| | Yesterday I took a trip out to Brooklyn to volunteer for the first time at 826 NYC, a creative writing/tutoring center thought up by Dave Eggers et. all. In front of the tutoring center, there is this utterly ridiculous store front, the Brooklyn Super Hero Supply Store. The sell everything your local superhero would need, such as unitard in a variety of colors, capes of all sorts, including red crushed velvet, rearview mirror glasses, secret identity kits, matter and antimatter, speech bubbles, black holes in a can, and lots of other crucial equipment. Its the sort of thing that Jimmy Cajoles, Jonathan Peoples, and Bob would heave over in laughter in. There is also a cape tester, where you can try on a cape and get up on this thing and winds and special lights come on so as you can see how it will look on you when you are soaring through the air. Also, upon buying anything in this store, you have to recite the Superhero Code of Honor, so that we can be sure that you will only use your new equipment for good and not for evil. It's truly absurd.
SO anyway, I had a long time to check out everything in ye olde Superhero Supply store because after my forty five minute commute out there I was told that there would be no tutoring today because it is election day (Go Bloomberg!). So, since I was out there, I spent a while acquiting myself with the store with the help of (Libby? I'm not really sure what her name was...?). BUt oh my goodness, she was such a wonderful wierdo. With her black tshirt and hair pulled back, this mid to late thirties woman with a wandering eye is just the sort of strange ecentricity that I have been needing in this New York full of high achievers. Right after shaking her hand she tells me that she is accompanied by her invisible friend, but it is best not to look directly at him because he doesn't like it. He'll only really tolerate sidelong glances, due to his incredibly low self esteem and volatile nature. All i could really do was look at her, giggle nervously, and give a little short look out the corner of my eye to the space presumably occupied by said invisibly friend.Libby (we'll call her that...) has been volunteering at 826 for about a year. When I asked her what she did for a living, she nervously responded "Um, oh I um, do some work from home, just mathmatic data entry sort of stuff. Terribly boring. And I'm there by myself all day, working at my computer and the only person I really have to talk to is my cat and when she starts to talk back I know it is time to get out and do something else with my day. So I started volunteering here, to take some time away from conversations with my cat." Wow.
After thoroughly checking out the store I decided to walk around the neighborhood. It's called Park Slope and I just read yesterday that Jonathan Safron Foer and his wife bought a 5 million dollar house there. It was remarkably refreshing to be able to be in a place where the sun could shine down on me, the sky was not blocked off by skyscrapers, and there were actually stop signs and tall trees pouring this yellowred leaves down on the sidewalk. I don't think about how much I need nature to feel whole and healthy. I usually don't realize that oh, yes, I can't see the sky unless I look straight up as I am crossing Second Avenue on my way to the Six train. During my walk I came upon Prospect Park. I knew it was out there, but I had never seen it and let me tell you, I felt like I had found the Garden of Eden. I was sitting down on the grass talking to Catherine Robinson on the phone and in the distance i see, (oh my god!) there are horses there. Beautiful horses, all white and all brown with shiny coats. It was so beautiful these horses in their riding area with the red and yellow and brown and green leaves cluttering the ground around. It was really really nice.
Before I got back on the train, I stopped into a little to go coffee shop. The scene is as follows. I walk in as a mother and her two kids are leaving. The woman working has long dull copper colored hair and bangs that jaggedly poke out from underneath her green headband. She has yellow crooked teeth and wrinkles around her eyes that I think probably got there from smoking a few too many menthol lights. SHe is laughing about whatever has just been the exchange with the mother.
I step up and order: "A small coffee please" then with a quick look at how small the small actually was I say "OH, actually can I get a medium"
"Medium? Yeah. Man, that's just how we are isn't it? That 's what I was just talking to her about. We can't make our mind up for anything can we? I mean, it's always " I don't know honey, what do you want to do? A movie? I don't know, whatever you think." (She starts making the coffee while talking) You want milk? and sugar? two? I mean, we are just like that. You get us to a restaurant and we tell him yes, ooh all we want is a hamburger delux and then as soon as we sit down its another story? HA! ya know? I mean we're like, what are your specials? Ha. I mean, it's like the b word. I mean I am a BITCH ya know? I'm not scared of it. I'm just like yeah?and...? you know ? that's the best you can do? Say it again. I'm a bitch I know it. We are all bitches.RIght? Right? We can't help it that's just who we are. I mean, its a female dog right? It's a female thing. They'll never understand it. Ya know? Come on? I'm a bitch. You think thats gonna bother me. Now, you start saying motherfucker, than HA those are fighting words there.Here's your coffee now. you take it easy." My only response this entire time has been sporatic laughter and I laugh some more as I turn and walk out the door.
The most outrageous cup of coffee I think I've ever gotten. |
