Friday, December 30, 2005

Travel Notes - Part 1

Not being lucky enough to have been born and raised in some small, idyllic mountain town or perhaps on Bermuda, the hejira I undertook this holiday season was to the slightly downtrodden but we-always-have-time-to-love-the-Steelers city of Pittsburgh, birthplace (or spawning ground) of yours truly.

Ever the economizer, I saved some moolah by traveling on Christmas morning AND by traveling through Dulles. I'm never thrilled to either add time to a trip or spend any time at all in the vicinity of Washington DC (unless said time is spent wandering the magnificent National Gallery), but hey, times are tough and we all gots to save some bucks. If I was going to have to pay a catsitter a hundy to watch the beasts for 4 days, I'd have to save the money somewhere.

I know, I know. There are some pious holy joes out there will say that I took the Christ out of Christmas by traveling on His birthday. But hell, even the Three Wise Men didn't get there until January 6th, so like millions of other travelers they must have been stuck at O'Hare on the actual day. And frankly, given the bumpiness upon takeoff from LaGuardia, I actually DID put the "Christ!" back in Christmas. (I consider it my own personal contribution to Bill O'Reilly's pet cause). A side note on that very subject -- does anyone else find it ironic that the very people who keep yammering about some imagined "War on Christmas" are the very ones whose mega-churches found it appropriate to cancel church on Christmas day? Ya know, people, walk your talk. If you're so concerned about keeping Christ in Christmas, then get your fat self-righteous asses into church and pay him some respect on his damn birthday! What's that smell? I don't think it's Christmas goose -- mmmmm, smells like the ripe aroma of some good old fashioned HY-pocrisy!

But I digress.

One of the benefits of spending Christmas day rediscovering the splendor of various airport concourses on the east coast is that it's a fairly light travel day. I was out my door and stepping into the grim confines of LaGuardia within 15 minutes, but then found myself with oodles of time to kill. So what else is new.... there must be a subconscious part of me that is still like dear old Dad, who, if he has a flight at 6:00, will arrive at the airport around lunchtime. What is a girl to do then? Why, shop, of course! My internal homing beacon took me directly to the bookstore at LGA, where I loaded up on the Sunday Times, a book called "The 5 Unanswered Questions about 9/11," and my very first sudoku book. (more on that later, fyi, I am writing this from a special sudoku rehab). Paying by credit card, I'm pretty sure my purchases probably put me on a Homeland Security watchlist.

With just the right amount of city-slickerism and New York snobbery, when I'm traveling, I like to sit in airports and quietly nurture my judgements about all the poor folk who don't have the good fortune or good sense to live in New York City. I love to travel alone, but I also happen to have a tremendously overactive brain that needs to be amused like a 5-year-old with ADD. So instead of offering comical running commentary to a travel companion (I am viciously hilarious when in a concourse full of people I will never see again), I have it running in my head. I'm that person you've seen in the airport who looks at you intently, then bends over a notebook and writes furiously and with a self-satisfied smirk.

I also like to make up t-shirt slogans while I'm doing all this. It keeps the ADD at bay. This trip's T-Shirts:

"I support the troops, but Dick Cheney can go fuck himself."
"Proud member of the northeast liberal elite."
"Your nearest exit may be behind you."

(The last is my personal favorite, it has a koan-like quality to it. I could imagine Miyagi-san saying it to Ralph Macchio.)

First stop, Washington Dulles. I'm sure this is the least original observation anyone has ever made, but it should just be called Washington DULL. My observation about most of the folks trundling around in Dulles? My God, that is a city full of peole with absolutely no sense of style. Most of the women were wearing sweaters with some sort of gelt on it -- we're talking jingle bells sewn onto the front of the sweaters, or some other shiny dangly thing. Maybe they all received a BeDazzler some long ago Christmas. You know, Washington DC has some astonishing architecture, one of the finest art collections on the planet, and a lot of really amazing memorials and history. In fact, if it wasn't for the people who live there, DC could even be cool. But alas, it is instead a cultural backwater, made even more backward by the current inhabitant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (you know, that Northeastern blueblood masquerading aggressively as a good ole boy). I was asked to "volunteer" my seat in exchange for a free ticket and a guaranteed seat on the next flight to Pittsburgh, but as it would have required me to spend another 4 hours breathing the same air that W and Cheney do, I took a pass.

Then it was on to Pittsburgh and its ginormous airport. Did you know there is a Calder sculpture hanging right there in the main terminal? I didn't, and I've passed through the place a score of times. But my favorite thing is the little display on one of the concourses that holds Mr. Rogers' sneakers, sweater, and the original handwritten script of his first show.

Next: Welcome to Pittsburgh, where mullets are worn without irony, taking care of mom, getting sucked into Gilmore Girls, and sudoku madness!

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

A Fable

In her final year of school, a rabbit from the wrong side of the tracks got a new teacher who told her that he loved her no matter what, and that he knew she had the power to choose whatever kind of life she wanted for herself. She challenged the teacher again and again, but no matter how 'bad' she tried to be, the teacher balanced appropriate discipline with genuine heartfelt loving kindness.

Whenever she was upset, he challenged her to look at her part in creating and nurturing the upset, and he encouraged her to take care of herself on a daily basis by doing those things that she loved, like hopping, running, and reading inspirational literature (The Velveteen Rabbit was one of her favorites).

Eventually, the rabbit learned to trust herself more and to worry less about what other people thought she should be doing with her life. But even though she was popular with the other animals (after all, her daily running and jumping had made her the star of the track team), there was a part of her that still knew she was horribly inadequate, and she felt the loving teacher was wasting his time on a worthless ball of fluff like her. No matter how fast she ran, she still cringed inwardly when she saw the birds who flew with such grace and the fish who swam like, well, fish.

Then one day, the unthinkable happened. She stepped on a thistle and hurt her lucky foot, and she could no longer run. What little value she felt she had in the world was taken away by one tiny thorn. The rabbit cried and cried until she was empty, and it was then that she heard a new yet oddly familiar voice inside her mind - still, small, and as clear as a bell. It whispered, “Your value is not in your speed.”

From that moment on, the voice stayed with her wherever she went. As she watched the birds fly high above the playing fields, the voice whispered “Their value is not in their wings.” When she saw the fish swimming laps in the pool, the voice said, “Their value is not in their ability to swim.” When the rich old badger who helped to support the school came by, the voice said “His value is not in his wealth.”

And the rabbit could see that it was true—the birds’ value was not in their flight, her teacher's value was not in his teaching, and her value was not in her speed, or in her ability to hop, or even in the way she could twitch her nose and make everybody laugh. And that thought made her laugh and laugh until once again, she was empty, and the voice spoke again inside her mind.

“Now,” the voice said, “we can begin...”

Friday, December 09, 2005

A rare Jane post

Dear Jane --

Your husband has been trying *DESperately* to get laid. Let's see -- he has called my office at 5:00 several times and been shot down.

He called twice before 6:00 am because he was going to forego his morning workout and drive to Brooklyn.

I shot him down both times. Not for lack of desire (though there is that) but more that I am occupied happily in my new job. And now I am making the rules. I don't want anyone in my office to know. And not because it would make me a bad person for sleeping with a married guy, but that they would think I have terrible taste in men. Your husband is almost universally reviled on the street.

And well, honestly, while I admire his willingness to come to Brooklyn, lately I've been waking up looking like my head was in a fight with Hurricane Katrina. Hair by osterizer.

The interesting thing is that we have been getting along better than ever -- we are having fun with each other...without all the underlying drama and angst. It's just a good time.

Sometime Luddite

1. Sometimes I like to write in pencil. And I am an anal-retentive FREAK about my pencils. They must be super-super-super sharp. How many geeks do you know who have their own electric pencil sharpener at home? My favorite? Berol Black Warriors followed by good old Dixon Ticonderogas. Am I a pencil purist or merely stuck in 4th grade?

2. Sometimes I miss my old electric typewriter that I had in college. It was my sister's when *she* went to college...8 years before I did. Sometimes I yearn for that authoritative thud-thud-thud sound it made. I know, everyone else's typewriter went "clackety-clack." Mine thudded. What can you do? When I came to New York in 1988 the only jobs out there for young college graduates with Liberal arts degrees were secretarial positions. And you still had to take a typing test. On a typewriter. By the time I was hired full-time by that ad agency, I could do close to 100wpm on those old Olivettis.

3. Sometimes when I am working in the office I will add up numbers manually -- in pencil, of course. The way I learned how to do it in grade school.

4. Sometimes I count on my fingers. But when I am doing it I always hold my hands flat and do it by flexing my fingers slightly so no one will look at me and think I'm dumb.

5. I can make change in my head. The girl at McDonald's last week told me my lunch cost was 5.03 (or something like that). She saw me pull out a ten-dollar bill and entered that amount into her register. When I tried to give her a nickel so I could get back a five-dollar bill and a couple of pennies instead of a wad of singles and a pound of change, she panicked. She had already rung the ten. Without the register to tell her what to give back to me, she didn't know what to do. She couldn't make change in her head. She looked me straight in the eye and said, "It's easier for me to just do it this way." (Customer service in the new millennium folks!)

6. I do the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle in pen. Not because I am smart. But rather because I am a showoff. My friend does it in pencil every week. I think there's a tiny character study in that. He would rather erase all evidence of his mistakes. I have no problem overwriting a bad guess with the right answer.

Friday, December 02, 2005

Something that I mourn

Public Decorum.

Whatever happened to it? Seriously. I'm not a prude, most certainly not. But some things just don't need to be said or done in public. Pay attention to what is happening in your immediate vicinity, and you might be shocked at just how blue the air is around you. When you see these kids on the subway, and every other word out of their mouth is "fuck - fuck - fuck," doesn't it make you cringe? I think the most upsetting thing about it is that the worst offenders seem to be young women.

It makes me hyper-aware of my own frequently trashy mouth. I described someone as a "cunt" in casual conversation last week! (Not that it isn't true about that particular person, but that word is like a fist!) It's a great Exercise in Awareness. I know, i know, I use that phrase a lot. Then again, as the Zennies teach us, everything is an opportunity for awareness.

I heard my mother swear once. ONCE. And do you know what? That single, vehement, "Damn you!" (rather vanilla by today's standards, no?) had an impact that resonates to this day. She was right -- when you don't do it all the time, it has more impact.

Techno-retard

Okay. I admit to being fairly intuitive when it comes to computers and such -- I'm not one for following manuals or stuff like that. So since 1986 I've pretty much just worked it out when I needed to.

And so far, all of my forays into techno world have been PC-based. Meaning, frankly, Windows-based. (Microsoft's slogan should be "We're The Epitome of Bloated Crap!")

So here I am at my new job working the shiny iMac G5 -- at first it was like putting Ma Kettle into a Dodge Viper, but slowly I'm getting the hang of it. And loving it. If I could kiss my iMac, some days I swear I would.

But one thing has me befuddled -- is the Blogger code written for PC folks?