teaberryblue | PANDA HAT

Current Location: hell's kitchen

Entry tags:

PANDA HAT

So, yes!

I'm in an interesting conundrum at the moment which may be solved tomorrow. See. I am trying to keep my options open in terms of my living situation because my bosses may or may not want me to move to Maine in the near future. My current apartment has a year-long lease that is up in May. I need to find out if they will let me renegotiate for three months and see. Hopefully they will call me about that tomorrow as I called last week and left a message. If not I will call them again.

So, if they say no, I will have to move. I want to find a place to live that is cheaper than the current one, but is still accessible to certain things.

1)I want a movie theater within walking distance. Like, a ten minute walk is fine. But walkable.
2)A proper grocery store with good fresh produce and healthy prepared foods because tea is a lazy sonofabitch but I also like to cook.
3)Big drugstores/hardware stores for necessities not avail. in grocery stores.
4) train access to Long Island, where my parents live during the week, and Connecticut, where they live on weekends.

I've been starting with the train access issue and looking at places on the Port Washington train line and the 7 line.

Yesterday I went to Woodside to check it out, and I wasn't really impressed with the neighborhood. There wasn't a good grocery store, although there were a few nice pubs and good Mexican food. Definitely no movie theater. I also got wolf-whistled at like three times in ten minutes, which makes me not so comfortable to walk around alone. So that was out.

So today I went to Flushing, and I liked it a lot better. It has everything but the movie theater (and I am trying to figure out if there's one I missed), and it pretty and sunny (a lot of downtown Woodside is under the 7 track) and has TONS of Asian markets which definitely qualify under the grocery store requirement. They qualify so much that I did my shopping out there and got prepared sesame noodles to eat for dinner. So that was a possibility. Still trying to figure out what other neighborhoods might qualify. Definitely the Union Square area, but that is still going to be expensivo. Bronx is difficult to get to Long Island from, although Harlem might be a possibility if I could divide the difference between Lenox & Lex avenues. I wish the MTA had a map that laid over train service and subway service in one place so you can see what connects to what online. Otherwise I'm going to have to go down to a subway station and just stare one of these days. Bah.

But hopefully this will all be dealt with tomorrow and I'll be able to stay where I am for now.

liret and

gildedage, expect packages. I mailed them last week.

I want to talk about a subject I brought up above, and that subject is

are fucking offensive. I am sure none of the men on my flist do this, but augh. There is no ordinary behavior that is regularly so degrading and can gross a girl out and make an otherwise decent day take a downturn. It makes me feel filthy. And it makes me angry because while I realize that the men who do it don't know me well enough to value me for my brains or personality or abilities, the men who do it...I feel like they don't value women for any of those things. I think it's part of why I don't trust any men who come up to me and try to strike a conversation with me in the street unless it's something like, oh hey, what is that book you're reading? Because they are only doing it because I'm a piece of meat to them, and that? Is sketch. I don't want anything to do with men who objectify a woman first thing.

I think this is part of my problem with dating or dating services. I don't want to talk to someone who comes up to me because they think I'm cute. I want to talk to someone who comes up to me because they hear me talking and say, holy shit, she's smart. I don't want someone to reply to an ad because I'm pretty. And if you include a photo, no one replies because of what you write. Seriously. I kind of...don't want to meet a person until the third date? Agh, I wish we still lived in the era of arranged marriages, because I would do so much better at that, except for the marriage part.

But that's getting onto a tangent. Seriously. Why is this acceptable behavior? Why don't men get the shit kicked out of them for doing this? It's fucking degrading. I don't like men on the street pointing out that I have red hair or big tits. I HAVE KNOWN THIS MY ENTIRE LIFE. I don't need people calling me sexy. And I am sure as fuck not anyone's baby except my father's and mother's and my father saying "HELLO BABY GIRL" in a high pitched squeaky voice is the only way I ever want any man to call be baby. Ever. And if you tell them to fuck off, they look and act like you're the one who's off your rocker. Pisses me the fuck off. It is common-day, constant sexism like that that kind of proves women are still not considered equals.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I kind of...don't want to meet a person until the third date?

LMAO...that actually made entirely too much sense. And amen to this whole rant. Around here, I can't even walk down the street without some dude sticking his head out the window of his pickup truck, making nasty-ass kissy faces at me, and yelling some vile shit in Spanish he prob'ly thinks I can't understand. It is SO FUCKING CREEPY and just makes my skin go all crawly. This is even WORSE when the guy is, like, 50. Seriously, you'd think 50 is old enough to realize it's rude to do drive-by lechery on random pedestrians, but apparently not! And the one who get pissy and indignant when you make it clear you're not interested...those clowns just piss me off and scare me.

I really thought it would have stopped before I turned thirty! I've only got about 4 months to go, dammit!

Ugh. The worst one was back when I had a boyfriend, and this guy actually grabbed my bag from me-- not to steal it, but to SHOW WHAT A GENTLEMAN HE WAS. And then got down on his knees and told me he was so lonely. Usually they just try to get your attention a few times.

A couple times, I've had guys sincerely try to pick me up. And they're always like "you look like such an interesting person. Seriously? I dress pretty ordinarily. There is nothing interesting about me to the naked eye except my hair and my tits. If I were wearing weirdass clothes I would kind of understand it, but mostly I wear jeans and a leather jacket, which is standard NYC fare. They don't think I look "interesting." One time-- once I gave a guy who randomly tried to pick me up a chance. I told him that I would consider seeing him again if he was willing to correspond over email for a few weeks first. He was like,"but I hate email!" I was like, sorry, no dice. I had the same problem with online dating. I've told BOTH guys and girls that I wanted to get to know them online first and I've had a couple freak out and send me passive-aggressive attacky emails about how I'm just trying to blow them off. And at that point, um, yeah, I'm gonna blow them off. None of them ever make it past one IM conversation before trying to set up a date.

I don't really know how I feel about catcalling, tbh. Sometimes I just think it's funny, but I think that depends entirely on who's doing it and what's being said. If it's a bunch of college/younger guys being ridiculous I don't care too much about it because I know they're harmless. Maybe this is because I do the same thing with my friends when we're in a silly mood - we roll down the windows and shout at guys on the street. Just for laughs, not because we really want their hot, hot lovin'.

When people say really lewd things, though, or seem serious about the catcalling, that's when it bothers me. Silliness is one thing, really thinking that catcalling is going to get you the goods is another.

See, I've never once seen a woman do it to a man unless she already knows the man and is joking around. And I think it's a bit different in New York-- we're a pedestrian city. Men will follow you on the street and keep saying "Hey, sexy," until you reply or speed up and get away.

That's a good point. Most of my experience with it has been in a college town where nobody takes it very seriously. It's just something to do to get attention. The cars vs pedestrians thing makes sense. I've only had guys follow me on foot once and it was terrifying, so I can imagine my perspective would be different if it happened to me regularly. Cars don't scare me as much.

THEY WILL RUN YOU OVER IF YOU DON'T ACKNOWLEDGE THEM.

AAAAUGUUUGGHGHHHHH

That is the sound of me getting mulched under some dude's truck tires.

I can say, without a doubt that my guy friends who dress up as Spartans and M (especially when he's wrestling) get the cat-calling, too. It's not as common, but I know it makes them squirmy, too.

There was this one girl at D*Con who totally came up behind my friend, Mike, and fondled his pecs. You talk about scandalized. The poor guy.

I am jealous of your box of yarn.

And I hadn't thought about it before, but I just realized I don't think I've had a single person do the catcall/inapproperate random hitting on me while I'm waiting for the subway/whatever thing in New Orleans, compared to it being a fairly regular happening in Boston.

See, I got it a lot less in Boston than I ever did in New York. I didn't even think of it as a regular occurrence in Boston. Usually it will happen once for every hour or so I'm outside here? Which is why Woodside was right out; if that's the way the people normally act, I don't think I could live there.

Oh, it was definitely not as bad as that in Boston. But the complete absence of the phenonomon in new orleans has me interested now.

That is interesting. I do think it's partly a cultural thing-- I know that in Italy it's pretty commonplace and I don't want to say it's accepted but it's much more a part of the culture than it is here, and I do think part of it may have to do with New York being so intercultural that there are more issues with men from a culture where that's the norm doing it to women from a culture where it's considered debasing. So I don't know if it's completely unheard of in Creole/French culture and that might make it nonexistent?

PANDA HAT, PANDA HAT!

PANDA HAT WUBS YOU.

YAY PANDA HAT!

Also, I agree about the catcalls and stuff. It's just creepy and sketch-tastic when guys do that. The worst is when they do it in foreign languages... *shudders*

Mmm, I don't think I've had anyone do it in anything but English or Spanish in New York, and I don't really think Spanish counts as a foreign language around here? In Italy, the guys obviously do it in Italian, and the Italians are REALLY sketchy with the pickups, but I think the lewd gestures would be the same if they were doing it in English.

We talked about that in one of my classes... a lot of guys just don't realize that women do not take that as a compliment. You'd think that'd be OBVIOUS.. but it's not. It's one of the reasons I don't always enjoy the fashion district. The young arabic men that work down there are always really insulting. They flirt and try to screw you over on price just because you're a young woman. It makes me SO ANGRY. I don't mind the wolf whistles so much, because usually it's from a car full of high school students around here and just makes me laugh. But seriously, treating me like that to my FACE? Dude. I have a college degree, can replace the parts in my computer myself with a minimum of guidance, drive like a fucking ninja, make a 3d model of damn near anything I can SEE.. and that's more than you guys have. I am clearly much more intelligent than you, gtfo.

/ end rant. e.e;;

That's a little bit odd, because in our garment district, the place I go to to buy fabric most of the time is run by a bunch of Middle-Eastern men and they're always extremely polite and friendly to me and give me a better deal than the other stores in the neighborhood. The only time I don't go to them is if there's something I want that they don't have in stock.

I did get treated like shit by a manager at my local grocery store, and I'm going tomorrow to speak to his manager, because I'm just that pissed off. Argh. But I rarely deal with situations where I feel disrespected or objectified in one-on-one dealings with people, be it at shops or in business conversations or whatnot. Unless it's at a party or a bar. And, well, we don't get cars full of young people in Manhattan. Because young people can't afford cars here, and don't need 'em. We do get grown, adult men who come right up to you or follow being you saying shit, which is creepy as fuck.

Yeah... beke's told me about that from her time in NYC. She also worked for some coffee shop there and when she quit to have her baby her boss, this young middle-eastern guy, punched her in the face and told her that she couldn't quit because she was his property. That was really creepy. she found out that he was also a local drug dealer and then they moved away from NYC. o___o;; Anyway, the older middle-eastern guys are always really polite to me in the fashion district. They call me "honey" but they're never rude and will haggle politely with me. And the ladies down there are hilarious. I love them.

Here in torrance there are a lot of kids with cars they've fixed up and they pack like ten kids in a car. And they will whistle at anything that looks vaguely female. There's like two types of kids here... the punky ones that are loud and mouthy and the jrock looking kids that sort of slinky everywhere, as if they are propelled by coolness itself. Both groups are really entertaining to watch. X3 Bailey said she's had weird guys come up to her and ask her if she's for sale. like seriously inquiring... like she's an item in a grocery store or something. XD and strange men on the bus who shout on their phone about how they were almost too hung over to go to easter sunrise service.

I'm still adjusting to city life. XD

About the catcalling, I definitely just cried foul to upper management at work complaining about a guy who does shit like that to me all the goddamn time. I totally agree with you there. Even when we're kidding around, my boyfriend doesn't treat me like that. I guess he just knows better. -shrug-

Ew. I would so not deal with it from someone I had to interact with regularly. I stopped going to the local hardware store because this guy in there used to make comments about my hair.

My twin sister lives in Flushing! Did you see anyone there who looks like me? :P

I did not! I did not know that she lived there or I would have looked more closely for the Caito-clones.

Catcalling is awful. It just makes me feel squicked out and weird, like someone has been watching me and I didn't know it. I once had a guy follow me down the street all "hey baby....hey! GIRL! I'm talking to you! What, am I creeping you out or something? I can't help that you're hot, I just want to talk!" and it was like what do you do about that?

I hate meeting guys anywhere but in class or like, bookstores.

The problem is that once you graduate from school, you don't have class to meet anybody in. Which sucks.

And that is why my plan is to stay in school forever. It's all about the pick ups, haha.

But seriously, I totally second the "don't want to meet you until third date territory" feeling.

Yeah, seriously. I want to know who the person is, what they do for fun, what their family is like, what they do for a living, and maybe write a couple little stories with them or something before I consider dating them?

I think the next time someone asks you out you should tell them you need to see 10-20 manuscript pages and a statement describing their opinion of collaborative fiction before you make a decision.

ILU. I think they need to send me samples sketches as well.

Maybe the writing could get them coffee. Art skill would have to be assessed before you progress to a dinner-date.

I LIKE THIS IDEA.

On the map thing- that little wallet-size map that New York magazine has as a free pop-out once a year has the path & metronorth on it. It's a bit small to stare at all the time, but they might have a .SVG of it on their site somewhere.
And I am not a fan of wolf whistles. I'm lucky that the area where my school is happens to be pretty [family] residential for Manhattan, so there just aren't as many dudes hanging around, but I have gotten hassled in the block or so between my apartment and the train I take to the path. It's definitely skeezier when it's an older dude- or a whole group of them. I would like to be all "Is this how you want people to treat your wives/sisters/daughters?" but I don't really want to be the statistic girl who didn't know that they were out looking for a fight.

I don't necessarily think it's skeezier based on age. Old dudes doing it doesn't bother me particularly more than young dudes, I guess. I'm not sure why.

The maps AT the stations have the stations all printed, but the one online does not-- that's a good idea, though. Thanks.

*claps at the wolf whistle rant* Here here

Catcalls are so damned gross. For years I lived in a neighborhood where people would make catcalls to my mother while I was with her and still a kid (i.e probably 10 or 11). It was gross and it was creepy- side tangent is- is it common for guys to wolf-whistle even to a mother out with her kid? I've had a few people mention the same thing happening to their families and yeah, it's creepy as hell.

That? Is seriously creepy. I think

selfunderstared said it above-- would they want people doing that to their wives and kids?

I'm with you on the idea of arranged marriages. It does sound like a good idea apart from the marriage aspect. Everyone goes batshit over men in uniform, but nobody likes a woman in one.

ETA: The panda hat is cute.

Edited 2008-04-01 00:19 (UTC)

I think boys have to be raised to feel ashamed of their genitalia the same way a lot of girls are so they stop feeling threatened by women who outclass them in some aspect.

I am so happy the yarn has been put to good use!! HOORAY PANDA HAT!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

PANDA HAT

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject