i adore you

"what's wrong with you today? you should go home." - a kitchen employee at my restaurant, to me, in what was the first english sentence i ever heard him say

"we are open soon"

good night, crown heights.

united pizza of america

"rules for lovers"

if you are not a person of color and you are living in crown heights, you get honked at a lot by "gypsy cabs" (why do we call them that?).  they are trying to pick you up becuase they assume you want to be somewhere else.

the small specialialty foods store by my house has gotten a lot busier during the hours of four thirty and eight thirty.  today when i was waiting in line to check out (which is a relatively new experience), i noticed that allison was working.  i then realized that part of the reason the line was so long was because there was only one person who was checking peoples' groceries out.  allison was standing behind one of the two register stands, but she was not checking people's groceries out.  she was frantically talking to someone on the phone, presumably a manager, presumably becuase she was encountering a problem with the computer.  she is probably the person left in charge for the evening--practically a manager--so would handle such problems if they arose.

but because allison was taking care of important business (in a way that any of us would do), only one person was checking people's groceries out and so there was a very long line.

i, of course, am hoping that the game of duck duck goose will go as such that i will time my turn in line with the end of allison's phone call so we can talk about nothing and i can feel good about myself.  but it doesn't.  once i realize this, i turn my head in slow motion from allison's register to that of whoever would check out my groveries; in a moment i am visually introduced to a new employee at the small specialty store by my house.

it must have been one of her first days, becuase there is no way i wouldn't have noticed her before.

she had beautiful black skin.  it was the kind of skin that would be chosen to advertise undereye cream. flawless smooth skin.  she was tall but not too tall.  she was wearing an african print head scarf in a way that was indistinguishabley for cultural and not cultural-reappropiative purposes.  she was quiet and efficient and smiled a lot.

i walked over to her check out stand with my basket full of a carton of zero percent greek yogurt, jar of pre-made spaghetti sauce, and containter of honey-seasame glazed cashews.  i immediately wished that my items felt like they were more "me" so that she could get a better idea of who i was.  whatever.  i say hello, she says hello.  she effortlessly swipes my yogurt across the glass panel-with-a-lazar-beam thing, into an expertly placed pre-opened plastic bag.  she pulls out the pre-made pasta sauce.  it's the item i feel most insecure about.  she slides it across the glass and it doesn't scan.  she mutters to herself and seems upset. she begins to manually enter in the barcode information.  i hate that stupid fucking pre-made pasta sauce.

a second goes by and the pasta sauce is in the bag.  she scans the last item, i swipe my card, she tells me my recipt is in the bag, i say 'thank you', and we part ways in more-or-less active ways.

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i saw a person at my restaurant feed their baby-age child both french fries and breast milk-from-the-breast in the same brunch.  should any baby simultaneously occupy both of those dietary allowances?