In Brooklyn, I witness a criminal act of violence. I am at a red light in my Altima. A young man and a young woman attack each other 15 feet from my window. The man pins the woman to the ground. I look further past them and notice a dark alley. Is he going to rape her? Is he going to drag her down the street and rape her? I call the police. I immediately tell the 911 receptionist the street corner and that a man is attacking a woman. She asks if I’m safe and I tell her I’m in my car. I lock my doors but keep my eyes peeled on the sight. The woman flails her arms and hits the man. She stands up! She runs two paces before he grabs her from behind and throws her back on the ground. He pins her down again. Her stomach and face are pressed against the dirty cement and he holds her arms tight behind her.

Three cars slowly pass me. They drive in the opposite direction as me. They each pause when they near the violence. I watch a taxi driver slow his car and turn his head toward the man and woman. I watch him drive away without doing anything at all. I watch the other two cars do the same. The light turns green.

She kicks and fights her way out of his control. She sprints away from him. He chases her. She runs fast. I pull a U-turn. I follow behind him so I can watch the both of them. “Does he have a weapon?” “Not that I can see.” She runs and runs… He gets so close to her but then stops. He hunches over. His hands rest on his waist and he takes deep breathes. She doesn’t stop. I speed up. “Hold on…” I tell the receptionist. I roll down my window. “Do you need help?!!!” The young woman turns her head towards me and yells, “No, thanks… I’m good!” I see the young man approaching her through my rear-view mirror. I follow her as she runs and runs. She’s fast. He doesn’t catch up. I see sirens and can finally hang up the phone though my hands shake so bad.

Maybe they were a couple? Maybe she wronged him… maybe it was drug related? Whatever the hell it was, I am so glad I was there… because it’s so much better to be safe and call the police. Who the hell knows what would have happened to that woman?

This story reminds me of Kitty Genovese. She was a 28-year-old woman who was stabbed, raped, and murdered outside her Queens’ place in the 60s. There were a dozen witnesses who heard her screaming from their apartment windows, and nobody did anything at all. They all assumed somebody else would call the police  (wikipedia).

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My lesson to you, folks, is this… If you see something sketchy, call the cops. You can even make it anonymous. Don’t feel embarrassed and don’t think you’re overreacting. Don’t assume somebody else is doing it.

To all you ladies who get hollered at. To all you men who holler at a bitch.

As much as I love hearing, “damnnn!” when I walk down the street, it pisses me off royally. Because I feel judged. I’d like to think I could walk around and do my thing without my appearance being judged. But for women, this is impossible. If I am scrubbed out and lookin’ not-so-perty (particularly on Sunday morning hangover days), I’m probably being judged by men rather than going unnoticed (which I’d prefer).

Because of this, I am constantly aware that I am a sexual being. Because of this, I feel like I need to wear makeup, look skinny, and wear the best possible outfit at all times.

It’s not insecurity. It’s more of a forced awareness of my physical self. And this is what pisses me off about being a women.

Of course, I could use this to my advantage… I could use my body to get basically anything I want… free drinks, a job, a boyfriend, free shit… But that would be pussying out. It would be way too easy.

I guess we ladies should accept this shitty situation as a challenge…  looking good is so much more empowering with the brains to back you up.

Is it abnormal that when I meet a man, I wonder if I’m only attracted/repulsed/neutral because of my species’ evolutionary need to spread the seed?

If I feel sexually attracted to a man, or emotionally attracted for that matter, I wonder if my biology will work with his… Maybe his pheromones lured me to him.. maybe he’s more likely than other men to get me knocked up, so to say.

I assume others have an off switch to this train of thought but I can never get this concept out of my head! It makes things very strange! When I get hit on, for example, I should wonder “normal” things like, “how much money does he make,” “what kind of car does he drive,” “how big is his man piece?” Instead, I wonder if he’s only hitting on my because I’m fertile… Would he hit on me at a different time of the month?

Do you dislike people who dislike you? I do. I guess it’s my ego’s defense mechanism. If I hear someone hates me, I naturally hate that person right back. It’s easier to deflect my pained ego by focusing on the person’s flaws than to accept that I may not be as cool, nice, and interesting as I want to believe I am!

According to CNN.com, Budweiser is being taken over! I feel like somebody has kidnapped my baby! More like, a 30 rack of babies every weekend. I hear all this talk of people protesting Bud by refusing to drink it. But as long as the taste doesn’t change, I’m still in. It just goes down smooth! The BL Smooth!

I understand where you’re comin from. I remember many a cigarette being the “best cigarette of my life.” Don’t take this as a “jump on the bandwagon” post. I don’t want to rub it in, but I want to celebrate my 6th month quitting anniversary by writing a post about pros and cons as I remember them. GO ME! It was tough, I’ll tell you. But it is do-able. If I could quit, anybody could. Write a comment if you need some advice. 

Pros of smoking (as a recall): 

• relieves the need to have a cigarette
• tastes good
• feels good
• looks sexy
• gives your hand something to do 
• gives your mouth something to do (i’m not addicted- my mouth is just bored!)
• no withdrawal!
• gives you a moment to take a break and contemplate things
• alone time
• speeds metabolism and helps lose weight/keep weight off
• helps you concentrate

Cons:

• After-shower smell is gone as soon as you have that after-shower cigarette
• smoke in the eyes
• burn holes on clothes
• hair smells
• breath smells
• get out of breath doing simple things
• COUGH!
• man voice (in women).
• scratchy voice
• clear your throat before you talk
• “Shit, I only have 2 cigarettes left for the night and no money…”
• “Shit, where’s my lighter?”
• “Can I please please please bum a smoke!! I’ll hit you back!”
• feeling isolated 
• not being allowed anywhere inside with your filthy habit
• people looking at you negatively… especially little kids.. and knowing they’re right
• those black lung photos
• strep throat, bronchitis, pneumonia, etc. 
• MONEY! (I have saved over 1,000 dollars in 6 months and counting)
• watching the clock
• dropping your cigarette while driving… SHIT!!!!
• worrying about your next pack
• driving/walking/biking in the snow at 3 a.m. for a pack
• prices going up and up…
• worrying about a quit date
• being controlled by a drug instead of yourself
• worrying about stretches of work, long movies, plane rides, etc. 
• needing to take a break during important things or fun things like poker games. 
• yellow teeth
• yellow fingers
• hating cigarettes and smoking and yourself for losing power. 
• worrying about blowing smoke in people’s faces
• feeling guilty about all those butts on the ground
• feeling guilty about your non-smoker friends getting smoke in their faces. 
• dealing with gross ashtrays. 
• feeling gross when you see a garbage full of empty cigarette packs
• Smoking a half-cigarette that is a day old. 

I could probably go on and on. When I quit (exactly) 6 months ago, I made a pro/con list. I wanted so badly to find that I had much more pros than cons. If I did, there would be no point in quitting, now would there? Well, I was disappointed when I could only come up with a few pros and a seemingly endless amount of cons. Just something to think about, especially since the economy in changing and shit’s getting pricey. I still have moments where I feel like I should be having a cigarette, and I’m still a smoker at heart. But I definitely feel proud for being an ex-smoker! The point of writing this post is basically to reinforce to myself that I am making the write decision. It definitely helped!

Aww!! I don’t think we’d ever eat a baby chick. But chickens are okay because they’re ugly. Are they really ugly? Or do we just pretend all the animals we eat are the ugly elite so we feel better about ourselves for eating them? Before we started eating chickens, were chicks still naturally inclined to become ugly? Which came first?

Listen. I don’t criticize anybody for eating meat. Eat dog shit for all I care! I feel bad for the environment and for suffering animals that you eat meat, but there’s nothing I can do about it and I can’t judge. I would love to be vegan for the sake of animals and the environment, but I don’t think I could ever, in my life, give up ice cream. Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream drenched in chocolate syrup and peanut butter sauce with Reese’s Pieces just does the trick for me. Plus, if I were vegan, it would be such a pain in the ass to do anything food-related because I’d have to search the ingredients of everything with a magnifying glass. You’d be surprised how much packaged food has “beef” in the fine print of the ingredients. Especially on Long Island, living vegan would be obnoxious as hell. Restaurants and family parties would be out of the question. I’d be dining alone for every meal and ridiculed for it, I’m sure. Not to mention, healthy food is expensive. 

 

Anyway, like I said, I wouldn’t want to give up chocolate and lots of other goodies that come from eggs and dairy. So I understand that you can’t give up meat, because you think chicken is so damn good. My point is, stop acting like I’m protesting against you just because I turn down a steak! So many people, when they discover I’m vegetarian because I refuse to eat a “vegetarian” salad drenched in bacon bits, think I’m personally attacking them. My theory is that all people feel guilty (especially after seeing those sad videos about chickens being debeaked and other animals being forced into tiny cages and pumped with hormones that allow them to grow abnormally large…) and the guilt causes cognitive dissonance. The ego cannot bear to feel that he or she is doing something morally wrong just because he or she cannot give up that chicken. Instead, the ego justifies immoral actions by thinking things such as: vegetarians are ridiculous, I am right/They are wrong, humans are made to eat meat, vegetarians are unhealthy and pale, you can’t get protein on a vegetarian diet, the animals are going to be conceived and slaughtered anyway- I’ll do my part and eat them so they don’t go to waste. Do you really believe these things, or is your ego playing a trick on you? If you still believe all these statements (and probably more), I encourage you to read this…. Although I know your ego will come up with ways to contradict the statistics.