13 posts tagged “new york”
There is a bedbug epidemic in New York City!!!
Now I'm TOTALLY FREAKED OUT, not to mention itching all over. How can I prevent those blood suckers from attacking my apartment? How do I know they are not already here? I'm going totally paranoid. *sob* I want to move back to Oregon....
UPDATE: Four floors of my apartment building down. Building
maintenance staff scrambling to book exterminators and pleading with
tenants not to bomb their apartments because it will spread infestation
to adjacent units. Co-worker's Astoria apartment now down as well. He had bedbug bites all over his body. Had to resist the urge to hose him down before he enters office. It's only a matter of time...
*knocks on wood* I think I'm finally starting to recover from two weeks of dreadful bronchitis. As I laid on my bed last night finally being able to sleep lying down, I realized: The bed is the most beautiful thing EVER in a person's life! I LOVE YOU Bed! Thank god for down and Egyptian cotton. I just want to cry...
For the past two weeks the only way for me to sleep was to do so sitting up right on my couch. And even then I would wake up every 1 to 2 hours from heavy wheezing and coughing, or just simple asphyxiation. I couldn't exercise, even walking up a simple flight of stairs would cause my lungs to spasm. The lack of oxygen to my brain was bad, too, I was in a constant mind fog, making mistakes and doing stupid stuff everywhere.
Please, let this be the path to recovery.
To celebrate my embarkation, I'm taking Thursday off to enjoy myself:) Going to go check out Ron Mueck and Annie Leibovitz at the Brooklyn Museum. Maybe will have shabu shabu at Chinatown:) Then come back to my posh little apartment and snuggle with my beloved down comforter. Yay!
There is SO MUCH data supporting the saying: "The poor gets poorer, rich gets richer" in America that there is no point in citing any references anymore. In NYC, the socio-economic disparity has gotten so bad that it's prompted Mayor Bloomberg to dub New York a "Specialty City". In line with more tax breaks for big businesses and the rich, Bloomberg's argument is that New York is so special that it shouldn't be subject to the criticisms of inequality and segregation, like rest of the country. The real sad thing is, when he says "New York", he really means "Manhattan", and maybe "Hipster Manhattan", i.e. west Brooklyn. Because the truth is, the rest of NYC really isn't so "special", or wealthy in his eyes.
In the past 15 years, NYC has become more segregated, with more and more rich whites in Manhattan, and the poorer populations, the people of color, as well as immigrants concentrating in the other boroughs. And that trend is segregated, too. The Asians, blacks, and Hispanics all are moving into separate neighborhoods.
Manhattan is like a separate world compared to the other four boroughs of New York City. Welcome to the real playground of the rich:
- In 1990, the richest 20% of manhattanites made 33 times the income of those in the bottom 20%.
- In 2000, the difference was 50 times.
- Has 9/11 changed anything? Nope, the trend continues. In 10 years, Harlem will be a predominantly white neighborhood
"Investment income" used to be called "unearned income" by most
population surveys. But I guess we don't want to hurt the feelings of
the rich by pitting them against the working class. These surveys also
hide the data on the very rich, meaning we really have NO IDEA how much
the top 5 percent of the wealthy really makes. The argument is made on
privacy issues. Okay, but how come nobody worries about privacy for the
poor, because we know EXACTLY how much the poorest of the population
makes. Statistically, the very rich is also less likely to respond to surveys than the very poor. Trust me, it's not that we don't need the info. It's that they don't want you to know!
The next biggest industry in demand in Manhattan is going to be the child-care sector and primary education for the children of the rich. We are seeing almost 100% increase in households with children younger than five AND with over 300,000 annual income in certain areas within Manhattan. Meanwhile, the supply of prestigious pre-k services hasn't risen much, if at all. Competition is fierce. Who's heard of a 3 year old with a talent portfolio? Well, in NYC, you better have one, or NO PRE-SCHOOL FOR YOU! What about paying a Chinese nanny 80K a year to raise your toddlers to be fluent in Mandarin? Man, I'm in the WRONG profession....
Universities know exactly what is going on. The number one goal of all major universities, esepcially the Ivy League, is to EXPAND, EXPAND, EXPAND. Even at a 5% increase in admission, the admission rate is still dropping like dead flies. You don't know what popularity means until you've met an admissions officer. Aiya... maybe I shouldn't have any children... I'll never be able to afford to send them to college. *sigh*
NB: If you are interested in population trends, social changes, and schooling competition, I think I will post more data and analyses on my other blog, as soon as I get to it...
Show us one swingin' party.
Submitted by mariezilla.
Spent Thanksgiving at my sister and her hubby's place in Forest Hills. They had a party for about 25 people, a joint Thanksgiving feast with their next door neighbor. This is only HALF of the alcohol they served, just the aperitives. During dinner they had a separate wine list, then after dinner the digestives.
Even me, who almost never drinks, had a lychee martini before dinner, two glasses of wine during dinner, and then a coffee chocolate martini after dinner. *sigh* Doth corrupt thy soul, I tell ya. Those damn crazy alcoholics.
A couple of years ago when Target rented a cruise ship, named it the Target Boat, stocked it up with goods, and docked it at a Manhattan pier so they can cater to New York holiday shoppers, I thought I had seen it all. But no! This holiday season, the "Only in New York" Award goes to Charmin's Restroom Extravaganza at New York's Time Square. Yes, from November 20th to December 31st, 8am to 11pm daily, next to the Virgin Megastore on Broadway, you can access 20 themed Charmin Bathrooms complete with its own on-line Flush-o-Meter. Free of charge. There is even a waiting room with couches, flat-screen TVs, a fireplace, and a kid's play zone. According to the Associated Press, an estimated 10,800 rolls of (presumably Charmin brand) mega-tissues will be used for this endeavor.
Yeppy.
Okay, after having lived in Shanghai briefly I thought I would NEVER complain about subway commutes in America. But I WAS WRONG!!! I was one stop away from having anal sex with some guy in a three piece suit this morning when the 1, 2, 3 lines were ALL diverted due to an incident at Columbus Circle. This is NOT how your typical exhibitionist anonymous sexual fantasy is supposed to play out!
Make note to self: Must avoid 9 to 5 jobs after graduation. Or make enough money to have a chauffeur.
The MTA won't elaborate on what happened at Columbus Circle. What incident? Everybody knows it was more likely a cover-up for a system breakdown after being overloaded yesterday for the New York Marathon. I know we put up with a lot of things here in New York, breathing the smell of urine, sharing communal space with subway rats. But man we have to do something about this giant dinosaur beneath the streets.
Thanks to good friend Lorelei, I have come to realize that being in New York AND academia for too long has really taken a toll on my interpersonal skills. It first became apparent this summer when I hung out with the Berkeley crowd while training at UMich. But com'on, who's not uptight compared to the Berkeley people? Anyways, now that I am working part time in the Real World and dealing with human beings on a daily basis, the abrasiveness of my behavior has become even more apparent. So this is going to be a working progress. I am going to learn how to be a normal, integrated, social being.
For starters:
- I will respect rules at the office. I will not break norms just to test the responses of other people. I will abide by social boundaries and not purposely invoke discipline. (Okay, Lorelei, why can't I be disciplined? I like being disciplined...)
- I will respect authority. I promise to actively demonstrate my admiration for my wonderful boss (whom I totally adore), and to be more gentle with him.
- I will practice my shoujo giggle. I will not throw people in a loop by picking and choosing gendered behaviors. I will not be so nonchalant and will practice being more empathetic.
- I will choose my words carefully and not state the obvious when it might accidentally point out the incompetence of other people. I will not treat office dead weights like undergraduates. Instead of nurturing them and risk sounding patronizing, I will join them.
This city never ceases to amaze me. Every once in awhile I would be walking down a random street, looking at the people, the architecture, the shops, and this wonderful feeling of belonging would overcome me. Just the sheer happiness of beinging there, right at that moment.
I had another one of those moments again, but it's really the culmination of everything this week.
This Week I...
I think that's it. The rest of the week was pretty boring, work, dissertation, procrastination, the usual stuff. But beinging here makes it all worthwhile!Walked home via Central Park.
Got farm fresh baby arugula and spinach at my neighborhood farmer's market.
Got served by two hot mini-skirt clad cross-dressers at a Chelsea Thai restaurant.
Enjoyed the Jefferson Market Library.
Attended a lecture by Habermas.
Had crystal baby shrimp dumplings delivered to my office for lunch.
Took a belly-dancing class at my gym.
Had a moment of excitement when a plane crashed into a nearby building. Then took the rest of the day off.
Had cream puffs from Beard Papa's.
Saw a guy wearing nothing but a potato sack (and Italian leather shoes) as a fashion statement.
Attended my first mass ever at a church designed by James Renwick Jr. and chowed down on Soul Food (how totally appropriate!).
Decided I am going to build an herb garden!
Got some Chinese DVDs from Chinatown that turned out to be bootlegs. Had a Beijing subway bootleg raid flashback.
The New York Times has a nice article today by Guy Trebay on the biannual New York Fashion Week. Typical tongue-in-cheek NYT style reporting underlaid with social commentary. The title is: "Look at Me, Look at Me. Please Look at Me." Those beautiful walking blanks have no idea what they had coming.
Fashion is certainly an important social metaphor, but here Fashion Week is really just two annoying weeks when all the good make-up artists disappear from the cosmetic boutiques and some restaurants are short of waitors. It's interesting, though, that Madrid banned emaciated models from the catwalk this time. I wonder what percentage of models actually got to walk....
I guess banning overly thin models with concave chests and wobbly legs is kind of a responsible thing for governments to do. But technically, that is still discriminatory - it's statistically plausible that a woman can eat healthy meals and still look like a snow addict. It's just creepy for them to all show up together at the same place and same time, year after year. Kind of ruins the random distribution. Anyways, I think what they should do is require all models to eat a huge meal right after each show. There are usually 8 to 10 shows a day, so by the end of the week we'd solve the problem of young girls purging and killing themselves to be underweight, since all the models would look normal!
What are your personal memories of September 11th?
My apartment is 7 miles north of the World Trade Center. I just got out of bed when the towers were hit, and I turned on the TV right at the moment the second tower came down. At first I thought, "Hmm, an action movie early in the morning?" Then I switched channels, and every channel showed a building collapsing. That's when I got scared. Then I went online and figured out what happend.
I thought maybe I might die, since no one was sure if there wasn't also a bio-chemical attack. (Although the wind was blowing toward Brooklyn...) I debated if I should try to swim across the Hudson to New Jersey, but like that was going to happen. I thought maybe I could join the exodus to the Bronx, but then what? My grandma finally got through to me on the phone and told me to stock up on food and water. I didn't want to tell her that if it was a nuclear attack it would really be useless.
I ended up spending the entire day sitting on my bed, watching the TV screen. Rudolph Giuliani, not President Bush, was the first leader to really take charge of the situation. I still remember that pink ribbed wall behind him as he gave moment by moment instructions to the city via the press at an undisclosed location.
Later in that day the air started to smell different, and the sky got dusty. But much of it was really a blur... I did remember thinking, at least I can go give blood. But then the Red Cross announced that they already have people lined up around the blocks and they didn't want people who have traveled to Third World Countries recently due to possible infections.
The weirdest was the next day, walking around New York. I remember a teacher once told me that when JFK was shot, people wondered the streets aimlessly, stunned. It was just like that, like walking under water. Then occasionally you would hear the fighter jets zooming across the sky. It was surreal.
I spent this morning at an institution that was a first responder to the casualties at Ground Zero. Everyone said that the most haunting experience was working with all the relatives searching for lost loved ones in Ground Zero. In the months followed there were posters and flyers all over the city. The 9/11 experience wasn't just that day, it really was the rest of that entire year.
By the way, contrary to my grandmother's predictions, there was no loss of water, electricity, and no shortage of food in New York after the attack. This is America, this is New York, and the infrastructure held up. The Black Out was another issue. But the city held up.
