Sketchbook Dump #13

WTF is going on with me and candles

If you asked me a year ago if I would ever spend money on a candle I would’ve said oh you mean those things women waste money on when they’re old? Now my bank account is drained by Whole Foods candles that I keep buying and burning through.

It happened when I turned 30 and moved into a new apartment. Suddenly, I wanted candles. I wanted at least 3 of them burning at night in front of me as I watched TV. I wanted them to smell good but not overwhelming and I wanted them to be in big glass jars. The lighting felt so much safer than a harsh lightbulb! Candle light was so soft, gentle, dare I safe! (It’s actually fully not safe and of course could very well start a fire). Liking candles became the most mature thing about me. I’m still a slob and cannot cook, but I have full on conversations about candle quality with my boyfriend at least twice a week and am extremely interested in where other people are purchasing their candles.

Because, you guys… I don’t know if you know this, but candles insanely expensive. I mean, the ones that will make you nauseous are affordable, but the ones that will bring you comfort and the essence of Diane Keaton, you need to get a mortgage on your house to afford. And I don’t even HAVE a house so think about that.

I don’t know who got to decide this but one day someone in a meeting was like, “What if candles cost the same as dinner in New York?” and their co-workers were like “I love that for us.” And the contract with the devil was done and since then candles have been over $30 (dinner has of course, gone up). How am I supposed to keep up with this when I like to have them burning for 3 hours every night? The candles I bought a week ago are already half empty and it’s no where near Christmas (a time I assume I’ll be gifted a fancy candle). I don’t know how to survive!! In a recent Poog episode Novak suggested fake electric candles because you can fall asleep with them on and believe me I get it but I just… cannot get behind it. The vibe is lost on me, unless someone knows of some incredible fake candle that really brings the essence and smell of a real candle I won’t be going this route.

The fact that I am so upset about the price of actually everything is another sign I’m in my 30s. Everything I do, everywhere I go, I yell “I can’t afford this!!” but “this” is just like… being alive.

Something else I’m deeply upset about is the dog park situation in North Brooklyn (woah she IS a white woman!). Earlier this week an acquaintance of mine was arrested at a park for having their dog off leash. ARRESTED. Handcuffed, taken to the precinct, the whole fucking thing, all over a dog bothering literally no one. For those who are not dog owners, let me give you some context!

Most neighborhoods in Brooklyn have a somewhat (read: barely) decent dog park, but given the very high number of people who own dogs these days there are not enough dog runs to suffice the number of dogs. That means the dog runs themselves are over used, filled with piss, shit and beyond, and are very poorly taken care of. Last winter the McCarren dog run had a leptospirosis outbreak that killed at least 7 dogs. Since then a group called the McCarren Dog Run Allies formed to help keep the park safe — which is great — but that park serves almost all of Williamsburg, a neighborhood that also has two additional dog runs along the waterfront.

Enter Greenpoint, a neighborhood filled with pups. I counted every 3rd person I walked by on the street this week had a dog and confirmed through NYC Department of Health that Greenpoint has one of the highest numbers of registered dogs in all of New York. There is only one dog park here and it is a 25 plus minute walk from North Greenpoint over to McGolrick Park. As someone else more rightly put it, “This distance is extremely inconvenient to the able-bodied younger generations, [but] it effectively prohibits elderly, disabled and injured people from taking their dogs to the park.” The McGolrick dog run is basically a pile of dirt that I trek over to only to have to sludge back and spend another hour giving my dog a bath. It takes up my whole god damn day. If you live by McGolrick, great, problem solved, but the large community on the other side of McGuinness Blvd has no where to exercise their dog. So what happens when there’s no where to go? People let their dog off leash in regular parks. You can’t blame them. I do it all the time.

Transmitter Park is a great little spot along the water by the pier where people have been letting their dogs play morning and night for years. There are supposed to be off leash hours before 9 am and after 9 pm but for someone reason (well a very real reason, there’s literally an anti-dog group in Greenpoint) they took those away. Cruel? Yep! Did anyone care though? No. They (me) still took their dogs because it’s just an unspoken rule amongst the neighborhood — this is where dogs play. I obviously do not let Margie run around when people are picnicking or children are playing. I’m not a fucking idiot! I take her there, like the rest of the community, when I know it’s dog time.

So this week when twenty cops swarmed my friends at Transmitter and arrested a man for having his dog play it seemed a little… excessive? Ridiculous? Idk… illegal? I just happened to not be there that morning, but was told everything by a friend who had to run for her life. The cops had no right to arrest this man. His dog was back on a leash by the time the cops approached him, he was simply trying to have a conversation with them, they begun handing people summons, they were threatening to take their dogs to the pound, and suddenly someone is in handcuffs? Why is he in handcuffs, when he should be ticketed at most? What evil person called the cops enough for them to have a literal meeting where they find it necessary to take 20 of their employees (and our tax dollars) and have them spend time arresting dog owners when they could be dealing with a number of actual important things?

Only 2 hours after I heard about all this, I stopped to talk to an old man who sits in front of his building every day with his dog. We chit chat a lot. He was very upset because moments earlier, his dog was pooping in front of the building, this old guy grabs a poop bag, he turns around and somehow the cops have materialized in a matter of seconds, they’ve got his dog by the neck, and they’re threatening to take him away. He was so shook by it.

I ask you, wtf is going on when the police feel they have nothing better to do than to send these guys out to steal your dog and call it justified?

As the day came to an end, I needed to take Margie out again for some exercise and I couldn’t decide where would be safe. Not safe for the community, safe from the clear attack on dogs by the police. We wound up on an empty pier that should could run some laps on when another guy shows up with his labrador. He looks at me and says “Did you hear they arrested someone today?” Of course I had. We all had. He goes on to tell me how long he has been fighting this battle for the dog owners of Greenpoint. He’s lived here for years, he has stood in front of the counsel and begged them to put in a park for all of us. It would be so simple, it would eliminate the issue of dogs off leash in undesignated areas, it would solve everything. What did they say to him? They suggested he buy a piece of land on the waterfront and build his own dog park. They actually said that to him. I said, “So they told you to go fuck yourself?”

Ok end of rant!!!!!!!!!! Wow am I angry… anyway…!

Last week I had a huge revelation that horses have bangs.

It’s funny to think that a horse might have a night in with Meg Ryan movies, cry a lot, drink wine, then decide not to have bangs.

On another note, I’ve seen a lot of pigeon-children activity lately. It’s almost like the opposite of the agreement George has with the pigeons in Seinfeld. The child and the pigeon agree to be friends, as long as there are crumbs involved.

I was sick recently and turned into an actual dictator. It’s so fun to be sick, honestly. You just do nothing, order people around and turn into a bowl of soup. Speaking of soup! That’s the theme of Toonstack this week, edited by me, delivered to your inbox this Sunday morning. Subscribe now if you haven’t already!

I feel myself becoming a very intense kooky aunt lately and I’m ok with it.

I suppose I was a bit negative and enraged today so here’s something SWEETER!

And finally, a list:

Thank you for reading! New posts every Friday!

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• ICYMI: Lyz Lenz was on the pod this week!!!

• Latest Podcast binge: Kim Kardashian’s The System

• Obsessed with: The Triangle of Sadness

• Currently reading: Combat-Ready Kitchen: How the U.S. Military Shapes the Way You Eat

• Order prints and more on Etsy!

• Have you read Murder Book? I’d love to hear from you!