Musings of the Socially Aware

Talking to my 3-year old nephew, Mason, who just moved to Seattle

Me: Hi Mason! Where are you?!
Mason: Where are you???
Me: I'm in New York, where are you??
Mason: At home.
Me: Where's home?
Mason: ...
Mason: ... too far away.

Here’s a little Easter story to keep you warm tonight:

When I was a little kid of only 3 years, I was attending a daycare that my mother had set up in an elementary school. As an FRC coordinator, it was her job to create opportunities for parents and families, and what better way to get your two little kiddos free supervision than by creating your own program?

The preschool was across the hall from my mother’s office, and inside we were partaking in an Easter Egg hunt. As an adult, this seems foolish: Why would you hide eggs in a classroom? How bad at finding shit are kids that they won’t be able to point out the fluorescent egg on the mostly neutral colored bookshelf?

I was a master at finding, and find I did. After opening a yellow egg, I found a $20 bill. I was FINALLY RICH! So of course I gloated to all the other kids. Welp, one of the daycare workers realized that she meant to put $1 in the egg rather than $20 and that shit just did not fly with me. I was already planning for the new indoor-outdoor water slide a la “Blank Check.” I explained to her that I found the egg, I followed the rules, and that there would be no currency exchange that day.

Eventually they crossed the hall to involve my mother, who, being the beacon of justice and fairness that she always has been asked the childcare provider, “Well, did you put $20 in the egg? Did you hide that egg? Did she find the egg?…Well then I think she’s right.” Shout out to my mom.

So basically I think my mom ended up keeping the $20 and that lady resented me for the next year or two until I aged out of daycare.

HAPPY EASTER.

ha

so let’s just say i “came into the possession” of an iphone 4s and i am still figuring out how to port my number over and all, but wait: imadeface doesn’t require my phone number and it now has my features now so here’s lil somethin somethin for all you cool kids out there.

Don’t cry for me, naturalistas.

I’m getting a weave tonight. I know, I know, “but your hair is so cute and coily and why would you want to hide it under bullshit hair”

Well I’m going to Orlando on Thursday and the punishing summer heat there will just destroy my hair. Last year I had to basically wash and go every night because it would be so burnt up from the sun at the end of the day. I really really don’t want to have to punish my hair and it’s overdue for a break.

So, until then. <3

Go follow me on Twitter I’m not soft grunge enough for these numbers…

Editing a Tipsy Book Review in which I was a garden fairy I guess.

I’m eating baked chicken and watching the biggest loser and looking at food because it’s Sunday and I like to work hard on the weekends.

(via hellogiggles)

Secret Confession:

I always think I’m going to spontaneously combust on airplane trips. Oh man, how unfortunate would that be? I’d be a dead and a suspected terrorist when really my insides were just took excited about the prospect of defying gravity.

this is actually me when I drink too heavily.

(via thecutestkittycat)

personal

Why Does Anyone Live In NYC?

politicalsubversities:

February 24, 2013
Stephanie Hsu

Everything smells

Like chicken feet

Or cigarette butts

Or cigarette vaginas

Yeah,

I said it.

Vaginas.

It smells like shit outside

And I don’t care if this is Bushwick

IT’S NOT AN EXCUSE.

I did not move to New York City

To be broke

And living in a stink womb.

I did not move to New York City

For this:

February is hard

February is lonely

Even if you’re not alone.

I recently changed the positioning of my bed in my bedroom to soak up a little more feng-shui. I moved my bed next to the window and it’s actually quite lovely. The first night I slept in the new arrangement, the moon shone light right by my pillow all Fievel in American Tail-like and I thought to myself Ah, yes, this is it.

Then this morning, I woke to the putrid smell of a moist New York beneath an unhealthily depressing grey sky, and an article in the Huffington Post prizing our little NYC as the 10th most miserable city in America.

Great. Happy Saturday. Congratulations. You pay too much for rent, too much for your career, and too much for f*ing peanut butter — all so that a “journalism-sort-of” news site can tell you that you brought this upon yourself.

And yeah, okay. At least it’s not Detroit. And people talk about this all the time. Blahblahblahblah, new york is like an abusive boyfriend,

Blahblahblahblah, it’s a love-hate relationship, blahblahblahblah, blah blah blah.

My question is, WHY? No but really, why are we doing this to ourselves? And this is coming from someone who absolutely loves this city. I love everything about it including, I admit, the misery. I promote this city like it is some neat and unheard of dive bar with the best tater tots a human has ever tasted. But the reality is, there are hundreds and thousands of cities that

did not make that top 10 list of miserable cities to live in. There are cities and towns with trees and blue skies and birds and people are happy and everybody is eating bagels and nobody is vegan or on a gluten-free diet. There are cities where more risks are being taken with art and music and performance and more space is available to actualize creative ideas. There are places where TIME is an actual thing that people have. Time to make art to make love to make dinner, even.

There is no punch line to this post. And no, I am not moving to LA. I will continue to consider New York my home. But on this glum-drum Saturday, I just ask you, O reader, to consider a bit. And maybe let’s like, change the world, or paint some cool shit, or like join a food co-op or something and make New York worth living in despite the financial woes, polluted streets and…well…homicide rates. Til then, I leave you with this:

This post is everything. Although, I’m making it a mid-year resolution to fall back in love with this city, damn it.