Discrimination

As I looked up the flight requirements for my trip to Singapore, I was initially surprised by how welcoming the Singaporean government seemed to be toward visitors. All we would need was a valid passport, a return ticket, and proof of sufficient funds according to the first few lines of text. A Social Visit Pass would be provided upon arrival, allowing us to stay for 30 days free of charge, and this could even be extended up to 3 months under certain circumstances.

However, as I scrolled down the webpage to see if there was any “fine print” I may be missing, I stopped short. Right under the rule concerning minors’ inclusion in their parents’ passports was a statement reading “Entry may be refused to ‘hippy’ types.”

So does this mean if I go up to the customs officer barefoot, wearing raggedy bellbottoms, a tie-dyed tube top, and some drooping daisies in my unbrushed hair, he’ll put me on the next flight back to the U.S.? Are they really allowed to discriminate like that?

Then again, in a country where chewing gum was successfully outlawed, I suppose anything is possible. And don’t forget: drug trafficking is a federal offense. They make sure to remind you over the intercom when your plane lands. “Welcome to Singapore. And if you bring drugs into our country, we will kill you.” But if you’re a hippy, we’ll just send you home.

Three More Moments in NYC

On the subway

There are unspoken rules for riding the subway in NYC. I do not know if they are the same for every city—as I imagine they are probably very different in Tokyo, where everyone is herded on like cattle, and at least slightly different in London, where people must go up the left side of the stairs, rather than the right—but there are some basic tenets by which, if you do not abide, you are labelled either a tourist or an asshole.

The first is that when waiting to board the train, you should stand on either side of the opening subway doors and let those coming out get off of the train before you try to board. Don’t stand directly in front of the doors, or no one will be able to get past you. If no one gets off, there will never be space for you (or any of us behind you) to get on.

The second is that if there is an open seat and you want it, you sit in it. There is no polite, proper, “You first,” “On no, please, you first.” There is no such thing as calling “fives” if you have to get up and check the map farther down the car. If you didn’t find one upon entering the car, it’s one mad dash to be the first to squeeze your behind into any newly vacated seats at each stop. If you’re not quick, a woman with a shopping bag and a whiny kid will most likely beat you.

So I was riding the subway home from work, standing of course (since there seems to be a rush hour” from 4:45 until somewhere around 8pm), and we arrived at one of the many stops between 50th and 116th street. I was wrapped up in David Sedaris, so I wasn’t hunting for a free seat, nor was I paying much attention to the passengers standing around me. When the train started again, I happened to look up from my book. There was an black gentleman standing beside me, probably about 70 or so, with soft cheerful wrinkles beneath his eyes and taut grey curls around his ears. He caught my eye, and motioned to the empty seat that was in front of both of us.

“Would you…?” he inquired, asking the question more with his eyes than with his barely audible voice. I realized that he was offering me the seat.

“Oh, no.” I raised my book as if that was a sufficient explanation, and smiled grandly. “I’m fine.”

That elderly gentleman offered me a seat on the New York subway. That small action puts a smiling feeling in my chest every time I think of it.

Shame on women who do not appreciate chivalry.

Moreover, shame on anyone who does not appreciate small, kind gestures.

In the rain

I was walking back from Rite Aid, at 96th street. Having taken the subway, I discovered it was raining when I emerged and immediately put up my umbrella. It wasn’t raining very heavily, and I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps if I wasn’t carrying a bag that had bled black ink onto my pale blue tank top the last time I wore it outside (it was a hot day, and I sweat so much that both my shirt and the bag got wet), I might not even have bothered. It has been oppressively hot recently, and the rain spattering up against my legs was actually a cool relief.

As I entered Columbia’s campus through the black iron gates at Broadway and climbed the steps toward the library—and, consequently, my residence hall—I saw a guy sitting by himself on one of the stone benches partway up the steps. He had a bicycle propped up next to him and a brown paper bag was partially crumpled on the seat beside him. Right there in the rain, his head was thrown back, and he was gulping chocolate milk from a quart-sized carton. He wasn’t hurrying to finish his milk so he could hop on his bike and hurry away, out of the rain; he was just sitting there, enjoying the thick, sweet flavor of chocolate milk in the rain.

Then he sat up, and as I passed, our eyes met. I wished in that moment I could stop and redirect my steps in order to go over and express how contended he looked, how pleased it made me feel to see someone just sitting there in circumstances that happened to occur, enjoying them for what they were. Rain and chocolate milk—no reason to hurry, to run away. Instead I just smiled at him, and he smiled back. I like to imagine he interpreted my appreciation in that smile.

As I passed, he stood and lifted his arms in a V over his head. It was as though he was inviting the rain. Perhaps he was doing it for me, for his audience, for anyone watching, to give them a better spectacle. I prefer to think he was doing it for him. I prefer to believe he then sat down and finished his chocolate milk.

Back from the park

It is my understanding that most people in wheelchairs do not choose to be in them. I, for one, cannot imagine the awfulness of being confined to a sitting position twenty-four hours a day. I can’t even sit for two hours without squirming and stretching and wanting to run around the block once or twice. Therefore, when I see someone in a wheelchair, I immediately wonder if they were born with leg defects or if they were in an accident. If they are elderly, I also consider whether osteoporosis can deteriorate your bones to the point of being unable to support your bodyweight, and I immediately feel guilty about not drinking more milk. I certainly never question if people in wheelchairs need the devices or not.

A recent encounter may have changed my mind, however.

I was on my way back from Central Park, walking up the hill beside Morningside Park at 110th Street. My MP3 player was crooning Mariah Carey, and I was feeling very accomplished for having run all the way around the reservoir without feeling tired and—perhaps more importantly—without getting lost.

Suddenly, I heard the rickety sound of metal clattering against wheels. Looking up, I saw a unkempt, trampy-looking man careening down the sidewalk in a wheelchair. Ordinarily, this would seem very dangerous, as he would have little more than his hands clutching at the wheels to stop himself at the bottom. However, this particular man was making his way down the hill with his very health-looking legs spidering out in front of him, feet on the ground both propelling him forward and preventing the chair from speeding out of control.

What a scam! I could just imagine this man, seated in his chair along 6th Avenue, a scribbled cardboard sign asking for money for this unfortunate crippled war veteran. It made me want to go over and dump him out of his chair.

Of course, I didn’t. I am so heartless that I never put my change in those beggar’s cups, anyway.

I have been doing some thinking recently and come up with

Things I am grateful for:

Parents who are reasonable, supportive, autonomous, and unconditionally loving.

Parents who set good examples and taught me to take responsibility.

Parents who know how and when to set and relax boundaries.

Parents who stayed together.

A sister who loves me in spite of herself. Or myself. Or both.

An appreciation of vegetables, and an ability to cook them to my own satisfaction.

The ability to type—fast.

Lifelong friends.

Parents of friends who have turned into equally valued friends.

Books that can make me laugh. (Thank you David Sedaris.)

Google.

Cadbury chocolate.

Learning to swim at a young age.

The US Postal Service.

Opportunities to travel.

Things I regret

Never learning a second (or third or fourth) language.

Not learning Photoshop in high school, when I had the chance.

Never swallowing my pride and asking out any guy I liked.

Never shaving my head when it wouldn’t have mattered.

Not being able to cook instinctively, like my grandmother.

Taking up the flute instead of the oboe.

Allowing the world’s technology to creep past me and leave me in its wake.

Not getting insurance on my cell phone.

Not having had all of my health issues cleaned up the thousands of times I went to the doctor’s when I was still covered by my parents’ health insurance.

Stress Stuffing

I honestly cannot imagine what my life is going to be like without the stresses of: finding a job, impressing people at my job so they will help to elevate me to the job I really want, figuring out where I’m going to live, finding an apartment there, paying for this apartment, deciding on a new computer, paying for said computer, keeping in contact with everyone, letting go of people who don’t want to keep in contact, prioritizing people who do, making new friends, and figuring out what I am really supposed to be doing. And of course, by “supposed to be doing,” I really mean “want to be doing.” What I will be happy doing. Or happiest doing.

But what will I do when these questions are answered? When some of my stars finally align themselves and quit catapulting across the sky? Then what?

Surely I will find some new project, some new “stressful” endeavor to take up my time and energy. Because right now, I imagine that if someone took these projects away from me, if someone were to hand me the perfect editorial assistant job at small book publishing company and the most affordable apartment in New York City right beside Central Park, near Manhattan, I might just collapse into one big noodle-y mess on the floor. I would have nothing left holding me up! Seriously, some days I think that stress is the only motivating factor driving me out of bed and on to the miserable task of resume-submitting and craigslist-scouring. Sometimes, I feel as though I may be on the brink of exhaustion, but then I wonder if it is just my imagination. After all, didn’t I engage in plenty more activities during high school and college? It just seems that the stresses are more Life Sized, now, however, and therefore more wearying. An end of a day now truly feels like The End of The Day. And weekends are for everything that couldn’t get done during the week.

No wonder my parents always did yardwork on Saturdays. I never could understand why they didn’t just do it some weekday evening. Now I know.

Learning Experiences

I hate to keep comparing New York City to England, but in the ways each experience has forced me to grow and to face myself and discover who I am and what I am capable of, they are proving to be very similar experiences. In both places, I am being forced to navigate new areas, to meet new people, and to establish new routines. I am forced to buy my own food, to cook extensively for myself, and to live amongst people whom I never met and will probably never see again after our short time being together.

Also, in both places, I am very out of my element: in England, I was literally a foreigner; in New York City, I am only metaphorically so. However, I oftentimes feel more foreign here than I ever did in England. When I flew across the Atlantic Ocean, at least I expected a few language barriers. Who knew I would have to learn a different vocabulary not only to work for a specialized magazine, but just to speak with my pop-culturized, fashion-savvy peers in the most popular city in America?

Meanwhile, in order to keep from going crazy, I am doing my best to chalk everything up to a “learning experience.” Looking for an apartment isn’t about finding one or else ending up curbside at Columbia University on August 2nd with no home, it’s about learning how to look for an apartment. I’ve never done this before, and it’s something I will certainly need to be able to do, pretty much for the rest of my life, so I may as well start now. Going to a job interview shouldn’t be a life-or-death experience, it should be another trial run, another way to be better prepared for my next interview, whether or not this particular company hires me. I’m not going to be “perfect,” and I don’t even know what a “perfect” candidate would look like to them, so all I can do is practice being prepared, professional, and as much “myself” as possible. Then, I can use the experience to build my interviewing skills for the next one while crossing my fingers and hoping for the best when I shake the HR representative’s hand and walk out that door.

Of course, I don’t always manage to think this way. Just yesterday, I was suffering from the “What am I doing” “I don’t know where I’m going to end up” “What if the end of July comes and I still have nowhere to live and no job” “Or worse, what if I have one and not the other because then I can’t even surrender and go home” panic attacks. As I have told many people recently: I feel like I am living in a never-ending finals week, only this time it’s Real Life.

But I’m trying my best to be level-headed and to just plow ahead and do what needs to be done. Really, what other choice do I have?