Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Crash Cab

So, I was hoping, before I left New York, that by some fluke of karma I would get into the Cash Cab and become an instant reality gameshow contestant celebrity, thus securing my fame, fortune, and access to Paris Hilton, forever.

Instead, last Friday night, after a dinner with my San Francisco visitor Jen, I got into a crash cab.

We were on the West Side Highway and not wearing seatbelts. In other words, it could have ended really, really badly. Luckily, we weren't going the seventy miles per hour that some New Jersey assholes get up to on that road, and I heard brake-squealing long enough before the three hits (from behind, pinballed forward, then back again) to brace myself fairly well. Jen was not able to brace herself, but since she's made of NASA space foam and rubber, she was okay too.

I can't stop replaying the last moments in my head. There was enough time after the first hit to feel relief that I was still alive and apparently, not badly hurt, but then the next two came and the driver's airbag deployed and the cab filled with smoke. I wasn't really able to feel relief again until Sunday.

Jen--who has flipped her Jeep enough times that I'm convinced she has a calling in stunt-driving--was fine. I kind of freaked out though. The shaking, puking kind of freaking out (although to be honest, the puking came later, and may have had more to do with my butter-with-a-side-of-crab-meat entree than the accident). Not fun.

However, it does occur to me that this cab accident has a certain poetic quality to it, as I enter my final few weeks in the greater New York area.

After college, on my very first day as a worker bee in New York--before the credit card debt and the rocker boyfriends and the Sabrett addiction, when I was still a sweet, optimistic Wellesley graduate--I came down from my bedroom in New Jersey where I was staying with Carolyn and her parents until we (me and Carolyn) could find an apartment. As I went to the kitchen cabinet to get a bowl for my cereal (Cereal! Can you imagine! I'm currently two breakfast sandwiches short of a quadruple bypass) I was stopped short by a newspaper article taped to the cabinet door: "Woman Dies in Cab Catastrophe!" Carolyn's mom, Mrs. Sivitz, had even circled the line "The victim was not wearing her seatbelt." Happy first day of work in New York to me!

I think I actually did buckle up in cabs for a short time. However, soon after I moved into a studio apartment in the East Village with Carolyn, the Taxi and Limousine Commission introduced those horrible "Buckle Up" voice-overs in cabs. You know, the ones where slightly washed-up yet still famous New Yorkers tell passengers to put on their seatbelts. "Hi, I'm Diana Ross and I want you to (sings a little) STOP! In the name of safety!" Anyway, I deliberately stopped putting on my seatbelt in cabs at that point. "Fuck Elmo and Joan Rivers," was my motto. After a few months of being a rebel, it sort of became second nature not to buckle up.

So here I am, about to leave, and I'm in a potentially deadly cab accident. Okay, okay, I finally get it Mrs. Sivitz. I will wear my seatbelt, even in cabs. Especially in cabs. Thanks.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Douchebags of the Day

Define irony. (via Galleycat)

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

...And I Feel Fine



Hey, long time no blog! Sorry, there have been extenuating circumstances that have kept me from being a good and steady blogger. For instance, my evil teenage rabbit, Kevin, was spayed a couple of weeks ago, which generally made me too anxious and broke to blog. That's her above, engaged in her favorite activity, eating fibrous objects that aren't technically food. She also enjoys ingesting doors, wall trim, clothing, the floor, rugs, boxes, paint chips and books. Especially books.

Here’s a fact I didn't know before I rescued Kevin: Rabbits are considered "exotic" pets and the vet bills reflect this. I'm not saying I would have left Kevin on the floor of that Cuban restaurant to be squished by a busboy if I’d known that ahead of time. I’m just saying I might have.

All in all though, the surgery went well. Kevin, who is nothing if not stubborn, refused her pain medicine, and instead took to violently attacking her litter box, whose plastic lip pressed painfully against her stitches whenever she tried to take a pee. She got the stitches out last week, but has yet to make up with the litter box.

Also, I'm now working what feels like 15 jobs, 16 if you count going to yoga so my slowing metabolism doesn't drown me in my own fat before I turn 30. Most people probably enjoy and are soothed by their yoga classes. I, however, attend Bikram yoga, which means that I pay over $100 per month for the privilege of twisting my body into painful and unlikely positions in a room heated to 105 degrees while some small, loud person with 0% body fat yells things like: “Stretch harder! Bones to skin! I want to see your ribcage pop!” and “Farther! Bend so far backwards you can see the floor! I don’t care if you feel like you’re gonna puke, just go!” for ninety. Minutes. Straight. And don't even get me started on the smell. Still, afterwards, I feel like I've just smoked a fat doobie, and it's keeping some of my cellulite and most of my generalized anxiety at bay, so there are benefits.

Still, it’s hard not to feel the generalized anxiety ooze in and begin to set after reading an Iran War roundup on Wonkette. My hair was practically standing on end by the time I got to the end of this post. Then I read the links to the real media reports, and it turned white.

Also, if we survive the nuclear winter, we could be heading into another Great Depression! And Condi’s been caught in a lie that will, likely, result in absolutely nothing happening to her! Ditto Mark Foley! Sometimes it is really really really really really fucking hard not to despair. I should have known better than to start reading Wonkette again. I don't have any idea how people in Washington manage to get out of bed every day. Thank god I live in New York. More celebrity beaver shots please!
However, there are at least two reasons for joy this week: the weddings of my long-time boy pals Tim and Ryan. Perhaps fearing that an Iowa wedding would lack the exoticism necessary to attract enough guests, both Tim and Ryan opted for destination weddings (Utah and Hawaii, respectively). I couldn’t attend, but I’ll see them in Iowa this weekend, where, rumor has it, much drinking and football watching, but very little sentimental reflection, will occur. And that suits me just fine. Congratulations boys! Keep the beer bong warm for me.