On Servitude...

I live in a pretty well-to-do Brooklyn neighborhood, and often on my way to work I'll see something like this:

And it makes me think of this:

...which brings up a whole host of questions about history, our current society, the nature of employment, race relations, power relations, and the economy. And I have to uncomfortably reflect on my own role in this whole web, my complicity as well as my contributions.

*Read more about domestic workers today!*

On Simple Happinesses

It's a marvelous spring day, painted in quirky shades of Amélie, and I'm loving life.

Among other things, I love:
- the French language
- sitting on a sunny bench in the park
- little children speaking French
- watching a boy of about 8 work on mastering a two-wheeler...and then seeing a tiny girl who looked 4 or 5 tearing around on her two-wheeler
- the prevalence of interracial couples here
- journaling
- my neighborhood
- flowering trees
- alone time
- the nostalgia from reruns of "Boy Meets World"
- Easter being in spring
- singing "How Can I Keep From Singing," Irish-style

That is all. For now. Joy to you, this Passover/Easter/spring weekend.

A Belated Discovery of Hot Sauce

Sriracha - it seems to me that this chili sauce of Thai origin is becoming ever more ubiquitous, moving beyond Southeast Asian restaurants to show up at burger joints, food carts, swanky bars, and even on the communal food cabinet at my office. The sauce clearly has some devoted enthusiasts, inspiring an Oatmeal comic and even an attempt at a documentary.

It's been a bit of an adjustment for me, having been accustomed to seeing the rooster-branded bottles only at the houses of relatives or family friends, or on the shelves of the local Asian supermarket, but for my part, I had grown up avoiding "Rooster sauce," and never saw the appeal. I've never been a fan of condiments or pre-made sauces, and to me, Sriracha belonged in the same class of anathema as ketchup, mustard, mayo, hoisin, peanut sauce, or anything else usually found in a little plastic packet or squeeze bottle. There was just something off about its far-too-vibrant-to-be-natural color, its suspiciously smooth texture, saturated in preservatives, no doubt.

And then I discovered Rooster brand chili-and-garlic paste. It was similar to the homemade paste my mother made, but much more accessible (you can't plant that many chili peppers in a New York window box!). I added it to stir-fries. Pastas. Curries. It added garlic and kick, elements I incorporate into much of my cooking, with a fraction of the effort. Heading down the Slippery Slope of Convenience Cooking, I had to admit, as so many of my friends proclaimed, that Sriracha made lots of things better.  I found myself thinking, "Oh, Sriracha, where have you been all my life?" as I dug into a suitably garlicky and spicy kale-and-tortellini dish for lunch.

Right there in front of me, of course. Fine, Rooster sauce, you win. I do like you.

I'm still not taking up ketchup, though.

Companionable Copy

Normally, interactions between these two parties aren't too cordial, sometimes outright hostile.

I'm talking about the people who hand out copies of rival free newspapers AM New York and Metro every morning at subway entrances and exits, each trying to out-hawk the other and distribute papers to thousands of commuters in transit. I've even heard of fisticuffs occurring between overzealous newsies. I imagine newsprint flying as two people, perhaps middle-aged, grapple and yell in a whirl of thick coats, sturdy shoes and orange vests - vests in which copies of the day's issue are displayed, and are now getting irreversibly crumpled.

It was different this morning as I got off the train and sloshed through the turnstiles. As I climbed stairs and fought to get out my umbrella, I passed an AM NY guy, who was clearly in the middle of a lively conversation with the Metro newsie stationed at the next landing. He threw a comment I couldn't catch over his shoulder in between cries of  "AM New York!" and boisterous morning greetings. I did, however, hear the amusing reply as I climbed past the man handing out copies of Metro:

"Oh man, if I had that kind of money, I'd have six or seven kids running around, and I wouldn't even know where some of'em came from!"

Not sure I want to know....but I'll take that over fights during my morning commute.

The Indigence Monster

"I slept with Lady Gaga last night. Now look where I am."

This was the boast, not of some B-list celebrity or rich socialite, but on the cardboard sign of a man begging for change during lunch hour in the Financial District. He sat, cross-legged in the recessed doorway of a soon-to-be-opened store, in the posture typical of New York beggars in winter: bundled up and hunched over the sign and plastic cup before him.

This is all I can observe of him in the glimpse I have as I, too, hurry by. And I wonder for the umpteenth time where these people sleep, how they survive, and how often a passerby resists the current's flow and the pull of multiple destinations to stop and give some change, or, even rarer, talk with the person. Coward that I am, I don't have these conversations, but I imagine this man's sign would lead to an interesting one.

One thing's for sure, though. He would not be telling me that he was "born this way" to sit on the street risking cold and indifference. No one is.

Slow Salam

This client was not to be rushed. He insisted on filling out the intake form himself, writing in neat block letters with the slow deliberation of a coffee-making ritual. I spaced out for a moment, gazing at a spot just over his sleek white head as he hunched over the paper. When I asked him for an estimate of his monthly income, he drew out a folder, thumbed through for his tax returns, and began doing calculations on the back of one sheet.

"I was an accountant for 40 years," he explained. "I want to be accurate."

Accuracy applied to more than numbers, apparently. He entered the clinic office, and in the course of exchanging familiar greetings with the staff, one of them asked him what country he was from. He paused.

"I am human being. I don't like it when people ask what country I am from. I was born in Egypt, without my permission. I live in America - I am American. Do people want me to say I am Egyptian?"

I lost the thread of conversation as I set up a computer for him, but he took it up again on rejoining me.

"Were you hearing what I said?"

"Some, yes."

"So you see we are all human beings. We do not give permission where we are born. Why do we fight each other? You fight something like the government, not human beings."

Would that we human beings took enough time to see each other as such.

The rusty knife of justice.*

Justice is not swift.

It is no duel that ends quickly with a clean bullet or a piercing thrust. No, justice is trench warfare: its wheels are grimy and caked with weary sweat and bloody frustration and the dust of endless dawns spent reporting to the battlefield. It grinds slowly on, and some combatants fall by the wayside, too exhausted and disheartened to continue. They have no more resources; they have other pressing needs; their time spent fighting has taken them away from livelihoods and families. Those who remain persevere through doggedness, fatalism, belief in the cause...they endure, and so, persevere.

Few people see beyond the first burst of publicity surrounding the filing of a lawsuit. There are months of investigations, research, appearances and re-appearances, motions and cross-motions, judgments and appeals. Clients, so filled with energy and purpose at commencing action at last, must be encouraged: must be told to buck up, to settle in and keep coming back to the courthouse, to keep asking for more leave from work, to wake early and pass through the metal detectors to wait still more in the crowded court hallways where tempers flare and children wail. After all this, sometimes their patience is rewarded. Sometimes not.

Slow, creaking, lumbering justice. The price of civilized society.

*First published July 2009.

From the hotline

Some quotes from calls to the hotlines I manage at work:

Stuck in the 40s
"A man, or any person, has more than one face. He's an ugly traitor and I think a German spy in addition."
- from a rather elderly lady with a rather strident yet trembly voice. She's a repeat caller, thinks her neighbors are spying on her.

PC? What's that?
A lady whose tones were slightly tinged with the South, once I'd given her my name, asked me, "Is that Oriental?" quickly followed by: "You sound exactly like an American."

Well thank you, ma'am, as a matter of fact, I am.

A Dish Best Served Cold
A rather vindictive caller said of her landlord: "I had visions of garroting the old bitch. Her husband dropped dead recently, which was one of the highlights of my summer."

Having detailed her fruitless efforts contacting various government and business agencies, she sighed with resignation.

"I guess the only thing left to do is to hire a hit man. The problem is, every time someone hires a hit man they get an undercover cop."

I wonder what kind of environment she grew up in.

New York: Sound

Tuesdays are the rattle of aluminum cans, the dull tink-clink of bottles knocking against each other. It's the night before recycling collection, and bags of metal, glass and plastic line the sidewalks in haphazard piles - a monstrous xylophone dismembered and scattered up and down the New York grid.

What other musicians to play the giant sidewalk instrument, but the homeless? Some rake through the piles con fuoco, producing a rapid cacophony of cans, while others search slowly enough for one to distinguish between the different pitches of empty or partially-filled bottles. Sometimes the tumbling glass crescendoes to a halting shriek as a particularly large bag is hauled a short distance.

Singly or in groups, with gloves or bare hands, loading backpacks or bulky shopping carts, they rifle through countless bags of recyclables, searching for the right containers to turn in. In colonial times you could cheat the natives into selling you huge tracts of land for glass and metal beads. Nowadays all you get is enough change for a burger.

Tuesdays ring with the sound of trash en route to becoming not treasure, but survival.

Eight Years Later

Here we are again
mundanity overlaid with memorial
just a Friday workday
mere blocks from where it happened
my jeans are soaked
where the sky let fall its tears

Routine maintains its endless pace
though we pause today to look back.

I headed to work in miserably wet and cold weather, and the strangeness of living out my everyday in a place so central on the world stage was intensified for me as I emerged from the subway in New York's Financial District. Grey skies, grey buildings, dark cars, punctuated by a cop in neon orange poncho directing traffic. I walked east, where once others ran. I took the elevator up, where once others dashed down the stairs. And as I sat at my desk, listening to the live broadcast from the memorial service a few blocks away, I heard a tolling bell - where once the snapping, rumbling roar of a collapsing tower razed the air. September 11 in New York City. I wasn't there, and now I am.

Characters from the "office"

On some days, going in to work for me means going to court, and like any other workplace, it has its characters.* Go often enough, and you begin to recognize the ones with recurring roles: the court officers who rotate metal detector and wanding duties at the courthouse entrance, the window clerk snatching bites of her bacon-and-egg sandwich between customers, the slightly frumpy court attorney with rapid-fire speech who flutters about the judge like an anxious satellite...


This is not including the various shades of lawyer there to represent and defend clients: there's the 40- or 50-something ponytailed lawyer whom I've never seen in a suit, always in dress shirt and slacks or khakis. Another one seems to come straight from the eighties - salt-and-pepper goatee, unkempt salt-and-pepper mullet, rumpled suit, sometimes sneakers. He's usually short and impatient with his client's opponents. Another of the attorneys always seems to be in a bad mood, her face a puffy red as she galumphs off to another appearance, files tucked under one arm and uncoordinated purse swinging wildly about.

And of course you can't forget the judges. I only see one of them with any regularity, but he's a hoot. In contrast to his surname, Judge Little is a giant of a man who looks especially imposing when he strides into the courtroom, black robe streaming behind him. Everything about this 50- or 60-something figure is broad and measured: his frame, his gestures, and especially his speech. Little speaks as though each word were a particularly tough morsel that he must bite and chew carefully: he bares his teeth before speaking, and enunciates every syllable in a slightly gravelly, even tone. He uses the same tone even when he's joking, so it's difficult to tell at first. I remember how he prefaced one occasion when we'd appeared before him for at least the eighth time in a contentious case. To our client: "Ms. Cutler, Mr. Perfiglio has said he wants to write you a check and be done with everything." Turning to Perfiglio: "Ms. Cutler has said she is very happy with your concessions and never wants to come back here again. So what do you need me for?"

Judge Little asks tough questions of both sides, and you'd be afraid of him generally, except for moments like these. Every so often he'll also take out a large plastic container from behind the bench and start offering candy to everyone in the courtroom like a sombre St. Nick.

Nearly ten months after being on the job, it seems my own character has acquired a name: "HP Girl," referring to the type of case I usually work on. Never mind about the inaccuracy of calling a woman a girl. I've arrived at last and can now join the circus performers who make up New York's courts.

*Names in this post have been changed to protect privacy.

Holding the Door Open

I know an actor, who, though straight, went through a spate of roles playing lesbians. Discussing this, she commented that there must have been something about her that brought out the lesbian in others, given that a good percentage of the women she'd kissed finally realized they were gay. My flippant mind quickly responded with a tagline per magic bullets seen on TV: "Unsure if you're in the closet? Just one kiss and all your sexual identity issues will disappear like that!"

Never trust infomercials.

The Upwellings of Memory

I like when memories take you by surprise, that sudden recollection of smell or sound or sight that comes unbidden. You again possess knowledge of what was perhaps lost, another piece of yourself has returned to you.

Today I was doing some research on David Sedaris, and how he had gotten his big break reading his "SantaLand Diaries" essay on NPR back in 1992. The description triggered a memory, though I didn't even know who Sedaris was at the time - I had heard this broadcast. Christmas week, 2004. A hotel room in New York City, my first visit there. I'd turned on the radio, tuned it to NPR, a holiday broadcast. I specifically recall Sedaris singing a carol in the style of Billie Holiday (I didn't know who she was then, either).

Just to be sure, I found the broadcast online, and listened to it. Yep. David Sedaris, singing like Billie Holiday.

I remembered.

Street Talk

Snippets gleaned from the street.

Morning - a hoarse, moderately low male voice with a New York accent:
"She was a real looker back in her day."

Morning - brisk weather, a woman with sharp gestures and punching delivery:
"In general, stagehands are assholes."