PANDA HAT

[teaberryblue]

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.

Comments

[pikacharma.livejournal.com]

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.

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

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.

[liret.livejournal.com]

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.

[kittehkat.livejournal.com]

PANDA HAT, PANDA HAT!

[crazy-megan.livejournal.com]

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*

[batchix.livejournal.com]

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;;

[twowishesleft.livejournal.com]

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-

[callmecaito.livejournal.com]

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

[hyaciinthe.livejournal.com]

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.

[selfunderstared.livejournal.com]

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.

[sunnyrea.livejournal.com]

*claps at the wolf whistle rant* Here here

[atomicfiction.livejournal.com]

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.

[sileri.livejournal.com]

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.

[rainy-day.livejournal.com]

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