1/11/19: fun and games

I didn’t fully clock that I was really back in New York City until I saw a man on the sidewalk shove past some children saying loudly, “Get the fuck outta the way.” He had my sympathies, as there were like five of these children and they were carelessly ranged across the entire sidewalk while their parents were obliviously looking at their phones. Ah, living in midtown Manhattan: it is a constant source of delight. Fortunately, the big rush of Christmas/New Year's tourism has faded away and now we’re back to normal levels of insanity and I almost forgot how weird this place can be until I got in an elevator and the lady already in there looked at me and sighed and said, “I am just feeling so fat right now.” She looked great to me but honey, I feel you. Sometimes you just need to unburden your soul to a complete stranger while smushed together in a box dropping you over sixty feet in a matter of seconds.

I assume someone has made a ranking of the most reviled industries, and certainly airlines and cable companies must be top five, right? My home internet has been shitty-ish for ages and I keep doing the thing where either I go online and send a reset “pulse” or I call and wait in quiet fury to get an agent to do the same. (In the interest of full disclosure, it is possible Spectrum has trying to reach me on this topic, as well, possibly even for years, but I do not open my mail.) The other day I was fed up enough to finally get on the horn to someone who laughed at loud at the modem I have and informed me I was paying more for a 60 [whatever] plan than I could be for a 200 [whatever] plan so you can imagine I was in a super mood when I got to Spectrum where I could pick up a new modem, as long as I was willing to wait there for 45 minutes for my 45 second transaction. Along the way I discovered that about one out of every four people entering the store were convinced they had a valid reason to jump or bypass the line, the “greeter” was completely implacable in the face of every such plea, and the dude who took my old modem and gave me two (2) new things in return confiscated my coaxial cable in the process.

I made it home in time to roundly curse a number of things, including my lack of internet, then had to set my various cords and boxes aside to get downtown for a 6 pm meeting. Exiting the subway at Union Square, I was muttering to myself about coaxial cable when I looked up and saw…a Staples! Inside, a nice man asked me what I wanted and after the initial shock wore off (“Why do you need THAT?”) he escorted me back in time to the early oughts and together we chiseled away a decade or more of dust and grime and I had my cable.

Perhaps now is a good time to say I am feeling restored from the holidays—though I do sympathize with the lady in the elevator—and after sorting through the various dealings that have needed to be dealt with, it occurred to me that January in NYC is a particular hellscape of cold, wind, and, sometimes, snow, so I resolved to leave again. I forgot my phone charger in Rome, so I’m heading back for a couple of weeks to see if I can reclaim that and perhaps take a jaunt up to Venice to discuss lace knitting with some people there. I hear Florence is also of interest, and my father spoke of Pisa with such bitterness that I’m almost tempted to swing by to see just how bad it could possibly be.

I’ve never been much of a planner (this is an understatement), and while I have tremendous admiration for those who are, I’ve come to peace with the fact that it just ain’t my jam. I’ve always known this, but it wasn’t until I was recently in the position of explaining the “planning” that went into the NZ/ Australia trip that it really hit me. The extent of my plans for that trip were booking four flights, two motorcycles, and one hotel in Sydney where I would stay overnight before leaving for Christchurch. When I got to Christchurch, I met a bus driver who told me she had once lived in a place called Twizel and that it was lovely. I checked the map and Twizel seemed a good first day’s ride distance, so, when I picked up the bike, it was to Twizel I went.  And from there? I just…figured it out. I tried to make advance plans once and was thwarted by rain so I took that as confirmation that my lassiez-faire approach was best and went back to living day by day. This is a roundabout way of saying I plan to take the same approach to Italy II. (A friend collapsed in hysterics when I said I was going back. I was mystified: I went there, I liked it, I wasn’t there for long, so…I’m going back. Why not?)

While I’ve been back in the city I’ve had the chance to do a couple of non-administrative things. I saw “The Band’s Visit,” which was fine, though I did find it curious that the drink I bought at the theater was $0.50 more than my ticket. (I procured the ticket at the TKTS booth and since the show is 90 minutes, no intermission, I did pony up for the “triple” wine which, mother, please don’t be alarmed, is really just a regular glass-and-a-half.) I also got to see “The Ferryman,” and boy howdy that was excellent excellent excellent. I did a MoMA afternoon with one of my beloveds and we stopped for a glass of wine and a chat afterward, and I’ve taken several long walks in Central Park where there have been an outstanding number of birds. There were geese and more in the reservoir, and that was lovely despite the grayness of the day.

ESPN’s 30 For 30 podcasts are fascinating and I especially enjoyed one about this lady who figured out how to beat the house at baccarat. She then teamed up with a famous poker player, who fronted the cash while she made the bets, and they went on a ridiculous spree winning millions of dollars from a variety of casinos. Suspicions were aroused, of course, but it took ages for anyone to figure out just how these players had created an advantage. Once security caught on, two different casinos withheld their winnings and the extremely cursory research I just did suggests the final outcome of the various lawsuits may still be in doubt. The kicker is, of course, that the lady baccarat player had figured out how to beat the house without ever touching a single card on the table. She did everything by making requests of the casino (a mandarin-speaking dealer, a certain deck of cards, higher betting limits on hands, the dealer to turn cards for her so as to unknowingly edge-sort them under the guise of appeasing her superstitions) and the poker player’s defense (he is the one who fronted the money while she made the bets so he is the one who sues) is one I completely agree with: they simply identified and exploited a flaw in the system and because they never touched the cards or anything else, any manipulation they did the casino could have easily prevented (by just saying no to their requests). I was very surprised that the initial rulings went against them and sincerely hope that Big Casino will get their comeuppance and oh yes by the way the fact that the lady in question is Asian and started out losing huge sums of money in casinos before MGM Grand did something to piss her off so that she vowed to find a way to extract revenge completely contributed to her success as it took a long time for any of the dudes involved to look past their stereotypes and consider that she might be the one beating them. Y’all need to start worrying about us ladies a little bit more.

In unrelated news, I hesitated before sharing this but the news will get out eventually, so, yes, it’s true: I have been assembling a bird army. Our intentions are generally good, but out of deference to the tendency to panic among the general pop I have brought only the smaller ones out for drilling in public. These little guys, I may as well tell you now, are but the tip of the proverbial spear. Out in the skies there circle ever-growing companies of beaks and claws and feathers and next time you look up to see a darkening cloud consider it may be made of something not at all what you expected.

Hahaha just KIDDING. If I were assembling a bird army I would certainly not talk about it before our formations were fighting trim and ready for battle! 

Books* I have recently read or re-read, ranked in order of enjoyment:

Transcription

Educated: A Memoir

We Are Never Meeting in Real Life

An American Marriage

The Boatbuilder

Booky Wook 2

The Power

Today is Friday and I’ve got to wrap this up as I have lots to do. It’s a Dave & Buster’s weekend and so I need to get my stretching started and do some mindful meditation. I have been working with a sports psychologist and as a result I have semi-accepted that SkeeBall will just have to be played for “fun” but I remain absolutely convinced that I will be a winner in the basketball game,** SOMEDAY.

x

*Not included for consideration are all the thrillers/police procedurals I consume the way other people, I assume, breathe air. I have extensive thoughts on these and their many subgenres but who keeps a diary to remember the various flavors of air?

**Fun fact: I once insisted on playing the basketball game for so long*** that the next day I had a bruise on my wrist where it touched the frame of the machine each time I grabbed a new ball. Also, opinions sought: is it legal, in SkeeBall, to bank your roll or must the ball go up without touching the sides?

***I am fairly certain you would be surprised by how much time I spend at Dave & Buster’s.