Service at Cafe Duke's

Cafe Duke is located in the heart of Soho, at Broadway and Spring. It goes all the way through the building it's in, so you can also go in on the Mercer street side if you so desire. It's one of those really weird places that has a little bit of everything. Pasta, juice drinks, soup, sushi and a do it yourself Salad bar. Sounds nice, right? You can even access the internet in there.

But if service is everything, than Duke's is nothing. They have these women who work the front counter like machines, screaming "Next UP!" before customer A even has their stuff in a bag. They complain if you're too demanding- like, forgetting to ask for milk in your coffee WHEN YOU ORDER IT NOT AFTER. I can't imagine how many people they go through in an hour, much less a day. You've never seen a line move so fast.

Being from the South, it's habit for me to cough out "How are you today?". I could be kidnapped or robbed at gunpoint and have no doubt that's exactly what I would say. When the Yankees invaded the Confederacy during the Civil War, every one of them commented on how hospitable the Confederate Wives were, even though I'm sure we just wanted to stab them in the back. There are many stories about the Yanks being served on the best silver and treated like royalty. That's Southern teaching. Regardless of whether it's the President or Hitler (not that there's much difference this day and age) you just pretend they are the nicest, most interesting people you've ever met and be kind. Which is why Southern women are so much more dangerous. We'll conceal our distaste but feel free to gossip about it later.

When I first visited Dukes back in the fall I didn't believe my co-workers when they told me how rude those poeple were. I figured they were exaggerating and that the ladies behind the counter just hadn't been offered Southern hospitality before. Of course I was wrong. They could care less how nice you were to them as long as you GOT OUT OF THE WAY. I think the reason that place stays open is it's one ofa bout two restaurants down here in SoHo that aren't trendy and overpriced. By the way, New Yorkers are cheap when it comes to lunch. That's why we love the vendis.

Today when I went in for a diet coke and a snack (no, I haven't kicked my caffeine habit yet) the guy in front of me was an older gentleman. When he was called up I heard him say something to the girl behind the counter but wasn't paying attention. But by the time I got up there he was yelling at her to be nice. He said, "ALl you have to do is answer fine!" I don't know where he w as from, but preach it, brother. IT's the truth. All you have to say is fine. It's a lot more civil and takes less effort than not saying anything at all.

Beginning to be Spring?

It has been a beautiful week. I mean a really beautiful week. There is nothing more refreshing than stepping into a spring morning, when the air is cool but you know it's on the way to warming up soon and green is starting to appear in places you least expect it. The sun is coming up earlier and everything seems brighter. I love this time of year. There is something about the changing seasons that I love. It makes me feel like a new person, coming out of the bleakness of a New York winter. It's a sigh of relief, really, a reward for making it through the cold and snow of the winter and late fall.

This really is one of my favorite times of year. I love the way everything smells, that the days are longer, that I can sit in Washington Square Park and read on a quiet Saturday afternoon. I can watch the children who are really benefiting from living in a world of sun and warmth trip and run down the streets of the Village, laughing and screaming. I remember when I was really little coming home from school, getting off the bus, and picking flowers as I walked up the driveway. I loved the feeling of dropping my backpack in the yard and immediately running around, dashing from swing set to yard and back. If only we as adults could capture those feelings of complete happiness at simply being alive.

I'm glad New York is changing for the better. This weekend my parents and my little brother were in town for the weekend to see me. It was pretty but still fairly chilly and they complained about that almost contasntly. Which was when I suggested they head to my apartment that has been like a sauna since late October. But what they got to see of New York is wonderful compared to what I have seen every day i living here.

I Have On Three Shirts

and I'm still freezing and thinking about how wonderful it would be if I were still in bed, curled up with my kitty asleep. Instead I'm back in the corporate world and wondering how people spend forty or fifty years doing this same thing every day. No wonder they're so exhausted all the time. Now I understand more than ever why people have high blood pressure and heart attacks. This summer will be the first summer of my life that has not been flexible. Sure, I'll go on vacation with my family, but it won't be the easy trip it has been in the past. I've had to carefully manuever my time around how many days I have left for vacation, how many I've already taken, and what applies. I'll have to purchase a plane ticket and compare prices on that. Then I'll have to be sure and email everyone and their mother to let them know that I'll be out of town for a mere seven or eight days, emergency procedures in the event something in the publicity world goes wrong, and why they won't be able to reach me.

I've found the business world to be extremely dependent. If I call in a sick day I come back to piles of work on my desk and my co-workers saying, panicked, "I didn't know what to do." I wonder if it's the same overseas, where people pack up and often eave the country for a month or so. Do they check in? do the companies they work for fall apart without them? While it's nice to have so many people happily dependent on me, it goes to show that if I leave, no one else can do my job for me. Which is entirely untrue. It's not that it's a difficult job, just a very detail oriented. When it comes down to it, it's simply about getting some pictures in a magazine or newspaper as often as possible.

But I feel paranoid leaving even for the Easter weekend. Because no one can be sure what will happen, what will go wrong along the way. No wonder so many people take their laptops with them to the beach or mountains. They feel an immense pressure to be working even when they are not working.

I Have On Three Shirts

and I'm still freezing and thinking about how wonderful it would be if I were still in bed, curled up with my kitty asleep. Instead I'm back in the corporate world and wondering how people spend forty or fifty years doing this same thing every day. No wonder they're so exhausted all the time. Now I understand more than ever why people have high blood pressure and heart attacks. This summer will be the first summer of my life that has not been flexible. Sure, I'll go on vacation with my family, but it won't be the easy trip it has been in the past. I've had to carefully manuever my time around how many days I have left for vacation, how many I've already taken, and what applies. I'll have to purchase a plane ticket and compare prices on that. Then I'll have to be sure and email everyone and their mother to let them know that I'll be out of town for a mere seven or eight days, emergency procedures in the event something in the publicity world goes wrong, and why they won't be able to reach me.

I've found the business world to be extremely dependent. If I call in a sick day I come back to piles of work on my desk and my co-workers saying, panicked, "I didn't know what to do." I wonder if it's the same overseas, where people pack up and often eave the country for a month or so. Do they check in? do the companies they work for fall apart without them? While it's nice to have so many people happily dependent on me, it goes to show that if I leave, no one else can do my job for me. Which is entirely untrue. It's not that it's a difficult job, just a very detail oriented. When it comes down to it, it's simply about getting some pictures in a magazine or newspaper as often as possible.

But I feel paranoid leaving even for the Easter weekend. Because no one can be sure what will happen, what will go wrong along the way. No wonder so many people take their laptops with them to the beach or mountains. They feel an immense pressure to be working even when they are not working.

More like the Kiss of Death

Come on, New York. In less than 24 hours we will officially be in the spring season. Yet, today's 18 degree wind chill feels like anything but. It feels more like January than March. Maybe January was actually even warmer? I can't be sure now but suspect this is some trick God is trying to play on me. Because I'm new here and unsure of what this weather means. I did pack up my ski bibs, but certainly haven't even thought about packing up my sweaters yet. Or yes I may have considered it last week when temperatures jumped into the seventies but have now definitely changed my mind. Clearly we are not ready for this. clutching a cup of tea isn't helping very much.

But this hasn't changed how I feel about New York. Because love is love and sometimes you just have to roll with it.

Will it ever arrive?

Spring is supposedly supposed to begin on Wednesday. It's supposed to be flowers, showers, some breezes, and then some. Unfortunately it's still cold, in the thirties here, and I'm constantly freezing. I didn't mind freezing December through now, but come on people, it's time fora change. I always think about the Pilgrims this time of year, and wonder why they didnt sail southward when they came over. How bad would an extra week have been, anyway? If you've been at sea for several months, why would it matter if you had to stay on the ship al ittle longer if it would mean being in a warm location. I would have waited an extra week to found America in Georgia.

Then I wonder why, when it was realized how expansive America could be, and how many locations there were, people didn't flock south. New York City should really be geographically located closer to Miami Beach or, if it had to be centralized, Raleigh. Why would they keep it in a place that regular falls below freezing, has wind issues, and is right on the water? Aren't there other port places,like Baltimore and Savannah that are also right on the water but don't have as many issues? I'm just curious about the choices settlers made.

I wonder what I would have done had I come over on the Mayflower. Insisted that the seasick people not throw up on me? Demanded better food than smoked fish? Rolled my eyes excessively at the stupid men that were undoubtedly "running" the place. i'm not sure, looking at the big picture, if I could have made any better decisions. Because what makes New York great is New York itself, not its location.

I'm becoming a theater critic

Never would I have thought I would be attending the theater enough to make educated criticisms of it, but thanks to the hook-up of C, I have been to Broadway more times in the last month than in my whole life combined. No one is really sure how she gets her tickets but she does and they are generally fabulous. Which is why it pays to have a friend who has the connections. Evveryone should include one in their group.

So on Sunday, when she invited me to go see the Broadway debut of a play called "Well", I happily tagged along. We knew that it was a one-act play, but one act should not stretch beyond one hour unless it is highly entertaining. Which this one wasn't. the premise was wonderful- a daughter is trying to perform her play about health and illness while her mother sits in the background, offering sodas and "suggestions" about why she's doing it wrong. It was a good image of a mother daughter relationship. And there were some funny parts. But the whoel thing seemed generally overdone and I felt like I could have done a better job of writing it. Really. And I'm not even doing much writing these days.

But this is what I imagined when I moved to New York. I saw myself taking advantage of every cultural opportunity that came my way. And while I have taken advantage of quite a few of them, it's not going along quite the way i imagined it. I guess this proves that you can be cultured anywhere in the world, or not be anywhere in the world. There are people who have been raised here and never set foot in the Museum of Natural History. Not that I have either. But in my own defense I've only been here a few months. So I guess culture isn't really a reason to live in a particular location. Though there is a huge difference between the Littleton community theater and Broadway.

So I'm sticking with my lifestyle here for the moment, rushing along day by day and being a part of a wonderful place that shows me all kinds of differences just by walking down the street. And brings me back to reality by putting a terrible play on broadway.

For Real, Y'all

I'm frustrated with my job. I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of people all over the country who are saying essentially the same thing right now, but this is my blog and I'm here to feel sorry for myself. My boss has disappeared, before we could talk about my raise which I'm now feeling is not going to happen after all. It's incredibly discouraging when you put so much of yourself into a job only to get so little in return. Does money mean happiness? No, but it can cause a lot of sadness when your credit card bills are piling up around you and your boss is driving a car that costs around a quarter of a million dollars, but is unable to give you insurance or enough money to pay for living expenses. I wonder how much we are supposed to take in our jobs.

When does enough mean enough? THere are limits for everyone, and I have just about reached mine with this company. I have been patiently waiting and doing an excellent job. Thanks to my work, our publicity is shooting through the roof right now and I've brought on more new accounts than anyone else here this spring. I come in with a positive attitude and get as much done in one day as any human reasonably can. I rarely complain and instead put my mind to work, trying to understand this business better. But in any company, there needs to be recognition and compensation for achievements of employees. I think if more employers understood this there would be a better balance. Instead of purhcasing a car that is eight times an employees' salary look at the bigger picture and dole out the money accordingly. By making your employees feel appreciated you are setting up a better atmosphere and in hte long run a better company. Like Mike says in "Office Space", "That'll make you work just hard enough not to get fired.". That's what I'm currently doing. i'm currently working the bare minimum. Starting to come in a little late and leave a little early and in between deal with the reality of what this life is.

Corporate America is disappointing. In "Bait and Switch", Barbara Ehenreich tries to get a salaried job in the corporate world and fails miserably. She is shocked to find that with all the effort and time she put in, that no one is really a team player anymore, that CEOs would rather fire employees than take a salary cut, that people who move too far up the ladder too fast are cut, that more companies prefer temps because they don't have to pay health insurance. There are companies and organizations that won't take people over 35 or 40 years old, that offer little or no vacation time, that dont care if you spent the last five years at home with your kids- it was a gap.

I can't believe that this is what our country has come to. And we're not even doing all that well. We're in the midst of a war, we have one of the highest unemployment rates in the world right now, we give the least benefits of any developed country. In most European countries, mothers and fathers take roughly a year of paid maternity leave. Their companies feel everyone benefits from this arrangement and no one returns to work guilty that they didn't spend enough time with LIttle Annie. Here six weeks is the average but many places want you to take LESS THAN THAT. Having children is looked upon as a nuisance and something that takes away from your career, instead of adding to your ability to multi-task.

Of course I've done nothing but work for the past 18 years. i've been in school full time, adding on extra jobs and activities during the summer. I applied for everything, I did everything, I spent many sleepless nights working on things to heighten my ability to land a good job in the near future. Where has it left me? Discouraged and job hunting again. Trying to do something different with my life, trying to live on my own. No wonder so many people in their twenties and even thirties are moving back home. Our parents don't realize how different it is now, how people no longer care about what you're doing with your life, or what you're trying to accomplish, that you're supposed to slave away at being something in the corporate world, to be a busy bee.

Six Days of BORING

So I haven't been updating my blog. So what? My life has been fairly boring this week. Work, sleep, study for the GRE, work, sleep, check to see that Lucy the kitten hasn't been destroying everything in my apartment, sleep. I think the only interesting thing would be my shot at Olympia on Monday evening.

Maybe it was all the hype after Turin, or maybe I'm just fulfilling my childhood dreams, but I signed up for figure skating lessons. Yes. Actual lessons with a coach who is obviously gay, and tiny girls who glide past me with the greatest of ease on the ice. Figure skating. The sport no one would have thought of when assigning me to athletics. When I was little I had asked for figure skating lessons, but my mother actually said no, since I was already dancing, singing, playing the piano, and attending Girl Scouts. Oh yeah, and I was playing soccer, too. Plus it would have meant at least an hour and a half commute each way to get to the nearest figure skatin grink. So I settled for pretending to be a figure skater by sliding around my room (we had wood floors) in socks.

When I moved up here, I imagined I would have a ton of free time to do things like skate, and ski, and generally be fabulous. i was wrong, of course. Turns out I don't have much more free time here than I ever did when I was a student. Maybe it's because my work days run straighter now or something. I don't know. Either way, I do know that I haven't skiied or skated since I got up here, both winter sports near by and things that I am not particularly good at.

I watched the Olympics, watching as Michelle Kwan was replaced by Emily Hughes (who has skated at the same rink I'm skating at, thank you very much) and as Sasha Cohen FELL in her only chance for gold. So it might have been the excitement from all of that, but before you know it I was on the phone and signing away my safety rights to be a part of the figure skating world. I showed up on Monday an hour early (for someone who is generally a few minutes behind this was good timing) and I got fitted for my skates. And watched as little girls no more than three or four feet high threw themselves into the air without a care in the world. I was completely confident as I stepped out onto the ice once it was my turn and promptly fell into the wall without going anywhere.

The guy checking us in for "Adult Skate School" looked at me skeptically and said, "Level?"
"Level?" I said right back at him without the look, since I was mainly concentrating on not ending up on my ass.
"What level are you?"
"What? Oh... maybe beginner?" Can't say I didn't warn him.
"Can you skate backwards?" Maybe this guy wasn't the brightest chip off the block,,but my God man I was hanging onto the edge of the wall with all my weight. I couldn't even skate FORWARD.
"Maybe." I said, trying to sound cooler than I actually was.

So he assigned me to a group where, get this, they were teaching people (many who have never been on the ice) to fall properly, so you had the least amount of bruising and broken bones going on. I was just practicing a bunny hop when one of the other skating instructors pulled me aside, shook her head, and said, "You go over there", pushing me towards a group that was, ironically, skating backwards.

The instructor looked me up and down, grinned, and said, "Welcome! We're just working on our swizzles. Please join in."
What the hell was a swizzle? I wondered, as I smiled back and said, "GReat! I'll just get behind these people over here,' pointing to everyone else in the group who was, I guess, swizzling backwards. At least, they were moving backwards without falling on their ass, so that's a plus. I'm not really sure what inspired the skating instructor to put me in the group, but she did. And so, in a brief moment I too was pretending I belonged in the group. Surrounded by people who were slightly wobbly on their skates but staying upright. Some were quite good. There was a much older woman (she must have been in her 60s) who was gliding across the ice with the greatest of ease. I was not. I was moving across the ice, but in a choppy motion that must have been extremely entertaining to watch.

I spent an hour on the ice, practicing my own "glides" ( which did not seem very glide-y to me), going in cirlces, literally, and generally trying not to fall down. I on ly endedup with three bruises.

Maybe not so different from the South

There were tons of wrecks yesterday. And this morning. On the way to work I found that half of lower Broadway was blocked with fire trucks and spectators watching what appeared to be a disaster made with a city bus and a delivery truck. The sidewalks were icy, people were slipping and sliding everywhere, and schools in neighboring towns and states had closed for the day. There was barely any snow. Yesterday, while we were suppposed to get somewhere around 7 inches, we only got three. Which should have been nothing up here. But for some reason has turned this place into a bumbling mess.

What happened, New York? Where was the confidence seen trudging to work after the largest blizzard on record? Where were the snow shoes and boots with heavy treads on them? I have to admit I was a little disappointed. Besides the wind, I may a s well have been in a snow storm in NC. Last year, my neighbors and I used ski poles to get us up and down our super steep driveway. Going to school was a hell. But that was with like an inch of ice.

And naturally it was windy and cold. Since I was sick yesterday you can imagine how particularly wonderful that felt as I was leaving my nice cozy apartment with my sweet purring kitty. No wonder more people are choosing to "freelance" or work from home. There are some advantages, particularly when it's 11 degrees outside and you're wrapped up inside. People really were developed for hibernating. That's why we have so much disease floating around. Imagine if everything stopped for January and February. I wonder how much healthier we would be?