A Failed Experiment

I suppose everyone has that occasional day or two in their lives when they’re bored stiff and can’t lift a finger to do anything that seems even remotely interesting. Today’s been one of those days. There’s a lot I could be doing, but because none of it’s dire, I can’t be bothered. As a result, boredom has reached such drastic heights that I’ve started to consider taking on new hobbies like embroidery and pottery. A sad state of affairs indeed. Over the last eight hours, I’ve read the news, I've watched the news, I've taken on the lives of the performers in Water for Elephants, I've read Architectural Digest (my new hobby) till I’m blue in the face, I've played with the by-now weary cat at regular intervals of 2.32 minutes, all to no avail. I’m still bored beyond words. It’s 9.09 p.m. and I’m ready for bed and have been for two hours. All this because at 11 a.m. this morning I decided to take a day off from work and live a little.
Few decisions have produced such unfortunate results.
(Excited to go back to work tomorrow.)

We Fly You to Great Heights

You’ve been calling us racketeers, but we’re unsure why. Let’s review: We begin (not gypping you) from the time you book your ticket online (Online because you get charged for buying it over the phone.). Would you like to pick your seat, we ask. If yes, prepare to fork over a fee. If not, prepare to sit wherever we choose to seat you. If we do, that is. Sometimes we’ll choose to put you on standby, but not all of us do that just yet, so let’s hold off on going into that. Next, do you have bags? We’ll be charging you another fee if you do. It’s true we began by charging you to check in a second bag (we’ve begun calling it an extra bag) but now it’s just any and every bag you check in. You see we’ve been using the cargo hold to store all that food we won’t be serving you. Though we do still serve you peanuts. Quite literally sometimes. And that rule applies to absolutely all flights – those that are about an hour long and others that keep you up in the air for over six hours. If it’s domestic, it comes free of food (and now, apparently drinks too). Naturally you can’t get your own drinks, until after security, where the options are so much more limited, but that’s just the way things are. We’re a competitive business and what with fuel prices being so high, we’re having a rough time staying afloat. It’s true fuel prices are now a lot lower than when we first began nickel and diming you, but we’ve enjoyed every minute of it, and would rather not stop.

Thanks for flying with us. We hope to see you again soon.

08.06.11

This weekend we experienced the best kind of musical fusion at an Arlo Guthrie-NSO concert. The sound of some of the most popular folk songs backed by a powerful orchestra was simply amazing. Naturally, for the last 48 hours, I’ve been trying my best to relive so many of those moments—the point in the concert when Guthrie sang Charlie Chaplin’s poem to his wife, the sound of falling rain outside as Time for Three played a jazz piece from New Orleans, the perfect amount of breeze that blew through Wolftrap as Guthrie sang “Goodnight Irene”—all to no avail. It’s simply impossible to hold on to a moment, and I know that in time I’ll forget the way I felt that night. I also know that new, equally magical experiences will replace this one, but until then I’ll mourn the passing of one helluva night!