The Great Busing Experiment

I did an experiment today: I took the bus to work.

My sister's car died really dead a few weeks ago, so I've been sharing mine with her. Because she drives a lot more than I do, I usually don't have a car during the day. I was planning on catching a ride to work today but my ride left without me. I tried to get a ride with someone else, but that person wasn't going in to work until late, so that didn't work out either.

In despair, (oy!), I layed down on the couch and stared at the ceiling as I tried to figure out how I could get to work.

Could I walk?

Not in these boots. And not with my laptop.

Could I get someone to drive me as a favor?

I couldn't think of anyone who'd be available at that time of the day.

As I lay there wondering, "How on earth do people get around without cars?" it suddenly came to me:

The Bus!

It only occurred to me because at the wedding I mentioned in my last post, a friend of mine who used to lived in New York mentioned taking the bus when she moved to this city.

No one takes the bus around here. Well, obviously some people do, but the majority of my city's population have cars. The bus is generally seen as a mode of transportation for people who have no other choice. (In other words, they're too poor.) More than anything, I think it's a cultural thing. In New York, everyone takes public transportation. Out here, it's embarrassing to take it.

If celebrities want to help the country, like they say they do in their "Pledge to Obama" video, what they really should do is promote public transportation in their own city. Buying hybrids doesn't help the environment nearly as much as popular public transportation could.

Note: The photograph above is of the original busing experiment. 

Feeling Old

I've talked a few times before - here and here - about going to weddings as a single young woman in the frum community and about the looks and comments you get because you're still single at the devastatingly old age of 23 (now 24.) 

I went to another one of these weddings last night. It was a huge, gorgeous wedding with hundreds of people and plenty of older women to whisper while staring at you, so I  started out feeling just as disgruntled as I usually do at these events. Over the evening, however, I noticed that many of the young married women who I went to school with are looking decidedly older than their ages. There were a number of these women who I didn't even recognize at first because they look so altered. 

It's no wonder the frum women think 24 is old: when you get married at 18 and have your first kid at 19, (and just keep on having them,) by the time you're 24 you really feel old. And look it too, unfortunately. 

On the brighter side, some of my married high school friends looked great. After I commented that the high school students at the wedding (the bride is their teacher) looked really small, one of these friends said to me, "Yeah, Frum-Fem, and they think that I'm an old lady! The way that they look at me just because I've got this wig on my head..." 

Imagine that. There I was, feeling bothered at the looks I was getting for not wearing a wig, and my friend bothered because she was getting looks for wearing a wig.

Money money money money

Holy moley! A $790B stimulus bill! 

I don't even know what to say. I'll borrow a few words from some friends of mine:

Pintel: "Criminey!"

Ragetti: "Oddsbodkins!"

Howard Shore: DRAMATIC MUSIC

Echoing in the background:

Obama Administration: "We pillage, we plunder and don't give a hoot..."

Congress: "We extort, we pilfer, we filch and we sack..."

All together... 

You all know the words!

Manly Masculine Women

My brother called me, "manly," a month or so ago. After gasping, "I can't believe you just called me that!" I told him that he had his vocabulary wrong and suggested that maybe the word he was looking for was, "masculine." 

Calling me, "manly," makes me sound like I'm tall, broad, and really need to wax my eyebrows.

"Masculine" doesn't sound like much of a more flattering description, but being masculine is about characteristics, rather than physical attributes. To say that I have, "qualities traditionally ascribed to men, [such] as strength and boldness," (Dictionary.com) isn't insulting at all. 

In fact, it's a compliment. I have no intention of behaving in the manner traditionally ascribed to women, (screeching, fainting, being-seen-and-not-heard) so I might as well try those traditionally ascribed to men. I'll be strong and I'll be bold. 

I'll even kill the bugs, occasionally. 

Let's "Pledge" Ourselves to Obama Video

Here's the "Pledge" video I wrote about in my last post, called by some, the "Wealthy Celebrities Pledge Wealth-Distribution-Socialism" video.





I can't believe I'm posting an Obama video on my blog... But then, I confess that I do think that one good thing has come from this "Obamaism" AKA "Obamianity," AKA, "Obamantology," and that is that there are significant numbers of Americans who now know that there's an electoral process in this country. It's a big difference from the, "Coming of Age in Mississippi," America that Anne Moody wrote about, where Blacks in America were either unaware that they were allowed to vote in elections or too scared to do so. 

See? I'm trying to look at the positive side of the picture. Like I'm looking for that check in the mail that Obama promised to send me...