I'm road-tripping from now on.

I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that the TSA did not feel the urge to violate me (with gloved hands) for the sake of a false sense of safety.

The bad news is that I’m beginning to really hate the process of flying.

It used to be a thrill and a pleasure—all the stuff between being dropped off at the airport and feeling that gentle swoop in my stomach at liftoff was just that—stuff. Even when the lines at the check-in counter were always longer than the ones at security, even before all the modern “convenience” of online check-in, it was less stressful. I think because it was predictable. You knew how long it would take at the ticket counter; you knew how long it took to go through security (5 minutes, max, on a busy day), and so did most everybody else. So things flowed as nicely as they could in a place like that.

In the past nine years (especially in the past five), things have changed so much and so quickly that it’s impossible to bank on anything. Blame the threat of airborne terrorism, blame the TSA, blame whoever you please. But nothing’s for sure. I’ve spent a grand total of six minutes (yes I timed it) getting from the car to my gate. I’ve spent more than twelve times that doing the same thing. Both incidences occurred in the past two years. Y’all have y’all’s own horror stories, I’m sure. Feel free to share in the comments.

So what actually happened to me? Well, nothing life-alteringly scarring or newsworthy, so if you’re looking for a sensational story about how I got sexually assaulted by a stinking brutish TSA lout and I’m so psychologically damaged I’m suing TSA for weeks of intense therapy, then you can just pass this post on by. What occurred was less an event and more a source of deep irritation. But I do place most of the blame on the heightened regulations imposed on the process of flying by the TSA.

My fiancé and I awoke at the bright and gleaming hour of 4am so I could make my 5:50am flight. He graciously dropped me off at the airport at a shade before 5, both of us figuring that five minutes shy of an hour would be plenty of time since I had already checked in the night before and printed my boarding pass. All I had to do was drop my checked bag off and zip through security.

I noticed rather immediately that I wouldn’t be doing a lot of zipping. Most check-in counters nowadays have an express lane or similar, for those passengers wise enough to have taken advantage of advance check-in. JetBlue had no such check-in lane this morning. So I had to wait in line for 14 minutes (yes I timed it) just to drop my bag off. However, I did get a little reward from the ticket lady.

Me: “Hi. I’ve already checked in; I just need to drop my bag off. I’m on the 5:50 flight to JFK.”

Ticket lady (of middling age, way more cheerful than I was): “Oh, okay. Is this your first time flying alone, hon?”

Me, confused: “Uh. No. I’m twenty-four.”

Ticket lady, confused: “No you’re not. Are you sure? Can I see your ID?”

I handed her my driver’s license, with which she confirmed my age. She handed it back to me with the same expression with which a cow looks at an oncoming train.  “You have such a babyface, hon!”

I thanked her with a genuine but sleepy smile and made use of my finely-tuned crowd-weaving skills to make it through the throng (there are always more people than you think that fly in the stupid hours of the morning) to the security checkpoint. I checked my watch again; it was 5:16. My flight started boarding in four minutes. No worries, though, I still had almost a half hour before they closed the gate. I gauged the length of the line and the number of checkpoints they had open, and by the slipshod, half-asleep breed of mathematics all veteran flyers possess, estimated I’d be through security in another ten minutes, barring unforeseen catastrophe.

I shouldn’t have jinxed it like that.

Even though I didn’t get fed through the naked machine or subjected to an “enhanced patdown” (aka Step Right Up and Get Violated by Your Government), I had the dubious pleasure of being pulled aside and verbally searched. I got through the metal detector fine. My shoes, laptop, cell phone and wallet got through the x-ray machine fine. But something about or in my backpack didn’t sit so well with the guy whose eyes were glued to the screen. He said he’d put it through again. I said okay. So far I was three minutes short of my ten; I could deal. The portly guy at the x-ray machine stopped the conveyor when my bag came around again. He squinched his eyes up and put his nose to the screen. Blinked. Backed the conveyor up. Moved it forward a few inches. Paused. Blinked again. Then my backpack came out of the scanner, and I thought I was clear to go. But the guy scooped it up again, handed it to another taller gentleman who just looked so in love with his job. This overly sanguine fellow pinned me to the wall with his eyes as the chubby x-ray operator pointed at me and mouthed the words “That’s her bag over there.” I was ushered unceremoniously to an out-of-the-way spot with a table and a stool. The thin gent told me (not asked me, told me) to empty my pockets and sit down. He commenced emptying my backpack. Which included: a book, a laptop, a power cord, two notebooks, a couple of pens and a granola bar. That was it. How he could turn that into a 4-minute process I will never know. Maybe he just did it to spite me. I really believe he just sat there with my laptop thinking “Maybe if I stare at this thing long enough it will turn into a bomb and we can arrest this bitch.” I could tell he even wanted to open my granola bar. You never know, I could be hiding plastic explosive in between those delicious crunchy clusters.

“Can I see your ID, miss,” he barked. Again, not a question. I gave it to him, making it very clear, nonverbally, that I did not appreciate his tone. He stared at my license for a while, then flicked his eyes up to me. Back to my license. Back to me.

“What is your full name, miss.”

I told him.

“Your date of birth.”

I gave it.

“Your current address.”

“It’s not on there,” I said, pointing to my license. “I moved.” Then I recited my address in Buffalo.

“When did you move and why?”

The words shot out before I could stop them. “Why is that your business?” I snapped my mouth shut so hard I heard my teeth click.

“What is your Social Security number, miss.”

Chagrined and confused, I recited it. Then added: “I don’t know why you need that either.”

“Wait here,” Mr Charming said, and put out his hand as if he was telling his dog to stay. He turned and left.

My thoughts ran thusly: Okay, I pissed him off.

            He looks chronically pissed-off

            He’s going to make the next few minutes very unpleasant for me.

            I only have 20 minutes until my plane takes off. What if I don’t make it?

            I will carve a smile onto this fucker’s face. Or maybe a more permanent frown. If that’s possible.

            That will definitely get me arrested.

            Wait, I don’t even have anything sharp to carve with.

            Damn, maybe I should have packed some plastic explosives in my granola bar. I could feed it to him and then set it off. Play Gallagher with this asshole’s head.

I swear I do not normally think like this. Call it a situational mood disorder.

Mr Charming left me in stir for another five minutes or so (didn’t time this one; too busy letting my imagination run rampant with Mr Charming’s death). Upon his return, he asked to see my boarding pass. I handed him both the one to JFK and my connection to Charlotte. He stood there, looking dour, puzzling over my documents like a first-year lit student with War and Peace. The clock had left 5:30 in the dust and was rapidly hurtling toward 5:45. I told myself very insistently to make nice to him, to do whatever he said and not under any circumstances mouth off to him so I could get on my way as quick as I could. My wounded sense of self would heal.

Mr Charming handed me my documents and I braced myself for an “enhanced patdown”. At least, I thought to myself, he doesn’t look like the kind of man that would savor the experience any more than I would.

Instead, he asked me if I was aware that the new TSA regulations require all passengers to register their full name, gender, date of birth and social security number with the airline before departure?

“No,” I said honestly. “That’s news to me.”

“You should have been notified when you purchased your tickets and when you checked in, miss,” he spat. Clearly he’d done this before, and clearly he was none too happy about having to do it one more time.

“I did everything online, so maybe that’s…”

“There are notices on JetBlue’s website and posted signs in the check-in area. We make sure to inform all our customers of this new regulation. Is this your first time flying?”

Jesus pleezus, does everyone think I’m a sixteen-year-old virgin lamb?

“Nosir. I just haven’t flown since all the bullsh—er, stuff with TSA regulations. And stuff.”

Open mouth, insert both feet. For good measure.

“You still should have been notified. I went ahead and registered you.” But don’t fall on your knees and thank me or anything. It’s not like I did you a favor, his eyes said. “But if you fly a different airline next time, make sure you register your information with them.”

“But TSA has all my information now. Why do I have to re-register with each airline?”

“TSA is not allowed to store this information. So if you fly with a different airline you must re-register with your full name, gender, date of birth and Social Security number.”

I wanted to say: “For a bunch of folks who are so obsessed with the security and safety of their customers, you sure are playing fast and loose with their identities.”

I wanted to say: “I hope they have saved an incredibly uncomfortable place in hell for you.”

I wanted to say: “I call bullshit. Just grope me and let me the fuck go.”

I said: “Thanks for letting me know. Am I cool to leave?”

He said: “Yes. Enjoy your flight, miss.”

After that little interlude, a burned-out engine and a tailspin into the side of a mountain would be enjoyable.

More good news: I made my flight. With just a minute to spare.

Earworms

Now that this article is already published, I don't feel like I'm screwing myself out of any kind of rights when I post it here. 

Enjoy.

You know that one song? That one song that gets stuck in your head for hours, days, weeks? Or maybe it’s just one stanza or a verse, or even just a couple of notes? Repeating ad nauseam, running in dizzy circles around and around your ears, driving you absolutely bananas by the end of hour 493?

You, my friend, have an earworm. Besides being consummately irritating, earworms are a real psychological phenomenon that has been studied by various important sciencey folk. No, really, it has. The term, a literal translation of the German Ohrwurm, was made popular by a marketing professor called James Kellaris. His studies showed that approximately 98% of people have experienced an earworm.

Daniel Levitin, a cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, musician and record producer, also delved into the study of earworms. He has published numerous articles on the relationship between neurocognition and music, and he is the author of This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obsession. He has also worked with artists and groups such as Steely Dan, Santana, The Grateful Dead, The Blue Oyster Cult, Stevie Wonder and Chris Isaak.

If that isn’t enough for you, the well-known neurologist Oliver Sacks also researched earworms in his 2007 book Musicophilia, contributing the title “involuntary musical imagery” to the list of earworm synonyms.

Some other fun synonyms are “humsickness”, “repetunitis”, “sticky tune”, “brain itch”, and my personal favorite, “tune wedgie”.

So how do people get earworms (hereafter called tune wedgies)? According to Kellaris and Levitin, any song can become a tune wedgie. But there are some characteristics that make a song particularly prone to worming into your ear. Songs that are simple (lyrically and musically), repetitive, and contain some unusual feature (like an extra beat) are most likely to become tune wedgies. Some people (musicians and those who are chronically stressed, tired, neurotic) are more prone to getting tune wedgies than others. This, says Kellaris, indicates that they are the result of a complex interaction between musical (and lyrical) properties and an individual’s traits.

Okay, you say. I’m one of those lucky people who get tune wedgies all the time. So how did it get there? More importantly, how do I get rid of it?

Patience, young Padawan.

When you listen to a song, a part of your brain called the auditory cortex is activated. The same area is reactivated when you just imagine hearing the song. This retrieval of auditory input—whether it’s a tune wedgie or not— can be called “perception in reverse”, because it follows the same neural path as actually hearing a song, but backwards. This mirror-image of activity, Kellaris believes, is part of why tune wedgies get stuck so deeply.

The first and most common way to get a tune wedgie is simply hearing a song. This will trigger the auditory cortex and boom, insta-wedgie. But it doesn’t have to be an entire song. Often, it’s just a stanza, a line or even just a few notes. But once that wedgie digs in, it takes days of picking to get it out.

The second way is subliminal, or lyrical, exposure. This happens when you read a word—any word—and it reminds you of a song lyric. Which turns into a tune wedgie. Some good examples include “stop” (in the name of love), “one” (is the loneliest number), “blue” (da ba dee da ba di), and “never” (gonna give you up, never gonna let you down).

Got a wedgie yet?

I wish I could tell you to hang upside down from the archway of a cemetery gate while eating strawberry yogurt and twirling your feet in circles and your tune wedgie will go away, 100% Guaranteed Or Your Money Back. I wish I could say that because it would be hilarious to see, but also because we all want that one real tune wedgie cure. But sad to say, there is no tried and true way to cure a tune wedgie. Each one has its own cause and came to you for its own reason, so a panacea is, unfortunately, out of the question.

But there are some things that you could try, and I swear I am not making any of this up:

·         Eat hot cinnamon candy. The intense flavor evidently distracts your brain.

·         Listen to the song all the way through. Once.

·         Listen to another song or album from another artist.

·         Distract yourself by physical activity, like skydiving. But beware, the wedgie may return once the adrenaline wears off. This goes for less death-defying activities too.

·         Drink alcohol (works like a charm).

·         Pass it on—sing your tune wedgie to a friend. Beware: they may become an ex-friend when they walk away humming it.

·         Play music; piano seems to work best.

·         Go to the Eiffel Tower. According to earwurm.com, nobody has ever reported having a tune wedgie on this structure. And because I found it on the internet, you know it’s true.

·         Listen to “Staying Alive” by the Bee Gees.                    

If your tune wedgie endures, despair not. It will go away in time. If it does not, however, you may have a condition called endomusia, wherein the sufferer actually hears music that is not there. Endomusia is related to obsessive-compulsive disorder in that it is a type of persistent, recurring thought. It is also classified as a type of hallucination in that the auditory cortex is activated as it is when one actually hears music, not in the perception-in-reverse way that results in tune wedgies.

If you are interested in learning more about tune wedgies and various other intersections of music and psychology, I recommend grabbing a copy of Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks (Knopf, 2007) or This Is Your Brain On Music by Daniel Levitin (Dutton, 2006). Or you could check out earwurm.com, which has resources to help you identify and get rid of those pesky wedgies.

Happy picking!

You Have Been Christened

Every workplace has its culture, and every culture has its (unspoken) rites of initiation. I passed through my first major one at the animal hospital where I work as a vet assistant.

I have witnessed the death of an animal.

Funny thing was, I didn’t know it was dead at first.

“Kate,” one of the techs said to me. “I want you to know that there’s a cat coming in with possible renal failure. It’s probably gonna have a lot of bloodwork done before it gets hospitalized, so be available to restrain.”

Okay, gotcha, I said. I was inwardly excited; the techs were just beginning to trust me to restrain animals without supervision or assistance. And this one was a cat. I had proved myself from the beginning better at restraining large dogs because I worked those three wonderful years at Claws and Paws. But cats are more difficult to restrain because they require a more delicate, finessed approach than a tackle-headlock.

Soon, the tech walked back into the treatment area where I had busied myself. She had a pink towel in her arms. She put it on the table and announced, “Seventeen years old. Domestic shorthair, four and a half pounds. Let’s try to get some fluids into her if her veins haven’t collapsed already.”

The image you have in your mind is probably about the same one that met my eyes when I pulled the towel back. A calico cat named, charmingly, Cali, lay on the table barely able to lift her head. Her fur, still full, made her look far more, well, full than she was. I ran my hands down her body and felt every single bone. The tech, armed with needles and a bag of fluid, attempted to draw blood while I held Cali in the usual restraint: one hand gripping the scruff tightly and one hand holding and anchoring the leg from which blood is drawn, while the same elbow kept the cat close to my body to prevent it from thrashing and getting loose.

But thrashing really wasn’t an issue with Cali. So I gentled up my hold on her scruff. Her head dropped. My heart stopped; I thought she’d died. But she lifted it laboriously, gazing at the world from bleary, tired eyes.

“Don’t you scare me like that, kiddo,” I murmured, burying my face in her fur, which smelled sweet. I kissed her and talked to her as the tech attempted draw after draw from both front legs and the side of her neck, ignoring the frequent outbursts of “fuck” and “goddamn oldass cat veins”.

“I can’t get anything. She’s too dehydrated. Her veins are like tire rubber. Let’s get some fluids in her and tomorrow we’ll try for blood,” the tech said, and I changed up my restraint: hands holding the cat’s head by the lower jaw and nose, thereby keeping the head immobile and the mouth shut. Usually cats like this hold less, but Cali no more complained about my hands all over her face than she did about having a needle painfully and repeatedly inserted into her body.

All the while I’d kept my finger on the pulse under her left elbow, but now with both hands occupied by her head I couldn’t monitor her dismally slow heart rate. But I did blow gently into her ears every once in a while; if they twitched, she lived.

“I have to put this IV in her back leg, Kate. I need you to hold her real still, ‘kay?” The tech said. I nodded and focused solely on minimizing Cali’s already minimal movement by keeping her snugged to my body and my hands completely still on her head. Cali and I remained motionless for a long while, listening to the murmurs of the tech.

“Uh. This fluid ain’t budgin’. Is kitty still with us?” The tech asked. I moved a finger from Cali’s jaw to the artery in her neck, already laid bare by the tech’s clippers and the complete absence of fat on Cali.

I felt nothing.

“Uh. I can’t feel anyth--”

“Lemme see.” The tech pressed two fingers to the spot, then pulled them away. “Nope. Kitty has left the building. You can let go of her now.”

I did, but only after I’d kissed her and told her I love you and goodbye.

With effort I compartmentalized and proceeded with the remaining three hours of my shift, which involved a different sort of christening (a story for another time). I allowed the grief to come on my way home, and I cried. I remembered the two deaths I’d witnessed at Claws and Paws, the deaths of my own pets, and the deaths of my human loved ones. Cali is and was no different than my dog or my cat or my grandmother. Cali was born, grew, was loved, and then left this world just like every other living thing has to do.

During the 8-minute ride home I realized something that should have come to me way sooner than it did. The reason why those in the veterinary business care for animals is not for the animal’s sake. Animals can and do live complete lives without human intervention; they’ve been doing it for millions of years. No, the real reason why veterinarians, techs and vet assistants like me do what we do is because of the bond between an animal and its human. It is that bond that created the need for animal doctors in the first place. The moment we domesticated animals was the moment we became responsible for their lives and their futures. And the moment we began to love them was the moment we began to care about their health and their feelings. Yes, we do it for the animal, but if it weren’t for the human who brought the animal in, well... you get it.

Half an hour before my shift ended was the tech’s time to leave. I was restocking supplies in the treatment area when she approached me.

“Congratulations, you have been christened.”

“Whuh?” I asked, blindsided.

“The kitty that croaked.”

“Oh,” I said, refusing to let those emotions out from their box yet. “I thought you were talking about the dog who expressed his anal glands all over me.”

The tech burst into laughter. “Oh, then you’ve been christened twice! Today’s your day, then!”

“Yeah, thanks.”

She left, chuckling, and I felt a momentary spike of anger for her carelessness about Cali. But I understood that she’d probably seen dozens if not more similar deaths; she’d callused up that part of her heart, as she ought to do. And I will probably do the same over time.

But for now, I don’t know how my realization will affect my work with animals or how soon. But I do know that it will affect me deeply and profoundly. I have been changed; I have been christened.

No Child Left Behind Strikes Again

Those of you on Facebook have probably already read this before, but I'm going to repost it here.

November 2009

Recently I found a family of cats living on the edge of the woods that border my apartment complex. Being who I am, I started feeding them and earning their trust.

It has been almost two weeks and Mama and the babies are relatively comfortable around me.

Tonight I brought them their food as usual, but instead of waiting for me to call to them, they met me at the edge of the parking lot, meowing and being, as kittens are, rampantly cute.

I sat down with them, which is part of the trust-gaining process. Occasionally I'd reach out and pet a kitten to acclimate them to my touch, but otherwise I sat peacefully and kept watch.

I heard a soft cooing voice, a human voice, off to my right. A girl, younger than me but not by much, was creeping out between two cars, trying her best to be quiet. I smiled at her.

"Aww, little cats!" she said. "I've never seem them so little!"

By that I thought she meant she'd never seen young kittens before. Which I chalked up to not having been around animals much. I made conversation.

"Aren't they cute? I found them a couple weeks ago. I'm trying to get them to trust me so I can take them to a shelter to find homes. The mama cat's all right, but the kittens are still wary."

"Kittens?" she asked.

"Yeah. All six."

"Is that what they're called?"

I was slightly confused. Did she think I named all the kittens "Kitten"? I asked, "What do you mean?"

"Little cats. Baby cats. Do you call them kittens?"

"Y-yes." Did she really not know what baby cats were called?

"Where's the daddy cat? Doesn't he take care of the kittens too?"

Confusion bloomed into bewilderment, but I kept it off my face. "Well, no. The dad doesn't have much to do with them anymore."

She clicked her tongue. "He's a sucky dad then."

This girl caught me completely off guard. I was too flabbergasted to be alarmed when she suddenly reached into the cluster of bodies around the food bowl, which of course provoked all seven into near-teleportation out of there. She jumped back and looked hurt, but only momentarily. Once the newness of the heretofore-unnamed kittens was gone, she lost interest and wandered away, leaving me alone with wet cat kibble, fur on my shirt and a whirlwind in my mind.

Had this girl never, until just an hour ago, encountered even the word "kitten"? Was she never taught that not all animals raise their young like humans do? I thought that was something you learned in primary school. Surely she'd come across a kitten somewhere, at least in an "A is For Aardvark" book...

To the parents and teachers of this child:

Where the hell are you??

I'll buy the YMCA some rat traps

In my ongoing quest to prove my younger self wrong (when I was in elementary school I’d sort of assumed I’d be dead by age 35 or so), I go to the YMCA every weekday and exercise. Thankfully, the Y is free of that annoying stereotype of the musclebound asshole whose workout routine consists solely of pounding back four protein shakes while adjusting his biker shorts to show off his steroid-shrunken package to the gym bunnies he’s unsuccessfully hitting on. Oh, and the gym bunny, who never comes there to work out, but to show off her $400 pink Nike shoes, her $150 pink athletic ensemble, her makeup, nails, hair, and of course, her silicone-riddled “gym body” to the musclemen who want to hit on her.

But when I talk about the YMCA henceforth, I will have to amend the second sentence in the previous paragraph to read “Thankfully, the Y is mostly free...” because I was proven wrong today. But as things that happen to me often are, it was funny, and I am now going to tell you about it.

I had finished the cardio section of my workout and was midway through my circuit in the weight room. I choose a slow time of day to go, because I like to have the place to myself. But today it wasn’t completely barren. At the start of my circuit, a youngish man with bulging gym-grown muscles had been futzing around with the free weights for a while. I didn’t realize he was One Of Them until I saw his face. He even looked at the weights as if they were beneath him. Then a young woman wandered in. Most of the women who use the Y’s fitness center are either older or are making an honest effort to lose weight. This one, however, looked like she belonged on the cover of a magazine. Already fit and trim, she wore skin-hugging clothes (honest workout clothes, not strips of cloth held together with bobbypins and prayer), had long blonde hair and a pretty face sans-makeup. Not a gym bunny.

But, ladies and gentlemen, what do you get when you put an incredibly cocky (pun not intended– see above for why) musclebound gym-rat and a pretty young woman in the same weight room?

To answer your question, if you really need it answered, I will tell you that if this were a cartoon and there were sound-effects to accompany people’s actions, I’d have heard him come to a screeching halt, seen his eyes pop comically out of his head (boioioioioinnnnnggggg) and his face take on a decidedly wolfish cast. Let’s not forget that triangle-toothed grin.

At first, I settled for chuckling to myself and letting the tableau spread out before me. She looked like she had enough presence of mind to fend for herself; I knew for a fact she’d been hit on before. Any woman with a body like that in a town like Oswego’s bound to have gotten ogled, catcalled, pinched, panted at, drooled on, plied with alcohol, groped, licked, what have you.

I kept one earbud out so I could hear Mr Muscleface get shut down. But he didn’t. I listened, he talked at her. About... wait for it... about his muscles. I’ve encountered gym rats before at Gold’s Gym, at Planet Fitness, and at that one sleazy gym I went to once out in Carrboro (if you know about Carrboro you know why I never went back). But all the gym rats I’ve known never actually talk about their muscles. It’s always about themselves, sure, but it’s usually about what they do for a living, how much money they make, what kind of car they drive, how cute their new puppy is (yes really), etc. Most of the experienced gym rats know that talking about their muscles is about as interesting to women as when women talk about their periods to men.  So they pick topics they think women would be interested in, and some of the shallowest women are.

But Miss Magazine Cover was not shallow. Nor did she apparently have the stones I thought she’d had. She just sat there, twiddling her thumbs on one of the machines, as Mr Biceps stood in front of her with his hands on his hips, putting himself on display. And talking. And talking.

About technique, about tone, about core muscles, about absolutely everything Miss Magazine Cover did not want to hear. She tried her best to tune him out, bless her, but he followed her around the gym, running his mouth and waggling his arms as if to say...well... what he was already saying.

This went on and on and began to make even ME uncomfortable. He was not giving up, and she was not shutting him down. Normally, I don’t interfere. Normally I just let these things work themselves out, because, well, it’s not my business and I’m not a people person. But this was just not working itself out.

So I did something I have never done before, and may never do again. Now that I look back on it, it wasn’t the wisest move, but it’s one of those things you do without much thinking. Because if you thought at all before doing it, you wouldn’t have done it.

I walked up to the pair and said, loudly and plainly, staring the woman in the face, “Hey. I’m new here. Can you show me how the cardio machines work?”

The instant of confusion in the woman’s face bloomed into the most sublime expression of gratitude I have ever seen in a human being.

“Oh, I’d be happy to,” she almost shouted and teleported across the room to the stairs that led up to the cardio area. I followed her, daring not to look back at Mr Musclehead, but figuring he either hated me passionately or was just confused.

Or maybe he was still talking to himself about his muscles. I will never know.

Miss Magazine Cover made a show of explaining the elliptical trainer to me, then went to a treadmill on the farthest end of the room, away from the doorway. Then she let out a huge sigh and said, “Oh my god, thank you. You have no idea how awkward that was. Thank you so much.”

I said my welcomes and I let her talk Mr. Muscleface’s assault out of her system. Then we formally introduced ourselves. She glanced back into the weight room. Mr Muscles remained, so we decided to hop on the treadmills until he left.

Those next 15 or so minutes were enjoyable; I found out she had moved to Oswego from Vermont, that she was here for a job, and that she wanted to get the hell out of this podunk town (her words) as soon as she could. I laughed and agreed. Mr Muscles finally left; Miss Magazine and I went our separate ways. But I have a feeling that if I ever see her again, I’ll have a workout buddy for life.

In which the writer is made to feel quite awkward, actually

While I never quite relish my job at Childwatch, I can’t bring myself to hate it. Nothing ever happens twice, and the writer in me comes at every day just hunting for story opportunities. Like this one. Again, names are changed to protect the almost innocent.

I often have the dubious pleasure of bringing children into any one of the three racquetball courts at the Y to play. If you’ve ever played this whopper of a game, you know that a racquetball court is an indoor affair, just four high, sturdy walls and a shellacked wooden floor. Needless to say, sound echoes tremendously in the courts. So while I’m able to relax a bit and interject only when there’s a problem, I have to deal with... let’s do some complicated math here...

7 children(10 rubber balls+ 4 hula hoops+2 corn poppers)
divided by my patience
times some figure or formula involving the loudness of a sound, how many decibels are added when echoes are involved, and how much louder all of it is when enclosed in a cube with glass and drywall sides

And all that equals a combined decibel level on par with a jet engine at 100 feet. Okay, I’m exaggerating. Maybe it’s a little less.

Until everybody thinks it’s a wonderful idea to scream at the top of their lungs at the same time.

I digest. Today it wasn’t as bad because there were only three kids in the gym with me: Tommy, Sarah, and her little brother Max. “Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder” does not begin to describe Tommy. He reminds me physically of a hummingbird: tiny, wiry, bright red hair. If you manage to catch him, you won’t be able to hold him for long. The apocalyptic amount of energy contained in that tiny body will vibrate him right out of your hands. So what I’m really trying to say is that Tommy didn’t spend very long in the racquetball court. Then it was just Sarah, five going on a bratty fifteen, and her long-suffering and gentle little brother of three.

For a while they were content thwacking racquetballs back and forth in that awkwardly adorable way that only children with undeveloped fine motor skills are. Then Sarah pranced over to me and (literally) flung herself into my lap. She didn’t like me; I didn’t like her; we both knew it. But Sarah liked being under the seasoned and veteran eye of the Childwatch Overlord even less. So to me she would cleave, as long as Max found entertainment in striking at a ball, missing, and hitting himself in the face with a racquet. Which was, bless his heart, a lot longer than I’d have thought.

Sarah, using me as her personal lounge pillow, immediately began regaling me with stories (how true they were only she knows) about herself, her friends, herself, her family, herself, her dog, oh and did I mention herself. Usually I can get away with only pretending to be attentive, but Sarah must’ve had some sort of radar installed that went off whenever she detected any flicker in my attention. She’d yank on my shirt and bleat “Are you listening to me?”, then ask me to repeat back to her what she’d just said.

Sarah’s mom, pay attention to what your child is learning from you.

In this way we passed the next several minutes. In a moment of weakness, I raised my hands to my face and rubbed my eyes. I expected to hear another shrill reprimand from Sarah, but instead she seized my left pointer finger and shoved it in my face.

“What happened there?”
   
A band-aid decorated the tip of the finger in Sarah’s grip. To be honest, I don’t know how I’d gotten the bloodless but incredibly painful laceration on the pad of my finger, but I offered the best explanation I could to Sarah, otherwise I’d be fielding questions thrown at me from further and further out of left field.
   
“I got a cut. It must have been when I was using a knife to cut up chicken for supper last night.”
   
“Are you a mom?”
   
Left field; am I right?
   
“Wh–what? No. What warped and twisted path of logic dropped you at that gem of a conclusion?” This level of vocabulary and abstract idea-making may have been a bit above Sarah, but she has special ways of making one’s life miserable who dares to talk beneath her. So I err on the side of caution. She seems to grasp the gist of it anyway; for all her snottiness, she’s a bright kid.
   
“Yes you are. You were making dinner.”
   
“Just because I make my own food doesn’t mean I’m a mom. Your logic is faulty.”
   
“You make food for you and your kids. Duh.”
   
Brilliant volley by Sarah. Let’s see if Kate can return the hit.
   
“Do I honestly look like a mom to you?”
   
“Ye--”
   
“Don’t answer that.” I clapped my hand over her mouth.
   
Ooh, a point for Sarah.
   
Sarah laughed and shoved my hand away. “How old are you?”   
   
“Twenty-three.”
   
“Hah! You’re old! You must have like six kids!”
   
“Yes, no, and you’re very mean.”
   
Game, set, match, Sarah.

It’s kids like Sarah who keep her own mistaken judgment about me from ever being accurate.

"Something's really wrong with you", or "Thanksgiving I"

I always want to begin each entry with an apology for not posting more often.  That needs to stop.

...but I am sorry.

Not that terribly much has happened since my last entry.  We got the water heater issue fixed; had an issue with the washing machine that caused another flood.  I came downstairs to change the laundry, saw the floor under a half inch of water for what had to be the ninth time, and let fly a string of curses that would make Ken the WonderPlumber proud.  Garrett followed the sound of Kate-rage and calmly surmised the cause of the flood: a blocked drain.  He grabbed a big stick, climbed on top of the washer to get close to the drain, poked it a few times, and with a lethargic gurgle, the water went its way.  I stormed off and refused to return to the basement any more that evening.

My reaction to our basement is a case study in Pavlovian conditioning.

Upstairs Dude is gone.  He was replaced by Bob.  The story is slightly more complicated, but only just.  I dropped eaves on a conversation between him and our landlord’s wife out on the front porch one day.  All I heard were things like “...be gone by the end of the month” and “final rent check” and “don’t have much to move”.  I may not be known for my Holmesian powers of deduction, but I didn’t really need them in this case.

Over the next week, a cavalcade of borrowed cars puttered back and forth from our driveway, carrying bits of Upstairs Dude’s possessions away to God-knows-where.  He and his 13ish-year-old son did the bulk of the hauling, and I was lucky enough to catch an exchange between them as I came back from a run one morning:

Upstairs Dude: “Bring those boxes downstairs!”
Son: “I can't! They're heavy!"
Upstairs Dude: "Well bring them one at a time!"
Son: "They're too heavy, Dad!"
Upstairs Dude: "Just bring me one!"
Son: "You know, something's really wrong with you."

They may have heard the thump as I lost my balance from laughing; the walls are thin.

Then, not too long after that, the pulsing red-blue of police strobes invaded my dream about an abandoned construction site.  The thought “Oh God something’s happened to Garrett” straddled sleep and waking so that I snapped full awake in less than the time it took for the adrenaline to blast through my system.  I bolted to the front window; two cruisers were parked in front of the house and I heard voices upstairs.  I immediately relaxed and settled onto the futon to watch the fun.

There wasn’t much fun for anybody.  I couldn’t see or hear much; from what I could see, the cops looked bored and Upstairs Dude looked more annoyed than furious.  They cuffed him, walked him out to one cruiser and plopped him in.  They fiddled with their radios for several minutes, sat in their cruisers for several more, then drove off, leaving me in a state of mild bewilderment.

The next day, Bob arrived.  Bob looks and sounds just as country bumpkin as Upstairs Dude, but has a few more social graces.  He introduced himself to me (as Bob) and volunteered some details about Upstairs Dude that I had been itching for, and several about himself that I could have lived without.

Bob told me Upstairs Dude had been living on parole and had simultaneously violated it and his lease.  Vinnie had magnanimously turned a blind eye to the lease violation and had just asked him to vacate ASAP.  The cops weren’t so other-cheeky with his parole violation.  So back to jail he went.  A breath before I could wonder how Bob knew so much, he told me.  He’d been a jailbuddy of Upstairs Dude and was on parole as well.  They even had the same parole officer, who knew Vinnie.

So far, the plumbing has been more of a threat to our health than him, so I’m not worried.

Still no luck on the job front.  I’m starting to get a better sense of this town now that the newness has worn off, and a contributor to the dismal job climate here is the town itself.  It’s smaller and more rural than I’m used to and a good hour away from anything resembling a city.  The only real industries here are metalworks and a nuclear plant.  Everything else is small and privately owned, which in this economic climate means that employers are cutting back and employees are holding onto what jobs they have with tooth and nail.  The few chain stores and fast food joints aren’t hiring.

In other news, I spent Thanksgiving in New Jersey.  Everybody calls it the armpit of America, but I, like a good skeptic, refused to believe anything anyone said until I could see it for myself.

"Epic Armpit Farts", or "Thanksgiving II"

Yep, they were right.

The air was bad and the tap water tasted like Richard Simmons’ unmentionables, sure, but the part that rang most true to me (being the driver of the expedition) was the crack about Jersey drivers.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, they are the worst drivers in this country.  I say “in the country” because I have met worse drivers out of it.  But that really doesn’t count, because everyone there drove badly the same way, so everything was predictable.  Such is not the case here.

Jughandles are part of the problem.  If there were cars in medieval England, then jughandles would be the torture device of choice.  Instead of making a left turn, a jughandle is a waste of asphalt that forces you to turn right to go left.  They say jughandles cut down on accidents because left turns are dangerous.  Which would make slightly more sense if every left turn in the entire state of New Jersey, nay, the entire US, were made by jughandle.  That way, everybody would be used to jughandles and stoplights would only have to be wired for traffic going straight.

But this is not the case.  There is no rhyme or reason to which turns get jughandled and which don’t, so drivers are caught in the wrong lane and are constantly leapfrogging across three or more lanes of traffic (usually nearing a stoplight and therefore decelerating and becoming denser), causing mass slammage of brakes.  Since Jerseyans are used to jughandles, this makes them less skilled at making normal left turns, of which there are a good many in the state of Jersey.  They seem to forget that extra lane of traffic they have to watch out for.

They also suck at driving in general.  This gets back to the unpredictability I mentioned earlier.  For example, they slow down while merging onto the highway.  This is ass-backwards from the way I learned it.  I thought the point of that little merging lane was so the driver could accelerate enough to make a smooth entrance and not disrupt the flow of traffic.  But I guess said driver can’t do that when traveling cars enter the rightmost lane instead of moving left to allow the merging driver to actually merge.  Jersey drivers also have this habit of speeding up when the light changes to yellow and when they realize they don’t have time to make it before the light turns red, they play the game called “My Skidmark Is Longer Than Yours”.  They also play “I’ll Race You Out Of The Toll Plaza (And Cut You Off When I Win)” and “No, I Have The Right-Of-Way, You Fuckass”.   

Garrett tells me I need to be more positive, so I’ll focus on the good things about my Thanksgiving break.  First and foremost, and the reason why my tail wags harder for Thanksgiving than for Christmas, is the food.  I was (and am) most thankful for the excuse to gather together with a large group of folks who are, after a fashion, related to me and eat a house’s worth of food in one four-hour-long sitting.

Eye-searing Irony

"Thank the gods," I said to myself as I carried laundry down to the lake-less basement, "the leaking's finally stopped."

As if on cue, I heard dripping water.

I turned and found a refrigerator-size (and rapidly growing) puddle under the hot water heater.

The landlord, in a surprise turn of events, answered his phone on my first call.  "It's so funny, because I grew up in that house and I've never had problems with it, ever."

Well, when it rains.

More on this weather report as it develops.