And the Tony goes to...

Standing on the steaming hot 2nd Avenue F train platform at 1am - a guaranteed stage for Way Off-Broadway entertainment - Jackie and I caught quite a variety show last night. On one side: Two extremely attractive ladies making out in full view of us and every homeless man in New York City. Note, we were the only ones who didn't harass them with intellectually stimulating questions like "Wanna come over to my bench?" and "What has she got that I don't got?" On the other side: a bridal shower, complete with drunk, heavy-set white ladies (presumably the soon-to-be bridal party) singing a mangled version of "Respect," and the bride easily identifiable in her cardboard tiara emblazoned with the word "Bride!" and a tiny veil hanging off the back. All of this would have been offensive enough without the bright red, penis-shaped squeeze bottle that the bride kept taking long swigs from.

And...curtain.

I'm a Winner

When you share a name (sadly, not a bank account) with a major telecommunications conglomerate, it's easy to think no one's going to have any trouble in the pronunciation/spelling department. This, however, is not the case and gives me undying sympathy for those folks who actually have a name other than Smith or Jones; or - good lord - a hyphen or a click (The Gods Must Be Crazy still fresh in my mind 25 years later) somewhere in their moniker. Years ago, I worked with a gorgeous Puerto Rican woman named Marisela Santiago who received a fax one day addressed to "Mr. Marty Sellers." A name foible of such epic proportions it was on the scale of the Big Bang. My last name - Warner - throws even the most well-intentioned and seemingy intelligent folks into a flurry of every W word in the English language and beyond: "Warden?" "Wiener?" "Winter?" My favorite is when I've repeated and spelled my name no less than ten times and the voice on the other end of a call says "Oh, I get it now, your name is Wacker!" Right.

So I was at my homeless shelter internship the other day and one of the ladies soon-t0-be in my care came looking for me. "Are you Jennifer Winner?" she asked in all seriousness. I actually thanked her.

Never Too Old to Be Somebody's Lackey

Today was my unofficial first day of field work as a 34-year old intern. This turn of phrase illicits the kind of visceral gag response that, say, 40-year old virgin does. The last time I interned I was 19 and my breasts didn't look like balloons that had given up the ghost. I can't lie and say I'm psyched to pretend to recapture my youth in this way; that I've longed for nothing more than the opportunity for "unpaid experience." Please. Unpaid experience is the job equivalent of taking a cheese grater to your hand just to see if the thing is capable of shredding that block of cheddar you've got. In other words, duh.

I showed up, looking business casual, greeted the homeless folks who would soon be on my watch, filled out a lot of paperwork clarifying that I would not be sexually harassing the clientele, and then headed off to a meeting with other administrative staff in the social services department. We sat around the table with a couple of boxes of pizza and sheets of paper with questions like "How can you tell if someone is mentally ill?" and "What are two qualities that you exhibit that show good self care?" I spoke up: "You can't always tell when someone is mentally ill and as for good self-care: two indicators are bathing and eating." The room fell quiet and the moderator quickly moved on to the next person: "Um I exhibit good self care by running and reading a lot." Next person: "I like to cook and play with my kids." As we moved from person to person I realized that the question was specific to ME, meaning that I had just indicated to the room that - at least on a good day - I showered and tried to remember to eat something. As we got to the last person I felt compelled to jump in and try to preserve what might be left of my first impression and dignity: "I'd like you all to know that - contrary to my earlier answer - I bathe and eat regularly." A collective sigh went up. "Thank God," the moderator said "we thought you might be mentally ill."

Is that a Snaka in Your Cup (or are you just happy to see me?)

I spotted this sign hanging off the side of one of those Midtown coffee trucks and seriously considered ordering myself a "cheese danis" and a steaming hot cup of "Snaka." And then I wondered, perhaps Snaka isn't just a righteous misspelling of Sanka (My great-aunt Lenny's decaf coffee of choice which isn't saying a lot since the woman didn't abstain from anything especially food stuff) and is actually the feminine of Snack (Le Snack, La Snaka?) or a female snake (Snaka, long a sound). Either would have been preferable to a 20 year old packet of Sanka, though Lenny would have been proud.