PPW Cheerleader

The only cheerleader I've ever seen on Prospect Park West. I wonder if people find this image sad or funny. I see it both ways.

This however, I only see as funny: Last night my daughter drew a childlike image of a robot's head in my notebook. I took that notebook, open to that page when I went to tour a middle school this morning, the Bay Academy in Sheepshead Bay. I started taking notes on that page, and another parent on the tour thought I had doodled that image just then. She remarked, "oh, is that you're little drawing?"

At my age, that's not really my style when I draw. But I enjoyed that moment so much, that when I tour other middle schools I plan to make my own really innocent drawings on my pad, maybe big smiley faces, maybe I'll write my name in cursive all over the page. Of course, I should be paying attention to the tour. I mean, Middle School, that's a big transition, not just for my daughter but for all of us.

A sad thing: I've sort of developed a habit of going around asking people alot of questions, sometimes, stupid questions. But not always. Around here, people are incredibly tolerant of me. Not so in Sheepshead Bay. I asked where the pedestrian overpass was when at the Sheepshead bay station (it was right behind me but I had no idea) and the woman I asked gave me a really irritated look. How dare I be so unacceptably stupid?

Then I was lucky enough to get a lift back to Windsor Terrace with another mom, and on Emmons Ave. a woman took issue with this mom's driving and let us know it in a very arrogant way. I wasn't really paying attention, being a passenger I tend to be too trusting. At any rate, the degree of meanness and arrogance emanating from this woman driving the other car was kind of thick and pervasive. But for some reason I didn't get angry, it was so clear how unhappy this cruella was at that moment. Scared? Angry? Threatened? She was awful, but at the same time, there was something so hurt and delicate about her, she looked like she was withering from her own poison and anger. And it was impossible to be mad.