Drama over the Atlantic - I don't even have to make this stuff up!

This morning I was flying over the Atlantic Ocean. The dinner service had finished 30 minutes earlier and the inflight movie, Nacho Libre, wasn't even an option for me. I was tired and I was lucky that the seat next to me was empty so I spread out, if you can call curling in an uncomfortable foetal position with a seat belt digging into my back spreading out. It worked though because I must have fallen asleep because I was awakened to the fact that I was being crushed!

Let me repeat that ... I was awakened to the fact, not the sensation, that I was being crushed under the weight of something. My first thought was that the kid in the back had broken the chair on which my head was resting and was pushing the back seat forward, sandwiching my head between the seat and the back of the chair. I was actually getting a visual of this in the seconds where I was struggling to get this weight off of my head!!! Imagine my surprise, after I was able to get my head and shoulders into an upright position, that the weight was that of an old man!!!

Apparently, an old (Irish) man collapsed into my seats while he was walking through the cabin of the plane. The scary thing is that I couldn't wake him! I got out from under him and he slumped onto me again. So here I am with an old man slumped across my torso, rapidly losing all signs of life in his body. I am trying to shake him into consciousness while trying to free my arms (still semi-pinned) to alert the stewardess. I got my left arm free and I got some help. Both she and I were able to sit him upright in the aisle seat chair next to me, both of us frantically shaking the man whom we both thought was dying. Neither of us said it but I saw it in her face and she must have seen it in mine. She was taking his pulse when he spoke! He said, "feel weak" and then his head went back, his eyes snapped open and his pupils dilated. At this point, I thought, "ok, this is it, we can't do anything about this" then my second thought was "shit, am I going to have to sit with a corpse" - I am not proud of that last thought but I really did have it. Ok, I have something for confession.

By this time, I have the entire cabin crew surrounding my seat. Funny enough, no one else on the plane seems to notice. For any of you who have taken a red eye, the after dinner/movie time is the time that is the quietest and most people try to sleep. I think they drug the air so that they aren't bothered for a large portion of the flight. Anyway, they haul out the oxygen, strap it on this poor guy who is still staring with dead eyes at the reading light above the chairs. He is still the color of wallpaper paste. The oxygen and the shaking by myself and the flight attendant, seems to reignite the pilot light and this guy gradually starts to get a little color back into his flesh. His eyes blink and I think he is surprised that the light he was looking at was, in fact, only my reading light on a 747 or whatever we were on - I am no aviation expert - instead of the "Vacancy" sign at the pearly gates.

So he repeats his original mantra "I feel week", takes a few breaths and then starts talking! Through the oxygen mask, the flow of air made this guy who was dead a couple of seconds before, very, very chatty. The entire, aforementioned cabin crew who are gathered around, and I hear about how he is sorry and embarrassed and how he is usually a very good traveller and it was just that he has been awake for so long, you see, he was visiting his daugher in Washington D.C. She took a job down there a couple of years ago and while her mother and himself missed her, they tried to see her as often as possible but it was becoming harder as air travel was becoming harder and they had to wait 3 hours before getting on a plane to New York .... you get the point. Poor guy. He asked me if I thought he was drunk, "no", I told him, "I thought it was your clever way to meet me". He liked that.

Oh, another funny thing about this entire situation, and hours later and after a few tellings, this situation is kinda funny, he says "maybe we shouldn't tell my wife. I don't want her to worry." This is such a typical Irish reaction to a troubling situation - God forbid you bother anyone with your problems! How was she not going to know when he returned to his seat with 45 flight attendants and a tank of Oxygen? I doubt he even goes to the doctor after all of this either.

Yet another one for the Pog book on Jet setting. Hey, but the flight attendant and I who shared the "moment" came over to me a few minutes before we were set to land and gave me two bottles of Champagne to thank me for being so calm, cool and understanding.

I will toast to this poor little old man's health with them.

The fruits of my labor - an update of sorts

Hi Everyone.

I have been a bad blogger. I have been ignoring my duties and that unwritten covenant that we have to update with on some kind of regular cycle. (Dim's cycle has a larger circumferance than many of ours but you can't rush quality). Perhaps you will forgive me when I tell you what I have been doing.

When I last spoke with you, I was cleaning out my Mom's attic, babysitting bulldogs and generally bopping around the house where I spent most of my childhood years. The bulldogs are a lot of work so believe me, I didn't have that much time to myself. One is bugging me right now as a matter of fact.

So, I got through about 1/3 of the attic which is what I expected to do. I went up there under the auspices of finding my roller skates. Two weeks later, no roller skates to be seen. It would be easier at this point to buy another pair off of Ebay. And you wonder why we have so much junk. For example, I found two pasta makers up there! Two! I would take one but they are electrified and for some reason unknown to me, every country in the world has to make their own plug on different currency. They can come together for the Euro, we can have NATO, but the same electrical system? Forget it. I have already blown up one coffee maker, on stereo and a hair dryer during momentary geographical awareness lapses.

So no roller skates but one of the other promises I made to myself was to jump start my new year's resolution of seeking out and "reaching out" to old friends ahead of time. I did pretty well. Here is my status sheet thus far ...

Bill - we had contacted each other a couple of years ago while I was living in New York. A few phone calls were exchanged but nothing much. In these 2 weeks, we have had dinner twice, played some guitar and generally recaptured 1993. He is a TV producer now and has an interesting job with Forensic Files so I get all the gorey details that you don't see on TV! Yahoo!

Fred - I haven't spoken to Fred for 7 years! We went to high school and college together. He looks and acts like Jimmy Stewart if I had to peg him as anyone famous. Also, he is exactly the same. He hasn't changed one bit! Not since 1988! And we picked up right where we left off.

Zoe and Jen - both of these babes are in Boston but Zoe is from Bermuda. I was planning on getting to them but I couldn't. Zoe and I are actively planning a reunion in Bermuda and Jen just gave birth so I think it is up to me to get to Boston at Christmas.

Julia - well, she is my oldest friend and we have always kept track of each other. It was more her doing then mine because Julia always had the innate understanding that old friends are important. I saw her this summer. I blogged about our dinner. I am supposed to be going over to her mom's tonight where she will be with her new baby.

So, ok, 5 and counting. It was definitely time well spent, despite the roller skates or lack thereof.

I am back to Ireland on Monday. Sucky CD will have to wait until then (again!).

Go n-éirí leat!

It's in the attic

I am stuck at my mom's house in Connecticut babysitting for four very spoiled but completely lovey english bulldogs. I am working from home on a 5 hour lag which means I am up at 7, answering emails, doing conference calls, etc and going through all the dog stuff I have to do in the morning. For anyone who has ever known an english bulldog or had one in their life, you will know that the breed has put more veterinarian's kids through college than I care to think about, so the care of them is a part-time job. BTW - NEVER buy and english bulldog. Perpetrating this breed is cruel to the animals that are born (only by c-section)and require at least 1-2 surgeries for eye, skin, breathing problems. If you are intent on getting on, contact me through this blog and I will put you onto good rescue groups for bulldogs.

Anyway, I digress. I wanted to set the stage for my day because as it turns out, I have a lot of time in the afternoons which is my own. The work crowd in the UK has gone home and bulldogs sleep - a lot. So I have been looking for my roller skates. When I say roller skates, I ain't talking roller blades - aka cramp-my-ankles-until-I-am-crippled blades. I am talking my wonderful, four on the floor, black booted with red wheels roller disco skates! Last seen, my mother was wheeling around the house on them with four 90 lbs bulldogs lumbering after her. But that was 2 years ago. I haven't seen them since. When I questioned Mom before she left, her words left me with a chill. Something no one in my family wants to hear ... "I think they are in the attic".

The reason these are words I hate to hear is this: the house I grew up in is a big, colonial house with an attic that has its own bathroom, that is how large it is. And I come from a family which does not through anything away ... Nothing. I found a bag of phone bills yesterday from 1986. It is definitely a candidate for certain day time reality TV shows. So the combination of having a lot of space and a "pack-rat" mentality makes for the most unorganized, ecclectic, chaotic collection of junk that would make any depression-era old man proud! So I estimate it will take my entire 2 week stay in CT to find those skates.

It does have its upsides however. I have free storage forever. I have moved stuff from dorm rooms, apartments, as has my sister, into that attic. As a result, it has become a testament to my life and the different phases of my life. For example, I opened a box yesterday and pulled out every piece of clothing that I wore in the year 1988, when I graduated from high school. I found a T-Shirt which listed my entire graduating class from Choate Rosemary Hall, my Sting Nothing Like the Sun concert T, a couple of pair of Girbeau jeans and stirrup pants. I actually found a couple of pairs of black skinny pants which are all the rage at the GAP this season and retailing for $35 bucks or whatever. There they were, in perfect condition, waiting for me ... 2 sizes to small.

The attic journey also made me realize how different everyone in my family was and how are lives took such different paths even though we are the closest to each other. I realized this as I was going through the books - the 6,433,543,987 books that are in the attic. I was going through some of them, putting them into piles. There were mine, water-logged paperback novels - mostly Penguin classics. Open them up and there are notes scrawled in the margin tracking symbolism or subplot...distracting underlines but enjoyable nonetheless. There were my sisters which such titles as Surgery of the Alimentary Tract and The Heart complete with color dissection photos. I started stacking hers with my father's whose were the same albeit 25 years older and probably outdated. My mother's books and mine were interchangeable. Funny how that is in families.

Then there is the furniture. Ripped up, broken, put up there for "fixing" when there is time (there is never time). I have a Jordan furniture's reject showroom up in that attic complete with really bad ideas from Pier 1, 3 turntables, a mexican sombrero and my childhood toy box which contains four - count 'em - 4 full and perfectly good sets of dinnerware. I suppose you can't eat off the same pattern plates for your entire life, can you? And you can't just throw out perfectly good plates!

In another corner - all my report cards, pictures, photos, of myself and my sister ages 0-9. My mom would have kept our dirty diapers if they didn't attract vermin. It is crazy. We need a yard sale! We need Ebay! But that means a massive level of effort that no one is willing to undertake so, until such a time, we keep adding to the mess and occasionally, we take from it. Last night, I gave away a circa 1976 heavy, glass container in Harvest Gold (aka 70's mustard) in perfect working condition to my friend who remarked "I am coming back here to shop!" I am telling you ... you want it? It is probably up there!

Everything, apparently, but my damn roller skates!

To Blog or Not to Blog...

You guys have to read this ...

http://www.wikihow.com/Dissuade-Yourself-from-Becoming-a-Blogger

It's funny and considering the endurance of our blogs, even through ebb and flow times, it is not a valid argument... although he/she does make some good points ;-)

New Lang Sine

Yesterday really was awful for me as it was for most people. Just the overwhelming feeling of melancholy was almost too much to take. Obviously, it was because of the anniversary we were marking but my "blue" mood struck me as vaguely familiar. Was it just 9/11 trauma and remembering Mark? Well, yes, that started it but the persistance of the feeling is what I call "Auld Lang Sine" syndrome. I get it bad.

Each year on New Year's Eve, I get very reflective of time that has past and friends that I no longer see. I get a feeling of emptiness and loneliness and sharp pangs of regret that I didn't appreciate the time that has been spent. I didn't acknowledge the difference that people have made to me over the years. Well, call it an early New Year's resolution or a lesson learned from 9/11, I am going to acknowledge the people in my life. I am going to start with you - the blog reading community.

Before I start, I have to say, if you had told me years ago that I can have a category of friends whom I have never met, I would have not believed it and I understand that if we all knew each other face to face, we may not be friends because when we post, we are taking a snapshot of thought or writing to a persona. For example, you would expect a girl who takes the blog name which means "Kiss My Ass" in gaelic and argues to that effect, to be pretty Type A, huh? Not so. You wouldn't recognize me even if we were stuck on a desert island with nothing to do but talk. I really wish I was more like Pog, actually! But this is about appreciating the people we know now, in whatever form, by whatever medium.

March wrote a little synopsis of the people that he links to on his blog. It was a great post, you can read it here. It sums up how he has gathered the group of people that he communicates with everyday. That is what I like about March. He is the champion of the unassuming, everyday details and he allows us to share in his life. What you see seems to be what you get and that is great.

I commented before on how I was struck by the honesty of Fresh Air, no matter what the subject. I really am amazed at how she can put it all out there. Its mad! and it is very brave. No wonder she has such a large readership. It is re-Fresh-ing. (Sorry, I couldn't help it - such low hanging fruit)

I was accused the other day of having a crush on Dim, and you know what? I totally do! He makes me laugh and I look forward to his comments just as much as I do his posts. Wit, thy name is Dim and the communication has been a little bright spot in my on line experience! (NB: I have never met Dim, so Xteen has nothing to be concerned over.)

I may have a blog-crush on Dim but I think that Hotwire and I may be made for each other. I don't know one thing that this man has written about that I don't find myself violently shaking my head in agreement with. Maybe it is the Connecticut connection, but I can see us in sympatico forever with Little Feat, Van the Man and Steely Dan playing in the background.

Some of you may think that Sage and I would not be friends. Unfortunately, I think that Sage shares in that assessment, he doesn't comment to me anymore - I think because I piss him off. That is too bad. I find him smart, challenging with good ideas and some bad ones to keep things interesting. Sage was a good foil for Pog, and I had hoped visa versa, but that is where it gets sticky, doesn't it? When Sage becomes Greg and Pog becomes me and the blades pierce the body armour?

Jenny G, B and Rosie are the girls that I wish I knew in non blog life so we can hang around a coffee shop and have wonderfully hip conversations like they do in sex and the city and friends. I am actually starved for some more female friends who don't have to rush home to a husband and child so I really, really enjoy reading their posts because I get that sense from them!

Simone is the friend that I hang around in coffee shops. She is the real thing! She is the best!

I need to read Rose and Manic for an insight on how not to live a single girl's life. They are candidates for the honesty awards and I enjoy going through their trials being women, wives and mothers. It is as if they are posting up a "how to" and "how to not" manual of living a hectic family life. I love it.

I had a friend whom I car-pooled with whom I miss terribly. I miss his opinions, the way he saw life, the way he thought life should be. We used to play a game in the car "If I was fascist dictator of the world then ..." and we would go on to discuss new driving laws, why interstate trucking is the downfall on quality control in the USA and how they should pay top dollar to the people who serve us our morning coffee because that moment pretty much clinches the rest of the day and you want a professional doing the job. I miss Tom but I miss him less because I read Annoyed. Keep it up brother!

I hope I haven't left anyone out. If so forgive me. This has made me feel better. I don't want to feel that awful regret if I didn't pause to give you all the appreciation that you deserve.

I have a lot of people to get in touch with before New Year's. I wish they all read blogs. I am determined not to be melancholy this year. No wonder people get hammered on New Year's!

To An Athlete Dying Young

This is Mark Bavis. He was a good friend of mine from college. He was on Flight 135 out of Boston on September 11th, 2001. He was a scout for the L.A Kings at the time that he died. I was a tutor for the B.U Hockey Men's Varsity hockey team during my undergraduate years and Mark, and his identical twin brother Mike, were on the team. They got me the job. He majored in English and I would like to think that I had something to do with that.

I miss all my college friends. I miss Mike Bavis, Dan Donato, Kevin O'Sullivan, J.P McKersie, Zoe Mulholland, Jen Crowley - all of them. But I will see them again, I know I will. When we all have gone grey, gained weight and seen our kids off, I will be running into them from time to time. The last time we were all together was for Mark at the memorial service. He brought us together. I will miss Mark most of all because I won't be running into him again. Not in this life.

A.E Housman's poem, To An Athlete Dying Young was written for a guy like Mark. I link to it here because on a day like today, we need poetry. Also, because if Mark had to read it, he would have rolled his eyes, exaspirated, crossed Bay State Road and knocked on my door to ask me what it meant. If only he could now.

Soulmates: Fact or Fiction?

"Two peas in the same pod, yes we are...

Or have I read too much fiction?

Is this how it happens?"

-The Sundays

I want to talk about this idea of soulmates. Prompted by the good news from Annoyed and Rosie about their engagement and numerous, recent “relationship” conversations I have been having with friends from home and the girls at lunch, I have been asking some questions. I seem to be having the same conversation recently about this idea of that one person who is out there, waiting for you and your soul, apparently. The idea is that your being has another being waiting to merge with and become one with your essence. I think this is a load of crap but yet it is espoused by non-single people all the time, as if, when you get married, you are brought into a back room by the marriage police and made to sign a contract stating you and your spouse will answer the questions that your single friends ask with the same ambiguous nonsense that has been peddled for years. This is what I mean:

Single Person: “So, how did you know that Jack was right for you?”
Coupled Person: “When it is right, you will know.”

What!?! Can I use this logic to make any other important decision in my life? No! Take a look:

Single Person: “So, how do I know this mortgage package is right for me?”
Bank: “When it feels right to you, you will know.”

See what I mean? Nothing else works with this train of thought and yet so many people I talk to about making the decision to get married give me these kind of explanations to their thought processes. So, is the choice of a partner so complicated, such a subtle mix of psychology, timing and biology that it just defies explanation and turns into just a moment of magic? I will except that as an answer but it would be more helpful to the single person if a married person just says, “I don’t know.” Because what ends up happening is that a single person waits for that moment of clarity, that omniscient lightening bolt, which says “a ha! This is it! This is the one! Don’t wait another second!!!” But does it ever happen like that?

And what if it does? What if love at first sight exists and from the moment your eyes meet, the moment you speak, the first touch and kiss, seals the deal and you can’t bear thinking about separating ever. Do those people ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after? I don’t know too many people named Cinderella so my guess is no – they have to work at it, fall out of love, fall in love again, feel love change (hopefully to a richer version of the early love), go through periods of doubt to come out at peace. And if that is the case, what does it matter how they have met? So what if it was love at first sight if they still are going to spend a couple of nights of their married life screaming at each other and wrecking their dinner plans the same way the as the couple who came together after a 6 year on and off relationship do? I mean, the work doesn’t change, does it?

Another problem that I have with the idea of soulmates is the idea that there is only one. What if you think you have met a soulmate? It is the proper mix of romance, meeting of the minds, and feel-good coupleness, and then it doesn’t work out? Did you spend your only soulmate voucher? Now, this is where my married friends smile knowingly and say, “if it didn’t work out, he wasn’t your soulmate” Ok. I will buy that BUT it seems too easy a retort. Let’s apply this to the world outside of the love world:

Single Person: “You said if I found a perfect fit in this pair of jeans, they would never wear out. I found a pair in exactly my size and shape, I was really happy with them but they fell apart after a couple of washes!”

Jean salesperson: “It must not have fit you exactly right”

Single Person: “They did! It was the best pair I ever had!”

Jeans salesperson: “It must not have been meant to be. There are plenty more pairs in the shop but hurry up and find one, even if they aren’t perfect because we are closing”

Bollocks to that.

My last gripe about the soulmate concept is that I see many people turning away from potential partners because they are waiting “to just know.” Is there ever a day that goes by that you are 100% sure of anything or anyone, especially in the beginning of a trust relationship? Soulmates are something that have to grow over time – become acclimated to the environment, grow roots, survive time in order to thrive. In keeping with the tree metaphor, we wouldn’t expect a plant to flourish without care so why would we feel that love, that soulmates, can do it without the same consideration?

As someone who would rather live her life in fiction (and a Pisces at that), I surprise myself with this decidedly unromantic version of falling in love and making it last. I wonder if I am so jaded by past experiences or if age just takes the lustre off of the entire process.

Or maybe I am just reading better fiction.