Finally Catching My Breath

Woo-hoo. I haven't been bouncing around this much for years.

It all started last Thursday, when I had a deeply disgusting temp job. That would be the "meet and greet" at Nike. That wasn't a meet and greet - that was friggin' slave labor. Turns out that what we temps were doing was directing customers to actual sales people and cleaning up dressing rooms (because people are true slobs who leave unbought clothes lying in heaps on the floor) and straightening out the stock. During this day (which lasted for nine solid hours with an hour for lunch), you were not allowed to sit down or even so much as lean on anything - and there was no water to drink. And there were no breaks. This last, by the by, is a breach of Federal law, in case anyone cares (Nike evidently doesn't). And the water thing? Well, I sort of understand that you wouldn't be allowed to bring drinks on the floor with the merchandise, but in the break room, the sink didn't work, and the water cooler (there was no drinking fountain) had no cups. When I asked about cups, someone sitting there looked at me as if I was from outer space and said there might be some cups in the basement. As the employee breakroom was on the 4th floor, this seemed somewhat pointless. Yuck. Never again.

So after that, I hit my first transportation snag of the week. I decided to take the bus downtown to 9th Street and get the crosstown, because I was going to see a friend's band on Christopher Street, and the crosstown would drop me right in front of the door. Well, the bus I got was evidently ahead of schedule. It would get to a street light - EVERY street light - and stop, whether the light was red or green. When it took me 45 minutes to get from 57th to 23rd, I said the hell with this, I'll get a cab. None of which turned out to BE on 23rd Street. So I thought okay, I'll take the 23th Street crosstown and get a cab over on 23rd and 7th. Where there ALSO weren't any cabs. So finally, it took me two buses, a subway, and an hour and 20 minutes to get from 57th and Madison to Christopher and 7th. Ugh. And then I didn't care much for the band. Luckily, by the time I got there their set was almost over.

Friday night I had perfect transportation from 2nd and 47th and no trouble getting to the Halloween parade, but I only watched half of that because I had to take a leak...and you can't do that at the parade. If you lose your front row seat (yeah, you can get one - you just have to get there early), that's all she wrote. But it was fun. Having to leave early annoyed me, since I'd had nothing to drink since 4 that afternoon in preparation...ah, well.

Saturday I futzed around the house and then went over to the East Village to pick up the video of the show I did at Nuyorican Poets Cafe last year, which I still haven't seen because it doesn't want to play on my computer for some reason. I'll get that fixed.

Sunday, more transportation horrors...these were entirely my own fault, however. You see, I had planned to go out to dinner in the East Village on Saturday night, but by the time I got over there and picked up my video, it was 8 pm. I don't know about you, but I think there is something just a little strange and desperate looking about eating alone in a French restaurant at 8 pm on a Saturday night. Creepy-ish. So I said the hell with that and went home. This, of course, left me with an extra chunk of cash. (Any gentlemen out there reading this - this is female accounting. If you don't buy something, then the cash you didn't spend on it is extra cash - a little windfall. Don't ask.) So I decided to spend this on taking a taxi to the marathon/Welcome Back Kotter (they just got back from their honeymoon) party at Tiger Lily and The Boss' place.

Certain people - like me - should overcome their deep and abiding disinterest in the NYC Marathon and look at the route before they attempt to take taxis directly to it. The marathon runs under their front window. You can't get there from here on marathon day. In order to do so, you have to take your taxi to 142nd street and around the FDR Drive and to 2nd Avenue. Luckily I had all that money I didn't spend the day before, so by my reckoning, I came out even.

So the party was lovely (Tiger Lily makes terrific ham), and then I got invited to an after marathon dinner at Blue Smoke because the male half of ANOTHER damn newlywed pair of friends had just run the silly thing.

Monday was the day I had to go get my new pictures taken...in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Bay Ridge is quite a pleasant neighborhood, except for the fact that it is EXTREMELY far away and not at all the best place to have to get to when you are suffering from a monumental hangover. The pictures, oddly enough, turned out quite well, even if I had to change my usual makeup somewhat. I didn't use foundation - I used spackle. Worked fine. Oh, wait...and that was the night that I was trying to get some much-needed rest and Sarah bounced in and told me I had to get her up at 5 AM on Election Day so she could go home to Brooklyn, vote, and then come back into Manhattan to work. The result of this was that I got up at 5 AM to get HER up...she slept until 8. I didn't.

Tuesday...well, we ALL know about Tuesday. But I was still recovering from Sunday, so I had planned to go vote and then come home and take a nice nap until time to head over to my pal's place to watch the returns. However, as I was coming out of the polling place, my phone rang...and there was my friend John on the other end announcing that he was momentarily in NY and let's have a drink. Yes, well, so much for my nap and not starting to drink until much later.

Went to the election, cheered myself hoarse, came home, watched that fuckin' AMAZING acceptance speech, and crawled into bed. I actually got two hours sleep before my child came tripping in half-bagged and wanting a nice long chat before she left for the airport at 6:30 am.
As soon as she left, I turned over with a sigh of relief and conked out...until 7:41 AM, when my crazy temp lady called me and asked if I could go to a job in Harlem "RIGHT NOW!" The answer to that was, no fucking way. So yesterday, I finally slept, woke up, ate things, slept, woke up, ate other things, and slept some more.

Today, I went to the Population Council to send out their mail (Bamako, Mali had quite a lot of mail today), and then I got home and got blindsided by the crazy lady (never answer your phone without checking caller ID) and have to get up at 5 am tomorrow to get to Harlem by 8 am. I could do without this, as I had tomorrow all planned. Luckily, the job is only from 8 am to noon, so I can do my other stuff on the way home - this would be getting my new pictures up on Casting Networks so I can get some background work, for God's sake.

And now I'm going to bed. Which looks just lovely.

Love, Wendy