To die by your side, well the pleasure the privilege is mine.

This is the picture I bring to the groomer 

when I take Charlie for a haircut.

Every Saturday I get to shun the NJ Transit rail system and enjoy a blissful 40 minute commute in my car. No one shoves me or shoulder checks me as I am about to get in the door. There are no strangers in my car who cough or sneeze or pick their noses next to me. My husband does all of these things, but at least he has the courtesy to warn me and roll down the window when he farts. This little bit of solitude - it’s like a little piece of heaven that makes it worth the odd Tuesday-Saturday work-week.

My only real complaint is the appalling lack of decent radio stations in the New York area. You basically have a choice of Top 40 Crap, Easy Listening Top 40 Crap, House Music Crap, or NPR. Now don’t get me wrong, I love me some NPR. But sometimes I just want to listen to some good old fashioned rock music written post-1960.

I used to work for a company that required me to travel a lot in rented cars through podunk middle-of-nowhere sections of Alabama and Kentucky and I was always chancing upon the most amazing contemporary rock stations. I'm talking about sections of the country entirely populated by cows, where every billboard was authored by God. I’d be in the rental car fiddling with the dial and it would scroll through Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Country Music, Jesus, Jesus, THE SMITHS! Jesus, Jesus, NPR, Country Music, RADIOHEAD B-SIDES! And then I’d come back home to New York, this supposed bastian of rock and roll and coolness and the best I’d be able to find was the newest Staind single on K-Rock.*

Recently New York got a real alt-rock station when K-Rock folded and was turned into The Worst Radio Station Ever. Go ahead and tune to 92.3, but I will not be held responsible for your brain leaking out of your head or any associated dry cleaning costs. And while WRXP still plays the occasional Staind single (How the hell DID we wind up like this?) I can forgive them for it when I hear Morrissey reminding me that he is human and he needs to be loved. Just like anybody else does.

*No offense to all you Staind fans – I know you’re just too stupid and uncultured to know any better.

Make your own damn salad.

 Can I have some extra dressing? A little more... keep going... 

Dammit, just give that thing to me. I'll do it myself!

When I got a job in New York I was excited at all of the opportunities for exciting lunches I knew would be coming my way. I spent a good amount of my working life at the mall, which surprisingly did not offer a great deal of gastronomical inspiration. There was always the difficult choice between Wendy’s and Chick-Fil-A, or a mall gyro from Greek Delight! if I was feeling really adventurous. The exclamation point is supposed to make you excited about the fact that it will give you diarrhea EVERY TIME YOU EAT IT.

So here I am, at my fancy-pants job in the big city. I have lunch hours and the possibilities are endless. And by possibilities I mean make-your-own-salad bars. And by endless I mean FUCKING ENDLESS. How can the 3 block radius around my office support seven hundred different make-your-own-salad restaurants? And how many salads can I make myself before I just lose it on the guy behind the counter?

For $14.00 US I shouldn’t have to make my own salad. I shouldn’t even have to order the damn thing. Chick peas? Turkey squares? I don’t fucking know dude! Put whatever you think I want in there, but God help you if you’re wrong. And when I finish eating it, it should clean off my desk and then watch the phones for me so I can take an extra 20 minutes at the gym.

Life & Style

Sorry - I don't have any change. 

Walking through New York City can sometimes feel like flipping through a fashion magazine edited by a crackhead. Every day I see impossibly skinny chic girls wearing outfits that only impossibly skinny chic girls can wear. Impossibly skinny chic girls in their layers of gauzy drapey shirts and scarves and stretchy pants and super soft leather above-the-knee boots and Chloe bags big enough to double as a 4 man tent. They waft through the streets on light breezes because girls that skinny and chic don’t need to waste their energy walking. I watch these girls float by and think about how I always wanted a pair of skinny jeans tucked into boots just so. But skinny jeans are not for girls with hips or girls who for example just ate an English muffin dripping with butter and then swore they were going to Be Good for the rest of the day but instead came into the office and immediately ate a plate of apple crisp that was mostly crisp because they hate cooked apples. Just for example.

On the other side of the coin, you get the hilarity that is the New York City trend-whore. Not to be confused with the New York City regular-whore, and since they sometimes dress (and act) almost exactly alike this can be a tough call. You’ll know the trend-whore when you see her schlepping through Grand Central wearing those slouchy saggy 80s pants that are back now (God knows why), ankle boots with a wedge heel, a sequined shirt, a giant belt just below her massive bosom, a sweater/cape/jacket thing (you know what I’m talking about), and a fedora. She’s dressed almost exactly like the homeless lady who just asked me for half of my sandwich. The only difference is that the homeless lady has to wear all her clothes at once BECAUSE SHE’S HOMELESS.

New York. The only city that can absolutely crush your self esteem only to completely revive it moments later. At least this place keeps you on your toes.

Lesson learned

Today I watched about a year's worth of episodes of 16 and Pregnant. I learned a few things:

• A Southern accent makes your chances of teen pregnancy rise exponentially.
• Teenagers should not legally have any right to name children. It's sort of the same thing as letting your 5 year old name your dog. Only the dog never has to grow up and explain to its friends at school why its mother named it Nevaeh.

An Open Letter

Dear Fellow Sufferers of the NJ Transit Rail System,

It appears we've all done something terrible in another life to be subjected to this 5th circle of hell known as the NJ-NYC commute. Fares are going up, service is practically non-existent, and it's a rare day when you don't have to stand the whole way to Penn Station or share your seat with 6 cackling teenagers. I'd like to present you all with a few suggestions to making the train ride more bearable. More like the 3rd circle of hell, reserved for Creed fans and people who wear stretch pants with shirts that don't cover their asses. So without further ado...

• If you're going to listen to your iPod, even with headphones, you still need to keep the volume at a reasonable level. Why even bother wearing headphones if your music is so loud it feels like it's coming from INSIDE MY BRAIN?? Also, that song sucks.
• Bring a tissue. No one wants to listen to you sniffle for 35 minutes straight. 
• Do not perform grooming activities that are normally reserved for the bathroom. I get the makeup application, but there should be no plucking, clipping, or tweezing of any kind happening. You are in public, for Christ's sake! And if one of those eyebrow hairs lands on my purse, so help me God lady, I will pull the emergency brake and toss your ass out of this car into the Meadowlands with Jimmy Hoffa!
• If you plan to bring your baby on an 8am commuter train, that bottle better be laced with NARCOTICS.
• Don't talk to me about politics.
• Don't talk to me about the weather.
• Yes, the train is late. Again. Don't talk to me about that either.
• Just don't fucking talk to me.
• If you are under the age of 16 or can't keep yourself from saying the word "like" as, like, every other, like, word, your fellow passengers have the right to staple your face shut for the duration of the trip.
• If the train is packed, your bag does not get its own seat. Don't make me ask you to move it or I will jump you like a high school girl with her eyebrows painted on and hoop earrings with her name in them.
• DON'T TALK TO ME. 

If we can all follow these few simple rules, I'm sure it will bring goodwill and cheer to all commuters.

Or at least I won't have to bring an M-16 on the train and spray anyone's brains on the nice new seats of the double decker.

Cheers!
    Commuter Chan