Resumé building

Here is what my resumé currently reads under the Seamen's Church Institute subheading:

• Served as a full-time chaplain to merchant seafarers, providing them with spiritual counseling and assisting them with communications, financial matters, transportation/shore leave access, and legal issues

What it should really say:

• Worked full-time to deflect the explosive sexual tension that inevitably builds up when twenty-some virile men are cooped up on a ship for 6-12 months with little to no access to fertile females. Debunked strange, pseud0-theological myths. Sold phone cards and shepherded seafarers to the mall.

I don't know if it's the summer weather or what, but the port has been an absolute testosterone free for all lately. As you may have gathered from the lack of exasperated blog posts on the matter, I've grown much more adept at deflecting, ignoring, and re-directing the odd sexual things that get said on ships. Sure, I still get told I'm beautiful at least once a week (whereupon I either invent some ridiculous diversion, pretend to answer my phone, or start aggressively asking really banal questions of the perpetrators), but I haven't gotten a marriage proposal in over a month! I count this as serious progress.

Alas, my streak of good luck came to an end today. Below is a list of comments I fielded on the two ships I visited:

- From the Filipino chief cook of a container vessel that I've visited several times before: "I want to feed you lots! So you can become big! And have lots of babies!" Despite my stammering protests, he proceeded to feed me a full meal...at 10:45 in the morning. When I finally managed to extricate myself from his clutches, he called down the hallway after me: "Next time we're in port, I hope you will be fatter!"

- From the (also Filipino) crew of the ship I visited immediately thereafter, who were also hell-bent on feeding me (at least it was, by then, legitimately lunchtime): "You must be a fashion model!" And then, each of the 15 times I refused a plate of food, stating very clearly that I had just eaten and was too full to eat anymore: "You don't eat lunch so you can become a sexy?" To which someone else would unfailingly respond, "No, stupid, she's already a sexy!"

If I hadn't needed to stick around so that the chief officer could give me the phone card money he owed me, I would have left after the first offensive volley. It's just such a sticky situation. It seems an awful act of submission to the status quo to say that such comments bother me a lot less than they did 6 months ago, but what else can I do? Much as I wish it weren't so, I am just not of the right demographic to be an effective port chaplain much of the time. I'm younger than most of the people I work with. I don't have the benefit of a habit, or a clerical collar, or some other exterior symbol that sets me apart as a chaplain. And I'm female. No matter how many times I tell them I work for Seamen's Church, they have no reason to suspect that I'm anything besides a friendly young volunteer who comes to sell them phone cards. And thus, I have learned more than I ever wanted to know about what happens to the male sex drive when it's repressed for months on end.

It also appears that weird norms about what it's appropriate to say to a random woman who walks on to your ship and incredibly bizarre eschatologies go hand in hand. While on the second ship, I was helping a seafarer sort out a moneygram transaction that had gone wrong, and was writing down the customer service number for him. As I scribbled down the figures, the seafarer looked at me, aghast, and said "Mum! Is it...all right to call this number?" I assured him that it was perfectly possible to make a 1-800 call from the T-mobile sim card I had just sold him. "No, no," he replied, "I mean, is it all right with God?" Utterly confused as to when and how we had crossed over from tele-communications to theology, I asked for clarification. The even more bewildering response: "Don't you believe in the Bible, mum?" Whereupon he started reciting from Revelation with great enthusiasm. And it finally dawned on me that 1-800-MONEYGRAM translates to 1-800-666-394-726, and that this poor man suffered from the delusion that, if he dialed a satanic number to inquire about his transaction, the Antichrist would come to his ship and the apocalypse would begin. Talk about having no idea what to do. All I really could do was listen as he recounted his strange (and, I might add, not exactly true to what Revelation actually says) eschatological beliefs and repeatedly assure him that God wasn't going to hasten the hour of the second coming based on a customer service call.

Oh, and while I'm on the subject of incredibly random ship conversations, let me end with two more perplexing questions that I've gotten in the past week:

1) From no less than 4 different people: "Is your hair real?" (yes.) Or, a slightly different variation: "Who made your hair?" (God.)

2) "You're Puerto Rican, right?" (no.)

Life is wild.

Running in the city: the obstacle course continues

It has come to my attention that, thanks to facebook and an active church gossip mill, this little blog is no longer the quasi-secret it has been for the past 9 months. Up until last weekend, almost no one I've met since I came to New York had been privy to this address, but now that the cat's out of the bag...well, welcome! This new wave of reader enthusiasm is simultaneously flattering and terrifying, but hopefully its primary effect will be to prompt me to actually update more than once a month. So here goes.

Yesterday, while driving the 72nd seafarer of the day to the mall (our driver is on vacation for 3 weeks, which means that the chaplains get to take turns filling in. Being an intern, I get to experience this unparalleled joy rather more often than anyone else seems to...) and daydreaming longingly about the run that was to be my reward for making it through an endless day of chauffeuring, I had a revelation: riding the subway and running need not be mutually exclusive. Don't worry, I have not been overcome by the suicidal desire to jog along the subway platform. But it did occur to me that it is completely possible to hop on the train for a few miles and run home from there. Which opens up whole new frontiers of route possibilities, chief among them, Central Park.

The fact that I have lived in this city for 3/4 of a year and not run in the Best Freaking Park Ever is almost criminal (I blame my godforsaken achilles tendon, which has kept me sedentary for a maddeningly long stretch of time). But seriously - street running and Central Park running ought to be classified as 2 completely different sports. As I've previously blogged, running in Harlem involves lots of obstacle dodging - cars, strollers, people, stray cats, overflowing trash bags, etc. Park running also features obstacles, but on a much larger scale. There you'll be, merrily jogging along, when all of a sudden you'll come to a pond. Do you turn around and double back? Do you try to run around the pond, assuming that the path will eventually resume in the direction you wanted to go in? Decisions, decisions! And then there'll be a giant hill that you won't feel like running up. Or some stairs. Or a baseball diamond. So you keep taking random forks as you see fit to avoid all the obstacles in question, and pretty soon you realize that you have absolutely no idea where you are.

Which ties nicely into the second major difference between street and CP running - the difference in the likelihood of getting lost. Unless I am a) functioning on 3 days of no sleep or b) in the West Village, it is near impossible for me to get seriously lost in Manhattan. It's just too logical. But the minute I step off the grid and into the lush foliage of Central Park, my sense of direction flies out the window. I am notoriously incapable of trying to walk crosstown without ending up 10 blocks north or south of where I started; it's truly embarrassing. Thus it should come as no surprise that, what I had very neatly mapped out as a 3 miles run from 86th street back to Harlem, wound up taking almost an hour and god only knows how many miles. And, if my very life depended on it, I couldn't tell you where all I was (though I can tell you that I was, at one point, so turned around that I was running due south instead of north...excellent).

But it was SO GLORIOUS! It was quiet, a good 10 degrees cooler than on the streets, and breathtakingly gorgeous. There is nothing in the world like running around the reservoir at sunset and gazing up at the illuminated skyline to make you feel like you're in a movie. Plus, the beauty of being fantastically lost is that it leads you to all sorts of nifty little CP nooks and crannies that you had no idea existed: a waterfall, a Gollum's Cave-esque little grotto, the problematic pond... needless to say, I am hooked. In fact, I find myself incapable of thinking of anything besides my next Central Park escapade.

It's almost like the city of New York knows I'm leaving in 2.5 months and is trying to entice me to stay by saving the best for last. If I hadn't already signed a contract in Connecticut, I just might be persuaded. At any rate, I plan to avail myself of as much New Yorky glory as possible for the remainder of my time here :)

GUEST POST!!

From the guest blogger who brought you such treats from Aixpedition's Guest Blog #1: Colette Invites Herself to France comes the exciting sequel: Colette Invites Herself to New York! Your favorite spare room crasher is currently 2/3 done with her sojourn to the mystical and fascinating world of New York City.

For a quick glance at our itinerary, click here. Otherwise, enjoy some tidbits:

Friday: excitement and worry as American Airlines/Dane County Regional airport cancels my flight from Madison to Chicago WITHOUT TELLING ME UNTIL AFTER I CHECK IN. Their excuse? The weather. You know how many other flights were cancelled? Zero. Luckily, thanks to Brian, The Very Best Boyfriend in the World, I get driven to O'Hare in record time and breeze through security to catch a flight to La Guardia. At 11:30, I am greeted after security by a certain person who now goes by the name of Kristin. Kristin!

The next day we did a whirlwind tour of the island of Manhattan. First, a trip to the largest cathedral in the US, St John the Divine, and then across the street to the Hungarian Pastry Shop. Brian, expect something rich and delicious. Then we made our way downtown to, among other things, walk the Brooklyn Bridge. That led to taken the Staten Island Ferry, where I ran into the only other person I know who lives in New York. Small world! We end the tour eating at the Yorkville Creperie, thanks to a deal from Groupon. We overdid it and had some rather impressive food baby bellies afterward. The evening was spent with me speed reading every book that interested me from the intern's bookshelf and watching The Bells of St Mary's.

Today involved...church. One of Kristie's Kristin's co-worker's showed up at 9am because she was preaching at St. Mary's (where Kristie lives). We sat for 15 minutes of that service and rode the subway to St Luke in the Fields. A lovely church! Four baptisms! And one crucifer, 2 thurifers, 4 eucharistic ministers, 6 acolytes, an subdeacon, and 3 priests. Incense everywhere, I lost consciousness halfway through the sermon, but it was a classy service. Afterward, we went with the 20/30s group to a picnic at High Line Park and had a very informal photo shoot in Central Park. (Pictures forthcoming?)

So it may sound like a pretty chill weekend (consider it was my first trip ever to New York City), but the loveliest part so far was getting to see and get reacquainted with a good friend.

The food's been pretty good, too.

What not to eat

This one's gonna be short and sweet, but the story is too good not to share. 

On Monday (yeah, I'm behind. Deal), I was invited to lunch on a Taiwanese ship. It was a rather formal affair - shoes taken off in the hallway, sitting at white upholstered armchairs (how do they stay white on a container ship, I wonder?), food served by obliging crew members. The last bit is particularly important, as it means that I had no say in the food that was put in front of me.

Which was...unusual to say the least. There were some rather unappetizing, shriveled little fish, some wilted baby bok choy (which tasted like soap), some spicy tofu and ground beef, and some soup. The soup, which appeared to consist primarily of cabbage and broth, was the only thing I really felt safe eating without making appalling faces of disgust and thus offending my hosts. So I dutifully worked my way through the layers of cabbage, while intermittently pretending to eat the rest of my food and taking refuge in that old childhood standby of messily pushing things around on my plate. It was a good strategy...until I removed the last piece of cabbage from the broth and found myself looking not, as I had expected, at the bottom of the soup bowl, but at something I had never seen at the lunch table before. 

It was a testicle. 

A pig testicle, to be specific. There it was, all round and pink and plump, just staring up at me. And I was duly traumatized. Revise that: I am duly traumatized. Rudeness be damned, there was no way in hell that pork genital was entering my digestive tract. I will have to rely on hearsay to know what they actually taste like. 

And that is the latest installment in the saga of what my life is like aboard ships in Port Newark. I keep myself entertained. 

On fashion

I spent the past weekend in Northern Virginia, with frequent trips into downtown Washington DC. It's always fascinating to me to travel from one East Coast metropolis to another, taking note of the tremendous differences between these two cities that are, geographically, so close. It had been quite a while since I'd been down to DC, and thus the differences were particularly striking to me this time around. Perhaps because it's warm (actually, that's the understatement of the year - temps soared into the 90s yesterday and today!) and you can actually see what people are wearing, I found that I spent an awful lot of time thinking about fashion.

Yes, you read that right: fashion. Yes, I too sometimes think about it. In fact, what I wear has occupied steadily increasing amounts of mental energy since I moved to Manhattan. After enough time in this city, anyone's insistent apathy towards clothing gets worn away by attrition, I'm convinced. You can't live in New York and not care about what you wear, at least a little. Because New York is a constant fashion show. 

When I first arrived way back in August, I remember quickly becoming aware of several trends. First and foremost, the New York wardrobe is characterized by a notable lack of sneakers and sweats. Unless you are actively working out (and if you're gonna play that card, you'd better have worked up a legitimate sweat), the aforementioned items are verboten. If you're going to wear jeans, they need to be tight (it took me months before I bit the bullet and bought into this trend - it's just so goddamn uncomfortable!) and preferably stuffed into trendy boots (guess who now owns several pairs). But the most fascinating and powerful New York fashion rule (at least according to my observations) applies to leggings.

Yes, leggings. An obsolete article of clothing that, prior to November or so, hadn't graced my closet since elementary school. Proud Sconnie that I am, leggings had always fallen into the Coastie  clothing categories that were vehemently denounced by the Badger Herald shoutouts, including, but not limited to, North Face fleeces, uggs, and puffy jackets. Just so happens I live on the Coast now. And, while I will never, as long as I live, turn into a full-fledged Coastie (pronounced with the appropriate accent, of course), I fear I may have started dressing like one. I'm not going to admit to the number of leggings and tights I now own, to say nothing of the accompanying articles of clothing that go with them. The peer pressure to own and wear these strange pieces of legwear is crushingly irresistible. Which would be fine, if I could actually figure out the rules on how one is supposed to wear them. 

Clearly, I am not going to be the next contributer to Vogue. I have no actual knowledge of fashion, just an amateur's eye and a knack for observing details. And it seems to me that the absolute key ingredient to putting together a New York look is an above-it-all air of boredom. You can wear whatever the hell you want as long as you act like it looks completely normal, and like you couldn't be paid enough money to give a shit about what anyone else thinks (only, of course, you do). You master this art and you can wear neon green half-length leggings with a fluffy purple skirt and a red wife beater and look fantastic (as long as you throw in some really awesome boots). You cultivate this, and no one in their right mind is going to mistake you for a tourist. And believe you me, being mistaken for a tourist is the last thing you want to happen to you. 

It's been a difficult concept for me to wrap my mind around because, though not a tourist, I have zero interest in being mistaken for a real New Yorker either (first and foremost because...I'm not). So I try to strike a balance. I rock the leggings. I bust out my boots (I even bought my very first pair of rain boots recently!). But every once in a while, I pull out some jeans in which I can breathe and a Wisco shirt, just for good measure. And I refuse -flat out refuse - to give up my Birkenstocks. Nope, sorry, New York. Not happening. Your fashion trends are an amusing diversion for a year, but I'm looking forward to having my WI wardrobe back eventually (I wonder how they dress over in Connecticut...?).

Thus it was good to spend the weekend in a place where people dress like normal people. It was somewhat distressing how strange it was to see people in sneakers and track pants - in public! For shame! Apparently I have joined the ranks of New Yorkers who are in frequent need of a reality check.