N Train Chronicles

I'm not sure if my mom is as old-fashioned (or just silly) as most, but she's the type who would tell you not to stick your finger in your nose because a monster that lives in your nose would bite it off. In that same sentiment she used to say that if I kept making grotesque faces, it would actually stick and I'd be sorry. And I never believed her... Until today.

I boarded the N train this morning and actually grabbed a seat for once and a couple stops later an Asian man with really cool green and white sneakers and wool hat sat down across from me. I thought his squinting face was an effort to read the subway map behind me (I always, ALWAYS end up sitting right in front of the subway map without realizing it)... But it didn't stop. His eyes were all squinted and his teeth showed. The wrinkles in the bridge of his nose indicated he was scrunching it with effort. I couldn't actually see his eyes but each little wrinkle looked like a painful depiction of the mindset causing him to make this awful face. I couldn't look away. Damnit, the man was right across from me, and I thought maybe if I did stare at him, he would notice the grimace he was making and stop it immediately. Not so.

How does one acquire a natural state of a scrunched face? How much stress does this man have? Or did he have? Relax, man! Life is too short to ever be so stressed that your face would look the way it does.

I wonder what other supposedly "silly" things Mom told me that ended up being true.

Oh, good!

So last Friday , as many of you know, I started work at Organic Avenue to make up for the days I'm not working at the magazine. I trained. It was pretty easy, the store is not nearly as big as BBB and we hardly had any customers. Piece 'o' cake. I thought I did a fantastic job stocking, cleaning, ringing people up, putting labels on things and being friendly.

Saturday, after Mike, his roommate Carmen and I had visited the Brooklyn Brewery, I got a call from my manager telling me not to come in for my scheduled Sunday and Monday shifts. I was a little bit peeved because I really need the cash but figured they just had too many people scheduled and I, being the new person, was the first one to get shafted. So Tuesday rolls around and I'm wondering when I'm scheduled for Friday so I email my manager Eniko. Not until yesterday afternoon did I get this reply:

"Hi Shawn,

Thank you, for spending the day on Friday. Unfortunately, we decided to
go with another candidate. I greatly appreciate you coming in. Please
send me your info so I can pass it on to the bookkeeper to compensate
you for the day.

Many thanks,
Eniko"

WTF? She acts as if I didn't spend an entire day training... as if she didn't send me all the excel documents for people's scheduled deliveries... as if she didn't tell me the code to the front door and I'd just come in for an interview and that was it.

Undoubtedly, some cruchier vegan asshole came in to interview after I'd already been hired so they backstepped and instead of being professional, acted as if I wasn't actually hired. Needless to say I am pretty upset.

My epic nosebleed, among other events

I've been kind of dreading posting for awhile because SO MUCH has happened since last time.

I guess the most logical way to attack it would be chronologically.

After settling in a bit in Astoria, Mike and I took up residence at his sister's apartment for a week while she and her boyfriend were away on vacation in Mexico. Same thing any sane person would do if someone offered free reign their upper west side apartment for a week. Easier commute to work, awesome neighborhood, awesome apartment without any roommates to bug you.

Everything was going fine. I was making Mike dinner for when he got home from work, he was enjoying it (yay, I finally cooked for my chef boyfriend and he actually liked it!). I find the trick is not to have him looking over my shoulder. As long as he's not around, my cooking anxiety is kept to a minimum. So one night I made some really awesome vegetarian chili (see: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Wicked-Good-Veggie-Chili/Detail.aspx for recipe). We were sitting on the couch and out of nowhere my nose starts to bleed a little bit.

No big deal, I think, because I've grown up with nosebleeds. Once I even had one right as I was supposed to blow the kickoff whistles at a kids' soccer game I was reffing and the parents and players had to wait a couple minutes for me to get it under control.

But this time, it wasn't stopping. I was pinching the bridge of my nose over the sink when my nose literally started pouring blood. I yelled for Mike and he moved me to the tub. It was like that scene from Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho."


A pool of blood accumulated at my feet, splashing up a little bit with each drop. It wasn't stopping. After about fifteen minutes of continuous severe bleeding and Mike's frantic Googling and running back and forth from me to the computer, I decided it was time to call my folks. It was 12:30 a.m. my time... They'd be getting ready for bed. A couple rings on the receiver, and I had to remind myself not to sound panicked. But Dad picked up, I completely lost it. "Dad!?" "Shawno, what's wrong?!.... Bev!" They were frantic, telling me to pinch the bridge of my nose, put ice on it... I coughed a bit of blood. Handed the phone to Mike. Dropped the foil-wrapped hamburger in a baggie he'd given me as a cold compress and got light-headed and started to sway. After Mom and Dad gave him the go-ahead, Mike said, "We're calling 911." After protesting, then looking down at the puddle of blood, I let him.

The cops came first. They told Mike I looked familiar, asked the poor kid a lot of questions about whether there was an "injury," and what happened. The paramedics came next. They asked me if Mike hit me or if I fell. Seems like they don't see many of these types of things that don't involve domestic violence. They took my blood pressure, which was high. The medics asked me a lot of questions and somehow I calmed down and the bleeding finally stopped. My feet were splattered with it. I was sitting there, hunched in the bathtub of my boyfriend's sister, in my pajamas with no bra on completely dazed. While I refused a ride to the hospital in an expensive ambulance, the color began to return to Mike's face. After we cleaned up, he forced me to eat an apple and drink a bottle of water. He held my hand and stayed awake until I fell asleep, which was not soon after everything had settled down. The whole next day I felt weak and had three subsequent smaller nosebleeds.

Needless to say, VERY SCARY. And I feel bad that Mike had to be the one to deal with it all. I'm OK now though, and attribute it to a combination of dry air and dehydration.

Aside from having serious walnut reactions and nosebleeds, I feel pretty OK. I'm getting familiar with my neighborhood and roommates, and I've recently revisited a Paul Simon album, Rhythm of the Saints, from my youth. I remember it being pretty prominent around age 4 but then my dad stopped listening to it for whatever reason. It was funny because I just randomly heard, "The Coast" from the same album and all these crazy nostalgia and memories started flooding back. It's like returning to the neighborhood where you were born, or tasting a dessert your mom used to make when you were young, before she became too busy to bake. You don't really remember it until you experience it again.

So anyway, that's on my MP3 player now. And I'm pretty much loving it.

Other thing worth mentioning, I got a job here: http://www.organicavenue.com/products/index.php

I was looking for part-time work and stumbled upon it on craigslist. Not really thinking much of it, I sent my resume and got called in for an interview the next day. Apparently they need help not only in the store itself but with their blog, newsletter and some educational text around the store. So I come right in handy. I start on Friday. Hooray cute little organic shops with resident dogs, eccentric bosses and a discount for me. I'll likely be working 6 days a week, but it'll be worth not being broke and ceasing this silly "asking parents for financial help" thing I had going on.


At the end of the day, my room is hopelessly unequipped. I have yet to get a dresser and therefore the big green monster suitcase sits in the corner with all kinds of clothes that can't be hung piled up in it. Nothing on the walls... Every night I hear the elevated train, which is less than a block away, roaring by. In the morning one of my roommates gets up at 5 to get ready for work, the other directly after him. I hear someone talking on the street, a car honk its horn, the recycling truck going by, a siren.... Needless to say I bought earplugs today and I'm considering a sleep mask. Hopefully they'll work without making me miss my own alarm.

One last story:
This morning it was pouring rain, there was slush on the ground from yesterday's snow storm and I couldn't find a goddamn umbrella anywhere in the house. Reluctantly, I yanked out my ugly, big, bright red Columbia raincoat with the fleece lining and bill on the hood for the trek to and from the train. I really had no other choice. I just hoped my bag wouldn't get too wet on the way, and I cinched up the drawstrings around my face. When I arrived at my stop, I still had enough time for coffee and I'd remembered to bring my Pike Place Starbucks mug so I walked down Astor to grab some. Opened the door, I was dripping with rain, pulled down my hood to expose my already frizzy hair and fogged up glasses. I handed the cashier my cup and asked for drip (with room, for gosh sakes!), and he looked at the cup, looked at me, and asked me if I'd gotten to mug in Seattle. "Yup," I said... The mug has the original Starbucks logo of the less attractive mermaid:

He asked, "Are you from there?" and I replied yep once again. He told me he was from Oregon and turned to his coworker, who was obviously an east-coast type. "This is what people look like where I come from." "Soaking wet?" "No, she doesn't use an umbrella but she's got a good raincoat instead and she brought her own cup." The coworker looked at him like, "So what?" and then said, unenthusiastically, "That's pretty hardcore."

After that incident I realized a little bit how I'm not sticking to my Northwest roots. This was one of the three days a week I actually remember my own mug, and I haven't worn that old coat since last spring. Maybe I need to stop trying to be so wannabe fashionable and umbrella-toting and remember where I came from once in awhile.

OK end of epic post. Thanks if you got through it.

And here we are

HI!
(reference http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1799271 :43)

This last week has kind of been a whirlwind. I found a place to live (hooray!) it's awesome, as are the roommates I have acquired (whoopee!), and I feel renewed and ready to take on whatever comes at me (*sigh*).

My current residence is in Astoria, a primarily Greek neighborhood that has been flooded with bars, cafes, young people and neat restaurants... the perfect next step up from Bay Ridge. My new place is literally a block away from the elevated subway line (I can see it out my window). I have two roommates, both guys in their late 20s, and both teachers of public school in NY (bless their hearts). Evan is Greek. His father, who lives in Greece, calls him regularly, yet doesn't look much like his son, or so Evan tells me. The first day I started to unpack, I sat on the floor with my suitcases, listening to Evan play everything from Beatles to Radiohead, singing as if no one was home. Normally, I would be annoyed, but because he is so good and on-key, I was actually entertained. The previous roommate Bryan, native New Yorker, Jewish, banker in an immaculate suit came by to pick up some of his stuff and paused to sing a little with his old roomie. Apparently he, Evan, and Ryan (my other roomie whose last name is Bagg and nickname is Beaner), had an A Capella group in school. And apparently so, as I heard seeping into my room, a perfectly harmonized rendition of "Hook" by Blues Traveler. It was a welcome change from my completely impersonal, defensive, unfomfortable situation in Bay Ridge with Crazy Lady and the crew. I do believe I'm going to like living here.

I decided to take a break from unpacking and asked the boys "what's good eats around here anyway?" Evan asked me what I was in the mood for, and I told him sushi and he lit up. He told me he'd come with me and we'd be going to JJ's. It was delicious. We talked about where I was from. I corrected his mispreception that the Red Skins were from Washington State, and he paid for my meal.

That day my bed got delivered. I bought it from a girl who is moving back to California and wanted to get rid of some things. $100 for an Ikea full sized bed, mattress pad and fiber bed, and she delivered it to my place. Seemed too good to be true until I realized she didn't give me some very important components... Let's say, oh the screws that hold the frame together. UGGGH! I don't think I was scammed, rather just the victim of an absent minded valley girl with no perception of how things are actually put together. So began my quest for a solution.

I walked down the street more than a few blocks to the nearest hardware store and came in contact with an interesting worker/owner/fellow. He seemed to be quite ornary. His hair was long and scraggly, red. He had three large guage piercings in each ear, at least, and his accent sounded as if he might be from the midwest or thereabouts originally. I told him about my bed predicament and he was annoyed that I didn't have a screw for reference, but gave me eight similar sized screws that might do the job, along with nuts, washers and lock washers. As he was screwing each on to keep them mostly together, he sang to the classic rock, substituting "squirrel" for "girl" and calling one unacceptable screw a "fucking Polio refugee" and throwing it over his shoulder... "Ahhh, this one's all smooshed. Fucking polio refugee. Let's get another one." Indeed. Indeed.

Eventually, because of my buying a lot of screws and nuts and Mike's perserverence, we got the bed together. He helped put it together and he's been so patient with the moving.

Yesterday we went to Il Bambino, a place right down my street with paninis and tappas. I was about halfway through my sandwich before I realized their pesto had something that was giving me a reaction. Walnuts. Like most of my reactions lately, it was serious, and it was bad. Being at home and familiar with the restaurants and what I am eating has been a privilege. This is the second time I've had a serious reaction away from home, the other when I was covering an energy summit in Reno. I started to feel very shakey and weak, and I had to throw up. Mike and I ran to the corner store to get some Benedryl.

I always feel so stupid for having this allergy and not asking about ingredients. I feel terrible that Mike had to worry so much because this supposedly "authentic" place put walnuts in their pesto. Many of you who know me well know I am reluctant to make a fuss or to admit there is something wrong with me and ask for help. The look on Mike's face made me realize I can't keep denying I have this allergy (even though it rarely affects me), because it really is serious and could be fatal if I'm not careful.

So!
A couple of random things worth mentioning:

I saw a man in the subway today with a toupee. And it was not a regular toupee, rather a very obvious and ridiculous one. It looked like a cluster of white cotton balls on top of a 70-year-old's head... kind of like an animal but I'm not sure which. Mom and Dad always play "Spot the Toup" when they're in Vegas, and this was definitely one for the record books. Here is my visualization of the dialogue:

Man with balding problem: I want a toupee.
Toupee salesman: OK, I see your dilemma. Why don't you try this brown one?
Man with balding problem: No, I wouldn't want it to look too unnatural. Do you have anything in stark white?
Toupee salesman: Oh yes, this is our newest model, I'm sure you'll find it to be less "roadkill on a head"-like than most you've seen.
Man with balding problem: Aaah, yes, this poofy powder-puff wig from the 1770s will do nicely! No one will every know I've lost my hair! Thank you, kind sir!

Mmmm.... And I dropped a wad of money on the floor today on accident and the people on the train helped me pick it up and gave it to me. Life is alright. Pictures to follow.