Come On Brooklyn: or, Do I Have to Tell You Babies Don't Belong in Bars?

I don't think this should be necessary to write but:

It's not cool to take a screaming baby into a bar on a Saturday afternoon and then proceed to breast feed it while drinking a beer.

I know I have an antiquated set of social mores, but last Saturday I really almost snapped. It was hot and I couldn't figure out how to set up my new home theater so I decided to go get a beer and sit in a little AC.

I walked in, said my hellos and then noticed that my skin was crawling. Nails on a chalkboard. As my teeth were sitting on edge and after I realized no one was playing The Whispers or Ashanti- I heard it. A SCREAMING baby. My shoulders hunched, my jaw was tight and as I looked around for the miniature offender I saw- a breast.

I have breasts. I've even been known in some circles as a bit of a flasher. Breasts are cool and I was breast fed. I believe the only reason women have breasts is for feeding babies. But not in the back of a bar with a beer in front of you. (Now I'm probably exaggerating about the beer. I don't know if I actually saw it, but between the screeching and the breast I might have began hallucinating a bit.)

I couldn't stay. It was so cool in there. It's so hot in my apt. The beer looked delicious. I just wanted to shout "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?" Must adults be told this? I'm clear on the arguments that it's natural and all that. I honestly believe that. There is nothing more natural than a mother feeding her child. But it was a sunny summer day. There's a gi-normous park across the street. If it's the AC factor there's also a library across the street. I dig you want to be with your friends and socialize- but we can't do it all at once.

New parents want to live the same lives they did pre- progeny and I don't believe it works like that. I don't have any children for just this reason. I like being able to get shitfaced in the middle of the afternoon if I want. And I'm not begrudging a new mother a cocktail. But perhaps the two acts are mutually exclusive. The topper was one of her friends coming out of the bar telling someone on the phone "no, no dogs, but we're all here".

Like babies, dogs shouldn't be allowed in bars. Actually, if a dog is found in a bar, the bar owner could lose their liquor license. It's unclean. And really?

I know I'm not particularly dog people. I like my friends dogs to a point. Some have more agreeable personalities for me than others, but where my cocktails come from- I don't want to negotiate dog hair.

So, Come On Brooklyn. I know we've become all warm and fuzzy and suburban like, but again:

BROOKLYN IS NOT THE SUBURBS.

I love Facebook

Only in America could such absurdity exist. Sure there are people from all over the world in it, but only a culture so set on separation could create something so false about bringing people together.

I have friends in there that I haven't seen or spoken to in years. Mostly from high school and I'm lucky enough to have gone to a small school, so we really do know each other. Or at least really did. I'm glad to be able to play word games with them, but I don't know them. One of my real best friends just joined and called me saying she's overwhelmed and is just accepting invites from people she doesn't even know.

We're in our 30's now so there's a bit of nostalgia regarding our former bonds and the looking back over the years to the lives we had once. I remember flashing friends, they don't specifically recall said instances (I was a mad flasher and would raise my shirt if the wind was blowing in the right direction... so it's easy to forget). We're scanning in old letter we used to write.

Actually those are really interesting. The letters I have from my childhood are bordering on pornographic- some outright disgusting. With pix and all. My best friend who joined a "group" later in life (i'm trying not to call it a cult anymore) was a whiz at chemistry (she later went on to be pre-med from an ivy league institution before "the group") and we'd write notes about a freshman boy (we were sophomores) and just giggle. I got a C and had to go to a tutor. She got an A and joined a cult. That's what nostalgia gets you.

But back to my point, in Facebook I'm a master drug dealer, a ruthless pimp, a millionaire mobster, a rogue soldier with the need to destroy, a word genius, and I like 24 and Lost. These things bring me a weird false sense of accomplishment in times when I dont' feel like I'm doing anything with my life. I'm beating someone at something instead of getting beaten (by the man, the system, myself mostly). But that doesn't say anything about the girl who lives in NYC and is sometimes so paralyzed with anxiety she won't leave the house for days (except to go to the gym around the corner and the bar downstairs).

Or the one who is negotiating this life on its terms and would love to know how everyone else is doing it. How do I write an abstract? What do I say when I present this paper in Copenhagen? Who will I be in Paris? Can someone help me focus and edit these stories that are driving me mad? What exactly is in a book proposal?

We poke and send kisses and crazy Japanese game show clips, but nobody's really talking. It's just more distraction. I'll sit up her bored but still playing Word Twist cause I can't quite wrap my brain around what my character does after she kills her mother and how that impacts the overall story arc. It's easier to have a false sense of intimacy (the same thing I think about IM...) under the auspices of communication than actual communication and intimacy.

But that doesn't mean I don't kick ass at Word Twist.

This economy is some BS

So I'm trying to find somewhere to lay my kinky head in Paris and this Euro to dollar conversion is a heartbreaker. Aren't we the leaders of the free world?

Yesterday, the world's most corrupt real estate manager said in a press speech that the economy is still growing.

WTF? IS HE ON CRACK? Every country on the planet is doing better than us. Mexican pesos are catching up with dollars. PESOS!! So I'm trying to be all international like and as soon as I buy a $1200 tix to Copenhagen and Paris... the news says, "not the right time for a European vacation". Oh, really? Thanks for the NEWS!

But more than that, are people even aware of the isolationism happening? If Americans, who are terrible travelers, can't make their annual sojourn to Europe, will the Europeans have to stay home and enjoy summers in their native land?

NAH.

Cause Manhattan is still cheaper than Paris if you get paid in Euros. I want to get paid in Euros. I really wish I'd done this traveling when I was younger. I wouldn't care if I had bedbug bites or if I had to share a toilet down the hall with a bunch of weird Germans (i mean... they're weird- they just are). I'd have been fabulous and free and tossing Francs around willy nilly. Or even when the Euro hit the scene and it was like pesos. Ahhh, the 90's.

So I'm going to stay with two of my friends for a few days all cramped up in a tiny French apt. in the 13th (maybe 11th) and when they leave I'll be able to stretch my legs and bring home strange Frenchmen. Good Living.

But he's going to have to buy the wine.