Excerpt from my travel book

The idea with this, is that each chapter will start with a description of someone that I have sat next to while traveling, be that a plane, train, etc..I have a habit of writing about people I sit next to. This habit has probably been since I was 16, so I have a lot of these descriptions. As you can see I haven't finished all descriptions yet, but left little notes for myself so that I could remember that person and write about them later.

Lady with mysterious book who smelled of alcohol
Stats:
Older lady, fake blonde/grey hair, skinny, short white shorts
From D.C. to Jacksonville, Florida
To my right in seat 26 F
July 28, 2006

She dove into her book like you would dive into the pool. Complete with out loud commentaries such as “Oh my Goodness,” “No, she didn’t!” along with “Don’t go in there,” followed by bursts of laughter. To anyone else it would seem she was reading a thriller or a murder mystery but then those outbursts of simple and sincere laughs kept you off track. I can understand bursts of laughter if you are watching “The Office” on your i-pod as you ride the metro; even I am guilty of that. It wasn’t even that long of a flight, how an author could fit that much stuff in an hour or two is beyond me. The average adult reader reads 200 words a minute which translates to 12,000 words an hour so for a two hour flight that would mean she read roughly 24,000 words that kept her entertained. My hats off to the author. I kept trying to read the title, any glimpse would do, because any book that could have a woman in an enclosed space sharing commentary about a book with everyone on a plane had to peak my interest, if not a little. I kept trying to read the title, but she would guard it as if it was secret spy information that would lead to a revolution and overthrow the Bush administration (but then again, wouldn’t we want that information public).

Now I could have said “Oh that sounds like a good book, what are you reading?” But then I have a rule to speak only when spoken to on airplanes. For instance, these are the few words I spoke on that plane. “Ginger ale.” “Thank you.” “Correct.” “Yes, Please.” And that is it. Four phrases/words. This isn’t my record. My record is two words on a long flight and it wasn’t even two different words. It was one word twice! “Ginger ale.” Why is it that the only place I drink Ginger ale is on the airplane?

Back to lady with mysterious book who smelled of alcohol. She ordered a white wine and paid the gay steward (insert description here) and tipped him. She downed it in five seconds. Then called gay steward back and again same thing. By this time she was tipping the guy quite a lot so of course he kept coming back. A pattern had started. He was being positively reinforced. I kept thinking maybe I should quit my day job and start a career as a stewardess following lady with mysterious book that smelled of alcohol all around on her travels.

Normal
30 something, male,
From Seattle to London
To my right in seat #13G

The guy sat next to me and didn’t say one word, kept to himself. Read his book, watched the movie, didn’t smell, turned the light off, pulled the “shade” on the window at the appropriate time, and listened to his i-pod. Maybe he was my soul mate?


No “R” boy
12 year old, male, glasses
From London to Prague
Sitting directly behind me in 26 E

Cried because he wasn’t allowed to sit in the middle before he had even sat down. I knew it was going to be a long flight…

Big Fat Greek Guy
Middle-aged, fabulous pin striped shirt
From London to Dublin
To my left in 26D

Psychiatrist Needed
80 year old woman, wealthy, single, perfectly white hair is was almost iridescent
From Seattle to D.C. via Chicago
To my right two seats over in 16C

Love affair…what makes someone talk to me? I have headphones on whether they are turned on or not is beside the point. I also have my nose in a book. People need to learn some social manners.

Pentecostal Fest
“Praise the Lord Jesus” when entering the elevator.
I’m under dressed..the bishop was there in gold and purple wardrobe with 7 Georgian women primping him and themselves…their hats…amazing hats….I wanted to pluck the feathers right off of one of them and use it to dust my house.

FYI

Just a little note here to those of you who may read this blog. It is true that my last career was as a writer (notice the glasses to the left that make me look kind of writerish). I had two editors and i was getting paid to write which made my writing that much better. In this blog, I do not put so much emphasis on my style, grammar, or syntax of my writing or else i would never write anything and it wouldn't be that fun. So please forgive the errors. You may also notice that i rarely capitalize my "i's." I'm not trying to be fancy and perfect. I'm just trying to get my thoughts down as a way to journal what goes through my weird little head (and it is little, as those who go hat shopping with me can attest). So I hope you enjoy it even though it seems quite random sometimes.

Ghosty

My aunt and I believe we have a ghost in our home. Not a scary ghost, but a ghost who likes to keep us guessing and make us think we are going crazy in the brain. Here's why.

1. My aunt was talking about a magazine that she was supposed to receive in the mail but it hadn't come. The next day I see it on the top of the stair railing. I asked her if that was the magazine she was waiting for. She said yes. But neither of us have  a clue as to how it got there! I had gotten the mail that day and that wasn't in it. This was the first incident.

2. Incident number two involved the curtains coming loose at the ceiling. The valance had lost some of its cotton and it was just hanging. These are high ceilings and there is no way the cat could have done it. The valance was nice and secure and I had to get a chair to stuff the cotton back in the valance.

3. Last night my aunt and I were talking downstairs and I was sitting on the couch which is fairly close to my bedroom door, which was open. My bedroom door shut without any explanation. It wasn't a fast shut, it was slow and steady as if someone was telling us to be quiet.

4. We noticed that one of the vases had been moved to another table. Neither of us touched them (okay this we found out had an explanation) but it was freaky before we knew the reason.

5. Last night I had spaghetti. It tasted a lot like cinnamon spaghetti. My aunt and I couldn't figure it out. It was definately the noodles and not the sauce. So I smelled the bag it was in, smelled nothing. Why did it taste like cinnamon? I kind of liked it, so this morning my aunt is trying to figure out the mystery and she cooks more noodles from the same package and it didn't taste like cinnamon at all! So my conclusion was ghosty was at it again. And there was no way cinnamon had been left over in the pan or even stored in the same cupboard as the noodles. It stiked again!

Now we've talked with any and all people that have visited the house in the last couple months (truthfully, since I have moved in) and no one knows anything about the incidences above. 

I'm okay with ghosty, he keeps us on our toes.

My University voted tenth in school safety!

Just a warning to you, the next three years this blog will most likely be filled with stuff about my school. This is the first time in my life where I feel pride for my University. Maybe because I attended 7 universities in my undergrad career and never felt particularly close to any one of them, or maybe because one of my universities discriminated against me for the religion I belonged to and I could have sued for everything and won, but people got fired so I'm okay about that. But seriously, I'm about to buy me one of those license plates or those car stickers (though, i don't believe in car stickers (sorry Carren), i'm okay with the window decals that can come off easily though). 

So why am i prideful? For two reasons. 

Reason number one, see blog posted two before this one. My school is very much for social justice and they practice what they preach. This society we are so intent on keeping the status quo and we don't even know it. Those with power, and I admit I'm gaining more of this "power" with every degree that I get. The privileged, and some would consider me to be, due to the private school that I attend and the degree I'm obtaining, make the values and society rules and the lower class take those values at face value and accept them. The people with the power make the rules, but those with power I believe have an obligation to not only understand poverty but be advocates against it. And I'm not just talking about poverty, I'm talking about any social injustice. People with power (generalizing here) usually want to keep their power, so to give a political example, illegal immigration. Some want to legalize it and some don't want to. Some they don't want to are some major people with power. This would then mean these now legal immigrants would have rights! They would get to vote, strike, have access to health care, etc...it would make them equal to them essentially. Now this is a major generalization, and I know there are millions of other reasons. But I think I even do this unconciously, I think we don't necessarily know when we are acting unjust in our thoughts, actions, etc. Some may quote the movie Clueless about this rant and say "freshman psych rears its ugly head." But it's not that at all. I'm learning that the ethical standards I will be held accountable include this advocacy and not just on an individual level but on a society level. For this reason, I am proud that Seattle U took a stance against that party (again, refer to previous blog). They were practicing what they were preaching. Most universities would probably not touch that incident with a ten foot pole because it was off campus. But not my University.

2. My University was also ranked 10th in the nation for public safety. I take night classes and all the doors lock after  6pm which makes me feel safer and kind of locks me out sometime on break when i go to get a water. I also took part in the campus and state wide practice earth quake drill this week. It included three texts to my phone and to my email and included a drill of where to meet or what to do and literally we all took part. We literally all met up or all ducked for cover. I do feel safer. Here is the list, check and see if your school's on here! http://www.rd.com/images/content/2008/0802/College-Safety-Results.pdf 

I do have school pride. Though I probably couldn't tell you what the mascot is, I think that's an undergrad thing? And it probably has something to do with a bird...like a seahawk, or a seagull, or a mohawk, or an eagle or something. And at least i know my school colors! Red!

Massage, Pedicure, and Tanning oh my!

Yeah, my day is going to rock tomorrow! I realized I needed a sort of "calm down" day leading up to finals week as this past week had me burning the midnight oil only to face another one of those weeks this week. I'm a bit of a worry wart as you can see by my grey hairs, which i dyed tonight cuzz it was getting so bad. How old am I again? My muscles have been so sore the past week so I schedule myself a little rest day. Tanning is like a little 10 minute vacation. Massage is like a 60 minutes vacation, and Pedicure is another 30 minute vacation, totaling 100 minutes of pure relaxation.