I should have helped the Italians. That's all I could think after two canceled flights, two horrible delays, near arrest, a security breach, a twisted ankle (not mine), a few public rants consisting entirely of cuss words, near suffocation in a throng of smelly, sweaty nerds at a comic book convention, missed industry parties, alienation by people I thought were cool, and sunburns in unholy places. And a few minor struggles with matched luggage. If I'd only helped the Italians, I wouldn't be angry, spurned, burned and most of all, disappointed. To read more about our terrible, horrible, no good, very bad trip to the San Diego Comic Con, I urge you to read RM's account of the tale. He has a sense of humor about it, while all I an manage is sardonic with a twang of bitter.
Suffice it to say that there was no need to rush to the gate at JFK last Wednesday. I should have stopped to help the spoiled-looking, casual designer label-wearing Italians whose lack of English-speaking skills and panicked demeanor had caused a glaucoma-ish glaze to settle over the eyes of the little old ladies working the counters at American Airlines ticketing.
RM said karma would punish me because I let them throw their hands up in despair, screaming, "non capito, non ti capito!" He said karma would bite me in the ass because I didn't use my rusty Italian to tell them that "la donna qui nell' uniforme ufficiale ti aiutera colle valige, e le porte sono all'altro lato della barriera di sicurezza la."
Well there, I've said it now...but at the time all that came to my mind was, "le scarrafaggie cogli ali" which roughly translated, means, "the cockroaches with wings." Maybe that would have helped? I don't know. All I can say is that I'm sorry, and I hope they ended up where they wanted to go!
July 30, 2008
July 3, 2008
Delving deeper...
Now that I'm officially hurled down memory lane, here's my first ever performance on the 1980 Olympic Arena ice in Lake Placid. It wasn't my finest work, but I was thrilled to death to be there. I was 10 and I was missing school for this!
July 2, 2008
VH-what?
The unfortunate aspect of growing up in the 80s and 90s is rearing its ugly head: VHS is now officially a thing of the past, gone the way of the 8-track tape and the LP. I, of course, was the last to realize this, and thought the precious VHS's that detail my past would last forever. Riiiight. So here's my first effort at digitizing our family's rather large collection:
Just as a subtext, I outskated the field, but got robbed by the judges, who told my coach in confidence that they couldn't reward me with the top spots because they were reserved for a few girls with fancy coaches from uppity skating clubs. The seedy underbelly of the sport of figure skating is not a myth.
More to come...
Just as a subtext, I outskated the field, but got robbed by the judges, who told my coach in confidence that they couldn't reward me with the top spots because they were reserved for a few girls with fancy coaches from uppity skating clubs. The seedy underbelly of the sport of figure skating is not a myth.
More to come...
June 23, 2008
June 20, 2008
High-8-us
I've become one of those bloggers: head bursting with thoughts and witty criticisms, hands too lazy to peck at the keyboard long enough for my brain to take a dump. But I'm back from an energizing beach-heavy mini-break and ready to assume that everyone is dying to hear what I have to say. (Everyone else assumes that about me, so as a result I've acquired a palpable cynicism and a whole lot of revealing trivia about others...)
I can't think of a better mini-break destination than Cape Cod. That little crooked finger with it's come-hither suggestiveness, beckoning visitors to indulge in it's romantic coastal atmosphere and the frutti of its mare. One can smell the ocean in everything, and it is never unpleasant.
I have two categories of memories from the Cape. First: those from my days as a kid, training at Tony Kent Arena in Dennis and running amok on the Harwich beaches (trying to escape my parents' insistence that I bathe in sunblock). We stayed with my mom's best friend from college who lived in a spectacular manor in Brewster with an indoor pool and a balcony overlooking it from about 20 feet up off of her kitchen. It was there that my friend Molly's blonde hair turned bright green, and there that we chickened out after talking my skating coach into belly flopping off the balcony into the deep end of the pool. And there were the visits to the local Dairy Queen, which my mother's friend owned, trying to sneak payment for our cones but getting it gratis every time.
They are good, wholesome childhood memories, lacking only the unfulfilled desire to visit the tennis court full of trampolines on Route 28 in Harwich.
Which leads me to my second set of memories: the semi-adult ones. Those memories center around my friend Steph's Cape house in Dennis, where we engaged in every type of shennanigan known to man, from drunken games of asshole, to underground lobster fighting.
The lobster fighting circuit wasn't so lucrative this season, as the field was pretty much clobbered by this gargantuan freak of nature:
That would be a 17-lb lobster, folks.
I can't think of a better mini-break destination than Cape Cod. That little crooked finger with it's come-hither suggestiveness, beckoning visitors to indulge in it's romantic coastal atmosphere and the frutti of its mare. One can smell the ocean in everything, and it is never unpleasant.
I have two categories of memories from the Cape. First: those from my days as a kid, training at Tony Kent Arena in Dennis and running amok on the Harwich beaches (trying to escape my parents' insistence that I bathe in sunblock). We stayed with my mom's best friend from college who lived in a spectacular manor in Brewster with an indoor pool and a balcony overlooking it from about 20 feet up off of her kitchen. It was there that my friend Molly's blonde hair turned bright green, and there that we chickened out after talking my skating coach into belly flopping off the balcony into the deep end of the pool. And there were the visits to the local Dairy Queen, which my mother's friend owned, trying to sneak payment for our cones but getting it gratis every time.
They are good, wholesome childhood memories, lacking only the unfulfilled desire to visit the tennis court full of trampolines on Route 28 in Harwich.
Which leads me to my second set of memories: the semi-adult ones. Those memories center around my friend Steph's Cape house in Dennis, where we engaged in every type of shennanigan known to man, from drunken games of asshole, to underground lobster fighting.
The lobster fighting circuit wasn't so lucrative this season, as the field was pretty much clobbered by this gargantuan freak of nature:
That would be a 17-lb lobster, folks.
June 3, 2008
Snapshots
I've always been one to look at photos. Not merely look at them, but divine my own idea of what was happening at the very moment the shot was snapped. It's a good psychological study, because the subjects of the picture are frozen in their expressions, without the use of a handy-dandy facial segue.
A picture is truly worth a thousand words. And where our ancestors once used words, the digital millenial era is upon us, and we use images.
My waxing has a point, I swear. Check out the Freedom Riders gallery at Newsweek.com, and you'll see what I mean.
A picture is truly worth a thousand words. And where our ancestors once used words, the digital millenial era is upon us, and we use images.
My waxing has a point, I swear. Check out the Freedom Riders gallery at Newsweek.com, and you'll see what I mean.
May 11, 2008
Momma's got a brand new bag
On this warm, sunny day in May, Hallmark says we should buy our moms things. Flowers, candy, jewelry, an elliptical cross-trainer...whatever the woman who birthed and/or raised you might desire, as a national remuneration for the sacrifices she made to defend you against the lions of society until you reached adulthood. While it's widely known that I think this holiday is bullshit, I sure do love my momma, and if it makes her feel good to have a day, then the day is hers. I have to admit, though, that there is something good about a Hallmark holiday when I help huge Hell's Angel-types tenderly picking out chocolates for their mothers.
At the same time, there's this: the real history of Mother's Day, which puts the whole Hallmark mythos to a shameful rest. The historical truth gives Mother's Day no more significance on the schedule of national holidays than Secretary's Day, or the less popular National Nude Day (July 14, in case you were wondering).
But for those who choose to ignore these hard facts, should we really have to be reminded to honor and cherish our mothers on one specific day? We should honor them every day of our waking lives. I believe that wholeheartedly, especially after having read a few chapters of Tina Cassidy's comprehensive history of how we are born, entitled, Birth. Squeezing out a baby is no picnic. In fact, human births are among the most painful and dangerous in the animal kingdom. Not only that, but as Cassidy points out, women have been almost helpless in birth for centuries. Midwives and doctors have done some crazy things to preserve their respective reputations as deliverers, all of which have made the whole process more painful and more difficult. Compound that with the 48 hours of labor my mother endured to have me, and you can imagine the homage I pay to that woman.
As an interesting aside, check out 'Postcards from Yo Momma', a little peek into the world of mother-child electronic correspondence.
And then there are the women who have popped out, oh say, seventeen children. Like this woman and her family, featured on the Today Show last week. How this woman is having an eighteenth child is beyond my understanding. Should one's uterus have given up and fallen out by maybe the 10th? If children really are a blessing, then this woman is three-quarters of the way to saint status. And what of women who cannot or choose not to bear children? Are they being punished for sins of the past? I have nothing but admiration for women who choose to be surrogates, giving women babies who wouldn't otherwise have the chance to be moms.
I'd like to say that if I had the ways and means, I would be a surrogate in a heartbeat.
So Mother's Day...My mother is with neither of her children today. She's with her own mother and her goddaughter, at the latter's first communion hundreds of miles away from her doting, flesh-and-blood daughter. I should be there with them, but my hip and happenin' NYC lifestyle prohibits leaving the island to go too far these days. Don't I feel like a lackluster daughter? Go ahead, judge me for the ungrateful child that I appear to be. But not too fast, because I will be flooding RM's mother with Mother's Day cheer. The woman who brought my sweetheart into this world is worthy of just as much as my own mother on this Mother's Day.
At the same time, there's this: the real history of Mother's Day, which puts the whole Hallmark mythos to a shameful rest. The historical truth gives Mother's Day no more significance on the schedule of national holidays than Secretary's Day, or the less popular National Nude Day (July 14, in case you were wondering).
But for those who choose to ignore these hard facts, should we really have to be reminded to honor and cherish our mothers on one specific day? We should honor them every day of our waking lives. I believe that wholeheartedly, especially after having read a few chapters of Tina Cassidy's comprehensive history of how we are born, entitled, Birth. Squeezing out a baby is no picnic. In fact, human births are among the most painful and dangerous in the animal kingdom. Not only that, but as Cassidy points out, women have been almost helpless in birth for centuries. Midwives and doctors have done some crazy things to preserve their respective reputations as deliverers, all of which have made the whole process more painful and more difficult. Compound that with the 48 hours of labor my mother endured to have me, and you can imagine the homage I pay to that woman.
As an interesting aside, check out 'Postcards from Yo Momma', a little peek into the world of mother-child electronic correspondence.
And then there are the women who have popped out, oh say, seventeen children. Like this woman and her family, featured on the Today Show last week. How this woman is having an eighteenth child is beyond my understanding. Should one's uterus have given up and fallen out by maybe the 10th? If children really are a blessing, then this woman is three-quarters of the way to saint status. And what of women who cannot or choose not to bear children? Are they being punished for sins of the past? I have nothing but admiration for women who choose to be surrogates, giving women babies who wouldn't otherwise have the chance to be moms.
I'd like to say that if I had the ways and means, I would be a surrogate in a heartbeat.
So Mother's Day...My mother is with neither of her children today. She's with her own mother and her goddaughter, at the latter's first communion hundreds of miles away from her doting, flesh-and-blood daughter. I should be there with them, but my hip and happenin' NYC lifestyle prohibits leaving the island to go too far these days. Don't I feel like a lackluster daughter? Go ahead, judge me for the ungrateful child that I appear to be. But not too fast, because I will be flooding RM's mother with Mother's Day cheer. The woman who brought my sweetheart into this world is worthy of just as much as my own mother on this Mother's Day.
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