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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
Howdy, kids.
I’m afraid it’s time for a brief, heretofore unannounced, and possibly unenforced hiatus. At two this afternoon Boston time, I began a cramped and clammy American Airlines odyssey that dumped me in my current location, typing these words on a comfy ‘featherbed’ in a hotel room near the San Francisco airport.
Did I know the trip was coming? Of course.
Did I believe seven hours in a plane and a looming early-morning meeting would coax/scare/guilt me into an early night while I deal with the impending “ton o’ bricks” jetlag? No, I didn’t. And I was wrong. Oh, so wrong.
So, regrettably, I’m hitting the sack postless tonight. Hopefully, I’ll have plenty of travel and hotel stories soon, and should return safely to our regularly scheduled nonsense late Friday night.
That’s right. I flew cross-country on Wednesday, and I’m turning around and flying right back on Friday afternoon. Like I’m going to pony up for extra nights on the left coast, when my wife’s still back in Boston. Pfffft.
Sure, in Vegas maybe, where the strip joints are way better. But in Frisco? Honky, please.
“Did I believe seven hours in a plane and a looming early-morning meeting would coax/scare/guilt me into an early night while I deal with the impending “ton o’ bricks” jetlag? No, I didn’t.”
But the impending plane nightmare redux reminds me that it’s in my best interest now to get my tuckered tuckus into the sack. Sorry for the short advance notice; I guess I’m more of a ‘travel wuss’ than I thought. The hyperventilation and clammy palms should have been a tipoff, in retrospect. Enh, now I know.
I’ll catch you kids on Friday or Saturday, if not before. And with two days of meetings scheduled to start before my usual wakeup time — or, for that matter, my bedtime — I’m guessing ‘not before’. But who knows? I’m in ‘Frisco, for work, helping to trot out both dogs and ponies for a big important meeting. There’s an overwhelming likelihood that I’ll do something stupid, incompetent, and hopefully hilarious to foul it all up. And if that happens, you can be sure you’ll be the first to know.
Because really, isn’t that what work travel is all about?
Hang in there, amigos. I’ll catch up with you this weekend.
Permalink | 3 CommentsI’m confused.
Here I am, sitting in my house in the shadow of Boston, in the hub of New England, a region that has revolved around elections and politics and politicians for hundreds of years. And tonight is, apparently, one of the more important and hotly debated election nights in recent memory, with the balance of power in the American Congress hanging in the balance.
So why is it, then, that when the local FOX station had ten seconds to slip in a teaser spot for the important headlines of the day, did they go with:
‘News flash! K-Fed and Britney on the outs! Juicy details at eleven!‘
Now, don’t get me wrong. Personally, I’m just about exactly as concerned about the House of Representatives race in the 7th District in Indiana as I am about which skinny mullet-topped jackass is diddling Britney Spears this week. In other words, not concerned at all.
“Personally, I’m just about exactly as concerned about the House of Representatives race in the 7th District in Indiana as I am about which skinny mullet-topped jackass is diddling Britney Spears this week.”
But from just a novelty standpoint, don’t you have to lead with the political news? Major elections only roll around once every two years; between Spears and Federline, they ought to be good for a divorce once every two months, when they get their feet back under them. Just give them time.
Maybe it was my choice of program at the time — I was watching the Simpsons, and maybe the target demographic for that show is more likely to follow pop star gyrations than political posturing. Me, I’m a big Simpsons fan, and I’ve got little interest in either sort of dance. Then again, I can barely tie my own shoes, so maybe I’m not the best person to judge by.
And in the interest of ‘full disclosure’, I’ll admit that I do watch the coverage on election nights. Politics is not my bag, by any means, but it does make pretty good theater for four hours or so, every two years. Or better yet, a good circus. Between the wagging chins, the spinning pundits, and the huffing partisans, all that’s missing is a bag of peanuts and a steaming pile of elephant shit to make you think you’re under the big top.
Notice I didn’t say we were missing the clowns. In the political arena, we’re never missing the clowns.
So I’ll play along. I’ll pop a bag of microwave popcorn, curl up on the couch, and spend my four hours watching the experts wax poetic about turning points and majority rules and projected victories with only a fraction of the precincts reporting. Maybe I’ll even turn it into a drinking game — every time some yobbo invokes the mantra of ‘the voters have spoken‘, I’ll take a sip of beer. A couple of hours in, I should be incapable of making the distinction between ‘all of the voters’ and ‘at least fifty-one percent of the voters’, just like the politicos. I guess that’s one way to get my vote rocked — but I am not looking forward to the hangover.
Permalink | No CommentsThis weekend, the missus and I went to see Body Worlds 2 at the Boston Museum of Science. On paper, Body Worlds is an educational and unique display of anatomical structure and comparative physiology. In person, it’s a couple of dozen ex-people — and one very large camel — missing their skins and various other bodily bits, though not always the bits you might wish they were missing.
“If anybody is going to have the big macabre balls to show off oeeled and disassembled human bodies for cash, wouldn’t it have to be a German? Named ‘Gunther’?”
I’m not saying it’s not also educational and unique and interesting. It’s just that it’s a little creepy, too. It’s the sort of thing that was fascinating to visit, once. But I’d hate to be a museum janitor or guard for the few months the exhibit is in town. I think I’d walk the halls softly around the halls, and carry a big cattle prod. With no one else around, I bet you can almost hear the ‘specimens’ whispering:
‘Braaaaaains… moooore braaaaaains…‘
Maybe I’ve just seen too many George Romero movies. I sure as hell hope the janitors haven’t.
The various Body Worlds exhibits are the brainchild of German anatomist Gunther von Hagens. But honestly, how hard was that to guess? If anybody is going to have the big macabre balls to show off oeeled and disassembled human bodies for cash, wouldn’t it have to be a German? Named ‘Gunther’? That’s almost too easy.
Hell, the only way it be more deliciously campy would be if he habitually wore an Indiana Jones hat, or something. Oh. Wait. Who’s writing this stuff, anyway? George Lucas?
To be fair, the exhibit was fascinating. And the Creepshow factor really didn’t set in until later. It’s odd how parading past a few deconstructed and redecorated cadavers can seem ‘normal’ when you file past them with several thousand other people nodding and reading informational placards. Only afterward do you reflect, and contract a case of the retroactive willies. It’s what I imagine visiting a bordello would be like. Or eating haggis. Or shopping at Wal-Mart. Or watching an Owen Wilson movie. You get the idea.
Still, I’m glad we went to see it. Besides the education and entertainment, we also met our museum quotient for the year. We’re done with fine art until ’07. Take that, National Gallery! Suck it sideways, Guggenheim!
I always knew a bunch of skinned corpses would be good for something some day. And they said I’d never learn anything from playing Doom. Pfffft.
Permalink | 1 CommentMaybe it’s time I started paying attention to the weather forecast.
Usually, I’m not so interested in what the meteorologists are blathering on about. If it rains, it rains. So I’ll get a little wet going to the car — big deal. If it’s windy, it’s windy. So my six dollar haircut looks a little more stupid than usual. Color me unfazed.
“Around October, Mother Nature is schizophrenic, unstable, and downright mean-spirited. And lately, that bitch has had my number.”
But this is the time of year, and one part of the world, when the climate from day to day gets a little more variable than may be comfortable. In the summertime, Boston is cozy. Warm, breezy, and occasionally downright balmy. In the spring, it’s ‘brisk’. And in wintertime, New England is cold. Damned cold, and snowy and gusty — but predictably cold, and that’s important.
In the fall… well, in the fall, New England weather does whatever the hell it wants to do, often in the space of an hour. Around October, Mother Nature is schizophrenic, unstable, and downright mean-spirited. And lately, that bitch has had my number.
If I wear short sleeves, it’s forty degrees and windy like a filibustering Congressman.
If I adjust and put on long sleeves, the sun beats hot and heavy like a pair of pimply teens in the back of a Pontiac.
Wore a hat? Gale-force winds. Shoe untied? Flash floods and six inches of mud. Holes in my socks? I wouldn’t be surprised at a plague of locusts, so the little bastards could wriggle in there and gnaw at my kneecaps. The raindrops just keep falling on my head.
I only see two options here. First — and preferably — I could simply stay in the house for a few weeks. By mid-November, I’ll know it’s going to be six stupid degrees outside, and I can wear fourteen layers of clothes and a heated jock strap, accordingly.
Of course, it’s unlikely I’d be able to finagle a six-week sabbatical from work to escape the weather. I’ve used most of my sick days already, staying home to catch up on TiVo shows when the recorder fills up. And I’m saving up vacation days for a Boston-to-Brooklyn pub crawl in the spring. That’s three weeks of fun and twelve years off my life, if I do it right. And a blood transfusion and criminal record, if I do it wrong. Either way, it’s all good.
But in the meantime, I’m stuck with my climatological conundrum. So I’ve decided to beat Mother Nature at her own game. If the weather looks nasty, I’ll go out in a parka and mukluks — but when the sun heats up, as it inevitably will, I’ll be ready. I’ll strip out of the winter clothes to reveal shorts and a T-shirt underneath, and stay nice and cool. If she goes the other way, baiting me with warmth and sunshine, I’ll go along with it — but I’ll stuff a sweatshirt and long johns down my pants, too, just in case.
Whatever it takes, I’ll do it. I’ll hide a poncho in my pocket, a windbreaker in my wallet, and a sport coat in my Speedos. That ought to get the ladies talking. Just don’t ask where I’m stashing that emergency umbrella. Better to just assume that I’m ‘happy to see you’.
With a wardrobe and a half on my person, I should be well prepared for any weather the world whips out. I may look pretty foolish in the morning, but when the weather turns in the afternoon, I’ll be the one having the last laugh. Just as long as that umbrella doesn’t accidentally open. That’d get the old mukluks in a bunch, for certain.
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