JB’s Blog

Sorry for the long delay, I was on the other coast (Los Angeles) for a friend’s wedding.  Needless to say the trip there and back as well as my time there has given me plenty to observe and write about and so over the coming week my entries will cover it.

Here’s some things I noticed that result in a logical conundrum.

     1) There are some attractive people on a plane flight

     2) I have never sat next to an attractive person on a plane flight

     3) Nobody I know has ever sat next to an attractive person on a plane flight

     4) Someone has sat next to an attractive person…is it you?

Next, people seemed to think it was shitty that I was flying alone.  Let me explain something.  I am one who does not ever fall asleep on the plane.  Quite frankly, how one can sleep sitting up baffles me.  Usually whoever I fly with is sleeping.  How is that different than flying alone?  So really, flying by oneself is really the same, minus the argument over who gets the aisle seat.

Okay we all have had this happen to us.  We hear a song we really like, and never hear it again.  I have Sirius Satellite radio, but I was visiting home for Father’s Day and my parents anniversary this past weekend, and was therefore listening to the web streams.  A song came on I really liked.  Normally I would add this to my favorites on the console so it would beep every time it came on on any station.  So I have been listening constantly since I got back, and have yet to hear it… :(   On an odd note, as I am typing this sentence that Old 97’s song I mentioned in an earlier blog just came on… :)  Anyway it’s a Monday, and so I’m calling it an entry.

So on a quick bathroom break at work I looked down and notice the holes for the drain in the urinal were centered and went across 1-4-3-4-1 in centered rows to form a Star of David.  (don’t believe me, draw it out centered).  Hmm

Secondly why is Subway so freakin cheap with their napkins.  Their sandwiches are no deal to begin with.  I mean c’mon, they are good, but 3 folded circle pieces of turkey per sandwich…and we all no circular turkey does not equal quality expensive turkey.  So at least they could be generous with their napkins.  Nope one freakin napkin put into your baggy, and no napkin dispensers to be found.

You know that car the one that is always beeping and driving everyone nuts.  Usually it’s a piece of shit.  Nine times out of ten when a car alarm goes off it is a shitty car that someone happened to sneeze near. 

Take the old 1990 Buick Skylark I drove when I lived at home.  By the time I was driving it, it was old and easily one of the "least cool" cars in my high school parking lot.  Yet the thing still had this "Chapman Lock" which required you to put in a code before the car would start up.  I of course would never set it, and so after awhile forgot the code.  Then I would bring it for a repair and the idiot mechanic would set it.  So it was real fun calling everyone in the family and getting a different code from everyone and a different explanation how they remembered this specific combo (even if it was wrong).

But the real nice cars, they still get stolen…and the crappy cars…waking us up and keeping us up for years to come.

So I finally started working for the summer at a small law firm.  I find myself to be situated in a cubicle.  Now I have never been in a cubicle before.  I’ve always been in open space or had an office.  I can’t imagine someone that is claustrophobic lasting long in one.  Another terrible thing is you can’t see anyone coming at you.  The walls are high enough and the entrance is always to your side or back.  You’ll hear a voice and not be sure if the person is talking to you or your neighbor.  As long as they don’t take my stapler I’ll be fine.

So on Memorial Day I was back at my favorite reading spot…Bryant Park, if you haven’t guessed by now.  It was sunny and quite hot for an hour or so…and then the clouds came.  Then a few droplet.  Then a lot more.  Then Noah’s ark passed by.  I took refuge in the subway, and was pissed I would be going home after a measley hour.  So I stuck it out.  The rain stopped, some sun came back out.  I grabbed a free newspaper, used it to dry off the seat I was sitting in.  I was like one of three idiots doing this.  I resumed reading.  30 minutes later I look up and the park is full again.  It’s kinda like starting a "slow-clap."

The odd thing is I had a strange feeling about doing this and now I remember why.  When I was young I used to go to the community pool which had patches of grass by it.  When my parents worked, my grandmother would take my brother and I there.  She would lay out a towel brings some mini travel games, some snacks (I swear her bag was a friggin supermarket).  If a patch of clouds would come by, and the sun was nowhere to be found, my grandmother could find it.  It’ll pass she would say.  So we’d pack up our things, get all dressed, but we wouldn’t go back to the car.  No, we’d stand under the overhangs up a level by the bathroom.  We’d be the only idiots there.  I used to always wonder what sun?!?  But sure enough it would pass, and back down we would go, the whole place to ourselves.  Oddly enough on Memorial Day I found myself having absorbed my grandmother’s attitude.  It’s amazing how traits manage to live on.