2004-02-25 - 11:44 p.m.
“Don’t tell me hush, I’ll just scream more, I’ll scream myself hoarse...” This line from Skeleton Coast has been ringing in my head for the past few days. I feel that same kind of stress and rage building up in me, the kind I spent all last winter feeling. This time I feel better because I can point to certain situations in my life and say “This is where it is coming from,” which feels so good, because I know that it feels bad to feel like this all the time, like I did for months at a time. Moving has a lot to do with it. My back hurts already and I have not carried one box up or down stairs, just packed them. We are retreating from our apartment with the leaky roof and crumbling ceiling to a top floor apartment in a Brownstone 12 blocks north. Today our landlady came by and tried to guilt trip me about breaking the lease saying that our ceiling which is falling in is not a safety hazard. I really wanted to say, “Well, you can tell that to the housing authorities in court,” but I just repeated that we strongly feel that it is and that we cannot live here anymore. Ugh.
Today was salvaged though by a sweet girl at a bakery called Hope and Union (because of it’s location between Hope and Union streets). I went in for a second cup of coffee, even though I really didn’t need it, and the girl asked me about the UAW sticker on my book bag. I explained that the part-time faculty at my school, New School University, are in the process of unionization and that the administration has been fighting them the whole way. I explained they were organizing through Academics Come Together- United Auto Workers for job security, better wages and benefits and better recognition and respect within the university. She nodded her head, “I totally understand, I looked into adjunct faculty positions and the New School is known for how little they pay their adjuncts.” “Yeah,” I responded, “1,200 a course is what many of them make.” We both shook our heads at how anyone could expect to survive in New York City with that kind of pay.
She told me she was taking a break from a masters program at the Harvard Divinity School and asked me what I studied. “Cultural Studies, Race, Ethnicity and Postcolonial Studies,” I responded. “Postcolonial Studies,” she said, “That sounds like just the thing I would be interested in.” So soon I found myself writing down the names of Stuart Hall, Homi Bhaba, Gayarti Spivak, Coco Fusco, Dick Hebdige, Franz Fanon and Paulo Freire (“I love Freire!” She said). “These folks are hard to read,” I said, “But they’re really important.” Then I realized that if she’s taking time off from Divinity School, she’d probably have no problem. I asked when she worked and she told me and told me to come back often. I explained I worked in the neighborhood on Wednesdays, so I’d be by then. “What’s your name?” She asked, “Eleanor.” She wrote it down. She told me hers and I forgot. I almost gave her my email, but I felt shy. I said goodbye like three times and walked out, smiling, and almost spilling coffee all over my jacket. I was feeling so hating at the world, like everyone flakes on me or doesn’t give a shit, and I was glad a stranger cheered me up. Crossing Union I realized that maybe she was hitting on me. Maybe her question about the UAW was just to start conversation (of course, I totally didn’t notice, just rambled about the UAW and the labor struggles at the New School). Just like me. Totally dense. Maybe I have my first coffee shop crush.
