Archive for the 'Va-cay-cay-cay' Category

Wearing Shades

July 30, 2008 | Filed under: Fotografias, Va-cay-cay-cay, Whoopdie Doo

“Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.” ~Sam Keen

Winter heading into spring was hard. Terribly, gut wrenching, heartbreakingly difficult. To the point where it physically hurts to allow my mind go back to March or April. I’ve been pretty good at keeping my bipolar cycles at bay and not projecting them onto the world every few months which is something I’ll discuss in the near future. But some days were far more difficult than others and to have it all exacerbated by being so fucking livid and feeling like a failure; well that made me the most wonderful person to be around ever. That fire that was shooting out of my eyeballs was actually cotton candy rolled around rainbows.

I was standing in the water today in Aquinnah and I said in a sing-song voice “My future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades”. And my mother looked at me and asked what I was talking about for apparently she spent 1987 busy or something trying to keep me from choking the hell out of my baby brother. Anyway, let’s just say I’ve been going between some kick ass aviators and the most absurd, but they totally work, pink sunglasses for a few weeks now.

Speaking of Aquinnah and vacation. Here’s how it’s been thus far or at least from where I see it:

Me: Do you want to go hiking and take photos?

La Madre: Hell no.

Me: Do you want to go kayaking for a few hours?

La Madre: Fuck no.

Me: Do you want to wave jump and be sucked down by giant swells and get sand in your crotch?

La Madre: Ok, I was never going to tell you this, but you’re adopted.

Fight and Flight

June 30, 2008 | Filed under: Va-cay-cay-cay, Whoopdie Doo

“The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.” ~William James

Last weekend my brother, mother and I ventured out to Martha’s Vineyard for the weekend. This will probably not be the most pretentious thing I have ever said but dear Lord, I am so thankful for my mother’s second mortgage on an ISLAND. It’s why every time I step off the ferry I feel the need to kiss the ground then tell my mother how nicely her hair frames her face.

One evening G and I were walking around and he took this deep breath and said that he feels better here. Without the congestion and constant ambient noise and the yelling over the din of sirens every 14 seconds, it’s so damn peaceful. And once you get over the tiny army men that have been deployed to battle your sinuses, it really is lovely.

I returned home so full of love, flowers and happiness that by Monday I gave a shit about nothing. Not in an apathetic way but when shit hit the fan every single day last week, I didn’t get upset or irate or threaten to quit or even threaten violence. I was totally chill. Like being on Martha’s Vineyard turned the LOSE YOUR SHIT switch in my brain to the off position. I shrugged my shoulders when met with adversity and handled things the way normal people handle bullshit that they can’t help; with class and a modicum of dignity.

By Friday, when I normally would have been ready to toss my body in front of an oncoming vehicle, I laughed because the absurdity of the entire week was just so fucking funny. I was literally powerless towards everything that was thrown at me during the week. And because I couldn’t fight it – one cannot be responsible for the stupidity and general harsh behavior of others – I went to Denver for a faux vacation.

As I’m thinking of it now, I’m pretty sure that my relative calm was because my week was sandwiched by two weekends of tranquility. Denver is another one of those places that prides itself on its placidity and full of the nicest people who are less than aware that in two months their city is going to be swarmed by several thousand people. In fact I found their naivety towards the rampage of self-important people to be downright charming.

The added bonus to my past travels and the travel that is to come over the next 60 days is that in every city I go to someone greets me with open arms. During this trip to Denver Aimee and Julie were ever the most gracious hosts. With Aimee pointing me towards sushi restaurants in Cherry Creek so that I wouldn’t have to go through withdrawal from my eel sashimi addiction. And Julie being…well…Julie. If you’ve ever met the woman you know what I mean; you know those people who are just nice? That’s how Julie is all I can think is “Oh my God, is it possible to be that fucking nice?”

Last night while Aimee was putting her son to bed, Bryan, her husband, and I played the WII. I had eyed it earlier in the evening and had to keep myself from telling Aimee that while it was nice of her to invite everyone over for dinner, I would rather sit down here and play tennis against myself. Bryan and I golfed and then boxed. After I had thrown my entire body into protecting my Mii from any oncoming left hooks thus rendering me covered in a film of sweat, he mentioned that you don’t really need to put so much effort into the WII. In fact you would get the same results by gently maneuvering your body while sitting on a couch with a cold beer but flinging yourself around just gives it that added authenticity.

I return to Denver in two months at the very end of a 60 day slug fest with my senses. Bryan and Aimee have already offered me an opportunity to come over and box the shit out of the air to get out the aggression that will have eaten me alive and spit me back out by then. So while I like to give myself a generous pat on the back and tell myself that I’m handling so much shit so well and my, do I look gorgeous today; I am pretty well aware that this is just the calm before the storm. But unlike every other time when the clouds roll in (just to keep up with the analogy) this time I feel a little bit more prepared; like I have my umbrella nearby.

A Mile High*

June 29, 2008 | Filed under: Fotografias, Inebriated prose, Va-cay-cay-cay, Whoopdie Doo

*The thing about being literally a mile high is that one beer = two shots of tequila. So y’all should know that I wrote this while under the influence. I would apologize but you know me. 

“A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor” ~Victor Hugo

I never mentioned this but about two years ago I had to have a serious Come to Jesus discussion with myself about moving to Denver. I didn’t of course, since I now live in Upstate NY. But I still like to think about how my life would have been if I had decided to make the trek. I am in Denver for the weekend and I will be back in a few months. There are stories to come. A lot of ‘what if’s’ but I am happy with my decision. It’s like sliding doors though; I wonder what would have happened or could have happened if, back then (at the ripe old age of 22), I had decided to leap.

HRH Greeblemonkey took this photo a few nights ago. I think it pretty much sums me up in all of my smiley, edamame loving glory.

Also check out my eyebrows. For those wondering what I spend my ad revenue monies on it is on transforming my unibrow into two separate eyebrows that don’t look like mating caterpillars. And for that I thank you all.

Oh days divine

December 28, 2007 | Filed under: "Oh night divine", Familia, Va-cay-cay-cay

“A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in.” ~Robert Orben

Have you ever noticed that going days and days on end of doing absolutely nothing that requires brain power tends to become physically draining? The only thing I’ve actually had to do for myself in roughly 10 days is remember to check in for my return flight from Oklahoma City, which was completed with aplomb. My next most difficult task was during my Holiday party when I had to convert from wine glass to ceramic mug just so I wouldn’t confuse my drink with others. Seriously, the sum of my life and decision making has been What type of iPod should I get and how many times is too many times to go to Sonic? That is all.

Christmas came and went sans fanfare and without a complete sensory blowout from way too much going on at once. I like to keep things very simple so that I can focus on just one thing whereas too much leaves me confused and panicked. I requested one thing; Snow tires. And unless snow tires fit into a Banana Republic box, I did not get them. Which is fine because I did get a tea stirring stick that holds loose tea but on the box it looks like some new fangled apparatus for toking on the reefer. In fact when I opened it, the first words out of my mouth to my mother were “My! How progressive you’ve become”.

I like it like this, when things are simple enough to be described as ‘good’ and no one asks 75 questions while trying to find the hidden meaning behind a one syllable answer. I like when things are just as they are.

I shall leave you with my favorite moment: My younger brother, G, first meeting my niece Melissa. He was holding her and she was doing that 5 month old I want to get down and stand thing by kicking him repeatedly in the stomach. So I sat there and watched G say “Oh you want to get down? Here you go”. So he set her down and decided that since she, at 5 months old, wanted to stand she could obviously do so without assistance because she apparently has the physically prowess of the average 16 month old. She immediately toppled over and spent the rest of the afternoon doing this baby sob thing that simultaneously broke my heart and made me laugh. When retelling this story to my mother she informed me that when I was three months old my father liked to stand me on the bed and then let me fall over. He would do this repeatedly as a fun little game. When my mother found out she flipped her shit and that was one of their first major fights over parenting. Apparently my mother was a little sensitive that her three month old was being tossed on a bed. When she told me it was like a little ‘Aha’ moment in my head. For suddenly the past act of my father tossing my three-month old tiny self on the bed explains a lot of things. Like I don’t know, half the content of this here blog.

Departure

November 13, 2007 | Filed under: Planes trains and automobiles, Va-cay-cay-cay

“To get away from one’s working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one’s self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change.” ~Charles Horton Cooley

About seven minutes before stepping on the Airtrain to JFK, I decided to check the crackberry for any last minute work email that I might need to respond to. This would probably give one the impression that I am highly important with my office and window and excessive travel and what not, but that’s actually a load of bullshit. The real problem is that I spent several years with a boss who took great pleasure in forcing my first crackberry into my hands and then making me respond to emails at 7 PM on a Saturday night while he was out club hopping in Atlanta and I was sitting in my apartment crying because I knew that by Monday, I’d want to toss myself off the balcony once again. Rinse and repeat for 19 months. Even though my current boss isn’t anywhere close to Stalin-esque I still felt compelled to quickly check one last time even though I am fully aware that nothing good ever comes from checking work email while not at work or about to get on an international flight.

And wouldn’t you know, I checked my email and their blaring, with a little red “read this or else you’ll be unemployed” envelope was a message that forced my blood pressure to sky rocket and my heart to feel as if it were beating out of my chest. An email that sent me reeling into the depths of “Ohmygodi’mgoingtoprisonandtherewillbeorangejumpsuits” type panic and so I replied as calmly as possible after my very well imagined possible threat of handcuffs and Federal prison for not filling out a form and then called my mother breathless because I do NOT look good in orange. And the material the handcuffs would be made from would cause me to break out. My mother told me to calm the fuck down but with gentler language because her tongue would fall out of her mouth if she ever dared use the word ‘fuck’. She soothed me and told me that I was on my way out to France and maybe a xanax or some vodka or throwing my crackberry onto the train tracks would do me some good. I checked my email one more time and noticed a response and was told by my coworker that “it” would be taken care of, not to worry, and why the hell are you checking your email you psychotic bitch? So I turned it off and went to France.

There are a million things I could say about Paris and will need to process over the next few days. Because even though I was only there for five days, it feels like I was a world away and it doesn’t help that I was sick on the way there and that I now am going to the West coast for six days. It will be really great to see my internal clockwork spontaneously combust. At any rate, I always feel this way when I return to Europe for I’m going from a very chill and zen-like while lolling around drinking coffee in the middle of the day and purchasing the softest tights known to woman to being thrust back into the cold cruel world and the soft vibrations of electronic devices every ten minutes.

The plane ride there was superb, I am so very blessed to be one of those people who plops her ass right at her window seat and then falls asleep for seven hours. I’ve seen those people, once or twice, the ones who don’t sleep. Walking up and down the aisles of the main cabin with sunken eyes, staring at the monitor that counts down the miles and hours left until arrival. Their skin gray and slacking and why, God, why are they not wearing shoes? I stare at them and shake my head and fall back into blissful slumber after a double dose of Moet and Cotes du Rhone. That’s what they give you on the way to France, champagne, wine, a baguette and Camembert. It’s like a little foreplay for what you’ll be getting upon touchdown. Like “Oh yeah, you think this is good baby? Wait until you see how I can make you feel once you try the chevre and a crepe with nutella. I’ll have you eating out of the palm of my hand.” Well then, consider me wooed.