Visited my hometown

I really love it there. I'd like to move back there. Someday. But, I have to admit, walking out of Laguardia airport to that crowded M60 bus, I felt really good. Listening to NPR on my headphones, suitcase up on the rack, a spot by the backdoor. Life made sense.

Nobody Wants to Go to the 9/11 Memorial

When my mom visited, she dragged me to the 9/11 memorial. I had no interest in going. I tried to delay or plan other activities, but she was set on it.

The most striking element of the 9/11 Memorial (in February at least) was the intense security I went through to get into it. It's at airport level- windy line with cameras aggressively aimed at me, belts and belts off as I went through the metal detector. It almost seemed like weird performance art. The piece would be called "the effects of 9/11 on culture in the US" and that is what it would be.

After going to the 9/11 Memorial, I mentioned to friends that I had been, and was stared at blankly. Over and over again, I would tell people that I went, trying to start a conversation and people weren't interested. The US government's response to 9/11 has altered our lives and the lives of people around the world. The Memorial is free and in the least, seems like a reference point to understand the country we live in better.  I realized that not only did nobody I know want to go to the 9/11 memorial, they didn't even want to talk about it's existence.

Are my lefty friends disinterested because of the patriotism associated with it?
Did we live through it, so we don't feel like we need a memorial?
Is it just another tourist trap?

Other White People

I have lived in my building for six months. My half of the sixth floor is exclusively white people and one mixed-race couple. The tenants who have been here longest- some for up to forty years (!) are all black. People here have been really kind and open in my six months. I have appreciated it.

It was difficult to move into this building. There were more documents required to move in here than I think should be legal. Pay stubs, letters from employers, credit checks, w-2s, print outs from the last three months of both of our savings accounts and more were required. I think the amount of paperwork required is a form of red-lining to keep lower income people out, who also here in Brooklyn are more likely to be people of color. 

These days, I only see other white people moving in, usually young heterosexual couples. I have mixed feelings about them. I want to say "stop coming here, you yuppies!" and I don't want to be as friendly to them as the long-time black tenants have been to me.  But, I'm exactly the same as them. 

Fairy Godmother

Lives intersect in unexpected ways, sometimes taking time for strange occurrences to play out. Like people who inadvertently marry their own brother or people who save strangers from death.  Fuck, I just set up my story to be as dramatic as those. Well basically, my story is as important. See,  I've played a large role in someone's life who I barely even know.

I met this person last year at a conference. They* mentioned the type of work they are interested in and I told them about a job opportunity. They got the job. Then we became friends on facebook. When they were traveling to my hometown they messaged me to ask if I knew any queer people they could stay with in the area. I suggested a friend's place and they had an amazing time, even hooking up with a gorgeous woman while they were in town. The second time I met this person face to face was at a Brooklyn coffee shop on Monday, as I was leaving. A coffee shop used to be a place I passed by on my way to work or would spot and self righteously detest in gentrifying neighborhoods. Now it's a place I use to give structure to my life and meet up with friends.

When I told them I got laid off, they said they had once fucked someone in the conference room (information that a mere month ago would have been fascinating, but now just pissed me off). We chatted for a few minutes and I introduced them to the friend I was with who had just been telling me they were lonely and looking for something new. Afterwards my friend said she thought they were cute. I sent them an email putting that out there. Now they're going to hang out.

Basically I got this person a job, a free place to stay on vacation and sex with two hot and intelligent women.

*I'm using "they" instead of he or she, because I'm not sure what their gender identity is or what they like to be called by.

Unemployed Activities

A list of things I want to do/places I want to go in unemployment:

1. Go to thrift store in Staten Island run by the commune
2. Go to Folk Art Museum
3. Take a yoga class at Third Root
4. Take a free introductory class at Open Center 
5. Go to City Island
6. Go back to Dead Horse Bay. Bike there, this time.
7. Visit friends in the nearby places I never go to: Philadelphia, DC, Hudson Valley, Boston, Providence
8. Volunteer at Materials for the Arts and bask in the glow of the possibility of awesome creativity 
9. Forget what  I've done and start fresh with what I want to do

Dreamers, Love Dreams Can Actually Come True

On Friday, as I waited for the train in the middle of the day (a thing I do now that I'm jobless), a guy started talking to me. I was listening to messages on my phone and as soon as I put my phone away he half sprinted to me. A nerdy white guy, his hands were shaking when he spoke to me. He was nice enough and non-threatening, so I didn't stop the conversation, even though I wasn't interested.

Once I told him that I was in a relationship, though, he quickly ended things. He did want to give me his card, though- just in case, I guess. He handed it to me as we both got on the train. We sat across from each other. I looked down at his card.



A little hard to read here, but it says:
"Cabaret Extraordinaire
Dreamers, Love Dreams Can Actually Come True"

followed by his name and the title of "Creator, Composer, and Cellist."

As I was looking at the most unusual business card that I've ever been handed, I noticed he started talking to the woman who was sitting next to him. Even though I wasn't interested in the guy, I was still offended that he was chatting it up with someone else right in front of me. I know I probably don't get to be mad about that. And even it ended sadly, as she started showing him her engagement pictures. Zero for two- this guy wasn't very good at picking out single women. When she got off at Grand Street, I heard him say "good luck with the wedding," as she dashed off. I got off at Grand Street, too. I wondered if he would continue to chat it up with the next woman who sat down next to him and beyond that, if this was him following his "love dream."

Yelp

A couple of days after I got laid off, I was still a mess. My stomach hurt constantly and I felt really sorry for myself to the point of not being able to think about anything else. I decided to get a massage- something I've only done a couple of other times in my life. I used google maps to find a place within walking distance of my apartment.  No Yelp reviews, but I was so out of it, I didn't care.

The office was in an old apartment building on Eastern Parkway. Walking in, hundreds of copies of Ebony, Vibe and Essence magazines from at least the last five years hung in magazine holders on the walls. African and black-centric art covered every inch of wall space. The television blasted with Fox News (of all stations) showing updates about the Trayvon Martin case. "How did you hear about us?" the receptionist asked cautiously, "just walking by and seeing our sign? Do you live around here?" she guessed to help me. She also told me this was primarily a dentist's office, so if I needed a dentist I should come again.

I realized, then, that I was probably one of the only white people to ever step into that reception room.  Though Crown Heights has way more white people walking around now than ever, inside here, Crown Heights hadn't changed at all.

The massage therapist's father was the dentist. He'd been there for decades and had offered his daughter a room to do massage, though she said her main business was Brazilian waxes. She was really kind and gave me a decent massage. She said she was having trouble getting clients, even though there wasn't any competition within a 20-block radius. I got that it would be an uphill battle to attract other new white neighbors to the office. The slightly-rundown space, lack of online presence and the working class black-centricness screams of a Crown Heights that is being run out of town by upscale baby stores and brightly lit yoga studios. Realistically, if I hadn't been such a mess the day I was making an appointment, I'm not sure that I would have gone to a place without even one online review.

In my post-massage bliss, her dad, introduced himself and excitedly showed off some of his art collection that covered the walls almost up to the ceiling. He showed me one of the dental rooms that he was fixing up.

As I was leaving, I told the massage therapist that I would do a Yelp Review for her business, something I've never done before. I know a lot of my people- young, white educated people, wouldn't go get a massage at a place without at least one review, so I figured I would do my part. Here it is.