New York

So I went to New York a few weekends ago to visit my sister there at law school.
The most memorable part of the trip? Me missing my flight on the way back. Don’t even ask how I did it. I’m convinced I lost at hour because one minute I’m on the subway, rocking out to my I-Pod, with plenty of time to get to the airport, the next thing I know it’s ten minutes until my flight takes off and I’m 5 stops away.

I thought that only happened in movies. I thought it would end up being like some airport scene from a movie where I’m all sad I missed my flight and I do this big dramatic sigh, then someone comes up behind me and it’s someone from my past or something who confesses their love to me and some Stevie Wonder song starts playing as it fades into credits. But no, the only person following me was some street person trying to sell me a bootleg copy of The 40 Year Old Virgin. The saddest part is that the first thing I did, when I ran up to the gate and heard my flight had left, was cry. I haven’t cried in ages and suddenly I was crying like I was 3 and someone had just stolen my ice cream cone. Glad to know I revert to toddler status when in a crisis. And on the way out to New York, I had put my carry-on way at the front of the plane, even though I was sitting near the back, because I was late getting on and everything else was full. (I apparently am always late to flights. It’s going to be my new “thing”) And when I was getting off the flight I stood up, making sure to steal the seat copy of SkyMiles magazine, and saw some dude at the front of the plane take down my suitcase, consider it for a minute, and then take off with it. I started hopping and yelling, but since I was at the back of the plane and I tend to look like I’m 12, no one paid me any attention. Long story short for about 30 minutes I thought some New York guy had walked off with my suitcase, never to be seen again. In actual fact, some guy had walked off with my suitcase and was nice enough to bring it back an hour later. He must be from the Mid West. In those panicky few minutes, I did a quick calculation of the worth of my luggage’s contents and began mentally penning an angry letter to the airline about how my Mickey Mantle baseball card, jar of French truffles, and my Olympic gold medal were in there. And when Johnny McLostandFound at the JFK luggage center said my bag was gone forever, I cried then too. Why am I always crying at JFK? That place has far too many of my tears. It’s just not my airport.

But don’t worry, I did more then just cry at the airport in New York. Although if you looked at my camera, which I enthusiastically carted around the entire city, you wouldn’t know it. I took two pictures on my trip. One of the Friend’s apartment building in the West Village and one of my sister wearing a funny hat. And that’s it. The photo album will be amazing.

But it was a fun trip and I got to see how my sister lives and what her latest favorite computer game is that she plays while she talks to me on the phone. But I can’t write too much about that because she is my blog’s most avid reader and I already have enough trouble getting a monthly phone call from her in between rounds of Minesweep.

Suffice it to say that New York is cool. If it were for the sucky up weather, I’d be there in a second. It was apparently the wettest month ever or something. I’ve gone soft from living in such nice weather and almost kissed the ground when I returned. I also think there are too many subways in New York. Is it just me, or does anyone else notice that pretty soon the entire island will have a subway under it and eventually it will just collapse into the ground, probably right onto the train I would be on while going to JFK? I think I’m alone in thinking this.

I’ll have to write more later because sadly I’m back to the grind and I have to actually work today. This past weekend I had a crazy Halloween night out and did all sorts of crazy, blog-worthy things. Watch out.

Office Rule #72: Don't Eat in Front of Co-Workers

I just realized I’ve been using the hand lotion dispenser as soap for the last six months at work. How I have not yet gotten SARS or something is beyond me.

Have I talked about my new department much? I don’t think I have, besides giving random updates on how it smells that day. Today, by the way, it’s back to cookies, but I think that’s because I’m eating some at my desk.

I’ve been in this department for quite a while, but I’m still undeniably the “new kid.” I probably still will be even if I end up running the place. It’s a really small department with only about 5 of us, which is kinda cool, but kinda weird. It’s a totally different vibe from my last place. For starters, you guys all know me, I’m all about the social contacts at work. And here’s something I can’t understand: as long as I’ve been in this department, I have yet to go to lunch with one of my co-workers! I don’t know what they do for lunch. I think they go and sit in their cars and eat or something. All I know is, none of them are very social. There’s one girl who sits right near me who kinda looks like me, only older. At first I thought she was cool and invited her out to the happy hours I’d go to with work friends (who were clearly not in this department) but she’d never come. Now I’ve decided she doesn’t look like me and I’ve stopped the outreach program.

I’d go into more detail about my four co-workers here, but I’m kinda scared someone at work is reading this and is penning an email to HR as we speak. So I’ll just sum up the more interesting ones. There’s this one girl who recently lost 100 pounds and that’s basically all I know about her. Once, we all went to a meeting that included lunch. (OK so I guess technically we’ve been to lunch together, but it was required) Now god knows I love a free meal and if my parents taught me anything it’s how to be cheap. So when there’s free food to be had, I will eat like I’m going into hibernation. I think I had two sandwiches, two helpings of salad, four bags of chips, two sodas, and the entire plate of cafeteria brownies. Hey, no one else was eating them! When I was mid-bite on my tenth brownie, my Jenny Craig co-worker started glaring at me from across the table and finally said “Do you work out?” I looked at her over the top of the Dr. Pepper I was downing. “What?” I said.

“You eat so much, how do you stay so skinny?” Suddenly the whole room went quiet and now instead of learning about accounting for derivative transactions, my dietary habits were suddenly the topic of discussion. “Yeah!” someone else yelled from the other end of the room, “How come you’re skinny!” I thought I was going to be attacked by a fat mob. So I started lying. “Um, yeah.. I work out.” “How often?” I was clearly digging myself in a hole, and if I didn’t watch out, I would quickly have a gym buddy. The truth is I don’t work out anymore. And I certainly don’t consider myself skinny. Now before this blog goes spiraling out of control talking about body image and societal pressures on girls, lets stop right here. But to sum up the story, this woman has since always had a little bit of attitude with me. Now if I’m not jogging back from lunch after having a burger, I feel guilty.

OK, I’d better post this kid so that I’m not slacking on posts. I notice some people check my blog pretty often, and I wouldn’t want to let them down! I still have to write about this other girl I work with who I initially thought was a man. It turns out this is just her day job. She also plays on a women’s professional football team. That’s a blog in itself so I’ll save that one for later.