dislike of tv runs in the family

I got this email from my brother. Kind of funny how much everyone in my family is alike...

"I just got in from Presque Isle, Maine (just south of Loring AFB)

I was staying at the Caribou Inn (seriously) for $79.95 a night. I too had a personal assistant. OK, not really, but the maid's name is Cheryl and I was the only guest at the hotel.

People in Maine are different. We were testing radio comms with our airship by parking along roads at certain distances from the base. Old guys on riding tractors kept coming up to us and asking us questions. They didn't seem to understand that we were testing an autonomous airship - they were more concerned that we might be messing up their satellite TV. They wouldn't believe us when we told them this was the first time we've turned the system on in 4 months. I guess satellite ranks on par with cable TV (it sucks)."

my tv is stalking me

It's hard to believe, but I get at least 5 emails a day from my TV.

Hard to believe because the internet connections here have really gotten bad. At the hotel it's consistent but so slow I'm transported back to 1995, and not in a good way. At work the internet connection is like a crack head in the midst of a binge. It will sometimes drop every 5 minutes. That's particularly annoying not because we are using outside internet, but because we're doing all of our work on a server that we connect to via a wireless connection.

The joys of working here just keep increasing by the day.

And then, after working in the insane customer environment, where I sometimes have to waste up to 15 minutes that I need for working trying to find a place for my team members to sit, I come home, sit down with the paper, and try to relax.

And the tv turns itself on, announcing its presence with a civilized chime. Oh, ANOTHER email? Let's see. Today's emails first apologized for a mistaken fire alarm at 2 pm. Then the tv informed me another might happen and my tv was really sorry if I was inconvenienced. Why doesn't my tv know that I'm usually not in my room until 8 o'clock at night? Then the tv was wondering if I wanted to try today's special for dinner (I'm so tired right now I can't even order room service). My tv followed that email with another saying I had a bunch of unread emails. Finally, the tv informed me that the phone was going to call me (which it did, shortly afterward) to explain how to use the hotel messaging system.

My phone called me twice and left 2 voice mails. I deleted them to turn off the annoying flashing light, then I unplugged both phones and put them in a drawer. Which is where the tv would be right now too if I could fit it in there.

Please don't leave a comment telling me to unplug it. I can't reach the plug, it's behind a very elaborate cabinet. How ever, if anyone knows how to delete emails so the little envelope light would stop flashing on the tv I would be grateful (the arrow keys on my remote don't work, and Dasan keeps removing the duct tape I put over the flashing envelope, even after I left what I thought was a strongly worded email suggesting he leave the duct tape where it is).

beach

I like to go to the beach for a few hours every weekend to at least get in a swim and to get out of the air conditioning.


The guys here are very nice, setting up my chair for me. The beach has umbrellas made out of palm tree bark that look to be over 100 years old but are probably replaced every few months. If a spark landed on one it would likely incinerate completely in seconds. The sand looks like something from a construction site (they import it from the desert) and it has all of these weird sharp things in it that end up cutting my feet, which almost burn to a crisp as I try to walk from my chair to the water. Weirdly, the beach feels like a construction site because 200 yards from the beach there IS a construction site. They've built a little island, and I'm not sure what they are doing on it, but trucks are always whizzing by carrying loads of migrant workers. The dust from their trucks eventually filters over the low wall separating our water from an inlet where boats and jet skis make a racket. There's another construction site next to the hotel and you can hear the clanging and banging on the beach.


The water has been really clear the past two days and I spotted three damsels that were surprisingly large. They are the only fish I've seen in the water here except for some clear, very boring fish that are like the non-descript guys wandering around the office.


The water is warm. Hot, actually. It's around 98 degrees now, and will only get worse as the summer kicks in to full swing and the temperature goes up to around 140. I'm trying to swim but normally it's so hot my goggles fog up and it seems that the other people on the beach like to watch me swim so they tread water right in the path where I'm trying to swim. After I give up and go back to my chair they normally do the same. As soon as I get back in the water, there they are again, swimming a perpendicular course so we almost run into each other.


I saw a very old guy with a big gut floating around with one of those noodle things. It was dark blue, in a drastic contrast to his pasty skin. He had made the unfortunate decision to straddle the noodle, and the front end of it was sticking out of the water in front of him. I laughed.


Some of the other beach goers drag plastic chairs into the water (there's no tide to speak of) and sit on them up to their waists in the water, having drinks and smoking. It's like they were having a get together and the flood waters rose but they're all too drunk now to seek higher ground.


Guys walk by as I'm trying to read the paper. They're either staring at me because I'm a female in a bathing suit or perhaps they're amused at my attempts to turn the page of my paper in the wind, which can get quite strong down on the beach.


I stay in my chair until I'm so hot it feels like my scalp is crying tears and then I get back in the water. Within minutes of leaving the water my skin is covered with a chalky residue from the salt.


It's nice to have a hotel on the beach. But, it's not exactly St. Maarten.

3 wives and I share a view

Returning from the A&E (the alcohol store) and having trekked 6 km in the hot sun (it's over 100 degrees), I walked up to the elevators in the intercon behind an emirati and his three wives. I had 2 bottles of wine in my beach bag covered up with my dry cleaning, and I was wearing a sleeveless shirt because I'm kind of over the whole cover the shoulders thing in this heat (never would have dared to go out like that 3 months ago). I was feeling a bit uncomfortable.

Emiratis don't mingle with us westerners really. Most of the time I get dirty looks in the intercon because I'm not wearing designer clothes and my hair is a mess. Most of the emirati women here are so contemptuous of me that they won't ride in the same elevator (don't blame them really, I'm normally sweating from the gym or from walking around here in the heat).

But this guy invited me into the elevator with him and his three wives. He held the elevator door until I got in. I was holding my bag really tight trying to keep the bottles from clinking too much.

It turns out they are staying on the same floor as me. As we rode up I stared at the floor and hoped they wouldn't notice the shape of the bottles through the canvas of my beach bag. I tried not to move so they wouldn't clink around, but accidentally when the elevator stopped on the floor they clinked. The emirati man was not talking to me, but he was talking to his wives in english giving them their keys (adjoining rooms, the young skinny one with him the two older ones next door). They normally don't speak english so I felt, in a way, that he was somehow, I don't know, trying to make me feel comfortable around them.

As we walked out of the elevator he saw the view of the marina from our floor, which is spectacular. He got so excited he pointed out the window and then said to me "Look! Ships!" I smiled and said "It's pretty amazing". Then he said "sandbar!" pointing to a small sandy island. "You like view? It's a very good view! With many ships in this view!"

I concurred on the view and walked to my room. The emiratis followed me and stood in the hallway outside my door looking uncertainly down the hallway. I told them that their rooms were on the other side of the elevator banks, and then walked them there. The guy asked how I knew where they were (admittedly, the room numbering scheme here is confusing) and I said "because I live here". Then he said "It's very nice for you. Very nice indeed!"

I don't know why but I was flattered he talked to me. I've only spoken with one other emirati outside of work. It made me feel good that I wasn't even following the dress code and this guy obviously wanted me to feel comfortable (not realizing, I hope, that the main source of my discomfort was the alcohol I was carrying) around him and his wives. It was nice to share the great view from our floor with them because they felt the same way I did when I first got to the hotel and came up to my floor and saw the marina at night with all the lights on the boats.

It's the little connections in life that make life bearable and even joyful.

bloody sunday

Sunday I got to my customer site at 730 and spent 1 1/2 hours arguing with the system administrator trying to get a log on to a server I need for my project. Then I sat in my "office", which is just a desk shoved in a stairwell outside my customer's door.

It's a bad location because everyone walks by. Worse some of them want to talk to me. I normally just say good morning and avoid turning around, but some guys are quite persistent, including this little indian guy who had the cheek to ask me yesterday if it's true that blond women have different pubic hair than women with black hair.

Not knowing how or wanting to respond, I went downstairs to get some tea. When I got back to my desk I discovered the office boy had stacked what is possibly all of the paper in Abu Dhabi on my desk. Which, I should mention, besides being next to the printer, is next to the shredder.

Are you goddamn kidding me I thought to myself as I tried to work through the noise and vibration of the shredder. I can't yell at the office boy though. He's very nice. Last week I bought him a pot holder because he's always carrying this metal coffee pot around and it's really hot. But, instead of using it to protect his hands, he hangs it around his neck like it's the biggest employee badge ever.

Also, I got sunglasses for the guys who clean and do work outside because they don't have any and they'll end up with cataracts and not able to work. I thought, when I gave them the glasses, I had explained that to them very clearly. But, every time I see them outside, they don't have them over their eyes. They wear them on top of their heads, like I do when I'm in the office (that's how I, um, fix my hair - wake up and pull it off my face with my shades). When I say "No, put your sunglasses on your face" they say "yes madam we wear sunglasses" and point to their heads like I'm the one who potentially has problems seeing.

There is a door out to a patio near my desk, which I was quite chuffed about since that meant I wouldn't have to walk down 3 flights of stairs and then go out a locked door to smoke (there isn't usually anyone to open the locked door so you risk a long wait in the hot sun if you go out it). But the door is broken and won't close. It's very, very hot at my desk. And I'm surrounded by 5 offices belonging to the loudest screaming arabs on the planet.

As it seems things can't get any worse about my work place, they do. Yesterday around 10 am the fire alarm went off for 5 minutes. One arab, E, started screaming "shut that fucking thing off!" as loud as the alarm. Finally I went to his door, said "as an engineer, you should know that yelling doesn't fix things" and then I slammed his door. Point taken. He later attempted to get back into my good graces by bringing me dried sugared pineapple (they taste like smarties, but better and after I eat two I feel like I'm going to vomit from the sugar overload).

The alarm went off intermittently for the rest of the day. I got back to my hotel around 7 feeling like I had a concussion, did my workout, and was getting ready to take a shower after eating the biggest pizza ever (I needed it, I've already lost 10 pounds from the heat). It was 915.

But no. I heard a muted boom, and then the power went out. I went down to the lobby in my workout clothes. They said that only a sector of the hotel lost power, and that they would send someone to my room to fix the problem. I went back and laid down on my bed, still in my work out clothes. And waited. And waited.

Soon I felt like I was going to suffocate from the heat. I wandered down to the lobby again, mostly to be in the air conditioning. It was 1130. They told me to go back to my room immediately and that someone would be coming soon. Yeah. That's middle eastern soon.

I drifted off into a light sleep around 130. At 330 all of the lights on my room came on and the air con kicked in. I was so happy suddenly that I started laughing out loud.

Or, perhaps, I was losing my mind.

In any case, 530 rolled around quickly and the day at the customer site could not have been any longer.

Tonight, inshallah, I will go to bed at 10 and the power will stay with us.

wazis, taxis

I've explained before how weird things are here with taxis. But, a refresher in case you forgot...

Gold taxis are old taxis, and they are driven by people new to UAE. That is to say, crazy indian and pakistanis. They never know where anything is, and they don't speak english.

There are silver taxis, more expensive (color coding probably designed by the same idiot who put red before orange on the airport safety scale). The drivers, though they also don't know where anything is, speak moderately bad english and usually try to carry on a conversation, which is, most times, painful.

New taxis are available for ladies only, and they are called purple taxis, though the interior is more like lilac. They are driven by women, and usually the safest.

I always seem to end up with a gold taxi. The taxi drivers then proceed to drive me around to rack up the fare, and won't listen to my directions or look at my map. It's been frustrating dealing with that.

So today, I was standing outside the intercon at 730. The patio in front of the hotel is black marble, and was radiating heat. It was already over 100 degrees and humid. A half hour went by and I'd almost decided to take an intercon sedan (which is three times the price of a taxi) when a gold taxi pulled up.

My driver was a crazy guy with bad english. He wouldn't listen to my directions and kept trying to take me the wrong way. Normally I just give in but this morning I had to get to work. I ended up having to use my marine words on him. Blanking those out, the conversation went something like this:

me: Please....stop trying to....go the wrong way and....listen to...what I'm....saying before I...lose my mind.
driver: hurhefhor keblah blah kobloblablabla ec hallah hon haralla blah blech blah blah
me: I'm...late for work...so JUST DRIVE STRAIGHT or I will.................!
driver: en haffa blah blah (I'm not sure, but I think he was cursing me)

Later, as we were nearing my building, I decided to go for some positive reinforcement so I thanked him for listening to my directions. He told me he was from Waziristan, possibly the most lawless place in the world. He was having visa problems, and hiding in his cab. He asked me "do you like taliban?" and I felt he was baiting me so I said "Actually, I am taliban (the nickname, at work, has stuck)". Weirdly, he turned around to look at me, almost sending us into a palm tree.

"You taliban?" he asked. "Only when I am at work" I admitted. He suddenly grinned at me like he had finally gotten my joke.

I gave him a big tip because it sounded like he needed it. And as we were pulling up to my office he was pointing towards the other side of the street saying something that sounded like "sha sa san". It was only when I got to the door of the office that I realized he was pointing out the sand to me.

Yeah, I haven't seen any of that before.

water slides and blood eyes

Last night I had a dream that I was visiting my parents' house, except the house was in this small town in west virginia and there was this trashy water slide theme park there. I was walking through the town wondering why my parents bought a house in the town and then somehow I was in this boys' catholic school and all the boys were running around wearing those alter robe things they wear in church. A priest was showing school pictures of children to these three alter boys.

There was a cafeteria, so I went inside looking for an apple but I couldn't find one. Then all the people in the cafeteria were talking about how this serial murderer was on the loose and he was killing children. I told everyone that I could find and kill the serial murderer, and they said they would go outside and put up signs challenging the serial murderer to meet me in the school.

I went out and stapled some signs up, but it was hot, so I went back inside the cafeteria to get a bottle of water, but they didn't have one. I went to the basement of the school, which was now surrounded by police who were clearing it in case the murderer showed up, and was drinking out of the water fountain. There was an escalator on either side of the 10 foot wall where the fountain was that went down to the basement. I had walked down them because they weren't turned on.

As I was drinking water from the fountain this asian guy walked up to me and pointed a white gun with red streaks at me.

He said "I'm the serial murderer and now I'm going to kill you" and I said "That's total bullshit because I don't have a gun. We should fight each other instead". He said "I don't want to fight you, I want to shoot you" and so I quickly pushed him and then somehow knocked him to the floor. He still had the gun.

I started struggling to get the gun away from him and I could hear people moving around on the upper floor so I shouted for help but no one came. Then the serial murderer said "what ever you do, the opposite of what you want to happen is going to happen". I noticed that every time I grabbed his right hand the gun would magically go to his left hand. Then I grabbed the gun away from him and he suddenly had two guns.

I started to get worried that with his two guns and magical powers he would kill me so I pointed the gun at his heart and said if he put his weapons down and let me tie him up I would kill him. He kept saying "the opposite will happen!" and laughing. Then he pointed his gun at my head and said "you're going to die" so I shot him in the heart.

He laughed as he was dying and red fountains of blood shot out of his eyes. He whispered "the opposite" and then I heard shouting coming from upstairs. A cop who had been in the basement ran up to me because he had heard the shooting. He said "don't shoot a gun! we haven't cleared the upstairs yet!" and I said "it's okay, I just shot the murderer" and then the cop said "well then who's shooting?" and I realized there was a lot of gun fire coming from the cafeteria area of the school. Then the escalators started moving and there were at least a 100 bodies of small dead children piled on the escalator. There were clots of blood where their eyes should have been.

I suddenly realized that the serial murderer got me to kill him because that triggered the alter boys I had seen upstairs with the priest to start shooting children. And I realized every child in the town was dead.

The cop started yelling at me "oh my god, oh my god, what have you done????"

Then I woke up

Dasan

I've been assigned a "personal assistant" at the hotel, who's name is Dasan. He's a very nice and helpful guy (he's my maid from the previous entry, today he gave me a card with his name on it).

You don't realize how ridiculously spoiled most people are here until you end up at an upscale place like the intercon. Today Dasan asked me, as he was cleaning my room (he usually cleans mine first but today was running late), why I never use the bathtub (my room has a separate bath and shower stall). I thought about that for a moment, since my tub is really big. I said "I guess because I don't have any bubble bath". A few minutes after he finished cleaning my room, he knocked on my door and handed me a bottle of bubble bath.

Then he came into my room and mentioned that the reading light on the side of the bed I don't sleep on was not working. It wasn't working because the light on the side I do sleep on had gone out and I swapped them. Having once tried for two weeks at the merid to get a light bulb replaced, finally having to go out and buy a new one, I figured it was the easiest thing to do. Dasan presented me with a light bulb in a box, as if it were a bottle of wine. I wasn't sure what to do so I peered at the box and said "very nice! my dad works for GE".

He wrinkled his brow and then said "but is the wattage alright for madam?" I said "it's fine" having paid no attention as to what it was. He said "we use this for soft light, but if madam wants to read, I will bring a different wattage". I assured him I wouldn't read on that side of the bed and he replaced the bulb. He went out to his cart AGAIN and brought me two large pillows. I have 8 pillows in my room so I wasn't sure what he was doing, and then he pointed out to me that they are more firm and I can use them when I'm propped up in bed reading instead of piling the 8 squishy pillows I have against the head board.

He stowed them under my sofa, informed me that he was taking tomorrow off, and inquired as to whether or not I would be alright. I assured him I would be and then he stood at the door. I was busy sending emails so didn't notice him until he cleared his throat. "If there is nothing else for madam I will go" he said. It was weird. Like, what am I, the queen or something? I said "There's nothing else. Enjoy your day off!" and, seriously, he bowed and exited my room.

Also, I went to the gym today right after the beach and accidentally tracked some sand in on my shoes. A cleaner in the gym was literally SWEEPING the treadmill behind me while I was running.

I need to get into a different frame of mind because I am back at work tomorrow, and I can't get anyone but the tea boy to do a damn thing.

intercon

Even though I'm not terribly excited to be back in Dhabi, at least I'm staying at the Intercontinental, which is a massive step up from the Meridien. Though, it has it's quirks. And is located on a hill in the middle of no where (residential area, though I found a grocery I can walk to in 20 minutes).

My maid introduced himself to me shortly after I checked in, and said if I had any requests I should let him know (I am living here for 4 months, which, apparently, is a record for this particular hotel). One request I made was to not change my linens or towels more often than once a week. That request was met with a pained smile. We negotiated changes every three days. At least it isn't every day...he's a very nice maid and brings me extra berry tea packets (I know it sounds hideous but it's really good).

I have this weird TV that turns itself on and sends me messages. The problem is I'm not sure how to delete the messages so after one arrives I turn the TV off and it continues to turn itself on again 3 more times before giving up hope. I'm sure there's a button or something I'm supposed to be pressing but I can't figure it out.

No one is going through my stuff here, but I have noticed that the plate covering the peep hole in my door keeps getting opened (it opens by flipping upward so, unless there is some strange gravity thing going on in my room, it's being manually opened). But I just check it when I get home every night and close it.

I've checked out the gym which has a new machine I'm going to try out called the power plate. I'm not even sure what it does so I am going to watch some YouTube videos and maybe test it out first thing in the morning when no one else is at the gym.

Everything in my room is managed with this controller thing that I failed to find the first night I was here (the maid thoughtfully plugged everything back in for me the next day and put the controller on the bed so I could find it). I can even turn on the do not disturb light outside my room from bed.

And the best part is they do yoga classes 4 days a week here. It will be nice to get back into yoga...

Tomorrow I'll report on the beach. I'm spending the weekend having some R&R since I haven't had much chance to lay around and do nothing the past few months.

flops

For this trip to the ME I decided to bring high flops and my low flops. My high flops are flip flops with a heel on them. They make me the tallest person in the room. I am wearing them to work every day. My low flops are my chacos. I use those to walk to and from texas kid's apartment. It's not so hot here that I can't walk. I'm sure that's going to change soon.

I'm staying at the Intercon. Super posh but everything is expensive, and, typical of Intercons in these types of countries, it's on a hill in the middle of nowhere. My room is about twice the size of my place at the merid (no balcony though, boo hoo). I have a huge bathroom and the shower is a rain shower.

I was surprised my hair got such a good reception. After Dr. T initially almost had a heart attack (I walked up to him and he didn't even recognize me) he's adjusted. I don't know why I ever grew my hair out in the first place. I like short hair.

I had my first project meeting today. It went poorly in the morning (utter confusion, as usual, attempts to extend the scope of the project, and complaints about the doughnuts) but the more I ramped up my performance the more the team started to respond. I found myself, this afternoon, yelling (jokingly) at one of the guys on the team "You don't need to go on vacation! This is more fun than vacation!" By the end of the day everyone was giving themselves nicknames so I could spell/pronounce their names.

I hope it goes well. It will be a lot of work. And now I'm exhausted. It's hard for me to be "on" all of the time. I sometimes feel like I'm the writer, producer, and actor of a sit com with a live audience. And I'm worried every time I do this that the show will flop.

the wrong windows

So I was still worrying about the stupid stop work order on my windows yesterday when the company that did the install called me. It turns out the dumb ass city inspector had the WRONG ADDRESS. It's a good thing he's a city inspector since he can't even find the right fucking street.

The good news is there's no problem with my windows. They passed the city inspection today.

Hopefully this will mark a turning point in the oddly bad string of luck I've had this week.

long loca story

Today the window guys showed up at 7 am to try to finish putting all of my windows in before I had to leave at 1245 to catch my shuttle.

Things were cranking along nicely, and I had gotten out of my funk and was working on something, when a cranky contractor came by and started yelling at my window installers for putting in vinyl windows.

A word on my windows. I bought the best window on the market. Vinyl, I know, has a shitty sound to it, but they actually look just like my neighbors' windows because there is so much wood around them (they replaced the wooden frame things and you can barely see any of the whatever that border thing is around the windows). And from an environmental perspective, they are better than wood windows. I should also note that I only found one contractor that could build from wood the windows for my house. He said it would take 6 weeks, and the front window priced in at $5,000. Yikes.

About a half hour later, an inspector showed up with a stop work order (still taped to my front window) and said they hadn't pulled a permit. I double checked with the office, who double checked with the city, who said that no permit was needed. My installer said in the 17 years he's been doing this he's never had that happen. Also, the city inspector gave a stop work order but told them to keep installing the windows.

I read the stop work order. It said I could get a $999 fine and 30 days in jail. Great.

My shuttle was 1/2 hour late picking me up at the airport. Then I got the security full monty because I booked a ticket to the UAE less than 24 hours before flying. Ech.

When it seemed things were finally going to be okay, even though I had to spend the entire two hour flight from Denver to Chicago sitting next to two obnoxious 10 year old girls, I started to relax.

But then, when we landed, our gate wasn't open so we had to sit on the runway for 10 minutes. The girls next to me kept standing up and the stewardess was screaming at them to put their seat belts on. We got to the gate but the jet way wouldn't extend, so we were stuck on the plane for another 20 minutes waiting for them to fix it.

Tick tock, tick tock.

As we waited I heard a woman behind me saying she was going to Dhabi. I told her I was too, and she asked me to run ahead (we only had an hour til our flight took off at this point) and tell them she was coming (she's a slow walker).

I had to take a train to the international terminal and it took forever for the train to come. Then I had to run (and I did run) to the check in desk because I didn't have a ticket (since I booked my flight less than 24 hours before take off I couldn't check in online). They were announcing the boarding as I was running to the desk.

They couldn't hold the plane, and they couldn't get our luggage off the plane (mine and the woman I met on the flight, Espie). So they booked Espie and I on tomorrow's 830 PM flight (total suck, get in at 8 pm, have to be at a meeting the next morning at 7 am). Then Espie and I were given vouchers for a hotel. We shuffled off, sans luggage, to find the free shuttle to the hotel.

We just got back from dinner, which was a nice experience. Dr. Espie (she's a phd!) and I had a lot of things in common. She is of Mexican origin and she is going to invite me to a dinner that she throws for her female emirati students and she's going to make real corn tortillas from scratch. She said she wants to read my book when it's done.

Her dad left her mom when she was young and her mom raised 6 girls by herself working even though she didn't speak english. And Espie ended up with a phd from Berkeley. She told me this story at dinner about how she was in a workshop and one of the guys said "we're all here because we've had such privileged educations". That made Dr. Espie cry because she was always put in vocational classes because people thought that because she was the child of an immigrant from mexico she must be stupid and they lived in a pretty shit part of LA. She never finished high school but then had an opportunity to go to college and then she ended up in fucking Berkeley, which, not to be biased, is one of the best universities in the world. Very cool.

I told Dr. Espie that I found her inspiring, and she laughed. She said she found it inspiring that I was writing a book about my injury and subsequent athletic adventures. Then she said "we have a word for people like you in our culture - loca".

If I'm crazy, it's because of my travel schedule, and life in general. And people wonder why I drink.

travel days

I really dislike days like today, where I'm traveling in the middle of the day. I have to leave for the airport at 1 PM and I feel like I should run around and get things done before I leave, but at the same time I don't feel like doing anything.

I started trying to weed my yard at 630 this morning (couldn't sleep) but that didn't go very well. I've been doing laundry. Trying to stay out of the way of the guys who are finishing my windows (only 3 more to go and they might even be done before I have to leave for the airport).

I can't check in on my flight and reserve a seat because I booked my ticket less than 24 hours before flying. I'm stressing, even though there's no point, because it's a 14 hour flight and I don't want to be stuck in a horrible seat. Please let there be no screaming babies on the flight.

Maybe I'll go out and try to finish my yard. Or maybe I'll just sit here. Stupid long flights. I wish it was over.

The good news is, I was texting with my friend Ireland this morning and she's booking a flights for us to go to Beirut next weekend.

private life

A friend (or should I say "friend") who lived in my house for a while came by to drop off the key and garage door opener I had given him. He's a guy I've known, or thought I knew, for the past 7 years.

I found out a few weeks ago from a mutual acquaintance that my friend was married but had recently divorced. I was shocked that he had never told me. In fact, one evening while we were having dinner I asked him about a wedding ring he was wearing and he said "it's on the wrong hand". Hm.

So yesterday we chatted for a while, and then I asked him point blank why he had never told me he was married. He said "I did tell you!" and I was like I don't think so dude. I hate it when men do that shit, like I can't remember shit. Then he said "I like to keep my personal life private".

Right, dude. You lived in my house, we used to hang out with each other, and you don't want to tell me you're married because you're protecting your privacy? That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard. Then he said he knew his marriage was going to end in divorce before it even started so there was no point in telling people he was married because then he would just have to tell them he was getting a divorce. He also said he didn't lie to me about the wedding ring, that he never wore one.

Guys like him never do. Or they wear it somewhere where it isn't obvious that it's a wedding ring. And then they ask you out on a date.

I really don't understand what the fuck is happening with people. Maybe I just know only retarded guys with no morale grounding. I was talking to my friend Neil and he said that he thinks there are no good role models for guys, so the ones from my generation and younger grow up with stupid ideas of how to act in a relationship and how to treat women. Yes there are some decent guys out there, but it seems I should know more of those types of guys than the bad types of guys. And I don't.

Oh well. I'm spending the next few months on my book and don't have time to worry about the idiot guys I know, or don't really know.

some progress on the book

I finished a final draft of my book proposal yesterday and sent it out to the editors I worked with in Banff. Hopefully I'll get some feedback and I decided to send my proposal out to literary agents from Abu Dhabi. That's got to get some attention, I don't imagine most agents get a fed ex from the middle east...

charlie's angels

On Friday Clo, Cam and I went to the Denver Art Museum to see this new photography exhibit.

Clo came to my house and we walked to Cam's work. I was feeling a bit embarrassed as we walked to the museum because Clo and Cam were wearing cute outfits and I was wearing the same stupid stuff I always wear. I was trying to remember from the movie which one of the charlie's angels was the poorly dressed geek, but actually I think there wasn't a poorly dressed geek in that movie except for Bill Murray.

We got to meet this famous photographer named Owen who had a picture in the show. He and Clo started talking about photo paper and printing pics and stuff so Cam and I walked around looking at the pictures. There were some really cool photos, my favorite being a pic taken by an Iranian woman. It's the soles of the woman's feet (which is interesting since showing the sole of your feet in Islam is considered an insult because they are unclean) with a farsi poem written over the feet. Between the feet, although it wasn't immediately obvious, was the barrel of a gun.

Then we went to the reception to have some crackers and water (the spread for this show opening was a little sparse). A guy who had been following Clo around all night finally came over to our table (it was funny watching him do five walk bys before he came over). His name is Andy and he sells windows. I had a geek moment when I told him about my new windows, and we discussed argon gas. Clo was looking at me like "oh god, make her stop". Andy even said he had never met someone so excited about new windows.

Then we talked about a bunch of things ranging from the hadron collider to how to make a candle and Clo's grandfather to motorcycle racing. I thought she had a great observation, which was about how her grandfather used to take her everywhere even though in her culture it wasn't normal for little girls to be treated like boys. She said that because of that she always thought of herself as Clo, not "a girl". That's how I feel too. I hate it when people stereotype me because I'm a female.

Andy said he had never met such an interesting and accomplished group of women. Clo pointed out that we are all in good shape and could, between us, take on any physical challenge. Then Cam said we are all so smart that we could solve any problem with the intellectual capital between the three of us. Then I said "and, we could take over any third world country we wanted". There was a pause in the conversation. I don't know how I manage to say inappropriate things as often as I do.

Andy gave Clo his card. I have to find out if she called him...

even flip flops can't help some people

The day started out with me having to take a cold shower because the water heater at my hotel is broken (shocking, I know, since I’m paying $70 a night to stay here).

But, I’m teaching a subject that is my favorite thing to talk about. And even though most of the students in my class are not that bright, they are trying. In fact, I told them the secret to being a good architect is to wear flip flops (embarrassed to say I have been wearing them since I got back from the ME dress codes be damned). The next day every one came in wearing flip flops. Hee.

Except, there's one guy in my class who is a fucking pain in the ass. He complains constantly (he is apparently unable to read directions). His boss is also in my class and described him as "not a doer". So in one exercise today he was having problems. I stood behind him and tried to verbally guide him since the step by step instructions in the student manual were beyond his comprehension.

me: click on the tools menu

idiot: I don't see that option

me: that's because you clicked on the file menu

idiot: I still don't see it

me: that's because you are clicking on a diagram INSTEAD OF THE FUCKING TOOLS MENU WHICH I HAVE TOLD YOU TO DO TWICE NOW (okay, I didn't say the caps part)

idiot: so should I click on the tools menu? where is the tools menu?

me: (at the top of the screen just like it is in EVERY OTHER FUCKING APPLICATION) let me show you

idiot: no, because if you drive then I'll never learn anything and that doesn't help me at all

me: (would it help if I kicked you in the nuts?)

Anyway, at lunch today I was working on my book proposal when idiot walked in and started screaming at me. It seems his car had been towed. He was acting as though I had personally towed it. The facts:

1. We were given an access code to get into the parking garage first by email before the class started, and then at the beginning of class Monday. The code is written on the white board literally 10 feet from idiot's face.

2. The spot where he parked was clearly marked 2 hour parking, and we were warned they tow cars.

3. Two warning messages had been left on idiot's car the previous two days for parking all day in a two hour parking space. Idiot was warned TWICE that his car would get towed.

I later talked to the guard in the lobby. He was so pissed at idiot because he had warned him that very morning not to park his car there because it would get towed. Idiot refused to move it. The guard decided to have it towed.

In any case, we got idiot's car back even though that is NOT my fucking job. I don't even WORK in the building, I'm only teaching there for 4 days. Ech.

Though, I have to admit, at the end of the day, when idiot was having problems due to his inability to not be a fucking moron every second of his life, and he asked me "why isn't this working?" and I responded (with more of an edge to my voice than I should have) "because the software doesn't like you", he actually smiled.

jesus doesn't love me

I was talking to a guy one day who told me that jesus loves me. I was like really, who exactly is jesus? The guy told me that jesus is this great guy who can do cool stuff like turn water into wine (great talent for any guy hanging around me to have) and that he helps total strangers by making their spouses not be dead anymore and stuff. Also, he's not materialistic and likes to travel. And loves his mother. And has carpenter skills, which is nice because I need to redo my downstairs bathroom. Best of all his dad is a king or something. So eventually, if I got together with jesus, I could be a queen and get to wear a diamond tiara which would be so cool.

I was like so how do I get in touch with this guy? He said just pray to him and he'll answer you. So I prayed dear jesus why don't you meet me at cafe colores on thursday night and we'll have a glass of wine. From what I heard jesus wears sandals and looks kind of like a hippy. He doesn't have a job. So it's not like I expected him to take me to dell frisco's.

I waited and waited, but he never showed up. Then I met a woman at cafe colores who said that jesus loved her too. I was like hm, really? She said that jesus had saved her from cancer and bought her a new car. I was like are you fucking kidding me? He can't meet me for happy hour but he did all this shit for you? Frankly, she wasn't very good looking.

So I said I need to get in touch with him because he was supposed to do something for me and he didn't. Do you have his cell number or something? She said I talk to him all the time but she didn't have his cell number.

Such a typical guy. Claims he loves you and is not available. Stands you up, doesn't give you his email or phone number, and then you find out he's involved with other women. I did some research on him to find out if he was married, and, even though it turns out he's single, he hangs out with a prostitute.

I went back to the guy who originally told me that jesus loved me and said that I thought jesus sucked. The guy said that I was wrong about him, that he's the best guy ever. Then he said I guess jesus doesn't love you.

So, I've decided to swear off guys for a while.

rental retards

I got into Dallas this afternoon and had to wait for 30 minutes to get my luggage, and then another 15 to get the shuttle bus to the rental cars because all of the buses that drove by were full. Annoying.

Then, I get to my car, which was a huge jeep (with 3 rows of seats). I was like fucking hell because I hate driving huge cars. I had to lift my 60 lb bag onto the back seat (I'm not a wimp but I hate doing shit like that while I'm smoking because I'm afraid I'll drop my cigarette - and, BTW, my bag was heavy because I had to bring a bunch of books, not because I overpacked).

I get to the checkout thing and the lady tells me I have the wrong car. I was like dude, it had my name hanging off the rearview, and it was in my stall. She said "no, you have to also check the license plate number". I was like I thought it was YOUR job to do that. Apparently not in Dallas. That has NEVER happened to me before.

So I back the monster up, take it back to my parking stall, and wander around for 5 minutes until I found my car. Which had a hertz employee sleeping in it. Which is why, I will assume, it was parked in the wrong place.

I woke the guy up, got my shit packed up again, and this time was able to leave the hertz parking garage. I then proceeded to get way lost because I was talking to my friend Trina who had just saved some guy's foot from being cut off, instead of reading my mapquest directions.

The good news about this little shit show of a trip is that I put a bottle of wine in my suitcase and, oddly, they don't sell wine here on Sunday. What the fuck is up with that? Oh yeah, I'm in Bush country.

skeleton

I picked up Jake the Snake today. I'm going to pretend that's his last name. My nickname for him is skeleton because he's so much lighter than Max.

I took him out for a 40 mile ride today. It was fun, and I'm definitely a lot faster on him most of the time, but I haven't figured out the gears yet. Sadly, I'm used to the visual I get when I shift Max so I'm not always sure where I'm at. And it seems to take more clicks to get the pedals loose (I like to ride with the pedals loose when my legs cramp or when I'm warming up).

Also, I'm not sure where to put my hands. I'm so used to Max's straight out handle bars that I feel like something's...missing. And skel's handle bars are flat on top, so that was kind of strange. I tried looking at another guy on a similar bike to see where he was putting his hands but he was not holding onto the handlebars at all because he was scratching his balls.

I also almost killed myself because I forgot I was on skel and I hopped off of a curb. Then I forgot the brakes are in a different place and almost ended up in oncoming traffic.

Which is kind of funny because when I picked skel up today I was looking at him smiling, and the guy who put him together said "why are you smiling like that?" and I said "because it's been a long time since I've seen a bike that hasn't had a wreck". And then he laughed and said "I was thinking the same thing!" He put skel on the trainer to adjust him and the owner of the store walked by and said "ape arms" so I said "fuck you". Then the mechanic hung these weights off of him to make sure everything was aligned, and then he said "something doesn't seem right here" hanging it over my right knee and I was like "dude, it's not the bike, it's my knee". I showed him my bone plug and he said "cool, you should get a tat on that".

Or, not.

He gave me a free portable bike pump, and a second set of pedals. I have to take skel in for a check up after 150 miles. Hopefully by then I'll learn how to shift him.

indie arsenal

Clo and I had the BEST time last night. We went to a networking event for a group called Indie Arsenal.

At first I was my usual socially retarded self, standing there playing with the zipper on my jacket because I was afraid to talk to anyone. Then a guy named Jason came up and started talking to me, and he reminded me of my friend Jamesy (in fact I showed him a pic because they looked alike down to the glasses though knowing Jamesy he has different glasses now - and, I told Jason the footprints on the dashboard story and he laughed so hard he spit out his beer - sorry Jamesy). I told him about my book idea and he said he really liked it.

Then these two women came up, sisters, Lynette and I forget her name, because they wanted to know what we were laughing about. I told them about my book and Lynette said "maybe next you should try horses" and gave me a card. Which was SO WEIRD because I just watched Australia (I will not speak badly about Baz, the movie was okay) and now I want to learn to jump horses. So Lynette sent me an email today with her friend's contact info and I'm going to go on a trail ride and see what happens from there.

Lynette is a vet technician so we talked about cats that have cancer for a while. Then Clo introduced me to this guy name Eric who is really tall. We talked about motorcycles for a while and he showed me his naked bike. But then, I think because I had a glass of wine, I accidentally started talking about the Higgs Boson particle and the particle accelerator. I wish I could have filmed the change in Eric's face as I started talking about this new theory that a physicist from Hopkins has about gravity (I just read the article and I don't know why but I found it really exciting). The thing was, Clo was excited too so we started talking about CERN and the particle accelerator. Eric had this look on his face like "me want to punch something" so I tried to gracefully end my point but Clo kept bringing up other interesting points. Afterward I said "I wish I hadn't brought up the particle accelerator" and Clo said "but it was interesting!" and I couldn't help but think, hm, maybe THAT'S why we're both single.

Clo won a hat in the raffle that has a place to put headphones. She wore it for a while but said it was itchy.

Then I met another writer. I was telling her that I'm working on 5 books at the same time and her husband started laughing. We decided that it's just the way writers are. I can't remember her name but she is published in real magazines. Impressive.

I am going to join this group, even though I'll miss a few meetings while I'm gone. It was really, really cool to talk to a group of people who are all artists and creative with interesting projects. I even talked to a guy about a children's book that I wrote (involving an alligator with bling on his spine, a kangaroo with oversized feet, and a giant man - the alligator and kangaroo get into trouble when they sneak into a potato chip truck, but then they go to Australia and give mittens to the great whites, which are subsequently stolen by an octopus, but then the giant man gets the mittens back by giving the octopus a scarf since he can't keep the mittens on his tentacles anyway) and he said maybe he could illustrate it for me. It was funny because he was asking about the spinal bling and I suddenly realized "I just told him this crazy story and rather than looking at me strangely he wants to draw the alligator".

Maybe I have found my people.

And we got invited to some cool music shows and Clo got invited to a barbecue. I even met a guy who was MOT, and he was talking in this crazy Arab voice because he works with a band called Air Dubai. He lives pretty close to me too. When I told him I eat pepperoni he said "You're going to hell! And you're going to stay there!"

Hee.

no monkey money

Today the UPS man stopped by to drop off some packages of training material for a class I'm teaching next week. He likes me to open the packages while he's there in case I've ordered anything cool (usually I only get books and movies, which he sometimes borrows).

I showed him the monkey money while I was opening the packages. He was like "you idiot, you're supposed to scratch off the dollar bills". Oops. In my defense he had to take a coin and scratch them really hard to get all of the stuff off. Then it turns out I didn't win anything. He looked at the back of the ticket and said "Shit. You had a 1 in 4 chance of winning something, and you had two tickets, but you didn't win anything."

I was like "I guess I'm just unlucky." He looked at the boxes of training material, flipping through one of the books in case it was something he wanted to learn. It's software stuff, so he definitely didn't want to read it. I said "I wrote that" and he said "this is boring", tossing the training material material on my table.

I walked him to the door before he could look through my movies (sometimes it takes him a long time to return them) and he said "Girl, you suck today" and left.

Hmm. I'm going to order something that weighs 70 pounds and make him carry it into my house. Bastard. I'm just kidding. I like my UPS man.

manic

This week I have, for some reason, been super productive. Maybe it's nervous energy from my impending departure to the middle east.

Today my favorite concrete guy, Austin, came out and looked a the hole under my patio. The bad news is that he has to cut the fucking thing up and then put in a new patio because the hole is likely caused by water leakage. I told him I didn't care as long as he fixed the hole before snakes made a burrow in there, gradually finding their way into my house. He said "Franki, I don't think there are many rattle snakes that would be living here in the city". I said "Exactly, so when they find a little home they're all going to move in". He scratched his head, but then ended up cutting the price of the job, promising "If we find any snakes under there we'll get rid of them".

Then my window guys came (getting new windows, hooray!). They put my job as a rush at the factory (which is in Loveland, local windows made for altitude). I might have them installed before I leave which would be cracktacular.

Single Track called and said they finished building Jake the Snake (not to be confused with the potential snakes under my patio). I go pick him up tomorrow. New bike!!!!!!!!!

And, last night I got an email from a work colleague who read the first two chapters of my book. I have to admit I haven't done shit on my book, and the idiot Aussies who read it in the UAE made some demoralizing comments, so I was having serious doubts about my idea. My colleague wrote:

"I'm embarrassed that it's taken me so long to get back to you. I read both chapters a few weeks after you sent them to me, and I was so blown away that I couldn't find any words to write back. Then time passed and I thought, "after all this time I have to come up with some spectacular feedback to justify how long I took looking at it." Then more time passed, and it started getting ridiculous.

But today I realized that it would be easy for you to interpret my silence as criticism, indifference, or dislike of your work, so I'm writing to set the record straight. The book is amazing: your writing is clean and personal, your story is compelling and interesting, and the combination of the writing and the story mesh beautifully so it reads as if I'm your best friend and we're catching up on the phone after being out of touch for a little while. Thank you for letting me read it."

That was some encouragement out of the blue, so last night and today I started working on my book proposal again. I mean, shit, I know at least 5 people who will buy it.

Finally, when I woke up at 6 am to sit on the most boring conference call ever, I decided to replace all of my ex-boyfriend photos. Well, I still have a photo of my ex-husband (standing in the shadows of a mosque door frame in Morocco so you can't really see him) and my ex Jonas (shooting a gun in Managua). But, as soon as I take some more pics those are gone too.

And there's a text from Clo. We're going to hang out at my house for an hour and then go to a networking event for geeks in downtown Denver. Software developers are easy for me to socialize with. Compared to them I'm a fucking social butterfly.

monkey money

Because today is my 2 year anniversary with my maid service they brought me an apple pie and two lottery tickets.

I'm not a person who celebrates anniversaries. In fact, I have a hard time remembering my birthday. But, it seemed like a nice gesture. Of course, the apple pie has honey in it, so I'll have to find someone else to give it to. And I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with these fucking lottery tickets.

They have a monkey on the front of them because the funds for the ticket go to a conservation group. That's cool. There doesn't appear to be anything to scratch off of them. There are some numbers at the bottom of them. And then this bewildering statement: "Get 3 like amounts, win that amount. Get two like amounts and a "[picture of a stack of coins]" symbol, win DOUBLE that amount".

Amount of what? There are 6 yellow circles with dollar signs on the ticket but I don't know what they mean. And I looked on the back, which had even more confusing rules about registering for a second chance after the "game launch". How do I know when the game launch is?

I went out on the web site listed on the ticket and couldn't find any reference to these stupid tickets or any lottery game called "monkey money". Then I did a google search and all that came up was an announcement that someone had won a second chance sweepstakes thing and the announcement mentioned that $2 billion dollars had been donated to this conservation group that is being supported by monkey money.

So what am I supposed to do with these fucking tickets? I'm a bit embarrassed that homeless people know how to play the lottery and I don't. I've only had one other lottery ticket, that some guy at work bought me after I was diagnosed with cancer. I accidentally wrapped my gum in it. He asked me about it a few days later and I managed to pull it apart enough for him to see the number on it. I won $20 but when he took it to where ever you go to get your money they wouldn't take my ticket because of the gum. He was so mad that when he got back to the office he said that I owed him $10 because I should have split the ticket winnings since he bought it for me. I gave him the money and threw the ticket away, deciding that the lottery was too expensive to play.

And now I have more stupid tickets. I'll probably end up owing my maids money. I would throw them into the recycling bin but they have a coating and I'm not sure they can be recycled.

I guess I should go back to working...cause it's not like I'm going to win the lottery.

mountain madness

Last night my friend Clo and I went to this stupid mountaineering gala. Four mountaineers of note were being honored. We decided to go because it was a chance to dress up, and I wanted to buy a new pair of shoes.

Unusually for me, I arrived 15 minutes late. I felt bad. I felt worse when I saw Clo. In my stilettos I'm 6'2". Clo is 5 feet before adding heels. She took one look at me and said "I hate you. You're too tall."

I was thinking Clo was going to be a social butterfly because she's from Columbia, but she's as socially retarded as me. We were by far the best looking people there. Which is not saying much. Half the people were dressed in jeans with carabiners hanging from the belt loops. Gay. Then most of the crowd consisted of old ladies, like, over 60. We were like where are the hot guys????

We went over to what we thought were snacks before the dinner. The snacks were a bowl of green olives, a big dish of crab dip, and little slices of ham and cheese mushed together. There were also those little stale bread chips. We were getting hungry and finally Clo asked a waiter when dinner would be served. He looked at her strangely and said "that is dinner". Clo was like "are you fucking kidding me?" The only thing they had to drink was wine, water, and beer. Clo doesn't drink and she really wanted a coke. You would have thought she had asked the wait staff to build her the Taj Mahal. Finally a waiter snapped "if you can wait until 745 (it was 6 PM) we're serving coffee".

A local celebrity climber showed up who gets more and more obnoxious as the years go by. He knows Clo pretty well because she used to date a friend of his. I've met him at a number of events. He wanted us to come back to his friend's house for a hot tub and weed party. We were both like "NO" at the same time. Then we both said "whatever dude!" at the exact same time after he walked away.

There was a hot guy that finally showed up. But, he was wearing a burgundy shirt with a yellow tie and a black sport jacket. Yikes. I also found out a friend of mine, who is constantly hitting on me, has been married for the past 6 years and has a baby. One of Clo's friends went to the wedding. Odd, because I dated him briefly in 2006. I decided to never, ever date a mountaineer again. They are such pieces of shit for the most part.

We finally left, but not before the woman who was running the gala stopped us at the door and asked why we were leaving. I tried to be nice and say we were tired, but Clo was like "we're leaving because it's fucking boring!" I managed to not laugh until the woman walked away. Seriously, it's hard to turn a story about a dramatic ascent of K2 into a snooze fest (one guy caught the rest of his team as they were falling off of a cliff by planting his ax in the snow - it's one of the classic mountaineering stories). I was surprised how bad and boring the speaker, who wrote one of my favorite everest books, was.

We went to a noodle place in Boulder and talked for about 3 hours. We have so much in common that Clo finally said "I feel like you have lived my life, and I've lived yours, but in different places". It turns out we were born only 4 days apart even. She was married and divorced the exact same time I was. We both run into major guy issues all the time.

On relationships, Clo said "you know, some days you're going to be fat, and somedays you are going to be skinny, and guys don't seem to be able to accept that". She wasn't really talking about weight, but how men seem to trivialize our accomplishments down to just what we look like. She also works with a company that sponsor an event called "gimps on ice" for people who are amputees that want to learn to climb. She has dated a number of athletes, and she said that her measure of the man is to see if he has enough going on that if he loses a limb he will be able to keep going. I thought that was a really smart thing to think about.

I'm hoping to see Clo again this week before I leave for DC. She's coming to Denver to pick up a strait jacket to take a picture of this climber dude who looks crazy. She also has some pictures that are going to be published in People magazine. It's inspiring me to start working on my book again.

As we were leaving the restaurant she suggested that we collaborate together on a travel article. She'll take the pictures and I'll write the article. I'm pretty excited about the idea. I'm hoping she really does come visit me when I head back to the middle east.

I think it will be the best fucking travel article ever. The two of us are definitely capable of getting into a lot of interesting trouble.

Joe tries to kill me...again

I seem to be more likely to die trying to drive to an ice climb than actually ice climbing. On Friday I drove up to Montana to visit Joe. He said there was still some ice up at Pine Creek. We took his friend's truck and headed up there Saturday morning, even though it was snowing.

I had not forgotten how scary the Pine Creek road was since I had to drive it last year after a snow. But Joe thought we would be okay in the truck. We got halfway to the parking lot and the truck was pushing snow. We didn't have a place to turn around so we drove all the way to the parking lot. Scary. Then we decided to turn around because the snow conditions were getting worse and we were worried we would get stuck at the trail head. I started making this movie as the conditions got worse.

If I sound a little nervous that's because I was. Nice driving again this year Joe!

eight arms and guns

The other night I had a dream that I was in the galley of a small boat. We were in a war. I was briefing some octopi, there must have been 20 of them, on the war situation. I was standing at a white board drawing diagrams. The octopi were being bad. One would knock something off a shelf and I would run to put it back. As soon as I got to the white board to make more notes another octopus would throw something else on the floor. They kept giggling.

Then a general came into the galley and said "you're up". We all rushed out to the deck and had to duck under the side of the boat because someone was shooting at us. I was like fuck, we're really in a war. I yelled for the octopi to ready their guns. I looked over the side of the boat and a bullet went whizzing by my head. I was like fuck, these guys are serious.

I put my back against the side of the boat and started loading a 9 mm gun (I know, why bother) with bullets. I was giving orders to the octopi, who were being obedient. I thought maybe we'll be okay.

Then I looked to my left and saw the leader of the octopi slumped down against the side of the boat right next to me. He had a scared but determined expression on his face. He was wearing a naval captain's hat. I thought to myself, wow, I didn't know he was a captain. Then I realized how ridiculous he looked in that hat, holding a gun. I thought to myself what the fuck was I thinking trying to take a bunch of octopi to fight a war? I had a sense of dread that we were about to be killed.

Then I woke up.

jake the snake

After doing a 30 mile bike ride on Tuesday, crunched up on Max Crash, I started thinking maybe it was time for a change.

When I bought Max in 2003 I planned on only trail riding. I was between a medium and large frame and the saleswoman suggested going with the medium frame because it would be better for riding trails. Of course, she also sold me these time pedals that caused me to almost kill myself.

After dislocating my shoulder and taking all the skin off my arms and legs after falling into a ravine I never quite got my groove back for riding hard trails. And after fracturing both of my wrists two years ago I stopped riding trails altogether. I've just been using Max to go out for long rides, and he's not the most comfortable little machine for that. I was starting to think ragbrai might turn into the biggest suck ever.

Since I'm getting money back on my taxes my dad, who is the cheapest person on the planet, suggested I buy a new bike. Then someone sent me a picture of a cyclocross bike. A few hours later, after sitting in conference call hell all day, I decided to go to a store and see what was up with the cyclocrosses.

Apparently it's not the "season" for them. Like, what is that? It's a bike, not a bathing suit. But the guy assured me he could order me a bike. I decided to go with the Kona Major Tom since that was what was recommended to me. A flurry of activity then ensued. The sales guy whipped out a tape measure and started measuring me while the store owner did some calculations. They didn't have a bike in the store that they could size me to, and they were going to have to order Major Tom, and they wanted to make sure they got the right size bike. Or so the sales guy claimed as he was measuring my inseam.

"You're all legs, ha ha!" the owner said after commenting on the disparity between my torso and my legs. He got an even bigger laugh about the length of my arms. I'm very self conscious about my arms, and you will never see a picture of me with my arms hanging straight because they are totally disproportionate to my torso and I look like an ape. Just when it seemed I couldn't be humiliated any more they put me on a scale. I was like why would my weight matter for a bike and the owner said "I just wanted to see how much you weighed". Ha. Ha. Ha.

Unfortunately Kona did not have the Major Jake in stock in my size. They said it would be at least 8 weeks until they could deliver the bike. At that point I was already upset to not be taking a new bike home. They told me the only thing they had in my size was Jake the Snake, which is a lesser bike than Major Jake. I was disappointed until I saw that JSnake was almost the same color as Max Crash.

I texted my dad and said that I was about to buy a bike that is probably worth more than my car. He said "buy it!!!!!" I was like maybe I should think about it and he was like "buy it for fuck's sake!!!" I've been talking to him for at least 4 years about buying a road bike.

So I bought JSnake. The store owner listened patiently as I told him how much I dislike snakes. I asked if I would be able to run over snakes with Jake the Snake. He furrowed his brow in all seriousness and said "hmmm, I don't know". Then he said "but you're really going to love this bike!"

The brightest minds don't work in bike shops, I think.

So JSnake is supposed to arrive on Tuesday. My ticket has priority so JSnake is getting put together on arrival. I might have him by Wednesday. My dad called me a few minutes after I left the bike shop to find out what I bought. He's jealous. I wonder if he's going to buy a new bike before ragbrai.

I worry about Max Crash. I don't want him to be sad. Maybe I'll start trail riding again. He can't complain about not getting used though. That bike has a lot of miles on it. There was a time, after I finished school and before I started traveling all the time, when I would ride between 30 to 60 miles a day. I like riding. It makes me not think about anything because I have to watch out for snakes to run over. I've spent more time with Max than any boyfriend I've ever had.

And I've been thinking. The company I work for sucks. So maybe I'll try to find a job local that's close enough that I can ride JSnake there. Then take Max out for a spin when I get home. Then everyone would be happy, most of all me.

So Andy, if you're reading this, I might make the ALS ride this year. Wouldn't that be a shock.

maybe I should let my cacti watch tv

I'm getting really worried about my cacti. Something seems to be wrong with them.

I got my first two cacti 3 years ago. My dad bought them for me because, he said, "even you can't kill them". Unfortunately, a year later, one of the cacti, Natski, died. But Michel lived on, and seemed to flourish. Except, I could tell he was lonely. So I bought him some friends.

Everything was fine for a while, but then, last spring, Michel, who was orange, started to take on a pink hue similar to the color Natski was. I wondered if he was still grieving about her. But he appeared happy with his friends. Then I gave my cacti to Joe while I was in the middle east. Shortly after Joe started bringing skanky bitches home (I'm just kidding, I'm sure they were nice girls even if they did work as strippers), Michel died.

I can't bring myself to throw him away. But then, after arriving home, some of the other cacti started to have problems. St. David Thornstein developed a serious posture problem. Is that normal? Could he have scoliosis? Maybe he needs a bigger pot? Or maybe he's sad because I put him next to a dead cactus. Though, he and Michel were good friends before Michel died.


(St. David Thornstein with Michel)

Just in case SDT was depressed about Michel, I moved him next to Tammy Faye Cactus and Ernie. Then, one of Ernie's um, branches? cactus arms? fell off, as did his flower. Foucault seems to be doing okay, and Tammy Faye appears as happy as ever. I just worry about the three guys. I'm experimenting with different configurations to see if it's just a group dynamics problem. And I put Ernie over by Side Show Bob (my aloe plant) so I could give the other cacti a pep talk and to make sure they knew it was NOT okay to make fun of Ernie since his arm fell off.

Maybe I should put Ernie and Pascal together. Pascal is a tough little cactus, but he's nicer than Foucault (not everyone is into homosexual sadism), and he believes in medical miracles as well as embracing his frivolous side. I think he may be a more positive influence although I don't know if putting Tammy Faye and Pascal together is a good idea. Ernie might end up being super religious. Then he'll fight with St. David Thornstein.


(Tammy Faye Cactus, Foucault, Pascal, and Ernie)

I read an article about a guy named Jonathon Keats who is actually being paid to create tv shows for plants that show the sky of different locations around the world. Among other reasons he thinks that's a good idea is because "plants can't travel". He previously created a video showing bees pollinating plants, and called it plant pornography. He is unsure if his videos are manipulating the plants or not.

I don't know if plant tv or plant pornography is the answer to my cacti problem. Maybe they're jealous that I had two cacti in the UAE, so I won't talk about those cacti anymore and I'm going to take their pictures off the refrigerator. And I should go back to playing John Coltrane during the day when I'm working.

I'm just not sure I want to expose my darling cacti to porn or tv. Which, really, is the same thing, isn't it?

love and genetics

The other week I was hanging out with some other consultants and we had a discussion about love and monogamy. I always start that discussion with any married person I know just because I like to see what people think about the topic.

Recently, based on some guy research and information, I decided that it's impossible for a guy to be in a monogamous relationship, and that women shouldn't take it personally when men cheat on them because men aren't capable of having the same emotional commitment to a relationship that women do, mostly because they will never have to push a person out of their vagina so they don't really get love. They don't understand the emotional implication of sleeping with someone else and that's why they do it.

But then I was talking to Texas, one of my favorite consultants. Well, my favorite now that my italian requirements partner has flown the coop. He got married when he was 19. He's still as in love with his wife as he was when he met her. You can tell by the way he talks about her. He's not one of those guys constantly on the phone or whatever with her or needing to talk to her for every decision (you know, the guy that you look at and are like "whipped, wimp, what are you a woman"). His wife was diagnosed with MS and he's doing everything he can to take care of her too, so it's not like she's totally perfect and therefore easy to love.

I asked him why his marriage has been so successful and how he is still in love with his wife after a billion years of marriage. He said "you have to stick together even when one of you doesn't like the other one, or when you both don't like each other". I asked him how did he do that. He looked at me like I was an idiot and he said "because you love each other and you want it to work out".

So I started wondering if it's the person that is willing to put in the effort to stick it out or is it the person that they are in a relationship with that makes them stick it out. For example, if I were married to NDGT would I stay with him because I'm that kind of person or because I think NDGT is the coolest guy ever? For the record, I think he's married, and I'm not trying to insult his wife. I've been watching my favorite universe again and I just love it when he talks about binary stars. I think NDGT is possibly one of the coolest people on the planet. Besides me, of course. I wish he would invite me over for dinner some night so we could have a conversation somewhere else besides in my head.

Um...where was I...

Oh yeah. So, if anyone knows the answer to my question, can you please post it as a comment. I'm curious.

I once dated a guy who was completely loyal to his wife even after he found out she was having an affair. Finally, though, he couldn't take it anymore and gave her an ultimatum: either dump the affair guy or he was going to leave. She refused to end the affair so he left. I wasn't sure about dating the guy, but everyone kept telling me how loyal and whatever he was.

But, within 3 months of our relationship, he slept with someone else. And sent me an email about it. Like I was supposed to be proud of him. Anyway, shortly afterward the relationship rolled off the proverbial cliff.

I've always wondered if he was an asshole or if he just didn't like me as much as he liked his ex-wife.

trust issues

I'm still really pissed about something that happened with one of my colleagues. I wish I could beat him up, but I can't.

I was training him on my software, and he had the wrong version on his laptop. Since there is limited backwards compatibility, I had him work on an assignment on my computer. He started the assignment and I went outside to smoke a cigarette.

Ten minutes later I came back. The whole time I was smoking I had an uneasy feeling about leaving him on my computer unattended. But, I tend to trust people. I let some kid I barely knew live in my house for free. I let another kid I didn't know stay in my house while I was on vacation with my dad (he was a student in Denver for the DNC). I've only had a few problems. I want to trust people.

Anyway, I told him that I would give him a copy of the new software version so he could work on his own machine. He handed me a USB drive. Normally I just click on the file to be copied and say send it to the USB drive because I don't get into people's personal stuff, and wouldn't look at files on a USB drive. But this time I had to because there wasn't enough room on the USB drive for the software. I asked my colleague what I should do and he told me to delete the recycle bin.

Just out of habit I opened the recycle bin to make sure I wasn't permanently deleting files the customer gave to my colleague that I didn't have a copy of. Imagine my surprise when I found a bunch of MY files from a folder on my computer called "personal". The files included bank statements I had downloaded for my taxes as well as my W-2.

I was like I don't fucking believe this. I wiped out everything on the USB and copied the software. Then my colleague started talking about how he encrypts everything on his computer so no one can steal it. I thought that was strange. I made a comment about people stealing files and how it sucks that you can't trust anyone. I really wanted to confront him and then punch him in the face. The circumstances, not worth explaining here, prevented that.

Now I wonder what I should have done. How could someone do that, and worse, how could a supposed colleague of mine do that?

Some people really, really suck.

stupid babies

Along with many other issues I have with Delta, I am tired of their moronic assignment of seats.

If an airline won't ban kids under 5 so that the rest of us don't have to listen to them screaming and crying during a long flight, at least they could put all the kids in one place on the plane, preferably as far away from me as possible. And all of us business travelers should get the front of the plane, because we don't take 5 minutes to pull our luggage out of the overhead bin once the plane door is open.

But no. Delta does stupid shit like always putting me next to the mom carrying an infant on her lap. And then they put her in the middle seat. Like yesterday, when I was flying home from Montreal.

I was approaching my seat, which was towards the back of the plane, and could hear a baby crying. I was like why me god? There was the infant and mom, in the middle seat in my row. I don't exactly have a poker face so I'm sure the mom knew I was NOT happy. Meanwhile the rest of the plane had a lot of empty middle seats. So this mom could have had two seats, but instead they crammed her in with me and a fat woman who was at the window. I asked the steward to move me to a middle seat, but none of the fucks who had an empty seat between them would agree to let me sit there. I was like they didn't pay for that seat so why should they get to decide if I sit there, and the steward said "because those empty middle seats are not your assigned seat". Are you fucking kidding me?

I tried to put myself in a happy place as the plane was being de-iced. The kid was flailing around, dripping goo on me and grabbing my burberry scarf. I closed my eyes and pretended I wasn't there. The fat woman at the window said "If you need room you can put your baby's feet on my lap. I don't mind. I have 5 children of my own." The mom mumbled something, and the fat lady said "Well, some people don't have children, so they don't know how to act."

I was like FUCK YOU. This is a PLANE, NOT a nursery. I work long hours, and spend a lot of time on planes. I am NOT there to entertain a 10 month old for 5 hours. I am there to sleep because I'm tired.

Then the fat woman pointed out the baby had thrush, which is some kind of rash. She warned the mom to be careful touching the baby spit because it can spread. I was like great, since the baby had drooled all over my hand. Then the mom mentioned the baby was getting over a cough and earache. Like I can afford to get sick. If I was hit by a car my clients would still be calling me like "can you come over and fix our software even though you are immobilized from the neck down?"

I luckily just bought new noise canceling ear buds and was listening to my stop smoking CDs. Suddenly I realized my row smelled like a toilet. The mom, who was sitting half in my seat anyway, with the thrush covered baby's head resting on my leg, tapped me rather hard, and rudely, with her finger.

I took out my ear bud. She proceeded to ask me if I would stand up so she could change her baby's diaper on my seat. I said "there's changing rooms in the plane bathroom". She got pissed and called over the steward. He told her "we want you to do that in the bathroom". I think he felt sorry that he hadn't let me change seats.

I am absolutely disgusted by people who change their baby on a seat plane. How would they like it if I took a shit on their seat? It's a plane, not a trailer park. And you can get diseases from shit. For fuck's sake people.

She changed the baby 2 more times after that. I guess his cold had moved to his ass. She spilled a bottle of baby goo all over my coach purse. I wiped it off without saying anything. Then she sat the baby facing forward and propped a People magazine on his head and proceeded to read it as he reached over into my seat back and ripped up my new yorker. I had already read it, but she didn't know that. She didn't say a word. I was even more pissed. Yeah, I'm not helpful, but she's a great mom for using her kid's head as a book stand.

Our flight circled DEN for an extra hour because of the storm yesterday. I was ready to scream. No one would have noticed because the baby was screaming. Finally we landed and as soon as the seat belt sign was off I got up and into the aisle. I had been on planes for over 9 hours by that point. I wanted to go home.

I leaned over and asked the mom if I could get anything out of the overhead bin for her. I always do that when I have the aisle seat. The fat woman said "oh, now she's being helpful". I looked at her and said "I'm right here, so if you have something to say, say it to me." Everyone turned around to see what was going to happen. I was not the only person on the plane who had been annoyed by the baby crying.

The fat woman didn't say anything to me. Instead she turned to the mom and said "let me give you my phone number". Fucking freak.

For the record, I have helped many moms trying to get their luggage and kids to their cars or get their luggage off the baggage claim. I've carried their shit down the plane ramp and moved to a shit seat so all the parents and kids could sit together. I just don't understand why anyone would fly with a sick kid. And why anyone would fly with a kid and not get a fucking seat for aforementioned kid. I didn't volunteer to give up half my seat. She just took it. And assumed I'd be okay listening to her kid screaming. When you're a parent you get used to that shit. For everyone else, it's hard.

Please. Stop flying with your kids if you can't control them. Don't change your kids on the seat. And don't assume everyone else cares that junior is having a bad day. Believe me, people just want him to shut the fuck up.

Thus ends the tirade. I feel better now.

attack of the zombie cats

I had the worst dream last night.

In the dream I was walking through the village of Copacabana, on the shore of Lake Titicaca. I was looking for something, but I don't know what it was.

I went down a narrow street and was confronted by a growling cat that was bloody and disfigured. I threw a rock at it and it ran away. But suddenly there were more cats, all grotesque and with huge chunks of fur missing. They started biting me. I had to kick them and stomp on their heads to kill them. One of the cats wouldn't die so I stepped on its chest and the cat's body burst open and I could see its rib cage and still beating heart.

I looked at my legs and arms, which were covered in bite marks and blood. I started to worry that I was going to turn into a zombie because I was bitten by zombie cats. I wondered if I was going to die.

Then I woke up. I have no idea what that dream was supposed to mean.

biodome and insects

Yesterday I went to the biodome (which was built for the olympics here, and took 20 years to pay off) and the insectarium, which is the largest collection in the world of insects.

The day started off rather challenging. I was going to walk to the biodome but was told it was too far and that I should take the metro. So I went to the metro and spent 10 minutes trying to read the directions in french for buying a ticket. I couldn't get the machine to work so I went to a kiosk. The woman sent me to another kiosk across the metro station. I walked over with my little subway map and said, to the woman in the kiosk, "I'm going to the Viau stop". She pointed to a stairway and said "it's down there". I was like "that's great, but how do I buy a ticket?" and she said "you buy it here".

We stared at each other for a few minutes, and then I said "well, where do I buy a ticket?" She got all excited and said "here, of course!" I was like why the fuck didn't you give me a ticket to begin with? I got an all day ticket, and it's a scratch off affair with the day, month, and year. Then I tried to put the ticket in the ticket slot at the turnstile. It didn't fit. So I went back to the kiosk and asked what I was supposed to do. The woman said "Show the ticket to me, and I open the turnstile." I stood there for a few minutes while she examined the exact same ticket she had issued me. She finally let me through.

I went to the biodome first. It was interesting but way too crowded. There were so many people with baby carriages that you couldn't get close to anything. I watched the penguins for a while. One pushed another one into the water. That was funny.

Then I set out to find the insectarium. Everyone said it was close to the biodome. Close, in relative terms. I had to walk through a park to get there. Then this woman yelled at me because I bypassed the ticket line (I already had a ticket). She stopped me and said "where are you going?" I was like "to see the insects". She said "do you see this line?" I said "the line of people to buy tickets?" and she said "yes". I said "if I have to wait in that line (which was really long) that defeats the purpose of buying a ticket in advance, doesn't it?" She said "I don't understand you" and waved me through. Everyone else was getting a stamp on their hand, but she didn't give me one.

Again, the insectarium was way too crowded. All the displays were set up for kids so I had to lean over to look at stuff, which was hard considering how many kids were there. My favorite thing was either the bug that looked like a branch or this orange and black tarantula. It was really bright orange.

Today I walked around old town Montreal. I went down there for dinner on Wednesday, and then a guy was shot the next day in front of the restaurant I went to. It was a mafia hit. The mafia is pretty active here, and everyone blames the US/New York.

Whatever.

I head home on Tuesday, and hope it has stopped snowing here by then. It's weird being in cold weather after the UAE.

Canada, what's up with that?

So, honey cigarettes? What's up with that? Why would anyone except a canadian put honey in a cigarette?

The queen? What's up with that? I bet you didn't even know Canada had a queen. She's the grand daughter of a slave. I'm not sure how she became queen, or what she does, but Canada has a queen.

Why do they have a queen, you may be asking. Because Canada, as it turns out, is still part of the british empire or some shit like that. Britain doesn't get to tell them what to do anymore, but their queen talks to Canada's queen. Crazy, I know. It explains the weird spellings of everything here.

brits, breaking the law again

In case you thought I was exaggerating about how strict things are in the UAE...

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/100314/n_top_news/cnews_us_emirates_kissing

when your colleague is a menace

Something that really irritates me is when work colleagues invite me to hang out with their families.

I know that probably sounds bad. But seriously, I have to put up with unruly screaming kids at the airport and in hotels. Why would I voluntarily hang out with them?

I'm not exactly an extrovert. I'm pretty shy. It's very difficult for me to spend all day with a client that I've just met. I get some pretty hostile and hard to work with people on my engagements, and at the end of the day all I want to do is go back to the hotel and work out and then spend the evening reading or writing. The pressure is worse when I am not only working with a client but training someone to do my job because I have two people that need my time.

And after working with a colleague, I don't want to hang out with their family. Inevitably the wife is glaring at me all night, sure I'm having an affair with her husband even though he's always fat, bald and unattractive (seriously, if I worked with good looking men, I wouldn't be single, would I). I guess the kids sense the hostility and that causes them to behave badly. I'm supposed to sit there and smile while the kids either behave like total heathens or the parents scream and yell at them to behave.

Do I want to experience my work colleague physically or verbally abusing his kids? No. Do I want to have to make nice with his wife to assure her we have so much in common even though she's a stay at home mom who doesn't even watch the news? No. I don't have much in common with these women that my colleagues tend to marry. I don't give a flying fuck about their kids' soccer scores or what prestigious elementary school they got into. I don't want to see their fucking crayon drawings. I want to go home and have a glass of wine in a quiet room so I can get ready for the next day of client torture.

If I wanted kids, I would have them. I don't want them. I want to spend as little time around them as possible. I sometimes think these colleagues feel sorry for me and that's why they try to invite me for dinner. But I like traveling (most of the time). I like to be alone.

Or, maybe they want to torture me and force me to experience how much of a big suck it is to come home to a loud dirty house and not be able to have an intelligent conversation. But, if you chose that life, it's your tough shit. I don't want to waste MY time putting up with that kind of shit.

To be fair, it's not always the kids and the wife that suck. Some times it's just the wife. But it's never a fun experience for me.

So, if you're ever contemplating inviting an out of town colleague out with your family, why not drop a hint that the invitation is there and let your colleague take the lead on whether or not to hang out with you. If the colleague doesn't say anything, or seems to be making excuses, fucking drop it. Don't hound your poor colleague every day to hang out with you because it will just annoy the fuck out of your colleague.

I should also mention that I'm not going to eat food you bring in just because you brought it. Stop trying to foist your stupid chocolate cakes and doughnuts on me. I don't eat them because I hate them. And stop trying to convert me to your religion. It's not going to happen.

Ech. Why do so many annoying people work as consultants?

my dreams should be in a museum

On Friday night I had a really bad dream. I was on a flat roof in a city like new york city, but not quite. Everything was cartoon colors. I looked up in the sky and saw 7 planes (red and white) flying in formation. They looked like toys, and the sky was a turquoise blue. I suddenly realized they were robot planes and that they were going to kill me. Then the roof turned into a v shaped roof with tiles. I was grabbing the tiles as I slid off the roof but they kept breaking. I fell over the side of the roof.

I woke up laying on the sidewalk. I was paralyzed. Then I saw these two men walking towards me. I was really scared because I knew they were bad guys. One guy leaned over me. He had this crazy beard and his facial features were distorted and almost not human. I realized, as his face got closet to me, that he was evil, and that if his face touched me I would become evil as well. But I couldn't move away from him because I was paralyzed.

Then I woke up.

Oddly, on Saturday I went to the museum of modern art, and saw a piece of artwork made out of wire, metal, and toys. It was a toy plane diving towards a woman who was looking up at the plane. And, there was a movie that I watched, which was made to look like a 1920s silent movie. In the movie people kept coming in to a bar wearing these animal heads made of paper maiche. They would get into fights with each other. Then the movie would flash to a guy with distorted features who would shake his head from side to side. The movie was creepy (like something David Lynch would dream up) but the guy with the distorted features was almost like the guy in my dream.

Strange.