And You Have Every Right To Feel That Way

And you have every right to feel that way.

I love, hate and am awed by this expression, it’s just so funny. It’s like tacit agreement with something you totally don’t agree with. I first heard this from @MsKimothy when we’re riding the train home together one day:
“…Blackberries are the best phone ever.”
“…I don’t wanna eat at that restaurant, their food is nasty.”
“…I hate Beyonce, she ruined Lady Gaga’s Fame Monster for me.”

Kim’s response was always the same, “…and you have every right to feel that way…” I then proceed to give her a blankstare, :-l What am I supposed to say to that? “Umm, you’re right, Kim. Thank you for reminding me  about my free will and all…” The first time I heard her say that, I didn’t know if she was being condescending or sincere. In my usually sarcastic way, I’m sure I said something jackassish and snarky. I already know I have every right to feel every way I feel (sharing those feelings is where it can get a little dicey.)

That’s what’s said to completely absolve you of any and all responsibility, fault and judgment.  It’s also what friends say when they don’t want to get in to it. So now whenever someone stupid or something I don’t want debate, I just say, And you have every right to feel that way.

It does make me think of the concept on a larger level though, we’re all entitled to our own opinions, but when are we not?…

Fool Me Once…

For some reason, I can’t trust someone who wears shades all the time (especially indoors) and people that never show their heads (do rags, hats, scarves, wigs, bad weaves with the glue marks at the forehead…) I always see them as sketchy, there’s just something just disingenuous about not showing your scalp. Imams, rabbis and clergy, not included (priests sare creepy are for a whole other reason…)

Only In New York.01.07.10

There’s this kid sitting across from me on the 6 that, I swear, reminds me of a cross between Neo from The Matrix and Eddie Munster. Sorry no pic available, he looks a little too much like a Colombine Jedi for me too be messing with him in the AM… There hasn’t been a train ride where something eventful or just randomly hilarious hasn’t happened in years… Maybe it’s just my eyes and my sense of humor, I don’t know.

Take Charge Take Care: My Views On NYC’s Heroin How To Guide

If you live in the city or you watch the national news, you’ve heard about our Department of Health’s new pamphlet that came out about Heroin last week. It’s a sixteen page disease-awareness/ prevention guide or manual on heroin for heroin users. When I first heard about this on CNN over the weekend, I didn’t understand what all the hooplah was about and I really didn’t care much. Our mayor along with the Department of Health are always doing radical things that get national attention-sometimes wise, sometimes overreaching, sometimes a little nonsensical. For example: You can’t smoke in bars anymore, but you can get free condoms there, thank the mayor. In the winter, we might arrest a bum for not accepting warm shelter, last summer we were giving out bus tickets for them to leave the city. Once again, thanks, mayor.

I really didn’t see what all the fuss about with spreading the word about how to keep yourself safe when engaging in high-risk behavior. Isn’t that what Departments Of Health are supposed to do, they warned us about bed bugs and swine flu also, right? I had to find out for myself what the big deal was, so I managed to find the PDF version on the web (you won’t find it though, the linksite mysteriously vanished Tuesday morning.) In regards to bed bugs and swine flu: This Pamphlet Is Not The Same. Well, firstly people don’t outwardly seek bed bugs and H1N1, heroin use is a choice (at least it is that first time.) This flier gives you a play-by-play on how to shoot-up, from acquiring to disposing of needles, with street vernacular and everything: “only boot once or twice in one shoot…” I don’t even know what that means, it kind of makes me think there was a city official in a suit in tie on the block asking ‘Pookie’ for slang terms while he did the dope-lean in front of the bodega on Delancey and Ludlow.

Roasted Chicken In Potato Gravy, Homemade Potato Gnocchi, Lima Beans And Corn

There are some times when my foodie sensors spike and I have ‘visions of chefery’. This time I had visions of roast chicken with homemade potato gnocchi and vegetables. Vegetables, meaning whatever’s in the fridge. The gnocchi (potato dumplings) was definitely the star of the show, though, here’s the play-by-play:

First thing’s first, I had to prep, stuff and season the bird and get it out of the way. I used some regular Stove Top stuffing mix, but of course, I had to dress it up some: I chopped up some bacon, fried it in a skillet and sauteed some onions and celery. I don’t like touching raw meat, I’m kind of OCD when it comes to that, I wash my hands about 20 times when I cook. So you’re no going to find me rubbing butter on that chicken with my bare hand. I just melted some butter in a pan, added seasoning to it and drench it on top of the chicken. NOTE: I always bake my birds dark-meat-up. The dark meat is moist enough to be on top, with the drier white meat at the bottom, it’ll get all of the juice from the pan. The slice potatoes at the bottom of the pan were just  to be a base for the potato gravy. (Potatoes are also a good way to gauge when the meat is done, if you cut big enough piece they’ll take the same amount of time to cook.)

Homemade gnocchi or dumplings is something that everyone can make, it’s pretty easy, it just takes time. What I do is take a box of instant mash potatoes, any ole box. Put the flakes in a bowl and add half of the water suggested for the mash potato directions. It should be doughy,  but tough. Then I just start rolling little balls out of the dough. Admittedly, I should have had double the amount of gnocchi balls, but I was experimenting and being lazy.

After all of the dumplings was prepped, I dropped them in boiling hot water for a couple of minutes to try to solidify them further. Some of the gnocchi sheds in the water, that’s how you know it’s time to take it out, but save the water, it can be used as the potato gravy base for the chicken.

I added some garlic and a bay leaf to the leftover onions and celery from the stuffing. I was afraid that if I cooked the gnocchi on the stove top, in a pan, it would disassemble or be soggy, so I just put it in a roasting pan, added water and slipped it in the oven.

Rag Couture [designs by Bag Lady]

So this is new. People using sheets as coats, is this European? Please don’t catch on in New York. I know there are people out there that see this as fashion or something, but it looks like the bag lady caught an episode of Project Runway. Yeah, the lady on the left does look kind of chic, I think she was actually from Europe, but the guy on the train on the right was the classic FIT student from the city. When I first walked on the train, I thought he was the boogie man or the son of Candyman, minus the bees.

Next from the House Of Bag Lady, shower curtain bathing suits, Summer 2010 show in the Washington Square Park fountain, coming soon.

Sleep.NYC

In the city that never sleeps, New Yorkers have an uncanny ability to ‘nap’ wherever, whenever they want. [note: all of these pictures were taken between the hours of 12 and 7pm.] If you’re from here like I am, you also know about sleeping on the train and miraculously waking up right at your stop (even though you have headphones on.) But this here, doesn’t even make any sense.  This man was literally laying-out at the entrance to Penn Station smoking a cigarette, without a care in the world. I don’t even know (and I didn’t care) what was going on with that. The two guys on the platform benches are drunken day-laborers around Time Square/Port Authority-they go IN with the 12-packs and sit in the dining areas of deli/buffets along 8th Avenue after 5 and just drink until they’re red in the face and stumbling the 2 or 3 blocks to the train. Fat Bastard on the F-train was just f*cked up, I thought he was dead until he farted…