Skaters to the Left

A Guide to Ice-skating at Rockefeller Center

The temperature has finally dipped to acceptable ice-skating levels (anything above 45 just feels wrong), Christmas music is blasting from at least one shop on each block, and that giant-ass tree at 30 Rock has finally been lit. Being filled with the holiday spirit, you naturally want to shell out a hojillion dollars to skate at Rockefeller Center's rink. Before you do, here's a guide to the types of people you will encounter on the ice:

1. The Asshole Figure Skater
Why this guy chooses this particular rink and not, say, anywhere else in the known universe is a mystery. He usually has his iPod on and either works on his tricks in the center of the rink or skates backwards around confused families and generally causes mayhem, because God forbid he interrupt his very serious training because some little nipper has faceplanted in front of him.

Annoyance Factor: 6

2. The SuperCouple
Despite the fact that skating while holding hands doesn't actually provide any stability, these people will never uncouple, even when his partner accidentally pulls him down with her and creates a giant clusterfuck. They'll pick themselves up and continue inching around the rink like the saddest game of Red Rover ever played, and then stop to make out for a few minutes. Yes, do please rub it in, guys.

Annoyance Factor: 4

3. The Littlest BAMF
In theory, you should hate this child. He zips around in his tiny hockey skates without a care in the world, throwing caution to the wind: backwards, forwards, sudden stops; the whole shebang. But you can't hate him, because he is a total badass. Even when he wipes out, he immediately hops back up and continues zipping around, not unlike an electron. Plus, he's usually wearing some sort of adorable hat and mittens.

Annoyance Factor: 0

4. The High School Kids From Arkansas
You'll know them by their letterman jackets and school hoodies. They've either never been skating or they've been skating their entire lives. The latter do everything in their power to coax the former off the handrail so they can laugh at the former's spectacular pratfalls. At any rate, they're usually more interested in stopping to take a frillion pictures than making their way around the rink. Each one has her own persnickity camera that takes five minutes to explain, and each one wants multiple group shots. Be prepared to spend at least fifteen minutes of your life helping these people collect memories if you fall victim to their Picture Ponzi Scheme.

Annoyance factor: 7

5. The Worst. Parents. Ever.
It must be tough to learn your child has no athletic gifts whatsoever. Being extraordinary clumsy myself (on land), I can sympathize. However, you might want to re-think the whole "skating" thing when you see your poor kid can't move a foot without taking a nasty spill. All this does is create a clusterfuck even greater than the SuperCouple's, because now you have both parents (usually just as inept as their progeny), the kid, the kid's siblings, and the Ice Lifeguards all creating a potentially epic pileup every two feet. Furthermore: For the love of God, teach your kids to ball their fists when they fall. Nothing dampens the holiday spirit like an eight-year-old's severed fingers.

Annoyance Factor: 8


There are other types I've missed, I'm sure, but this should serve as a good starting knowledge base.

On #tebowtears

Obviously, I was displeased with the result of this Saturday's SEC Championship Game. Florida losses always hit me like a suckerpunch, but this one was exceptionally brutal, and I truly hate Alabama with a fiery burning passion. Plus, they made Tim Tebow cry:



I hate a lot of things with a fiery burning passion. But what I don't do is: a) wish physical harm upon members of the other team or b) celebrate their tragedy. During the NU-Iowa game, when it looked like the Iowa QB's ankle had gotten snapped in half, I did not cheer, because I am not an asshole.

So when I looked at my Facebook Live Feed and saw the disturbing number of statuses that read, "HA TEBOW'S CRYING. MY LIFE IS COMPLETE. SUCK IT," and "I won't be satisfied with the outcome of the SEC championship game unless someone breaks all of Tim Tebow's limbs," I was filled with rage. Then I saw that, no shit, #tebowtears was the fourth-most-popular trending topic on Twitter, and I began actively seeking a way to smack the shit out of people via the internet.

Say what you will about the Gators, or their fans, or their coach. But one thing no one can deny is that Tim Tebow is one of the greatest college football players of all time (one of; not the greatest). You also cannot deny that he is an incredibly nice, stand-up guy. Yes, he's a bit of a "Jesus freak," but, unlike so many other players (including his own dumbass fucking teammate, Carlos Dunlap), he has never done anything detrimental to his team. He loves the game of football more than anything in the world (aside from Jesus). He's been a leader in the truest sense of the word.

And to have God knows how many people celebrating his failure and wishing him harm? That is one of the most repugnant things I've seen in a while.

Would you people rather he be an asshole? A thug with a bigass arrest record? A guy who takes illegal gifts (yes, I'm talking about Ohio State's Troy Smith)? Why is it that his excellence and general wholesomeness is viewed as such a negative thing?

Everyone loves some schadenfreude now and then, but there's a fine line between "schadenfreude" and "being an irredeemable prick." Apparently no one I know has any idea this line exists, which is rather disturbing.

So go ahead and celebrate. Make your horrible trending topics. Because the next time you fall and break your leg or get laid off, Tim Tebow is going to laugh and call you a bitch for crying.

New Moon by the Numbers

I did not attend the midnight showing of The Twilight Saga: New Moon by choice. I went to support my bestie's burgeoning addiction. And to be amazed at the ridiculous crowd, of course.

As we've all figured out by now, Twilight midnight fans are not Harry Potter midnight fans. The latter are characterized by costumes (I may or may not have brought a wand to Half-Blood Prince), geekery, and an overall aura of joy. The former are rabid, shrieking banshees that tend to fall into the 11-17 and 34-49 age ranges.

(Yes, banshees can get rabies. Because I say so.)

It was actually quite fun to chuckle with Braids. The crowd (minus us, obviously) cheered for approximately 30 seconds when:

The screen started playing that AMC First Look thing.

The previews started.

The Summit logo appeared.

A moon appeared.

And when the title slowly appeared over said moon? They just completely lost their shit. This was not just applause, as you would hear at an HP screening. This was Beatles-level mania. As Braids pointed out: "What, were they surprised? 'Oh damn, you guys, I thought this was going to be 2012, what a crazy random happenstance!'"

And now, a few numbers I kept track of during the actual movie:

Number of times everyone screamed when Lautner appeared shirtless: FOUR. Okay, dude is ripped and totally hot (and also...17; I feel like a goddamn perv, since he's only a year older than my little brother), but after his torso appears once, do we really need to greet subsequent reappearances with a shriek-fest? We do? Fine.

Number of times I had to stifle a guffaw at an inappropriate moment: Six, I believe. Maybe it's because I never saw the first installment of The Sparkling in the theater, but I find the sparkle effect (which has its own theme music) to be just balls-out hilarious. I just cannot take any on-screen action seriously when it's happening. Of course, there wasn't really a whole lot of action (figuratively, in terms of plot), but still.

Number of people I saw asleep in the theater: One. Some woman sitting on the other side of Braids. See above re: general lack of plot which could lead to narcolepsy-inducing boredom, but I still find it faintly absurd that this woman went through all the trouble of going to see a rabid-fan-filled midnight screening and didn't think to drink some coffee beforehand.

Number of times Braids and I said "O I c wut u did thar": Two. Once at the Meadow of Death and...I can't remember the other one.

Number of times I "awwww"d at Billy Burke's sweet and funny Charlie Swan: Four. Charlie is now my favorite. Billy Burke, please do more things that I'll see.

Number of "AAAAH WHAT NOOOOO" screams at movie's end: Too many to count. Braids and I, on the other hand, laughed and high-fived, because how awesome was that?

Amount of money this motherfucker will make this weekend: I don't even want to know.

On Wet Paint

First off, let me just say that I love Sesame Street. I think it is the greatest educational program on television, and I hope it never goes off the air. My earliest memory comes from an earthquake when I was three years old; the clearest part of that memory is the Sesame Street t-shirt I was wearing at the time.

However.

There was one clip that never failed to terrify me as a child. It was a music video called "Wet Paint."



My terror whenever this segment appeared onscreen supplied my parents (and, later on, my siblings) with endless amusement. "It's just paint, Munchkin!" my father would say while I burrowed my head in his shoulder and cried.

I was too young to articulate exactly what it was about this that freaked me out so very badly. And one would think that, now that I've reached the ripe old age of 22, I would no longer be able to describe those feelings, since there's no way it could freak me out now.

But it does.

You guys, it freaks me out so bad.

I saw the clip on Hulu as I was enjoying a trip down memory lane (a.k.a. the Sesame Street Hulu page) and laughed. "Oh man, this used to give me nightmares." I clicked on it, eager to prove to myself just how much I've grown up.

My flesh immediately began crawling.

So now, I will attempt to make you all see why, exactly, this gives me the creepy-crawlies. (Side note: Remember Creepy Crawlers? I always wanted that set.)

First, the beat and melody to this song are bone-chilling. One of the beat-makers sounds like someone stepping into quicksand, and we all know what happens to people who step into quicksand. The melody does not indicate the happy fun times painting that the lyrics seem to want to indicate.

Furthermore, the lyrics do not actually indicate happy fun times with paint. There's lots of throwing imagery ("you slosh it all around," "slather it and slop it") and unpleasant words like "gushy," "smelly," "slippy," "sloppy," and "gloppy," which I associate with that horrible fudge monster in Candyland (a game I never liked, incidentally). And I also have to be careful not to drop it on the cold, cold ground? Like the ground that my corpse will soon be in?

But worst of all is the actual imagery. The way the paint plops down the wall in the background, like multi-hued blood; the way the video's title creepily drips down the screen. The be-galosh'd-legs (that look as though they are not attached to any sort of body) slipping around on a ton of paint on the cold, cold ground. And all throughout, occasional sprays and splotches cover the camera lens, blotting out the singers, culminating in an absolutely horrifying orgy of paint that completely covers the lens.

Go ahead and laugh, if you like. But now I know that some fears never die...Including that of wet paint.

On Public Lewdness

This is the face of a grotesque, fucked-up waste of matter.

I was never the biggest fan of New York City. I live here because this is, presumably, where my dream job is/was, and I am tired of moving every six months, so I'm just going to stay put for a while.

Well, maybe not for much longer. I put up with a lot of crap, living in this city. The horrendous smell in the summer, the outrageous price of...everything, the annoying sports fans. But I feel I have to draw the line at sex crimes.

At about 2:15 this afternoon, I hopped on the N train at 59th and Lex to get back home to Astoria. Good ol', safe ol', Astoria. I noticed a creepy Asian dude with a robot in his backpack (...yeah) leering at me from the seat across, but, since that happens pretty regularly, I merely feigned sleep/a deep interest in finding just the right song on my iPod. (Side note: Why are there so many leering creepers in this city? And when I say this happens regularly, I don't mean to imply I'm so attractive I invite that kind of behavior; it happens all the time to all sorts women.)

Once we reappeared above ground on the Queens side of things, I happened to glance up. And got a glimpse of a pretty gross-looking penis. And this motherfucker had the most grotesque shit-eating grin on his face, as though he'd just performed some stunning feat of physical acumen.

Oh my god, no way. This is not actually happening.

Since moving only tends to incite further action on the offender's part, I plunked my head right back into the sand. There were two other people in the car. This is the worst that could happen. Just in case, though, I snapped a picture on my phone under the guise of texting, in case he got away before I could inform the cops.

And then I noticed some movement in my peripheral vision.

No. He is not jacking off. No. This is not actually happening.

It was at this point that I went into some sort of fugue state. My brain was screaming at me to move while simultaneously denying that anything was happening. My body froze.

Just before reaching the last stop, this loathsome waste of matter finally reached his zenith, and aimed right at me.

As soon as the train stopped and the doors opened, I ran to the cop I had glimpsed on the platform and told him, breathless, what had just happened. I pointed the repugnoid out, told the officer that he'd find proof in the first car ("TWO INCHES FROM WHERE I WAS SITTING!"), and offered to stick around to see justice done. Said cop waved me off after I ascertained the creeper's identity. And what did he have to say for himself, this abomination?

"I didn't touch her! I didn't touch her!"

Because that makes it okay, and not a health hazard at all. Of course.

Still unable to believe that this actually happened, I took myself around the corner for a horribly overpriced but much-needed coffee. And, staring out the window at the masses huddled under their umbrellas, I saw...

Him. Walking around as though nothing had happened.

Now, I know things like this happen. People whip out their junk on the train. But...At 2 in the afternoon? On a weekday? And to have actually completed the masturbatory act? That's got to be worth an arrest.

So, thanks, NYPD and Creepy Leering Asian, for making me feel horrifically unsafe and unclean. I'm going to go take a bleach shower now.

Tweet tweet

Well, I joined the ranks of Twitter.

Yeah, yeah. I still don't think my life is interesting enough to warrant it, but...Oh well.

On Normalcy

Image ripped from Wikipedia

There are approximately nine definitions of the word "normal." This rather large number of differing definitions stems from more than just variance from individual to individual; context is key.

In Mathematics:
Being at right angles, as a line; perpendicular.

But in Psychology:
a. Approximately average in any psychological trait, as intelligence, personality, or emotional adjustment.
b. Free from any mental disorder; sane.

(Funny how being different is normal in math, but abnormal in psych.)

I am not normal.

I lie somewhere along the bipolar spectrum. ("Where?" is not a question for which I really have an answer.) I've been this way most of my life; it was a relief to finally have a name--however vague--for what's always gone on in my head.

And after seeing (half) the cast of Next to Normal perform at the Tonys (YouTube clip below), I decided that I definitely needed to see this show. Maybe it would teach me a valuable lesson in finding my way to--well, not complete normalcy, but something close enough.

That didn't quite happen.

The show--about a manic depressive mom and the havoc she wreaks on her stalwart husband and angsty daughter--is magnificent. The cast is unparalleled. The music soars and roars and tugs at the heartstrings more than anything I've heard since The Last Five Years. But it terrified me. That is my future. Mental instability. Psychosis. Laying waste to the lives of everyone I love. Ruining a man whose sole purpose in life is to lift me up.

Of course, this is not something that is guaranteed to happen. (I'm not even sure men like Dan and Henry exist in real life, and you can't ruin an imaginary person's life, so I should be good on that front.) But even the possibility is enough to make you quarantine yourself.

Regardless of how much the show wrecked me, though, it occurred to me that this should be required viewing for anyone who knows a fellow bipolar bear. My hope is that Next to Normal will do for mentall illness (a term I really dislike, incidentally; beyond the stigma that surrounds it, it makes it sound like the flu or something) what RENT did for AIDS. While it's ostensibly about Diana's struggle with mental illness, the real protagonist of the piece is Dan, the long-suffering husband (played to perfection by J. Robert Spencer). It would be easy to write the character off as a codependent martyr (he can't bear to face the world without her; he needs to save her), but there's an earnestness, a sweetness, in him that is impossible to resist. His are the songs that rip your heart straight out of your chest, because you see he's dedicated every fiber of his being to saving his wife. And why? Because forever is forever, for Dan. Because for him, love is stronger than darkness and death.

Like I said before, I don't even know if that sort of dedication exists in the real world. I certainly haven't seen anything like it. And it's hard to imagine anyone who, after seeing the show, would be okay with becoming a Dan. But that's exactly what some of us need, and what many never find.

And for those wondering about those manic/mixed episodes, the descriptions of the sensations are spot on: When a world that once had color fades to white and grey and black/ When tomorrow terrifies you, but you'll die if you look back.

The sensation that you're screaming, but you never make a sound/...Like a refugee, a fugitive, forever on the run. If it gets me it will kill me/ But I don't know what I've done.



This is what it's like for people like me. Every day. But I guess Dr. Madden (played by the super hot and amazing Louis Hobson) is right: "The one thing that's sure is that there is no cure, but that doesn't mean we don't fight."