Crazy on the Outside

So I'm walking to work today, cold, bleary eyed and grumpy, and remain standing only by tightly gripping the promise of caffeinated sanity in my right hand. I take a swig from my o-so-tasty Clover coffee bucket (today is another fancy, non-pronounceable brew from Kenya), breathe in deeply and begin the treacherous trek across Market. I "deftly" maneuver through hordes of groggy commuters, dodge several old ladies running for the 30, and arrive safely on the opposite of the main thoroughfare. I breathe a sigh of relief; another morning passed with the inevitable bus-to-face smash incident avoided. (Seriously, walk with me to work sometime... you'll see.)

The sounds of a raised voice off to my left somehow manage to penetrate the fog that is my morning brain, and I swing my eyes ever so slightly off their straight ahead "I'll stab you if you run into me course". While I'm not yet capable of translating the gibberish speak, my eyebrows just about raise up off of my forehead at the sight just next to me. An incredibly grubby man, shouting something utterly unintelligible to no one in particular, RUNS into the middle of rush hour traffic (I'm talking oncoming, green-light here), JUMPS into the air ninja-style, and does a flying kick-leap into the side of a cab. Upon landing he kicks the cab door a few more times before walking ever so calmly back to the sidewalk. The cab drives on, the world returns to normal-speed and I head into work, shaking my head.

...Let's pause for a minute to note: You can't walk more than ten feet in San Francisco without encountering a person who either IS homeless, or appears to be. I'm not sure why. Maybe all those biz-school folks that founded sites like www.tradeairgetrich.com in '00 never found another job when their company went belly up. Perhaps the mild NorCal climate holds a high level attractiveness when one is outside constantly. Maybe its beggar-chic season and no one told me. Seriously - no clue. Maybe a topic for another blog post... back to the point

To my knowledge... the perpetrator of the kicking was never in the cab. I never saw a door open or shut (granted, I wasn't really paying attention), and the gibberish didn't seem to be about money or cab drivers. The man was clearly NOT in the middle of the street the whole time... I saw him run into traffic. As such, I'm pretty sure the cab didn't hit the man just before I started paying attention. Heck, I'd ninja-kick a cab if it ran into me. So, what gives?

Now, there are all sorts of vaguely plausible explanations for this behavior - the most likely of which is the man, who probably lives on the street, has a mental disorder that somehow compels him to shout, kick cars, and perform any other number of socially unacceptable acts. Sad, but true. But setting the "oh that's sad" factor aside for a moment, I couldn't help but be thankful, even if just for a second, that at least one person wore their crazy on the outside... right where I could see (and therefore avoid) it.

Granted, I assume everyone I meet has some degree of crazy. In my head, sanity is more like a sliding scale than a binary function; we're all constantly moving up and down the line, and the definitions along the line vary by individual interpretation. Yet even with that working theory, I'm constantly shocked/horrified/saddened/confused when someone I've known for years slides waaaaaaaaay farther toward the nutty side than I'd ever imagined possible (and my tolerance is pretty darn high). The emotional drains from such a situation are typically huge, unavoidable, and always manage to occur when you least expect it.

*Shrug* As callow as it may sound, some part of me appreciates the blatant (if unintentional) honesty of shouting in the streets. At least then I can walk around.

Note: No particularly crazy family or friend situation was in mind when writing this post. Its just one of those things you think about when walking to work, half-asleep, and see someone kicking a cab in the middle of the street. All hail pre-caffeinated revelations.

Music: Good for the Soul

Picture, if you can, a vaguely sickly Jamie leaving the office on a Thursday afternoon. She's in normal work attire (probably jeans and a hopefully nice-ish shirt), messenger bag slung over one shoulder and is walking purposefully to the bus stop ready to be home. Her "I'm reading and ignoring the public at large" book is on the passenger seat of her car 20 or so miles south, making snuffling and coughing repeatedly the best please-keep-the-crazies-away tactic at her disposal. Got it? I can send a picture if needed... I'm pretty much still in this exact state. Good.

Look closer. What...is...she doing?! I she....skipping?? To Caltrain?? Who SKIPS to public transportation? Surely she is drugged! Insane! Delusional! Haven't we heard her rant endlessly as to the numerous horrors of traveling with the largely unwashed masses?

Zoom in. Around the ears. Aha! White headphones. The counterculture-maybe-hipster-turned-mainstream presence of Apple products has been detected! How, you ask, is this relevant? What about the proposed mandatory drug testing? Hold off on the urine sampling folks! Disappointed? It seems this Jamie-folk has just discovered or, more accurately, re-remembered the pleasures of music. No really!!

Its not like I forgot the iPhone plays music. Seriously. My little phone accompanies my just about everywhere. I rock out to my classic rock tunes on a daily basis in the imaginary bubble that surrounds my half-cube at work. (How else can you explain my dancing in my chair in full view of co-workers? But that's another story for another post.) In desperate times of poor satellite radio programming, I have even been known to listen to my music via the iPhone's speakerphone in my car (headphones while driving are illegal, damnit!). But, somewhere in between checking email on the go, texting friends, chatting up my mom and beating my all-time high score on Bejeweled, I lost sight of the function on which the i-products really gained popularity... music! Your songs! When you want them!

So last week, book-less and bitter, I boarded the bus and discovered my headphones had somehow happened into my pocket. Listlessly, I plugged in and hit shuffle; shoulders slouched with anticipation of the uncomfortably jostling ride ahead. And then it happened. I can't tell you what song came on (because I don't remember, not out of shame or anything), but it just fit. And in an instant, the world changed. My mood lifted. I sat up a little straighter. My head and neck afflicted that weird bob and peck thing that comes from wanting to sing aloud or dance along, but social norms of the location require you to be quiet and sit still. My foot started tapping. For those few minutes that the song was playing, I was, at some basal level, happy.

Maybe the music didn't really change anything substantial. Work is still work, and, really, don't get me started on all the craziness there. I still have name-change paperwork to do. The house is still a mess. Heck, I was (and am) still sick! There are still starving children just about everywhere, too many wars to track, and an upcoming election season that instills a level of dread in me that I can't really vocalize. But one song... the right song, at the right moment... when everything just melts away and you get into this groove... changes your perspective. Something in the tones, beat, words connects with your subconscious and your whole being dances along. Takes you out of the humdrum, beat down stresses of everyday life and reminds you that its not that bad... in fact, its kinda good to be alive.

Sometimes I wonder if other people get that. For their sake, I hope so - its a pretty cool thing. Actually, anything that makes me skip to Caltrain has to be something near amazing.

And dude - iPhone plays music! Whodathunkit?! But you can bet I'll remember it now.

Never Fear, I'm Still Here!

Hmmm...that seems appropriately rhymy and annoying. I actually don't have much to say today other than to assume my fans (which I'm told by Google Analytics number in the TENS. Yeah, that's right TENS.) that I am, in fact alive and still capable of typing. The last couple months have been a whirlwind of work, wedding and travel and I, not yet owning an awesome ultra-portable laptop (where IS my Macbook Air sponsorship?) have been too overwhelmed to blog. Yep, you heard right. Too busy to type here even though I type everywhere else all day for literally months on end. Shocking, I know. I'll pause for a minute here to let you recover from that...

Anyway, I've still got lots of blog ideas - some old that I never posted, and some entirely new! With the wedding done, honeymoon over and the name change well underway, its about time I got back to work here. Look for some freakishly long, excruciatingly rambly, often ranty posts coming hot and heavy soon! You know you missed me. All of you. All 12-25 of you.

Cart Ladies

There is something about grocery shopping that basically gives me hives. Its not the utter impossibility of getting in and out in under 10 minutes because everything you need is on directly opposing sides of the store. I'm pretty sure that its not the old people who spend insane amounts of time sorting coupons when they get to the register and then bitch and moan when they turn out to have expired 2 weeks ago. I can, for the most part, even deal with the kids screeching at the top of their lungs that they NEED FROZEN CRUSTLESS PBJ SANDWICHES!!! (Who invented and then marketed those by the way? I've personally witnessed at least two incidents of near filicide over something that is, let's be reasonable here, utterly ridiculous.)

No, all of those thing contribute to my general shunning of grocery runs except in dire emergencies, but they aren't the root cause. Now, what could possibly be worse than screaming children and penny-pinching old people? Cart ladies. Yes, really. Cart ladies are oblivious to anything that doesn't directly involve themselves or their weight increasing foodstuffs (actually, much the same could be said for recent generations of Americans...but that's a whole other blog post). They stand directly in the center of all aisles, increasing your time spent on any given store trip by a minimum of 20 minutes. Get two of them on the same aisle - which is so common I'm not sure why I called it out separately - and you're basically looking at an hour long cart pileup. No amount of throat clearing, impatient fidgeting or even loudly spoken "EXCUSE ME"s is going to budge a cart lady.

Even more awesome? These same ladies will turn around and ram you in the ankle repeatedly with their carts should you be blocking their access to the donut aisle. (I know, I'm making them seem all giant and indulgent... The former is mostly for dramatic effect, but it should be noted that these pileups never happen on the vegetable aisle. My blog, I'll be mean if I wanna.) Seriously though. Unless your parallel cart parking skills are finely tuned to the point of 1" maximum clearance from the aisle walls, be prepared for full on contact. I think they consider it a sport. Or their god-given right to snacks. Whatever. I considered wearing freakin' hiking boots to the grocery store and then remembered... I don't hike. And I'm certainly not going to start, just for grocery shopping extremities protection. Oh well.

The worst part is, they are everywhere (except aforementioned veggie aisle exception) at all times of day. I have been thwarted by cart ladies grocery shopping at 2am! It is absurd, annoying, and sometimes painful. When weighed against potential permanent ankle damage, the $9.95 Safeway delivery fee seems to me a brilliant move. And now, with shopping carts popping up in stores from Target to Old Navy, these women have even more opportunity to inflict pain. Its only a matter of time before cart ladies take over my local Nordstroms or Bloomies, and I'll be stuck doing all my shopping from the comfort of my couch. Because I needed a reason to be even more antisocial...

The Lamest Treasure Hunt EVER

Just in case I haven't mentioned it, moving sucks. You take everything you own, which was (theoretically) laid out in logical places - well, not necessarily logical, but places that YOU put it and could find in a pinch to two hours tops - and pack it all into nondescript and often non-labeled boxes. Said boxes are then put through the "carry them out and load them onto a truck in no particular order" process, followed in quick succession by the "unload them ignoring all attempts at labeling and placing wherever convenient" step. At the end of a long, painful day all your worldly possessions are stacked/haphazardly thrown around an entirely new environment and you get the privilege of rearranging them for ...well let's go with the foreseeable future (which in my case is looking to even out to about 2 years).

And then comes the act of unpacking. As if finding places for everything in the new locale isn't bad enough - because, face it, you probably threw away/sold half of your furniture and storage with the ever popular "we need to replace X anyway" argument - you are forced to re-wash or re-launder all of it as appropriate before putting it away to be forgotten all over again. The sole exception being stuff the movers broke (which is a whole other rant) and books, which in my case my "helpful" fiance took care of all on his own. No. Book boxes do NOT count in your unpacking quota. That shit is cheating.

The only bright spot in the whole moving ordeal is finding stuff your forgot you owned. There is a certain pleasure in unrolling that newspaper clad shape and discovering, all over again, how awesome you are for having say... a "Mike Mussina practice ball back from when he was on the Orioles before he went to the Yankees and got all lame" ....or maybe ....handmade flutes from 6 different countries ...or even that sweet candle holder shaped like a deformed duck that you made for your mom in third grade. (Note that I am avowed anti-crafter and do not actually possess Item 3.)

Oh the elation! Look at that cool stuff you found!! Possibly you take said tchotchke and show it to spouse so that he can share in just how freakin' great you are for owning such an item. There's a happy place that builds in your tummy and you begin to think "WOW! Maybe this moving thing isn't so bad! Look at all this stuff I forgot I had!!" You rummage through the remaining boxes in search of additional testaments to what a cool person you are... for the next 10-15 minutes. Then it starts to sink in. Wait, I haven't needed or wanted this stuff for what? Two years? And where am I going to put it?

And wait... did I PAY someone to pack and move this? Holy crap! Is SuperCoolItemB worth $20 worth of packing materials and box? Hold on here... I'm excited about finding junk that I already own!!! Junk I already own and possibly don't want! The happy place is replaced by a sinking feeling of disappointment, possibly amplified by anger at yourself for being tricked into this false joy. You remember why you hated moving in the first place, maybe kick around some (hopefully now empty) packing paper in frustration and think to yourself ...moving sucks! Lamest. Treasure hunt. ever.

Proximity Blame

Think back... You're five. You're standing around (or being five, likely bouncing around), looking at your Mom's ceramic figurines. You know better than to touch them, but its tempting. They're shiny. They look expensive. The kind of thing Mom will get mad if you break. You consider picking one up, and your hand moves forward without you consciously telling it to. Two seconds before you take the plunge, the family cat/dog/little brother FLINGS themselves into the display.

CRASH! SMASH!

Even at five, you know what that means. Ruuuuuuuuuun! No way in hell are you going to be caught next to the now broken figurine even thought you know you didn't touch it. So why flee? You aren't guilty! You didn't do anything wrong! Simple answer - proximity blame. Anyone in the general vicinity of the scene of the crime is suspect and will likely judged guilty without fair trial.

We've all been there. Or considered the possibility of being there. But it may be shocking for you to learn that this phenomenon survives through childhood, through puberty and into the adult workplace! I know, I know...I thought we'd gotten beyond this. I was wrong. WAY wrong. (That makes two for those of you counting.)

So last week an email goes out to the 'all-team' at my company, subject line in caps, font in about 24 point size, berating "THE CHILD" who exploded his/her mess in the microwave for being immature, messy, and a generally lame coworker. They were admonished basically to clean up after themselves and...well...grow up.

Now, I don't disagree with the premise. I can't clean my own kitchen at home, so I certainly won't be voluntarily cleaning up after coworkers in the shared space. If I were a neat-freak (or ever used the kitchen...I am the queen of bought lunches), I'd probably be upset. But I knew it wasn't me, and wasn't worried. In fact, I was struck with this sort of morbid curiosity to go "see" the mess. Not to clean it mind you, but to gawk and stare at whatever caused the fuss. I mean, it would have to be pretty bad to generate a 24 point font email, right? Visions of green goop spattering the walls, covering countertops, and dripping onto the floor flew to mind. The allure of kitchen carnage was strong... yet I stayed in my seat.

What held me back? Fear of proximity blame. Seriously. Maybe it was a holdover from a childhood with a clumsy (and lying, blaming) younger brother. Memories of a yelling Mom with too many breakables in the house flooded back. I got this mental image of person who sent the email secretly stalking the kitchen, waiting to pop out of the cabinet and accuse the first on scene. So I sat, glued to the chair, twitching with desire to get up and check it out. And I wasn't the only one! A quick comparison of notes (via AIM so as not to be overheard and possible cause another angry email) showed my work friends terrified to get up and get water for fear of being found guilty by proximity to the scene. Crazy!

I don't know if the perpetrator was ever found or if they quickly cleaned up their mess in silent and unobserved shame. Disappointingly, there was no followup note; no "KITCHEN'S MOST WANTED" polaroid tacked to the wall. Eventually I snuck into the kitchen (under the guise of making tea) to find a few scattered rice grains on the counter...which I assumed could NOT have been the cause of all the fuss. But just to be on the safe side, I scooted back to my cube quickly and avoided the kitchen for at least 48 hours. Better to be on the safe side, no?

Can You Change the Default Song?

The Default Song is a phenomenon that I'm pretty sure doesn't apply strictly to me. Its that song that you just sing. All the time. Whenever you aren't actively thinking about a song on the radio, or something you just heard on your iPod, the default song pops to the forefront. I have brought this up to other people (who are as-or-slightly-more sane than me and therefore a good test), and most of them admit to having a default song of some sort...although not everyone was willing to own up to what theirs was. A quick Google search would indicate that the default song is well-known and documented - at least on the interwebs (see this article for instance).

Now, for as long as I can remember, I've had a pretty respectable default song. Note I said pretty. Respectable for the Beatles, the "pretty" thrown in for it being "Yellow Submarine." Its catchy. Its changeable. And its great while unpacking to walk around singing

...We all live in a yellow submarine (a what?)
...a bubble gum machine (a where?)
...a giant tambourine *weird face and imagined cackling*

Thank two years of working in a dueling piano club for that little gem. But seriously. Its easy to remember and peppy enough to bring you out of most any funk. And its followed me for years. Until now.

My default song has been invaded. Replaced. Usurped. In a bad way. My happy peppy place (which I assume exists as a counterbalance to my generally evil nature) is gone and displaced by what can only be called torture. For the last two weeks, anytime I am not actively trying not to, my brain spouts off the horror of horrors..."Picture to Burn".

If you've never listened to country radio (as I assume is the case for most of you) grab a clip of that hotness here. Its basically everything that people think is wrong with country music, pop music, teenage music and breathy talking pretending to BE music all in one. And it won't get out of my head. Even as I type this, my brain is chanting "I really really hate that stupid old pickup truck" in a crappy country twang (not to be confused with the awesome Texas drawl that I used to sport). I am spiraling into insanity faster than I ever thought possible. Not that ever I thought wouldn't get there, just not this fast.

So I beg you, if you are aware of the default song and have any idea how to reset it, please tell me! The voice in my head is driving me crazy(er than expected!)! I've always heard that if you pass on the song, you go back to default...so here's hoping one of you poor bastages picked it up from this post and are, at best, fixing my problem, at worst, suffering along with me. Tole ya I was evil.

Practical Statistics

There is a science to picking a seat on public transportation. Well, maybe its an art. Not sure how those are technically defined...but there is at least a... detailed seat-picking method that I could flowchart for you, if I were really geeky. Which I am. But I am also lazy, which (at least today) is winning. To get a feel for the system, you have to first understand that the optimal seat varies by any number of factors:

• Service: MUNI, Bus, Caltrain
  
• Time of day: rush hour, versus the "second" morning train, versus middle of the day, versus weekend...
  
• Stop you get on / off at (can't go to the back if the bus will fill up just after your stop and not empty by the time you need off)
  
• Specific seat configuration: The seattle caltrain cars have weird split level, always facing someone seats, where the japan-style cars have the up-top "onesies"
  

This all translates into one giant mental map. Service and destination gives you optimal times which yields likely available seats. Personal preference to avoid socialization and cramped-ness at basically any cost gives us an order of preference. Onesies always beat potential people facers. Leg room trumps proximity to horrid smelling bathroom (actually "the hell away from bathroom" could be its own category). Warmth beats access to exits. The rules are simple and finite; like poker only you're gambling for comfort with no chance of actually winning anything.

Theoretically I can traverse this decision course in the ...oh... 30 seconds or so between the time I get to a vehicle and the time the people behind me start grunting impatiently for me to "sit the f' down". But there are always kinks in the chain.

...Is it better to catch the baby bullet and risk standing for 45 minutes or wait an extra 15 and be guaranteed a singlet seat? Dunno. Depends on whether or not I have morning meetings and whether I went to the gym the night before.

...Will the bus on Wednesday be crowded enough to fill those otherwise oh-so-comfy sideways seats?

...How many old people are likely to get on between stop X and destination Y? Can I chance the "reserved for seniors and people with disabilities" section? Well...how much stuff am I carrying?

...Is there a Giants game? Pretty much all bets are off and its time to throw elbows for Giants games. Damn drunk people.

And all that doesn't even take into consideration those things you can't really decide on until the very last second. The "Weird Smelly People, Creepy Chatty Guy, Rotten Banana on the Seat" factor. For all that mental optimization and rules developement there's a definite bent of "the best laid plans..." to riding public transportation. I guess systems, even finely tuned, over-thought-out ones, are not really such if they can't fail.

Which would be how last Thursday I found myself in the best possible seat option right up until the last 2 minutes before the train left and some strange girl demanded that I move my legs and allow her to occupy the approximately 1sq ft of room across from me, while she coughed uncontrollably and unapologetically the entire ride home. Awesome. Saturday I really did sit next to a half rotting banana on a full-stop Caltrain, which was determined to be a step up from sharing a 4-seat combo with obviously smashed teenage girls. Oh, the humanity!

So much for the practical application of statistics... the price of gas will be dropping any day now, right?

Dead Weight

For this story to make sense, you have to picture a body bag. Yes, a body bag. You've all seen CSI or some similar show, right? So you know what I'm talking about when I refer to those big black zippered bags that the unsuspecting hookers always find themselves stuffed into after they decide to stop servicing the generic lowlife who treats them badly. (Or they would find themselves in such if they weren't, you know, dead.) Actually, think bigger than that. Think of rows and rows of those sacks being dragged around by medical professionals as they try and control the Ebola virus on one of those science movies you watched in middle school.

Ziiiiiiiip. The pulltab goes up over the face.
Thump! Bump! The bags get dropped into a pile.
Weird plastic rustling sound. Heavy sacks get dragged to an unseen, yet assumed depressing location by the still living, barely-holding-on-to-sanity-type drudges in white coats.

Got that picture? Not so pleasant, right?

Now add about 50 petulant teens and twenty somethings arguing in high pitched voices. Throw in some overly loud, extremely dramatic motherly wailing. Remove the sweaty jungle scene and put everyone in a room the size of ...well, my living room. For the sun, add extremely bright, scorchingly hot spot lights every four or so feet. Replace the medical professionals with middle-aged overly perfumed women in sweaters (but keep the body bags), and you've got the scene I was facing last Saturday. Scared yet?

Last Sunday I was forced to go to the bridal shop went to take possession of my wedding gown before they sent it back to wherever in Spain it came from. Apparently the momentous occasion of picking up an overpriced beaded gown that takes a full six months to craft needs to be accompanied not only by a credit card to pay for the thing, but also an hour long modeling session in which you stand on a pedestal wearing a still ill-fitting dress, stuffed into loaner shoes and "pick accessories." Seriously. And if you're lucky like me, you get to do this during April when both "prom season" and "wedding season" are in full swing. (Who decided those things get to have seasons anyway? Me and that guy should have a talk.)

So I show up, put on a dress that is destined to fall off of me at *any moment* unless I magically hit a second round of puberty that puts me up into a D-cup, and let one of aforementioned hostesses place me on a pedestal. Literally. Like generations of women haven't fought tooth and nail to get us down from these things? Bah! Moving on. While I bake under the hotlamps (which in 4" heels, I am freakishly close to) and my assistant flutters about hunting the perfect veil, I attempt to keep my upper half from its imminent public debut by holding my breath and chanting "Its going to be ok. You can do this. You aren't 15 and retarded. No breathing, it'll fall down. its ok..." Its actually working pretty well until...

THUMP! BAM!
"But Mooooooooooom, I wanna...."
Scraaaaaaaaaape
"WHADDAYA MEAN I CAN'T SPEND $4K ON A DRESS?! ITS MY DAY!"
Ziiiiiiip!

And so forth. My reverie is broken by designer dress corpses being dragged about the store to pacify whiny teenagers and their horrid entourages. How do these workers put up with this? How does anyone? I mean, these people are obnoxious! Maybe the worst women are getting knocked over, zipped up and dragged out back, unbeknownst to the normal people. Maybe the overly hot lighting causes convenient "fainting spells" to facilitate stuffing the dead weight into readily available sacks. Probably not. But it seems somehow appropriate.

Musing, standing, and not breathing, I break out into a sweat without really doing anything. Damn, I hope this doesn't mean I have to pay to have this dress cleaned before it even fits. Eventually I pick a ridiculously-so-far-over-there-should-be-another-word-priced piece of net with ribbon around it, stuff my dress into its very own body bag and make a beeline for the door. I spend the rest of the day swallowing Advil trying to combat the second worst headache ever. Up to this point wedding planning has been fairly painless for me...but I'm beginning to see why some people break out into hives over it. I wonder how much else I can do via the internet...

The Social Networking Enigma

"Social Networking". Its one of those buzz words that's cropped up in the last couple of years and permeates conversation and news stories. Apparently it will allow anyone to connect with everyone online. We'll all be uber in touch, informed and happy. Bluebirds will sing. Flowers will bloom. At least if you are in marketing and trying to find a new way to take advantage of us...er "reach us with compelling offers tailored specifically to our demographic and interests."

Don't get me wrong. I understand the concept. Use snazzy (or in the case of MySpace, hideously ugly) websites to reconnect with people and keep up to date on their happenings and whatnot. Sites, in turn, sell very specific populations to advertisers chock full of profile data. (Facebook apparently noticed I'm engaged and shows me nothing but wedding vendor spam - yay!) The sites stay free, the ad-machine is happy...everyone wins. Whether we're talking about MySpace for purely social "social networking" or LinkedIn for business-style; that's the basic idea as I see it. You can share your latest vacation with friends or solicit ex-colleagues for recommendations on newly opened positions. Since you know them in person, theoretically they are more interested in both scenarios. Theoretically being the operative word there.

After countless hours split between MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn I can tell you an awful lot about the people I know. And some about people I don't know that well. But looking over the things I've learned here's what I don't get - does anyone really care about this stuff? Is it useful for my middle school friend to know that I had a toothache yesterday? Do I need to know that my boss from three jobs ago is now a "Customer Relations Specialist at Denny's? (Maybe, actually) I mean...I get the point but the execution I've seen thus far is just...off.

The voyeur in me is entertained. Its fun to know your ex-boyfriend has three kids with as many women and that your high school rival is fat and working at McDonald's. Still. But really, am I getting anything useful out of the hours I spend looking at this stuff? I think not. If I really wanted to know what any of these people were doing...I mean if I really really cared, I would have made an effort. At some point in the last, I dunno, ten years I would have written or called. Instead I'm reconnecting with people either to mock them endlessly and feel better about myself or because its so damn convenient that there's really no reason not click the "Add" button. Its just another way to feed everyone's Internet Connectivity Addiction. The sun...it buuuuuuurns!

And on top of that, the advertising - no matter how targeted - is hitting me at a point where I'm not looking for anything specific. I'm trying to kill time, raise my own self esteem, or vent about my bad day. I couldn't care less that Wedding Cake Supplier X is having a sale or that Male-Enhancement Drug #42 can be overnighted to me for free (one of the downsides of having an androgynous name). Does anyone else even look at this stuff? After a few visits to a specific site, my guess is that most people train their eyes to avoid the ad slots entirely. (No, I have no proof. I am no longer paid to figure that crap out.)

So can I actually justify spending time posting "Jamie just ate a pear - updated 1 minute ago" for the world to see and expect someone else was intrigued by this? And can websites continue to operate on the premise that I'll help keep them in business by soliciting their "partners" while doing so? Apparently. Despite all evidence of futility, I still spend time on these sites "just checking things out" and updating my own profile at least once a week. The current sites grow evermore popular, prepare for +1 billion dollar IPOs, and a new form of social networking launches probably once a week. But, even as I do "network" and sign up for the new "latest and greatest"...I can't help thinking to myself, "I just don't get it." At least I don't click on the ads. Those buzz word generating types aren't getting at least that much outta me, dangit!

Does anyone Train the Busdrivers?

I'd never really taken public transportation before I took my current job in San Francisco. In Baltimore, public transportation just isn't an option. The few offerings the city of your residence had were inefficient, never went anywhere you might want to go, and (at least in Baltimore) were generally filled with unsavory characters. Horror stories of being robbed, stabbed, shot or puked on by a junkie coming down off their high pretty much kept myself and anyone I knew far from city bus lines. I took pride in owning a car (although not so much in keeping it clean) and commuting to work solo, even though I don't really like driving. Even when I moved out to California, I commuted the 33+ miles each way to work every day, as the fabled public transportation systems out here didn't run from where I lived to where I worked in any useful way.

Fast-forward to January, when I started work in San Francisco. And its a nice place to work (the company and the city actually). I discovered during the interview process that rush hour traffic was going to be unmanageable; paired with $30 a day to park there was simply no way I was going to be driving into the city on a regular basis. With a little help from new colleagues, I quickly nailed down an optimized commuter path that includes a 40 minute Caltrain ride over to the express bus (aka the fancy bus) for a 15ish minute ride to work in the morning. Reverse is a bit slower - MUNI to Caltrain - but is still pretty doable. Believe it or not, I actually enjoy this setup. MUNI kinda smells funny, and missing the fancy bus puts me on the ghetto 30/45 lines, but it is so much cheaper than driving and parking. Especially given the price of gas these days. Plus, I get to spend 2 hours a day catching up on email or just reading for fun...something you definitely can't do in a car.

That said, the system is definitely not flawless. I've been yelled at by a bus driver and chastised by a ticket checker on Caltrain. To date, I've made it to the office after 10am at least four times due to "things on the track" or "signal issues", and home after 8pm on at least six occasions. Still, for the convenience and the cost, it hasn't been too bad. At least until Tuesday. I get on Fancy Bus to head to work after an uneventful train ride. About thirty seconds in, I realize we've missed the turn onto Third Street. CRAP! Did they change the route and not tell me?! No, its a new driver, and its his first day. He pulls a U-turn at the next intersection and heads back towards my destination.

And then he asks the lady next to me where the first stop is. And then he tries to turn off my street before he gets to the first OR second stops on that street. Passengers are navigating his every move, he's stopping nowhere near designated giant bus stops...what is going ON? I mean seriously...does no one train these people? If you just handed me the keys to one of these giant buses, chances are I'd have no clue how to make it go. I imagine it doesn't run just like a car...so I'd sit there and look lost and ask for help. As this man obviously could make the bus go...how on earth did he not ever have to review a route sheet?! Does MUNI not have some sort of shadowing program before their drivers start, I dunno, DRIVING? Are bus drivers expected to have some inborn knowledge of San Francisco and MUNI maps, and no body of authority bothers to check and certify these people before inflicting them on unsuspecting passengers? If so, this guy was definitely born without the "SF bus route map" gene. It boggles the mind.

I know what you're thinking...how is this such a big deal? Well, technically its not. This time. I ended up in the general vicinity of my office and was at my desk at a reasonable hour. But had this driver done what he thought was the right thing, I could still be wandering lost and foodless in San Francisco (well, I could be assuming cell service in the city magically died too). I know about as much of this city as can be seen directly from my third floor office window. Which isn't much as Bank of America takes up the vast majority of that eye-line. I'm still taking the public transportation route - bus included - but my faith in the superiority of SF transit options is certainly shaken. At least a little. I hope that driver gets up to speed soon. If he leaves me on the fabled "Castro" street, I might not make it back alive. Or so I've been told.

DirecTV can DIAF

That would be "die in a fire" for the un-WoW geek initiated. And I mean that literally. After the 1+ years of crap they've put me through, I'd gladly watch at least one of their call centers burn down. Preferably with no small children or puppies inside though. Or chinchillas. I like me some chinchillas. Moving on...I signed up for DirecTV as soon as Charles and I moved out here, after I found out how freakin' expensive cable is in the area. Apparently that was my first mistake. So here's a quick rundown of everything that's gone wrong since that fateful signup day.

• Sometime last summer I got a notice that I was "renewed" for NFL Sunday Ticket. Except I've never ordered Sunday Ticket. I don't even watch football. What the heck?
  
• Around the second emailed notification for renewal (July) I called and cancelled this Sunday Ticket. No problem they said. So I considered it done.
  
• August rolls around. I break two bones cycling and spend the better part of the next 2 weeks sleeping in a recliner, passed out from painkillers. I assume Sunday Ticket is cancelled, as I called the month before. Never think to check.
  
• DirecTV autobills me the next three months for Sunday ticket. I call to "cancel" again...only to be told no. Obviously I've watched 3 months worth of it, and they can't give me my money back. WTF? I cancelled in JULY!!
  
• I spend 3 hours and four phone calls of my life arguing with them about the charges. I am yelled at by a petulant low level call center man in some unknown foreign country, accused of trying to get football for free. Seriously, I don't watch football. Eventually they agree to do an account credit rather than refund. Fine...whatever.
  
• I take a job in San Francisco in January. Charles and I move to Foster City in February. I immediately call DirecTV and cancel. No problem. They'll send me a "recovery kit" to the new address and I can send the receiver back. Sweet! Something that works!
  
• Recovery kit never shows. I don't think anything of it. I mean with the stress of work, training for a century, and I dunno...moving...that I didn't think to look for it.
  
• Fast foward to last week. DirecTV charges me $461 for failure to return the receiver. Only the box never came. Their shipping records indicate they sent the spiffy return kit to the old address. Where I don't live. Which I don't own. Where I can't get it. Awesome.
  

I argue with this set of DirecTV people for several hours. End result? They are keeping my $461 until they get my receiver, even though their people made the mistake. They offered to 2-day FedEx me a return box to the new address...only its still not here. Awesome. Again, I made no mistake...they sent the box to the wrong place and I get fined. I hate DirecTV!

And to add insult to injury? Charles tells me he got the original "return kit" from the old address the day we left; its in the laundry room on the shelf. Shockingly, I didn't notice it among all the other cardboard boxes. Moving sucks. *Patiently awaiting the new box so I can get my money back* After all that time spent, I can't return it in the old box on principle.

Stretching is Really Not Good for You

This is not going to be an exercise blog. Seriously. I didn't give this place a spiffy title like "Slimy Underbelly" to lure you all here and then force you to read about the exploits of me in workout clothes. At least not in general. But this was the first week back at the gym, and as such, I have an awful lot to say about it. Bear with me, there are some good Comcast and DirecTV rants to come!

Anyway, Thursday was my first session with the trainer at 24 Hour Fitness. Now I'm typically not a trainer person. At all. I've been going to the gym on and off since my early teens - what exactly is a trainer going to teach me? But in doing my nifty "prepay for 40 years of gym time" signup, the guy gave me $100 off to take 4 training sessions. So...$799 for three years with no trainer, or $699 for three years and 4 personal trainer sessions...I'll take the trainer. Not really a hard call; cheaper is cheaper.

I showed up Thursday morning around 11 at the gym down the street from work, ready to get my workout on. I get suited up (in a nifty Coca-Cola tank top and stretchy pants) and find my very own trainer. And she is approximately 18 and weighs ...90lbs soaking wet. Sweet. Oh well, maybe she's one of those tiny but powerful motivating types....or not... Tell you the truth, I didn't really get to find out. Apparently the first session of physical training mostly involves asking a bunch of questions about my fitness goals, measuring me in more ways than I thought were possibly, and something known only as "the squat test." Once that's all documented, we're "out of time" for session one (go figure) and just have time for some light stretching.

Well, stretching sounds better than nothing, so I traipse downstairs after my petite trainer-type. She reveals that my squat test (haha, that just sounds funny still) indicates that my calves and inner thighs are really tight - likely from cycling, as well as my lats - probably from typing too much. I'm sure all this blogging helps with that! So she busts out the foam roller (oh so reminiscent of physical therapy last year), and proceeds to show me how to roll the knots out of my calves. Wincing and shuddering, I struggle to imitate what she's doing without crying. When that's finally over, we move on to this horrid "mounting of the foam roller" exercise on the floor to work those inner thighs. All I can say is...thank goodness I hadn't identified and accidentally adopted this gym's creepy gym guy. I'm just not ready to share that show with the general public!

A benign set of exercise ball lat-muscle stretches later, and our session is at an end. I change back into something work appropriate and head to the office, kinda disappointed. For all of 24hr Fitness' hype about their trainers, I'd burned 60 minutes plus walk time and had nothing but three stretches to show for it. Not impressive! I'm not even sure I broke a sweat. How can you workout without being sweaty?

And then came Friday morning. Also known as the day I couldn't walk. I have no idea what that tiny trainer did to me, but I swear to you I walked better the day after a 100 mile bike ride than I did last Friday! I mean...it was absurd! Don't even get me started on my utter inability to raise my arms... I thought stretching was a good thing, meant to make your body happy! How can decimating range of motion possibly be the goal of stretching? Is this what happens at yoga? (If so, I'm SO not doing that!) Owie owie owie! I whimpered and whined every time I had to drag myself out of the desk chair...but they've convinced me to go back. I mean, if the trainer can work me that hard on stretches without me knowing until the next day...I'm pretty sure she'll give me a decent workout when we're actually, you know, doing something. (Please no bursting my bubble with tales of "lactic acid" being released...I'm trying to stay positive here!) Session two hits tomorrow, so we shall see...

Isn't the Gym Supposed to Relieve Stress?

As far as I know, people go to the gym to relieve stress. I mean, some have loftier goals of "losing weight" or "toning muscle" or even just a generalized "get in shape", but really people go to the gym for the brain-happy endorphins. Well, except for those weird people who go to the gym trying to pick up other (likely weird) people. I don't get those people at all. But we'll get to that.

So Tuesday night rolls around, and I'm a bit stressy. Actually more than a bit. There were work explosions, Comcast annoyances, wedding irritations, and even a small level of guilt over not having gone to the gym once in almost a week of being signed up. All in all I was about one stubbed toe away from punching random people on the street, and thought what better way to bring the stress level down than the gym? Endorphins make me happy! Yay! I rustled up the Charles and off we went.

Knowing that my arms were going to be weak (I can't tell you the last time I did those physical therapy exercises...shhhhh don't tell) I decided that would be a good place to start. I headed over into meat-head land and planted myself in front of one of those bicep curl pulleys. Moved the weight down to the minimum "default plate" and started lifting. And then came the pain. Looking back, I should have expected this. Stretching my arm all the way out makes my elbow creak pretty much every time. How it never occurred to me that adding weight to the equation might exacerbate the situation is still a mystery.

Pull up....
Creeeeeak
Let down
Poppoppop craaaaaaaack

Well, that's just lovely. I'm lifting 10lb weights (and really should have been doing 5lbs had the machine allowed it) and am sweating like its mid-July on rep 2. And not from exertion, so much as horrid grindy pain. I keep pushing forward; I'm going to do at least two sets. It'll never get better if I don't work it, right? Only all I can think in the back of me head is, "how in the hell is this supposed to be stress relieving?" I mean, I don't feel anything other than annoyed that my arm is still gimpy. Well, annoyed and hot. So I finish out my two sets and head over the shoulder press machine. I mean, if I'm going to be pissy about injuries, better test out how bad that area is doing.

Not surprisingly, the shoulder press is worse. I can remember working up to a whopping 40lbs once upon a time on this machine. I mean, its always been the bane of my existence - I think I was born with abnormally weak shoulders or something. But now I am struggling...and I do mean struggling to lift 10lbs more than once, all the while wincing while my collarbone made the absolute worst. grinding-noise. ever. Freakin' awesome. I swear by this point, I am twice as irritated as when I hit the gym parking lot. Will my upper body function ever get back to normal? This whole destressing thing is just not working for me!

And then there was creepy gym guy. Now, all gyms have a creepy gym guy. Its basically a fact of life. As far as I can remember, I've never been to a gym which didn't have a creepy gym guy. So why does this annoy me? Shouldn't I have expected him? Well, probably. But you have to remember that everything annoys you when you are already upset. Snowball effect or something. And just because you are a creepy gym guy (hereafter CGG), doesn't mean you need to do it around me. But there I was, on the shoulder press machine, irritated as all hell at my collarbone, watching the scrawny ghetto-gangsta wannabe, who likely lives at home while his upper middle class mother pays for his baggy sweatpants and thick gold chain, stares like his life depends on it at this tiny little girl on the hip swivel machine. (Technical term, for sure.) I mean, I would not be in the least bit surprised to find out that the man was drooling the way he looked at this chick.

What do you do with a situation you can't change? Remove yourself from it. So I go downstairs to hit the ab machine, only to find CGG sitting down eye-molesting some lady in a blue bikini at the pool. Great. At least he's not looking at me. So I start doing my crunches, a mere two machines down only to realize at some point that CGG hasn't moved. In awhile. Like...a long while. So I tuuuuuuuurn my head ever so slowly to the right...and all the sudden he's a whirlwind of activity. EEEEWWWWWW! Like watching him ogle women I don't know wasn't bad enough? I had to provide material for him too? GAH!

Shortly after, I hit the ellipticals and actually started to get some happy-brain-drugs kickin. About 15 minutes into my spinny cycle, "Paint it Black" came on the otherwise horrible gym mix and I rocked out, Stones style. By the time I left the gym, I was ever so slightly less stressed than when I went in. All in all, a net gain...but barely.

Another One?

Well, in short...yes. It occurred to me the other day that I have an awful lot to say. Anyone who knows me knows that I like to tell stories. Long stories. In painful amounts of detail. Especially rant-y stories. Those are my favorite. And then I went to the gym on Tuesday night, for the first time in ages, and had a really good story to tell. (Well, at least I thought it was pretty good.) Only, even though it was an exercise story, I couldn't seem to find a spin that would make it a fit for the cycling blog. What do I do?! Torture cycle blog fans about crap they couldn't possibly care less about? Like torturing them about cycling isn't bad enough?

Then again...what if they did care? I mean, the whole concept of blogging revolves around people's self delusions that someone in this world other than themselves *really cares* about what they have to say, right? I'd hate to think I was depriving unknown millions of my wisdom, rants and observations of society's stupidity. I mean, I'm sure there aren't many blogs like that... HA! I can't even think that with a straight face... Still, i can't imagine one more sarcastic voice in blogosphere will really hurt anything (remind me to explain to you someday my utter hatred of words like "blogosphere") - and it might just keep my occupied and out of trouble for a whopping 20 minutes or so at a time.

So, what will you find here? No clue really. This won't be a daily rundown of my trips to the grocery store (unless its a rant about evil ladies with shopping carts) or how my day went at work (unless its an open letter to express my disappointment that the recent San Francisco protestors never made it to my office). I probably won't spend much time covering election '08 action (could you need more than CNN.com provides?) and I have no intention of putting up celebrity pictures and trying to craft cutesy joint names for new couples. Seriously. The plan so far really just includes recording all my "stories"; the funny, the odd, the bizarre and well...the slimy...and seeing how it goes from there. Hopefully at some point I'll be telling them to someone other than just myself (yay for delusions)!