Sighing in Public Restrooms

I have a pet peeve and I'm going to blog about it (surprise). I really, really hate it when I'm in the restroom at work, and other women come in, go into an empty stall, sit down, and exhale. Loudly. Like they are not just relieving their bladders, they are relieving their very souls.

It creeps me out, ok? I think some things should be kept private, and the busiest women's room in my office is the place to relieve your bladder, not your soul. Get in, do your business, be polite, wash your hands, and go.

Other types of bathroom relief sounds actually don't bother me--when someone else is producing them, of course. But people who sigh, and especially those who keep sighing for the duration of their stay (yes it happens) freak me the eff out.

The Japanese are so embarrassed about making toilet sounds in public (even tinkling in the toilet makes them blush) that they have placed sound machines (one model, the Otohime, literally means "sound princess") in some public restrooms. The machines issue sounds like a waterfall, or flushing toilet, to cover the sounds one makes when going to the bathroom.

Using the restroom is this weird private thing that we also do in public. And like many other areas of public life, any etiquette that once surrounded public restroom use has faded, if it ever existed at all. (I'm sure someone, somewhere has written a doctoral thesis on human attitudes towards excretion throughout history.) Yet somehow there are a handful of us out there (myself included) who feel an instinctual revulsion to behaviors exhibited by others in this uncomfortably public, private experience.

Using a public toilet at Target or the mall is one thing because of the relative anonymity, but using it at your place of work presents its own challenges. These are people you have to see everyday, more or less, which makes the bathroom visits awkward, to say the least. And what makes it additionally interesting is that, at work, people largely encourage ideas that they're inhuman workaholics without home lives, grooming skills, or the need to eat, but the bathroom is the great leveler. Ever go into a stall that a VP has just quitted and smelled something foul? Ever stay in a stall longer than you need to until your boss or a coworker clears out? Ever go out of your way to a restroom on another floor to avoid awkward social interactions? Yeah, I thought so.

Perhaps even more annoying than the existential sighing that takes place are those who start a conversation in the bathroom, have cross-stall conversations, and then continue to stand and converse in the bathroom while other people are relieving themselves. First, there are much better places to hold a conversation, and second, it's disrespectful of others to babble through their private bathroom moments, in my opinion. I will readily admit I am not a fan of talking whilst peeing, or listening to others talk while I pee, I just think it's crude, but other people seem unfazed by it. In fact, I have overheard people talking on headsets while relieving themselves, an astounding practice, even more so because their conversations appeared work-related. Bottom line: if you can't take a couple of minutes out of your day to visit the bathroom in peace, unencumbered by a cell phone, you have the kind of life I don't want.

I just think if people were a little more self-conscious and aware of how others are affected by their actions, whatever the situation, the world would be a better place for all. Etiquette and manners used to alleviate the awkwardness inherent in social interaction, and, in essence, kept us from showing our asses and from having to see everyone else's ass, but we've slowly eroded those into nonexistence. Truth is, we need to be protected from one another. If we are to conduct business, partake of fine dining, attend the theater, converse, or do anything serious that pertains to our higher functions and capabilities as human beings, we need to be more discreet about and respectful of the baser aspects of our nature.

Cadbury Mini-Eggs are Ruining My Life

In case you're new here, you will notice that I do love a dramatic blog title. But seriously, these delicious candy-coated milk chocolate eggs decided to reveal themselves to the retail world again on the day before Valentine's day this year.  On a whim, with nothing like premeditation, my husband and I first checked for them at the local Price Chopper, then jokingly also checked the Hannaford, and finally out-and-out stalked them at our local CVS.

Before I sample them, it's, 'I'll stop after a few.' Then the first bite is like magic--I say to myself, 'how can something so good be so bad for me?' as I continue to stuff them into my mouth. It's like I forget everything I know about eating. Then, after the first handful, it's 'these are only out for a brief time every year,' and then 'ah, fuck it, who cares' right before eating the entire bag.

To make matters worse, these eggs are divine with a glass of red wine.

I heard somewhere that Cadbury (or Hershey's or Nestle, whoever owns them now) is thinking about making these chalky-pastel, devilish eggs available year-round. I'm not sure how I feel about this.

If these eggs are available year-round, I'm afraid I'll never be able to satiate my desire for them, and will balloon to over 200lbs. Every time we get a bag of those eggs, we both inhale them, which is why we only buy the smallest bag. Reason says that maybe if they are available year-round, I won't feel the incipient desire to eat as many as I can between Valentine's day and Easter. But I'm not so sure.

Depressing Thought of the Day (don't say I didn't warn ya)

The bottom is finally falling out, this country is stretched thin, maxed out, debt piling on top of debt. China owns us, India owns us, their economies have replaced ours as we have willingly sold our jobs to them, thinking we were on top, but guess what? We're on the bottom now. People here are out of work, unemployment shows no signs of abatement in the near future, overeducated and overqualified people are now competing for grunt work, for service work jobs. Welcome to the new America: the service class provider.

What is going to happen in the next few years? When is the country going to admit that we are in the second great depression? Why must the nightly news keep on acting as if things are generally ok? Stop making those of us affected by unemployment feel like we have a disease.

Wake up America. It is no longer enough to get a degree in something, and have work experience, because our country has sold that out from under us. What good is knowledge and work experience if your job ceases to exist? If you can't pay your bills? If you watch the fruit of what was supposed to be your life die on the vine?

Obsession of the Day: North Korea

Yesterday a friend sent me a link to a 14 part video series called the Vice Guide to North Korea, about these guys who manage to get into North Korea and take video of their experience. I watched all 14 parts, and was so fascinated that I now and have spent the greater part of the day researching North Korea further.

I think the idea that a country has managed to completely remove itself from the progress of time, to maintain a giant political fiction for 50 plus years, and to keep its own people in the dark about the truth (quite literally--they don't have electricity)--is just--well there are no words for it. There was even a famine in the mid-1990s (brought on by the collapse of the Soviet Union) that killed nearly 3 million people in three years. Yes while we were distracted by the OJ trails and the death of Kurt Cobain, the people of North Korea were fading away. I am just flabbergasted that such a regime could have existed, and exists to this day, and that the people didn't revolt in the streets even as their children were starving to death.

I am especially taken with their Mass Games, which is this enormous festival that employs over 100,000 (young) people 6 days a week for 2 months every year, until their "retirement." What is especially amazing is that they use people holding flashcards as a kind of human-powered giant LCD monitor--see the pictures below. I find this kind of thing mesmerizing, no less for the coordination, training, and self-discipline such a feat requires, as for the kind of government that concentrates funds to put on a show of this magnitude:

Absolutely amazing, and horrifying at the same time, when you know what's behind it all. What would happen in America if the lights suddenly didn't work anymore, and there were no streetlights, no electricity, no distractions? Would people just quietly accept it, as the North Koreans did, or would they immediately protest in the streets? You have to wonder.

In America, we prefer that things wind down slowly instead of grind to a halt, avoiding public outrage by making quiet little changes here and there. And it's never anything so dramatic as the lights going out--changes to health care plans and policies are more our speed, bankrupting people by degrees. Last year my company saw fit to pass on the rising costs of group health insurance to its employees, thereby raising our premiums and effectively reducing our take-home pay, all for benefits that cover less than before. Now for the first time I am having to pay cash out of pocket for routine dental visits, and possibly hundreds of dollars for a recent trip to the emergency room to have 5 stitches put in (no bill has been received yet, but I see the way the wind is blowing from the EOB I received in the mail).

Yes, with a husband who has been out of work for over a year now (give or take a few weeks), carrying enormous student loan and credit card debt, plus a mortgage and car payment, I can really afford higher premiums, less coverage, and more out-of-pocket expenses. And I'm HEALTHY, people. I don't even get cavities--my doctor and dental visits are nothing more than routine maintenance visits at this point. Just imagine what they would be if we had major problems! I shudder to think.

North Koreans have been taught not to envy others, because they believe that their country is the greatest, that the Eternal Leader Kim Il-Sung (dead) is still god and father to his people, and that, even though they may have hardships, they are told it is much worse in other places, so they consider themselves lucky.  One can only imagine how their country would implode if communication with outsiders was permitted. Here in America, we have freedom of information, and the truth is out there if you choose to find it--yet it still doesn't make much difference, at the end of the day. Complacency is hard to fight.

Why Chickin Stew?

A few words about my new blog. Yes, I realize that the word 'chicken' is spelled wrong, but the correct spelling was already taken, thank you very much.

You see, some douche bag already reserved chickenstew.blogspot.com. If you go there, all it says is 'My blog bitch.' There is no way to email, comment, or in any way contact Crazyface, the would-be blogger who owns this site, because you know that I would have. Initially I was so frustrated by this that I thought this Crazyface was taunting me specifically, of course, because who else but me would want a blog titled Chicken Stew? But someone apparently does want that blog address, just so that they can throw it away and give me and anyone else who wants that address, a big 'f-u.'

But I've come to like my alternate spelling. It has one alternate meaning I hadn't intended--'chick in stew,' which is totally fine, if a bit cheesy and obvious. I don't really "do" post-feminist chick jokes, but whatever.

Why write a blog in the first place? This is something I've been struggling with my entire blogging life--which hit five years this December. Till now, I've been blogging mostly in secret in a kind of online private journal--oxymoronic I know. Chickin Stew is my attempt to bring my blogging public, baby steps at a time. The ultimate goal of this blog for me is to somehow reconcile all of the different aspects of myself in one spot, without apology. And, sorry, Penelope Trunk, my main reason for blogging is for my own amusement. Whether or not others even read what I blog, or if they read, enjoy what they read and/or are edified by it--is not my primary concern. At least not right now.

We are all different people to different people, and, knowing this, for too long I have tried to keep parts of myself separate, afraid of cross-pollution, of people in one group finding out my opinions in another group, etc. I no longer want to apologize for what I think or write, or hide my interests, opinions, or the crap that I think about from certain people. I realize that no one has been asking me to keep these parts of myself separate--mine has been a self-imposed isolation, and that's the habit I want to break--my own self-policing tendencies--and blog about what I know. We all contain many facets to our personalities, and no one but fictional characters can act in a consistent and predictable manner. Why should I expect that of myself? If people judge me based on one blog post, that's their problem.

I Know What it Means to Cry Over Spilled Beads

Where am I today? Sitting on my couch in upstate New York, looking out onto dreary winter skies, and the occasional pathetic snow flurry, pugs snoring at my feet. Where should I have been today? Down in New Orleans, at Mardi Gras with my family, braving the cold and lack of bathrooms. Why didn't I get there? The brutal winter storm that paralyzed travel nationwide last week, that's why. The irony? We haven't had much snow at all here this week in the Albany area. In fact, it's been downright sunny.

If the weather hadn't interfered, I would be on St. Charles Avenue right now with friends and family, watching Thoth and Okeanos pass, and then, later this afternoon, Bacchus, one of the most anticipated Mardi Gras parades on Mardi Gras weekend, especially this year, since Drew Brees is the Grand Marshall. I'd be buzzed already because I would have started drinking before noon, covered in beads, and no doubt screaming and scrambling for a doubloon in Brees' likeness later tonight. But most of all, I would be hanging with my family and friends on St. Charles and Napoleon, passing a good time, and letting the good times roll.

Alas, it was not to be.

I could have tried to do something fun this weekend, but no matter what, it would have paled in comparison with what I WOULD have been doing. We did go to Boston overnight Friday, and while it was good to see old friends, eat Indian food, and get drunk on white wine, I felt the distance between myself and New Orleans even more. So last night and today, we are home, watching movies, not even trying to compete with what could have been. My husband made me pancakes this morning--it is Valentine's day after all--but now I'm sitting here writing this and feeling sorry for myself.

There will be other Mardi Gras in my future, I'm sure--nevermind that we've been away since 2001 and haven't been back for one yet--but never another one like this, following so closely on the heels of the Saints' unbelievable victory at the Super Bowl last weekend. The first football game I ever watched all the way through and enjoyed was the nail-biting championship game that sent the Saints to the Super Bowl with one field goal, making me an instant fan, at least of the Saints, if not football. My Uncle Butch has been a Saints fan as long as I can remember, even when they were an embarrassment, so I knew this was important, not just for him, but for the city of New Orleans. My uncles and cousins undertook a crazy, once-in-a-lifetime journey to Miami this year via an RV, and I was looking forward to hearing all the stories, looking at the pictures, and sharing in the excitement with them at Bacchus tonight.

But it was not to be.

Instead I am forever doomed to wonder how my life might have been different if I had made it home to Mardi Gras this year. Would it have been joyous and life-affirming, a Mardi Gras to remember, with something to celebrate that is bigger than everyone, hell, bigger than Mardi Gras itself? Who knows what numerous opportunities to strengthen family connections and friendships were lost to me, and opportunities to rediscover the New Orleans I knew 9 years ago.

Sure, I can plan to go home next month for a visit, but it won't be the same, not by a long shot. None of my family lives in New Orleans, so whenever I go home for holidays I almost never get to spend enough (any) time in New Orleans, which is why this time would have been different and great, because the fam was coming as well, and my loyalties weren't going to be as divided as usual. I could wait for a visit till July, when work is sending me there anyway--but any momentum gained by our Thanksgiving visit will be completely lost by then. No, I've got to get there this spring, maybe a long weekend for French Quarter fest and a visit with the fam.

This is just something I have to deal with as an expat Louisianian living in Yankee country. Would that there were world enough and (vacation) time for me to visit home on a more regular basis--but I'm not rich and, after all, my life is here, for now. I know I'm missing out on a lot back home, but it's been worth it to live here until recently, due to the high taxes and high unemployment rate in New York state. If New York doesn't start treating us better, we may very well have to head back to the swamp. At least then we'll pass a good time.