Not Me

The entire Internet has been going through the Me Too phenomenon, women (and occasionally men) posting about sexual harassment and abuse and men apologising and saying they didn't know. 

I have nothing to offer.  Unlike the entire rest of the female population, I've never been abused.  I was followed for less than a block on my way to school in third grade by a guy once who walked behind and asked me if I was a good girl, but that's the extent of it.  I'm not a victim of anything; I wasn't even afraid because we'd been warned about him and I made it to school.  I didn't even think about it again for years. 

This kind of movement has always had the effect of making me think there's something wrong with me.  I'm not normal, I haven't been abused, I'm not a victim. 

The assistant stage manager yesterday relayed a story to me.  The set was in place earlier this week, and after rehearsal, she went to walk a particularly complicated actor exit path.  The production manager was in the space, watched her and told her he wasn't comfortable with her doing what she was doing.  She explained that it was some of the blocking in the show and she'd come down to check it on the set, what about it was unsafe?  He explained a couple of details, and asked her not to do that. 

The ASM passed this information on to the director, who was perturbed by this.  The next day, the director came to the ASM and said, "The production manager told me it isn't a problem."  "I'm telling you what he told me," she said.  "Why would he tell you one thing and me another?" asked the director.  "Because I'm a woman."  And the director stopped, she told me, and his eyes got wide and he realised that not only had this not occurred to him, his question made it sound like she had lied to him for some reason, whereupon he apologised for everything.  "Don't be sorry," she said, "This is this industry for me.  Don't be sorry, be aware." 

And she tells this to me like this is something I understand, that I experience, that I recognise.  By and large, no.  I spent a semester working for a technical director who I hated for reasons that were entirely related to his ability to do his job, but he was also sexist.  Years later, when I understood that telling women to smile was a thing men did, I remembered he did tell me to smile once, and I shot back, "I'll smile at your funeral," whereupon he shut the hell up.  Then there was the gay, tenured professor from the year I spent in grad school who found out I was married and, on the first day of class, asked when I was planning to be pregnant.  "I'm not."  "That's what they all say, you wait."  He'd once been married to a woman and had two children.  Presumably, that's his bitter backstory showing, but I don't know.  He was a dick and a terrible writer, and hated everything I did, but that was the extent of the actual misogyny. 

A friend from high school always tells me that she envies my ability to not give a damn about authority and people who treat me poorly, that I stand up for myself.  And maybe that's the difference, that I don't experience this not because it doesn't happen to me, but because I don't categorise it as, "men harrass me because I am a woman," but, "hey you, stop being a jerk to me."  Because I've gone up against more women who have made it clear they think I'm a liar, and a threat to them- most of my teachers were women. 

I could suppose, like Blossom did in her op ed, that it's because I'm not pretty and I don't drink and because I'm smart, and sometimes I do (though, generally not aloud and in public to strangers, because, gee, Blossom, people are going to take your words way out of proportion; it ceases to be self-deprecating when the New York Times publishes it) but I know that implies that the inverse is true of victims of sexual harassment and abuse, and it isn't. 

So, Not Me.  And maybe the question is simply, "when?"

Everything's Coming Up Milhouse

About two months ago, I met a guy for dinner in Union Square.  We've sat down and as we're talking and going over the menus, he observes that I'm from Iowa, where I'd lived almost my entire life, and I haven't been in the city for very long, "Am I running from something?"  "Isn't everyone?" I counter.  I decide to tell him, because the conversation up to now has been good, and if he can't handle it, well, I know now.  I tell him I was married for ten years, and it's this point that our server comes over to ask if we're ready to order.  I've barely had time to look at the menu, never mind figure out what I want.  Sometimes I have an idea and I can make a decision if the other person goes first, but that's not going to do it here. "No," I say to her, "Come back."

From the other side of the table, he tells me later, this story looks a little bit different.

He asks me if I'm running from something and I look visibly concerned, and I think about it for a minute and make the decision to say, "I was married for ten years."  The server, who has been eavesdropping on the conversation from behind us almost from the moment she realised this was a first date, immediately comes over to rescue me, "Are you ready to order?"  So now I have the opportunity to order, change the subject, forget about it and move on in the evening.  She's doing me a favour.  And I, in response to her, snap, "No!  Come back."  I do not need rescuing, I am going to tell the story and I'm OK with that.  The waitress is so shocked by my reaction that she gets another server to take over our table, because she just can't with me anymore.  "She's tough," he thought. 

I did not recognise the second story until it was told to me.  Yes, I noticed that we had a new waitress later on, but I did not put it together that I'd smacked down an opportunity to be rescued from a difficult line of inquiry.  It's not even part of my thinking, that I would stop talking about something that might be uncomfortable once I'd started telling it. 

She is tough, she just doesn't always notice it. 

Yes, And?

I agreed to meet a guy and immediately after realised that he was painfully boring.  This is a guy I've conversed with for nearly a month, and the entire conversation pretty much follows a pattern where I make a statement, he either agrees with me or is confused/insecure.  If he agrees with me, he hasn't given me anything else to go with, so I try a different statement with a question attached to it.  If he's insecure (this happens every time I mention something even a tiny bit outside his comfort zone, which I'm discovering is pretty narrow), I throw him something that's a little nearer on the spectrum to what he might be comfortable with.  Repeat.  He hasn't really brought anything but his own insecurities to the table.  But I didn't notice the pattern until after I agreed we should meet him.

Enjoying and continuing a conversation for its challenges, when the goal is to determine whether you like the person behind the words, is something of a problem.  I can talk, indefinitely, about nearly anything, forever.  I'm the terrible actor who has forgotten that conversation is subtext, and you only talk because you want something.  Talking to me is probably like talking to a sentient search engine.  Google doesn't need anything from you, it can find it for itself, all it needs is you to agree to let it look.

I am not buying succulents.

Gentrification

I spend a lot of time documenting a New York that doesn't really feel like my experience.  I promised co-workers that I would keep them updated, and send pictures.  I had also fixed on the story of me becoming a tour guide, because that felt less crazy to people than theatre.  So, to that end, I have an Instagram that I keep updated with... a version of my New York experience.

More and more it feels like someone else's experience of the city. The other day I found myself outside Bryant Park, staring at a building I'd seen back in March and thinking, "Oh, that's the Empire State Building."  Then I turned the corner and saw the Chrysler building.  I have walked down these streets.  I've been all around the park and the library multiple times; I *have* to have seen it without noticing it.  So this time, I took the photo and posted it, pretending that I hadn't seen it before.

Beyond that, though, the New York in my photos is shiny.  It looks bright, clean, coloured in purple, green, blue and yellow, and friendly.  It looks like a tourist would want New York to look.  There's one image of Prospect Park, in Brooklyn, that I find particularly funny because it looks beautiful, because you can't really see all the trash on the ground and you definitely can't smell the fact that the entire area smells like pee.

I think if I were to actually photograph the New York I see, it would mostly be concrete and chrome, railings and garbage bags.  The dirty once-white of the inside of subway stations and pavement so covered in gum it looks like a Dalmatian are more what my days look like.

I moved, and was worrying about explaining the new place, because it's in a neighbourhood that historically would have made my mother panic to even know existed.  I currently live a block from gentrification.  The food stamp centre and the job assistance place are juxtaposed with expensive cafes with brunch menus.  If I walk two blocks west, places try to identify themselves "not quite the thoroughly gentrified neighbourhood next door."  If I walk two blocks east, I can go to a Family Dollar that reminds you every 60 seconds that the premises are being monitored.

I'm not sure how I'd photograph that if I could, but I know I don't really want to share it, yet.  They can wait for the hopelessness of winter in the city to set in.

The Names of the Roads

I'm sitting in the basement of a Victorian gothic castle, once a Greenwich Village courthouse, now the Jefferson Market Library.  Before that, I found Washington Square Park.  The history I learned about the founding of our country never mentioned New York as often as its influence is found here.  The names of the people who gave us America are embedded here, in a way that my Midwestern geography, familiar with landowners and governors and post-Civil War heros and politicians did not prepare me for.  I expected tributes to robber barons, Rockefellers and Astors and Carnegies and the legends of a city that grew up in the 30s, when nobody else had anything.  And they're here, but Jefferson, Washington, Lafayette, Hamilton, Franklin, those are the names on the streets and the buildings and the parks and the monuments.

Greenwich Village has something I haven't seen much in the city, even in greenspace:  flowers.  I've seen florists and produce markets and the occasional hanging basket, but the plants here grow out of the ground sometimes.  It feels like a different city.  I've heard that "city of neigubourhoods," phrase used to describe other cities, but it actually means something here.  When you come up from the subway, you can tell there's a difference, even if you don't know where you are.  I frequently don't know where I am.  

It matters more where you're going.  

Location, Location, Location

"You are a total badass!  You've never been here before?"
"Nope."
"And you have a job and you're looking for a place-"
"Part time."
"That's so fucking amazing.  Nobody does that.  People, like, crash on a couch with a friend for months and try to find work.  So, did you just graduate from college?"
"Hah, no."
"...Grad school?"
"How old do you think I am?"
"Oh, no, no, I'm not gonna guess that."
"I'm 33."
"Holy shit girl, you look, like, I mean, I guessed you had to be 23, but you don't even look that-"
"Yeah.  The 20 year olds I work with have no idea, and I'm not gonna tell them."
"Well, I'm 30, and I've never done anything that brave."

She lives in a decently nice apartment in a slightly sketchy part of Brooklyn.  It's not bad, but it's not where I'm living now, a neighbourhood with fancy restaurants and old Greek ladies that reminds me a little more of Toronto.  The Brooklyn neighbourhood feels like New York in the movies (which is ironic because New York in the movies is frequently Toronto).  It's more than I want to pay, but it's an enormous room, has a dishwasher, laundry in the building, she doesn't care about guests (if I ever had any, this room would be big enough for them) and the commute to Manhattan is a little better.

I had an offer I liked better, two theatre people who have worked on stuff I've wanted to see when I read about it.  Smaller room, further away, less expensive, but theatre people.  They reneged after a friend decided she would move to the city in September after all.  They're willing to let me sublet for August for pretty cheap.  I asked if I could let them know Tuesday.

There's another place I'm set to look at on Monday that's one I think I'd like.  It's in the area I'd rather live in, about $20 a month cheaper than the big room in the sketchy place, and might otherwise be a good deal.

I'm not going to move in to the really cheap place outside Brooklyn's Chinatown.  I understand that a lot of Asians started wearing face masks to combat swine flu and they became a fashion statement, but I think if I had to walk through Chinatown on the regular, I'd want to wear one, too.  Imagine the smell of hot garbage and fish markets alternating for over 12 city blocks, and more cigarette smoke than I've encountered in the entire city so far.  There are some other questionable things about that place, but the smell on that walk is not something I would get used to.

I got a couple weird messages from a guy I'm pretty sure is a terrible broker, but I messaged a friend who lives here, "Is he just bad at his job, or am I gonna die?"  "I'm pretty, pretty sure you're not gonna die."  "Thank you."  I do OK when I don't listen to my mother's anxieties, but the times I do...

I'll be OK.
"Hey, if it doesn't work out and you find someplace else, keep being a badass."
"I try.  I'm just sorta casually a badass."

Assumptions

"How long have you worked here?"  

"Almost three weeks."

"It must be nice to be inside today, instead of out on the ships."

"Oh.  I'm from Iowa, it doesn't bother me."  

"Iowa.  How long have you lived here?"

"Three weeks."

"Three weeks!?  And you already have a- three weeks.  From Iowa!  You must just be-" (vague gesture indicating I'm overwelmed)

"I'm from Des Moines, so..."

"Oh.  More progressive, then."

This is the line of conversation I resent.  It turns out the only thing I'm offended by is the assumption I'm an inexperienced, small-town conservative.  I'm tired of having to explain I'm not basically racist, that diversity is not new to me, that I've seen skyscrapers.  Sure, it's different, but mostly in the prices and transportation.  

I don't feel brave.  People keep telling me I am.  I'm just doing the next thing.  It occasionally feels really, really stupid, but not scary.  Some of the details are alarming; the things I'm not thinking about because if I did, I would be afraid.  I'm occasionally nervous, but something will happen.  It always does.