Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Remember when I used to blog about travel?
9:10 p.m., San Jose, California.
See the subject? Remember when I used to blog about travel and trips?
Remember the angst I used to have? Remember the snarkiness? Remember the general fear, hatred, loathing for other people? That true Sartrian hell?
Guess who's tap, tap, tapping on my cellar door?
-----
I'm here in Mineta International Airport. I'm waiting for JetBlue flight 174, with non-stop service to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.
And I ask not for your pity. Your sorrow. I ask not that you feel my pain. I just ask that you listen. Or in this particular medium, I just want you to read. I've got something to say (type) and I've got a while.
There is a 16, maybe 17-year old unwed teenage mother with a kid who looks like she just had Gerbers new Red Bull stewed carrots.
There is an ugly bizarro Maggie Gyllenhall (is that redundant?)
There's a 23-something, newly minted former co-ed who is telling whoever the shampoo she's talking to about all the shoe designers she likes, all while talking way too loud through an earpiece when she could just take the shampooing phone and put it to her shampooing ear and go to a less crowded shampooing place near the shampooing gate and talk about John shampooing Varvatos and Jimmy Choo and Reebok or whatever. Shampoo.
I sit in seat 3C. Crack baby is likely to be in 4C, screaming and kicking and tweeking the whole shampooing flight. Jake's fake ugly twin will likely be across the aisle. Sarah Jessica Punter will likely be in the middle. And I'll see what I can manage with $7 cocktails in the main cabin.
Oh, did I mention why I'm flying to JFK instead of BOS or PVD? Yeah, I got a game tomorrow night. 7 p.m.
So sleep will be at a premium on this 6.5 hour leg. Drinking is not an option. Awake is not an option. But guess what? I'm shampooing clear out of options.
Again, I ask not for your pity. I just want you to read.
-----
This is a 48-yard field goal near the end of a Super Bowl. Ken Walter to hold. Lonie Paxton to snap from the far hash mark. I hope Gil is screaming "it's good" when we land.
When I land at Kennedy, I'll wait for my bags. And then I'll wait for the NY Airport Service bus to the Port Authority on 42nd Street. Then I'll wait for NJ Transit bus 167 to Teaneck. Then I'll go to the airport, change, shower, and head to shootaround.
It's what I do. And unfortunately over the last decade or so, it's what I've become.
But over the last six days, who I am and what I've become has become terribly irrelevant. I've become another person. (trust me, that's a good, much welcomed, long overdue sort of thing).
So we'll chat later when I land.
Until then, qss.
See the subject? Remember when I used to blog about travel and trips?
Remember the angst I used to have? Remember the snarkiness? Remember the general fear, hatred, loathing for other people? That true Sartrian hell?
Guess who's tap, tap, tapping on my cellar door?
-----
I'm here in Mineta International Airport. I'm waiting for JetBlue flight 174, with non-stop service to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.
And I ask not for your pity. Your sorrow. I ask not that you feel my pain. I just ask that you listen. Or in this particular medium, I just want you to read. I've got something to say (type) and I've got a while.
There is a 16, maybe 17-year old unwed teenage mother with a kid who looks like she just had Gerbers new Red Bull stewed carrots.
There is an ugly bizarro Maggie Gyllenhall (is that redundant?)
There's a 23-something, newly minted former co-ed who is telling whoever the shampoo she's talking to about all the shoe designers she likes, all while talking way too loud through an earpiece when she could just take the shampooing phone and put it to her shampooing ear and go to a less crowded shampooing place near the shampooing gate and talk about John shampooing Varvatos and Jimmy Choo and Reebok or whatever. Shampoo.
I sit in seat 3C. Crack baby is likely to be in 4C, screaming and kicking and tweeking the whole shampooing flight. Jake's fake ugly twin will likely be across the aisle. Sarah Jessica Punter will likely be in the middle. And I'll see what I can manage with $7 cocktails in the main cabin.
Oh, did I mention why I'm flying to JFK instead of BOS or PVD? Yeah, I got a game tomorrow night. 7 p.m.
So sleep will be at a premium on this 6.5 hour leg. Drinking is not an option. Awake is not an option. But guess what? I'm shampooing clear out of options.
Again, I ask not for your pity. I just want you to read.
-----
This is a 48-yard field goal near the end of a Super Bowl. Ken Walter to hold. Lonie Paxton to snap from the far hash mark. I hope Gil is screaming "it's good" when we land.
When I land at Kennedy, I'll wait for my bags. And then I'll wait for the NY Airport Service bus to the Port Authority on 42nd Street. Then I'll wait for NJ Transit bus 167 to Teaneck. Then I'll go to the airport, change, shower, and head to shootaround.
It's what I do. And unfortunately over the last decade or so, it's what I've become.
But over the last six days, who I am and what I've become has become terribly irrelevant. I've become another person. (trust me, that's a good, much welcomed, long overdue sort of thing).
So we'll chat later when I land.
Until then, qss.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Bail This Blog Out
A good friend and loyal reader asked me yesterday, "so how's work?"
Has it been THAT long???
In these economic times, that's a kind of taboo question. But since I'm pretty sure I'm not in the line of fire for downsizing, I answered it in that sort-of gentle, considerate way. You never know if someone just got the bop.
And with all the economics being bandied about now - and since I took a few econ classes in college, I've got all kinds of smarts about it - you have to watch the consumer price indexes, the LIBOR rate, short-term and long-term interest rates, how's the dollar matching up, etc.
Well, as usual, I done overthunk it.
It was a simple question.
He was asking if I was busy at work because "the blog hasn't been updated since the Red Sox were in the playoffs."
Yes. Yes it has.
-----
So let's catch up since the Sox got, channeling my inner Chris Tucker, knocked the shampoo out.
1. We got a new President. He a baller.
2. India exploded.
3. Lots of companies that ran themselves into the ground got rewarded for their ineptitude, then they took the money and said "shampoo you, I'm going to get a pedicure and pay for a hummer with your tax dollars."
4. I've worked too damn much.
5. 10 years of optimistic persistence paid off
That's pretty much it.
-----
So I've essentially driven this blog into the ground. Remember when it used to be updated up to three times a day?
Yeah, no.
Remember when it was cutting-edge stuff? Funny, even?
Ah, weren't those the halcyon days of...2005...
Well, this blog needs to get bailed out. Let me hop on the charter and go petition my case.
But first, off to the capital city in search of the only kind of W you can really embrace.
LET'S WORK.
