The things you hear on the Staten Island Ferry

Eavesdropping on the Staten Island Ferry: December 2011

photo cred: Gothamist http://gothamist.com/2004/05/10/staten_island_ferry.php

"All My Children" will not be celebrating it’s 42 birthday, and it’s a “fucking let down”, according to two middle aged women I sit across from on the Staten Island ferry.

Woman 1 is wearing purple Uggs, Woman 2  is wearing flip flops. It’s December. Her bulbous toes are bugging me out.

“My mom used to record it on the V-C-R,” Woman 1 enunciates each letter to convey the ridiculousness of such an antiquated technology. Woman 1, and a more soft spoken, less abrasive Woman 2 go back and forth explaining the legacy of plot twists revolving around the character, “Erica Kane”.

I think; “ awesome".

Woman 2, while less brash has a very Brooklyn way of gesturing, her hands moving wildly as she goes on about this elusive Erica Kane,

“Apparently her daughter was a lesbian, was for like 7 years, then she was gone from the show, where has she been?”

Woman 1 knows the answer, of course.

“She got married to a girl and was like living in England or Paris, one of those, don’t you remember that?”

Woman 2 gestures an obvious “no”.

The two women discuss more award winning plot twists as they sloppily slouch on the ferry benches, their Century 21 sacks fastened between their legs.

Woman 1 explains her frustration with a particular AMC character,

“He thinking he like Orifice, predicting the future and shit,” reference to the Matrix, she means Morpheus.

The conversation moves on. They chatter about their kids, how lazy their husbands are, how much they hate “chicken heads(?)” and of course their bodies.

Woman 1 soliloquizes, “I lost weight, I’m 179 now. I was 190 because all I do is smoke and eat. I drop my baby off at school come home smoke, eat, then watch Maury. Then smoke and eat some more.”

Well lady, THAT’S WHY YOU’RE SO OVERWEIGHT.

Now they’re talking about how 'ethnic' women are fitting into the white female weight “stereotypes”.

You guessed it, Woman1 lead this conversation,

“Like Mo’Nique and Jennifer Hudson once they were all about being big girls, then they go under and like lose all this weight…you can’t tell everyone it’s okay to be big then do commercials for Jenny Craig and losing like 2,000 pounds.”

Yes, the chic said 2,000, I’m not exaggerating, you can’t make this up.

Yelp Addiction with a side of Pinterest obsession...

Today is Monday. 

Not your run of the mill, standard shit-tastic Monday, but Monday + first day back from Vacation-Monday. Brutal. An especially awesome weekend at that I might add.  I am singing the Monday Blues, suffering from Post-partum vacation depression...the works.

Spent some time today breaking into the Yelp review writing scene. Oh yea, that will be trouble by the way. I am sure, without a doubt I will proceed to review every place I go for at least a month or so straight, before getting bored and/or distracted by something new and cooler. Already reviewed a nail salon and the Dunkin Donuts near work...uh-oh

Ahh fickle youth.

Anywho, here are my Yelp reviews for a few of the spots I visited on my recent (amazing, charming, wonderful, MYSTICal) vacation to Mystic, CT.

Bravo, Bravo Restaurant Mystic CT and I mean bravo, encore, yes.amazing.more. i miss it.

The Whalers Inn my humble abode from my trip...

And here I leave you with this parting shot. Julia Roberts, 80s movie nostalgia anyone??

Visit my Pinterest for more way awesome pictures of my weekend...

New york city MTA

Mike Bloomberg should stop working so hard to ban XL sodas and take a harder and closer look at the transportation system in NYC.

My bus, not only has asian snacks and Snapples littering the aisles and seats; smells like the back alley of a KFC, but costs $5.50. One way. Not guaranteeing a seat, nor that you will escape with your life and sanity intact.

I can buy actual fried chicken for that much IF I WANTED IT, BTW and a big gulp...

Mayor mike, let us have the big ole cokes (i'll take a diet) and maybe use the 55$ a week hundreds of thousand ny commuters pay and i dunno maybe clean em? Or add a bus or two?

Sincerely yours,
Disgrunted Commuter ( and i am not the only one)

Xox

trebuchet

i hate the font "only fools are satisfied" is written in. Times New Roman? really people.

I suppose once I become more tech savvy and submerge myself into understanding social media more, I will be able to change that to good old Tahoma. One can only hope... This is 'trebuchet'. That'll do. Who names fonts? I could do that. Along with naming Ben & Jerry Flavors. Bucket list.

i digress.
i digress a lot. 

So this here is my first blog post, I don't know how it's going thus far, I haven't decided. Frankly, it's a little too early for me to decide. I'm working now, but this is a good way to warm up my brain, I guess. 

What will you see/hear/read/smell from me on my blog?
-Observations. I am born and bred New York City, currently working in Manhattan and commuting back and forth every day to my childhood home in the outer-boroughs...safe to say, the people and things I see make for some excellent blogging material.
-My personal interests are all over the place; here I feel free to express them all.
-iRant. Sometimes ya just gotta vent. 
-writing sample/ideas/tidbits/drafts. Creative writing student in my not-so-long-gone days of higher education. Trying to get back into the habit of writing every day (all work and no play makes jack a dull boy). You'll see that a lot, I am a pop culture sponge, quotes will fly. 

(i love how i'm writing as if i'm addressing someone in particular, yea 'cause I have soooo many followers) tell your friends. hide your kids, hide your wife.

back to work.
keep on keepin on. til next time. I leave you with the words of a REAL writer. 

so you want to be a writer?
by Charles Bukowski
if it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don't do it. unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don't do it. if you have to sit for hours staring at your computer screen or hunched over your typewriter searching for words, don't do it. if you're doing it for money or fame, don't do it. if you're doing it because you want women in your bed, don't do it. if you have to sit there and rewrite it again and again, don't do it. if it's hard work just thinking about doing it, don't do it. if you're trying to write like somebody else, forget about it. if you have to wait for it to roar out of you, then wait patiently. if it never does roar out of you, do something else. if you first have to read it to your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend or your parents or to anybody at all, you're not ready. don't be like so many writers, don't be like so many thousands of people who call themselves writers, don't be dull and boring and pretentious, don't be consumed with self- love. the libraries of the world have yawned themselves to sleep over your kind. don't add to that. don't do it. unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don't do it. unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it. when it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it until you die or it dies in you. there is no other way. and there never was.