Highs and Lows at the Airport

I’m at the airport today waiting for a flight to Texas. It’s the beginning of another month or so of travel, and while I will miss my home and my friends, I am a little psyched to save on electricity and groceries at least three weeks.

I haven’t been at the airport an hour an already two interesting things happened. The first is that some guy who forgot to take his belt off before he got to the metal detector tried to take it off and put it in with my stuff. If it hadn’t been obvious that he was just a bit stupid, I would have panicked more or made a scene. As it was, as soon as he put it in my plastic bin, I took it right back out and on the conveyor belt. I thought about telling him off though: you can’t pull that shit at the airport! No one wants your heroin-infused belt in their bin. Jerk.

The second thing was pretty awesome. I went to a restaurant to get a quick bite, as I may not get a chance to eat until I get off the plane at 10pm New York time. The lady sitting next to me had this HUGE spinach pizza in front of her, so she turned to me and asked me if I wanted half since she didn’t want it to go to waste. Of course, I said yes. So, she cut it in half, packed her part in a box, and handed me the plate. I ordered iced tea and tipped 100% so the waitress would be okay with this.

A friend of mine always says,”You never know what will happen or who you will meet at the airport.” Usually, my flights are so uneventful this doesn’t apply. Not today!

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Yesterday was tough at work. Not because I don’t love my job, just because there’s a lot to do. After work I had plans, so in the subway I put on the soundtrack to “The Mission” because it always calms me to where I can be social with people. It’s uplifting music and I was feeling good, feeling like we were all interconnected into an awesome mass of human life. Life was beautiful again! That’s when I noticed that a guy I was walking past was peeing into a telephone booth.

Well, for a moment at least I was not appalled by humanity. Moments pass by quickly, and feelings can be fleeting. Such is life.

No Darkness Here

Leonard Cohen is one of my favorite artists. Ever since I heard “Everybody Knows” on that old Christian Slater movie Pump Up the Volume, I’ve been enraptured by his voice. When I started listening to his music more, I fell in love with the poetry. But, the guy is 77 years old! I wasn’t expecting any more music coming from him. Luckily for me and all his other fans, he is coming out with a new album.

Check out the teaser tracks here: Darkness and Show Me The Place. This really shows that life does not end at 70 or any age! The old man has still got it, in spades.

No-fun Gym

For the past year, I have been spending a ton of cash on the gym. I work out with a trainer once a week and while it’s certainly not the largest expenditure on my plate, it’s about the same amount as my car payment. I see the money spent as being valuable for a couple of reasons. One, working out even once a week helps me to be healthy, and the weight training I do is good for preventing osteoporosis in the long term. Two, it allows me to blow off steam. My trainer was funny, I got to joke around a bit and curse my head off and still feel good at the end. And let me be clear to anyone who wants to tell me that I could spend far less on gym membership and just go to the gym: that would be a true waste of money, because I would never go. I have been steadily working out with a trainer. My gym stints do not last very long because I have no accountability.

Sometime in December, my trainer let me know that the gym I frequented went out of business and closed. He got me into a new gym quickly. This gym is much bigger, has more people and looks like it will last awhile. However, they are… very serious. And I am not. I HATE working out. Hate. It. So, I joke to pass the time and that’s how I get around it. But the culture of this gym is eating at my once-hilarious trainer to the point when I do something goofy, or curse loudly, he gets annoyed and tells me to take things more seriously. Suddenly, my workouts are no longer working out.

I had a talk with him after a training session last Wednesday about it. He confirmed for me that he was, in fact, not getting suddenly more mature. (“I haven’t heard a ‘that’s what she said’ joke in weeks!” I railed.) So I told him that he provides two services for me, not just one and his humor was what kept me coming back. Hopefully things will improve, I hope they do! This is the longest I’ve stuck to a plan and was hoping to increase my workouts to twice a week when I got rid of my car.

Budget

From January to March, I get particularly concerned about my budget. I am concerned about it year-round, but before tax time, I see commercials for tax preparations, and I ask myself, am I on the right track? I’m a big fan of the budgeting software You Need a Budget because it’s simple and the reports tell me what I need to know: which category am I spending the most in, and am I spending more than I take in. The fact is, that because of the holidays and whatnot, I have been spending slightly more than I take it. This is terrifying to me, since I have been fiscally responsible since I first had an allowance at a young age. (Not much of one, I think the $1 a week was pretty cheap as far as those things go.) I also like to save, and putting money into my savings accounts always make me happy. Taking savings out, not so much.

So, the watchword is fiscal responsibility. It probably helps that I’ll be traveling for the next month or so for work. This cuts down on groceries, electricity and being around to buy things. Work is also forcing me to be austere right now, as they switched the payroll system so I only got paid for one week on the last pay cycle instead of two. (I ask so little of an employer: I’ll work my ass of, but don’t fuck with my pay. But they never listen.) This year, I want to do two things with my money: save enough to go on a trip abroad (maybe actually make it to the Caribbean this time, or Singapore!) and pay off a chunk of my student loans in an appreciable way. Both those things require saving a huge chink of change. We’ll see. I have learned that the coasting I got into the habit of when I lived with someone in Pennsylvania doesn’t work when living alone in New York.

TV

I just got finished watching the first three seasons of Dexter on Amazon streaming. It was really good, but I think that show really gets it’s hooks in and doesn’t let go. I was starting to think in the main character’s voice, to the point where I was worried about becoming a temporary TV sociopath. (TV sociopaths are more likeable, in my opinion, than the real deal although they usually seem to get along just fine in society. I try to stay away from them though.)

I am thinking however, of getting rid of my cable service. I worry that TV watching is getting in the way of me doing things in my real life. It’s not like I don’t go out and have fun — I do! But I note that when the TV is on, I waste hours that could be better used cleaning my apartment, calling friends, and being sociable. Also, I think it’s a panacea for loneliness, one that doesn’t really help. I see some people, and all they do is come home and watch TV like their life is over. It’s not over, you’re still on the right side of the dirt!

That being said, there are still some shows I really like right now, namely Once Upon a Time, Ringer, and Revenge. But I think three hours a week isn’t so bad in terms of TV watching. It’s stuff like the Real Housewives marathons that do me in. Last weekend was really beautiful outside, and warmer than it will be for awhile and I didn’t enjoy it because I didn’t go outside. There are better things to do than be a passive observer in one’s own life. Having said that, I’m still not sure I’ll actually take the step of cancelling.