very simple

Two whole posts in March! I know, I’m a very bad person. Perhaps it was all the time that I spent actually getting those India photos up and running. Five years ago, it made perfect sense to have my own photo pages. It was certainly before Flickr became mainstream (or even existed). I’m afraid I missed the boat on that one.

Perhaps it’s because I keep thinking I should talk about the election, but I’ve already got election fatigue and we haven’t even finished the damn democratic primary season. It’s just getting really ugly between the dems, and I’m not sure that it’s helping. And I’m speaking as someone who doesn’t have an irrational dislike of either of them. Of course, I’d vote for my stapler before I voted for McCain (and seriously, nevermind that he such mysoginistic asshole that he actually called his wife a c***, what does it say about his judgement that he doesn’t have the presence of mind to not do it in front of a room full of reporters?!).

Or, perhaps it’s because I’ve been working like crazy. The late night car service people got to know me very well for the last few weeks. I don’t really mind, it’s part of the job, but I am a bit exhausted. But my 3rd deal in two weeks is closing today, so I should be a bit calmer. My biggest problem isn’t the work, it’s that, when I get stressed out, and particularly when I have to get to the office earlier than my usual start time, I get this really annoying “waking” insomnia. Let’s say that, normally I wake up between 6 and 7 to go to the gym and get to work by 9:30. But instead, I have to be in the office at 8. No problem, right? I’ll wake up at my normal time but just skip the gym, right? Except that, ignoring all sense of tiredness (and my alarm clock which hasn’t gone off), my body decides I should wake up at 4am. So I can lie there for 3 hours trying to go back to sleep until I realize that it’s pointless and just get up. Which is why I’m sitting here at 6:30 in the morning explaining why I haven’t written a post in so long.

But it should calm down after today, and I’m looking forward to sleeping away most of the weekend. When I get some more energy, I’ll actually do an entry explaining some of those 600+ photos that I posted.

Maybe I shouldn’t have had that double espresso at 4 in the afternoon yesterday.  I’ve been waking up every 2-3 hours all night (1am, 3am, and 5am), freaking out that I’ve somehow slept through my alarm and am going to miss my appointment with my personal trainer this morning.  Now I’m worried that if I try to go back to sleep for another hour until my alarm is actually set to go off, I will definitely sleep through it…

Ah, insomnia…at least you give me the extra time in my day to write inane blog posts for NaNoBloMo.

update: or, you know, NaBloPoMo, which is the actual name, which I can actually remember when I don’t wake up every two freaking hours!

Yesterday, I was wandering around down near Union Square, and I decided to pop in to Shoemania to see if I could get myself a new pair of crocs.  I bought a pair last year, and loved them, but pretty much wore them out.

Plus, since that purchase, the amount of colors and styles that have been made available has increased, and what I really wanted were the more "industrial" type that had an adjustable back strap.  Unfortunately, even though the shoes are essentially unisex chunks of rubber you strap to your feet, this particular style has been marketed towards men (while the pink strappy ones are over in the women’s section, go figure!).  It’s not that I have a problem shopping for or buying "men’s" shoes, it’s that, most of the time, the sizes available in this style have been way too big for my feet.

So, I get to shoemania, and discover that they’ve actually got racks of the things, some of them even approaching my size! (between 8-9).  So I hurriedly grab a pair and start trying them on, finding them both comfortable and generally the right size.  At which point, a complete stranger taps me on the shoulder (which gets my hackles up right away, because, call me crazy, I don’t like complete strangers touching me).  And when I turn around, she starts, very animatedly, lecturing me about how "those are men’s shoes" with a disgusted look on her face.

Huh?

So I, being my ever so polite (read: bitchy) self, after being touched, interrupted and lectured at by a complete stranger about how I’m essentially not conforming to her gender stereotypes, first ask if she works at the store.  Answer?  no.  At which point I kind of ripped into her about:

(a) the fact that she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about, as the shoes are UNISEX, and print both men’s and women’s sizes on the bottom (regardless of the fact that they’re fugly clogs worn for casual comfort, and not to, say, a fancy ball)

(b) maybe she should keep her fucking unsolicited (and wrong) opinions to herself, and

(c) even if was buying "men’s" shoes (I guess, wingtips? other than high heels, there actually aren’t too many really "gender specific" shoes), why would it be any of her goddamn business?

She ran away at that point.

Yeah.  I think the fact that she felt so strongly about this that she actually had the gall to touch me, to interrupt my shoe buying reverie, to lecture me, was what set me off. 

Anyway, I mentioned this to the checkout counter person as I was paying, and she couldn’t stop laughing – shockingly, even if I wanted to buy "men’s" shoes, they would have no problem selling them to me!  imagine that!  because they’re in the business of selling shoes (and frankly, being on the border of Greenwich Village and Chelsea, I’m pretty sure my buying a pair of crocs and a new pair of chuck taylors (also unisex!) was the least unusual sale of the week). 

So, after another weekend in the Berkshires with my family, I have come to the conclusion that I’m simply allergic to nature.  Got up here on Friday night, and by Saturday, I had a full-blown cold/sinus infection/allergy thing.  This morning, instead of going to my favorite restaurant up here for breakfast, I took some Tylenol Flu and crept back into bed until almost noon. My entire head feels like it’s stuffed with a layer of cotton balls between my brain and my skull. 

And the only thing I could bring myself to eat was some toast.

Fun times. 

For some months now, I’ve been researching buying a digital SLR camera – tomorrow I’m going to go down to B&H and get a Nikon D80 and a couple of lenses.  But I was down near Union Square today, so I decided to go into Circuit City just to see if they had what I wanted and if so, at what price. 

I make my way over to the cameras, where there are about 6 sales associates just standing around talking to one another.  I actually had to ask one of them to move so that I could actually look at the D80.  Not once, while I was testing out a camera with a price tag of over $1,000, did any of these people ask whether they could help me with anything (nevermind that B&H has the thing for over $200 less).  I must have played around with the thing for a good 10 minutes as well, while they all stood around and gossiped about their co-workers. 

Nice, right? 

So, after clearly deciding that waiting until Sunday for B&H to be open was clearly the better idea, I figure that, as long as I’m at Circuit City, I might as well pick up some print cartridges for my printer, since I didn’t have any spare ones.  I find the ones that I need and get on line.  Where there are at least 20 people in front of me.

And one person at the register.  Who is inspecting every single piece of merchandise as if she’s got to take a quiz before she scans the UPC code.  The guy behind me in line and I actually had a good, 15 minute, conversation about the inadequacy of the service there before I got to the register.

Needless to say, I made a point of refusing to show my receipt at the door when I left.  Just because I felt like making someone else’s day a little more miserable at that point.

I mean, none of these things was the worst thing to happen to me on a shopping trip (by far), but I had wandered into the store in a perfectly good mood, and by the time I left I was practically seething.

I’m not saying that I would have necessarily bought the camera there, but given the price match guarantees that they make, and the fact that I had all of the info about the camera printed out from B&H’s website in my bag, I could have easily gotten it at CC at the same price I’m going to pay tomorrow.  But instead, I’m going to make a brand new trip, to a really inconvenient part of town, to a store that isn’t open on Saturdays (and that gives me a bit of claustrophobia because it’s so overwhelming with stuff) because no one could be bothered to even say hello to the girl checking out the most expensive camera in the store.  Even though they were standing right next to her. 

You know, I used to be somewhat sympathetic to the plight of pedicab owners in the city (and I still think that they should be encouraged given the city’s pollution and congestion issues), but the idea that vehicles, simply because they’re human-powered, shouldn’t be subject to regulation? Um, no.

But then again, I could just be projecting because I almost got run over yesterday by one of these guys pulling a left turn onto sixth avenue while very much not watching for the pedestrians (read: me) who had the right of way.

Sometimes it’s amazing to me that this city doesn’t just collapse in on itself. Packed like a sardine on the M7 bus this morning, due to the fact that about 8,000 extra people were trying to get on the bus at my stop alone thanks to the flooded subways, I remarked to someone that this city is like a giant house of cards – anything goes wrong and it’s like the entire place comes to a grinding halt. Of course, then I said that I still wouldn’t live anywhere else, and they all smiled and laughed and generally agreed with me.

So, my morning.

Woke up at 5:30am for no apparent reason (I realize now that it was probably due to the thunderstorm outside). Dozed until about 6:30, when I got up to go to the gym to meet my personal trainer, with whom I had a 7am appointment. Trekked 5 blocks through a torrential downpour to Reebok, worked out for an hour (even the over-air conditioned gym was a bit humid), and then went home. Noticed on the way home that there were about 100 people at my normal bus stop at 8am, which seemed a bit unusual.

Got ready for work, and then went to catch the bus at a little after 9. Again, there was an unusually large number of people at the stop, and someone explained that the subways weren’t running, or were only running on a very limited basis, so they were directing everyone to take the bus instead. Six buses went by, too crowded to even attempt to get on. Bus number 7 had a sign indicating that it was only going to 42nd street, so I thought this was my best bet. Squeezed myself on, although the guy behind me almost got his arm amputated by the closing bus doors. Make a few stops, people squeeze on an off the bus, and then…

Then we get to Columbus Circle, where every subway train that was running at all had decided to terminate (the elevation is lower the further downtown you go, so there was probably more flooding below 59th street). There are hundreds of people standing there, to the point where everyone at the front of the bus, and the driver, start laughing at the improbability of any one of the people actually getting on the bus. In the meantime, there are a few trapped poor souls who actually need to get off the bus at this point. So, the doors open to let them off, and before they even have a chance, the bus is rushed by crazed people, including one woman who forces her way on, pushing the rest of us into immovable objects like metal bars, and then tries to say that she’s trying to help the people getting off the bus by moving further back! Never mind that she was essentially the cork that stopped the entire flow of people moving.

At this point, I realize, of course, that none of these people are bus people, they’re all subway people, so none of them bother to read the front of the bus. So I helpfully start announcing that the bus is only going to 42nd street, and if people want to go further south, they should wait for a different bus. At which point this woman starts freaking out that she’s on the wrong bus and pushed her way back off.

People actually applauded me. The driver was laughing, and we all had a nice collective bonding experience over the sheer ineptitude of our fellow new yorkers.

Just another day in the big city…

By the way, it took me an hour to get the one mile from home to work.

Reading this entry over at bstewart’s blog totally reminded me of a similar (yet more "pedestrian") event that happened to me the other day. I was walking home from work, on Columbus, very much on the sidewalk, when some twenty-something on a bike goes from a standing stop on the sidewalk to swerve immediately in front of me, almost hit me, and nearly fall off her bike in an attempt to stop.

I, being me, so helpfully point out that "that’s why it’s illegal to ride your bike on the sidewalk," wherein said twenty-something starts yelling at me and calling me a bitch.

You know, for apparently expecting to be able to walk on the sidewalk.

I should point out here that we were all of one block from central park, so if she was so incapable of riding her bike in Manhattan traffic, perhaps she herself should have, I don’t know, walked her bike over to those car-free environs?

Ah, the joys of a new blog.  I’m having a little trouble with my rss feed – something’s not parsing right, and since I know less than nothing about php editing (going to buy a book today!), I can’t fix it at the moment.

However, at least some rss readers “fix” the problem themselves – if you use Google Reader (like me), and hit the “subscribe” button that they tell you to put in your toolbar, the feed shows up fine.  you just can’t access it directly from my website.

Look for this to be fixed in about…10 years.

I tried not to sleep on the plane, because I knew it would screw me up, but then? I fell asleep. for most of the flight from London. Oh well, I suppose I’ll have to take some sort of power nap later today, as I woke up at 5:30 this morning once I did go to bed in my apartment.

As always, traveling home from Europe is a singular experience. This time, I didn’t have to sit next to a senile old lady, but people may have thought that I was crazy, with the muttering under my breath at various points in the process.

To start off. When I booked the trip, I opted for the latest flight out of Milan possible. I didn’t know what my schedule was going to be the last week there, given that the deal I was working on was supposed to close that week (and when I was booking, the schedule was still a bit up in the air). Given that, I thought having as much time to pack over the weekend would be the ideal option. But we ended up closing on Wednesday, so after that, I really had nothing to do except pack. Taking the latest flight though, meant that I would have to change planes in London. Given what happened last time I had to change planes in London from Italy, I was, shall we say, a little nervous.

OK. So I get to Malpensa plenty early (no traffic). the BA flight from Milan to London is scheduled for 5:35pm. at 5:20, they haven’t started boarding the plane yet, and I start freaking out a bit (just to myself). Amazingly, at 5:25, they start boarding, and actually get everyone on the plane and seated in about 10 minutes. I’m duly impressed by this, and given our estimated flight time, we should land on time, at 6:35 UK time. Now, this gives me just under an hour and a half to get from terminal 1 to terminal 3 at Heathrow. The little pamphlet I get with my ticket says that it should take 75 minutes to get from plane to plane. OK. I’m cutting it close, but still within the allowable time frame.

Miracle of miracles, we actually land on time. The flight attendants, knowing that I have to hurry, actually move me up right near the exit door (along with another gentleman transferring to dublin) so that we can be the first ones out of the plane. And then we sit there. because there’s no one at Heathrow to operate the jetway so that we can actually get off the plane. For 25 minutes. 7pm rolls around, and they finally start moving the jetway. To the other door. So now I’ve got to push my way through an aisle full of people (A flight attendant actually pushed, I just followed in her wake). And of course, I’ve now got less time than the little booklet says, so I’m just a little stressed. I literally run off the jetway, through the terminal following the signs, and then I get to the security checkpoint. Where they tell me I can’t go through unless I somehow figure out how to make my carryon and my backpack (purse sized) into one bag. Because apparently at Heathrow, you’re only allowed one bag, even if your transferring between two different airports that allow two bags. And your flying business class, which usually means that you can bring a damn steamer trunk on board and they’ll just smile at you. And your in danger of missing your connecting flight if you don’t hurry. Needless to say that while I was cramming my backpack into my carry on, there was a bit of vulgar muttering. As soon as that’s done, I don’t even look at the guy and just push past him to be able to get in the actual security line. I knew there was a reason that I didn’t want to overpack my carryon before I left.

Security goes pretty quickly, as there are only three people in line.

Book it down the escalator, to the bus. Where the bus is sitting there, but the doors won’t open (the terminal doors leading out to the bus, not the bus doors). When I ask the woman why the doors won’t open, she basically tells me she’ll open them when she feels like it. There are now three other people with me, at least one of whom is trying to get on the same flight as me. Apparently, the door lady has been saying this to everyone. three seconds later, she opens the doors. Nothing like a power trip to stress me out even more. The bus ride takes about 10-15 minutes, and then we’re at the new terminal, in the main shopping area. If you’ve ever been to Heathrow, you know that it’s about 100 miles from the shopping area to the actual gates. So my new friend from the bus and I just start running. get on those moving passenger walkways, and push people out of our way (seriously, how hard is it to read the sign that says stand on the right, walk on the left?). Get to gate 16, check in, and realize that it’s only 7:30.

That’s right. I did a 75 minute connection, including a terminal change, in 30 minutes.

We boarded shortly thereafter.

And then we sat at the gate for another hour and a half.

Frankly, I was so happy about making it onto the plane and not having to stay in London overnight that I didn’t care. Plus, I had been able to do a mileage upgrade to business, so the free champagne was a pretty nice relaxant. No wonder I fell asleep.