The Things you See on the F Train to Brooklyn

1. A man holding steamed crab in his lap. Its precarious, he's asleep, and I am convinced that by the next stop I will be covered in the remnants of crab and clarified butter. And yet, as much as it dangles and the claws shake with every movement of the train, it remains unmoved.

2. A pile of destroyed fried chicken in the corner. As if no one would notice an entire KFC bucket of bones. Oh I noticed. And it made me hungry.

3. I was asked if I was married or had a boyfriend. (Please note: At the time I had a fauxhawk, was wearing baggy jeans, no makeup, a purple polo shirt and aviator sunglasses.) I stared at him, and screamed in my head "LOOK AT ME!!! DO I LOOK LIKE I HAVE A BOYFRIEND!!!" My blank stare obviously confused him, as he sat done next to me and proceeded to ask if he would date me. I got off at the next stop and changed cars.

4. I was reading a book, a calculus textbook to be exact. Some man comes up to me and asks if I can stop reading my book because my elbows are taking up too much space.

5. (And on an adorable note) A pile of children with their mother. All children are asleep (probably aged 2-6), and she is reading a book. You have to wonder what she gave the munchkins to get them all to fall asleep in a proverbial pile on the F Train.

sense of loss

last night I discovered some sad news. My favorite retail company based out of Portland, OR called NAU filed for bankruptcy on Thursday.

About a year ago I was walking around the 29th Street Mall in Boulder, CO. I was soaking in the sunlight, breathing fresh air, and feeling genuinely happy about life. I passed an interesting looking store which was slated to open in a few days.

So naturally I went back. It was heaven. I have always been an outdoor clothes girl, I am a Boulderite of course. This left me less than fashionable. NAU transcended this and became known to enthusiasts as "patagonia meets prada". Their clothes made me feel like a million bucks. To top it of everything was organic or recyclable. Closed loop recyclable polyester, organic cotton, exquisite styling, neutral and wearable colors. The people they employed were a tribute to their company. Living breathing testimonies to living a clean, organic life with an emphasis on enjoying the outdoors. The business practices of NAU were unusual as 5% of your purchase went to a non-profit of your choice. During their first year of business, NAU donated nearly a quarter of a million dollars to charities. In addition, the highest paid staff member of NAU could not make more than 12 times that of the lowest paid. Being that the lowest paid staff member was only making 10 dollars an hour, the highest couldn't make more than 250,000k per year. Which may seem like a lot, but PALES in comparison to that of what a CEO at Nike makes (upwards of 5 million dollars a year, with the lowest staff member making 8 dollars an hour).

I was a NAU posterchild, and nearly 90 percent of my wardrobe became exclusively NAU. Now, I have a reason to branch out. But what I find most frightening, is that such a business model challenges the very way in which an organization functions, and became a mirror for many new business. If a business founded on sound principles cannot make it, that is sorely disappointing.

All I can say, is that NAU was a testament to the things that are good in the world, especially when it comes to positive business practices. Someday another sustainable clothing company will make it, but in the mean time, this is a sad day for sustainable retail.

much welcome.

just today i was sitting on the subway lamenting my past life in the little cow town. the smell of fresh air. the breeze that flows uninhibited, not forced through pathways of towers. the sound of. god forbid. silence. the way in which the mountains look at first light. i stared at the well dressed wall street crowd surrounding me, decked to the nines by people i have never met before. dolce. prada. fendi. jacobs. i was homesick. stifled. exhausted. subway weary (oh god how i hate the subway). i felt utterly out of control, with my destiny haphazardly placed in the hands of a drunken menace on a joy ride.

i remember, nearly a year ago, packing up my girlfriend's jeep and uhaul. loading up the dog and cat and heading east. uncertain but excited. i dreamed of the glitz and glam that new york city could offer me. the shimmer of sunshine on immense glass windows. the sound of a constant, neverending buzz that kept the city alive. i had friends sending me anything they could to convince me my decision was in earnest. blogs that documented beautiful burlesque dancers, party promoters, photographers. websites that touted potential employers. links to postings on craigslist for that vespa i had always dreamed of. reviews to restaurants i should try. you name it, it was in my inbox.

i had big dreams. monumental dreams.

and i exit the subway today in my schulmpy boots decked to the fours perhaps? toting with me only broken dreams, two twenty page papers, and the fear i will never succeed. dark circles, touseled hair. unkempt without remorse. weight of the finals session in academia on my shoulders.

as i mounted the last stair onto broadway i suddenly felt a vice-like grip at my back, shoving me out of my pessimism. without a warning i was surrounded by city hall park, cherry blossoms, and the utter bliss of warmth. i felt enlivened, and my optimism began to blush my cheeks pink.

my life today is anything but what i thought it would be when i left my home town, post college, with the belief i could tackle anything tucked delicately in my pocket. now i am taking comfort in my uncertainty, learning to embrace the pure potential this city has to offer.

lets hope this feeling lasts.

Wake Up and Pay Attention

I never look up in the city. I am always looking straight ahead or down at my feet which are moving as fast as humanly possible to get me to my destination.

After my last post I realized I am utterly clueless to my surroundings. When asked what restaurant a friend and I should go to for dinner I just blinked. I. Had. No. Idea. I just walk through my neighborhood to get from one destination to the other, I never stop to look around.

Case in point. My previous post about the subways and the musicians. The other day I saw a veritable onslaught of permitted performers with their own signs. I guess I have become so accustomed to looking down and getting myself to my train that I never actually took the time to look up. Just this week I saw a man play that awful Celene Dion/Titanic song on a saw. YES!!! A SAW!!!! I was impressed.

So why am I now looking up? What gross realization did I have that suddenly made me wake up and take notice to my surroundings? Ground Zero. Pure and simple.

I am a graduate student in Global Affairs at New York University. I study the hard stuff like terrorism and development economics. I spend most of my days either watching depressing documentaries or writing papers or reading about personal accounts of genocide. Its grueling, its enlightening, and it never ends. But the other week my first graduate class completed and we were asked to take a walk with my professor (who is a specialist in terrorism). He walked us a whole two blocks away to Ground Zero and told us to look at it.

Everyone looked down into this big gaping hole. Stared down into the depths of the city, hundreds of feet down. Everyone looked down. We continued our walk and he asked us to look again. Everyone looked down, us New Yorkers are well adjusted to look down. But suddenly it occurred to me "LOOK UP!!" So for once, I looked up. I stood at the precipice and stared directly to the heavens, it was so empty and vast for a new york city sky and I was in awe.

After a moment of my revelry my professor spoke. "I told you to look at Ground Zero, and so few of you looked up. You are staring at the onset of a new way of relating to the world. You spent weeks and hours of your life studying frameworks of international relations. Wake up kids, this shit is real. Some day you may be on one of these consulting firms that gets asked by the UN, or the United States whether or not we go to war, whether or not we bomb a country. Lives will either be saved by you or on your heads." He stared at us squarely in the face. This man was serious.

I pushed back tears from my eyes, and looked around at the hole, ladder 10, and the emptiness that is ground zero. He asked us to take a picture of the sky, saying that this devastation is what International Relations will be based on. I have looked at that photograph every day since I took it on my iPhone.

To say the least, I have started looking up.

Things you should do this weekend....

Go to the Streb slam show in Williamsburg!!!! These action geniuses will have you oooohing and aaaahing left, right, and center. Watch people wrestle with rebar, jump from impossible heights, dance up walls, and leap 20 feet in the air.

I have seen it a few times (granted I volunteer but still...) and its fantastic. For more information go to their website.

GET YO ASS THERE!

Music Under New York

The other day while transferring trains in the dreaded Times Square station I heard a very very melodious sound. Too melodious for a train station. As I am accustomed to be accosted by a cacophony of fairly talented musicians in the station on a regular basis, but never anything quite as astounding as this. So instead of heading to my train I followed the noise.

What I came upon was SPONSORED by the city of New York. It was by a program called "Music Under New York" and the band that was playing was a free form funk band. I can't for the life of me remember the bands name so I apologize. But to say the least I was truly impressed. And even more importantly it gave me an awe of NYC public transport. You would never even imagine seeing someone play in a bus station in Boulder, let alone supported by the transportation authorities that be.

And even more importantly, I had a photo op.

Things that I have learned about public transportation

See where I come from we have cute names for our public transportation system--which is made up entirely of buses. Each one has a pathway that is equivilent to one full street (it just runs up and down the same street day in and day out). This system is then linked by a bus that runs around the entire city. I live in Boulder, this does not have much area to take care of. So we have the Hop, the Jump, the Leap, the Bound, the Stampede, the Skip, etc. Pleasant names. They do the job required to cart a few hundred thousand people about.

Moving to NYC has required me to learn an entirely new system that is constructed of subways, buses, trains, and even monorails at the airport. For my entire life I have driven anywhere I want to go, generally in a cute little economical gas saving device.

Naturally being in such close proximity to people makes me: a) nervous, b) overwhelmed, and c) wishing I knew where I would actually end up when I get on a bus or train. And not to mention I begin to mix letters around when talking about the names of trains. And local vs. express. Crosstown, uptown, downtown. I get dizzy.

To say the least...I remain confused, less than pleased, and ready to be sipping tea on the veranda of my cute little cottage which exists only in my dreams.