8:30: Something about towers and silos. I have no idea what�s going on. I�m nearly asleep and not in the mood to be doing this all day. By 3:00 I should be in great shape. I have to sit here and look awake until 10:30 and then the room is mine. In the meanwhile, I need to look attentive.
9:15: LOOK! A slide with a big lime green box on it. Just seeing that much color on such a large screen was enough to momentarily jolt me awake. Don�t you just love when you�re in a big conference room-type meeting and one ass monkey just keeps pounding away with very specific questions that don�t fucking matter? Not that anyone here is doing that�
9:25: One more hour until my turn. I�m in Tower 2 or Bucket 2, depending on who you ask. I think I�d rather be in a tower. Speaking of Towers, I just started Stephen King�s Wolves of the Calla, another book in the Dark Tower Series. It�s good so far, but it strikes me that he�s trying to force the reader to have read the other books a few times so all the tiny little references could be noticed. It�s vaguely annoying. But, having invested parts of the past 13 years in these books, I need to press on. Thank God that truck didn�t kill him a few years back. I, and many other readers like me, would have been hella pissed.
11:00: Show time for the NoGoodDaddy. This project had been eye opening for me. Anyone out there in readerland who�s, I�d guess, over age 30 may be able to understand this. Back in July, I took over a meeting here in a room full of �grownups�. They listened to me. They listened to me because I knew what I was talking about. Anyone else ever find themselves in this place? You know who you are (in my case, a farting, balding, pooping, drunk who likes Hawaiian shirts and Jimmy Buffett), and you can�t believe that real grownups will listen to you. Then, it hits you�and it hits you really hard. YOU are an adult. YOU are a grownup. People who are older than you listen to you because they have put you in charge of something important. It�s scary.
1:10: I�m done and I think I kicked serious ass. Between the internal people who liked the work I did to get to today�s meetings and the vendor team who, I believe, is clamoring to hire me, I�m doing well. I was sitting with my boss here and she looked at me after I finished and said �You�re going to end up working for them, aren�t you?� Yup. I guess I�m a grownup and people expect more from me that run on sentences and fart jokes.
On a side note�and I keep forgetting to mention this�we get the Sunday New York Times. I�m not fully sure why. I guess I wanted to hold on to my NY-metro roots even after we moved. So, we get it and spend the morning poring over it. All I have to say is that it must be rough to be a Times reader. It�s got to be tough to be always on the edge of everything that the Times has decided is awesome. And, Jesus hopping Christ is that paper and its reader list on the left side of the ledger. Holy shit. The readers are out of control. In the magazine, they have an Ethics column. People write in their latest ethical dilemma.
Last week had a woman who didn�t know the ethical way to figure out the following �I like one type of music and my kid likes another. How do we decide who controls the radio in the car? Kid says that she should have more than 50% of the share because I often use the car by myself.�
What? 1: Who gives a fuck? B: What?
That�s what I mean
Speaking of New York�my flight last night was supposed to have been a 7:55PM flight. In the end, as usual, I was delayed. We left RDU at almost 10:00. We landed at a little after 11:00. Anyhoo, they brought us up from the South but we landed from the North. I hate that approach because it adds almost 20 minutes to your flight. However, if you approach that way, and you�re on the left side of the plane, you come in nice and low over the NJ Turnpike with the NYC skyline right outside your window.
I don�t know if it was that I was tired or if I haven�t paid attention on approach lately, or if I haven�t landed at night in a while, but, shit�I love that city. If we ever talk and I refer to �the city�, it�s New York. I could be living in Spain and would say �the city� and mean New York. It, in my opinion, is the ONLY city. We came in and I had a view of the GWB�down through Harlem to Midtown. All the lights were on. We got south and saw downtown. This is an awfully silly thing to say, but I can not tell you how much I wish the Twin Towers were still there. My heart aches each time I see the skyline. I almost cried last night. In my life, I worked in NYC for all of 6 weeks. I never lived there or went to school there. It was just �my city�. And, a part of it was ripped out. I can�t even say what about it is that I miss. Is it the shame and tragedy of the loss of life? Is it the alteration to my skyline? Is it the end of innocence? I don�t know and can�t say. All I know is that I wish like I wish for nothing else that the attacks had never happened. It got me thinking�I have not been in NYC for fun since May 4, 2002�the day before Shmuppie was born. I think I�ve been in Manhattan once since then for work. Still, I know that I can go back and the city will welcome me back. My favorite restaurants are still there. The shops I love are there. When we decided to move to NC, leaving NYC was probably the biggest issue. We never went, but always knew it was there. We knew that when we went to NC, we�d lose that. Raleigh is not a city. It�s a bunch of streets. NYC is a city. I don�t know when the next time I�ll be in NYC. But, then, I�ll be a tourist. It may sound stupid, but if you�re from NY or NJ, I think you�re nodding along with me.
Of course, then I got off the plane and got on the monorail in the wrong fucking direction. I�m a danger to myself.
By the way, Shmuppie�s not potty trained yet. We did Pimp�s chart and nothing has happened yet�outside of a trail of piss on the carpets. Shmuppie knows that if she does well, she gets a sticker and that more stickers mean good stuff. She also knows that when she shits herself, she loses a sticker. We can�t get past the 3rd sticker. JewelrySlut is ready to kill herself. To say this is frustrating is an understatement.
Did I mention that we got our plane tickets for the trip to St John booked? We got them. It took me � hour on the phone, but I finally got them. We�re arriving a little later than I wanted (3:30 vs 1:30) but, I�ll be on island time so who cares? At this time, I�ve moved on to the phase of the planning where I try to find ways to spend money. We may take a sail around the island or to the BVI. Or�we may hop a seaplane to St Croix for the day. Before I die, I will take a seaplane out of Charlotte Amaile�s harbor. I can�t imagine how amazing that will be. I blame Jimmy.
And lastly�we joined our local YMCA this past weekend. It looks cool. It will do a few things. It will force us to exercise and it will help Shmuppie and us meet people. I�m flabby as hell and would like to get in better shape. I�ll be waking up earlier and heading to the pool. I hate �static exercising�. Getting back in the pool will be more fun and challenging. I�ll never be as study as I was when I was 17 but I�m going to make a run at it. I used to make JewelrySlut really wet. I�d like to see if I can do it again simply based on how I look, not based on my mad tongue skills.