"I'm not racist, but..."

I met this crazy girl on the D train last night at 1:30 in the morning. She was clomping down the stairs in her Smith Street - style "crafty" boots with her mousy artistic hair clamming around her head. She peered over the edge of the platform, "Eww... those rats are fighting. Look! Gross! That big one is killing the smaller one." I looked at her as the sweat poured down my face and said "Um, I really don't want to watch those rats kill each other, it's bad enough that we have to sit on this inferno of a platform, and hear the rats... I don't need to watch them."

We got to talking about "underserved" train lines, and she seemed to think the F is superior to the D ... which I had to correct her after a summer of endless, steamy waiting for the F as in "fucked" train. The D is much cooler, quicker, and it runs X-press. We then got to debating the neighborhood... she's a Sunset Park resident for the past seven years originally from Boston. Hearing the word "Boston" made my red flag start waving.

"Look, don't get me wrong... the Chinese people are good neighbors, but THEY ARE TAKING OVER. With their buckets of frogs in the markets, the duck heads swinging everywhere, their third world, you know, well, look. They make great neighbors, they really value education -- much more than the Mexicans. I had a boyfriend who was Mexican, and he told me they don't value it that much... but look, the Chinese people are willing to sleep in their stores, and they Haul Ass as workers, but my Korean friend says they are really dirty, and really, they have taken over the Lower East Side and Little Italy, and I don't know how long you've been here, I've been here Seven Years and... and... and...."

Her glass blowing ways and her wild blue Bostonian eyes made me fearful of my fellow passengers, lest they think I shared her views. I sorta pointed out that every immigrant group gets the hell out of the L.E.S. the second when they can (the Jews, the Italians) that Little Italy has been kitsch for about 20 years, and the real Italians are in Brooklyn, Staten and Jersey and that really, its the hipster, rich fuck assholes that are ruining New York, not the Chinese....

But she wouldn't budge on the spread of the Chinese being something we should fear and talk about with incredibly Wide Eyes...

She clomped off the subway after giving me her card... "Call me! Call me! Bye!"

This photo I'm happy and relaxed on a hot, Florida spring night... far, far away from the Third World Threat.