Part II: Welcome to Newark, I'm Sorry If the Firetrucks Alarmed You

[OK SAND DIEGO NOW I AM MAD AT YOU. Way to eff up the wifi and delete my entire post. Oh boy I am mad. THIS IS THE MADDEST I HAVE BEEN ALL DAY]


everyone take a nice break since the last post? i did. i ate some chex mix. yeah, that's right, somebody knows how to plan. also, want to point out that there is an abandoned book on a table in this airport called The Red Queen. my experience at the spy museum in DC leads me to believe this must be a spy drop point. maybe i should check it out and become a spy. i seem to have messed up my internal clock pretty good right now and am ready for another day...SPY


right. where were we? ah that's right.


OR IS IT??


about 30 minutes into the actual flight, the polite pilot comes on the PA (which is terrifying and loud when you have the headphones in. i jumped every time he announced anything. it was noticeable).
“So you may have noticed that we've turned around. We've uh..got a slight maintenance problem ..and uh ..we need to go back to Newark to check it out. This is not an emergency, we just uh want to make sure we take all safety precautions”
seemed like nothing was on fire, so I just shrugged, watched the ad on my tv telling me I should pay for the inflight tv, and ate my pretzels. But clearly the majority of the people on the plane starts freaking out and become convinced we are about to die a horrible fiery death.
Static “Welcome to Newark! I uh.. hope the firetrucks and emergency crews on either side of the plane didn't alarm you. It's just protocol. We uh .. didn't ask for them due to the MINOR nature of this problem..so uh, sorry about that”
people on the plane are murmuring through it all saying things like 'yeah, right. Not an emergency.' listen folks. I don't know how to tell you this, but if it was an emergency, the crews would actually be doing something and we wouldn't just be sitting there twiddling our thumbs. at least, I was twiddling.
Nothing was on fire, by the way, some sort of maintenance door got a bit flappy in the flight. They weren't sure if it was left open or came open during the flight. I should hope it just came open, or the guy in charge of closing that door needs to be backhanded. If my mom's car flips out every time I don't immediately put my seatbelt on, surely an airplane can have a flappy open door warning light.
Static “So uh, we've just found out that two of our flight attendants are illegal... (BIG pause here by the pilot, I thought for sure he was going to follow this with 'immigrants' and I just started laughing)... are illegal because they have been in the air too long (technically we havent really 'been in the air'..). So uh, we've got one flight attendant at the airport and we've got about 40 minutes before another one can arrive.”

another half hour or so of people rabble rousing and the pilot comes back on:

“uh yeah, so just a little more time before we can get that second flight attendant. If any of you wish to not continue flying, let us know. (Again, they are being very loose with this 'flying' nonsense.) for the rest of you, if you'd uh like to get off the plane and get some food, you may do so at this time. Unfortunately, we uh don't have any complimentary food on this flight (slight murmurs of outrage), but uh the direct tv will be free for everyone for the duration of the flight.

Everyone who was just mad now rejoices. AMERICA LOVES FREE TV. I just ate my pretzels and laughed every time the poor guy had to make an announcement. I was really running low on pretzels.

So we all get off the plane, which is a plan that could be disaster. I buy a protein bar and some chex mix (note: I hate chex mix now, I just ate about 3 servings of it. Vomit)

I sit down in the middle of the airport floor to charge my phone and decide to call anita, figuring she would try to check the status and would assume I died a horrible fiery death. Interestingly, several times when I tried to check the status of the flight I just got weird error messages. I would assume these error messages mean things like 'i'm terribly sorry but we have NO idea where this plane is or IF this plane is, please check back in a bit and hopefully no one will have died a horribly fiery death.' It is a bit sketchy, to be fair.

We somehow all make it back on the plane in a timely fashion and the poor pilot apologetically tells us that we have to watch the safety video again. The safety video includes an introduction by the CEO of continental. People were shaking their fists, muttering hateful things, mocking, and laughing. I wish I could have recorded this for a sound company's “disgruntled crowd murmurs before riot” track.

So we fly and we fly and we fly and we land.

The most unbelievable thing that happened today:

I WATCHED AN EPISODE OF SEINFELD I HAD NEVER SEEN BEFORE.

Part I: Welcome to Newark, I'm Sorry If the Firetrucks Alarmed You

Dont' worry San Diego, I am here. I know you were getting worried. I could tell by the way you set up some wifi for me and set aside a comfortable chair. the way you dropped the gate closing off the airport escaltor, thinking to yourself, 'i guess she's not coming after all...' WELL I AM HERE. do not fret. we will play together and i will enjoy your not disgusting weather and your famed zoo and your museums and your burritos and your fullagars.

what's that, San Diego? what took me so long? Well, funny you should ask. it has a little something to do with your good friend Continental Airlines. let's go back to the beginning, shall we?

i woke up as though i was going to be spending my day off doing nothing and then going back to work tomorrow. (note, that is not actually the case. i will not go to work until july 25th, if i ever do go back). around 11am when i was searching for travel size shampoo and trying to find a substitute for the bagel store that happened to be closed the one time i tried to go there, i realized 'oh hey, i am going on a plane today. maybe i should pack.'

so i walked somewhere else, got a bagel, and leisurely ate it.

ok really now, i should pack. so i do. then i think maybe i should repaint my toes. i mean really, San Deigo, i knew deep down you'd judge me. and i know my toes will be covered up most of the time while i rollerblade around town in a bikini (this is what happens everyday in every part of california, right?), but they will look nice when i try to surf and almost drown because i am so weak and then get saved by a seal only to be subsequently  eaten by a shark. plus the nail color was called Pacific Blue (thanks Katie Carroll).

i get to the airport with ample time. pay my 25 dollars to check a bag (that is poop, airlines. poop i tell you.) i obviously have ample time so i track down the jamba juice and get a delightful smoothie concoction that everyone at the gate is obviously jealous of. except for the two kids who were pretended to be cartoons and airplanes who RAN full speed around the whole waiting area. they weren't interested in my jamba juice.

so we get on the plane, i start watching the directtv (they charge you for THAT too! wtf kids. it's nearly a 6 hours flight.

OR IS IT???

foreshadowing.

is it just me?

Today i found myself in a quandary.

You see, i live to go to concerts. and i do not like the idea of concerts selling out before i have the time to find someone who wants to go. so i just buy two. today i had one extra and wasn't sure if i wanted to go it alone.

Only one time in my life have i purchased a sole, lonely ticket. that was for badly drawn boy in london, before i knew anyone well enough to convince them it would be a good time. or before i knew anyone well enough for them to just blindly trust my music judgement, as some have come to do. however, the week of that concert about 4 people told me they would have gone if i had only had another ticket. sigh. really?

so far my only experience with going to a concert alone involved everyone telling me it was socially unacceptable to do so, everyone telling me i would get murdered, not getting murdered, going into the venue and seeing that even though people waited outside no one went up to the front, going up to the front, moving cords that got stuck on speakers, seeing BDB singing and shaking hands with people, having sweaty hands since i was wearing several layers of clothes and it became very hot, thinking oh no i think he is going to try to shake my hand, having my hand kissed, thinking boy this is awkward, but enjoying myself nonetheless.

so. as you might ascertain, i was unsure about what going to Beirut alone might bring. the band, not the city. my friend wound up not being able to go and i didn't try very hard to convince anyone to go to Montclair NJ. why? because it was montclair and that is not nyc. people have a hard time with that.

1. i am about to get off the train and a man standing on the other side of the vestibule mumbles something to me. 'what's that?' i say, in a polite way, even though, when written, that sounds impolite or  like an old lady who wears her glasses on a chain and has to look up from her knitting to try to read your lips while you talk. the situation was not much different. i no knitting. but probably should get a chain...  he says ' nice pumas'. what? i was confused. i am wearing shoes that are at least 5 years old because i refuse to part with them, but the weird part is i really think he was sincere. that is all he says. then we leave the train.

2. i get to the venue and decide to check twitter. a fairly new band that i like very much (Pearl and the Beard), just tweeted that they are at the same show. literally as i am replying to the band's tweet, someone walks up next to me playing with their phone. i look over and think that looks like a whole lot like Jeremy from the band i am tweeting. i was intrigued by this new 21st century awkward situation that was born. i felt that tweeting ' i am standing right next to you' is a little too 'call someone on the phone, breathe heavily, then tell them what they are wearing and to look outside.' in other words, a little creepy murderer-y. i decided then that i should just say hi. luckily the minute i was going to do this, he moves forward to an open space further up. which is good because the only plan of action i could think up was poking him in the arm reluctantly, saying 'hi. so this is going to be weird unless the answer is yes, but are you in a band and is called pearl and the beard? if so you are awesome. and i like your beard.' see why it's good for me not to talk to people?

3. pretty sure a girl from high school came up right next to me two minutes later. this has yet to be confirmed because i was still trying to figure out if jeremy was really jeremy and i was starting to really question myself and my perceptions of who people really were.

4. wandering away from the concert (in the opposite direction from where i need to be), killing time because the next train wasn't for about 45 minutes. someone sort of skips up and taps me on the shoulder. oh hey kid from college that i havent seen or talked to in like 5 years; what's up? so we talk. then i go on my merry way because i was very paranoid about missing the only train left.

5. i get on the train. sit down and start to read Jane Eyre, which i am obsessed with right now, and a random girl comes over and says HI! in a very overenthusiastic manner. i look up in a very under-enthusiastic manner. 'so would you two mind sitting together so that my friend and i can sit together?'  'oh. uh. ok'. then me and the kid who picked a newspaper up off the ground unannounced, even though it was under the feet of someone he didn't know who was sitting across the way, had a quick battle about who would be moving. i lost. i move up to his seat and say hi, he barely glances up and feel like we are on some kind of blind train date that has already failed and that i didn't want to happen in the first place.

so i do all i can do. shove myself as far as i can to one side of the seat, hold my book like i have t-rex arms to minimize the risk of touching, and think do weird things like this happen to other people all the time, or is it just me?

afterword: beirut was absolutely fantastic. it WAS jeremy, as their twitter has since told me since i fessed up.

the public transportation diaries

i have a few minutes today so for those of you who havent heard this story in person, i shall do a quick one here.

i hope you all have experienced the various joys of public transportation as i have been lucky enough to witness. my twitter feed documents many of the things i have gone through, but i think there is one that stands out from the rest:

one time, a very large black lady sat on me. that's right. sat on me. she wasn't jostled. the train wasn't even that crowded. just. boom. large lady on my lap. i think i am just that not noticeable. there was an empty seat next to me, but i am almost positive that she didn't just miss the seat she was aiming for. the train hadn't even begun to move. there was no lurch forward that might explain why a stranger would sit directly on another stranger. no shoving that often happens when the path is having problems and people get a little nuts trying to squeeze in. nope. just a girl in a seat, and a lady who sat on her.

it was only for a brief moment. she noticed, and just went slip right into the seat next to me. i am not sure if she apologized. all i know is she was ok enough with what just happened that she continued to sit next to me for the entire  22 minute ride to newark (this was pre-hobo).

so here i am, sitting next to a lady who just sat on me, and trying not to laugh because of the ridiculousness of it all. everything of course is made worse because a friend from work was next to me and witnessed the whole thing. the chain reaction of laughing that happens when i try not to laugh yet see someone else laughing at the absurd situation we are in is quite dangerous.

let's just say it was awkward. to all the riders of the path, please peek before you plop