Vacation is officially over

Well, the vacation is over. It's time to go back to work, paste a fake smile on my face and pour a coke for another thoughtless, rude individual who believes that they are in fact the most important human being alive and the only person flying on my bankrupt little airline. And I am supposed to smile at them and thank them for their trash and stow their 500lb carry-on that contains their "medicine" for them without thinking about my pay being cut or my benefits being taken away or the fact that the very job I am complaining about may not even be there next month.
But let's not forget, "Good Goes Around."
That's the current slogan our clever advertising department came up with to boost employee morale and remind all of us pee-ons that we are customer service agents and we need to be chipper for our customers. It's not their fault afterall.
But, what I would like to know is, where does this "good" start? Does it start with the executives walking away with millions in bonuses and pension plans? Does it start with schedulers who build trips so tightly that restbreaks and food are completely out of the question? Or does it start with the passengers who bitch about paying $50 for a ticket from NYC to LAX and not getting cavier and champagne in-flight?
Good goes around alright. It goes around and around as it's flushed down the toilet.

I've Got Gas

I think I saw quite possibly the funniest commercial ever this morning. It was for a natural gas company in the Tri State area and their jingle is "Call 1-877- I've Got Gas!," and it's sung by this soprano woman!
I can't believe someone actually wrote this, produced it, and aired it without someone saying, wait a minute, that's not right.
What's next, "We've got crabs," for a local seafood market...

Doesn't Ever Leave The Airport

So Michael and I finally get a vacation for the first time in a year. Life seems good. His job is going great, everyone is healthy, my job was about to get better... and then the mighty widget decided to rear its ugly head.
Bankruptcy. Chapter 11.
Now, for the third time I am faced with the possibility of being furloughed.
My parents tell me that I shouldn't worry. "When one door closes another one opens," "God only puts on you what He thinks you can bear...", "You should take this opportunity to go out and do what you REALLY want to do..."
Bullshit.
HELLO! Do you think I would have done this job for six fucking years if it wasn't what I REALLY wanted to do?!!!
I swear to God, sometimes I want to crawl through the phone line and eat their faces off.
Meanwhile, lets not forget that they've benefited from this so-called "starter job" for the last half decade as well. My dad's out their using his free flying at least once a month, does he really think that will continue if I change careers. "Hey, your daughter doesn't work here anymore, but we like you, so sure, hop on our airplane and fly wherever you want to, oh and hey, don't pay us!"
Life really does suck sometimes.

9-11

Four years ago the only thing I had on my mind was my wedding that was just a week and a half away. I had been commuting between NYC and Knoxville for almost two years and was looking forward to settling down with my future husband in Knoxville. So, on the morning of Sept 10, 2001 I wasn't really thinking about saying good-bye to a building that I had grown to love as I ran to catch my PATH train to Newark in the World Trade Center station.
It was 3:30 am and after sitting up all night with my roommate in a diner on our corner I had set out to catch my 5 am flight to Atlanta. I always went through World Trade because it was close and it was cheap and I was broke. As usual, I stopped for coffee even though, as usual I was running late.
Everytime my train pulled above ground I would always strain against the glass to try and catch a glimpse of the city that I loved so much. I had no idea that morning that this would be the last I would see of it for almost a year. My apartment, though up on Waverly, was evacuated and I was furloughed, so there was no reason to go back, and I really didn't want to.
I had no interest in seeing the gaping hole that remained of the place where my friends and I had celebrated our first Christmas in the city. We sat crying and singing carols in the Winter Garden of World Trade on Christmas Eve. Then later, my roommate and I would ride the elevator to Windows on the World to catch a free view of "our playground" and to try and catch her a rich man. I bought my first map of the city in Kate's Paperie in the World Trade Mall. It was just too much.
So, on 9-11 when my father-in-law called to ask if I was OK, I didn't really know if I was. I didn't know how to react to the images that were flashing in front of me on the TV. I was just there. What happened to the ill-tempered girl who always sold me my coffee? Or the old man that operated the elevator?
I still had the receipt for my coffee in my change purse. My train stub was laying on the table by the door. My future husband (who at the time was a cop) was asleep in our bedroom and I stood in front of the TV crying for what seemed like hours. Suddenly, my misprinted cocktail napkins didn't seem so important.

OK, I may be a little retarded

OK, so I finally figured out how to get a picture on this thing. Yeah me.

What's wrong with my ovaries?

September 8, 2005
Well, I have decided to start a journal cataloging my attempts at becoming a mother. I am five days late. Apparently though, this is not a definite sign of impending motherhood. Apparently, my menstrual cycle is not a good indicator of my fertility, or lack thereof.
I have taken three First Response pregnancy tests in the last five days and they all had the same single pink line result, not pregnant. I really thought I was too. In fact, I can even pinpoint the sexual encounter that should have led to my impregnation.
It was on a Sunday afternoon and as I climaxed I distinctly remember thanking God for my sweet husband and asking him to let us become parents. Then, all of the signs started to miraculously appear. I saw babies everywhere, I started to feel tired and queasy, smells started to really get to me, and I just felt pregnant. Then, my start date came and went, I just knew I was pregnant.
But that damn single pink line is all I can get. So, now here I sit in the park with my dog, Maya, wondering which ovary it is that I broke and why I can’t even seem to menstruate without problems.
Michael claims that in order for a couple to have a baby a couple has to have sex. He seems to think that we don’t have enough sex, maybe he’s right. We somehow manage to squeeze in two or three love fests a week, but I will admit that some weeks go by that we don’t even touch hands much less bump uglies, so maybe we need to be more proactive in the baby making department. He’d like that. Or maybe God is trying to tell us that we don’t need to be parents right now.
I mean, here we are living in NYC in a closet apartment with two too big dogs and a needy cat, where would we even put a baby? Plus, I’m about to start with Song and Michael already worries that he doesn’t make enough money (he does) and I feel like a baby would really freak him out.
I called my sister, Amanda, to ask her opinion on the whole situation. She said I was freaking out way too early, that five days is nothing in the land of women’s problems. She said I should calm down and wait a few days, take the test again, and just try to relax. I don’t have cancer and I’m not dying, or so she said. She was pregnant last June, she had an abortion, so I feel like I can trust her womanly intuition on this matter, and she’s absolutely right. I need to relax.
An old people walking tour just passed by my park bench. It’s funny to watch the tourists ogle over this cesspool. Honestly, you’d think they’d never seen a homeless man curled up on a bench before or a dog shitting on the side walk. “Oh wow! A tree! Can you believe that there is actually a tree growing in Manhattan?!” Idiots.
It’s hot here in the sun. I think I will pack up and take Maya into the dog run, let her snarl at the other dogs. Then it will be time to venture home and greet the beast that is Cirrus and wait for my loving husband to call and tell me that I should meet him to walk him home. I think I’ll cheat and take the bus up to him and then walk back with him. My ever growing ass can’t do 40 blocks today. That’s the other thing, my pants are all tighter yet I’ve been eating less and working out more. What’s up with that?

Yes, the old woman is wearing a cone-shaped-paper-bag-hat

OK, So, this weekend I noticed that New York has a lot of crazy people walking around unsupervised. I've been here for a while now, but I never really noticed all of the psychos sharing my sidewalk with me until my mother-in-law and sister-in-law were here with us. And then they just seemed to appear out of nowhere and they were everywhere. There were drunk homeless guys peeing themselves on the E train, crazy midgets rollerblading through Central Park, Rastifarian clowns riding their bikes down 5th Ave, not to mention all the seemingly normal people walking around talking to themselves and screaming at the imaginary demons circling their heads.
I don't know how I never noticed these fruit cakes before. Maybe it just takes two women from Big Lick, TN staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed to make me realize that I am a long way from home.

Good Morning

Alright, so I have to ask, do men experience PMS? Because I swear my husband has been swimming in piss for about 3 months now and I'm getting pretty tired of being his whipping post. You would think that our life is horrible if you listened to him talk about it (it's not by the way, we are truly blessed in that we are both employed with good jobs and live in a rent controlled building in a very nice section of Manhattan with two very loving puppies...) But to him, life sucks. He's like Pig Pen from the Peanuts, except his dust cloud is a constant bad mood. And no matter what I do it just pisses him off even more. I buy him presents, (not what he really wanted), I cook for him (I wanted to go out), we go out to dinner (I want to stay in and watch golf), I offer sex (you don't shave your pussy and you won't let me do it doggie style, so no thanks), I walk the dogs (you don't do it right)... I can keep going, but this is really just depressing me more.