I tell myself that poverty during youth is good for the soul...

... Trouble is, I'm not sure that I even believe in a soul.

This week, I learned that I am too poor for Chase Bank.

I recently entered a branch near my school armed with two coupons, hopeful that I could use at least one of them, if not both. I know how banks work, I thought. They want more accounts, and if you bitch loud enough, they'll let you double up on the promotional offers.

That, at least, had been my experience from the other side of the tellers' counter during the 18 months I worked part-time as a bank teller in Connecticut.

There are a couple problems with this strategy. First, I do not really know how to bitch in order to get my way. Second, even if I did know how to bitch at a complete stranger, I apparently do not have enough money for Chase Bank to really give a shit whether I keep it with them or some other chump bank.

I sat down with a plump older woman who spoke with a vaguely Caribbean accent and who explained that Chase checking accounts currently charge a monthly service fee of $6, but they were soon phasing that out in favor of a checking account that would charge a $12 monthly service fee, unless you either had a direct deposit totaling $500 or more or maintained a balance of at least $1,500. In your checking account.

I really only wanted to open the account so that (a) I could use an ATM somewhere in the city without incurring a $2 - $3 fee and (b) I could possibly earn an extra $100.

No luck on either count.

I suppose I will have to stick with my original strategy of using Rite-Aid as my own personal ATM, the only trouble there being that I can only use so much mouthwash in one week.

I've become a germophobe since moving to New York, particularly while riding the subway.

As I grip the handrails, I swear I can feel microbes crawling around under my palms. Salmonella. Influenza. The common cold. I think about all the people who must have touched that rail before me and how clean or dirty their hands must have been.

I realize that most reasonable people will wash their hands after urinating, defecating, handling raw meat, masturbating, and doing lord knows what else, but at least a few people don't.

And that's really all it takes, isn't it? Just a few people.

Ick.

It's just the curse of being a girl

I have to confess, I haven't posted nearly as much as I would like to because I've been busy. Dealing with job hunting, roommate issues, getting ready for school, and working a part-time temp job in the meantime, but I felt like writing now because of something that happened today.

I had my MFA orientation this morning, and it went splendidly. Afterwards, I had to head to the Post Office for a money order. As I exited near the corner of Nostrand Avenue and Avenue J, I heard kissy noises fired in my direction, followed by a "Hey, sexy!"

Slightly shaken, mostly angry, I turned to find the source of the offending noises, a squat little troll sitting in the passenger seat of a dark-colored, sedan-type car. He continued with the kissy noises as I looked at him for half a moment. Then, appropriately, I flipped him the bird and started walking towards the Metro station.

He was clearly Not Happy that I had rejected his generous "compliments" in such a flippant manner. The troll taunted me as I continued walking: "You can shove that up your ass, sunshine!" and the like. This is what we females are supposed to consider "just a compliment"?

Oh, and did I mention that he was actually following me in his car as this happened?

I have to admit: I was a little bit afraid because in that instant, I didn't know what this dude was going to do. I continued down Nostrand Avenue towards the train stop, trembling with rage, my mouth filling with saliva, ready to hock a loogey in this guy's direction if he came within spitting distance of me. Eventually, he got stuck at a red light and I escaped into a crowd. Relief.

I understand that catcalls are an unfortunate aspect of being female and living in a city, but still, it angers me that women must accept second-class status, particularly with regard to personal safety. We shouldn't have to shrug off some douchebag's backasswards idea of a compliment, we shouldn't have to carry pepper spray or look over our shoulders every few steps.

Perhaps my actions could have provoked this Neanderthal to violence. I'm lucky that didn't happen, but I don't regret my actions, either. If you can, I encourage every woman finding herself in a similar predicament to do the same thing I did. Respond. Let the offender know that you do not appreciate his harassment, that you are not some passive object existing only for his viewing pleasure. Flipping the bird is certainly not the most creative response to a catcaller, but catcallers, by their very nature, are uncreative beings.

If I have to give the self-described pickup artists credit for anything, it's for having at least a little more creativity than their wolf-whistling counterparts.

Creepy man at the Halsey Street J last night...

"So are we going to your apartment or mine?"

Me: "You're going back to your apartment, and I'm going back to mine. Separately."

Man: "What if I pay you?"

Me: "Especially not if you pay me!"

Country mouse, city mouse

"We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity."


It's been almost two years since a certain once-VP hopeful spoke those words during a speech. At the time, that rankled me - even though I was (and let's be honest, still am) "small town folk." But today, I want to return to those words to share with you an anecdote that contradicts this "Small town folk = good, city folk = bad" mentality.

Dave came down to Brooklyn on Friday for a Sondre Lerche concert in Greenpoint. We had to take the J train to Lorimer Street, walk a couple blocks to the G train, and take that to Greenpoint Avenue.

As we walked down the stairs to the platform for the G train, we noticed a sort of peculiar scene. There was a young man standing on our side of the platform. He looked to be about our age. The way he was dressed, he looked like he had just come from a run or a workout. On the opposite platform were a teenage girl and a little boy, probably about eight or nine years old. Dave and I guessed that they were brother and sister.

The boy was visibly distraught, his face scrunched up into painful contortions, tears flowing freely. His sister was trying to comfort him, to little avail. The man on our side of the platform waved to him, trying to cheer him up. "It's gonna be OK, man!" he said. But the boy continued to cry.

Without much prompting, the young man ran up the stairs and reappeared on the other side of the platform, alongside the girl and boy. He dropped to the ground and pressed his ear against the edge of the platform, listening. Then, he leapt down from the platform and grabbed a small action figure that was lying near the train tracks. Evidently, the boy had dropped it, the source of his anguish.

When the man leapt back up onto the platform and handed the toy back to the boy, his face lit up. The tears evaporated, and he smiled. The man walked back up the stairs and returned to our side of the platform. Dave and I chatted with him for a bit before we went our separate ways. He introduced himself as Aku (I probably spelled that wrong) and said he saw the whole scene unfold. He had never jumped down onto the tracks like that before, and he described how his heart was pounding as he did it.

None of this is to say that people in small towns suck, though some people sure like to strongly imply it for political reasons. Underlying it is the suggestion that, if we grow good people in our small towns, then what kind of people do we grow in our big cities? Or anything in between? The point is, it's stupid to put people into boxes like "Good" or "Bad" according to their origins and not their actions.

I miss Connecticut, but New York is OK.