Darken up your Saturday with Babs!!

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Although I never played with Barbie dolls, my sister had a whole village of ’em, AND the Ferrari(white), and the Dream House (pink-duh!).

One of my favorite childhood memories is of my sister around Christmas time shoving the Three Wisemen into the Ferrari with Ken to go see baby Jesus…. My parents were pretty pissed.

I didn’t play with Barbie because my parents didn’t want to idealize what was “pretty” and have it presented to me in some pink box…. While I wasn’t allowed to play with Barbie, by the time my sister was interested, their idealistic resolve was all gone, which only further proves the theory that by the time you have two children you just don’t care anymore…. Evidence of this theory in action(besides the Barbie thing) -my beautifully ornate baby book which oh-so-carefully chronicles every burp and fart through my first two years, while my sister ….has a lock of hair and some papers in a shoe box…

Oh well, this is an experiment I’m sure my father would have been proud to help me with….It’s pretty sadistic, but with Fashion Week drawing to a close, it’s sort of like an uber-dark-gather-around-the-campfire moment.

Fashion Week

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Some of you may not be familiar with the popular grrrly blog Jezebel. While I’m not a huge fan of their fashion editorials, or of the endless sea of celeb snapshots in their worst moments, Jezebel has a team of fabulous writers who cover anything from melon scented panties, the Southwest Airline scandal, or the online debate with catholic conservative Matt C. Abbott on what a fitting “punishment” for abortion would be. What I find most refreshing about their blog is that they maintain a surprisingly down to earth viewpoint on matters…. Not macha feminist, which can be tiresome at times….. like lipstick feminism?is there such a term?

Although I myself am not a girly-girl, I’ve come to accept that there’s really nothing wrong with liking pink, shoes, make-up or even purty lacy things. In fact, I kinda like pink, but not because I have a vagina, I like it because it works with my skin undertones….. my Dad also looks lovely in pink, it brings out the blue in his eyes, and let me tell you, there’s nothing girly about my father.

This week marked the beginning of Fashion Week, which to be quite honest I could really give a flying fig about, but this posting on Jezebel caught my attention. In addition to the positioning of flight attendants on 6th Avenue handing out airline barf bags, tongue depressors, ex-lax and tic-tacs for the post-purge freshening up, there’s also a running commentary posted Ichat-style,(which anyone who knows me-knows that this is my preferred medium of convo). The dialogue from the inside reporter to the stationed Jezebel is hilarious, smart, chic,in short,very grrly.

Check out this chat involving the spotting of a Lisa Loeb.

I love that these girls are totally glam’d up for this. How would you imagine a feminist would protest this event??? Not to further the stereotype, but my vision didn’t have eye-liner or a coiffed hair-do. Isn’t it kinda hot to see opposition in a beautiful and tasteful form, the physical embodiment of sexy, chic and smart??

Happy Thursday

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There’s another epic Melly blog in the making.…. one of my more academic endeavors… you know the ones that are kinda long, and kinda snarky, but yet somehow brilliantly clever and leave you with a nice warm fuzzy feeling towards the end???? Well, I confess I’m feeling a bit too warm and fuzzy this evening as I’ve worked all day on boring life shit… and have just succumbed to the evils of LOST and am partaking in a Corona. Aka, Melly not so brilliant right now. I leave you with your choice of three thought provoking advertisements….. and I’ll leave the snark up to you.

American Apparel as seen on the LES


Melon Scented Panties??

Happy Thursday!

Starbucks meets Hooters……

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All of the female employees of the Monroe Washington coffee shop Lola Bean have decided to quit after owner decided to buy into the franchise Cowgirl Espresso. Dress code change for female employees would entail a daily theme: Military Monday, Cowgirl Tuesday, Bikini Wednesday, Schoolgirl Thursday and Fantasy Friday….. yuck.

Have to say I’m impressed that all the gals stuck together and quit, but I’m not sure which is more upsetting, that the owner was surprised that they all walked out, or that he’s received an overwhelming number of new applications. Check out their website if you can stomach it… ummmm, they’re not just selling over-priced coffee.

My question is are there no male employees at Lola Bean? And the bigger question is WHY? Cowgirl employees get paid minimum wage and apparently the tips are lousy…. where is the gratification in that?

Thinking Chicks Shrink Dicks?

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My Morning Google Reader time is very, very precious to me. For the past few days I have been keeping track of various threads following the article published in the September Issue of Cosmo which talks about “Gray Rape”. I don’t read Cosmo, and I won’t waste your time chronicling the debate back and forth about it, my honest two cents on the subject is that there is nothing “gray” about rape. I mean seriously, in the name of all things equal, why would it be in anyone’s best interest to create a term that deliberately obscures something that women have been fighting since the dawn of creation to define as something that is only black and white?? And SWEET JESUS!! It’s a term coined by a woman….

In all of my thread following I came across an article published in the Washington Post last year by Laura Sessions Stepp. She’s the author of the book Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both. Yikes….. Limiting much? I particularly enjoy the definition of hooking up (and ps I think the fact that she needs to define it sort of hints at who her demographic is….) in which she speaks of hooking up to include a variety of activities from kissing to intercourse, but that using that particular label is to “conceal what you’ve done, and you can talk yourself into thinking that it doesn’t really matter.” She also argues that women don’t really like going to bars, they just think they do….. God, nothing drives me crazier than a woman telling other women what they THINK. Her solution to this barhopping madness is to get to the kitchen! (Barefoot, I assume?) And create baked goods!…. Because no man can resist baked goods!

I wish I were kidding.

Stepp, in a somewhat cheap attempt to frighten young women into a chaste lifestyle argues that women’s bodies, unlike when men climax, produce oxytocin, a warm and fuzzy hormone that screams MATE FOR LIFE!!! And that the supply of oxytocin a woman has is NOT limitless, and unless she is careful and somewhat monogamous her body will stop producing oxytocin! Yes ladies, you can use all of your orgasms up…. One day they’ll just STOP! And then you’ll go blind and hair will grow on your palms.

But my favorite reading material of Stepp’s thus far (and she’s about to become a blogging regular as I have just added her to my Google Reader) is the aforementioned Post piece from last year in which she makes the horribly intentional and ignorant mistake of blaming the next generation of sexually independent young women for the increase in erectile dysfunction in college aged men. Yes, college aged men going soft… urban myth? Sadly no, one university professor reported that 30% of his patients complaining of erectile dysfunction were under the age of 30.

With what do we pin the blame on the donkey, so to speak?? Diet, exercise, use of anti-depressants, alcohol, smoking, drugs, lack of sleep and anxiety…. Stepp leaves a laundry list of excuses which takes up about an inch of space in her three page column. The rest is interview after interview of college male who just can’t get it up for assertive girls.

It seems that the one thing sure to take the wind out of the sails of one confident college senior is an aggressive woman. He whines that with increased sexual awareness and knowledge comes intense pressure for young guys. I guess things were easier when women didn’t know what there clitorises were? “For a sizeable number of men, the fact that they can get sex whenever they want may have created a situation where, in fact, they’re unable to have sex. According to surveys, young women are now as likely as young men to have sex and by countless reports also as likely to initiate sex, taking away from males the age-old erotic power of the chase.” Note incredibly scientific data present – sizeable numbers of men and countless reports of women- totally quantifiable.

Now that younger women are more aware of their bodies and what it takes to satisfy their sexual needs, they’re being just plain old demanding! And this demand of consistent sexual satisfaction is what Dr. Sawyer, who teaches a course on Human Sexuality at the University of Maryland, says is the key contributing factor to the low self-esteem in the bedroom department in younger males. Sawyer, who is the father of three girls says, “a young woman speaking her mind is a good thing, but it comes at a price. It’s turned into ED in men you normally wouldn’t think would have ED”

And just so you’re down with the lingo, ED is erectile dysfunction, and it is the politically correct label for impotence. Stepp educates her readers by reminding us that impotence is not an appropriate word to use because of its literal meaning –lack of power. We can’t use that word, (especially in front of the penis!) or we might accidentally clue men into the very real possibility that the sexual playfield might actually be leveling, that power, authority and dominance aren’t necessarily attributes that can only be associated with the male.

And it’s not just the sexual awareness and increased libido in women that bothers Stepp, it’s that these women seem on the whole to be more involved in their studies and careers than building lasting emotional relationships while in college, or intellect and drive is a boner-crusher. Huh? I’m sorry, do women go to college to learn, or get married? I’m confused here. Women should stop being concerned with being the smart cookie, and learn how to make the cookie instead? In order to maintain the structure of confidence and domination that she’s used to, she’s urging young women to return to modesty, and naiveté.

I think my main beef with this article and most other things I’ve read from Stepp are that she’s vehemently opposed to a level sexual playing field. She’s too quick to blame the entire feminist movement before considering for one second that perhaps increased sexual awareness has led young men to want to have sexual relationships with women they care about and find attractive. Would that be so bad? To erase stereotypes of men sleeping with anything in a skirt? To banish all notions of women as conquest? The concept of sex and love as separate entities are confusing enough without implying that the two must coincide for the real sparks to fly. In a way, isn’t it a sign of true liberation for any person, male or female, to understand their body and crave somewhat temporary state of intimacy in order to satisfy their sexual needs? That’s a level of self actualization that most women don’t reach until way after college. It may not be the way that you or I might go about it, but it’s better than looking for validation in the backseat of a Taurus or searching for emotional completeness in someone else, right?

A true feminist argues for equality in the workplace, in the bedroom, and on the home front. Third-wave feminism isn’t about equality for women; it’s about equality between the sexes. It’s about recognizing limitations placed on gender in an effort to strive for equality in the socio-sexual dynamic. I’ll sidestep the limitations placed on my fellow sisters, but speaking on the behalf of my younger male colleagues, I’m sorry that this woman has limited you as being unable to desire emotional and sexual compatibility at the cost of your manhood….

I’m officially a New Yorker

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Although I’ve been claiming the Kensington zip-code as my own, and I now am the proud bearer of both a New York Public Library Card, and an Access Brooklyn Card, I didn’t really feel like a true New Yorker until early on Sunday morning when a man on the F train stared right at me and rubbed one out.

I came across a report on the Gothamist Blog a few weeks ago that said something like 63% of subway assaults go unreported, and the MTA, in light of all the crap they’re taking for the talk of increasing fares despite poor quality, urged it’s riders to take action and report these incidents.

When I read that posting a few weeks back, I thought of the incident that I experienced in April, when a man holding a bottle of vodka and wearing a hospital bracelet first touched my head and talked about how pretty my hair was, then touched my knee and made some pretty whacky generalizations about where I lived and what my boyfriend must be like, and finally, after I complained (cuz afterall,the guy was creepy, and wearing a hospital bracelet) he screamed about wanting to shove his bottle of vodka into my c*%t. At that point the train was stopped and he was arrested, and I and another woman got off to file a report, there was another woman on the train who was harassed, but she decided to stay on the train and get on with her evening because she had plans and was already running late. That amazed me, and I remember thinking, wow, this is New York, huh? no time to file an assault case….

In just three or so months of living here, I’ve gotten used to creepy people. I feel comfy walking down the streets of my neighborhood at 3am, although I admit that it’s not particularly smart. I’ve perfected my “subway stare”…. And despite a few stupid mistakes, like leaving the house without cash… for the most part, I feel confident that I can take care of myself and know how to avoid dangerous situations.

Sunday morning @ about 5am, Matt and I got on an F train in Queens and set our alarms for an hour, which was the amount of time we figured it would take us to get back to Church Ave. I guess we woke up around West 4th and changed positions… I remember being amazed that we were getting closer, it didn’t feel like we had been underground that long. Matt had his head in my lap, and I was playing with his hair and scratching his head, and drifting in and out, when I got this feeling that I was being watched. I have no idea how long this guy had been watching us, and I can’t remember how long I stared at him, but I looked up and saw a guy wearing jeans and a T-shirt, hands down his pants fully whackin’it, no shame, no attempt at hiding, just starin’ and whackin’. I stared at the guy for a while, and although he knew that I was staring he just kept going. I wasn’t scared, unlike my experience a few months back, I was more amazed at how blatant this guy was being. I’m not sure what made him stop around Jay Street, but he pulled his hands out and slumped on the window and “slept” the rest of the way home.

I haven’t thought very much about it since, until I read this posting today.

Do you know what’s on that subway seat?

In case you’re wondering the outcome of all three of these stories with the police…….ummmmm, a big fat nothing. Surprised? I’m not…. And that is what makes me a real New Yorker- I’ve stopped caring.

I sold my soul

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Today I was thrust forward on my voyage into corporate hell. That’s right folks, I’m temping for The Man. Well, actually, two of them at Time Warner at Columbus Circle. So far, in my 5 hours here I have answered two telephone calls, written two e-mails, made a photocopy, and ordered my exec his favorite prestige V5 pens in purple. I’m here with two other girls. We sit in our respective cubicles, at the ready, our toolbars showing Instant Message windows, MySpace, facebook, and of course MS Outlook….. which I had never used prior to taking my temping test last week. In fact, I think I was only given this assignment because I scored a perfect 100 on my test, perfect score aside, however, I lack some skills in the Outlook department. ..

I also have no security privileges, so I can’t leave the floor until 6 pm. They don’t give swipe badges to temps, so if I were to leave, I’d be forced to wait until someone could swipe me back in. It’s sort of like being back in college and trying to sneak into a dorm that isn’t yours after hours.

I’m beginning to understand why people fill out those incredibly boring MySpace surveys… you know, the ones that tell you what martini you are, or what Jimmy Buffet song you are…. And what’s even worse, I’m beginning to understand why people read them. I’m becoming strangely interested in viewing the pictures of Suzie Q’s cousin’s wedding, and checking out Mary Jane’s new strappy sandals, or Peggy’s engagement ring…. And the prospect of a coffee cake in the break room could quite possibly become something that my entire morning schedule would be built around.

Don’t make me into one of you!!! NO!!!!! I’m too intelligent for this! I have two degrees from ivy-league universities!!! Have I been reduced to a mani/pedi buying, Vogue toting, Starbucks sipping bobblehead???

And you should check out my ensemble. I’m “corporate conservative”, neither of which adjectives should be near anything pertaining to me. I’m currently sporting black high heels, black stockings a black skirt and a white blouse. Nothing about my closet is corporate or conservative. I look like I could seat you at the Olive Garden right now, and god only knows what I’m going to wear tomorrow….

I’ve never been very good at the girly-girl thing. I have a foot phobia, so pedicures are completely out of the question, in fact, if I were to ever pursue a career as a foreign spy, I’m pretty sure I could withstand just about anything you could think of- fishhook me through the eyelids, throw me in a coffin with snakes and bugs, just don’t touch my feet, please! The reason why I bring this up is that everyone is so done up! Perfectly painted feet and hands not a stray hair in the perfectly shaped eyebrow arc….hmm, I’m thinking I should drag a coat of clear polish across my hands tonight when I get home. And I made it as far as the subway before I realized that I had a huge run in my pantyhose. And what’s the deal with pantyhose?? Huh?? Why is it necessary to encase my legs in nylon? I’m reminded of a scene from Six Feet Under in which Claire is forced to work a temp job and abide a strict corporate dress code.

Well, I’m not allowed to complain about how superior I am to this job, because I’m pretty sure that I just hung up on someone while attempting to transfer the call, but here’s where I win again……

Someone once told me that Yale students are good at two things: skimming and scamming. So, what did I do. I looked up the serial number of the phone ol and found the userguide. Booyah….. Fake it ’til you make it baby….

PS, definitely just spent two minutes trying to figure out how to get an outside line….. corporate Melly??? Not so much…..

In other news, I was able to try the newest Dorito flavored chip- which involves hamburger…… and I was one of the first people to know about TBS broadcasting in HD and Dolby digital surround sound….. my world will never be the same, let me tell you.

My son is a genius…….

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I received a phone call this morning from Jack’s school informing me that he had a fever and that they felt it was in his best interest to be home resting. I fled work and took the Yale Shuttle to his classroom, where I was greeted by a tearful little monkey, indeed I could hear his shrieks before I even entered his classroom…

Upon seeing me, the tears dried up, his frown turned upside down and he was fine. Was it his Mommy he was missing? I’d like to take credit for this one, but I don’t think so…

We’re home now, he has no fever, is eating and drinking normally, and is presently burrowing himself in a mountain of pillows on my bed. We’re blasting Janis Joplin and singing: translation- my son just faked his way home from school! (the fever thing’s rather impressive, right?)

No complaints here, it’s a beautiful day, it’s a Janis Joplin spring afternoon, and I feel a trip to the park coming on, I’m thinking my little monkey saw the sun shining and had had enough of the alphabet song and circle time, maybe he’s realized how pointless the routine can get, the first thrill of sticking it to the proverbial man. Did I want to be at work, where I’m currently sorting through correspondence of Colonel Leonard Pickel (real name)…. no I did not.

I hear ya little man….thank you.

Starbucks

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Okay, I’m gonna get way out there on this one……. I’m crunchy. I like to look for kindness in strangers, that little ray of sunshine that can’t help but peek out… Jesus in the toothless man on the street, Buddha in the lady who hands me my metro-card that has fallen out of my back pocket… It’s a silly and idealistic way of viewing the world, but I choose to view it that way, and it sure beats thinking that everyone is out to screw you.

Okay, so it’s Saturday afternoon, I’ve finished my first show down in Miami. Can’t do anything too crazy because I need to save my strength for the evening performance, and Larry Johnson is coming to review us from the Miami Herald, and he’s a cranky little thing! So I decided to take a drive with Suzie and Justin to a mall in search of The Little Black Dress.

On a side note, Seraphic Fire has the most interesting dress code of any ensemble I’ve ever worked with. Nothing floor length, preferably no sleeves, pants are cool, skirts are better, the shorter the better, the more cleavage you show the better, bare midriffs are cool…. My contract literally says “think Katherine Zeta Jones, but mimimize the bling…..” This is fab. In the New York ensembles I sing with, we have the “New York Black” outfit, which is usually long sleeve black shirt, and black pants… pretty sex-less and definitely not individualistic… Maybe you’ve been at a Starbucks and have witnessed what I like to call the “Invasion of the Sprockets” which is where the new-york-black-clad ensemble floods the nearest Starbucks to caff up before a performance….I can imagine seeing 30 people covered head to toe in black can be intimidating coming right at you like that.

However, this blog has nothing to do with the Little Black Dress, but it does concern Starbucks, and in particular, one employee. I’m not usually a Starbucks fan- I have a love hate relationship with them. I love their coffee, and I hate that I love their coffee. I’m writing this from gate E1 of the FLL airport, where there is no Starbucks. I’m drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup…it’s hot and brown, and that’s about it. I hate myself for wanting Starbucks right now… I’m a yuppy, I’ve been seduced by the corporate coffee bean and …I hate myself.

So, this Saturday afternoon, I get out of our rented car and approach the door. I’m already inside the store when a man in an electric wheelchair pulls up to the door, and is trying to maneuver his chair into the Bucks. He was severely deformed. I’m not sure what condition he was born with, but his legs were crooked, and his head was cocked up to the side, I’m not sure he is capable of looking someone straight on. At sight, it was hard not to stare, and I admit, I was amazed that he was coming into a Starbucks. I had to leave the store in order to hold the door for him. He wheeled himself in and I stood right behind him in line.

The Starbucks counter is intense. There are stores where the counter is about three feet off the ground, and then there are a few that are at least over four feet, where you shout your order at some poor barista over a wall…. This was definitely one of those “you have to be this tall to ride the latte” stores… I thought to myself, well, how’s this gonna go down?? Is it obvious that he’s in line? will people cut him? I felt compassion for the man; I was flooded with a sense of responsibility. I needed to see this guy through his bucks experience.

At this point in the story, my attention wandered up to the counter where two gorgeous girls were being attended to by an even more gorgeous man. This is saying a lot, as these two girls were well dressed and incredibly well groomed. I’m always more body conscious when I’m in Miami. People spend a lot of money on themselves down here. Anyways, as I shriveled in shame at my own do-it-yourself toenail polish job, I was struck in sheer amazement at the beauty of this man behind the counter.

He was gorgeous. Not Greek god gorgeous, but all done up per-ty gorgeous. Dark hair and dark eyes, an earring in the eyebrow… his teeth were platinum white, so white that they made the whites of his eyes appear yellowish.. As we got closer I realized that he was wearing eyeliner and mascara, and the most fabulous coral lip-gloss I’ve ever encountered on a man. Pretty sure he was wearing powder too….. I call him Puck. He was very “sprite”ly and had shaved his sideburns into two arrows and had a little triangular goatee on his chin.

I could not stop myself from staring at this man. Only in Miami could a Starbucks barista out-sass two bombshell blonde starlets, and I hated all of them. I just wanted my coffee…… I didn’t want a Rupaul routine, and that’s what I was getting. He called one of them sweetie, he flapped his wrists at them, smiled at the other one and brought her frappucino…. I was filled with horrible thoughts. I just wanted coffee, not a trip to Narnia with Mr. Tumnus my fawn-barista. I just couldn’t handle any more Miami today. I longed for New York where my baristas are cranky, but genuine.

And then Puck glanced over the latte wall and saw the man in the wheelchair. In about three seconds everything that I had judged to be true about Puck was to be thrown in my face. “Hey Harvey, another ice coffee?” said Puck, in a rather corn-fed and straightforward masculine voice. Harvey said something that I couldn’t understand, but Puck could. He came out from behind the barista barricade and unvelcro-ed Harvey’s shirt where a wallet hung on a string, took out two dollars, rang him up, and then placed the change back into the wallet and fastened him back up, all the while chatting with Harvey. Harvey wheeled back outside where his dog was waiting patiently for him, and Puck brought the iced coffee out to him. It was the most intensely beautiful moment I’ve witnessed in a long time. I had dismissed Puck to be another pretty Miami boy…

This moment isn’t so much about Puck. He obviously knew Harvey, and I don’t want to give the impression that those that take care of their appearance must therefore be shallow and not capable of genuine kindness and compassion, that’s not it at all. I was just overwhelmed by how incredibly full of shit I can be sometimes, and in that instant I utterly despised myself… seriously, how little it takes to get me to go to the dark place sometimes is a struggle. (The next morning I saw Harvey at a different Starbucks! He was there with his dog, rocking out a Bluetooth headset, and I noticed a little Mac i book pocket on the side of his wheelchair. Yo, Harvey gets around, and he likes his bucks, just like you and I.)

Every once in a while we’re given these moments where you are forced to recognize how incredibly small and insignificant you are, how our own personal agendas are usually fueled by some narcissistic desire, how my own problems are so trivial, how we very rarely feel genuinely grateful for the ability to do the simple things, like walk, or order an ice coffee; and how quick we are to judge people based on their appearance… I’m not gonna say that Harvey is Jesus, or Puck is Buddha, or vice-versa, or whatever, but in one moment I had them both limited and installed in my mind as one particular person, and I was sooo off, and I’m so thankful that I was. Sometimes I need to be smacked by the proverbial 2×4.