There's a tendency (I pause in calling it 'universal' although my huntch is it's just that) for us to wonder why other people are doing things at certain times while excusing ourselves.
When stuck in traffic, phrases like "Where are all these people going!?" or "_____(enter time) on ______(day)!? And it's CROWDED!?" roll off the tounge almost mechanically. It's as if the internal fool-proof scripts we've written for ourselves have malfunctioned in the cruelest and most unexpected way. Inconceivable! How could we be so off? And don't these people have somewhere to be?
Yes, presumably where we intended on going.
In my head, I demand explanations. I scan the crowd and wondering how it is we've all gotten here when everything points to us being somewhere else.
As I wait in the queue for the 11 am Tuesday bus, my mind starts racing with these thoughts. How can there be a line for a bus mid-day on a Tuesday? Don't these people have some place to be? Why am I there, you ask? I have an alibi. A perfectly good explanation for all this, as they say.
I was enjoying a three-day weekend when I was struck ill on Sunday requiring me to prolong my stay in New York thus leaving me to take the day off (from a job! A seemingly unfamilar concept for those lurking around the Port Authority!) and ride the grey steed back to our nation's capitol on Tuesday.
My stomach virus was not an epidemic. That leaves a lot of people here with some explaining to do.
As I crunch into the back seat of the bus with two people on my side, I bemoan my fate.
11 AM on a Tuesday?! Don't these people have some place to be?
-m
Friday, February 22, 2008
Saturday, February 16, 2008
greyhounds of love
Todays update is from a guest blogger, Ms. Pia Agrawal purveyor of our blog brethren themattsiblog.blogspot.com.
Ever since "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead," I have been fascinated by petty cash and expense accounts. Fancy dinners with important clients! Meetings over cocktails! New pantsuits!
Enter into the world of non-profits. Wearing whatever I want to work (i.e. no coordinated separates) means sacrifices elsewhere. I do not go to top notch restaurants when I travel; I eat pizza in Penn Station. I do not stay in four star hotels; I sleep on my sister's couch. I do not take Amtrak; I take Greyhound.
Much of this is self-imposed. My department has a budget and I'm responsible for making sure everyone stays within these means. I could take Amtrak but I think: I'm young, I have a Discman, and I can save some money for the company. What a gal! What a fool.
My most recent journey started with a tofu hoagie (love) the new Hot Chip (like) and a pile of work (loathe). I need to keep myself with my head in a book because as a woman traveling alone, I've been offered sexual favors on the greyhound more often than not. Today, unfortunately, my tactic is not working. The man across the way is staring at me, then sleeping, then staring at me, then sleeping. Am I boring to look at? Then stop staring! His head, craned forward and sideways simultaneously, and pressed into the seat in front of him, never moves despite his drifting into and out of consciousness. I wonder if he even has the ability. I spend too much time thinking about this and start to feel bad that maybe his head is always stuck in that very position. Maybe the bus is the place he feels most comfortable because it provides him a place to rest his cockamamied head. That he lives a hard life of deformity and maybe I should smile back at him out of guilt. As he licks his lips slowly in my direction - an attempt at seduction? - I decide to eat my tofu hoagie as messily as possibly in an effort to turn him off. Turn his head. It works!
But now it's Karma who rears it's ugly head. I begin to regret the timing of my sandwich eating. I am getting sick because the man behind Not Actually Deformed Man has his shoes off, his socks off, and is peeling and flaking the skin on his feet off and onto the floor. He is perfectly well groomed from the ankle up and using Bluetooth technology to conduct business. Little do his colleagues know where his hands are! I am dry heaving (even now) - maybe too loudly, hoping he'll stop but he's too busy picking and flaking and wheeling and dealing. I earned this, perhaps. I disgusted NADM and now Toe Picker is disgusting me. How far back will this chain of events go? I fear the behavior of the passengers at the back of the bus.
We arrive one hour late and I'm surprised, given all the extra time, that Toe Picker hasn't exposed his lumbrical muscles.
The trip back is less repulsive but no better. It takes 90 minutes just to get to the New York side of the Tunnel and I'm being 'pssst'ed at nearly the entire time. The woman next to me is playing a dating game on her phone and it's depressing me beyond recognition. I can't drink the beer I snuck onto the bus because, ironically, I don't want to come off as sketchy or creepy to the other passengers. Why should I care? I am one of them. I smell like bus. I smell so much like bus and while I sit there, I vow never to do this again. I will take advantage of my expense account just like Sue Ellen Crandell consequences be damned.
On the walk home, I sadly remember that I'll be doing this again in merely three days for personal reasons. If only life had an expense account!
m & l: here's to the power of love. I cannot believe you do this every week.
Ever since "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead," I have been fascinated by petty cash and expense accounts. Fancy dinners with important clients! Meetings over cocktails! New pantsuits!
Enter into the world of non-profits. Wearing whatever I want to work (i.e. no coordinated separates) means sacrifices elsewhere. I do not go to top notch restaurants when I travel; I eat pizza in Penn Station. I do not stay in four star hotels; I sleep on my sister's couch. I do not take Amtrak; I take Greyhound.
Much of this is self-imposed. My department has a budget and I'm responsible for making sure everyone stays within these means. I could take Amtrak but I think: I'm young, I have a Discman, and I can save some money for the company. What a gal! What a fool.
My most recent journey started with a tofu hoagie (love) the new Hot Chip (like) and a pile of work (loathe). I need to keep myself with my head in a book because as a woman traveling alone, I've been offered sexual favors on the greyhound more often than not. Today, unfortunately, my tactic is not working. The man across the way is staring at me, then sleeping, then staring at me, then sleeping. Am I boring to look at? Then stop staring! His head, craned forward and sideways simultaneously, and pressed into the seat in front of him, never moves despite his drifting into and out of consciousness. I wonder if he even has the ability. I spend too much time thinking about this and start to feel bad that maybe his head is always stuck in that very position. Maybe the bus is the place he feels most comfortable because it provides him a place to rest his cockamamied head. That he lives a hard life of deformity and maybe I should smile back at him out of guilt. As he licks his lips slowly in my direction - an attempt at seduction? - I decide to eat my tofu hoagie as messily as possibly in an effort to turn him off. Turn his head. It works!
But now it's Karma who rears it's ugly head. I begin to regret the timing of my sandwich eating. I am getting sick because the man behind Not Actually Deformed Man has his shoes off, his socks off, and is peeling and flaking the skin on his feet off and onto the floor. He is perfectly well groomed from the ankle up and using Bluetooth technology to conduct business. Little do his colleagues know where his hands are! I am dry heaving (even now) - maybe too loudly, hoping he'll stop but he's too busy picking and flaking and wheeling and dealing. I earned this, perhaps. I disgusted NADM and now Toe Picker is disgusting me. How far back will this chain of events go? I fear the behavior of the passengers at the back of the bus.
We arrive one hour late and I'm surprised, given all the extra time, that Toe Picker hasn't exposed his lumbrical muscles.
The trip back is less repulsive but no better. It takes 90 minutes just to get to the New York side of the Tunnel and I'm being 'pssst'ed at nearly the entire time. The woman next to me is playing a dating game on her phone and it's depressing me beyond recognition. I can't drink the beer I snuck onto the bus because, ironically, I don't want to come off as sketchy or creepy to the other passengers. Why should I care? I am one of them. I smell like bus. I smell so much like bus and while I sit there, I vow never to do this again. I will take advantage of my expense account just like Sue Ellen Crandell consequences be damned.
On the walk home, I sadly remember that I'll be doing this again in merely three days for personal reasons. If only life had an expense account!
m & l: here's to the power of love. I cannot believe you do this every week.
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