Little Dose of Real Life

Caveat: This morning, I got up at 6:00. However, I did not sleep well. Why? Because I took my attorney Ethics Exam. And then I went out and drank heavily afterwards. Dude! That's what we DO! (anyhoo, I believe the for-going sentence is correct, and now I am going into "drunk-susannah-blog-mode." just bear-bare?-with me!)

so, my fave gay and i went out for brunch after the ethics exam (MPRE, for those of you in-the-know) to this place that does $15 for bottomless brunch drinks (mimosas, bellinis, champagne, BLOODY MARYS--hollaaaarrrr!!!), which we took FULL advantage of. We were there for a few hours and other boys showed up, and eventually, it was time for me to come back to brooklyn and matty to go off with his friends. so, point being, keep this in mind as you read the following...

on my subway ride home, the following things transpired:

the first subway car i got on smelled HEAVILY of vomit. i promptly got off at the next stop.

as i went to get off i dropped my purse, and two people alerted me to that fact.

they called me "miss" and not "ma'am."

it's a good day.

the next car i get on i stand next to a guy in army fatigues. i resist the urge to ask him WHY he is in the army and if he actually thinks he is defending the nation's interests.

i almost pass out resisting that urge.

at the next stop, enough people get off the train that i am able to move away from the army-fatigue-freak and sit down.

drunken-relaxation ensues.

i look to my left and see the cutest little-girl face completely passed out on her fathers' shoulder. i smile at the cuteness of the moment.

....

the father tries to put a jacket on the passed-out girl. although she is like 3 or 4, she is PASSED-THE-EFF-OUT and she is lolling all around as he bends her arms in unnatural positions to get the damn jacket on her. as he's doing this he drops a bright pink bag filled with toddler-girl essentials (snacks, diapers, horrible pink toys) and a man across the way picks it up. that's when i notice "daddy" has a little girl in EACH arm. probably about a year apart. he's still fighting to get the jacket on the littlest girl, when she opens her eyes for a moment, and her eyes meet mine before closing solidly again.

the poor little thing is going to wake up remembering dreams of that crazy drunk white girl who grinned at her. nightmare. swear to god.

true story.

that's when the two women across from me (catty-corner...kitty-corner? katty-corner? uuuhhhh.....to the guy and his two daughters) start putting their two-cents in. 

for the record, let me just say that all of them are black and i'm, well....i'm from los gatos, california. i am SURE that i viewed this differently than any of the people involved (this was, in fact, verified by a later conversation....but i'll get to that).

the two women across from me--one probs in her 60s and one probs in her 40s start telling the guy what he "needs" to do with these two little girls to ensure that he gets them both off the train. he's talking back with them about how hard it is, and he is desperately trying to wake the little girls up to make his life easier. the older woman looks at him and goes, "boy, now you know what their mother deals with every single day. you have it easy." (or something like that)

and then he goes in to this long thing about how he desperately has been fighting for his girls and how he is only allowed one day with them a week and how he wants more but he's not allowed and on and on.

my heart is breaking and i wish i could help. especially because i know that no matter how hard he tries, and no matter what "statistics" may say, the mother is still favored in child-custody issues. and i felt SO BAD for this father because i know that he cant figure out HOW to BE a father without more time with his daughters but he isn't legally allowed to be with them more than once a week and here are these two women openly calling him on that on a full subway car full of people and everyone is judging him....

at his subway stop, because he wasn't able to wake up either of his girls to have them walk, he hauled up both girls (one in either arm) and carried them off the subway. the younger of the two women across from me (they didn't know one another) looked to the older woman and said, "At least he's trying!" to which the older women responded i a tirade of how young black men today don't know anything about "trying" and she has this good-for-nothing-son that....blah blah blah....

i am not entirely sure why this situation affected me, and why i felt compelled to write about it. but i felt very out of the place there, and at some point, i shared a sympathetic smile with the younger of the two women, and as i shifted my glance to the older woman, she was giving me a very dirty look. it made me feel very outside and very self-aware of being different. 

this subway ride was almost 2 hours ago and i am still thinking about it. so weird. 

sorry for the drunken rambling. but at least im blogging!!! =D