tempering

the euphoric, low-grade positivity of yesterday has been tempered for me by the confirmed news of prop 8 passing in california, and similar bills passing all over our (still) great republic. i am frustrated by this profoundly. i am still hopeful that we are in the midst of the last gasps from the rapidly aging voices of the nation who seem so offended by love if it's done by anything besides peeners entering 'ginas.

i have the mouth of a long shoreman (thanks, mom) and i do enjoy shocking people, but sexuality is not something i tend to be very comfortable talking about in relation to myself. however i feel must say this because i do identify as a non-traditional sexuality. although 'identify' is a strong word there, as i usually go out of my way to avoid talking about personal preferences except in the most broad or historical of terms. however, i am making myself 'come out of the closet', so to speak, because i think our reaction to the outcome of this recent election cycle hullabaloo about the legal legitimacy of LGBT relationships is just that important: i tend to consider myself asexual. i am not really interested in sex, certainly not in they way most other people are. i am not opposed to it, but it's not for me. kind of like spicy brown mustard. some people love that shit, i would not eat it on a sandwich, even if it was a free office-catering sandwich. 'no thanks, turkey on white with an unfortunate layer of brown spicy mustard (coitus),' i say, 'i'll pass! i think i'll have one of these half-smushed cookies and some caeser dressing on a plate instead!'

i don't know if i will always feel this way, any more than i know if i will always be an atheist, but similarly, i don't plan on 'converting'. i am also, personally, not opposed to the idea of being in a relationship, and i certainly get crushes, but many asexuals are totally not into either of those things at all. www.asexuality.org has some cool information if you are interested in reading more.

i have a hard time placing myself in the realm of LGBT issues, although most groups who think teh gays are the spawn and tools of satan would i am just as much of a freak / broken / atheist / devil-follower as the rest of the Queer population. at least i'm not having pre-marital sex like those hypocrites.

i know i am not depressed, and i don't have a hormone disorder that is preventing me from wanting to constantly fuck. i am just not interested; similar to my lack of interest in national football or comic books. if someone wants to talk about those subjects, i will listen politely because i like talking to people, but i don't want to engage in the pastime myself. i don't really concern myself with 'why'. why are you straight? why are you gay? i think it doesn't really matter, let's just get down to the business of living. or if you are like most people (who are not me), the business of fucking.

in conclusion, i am profoundly disappointed in the results of the measure set in motion to constitutionally BAN marriage out side of one narrow, hetero definition. i've felt passionately about LGBT as long as i can remember... since well before i saw the real world san francisco, definitely. at a profound level, i don't understand people who hate change and difference THAT much. the shape of the information doesn't seem to match with how information needs to be packaged in my brain; like trying to combine those giant fake legos with real ones.

but i am going to try to understand, so i can respond to that sector in a way they can understand, because i am smarter than ignorance. i am going to try to find a place for myself in the LGBT(... A?) movement. anyone who believes in justice and the legitimacy of LGBT rights, regardless of their personal sexuality, should find a place for themselves in the movement as well. the passing (by a narrow margin) of proposistion 8 is not the end of this fight. it's the 4th round bell, and one that indicates that we need to get into this next round even more passionately and with renewed strength.

come one, cum all (some none); let's show these aging bigots that we won't stand for their moralistic attempts at legislating our ability to sanctify our unions in this fair union! but first, i am heading to the lobby to see if they are any non-mustard office-catering sandwiches i can steal. nom nom nom!

also, the next person who 'jokingly' calls me a lesbian is getting a kick, swiftly and possibly metaphorically, right into the groin area. and not because there is any thing i find offensive in the idea or potentiality of being a lesbian, but because their intention behind the label is displaced from the fact that i won't let them get their dicks wet in any of my potential orifices. fuck. you. i am not even a little kidding.

corporate rudeness

so i wrote a whole big thing a few weeks ago about an incident i had at starbucks, where i nearly stormed out in rage. last week, the new starbucks i've been going to daily as a part of my 'new job' routine did an awesome thing; they gave me my drink, and then offered me, proactively, a 'messed up drink' coupon because they'd run out of caramel sauce and couldn't make the drink QUITE as perfectly as they normally do. it was very cool of them, and one of the many reasons i've made that one my daily starbucks place, even though it's tiny and pretty cramped. way to go, starbucks by the grand central market! you rock!

FORTUNATELY, levi's jeans and co. seems to have snagged the 'annoying corporate entity driving katey to fits of rage' title.

i need new jeans. i bought a new pair a few months ago, but they ended up not really working. they are pretty loose, and get much looser after i wear them for a day. too loose. also, they are really roomy in the thigh. i have weirdly small thighs right above my knees. i know that sounds strange, but my calves are somewhat bigger than my knees, and about the same diameter as my thigh until about halfway up my thigh. weird or not, (and it is, jeremy) most women's jeans are made much roomier in that area. so i went to like 4 stores on saturday, trying to find a pair. finally, finding myself at levi's in soho, i half blindly grab a few to try on. i did try on a pair of skinny jeans that didn't look TERRIBLE, but i was too bothered by the denim grabbing at my calves and ankles. finally i found a pair that i liked. don't LOVE them, but they were okay. i was still pretty on the fence about getting them, but i figured i would make a more reasoned determination away from the terrible pall cast by the awful dressing room lights.

i waited in line behind two people, still not loving the jeans, when finally the clerk calls 'next in line, please'. i step forward (after having made eye contact with him several times) and then suddenly he snaps 'MA'AM THE LINE IS IN THE MIDDLE'. he totally fucking yelled at me. i was scolded like a dog or an ignorant child in the middle of a fucking retail establishment. i made a couple indignant noises in the back of my throat, turned around, tossed the jeans on the nearest table and marched out of there. i even caught the asshole's eye as i was walking out, and he totally knew he'd just lost a sale. those fuckers get some kind of commission too. i was so mad as i was leaving, just wanted to commiserate with and or punch someone. and soho's a bad neighborhood to be in when you want to punch someone, because it's full of rich self-indulgent douchebags and their kids, clogging up the beautiful streets with their braying.

i dunno... i've worked at several retail places in my day, and i would never would have DREAMED of snapping at a customer like that, even if they deserved it, which i hadn't, because i hadn't even said anything. and i'd waited behind other people in my 'line', even though it was apparently a fucking crime to consider it a line. AND i'd gotten there well before the person in the middle had. what a douche.


in conclusion, i still need jeans. there's this website my friend sent me where you can order $50 custom jeans. i need to buy a clothing measuring tape but i think i will probably do that.

damn you, american eagle for quitting making jeans that actually fit me.

a guy

a guy tried to grab my crotch while walking down 8th avenue yesterday. at 6 pm. while we were walking in opposite directions. he'd been leering creepily at the two hipster ladies in sheer cotton dresses in front of me, and i had been judging him for it. then he walks past them and totally tried to casually grab at the lady bits. i IMMEDIATELY, without thinking at all, yelled "FUCK YOU!" and kept walking.

i really wouldn't have expected that to happen in chelsea.

a story

i have tried several times to post some simple, good stories of mine on this blog. mostly because most of my friends 1) have awesome stories and 2) are hilarious and a joy to read about on the internet. i, however, suck at both telling stories and remembering that i actually have a good story to tell under pressure. improv monologues and/or conversations are different, i can fucking yammer about any subject at any time. those are not the same as constructing a GOOD, funny and possibly endearing story. also, i tend to be just a little too timid to make the 'punchline' action of any story take place. one time, i almost got into a bar fight. it's a decent story, but a GREAT story would be me ACTUALLY getting into a bar fight. or actually going through with some half-thought out plan i subsquently need to lie about to a co-worker/parent/significant other to escape the wacky consequences: but unbeknownst to our noble heroine, her actions are only excacerbating her predicament!

this is not going to be one of those stories, but it did happen to me last night and i want to tell it to (more of) the internet.

walking to the 6 train from my office is pretty long walk, even for manhattan. depending on the traffic (both foot and catching the walk lights right), it takes between 12 and 15 minutes. doesn't sound that long, but when it's shitty out, it sucks. i was bundled up, wearing my knee-high winter boots for only the second time this winter, as well as my longer, belted black wool coat. it had been raining quite hard that morning, and i had been caught in an awful 'ice-rain plus extant snow equals three foot slush moat on every street corner' navigation the night before on my journey from UCBT to the bar. it was miserable, and thusly i had geared up well in anticipation for horrors of my walk to work. it ended up being fine that morning, just rainy, and it wasn't even sprinkling by the time i left. however, i was digging being dressed like i was a rogue superhero or dark tower-seeking gunslinger, and i will admit that there was a fair amount of skipping to the elevator and whipping around like i was a vigilante with a sawn-off shotgun on her way to dispense some righteous justice.

i was walking at a good clip along 57th street, weaving around the standard gaping tourist groups. i caught the cross-town walk signal at 5th avenue and was making my way along between 5th and madison on those slippery stone-slab sidewalks in front of the sony atrium. i made to circumvent yet another group of slow-walkers when i bumped into this guy who had been bent over and in the process of both standing up and taking a few steps backwards--on a crowded fucking street corner in the middle of manhattan. i kind of caught him in the back, and he was off balance already, so he pitched forward a half step. IMMEDIATELY, he stands up and WHIPS around to face me. having identified his 'attacker', a small young white woman (the horror!), he instantly raised both arms and SHOVED me into the crosswalk. hard, too. i was baffled. to my personal credit, i immediately inquired as to what was fucking wrong with him. and then i asked if was fucking kidding me. to which he responded with the elegant move of THROWING HIS HALF EATEN HOT DOG AT ME. WHAT. he was totally fucking whacked out. did not look homeless, just looked like an awful fucking human being, with a tacky sports team-patched jacket. the kind of guy who gets bumped into by a little girl on the sidewalk and decides to SHOVE into the street. had the walk signal not been on, i could EASILY have been hit by a car or even creamed by a bus. anyone else who's walked along 57th can attest that the express busses go through those lights at upwards of 40 mph and have little regard for pedestrians.

anyway, after replying 'fuck off' in my most affronted tone once more (i gave him the shocked, condescending face as well), i continued walking north. i wasn't going to miss the damn light for that asshole. plus, even though about a 1/3 of me wanted to march right back to him and punch him right in his uneven eyes, the other 2/3s frantically signalled that the kind of reaction this guy had to a standard manhattan sidewalk experience screamed 'ABSOLUTE WHACKJOB DO NOT FUCK AROUND' so i kept striding north east towards the 6 train, all the while making 'gah! tsk! fucking SERIOUSLY' noises under my breath. finally i called my sister and left a voicemail about it; partly just to tell someone as soon as possible to make the experience a little more real to me, and partly so i could recount the story loudly for other passers-by and maybe they would think twice about pushing tiny females in the future, for fear of being made fun of to that girl's friends later. and also to leave a clue for the law and order crew for when the psycho-sidewalk-pusher inevitably caught up with me and killed me before i got to the train.

i recounted this story first thing this morning to my boss. she's even smaller than me. for those i don't know in person, i'm about 5'4", and thin. people always comment in surprise that i have a reasonably strong handshake; i think they are surprised that any strength at all can be contained in my delicate, blue veined frailty. i get a lot of surprised looks when i demonstrate any physical strength whatsoever. my boss is about 5' even and weighs about the same as me, and she flipped upon hearing the story. apparently guys threaten to kick her ass or beat her up on a frighteningly regular basis. and she's not like getting herself into these situations; like rich assholes chasing her down the street with their canes raised and threatening to kill her for stealing THEIR cab. what? who the fuck are these guys that think it's totally cool to fucking physically assault smaller women in public. i tend to think of spouse and partner abusers and nazis in similar terms: they seem like totally normal and even well-adjusted individuals until they go off and do awful, sub-human actions with their own personal justification for it, . they don't tend to walk around in public, doing it in front of other people. isn't that what society is for? to STOP people acting like fucking evil little jerks because they don't want other people to think they are evil little jerks? we need people to tell us how to be human, or we stop being human, and all that? what kind of culture is it that produces these fucking morons? 'oh look, a little girl, let's fucking shove her cause she probably can't kick my ass physically!' fucking pisses me off.

the only thing i regret about this whole incident, and the one thing that would make it a great story and not just a long-winded rant is if i had picked up the half eaten hot dog he'd thrown at me and taken a BIG bite out of while looking right in his stupid, lazy-eyed face. however, i was too shocked to snatch it out of the air and i am not sure that making a point like that would be worth eating something that's touched the ground in mid-town. or getting whatever communicable disease (rabies? syphilis? bein a huge dick?) that asshole clearly suffered from.

a thing that makes me angry in new york.

guys who sit on the subway with their legs spread more than 10 inches apart. hey assholes... you know what? i BET that your balls are none of the following:
1. five inches in diameter.
2. made of glass.
3. filled with a poison that will be released if either ball touches either your leg or the other ball.
4. contained within their own individual forcefields that effectively prevents you from putting your legs together like a decent human being.

seriously, this infuriates me. i live on the northern edge of manhattan, along the most crowded subway line. if i am quick, i can usually find a seat because i am pretty narrow. however, every day i see entire benches taken up by 2 normal-sized guys who seem to think that their balls have precedent to take up bench space that could easily be occupied by several other MTA patrons, for example; pregnant women, old people, or charmingly ironic comedians from massachusetts who do not deal well with early morning low blood sugar.

i really do not understand why guys do this. maybe some of my male readers will risk my castrating rage and give me a reasonable explanation that will force me to recind this rant. but i doubt it. until then, adjust your damn balls and let me sit down, assholes.

awkward and hateful things!

Item the First.) the number of people i saw on the street during my lunch break that i should know well enough to say 'hey' casually to, and yet instead chose to ignore and avoid eye contact with so i wouldn't have to... say 'hey' to them?

Two. i am an anti-social jerkface.

Item the Second.) people who walk casually through midtown in the middle of the afternoon should be confined to wheelchairs and pumped full of barbituates, and then made to run on a treadmill for 4 hours. why? because that is what navigating through them feels like when you only have an hour for your lunch break and need to go to a sample sale AND grab an overpriced roast beef sandwich from arby's. 'zig-zag' is not an acceptable walking formation in this, the citiest of new york's urban centers. assholes.

Item the Third.) american eagle should burn for discontinuing the only pair of under 40 dollar jeans that fit my weird body. i tried on a different style last night that were fully one size bigger than what i normally wear and i couldn't even put my butt in them. a chunk of enough white fat to make captain ahab pant with lustful rage simply refused to even consider fitting itself inside that denim depth. it just squatted above what should have been the waistband, mocking me. hey, american eagle... here's this thing i was thinking about... don't make your size 6 jeans significantly smaller than your size 4 jeans. that is weird, and mean and doesn't make any sense.

Item the Last.) attention pimped out VW that ran a red light at 35-40 mph on 45th street this afternoon; honking your horn excessively to let everyone know you are dangerously breaking the law... doesn't actually change or improve the fact that you are doing something incredibly dangerous through a crowd of people, and also breaking the law.

so, in conclusion: honking =/= (does not equal) karma