Tag: U.S.A

Coming Home

Thus far, I’ve spent 32 waking hours in a car in the last seven days. Apologies for the lack of posts, I thought the place where we were staying had Internet access, but I was not correct. I am an utter failure at the NaBloPoMo experiment.

Yesterday, we stopped for a van that had slid off the road into a ditch in Nevada. There were three adults and a two-year-old girl in the van. None of them spoke English, and none of them had warm clothes. I stumbled along in halting Spanish, and figured out that two of the adults (the ones with the baby) were deaf and possibly mute. I briefly wondered how we managed to end up in a David Lynch movie.

We took those two and the kid to a dubious bar/grocery called Water Hole #1, and explained the situation to a weathered, unhappy bartender. “What am I supposed to do with them?” he asked. We told him we’d return to tell the other guy where they were, and he’d pick them up.

We bought them some food and drinks, and wrote down what was happening in Spanish so they’d know. As we left, one of the drunk patrons was ambling toward the counter with a variety box of travel-sized cereals for the little girl.

Right now we’re in a hotel in Reno, preparing for the rest of the drive home. First, we’ll need to get chains. And about 16 magazines. And at least three tubes of chapstick.

Tomorrow I’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming. I’m in karmic debt for six posts. Fortunately, I’ve got some time on my hands.

Traveling in Comfort and Style

Bryan and I have a wedding to attend, so we took a red eye to Boston last night. If there’s anything more enjoyable than a red eye when you’re pregnant, it’s boarding the plane with wet pants.

Why were my pants wet, you ask? Excellent question, reader! The answer is, I sat in yet another Mystery Wet Spot! Mystery Wet Spot, Part II!

We had a stopover in Dallas, so I plugged in my computer and hunkered down on the carpet. The carpet was wet. Not globally wet, specifically wet. It was wet only in the exact spot where I was sitting.

Then our flight boarded and I was trapped for three hours in damp pants. Pants damp with fluid of unknown origin. Something inside me broke on that flight — something small but integral. If you need me, I’ll be rocking in the corner.

It’s a Beautiful Town

We had a great time in New York, mostly because of all our amazing friends there, but the first few days were rough:

I decide to take an afternoon nap while Bryan explores New York. I return to our room, strip down to my skivvies, and climb in bed. Something is amiss. Are the sheets still damp from the wash? I sweep my hands outward to test my theory when I feel something wet soaking through the back of my underwear. I leap up in a panic and see a giant wet spot on the bed just before I tear my underwear off and run to the shower. There I scrub until my skin is gone.

A few hours later, we are in a cab. I am admiring the city lights when I smell vomit. “Bryan,” I say. “I smell vomit.” He sniffs. “I don’t,” he says. I sniff again. “Yeah, it’s pretty distinct. Maybe it’s on my side,” I say. This is when I realize that the vomit is on my seatbelt. The one I’m wearing.

The next morning we are walking along Central Park near the hansome cabs. There are dozens of horses, and all of them are shitting and pissing in the street or in canvas collection tarps attached to their haunches. From the smell, I’d say they’ve been doing this for years, perhaps centuries. The stench of asphalt-baked piss, ammonia, and rotting horse dung is so overpowering that I actually begin to gag in the street. I’m stumbling forward, trying to outpace the stench while doubled over, heaving.

Then we went for lunch.

My Kind of Town

I’m in Chicago, and it is not warm here. When we deplaned, my teeth tried retreat into my gums for warmth. Now I know why so many fur activists seem to live in California.

Our hotel room has a sign for the door that says I’m sleeping, or working on my flying machine! I never thought a Do Not Disturb sign would make me feel inadequate for napping.

Texas Rebels

While we’re in Texas with Bryan’s family, we have dinner at the hotel where we’re staying. On my way to the bathroom, I realize the hotel is also hosting a high school homecoming dance. The hallway is jammed with boys in ill-fitting suits and extravagantly rouged girls, all fiddling with their itchy wrist corsages.

In the women’s room, a the girls are jockeying for a bit of the mirror, applying lipstick and fussing with their severe updos. When they notice me, they give embarrassed smiles and scoot aside so I can wash my hands. Just then, two girls enter and stop inside the door. One is in a tasteful chocolate dress with cream piping, cut in a fifties silhouette. The other is wearing a Barbie-pink gown, festooned with glitter, and transparent from her feet up to her knees. She is very slim, just leaving behind her gawkiness, and she begins to hike her skirt up in front of the mirror. Her friend objects:

-You’re doing it right here?

-What?

-You’re just going to do it right here?

-Yeah? Why not?

She reaches up her skirt, wriggles, yanks free an enormous, elastic, tan girdle. She lets out a heavy sigh and pats her flat tummy.

-Why were you even wearing that thing?

-Because my mom told me I looked fat.

-What?

-She said, Here. Your stomach is sticking out. Put this on.

-What a bitch.

-I know.

Where Have I Been?



Originally uploaded by MaggieMason.

First in Skeneatales, NY for The Morning News retreat; then visiting Jen, Jeff and sweet little Arlo in Rhode Island. Now I’m in Brooklyn, but we’ll be off to D.C. tomorrow for Adaptive Path’s User Experience Week. Then I’m going to sleep for two years.

Keep an eye on my Flickr stream if you want to see photos. I have a new camera. It’s so good I have to restrain myself from licking it in public.

Election Day

Sorry for the silence, I’ve been celebrating Halloween excessively. Also, I just arrived in Boston where everyone is going crazy with election-night party prep. I will be out in the cold with thousands of people who will either be giddy with relief or completely inconsolable. Today gives new meaning to the phrase “anxious anticipation.”

If you haven’t voted, please vote. If you’re not a United States citizen, any chance you could throw some good thoughts, well wishes, or fervent prayers our way? Thanks.

Splashin’ and-a Splashin’

We’re in D.C. staying at the gorgeous, velvety, sunlit Hotel Monaco. The rooms come equipped with animal-print bathrobes, they’ll loan you a goldfish for the duration of your stay, and our suite has a cavernous bathtub. It’s the kind of bathtub that makes you hesitate if you don’t know how to swim, the kind of bathtub that makes you think, “We could fit, like, eleven people in here!”

And so, last night, we hosted a Champagne Bubble Bath Roaming Robe Party. Everyone donned their swimsuits and robes in their rooms, then came back to the suite for a bubble bath.

You never know how ludicrously long your friends’ toenails are until you’re in a bath with them. People, cut your toenails.

Right Away

Things moved faster in Boston than they do in the real world. I arrived in the morning, having taken the red-eye from San Francisco. I dropped my bags at home and came into the office to start my first day at about 8 a.m. By 1 p.m., I’d had four versions of this conversation:

Them: Say, can you tackle this hour-long project?

Me: Sure. I’ll send it to you in an hour or so.

Them: Thanks!

(Twenty minutes later)

Them: Hey, Maggie.

Me: Hey.

Them: Have you finished up that project? Can you email me your results?

Me: Actually, it’s only been twenty minutes since you asked me. I’m still in the middle of it.

Them: Oh… Well send it when you’ve got it, I guess.

Me: (blink blink)