February 2010
8 posts
Listening to: Roslyn by Bon Iver & St. Vincent
January 2010
9 posts
Listening to Pupajim (who is AWESOME) →
Family
Kenny: Nigga you're late, I thought you wasn't gonna show! Where you been, what happened to you? What'd you do, get your hair braided?
Cousin: I was supposed to get the car washed and then I smoked a little reefer. Still need to get the car washed.
Kenny: Man I been drinkin Hennessey waitin for you, I must a had about five already. I'm lit. I can't drive this car. We gotta go back and get your truck after I drop her off.
Cousin: I gotta get the truck washed.
Kenny: The car wash? It's about 16 degrees outside. The waters gonna freeze before it cleans anything. You better drink to catch up with me son. See here, this is a Makaveli track, bet you never heard this before.
A driver on Vanderbilt Avenue is listening to:...
Autour du Monde restaurant is listening to:...
Listening to: The Moth Podcast →
The Long Island Railroad
As I walk onto the train at Penn Station, I fear for a moment that it isn't the right one. A man my age is telling an older woman just what I am wondering, that it's the right train. They look kind and are smiling, so I sit down next to the older woman, who is blond and fairly nondescript but pretty.
Older woman: You look very dressed up.
Me: Thanks. I'm going to an interview.
Older woman: For what?
Me: To be an adjunct professor of writing.
Older woman: Is it your first job being a professor?
Me: Yes, it would be.
Older woman: How are you qualified to do that?
Me: [blah blah blah]
Older woman: Well I'm from Florida, I'm just here for one day because my oldest is a college senior and she has an interview. It's with Random House. She was selected to be interviewed during this job fair. My other daughter is a high school senior, and she applied to Hofstra. So while my oldest is in her interview I'm going out to see the university. It's supposed to be about a 40-minute train ride.
Me: Oh!
Older woman: She still hasn't heard back from them, and she was supposed to hear last week (woman pulls out pad of paper with lots of phone numbers neatly written upon it) and I called them yesterday and they said, 'no, you must be mistaken, we don't mail out acceptance letters until early February.' But then I talked to my daughter and she said, 'Mom, I applied early acceptance, and they were supposed to notify me the first week of January.' So...
Me: Oh, those early acceptance deals...
Older woman: So, well...do you speak any foreign languages?
Me: [blah blah blah] and I was just in Mexico City for three weeks and I studied Spanish at this excellent school; I learned SO MUCH.
Older woman: Oh! How was Mexico City?
Me: It was BEAUTIFUL.
Older woman: Were there any neighborhoods safe enough to stay in?
Me: It's very safe. Nothing like what the newspapers say. That's just gangsters killing each other, and it doesn't really affect normal people. I was coming from Africa, and it was much safer than where I'd been.
Older woman: I love Spanish. The way it rolls off your lips, I just think it's a beautiful language, and I realized once a long time ago, when I was in Peru, that I just feel happy when I'm speaking it. I'm taking a course at community college starting in a few weeks. I'm only auditing, not taking it for credit...because I'm in the process of moving out of my house...to a house down the street...my husband and I...aren't really getting a divorce, but we're separating for a while. My younger daughter has prob-I mean she's not wild, but has a hard time with things...she has ADD...and my husband is SO STRICT with her, that we have really just disagreed terribly on how to raise her. I just won't accept the way he acts with her. So we're separating.
Me: Oh, have you read Anna Karenina?
Older woman: No.
Me: You should. One of the plotlines is about an 18 year-old debutant whose parents disagree about who she should marry.
Older woman: My older daughter likes those books on tape. She has to read "Middlemarch" before the end of next month, it's an 18-hour recording. Maybe I'll do it that way.
Train conductor: Jamaica, this is Jamaica, change trains here for....
Young man behind us: This is it!
Older woman: Okay, just follow him. We change trains here. We're all going in the same direction.
French-Moroccan taxi driver on American culture
Me: You're from Morocco? I LOVE Morocco. The people are SO friendly.
Khalid, a car service driver: Yes, they are very friendly. People in Morocco are friendly because they are all the same thing; they are all Moroccan. In America, people are from all different places.
Me: Yes, I often think the same thing about American culture. Like, we all agree to tolerate each other so we can make money. It doesn't make for a real culture. But Brooklyn is great, New York in general. It's like its own country; we're all in it together.
Khalid: I will tell you honestly, I don't like this city. I prefer Louisiana. I owned two wonderful businesses there, did very well.
Me: What kind of businesses?
Khalid: Gas stations. My wife, she left. Her family lives here. She's Irish and Italian. I couldn't miss my kids. But my mother in law is a terrible woman. She calls me "the Arab." She hates me. No matter what I do. No, I don't like this place.