The Un-Complaint Bureau

Rich or poor, young or old, black or white there’s one thing all New Yorkers have in common: we all love to complain. This isn’t merely an astute observation it's fact. I remember my mother reading an article in the New York Times some 30 years ago detailing a study that showed that most New Yorkers met and engaged with strangers through the art of whining.

Think about it, it happens to us every day. You’re standing waiting for the train and they announce it’s going local (or express, whatever is most inconvenient.) You turn to look at the person next to you and you both roll your eyes and sigh. Soon after you’ll find yourself and your fellow train-taker explaining why this delay is especially disruptive or ironic to you, eg “I was going to take a cab…there was one right outside of my apartment. Now I’ll never make my doctor’s appointment.” Or, “My boss kept me late; I just missed the train before…how can this day get worse?” Chances are the kvetch-fest won’t stop there. By the time you reach your stop, you’ll have made a new friend.

In fact, a few months ago, a nice old lady was very concerned when an oblivious suit stepped on my sandaled foot and didn’t apologize. We began talking about how rude people can be, we got into New York City government (she asked if I remembered Mayor Lindsey, which I did) and by the time I got off at Penn Station she heartily approved of my politics and my choice of husband. We didn’t exchange numbers or become Facebook pals, but that person was a bright spot in my day and I will remember her for a long time.

Bonding with one another and breaking down the barriers of race, age and socio-economic status is great, but, for the most part, complaining can get out of hand. I invite you to try a very scary experiment: count how many times you complain in a given day. Congress, weather, your spouse, your neighbors, your friends, your boss, litterbugs, Time Warner Cable, Con Ed, the snooty waiter, the idling tour bus outside your window…whatever it is it can take up a large portion of our day and a lot of mental energy.

We call it venting but nothing really changes. According to Psychology Today, when we have so many dissatisfactions and frustrations, yet believe we're powerless to do much about them or to get the results we want, we are left feeling helpless, hopeless, victimized, and bad about ourselves. Obviously, one such incident won't harm our mental health, but we have so many complaints, this scenario happens many times a day. This accumulation of frustration and helplessness can add up over time and impact our mood, our self-esteem, and even our general mental health. No wonder why New Yorkers have the reputation for crankiness!

Sure, the city isn’t easy all the time, but it’s New York Freaking City for goodness sake – the capital of the free world! Anything we could ever want to eat, do or see is at our fingertips. Things actually run pretty well, when you think about it. We should feel privileged to live here. We should be walking around like Buddhist monks who have reached Nirvana.

So why don’t we? Personally, I think we are hard wired to complain and don’t really know how to break the circuits. I feel that we’ll also seem weak – an unforgivable transgression for New Yorkers – if we behave cheerfully or express gratitude. After all, we’re not granola-munching tree huggers from Vermont or Nebraska, right?

But when I do encounter that rare New Yorker that’s sunny and appreciative, I feel a bit chagrined. My doorman David is that kind of person. I happen to know that he’s a single dad with a long commute and a big extended family that come to him with their issues. But every day when I see him he has a big smile and asks about my day. I usually rant about the skateboarders who terrorize my dog or the BMCC students smoking in groups on the corner and he nods sympathetically. I asked about his life and he usually responds, “oh I can’t complain, things are good.” I look at my shoes with a bit of shame before I take the elevator up to my lovely, safe, clean home in the greatest city in the world.

The shame comes from wishing I could be as gracious and grateful as someone I know is facing tougher challenges than I. But that behavior is far from my instinct. But I can change that – and it seems that I have many reasons to other than being a pleasant person.

Researchers in the field of Positive Psychology report that having a positive attitude and expressing gratitude helps prevent (or reverse) a multitude of emotional and physical problems from anxiety to cardio vascular disease.

I decided that if I feel too proud and tough to express gratitude to my fellow New Yorkers, maybe I can just call it “uncomplaining.” Instead of bonding with a stranger over a rough commute or a long wait in a doctor’s office, I could share our good fortune over a smooth bus ride or quick checkout line at Whole Foods. If I say it with enough irony in my voice (like “this doesn’t happen often”) no one will mistake me for an enlightened yogi.

So here goes…

Today, as I was walking my beautiful border collie, I couldn’t help noticing the crystal clear blue sky, the gentle breeze and fluffy clouds of this picture-perfect autumn day. I realized that the past two months have been unbelievably beautiful weather-wise: August was warm, not hot, and September has been clear and breezy. Sure it rained here and there, but it seemed to do so mostly at night when we can watch the deluge safe and dry from our windows. As we near the anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, I realize how lucky we’ve been so far – ‘cause it could get worse.

Get it…that’s uncomplaining.  Some sun with a hint of doom. That should work, right?

No one can change overnight and New Yorkers are a pretty stubborn breed. So let’s try this exercise together. Turn to the person next to you at the movies when they show the 11^th preview and say something like, “don’t you love the smell of movie popcorn…so much better than the urine stench outside the theater.” Or when you’re tempted to unload on your mother about your husband’s forgetfulness you could swap it out with, “I’m so glad I don’t have to go through life’s crap alone anymore even if it’s with someone who can’t remember where we keep the scissors.”

 

I’d love for you to share your “uncomplaints” with me.

Escape Route out of the Rut

Recently, I was chosen to participate in a focus group on recreational activities in the Seaport area. Besides the fact that I think doing a focus group is possibly the easiest money to be made and they usually serve snacks, I was excited to do it as a very enthusiastically loyal resident of Lower Manhattan.

To qualify for the group, I was asked a multitude of questions about me, my lifestyle and my entertainment choices. Ah, there’s the rub. This is when I realized the serious rut that I’m in.  Here’s how the interview went:

Surveyor:  When was the last time you visited Brooklyn Bridge Park?

Me: Uh…where?

Surveyor: When was the last time you visited Governor’s island?

Me: Uh…I guess a year ago…no wait, it was before we adopted our dog…hmm six years ago.

My most recent non-restaurant night out
-- lots of culture, right?

Surveyor: Have you shopped at Century 21 within the last six months?

Me: Of course!

But the real death knell came when she asked: If you won an all-expense paid trip to any other city where would you go and what would you do? Remember, money is no object. I was stumped; totally stumped. Somehow San Francisco came into my head so I said that. Now, I keep wishing I said Buenos Aires (as if I was really being offered this trip!) And when she pushed for what I would do in this wonderful city I could only reply, “I guess go to a really good restaurant.” Pathetic. That’s all I could think of. I stammered for a bit and then added something about "seeing a show” (whatever that means) taking some tour (even vaguer). Perhaps even more depressing is the fact that three days later I still can’t think of anything else.

So there is my dilemma. Entertainment has boiled down to basically one thing for me: eating.  Sure, I hear music now and then – but only when someone else invites me. I have basically even stopped going to the movies. I can’t see the point of shelling out more than $30 for me and my husband when we can curl up on the couch and see that same movie for percentage of our Netflix membership a few months later. I haven’t been to the theater since I quit my job in fundraising. When you’ve gotten years and years of free tickets to Broadway benefits it’s painful to shell out triple digits for a ticket (well, at least for me!) When I was single, I would attend evening lectures at museums. That hasn’t happened in over eight years either.

I remember being super proud of myself and my husband that we played mini golf at Pier 25 on one of our rare "date nights" instead of -- you guessed it -- eating out. But mini golf is not culture...is it?

I live in a city that is often tough to bear. It’s crowded, dirty, very expensive, sometimes challenging to navigate, full of intense people darting through the crowd on their way to something very important or standing in the middle of the sidewalk completely oblivious to the world staring at their smartphone. But we stay because New York is a cultural mecca, right? Art! Fashion! Theater! Music! Ballet! Opera! Architecture! Literature! It's all here for the taking but I do not partake.

 

Last night I had dinner with a dear friend who complained that she’s behind watching all the “it” TV shows of the moment. She’s only up to season 2 in Breaking Bad and has way too many Masterpiece Theaters in her DVR. She explained that she’s out every night until 9pm going to lectures, doing pilates, seeing plays, etc. Having had the above epiphany just hours earlier I had to laugh.  I comforted her by explaining that she was living a 3-dimensional life and that TV was merely 2 dimensions. TV should be what we do when we have absolutely nothing else to do. She seemed to accept this happily until my husband came back from the restroom and asked her if she heard about the spin-off of the Walking Dead.

Well, I know change does not come easily but I am stating here and now that I want to change. I want to be as much a part of this vibrant cultural life as I was in my thirties.  Or at least get out as much as we did as a couple before we became doggie parents and decided a fun night was simply adoring the most beautiful border collie in the world. This photo is proof that we have been to museums -- even as far as Rome. I remember I liked it. Although I must admit I look rather jet-lagged!

Step one is that  tonight I’m taking my beloved TV-addicted husband to an off-Broadway show to celebrate his birthday  (for those who know him, his birthday was yesterday and it’s not too late to wish him a Happy Birthday!)

Step Two is enlisting YOUR help. I’m clearly not in the loop. So if you have ideas for outings let me know. If you’ve done something fun and interesting outside a restaurant or multiplex, please share it with me.

I know I’m too old and busy to be out there two or three nights a week. But I feel I can redeem myself if I do something cultural just once a month. So I implore you to send some suggestions my way.

Enjoy!

Remembrance Outside the Box

This week marked the 12t^h anniversary of September 11^th, and the first year I didn’t formally commemorate the horrible events of the day. It wasn’t a deliberate decision at first. A month ago I was trying to find a mutually available date for lunch with a former boss, and Wednesday the 11^th is what we settled on after much back and forth.  As I entered the lunch date into my schedule, I realized the significance of the day and was oddly relieved.

Admittedly, it’s not easy to live a mere four blocks away from ground zero on the anniversary of the attacks. The preparation for remembrance starts many days before with a beefed up police presence, then come road blocks and barricades, then the frighteningly loud convoy of motorcycle riders circling the area at midnight on the eve of the attacks. Aside from having commercial jets fly dangerously low, I don’t think there’s any more you could do to shake one’s nerves to the core. So, I guess it’s not surprising that when I had an opportunity to get out of Dodge, I took it.  

But it was more than that. When I awoke this Wednesday morning, my husband asked me if I was ready to turn on NY 1 and watch the reading of the names.  Before I could even rub the sleep out of my eyes, I replied an unequivocal “no.”  Steve nodded and I believe he was relieved as well.

It’s not that I’m ready to forget, it’s just that I’m tired of remembering in this very pomp-and-circumstance-public-political way.

Yes, 9/11 changed the world. The consequences of the attacks have touched everyone who was alive that day and everyone born afterwards. But it directly affected millions of New Yorkers, hundreds of passengers and their families on the three flights that were hijacked and crashed, and the workers in the pentagon. And I believe that we who were directly affected have the right to remember the day in a very private and personal way.

That’s why I decided that in my post today, I would recount my own experience that day.  It is not nearly as dramatic as many of my friends’ accounts or as grim and upheaval-causing as what my husband lived through, but it is mine and no one else’s. It doesn’t require a live telecast or elected officials to mark it; Just me, here at my laptop.

I hit the snooze an extra time on September 11, 2001. It was primary day and I had told my staff I would be in late after voting. I figured the polls would not be so busy and I would catch a bit more sleep under the auspices of fulfilling my civic duty. As usual, NY 1 was on my TV as I rushed around my studio apartment in Gramercy Park getting ready to leave for the day. I was in the bathroom putting on make-up when Pat Kiernan announced that there various reports of a plane flying into the World Trade Center. I rushed into my living/bedroom and sat down. I would not get up for some time. I called my mother living in Westchester to share this odd story. We continued to speak as I watched the story unfold. At first reporters assumed it was a private plane gone awry, but soon we would all be disabused of those impressions as the second plane crashed into the second tower.

Now, this is when my behavior doesn’t really make sense. I hung up with my mom and was determined to get to work. Why? I just felt compelled to be with my staff and perhaps be of service. But I believe now that I just needed to be with fellow New Yorkers. If this was the end of the world I didn’t want to be alone.

I grabbed a cab and when my eyes met with the cabbie’s I immediately knew he knew what was happening. I told him I needed to go to Houston and Sixth Avenue. He told me he’d try to get me as far south and west as possible but that they were already blocking off streets. He dropped me at West Broadway and I ran the rest of the way.

In those days as Director of Development at Gilda’s Club NYC, I worked on the fourth floor of an historic brownstone. My office was more like a parlor with a flowered couch, comfy chairs and a TV. There I found my staff huddled around watching the coverage. Most days, they annoyed me with their petty disputes and their resistance to new work. Today, I was elated to find them all alive.

When they announced that one of the planes was flight 11 from Logan Airport, a chill ran down my spine. My stepmother, Carol, had been working that run for years as a flight attendant for American Airlines. I immediately grabbed the phone and called her cell. In a huge moment of grace, she picked up the line bleary and sleepy 3000 miles away in Los Angeles having landed from flight 11 just several hours before. I was the one to let her know what was happening and that her coworkers had perished.

When I hung up I thought about who else I should call to let them know I was safe. I had the sudden thought that I should call my grandparents. Of course, they all had been dead for years. But for some reason, they kept popping in my head. Today, I believe they were with me the entire day. And because this is my story and no one else’s this is my truth.

When the first tower fell, my coworkers and I rushed up to the roof. We had to see with our own eyes, unfiltered by the television screen. It couldn’t be real, could it? Shortly after we gathered on the roof and watched the dust cloud settle, the second tower fell. We gasped. There was an eerie silence -- as if the city had been muted by an alien remote control.  I began to really think this was the end. This was it. No more New York. No more life.

My boss made the decision to send us all home early. For those of us in Manhattan it was clear we would be walking. For others it was unclear how they would get home. As the door to the townhouse locked I wasn’t sure I’d ever see any of them again. I started down Sixth Avenue alone and was struck by the sight of people casually eating lunch at Bar Pitti and other outdoor restaurants and cafes. It was like something from a Fellini film.  A dark smoke cloud hovered ominously above, ash-covered zombie-like workers from wall street were trudging their way uptown having witnessed death and destruction first-hand while denizens of Soho sipped on fruity cocktails and dipped their forks into crisp salads. Denial can be very soothing.

I stopped by the old Cabrini Hospital to see if they needed blood, but no bodies nor wounded had arrived. They didn’t know what they needed and turned away me and many other well-meaning New Yorkers. I continued up Third Avenue and passed my childhood idol, former New York Met Rusty Staub, on the street. You can’t miss him. He’s tall and stout with flaming red hair. When he played for the Montreal Expos they called him “Le Grande Orange.” We both smiled at each other as if we were old friends. Things had become officially surreal.  

I reluctantly entered my apartment desperately still needing human contact but not knowing where I should or could go safely. Instead I watched the news compulsively and manned the phones – checking the locations of all my loved ones and recounting what I saw to family and transplanted New Yorkers.

I called my closest friend at the time I learned her brother-in-law – a mentally disabled adult working in the mail room at Cantor Fitzgerald -- was gone.  Her husband, a trader for Goldman Sachs, said when he arrived home that he was covered in his brother’s ashes. I will never forget that image or the sweet man who was part of an extended family for me. I had worked with the staff at Windows on the World for many events and mourn their loss.  There are many more people who I had known in one way or another, but I do feel blessed that I didn’t lose anyone close to me that day.

In the days that followed, unable to get downtown to my office, I spent quiet, comforting days in friends’ homes talking, playing music (or, in my case, listening to others play music!) and eating whatever we had in the fridge.

Slowly, life returned. Not to normal. No, there would never be normal again. But there was life, work and even play after a while. Well, at least for me.

It was surreal, frightening, strange, inconvenient but not personally tragic for me. I lost some acquaintances. I lost the two iconic structures that I watched being erected as a kid in Brooklyn and believed belonged to me. I lost a sense of false security that I will never get back along with the ability to travel through American airports with a Muslim surname without being stopped. But I didn’t lose a member of my family, or my job or my place to live.

My story is my story. It doesn’t fit into a patriotic one-size-fits-all box. That is why I’m glad that I spent this Wednesday afternoon having an enjoyable lunch in midtown followed by some productive shopping at Marshalls.

And that is why I am glad to share my story with you – my friends – today. The process of recalling that day – moment by moment – on paper has been hugely powerful and I am grateful for the opportunity.

Now, I invite you to share your stories with me – whether you think I know them or not.