Reflections on an Icon

 The light of heaven shines down on the unsuspecting 

heathens of New York City

On my way through Grand Central yesterday on a whim I ran up the stairs to look out over the scene in the main terminal. It’s an icon, this place. Somewhere that most people will only ever see in movies, and I get to walk through it every single day. Most of the time I have my face buried in a book or I’m busy tapping away at my cell phone, but for reasons that are beyond my control I don’t know just how many more times I’m going to have the chance to walk through that echoing hall. I wanted to take a minute to reflect and really be in the space instead of just passing through in a hurry, rushing to catch my train which would be leaving in 10 minutes if it weren’t CANCELLED AGAIN.

These are my reflections.

Mmmm…. goldfish.*

Did you ever notice how goldfish stick in your teeth?

Man, those people are standing right in front of me for this picture. I am definitely going to be in this picture.

I just wish I could get these goldfish out of my teeth.

She definitely just got a picture of me picking goldfish out of my teeth.

A Bond Villain just stopped right in front of me to check his train schedule and/or assemble the detonator to a bomb he intends to use to blow up a train carrying some important government agent. Seriously - you should see this guy! Enormous shaved head, suspicious looking metal briefcase, trench coat with the collar standing up around his massive angry pockmarked face. He is DEFINITELY up to something.

At least he’s blocking me from these people taking another picture.

There are still goldfish in my teeth.

I wonder if I should attempt to thwart the Bond Villain’s plans. Maybe I should karate chop him. Or I guess I could just wait patiently until he inevitably starts monologuing in a Russian accent about where he hid the bomb and how I’ll Never Stop Him Now!

I wonder how many tourists now have pictures with me in the background picking goldfish out of my teeth.

Guesstimate: A Lot.



Fin



*They have goldfish in the office. The perfect heading to the train snack. Except, I don’t know if I mentioned they stick in your teeth.

Mr. Charlie goes to school

 Plotting his next felony

We signed the dog up for obedience classes starting next week. He's got some minor doggy problems - jumping on unsuspecting children, cursing out the poodle up the block, 2 counts of breaking & entering and an attempted carjacking. I keep telling myself that it's because he's still young or it's just a breed thing. But I think the truth is, my dog is an asshole.

I know I shouldn’t be surprised - look who his parents are.

For me one of the unfortunate side effects of dog ownership was being forced to actually meet all the people in my neighborhood I’ve spent these last 3 years purposely avoiding. I was happy in my little apartment cocoon, snarling at the neighbors and throwing garbage at the local children from the upstairs window on Halloween. The dog changed all that. I was forced outside, into the cold cruel world. And as mentioned in a previous post, I am almost always under-dressed for the coldness. And the cruelness, for that matter. There is no ice breaker quite like literally running into the man you’ve lived next door to for 3 years and never spoken a word to as you chase your dog down the street in a robe and wellies with a Breathe Right strip hanging off your face. Hey - Mr. Jones, is it? Good to see you again! But there’s no way back from there. Once the neighbor has seen your bare ass you can’t just nod to each other in the morning and pretend it didn’t happen.

You know it, he knows it, your ass knows it, and you can be damn sure the dog knows it and he and the cats will have a good laugh about it later.

Ciao

 Mama needs her special medicine!

I've been reading mommy-blogs lately. This is even weirder than my normal weird as I'm about 99.9% sure that I don't want to have kids. It's sort of like my lesbian roommate who loved watching gay porn. She didn't want to be involved in it, but found it completely fascinating in an icky, morbidly curious, watch-it-from-behind-your-hands sort of way.



This is just like that, but with less amyl nitrate.



I just love all the judgment that goes along with anything having to do with babies. Watching moms scream at and berate each other is better than even the best episode of Jersey Shore - better than the one where Vinny called Angelina "Trash Bags" for the whole show and then they smashed! And who knew there were so many ways to ruin a kid's life? You did/did not give your child a pacifier? RUINING THEIR LIFE! You did/did not breastfeed? LIFE! RUINED! You let you child cry for more than 5 minutes? LIFE RUINER! You went and comforted your child as soon as they made a peep? Well, you can imagine how RUINED their LIFE will be now!



When I was a kid, my parents had to resort to much more obvious ways of ruining my life. Like grounding me from age 11 until last week. Or embarrassing me publicly by breathing or existing in my presence during my entire high school career.


I think the real life ruiner might be the fact that all of these kids clearly have insane people for mothers.


I've also been reading some really great and inspiring stories at Dooce.com and offbeatmama.com, and for a second I started to rethink my No Babies policy. I was like hey - this lady did it - TWICE! She loves her kids and she's even still a person.



And then she started talking about how she hadn't slept for more than 2 consecutive hours in over 3 months and my ovaries packed up their shit and moved to Buenos Aires and just left a note that said

NO. THANKS.

It's ALIVE!

 Grrr. Arrrgh.

Fall in the NY Metro area usually means a few days of crisp weather and crunching through leaves and a lot of rain. This is an area where it rains for days at a time. It’s the earth’s way of preparing us for the sun’s absence for the next 3 months. They might as well just ship out guns to the whole tri state area as soon as November hits.


The weather report on days like this shouldn’t even bother with how many inches of precipitation we’re supposed to get or what the temperature will be. A more useful report would look like this:


Monday, partly cloudy.

Tuesday – Thursday, THE TRAINS WILL BE LATE. All of them. Yes, yours too.


It doesn’t matter to me though because late trains are the least of my worries on days like this. You see I was born with a crippling disease called curly hair. Imagine lightening bolts and thunder cracking when you read that. And maybe Count von Count is in the background too. THREE! THREE FLYAWAYS! AH AH AH!


I never watch the weather so I’m usually dressed for whatever the weather was yesterday or for whatever temperature it is inside my house. You’ll find me out on the reservation walking Charlie in February in shorts and a sweatshirt because that’s what I was wearing in the living room, so WHY SHOULD IT BE ANY DIFFERENT HERE? But I always know the second I wake up if it’s raining because my hair looks like I’ve been sleeping attached to a Van de Graaff generator. If I was smart I’d just call in dead to work on days like this and go right back to bed until the sun comes back out. But instead I usually fight the losing battle with the hairdryer and my Chi straightener and then take bets on how long it will take for my hair to grow large enough to devour the unlucky person sitting next to me on the train or run for senate on a platform of Universal Conditioner. Internet, I have a confession. My hair is a socialist.


A few years ago the company sent us on a golf outing and while we were getting our first lesson this freak storm came out of nowhere and drenched us. My hair, my traitorous hair which I had worked on for an hour before leaving the hotel room, went from pin straight to a mass of Little Orphan Annie curls in the span of 45 seconds. Give me a sandy dog and a song about Sunshine and you wouldn’t know the difference aside from the murderous gleam in my eye as I searched the grounds for anything resembling a hat. You see that maniac trying to hide her Ronald McDonald hair underneath a piece of birch bark? Flee from her, lest the curls be contagious!

Wedded Bliss

This means I have to start paying

for my own car insurance.

I went to a wedding this weekend – my third in 4 months including my own, effectively doubling the number of weddings I’ve attended. I only really count 4 of them though because I was too young to drink at the first two and does anything count when you’re not drunk enough to really enjoy it?


I was nervous about being under pressure in the bridal party because my own wedding was pretty stressful and just a whirlwind of smiling and “Oh my God I’m so glad you came!”. But this wedding was perfect. I was the HSBoH which meant I didn’t have to schmooze anyone or give a speech or do anything really except show up in my pretty dress, smile for pictures, make sure the bride got drunk and make a fool of myself in the photo booth. It’s way more fun when you’re not in the white dress. You don’t have to worry about whether everyone is dancing or enjoying the food. You don’t have to pretend you care that all those people showed up when all you really wanted to say was JUST HAND OVER THE CHECK GRANDPA! You don’t have to worry that the photographer you paid $5,000 to is going to catch you standing in your white dress smelling your own armpit and post pictures of it on her blog. Not that my own wedding wasn't spectacular. But everything is always better when someone else is paying.


Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Maz.