working with my mom

Since I worked with my dad yesterday, and my mom is retiring this week, I decided to come into work with her today.

It was a different day than yesterday. We arrived at the office and people were waiting for my mom to get in so they could ask her a million stupid questions. I set my laptop up in the corner of her office so I could stay out of everyone’s way. Annoying. And then she had to go to a meeting every 5 minutes practically. People kept coming into her office while she was gone asking where she was and when she might be back. As if my mom was telling me any details about where she was going or what she was doing.

I got to meet a number of her colleagues who all have single sons. I had my picture taken 5 times by parents who thought I might make a good girlfriend. Ugh. One guy followed me around with his cell phone camera trying to get action shots. His son is 22. Yeah. Done dating young dudes.

The best part of the day was sneaking around the bank building with my mom’s ID. I couldn’t believe how lax the security was in her building.

The not fun part of the day was being followed around by the "recycling guy", Bob, who looks like a serial murderer. I was sitting in my mom's office by myself and he came in to get some candy. He saw me and he was like "Hiiiiiiiii" in this weird low voice like he was Dracula or something. I tried to ignore him but then he was like "where's Maaaaary?" I was thinking to myself, why, do you want to lock her in your basement, but I was nice and told him I had no idea. I finally closed my mom's door so he would stop coming by.

I would also like to note that my mom said we would leave work early to go to the wine store but instead we stayed late. I was like dude, you're RETIRING and she was like "oh well, [some annoying developer] just sent me an email and I have to respond". Then I realized, ech, I do the same thing. So now I'm going to stop doing that because I know how annoying it is.

working with my dad

Monday I was “working at home” at my parents’ house. My dad decided to stay home and “work” with me. This ended up being not very productive because my dad felt the need to interrupt me every 15 minutes while I was trying to work on a network concept diagram to ask me questions.

His first question had to do with what I wanted for breakfast. This was a trick, because he was trying to get me to make him breakfast. I told him I wasn’t hungry so he decided to stand at the kitchen table, where I had my temporary office set up, crunching cashews really loud and wondering if I didn’t want to make some oatmeal because he would eat some too.

He was also obsessing about going to Trader Joe’s so after breakfast time came and went he decided to ask me every 15 minutes if I might want to go to Trader Joe’s. Then lunch time came and he asked me what I was having for lunch. I finally broke down and went to the refrigerator and handed him a bag of cooked chicken and told him to have that. Then he said he needed something to go with it. I handed him a Tupperware container full of red beans and rice and watched him stand there holding it for a full minute before breaking down and putting it in the microwave for him.

The food kept him occupied for about a half hour, and then, right as I was joining a conference call, he came out of his office and started mouthing “Trader Joe’s” to me, so after the conference call I went into his office and said “Okay, let’s go.” He glared at me and said “I’m in the middle of working on something right now.”

We ended up going for a 7 mile hike in the late afternoon, and then going to Trader Joe’s where we were supposedly only going to buy more oatmeal. We ended up buying cheese and chocolate because my mom won’t buy either, and now that I’m here my dad can pretend it’s for me, even though I don’t really eat either. We also got some really good wines. I am sorry to report that the French coconut sorbet is no longer carried by Trader Joe’s, and that was the main reason I wanted to go shopping there. But we did find some nice lemon tarts.

I was reminded yesterday of being a little kid and going into work with my dad. He used to even bring me to meetings where I would take notes (this at the age of 8). I also would sit by a computer and feed punch cards into it, type up his papers (I learned to type when I was 6), and file things which was fun because the filing system had a wheel that you had to turn to open the passageway to get to where the files were. For doing a few hours of work I would get a huge gumball out of this dispenser that was in the lobby of the building where he worked. I thought it was the best thing ever.

A year ago he brought me into his current office. I had to get a badge so I made a weird face when the lady took my picture so I would seem to be a person whose eyeballs were falling out. In my dad’s office he had a picture of my ex boyfriend but none of my family. We went to this engine museum where my dad was treated with a lot of deference from the staff. They looked on in horror as I did things like ask him “Dad, what kind of engine is that?” pointing to a Christmas tree. He dared me to climb on an engine, which I did while he distracted the guard by giving him a cup of shit coffee he had gotten at the badge office and decided not to drink.

The whole point of going to the museum was to steal cookies that were for visiting dignitaries. My dad shoved them into my bag. I was just an innocent bystander.

tammy faye

I recently watched a documentary about Tammy Faye Bakker (The Eyes of Tammy Faye). I will admit that I often watch documentaries about religious people because I know they will come across as crazy and that makes me laugh. Or sometimes get scared, like when I watched Jesus Camp.

But. I watched this documentary and was like damn. Tammy Faye was one amazing woman. Rather than being some crazy religious zealot she was, I think, a truly caring person. She worked with AIDS patients back in the 1980's when no one wanted to acknowledge them. In fact, in the documentary, she gives a guy who is dying from AIDS a hug and says everyone should hug someone with AIDS because they don't have many people who will touch them.

She married Jim Bakker, who decided to sleep with someone else, and who then got caught. It was reported in the press that he was embezzling money but that turned out to be a lie in part propagated by Jerry Falwell, one of the most evil fucks on this planet (though Jim did pay off Jessica Hahn to keep her trap shut, not realizing, I guess, that as part of her playmate video she would talk about having sex with him). He stole the empire Jim and Tammy had built (PTL) and then kicked them to the curb, lying the whole time. And, cowardly little asshole that he is, he refused to talk to Tammy Faye for the documentary. He's dead now.

The end of the documentary showed Tammy Faye pitching ideas for shows. She wanted to hang out with disadvantaged youths to see what they were experiencing. Why she was not picked up for a show is a mystery to me. She did her shows for PTL totally unscripted and was always coming up with new ideas for the network.

I was so touched by her, and the documentary, I decided to write her a fan letter. But, unfortunately, she's dead. She died 20 July 2007. She said this in her final interview, the day before she died: "I'd like to say that I genuinely love you, and I genuinely care, and I genuinely want to see you in heaven someday. I want you to find peace. I want you to find joy."

I am going to make a contribution to the american cancer society in her name, and think everyone else should too.

the santosbrazzi killer

Great story...and not just because I'm in Cincinnati...

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/01/0082352

a lesbian christmas

I moved to Denver in 2005. I met and hired a great engineer named J.

It turns out J was a lesbian. She and her partner had struggled along with the whole family thing (getting them to accept that she was gay) and the Colorado thing (people aren't as open minded as you might expect given that fact that Boulder exists in this state).

Anyway, having no plans for christmas that year, I got an invite to J's house. She and her partner promised an extravaganza of Italian food the likes of which I would never experience anywhere else. The catch - J's partner, M, had invited her parents to dinner. M's parents were in total denial of the whole lesbian situation. It promised to be a night of arguments and anger.

But, I was hungry. I said yes.

I should mention here that I usually take the last two weeks of the year off and had decided, in my time off, to repaint my house since I wasn't too pleased with the grey colors the previous owner left behind. So I painted and painted, for 10 days straight, 18 hours a day. It was grueling. At 4 oclock in the morning of the day I was due to have dinner at J's I took a 14 foot fall in my stairwell when one of the bricks I was edging on crumbled as I was trying to touch up the ceiling. My bad knee was broadcasting some serious pain.

So I arrived for dinner with a cartoonish limp, my hands curled and shaking from tendonitis due to all that painting. I was probably also high from the paint fumes and had a fair bit of paint in my hair. I showed M and J my bruises from the fall which were pretty impressive. M's parents looked me up and down like "where the fuck did they find this...thing?"

Dinner was served at a rather frosty table. M's parents were astutely in denial, as if Jen and M were room mates or something. The conversation was forced and was mostly about the weather. I was trying to pick up and hold a fork in my hand without making a spectacle of myself, which was hard. I couldn't use my knife at all because my hands were so worked I couldn't keep a grip on anything. J had to cut up my food.

I had been warned beforehand not to bring up the "L" word. But, after an hour of tense conversation, when M's dad asked me, "So, are you dating anyone?" I responded "Are you asking me because you care about my love life, or are you trying to figure out if I'm a lesbian too?" There was dead silence at the table, during which Jen shot me a look that said "I am so going to kick you in the cunt" and then M's parents started laughing. Within minutes lesbian jokes were abounding. It was a nice way to spend the holiday.

And later, M's parents didn't even blink an eye when J kissed me on New Year's, when I met up with them at a party after driving 18 hours from my parents' house. Though the neighbors whose party we were attending were probably like "WTF?"

Later, someone in the neighborhood kicked in the back window of J and M's car and filled the back with broken beer bottles. There were other things done to them that would easily classify as hate crimes. They moved to Washington DC in the hopes of finding a better environment to live in.

This year J decided she was sick of being a lesbian and she is now dating a guy. M is with someone else. And I'll never have such good italian wedding soup again.

do these pants go with this wine?

Tonight I met my dear friend Jeffy out for drinks and dinner at this new wine bar that opened near his house (http://www.indulgewinebar.com/). Jeffy knows more about wine than anyone I've met and also has connections for procuring amazing wines. I sometimes fantasize about running amok in his wine cellar with a glass and bottle opener, and I think he knows this because he showed me pictures of his latest wine acquisitions which he keeps on his iPhone. He likes to torture me. The best bottle of wine I had last year was a gift he handed me while we were sitting in his hotel room at the FJ rally in Ouray. I swear that angels came out of that bottle when it was opened.

Jeffy has the life. He's a high level muck at a company that won't be named, and he's running a major satellite program for them. He hired a kick ass woman engineer (well, goes without saying, we're all kick ass) to do most of his work so he only has to work about 8 hours a week, and he spends the rest of his time biking and skiing. He's going to Ouray to ice climb for new year's (but I'm not jealous - I bet he's bringing wine from his cellar - okay, I'm a little jealous).

He showed up for dinner tonight in a fabulous outfit, including grey cashmere sweater that was probably made by a virgin who was then sacrificed so she would never make the same sweater again. He ordered a great glass of red wine for me and a glass of white for himself (I never order for myself when I'm with him). He said that red wine causes him to wake up every couple of hours while he's sleeping (that could be my problem?) so he's switched to white. Then we had heated hummus with goat cheese and red pepper and talked about Jeffy's book, which is about how he lost 50 pounds in 3 months (he looks fantastic). It's going to be called the lap dance diet. He unfortunately has a ghost writer and didn't ask me to help because he thought I was writing a book already ~:(

And then, the bad thing happened. We ordered flatbread with caramelized onions and figs and the waitress brought it out on this wood tray thing with a handle. The table was on the small size so the handle was hanging over the edge. Seconds later the hostess, a woman in her 50s, walked by our table and somehow caught the handle with her leg, causing the wood tray to slam into Jeffy's wine glass, causing it to shatter and spill wine all over Jeffy because the glass was full.

Jeffy is a big guy. A big, BIG guy. Could be a villain in a James Bond movie. You DO NOT spill wine on Jeffy's clothes.

Pandemonium ensued. There were pieces of the wine glass stem on our flat bread. Jeffy had a lap full of wine and was like "my PANTS!" and I was thinking to myself "your SWEATER!" People ran over. Jeffy has been to this place a lot since it opened (almost all the staff greeted him by name) so the waitresses tried to clean him up the best they could. Jeffy was like "fuck! Fuck! FUCK!" (he was a marine, after all, and speaks the language) and then said to our waitress "That woman is a fucking IDIOT! Look how much ROOM she had to walk by our table! How could she have done that???? She should be FIRED!" at which point our waitress was like "Um, that's my mother."

It really was her mother.

Jeffy and I laughed about that for the next two hours. What are the chances?

The mom then proceeded, an hour later, to dump a glass of wine all over the back and jacket of a girl sitting parallel to us who was at some kind of batchelorette party (bet she wishes she had ordered white instead of red). She was even more fun to watch than Jeffy, who, after everything was cleaned, said "I'm glad I didn't lose my temper." Uh huh.

The best part of the story is that, due to the accident, Jeffy talked the bartender into giving us a cherry liqueur from the bar (they make their own liqueurs). It seriously was like biting into a piece of cherry pie, even though it was a liquid. I can think of very few things that have ever been as wonderful to put in my mouth as that liqueur. It's made locally, with organic cherries, and what ever other shit they put in liqueurs. It's the kind of thing that, after you take a sip of it, you grin like an idiot for at least five minutes and wonder "did that really happen?" Next time we go there we're going to sit at the bar and sample a bunch of the liqueurs. Hopefully nothing will get spilled.

Then I'm going to stumble over to Jeffy's and crash in his wine cellar.

new year's resolution progress

I like to be ahead of schedule so after posting my resolutions I got right to work on them. Here's my progress so far:

• I haven't stolen any straws from Starbucks. Though, I haven't been to Starbucks. But when I fly out on Sunday I'm going to try to not steal any when I walk by Starbucks on my way to the gate.
• I procured DVDs of a course in astronomy taught by a professor at Berkley. The DVDs are hopefully on their way as I write this (www.teach12.com - check it out, the Chaos course is great and I got a copy of that too).
• I have a rough draft of one book proposal and will be working on my other proposal this weekend.
• I'm working on getting my friends to set me up with their single friends. I have one victim lined up for a meeting, though, other than being an ice climber he doesn't meet any of my qualifications. With any luck he will have some good looking friends.
• My dear friend Neil gave me a quick tutorial on painting when I spoke to him on Tuesday night. We are planning a painting weekend where I will go to his house and he will teach me how to paint. I might try to buy some painting stuff tomorrow. I already thought of two things that I want to paint.
• I haven't been untying my shoes, but they are all broken anyway. At some point, maybe next week, I will try to go to a store and buy a new pair of shoes, which I will untie.

Jake - home and healthy for the holidays

So, back in September, I was hit by an uninsured motorist while sitting at a red light. The stupid bitch gave me an insurance card, but it turned out it had been cancelled.

So after numerous wranglings with my insurance company, during which time I was traveling and consulting with a client so things were hard, I eventually found out the bitch who hit me had hired a lawyer and was going to pay for the damages to my car.

I took Jakey in to Body Works, located in Denver, on Monday. They are seriously the best body shop ever. They got my car done early (wasn't supposed to be fixed until Friday), did a great job on the repairs (though I was sad to lose my Mountaineer and Johns Hopkin stickers off the bumper), did the repairs for less than the estimate, and even cleaned my car. They vacuumed him, cleaned his windows, and cleaned off the dashboard and the driver's console. And the guy who fixed my car said if I ever wanted to go on a date with him I should give him a call. Though, the woman at the front desk whispered to me after he left "you might want to wait until he breaks up with his girlfriend".

I am so so so happy to have Jake back and fixed. And keeping my fingers crossed that I get my money back.

tuxedo

I had a very vivid dream about you last night.

In the dream we had just gotten married. It was in the spring. You were wearing a black tuxedo. I think I was wearing a long dress that was pale yellow but I'm not sure. You sent me a picture of yourself in a black tux once though it was more like a passport photo and not like a full length picture.

Then we were walking along this dirt path that was on a cliff overlooking a beach. We were somewhere in Russia although I've never been there. I don't know how I knew that's where we were. Anyway, we were walking along in silence and then you started speaking to me, only you were speaking in German and I couldn't understand what you were saying. I started to worry that I had married someone I couldn't talk to. But then, as we walked along and I was listening to you, I started understanding what you were saying, at first just understanding words and then finally whole sentences, and I was relieved and happy.

Then we came to this lake and at the far end we could see a boat house. You said it would be nice to rent a boat and go out on the lake. So we walked through some woods to get to the boat house and I realized none of the trees had leaves on them. I also looked over at you and saw that you were not wearing your tux anymore and that you instead had on a black wool sweater.

We ran into an old man who was pulling a boat out of the water and I told him we were going to rent a boat to go on the lake. He said "You can't rent a boat anymore. It's fall and the boat house is closed." Then I started to worry because I was only supposed to be gone on our honeymoon for a week and now it was already fall because we had somehow lost track of time and I was sure that I was going to get fired from my job. And then you said "Well, it's too late to go back now, we might as well keep walking." So we turned into the woods and started walking into the sun which was going down because it was late afternoon and I couldn't really see where we were going anymore and then I woke up.

shoe obsession management plan

I've decided that I can't just go out and buy shoes, because I buy too many, but I can't not buy shoes, which is what I've been doing for the past two years, unless I really needed shoes and I had adult supervision, because now I don't really have any shoes to wear.

So today I came up with a brilliant plan, which will go into effect 1 Jan 2009, that will require I document my plan for buying a shoe. I've included a sample plan here in case anyone else out there wants to use it.

Pink Sandal Shoe Purchase Plan

Business Justification

I don't have any pink sandals, and every time I open a fashion magazine, I can't help but think I need a pair. If I were to purchase pink sandals they would fill the following requirements:

1. I would be able to get through airport security faster since sandals are easy to take off, meaning I have more time to work in the airport, increasing productivity
2. My feet would be healthier as it's not great to enclose a poor foot in a shoe all day meaning less sick days
3. If my customer put an important document up on a high shelf I could still reach it, making my consulting engagements more successful
4. No one really steals pink sandals so I would never have to worry that I might be at a client site and not have shoes because someone stole them.

Proposed Solution

I have determined after doing thorough research for two hours on the internet that the following shoe is the one that should be purchased (Manolo's, $1,900). It meets safety requirements, height requirements, and the bow provides a useful engineering feature.

Alternative Solutions

This Christian Louboutin sandal ($900) might have worked, except that all those feathers might make my feet itch, thereby distracting me from working. Also, I might get attacked by a cat who thinks my foot is one of those play things from Pet Smart. The injuries I would likely sustain would cause me to miss at least a week of work.

This Christian Dior sandal ($800) is okay, but I'm worried that the wood used to make the sole of this shoe might have come from an endangered forest. I would rather not be responsible for a tree getting cut down just so I could have a shoe.

Next Steps

Someone needs to send me a check for $1,900 or those Manolo's. Size 8. The goal would be to have completion of this task before close of 4th quarter 2008.

my new year's resolutions

In preparation for the new year I'm making a list of my resolutions:

• Stop smoking, or, stop being friends with people who nag me about smoking, which might be easier.
• Stop going into Starbucks at the airport and stealing their straws, which are the best straws ever, because I never buy anything there. I just steal straws.
• Stop eating lemon ginger cookies for lunch instead of having real food, even though I normally have to do this because my customer building is locked down and I have no way to get out to get food. But that's no excuse. I could bring carrots and apples and eat those. Though, I really like lemon ginger cookies better.
• Stop making weird faces when my customer is saying something insane to me, and then pretending I didn't know I was making a face.
• Stop singing M.I.A. songs in my head when someone is talking to me, so I don't really know what the person said, because even though the conversation might have started out boring the person might have said something interesting when I was thinking "I got more records than the KGB".
• Watch more shark movies, especially when I'm feeling depressed.
• Spend more time looking at the pictures from the Hubble telescope and learning about stars.
• Plan a trip to Israel this year.
• Put together a proposal for the book I'm going to write, and then DO IT.
• Untie my shoes instead of sliding my feet into them, causing the back of the shoe to get jacked, and then causing my shoes to make a weird squeaking noise when I walk.
• Buy some painting stuff and paint at least one picture. Maybe check on You Tube to see if there is a tutorial out there on how to paint.
• Stop obsessing that I have parasites which are causing my stomach to hurt when I know that the reason my stomach hurts is because I'm stressed out.
• Reduce stress by not worrying about people anymore, and giving up friendships that aren't positive, and by not letting people move into my house, except my cousin Andrea if she decided to move here.
• Tell my clients "No, I'm not going to sit in your office for 12 hours a day to get your shit done. You should have paid for more consulting days". But, say it nicer.
• Flirt more and try to find a guy to date that actually has time for me and who isn't an asshole. And who will be happy to see me at the airport, and then we'll get home and he will cook dinner, which will be something I really like such as pancakes or fish tacos. He will also have gone to the grocery so I have snacks to eat like edamame and lemon ginger cookies.
• Practice shopping in a store and buying something as opposed to driving to the store and then panicking that I'm in a mall and then driving home and thinking "fuck it, I'll just wear something I already have" even if the whole purpose of the trip was to get a cute outfit to wear because I have a date and know the guy is going to be like "hmmm" when I show up in jeans and my running shoes and a t-shirt since that's the only thing I have to wear after I took almost all of my clothes to good will, because I probably will also decide to not wash my hair, and then I'm going to wonder why he never called me after our date.

the tunnels make sense now

The other day I was watching a show about FDR. My friend Neil had seen it before and it was on my tv because I had the same channel as him so he said I should watch it.

One thing I didn't know about FDR is that he cheated on his wife but then ended up staying married to her for the sake of the presidency. The woman that he cheated with was at his bed side when he died. I found this sad because it seems like nothing should be worth giving up true love for. Both of these women sacrificed everything to keep this stupid guy happy and in the end really didn't get anything out of it. Except, the girlfriend got some money.

Then I read an article in the new yorker about an author, I believe it was Henry James, and how he cheated on his wife. There was a line in the article that said something to the effect that him doing this was devastating to her because as a woman who couldn't bear children the knowledge that her husband was sleeping with someone else made her feel not just bad about herself, but also inadequate as a woman.

I agree with that completely. I think that if you are a woman who is a non-breeder, and you are with a guy who is sleeping around, in the back of your mind you are always thinking that he is going to either knock one of his bitches up and end up with her or that he will eventually leave to go knock a bitch up. Guys are never honest about the breeding thing. I've dated lots of guys who said they didn't want kids but the second a viable uterus was around they were screaming at their little sperms "faster dammit! go get that egg!"

I think the world would be a happier place if guys were just honest about what they wanted, rather than pretending to want what you want so they can fuck you. And I think if a guy wants kids he should not get into a relationship with someone who can't have kids if he's going to end up leaving her.

And, this morning standing outside the La Guardia Marriott at 4 am in the snow, smoking a cigarette in the hopes it would wake me up, and laughing about my magic clay dream, I realized that my tunnel dreams must be about not having kids and meeting guys that are obsessed with breeding and how that really bothers me even though I guess consciously I don't acknowledge that.

But now that I understand the dream hopefully I will stop having them.

if only there were such a thing as magic clay

Last night I had the funniest dream. I dreamed that I was at Eva and Dan’s house and they had redone their kitchen so instead of having cabinets, a refrigerator, and all that other stuff that goes in the kitchen Dan had built these beautiful shoe shelves so the walls were all full of shoes that were my size. They also had some magic clay.

My brothers were there and they took the magic clay and made two little men that kind of looked like Mr. Bill and put them on this long granite island (which actually does exist in Eva and Dan’s kitchen) and the little men came alive and started racing each other. But my brothers had somehow programmed their legs so after they ran for a few minutes their legs would break apart into geometric shapes which would change colors every few seconds (can you tell I’ve spent the past two days in Times Square?).

Every time the guys’ legs fell apart they would fall apart in different ways and make different shapes like triangles, or squares, or diamonds. I was laughing hysterically at the little clay men with no legs because then they would start going “Ohhhhh, my leggggggggs” in this weird voice while trying to drag themselves with their arms. While I was laughing and watching the men race Eva kept putting different shoes on my feet. One pair of shoes was made out of diamonds. This part of the dream went on for a long time.

Then Tea Leoni showed up in the kitchen and so did Elizabeth Taylor, who had a huge entourage of body guards with her. Tea Leoni winked at me and whispered “watch this!” She walked up to Elizabeth Taylor and tapped her on the shoulder (Elizabeth Taylor was looking at all the shoes and had her back to us; she was also trying to grope Dan who kept pushing her away with a spatula). She said “Excuse me, Elizabeth” and then produced this half gallon round tub full of tuna fish salad that Dan had just made. “I dare you to eat this tub of tuna fish.”

So Elizabeth Taylor was like “you will never be as good of an actress as me” and sat down next to me to eat the tub of tuna fish. The little men were still running around. After about a minute Elizabeth had eaten half the tub and she said to Tea “I told you I could eat the whole thing” and Tea said “Guess what. I farted in there before I gave it to you to eat.” Then the two little clay men came running over to the tub and started blowing on it, saying “ohhhhh nooooo, we can blow the farts away”.

I was actually still laughing when I woke up. Though, after I finally get home and get some sleep, this dream may seem less funny.

winter in NYC

Well, today was a fun day. I arrived at my customer office to find no one there. The predicted snow apparently scared everyone into working from home. Which was great because I was able to get some work done.

Except that, the predicted snow storm became reality around 10 am this morning. It started out as a few harmless flakes but soon became a driving snow storm. After my last conference call, around 3, I decided I had better pick up my luggage at the hilton and head to my new hotel next to La Guardia.

So, this is why people travel with umbrellas I thought to myself as I slipped and slid down a sidewalk covered in ice as the snow blew sideways and also from above. My lightweight biking jacket did little to keep me warm, but at least I wasn't wearing boots with 4 inch heels like most of the women staggering around my office building. I walked one mile through this weather mess to get to my hotel, and arrived at the bell hop station sopping wet with a bloody nose and medusa looking hair. I seriously had a pile of snow on top of my head (the bell hop brushed it off with a kleenex).

While another guy got my luggage the poor bell hop tried to get my nose to stop bleeding. He kept telling me to blow my nose, which I didn't think I was supposed to do, but it seemed to work. Then they sent the concierge out to find me a cab while I waited in the relative warmth of the marble lobby where a cleaning woman was mopping up the trail of blood I left from the door to the bell hop desk, not realizing that my nose was bleeding. The concierge was standing out in the street flapping his arms like a bird as the cabs drove by. Finally he stepped in front of a cab that was off duty, and the cab driver agreed to take me to La Guardia (flapping your arms at a cab is the way to indicate you need a ride to the airport, or so the bell hop told me). The hilton guys gave me an umbrella, packed my shit in the cab, and told the driver to take good care of me. I tried to tip them but they wouldn't take my money. Perhaps they wanted me off their property quick like before my nose started bleeding again.

The driver was a great guy from India who took me the back way to La Guardia since many streets were closed. He cranked the heat up to like 90 degrees since I was shivering uncontrollably (going from 74 degrees to driving snow in two days, yeah, I don't recommend it). It took us an hour to get to the hotel (should have taken 20 minutes) and the whole time I could feel the cab hydroplaning and the brakes skipping along as the tires tried to get some traction. At one point I thought a bus was going to crash into us but luckily we were sliding in the same direction and the bus missed us by an inch. Seriously an inch.

When we got to the hotel the cab driver said "don't move!", jumped out and ran inside. It reminded me of one of my trips to the emergency room. Two guys came out and grabbed my stuff and took it inside (including my bag - I always laugh when I see a man carrying a woman's bag but they insisted - I should mention here that I've lost my marshal badge off my bag which makes me very sad as my co-author will likely use that as an excuse for not writing and I will also now have to find a new way to make people think I'm a cop so I can board the plane without having to shove my way through a line).

I thanked the cab driver for getting me there safely and for taking me even though he was off duty. I told him I hoped he would get home safe and he took my hand and said "everything you wish for me I wish for you" which I thought was very sweet. And then the hotel staff put me in the presidential suite, I had a good workout in the gym facilities which were next to the sauna so I was warm for the first time today, and the maid just showed up with a bottle of water and some chocolates, and that is why I like to live in hotels, besides not having to make my bed or clean the bathroom.

Nice.

some pennies (since we're in a depression) for your thoughts

I did something bad at my client site today. I was wondering why my bag was so heavy and discovered I was carrying around about $50 worth of pennies (including canadian currency). I pulled them all out of my bag and piled them in my visitor's cube, trying to figure out my next move.

When suddenly, I spied a row of cubes decorated for the christian holiday of Christmas. Now, I will admit, I have a personal bias against anyone who turns their cube into a home away from home. Even in the moments where I had a desk that I stayed at for more than a few weeks, the only personal things I would put up would be a chart I downloaded off the internet regarding the radius of different kinds of bomb blasts (http://www.dni.gov/reports.htm) and a picture of Gadd climbing up something ridiculous and looking, facially, like some one had just stuck a pitchfork into his ass.

Outside the cube was a row of christmas socks that people put presents in. So, I decided to leave some presents. I distributed the pennies between all the socks. Then I put some pretzels in there too. Then, I ate a candy cane that was on one of the desks and put the wrapper in the last sock.

I hope these people will donate their change to charity. And, the candy cane was totally stale. That made me sad.

just don't take the elevator

Ah New York City. Such a nice change from Miami, which is one of my least favorite cities ever. People walk slow there, have hair trigger tempers, and don’t care what language you speak. I used to always wonder why people were so jingoistic about Spanish speakers and it wasn’t until I was in Miami that I realized what might be causing part of the stress.

In a foreign country, or in most states, if you speak a different language than the person you are trying to communicate with there is normally an effort on both sides to try to be understood. Not so in Miami. There people were like “I’m speaking this language and don’t be waving your sign language at me mother fucker. I’m going to keep saying the same thing over and over and not trying to understand you in the hopes that you will go away.”

So, a few interesting things about my engagement here. I am working in the building that had the infamous elevator incident where the guy got locked in an elevator for 2 days. I looked the story up on the New Yorker and found out it’s one of the elevators in the bank that I take. I’m avoiding that elevator.

Also, Howard Stern works in my building. I really dislike that guy. Also working here is a David someone or other who has a TV show that lots of people know about and like to watch, according to my customer anyway, who expressed dismay that I had not heard about that David guy. I can’t remember his last name.

And finally, I love my hotel room at the Times Square Hilton. Since I have a crackmillion points with Hilton they upgraded me to a suite on the almost top floor (though off the top of my head I can’t remember which floor, and just realized I accidentally washed my room number off my hand…will have to write it down before I leave if I go smoke tonight) with an amazing view. The other consultant who was working this engagement got stuck in a lower floor room overlooking a giant hand coming out of Madame Tussard’s Wax Museum. He must have been bitter about this because he brought it up 5 times to me.

The only problem is, I’m supposed to be heading to a new hotel tomorrow night and flying home Saturday morning. But, um, we’re supposed to get 6 inches of snow tomorrow which is a lot, I guess, for this town. So, I wonder if I’m going to get stuck. Should be interesting.

arks

I made an interesting discovery on Monday night watching this show about arks on the channel my maid likes to watch (I can't figure out how to make the channels move on the TV in this hotel so any time I turn it on I'm left at the mercy of her whims since she knows how to change the channels and watches TV while she is supposedly cleaning my room). There is a third ark called the ark of the covenant that I didn't know about.

So, the first two arks I knew about. One is the boat thing that Noah was on. The next is a box that Moses made that if you get too close to it will rip your face or arm off. The third, new one, is this cup that Jesus put some blood in and then gave to one of his guys before he got killed, and if you drink the blood you'll be alive forever, but not have to be a vampire.

...which brings up the point that the bible keeps having the same story over and over, and then they did a sequel called the new testament, and that just has even more of the same story but they tried to put a different plot twist on it. It's like the Rocky movies, but more confusing because there are a more people in the bible. In books, extras are free.

All these arks got lost somehow, even though one would think that they were important enough to be looked after. Of course, you give a man responsibility for anything...

Depending on what kind of person you are, you go look for one of the arks. The guys looking for the boat ark, at least in the show I saw, were all kind of geeky scholar types that were probably thrown out of the house by their wives: "honey, you are driving me NUTS - why don't you go look for Noah's ark again, I heard on Oprah that someone saw it in Turkey". The second guys, who have hats and think they are indiana jones, go looking for the box kind of ark. They usually want to use it to take over the world and rip the face off someone they don't like, but a person they don't like for stupid reasons, like maybe some guy's dog peed on the ark searcher's lawn and killed an azalea bush or something so now the ark searcher is like "I will find the ark and smite my neighbor - and his dog too!". The third guys, looking for the cup, are always really religious and they end up getting into wars and getting their asses kicked (who wears white to a war? great cammo if you're fighting clouds, otherwise, bad choice) and they want to live forever I guess in the hopes that they will one day happen upon an era where they are considered cool. That era will be, um, next never.

The show I saw said, about the box ark, and I quote, "Not even Jesus knew where it was". That's kind of mean since the box was commissioned by his dad and I bet his dad knows where it is. So some day, when God dies, Jesus is going to be at the estate settlement and the lawyer is going to be like "Well Jesus, your dad left you...the ark." And Jesus is going to be like "Dammit! I already have one of those. By the way, did he say where it is?"

It would be convenient if they put all the arks together in one spot, kind of like winning the power lottery thing where you get millions of dollars instead of just a million dollars. Or you could put the box ark inside the boat ark and then the cup ark in the box - it would be like a turducken.

I'm actually quite inspired by these ark stories. My co-author said that if you find an ark you get sucked into heaven like you're on the extra express elevator to salvation. He also said that every one who's written a story that's worth a damn about trying to find the ark died before the story was finished.

Which reminds me of the book I'm trying to write with my co-author. I will likely die before it's finished, which is not to say I'll die prematurely, but instead to say I'll be lucky if we finish that book in the next 60 years.

flakers beware

This past week was fairly trying, and I was looking forward to a visit from a friend, let's just call him A (for asshole), who said he really wanted to come visit me in Miami.

A was supposed to arrive Thursday, we were going to go to Key West for the weekend, and then he was going to fly home Tuesday. He likes to tell me how much he wants to see me.

Well, Monday I hadn't heard from him so I called and sent an email. No response. I did the same on Tuesday. Still nothing. Thursday comes and goes, no A. Finally, Friday morning, I get an email from him saying he isn't coming.

Had I known he wasn't coming I would have invited someone else to come stay with me. Instead I ended up hanging out at Key West by myself because I have an asshole for a friend. This on the heels of Banff...

So, for the new year, I've started a black list, for people who flake on me. I'm really tired of people being selfish and having no thought for others. Anyone who ends up on the black list gets none of my time or energy until they do something that makes me not want to kick them in the nuts. I spend way too much energy on people who really don't give a fuck, and these days I don't have much to spare, so I am resorting to these measures, which I wish I had put into place years ago. And I think everyone else should start boycotting flakers. It's the only way we can bring about a positive change.

And flaking, for the record, is not cute, amusing, forgivable because you're an irresponsible asshole, or acceptable. People who flake are self centered and don't care about inconveniencing others. And being busy is not a reason to flake. Saturday was the first day in 3 months that I haven't worked at all. And I still find time for my friends, or to tell them I don't have time for them. So, fuck flakers. F2. Go ahead, put it on a t-shirt, don't give me royalties, I just want to get the message across.

the FBI is here, it must be Monday

Just when it seemed that this engagement couldn't get any more exciting (bomb threats, fist fights, network crashes, and Thursday and Friday spent in a political battle with the company that bought my company because they thought I was somehow infringing on them - read, selling stuff that they won't get a commission on - causing them to talk bad about me to my customer, who told them to fuck off, which is why I'm still working for them even though it's 9 PM and I haven't eaten yet) I get in to the office today and find...the FBI.

Here's what happened. A bank was bombed in Oregon (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h3NkOmNbgySlywqhyoTVETQY9f_wD953EN981). The bomber used a cell phone from the company I am working with. So the FBI on Saturday tried to contact the company through the sales reps to find an IT person who could help them trace who owned the phone. The sales reps, being in sales and therefore being idiots (see above paragraph) couldn't give them a contact.

So, an enterprising Oregon State Police officer resorted to going out to facebook and doing a search on the company's name. He found T, a guy I work with, who just happened to list on his facebook page that he is an IT admin for the company. The police officer called him immediately. T, being an IT guy, and therefore having little common sense and social skills, figured the whole thing was a joke and acted like an asshole to the guy.

So then the FBI called him. T behaved the same way. Meanwhile a sales rep had finally had one moment of intelligence and called the legal department, who called T's boss, and T had to go into the office to help them locate the information late Saturday and again on Sunday. When I was there the FBI was just finishing up. T was hoping his name would get in the papers but any further information about the incident, other than the guy was tracked via a cell phone, will not be released to the public, at least not at this point.

Drama, drama, drama...

sesame street

Today I was running errands and happened on This American Life, one of my favorite shows ever. It was the same show I had been listening to on my drive to key west but ended up losing as I headed south. It was a weird show because it usually has 3 or 4 stories on a theme, and this show they were trying to do short segments based on what a play group in NYC was doing. The play group would do 30 2 minute plays. They had one of the plays on TAL and it was hilarious.

Anyway, one of the stories was about the first day cadets are at West Point. I started thinking about my ex and remembering how we often would go into San Fran for the weekend and driving home on Sunday we would listen to TAL, and then I looked up and saw all these palm trees and for a moment was confused because it seemed I had actually gone back in time to the year 2000 and was driving on the freeway from San Fran to Capitola.

Another story was about this guy who was smoking up with his friends and he made the comment "the band Journey is the 80's equivalent to Dynasty". This caused a game to be created called monkeys to monkeys, the point being to name some band and the equivalent TV show. The final line in the monkeys to monkeys story, where the guy is talking about how he still plays that game with his friends is "and that's why marijuana makes you smart". Said very sarcastically.

I started thinking about how I would never be able to play that game. When I was growing up we didn't have a TV, and when we finally got one it was a black and white piece of shit with a wire hangar for an antenna. This was the source of many issues at school. I had to make up elaborate games when people would spend the night so that they wouldn't notice we didn't have a TV (living on a lake with haunted woods was useful). All the kids at school were obsessed with Sesame Street and I could never participate in the conversations about the show, not knowing any of the characters.

Then once, at a neighbor's garage sale, I happened on some books for this show called Sesame Street. So I bought the books, which were written like comic books, and assumed that they were transcripts of the actual show. I spent the entire weekend reading them thinking I could go to school and pretend I had seen the show.

I went to school the Monday and started talking about one of the story lines involving the cookie monster, who in the book was a king, and how he was having problems trying to find the perfect cookie to eat. Everyone looked at me strangely. Turns out the books had nothing to do with the show.

But I enjoyed them a lot and was very sad when my younger brother cut them up, ostensibly to make napkins for dinner because we were out and my mom was yelling about that. The reason we ran out of napkins is because I had decided they made good hats and had been riding my bike with my napkin hat, and then other kids in the neighborhood wanted hats, so I took all of our napkins and handed them out. When I cried because my brother ruined my books my dad yelled at me and said I shouldn't be reading comic books anyway.

Though he may have known more about raising kids than one might think. To this day I've never smoked pot.

key west

I drove to Key West yesterday.

First you pass the Miami hurricane shelter and then you get to the Lazy Days restaurant. Pass through Key Largo where there's the African Queen and streets with names like Coconut Drive, Lime Drive, Bonefish Drive. Though right before is a Largo residential community which has, for every mail box, a cement dolphin holding the actual mail box in its flippers. There's a dolphin research center near by. The air smells like what a fish's house would smell like if they had houses and invited you to visit.

Cheap cigarettes. A carton of marlboros for $25.

Then you go over this bridge. which is not THE bridge, because you haven't gone through Marathon yet, but it's long. Signs for the Key Deer, which are almost extinct, so you shouldn't speed so you don't hit one and kill it. Then finally the Seven Mile Bridge, with all these side bridges next to it that just seem to start and stop but don't connect to each other, people fishing off them, and a couple riding their bikes in the breakdown lane on the bridge which doesn't seem safe.

Ramrod key, Cudjoe Key, Sugarloaf Key, Shark Channel, Shark Key, and my favorite name Waltz Key. Drive all the way to the end of Key West. If a stack of pancakes were a town, that town would be here. Hang out on the beach until a sunburn seems inevitable, no one on the beaches but a couple getting married, their wedding party laying bored on lounge chairs while they have their picture taken, 3 homeless guys, a guy walking his little dog, a guy in a yellow canoe who was fishing but is back now, ask the Hawaiian Ice guy where everyone is, he says "that's next week", drive back.

dreams about me and you

Last night I had a dream that I was back in my old high school, but at my current age, and that I was meeting with people there for a reason that wasn't totally clear, but it seemed that the US had been taken over by nazis or something and I was trying to put together a resistance movement. Then these two guys and a woman came in and said they were part of this nazi group, and that they were going to cut my head off. I asked how they were going to do that and woman told me, "Oh, we have a machine conveniently located in the basement!"

And then she cut off all of my hair and I was sad because it looked like shit but then it didn't matter because I was going to get my head cut off anyway. So I asked if I could go to the bathroom thinking I could find a way to escape and the woman was like "of course" and I asked her if she was going to escort me and she said "no, there's no reason to" and gave me this evil smile. So as I was walking to the bathroom I was thinking how to get out of the building and when I walked in I saw the bathroom was stacked with piles and piles of bloody dead bodies without heads and some were missing their hands and feet and rats were crawling between the bodies. And then I thought (seems funny now that it's just a dream) "it's really hard to comprehend someone telling you that you are going to die until it actually happens".

My heart started racing and I thought I have to get out of here and I could hear these nazi people marching in the hallway, filling up the building, so I went out to the hall and pulled the fire alarm and everyone started running and I mixed in with the nazi group and we were all running down this dark tile hallway towards an open door where the sun was shining and I could hear the woman who had cut off my hair screaming for people to stop me.

And then I woke up.

And then I fell back to sleep after drinking some water and had a dream that I was going to SMS text you about the dream even though I guess we aren't emailing or speaking anymore, and somehow I accidentally hit "call" instead of "SMS text" and I heard your voice going "hello? hello?" so I started talking to you about my week and you interrupted me and said "look at the screen on your blackberry" so I did and there was a graphic that looked like the work breakdown structures you see in most government contracts and it had things like "real estate", "business", and "housing" on it. Then you said "these are the only things I talk to people about on the phone, and you don't have anything to do with these things, so please don't call me again" and then you hung up on me. I was sad because I wanted to tell you about my dream. And then I woke up again...

And decided to NOT go back to sleep again and also to stop watching documentaries about concentration camps or lynchings right before bed time.

signing ceremony

Signing Ceremony
Hotel Timeo, Taormina

The lilac peak of Etna dribbles pink,
Visibly seething in the politest way.
The shallow vodka cocktails that we sink
Here on the terrace at the close of day

Are spreading numb delight as they go down.
Their syrup mirrors the way lava flows:
It’s just a show, it might take over town,
Sometimes the Cyclops, from his foxhole, throws

Rocks at Ulysses. But regard the lake
Of moonlight on the water, stretching east
Almost to Italy. The love we make
Tonight might be our last, but this, at least,

Is one romantic setting, am I right?
Cypresses draped in bougainvillea,
The massed petunias, the soft, warm night,
That streak of candy floss. And you, my star,

Still walking the stone alleys with the grace
Of forty years ago. Don’t laugh at me
For saying dumb things. Just look at this place.
Time was more friend to us than enemy,

And soon enough this backdrop will go dark
Again. The spill of neon cream will cool,
The crater waiting years for the next spark
Of inspiration, since the only rule

Governing history is that it goes on:
There is no rhythm of events, they just
Succeed each other. Soon, we will be gone,
And that volcano, if and when it must,

Will flood the slope with lip gloss brought to boil
For other lovers who come here to spend
One last, late, slap-up week in suntan oil,
Their years together winding to an end.

With any luck, they’ll see what we have seen:
Not just the picture postcard, but the splash
Of fire, and know this flowering soil has been
Made rich by an inheritance of ash.

Only because it’s violent to the core
The world grows gardens. Out of earth we came,
To earth we shall return. But first, one more
Of these, delicious echoes of the flame

That drives the long life all should have, yet few
Are granted as we were. It wasn’t fair?
Of course it wasn’t. But which of us knew,
To start with, that the other would be there,

One step away, for all the time it took
To come this far and see a mountain cry
Hot tears, as if our names, signed in the book
Of marriage, were still burning in the sky?

-Clive James

Natalie's Cooking Show

excess email charge

I regret to inform you that, due to the current economy, I am going to have to start charging a fee for every email unless you are a gold member of our frequent emailer club (that would be my dad, Hilton Hotels, David Cseke a.k.a. Daffy Duck, and that guy from Ethiopia who claims he's going to give me a million dollars).

The fee will be $15 for every email, unless it is over sized, in which case you will have to pay $75. If your email weighs over 50 pounds you will be charged $45.

It's quite possible that, with these new fees in place, people who are not frequent emailers will stop sending me email. It's hoped that, with the over sized email fee in place, people will stop forwarding their junk mail to me, which includes shit I read back in 1996 (the Smithsonian letter comes to mind), those stupid chain letters, or emails with pictures of soldiers, hearts, or puppies.

I accept cash only, preferably a currency that's not depressed.

and just when things seemed to be calming down...

This evening at my client site, just when I thought things couldn't get worse, a bitter male employee took down all of the company's servers. I heard the sys admins over the cube wall (from my new cube, which is the old cube of the brawler, who keeps walking by glaring at me because he thinks that I asked for his cube forcing him to be moved, great, guess I'm next on the hit list) tracking the employee trying to figure out what he was doing. Then everyone started yelling "we're going down!" like we were on the fucking Titanic or something.



All hell broke loose and I realized sitting next to the lead sys admin was a bad thing. The web site went down and there were about 20 people in my cube area. The CIO came running in, pointed at me, and yelled "get her the FUCK out of here!"

The network take down was poorly timed since auditors were at the site to give a rating on their network reliability. The good part is the models I've been working on out here could be used to show what applications were critical and which servers needed to be brought up first. Though, my customer just looked at me when I told him that.

So I went on mandatory break outside by request of my customer POC, who promised to come get me and let me back in when things calmed down. It was about to rain. And me without my umbrella, in a white shirt. It did start raining so I sat down on a table that had an umbrella on it. The customer came out 15 minutes later and said "you need to take your things and leave - just work from your hotel". I was like whatever bitch, 9 hours in this looney bin is enough for me, and I headed home. Did I just say that? I meant, I headed to the hotel.



Where, as I was smoking outside, I was invited to take an "exciting ride" on the Crowne Plaza Miami International Airport hotel shuttle's newly installed ramp for wheel chairs. I was told it was "free" and that I would "really enjoy it". So I stood on the ramp with a hotel employee and we were hoisted up into the bus. Then we pretended to be in a wheel chair so the guys could practice strapping the chair in. Then we were lowered off the lift. Whee.



Not the first time a man has promised me an exciting ride and failed to deliver.

Rough Neighborhood

I'm on a very weird engagement in Miami.

First, I was informed on Monday that I could only smoke in a certain area outside the building. The area literally is the Everglades. I was warned about alligators, and laughed, until I realized the guys were being serious. So now every time I smoke I have to keep an eye out for creatures that might want to eat or maim me.

Then, yesterday, there was a bomb threat on the building. I am not working for the government, I'm working for a small company in an industry that is not known for being dangerous. It's a phone shop. Ridiculous.

Now, today, I've been moved from my cube to a conference room across from my cube because a male employee physically assaulted a female employee. He was not fired because no one saw the incident. So they are moving him to my cube because my cube has two cameras trained on it (wish I had known that before - I probably wouldn't have eaten so many cookies yesterday - the guards were probably like "oh my god - she ate 5 cookies! Look, she's eating another one!"). Theoretically he could still hit someone off camera, like me, because the conference room does not have a camera and I'm in his line of sight, but try to tell the security here anything.

And, nice to know consultants are so trusted.

I won't even go into the shit show hotel IBM put me in, except to say the front desk called me because I left four pennies in the change tray in my rental car and they were worried someone would break in and take the change. So I had to go down the elevator, using my key to get access to the ground floor, and not taking the stairs because the stair well doors are all locked (ask me how I know that), and then walk through a gate to get to my car. Then repeat the process to get back into the hotel and up to my room. And the first night I was scolded by the parking lot guard for walking a mile down the street at 8 PM because "there are gangs!" and if I wanted to walk I was advised to use the gym facility in the hotel, which requires me to go through 3 key checkpoints to access, only to discover the treadmill isn't working right.

I need hazard pay...

snakes on a plane, on a train, the hotel must be next

I have had the worst nightmares about snakes (still) for the past three days. I thought by watching the darjeeling limited again I might get rid of my nightmares, which were caused by the scene where the snake gets loose in the brothers' train compartment (it suddenly occurred to me, after racking my brain, that the origin of the skinny cobra snake in a previously mentioned nightmare came from that movie - this was confirmed when I watched it again friday, or saturday, forget which day).

This morning I woke up at 3 am and was sure there was a snake in my hotel room. How could that be possible, you might ask. You're on the 5th fucking floor. But snakes are quite devious. I mean, if one of those little reptilian bastards could bring down the entire garden of eden (with Adam being all like "Yo, Eve, why were you talking to that snake? What's wrong with you?" and Eve being like "What ever Adam. All you do is golf. I needed someone to talk to and the snake was there." and then Adam being like "Oh, so you're saying it's all MY fault we have to wear clothes now. Next I guess you'll say that all future men will be obsessed with naked women and that there might even be a magazine showing them in lingerie." and then Eve saying "Shut up and go away asshole. I have cramps.").

So, humor me for a second. A snake gets a job working at a laundry. When he finds out I'm checking in he manages to conceal himself in my towels. After the maid does her normal shit show job of stacking my linens in the bathroom, not noticing the snake hidden in the billion towels she leaves for me even though I specifically requested only one towel, well, guess it's hard to count when you're taking crack cocaine like it's a cough drop, the snake makes himself comfortable in my bed. Watches something on TV, probably a movie that he charges to my room (causing my expense report to be rejected).

Then, when he hears me opening the door when I get home at night, he hides behind a pillow. As I am a creature of habit (sort of), he knows I'll be leaving in 15 minutes to go to the gym and then get food. When I return he strategically conceals himself as a wrinkle in the comforter.

I get into bed. He waits until I'm about to fall asleep and then sneaks out of the comforter right near my face. He opens up his hood and then sprays poison in my eyes. While I'm all like "Dammit, stop it! I just had an eye operation!" he bites me. Or worse, stabs me.

And that's why I checked every drawer in my room when I got home tonight. Took all the pillows off the bed. Put my suitcase against the door so he couldn't sneak under the gap. And am currently trying to figure out how to brush my teeth without putting my feet on the floor.

Fucking snakes...

3 cups of tea

I finished reading the book 3 cups of tea two weeks ago. It's a decent book, inspiring in its way, but the one story that I found the most remarkable in the book is the story about Greg and his wife.

Greg was "dating" some woman who was, in marine parlance, a fucking asshole. She leaves him for some guy with more whatever (money, security, etc.). Then he leaves for Pakistan to build a school. At some future date the asshole comes back and wants to be with him. He tells her to fuck off.

Then, at some black tie event, Greg meets his soon to be wife. They spend all night talking. She says "welcome to my life" and he responds "welcome to my heart". They spend the rest of the week hanging out together. Get married 7 days later. Procreate. Etc.

Of all the things in the book (kidnappings, abject poverty, etc.) this is the part that left me the most stunned. I'm sure this happens to people all the time, but every time I hear a story like this it revives the whole myth of meeting some person who is so perfect you can figure all of your relationship shit out in 7 days or less and go on to live happily ever after together. Most of me does not think I believe something like that could actually happen. But I guess part of me believes that it can.

In theory, at least. Of course, in theory there are 11 dimensions in the universe. Good luck experiencing any but the first 4.

why I dislike TV

TV is about the most disorganized thing I have encountered outside the government. It's a wonder people still continue to watch it after all these years.

For example, last night I was trying to find this show about detectives that track down killers (it's called something with the word "48" in it and it's about real people who died). It used to be on channel 32, but now that channel is a different channel. I don't understand why every TV can't use the same numbers all the time. Stupid.

Anyway, I found this show called History or something that was about Osama Bin Laden. I started watching it because I'm reading The Looming Tower (great book). Anyway, I never would have known what show I was watching except that they kept flashing this History thing in the corner of the screen. I guess that is the name of the show.

Then, when that show was done, they had a commercial for another show. I don't know why you have to have commercials for shows when people know (theoretically at least) what show is going to be on that channel. Isn't that like having a pop up on the Yahoo web site that says "next on...Yahoo!". Anyway, the commercial for the show said the show was going to be on Tuesday, but then it was on right after the commercial! What sense does that make? If I were relying on the TV to know what day it was I would think it was Tuesday. No one said anything about the show being on Sunday and Tuesday. So annoying.

And a final thing, at my sister's house, my mom showed me how to push this button that makes an index of everything in the TV and what time it's on. The problem was the index was wrong. It said this one channel had a show on it but it wasn't on and the channel was something else entirely. I guess there's a web site to look this stuff up for a TV but that seems like too much work. Also, I pressed a bunch of buttons on the TV in my hotel room to try to find that special button but it didn't seem to work on my TV.

I think TV would be better if it were like the internet. I could just type in a web address for the show I wanted and it would be there. I hate having to look at channels to see if I can find the one I'm looking for.

And that's why I don't watch TV and refuse to own one.

bad snake dream

Don't know if it's the altitude or what, but I had the weirdest nightmare last night...

I dreamed that I was in the kitchen of my sister's house, except it was only half the size, and one wall was missing. The house was open to the outside and right where the wall was supposed to be was a pool with the carcass of a dead man floating in it. The carcass was missing the arms, legs, and head, and it had a big bite taken out of the middle of it. Inside the pool was a huge great white shark.

I wanted to jump into the pool because I thought the shark could protect me from this psycho man, who kind of looked like one of my ex-boyfriends. The psycho man had a stick and kept poking this long green snake. Every time he poked the snake it would flare up into a cobra. I was panicking and wanted to get away from the man and his snake. He was trying to pick the snake up by the tail, supposedly to throw the snake out of the house so I would be safe.

The man and the snake kept getting closer and closer to me. I was standing on the edge of the pool pleading with the guy to let me jump in, but he kept saying "I know you think that shark won't bite you, but it will."

Then the guy grabbed the snake by the tail and the snake started lashing out at me. It was getting really close and I was screaming so the guy threw the stick to me and said "If it gets close to you just hit it with the stick." I picked up the stick right as the guy dropped the snake and the snake was at my ankle. I felt like I was going to faint and then I looked down to see if maybe by standing still the snake wouldn't bite me. Right as I looked down the snake was flared like a cobra and bit me right in the heart and then I was like "Damn, I'm going to die. I knew I should have jumped into the pool with the shark." Then I woke up and was so scared from the dream I couldn't go back to sleep.

Maybe I should stop eating tuna fish sandwiches for dinner. I've had a lot of bad dreams this past week...

Mayor's Christmas Ball

My friend David Cseke, whom I've talked to for maybe a total of two hours, sent me an email today saying that he, David Cseke, is upset because I only mentioned him in one paragraph in my blog, where as I mentioned Betty more times, and wrote an entire blog about a TV.

David Cseke thinks he deserves more recognition in my blog, maybe because he made fun of me more than Betty did, or maybe because he sent me a warning email (too late, I might add) that I would likely get eaten by an elk on my evening walk.

David Cseke is also upset that I don't capitalize the "T" in the Banff Centre. This might have been what led to the comment that I shouldn't make fun of loonies because "you're a girl named Franki". And while we're making the list, he said I use too much profanity on my blog and therefore David Cseke won't be showing it to his boss. Or inviting me to the Mayor's Christmas Ball. Which is such a shame because it means I'll have to find something else to do over the holidays.

I may spend the holidays cleaning since I will finally be rid of my house pest. For those interested, David Cseke is a self proclaimed clean freak who recently moved to a house that has deer in the back yard. The ones that move, not the plastic kind. Or, he says they're real. Could be the bleach fumes...

It's For You, TV

I've seen a TV do a lot of things, for example, play TV shows, play video games, and play movies. But today I saw a TV answer a phone call.

I was in a conference room at my customer's site, using this huge TV as a projector. I've taken to calling the TV "Fuzzy" because the picture is completely unclear but the TV is so complicated no one can figure out how to fix the resolution, and we can't use the projector since the TV cost so much money that it has to be used. Fuzzy has a big sign on him that says "Leave Your Ink On The Table!", apparently because someone wrote on him with a marker. There are some TV markers you can use to highlight stuff on the screen but unfortunately when I tried to use them I activated something because it's a touch screen it caused me to crash the software I was demonstrating. Oops.

That's not the only bad thing Fuzzy has done. He likes to go into sleep mode right at crucial parts of my presentation and someone has to smack him on the screen to wake him up. I am no longer allowed to touch the screen since the aforementioned software crash and also because I was eating pumpkin cupcakes today and not wiping my hands off. Fuzzy also turns on his video display and then, all of the sudden, there we all in the conference room are projected on the TV. For the record, I don't think I look 10 pounds heavier on Fuzzy, but I do look more tired.

Anyway, at the end of the day today I was talking to some data base admins (one of whom went to high school with me) and suddenly we heard a phone ringing. Everyone reached for their crackberries except for me because I never turn my ringer on. Then we realized someone was calling the TV. It turns out Fuzzy had phone capabilities for doing remote conference calls. It was a telemarketer calling to tell Fuzzy if he had any credit problems he had a place to turn. It took us a few minutes to figure out how to hang up his phone. I wonder if people can leave him messages while he's asleep. And if he has an email address too.

I like to send copies of my blog to people when I make fun of them.

the final days of Banff

I found out something interesting slogging through my final day on Saturday as a volunteer at the Banff film fest. A woman I've been working with, Betty (see previous post), is the originator of the film fest. She and her husband used to invite people to their house to watch movies. Eventually this event was co-opted by the Banff Centre, the movies became more pornographic (from an athletic perspective), and now Betty gets to rip tickets for events.

I worked the door of Saturday's film fest with one David Cseke. I'll give you a loonie if you can pronounce his last name correctly. Over the course of my time knowing Dave, he made fun of me for writing "theater" instead of "theatre", predicted I would get eaten by an elk (do they even eat people?) during one of my evening forays along the cliff heading up to the Banff Centre, called me a geek for my mad math skills (jealous, I know), and told me that the reason the front desk refused (before I offered money) to print my boarding pass for my flight home is that in 2001 an attendant got a paper cut and now it's illegal for them to print out anything for customers. Okay, that last thing, I think he made up. He also said he felt like my "Banff book bitch", due to a mis-understanding caused by translation from Canadian to civilized English.

David, where's my fucking book?

Favorite part of the film fest: evening walks up to the lake, which had nothing to do with the film fest - exactly
Worst part of the film fest: getting stalked by an old dude who looked like a wolf 3 months away from getting shot to put him out of his misery - luckily R. shooed him off though it was a bit embarrassing later when I showed up at the airport only to find myself in line right behind him

the underbelly of Banff

I ran into more Amazing Race people today. I saw the hot guy and his friend running down Bear Ave. As they ran by me in a group of about 10 people, all wearing these yellow tied on Amazing Race signs, he yelled "Fucking Franki!" and tried to high five me. I can't believe he recognized me, though I guess I'm the only one in town with a pink down jacket.

This caused R, from the other evening, who was walking down the other side of the street, to run over to me. We ended up having tea at Starbucks. R suffers from arthritis, and was taking some kind of meds that made his pupils really small. He blew off his volunteer shift so we could go drinking, and I imagine it would have been something more potent had I not warned him I had a client telecon to attend to in a few hours.

I had a fun time listening to his stories of eating hash in Morocco (he said you know the buzz is kicking in when you hear the wind in your ears) and traveling through Africa with a guy from the French Foreign Legion. Between the two of us we managed to remember, in Latin, the first three paragraphs of Caesar's Gallic wars, the first 10 lines of the Iliad, and, in a total latin geek moment, we recited our favorite silly Latin poems (mine "Latin is a language, dead as dead can be / first it killed the Romans, now it's killing me").

The two interesting travel tips I learned from R are the following:

-if you are in an explosion open your mouth so that your ears won't get blown to bits; in addition, if you pull into a village and see all the kids standing around with their mouths open run away quickly because something is about to get blown up
-to find out the status of a country, change some money every day because the money changers really know what's going on - once in Algeria R was changing money and the guy offered 10 times the going rate if R would give him american dollars instead of whatever the french currency was at the time - a day later there was a coup - he said the CIA should have figured this out years ago, but hasn't

I started the day off at 630 am because I went to a publishers' workshop. I didn't learn a whole lot but did get inspired to put together a pitch for my next book which will likely be published way before my first book (or, not published at all, but I can dream can't I). The talk of the festival, which kept getting mentioned in the workshop, is some woman who got on the Oprah show. I sat in on her lecture yesterday. It's funny because to her face everyone says how great it all is. Then when she's gone they talk about how bad her lecture was (I agree), how she just used other people's material to write the book (just bought the book so can't say if that's true or not), and how she isn't that good of a writer so why did Oprah pick her. It's funny how two faced most people are here about stuff like that.

It's true especially of the women. There is a woman here who wrote a book about her husband dying; she ended up marrying his best friend. Packs of women were standing around talking about the book, and personal details about this woman's life, basically shredding her.

As the recycling nazi today I guess they felt comfortable saying these things around me. I mean, who would worry about talking in front of someone wearing a big green apron yelling "that doesn't go in there! it goes HERE!" as people try to throw their trash away. I had one little dude cower and scamper off with his trash rather than deal with me (this is 6 hours into my shift as a recycling ambassador, after only 5 hours of sleep, I was perhaps being a cranky bitch). This pack of old dudes, who I swear are stalking me, kept showing up with cups and asking "where would you like this to go, your highness?" even though they knew damn well where to put their coffee cups. I yelled at Jim Donini for trying to put a cup made of potato starch into the plastic recycling bin when it was supposed to go into the organic recycling bin. I ended the shift with my apron tied around my neck like a super hero cape, mostly because I was fucking bored, and also to shake the interest of a Banff Centre worker who, after hanging out with me for an hour, told me she thought I was "so juicy" and proceeded to ask me a question that isn't fit for this blog. The answer to the question was "NO!"

That woman was replaced with a woman named Betty that I worked with yesterday. We talked about cruisers and our obsession with walking. She told me the most interesting factoid about Banff. Apparently no one ever gets murdered here, except for once a few years ago. The police ended up going door to door to canvass the neighborhood (something they would do in my 'hood if they gave a shit). They discovered that 40% (Betty's number) of the people living in Banff were on the lam from the law! Great place to hide, I will admit. Of the people on the lam most were murderers from, according to Betty, Ontario. She told me to stop walking in town by myself at night. She should have come to visit me in Baltimore to experience what it's really like to live in a city of murderers.

I worked part of the morning with a kid named Sam who is from Australia. He wasn't good as a recycling ambassador (he couldn't keep the bins straight and showed up late; he kept telling people "I'm tired, so please take your trash somewhere else") but he was entertaining to talk to. My favorite thing he did was shake out his long dreds and then put on his hair band, right at the busiest recycling time, blocking people from throwing their trash away. I was like "dude, move!" and he just smiled at me and said "must look pretty before all things!" He tried to talk me into ditching my ambassador role at 1030 to go have a beer with him but I declined.

I should also mention, on the subject of guys, I finally had an encounter with the wine guy. I was walking down the street last night around 930 after a perfectly boring slide show, looking for food, when I saw him coming the other way. First of all, he was wearing these weird shoes and socks. And also wearing these shiny black pants that looked like basketball shorts but way longer. Ugh. And if that isn't bad enough, a green and black flannel shirt, but not cool flannel, just a shirt with one box of black next to one box of green, ad naseum. It was hideous. I tried to make small talk with him while not getting blinded by the street lights shining off his pants, especially after he mentioned having an entire case of cab that needed to be eradicated by Monday, but I couldn't get past the shoes. I mean, if I went to drink wine with him, at some point he would probably want to get comfortable and take his shoes off, then I would have to look at them in all their unsightly glory, and would surely lose my buzz.

I rounded the day out with a walk to Lake Vermilion. I'm supposed to go to Bruno's this evening because it's open mike night or something and Sam is going to be playing his diggery doo. Not sure I'll make it though. It's so warm in my room, I have writing to do, and it's cold outside.

A closing thought - at Topher Donahue's slide show last night he was talking about a parent-child relationship evolving to "dad as buddy" through climbing. Funny that I've been thinking about that a lot as it perfectly describes the relationship I have with my dad. He's a great buddy, totally reliable, enthusiastic about having adventures together, and someone I will never mind doing a 24 hour hike with or getting up at 3 o'clock in the morning to hang out with.

And I'm not just saying that because it's almost Christmas :D

hostess cupcake

This morning, at 8 am, while I was mulling over my plans for my day off from the festival (gondola ride and a hike) I received an email asking if I could be a hostess for an author event this afternoon. I immediate said yes, and imagined myself grandly meeting guests as they entered the event, yelling at waiters "bring more canapes!" and having everyone tell me "thanks for inviting me to your party, your theater is so beautiful" to which I would reply "yes, we like it".

Turns out being a hostess here isn't the same as being a hostess in, for example, an Alfred Hitchcock movie. I had to rip tickets, check tickets, direct people to the washroom, deal with one corybantic author who wanted to make sure all her relatives distant and close got into the event for free and felt the best way to do that was to scream at me while trying to put post it notes that listed their names on my badge. I also had to keep people from slamming doors, and shush the annoying people who left their cell phones on. My favorite person was a woman who unplugged camera equipment so she could plug her iBook in and type loudly during one poor author's presentation.

My favorite presentation was by this guy who tracks megafish. Those are fresh water fish that get really big. There was one carp thing that weighed 500 lbs. I also learned that there are freshwater sting rays. The author, Zeb Hogan, showed a video of himself getting drunk with Malaysian fishermen in an attempt to get them to respect him so they would listen to him and stop killing all the megafish. After doing many shots he had to play cards with the fishermen, and he commented that he wasn't sure if he was winning or losing, only that the fishermen kept punching him. The next scene shows him in the early morning after the drunkfest, standing in the rain in water up to his knees, looking like he was dead. Funny.

I also bought four books on accident (well, it's better than shoes). I'm hoping that when I repack my suitcase everything fits...I also managed to squeeze in a 25 minute shopping trip at the Gap to get clothes for monday since I'm not going to have time to go home before my consulting engagement starts. It was a great experience. I walked in, explained to this girl that I needed professional clothes to wear for next week, and asked her to put together some outfits for me while I answered some work emails on my crackberry because I hate shopping. She did make me try everything on before she would let me buy the clothes, but what she picked out was perfect. It turns out she is the niece of the guy who runs the Banff Centre, and she said she would shop for me anytime. I would actually fly her to Denver so I would never have to shop again. She is going to track down some shoes for me to try on tomorrow in between my work schedule, which is going to be very busy.

Tonight I go see Tabin and Topher Donahue talk about...something. The book awards are tonight too. I might try to crash that party by using my publisher's name in vain, or maybe R from last night can sneak me in. I keep getting invited in to stuff, I think because I'm the only one in this town that smiles and talks to people. Most of the female staff at the BC run around like world war 3 has started and they keep yelling at people, especially me, because I do things like let some little old dude into a talk even though he can't find his ticket. They even fucked with Jim Donini for not having his ticket last night for the party I worked. Really...