Amtrak Ambivalence

There are moments when I love the train ride from New York to D.C.: all the landscapes blurring past, the liberal legroom, outlets (for dilapidated computers/iPods/cell phones with little battery life) and the inexplicably friendly ticket-takers.

When you think about the alternative (riding the bus, including Vamoose, Washington “Deluxe” and the Chinatown variety), train rides win by a landslide. Of course you could ride the bus about 6 times for the price of one train ticket, but then you have to sit through 4-7 hours of odd smells and bad movies. On one particular journey, the bus driver played the Notebook. There I was openly and audibly weeping on the bus from D.C. to New York. Another ride, I watched the worst movie ever made: Heartwood, which features a pre-90210 Hilary Swank. Before I saw that movie, I had never taken the time to register on IMDB to rate films. Afterward however, I logged on with the express purpose of ranking Heartwood a 2 out of 10—and that was actually pretty generous.

As usual, I’ve gotten off topic. The real problem here is not the bus, which I’ve given up even though I’m totally broke. The problem is that in order to take a train home to D.C., you have to go to Penn Station, and Penn Station is on my top ten list of least fun places. It’s actually less fun than the D.C. DMV, although slightly more pleasurable than the Denver airport circa Christmas 2006.

My first problem with the train station is that it is difficult to navigate. I have taken the 1-2-3 trains to 34th Street countless times, but I have yet to master efficiently making my way from the subway to the Amtrak departure gates. Every time I end up taking a different route. The place is a maze of rolling suitcases and NJ Transit riders and many of the signs directing people toward Amtrak lead to dead ends. It’s crawling with people, especially on the Friday afternoon before Easter, heading to a cherry blossom-peaking Washington. Once you make it to the Amtrak terminal, there is a giant board with all of the outgoing trains, but the gate isn’t announced until about 10 minutes before the train departs. There are no seats, so everyone just stands around next to their luggage.

Once the gate is announced, the rush begins. People sprint to the gate, knocking over little old ladies and running over toes with baggage wheels. For me, the gate race is a lot like that computer game Minesweeper. It’s hard to know which direction to go if I have to traverse the entire terminal, because if I cut left, I could end up falling onto someone’s smart cart, but if I veer right, I may end up in a crowd of 12-year-old tourist-children.

Sometimes I play a little game that can really pay off. I get to the train station about 15 minutes early and play the odds. If the trains to Chicago, Trenton and Philly leave from tracks 1, 13 West and 9 East, then I guess a track, maybe 14 East, and then I wait right next to the entrance. And pray. This could really backfire, clearly, but last weekend, it worked. I was standing next to 10 West when it was called, and I was the 4th person in line. My grand prize? No elbows to the chin and a window seat near the front.

The best part was after walking past the ticket taker, I turned around to relish my victory and watch as sharply-dressed businessmen and women duked it out to be next in line.

The strangest part about this last Amtrak adventure was that it could be among my last. Next year, I could be heading to Berkeley or Charlottesville. After that, I'm sure I will always think wistfully about trains and say, “I really miss all the excitement of Penn Station…”

What’s my motivation?

After turning in my master’s project a little more than a week ago, I’ve been completely useless. It seems I’ve contracted a disease usually reserved for college-bound high school seniors. I have severe Senioritis with a mild case of spring fever and an inkling of homesickness.

Today, the weather in New York is absolutely perfect, which is not conducive to writing one of my last stories of grad school. I actually dragged myself to the computer lab in the hopes that I could get some work done. In fact, I wrote an outline and typed up some interview notes, but an unforeseen power outage deleted an hour of (half-hearted) work, so I’ve returned home and now I’m procrastinating some more by writing this long overdue blog entry.

Homesickness doesn’t feel much like a sickness. It’s more of a dull and determined ache, and one I haven’t felt for a while. But there’s something about spring that makes me miss D.C. It’s easy to romanticize a city from a couple hundred miles away. After screaming, “it’s a dive” to the Lauriol Plaza patrons sipping margaritas on the patio last summer, I kind of wish I was sitting there right now, indulging in an overly alcoholic Mexican beverage. I hear that the cherry blossoms are starting to bloom, and I know I’m going to miss the Japanese festival where Scooby and I get drunk off Sapporo and feed our mochi addiction under the pretenses of learning about his heritage. I want to hike along the Potomac and ride in my mother’s convertible with the top down; I want to play with my niece and go shopping with my sister (even though I don’t have money to spend).

At the moment, home is where the heart is, which means my heart is not in the feature story I’m feebly attempting to write.

UPDATE: I’ve changed my mind about mochi. After writing about it, I started to crave it, which made me google it (why? Because I’m procrastinating!) and I read this on Wikipedia:

“Mochi is very sticky and somewhat tricky to eat. After each new year, it is reported in the Japanese media how many people die from choking on mochi. The victims are usually elderly. Because it is so sticky, it is difficult to dislodge via the Heimlich maneuver. In the Japanese comedy film Tampopo, a house vacuum is used to suck it out. (Some lifesaving experts say that a vacuum cleaner is actually efficient for stuck mochi.)”

Since I seem to have re-contracted my swallowing difficulties, mochi now seems like a completely unappetizing food. Unfortunately, however, I still miss everything else. Of course, if Lauriol Plaza is shut down for a health code violation or something, please let me know!

Running in circles

I have had more than a few complaints about Columbia. I realize that I have an unhealthy amount of school spirit for my undergraduate college (Wahoowa!), and I should probably stop comparing the two, but I saw something today that made me question how much this university really cares about its students: a nearly naked octogenarian.

I was in the gym, minding my own business and doing some post-running stretches, when a wrinkly old man with man-boobs and back hair wandered past in nothing but a pink speedo. But it wasn’t actually pink. You could tell that back in 1965, the swimsuit was a healthy shade of red. But no longer!

The reason I had to see such a trainwreck before lunch is that the Columbia gym is possibly the worst college gym in the United States. I’ll get back to the naked old man, but feel like you deserve a full rundown of the unpleasant conditions of Dodge Center. The gym is four stories with the top floor on ground level. To get to the locker rooms, one must walk across a track, looking both ways to ensure that a runner and passerby don’t collide. The track is one-tenth of a mile, so when I go to the gym I usually run around it about 35 times, which makes me feel a lot like a hamster in its wheel.

There are treadmills and other exercise equipment that face the track giving track-users a self-conscious feeling that they’re being watched, because, well, they are. The outside lane curves up, so passing people feels a bit like Nascar according to one of my friends (a fellow wahoo and Columbia complainer). There is a guardrail for about a quarter of a lap so that runners can stare at the basketball court below. The rail is about hip height, which feels a little low, so every time I run by, I have the strange sensation that I’m going to end up tripping and somehow ending up in a hoop. Other things I saw while running around the track today include a yoga class in downward dog (glass-walled fitness rooms abut the track), three female members of the track team making fun of an elderly man whose shorts were drenched with sweat and a bloodied bandaid that someone had left on the track for me to look at 35 times.

You might ask: if I hate the track so much, why do I use it? Well, for one thing, you have to go to a person who sits at a desk and sign up for the equipment in 30-minute slots; they say, “okay you can have elliptical 4 at 6:30” and then if someone is on elliptical 4, you’re supposed to kick them off at 6:30. This is problematic for me, because I’m non-confrontational. Plus, 30 minutes simply isn’t enough some days and the average time it takes to get a treadmill is about an hour.

So I use the stupid track. Except even the track is a hot commodity some days. Today for example, the track closed from 1 until 3:30 because the track team needed to practice. WHAT? The track team practices on a 1/10 mile track? Wow. They must be really good, especially the long distance runners. So after I got kicked off the track, I wandered over to stretch and that’s when Old Man River walked by in all his speedoed glory. What can you say though? The locker rooms are on the 4th floor and the pool is in the basement. Who planned this thing? L’Enfant? (hahaha. DC humor) As I turned away, I noticed a towel slung casually over his shoulder. Why isn’t that thing covering you up? I wanted to scream, but instead I held onto the handrail and stared down at the volleyball class on the basketball court.

Every freshman at Columbia is required to take a gym class, and there they were. There was a net set up, and about 20 pairs of students were hitting volleyballs back and forth to each other. Not a Gabrielle Reese among them, balls were flying in every direction leaving the 18-year-olds to scurry after their wayward balls. It seemed like a recipe for broken noses. But I suppose the teacher would have said the same thing as the jackass who planned this godforsaken gym: it seemed like a good idea at the time...

Suits: Friend or Foe?

I think my generation has a seriously dysfunctional relationship with suits. And who can blame us? Suits aren’t typical attire for work (unless you’re a politician or a CEO), yet they are still expected during job interviews. At least, I think they are. I have friends that tell me suits are no longer necessary, but I’ve also talked to people higher up who say that wearing something other than a suit to an interview can be a make-or-break decision.

Which brings me to today. I had an interview. I knew that the interviewer(s) would be wearing khakis, maybe jeans, maybe even a Cosby sweater, but I felt like I should wear a suit. This was problematic for one reason, which was that I left my suit at my parents’ house in McLean, Va. Oh, and before I go on, I should mention that the interview was for an unpaid internship. I know; it’s ludicrous.

So anyway, I emailed my friend Rachies about my dilemma and asked where I could get a suit on the cheap, and this was her response. Really, I didn’t change a word:

“ann taylor loft? banana republic? you’ll spend like 300 dollars and then you will RETURN IT. yes i have done this. am i proud of it? no. but ive sat in several interviews with tags dangling on my back and no one ever knew….

…I’m totally up for suit shopping and talking you into the buy, wear, return thing. it’s practically a good luck charm.”

As you can see, Rachies is VERY convincing. So persuasive in fact that I actually considered it. But there is one thing you learn after 25 years: some people get away with this kind of thing and I’m not one of those people. I’m klutzy, forgetful and occasionally flaky. I would inevitably forget and have the tag dangling down my back on the OUTSIDE of my jacket. Rachies on the other hand is much smoother. She can get away with returning a worn suit because she looks young, sweet and innocent and no one would suspect her of the kind of nefarious behavior she’s capable of.

Anyway, for anyone who needs to buy a pantsuit they will only wear a handful of times, might I suggest H & M? Thirty dollars turned me into a really conservatively dressed woman.

On another note, I got a ridiculous call from my sister on Monday morning. She had just realized that “that bald guy” they kept showing at the Oscars was Jack Nicholson. She had wondered to herself “why do they keep showing the Commish?” For those of you who don’t remember the show, it starred Michael Chiklis, who most people would know as “that guy from The Shield.” As an aside, Johanna’s association of Chiklis with his 1991 role is much like her recognition of Joey Pantoliano. When she saw him at the White House correspondent’s dinner a few years ago, she could have said, “I loved you in The Sopranos, Memento or even Bad Boys.” But instead she said, “I loved you in the Goonies!”

Anyway, judge for yourself:

El Presidente

It appears that most people are enjoying a nice day off. How wonderful for them; meanwhile, all of my assignment due dates seem to have converged on the span of a few days, which explains my nonexistent postings as of late.

In fact, I had it all planned out. I had a story due on Friday and the second draft of my master’s project due today (eek!). After class on Friday, which generally lasts until noon or 1, I planned to finish working on my story (about diamonds. Ooh la la) and then I would have the whole weekend to work on my project. After turning in my project today, I would work on reading and critiquing my classmates’ 16 stories due in cultural affairs class at 3.

Except that when I went to class on Thursday night, I received an unexpected assignment: I had to (with a partner) find a story, shoot it (with a video camera, not a water gun), and edit the footage into a nice little 90-second package. The assignment was due at 6 on Friday, which pushed my diamond deadline back to Saturday at 6.

When I heard this news, my heart sank for a number of reasons. 1. I hate shooting video, mostly because 2. I kind of suck at it and 3. this would limit the time I could work on my master’s project.

So on Friday morning I met with my partner Lorenzo and we decided to focus on a recent news story: the new NYC condom. The contraceptives were created by the city, packaged with eye-catching subway-like logos (you know, the colorful bubbles) and distributed at different locales throughout the city. Lorenzo and I headed to one of the distribution sites, which we found out was a barbershop in Harlem.

We planned to interview the owner and intersperse the interview with shots of the inside of the store as well as close-ups of the colorfully-packaged condoms. We shot inside of the store, we shot the street corner to show where we were, we filmed the edifice of the building and we captured a very informative interview. After I had asked the owner a number of questions, I asked Lorenzo if he had anything to add. In his soft-spoken voice tinged with a bit if a Colombian accent, he queried, “ummm. do you use these condoms?”

At first, the owner didn’t seem too amused. “Well no, since I’m married and I’m faithful.” But he did give a little chuckle at the end. Lorenzo and I then shot a few more images and headed back to school to edit the footage.

Once we got back to the computer lab, we were both prepared to get things done quickly so we could work on our other daunting assignments. But as we began to capture our video onto the computer, something strange happened. We had footage of the inside of the store, which we shot before the interview and we had shots of the outside of the store, which we shot after the interview. But where was the interview?

Oh God NO! We had taped over the interview. We had rewound the tape to make sure we had gotten the full interview, but didn’t subsequently fast-forward. I told Lorenzo to fast-forward to the end of the tape to see if we caught any of the interview. In fact we had. Except only two of the owner’s answers. One was a commentary about the design of the condom packaging (“a condom is a condom. I don’t care about the packaging as long as it protects you”) and, of course, the infamous “I’m faithful” line.

In the end, we just had to go with what we had. I ended up narrating the whole thing since we no longer had the owner’s commentary. I sat in the computer lab with my best NPR voice, saying “here we are in Harlem” into the microphone of the camera. And, of course, the whole thing culminated with the interviewee's ode to his wife. We finished the assignment on time, thankfully, which allowed me to spend one rockin’ Friday night working on a story about diamonds. Such is the pathetic life of a j-school student, I suppose.

Speaking of journalists, I received some pretty amazing news from my friend Emily who writes for the Dallas Morning News. She’s going to be on the side of a bus and on billboards. Well her slightly gray visage will be at least. Here’s hoping that the bus pic doesn’t suffer any Carrie Bradshaw-esque defacement!








Our little emo is all grown up!

Do I know you?

It is so cold in New York right now that I’m actually considering buying a sleeping bag, cutting out a hole for my head and wearing it as a coat. Right now it’s 23 degrees, but feels like 13, which is actually a bit tropical compared to the last few days.

Luckily New York is a city of snugglers, so should I venture onto the subway or into a store, there will always be some good Samaritan warming me up, whether I like it or not. It’s actually something that took a lot of getting used to, especially coming from D.C. where people like to keep each other at arm’s length. On the packed orange line from D.C. to Virginia, everyone looks at the ceiling as if they are gasping for air, like they could actually drown in the surrounding bodies. In New York, I’ll get on a half-empty car, reach for the filthy, silver bar above me and some guy will inevitably curl up under my armpit. Was no one hugged as a child in this city? Why does everyone seem to crave human contact?

This “friendliness” manifests itself in other ways too. I feel like I’m constantly having a conversation with strangers, none of which I initiate, because HELLO, I’m from D.C. People in Washington actually read the newspaper or a book while they walk to work (which I don’t recommend, by the way. It’s dangerous. And really nerdy). They have no interest in the people around them.

I compared notes with another redheaded friend the other day. She confirmed that she too gets “hey there Red” about five times a week. Whenever I’m carrying groceries home from the store, someone asks me if I need help. The other day I was walking home and some man stopped me and said, “what’s that for?” pointing to the yoga mat sticking out of my bag. Once I told him, he wanted to know a lot more about yoga. At some point, I had to tell him that I was in a rush because I wasn’t in the mood to describe every last detail of my fitness regimen, but I immediately felt badly, because as I walked away he was so endearing: “well okay then. See you soon!” as if we were old friends.

Of course this strange pseudo-familiarity also has its down sides. It would seem that people will say just about anything to anyone, no matter how vulgar or inappropriate. The other day, my friend Staley was walking to work and a man who was walking past her leaned close to her ear and said something like, “hey there sexy.” Staley was more concerned with the fact that the guy was dressed normally, like he too was off to work, than the actual content of his message. Another friend wandered out of a bookstore and was confronted with another book-shopper who said, “fucking white bitch” for no apparent reason as she walked past him. Luckily this Birmingham native has a response for such comments. She simply says, “God bless ya” in her southern twang. If nothing else, I’m sure it catches the perpetrators completely off-guard.

Just last night my roommate and I were walking through a subway station on our way to her birthday dinner when a man stopped in his tracks, stared at us and bellowed “OHHHH YEAHHHHHH!” then watched us walk past as we grimaced with embarrassment. Just when I wanted to say, “I hate it here,” a guy started chasing after my roommate, yelling, “miss! Miss!”

Oh God, what now? I wondered. The man came right up next to her and set his shoe next to her high-heeled boot. I slowly realized that he was trying to detach a piece of paper (or toilet paper? or something!) that had stuck to the bottom of her shoe.

“ I didn’t want you walking around all night like that,” he told her.

“That was so nice,” I mused after he walked away. “In D.C. people would have seen the paper, watched you walk past and chuckled to themselves. Isn’t New York the greatest?”

The Lucrative Side of Blogging: Bad Manners Sell

I didn’t always have a completely raunchy sense of humor. At age 12, I went to see Dumb & Dumber with my friend Richard (probably the lewdest person I know)(sorry Richard, but it’s true) and declared it a “completely disgusting” and “utterly offensive” work of film. I was one straight-edged little preteen apparently.

Ten years later, my father walked into the family room to find my sister and me watching one of our favorite movies, Super Troopers. Why is it that fathers have a knack for walking in at the worst possible moment? I could be watching a movie that’s all rainbows and picnics for two hours, but my dad manages to walk in during the three-minute, obscenity-filled sex scene.

Overall Super Troopers is an exceptionally raunchy movie. But my father dropped by during the worst scene of all. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say it involved a risqué billboard with a half-naked woman, a state trooper and a radar gun. My dad (who watches BBC miniseries for fun) sat down on the couch, watched the television screen for about 20 seconds as my sister and I stifled our laughter, then stood up to leave, but before he went, he left us with these words: “You’re debauched.”

I would have been offended if it weren’t so true. I don’t really know how I got here, but I think it has something to do with an upbringing completely devoid of scatology. Farting jokes had no place in our household, so by my teen years my version of acting out was cursing like a sailor and burping loudly. Some kids drink, some smoke weed. I told dirty jokes. Pretty tame, right? To each their own forbidden fruit, I suppose. The fact that I got away with being disgusting in our fairly strict household definitely irked my sister.

The truth is that I didn’t technically swear. I came up with a new cursing language, which consisted of words like fook, shite and ace-holly. My mother thought these little expressions were hilariously clever, and she would respond with a little chuckle and an “oh you; you’re so silly!” while my sister rolled her eyes and wondered, “why do you let HER get away with it?” Meanwhile, when we were in my sister’s room (next to my father’s study) I would burp loudly and then yell, “GOD! Johanna, that’s repulsive.” I knew I wasn’t fooling anyone, but being improper entertained me to no end.

My gross sense of humor was only exacerbated after college when all of my girlfriends scattered across the country, leaving me alone in D.C. with a bunch of frat boys for friends. Well I suppose I had one girlfriend from high school in D.C., but TheRom.com and her band of bartending friends are not exactly good influences, as anyone who knows them can attest. Anyway, I quickly gained recognition for my exceptional belching skills and ability to laugh at any joke, no matter how filthy.

Luckily I keep my lewdness in check these days, because I have a tremendous outlet. It’s called the internet. Blogs like GoFugYourself, TheSuperficial and Peapod's blogs (if he updated them more: IHateDelRay and Chronicles of Milwee) do the trick, but no blog holds a candle to BadNewsHughes, which strives to “punch people in the face by using the internet.”

Warning: if you have even a minor sense of decency, I don’t recommend visiting this site. Dad, I’m talking to you. Luckily, I have none, so I visit often and usually laugh myself to tears while reading about this guy’s upbringing. On the last visit, he gave links to Hughes family Christmas celebrations in 2004 and 2005. Let’s just say that the jello shots, nakedness and general debauchery he recounted made my family tradition of eating waffles for dinner on Christmas Eve seem a LOT less outlandish.

Anyway, he had a link on the site, which I happened to click on and it transported me to an Amazon.com page where his book will be sold come March. At first, I was convinced that he had created an impostor Amazon page so that it appeared that he had a book coming out, but upon further examination, it turns out the page is real. He got a book deal out of his blog, and the book will be called Diary of Indignities. Think David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day, but multiply the raunch factor by about 100.

Anyway, this made me feel really good. And sort of sad. Why does this shmo from Florida have a book deal? Maybe instead of spending $40,000 on a master’s degree to become a writer, I should just start writing about my warts (I have two) and tattoos (I don't have any, but I want to get a windmill on my wrist. I don't know why). Well the good news is that there are a lot of other burping degenerates (or at least people who APPRECIATE burping degenerates) out there. But until my father becomes one of those people, I think I’ll keep blaming my indiscretions on my sister.