but I wouldn't want to be her for the rest of my life."

Nor is Ms. Pacheco immune to the influence of pudor, a concept important throughout Latin America that combines elements of modesty, decency, propriety and shame. In her book, rather than write out the words commonly used on the street to describe sexual acts and organs, she prints only their first letters, with dots indicating what everyone already knows.

"I think it's quite vulgar to say the whole word," she explained. "But I didn't want to be too formal, either."

California

I think I have a growing obsession with California. It’s completely unfounded and somewhat based on the mythical stories shown on the OC.

Well, partially my obsession also is based on meeting several Californians (Californers?) this past week. Based on my scientific observations of the (somewhat small) representative sample, my impressions of California are:

-California is full of really nice and friendly hippies who like hugging.
-California is full of musicians.
-No one in California seems to have a daily 9-5 behind the desk office job and no one seems to want one.
-There are a lot of burritos in California.
-There are also many road trips that take place throughout California.
-In general, California is a wonderland of ocean, beaches, and mountains.
-Despite sunny weather, men in California seem to wear a lot of wooly hats.

I suppose there was one disappointment represented in the sample size; that is, the proportion of bears to shaved chins was 0 to 3. Although, after producing photographic evidence, one representative used to have a beard. So there is some hope.

In case you're wondering

This is what I do all day (I should add that I am the one asking):

The next few questions will ask you about whether you performed oral sex on your paying partner during the past 90 days. By oral sex, I mean when you put your mouth on your paying partner’s penis (blow job). Do not forget to look at your calendar so you are able to know the 90-day time period. Please be honest in your answers.

Hmm

Mice update

So I know this is getting a little old but seven really is a lucky number.

I say this because mouse number 7 was successfully assasinated about a week ago.

This incident happened in my own bedroom. It was traumatic mainly due to the fact that at 4am, I discovered a mouse hanging out on top of a lamp about a foot away from my bed and (more importantly) my head. I had to grab a broom to shoo it away which resulted in the mouse climing up the curtains and taunting me while peeking over the curtain rod. Then, after some more prodding with the broom, it scurried down the curtains and dissapeared under my bed. Needless to say, this story ends with me setting up a trap which I then had to move to a different spot and the assasination occurring around 6am.

Oh yea, I also forgot to mention that I was completely hung over during the whole time. Mouse hunting is tough.

Spring in Brooklyn

(in no particular order, subject to edits, applicable to the rest of New York City)

-Sunshine & warm weather
-Leaves & blossoms on trees/grass/flowers
-Achoo, achoo, achoo, sniff… achoo!
-Bye-bye coats/itchy turtlenecks; Hello short shorts!
-Cool new (yet vintage) summer wardrobe to be displayed on Bedford Avenue
-Cool new (yet unkempt-looking) haircut to be displayed on the L train
-Body odor on any subway train
-Tourists
-Bouncy cleavage
-Low-rise jeans & wifebeaters/tanktops
-Beer belly/manboobs/hairy backs (no longer covered up by heavy coats and wooly sweaters, whew!)
-Midriff blubber
-Underwear & thongs
-Barstool and buttcracks (hairy and not)
-Pale legs
-Skinny black jeans
-Mandals & stilettos
-BBQ, backyards & cigarettes
-Mr. Softee/Macarena
-Bikes & dogs
-Frolicking in McCarren park
-General annoying behavior in McCarren park meant to draw gawking from passer-bys
-That Greenpoint smell

Have YOU ever lied to the authorities?

Since I am planning a trip to Russia, I have been practicing the past few days how to beat the system. I am not sure how far I'll get since I've lied to "authorities" since day one. Then again, being accompanied by a guard for further questioning in a tense atmosphere could be quite kinky!

From the Washington Times (courtesy of a friend):

Truth Verifier interrogates Russian travelers on lies

By Adrian Blomfield
LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH

MOSCOW -- Millions of passengers traveling through Russia soon will have to take a lie detector test as part of new airport security measures that could eventually be applied throughout the country.

The technology, to be introduced at Moscow's Domodedovo airport as early as July, is intended to identify terrorists and drugs smugglers. But many passengers will be chilled by the set of four questions they will have to answer into a machine, including, "Have you ever lied to the authorities?"

The machine asks four questions: The first is for full identity; the second, unnerving in its Soviet-style abruptness, demands: "Have you ever lied to the authorities?" It then asks whether either weapons or narcotics are being carried.

To cut delays, passengers will take the tests after taking off their shoes and putting baggage through the X-ray machines. He doesn't get his shoes back until he satisfactorily answers the questions. Each test will take up to a minute. "If a person fails to pass the test, he is accompanied by a special guard to a cubicle where he is asked questions in a more intense atmosphere," says Vladimir Kornilov, IT director for the airport.

The fully automated instrument to be used, known as the "Truth Verifier," is hardly the polygraph familiar from old spy thrillers. Passengers will simply speak into a handset. Thanks to "layered-voice-analysis technology," the system, developed by an Israeli company, can even establish whether answers come from the memory or the imagination.

The technology already is being used by some insurance companies in Britain to screen telephone claims for fraud.

"We can understand that something like this could be uncomfortable for some passengers, but it is a necessary step," Mr. Kornilov says.

Initially, only passengers deemed suspicious by the Russian security service will take the test. But it will be expanded to cover selected international flights and eventually will encompass all passengers.

Passengers who fail will be subjected to more rigorous interrogation both by the verifier, whose accuracy increases to 98 percent with more extensive questioning, and by its human colleagues.

4 for 2

I was just looking at my beards posting and remembered this:

Recently I went to the student health center for my yearly check-up. As a soon-to-be a full-time unemployed person with an expiring health insurance, I figured I may as well take care of business, just in case. Besides, since I preach prevention like a maniac, I may as well live up to my own expectations of others.

So, as you can imagine, student health center is the ideal place to stock up on condoms. They are everywhere, in pretty bowls when you check in, on a gigantic box in the waiting area, in a brown lunch bag in the nurse’s office (when you’re a student, you don’t get to see a doctor unless the nurse cannot figure out what is wrong with you). Not that I am in some sort of a condom usage spree, unless you count the times I fill them with water to drop on top of my annoying Riverdance-in-clogs-I-love-practicing-bowling-at-1am upstairs neighbor. OK, that never happens either. But condoms are expensive, especially when you’re on grad student budget, so I figured since I poured thousands into my education, I may as well get something back.

I decided to get four – you never know, spring is in the air, people are feeling amorous, I’ve been going out and drinking more and more lately – and to my dismay, when I got home, two of them were expired! I am not sure if this is fate’s comment on my life or what. I suppose the expiration date on the other two is two years away so with the way things are going, I should be OK with just 2.

Lucky number seven

You know you live in Greenpoint when:

1) your landlord is always drunk;
2) your neighbor upstairs has Riverdance parties in clogs at 1am and on occasion decides to throw bowling balls onto his floor;
3) your apartment is infested with mice.

Actually that’s my apartment. I don’t blame you if you cancel your plans to visit.

Last week, after deciding that I didn’t want to deal with my drunken landlord anymore, I braved on my own and reset two of the four traps. Talk about self-sufficiency! (Soon I’ll start my own nuclear power-plant* in my apartment so that I can supply my apartment with my own source of energy!) The reason why I reset only two is because they seem to be really effective and so far, killed four mice. They are not that fancy, made out of plastic but they are easy to set up and they kill, kill, kill!

Around 2am, after lying in my bed and trying to block out bowling balls being dropped onto the floor upstairs, I heard a trap snap. Yes!

Of course, the following morning, when I peeked behind the stove, the trap was nowhere to be seen. Which meant that I had to get my drunked landlord to come and move the stove and fish out the dead mouse and its trap. That’s mouse #5. Around 5pm today, as I was catching some zzz’s on the couch (I got out of work early), one of the traps snapped. Again. That’s mouse #6. When my landlord came to remove it (Why do something when someone else can do it for you?), he said he saw another one scurry away. So now I am waiting for mouse #7.

If any PETA people out there are getting upset about my mice hunting, I welcome them all to come to my apartment to catch the mice in a humane manner. I’ll even feed you all organic rice and beans or whatever is that you eat.

*To all those who are reading blogs to spy on behalf of the G0V – this is a joke. It would be virtually impossible for me to set up a nuclear power-plant in my apartment. If I did, I would be a genius mainly because my apartment is the size of a shoebox. And, more importantly, I really do not know anything about nuclear physics. This statement has been verified by my lawyer, Bob Lahblah, JD, PhD, PC, Mac OS X.

Never mind, I love the new NYTimes

I've moaned and bitched about the NYTimes and some of it is still true - who prints a bedbug story on the front page of the weekend edition? You'd expect that from the Daily News or the NY Post.

But for once, they've posted a story about something that's relevent to me. Not that tax paying is THAT relevent to me; well, it is partially as I actually pay them. And this year I filled out the forms as soon as I could to get my gigantic (right...) return - it paid my rent for a month so I can't complain too much.

NOOoooooo....

Oh, what happened to the New York Times webpage? Apparently "they" changed it to have more space for blogs and other nonsense. I am so sad... They even changed their font. I am going to cry now.

I have to go cool myself off

It's true, I have an obsession with beards. I've had it for a while - at least longer than a few months.

Yea, yea, I know, it's a hipster thing now, just like faux-hawks were about two years ago. Everyone on Bedford Avenue has a beard now. Or at least those who can grow one has it. It varies from the scraggly "I don't feel like shaving today" post-5 o'clock shadow to the fully grown "I am a man's man!" beard.

Despite these recent trends, now documented even by the New York Times, I've taken beards seriously for some time. I have several witnesses who can confirm my disappointment when my friend decided to shave his beard about a year or so ago. Clearly, under pressure from his fiancee, in a state of utter distress, he buckled. Fortunately, my other friends continue growing and grooming their man-beards so I am OK in case you're wondering.

My myspace profile has documented this obsession, too. Under the "General Interests" section, beards have been duly recorded for years.

So let's be honest here, I can't help it if my general interests become a trend in Williamsburg...

Toot toot!

Hee hee.

Mice continued

I am fairly convinced that after hiding all my bagels in the refrigerator, the mouse (or mice?) has decided to seek revenge by moving in my room. And I know this because I hear nibbling noises at 2am which promptly wake me up.

My roommate told me a story about her uncle who killed a mouse in his bed with his bare hands. I don’t know what to do, believe her or convince myself that her uncle was pulling her leg. Then again, perhaps she has some sort of an agreement with the mouse.

I am also a little confused what it is nibbling because I don't keep food in the bedroom. Maybe it's the multi-vitamins and the calcium pills? I would imagine like the rest of my fellow New Yorkers, mice here are image and health conscious, too.

(Mice) killers wanted

Ugh, yeah, there is really nothing to write about. Although actually, I am wrong, there is a ton to write about, it’s just I have to write so many papers that at some point, writing anything is a drag.

This reminds me, as part of my field placement responsibilities, I have to write these ‘Process Recordings’ which essentially is a way for the supervisors to read what the student is learning and what the student is doing. It’s kind of like a diary, too, they always encourage people to write about feelings that emerge after having to counsel a client after a suicide attempt. Basically, it’s cheap therapy for the student. Cheap task-oriented self-reflection. It reeks of social work.

This week was my spring break. I spent five days in Cancun. It was amazing, the copious amounts of alcohol were counter-balanced with all-night table top dancing and all-day napping on the beach. It’s the most balanced lifestyle – you get nutrients from alcohol, exercise from dancing, and much needed r & r on the beach. The tan and sex is the dessert.

OK, well that was a lie.

Actually, all week I sat around in my apartment, looking for jobs, updating my resume, and writing stuff about sex work and drug use. I also met with former colleagues and begged for jobs and references to places to work. It doesn’t sound as glamorous as five days in Cancun and there is definitely no healthy balance in this lifestyle but I managed to pack in some much needed and nutritious calories by drinking several Guinnesses with a friend in green three-quarter capris.

That was a lie, too; my friend wore green quarter pants. Happy St. Patrick’s!

More importantly, my life lately has evolved around trying to kill mice in my apartment. The first mouse appeared sometime in mid-December and at first I thought it was kind of cute. I used to have pet rats so having little fuzzy creatures romping around at night didn’t bother me too much. Until they (it) started eating my bagels. That’s where I drew the line because there is never enough time for breakfast in the morning and a pumpernickel bagel with butter really hits the spot. And helps the digestive system.

Anyways, I am on mouse four now. Since the Pied Piper is unsure of his return back to town, there is mice poop in the most random parts of my kitchen, and I had to throw away about six bagels by now, I decided to consult with several friends who used to have/currently have mice. There is consent about steel wool which I duly stuffed into a hole behind the stove but unfortunately, as recommended by a website, I didn’t have concrete to pour on top the steel wool. Concrete in New York? I don’t even know where the closest Home Depot is located. We also have a bunch of traps, one of which seems to work really well (it killed three so far) but I am too lazy to get my drunken landlord to set them up. So, as I discovered this morning, my bagels keep being nibbled on. Dammit.

Gimme gimme!

My question is, if South Dakota bans all abortions, they are effectively labeling all fetuses as children, all pregnant women as mothers, and all partners of pregnant women as fathers. So keeping this in mind, are they offering comparable pubic assistance support for all mothers (those pregnant and those who have delivered) and all fathers (those who have an actual baby and those whose partners are pregnant) and all children (including those to whom I refer to as fetuses)? In other words, are the fetuses getting child assistance? Because according to the categorization of this ignorant and close-minded ban, the fetuses should be getting some cash, too.

Dress me up, dress me down

I can't decide if I like American Apparel. They make nice and comfy t-shirts and undies. But I am not that crazy about their stores, there is usually too much going on and I leave within 5 minutes, unless I can't decide on color.

Their ads are OK, somewhat predictable circa 1990s Calvin Klein rip-offs. But maybe that's because I don't find croch shots all that seductive, although I like this and that (ok this one is a little hairy...) bum shot. Now, those are cute bums!

Along the same predictable lines, American Apparel started a "gallery" section with amateur photography. And I really love the Hungarian baths photos. This could be because I am completely obsessed with baths in general but these photos are great. And it's really hard to say no to plump ol' ladies.

Oh wow!

I don't know about you, but I am running out right now to get me one of these!

I am too kind to myself

After some contemplation, I’ve decided not continue with my list of annoyances because I am annoyed with it. So, being a somewhat thoughtful person, I decided to stop annoying myself.

But don’t fret, I am sure those two specific annoyances will pop up on this thingee at some point in the future.

On another note, I was walking down a street in Greenpoint and saw an old man talking to pigeons. I am fairly bad at guessing a person’s age but I think it’s safe to say that he was in his 70s; he was somewhat physically fit - he stood upright on his own, but not active enough to guess that he recently retired. In front of him there was a pile of bits of bread and about 20 pigeons.

I am fairly good at guessing the number of items, persons, steps etc in front of me because I have a tendency of counting things and by now, I’ve counted different things enough to guess somewhat accurately the number of items in front of me. I wouldn’t go as far as say that I can tell how many jelly beans are in a 3 liter jar but when it comes to 20 pigeons, I think I am right. Now, I realize that counting things is some sort of a sign of mental illness but there is nothing that I can do, I can’t stop counting.

But I digress.

The point is, the old man was standing in front of bunch of pigeons making pigeon noises. Not that there is something wrong with it, I like to sit around and stare at things, too. But as I passed the pigeon man, I really hope I too won’t turn into a 70+ something pigeon woman.

But then a few nights later, as I was chowing down my dinner, I watched a documentary on PBS (oh, how high-brow) about Mary Cane Honeysett, a lovely, quirky, and funny old lady who lives in London and despite her failing vision, she spends her days painting. Her goal in life is to get one of her painting accepted to the annual show at the Royal Academy of Arts (they accept submissions from any artist, somewhat unusual, considering the hoops an artist needs to jump in order to get her work considered for a show in this city). And I thought “Whew! Perhaps talking to pigeons is not the only option.”

I procrastinate. Back to writing about a trauma informed parenting group for women who have post-traumatic stress disorder and are currently in treatment for alcohol and/or drug abuse. Hmm, or maybe I'll go to make myself a sandwich... The fun in my life just doesn't stop.