OMG BEX!

My Eat, Pray, Love review was quoted in a Huffington Post article by Marcia Reynolds which links to this blog, so I feel like I should introduce myself to anyone who might visit here because of it. So, hi, I’m Becca. Instead of a classic intro speech, I’m going to list a few things I’d like to post about here in the future, and if there’s anything you care to read more about, let me know!

• Conscious consumption and its relation to mindful living- something I’ve been thinking about more lately, since discussing it at a retreat I attended.
• Book recommendations- a friend told me I should start a blog with book recommendations since I’m always giving them out anyway. “Oh, you’re interested in THAT? Well you should definitely read THIS.”
• Interviews- I’ve done interviews for my college newspaper, for academic papers, etc., and I’ve talked to some pretty cool people (including members of Flogging Molly, Against Me!, and Hot Water Music). Maybe people would talk to me for this.
• Less academic versions of my academic research (which includes women in the punk scene, feminism and mountaintop removal, and Appalachian students in higher education).

I guess that’s not really that many ideas. But if anyone actually reads this, help me figure out what direction I should take this blog in!

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…now that I’m living downtown where all that concrete traps the heat. -Good Luck

Here’s what I’ve been up to in NYC:

Heat wavin’ it. Jesus Christ, it was so freaking hot for a few days. Everyone was miserable and it sucked going outside, but my sister’s apartment didn’t have ac (now it does) so it wasn’t much better inside. On the 6^th my sister and I got Italian ices (I got honeydew). The guy told us about how the recipe is the exact one they use in Italy. Then we met Nate Rainey to try to go to Foodswings, a vegan fast food place. Foodswings was closed til 5 (it was 2) to clean their floors or something, but a guy came out and told us they’d actually open at 3 so we went and had lemonade at bar and waited. Foodswings was pretty yummy. I got some ranch burger that was actually kind of disappointing because I could barely taste the ranch, they put so little on it. Sadie said they usually slather it on though. The chipotle chili cheese fries, though, were delicious, and there were a ton of them for $3.75. That evening I went to a meeting for my internship, which I was late to because even though it is also in Brooklyn, and less than four miles away, it took me an hour and a half on the subway to get there. Everyone was really nice at the meeting– planning the training that’s happening this coming weekend. On the way back I took a bus and a train and it was so much faster. And the bus stop was right next to another branch of the same Italian ices place Sadie and I had gone to earlier so I got another one (passion fruit) while I waited because (again) it was so hot!

On the seventh I went back to the Brooklyn Public Library to work on my internship and I did for a while, but then library security came up to me and told me I couldn’t plug my laptop in there. On the way back a creepy man in a coat and long pants in the heat(!) stared right in my face and then followed me which scared the shit out of me. That night my sister and I met my friend who I went to Prague with, Margarita, and went to Yoga to the People, an awesome place that does donation-based yoga classes! It was so hot that we were DRIPPING sweat the entire time but it felt good! After we got pho, I think for the first time for me. It was so nice hanging out with Margarita!

On the eighth I went with Sadie to get immunizations for school. She ended up getting blood drawn instead to see if she had already had them. I held her hand and talked to her while she got them. After, we got bagels. I got an onion one with veggie tofu cream cheese. Then we went to Babycakes vegan bakery and I got a vanilla cupcake and a little brownie. I got Sadie a chocolate cupcake as a reward for being brave about getting her blood drawn and she took it to go. Walking back to the train, we saw tonnns of smoke pouring out from a building. We read later about there being a huge fire. When I saw the news article, they were saying no injuries were reported, so that’s good.

The ninth was a lazy day. Sadie, TJ, and I sat around for a lot of it. In the evening we went to the Rubin museum of art. We started at the top floor– an exhibit called “Remember That You Will Die” which had both European Christian and Tibetan Buddhist art meant to remind people of death. The next floor down had Tibetan art depicting Bardo– the stage between death and rebirth. The next floor was really cool– art from modern Tibetan artists in an exhibit called “Tradition Transformed.” My favorite was by an artist named Gonkar Gyatso, whose pieces were a lot about the appropriation of Buddhism by commercialism. I really liked the shapes of the Buddha made of stickers. We were tired and rushed through the last floor.

I went to visit Margarita at the bar where she’s bartending on Saturday the 10^th. This is only one of her awesome jobs. Her others include writing a column in which she analyzes the sex appeal of Ira Glass in different episodes of This American Life. I stayed and watched part of the Uruguay/Germany 3^rd place game and then went back to the apartment. Their friends came over with their baby and we watched a couple movies and ate tacos.

Sunday Danielle came!!!! On the train to meet her I saw someone with a Claremont University Consortium water bottle and it turned out they were Pitzer graduates! Danielle and I walked around and ate at Red Bamboo. I had a Stella, the Creole soul chicken appetizer, and brownie bottom cheesecake while she opted for a Red Stripe, the chicken satay, and peanutbutter cheesecake. It was raining a little bit so we ducked into a bar called The Fat Black Pussycat and were just in time for the exciting part (GOLLLLL de España!) of the World Cup finals. We hadn’t seen each other in two years and four hours went by so quickly, but I am so glad she came to see me!! A kid on the train told me about a free Roots and Talib Kweli show and gave me his number so he could tell me where in the park it was (I know, he was hitting on me, I need to be more aware of those things). Sadie, TJ, and I were going to go, but the kid said people were hopping fences to get in and then asked if I wanted to hang out with him (durr, should have seen that coming). I think he thought I was lying when I said I have a boyfriend and am way too old for him anyway. Sadie, TJ, and I considered trying to get in but I was reading tweets about people getting hurt hopping the fence and the cops getting other people in trouble. TJ’s dad visited and brought an air conditioner! He also felt bad that he guessed I am “18 or 19” and went out and bought me beer. Haha.

Yesterday I went to Yoga to the People again. Then I met up with some people from my internship at Planned Parenthood where one of them works and we went to the Brooklyn Museum to scope out the room the training is happening in. Another intern and I walked to a veggie place to look at their prices. We talked to the manager on the phone to see if he could do plates for 40 people for $200 and he said he can, so the other intern is reporting that back to the food committee. Sadie and TJ were both at the school they’re starting at in the fall when I got back and I sat in the staircase for almost two hours waiting for them, which was frustrating. We had beanie weanies and corn on the cob for dinner. I made Sadie have a cupcake ceremony and eat the (almost $4) vegan cupcake I got her days ago because she was “saving” it and I didn’t want it to go stale.

Today it’s raining and I think I’ll work on my internship, take a shower, and watch some movies.

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…And everything looks beautiful when you’re young and pretty. -They Might Be Giants

On Saturday I took the train to the Brooklyn library, which is a beautiful big stone building. I went to the second floor and found a place to plug in my laptop by a table where other people were on laptops, reading, and taking notes. I was facing the backs of a row of people on library computers. I worked on internship stuff for a while– editing a little and changing things specific to the organization to more neutral words so that other organizations can use the documents. I looked up and realized a man on a library computer was looking at porn. He would switch back and forth between hardcore pornography and his online poker game. I don’t know if the younger looking kid next to him saw him and got the idea or if they (and others??) just regularly do this, but he started watching videos too! He switched back to his music videos pretty quickly, though. I was pretty taken aback.

I got hungry and cold after a while so I left the library and walked outside. Another farmer’s market was set up and I got a vegan apple spice muffin. I followed people up a trail to Prospect Park, which was really nice. I sat in the shade for a while and read some of The American Way of Birth by Jessica Mittendorf, which so far is about all of the ridiculous ways the birthing industry has been turned into a money making machine for doctors without necessarily doing what is safest and best for mommies and babies since basically forever. People were playing Amtgard, which I don’t think I had seen since Guilford, and I was explaining to the very amused people around me why people were beating the shit out of each other with foam weapons, while also trying to sound detached and not like it was something I was personally in to.

I got up and walked and tried to do a little walking meditation when I walked by two women on a bench who looked like they were also meditating. I sat down next to them. After a while a watch alarm went off and I thanked the woman next to me for letting me sit with her. She’s a meditation, yoga, and self defense teacher whose tradition is similar to Thich Nhat Hanh’s but “even looser.” When I got up to leave she told the woman sitting next to her, “I thought I felt someone meditating next to me.”

I walked down to 7^th Ave., the Point Slope area, and got a bagel with Tofutti cream cheese, my first of this trip. Then I walked back up to the Brooklyn Museum for their First Saturdays free day. I checked out the Andy Warhol exhibit and some African art and went outside for an “electro-pop showcase.” The band I saw was pretty good and they had a theramin, and used it well. Their lead singer had on this super hipster outfit with feathers in her hair, fringed boots, and some onesie thing that was so short her butt cheeks kind of hung out when she danced (and she danced pretty crazily the whole time) and people kept staring at her, which was funny. After the show I saw another floor of exhibits– art from Southeast Asia, Japan, China, and the Islamic World, and went back to Sadie’s neighborhood.

I went to the juice shop and got a green goddess, which was good, but not great for my thirst, and when I came out, a guy who lives on my sister’s block who had talked to me before said, “You went to the juice bar and didn’t get me anything?” I told him sorry and he said, “You know if I went, I probably would have got you something.” “Now it’s dinner time?” he asked as he followed me into the Carribbean food place I walked into. “Yep.” “What are you eating?” he asked and walked up to the counter.” “Uhh..I don’t know…what’s good here?” “Everything.” I stalled a little and acted awkward and asked about vegetarian options and I think he felt akward and left. I got myself potato curry with channa wrapped in roti. For $5! Yum!!

Yesterday I took the Long Island Railroad to Oceanside and went to my aunt and uncle’s house. We ate a bunch, talked about how my 14 year old cousin Alex is growing up too fast, and got in the pool. I didn’t really want a drink because all they had was Mike’s Hard products and Bacardi mojitos, but my aunt convinced me because the pool floats have cup holders. My cousin Molly and I went with my aunt to the beach for a photo assignment she had for the paper. She took pictures of people having fun on the beach and I wrote their names down for her. She was supposed to photograph a signing of the Declaration of Independence by historians on the boardwalk but they didn’t show up.

I took the LIRR to meet my friend Nate in the evening. He and his roommates just moved in to their apartment, which probably used to be a warehouse and is really cool. We drank some PBR because there were 12 packs for $10 and then we got snacks from the organic grocery store next door. We went to the roof of the building for a little bit and could see some fireworks that were happening in Manhattan. We went to a bar and were excited because the first two songs were the Clash and the Pixies, but the music went downhill from there. FUN FACT: NYC bars are open til 4am! We didn’t even stay til last call. I slept on a teensy couch that wasn’t bad except that I woke up at 9am because the sun was shining directly on me and it was SO HOT so I moved to the floor which was marginally better. The L trains weren’t running today so I had to take some shuttle bus and I didn’t know how to get back to my sister’s, but I figured it out and got there in about 2 hours (Nate’s apartment is less than 12 miles away from Sadie’s!).

I took a much needed shower. It is SO hot today.

I got food at a vegetarian place and the guy working there was a fan, too. Me: What’s Good? Him: Everything. Where are you from? Me: California but I’m staying with my sister here in Crown Heights. Him: How long are you here? Me: Til the 21^st. Him: Do you visit often? Me:Not really. Him: Aw, that sucks. I was going to ask you out. What are you doing here? Me: An internship. Him: So no time for dating? Me: I have a boyfriend in California. Him: Aw, that sucks even more! He’s a lucky guy. If he messes up and you want to move to New York, you know where to find me. Haha, I don’t know how much of it is me being white, and how much of it is being from out of town and exciting, and how much of it is just being a woman in my 20s and just not usually getting it as much because I’m usually walking around with Jer. It’s amusing though.

The food was good and this afternoon I’ve been working on internship stuff and relaxing. Sadie gets back from Rhode Island tonight.

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…Oh yeah, New York City. -Andrew W.K.

View from the window where we stayed my first night in the city

I got a little teary when I kissed Jer goodbye at the airport. I thought about how cute it was when an older man walked his wife right up to the checkpoint before kissing her goodbye. I heard alarmed “ooh!”s and when I saw that she had fallen backwards down the escalator I added an “ooh!” of my own. Airport employees stopped the escalator quickly and her husband was helping her up within 30 seconds, and she was sitting up and talking. She said her back hurt, but I was just glad she was conscious. My plane left a little after 8. Dallas first and then a quick transition to the next flight to La Guardia. I got nervous during the landing. I guess because of the buildings, the descent wasn’t as gradual as I’m used to. I told the man next to me that I get nervous during landings and he told me he likes to look for things he’s never seen before when flying into the city. He pointed some of them out to me and when we were on the ground I thanked him for talking to me as we were landing. People can be very kind.

I took a cab to Central Park West, the apartment of family-by-marriage, because my sister Sadie and her boyfriend TJ were out of their apartment because of a fire in their building a few days earlier. Sadie and I walked to a burrito place and then to Strawberry Fields to sit and listen to hippies argue while we ate.

The next day I met Sadie and the kids she has been a nanny for this year. We walked to the park. I’ve been noticing all of these opportunities for community and collective living that the city provides, and this was one of them. Kids had toys that they brought to the park, but while they were there the toys became kind of collective property. All of the kids played with them, and not necessarily with the kid who brought the toy. Also a lot of punx/tattooed parents. After the park, waiting for the pool to open, and then the kids deciding it was too cold and they were too hungry, we went back to their apartment for some pasta. I left to meet the woman from my internship at a pizza place called Pie. There were two vegan options and I pointed to the one with more vegetables. I wasn’t that hungry, but Mary, the woman was eating. I thought it was a by-the-slice kind of deal, so when the guy behind the counter asked me “Here?” I thought he meant “This kind?” and not “You want me to cut this far back” so I ended up with a huge slab of pizza and out of almost $9. When I told my mom this story she asked me what I did and cracked up when I told her, “I ate it.”

We went back to Sadie and Tj’s place and cleaned like crazy. When the fire happened, TJ threw things everywhere looking for the cat. I should be a professional organizer, judging by the speed and quality of the job I did in the room I helped them with. Before cleaning though, we ate at a Rastafarian vegan restaurant that was really good.

Thursday we slept until noon and then got ready to meet my mom and stepdad who were in the area because they just returned to the states from a trip to Spain. We met at Washington Square Park, sat there for a while and looked at their pictures and heard stories from their trip. We walked to a place where I had a Blue Moon. My step dad had something dark and my mom had some kind of ale mixed with lemonade that was delicious. We shared guacamole. We walked some more and then went to a restaurant in Chinatown where we had eaten last time we were there. We ordered a bunch of dishes and shared and when we got our fortune cookies we each read ours aloud and added “in bed” to the end. More walking…we stopped in a candy store with samples of all kinds of dried fruits. We passed by a courthouse and saw all kinds of news vans and cameras outside. People said it was about the Russian spy thing, but there were people chanting something in Spanish and a woman came out and said “victory.” We read about something else happening (with immigration I think?) so it might have been both. When the people walked to the side of the building the reporters and camera people were RUNNING after them. It was pretty nuts.

We walked to the train and said bye to my mom and stepdad. My sister and I both teared up a little. I miss my mom so much and I get to see her so little. I wish I saw her more. She said if I want to come in for Christmas she’ll help me with the ticket. Back at the apartment, Sadie and I watched Up, which I hadn’t seen before. It’s really cute.

Today, Sadie, TJ, and I went to Red Bamboo, which won “most convincing fake meat.” Oh my god, the menu was so overwhelming! Pages and pages of options and everything sounded so good! We got a popcorn shrimp appetizer. I got a chicken parmesan lunch special that came with a cup of chicken noodle soup. Carrot cake for dessert. Everything was excellent! I was so stuffed. It’s the only meal I’ve had today and I’m not really hungry yet. Sadie and TJ left to visit TJ’s family in Rhode Island for the weekend and I wandered around the city for a while. Union Square is another example of communal living that I like. Farmer’s market every day….lots of local and organic food, cool artists set up. It’s just interesting that a huge city provides an atmosphere where independent stuff like that can flourish, in ways that some smaller areas aren’t doing. I walked around the village and stopped in front of a bar where people were watching the Uruguay/ Ghana World Cup game. A man told me I had just missed the craziest play he had ever seen. He described it to me and I stayed to watch the penalty shots that decided the game. The man said it’s just a guess for the goalie and I told him I’m a hockey fan and I don’t usually watch soccer. Turns out he’s a hockey fan too– his 15 year old son is a goalie at a prep school, won some skills competition, and got two lessons from Brodeur. The Rangers are apparently customers of his, but I didn’t ask what his job was. It turns out he went to Guilford for a semester!! Crazy! Now I’m back at my sister’s apartment without her, listening to this RVIVR album I’ve kept meaning to listen to, and thinking about starting on the internship I’m supposed to be doing while I’m here!

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… this is not a love story. – 500 Days of Summer

But this is kind of a love story, because I really really liked this movie. And it totally is a love story, whether it calls itself that or not. Apart from Away We Go, 500 Days of Summer is probably my favorite movie that I’ve seen in the past couple years. Like Away We Go, I feel like it’s for my generation, man, and like it’s aimed at people around my age. In both of the movies, the characters are kind of grown-ups but not quite. Or they’re not quite comfortable being grown-ups. 500 Days also does a good job of incorporating music and looks  and ways of talking and parts of culture that I like without it feeling forced (unlike, Juno, which, don’t get me wrong, I still love). I wish I could afford (and better pull off) the Anthropologie-esque wardrobe that Zooey Deschanel’s character wears or actually find stuff like it at thrift stores, where they supposedly found a lot of it for her. The film is also realistic without being depressing. I’m kind of disappointed that it isn’t based on a book because I’d like to read it if it were.

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…and what have we done?- John Lennon, duh

This is the view from my mom’s back porch right now. As much as I hate being cold, thinking about my family all bundled up in their pajamas tomorrow morning opening presents makes me homesick. I love the holidays here though, too…we had a potluck last night at our house…it made me realize I know a bunch of amazing people here and they all happen to be amazing cooks. Jer and I have a big beautiful tree and we even put up lights! Anyway…I hope wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, the holidays feel like home for you, even if there’s another home you’re missing. <3

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Today is Elizabeth’s birthday. It’s the 23rd and now she is 23. She gets a blog entry because I got one of hers on my birthday and because she is one of my best friends in the world and has been since we were 8 and I complimented her fishtail braid. She picked a cute picture for her blog, but I had to use this one where we were all sloppy drunk on New Years (hers was from the same night but I think earlier in the night) because unfortunately I don’t have digital versions of all the amazing pictures of us through the years. I love you, Elizabeth! <3

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that you don’t have the balls to be a queer? – Screeching Weasel

So I’ve been reading a lot about queer theory in one of my classes so I’ve been thinking about sexual preference a lot lately. Today on facebook I saw an acquaintance’s status: “_____ is a straight ally. There are 9 days until National Coming Out Day and I pledge to have heartfelt conversations for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality” and it made me think…why do people have to specify that they’re a “straight ally” in situations like this?

I hear it all the time, “now I’m not gay but I don’t have anything against it.” I have a sticker on my guitar case that I got in highschool: “I’m straight but not narrow.” Even as a questioning teenager who was outspoken about progressive political issues, I didn’t want people to think that I was a lesbian. Why do people do this? Why are people afraid, if they’re supportive of gay equality, that someone (oh no!) might think that they are gay themselves?

When I went to donate my own facebook status to National Coming Out Day, it gave me the option to list myself as straight, gay, bisexual, or to leave it blank. I think people are afraid that even leaving it blank will imply you are gay. Why else would anyone leave it blank, the thinking goes. If you’re straight, what do you have to hide?

So if you’re a straight ally, I’m challenging you to not only speak out but also to leave the “straight” part out next time you have a conversation about sexuality. Let people wonder. Remember that some of the people you’re standing up for can’t ensure others that they’re straight without denying a part of who they are.

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I’m working in a middle school after school program. The kids are 11-14ish, so it’s a pretty entertaining age. I realized that at my last job, even when it was kind of good, it was mostly still pretty boring, but at this one, even when it’s annoying, it’s mostly still pretty amusing. I’m actually doing stuff most of the time and I get to interact with my coworkers and the kids the whole time.  Here are some highlights from my first two and a halfish weeks:

I’ve probably already told most of you about this but on one of my first days there, if not the first day I was there, a little girl told me, “You remind me of Lucy, you know from I Love Lucy. But she’s pretty.”  Wow.  She continued, “Don’t get me wrong, you’re not ugly,” but still.

Another girl told me, “When I look at you, you seem girly, but when I talk to you, you seem punk.”

A boy came up to me and said, “Blink 182. Good band, huh?” I told him, “Yeah, I like them.” I then realized I went to a Blink 182 concert when he was two years old.Yesterday that same kid asked me what I do on the weekends.

Last week, a girl was in the bathroom for like 20 minutes and my coworker asked if she was ok. She replied that her stomach hurt and the other kids kind of smirked. Everyone went outside except a few kids still working on homework who I stayed in with to supervise. The girl was still in the bathroom another 20 minutes later so I asked if she wanted me to call her parents, but she said no. Finally she came out. With a stuffed horse. That was sopping wet. She then proceeded to use every paper towel in the women’s restroom to try to dry it off. Just to reiterate…this girl was fine with her classmates all thinking she had terrible diarrhea while in reality she was giving her stuffed pony a 45 minute bath in a sink.

So yeah, I’m enjoying it so far. The kids go through cycles of thinking I’m awesome and thinking I’m mean, but I think they like me overall, and overall, despite being bratty sometimes, they’re good kids.

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