And my take on the recent events...

Hi y'all. Here's my first post on this blog. Check out my other blog if you want more stories about my auditions and musical stuff.

My parents had (and still have?) strong opinions about words that were inappropriate for young ladies to say. Beyond the normal curse words, we also weren't allowed to call anyone "Stupid" or to say "Sucks", as in "This sucks". I will now go out on a grown-up limb and say,

"This stupid place SUCKS!"

Ugh, even typing it feels like I just cussed out Queen Elizabeth.

But, the fact remains, I have yet to feel like I could ever really belong here. I think the biggest shock is how differently people communicate (or don't) here. I know you're not supposed to group people with blanket observations, so I'll just say SEVERAL INDIVIDUALS have gone out of their way to provide horrendous customer service, to make us feel like we're complete idiots, and to withhold information simply because we didn't phrase a question correctly.

I had a feeling it would be different here, but I have had a harder time with this than I thought I might. The other day, I went into a Duane Reed drug store to buy an umbrella. I asked an employee who was crouched down restocking the cosmetics where the umbrellas were. She didn't even look up at me, she just said, "Aisle 4" as she continued what she was doing. Immediately, I was bothered that she hadn't even made eye contact with me.

In Texas, we look at the person talking to us. In Texas, a salesperson gives the customer, at the very least, that much respect. Usually, when a person answers my questions, I thank them. Having gotten my answer just tossed over her shoulder, I just walked away from the girl. I felt rude and I'm rarely rude and when I am, it's not usually on purpose. What made me change the way I treated her? In that split second, I just mirrored what she did to me. How did that happen? I have no control whether someone is rude to me, but I have all the power in the world to mind my manners. Why didn't I?

I doubt the girl lost any sleep over the rude customer that just walked away, but it still bothers me. I tell myself little things like that don't matter. I didn't right her wrong by my behavior and I don't even know if a wrong was committed. There appear to be different rules here.

This place is tiresome. Honestly, I dread even walking out the front door. There's not a smile on people's faces. You can be the only two people walking toward each other on the street and you have to rely on the curve of someone's walk to determine who's going to get to pass first in a tight spot on the sidewalk. Back home, we practically fight over who gets to let the other person go first, laugh about it, and then thank each other as we go our separate ways. I don't understand why it's so different here. Maybe people don't have the time, maybe it's too crowded for it to matter. Maybe I'm just too sensitive.

We had a choice little run-in with a subway attendant today. It was so choice, I can't even talk about it. All I can say is that our New York experience was pretty much represented by that incident...pure frustration, embarrassment, anger, and as darn near moved to violence as I have felt in a long time. If you could bottle that mixture of heightened emotions, you'd have something that would be unsafe to sell to the general public. I was beside myself.

This city is supposedly fantastic and exciting, but at this moment, I want to tell everyone here to just go to ... you know where. And that's definitely something that my parents wouldn't approve of.