The Courtesy Phone

When I first moved to New York in 2002 I did not have a cell phone and I, and maybe that big creepy fat guy that spends all day at the deli, were the only two people in the city who used pay phones. Of course, the blackout of 2003 happened, and there were lines ten people deep at the few free-standing phones left in the city. Many of those same structures have gone the way of the Walkman, the beeper, the giving of directions, and the memorizing of telephone numbers (we can talk about that tragedy another time). But there are a few gleaming bastions of civilized society left in this town, small little squares of real estate where one can stop, close a door and have a (gasp, hand to the heart or throat) private conversation. I have noticed these temples of decorum seem to remain in institutions of higher moral regard, or perhaps they are a sign of those same institutions' pure refusal to move everything along with the times. You can take my card catalog but you can't take my telephone booths. Yes, the local library preserves our stores of knowledge (unless the magnetic poles shift and Jake Gyllenhaal shows up), but also the pay phone, like those found on the ground level of the main branch of the New York Public Library (and on the first floor too, see below).

by Erik S. Lieber

from www.infrastructurist.com

 

But what of those precious oases on the street? The phone booth has traditionally been a place of refuge, both a literal one from the elements, but also a place of safety, a life line, a last hope. This image and the idea it represents has become iconic in our culture. Like Brenda stranded in the Chicago bus station waiting desperately in a phone booth for Elisabeth Shue, or poor Tippi taking shelter from the gulls, or Griffin Dunne emptying his pockets looking for money to make a call, Christian Slater (before he became his Own Worst Enemy, in more ways than one) and Patricia Arquette sanctifying their union, even Clark Kent's alter ego sheltered behind those squeaky accordion doors. (And yes, the phone booth can also be a depository for bodily fluids, graffiti and chewing gum, but lots of great things in this world, like children or your favorite jeans, may at one time be covered in pee, graffiti or spent gum)








Of course our city and state governments have a responsibility to provide public phones, for safety if nothing else, for those moments when cell phones die or networks are overwhelmed. Can you list all the public phones within a few blocks of your house, can you list any? When they are present they are invisible to us, like parking meters to pedestrians, like boyfriends to players ("what's your pay phone got to do with me?"). What we notice is the absence. So, that is my argument for the fully fledged telephone booth, an icon preserved, a civic responsibility fulfilled, and lastly a large and easily identifiable port in a storm. Here is my most recent find at the Brooklyn Public Library.

natalie get your gun

Over the last decade there has been an increasingly popular trend among celebrities: the shot gun wedding.  Now as a disclaimer, let me say there is nothing wrong with an unplanned pregnancy. There is also nothing wrong with having children out of wedlock. Here is what I don't get: I do not understand being six months into a relationship, getting pregnant and then, as if it is a logical next step, getting engaged. There are dozens of celebrities that have taken this path, the most well know couple is probably Katie Holms and Tom Cruise, the most recent is Natalie Portman and her Black Swan costar. To this I say, Et Tu, Natalie? Now her Harvard education doesn't preclude her from making some stupid choices. A Harvard degree, contrary to what the institution would have you believe, does not guarantee intelligence (or sanity, just ask the Unabomber). 

This strange trend raises a few questions. Do movie stars lack decent education on birth control? Do they see parenthood as a way to create drama (not knowing that the second the kid is born they are no longer the stars of their own lives)? Have they been brainwashed by the romantic comedies they preform, believing that having a baby is romantic and the ultimate symbol of commitment? It is the ultimate commitment, but it is not a symbol. It is not a shiny ring that you can put into a draw when you start developing a rash on your finger. Having a baby with someone is the ultimate adventure that two people can have, the kind of adventure that tests your love for one another, and yes, it certainly brings you closer. Fighting in a war with someone brings you closer. 

I don't mean to sound cynical; there are so many moments of peace and sublime sweetness between parents and children. My focus here is on the pressure that having a baby can put on your relationship. Even the strongest unions struggle under the weight of a newborn, why would someone want to take that challenge on with a person they hardly know. PBT believes that you shouldn't marry someone you've known for less then ten years. I'm a bit more flexible than that. Maybe three years? But why are these stars choosing to marry so quickly? Is the stigma around an unmarried couple with children still so powerful? Why not just live together and see how it goes, why make it . . . not official, you have a kid, that's frogging official, why make it legally binding? If you want a kid so badly why not just follow Padma Lakshmi's example, get pregnant and do it on your own terms. Or pull a Brad and Angelina and create a new definition of family that works for you. Maybe the prospect of doing it alone is just too scary. Maybe the prospect of being that vulnerable with someone with no legal safety net in place is terrifying. 

Maybe as a culture we can't get away from our 1950's image of what a family is supposed to look like. Messing with accepted and anticipated order of events may be as subversive an act as we can manage right now. I supposed that is better than blindly accepting the status quo, but it doesn't feel like enough. It feels like smart girls getting knock up and relinquishing their power, sacrificing it on the alter of some stupid image of their future that was manufactured by Disney to sell plastic sparkle wands and pink sequined princess shoes. Of course, it's easy for me to say all this when my gender identity is exactly where Miss Manners would want it, I'm a stay at home mom with a husband who works full time to support his two ladies. My glass house is very sparkly. 

the genetics of style

Tangerine nails. Something new I'm trying. When asked to join a group of people at the local Russian baths I decided I needed shocking nails, something to take the attention off of my ill-fitting bathing suit (fyi: you can lose all the baby weight, but you can't put things back where they used to be). And some way of accessorizing when jewelry will get hot enough to burn you and makeup will melt off your face. Did I mention that the Russian Baths are basically a bar that everyone goes to in their bathing suits? Normally, I'm not one to care about these things, (when I say "makeup" I mean lip tint and mascara) but even I, a secure and fit (enough) person has her limits. Anyway, I've never really liked painting my nails, in fact it was always just another thing to pick or peel. But lately I've been wanting to look more pulled together, or if not that, than at least like I tried in some capacity. So nails. That is what I can muster. I can't wear my schoolmarm witch shoes by Chie Mihara, bad weather and bad feet. I have no occasion to wear my Vena Cava dress or my Lauren Moffatt jacket. And if I did, I barely have the energy for that kind of dressing. My energy level is at nails, and occasionally hats.

Hats are particularly nice because they distract from, or add to, an otherwise lackluster outfit. I like how my very inspiring friend Miss E described fashion, adornment as creative expression. Some might say that fashion is frivolous, and it is. But one: I'm really talking about style and art in the form of design, you can debate if that is what you call "fashion." And two: couldn't we all use a little frivolity in our lives, some light-hearted fun?

My grandmother was a woman with great style, she wore long brocade sheaths with matching coats, she wore gloves and carried tiny bejeweled purses (when appropriate, of course). She was a statuesque woman, striking, and I imagine, fearless. She wore Pucci. Her hats were from Bonwitt Teller. She had dresses handmade during her travels, in India, Jamaica, Hong Kong. And they always had lace over the hemstitching and stays for bra straps. Her clothes reflected her attention to detail, her demand for good quality, her exhaustingly high standards, and her love of beautiful things. While I was seventeen when she died, her brain, her self, died when I was nine years old. I was never able to know her, to ask her if keeping up that level of appearances was worth it. Was it ever fun, did she ever feel it was a choice? I feel lucky that I don't have to jump through all of those cultural, societal, and wearable hoops. I don't have to wear stockings, ever. I don't have to wear heels, or hats or gloves, and so choosing to wear them is an act of creative expression. It is a tribute I pay to my grandmother, and one I pay to a by-gone time when quality and beauty were synonymous. My grandmother would be scandalized to see what I wear outside of my house (though I am my mother's daughter and spend most of my time in jeans in wool sweaters, so maybe it wouldn't surprise her that much). She would be dismayed by my habit of applying liptint while riding the subway. But, I like to think that she would be happy that as a tired and spread-thin artist I still don some lovely bit of tulle and wire, before I head into Manhattan, where she study art herself in the twenties. Maybe she wore the same hat and walked down the same street. I wish I could ask her. But I know she would hate the tangerine nails. Here is a sampling of my own hat collection, the first two and the black belonged to my grandmother.

for fancy dress events

Mary Poppin's easter hat

the old stand-by

found in Savannah in 1999, there was a veil, but it didn't survive

This one is waiting patiently for spring

Mommy Dearest, Nanny Darling

There are many things I have discovered as a result of having a baby like I would rather sleep than do just about anything (that's a lie, I knew that before the kid); that by the age of one a child can understand all the simple words and phrases used in every day life even if she can't say them herself; that the worst parenting critics are sweet little old ladies who accost you in the grocery store because you forgot to bring a sweater for your kid even though it is 90 degrees outside (to be fair it is horribly cold in super markets, and the kid ended up wearing PBT's extra shirt toga style); that most children's books are engineered to make you cry ( i.e. Lama Lama Red Pajama); that after becoming a parent any mention of sad, missing, hurt, or otherwise unhappy children (even if they are grown up and the sadness is all in flashback) in any media form will make you blubber like an idiot and cling to your spouse saying things like "we will never let our baby more then twenty feet from us and during which time we will use some sort of unbreakable tether. She can easily attend college courses wearing it. And we should immediately adopt all unhappy babies. And tether those babies to us;" and that your mother is probably the world's greatest person because she did everything you are doing but with less help and more children (thanks mom).

There is another thing that preoccupies me about parenting. Childcare. As a member of an online moms' group I've been privy to many conversations about childcare between mothers, both working and at home. What has surprised me the most is the way that so many parents devalue this service, asking questions like "why can't we pay the nanny less for babysitting at night when the kid is asleep?" This line of questioning, the one that treats the job like something other than a job, is bizarre to me. People often want to pay less for childcare than they would for housecleaning. Too often parents don't value their nanny's time. They must be paid the same rate whether the kid is sleeping or awake because the parents are paying for the nanny's time not for her level of on-the-job activity. A cashier doesn't get paid less when there are fewer customers. Her time is not less valuable just because the kid is sleeping. Not to mention the fact that the kid could wake up or there could be an emergency.

I feel lucky because I have found two babysitters (sitters, not professional nannies) who are wonderful with my girl, but who also have helped me to see how to best treat someone who is in my home taking care of my kid. It also helps that I was a babysitter up until I got pregnant (it is the perfect job for supplementary income). My two sitters ask to be given car fare home if it is after 10 pm. I also always provide a meal for them. They are, after all, captive in my house. Sure, they could go out and buy something, or bring something from home, but I feel it is important that I have food for them. If I don't, I provide the cash for ordering delivery (particularly at night, when they can't go out themselves). Of course, they may just end up with fish sticks and hummus on toast, but I try to have something more adult-oriented on hand. When I worked in restaurants I was always provided a meal, this is the same principle. The nanny cooks for your kid, so there needs to be food for the nanny to eat too.

It is so easy to forget that hanging out in your house with your fabulous kid is hard work. Though I'm not sure that is the crux of the issue. I'm home all day with my girl and there are plenty of minutes or hours that feel like frogging work. So maybe it's not that some parents forget how much work it is, but just that they are reluctant to face the reality of the expense: the extra food, the cars home, the paid vacation time, the living wage. Maybe when faced with the hundreds or thousands of dollars a month expended on childcare parents need to cut corners any way they can. I just worry about it. I worry when I go to the Y with my girl and pass the long row of women finding a warm dry play space, finding a way to break up their long day caring for someone else's baby. I worry that those women aren't getting what they deserve. Many of those same women bring a wonderful diversity to our too homogenous neighborhood, but it is tragic that diversity is not extended to class distinction. Where are all the white nannies anyway, where are the affluent Caribbean women going off to law firms and brokerage houses while their blond wisp of a nanny changes the butt bombs? But I guess that is another post all together.

In other news, I now have a spiffy new computer that has things like a fully functioning space bar and more than one GB of available memory, so look out.