travel

i am now in denver.

when i first checked in for my flight, the self-help kiosk gave me the option of switching flights, which i did. it put me on standby on this other flight. i didn't write down the number becuase i thought it would give me a ticket with that number on it. it also asked me how many bags i was checking. i said 1. i then got my tickets. for the flight at 5pm.

so i scanned my ticket, hoping to find the number of the flight i was now on standby for. i went to through security, got to the gate that had a flight leaving to chicago at 10:45am. i stood in line, hoping to get a standby seat. i almost had one when the flight attendant asked me if i had checked any bags. i said yes and she said she couldn't give me a seat if my luggage wasn't on the plane.

i NEVER check my bags. but i had so much swag from the conference that the bag would have been impossible to heave in to the overhead compartment. so my brilliant idea was to check it.

so here are some words of advice to air travelers and united kiosks everywhere:

1) if someone has requested an earlier standby flight, don't ask them how many bags they want to check. IT SHOULD BE ZERO!
2) if you are going to ask someone if they want a standby flight, print out the flight number and gate for that flight. there were about 5 chicago flights leaving john wayne airport this morning. i thought i had requested a non-stop flight, but the computer had picked a 1-stop flight with a layover at denver. with no number printed out, how the hell was i supposed to know?
3) train your skycaps that if someone wants an earlier standby flight, DON'T CHECK THEIR DAMN BAGS.
4) get everyone you talk to, no matter how hurried and bitchy they seem, to write down where the hell your bags are going and what flights it's going to be on, so you know where to go. my bag is better traveled on this trip home than i am.

so now i get to wait and see if i really am on standby and if my bags are really going to be on this flight. the porter printed me out baggage claim tickets for my original flight, so who knows what my bags say? if they tell me i can't get on this flight because of their 18-year-old porter didn't know enough to tell me not to check my bags, i am going to KILL someone. i am NOT hanging around denver until 9:00pm to board my original flight. and the flight attendant made it a point to come on my flight and tell me that my bags will be on the next flight to o'hare. we'll see.

ever have one of those days when you feel like your life has been a total waste of carbon dioxide? i just want to put this out there: i have nothing to look forward to. i have no fast-track for my "career," i have no hope of owning a house and property that i can make flourish at my own hand, i have no talents that my computer won't keep erasing. i live in the city with the highest taxes, the most useless commuter system, the most corrupt officials. i am powerless to change anything. and before you break out the "hurrah for life" crap, save your breath. you are all beaten down, you're just in denial. oh, sure, maybe you have someone in your life who has goals or wants to improve their life and bring you with them. not i. my life now will be exactly the same life 10-20-30 years from now. nothing will ever change. some of you will get raises or better jobs. someone out there has faith that you're worth something to THEM. they're willing to pay you what you're worth to do a job you're proud of. not me. i get to do twice the work with none of the extra pay. yeah, i know, get in line. and i can complain all i want to my boss, he'll just come up with some bullshit budget excuse. basically, i'm not worth it to him. i am not worth anything to anyone. oh yeah, i'm a companion. i laugh at jokes, i watch movies, i make food on occasion. i drive, i grocery shop, i pay bills, i clean, i fluff fold and organize. but that doesn't mean i'm worth anything to anyone. i do it because i'm bored. what else would i do? come up with a cure for cancer? bring down todd stroger? burn down all of the crack houses in chicago? no one would care if i did any of that. i am one useless person in a sea of other more useful people. people who have goals and promotions in their future and have something to strive for. and you know what's really pissing me off? this whole kid thing. when i think about it, i don't want kids. i don't want kids as in the "2 car, 1.5 pets, suburban house, playdate moms" kind of kids. but why am i keeping all of my stuffed animals from my childhood? what's the fucking point? why do i keep going to my family reunion every fucking year when it's the same damn people and i have nothing new to add? the thing that's hard about all of this is that i wasn't one of those "programmed" women... you know the type. the ones who played "wedding" as a dress up game when they were 5. the ones who wanted to be princesses when they grew up. the ones who couldn't imagine NOT having kids. it's much easier to blend into society when you're one of those. sure, there are disappointment when you realize that your prince isn't anything more than a car dealer, but if he wants to be a good father, what more did you hope for? but think about me for a second. someone who barely thought about getting married until the day before it actually happened. someone who has convinced herself that having kids is the surefire way to ruin any healthy relationship. a surefire way to turn into one of "those" women... the ones who say they gave up their whole lives for their kids. then when they leave the nest, they started dressing up the dog. but how to do you change your mind? what argument can you possibly come up with? i want to have kids because i have nothing else to do with my life? because i have to have someone to give all this crap to? because i just haven't been puked on enough? when you want kids from day one, no one asks you why. but what do you say if/when you change your mind? and you picked a partner because he didn't want to inseminate you before the white dress came off. actually, he has no interest in inseminating you at all. so i see these women who are pregnant and i think, "someone thought them worthy enough to make another human being with. how nice it must be for them to be wanted for more than a fart joke." since i'm not wanted anywhere in my life, job, family, future, what else do i have to hope for? that my husband might want to stop talking about how fucking cute all of his friend's kids' are and finally say he wants one with me? i can't even hope that would ever happen, because he told me he would divorce me if i ever changed my mind. at the age of 34, it's pretty much a moot point. every time i miss my period (or it's late), i hope for early menopause so i can stop torturing myself. so i will have my answer, my excuse, to just not have a child. and to stop wondering what to say to a partner who never saw that side of me, that side i always really hoped someone would notice.

a blast from the past

in a comment made by a friend, i was reminded of one of the last times i was in anaheim.

i was in high school band. i know, you're all shocked. i played flute. again, shocked. anyway, as a perk sophomore year, the band got to go to Disneyland and march down Main Street. it was for something called "Music Days." we all got these little pink pins to wear. oh, and our marching band uniforms. wool. california. great combo.

ok, so, we had to pay for the flight and the hotel and food. my parents paid for the plane and the hotel. for spending money, we cleaned out this huge coin jug we kept in the living room. we dumped it all over the floor and whatever was in it, i could have for the trip. what a hoot. $186 and some change. not a bad haul.

we had made our room assignments way in the beginning of the year, four people to a room. the trip was over spring break in march (i think). this is high school and i'm a girl. of course there was drama. i chose to room with carrie kucz and erin arthur and bridget regan. erin and i had totally hit it off during track season at the end of my freshman (her sophomore year), laughing our asses off on the bus rides from meets and dancing to new order in the hallways when we waited for our parents to pick us up. erin played drums (percussion, really). carrie was a flute player that i had been friends with since 8th grade. she was laid back and nice and laughed at my jokes and wasn't flighty or ditzy. bridget was new to our school that year, a flute player who scowled at most people if you looked at her funny. she hated our high school and hated people in general. but i really dug her because she was bitter, sarcastic and hilarious.

so, erin and i were inseparable. we rode the bus together in the morning (she lived around the block from me), we hung out after school and between classes, we even dressed alike (i know, try not to barf). then i realized that she was a hypochondriac. she had all these stories about how "she almost died." and she loved to complain about every fucking thing. so i started to challenge her a little in her stories, which i think upset her.

then i introduced carrie into the mix. we made our room assignments. chiseled in stone. and it all went to hell.

they started to phase me out. i'd meet them for the bus ride in the morning and they would say like 2 words to me. then they weren't saying anything. then they were spreading rumors about me. i wanted to beat them both repeatedly about the head shoulders on a daily basis. so to make their lives a living hell, i asked bridget to round out our rooming trio. let the games begin.

we go to cali. i don't remember doing anything rude or harsh, but i remember having to listen to violent femmes "blister in the sun" 384723847204 times. i remember some snide comments. carrie had a huge crush on a guy who worshipped bridget, so we played that up. carrie and erin ratted us out for playing cards in the hotel room with my boyfriend and his friends. we weren't allowed to have the opposite sex in the room, even if we had the door open and there were like 10 people in there. whatever.

anyway, we got sunburned (bridget did anyway), we went to huntington beach after some oil spill. i got my picture taken with chip (or dale, i can't remember). rob, my uptight, sophisticated boyfriend, bought stuffed mickey hands that you wear. and he bought ears. hilarious. we also saw andre agassi in our hotel when we checked in. can you imagine 75 high school girls encountering andre when he had that luscious hair?

anyway, i don't remember a lot of the area when i was here then. i was just trying to remember what hotel we stayed in. i knew it was a hilton, but it wasn't the one i just walked passed. so i looked it up on google! i can't believe i remembered it after 18 years!

18 years. holy crap, pam. has it been that long? wow.

california dreamin'

i am here in california, soakin' up the sun. actually, it's cooler here than in chicago. but i'm here at the paradise pier hotel, using the wireless and watching law and order. they have free wireless, which is a lifesaver. i don't think i could deal with being here with only 10 channels and a book about cholera. but i have a bitchin' view of Disney's California Adventure. when i walked home, i could hear people screaming as they rode a roller coaster.

i'm also staying alone in a hotel room with two queen beds and a sofa that pulls out. it seems like such a waste, but then the US doesn't really make hotel rooms for singles. when i went to london, i got a room about the size of our old bathroom that had a bed and a desk and that's it. really, that's about all you need if you're being a tourist. i guess if you're traveling for business, you might need a little more than that. like a bathroom not shared by other people on your floor.

the thing i hate about traveling is being at the disposal of every greasy food chain that's within walking or delivery distance from your hotel. i had walked a mile each way to get subway when i got here at 2pm. i just now ordered pizza hut, which i plan on using for snack and/or dinner for the rest of the time i'm here. i would rather just have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a yogurt, but i know of no stores within walking distance. and i'm allergic to milk, so any cereal breakfast here at the hotel will wreck me within hours. oh, well, what can i do?

i took some pictures on my way back to my hotel after set-up, but i didn't bring my camera's cable, so i can't upload them. two words: palm trees.

alright, time to hit the hay. maybe more tomorrow.

leaving on a jet plane

tomorrow i leave to go to anaheim, ca. woo-hoo! i get to stay at a disneyland hotel just blocks away from the convention center. and the weather there will be nicer than it is here... 80 degrees and not a trace of humidity. here it will be a sweltering gym bag of heat and dampness. the hotel has a rooftop pool. and i'm going to see if i can some medicinal marijuana while i'm out there. just kidding. all of the dispensaries are in LA.

but can i tell you how fabulously happy i am to by flying cross-country with United? i just hope that they don't decide to lay off people while we're in the air. i can see the flight attendants strapping on parachutes, jumping out of the emergency exit with pink slip in hand, leaving us to fight over the last crumpled bag of salty peanuts.

i think i might need some xanax.

i'm such a girl

i bought something off of ebay about a week ago, some Ralph Lauren Romance body wash and lotion. I guess i didn't pay attention to the description or the photos too well, because when it came in the mail today at work, i got a little surprise:

it came in a pink makeup bag!!!

it's the cutest thing ever. i think i squeaked when i opened the box. so despite my computer being AWOL and my exhaustion at riding my bike to work, i am happy as a girlie-smelling clam.

little surprises are always nice.

computer crap-out

remember a while back, when my other laptop's hard drive gave up? i bought a macbook and tried to put that horrible time behind me, trying not to remember all of the photos i lost, the music, or the documents.

well, it happened again.

yes, ladies and gentlemen, my darling macbook's hard drive officially crapped out. it was friday night, nothing was amiss. i was uploading pictures of my vinyl onto ebay. it never gave me any warning that its death was imminent. i went to bed and the fan had kicked on the computer, so i put it to sleep, which usually shuts it up. i woke up the next morning and opened it up. the fan came back on. i touched the space bar and the screen saver didn't stop. it didn't do anything. i tried to remember if i had anything open that i didn't want to lose then i forcibly shut it down. i restarted...

nothing.

i restarted again. the question mark folder of death.

wtf?

at least my last laptop gave me warning. made clicking noises for a while, let me get some stuff off of it before it completely gave up the ghost. scott's laptop hard drive, which gave up about 9 months ago, did the same thing. click click click, but at least he got most of what he wanted off of it before he installed a new hard drive.

mine gave me no warning at all. i have about 6,000 pictures on there. a bunch of music i had JUST downloaded. and documents to beat the band. since the damn thing was so new, i didn't worry about back up. but know i know... apple makes a shitty laptop hard drive. actually, apple doesn't make the hard drive, but they buy it and they suck. they shouldn't put such a faulty piece of equipment in their computers. i know that laptop hard drives aren't as sturdy as desktop hard drives, but come on. in the last 2 years, three apple laptops i know personally have had hard drives crap out. it's souring me on apple.

but what can i do? all of my software and my old files are mac and if i bought a PC, those would be a lost cause. they have me by the short and curlies. PC sucks at their compatibility, Mac suck at their hardware.

does anyone have a slate and some chalk i can borrow?

(ps: i am borrowing my husband computer to post this. thank you, scott.)

which simpson character are you?

i guess i'm too much of a trouble-maker to be lisa...


I'm Bart, who are you? by NoHomers.net

17 steps ahead of everyone

i spend 95% of my time backpeddling and explaining things to people because they are so much slower than i am. not just in mind, but in process and work, too. usually someone is still talking about a solution when i've already printed the corrected thing out. and they look at me like, what's this? well, you slow-ass piece of shit, while you were wasting time drowning in agony over a solution, i cut through the bullshit to present you with my idea. which they usually go for because they don't want to think about it anymore.

it's the explaining to the blank faces that i'm getting so fucking sick of. c'mon people, god gave you a brain. why don't you use it?

oh, and then i look like an asshole pretending i know more than anyone else. yeah, well, suck it up. if you don't want to have your weaknesses pointed out, then don't let me know about them.

tagged!

i'm home sick today, with a vicious headache and stomach issues (maybe i ate a bad tomato?), so i have some time to actually fill this out. i was tagged by Samantha, who's blog i don't read nearly as often as she posts. i've been really lax about keeping up with my blog reading. so today i'll catch up.

The first part is to tell you 3 things about myself. Three things you wouldn't know...

1. i obsess about my fatty body. if i see a girl who is thinner than me, i absolute hate her. i'll actually scowl at her in public. it's gotten that bad.

2. i really dislike being a woman sometimes. most of the girls i see spend all of their time trying to look pretty or say the right things. they try to blend in more than stand out. it really makes me sick. there is so much wasted talent in the world because these girls mothers' teach them that pleasing people is more important than making yourself happy. and that what other people think of you in the most important thing in the world. GAH!

3. i carry my pocket digital camera everywhere i go. i'll take pictures of anything, mostly nature or architecture, at any moment. i walk around downtown chicago at lunchtime, looking like a damn tourist, but i feel i see a lot more than someone else might by looking through the lens of my camera.

Part two: List 6 quirks of mine…rules are as follows:
1. Link to the person that tagged you
2. Mention these rules on your blog
3. List 6 unspectacular quirks of yours
4. Tag 6 bloggers by linking to them
5. Leave a Comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.

1. i can't stand lint, hair, stains on anything. if there's a speck on my shirt that i can see in my peripheral vision, it has to be removed immediately. and when i see stray hairs on a stranger's shirt or jacket or bag, i'll go into Ninja mode and take it off without their ever knowing.

2. i cannot go #2 in a public bathroom if someone else in the bathroom with me. if there is a noise distraction, like the hand dryer or flushing toilets, then that helps.

3. i use yahoo's search engine 100000000x more than google. i guess it's just what i started using before google, those pretentious bastards, ever showed up on the scene. but i totally rock google's maps. nothing passes the time more quickly than swooping around chicago from my desk using 'street view.'

4. i read my past entries on my blog and i laugh out loud. i know you're supposed to be modest, but damn, i'm funny sometimes. i just read the one about how i found a roach at work and it was begging for my gingerbread latte. now THAT'S comedy.

5. i wonder what will kill me. will it be a long slow painful fight with cancer? will it be a CTA bus? will it be some punk on the street who in now way in hell is getting my purse? it boggles the mind, especially when i'm bored.

6. i want to be a doctor. i dream of being a med student and being completely scared and shitless. i also dream of saving someone's life, either by actually being there or figuring out what they have by being behind the microscope. maybe some day.

losing weight

so i'm back on the weight watchers band wagon. i was getting tired of being completely uncomfortable in even my fat pants and tired of thinking how fat i feel every waking second of the day. and i'm not kidding. every time i put something in my mouth, i think, if i didn't eat this, i could lose weight. i bought some rice cakes, thinking that they were healthy. then i read somewhere that they have a extraordinary high glycemic index. of course. and my cravings for carbs have known no bounds. ice cream (light, of course), cereal (high-fiber, but also high in calories), oatmeal, and any sweets anyone brings in. i have NO CONTROL.

but lately things have been fitting terribly. and i didn't really think that my eating was that out of control. it really isn't, but i guess there something that is different, be it my ever-increasing age or my lack of exercise. so yesterday, wearing what used to be "fat pants," i signed up for WW again. i had planned on going to a meeting last night, but it had been changed from 5:30 when i went about a year ago to 6:30. so i'm going at 5:30 on thursday.

i printed out a menu of crap to eat for the week, which is going to be really interesting. this morning, instead of my 3/4 cup of grape nuts (6.5 points, including the almond milk), i had ONE low-fat waffle with light yoplait and dried cranberries. it was pretty good, but now, at 9:06am, my stomach is totally growling and i can barely think.

that's what pisses me off about my particular challenge in losing weight. my brain just shuts the fuck down when i'm hungry. i can't think, i can't work, my hands get shaky, all i want to do is stare out the window and do nothing. if i wait too long to eat, my stomach puts up a revolt, complete with gas pains and sharp cramps. why? why does this happen? it makes cutting calories almost impossible. i'm going to try not to use it as an excuse in the hopes it's just my horrible food choices in the past months, but it's literally a pain.

so i made myself a sandwich on this horribly weak bread that will fall apart the second i go to put in my mouth. the good thing about WW is that this list of food isn't full of anything i haven't already eaten. vegetables, low-calorie bread, fruits, low-cal yogurt... it's all part of my daily intake. the problem is i intake too much of it. well, not as much of the veggies as i should.

anyway, cross your fingers that this goes quickly and easily. i really hate feeling like this. and i have a whole closet and tons of storage bins full of cute clothes that i just look and feel horrible in. i could just go shopping, but i just don't want to accept myself as a size 12 yet.

her name is helen

and she is my best friend, Kristin's, grandmother. i first met her when i was probably 13 or 14, maybe when my friend, angela, was living with Kristin in 8th grade. her grandmother lived in an addition on her dad's house. it had its own outside entrance, a little kitchen and bedroom area. it was the perfect place for a grandma to live.

my clearest memories of Helen were on the weekends, when she would run her errands. she would go to the salon to get her hair done, buy groceries, just run around in her little blue car. she was about 70 at that point, fully functional, totally independent. when i would stay for dinner, sometimes she would join us. she would ask me about school and boyfriends in her polish accent. she was almost the surrogate grandmother to mine who had moved to Florida.

sometimes she would knock on Kristin's bedroom door, armed with something from her past, be it old photographs, perfume, jewelry, knicknacks. she would tell us the history of where it came from, a piece of her family tree to hand down. or sometimes it would be something random from the home shopping network. kristin always accepted it with a thank you and a hug.

after a while, she stopped driving herself around. she had bought a newer car, but i guess didn't feel comfortable being out on the road in her aging state. Kristin or her brother, Rob, or her dad would take her where she needed to go with no problem. occasionally when Kristin's dad went on vacations, Kris or Rob would check in on Helen from time to time to make sure she was ok.

then she fell in the kitchen of Kristin's house. i'm not sure of the details, but i think they found her after they had gotten back from a vacation. she had broke her hip and who knew how long she had laid there. but once they got her to the hospital, the truth was gradually revealed: she had had a stroke, which is why she fell.

because it took so long to diagnose, the stroke took a big chunk of her memory. she came home from the hospital and needed more looking after, which Kristin's dad did with grace. sometimes Helen would talk to you as if nothing ever happened. but sometimes she would look at you like you were someone sitting next to her on a bus, a total stranger that she didn't really want to interact with. these episodes became more and more frequent. she became child-like, not wanting to eat, not wanting to take medication.

she then became ill with a UTI and had to be put into the hospital. kristin's dad was very adamant in the past that his mother not be put in a home, but her health had become such that an ordinary full-time working, loving son couldn't provide the environment she needed. the doctor made the decision for him: we're keeping her here.

and that's where she was when she passed away yesterday afternoon. she had fallen asleep while napping and never woke up. if i could take away the last 5-7 years of her failing health and have her be completely lucent up until that fateful nap, i would do so in a heartbeat. because then i could say she truly died peacefully.

my heart goes out to her family, the Latkos... to the ones who loved her and cherished her despite her failing health and memory, those who will always remember her as the independent woman she was. bless you all.

holy late blogs, batman

it's been a while, so here's what's going on in my life:

1. i'm running again. i got that Nike+ ipod thingie that tracks how far i run and how fast (slow). check it out here:

http://nikeplus.nike.com/nikeplus/

i've just never been a good runner, but i've wanted to torture myself since i was 14. i keep hoping i'll just get to that point where i'll be able to run effortlessly for miles at a time. that will probably never happen.

2. my friend dawn got married last night. she had a full catholic ceremony and a full-on reception complete with the chicken dance and hokey pokey. i sat at a table with my hubby and all of my friends (many of them from my high school), which was a hoot. i think we were being loud and obnoxious (shocking, i know). there were a few other people there from my high school, and surprisingly, someone had our senior yearbook. that was a hoot. i guess i've changed a little in the past 15 years. if my camera was working, i could take a pic of my senior picture. i'll sum it up in one word: perm.

3. my camera storage card keeps crapping out. i think it has something to do with the fact that i keep hooking it up to my computer at work. my PC has card slots in front where you can put the card in question. it wouldn't read the card. when i put it back in my camera, it claimed "ERR CF." great. so i formatted it and it was fine. then i grabbed the USB card reader from my boss's office. i plugged it in and my computer crashed. it was friday afternoon, so i forced the computer off and left for home.

when i came in on Monday, i restarted my computer and my mouse and keyboard wouldn't work. great. so i couldn't do any work at all. i had to call IT at 8:30am, which i'm sure they don't get it until 10am. so half the morning i spent time working on another computer (i could only check my email) and cleaning out old drawers in my office. it totally sucks.

4. i know you're not supposed to write about your job or anything on your blog, but here it goes: i had an interview last week. every time i get pissed at work, i go to monster.com or careerbuilder.com and apply to jobs. most of the time, there isn't anything good enough to apply to. my current job isn't really creative. most of the stuff i do isn't my best work, but the people there really like it. so i feel like i'm not working to the level i would like. but i'm starting to like the people i work with more. i really like karen and troy is funny in his own brusque way. when karen goes on maternity leave, a coworker and i will be getting 10% raises to make up for the work we'll have to do. i'm going to anaheim for the conference.

but then i saw a job opening for Paper Source. for anyone who's ever been creative in their life, paper source is the mecca of creativity. they have an opening for a senior catalog designer. how could i not apply?

then they emailed me to set up an interview. i thought about canceling it. i changed it once for something going on at work. but finally i went. i had to update the crap in my portfolio, which i hate doing. but i saw their corporate head quarters, which rocked. they have a product development team just to develop all that stuff they have in their stores. it was pretty cool.

the best part: they would pay $55-65k. holy crap.

so now i have a dilemma. do i stick it out in a job that may not be too creative, but i have a lot of different things i do and i like the people i work with. or do i take a job that could be really creative with creative people that pays a ton of money, but i'll be working on one thing.

maybe i should just wait to see if they offer me the job. sigh.