While walking during my lunch break the other day, I noticed a homeless man sitting at the side of a church, scattering seeds and feeding about seven or eight pigeons. Some of them were nibbling and biting around him, others were perched on his arms, shoulders, and knees, but all were attentively eating and worshiping his very presence. The homeless man seemed really happy and peaceful.

When I was younger, I used to look at homeless people doing this and think it was the filthiest and most disgusting situation. Why would any human being want to actually attract these disease-infested, rodent-like birds? They’re not even remotely attractive and everyone else who is sane wants to stay far away from pigeons. But now, I actually understand why a homeless person might want to do this; everyone wants to avoid homeless people like the plague. People blame homeless people for being homeless and assume all of them are just druggies and just wasted away all their money. No one wants to give them the light of day, so how do they get out of their suffering and misery? With the pigeons, they don’t care. They just want food, and if a homeless person can give it to them, that’s a win-win situation for both: the pigeons, who are avoided by everyone, get food and nourishment, while the homeless person, also avoided by everyone, gets some attention and tenderness… even just a simple touch from the birds. And that reminds them of their humanity when everyone else wants to deny it of them. Can you blame a human being for wanting some love and attention? We all want it, yet we don’t often get enough of it.

Last September, my boss got me a very generous gift certificate to Great Jones Spa as a bridal shower gift. I decided to save it for a couple weeks out from my wedding to get a deep cleansing facial, so I went to the spa today. I enjoyed my facial quite a bit, including the foot treatment that was very unexpected, but did I think it was worth $160? Probably not, but at least treatments over $100 include use of their water lounge.

I love water lounges. I generally spend most of my time in the hot bubbling water and a grand total of three seconds in the cold plunge. It’s a great way to relax and ease my muscles, especially after five days of intense workouts. What is not great to relax is when the water lounge is full of loud white uppity women who decide to talk and laugh loudly in a place that is meant to be tranquil.

As I am sitting on my long beach chair perusing a skincare magazine mindlessly while drinking herbal tea and snacking on rice crackers, I watched as one of the patrons (everyone here was white except me) stopped one of the Hispanic workers (all the workers doing the cleanup are Hispanic) and said to her slowly as though she could not understand English, “You work so hard. So hard!!” The worker smiled weakly and didn’t say anything other than a quick thanks.

I wasn’t sure that was really necessary. Did that white woman think she was doing a good thing by acknowledging the hard work of that Hispanic worker, who is one of many on the staff that works hard to ensure patrons like her a great spa experience? Does it make her feel better to know that we live in a painfully color-aware, class-ist society?

Every time I go to one of these places, even though I enjoy the experience, I always feel like I don’t really fit in. Seeing that exchange made me realize why. I don’t really fit with that uppity white woman, but I also don’t fit in with the Hispanic service worker. Great.

I remember when I first tried to read Shakespeare, I was about 12 or 13, and I couldn’t get through the play. I don’t even remember the name of the play, but I couldn’t get past the language. Then in high school, in class we read A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, and Macbeth. I really enjoyed all three of them, especially Hamlet, and the old English language suddenly didn’t matter anymore and I was finally able to appreciate Shakespeare. Then, for my friend’s birthday, we went to see the Drunk Shakespeare version of Macbeth, and I thought it was a complete waste of money.

It was really hard to follow, and I don’t think you’d have to have read Macbeth to be able to not follow it at all. The references to modern day pop culture and life were a little amusing, but for the most part, it resembled very little of the Shakespeare I appreciate. In fact, I was waiting the entire two hours for the show to be done. It’s basically like paying $60 to see a bunch of drunk young adults dance, spar, fight, argue, yell, and sing random Disney songs with the occasional hint of Shakespeare quotations. I’m pretty certain that the people who are raving about it and rating it so highly on Yelp and Tripadvisor just love to pay too much money to watch a bunch of drunk people “act” and mumble and yell Shakespearean words and language. If I could get my money back for this, I would. Why would I pay to see a bunch of intoxicated people stumble around when I could do that for free any late night anywhere in this great metropolis?