with GPS you know it's all just a matter of degrees

This morning the bor newsroom woke up bright and early to do some work. The wake-up call included a weather report. it allowed me to spend some quiet time by the lake and without other people. Breakfast in the sun was followed by a bunch of presentations and an insanely huge lunch. I think I overdid it. Then we drove to Red Rocks open space for the GPS Scavenger Hunt. I don’t really feel like getting into this part, other than it was beautiful and kinda fun because it was basically hiking with a purpose…upon returning, I hopped in the tub and grappled with the problem of how to hear the telly over the sound of the water. Finally I figured out that all I need do is turn on the telly in the bathroom to the same channel (it can only be seen from the shower, not the tub) and use the volume for that tv and the picture on the other. Curb your enthusiasm is good in the bath. So is ali G. which I am still watching. In a luscious bathrobe. We have dinner in like an hour, so I think as soon as the feet stop aching, I will head to the outdoor bar with the fireplace which is obviously my spiritual home.

They tell you to begin at the beginning, but I’m going for begin at what is please god please almost the end. We’re sittingn in DFW after an of course delayed flight out of COS and our flight is now delayed for the 90th time to about 2 ½ hrs late. I hope I get to see my apartment again.

Picking up from last time. Some sort of drinking game was underway when I made it to the bar and I reluctantly joined in. it was different rules for me as I was drinking scotch. We made our way to dinner which was sick. Under a pavilion, outdoor FP, and tonnnnnnnnneeess of food, all of which was yumsters. Then there was the afterparty.

There’s the guy. You know who he is the second you meet him. He’s the one who found a way to get off the property and get 4 cases of beer and fill up his bathtub with it and a monstrous amount of ice. He’s the one who’s gonna make sure you get bombed. We’ll call him Saviour. I’ve NEVER played a drinking game until that day. I haven’t even heard of most of them. So the flip-cup tourney was complete news to me. I was still in the midst of getting peoples names, faces, locations and job titles right. So the beer-covered desk was a strange distraction. Anyway, seeing the vast majority of your coworkers really fucking tanked. Eg, of of the more established members, who was moving house the next day and had a flight at 7am, took it upon herself to order beer from room service. Do you want to know how much a case of domestic beer costs at a 5-diamond hotel (domestic)? $150. So it was no small wonder (in retrospect), that when it hadn’t arrived 20 minutes after ordering, she was on the phone in the toilet (not ON the toilet though) literally screaming at room service demanding the bring the beer “right now”. The poor girl who showed up looked pretty fucking scared. And I probably would too. We looked like barbarians. Actually it just looked like a frat party. Or spring break. the highlight for me was when we started kicking the french doors into the bathroom like we were cops breaking into an apartment. that is REALLY Fun. I left at 130, knowing we had to be on a bus at 8am to go rafting, and when I went to bed four doors away, I could hear them rockin till the break of day. Obviously, people looked hysterical the next morning. There were a few bright-eyed, bushy tails, but for the most part, eyes were puffy, heads were slung, hands rested on bellies and voices were coated in beer and cigarettes. We spent two hours on the Arkansas river, and my particular guide was so clichéd I wondered if he was just putting us on. He described each rapid hit as “epic” and advised us all to buy the kind of sandals he had on (he also complimented my solomons). He was nice and let us be pretty lazy, which was why we came floating in about 10 minutes after the boat in front of us, in last place.

Cold and wet, but certainly no longer hungover (nothing clears up a headache like the fear of being swept out of a boat), we boarded the bus and tore through our box lunches. Box lunch with three sandwiches, chips, apple, a snickers bar, some weird coconut thingy with chocolate chips and, inexplicably, a packet of ranch dressing. I ate every crumb. We returned finally and I jumped in the gorgeous tub and watched Curb Your Enthusiasm.

One of the girls I work with, Jersey, had suggested going to Garden of the Gods which I’d been all for earlier, but was now totally not feeling like I wanted to go anywhere or do anything.

You know what sucks ass? The fact that we were supposed to land at 915, and it’s 1022 and I was just told I was allowed to turn on my approved electronic device. Yeah. So fucking late.

So we ended up renting a car and driving to a tourist trap old style western town where I bought a dress to wear to dinner that evening since I apparently took “casual dress” waaaay too literally. Dinner was extravagant, and began with our CEO giving a speech via an anamatronic moosehead in the banquet hall we were eating in. there was dancing and booze and a mess all around.

I finally crashed after stopping by Saviour’s for round two. This time there were god knows how many cases of beer and a pony keg. I have no idea what kind of debauchery ensued as I could literally barely stay awake. This morning Jersey and I got in the car (which we’d sweet-talked our way into parking for free) and went to Garden of the Gods and Manitou (?) springs. Then we drove to the airport and proceeded to get delayed for a fucking iron age.

I’m tired and pissed off and since I accidentally brought my netflix with me, and it’s “metropolitan”, I’m gonna annoy the people around me with my bright computer screen and watch it.


Ps, it was a fun time… ☺ just in case you want to hear more about the flight, after we boarded there was (in dallas) apparenlty some issue in the cargo hold. a hole in a firewall. so they had to move our bags from one area to another. that obviously took forever. then the captain said we might not get to land at LGA bc they close at 12am. but they did let us land. but there was a plane at our gate. so why can't we just park somewhere else? it's like 2am, there've got to be empty gates at laguardia. fuck me. so we finally get to the gate and get off the plane and theyv'e put all the flights that have just come in's baggage on the same fucking baggage claim. finally got to sleep around 3am. ugh.

my trip to colorado springs

Even though I’ve been traveling for 10 hours or so, was unfortunate enough to call two fairly disgusting airport chili’s appetizers (shared between five people) and a hideously overpriced Stella dinner and have to get up at 7am to work tomorrow morning, I am still excited enough to get out my stupid computer and start typing this in a word doc since there’s no wireless in my room (tomorrow, it’s lake terrace in the am, this might be one of the rare times I’m excited to be up at the ass crack of dawn). There is a television in the bathroom, people. I am now watching some special on the travel channel, on a giant flat screen tv (not the one in the bathroom), on a hugely comfy chair with a leather ottoman in one of these ridiculous hotel robes. I want to live here. Maybe I do want to be rich. Cause this shit is sweet.

It’s been a harrowing day anyway, as we started off in moronic traffic from the office to LGA. Not entirely sure why the cabbie decided to take the fdr to the triboro instead of the queensboro, but then again, the man wouldn’t go over the speed limit on the rare occasions when we had the chance to do so.

It didn’t really matter that we got to the airport 40 minutes before our flight, because it ended up being delayed. And then we sat on the tarmac for god knows how long. This might be one of the worst feelings ever. Stuck on the ground in a giant metal tube –did I mention that there are French doors out to the Colorado air (which is fragrant with wcs’s smell of choice: fire)? – waiting to go somewhere that isn’t even your final destination. Bleh. We finally got in the air and luckily the connecting flight to Colorado Springs was delayed too so we didn’t miss it.

This place, the Broadmoor, is pretty huge. There are apparently 700 rooms and 15 places to eat. I am looking forward to poking around tomorrow before breakfast and the meetings start. Maybe I’ll try to throw this up too. I’ve already taken about 20 pictures, just of the room.

I can’t even explain the weird computer thingy that controls everything from the television to the drapes (automatic drapes! See THOR). I am hungry. That is about the only problem now. That and the fact that I don’t have nearly enough free time here. We’ve discussed the cog railway to my erstwhile namesake, (Zebulon) Pike’s peak, or cycling to the Garden of the Gods, or hiking anywhere. We hope to get some good stuff in between the teambuilding and trust falls. Tomorrow is meetings all morning and a GPS scavenger hunt, whatever that means, in the afternoon. Better get some rest. I actually ASKED for a 630 am wake up call.

Oh yeah, for those of you who have no idea what I’m on about, the whole lot of we north Americans from no-suck inc. are here in Colorado Springs for a corporate retreat. Yeah. I don’t really know. Shit, I hear a train. So far, we have the best smell and the best sound present and accounted for. I have got to find a way to sneak out of these meetings.

This is the first time I’ve been West since I moved back from England, and that’s a long time. I’m taking the opportunity to reconnect with my hippy roots. I busted out the Eugene, Oregon Grateful Dead t-shirt, listened to a lot of MMJ and Son Volt on the flight over, and kinda wish I’d brought some weed with me. I’ve got my fleece jacket and my zippy shorts/pants. Sometimes I forget how nice it is to commune with actual nature, not the crap version we have around NYC (skeelz notwithstanding).

That’s enough for my first liveblog of corporate America in the Rockies. Where’s my coors light?

love train

sometime last week (friday?), i was on the platform waiting for the subway. there was a guy a few people down from me and i was like, 'huh, he's pretty cute'. then he turned towards me and i realized it was someone i hooked up with about four years ago. i spent the rest of the ride trying to avoid eye contact.

today i saw emmett. i forget whether or not i ever posted the story of emmett so here's a short version
new to new york city, i was smashed around 4am on a diverted F train. i didn't understand the intricacies of late-night weekend subway madness, so i was halfway to far rockaway or whatever before i realized what was going on. i asked the conductor (emmett) for advice and we had a chat, etc. he was like a 50 year old black guy, not unlike morgan freeman. i thought he was harmless enough. but he asked me for my phone number and i felt trapped. i was actually trapped on the train. and i gave it to him. never, ever, in my wildest dreams (nightmares) did i imagine he would call me twice a day for the next month and once a day for a month after that, in spite of the fact that i only answered once, by accident. he left messages, it was horrible.

so this morning one of my worst fears was realized. after years of fearing the F train every time it pulled in (difficult when you commute on it), i finally saw old emmett's head poking out the conductor's car window this morning. ugh.

seein' things

saturday i had a belated birthday brunch with (beta) and woozy at cafe orlin in the east village. it was fantastic. check that shit out.

we then went to see black book. This movie is great. i highly recommend you watch it sometime.

later that night maj, xx and i were at local 138. there was some weird show on the tvs called "when good pets go bad", which seemed to focus primarily on elephants and giant cats misbehaving (loose definition of "pet"), but ultimately led xx and maj to mock me once again for my love of america's funniest home videos. i know it's a crap show, but nothing makes me laugh like watching people fall down. i explained this to them again and recounted a story about how i once fell and couldn't get up for 10 minutes because i was laughing so hard and then immediately burst into hysterics the next day when i recounted the story to a friend. (i was giggling even when i told xx and maj about it, three-odd years later.)

anyway, it seemed rather fitting that, on the way to the subway, i took a giant header on essex. i don't really know what happened except there was a cellar door involved and maj came over and found me lying, rather confused, on the sidewalk. as soon as i figured out what had happened, i started laughing. amazingly, i was relatively unscathed after the incident. if i'd been sober, i'm entirely sure it would have been a much worse scenario, but i only have scrapes on my palms (stigmata, just in time for easter), and one bruised knee.

so monday night west river and i managed to finagle our way into the Andrew Bird show at Union Hall. there are barely words to describe the mind-blowingness of this gig. first off, he was like three feet away from us. well, here are some pictures:





















He's a funny cat, and his drummer is pretty sincerely multi-talented. he would be drumming w/one hand, looping himself with one foot, drumming with the other foot and playing keyboard with the other hand. it kinda reminded me of a musical tasmanian devil.




But old AB himself is pretty fun to watch, too. he played the first song with one shoe (red & black stripey socks, for anyone keeping track), and removed the second one shortly after finishing. the stocking feet helped with all the freaking buttons he had on the floor to loop himself and do other weird tricks. he would do the violin part first and then run back and put the violin/bow down and play the guitar for the rest of the song. he did a lot of running to and fro. and also there was a glockenspiel. fuck yeah, glockenspiel. you can see the sort of double-barreled phonograph behind him and in the picture without any people. he fed his violin through that and stepped on a peddle to make it whirl around, throwing the sound all over the place. i guess that's like a musical tasmanian devil, too. or a game of ping-pong with sound. anyway, you can see the setlist all for yourself. but i was most blown away by his whistling. it sounds ethereal on the recordings, but he can actually pull that shit off live. and it looks like he puts no effort at all into it. i don't know how he gets that vibrato kicking. and his voice is lovely, as well. excellent show, i say. he was on letterman last night, which if you missed, you should check the repeat date and dvr the shit out of it.

slut search

unlike most things i hate in the world, reality tv is something i can actually avoid, so i rarely have moments when my blood boils and in a rage i scream "i cannot FUCKING believe the FUCKING human race sometimes". but rest assured, unless it's "manor house" or something akin, i think reality tv is quite possibly the saddest thing humanity has ever come up with.

and now, it seems, we've got the ultimate in complete steaming shitpile there-goes-the-neighborhood tv: the search for the next doll (unsurprisingly on CW11). what the motherfucking fuck have we come to in this place? we are seriously auditioning strippers on NETWORK TELEVISION?!

The CW's new music/reality series, "Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for The Next Doll," is a behind-the-scenes look at the process of selecting a beautiful and talented singer/dancer who has what it takes to join one of the world's most successful performing and recording acts. Out of the thousands of gifted hopefuls who audition, only one young woman will make it through the challenges and undergo a total transformation to win her place in the spotlight as the newest member of the Pussycat Dolls. (emphasis mine)

i surrender.

the look

i don't know how long it takes, but somewhere along the way regular riders of public transport pick up a 6th sense that recognizes the guy who just walked through the doors of the train is not quite right. i was sitting reading my book and this guy comes in. first hint: rain hat--but not in this cheerful
yellow, more like the color the "i know what you did last summer" guy wears. clue two: long plastic-y trench coat. yes, i do realize it happened to be raining that day, but you take what you're given. hint three: velcro shoes. for some reason, these really are relegated to nutters and total nerds. fourth sign: fanny pack (see previous clue). all this was topped off by the guy's glasses, which were some bizarre combination of swimming goggles and sunglasses. he came and sat down in the seat perpendicular to me, made an odd face and we went back to minding our own.

but then the train slowed down and he got out some packaged eye drops. like the kind that come a dose at a time. i hope i'd be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks administering eyedrops on a train is a good idea, but this dude was all over it. obviously, he ended up with juice all over his face (wow, that sounded really dirty, huh?). anyway, he wasn't particularly offensive or creepy, there was just something off about him.

eventually a kid (college?) gets on at union square. and here's the rub: he looks at the guy, then he looks at me with a "is this dude a nutter?" face, ("mostly harmless" my brows responded) then he looks back at the guy with a "are you a nutter?" face and sits down a seat away (on the set of three) and sort of bunches himself up by the part that sticks out next to the door.

the point, uninteresting though it may be, is this, we are aware of who the crazies are, but sometimes we sit next to them anyway.

it's familiar, but not too familiar

so since i last reported anything of consequence (never?), i've been taken to Spring Awakening and a rad indonesian dinner by the maj, the traditional birthday meal at chestnut by xx, baked either the raddest or second-raddest cupcakes alive and reunited with west river to see The Long Winters.

We checked them out last night at the Hall and they really are a delightful group of guys. their music is a little on the 'i need prozac' side of things, but it turned out they are very cheery live. aside from the bassist, who really looked horribly sad to be any variation of awake, but soldiered through and played a good set. the lead singer reminded me physically of Kurt Wagner, and he was really funny and engaging. their drummer might be the smiliest person ever to sit behind a kit. the keyboardist/guitarist was cool, too. it was mostly a treat because we were literally right in front of them. they did not play "(it's a) departure" or "delicate hands", like i wanted them to, but they did play "seven", "teaspoon", "pushover", "fire island, AK" and some stuff from the albums i don't have. they have a great energy, even when they're all sick (with, according to the lead singer, the bubonic plague) and played a tight, if too short, set, including some acoustic songs with just the singer/guitarist and the near-dead bassist, a fine treat. sans encore, though, as everyone looked pretty roughed up.

NB: i have zero clue why that one section is still black and some loser font. i tried like three times and it just won't stick. we apologise for any inconvenience. ps I heart the macallun 18.

it's been a while since i've tried to do one of these

i hope it works

hello sunshine

ah, early spring. these teasing days where you tear through your clothes finding the reserve warm-weather outfit you haven't packed away to make room for itchy sweaters and lined trousers.

unfortunately, the beauty of this day does little for little miss wcs, because we are too busy having internal arguments about wanting and not having a cigarette. i'm on about hour 44 or so and we are not liking this one bit. it does seem like there's a lot of gunk exiting my lungs here and there, though, and i don't want to go through that more than once, so annoyed i will continue to be for the next 12-18 months or so.

woo-hoo!

according to last night's episode of the Simpsons, i can add one very heroic man to the list of people with whom i share a birthday. Aretha Franklin & Elton John, say hello to

Homer J Simpson!!!!

not sure there is a person (real or otherwise) i'd rather share a birthday with.

from the floorboards to the flys, here i was fated to reside

the maj took me to see "the pirate queen" last night. i was already disappointed that the play was not, in fact, based on some long-lost decemberists song, it also turned out to be the shittiest thing i've seen in a long fucking time. and yes, i remember the times they are a-changin' debacle.

the lyrics were completely naff. they were not clever, they barely even rhymed. the queen elizabeth character made and off-the-cuff beheading joke. there was a pot shot at wales, and a song called "boys'll be boys", that came with a reprise.

i swear to god i was holding in roaring laughter the entire first act. i didn't have to worry about the second act because i left at intermission. all i have to say is this: if someone tries to get you to see this musical, break your own leg to avoid it.

sit on a train, reading a book

perhaps it's because i'm riding the train at off hours, but something was definitely up yesterday, or, as my mother would say "the crazies are out". i was almost entirely sure it was a full moon, but it tuns out it was just after a new moon. go figure...

on the way in i was Queen Elizabeth II. Only she was Greek. but she had it all, the hair, the glasses, the skirt and shoes.

but it was on the way home that things went haywire. i noticed a guy standing in front of the doors, holding up a sheet of paper and what looked like a trapper keeper folder. he was sort of oscillating, peeking through the three-inch gap between the two rectangles he held aloft.

of course, this is weird behavior, but nothing could've prepared me for the idiocy that was about to come out of this liberace-coifed lunatic. he starts telling everyone that the papers are a shield to protect him because he's a motherfucking angel. this prompted one of those rare moments on the subway when people actually make eye contact with each other. the people sitting in the group of seats next to me were all giggling at each other.

eventually, he gets around to the part where he invites women 29 & younger (whew, i barely make the cut!) to join him as an angel. women 30 and over, he said, were stuck as part of mankind. mankind is obsolete. i don't even know what the fuck that means. how are we obsolete when we're all sitting here on a subway train? anyway, i missed a great deal of this speech because i was wearing headphones, but it certainly added to the surreality of the whole experience that, peppering this total mental case's speech, was lou reed telling me "she's too busy sucking on my ding-dong".

a couple stops after gabriel got off the train, a guy comes through the car handing out xeroxed sheets of paper. on the paper, in very nice penmanship, is a note to the effect of: my name is so-and-so, i fell off a porch when i was a kid and now i suffer from epilepsy and seizures. from the years of 1952 to 1962 i was aspiring to be a successful dj. i am also a James Brown imitator. please help in any way you can... at the bottom, he's copied his driver's license and a business card for his james browning. i had a look at the license because after reading the note and looking at the guy, i thought he looked rather young to have been a dj in 1952. apparently, he was aspiring to be a dj at the tender age of three, as he was born in 1949. even the later end of his range, 1962, would have brought him in at 13-year-old aspiring dj. he was a little pushy. when he came to collect his pages, he gave everyone that "so you're really not going to give me money" look.

1968/8024

while other people i know are using their time to do things like read a book a month (or is it two?), learn a new skill or just be better people in general, i've undertaken listening to every song on my ipod. unfortunately this is a sisyphusian task since in the time since i began this stupid feat, i've put almost 500 new songs on my itunes. anyway, as i said earlier, the best thing about this "project" is getting weird songs put together.

the other day i was lucky enough to have this combination
Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah"
Amii Stewart's "Knock on Wood"

not that i care, at all

but what the fuck is going on out there in pop music land? with my lazy half-day schedule, i've started dvr-ing mtv's "after hours" which is "music videos". what it actually is is music video, set of commercials, music video, set of commercials. not only that, but they actually play the SAME FUCKING VIDEO twice in the same 1.5 hour show.

but the point here is this: what happened to avril lavigne and nelly frutado? before i go any further, let's get one thing straight: i never liked either of these people, but they've both pulled complete 180s on me in the past x years. avril used to be bitchy and brunette, now she's blond and wants to be your "girlfriend". nelly used to be a twit who wanted to be like a bird and now she's a slut. it seems the only constant here is that they both still lack talent.

the only thing i can hope to see is that bloc party video where he's walking through the train, and as i'm not overwhelmed with joy at their new album, even that is barely enough to keep me interested. i'm thinking it might have something to do with the fact that the lead singer is gay. not that i mind gayness, but it seems like no one is writing nice love songs for the ladies anymore. of course, no one probably was in the first place. that's not bitter, i just mean i'd put money on the fact that a great number of songwriters were/are gay, that's all.

jensenator and i went to see tunng the other night at UH. i was impressed with them. it turned out the tall dude in front of me was the singer or something for lonely, dear. they were not so great; nothing new under the sun. tunng did their shit and a bloc party cover and made me want to buy their record. which i would do if i were not making half a salary. things are very weird on this side of the economic spectrum.

i'm not complaining actually. it seems i can still pay my rent and bills and eat, and i put my pajamas on at 3 in the afternoon sometimes and i have plenty of time to go to the gym and i make myself delicious lunches. the only real difference is i am sitting on my couch listening to the new Oh No! Oh My! (exclamation points? please. so last year) record c/o lester writing this instead of doing it at suck inc. yeah. i'm not about to complain about this shit any time soon. except beer. soon i will start to miss it. a lot.

italian vacation

it seems like the gods were smiling on me and xx for our journey. we encountered damn near perfect weather everywhere we went. except siena, but the insanely delicious meal (me: artichoke risotto, she: pizza with eggs and whatnot) totally made up for it.

without a doubt the highlight of the trip was the cinque terre. it'a a little cluster of towns that look like they fell down a cliff and piled up next to the sea. well, here:


yeah. charming as fuck basically. birthplace of pesto, make their own lovely white wine. awash in clams and mussels and such. and home to a seaside piazza where the local custom appears to be getting some wine and sitting around talking and watching everyone else do the same thing.

we did all the major tourist things at the rest of our destinations: leaning tower in; pisa, ufizzi, duomo, the david in florence; and too much stuff in rome to list.

my main goal throughout the trip was to eat and drink as much as possible. i would drag poor xx in to every paticceria (sp?) i saw for treats. i think i averaged about five meals a day. food is good.

one thing i don't get though: at what age do slim, gorgeous, trendy italians pull the ultimate Mr. Rogers and dump it all to turn into (adorable) shortish, cardigan-clad old people? it's REALLY bizarre. it's as though on some birthday they come at you with a little cap and cardigan (bowtie?) if you're a fella and a calf-length skirt, stockings, ortho-shoes, an apron and a headscarf (and perhaps a shopping bag or cart of some kind) if you're a lady. personally, i'd be looking forward to getting old if i got to wear that getup--and get to see my husband in a sweet little hat and suit everyday.

this trip afforded way fewer adventures than india, a welcome change, to be honest. however, there were two somewhat harrowing incidents which i will recount for you now.

the first occurred on our first night in pisa. we'd been in london much of the day (curry, pint, run for the bus), having arrived there after a much-delayed overnight flight. in short, we were shattered and just wanted to get to the hotel and crash. when we deplaned, the plan, as is always my plan but seems suddenly to be more often than not thwarted, was to find a cash machine and get local currency. i do not mess about with those rip-off huts called bureaus (does anyone else out there really hate spelling the word 'bureau'? not a single time have i got it right on the first try) de change. i refuse to pay money to get money, especially when i'm already losing money because our own dastardly currency refuses to be worth a shit; anyway i am not the kind of traveler American Express would approve of, i do not purchase currency in advance or upon arrival and i certainly do not use traveler's cheques. this is my own damn problem, because there were two cash machines in pisa airport. one of them told me my card was not valid for international withdrawals (a declaration xx and i would become well familiar with, and would cause us to rejoice and pull out money any time we found a deutsche bank or a banco tuscana, regardless of whether or not we needed it), the other one might as well have had Xs over its eyes for all the good it could do us. at this point (around 11pm? jetlagged to hell), xx and i just kept looking at each other and saying "what the fuck can we do?" i could smoke a number of cigarettes and pace, xx went in to check the thomas cooke, who, despite being occupied by a live man, was closed and unwilling to help two stranded (bureau-hating) american ladies. some people from the bus service to florence told us there was an atm about 10 minutes away "under that bridge". we clomped off with all our shit and no energy. but we were lazy and once we saw that there was no easy way to get under that bridge, we thought, "fuck this". we decided we'd beg a taxi driver to take us to the bank and then just pay him (for those of you paying attention, this is where the irony that we could've just popped off the plane to the then-open thomas cooke and had our sweet, sweet cash rather than literally paying someone to take us to get money (surely at a rate higher than even the shysteriest BdC's commission) comes shining through). so we go up to a taxi driver and explain our situation, using that incredibly rude, loud and slow version of english reserved for people who don't speak it, and after about 10 minutes of our panicked entreating the driver looks at us and says "you have a credit card? i take(a) the credit card".

the second involves us arriving extremely late from rome into london, taking the last bus from stanstead to liverpool street (in central london) and trying to get a taxi to go to the flat we were borrowing from rope-a-dope. r-a-d was in venice with her hubby and had given us the keys on our way through (see curry above) london the first time. so arriving at 230 am on a sunday and getting in a taxi rank as it's raining all over the place is not the most efficient way to get somewhere. things went from bad to worse when a group of girls came running up, one sans shoes, poked their heads in a off-duty cab, got in and sped off, prompting a girl in the queue behind us to scream "it's not like they're gonna shag yeh!" we waited about 40 more minutes and got into a cab. the driver wasn't quite sure where we were going, so i was craning out the window to make sure we didn't speed past the flat (i was slightly nervous i wouldn't pick it out, as i'd only been there once). anyway. we got to the flat and there was a note "they've had to change the locks, go to xyz Cassland road and ask for cara, she has a spare for you". it's nearing 3am. i'm supposed to go knock on some total stranger's door and ask for a key? yes. and that's just what i did, because i was not planning on sleeping in the rain, love london as i do. after buzzing thrice, a bleary eyed chap, who was uninterested in my apologies, came down and said gruffly (not that i blame him at all) "you sara? it's in the bbq". so back to the flat i went. in the bbq.

friends with benefits

i know, i know, you want to hear about italy and london. it's coming. we're messing around with photos and such and the newsdesk got slammed with news as soon as i returned. soon, my sweets, soon.

anyway, upon my return, i received great news from no-suck, inc. while i am still a half-time employee, they've officially hired me, which means i don't have to invoice them AND i get health insurance, 401(k), dental, vision, oh, and i accrue vacation time! woooot!

you might laugh you might frown

wow. it's weird to be back. we've had some ups and downs around here lately; and a lot of blogger just sucking on the relatively few occasions when i actually did want to say something. here's a slight re-cap of the past 2 months.

panama was awesome. the canal is really an amazing feat. i got a tan. and a panama hat.

i quit the suck job. i started the no-suck-but-part-time-so-what-do-i-do-for-cash-now?-job. today is second to last day at suck, inc. i suppose i better find something to do with the second halves of my days. considering whole foods, the apple store or a movie theatre. i don't have any real aspirations, people.

have, once again, undertaken listening to every song i own. this has already gone to shit as i've got quite a bit of new music lately that i refuse to put on the 'pod for fear of wrecking my songs listened-to so far. first i tried doing it in order of album, but then i went for shuffle songs. today i got "pale blue eyes" and "africa" in a row. still, it's such sheer joy when a long-forgotten song (like this blog) pops up out of no where and reminds you of that crush or the time you whistled along down the street and the bloke following you actually slowed down because you were freaking him out or how at one point some song was super important and that you still remember every chord change, backbeat and modulation even though you haven't heard it in ages, or that jesus christ, spiritualized are an amazing fucking band. also fun: drinking a six pack at home when your roommates aren't around and playing with your itunes and macbook remote control--very good indeed. i'm too lazy to find shit for you these days, so go find boy least likely to's "be gentle with me" and wait for spring.

went to the ATL to see carson's wee bairn who is very cute and was my first spit-up experience. i handled it rather well, if i do say so myself.

went out for drinks with Mary Land on the UES a month or so ago and was so hammered i ended up getting in the front seat of the cab (not initially, mind you, at a stop light around 38th street) and telling the driver about all the bangladeshis i met in india. he asked me out for a drink after this mad ramble, i declined. he has yet to stalk my house.

got name checked on stephen merchant's absolutely fantastic radio programme on bbc radio's 6 music. highly recommend you check this out.

made a mosaic, haven't grouted it, it's been 2 months.

have actively decided to get into PG Wodehouse.

so, on to the future. tomorrow, i finish out my time here (there is a slight chance i'll continue part time when i return from my sojourn) and get on a plane with xx to italy. first we'll be scooting from heathrow to stanstead with a short stop for lunch with roper and a visit to the neighborhood in which i used to work. then we'll fly to pisa. the plan is pisa, cinque terre, florence and rome. mostly i'm concerned with food and boat rides in cinque terre, but people keep telling me some bullshit about art everywhere and oh, it's so amazing. we'll see about that. then we return to london, xx heads back stateside and i hang out for three days of old friends and large and more alcoholic pints, and hopefully, Hot Fuzz. and a lot of staring at the thames and sighing wistfully.

and now, per usual, a link that is entirely unrelated to anything i've just said, courtesy of VP
it's just like a mini-mall.