Bragging Rights

Ahh blogging.  It's been a while since I've had time to breathe let alone blog.  Breathing: there is an interesting concept, and not one the designer of my bridesmaid's dress is all too familiar with, but that is another blog for another day, because today I get to do something most bloggers get to write about: bragging about children.  This isn't something I ever have the privilege to do, being senescent, single, and selfish with no offspring to show for my 21 almost 22 (shudder) years.  

But today I cross the bounds of the first dates vs. first steps.  I bring to you stories of my nephew's first publication.  

My sister, bored in church, wrote in large letters on her hand for her 6 year-old to read:  U R A Freak, and then showed him her hand.  He, being a good sport, gave her an elbow and quickly got to work on what would be his retaliation.  My sister reports a solid ten minutes of steady writing before the finished product.  When the paper was given back to my sister, it read, in unsteady kindergarten penmanship, "don't you wish your boyfriend was a freak like me."  I'm not sure what a mother feels when her child takes a first step, babbles the word, 'mama' for the first time, or finally graduates from rehab and comes home for the first time in three months, but I am quite convinced it's something of the pride and adoration I felt for my 6-year-old nephew Carter when he fired Pussy Cat Doll lyrics in counterattack towards my sister... all during the middle of church. 

The Londerground

I have been a participant of the world's most efficient public transport for about a month now.  I'm just a baby to this world of the some times scary, sometimes strange, underground, but I think my love for this place has finally entered my cautious heart.

I'm not sure when it happened, my appreciation for the tube, but it did.  It could have been the irony of the classical music played over loudspeakers in Brixton station where I live (notorious for it's drug solicitation and prostitution), as if to force class into the manner of the homeless, hustlers, and most unlikely: busy people who are all convinced that their schedule is more rushed, more important, and more urgent than their neighbor they are shoving out of the way to get onto the train first.  Yes, it could have been all these beautiful displays of humanity but I think it was last week on my lunch break, waiting for the train to take off when a rather large, blind man got on (heaven bless the blind people who brave the underground on a day-to-day basis).  He made his way along the mostly empty row of chairs and, of course, sat in the one already occupied by a very small Asian man.  

As this wonderful scene unfolded before my eyes, I was thinking about those times in life when one witnesses such pure, real-life comedy that it's almost a tragedy to be alone, not able to share with someone else.  This was nothing like that.  I stifled private laughter the duration of the ride and then all the way to work, and then yet again when I relayed the story to my less-bemused sister.  

Now, the mornings when I'm pressed up against hair that smells like fish, or a coat that smells like the Salvation Army, I remember that Asian man scrambling for his life, and I can think to myself how much I love the underground:  Slime, smell and smog, all laced with a laugh.

That's me, the Brilliant Intern

Today after work I had to follow my collegue to make some connections with other people in the company/industry... I wasn't really listening. Anyway, it was a series of champagne (which I kept refusing) h'our derves (which I should have kept refusing, but never did) and bloody feet because I wore the most unpractical shoes I own for the two-hour, stand on your feet event.

Anyway I took pleasure in two things (this might turn into more than two) the h'our derves (the fact that I can't figure out how to spell this stupid work should forshadow a few things.) of course, my mental mockery of boring people trying their hardest to make themselves sound intensly interesting by bragging about whatever economics they do to put me to sleep. Oh and the last thing that made me happy was that the girl I was with introduced me to everyone as 'the brilliant intern.' She would go talk to someone, say and this is the brilliant intern we have had for the last two weeks who has done some excellent work. Then they would look at my name take, take note of my name I assume, and then continue to brag/bore me to sleep. This went on for the duration of the whatever you would call it until the second to last person I was introduced to. He was french canadian, and as I waited for my grandeous introduction to conclude the French Canadian looked at me, looked at my name tag and said, 'jer name tahg iz upside down.' and then walked away.

Leave it to the French. So much for being brilliant, I would rather be an average idiot in comfortable shoes anyway.

Oops, no time for spell check, sorry!

God Bless American Lawsuits

At a bus stop today, I found appreciation for a bit of American culture once scoffed at. I was waiting patiently for bus 468 at the appropriate stop when bus 468 came, and flew right past me. I was a little annoyed, but the Brit chap behind me was livid. His exact words were, "Let's 'ope the bastard dies a long and painful death of cancer." A punishment that didn't entirely fit the crime, but me I've always had a soft spot for unproportionate consequence, so I laughed. He said something else in British gibberish I figured was a continuation of the cursings, so I laughed again. It wasn't until he asked (rather gruffly) if I spoke English that I realized I had heard the words "wife," and "wheelchair." Anyway, after clearing things up a bit I found out that his wife was in a wheelchair for the rest of her life because a bus (like the one that breezed right past me) had taken his wife's ability to walk when it didn't halt at the right bus stop. We chatted for a while on the bus and he told me how the surgeries had amounted to 25,000 pounds and they tried to sue in every way they could and never saw a penny (or a p for that matter).

I once read about a man (probably from Central Illinois because that's where I read the article) who was driving in his new RV down a highway, left the wheel unmanned to go make a pot of coffee, and wrecked the vehicle. He demaned the RV company pay for a new RV, his medical bills, and compensation for emotional trauma because it didn't tell him not to leave the wheel in the manual. He won.

Now if I were in America, I would sue this internet cafe for putting the @ sign where the apostrophe is and the apostraphe where the @ sign is on this ridiculous computer. But I guess if I were in America the @ sign would be where the apostrophe is so.... catch 22.

"You Are Being Highjacked"

Today's "Matt's Today in History Podcast" featured a man by the name of DB Cooper.  (Well that was sort of his name.  Actually his name was Dan Cooper; no one even knew if he had a middle name or not.   The media, playing snobby girl who can't remember names and doesn't use ones she doesn't care for, came up with 'DB' instead.) In 1971 this man hijacked a plane, but he did it with such style and class that it seemed more like an inconvenient detour.  He calmly had the pilot turn the plane around and was kind enough to let every passenger off the plane except, of course, for the pilot and stuartist--whom he needed, and guided the plane back into the air where he extended the detour by mere hours.  Mr. Cooper gave the pilot and stuartist careful instructions (showing his extensive research on 747's), locked them in the cockpit (with the utmost care I can only assume), and, leaving not a scratch on anyone aboard the plane, chuted out with his 200K.  They never found him.  

It makes me mourn the old days when terrorists and hijackers took modest amounts of money, were never greedy with the hostage count (keeping only those they needed) and really doing their homework.  I miss the terrorists with flare.  I miss the terrorists you could really fall in love with.  

Try to Make Me Go to Rehab and I said..... Well, OK!

My stint in rehab... it was brief but oh so informative.

I went to rehab last saturday afternoon to visit my brother and to attend a family group session that the program puts on every saturday.  My mom asked if I wanted to go and my mind flashed back to the summer nights of somewhere in between childhood innocence and teen angst when my sister and I could not get enough Jenny Jones or even sometimes Rikki Lake.  Not something I necessarily want to advertise, but a part of me nonetheless:  I cannot resist the opportunity for white trash outbursts and jeering from a (no less trashy, just less publicized) audience.   So of course I agreed, because the family sessions aren't just for our family, oh no, it's all the families of the rehab boys.  14 for the price of one!  (*Price* being the admission of my brother to rehab.... this won't be the only time I seem like a bad sister in this blog.  Sorry Johnny... no computers in rehab.)  

Unfortunately, during the meeting, we had an obnoxiously chatty counselor who didn't allow for quite enough open discussion, and only got one outburst.  Since the one outburst certainly didn't keep me occupied long enough, and since I couldn't even talk to Johnny yet, I had nothing to do but to listen to Chatty the anti-Springer.  

She was talking about drug addiction and using and all those great themes that are also draped along the corridors of "Gateway:  Teenage Reformation," via Government Issued posters.  She started addressing symptoms of addiction and when someone should start to know there is a problem (i.e. it's all the think about, it starts social, but becomes something the person does alone in his room, many people can do these things and not have a problem, some can't, etc.)  I began to realize:  Chatty may have been talking about cocaine, weed, alcohol, etc., but I was pretty sure I knew what she meant:  Series of shows on DVD.  For me it started with watching things like Grey's Anatomy and The O.C. with girlfriends.  It was social and harmless.  Then it turned into watching Heroes online because "my wisdom teeth had just been pulled and I needed it to take my mind off things."  Now, I watch Lost alone in my room before bed "because the writer's strike is making me."  Maybe my adolescent affinity for Jenny Jones created more than just a love for white trash, and white trash events.  Maybe the writer's strike isn't making me do it, maybe I have a problem.  I know now that I have been in denial about my series addiction, and I plan to do something about it.  And as soon as I finish season three of Lost, I am done.  I'm going to get clean.  I'm going to change. 

It's a good thing I learned so much about myself in rehab.  I really feel I can connect now with Charlie (the heroine addict from Lost) on a much more personal level.