There's An Empty Seat By Me!

I went to the movies for the first time by myself. There's a lot of things I've done alone: travel to another country (a bit insane. I don't know how I did it), hook up all my electronics (poorly), eat dinner out (at fast food its ok, at diner it gives me anxiety), build furniture (some pieces are backwards but hell, they're still standing!). But I've never went to the movies solo.

When I was in high school I remember going to the movies with my family. I remember the theater, where we sat. I don't remember what movie it was because I was too focused on the old man sitting alone a few rows in front of me.
I noticed him before the previews started and I thought it was sad that he was alone. Apparently, before this, it didn't dawn on me that one could attend a movie alone--I always thought it was a family thing. I watched him and wondered why he was alone. Maybe his wife was driving him crazy and he needed to get out of the house. Maybe he wanted to see the movie and she didn't so he saw it and she went shopping. Maybe she was dead and he was all alone.

I had nothing to do yesterday so I went to see Man Of Steel. It wasn't that crowded so I found an unoccupied row and sat on the second seat in. There were some couples young and old, some moms and their kids, and some solo people. Five minutes before it started some Eastern European woman asked if the seat next to me was taken. I said no and she sat down. Solo. I thought it was weird since there were so many other seats but I guess she wanted the security of being next to someone as well and I welcomed the company. I even contemplated sharing my snack with her but then I thought that would be too weird. Also, what if she was one of those who talked through the movie? Then I would be all embarrassed when people thought we were together.

The only bad thing about going to the movies alone that there is no one to talk to about it afterwards. That's the fun part I guess. Discussing what you liked and what you didn't. Nonetheless, I survived my first solo movie. It wasn't that bad. It helps that it's dark and no one can really see your face. I like dark places.

No. Just No.

9:15pm. Thursday night. Drunk man approaches three girls minding their own business in a bar. He proceeds to barely make sentences and spill his beer in a plate of chicken fingers. He is not the first man to do this. Nor, will he be the last.

It's interactions like these that make you question why you left your house in the first place. I mean, it's entertaining sometimes, but mostly it's just sad. I've found that as I've gained years, I've depleted in patience for other people. Firstly, this man was too old to not be able to hold his liquor at 9pm on a weeknight. Secondly, did he really believe any of us were going to succumb to his irresistible opening line of 'what's going on, ladies?". Any self-respecting woman knows that it is not worth talking to a man who slithers up to your table uninvited and ends a sentence with a sleazy tone and an address of 'ladies'.

Within the first two minutes of quietly paying him attention I realized that he was the type of person who would not go away easily. After I reached my threshold for common idiocy and strangers existing in my personal space, I began shaking my head and stating 'no, no, no no. NO.' as if I was scolding a naughty puppy or a toddler. He looked at me glassy-eyed as I asked him what he wanted. He stated that he wanted to be friends. I told him that that was very nice, but we did not want to be friends with him. After about 10 seconds of looking into his crazy eyes and him stating that I needed to get off whatever pedestal I was on, he finally turned his attention to two girls at the bar.

He had finally found the girls with low self-esteem/self-worth that he was looking for all night and who were not bothered by a stranger trying to put his hands down her pants within the first 5 minutes of meeting her. Those girls are the reason this guy exists. I thought it was funny that he mistook my complete disinterest and distain of his behavior to mean that I thought I was better than him and sitting on some imaginary pedestal like a princess. Now, if having standards as to how strange men should interact with women they are hitting on, or not liking beer being spilled on me by said stranger means that I sit on some pedestal, then by all means make it look like the Iron Throne. He shook it off and tried again instead of sitting in the corner embarrassed and reflecting on his behavior. And, instead of all girls in that bar banning together and says "no. no no. no.' to this man, those two wombats interfered with his house training and told him he was a good boy and gave him a lollipop after he shit all over the new carpet.

It's hard out there to begin with. Condoning bad habits only makes it harder. And, I sit here and try to figure out the chicken or the egg situation at hand: Did the bad-behaved men come first or did the girls with low standards begin this cycle?

Sore Losers

Last Tuesday I went to trivia at a bar near my house. My group won. You don't realize how serious people take trivia until you win. I mean I hate losing, and I kick myself for not knowing the answers that I should, but I can't change the facts. I wasn't good enough that time. It is what it is. But people who always win take it worse when they finally lose. Which was the case Tuesday night. The locals were not happy that 3 girls walked in and disrupted the order of things.

Now, it definitely helped that we had previously knowledge of the questions given. It wasn't our fault--we weren't cheating! Anyone who knows me knows that I hate things not being fair...people who secretly take out their phones and look up the answers...ugh...
We had gone to a different trivia the week before across the Bronx but it happened to be the same company. Who thought they would be too lazy to come up with different questions! Granted, I already knew a lot of the answers to begin with and one of the rounds was actually different but we did well whether or not we knew the questions beforehand. I mean, one of the rounds was identifying the country of the flags given and translating the food in various languages into English...I got that shit. What I found interesting was that we got some answers we knew wrong and ones we didn't know correct this time. It's funny how the brain works. I digress...

It was close competition, we won by 10 points. We didn't think we would win! Maybe get second or third place, but we did it! Immediately after, one guy passed by and mumbled "you cheated", then smiled and shook his head when I gave him the death stare. The old man next to me that kept inching his chair closer to mine the whole 2 hours, turned and stated that he hadn't lost for the last 3 months. We joked that second place wasn't so bad but he kept talking and I started to feel that he was serious perturbed that he was thwarted by 3 ladies. So I said, "well, there's a new sheriff in town" and we walked away.

The host immediately said how glad she was that we were new and we won and how that man and the other usual groups were obnoxious and constantly giving her a hard time. We told her what he had said and she told us to come back the following week. Which we will be doing tonight. Because the one thing I can't stand are injustices (and obnoxious people). My goal now, is to beat that old man because someone needs to teach him a lesson. Winners can't always win, and losers can't always support the food chain.

Batman had to start somewhere. You think the Joker just appeared once he put on his rubber suit? No. He had to deal with neighborhood thugs who harass meek trivia hosts. And, one of the many gifts that was granted to me by my people is that of patience (I mean, wooden horse, a bunch of men all cramped up there, no Axe body spray...that was some kind of patience). If I don't win tonight, I'll win at some point. I got this shit.

I Looked Into The Mirror...

Last week I looked in the mirror and realized that I've aged. I knew it was going to happen at some point. It's fucking scary.

We don't realize how much we age because we see the same face in the mirror day after day. Except, we probably don't really see it. We don't study it, it just exists so we look past it. Until that day when we finally LOOK.

We never think of ourselves as old. Our twenties fly by and we're pretty much the same person as in high school, just a bit more mature with a lot more bills. And in our 30's we get married and have kids and don't have time to look at anything let alone ourselves. And then, we fall into the abyss of time. And some, age well. And some, not so much. Genetically I'm pretty lucky--there's no one who has aged so badly that they needed to be locked in a belltower. But if that 30 seconds of being concerned that I need to finally invest in an eyecream was THAT scary now, I can only imagine the intensity of the shock when it happens again in 15 years. And then in 25 years. I can't even wrap my head around the concept of me being that old. I strain to try to picture myself and I can't. I can't see myself past a certain age and that's frightening. And then my head hurts. And then I remember that I should stop squinting my eyes because it's not helping the lines so I open my eyes really wide and hold them like that until someone passes and asks me what I'm doing.

I understand why Snow White's step mother had that mirror. She was a bitch, but she was scared. She really looked into the mirror for those 30 seconds just like I did and realized she needed to go to Sephora STAT or...kill everyone who could be considered better looking than she was...Now I kind of feel bad for her.

I want to interview people about aging. Maybe I'll make a documentary about the shock of aging and people can shares their stories. And then I'll have a segment where I show people who have aged poorly and the caption can be "don't feel bad about your lines, you could look like THIS!" Maybe I'll start it the next time I really look into the truth glass...

Silence Is Not Golden, It's Silent

There are signs on the train that say "if you see something, say something". We don't listen to them.

We need to start just saying things. You know when people get really old and they might be senile (or they may not be) but they start being abrupt. They just say things, like unfiltered children, and you're like "grandma! you can't say things like THAT to someone!" And they just shrug it off and go about their business because they're old and death's coming for them and they have nothing to lose. We should live life like that more...like death is coming for us. Because, it really is. We never know when we're gonna go and every single one of us can count at least 5 instances right now where we regret not saying what we wanted to say. Feelings, crimes, thoughts, ideas, beliefs, we should just say them all. We should feel comfortable saying "I don't agree with you because" or "I don't think it's fair that" or "I'm going to tell you some facts and you may not like them". We should. But we don't.

There have been a few instances where I've tried to get other people to say things, to be honest to someone or about something. Just to say it so it's out there. And they don't and everyone's answer is the same, they don't want to rock the boat or they don't want to be the one person who speaks up. But if everyone is thinking the same and not wanting to be the first one then no one is doing anything. It seems like a stupid neverending circle: you don't say something, no one says anything, it happens, you still don't say anything....

Not saying anything is fine if you're content about what's happening. The problem is when you're not. When people are becoming more and more offended or hurt by something or annoyed but are not saying anything to change it. You can't do the same thing and expect a different result. You know what Einstein called that? Insanity. You are insane if you're not making changes.

Someone brought up that being that honest would cause chaos. The trick is, for everyone to be honest to be honest and not to be mean. It may take some time for that to happen, but in the end I think it would work. To be able to say something to someone and for them to calmly (and sanely) say "I hear you and I can see your side but I still don't agree. But I appreciate you taking the time to tell me". How nice does that sound?! But that means that we'll have to get rid of all these emotion-driven women first....where to begin.

Ignorance Is....

They say "ignorance is bliss". Well, I think ignorance is just....well, ignorant. I continue to be baffled as to why people don't care to know about other things or why they don't question what's happening around them. I don't know why this surprises me though. You'd think I would've learned and accepted the limitations of the human race by now. I guess I'm a secret optimist; I want to believe that people want to be better, that people don't want to just exist. Just because you're breathing doesn't mean you're alive right?

I was going over reading music notes with my friend today and we came across an eighth note. Now, I've always had trouble counting it out because it's "1 and, 2 and.." as one note. The 'and' messes me up. So, while going over the count I said "why?. Why do we have that?" She answered "because that's how the composer wrote it" and I said "why? who came up with it? We created music notes right? so why? why can't we just count it as 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4. Why did we complicate it?"

I felt silly asking it because there's no answer. It just exists and that's what it is. That's how it is, and I need to accept it. I would like to know why though. Some people can't see beyond what's in front of them because,most of the time, people don't care. And that makes me sad. Like, for instance, when we travel we should try to learn about the people and culture we're invading. And what I've learned from my recent travels to Italy is that people don't care--they just exist and plop themselves down wherever. Some people think that everyone should speak English and eat the same foods they do, and that may not be YOU reading this (because you're wordly and observant and awesome) but a lot of people do think this way, and it's ignorant. And instead of accepting and learning about it they sneer at it and compare it to their country. And what saddened me is that a lot of the signs in Italy were in English and they listened to our crappy pop music--They conformed to our needs, they accomodated US instead of us trying to fit in and learn the language spoken where we were. Our American ignorance has infiltrated other lands and people are looking up to us and wanting to BE us. We may be a land that's large and loud filled with people and a multitude of technologies but I don't think we should be a role model for other countries.

We need to ask why more. And sometimes we should ask how. And all of the time, we should just ask. Because if we're not asking and not learning, then what the hell are we doing here? Maybe that's just me. Maybe some people are content with just existing, using up resources, aging and waiting for the reaper to come and take them wherever the hell it is we go.

The Road Less Travelled

How do we really know that we are on the right path? How do we know that our choices are correct? There's no way to check our work. There's no answer key. Are we in the right line of work? Did we marry the right person? Should we really have had kids when we did? We just live every day and take it as it comes. But if we have to deal with what we have and take it as it is, then how do we know that we should change? How do we know it's wrong if we can't check to see if the answer is right?

I don't like not knowing things and I don't like being surprised and unprepared. It makes me uneasy, so I guess, then life itself makes me uneasy. I've always stood firmly behind the idea that we learn from experiences (good or bad) and then we do it better but when it's not just about living, when you have to make an actual decision (go right or go left)no one can tell you if you're right. And, for someone like me who loves to check and recheck and operates with the idea that you are either right or wrong at all times, it's not exactly easy to make choices.

My friend recently said to me as we were having a conversation that I should just pick up and move to another city, like London since I'm such an Anglophile. When I said that I could never do that because I'm a worrier and don't like uncertainty, she seemed confused and said "you seem like the type of person who would just do something like that--Who's ballsy enough." I thought that night about what she said and although it seems like a good idea on paper since I don't really have anything tying me down here, I could never do it. It was interesting that she views me as someone who's brave and gutsy and able to run out into the unknown. Brave is not a word I would use to describe me. I'm a perfectionist, a worrier, a realist, bossy, observant, witty but not brave.

Then I thought: What if she's right? Sometimes people can see us better than we see ourselves and maybe I am braver than I think I am. Maybe I'm like Bilbo Baggins who lived on his quiet shire with his predictable life until Gandalf came along and taught him that he was brave and courageous and then he can't stop and yearns for adventure for the rest of his life(yeah, that parallel just happened). So, I've decided that I'm not going to be scared anymore. I am braver than I give myself credit for and I may just start jumping off some ledges this year.