Wasted...
Time has a way of eluding you in New York City. The months just pass by and 6 months later you’re still sitting in your apartment almost as undecorated as the day you moved in. It has been a slow process placing things in my room and out in the common areas to make it feel “homey.” After a busy audition season where I was spending a max of 7 hours a day being in my apartment other than sleeping to now just a mere 3 hours a day. That’s with an average of 5 to 6 hours of sleep. Other than the day job I have classes, social events, and travel time. Travel time is what really makes the hours pass by. Getting from A to B you can lose up to 2 hours of time or more. That’s a lot when you have multiple destinations. Needless to say, my apartment is still not where I like it and apparently I’m not the only one. A friend of mine has just put curtains up after 2 years in her apartment and they have been sitting there for a while. The abode is more of just a sleeping quarter than anything here in the city. Occasionally a place to have a gathering. It’s no wonder people live in closets. Why get a large space and worry about it all the time when you only spend 2 hours of wake time there?
Once in a while I do miss the slow lifestyle that accompanied my time on the cruise lines where I could spend a whole day lounging, working on projects, or just meandering through my place of residence (an entire ship). Especially when I’m twiddling my thumbs with no work in a cold office here in New York. Meals prepped and ready to eat, room cleaned on a daily basis, a new city every day even if it is repeated every week, and time to kill. There are drawbacks to every situation though. In New York I see time whisking by at an unbelievable pace, but I have my friends at my fingertips with many social events happening around me. I could visit family whenever I choose to (only lack of funds keep me from doing it so often). On a ship you have all the time in the world with a lax lifestyle, but there are rules, inspection, and lack of communication with the outside world. I guess there’s no ideal situation until retirement.
I walk around the city a lot. It’s what you do here. Who needs a car? The subways and busses (cough) take you everywhere. Subways mainly. The busses are just about as bad as having a car. Traffic. Traffic underground is far less worse than traffic above especially with the new pedestrian extensions in major tourist areas. In my walks I find several annoyances that just don’t make sense to me. One major gripe is the litter. I know a bit of it can be caused by overflowing trash cans with high winds (especially after major events). This is no excuse though. There either should be more cans (I often find myself walking several blocks before finding one) or more pick ups. Some of us are TRYING to be respectful and put our trash in a bin, but it’s difficult when the slimy mess is piled up and over and falling all on the streets and walks. Besides factors that are uncontrollable because of city budgets and high traffic areas there are the litterbugs. Because the trash can situation is such a problem to see someone just let a plastic bottle just fall to the ground or pitch a wrapper out of their car window is just flat out rude. I will hold on to my trash until I get home if I can’t put it in a city bin. Is it that hard? Lollipop sticks, hamburger wrappers, soda containers and gum even just dropped to the ground. Disgusting. It makes me despise the comforts of food packaging that we create so much garbage and don’t even dispose of it properly. Another big annoyance is the water issue. Mostly I find this annoyance around high end stores or apartments. Why is it that in California there are bans on water to prevent people from watering their lawns and flower beds and wash minimally yet here in New York City its okay to water the PAVEMENT? Concrete is not a living/breathing organism. Why does it need to be watered? Power washing is the worst? Why? To look pretty? It’s Concrete!!! Such a waste. I am not only trying to walk on the sidewalk and there’s some putz working for a rich shmuck watering the damn sidewalk. One morning it even rained (and I mean hard) and after my yoga class of 90 minutes the sun was out. The pavement was still moist and some idiot was watering the pavement. Watering the PAVEMENT! I saw him water the flower beds at least, but not like they didn’t just get a drink 90 minutes ago. Oy!
In general I think Americans are just wasteful. At least that’s what I’m finding. On a recent trip home we went out to a restaurant where everyone was walking out with Styrofoam containers of food. First of all, Styrofoam. Need I say more. The portions on this menu matched most of the clientele in size. I mean, whoa! It was a beer brewing place and you could tell by all the guts pouring out over the belt buckles. Reason? Because an appetizer was more food than I could imagine. An APPETIZER!! Something people usually order in ADDITION to their meal and I was carrying home a doggy Styrofoam of leftovers. How is this possible? How can an appetizer be more than a meal? Granted I took it home and it was consumed, but how many people just leave it? Or forget it? There are several buffet style lunch places here in the city. Some within a few stores of each other. In fact in the area I work (and I’m sure several other places) there are 2 right next door to each other. There’s a lot of food and at the end of the day where does it go? Then on a totally different matter from food I was listening to NPR radio this morning and there was debate about military spending. OMG!! Let us just not dive too deeply into that wasteful spending. Evidently in this instance there is a plane that took a quarter of a billion dollars to build and $50,000/hour to operate. $50k per hour?!?! What!?!?! What kind of plane is this and what do we need it for? The defense wants to commission 7 more! Holy #&$@!!! We’re in a hole so deep financially and the defense thinks we NEED this plane and 7 of them to top it off? Obama is threatening a veto, which the broadcasters said would start a Senate battle. Good! Go Obama!
I just don’t understand our mindset sometimes. In Europe there are some fabulously clean cities with excellent trash management and people actually respect the land. There are small and decent portions in restaurants. It also seems to me that Americans in general have poor money management. Credit cards and the housing bust. Need I say more. Plus our hotheads in the defense. Also they seem to have the ticket on an effective work day where people have time to just lounge during the day and still work efficiently without spending 8 hours in a cold dark office at the beck and call of some superior. We need to step up here and stop being like locusts eating up all of our resources or we will end up being led by a major corporation and leaving the planet while robots attempt to clean it up. Wall-E is not far from the truth that could be our destiny.
Once in a while I do miss the slow lifestyle that accompanied my time on the cruise lines where I could spend a whole day lounging, working on projects, or just meandering through my place of residence (an entire ship). Especially when I’m twiddling my thumbs with no work in a cold office here in New York. Meals prepped and ready to eat, room cleaned on a daily basis, a new city every day even if it is repeated every week, and time to kill. There are drawbacks to every situation though. In New York I see time whisking by at an unbelievable pace, but I have my friends at my fingertips with many social events happening around me. I could visit family whenever I choose to (only lack of funds keep me from doing it so often). On a ship you have all the time in the world with a lax lifestyle, but there are rules, inspection, and lack of communication with the outside world. I guess there’s no ideal situation until retirement.
I walk around the city a lot. It’s what you do here. Who needs a car? The subways and busses (cough) take you everywhere. Subways mainly. The busses are just about as bad as having a car. Traffic. Traffic underground is far less worse than traffic above especially with the new pedestrian extensions in major tourist areas. In my walks I find several annoyances that just don’t make sense to me. One major gripe is the litter. I know a bit of it can be caused by overflowing trash cans with high winds (especially after major events). This is no excuse though. There either should be more cans (I often find myself walking several blocks before finding one) or more pick ups. Some of us are TRYING to be respectful and put our trash in a bin, but it’s difficult when the slimy mess is piled up and over and falling all on the streets and walks. Besides factors that are uncontrollable because of city budgets and high traffic areas there are the litterbugs. Because the trash can situation is such a problem to see someone just let a plastic bottle just fall to the ground or pitch a wrapper out of their car window is just flat out rude. I will hold on to my trash until I get home if I can’t put it in a city bin. Is it that hard? Lollipop sticks, hamburger wrappers, soda containers and gum even just dropped to the ground. Disgusting. It makes me despise the comforts of food packaging that we create so much garbage and don’t even dispose of it properly. Another big annoyance is the water issue. Mostly I find this annoyance around high end stores or apartments. Why is it that in California there are bans on water to prevent people from watering their lawns and flower beds and wash minimally yet here in New York City its okay to water the PAVEMENT? Concrete is not a living/breathing organism. Why does it need to be watered? Power washing is the worst? Why? To look pretty? It’s Concrete!!! Such a waste. I am not only trying to walk on the sidewalk and there’s some putz working for a rich shmuck watering the damn sidewalk. One morning it even rained (and I mean hard) and after my yoga class of 90 minutes the sun was out. The pavement was still moist and some idiot was watering the pavement. Watering the PAVEMENT! I saw him water the flower beds at least, but not like they didn’t just get a drink 90 minutes ago. Oy!
In general I think Americans are just wasteful. At least that’s what I’m finding. On a recent trip home we went out to a restaurant where everyone was walking out with Styrofoam containers of food. First of all, Styrofoam. Need I say more. The portions on this menu matched most of the clientele in size. I mean, whoa! It was a beer brewing place and you could tell by all the guts pouring out over the belt buckles. Reason? Because an appetizer was more food than I could imagine. An APPETIZER!! Something people usually order in ADDITION to their meal and I was carrying home a doggy Styrofoam of leftovers. How is this possible? How can an appetizer be more than a meal? Granted I took it home and it was consumed, but how many people just leave it? Or forget it? There are several buffet style lunch places here in the city. Some within a few stores of each other. In fact in the area I work (and I’m sure several other places) there are 2 right next door to each other. There’s a lot of food and at the end of the day where does it go? Then on a totally different matter from food I was listening to NPR radio this morning and there was debate about military spending. OMG!! Let us just not dive too deeply into that wasteful spending. Evidently in this instance there is a plane that took a quarter of a billion dollars to build and $50,000/hour to operate. $50k per hour?!?! What!?!?! What kind of plane is this and what do we need it for? The defense wants to commission 7 more! Holy #&$@!!! We’re in a hole so deep financially and the defense thinks we NEED this plane and 7 of them to top it off? Obama is threatening a veto, which the broadcasters said would start a Senate battle. Good! Go Obama!
I just don’t understand our mindset sometimes. In Europe there are some fabulously clean cities with excellent trash management and people actually respect the land. There are small and decent portions in restaurants. It also seems to me that Americans in general have poor money management. Credit cards and the housing bust. Need I say more. Plus our hotheads in the defense. Also they seem to have the ticket on an effective work day where people have time to just lounge during the day and still work efficiently without spending 8 hours in a cold dark office at the beck and call of some superior. We need to step up here and stop being like locusts eating up all of our resources or we will end up being led by a major corporation and leaving the planet while robots attempt to clean it up. Wall-E is not far from the truth that could be our destiny.
posted by Chris | 4:45 PM
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