Big Pissin Up In NYC*

*My dad came up with this title. Months ago. He won't stop reminding me that I haven't written 'the most important thing' yet - a post about places to pee. Anyway, the title is brilliant. So, here you go, Pops. (This is also your birthday present.) 

A significant portion of my job entails scooting around* Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn taking pictures of gorgeous old buildings. I've mentioned this. I'm led on weird micro-tours of insanely luxurious interior spaces. I get lots of reading done on the subway. I meet pseudo-and-actual celebrities in surreally intimate environs. It's pretty great. Except when I have to pee. That part can be a bit of a bummer; I have to pee all the time.

It's my own fault, because I am absolute freak about hydration. I understand that skipping one of the eight (or ten or twelve, stop counting) glasses a day won't immediately transform me into shriveled and flaking cornhusk-doll version of myself. I know that's not true But...what if it is true? (What if I turn in to a scarecrow???) It at least sounds like a slippery slope. So I drink fucking tons of water all the time. Which is fine, since bathroom access isn't usually a serious issue.

Except when it is. When I'm running around all day, and my water bottle's empty, and my bladder's full, and I am nowhere near my hotel room, and won't be for hours. Then I have to find somewhere to pee. Those times, I wish I had a George Costanza app that would tell me the closest, cleanest, accessible bathroom. Then I remember that would require me to own and operate a smartphone, and I'm all 'blech, nope', and give myself a baby high-five (right -I clap softly) for my unmatched self-reliance. I have scouted these locations on my own. You're welcome?

Starbucks:

 My boss told me that Starbucks gets a tax break for allowing complete public access to their bathrooms. The tax break may or may not be real, but the access thing certainly is. This is good, because there are approximately three Starbucks locations on every block. This is bad, because 97% of those bathrooms are full of people already hip to this. Including people in various stages of homelessness. Not judging! But if you're waiting in line for more than a few minutes, be aware than you might be waiting on someone to finish washing their armpits in the sink.

Of course, they're not all overrun with people making the best of a hygienic apocalypse. Just use your judgement: avoid Starbucks bathrooms proximate to subway stations. Or in the Village. The Christopher Street/Sheridan Square location (YEAH I KNOW THEIR FORMAL NAMES) is a fucking horror show. It's staffed by the nicest people ever - seriously, so pleasant, all of them - but the line for the bathroom, which is constantly five people deep, is like a slow-moving human conveyor belt of impending tragedy. Everyone exiting the bathroom looks like they were just forced to slaughter a childhood pet to survive a famine. Avoid.

DudeBros seem to be an antidote. DudeBros must be some sort of bathroom-dweller repellent. I get it, I also find them fairly repellent, but I'll take a minute to appreciate their contributions to my bladder relief. It doesn't matter what neighborhood  you're in, if you notice a Starbucks packed with DudeBros, just run in and use the bathroom, even if you don't have to go. They're immaculate. It's weird.

Restaurants: This is a better move, but you might have commit to a story. At least have one prepared in case someone tries to seat you. 'I'm looking for someone' is usually enough. Then on the way out just be like 'Sorry, guess they aren't here! I even looked in the bathroom!' and run out. The best play is to not even make eye contact with the host and walk in there like you were out having a cigarette or something and you need to wash your hands before you eat. Pick some place midrange, and it's likely no one cares about their job enough to stop you. This applies to bars, too - I'm just too likely to get waylaid in a bar, it's not an efficient time-management option for me.

Large Retail Stores: 

Large retail stores are so much better than restaurants. You won't have to interact with anyone, you won't need a story. They're rarely crowded. You might get to spend some weird time in a store you'd otherwise have no use for. My personal favorite is the Babies R Us in Union Square. Why there is a two-story Babies R Us in this location, I have no idea. There's no parking. Are you going to stock up on cribs and strollers and manhandle them onto the subway? That seems awful for everyone. It does help explain why the whole store is always empty. Especially the bathroom! Sometimes you'll wander into my favorite species of human: The Confused Male, holding like, a breast pump and a mobile, just looking absolutely terrified, but don't make any sudden movements, and they won't bother you.

Whole Foods are also great for bathrooms. Except the one, interestingly, also located in Union Square. This bathroom is basically a bare toilet semi-concealed behind a Venetian blind in a rectangular room that allows way too many people inside. It's like being pee-interrogated in front of a firing squad, it's awful. But most of them aren't like that.

Note: Bathrooms in large bookstores are basically the same as a Starbucks bathroom. There's always weird puddles inside and somebody's lost grandpa is standing by the door trying to figure out how to drink out of a dirty water fountain, it's horrible, don't use those.

Hotels: So hotels are my favorite way to go, and I highly encourage you to seek out the bathroom in the lobby or ballroom and maybe get a little lost and explore in there. These bathrooms are ALWAYS the nicest, and have the best soaps and mirrors and lighting, but I implore you to MAKE SURE IT IS A HOTEL. And not a named apartment building. One afternoon this spring, I ducked into a lovely, grand old building somewhere near the 72nd Street subway station and found myself tangled in a conversation that hopped an express train to Crazy Town. When I walked in, a doorman asked me who I was there to see, as was his job. Rather than just admitting my mistake like a normal person, I MADE UP A NAME. But not a whole name, I just said "Mark". When he responded that there was more than one Mark in the building, I said "I have to make a phone call" and just ran out the door. I didn't reach for my phone or anything. Dude was legitimately trying to help me, and I created a situation where - best case scenario - he thinks he kept a Craigslist prostitute out of the building. I bet the bathrooms in that joint were amazing, though.

Portapotties:  NO HAHA JUST KIDDING NEVER.

This is a picture of the last time I used a PortAPotty for urination purposes.

That is the face of a person's whose sensibilities have been so deeply offended, she's afraid they might never recover. Honestly, I don't know if they did. Note the sadistic joy on Farid's face, as they awaited my exit. (Kyle took the picture, they'd used these filth chambers already.) I hate PortAPotties. Loathe. I find them vehemently uncivilized. I don't like peeing on top of other peoples' pee. It's disgusting to me. And I know there's no way the mix of filth below me will like, travel up my pee stream and infect my urethra but that's all I'm thinking about when I'm in there. But we were at a beer festival, it was literally a hundred degrees outside, there was nowhere else to go, and I was dying.
Next time, death is an option.

Anyway, stay hydrated! It's worth it, honestly. Your skin will look great.



*I can scoot on foot. I'm like the housekeeper from The Jetsons.

Travel Tips for Post Modern Women

I like this time of year because I travel for work, and 80% of my work travel consists of 'walking around New York in the springtime taking pictures of lovely old buildings'. Honestly, it's pretty great. Even when it's exhausting, or cold, or I'm lost in Brooklyn on a subway that's basically a Jurassic Park Ride of Underground Trash, it's still pretty great. There's a lot of takeout sushi and trashy television and fresh towels and other such things sorely lacking in my everyday life. And all this work travel actually improves me as a person. After weeks spent with someone else emptying your garbage cans and replacing your toiletries when you hoard them in your suitcase, it gets that much harder to tolerate your own filth and disarray*. But there are challenges. I was going to tell you about all of them at once, but that post was so long I didn't even want to read it, so I'm separating it into three parts. This part is about subways. The next parts will be about peeing, and hotels. Aren't you so excited! Okay, Part One:

On The Train: Avoiding A Terrible Fate

Subways are a great invention. They allow you to zip through subterranean parts of a city like some kind of PowerMole. They allow for delightful multi-tasking, like reading en commute. Sometimes there's cool views. They reduce your obscene American carbon footprint, if only somewhat. You're exposed to an interesting cross-section of the population you might never encounter otherwise.

Subways are also HORRIBLE. You're trapped underground with thousands of other scrambling assholes like some Escape From NIMH gone horribly awry. It's too hot, or too cold. It smells like...something unidentifiable, with whiffs of human stink, rat parties, desperation, and poop. You are occasionally crammed next to and up against the very worst humanity has to offer - by whom, I mean, PEOPLE WHO DON'T TAKE THEIR FUCKING ENORMOUS BACKPACKS OFF.

In the end, though, it doesn't really matter: subways are a necessity. And there's almost nothing that makes you feel more competent and self-actualized than being able to effectively navigate a subway system. And it's a skill that translates! To other cities! It's an awesome skill. But there are things to watch out for.

Don't Be A Statistic
When I was little, my mom told us not to stick our arms out the car window. When we persisted, she informed us that, were another vehicle or stationary object to collide with our outstretched limbs, they would be sheared off, likely mangled, and unsuitable for reattachment. I've never stuck so much as a finger outside a moving vehicle again without recalling that warning. I've passed it on - to children under my supervision in at least one instance, several adults in others, and have noted it's immediate effectiveness. On the children. The conclusion here is that adults are incredibly stupid. Because the last year has been filled with stories of people FALLING ONTO TRACKS AND GETTING RUN OVER BY TRAINS. The simple solution here is 'not standing too close to the tracks'. Especially if you're drunk or physically unstable in some way. It's not hard not to fall down there. In the getting pushed scenario...I suppose a crazy person could drag you from by the wall and push you, but that's a lot more effort. And if they're really intent on you as a target, you might be able to buy yourself some time by like, yelling for help. Which you can't do if you're basically standing on the yellow line, dude, just STEP BACK.

Listen to Your Rape Alarms
Some of my friends laugh at me because I'm insane and we'll be going somewhere when all of a sudden I'm like 'my Rape Alarms are going off' and we need to turn around. I am not embarrassed at all about doing this because we live in a horrible world where horrible things happen to everyone, and this COMPLETELY includes small women who wear giant headphones and tend to be lost in their own worlds. Knowing this about myself, I try to be extra-aware of even the faintest alarm bells. As my mother told me (years after the limb-shearing warning) 'If you stop at a rest stop by yourself, you will get raped'. She is totally going to deny saying that, but F was standing in the Hunter's Hill Circle kitchen with me when that bit of knowledge was passed down. When we got into his car and pulled down the driveway (she dropped that right before a road trip) he was like "The scariest part of that was how sure she was. I'm scared of rest stops now, too."

So anyway, sometimes my rape alarms go off in subway stations. This is because subway stations can be hella creepy. Especially isolated tunnels and stairways. ESPECIALLY THIS COURT STREET STATION ENTRANCE FOR THE R TRAIN. Holy shit.

I've been to other entrances, but I sort of stumbled on this one after taking pictures of a building across the street and thought 'Oh, I'll just jump on here' and went down the stairs. When I got into the station, surprise: it was one of those weird entrances that are primarily for elevator access. I HATE being in those giant elevators with strangers, I always think some Lord of the Flies shit is going to break out, so I look for the stairs. There are always stairs. Although sometimes...they're horrible creepy. Like this time. It was a really long, narrow staircase. I'd gone down about a flight and a half thinking 'Yo, this is an incredibly rapey stairwell' when I came upon THIS:

Oh fuck, is that a CARDBOARD RAPE PAD? Jesus, okay, that's weird, just keep going Katherine, deep breaths**.

HOLY SHIT WHOSE PANTS ARE THOSE? At this point I seriously considered turning around. Like, it was noon on a Wednesday in fucking Brooklyn Heights, and I assumed I must be halfway down the stairs already and I had an appointment to make, so despite the CLANGING alarms, I pressed on, down the next flight: 

OH MY FUCK WHERE DOES THAT TINY DOOR GO? IS THIS LIKE RAPE NARNIA? I still had no idea how much more of a descent I was in for, and I couldn't run, because everyone knows when you run  down stairs in a horror movie, you fall down the stairs and Kevin Ware your leg in half and then have to drag yourself down the grimy ass steps all wounded and dirty, but I will tell you: I have never walked so swiftly and carefully in my life. 

Of course everything was fine, I realize it was just an odd collection of possibly-homeless items on a stairway. I caught the next train and made my appointment on time. An appointment at which a crazy old guy showed up on a bike to let me in, and then offered me champagne, and he seemed kind of drunk already, so it wasn't clear if he was joking or not. I declined, politely Note: the only time Katie Neuner declines free champagne is when a crazy old man offers it to her while she's essentially locked inside his house. Even if it's Veuve. Which it was. (YOU DID SOMETHING RIGHT, MOM AND DAD!!!)

The irony is not lost on me, that much of my job entails entering strangers' super expensive houses where large wooden fortress doors close behind me and pretty much no one knows where I am. But sometimes I guess you have to figure on the good in humanity, and assume that most people don't a) have a torture dungeon and b) want to trap you in it. I, at least, have to figure that, or else I'd never leave the house. Just stay out of abandoned stairwells, kids. 

Of course, later that day I was exiting another subway station and came across this: 

So, wtf, everything, maybe we should all just totally stay inside.

*For those of you who know me well, this something of a mind-altering shift. Filth and Disarray have been my homies for a long, long time. Shh, don't say too much about it, I might get scared.
** I call myself Katherine when I need to steel myself, or get my shit together. I use my Mom's voice and it is a SUPER effective motivational tool.

Break Break Down

I met S for a late lunch in Columbia Heights on New Year's Day. I took a cab there. (Fun fact: If I am meeting you at a restaurant, I am taking a cab there. No matter how meticulously I plan my trip via public transportation, I always end up spending 45 minutes like, individually separating my eyelashes with a pin, and will, in the end, need to take a cab.)

This particular cab ride was...unsettling. After a few perfunctory questions about my job, he started going off on marriage. First, about how it was 'the last thing I had left to do' - which, no. I have a lot left to do: see Macchu Piccu; have lunch with Rashida Jones; learn to pee outside in case of the Apocalypse. Lots of stuff. I didn't get a chance to share that, though, because he'd already launched into a tale about the ill-fated marriage he arranged between his son and his niece. This was a really, really long story, and I didn't get to ask a single 'WTF', because he barely paused for breath. He also kept making really intense eye contact in the rearview mirror: further troubling on several levels. By the time we got to the restaurant, I was pretty disturbed. By the nature of the conversation, and because I didn't get to say anything. You at least check in to see if any Cab Therapy is in order, dude. This is an essential function of your job.

Cab drivers make for amazing therapists. They are completely objective, and allow you to procure a variety of diverse opinions - if nine out of ten cabbies tell you you're acting crazy, the likelihood is: you're acting crazy. You can cop to anything, because you'll likely never see them again. The back seat of a cab would be an ideal place to have a meltdown. But I never have them there. It took me forever to figure out why.

If you've known me for more than five minutes, you've likely experienced one of my meltdowns by reference. This is frequently how I meet people: "Hi, I'm Katie, nice to meet you. Sorry I'm dressed like this, but I had a missing-bracelet induced meltdown right before I left my house and it made three scarves and a long t-shirt seem like a reasonable outfit." 

Yes, sometimes they're triggered by accessories. Sometimes by people, sometimes by disappointment. They can be kicked off by wonderful things, too: recently I got a card from my dad and sweater-tights from S in the mail on the same day. They were both unexpected, and led directly to a twenty minute cry-fest on the couch over how lucky I am. Basically, they're tantrums. Everything is too much, all at once, and the only solution is to crumple into a pile and wait it out. For most of my life, I assumed they were unavoidable. 

Meltdowns can take a variety of forms. Sometimes they are quiet, and involve shutting myself in my room for a few days and not returning anyone's text messages, with a side of insomnia and late-night dog walking. Sometimes they are large-scale and public, like the day after J's wedding, two days before I moved to DC, when I started hysterically crying in the security line at the Detroit airport and did not stop hysterically crying until we landed in Boston approximately five hours later. I was dehydrated for a week afterwards. When I leave a loved one, I regularly cry on the trip home. Less dramatically than the Detroit Airport Incident, but enough so I'm sure I make whoever's seated next to me fairly uncomfortable. 

Meltdowns are a consistent fact of me. But unless you're a really really special friend* (or an airline passenger), you've probably never dealt with me mid-melt. I usually manage to dry the tears up by the time I get out to meet you - even if I'm 45 minutes late and wearing Adidas windpants from high school. Until recently, I thought that was a fair measure of success. 

I had a bad one a few weeks ago. Nothing terrible, just a tad larger scale than usual. I hadn't had one in a while. Part of me even figured I was due. Typical, typical. Except...how I handled it. 

Usually I handle things one of two ways: 1) Deal with it ALONE, melt, then tell everyone about what a mess you were later; or 2) Hail a cab, get in, pour emotions over unsuspecting driver. When life knocked the wind out of me, a cab often felt like the best place to go. For a long time, vulnerability was not a trait I  fathomed possessing. Far better to be an unstable mess than tell anyone what's honestly bothering you. A few years ago, after a particularly cathartic ride, it occurred to me that cab drivers up and down the eastern seaboard knew more about my heart than some of my closest friends.

This time, curiously, I took a slightly different route. I called friends**. I tried to figure out what the fuck I was so upset about, and I asked for help with it. Holy shit, that works so well! Yes, it's somewhat uncomfortable to let people in your life see all your scabby raw parts, but...it actually ends up soothing them. Who knew! And rather than, as per usual, one meltdown creating a series of smaller implosions in it's wake, like a little mental archipelago of insanity, talking about shit actually made me feel better. Lots better. I haven't had another since. AND I saw my family last week.

Of course, I feel like an asshole for needing a decade to figure out why I liked cab therapy so much. (Talking about what's actually bothering you with other human beings is awesome! And effective! It can prevent future meltdowns***. Do other people know about this?) But that's fine. The realization's worth it.

New Year's Eve was my last day of family vacation. Before the flight, I ran errands with my Dad. He wanted to talk about New Year's Resolutions. He said: "This is the last time we'll have to talk before you leave." But I couldn't engage. Those lumps on the sides of my throat were beginning to ache, and I didn't want to start bawling in the middle of a South Florida Publix. "You seem a little sad," he said. I told him: "Of course I'm sad." I was quiet for a minute, and then I said: "But it's okay for me to be sad. I'm leaving my family. It's okay to be sad." And as soon as I said it, it was. It was okay. 

The Detroit Airport Meltdown of 2010? I was just fucking sad, man. So much was changing, for everyone I knew, it was a huge, huge time for all of us, and when you asked me how I felt about it all, I just said 'excited, excited, excited.' And of course I was excited, but a lot of loss comes with change like that, and I was sad. If I'd just fucking talked to someone about it, I probably could have avoided all that time spent standing in a corner hyperventilating and hoping no one noticed the weird choking-seal noises escaping from my face.

On Monday afternoon, my Dad dropped us off at the Miami airport, and I said good-bye to my brother and his lady right away - they were flying out of a different terminal. I didn't cry then. I didn't cry over lunch, I didn't cry on the plane****. I was sad to leave, but I was happy to be going home. They are not mutually exclusive emotions. It was okay. 

On the cab ride home, I talked about how excited I was to see my dog, how New Year's Eve is wildly overrated, how surprised I was that the Raleigh airport a) existed and b) did not serve food after 7:30pm. We didn't talk much about my feelings at all. I can do that with other people now. It feels like a nice change. 

Happy New Year, Loves.

* Or my brother, who deserves a fucking medal in this event.

** Well, first I talked to a random bartender, which was a hilariously tragic misstep. No one gets MORE emotionally reasonable with a pound of champagne in their system, even if it's free.

***This is not to say that I will be crying less. I just desk-cried at some pictures of Obama shaking hands with veterans. 

****Full disclosure: I cried a little when I said goodbye to my Mom earlier in the day.

BONUS MATERIAL FOR MAKING IT THIS LONG: The title of this post comes from the greatest Mariah song that you've forgotten about. Please, enjoy.

You can try to block out the memory of opening your tray-table onto your face as much as you'd like. Your face, however, will remember.