United totally has lost its cache. Now listen to this – aside from United losing my baggage and then its outsourced Indian call centers promising it endlessly and my having to jump through the hoops of their website with its would you like to pay a billion dollars to upgrade to a better seat than the shitty one you have? would like to pay another billion to not wait in such long lines? would you…
I was reading the NYT on a plane this morning about Obama’s speech to Turkey’s Parliament. So many thoughts went through my mind – from my Turkish grandparents whose ancestors were welcomed into a secular country all the way to a president who is so close to my diverse background and able to reach across racial and religious divides and inject the personal, to be familiar to a stranger. The cab that picked me up…
A reader wrote recently in response to one of my blogs that we don’t come into the world owing anything to anyone. Okay, does that take a long time to hear if you’re born into the world and made into an enabler by an alcoholic parent. You know what enablers do, they sacrifice their needs to make sure they are taking care of those whose needs are greater. Today, I was speaking to a friend,…
The last forty eight hours of disorientation – separated from my belongings, here in San Francisco with all its familiar pangs and beauty, far from the comfort of my gf, my zoo, the LaLa; I sat outside catching up with a friend and there was all the “almost” European feel to us. We looked like a couple in Rome, only a Rome recreated by Disney. The pulchritude is alive and well in San Francisco, but…
I feel like I read books and then reality strikes. I feel like I wanted to write books and turned to reality instead. I’m not sure anymore where reality ends and fiction begins. Does art mirror life or vice versa? I read You Cant Go Home Again, the depression began. I read The Elephanta Suite and then experienced the horror of the Indian call centers in technicolor. I don’t want to presage the next thing.…
Loss and Recovery. Luggage finally got to my room just minutes ago. Was able to salvage day by thinking of all the things that are right with my life and not focusing on what I didn’t have to get through my day. Spent most of the day trying to find the balance – don’t have luggage, it’s okay, don’t have chords, it’s okay, can’t find luggage, it’s okay. Ack. Bigger theme of the day –…
Still no luggage. Seconds left on computer battery. No cell battery. I hate United. Grimaced a lot yesterday and tried to talk myself into looking at the stunning bay and not being so dour. Spent the better part of yesterday in forced shopping mode – makeup, dress, sweater, panties, toothbrush, toothpaste, face cream, deodorant. Woke this morning and did three sun salutations and tried to take a deep breath. Tasha Rose was born last night…
After reading Paul Theroux’s book about India, I couldn’t help but realize the absurdity of the moment when I was forwarded to a call center in India and the man on the other end of the line was offering me coined, reassuring phrases learned at some English as a Second Language program. A big sigh all the way around for the numbnuts that is United Airlines – the entire clusterfuck brings a whole new meaning…
I think I’ve said before that I wish I could shout from the mountaintops to young people who think they have the world on a string to figure out if they want children and act immediately. And then I’ve had my sure of bitterness that men can continue to father children well into their later years while women, who are usually waiting on men to grow up, are watching their biological clock ticking away at…