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?

Tonight, we had dinner with our couple friend we just met late last year during my friend’s nonprofit food tour. In a week, they are moving to Switzerland for six months for one of their job’s rotations. They are both very outgoing and extroverted, and every single lunch and dinner for their last two weeks in New York City would be spent with some combination of friends, colleagues, and former colleagues. They were both excited about it when telling us, but the whole time I listened to them, I imagined myself feeling completely exhausted.

It made me think about what our last two weeks in New York will be like when we leave eventually. We don’t even have friends that could fill up a week’s worth of meals in this city, let alone two weeks. A lot of the “friends” we made were just people we spent time with at work, and once we left work (or the company altogether), they were out of our lives. I’m sure that when we leave, the last few weeks would be loaded with doing a lot of the touristy things we never got around to doing, loading up on all the theater we will be leaving behind, eating at restaurants we hadn’t yet tried but always wanted to, and perhaps the occasional meal with a friend who would be staying here. But I really think it would be far less people focused and far more New York City — I will miss you — focused.

Tonight, I organized a team dinner for all of the account and campaign managers who work on my clients, and I got a lot of push back from our finance team regarding the spend limit. I finally got a spend limit approved of over double the original amount I was given, and it was sad because the restaurant I chose is supposed to be a reasonably priced place.

For a party of at least eight, the family-style dining includes four appetizers, four mains, and a shared dessert plate. With two hours of unlimited house red and white wine, the price per person is $84 (before tax and tip). And that is supposed to be “cheap” by Manhattan standards. It just goes to show that the term “reasonably priced” is extremely, extremely relative.

I finally redeemed my Drybar gift certificate I got from my boss today since I’m going out with Chris and friends tonight to celebrate my birthday a day early. I walked into the Drybar on the Upper East Side this afternoon for my appointment and was greeted with glasses of mimosas, a large selection of gourmet cookies, and stacks and stacks of beauty and fashion magazines. The boutique was brightly lit, decked in white and yellow, and every woman sitting and waiting for an appointment seemed high strung and as though they were regulars at this spot. Clearly, I did not fit right in.

I got called in and my stylist asked me what brought me in. I told her I was new and had never done a blowout before, but that I’d like the Cosmo, the look from their limited menu that has loose curls. I told her my hair does not take curls well at all… so good luck. She washed and conditioned my hair, and proceeded to segment my hair out and clip, clip, clip it all up. And she began her blowing out and her curling. And I felt too much heat at my roots and so much on my hair that as the minutes went by, all I could think was, there is no way this could be healthy. But at the end, I was impressed with what she had done in such a short period of time. I had a head full of curls, and it actually looked good — I had volume, curls, and bounce. I also felt like a different person when I looked at myself in the mirror. This is why this place is addictive, I thought as I walked out. Women love being treated and pampered, and we all seem to love the idea of being transformed into gorgeous specimens.

But I have too much prudence to make this a regular fix for myself. It’s not in me to get too obsessive about my hair and other aspects of my physical appearance, and I’ll never be a fashionista who makes what she wears a top priority in her life. Food and travel are so much bigger and more exciting.

I met with my mentee in the high school mentoring program I participate in tonight. I felt bad because I haven’t been able to make a single session for the last four months because I’ve been out of town every single time a meeting got scheduled. I’d always apologize in my emails to my mentee, and in each email that approached the next session, she’d always say that she hoped to see me then and that she missed me. It always made me feel like a negligent mentor.

So, I finally see her after not seeing her since last May, and what has happened to her since then? Not only has she curled her eyelashes and put on eye shadow and lipstick, but she’s even curling her hair now and trying to wear heels! She’s still growing into her body and is very awkward when she moves. I’m sure that was like me when I tried to wear heels and stand up tall when I was around her age. I told her she looked really cute with her hair, and she gave me a disgusted look and said it looked terrible and that she messed it up several times that morning.

She says she’s been an hour and a half late to school for her mentoring class each Tuesday because of the train and bus, but I wonder if it’s because she’s spending extra time doing her hair and makeup in the morning. These are the issues of teen girls across the country, if not the world, regardless of socioeconomic background or English language proficiency.