musing fruit basket

So I finally saw Passing Strange this weekend, and dare I say--It was awesome before, and it has improved by leaps and bounds. And the cast, who were pretty before, have become even more attractive and fit. Leave it to Broadway to make men into Supermen.

In order to see PS, however, I had to go to New York. I took the Chinatown bus, an interesting venture by day. A nightmare in the dark. Imagine getting out of the cab to join an angry, shouting mob, inches from violence--half on the curb, half staging a sit-in on a nonmoving bus, about a third speaking English. The group had been waiting for hours for the 7:30 bus, which had never arrived. Another bus from another company had driven in and they all boarded, only to be told to get off, which they refused to do until their proper bus arrived. I believe the company had screwed something up or had simply decided to not run service out of the city that night, and they probably would have ignored the mob outside, but when they boarded the vehicle their hands were suddenly tied, so they got someone. A very sleepy someone who spent a disquieting amount of time drifting into the noise-ridges on the side of I-95. Terror gave over to exhaustion, however, and I napped fitfully until we actually arrived where we were supposed to in Baltimore. I hope the folks riding through to DC made it home okay.

I don't like New York. It is not a fun, or pretty, or pleasant-smelling place. It is an angry, noisy, competitive, paranoid, expensive, congested, compacted, compartmentalized place. It is a land of lunatics in the streets, excrement, shouting, insults, hassling, ugly buildings, and ugly shoes. It is a place where children board subway cars with boxes of candy and impart the same sob story to passengers as bums to make a buck because some idiot thought it would be a good idea to give children candy instead of drugs, not realizing they're contributing to the same problem. "With a good story and a winning smile, I can annoy people in public places into giving me money! Wow, these schmucks are a gold mine!" (Please buy candy from me--as long as I'm selling candy I'm not selling drugs. When I run out of candy I'll come back with drugs.) It is a place of romance in the streets. Damn happy people kissing other happy effing people on the effing sidewalk why don't they have the effing decency to be lonely and dejected like the rest of us...

It's just odd--New Yorkers are so used to their entire lives being on display, living crammed together like pickles in a barrel, that they're completely comfortable doing all of those private-moment things--making out, picking their noses, talking to themselves, pissing--in plain view of their neighbors. While there is nothing wrong with these actions, I think I would have a hard time adopting their comfort in doing them in public. Especially pissing in the streets. The city smells bad enough already. I remember being yelled at for kissing by a fountain not too long ago (and not even told to get a room. We were told to break it up. By a cop. This was in college, folks. I'd understand if i was like, 12.) Folks in the south find public displays of affection--anything more than a warm greeting--astonishing and offensive. (the same people who came up with abstinence-only sex education. Do the expect anyone to abstain? Of course not. But it's the closest they could come to not mentioning those things in polite conversation.) Ah, cultural diversity is not restricted to national immigration.

It rained today. It was cold and wet. The children, by virtue of this weather, were also cold and wet. It was not fun. There are few things less fun than trying to get fourth graders interested in phytoplankton when they are freezing, soaked, and hungry. I think being punched in the face is less fun, but may be more gratifying. I don't envy today's children--or their poor teachers, who had so much invested in the trip only to have it ruined by cruel fate--but I hope they can appreciate that we tried.

That said, I also didn't like today's children. They were a pack of spoiled self-righteous imbeciles who refused to pay attention--even when tapped on the shoulder--and their asinine conversations actually got Louder when the education staff spoke. I tried three times to politely get a pair of boys to stop chatting and interrupting my oyster station and they just looked at me like I was a mild annoyance and went back to their conversation. Until I manually separated them. When they made a huge mess at lunch nobody bothered to try and clean anything up, even when their teachers shouted at the slobs by name and dragged them physically to the mess site. They didn't even look guilty or try to sneak out of it--they just looked at me like it was my fucking job to clean up after them. We had to work very hard to get their nasty chicken and potato chips off the deck. Parents! Teach your children to respect other people's boats! DONT CLEAN UP AFTER THEM!! Once they've reached age 3 they should have a basic comprehension of their responsibility for their own cleanliness. Don't clean Timmy's room. Make Him clean it. If your kid makes a mess, make Her clean it up. Don't feel bad for Sarah because she spilled milk and then cried about it--eventually she'll learn that if she cries, you'll do the work. There is nothing more useless to society than a bad parent.