Redemption!

So, I capped off what was probably the worst week in Irvine with the best weekend in Vail, a trip I totally glommed onto at the last minute because I'm such a free spirit like that, and after surfing in feets upon feets of super fresh pow it was time to bid the good life adieu and make my way over to the gates of hell. Specifically, Denver International (gates) for a flight back to the lovely OC (hell). K-hat as usual insisted on driving me (man if you are lucky enough to be embraced as a friend by K-hat you are pretty much set for life). It usually takes about 2 hours and change to get there and my flight was at 8pm, but it was still snowing like crazy on top of Sunday night traffic so to be safe, we decided to leave the house at 3pm - no later than 3:30pm - with the goal of getting there by 6:30pm (I know, so not me but hey sometimes I "learn"). Bigtime had left at 1pm and was giving us shuttle-copter news on the traffic, confirming that it was indeed ugly. No problem, we thought - we gave ourselves about 3.5 hours, 4 even if you count that 1/2 hour cushion.

We left the mountain early and while everyone else was watching the Colts jam the Jets I was busy jamming my belongings into my board bag, with K-hat calling out the time in 2 minute increments. By the time I was done and we said our goodbyes, packed up the ridiculous-awesome flatbed we had rented and turned the ignition, the time was 3:34pm. Not bad. A full three hours minus a few cents. The snow was still a bit bad coming out of Vail, but nothing we didn't expect.

For the next hour, we slow-rolled it down I70 and when I checked my crackberry we were only at Silverthorne (not to be confused with Silverton, which I did). Not a huge deal, K-hat said. The weather was already starting to let up as the poor suckers over at Breck didn't get any snow (don't get me wrong I love Breck actually), so after the I-like-Ike tunnel the highway was sure to be neat and clean. As if we weren't going slow enough, traffic came to a complete stand still. Basically, they were shutting down the tunnel for 20 minutes at a time so that people could get through. (wha-??? It's a two way tunnel so we have no idea how that works, so if there's a traffic engineer out there who can enlighten, please feel free). At 5:00, we had moved all of 7 inches, and I was starting to get worried. K-hat still firmly believed that we'd be fine, because we just had to make it past the tunnel and then all would be easy breezy, but knowing me and my life I was less sure. At 5:20 we started moving - I guess we were in that 20-minute zone, but I really doubted that we'd make it to the tunnel in this round. Sure enough, at 5:40 we were stopped again and the mild concern started to set in. We weren't even at the tunnel yet and we had less than an hour to get to our goal.

Well, I guess I'm going to be hopping on the next flight, I thought, so sadly, I decided to call Frontier to see how I could work it. Of course, my crapberry decides to not work very well at this time the way it always doesn't work very well just when I need it most, and I can't find Frontier's number on its not-assberry-friendly website. More angst. It's almost 6 o'clock and we haven't moved, all I can think of is how I am facing another crappy airline experience and how this is so typical of me. It's so typical that it's contagious. K-hat tells me not to worry because even if I miss this flight, it's not the end of the world.* There's always another one and it's a lot less painful missing a flight going west than one going east. She's right. I get the bright idea to see if my confirm has the Frontier number and as I dejectedly scroll through the email, envisioning all you people ridiculing me for this latest misadventure, I see something strange.

It looks sorta like this:



Holy hog heaven! MY FLIGHT IS AT 9!!! NOT 8!!! I have an extra hour! All of a sudden my near future becomes brighter as, much like the opening theme to The Simpsons, the image of guffawing friends breaks away and is replaced with sights of moving traffic, cleared roads, and us zipping down the highway at the speed of light thus getting us to the airport just in time for my NINE PM flight.

It was indeed way past 6:30 when we finally exit the tunnel, but no problem - my flight was at NINE PM! We pull up to the curb at precisely 7:56 PM, pa-lenty of time for my NINE PM flight. Did I mention my flight was actually at NINE PM? Plus, no line for check-in/baggage, the septuagenarian Frontier lady even takes my board bag for me (suck it, Delta!), no line for security, and within minutes I relax into my seat in the airline lounge. I win.

For all your haters out there, may I present to you the TRUE Artemis. Sure, I get mixed up. Sure, I scramble. Sure, I am constantly shaving years off my life expectancy. But in the end, things always work out. Like a wise person once said, if there isn't a little excitement then it's just plain boring.

*For the record, both K-hat and Bigtime also agree that getting to the airport with no drama and ending up with too much time on your hands (read: if they're not roping off the gates and starting to close the jetway door) is a total rookie move, so K-hat and I realized that we should never ever under any circumstances try to take a flight together. Please remember this for us, friends.

More college dudes, supposedly

Look I was nowhere near the Lower East Side this time.

So we took the shuttle from Vail over to some new Italian joint that was supposed to be having a half-off happy hour. After a sillarious episode at the Vail bus depot where 1. no one was quite sure where to stand to catch the West Vail Red bus 2. the crowd was close to mutiny after the third Out of Service bus pulled over 3. LeejTheDeej pulls out his phone and dials K-hat to see if she can come pick us up 4. exactly at that moment of course the West Vail Red bus pulls up and 5. the doors open right in front of me, I scramble on and grab a seat, trying to save the one next to me for kendog when this very pleasant looking rugged outdoorsy chap boards and is headed straight my way. Sorry kendog, priorities. There's a seat over there...somewhere down there.

I'm not sure who started talking to whom first but it was probably me because even though I am generally shy, I can sometimes be shameless when a guy has the right amount of flop to his hair. I don't remember what kind of jargon goes on, some small talk crap about how it's snowing so much or where is this bus going, but the dude has nice eyes and is all chipper and friendly-like so I keep insightful questions and comments teed up so we don't end up in the blackhole of awkward pickup-talk silence.

Out of nowhere he asks me "Are you still in college?" Bro, we were talking about how your shoes are all wet because it's so snowy out, where did this question come from? I have to admit that when I go boarding I tend to look pretty childish or even like a boy in my helmet, turtleneck and bundled getup, but that comment just made me feel small. So I say "No, I'm out of college" and then I ask him if he's still in college, because why else would someone have that sort of question on the brain? He said he just finished in December. Wha-wha-what!?

Me: This past December?
Dude: Yea. (major southern drawl)
Me: As in, a month ago December?
Dude: Yea.
Me: Ok. (The bus is packed, I can't really escape. Please don't ask me when I finished - I swear I'll lie!)
Me: So then, what are you gonna do now?
Dude: I wanna go into Sales.
Me: You want to go into "Sales"? What kind of sales? Like do you want to sell sneakers or drugs or more like...medical equipment?
Dude: Yeah that. Big stuff. The kind of sales where I have to fly around the country.
Me: Oh so you want to travel?
Dude: No I don't want to travel, but I can make a lot of money doing it, so that's what I wanna do.

OK then. Now, as much as I might not look like I'm out of college, this dude surely did not look like he had just finished college. Frankly, he looked a little banged up even. Aussiestef agreed with me that he really didn't look like a fresh grad and that his head had probably seen better days. In retrospect I should have asked him if he had taken 9 years to do college because I would have believed it if he was an old looking 27, but I didn't want to be rude. Afterall, he really was very sweet. But as we talked more - in particular after I found out he had just graduated, he started to come across younger and younger. Does this mean when guys do find out my real age I come across as older and older?

I'm contagious

But not in the way you think.

The next day...

But do you think it will stick?

Ok Cocas, I guess I finally learned my lesson. The collective you wonder outloud how I can sustain a life where I am always rushing from one thing to the next and am always just a little (kind of, ok sometimes ok very) late. Don't I get stressed out? Don't I miss stuff? Don't I have to pay extra for not paying attention? Don't I get tired of it all? The answer is yes, yes, yes and sorta. But for the most part I tend to get away with stuff: flights get delayed, my friends are racecar drivers, I get the first one for free, the lady at the counter falls for my puppy dog eyes, someone finds my wallet and sticks it in the mailbox, etc.

Anyway, I went to the airport today for my monthly pilgrimage to Irvine. Today's trip was a little special though - since I'd be going to Vail for the weekend, I had to bring my snowboard and all that delicious gear, which meant I'd have to check bags. After dragging my feet a little at home I finally leave, get into a taxi and get to the airport. The end timestamp on my receipt says 6:17; my flight is at 7:01. Relax, homies, I checked in at home. When I get to the kiosk it tells me to go to the counter where I have to wait in line after 5 other people. The lady who's in charge of telling people on the line which counter is available asks me what flight I'm on, and when I tell her the 7AM to LA, she gives me the shit-you're-ducked* saucer eyes.

meanDeltalady: Sorry but you're not going to make the 7AM flight, you have to check that and you had to be here an hour before.
me: Wha-!? Since when!? I thought I just had to be here 40 minutes in advance for check in.
meanDeltalady: Yeah, well now you only have 30 mins.
me: But I was here like, 20 minutes ago.
meanDeltalady: a) No you weren't and b) Doesn't matter. At JFK you need an hour.
me: But can't we just hurry? Like how about if we check it right now.
meanDeltalady: Yeah, no. It takes at least an hour to get this processed and through the system. You're way too late. We have an 8:10 flight we can put you on.

Argh!! Anyway, I go through this a couple of times with the counter lady too, but apparently she hates puppies and says that there's no way they're putting me on the 7AM flight - I came too late, too bad, it was my fault, I should shape up or ship out, end of story, take it or leave it. It takes me a moment to realize that they really are going to boot me off my 7AM flight, even though I've still got 20 minutes. So I go fine, I'll get on the 8:10 flight. And she goes "Ok that'll be an extra $50. Cash or credit?" Capital ARGH!!

At this point during these incidents, I always imagine that this going to be my "if only" situation. You know, "if only I had left the house 10 minutes earlier and gotten on the 7AM flight, because the 8:10AM flight turns out to be the one the terrorist is on, or the one that doesn't make it through the tornado watch which had been instituted just 1 hour before (which the 7AM flight just misses but the 8:10AM does not). (No joke there really is a tornado watch here in Irvine).

On top of paying an extra $50, I have to carry my heavy-ass snowboard bag myself all the way around to the odd-size baggage area (so...what does that conveyor belt behind you do, mean Delta lady?) AND I am now over 1.5 hours early for my flight. And if anyone knows me, they know what I hate more than almost missing a flight is waiting around at the airport for more than I absolutely have to. (20 minutes if not checking bags, apparently 1 hour now if checking.)

By the time I am on my flight I am exhausted. Lucky me though - I get a whole row to myself! I promptly lie down and am out shortly after takeoff...only to be woken up three hours later by a female voice saying "Ma'am, can you breathe? Can you hear me? Ma'am?" Dudes, no they weren't talking to me, but rather to the lady in the row right next to me, who apparently needed medical attention. Major drama ensues for the next 30 minutes while the flight attendants call for a doctor on the plane - they actually said on the PA system "Is there a doctor on the plane?" I'm not sure what was wrong with her, I couldn't really make out the conversation despite the fact that it was all happening 4 inches from my face, but there was a swarm of people around her so I couldn't really tell if she was vomiting, had turned blue or was passed out. In the end, the doctor said all her vital signs were ok and that she shouldn't be mixing anxiety and heart arrhythmia medication (note this, people).

Side note - the lady in question had just flown in from Cairo (of course at this point, my "if only" reflex kicks in until I chastize myself for being both ridiculous and racist) and the Doctor says she had just flown in from Tel Aviv, and was all, hey why are you flying so far away for a hospital, you should have just come to see me in Tel Aviv - so we had our own little U.N. moment right there.

After all this medical drama passes, I promptly fall asleep again until the lights go on and we get the announcement that we're starting The Descent (ROWR!!!). The Captain's all "Aaaah, folks, buckle up, there's a little turbulence, and we're not gonna have air service because I have asked all the flight attendants to stay seated" and for the next 30 min, the plane's all rocky and shakey. In retrospect, it really wasn't worse than other bad-turbulence flights I've had, but I knew we were flying straight into rain storms in LA and so that "if only" feeling once more sets in. And of course it doesn't help that the lady next to me starts having her anxiety issues. I felt bad for her...but at least she had her husband and kid there to comfort her. Me, I didn't even have my toilet-seat-shaped neck pillow to cling to.

When we land, people clap, and the captain gets on the PA and says "Well folks, aaaahhhh, if you thought it was bad back there, you should have seen it from up here." Great.

This story doesn't end here!! But it almost does.

So I'm now at LAX and need to get down to Irvine. So I flew into LAX because the fare was only $200, but of course this taxi ride will tack on an extra $120, and the whole checkin plus late shit added another $80 so now I'm up to $400...but believe it or not still cheaper than flying into John Wayne. (The airport, not the dude, perverts!)

It is raining RIDICULOUSLY in LA. RIDICULOUSLY. With wind and everything. As we're driving, if we're not hydroplaning, we're getting doused with huge curtains of water by the oncoming traffic (carpool lane!)

When I finally get to the office, I find out that there is a tornado watch and that some SUV had gotten flipped over in Huntington Beach ...pretty much right where we had driven by.

Would any of this have happened if I had gotten to the airport just a tad earlier? Probably. But I could have done without the out-$50- part of it. Anyway, what can I say. Just another day in the life of Artemis. If there isn't a little excitement then it's just plain boring.


*see previous post

Endnote: During the time I had to kill I walked around the shops and decided to buy one of those $15.99 duffel bags. When I got to the hotel I realized that it smells slightly moldy. Does this happen to anyone else???

Everything tastes better at 3AM

I was having dinner with my friend the other day asking him about his volunteer program because I need something to have to wake up for on weekends and get me to come home before 3AM all the time when he asked, What the hell are you doing out until 3AM?? I had to think about it and after a while, I really couldn't say. Dude I don't know, I'm just out. Like, dinner starts at 8, takes a long time because asshole NYC restaurants have no respec' for anyone's time, pay the check by 10, on to the first party and then you gotta be somewhere else at around midnight right? And then after that...for three hours...well I don't know. Anyway he wasn't being judgy he was just wondering. And I wondered too. He came to the conclusion that it probably wouldn't be so weird if he actually drank and I said oh yeah, that's what I'm doing. Also, talking.

Anyway, so we were done with dinner and onto our little jazz show at Birdland. I was looking forward to it - hadn't done something this musically cultural in a while. But then as it turns out, Birdland is the type of place where everyone's sitting at a table with a little candle and you're really not supposed to chat, so while Julie Monthien was crooning away my friend and I got bored and we left. Then he's all I'm tired going home, can I put you in a cab? I say I'm going to take the subway since it's midnight - wait - ONLY midnight!? WTF! So as he gets into his cab and I head to the subway I text whoever I can think of that might be doing something cool and finally find a crowd that's hanging out at The Archive because no one is gonna cut my Saturday night partying short, especially when I don't have anything ass early to get up for the next day like a brunch at 1. No one!

It's almost 1AM when I get there and it's a crappy smelly pub in the middle of B&T douchewad zone that's not exactly "ducking awesome" with a lot of "hit guys" as text advertised by my very drunk friends, but the comfort lies in the fact that my very drunk friends are all there. And so we continue to talk. And drink. And stare at the bartender's mighty large boobs.

Last call is at 2AM and since we're a block away from K-town, I beg, beg my friends to go to Korean Fried Chicken. I think the worst torture one can perform on me other than that fingernail pulling thing or the thing where someone strings you up on a tree upside down with a beehive taped to your neck while someone else drizzles honey all over your face in the middle of bear country is to slowly walk me by 32nd & 5th and then suckerpunch me, shove a black bag over my head and stick me in a cab going to 96th street and bway without allowing me at least 20 minutes to spend in korean fried chicken heaven in the best restaurant this lovely planet can offer, Bonchon. (I will always call it by it's original name because the new one is awful. Just awful.)

My friends relent (it's really easy convincing drunk people to do your bidding) and so we split one large wings platter, mixed and I down an OB and man. I am happy. I am on cloud nuevo. By the time we're done and we're paying the check I look at my watch (haha syke! I don't wear a watch fools!) and it is very neatly 3AM. Time to go home.

That, my dear friends, is what I am doing out until 3AM.

Happiness is...

When I go downstairs to visit my parents and they're actually not there (oh stop of course I want to see them) so I raid their fridge because I'm starving and all I have in my own fridge is a jug of mudslide mix from my housewarming party, some Old Germans (yeah, the same ones) and a bag of raisins (which entered the fridge as a bag of grapes) and when I open it there is this giant, 14" in diameter pumpkin pie in there. Smiling at me.

Did you really have to forward it to everyone in the office?

Uh. Thanks a lot, office lady.

From: Office Admin
Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 10:50 AM
To: _AllTeamMembersNYC
Subject: Smell in kitchen

There is an odor coming from the kitchen, if you have anything stored in the cabinets or frig please check to make sure it has not gone bad.

Thanks

_____________________________________________
From: Artemis
Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 10:02 AM
To: Office Admin
Subject: Smell in kitchen

K-

Not sure if someone has already mentioned this, but there's a bad smell in the kitchen that is faintly similar to when there is a dead rodent in the subway.

It may just be something coming from the fridge, but I couldn't tell when I checked it, but I wanted to let you know about it in case we can get janitorial to look for the source...

Thanks,

Artemis

Search my what?

Subway rush hour, going home.

pre-teen girl 1, to my left: Oh you wanna hear something really stupid?
pre-teen girl 2, to my right: What?
pre-teen girl 1, to my left: Today at school, this guy got suspended for saying "cavity search!"

me: Hooray! The urban youth of today is neither unaware nor apathetic towards the big brother hyper-paternalistic slant of our society shamelessly impinging on our basic Constitutional rights!

pre-teen girl 1, to my left: Hey, did you hear me?
pre-teen girl 2, to my right: What?
pre-teen girl 1, to my left: Do you know what a cavity search is?
pre-teen girl 2, to my right: Yeah.
pre-teen girl 1, to my left: You know, like, when you go to the dentist and [opens her mouth, points to molars] they look for cavities!
pre-teen girl 2, to my right: Yeah that's stupid.

me: Wait, wait what?? No no not that one....Sigh.

It's not funny anymore.

That's my motto for this year.

TRUE STORY: The other night at Nurse Betty's (I know I know, I have no business being on the lower east side at this point...)

Dude: Hey what's that?
Me: Uh, hand lotion. (I just came back from the bathroom.)
Dude: Can I have some??
Me: Sure.
Dude: Blah blah blah some chatter
Me: Blah blah blah some response
Dude: So, you guys have been here for like 3 hours!!
Me: Hm, you been keeping track?
Dude: Well um, so where are you from??
Me: Here.
Dude: Like New York?
Me: Yeah.
Dude: ME TOO! What school did you go to???
Me: Uh...Cornell?
Dude: What HIGH SCHOOL did you go to???
Me: Uh...Stuy?
Dude: OMG ME TOO!!!! WHAT YEAR??
Me: ...
Dude: I graduated in 2005!!!!!!
Me: (fainting)
Dude: Comeon, what year are you? 2006? Who did you have for chem??
Me: Uh, I gotta go. I left my wallet at the bar. Bye.

Seriously. I don't wanna talk to a guy who graduated from college in 2005, let alone high school.

And no, it's not a compliment because when they find out your real age, the look you get is one of true shock. And sometimes disgust.

So sad. So not funny.

Sentiment

It got to be a really tough year towards the end, for perhaps every reason you could think of. I was glad it was coming to an end. But I was even more glad to be able to spend it with some really good, close friends who I love dearly. Happy 2010!