All smags are interchangeable... right?

Since our last post, Alex has now started in a position at my organization. (I'll take the credit for tempting her with the perks and working environment of a place like this - and convincing her to overcome guilt of leaving her job relatively soon after starting to go somewhere she deserves, etc etc...) Despite my 4 month headstart at this place, and the fact that we look NOTHING alike, act nothing alike and have totally separate positions that rarely interface - we joked about having people confuse us since we're the two smags.  And all smags are interchangeable,... right? 

We'd actually made it almost a full month before it happened. Today in a staff meeting, for which I am responsible - meaning, I take the minutes, and set up the dial-in number for our remote access employees to call in to the meeting - the Director's assistant asked (in front of everyone) Alex if she had set up the dial-in.  It took me a full 5 seconds to understand what was going on.  I saw Alex's face get really confused, and then leaned forward and said... "Wait.  You mean me, right? (semi-awkward pause) Yes, I've set up the call but I don't think anyone has joined yet." 

And then everyone in the room that understood that she had just mixed up the two asian girls tried not to make eye contact. Hahaha.  It was bound to happen SOMEtime... 

Afraid of the iPod effect...

Since the advent of the iPod, I have dubbed the following phenomenon "The iPod Effect." It has two parts:
1. The inability to listen to any song in its entirety. - I once sat for a 40min car ride and did not ONCE hear a song for longer than 30 seconds each.  It's a musical adhd, of sorts.  The days of listening to cds straight through are completely gone. The aforementioned car ride was torturous... there had to be at least ONE song on that big iPod that he liked, right?  But that's apparently not the point.
2. The total wasting of time that could be otherwise engaged. - Particularly with the creation of fun, time-sucking apps for the iPod/iPhone, time spent on trains/in lines/after dinner/walking on the street/before bed... have all been taken up by playing things like Angry Birds, Sally's Spa and Cut the Rope.  The books I used to read on the train are now collecting dust; there is no urgency to find The Metro paper to take up the commuting time; no reflection on the day's tasks or zen meditation... heck! I wouldn't need to have any sort of human contact if there wasn't at least one person who loses their balance on the train. 


I recently received my FIRST EVER iPod (actually, it was my first ever Apple Product! Yeah I know.) for my birthday (thanks to the best friends ever!) and I was terrified that with my obsessive nature, I would immediately become all the things I resented (see above lists).  With the caveat that I've beaten all the free versions of Collapse, Angry Birds, ColorFill, etc... I am happy to claim that I think I've avoided at least SOME of the iPod Effect. 


Earlier this week I ran out to purchase a book that I'd been waiting for.  The iPod went completely untouched for 2 whole commutes as I tore through the book.  This book was a large hardcover book - not easy to tote around, and yet I still made it around with little inconvenience.  I'll admit I was depressed at the end of the book (I have to wait HOW LONG for the next one to come out?!?), but I was happy that I wasn't sure where my iPod was.  In times of better options, the mini-gaming console didn't control me.  I CAN use the commute to do other things, but I realized that it either has to be as effortless as playing Scramble 30 times, or something that I would give up a meal for.  Here's my conclusion: I think that if I can find another suitably exciting medium, I don't have to rely on my fun-yet-stupid apps to fill my time.  Maybe I can escape the iPod Effect relatively unscathed. 

Good smag / bad smag

Joe's Pub is a really great venue for shows--intimate but not cramped, great acoustics, nice stage layout--except for when it's really crowded and you end up having to stand crammed in and interspersed among other people's tables, or pressed up against the bar, as perpetually rushed and ragged looking waitresses bustle back and forth every few seconds. Like anywhere else in New York, it's the people that can transform this place into a living nightmare.

Last night, this bitchy smag standing next to my friend Joyce and I shouted, "Excuuuuuse me!" to Joyce and shot her a look that seemed to say, "Are you so stupid that you can't see how you are obviously, clearly in my way...move, now!" This girl then proceeded to position herself right in front of Joyce, at the exact angle so as to completely block my friend's view of the stage. Since she was a smag, it wasn't as bad as some of those super-tall guys who tend to frequent indie shows, whose height always clears out the 3-foot space directly behind them, but still... We both said "What the hell??" well within the girl's earshot.

Part of me thought, "hey, we're all smags here, can't we just get along?" but my baser instincts were more along the lines of, "this smag is going down" (not that I'd ever actually do or say anything, of course). The girl didn't budge an inch during the entire set, and her smaggy, 'me first' sense of entitlement put a small damper on the fun, until a little later that evening, when I got a $10 gin & tonic on the house for "being so polite". I only take this to mean that I didn't harass the bartender by treating her like she was deaf or had the mental capacity of a goldfish, or wave my arms around like an air traffic controller trying to flag her down, or stage whisper/hiss, "Why is this bartender ignoring me?" like the hefty white chick to my left. Instead, I patiently waited my turn, let the bartender attend to everyone else's drink needs first, then in the classic friendly-yet-demure smaggy way, calmly asked, "May I get a gin & tonic, please?" with an even smile, while looking her straight in the eye. And just like that, voila--having good manners has finally paid off! If nothing else, at least I can hope that I managed to balance out the bad smagginess in the room that night with some good smag karma.

In honor of racial slurs...

It's been a while since we've updated, so it took a reallllllly smaggy event to remind me to post.  A few smags and I were grabbing a drink at a really sketchy local bar down the street that I like to call "Anna's."  While walking back toward Smag #1's car, a few boys lounging by their car called out to us, "hey ladies... Hey Ladies!..."  and when we didn't turn around, one of them started yelling:


"I NEED A PEDICURE!..... I NEED A PEDICURE!.... I NEED A PEDICURE!...."


and all i could say in response (hopefully loud enough for them to hear) was, "wow. what @ssholes.  I bet he really does have gross feet." I mean, he wasn't even original!  I'm not sure why they do that -- clearly their lady-prospects were thin from the get-go.  Yelling weird offensive things (mostly that insult our intelligence) will do NOTHING to get girls.  In any case, it reminded me of the smaggy lines we've heard in our time in the city.  A selection of those lines follows:


- Of the straightup creepy variety: "Hey... hey... do you speak english?  ... do you need a greencard? ... just get in my van..."  (on 5th ave in front of Bergdorf's... and he actually had a van!  Needless to say, I did not react very calmly.)
- Of the 'other minorities hitting on smags' variety: [while walking in LES with another smag, a young guy from that 'hood is following us] "... DAMN girl... look at that BACK!... ni hao MA!"  (it is notable that "ni hao ma" means "how are you?" -- so I take it that this weird emphasis was meant to sound like the chinese for "how YOU doin'?")
- Of the joking/cockblocking variety: "So... what did you get on your SATs?"
- Of the 'young people need to figure out what's NOT offensive' variety: [while walking through Times Square at 3am - where all the uptown teenagers hangout, apparently] "CHICKEN CHOW MEIN!" (and grabs for smag friend's waist)


Really. I'm not sure what encourages people to do this.  This isn't even catcalling like most weirdo men do in the streets. It's a targeted harassment, just for fun (#2 wasn't so bad.  I'd have been flattered if we weren't on a dark street in a ghetto neighborhood) - although #1 was actually really dangerous and gross.  And I hope there weren't already immigrant asian women in his van after I/we cussed him out and stalked off.  Any ideas on why people do this?

Thank you notes from second-graders

In honor of tomorrow being the first day of school (well, today is the official first day for all you teachers), we have a very special post. I'm doing on behalf of Lydia, since she's too modest to post these herself. You may remember that a few months ago, before she landed her awesome job, Lydia spent a lot of time as an unofficial teacher's aide, helping Jenn with her second-grade class, down at P.S. 2 in Chinatown. "Miss Lydia," as the kids called her, chaperoned trips to movies, plays, libraries, zoos, South Street Seaport, the Brooklyn Bridge; helped out around the classroom with reading and math games and an after-school cooking class; and most memorably, assisted the kids with their weekly swimming lessons at the local Y--not just Jenn's class, but Lea's bilingual class, too.

We think it's great that learning to swim is part of the curriculum at Jenn's school, especially since growing up, our summers revolved around our town's pool and rec. park. As an avid swim team member, Lydia basically lived in her swimsuit for entire summers at a time (no, seriously...she *always* smelled like chlorine). I'm a far inferior swimmer myself, but I can get by--as in, not drown, which is always a useful skill. Sadly, based on our friends and people we've met here, Asian city kids seem to be an underrepresented sub-group in the swimming population at large. So, way to go, P.S. 2. Most importantly, though, Lydia came away from 'swim time' with some hilarious stories involving hydrophobic children and swim noodles, and a batch of the most amazing thank you notes we've ever seen. Here are a few of our favorites...

It almost looks like a poem, or some sort of chant. Love how it lapses into Chinese.

Hearts and butterflies were a recurring theme. Slight indecision near the end, but this one's very sweet.

This girl wants to make sure that Lydia knows exactly who this card is from.

Too adorable.

The last line says, "and can me swim and a not scared". And it's all thanks to Lydia. Aww...

This one depicts the girl giving Lydia her thank you note. Unintentionally post-modern...?

Nice of him to provide an either/or option.

Sometimes the simplest, most direct message is the best.

Innovative Yankee Cheers...

So another smag and I were at the Yankee game yesterday afternoon.  I've been to a fair share of Yankee games, and have done my fair share of cheers, but yesterday was a standout cheering day.  Besides the fact that the Yankees beat the A's 5-0, some middle-aged redneckish lookin' dude in the next section over (who was clearly trying to liven up the game a little bit) made up the following cheers (a sampling of the funny ones).  Imagine them in his rough carrying voice.  And imagine us saying, "what? what is he saying?" followed by a lot of laughing.


1. "When I say WHORE, you say HEY! Jor--Ge! Jor --Ge!"  (Jorge Posada, right before his homerun)
2. "When I say LANCE, you say ALOT! Lance-alot! Lance-alot!"  (Lance Berkman... we didn't get this one til it got to Lancelot ... which helped for his next cheer which went something like...)
3. "When I say SIR, you say LANCELOT! Sir--Lancelot! Sir--Lancelot!"  (funny to squeeze in the syllables there)


and my favorite...


4. "When I say VEGETABLE, you say GARDNER! Vegetable--Gardner! Vegetable--Gardner!" (Brett Gardner)

An Educated SMAG's Love-Hate Relationship with Youtube...

This cartoon sums up everything I hate about Youtube.  And most other online forums, really. Wish I wasn't so addicted to Youtube.  It would keep me from having to accidentally read these stupid comments.  Sometimes, if we stumble across a particularly good one, Alex and I will send it to each other to laugh at (and resent for their ignorance and lack of grammar skills).