Be Brave Project, Day 41; Try Not to Shout at The Children

Oh dear. Well, I always sort of assumed that spinsterhood beckoned. Smelling of lavender, filled with nervous laughter, and brimming with baking projects. Two of my aunts never married--one moved here to NYC, got herself a job working for the City (I believe Ike Turner wrote a song about her. . .), bought a condo downtown and a house in the countryside.

My other aunt moved to upstate Michigan and likes to sleep with enormous egg-shaped crystals. She teaches tai-chi and is a righteous unappealing guilt-trip on legs: Has the tendency to ask you if you will give her one of your possessions, and when you say no she sighs, "I forgot what it's like to be with people who are so materialistic."

I always think, "And I forgot how intense my urge is to kick your ass." I don't really get hippies--exposure to them has taught me that they are much more about guilt trips and passive aggression than peace & love; In my family they turned not working into an art form, and I early on noted that people who are secretly ashamed of themselves are very, very difficult to be with.

So a hippie I shall never be, but a spinster? Different story altogether. As I say, I've always had a worrying bent in that direction: I like reading, knitting, and cats far too much. I absolutely adore travelling alone--when I've travelled with boyfriends I kept wanting to send them off on errands so I could investigate places on my own, and talk to the natives. I get offended very easily, as spinsters do in 30's films. And, as I believe I demonstrated yesterday, I am a complete doofus around attractive men. (I didn't used to be that way; that's an annoying new sobriety thing. I used to be confident to the point of cockiness, and they'd always call. Now I don't even give out the number.)

But yesterday, at 3:00 in the afternoon, I discovered another symptom of incipient Spinsteritis: A tendency to roll the eyes and mutter, "kids today. . ." when confronted by the young generation. I was, as usual, on the bus--v. spinsterish mode of transport, by the way--carrying stuff down to the new apartment. I had a duffel bag filled with trousers and hangers, and an arm laden with dry-cleaning. At 110th and Amsterdam the bus-driver, who had been regaling us with her theories on medical care and the pharmaceutical companies, suddenly announced in tones dark with dread, "The school children are coming. Watch out."

The bus pulled to the right, and the doors swung open. And about 25 children rushed into the bus as if they were escaping a gun-man. Each of them, for some reason, had a half-eaten piece of chocolate cake in hand. And all of them shouted, all at once.

Do parents not tell their kids that one of the reasons Americans are hated abroad is because we SHOUT ALL THE TIME? And that not only does it make whatever you say sound quite stupid, but it's also a form of social bullying? The bus passengers cowered in their seats--more than one lady had their hands clapped to their ears--as the children shouted and fell all over the place. They swung from poles and told stories of Miss Harket being the BEST teacher. Blobs of chocolate cake seemed to smear themselves on the floor and windows and seats. One boy, who had Elizabeth Arden skin and Sideshow Bob hair, kept shouting "They don't have buses like this in Africa!" in very sarcastic tones.

It was the longest 15 minutes of my life. I would literally rather have another periodontal scaling than go through that again. On 89th Street, I pushed my way through the chocolate-caked crowd and through the back door, and stood slumped on the corner. My dry cleaning bag was torn, my duffel grey with foot-prints, and my hair looked as if I'd been dragged by a horse.

But Oh! I was so happy that I get to spend every night living alone. Just me and my cat and my Volkswagen-sized bowls of pasta. . .now that's my American Dream.

BBP: I am applying for a new credit card, in the hopes of creating a better credit portfolio (and so I can stick it to Capital One). Not the best time to apply for credit, but I haven't applied for a new card this year and I want to go for it--diversify and up my limit. We Shall See.