I do not care about the Super Bowl. Aside from backyard basketball games involving the word horse, I think sports are pretty stupid. Especially professional ones.

I went to a Super Bowl party last night, though, and I went all the way to Jersey for it. And by “all the way”, I mean that I took a bus 15 minutes to my friend Jeff’s apartment, but I couldn’t use my MetroCard to pay the bus fare, so it seemed like a big deal. I did watch the game, unexpectedly, and I casually cheered for the Colts simply because Indianapolis is much closer to my hometown in Ohio than New Orleans is.

And also because I thought all of the pregame crap about how much a win would mean to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina–which happened five years ago, people–was unnecessarily sentimental and trying to make a story arc where one wasn’t needed. It’s a football game, and its outcome has nothing to rebuilding a city and everything to do with giving the kind of people who stand behind on-air newscasters and scream and show off their replica team jerseys an excuse to get drunk and light things on fire.

Anyway. I found the bidet in Jeff’s roommmate’s bathroom about a hundred times more interesting than most of the Super Bowl commercials, but there was one that really pulled at my heartstrings, and no, it wasn’t the Budweiser one with the Clydesdale and the cow. It was, oddly, a promo for the NFL itself, telling its fans how much better they are than are than NHL and MLS fans:

Funny what a little well-placed Arcade Fire song can do.

I really need an Amazon Kindle. I’m not messing around anymore.

I took this book, Not That Kind of Girl by Carlene Bauer, out of the library that was supposed to be a really well-written girl-who-wants-to-love-Jesus-but-also-likes-rock-music-moves-to-NYC story, and I was prepared to love it, because I used to be very torn between Jesus and rock music, and I moved to NYC, but I didn’t find the book particularly well-written after having read Nicole Krauss’ The History of Love, and I didn’t find it particularly interesting. Plus, it was a bulky hardcover, and I don’t carry a bag big enough to for it to fit in, so I kept leaving it at home, and it was going so slowly I thought I might finish my own novel before I finished it.

It finally came due, and I was going to renew it just to slog through some more, but someone else had reserved it. So I decided to give up on it rather than deal with the overdue charges, but as I was riding the subway to return it to the library, I got to a really juicy part about this boy who liked her and whom she liked and how close they got without ever touching one another, but then I was at my station, and I felt like I needed to return the book since I had ridden two whole stops, so I did, and now I’ll never know what happened with that boy.

If I had an Amazon Kindle, this would never happen. I’d be able to read whenever I wanted to, because the smaller Kindle can fit in any bag. My books would never have a due date, so I could spend as much time as I wanted daydreaming about the boys I never touched and not worry about how slowly I was reading. And I’d be saving the trees by not reading physical books. Is that a legitimate reason for having an e-book reader? I have no idea. Anyway, I would.

OH! OH! And if I read more books, maybe I’d have more than eight friends on Shelfari. You can understand how embarrassing that is.

I have an English degree, people! I should be reading more than one book per year.

I considered taking a Greyhound bus trip a few years back, but a friend warned me, “You wouldn’t like it.” I didn’t ask questions–just drove myself fourteen hours by car–but I remained curious about what it might be like to travel by bus. Naturally, I jumped at the chance when Greyhound offered me an exclusive ride last weekend on their new Lucky Streak line that travels from New York’s Port Authority directly to your choice of eight casinos. The trip also included a round-trip bus ticket for my guest, lovely accommodations overlooking the boardwalk and beach at the Hilton Casino Resort, a wine reception at the top of the Tropicana Casino & Resort, complimentary spa treatments at Bally’s, shopping certificates for any of the Tropicana’s upscale shops and restaurants, and free slot play vouchers for the Hilton and the Tropicana.

Greyhound’s biggest competitor is the automobile, but anyone driving a car to Atlantic City has no idea what they’re missing out on. Forget navigating, pumping gas, and parking; the biggest draw of public transportation for me is not having to pay any attention to where I’m going, so I loved being able to board the bus in NYC and spend the next two hours doing whatever I wanted, even if what I wanted was to nap. With service right to the casinos, you don’t even need to worry about grabbing a cab once you arrive in Atlantic City.

I don’t own a car, but I’m a frequent airplane passenger and find myself more annoyed with airlines every time I fly. Even before we left Port Authority, I noticed several reasons why I might choose Greyhound over an airline:

+ I didn’t have to arrive at my departure gate hours early just to sit around. There’s no ridiculous security line where you have to remove your shoes, put your laptop in a separate container, and empty your pockets of the dime you didn’t even know was in there. I walked in, walked right up to my gate, and boarded the bus.

+ Once on the bus, I was free to use electronic devices at my leisure. No one told me to turn off my cellphone for takeoff one minute only to inform me that we were actually going to be waiting on the runway for another hour the next.

+ Because there’s no single runway as with planes, buses can leave when they’re supposed to without regard to the schedules of other buses.

+ My luggage was with me through the entire trip. Carry-ons fit beneath the seat and overhead, while bigger bags are stored underneath the coach, so there’s no chance of my suitcase disappearing behind a check-in counter and ending up in Los Angeles when I’m in Boston.

The new fleet of Greyhound buses features free wi-fi and an electrical outlet at the base of the seat in front of you, so it’s easy for the entire trip to slip away as you tweet about how much you’re enjoying the supple leather seats and the smooth ride. The CEO and COO of Greyhound–David Leach and Bill Blankenship, respectively–rode the bus to Atlantic City with us in order to speak with each blogger personally, and I was impressed with their knowledge and passion, especially when it came to the reduced-emission design of their new buses. Truly, now more than ever, taking Greyhound instead of a plane or a car is a great way to lessen your carbon footprint.

The negative aspects to taking a bus are the ones you’ve no doubt heard a million times: it’s slower than other forms of transportation, and the lack of security inspections–while a real pleasure with a group of like-minded bloggers–could be worrisome otherwise.

Fortunately, now’s the perfect time for you to decide for yourself by taking advantage of Greyhound’s Lucky Streak $1 promotion. For a dollar, you can ride round trip between NYC and Atlantic City, and all Lucky Streak schedules have open returns, which means you can stay until your money runs out. Each of the eight casinos Greyhound services are offering a bonus to all Lucky Streak riders, so you’ll be awarded between $25 and $30 to play at the slots. I’m already planning my return.

Kamran’s simulated crash face does not in any way reflect how our trip to Atlantic City on Greyhound’s Lucky Streak Bus went:

However, this is a fairly accurate portrayal of his feelings toward wearing a seatbelt on public transportation:

A full report is forthcoming.

I know you thought my blogs were totally useless, but because of one of these Internet gems, Greyhound has invited me (and a guest!) to take a trip to Atlantic City today to try out their new fleet of buses equipped with amenities like wi-fi, electrical outlets, and additional legroom that I’ll fill with many bags full of family-sized shampoo bottles and other things I couldn’t bring if I was on a plane.

They’re putting us up in one of the casinos, slathering us in spa services, and hosting a meet-and-greet with other bloggers that they’re calling “Top of the Trop” and which I will hopefully endure the entirety of by tippling champagne with Kamran in a corner. I’m extremely excited, as this will only be the second time I’ve been to a hotel with him in the three and a half years we’ve been dating, if you don’t count all of those initial months when we were meeting up at the Four Seasons every weekend for illicit activities.

Kidding.

Anyway, Greyhound will be taking a look at my Twitter tomorrow to see what sort of nonsense I tweet about my trip (pretty awesome that I broke down and signed up for that jazz a week ago, right?), just to warn you, it may contain nothing but

1) lyrics to “The Wheels on the Bus”,
2) pictures of stupid vanity license plates, and
3) mentions of Kamran accidentally letting out a little pee every time we go over a pothole.

When I got on the train this morning, I walked past the jerk standing in the doorway and moved to the center of the car like good girls do. I immediately regretted it, because immediately behind me was a woman about my age with an obnoxiously puffy coat and a cellphone loudly playing music. It’s a favorite pastime of New Yorkers to select their new ringtone while on the very public train, so I figured at first that she was scanning through all of her possibilities, but I quickly realized she was just plain listening to a song. One of those annoying hip-hop ballads, at that. And not on a cellphone with good speakers.

At first, I thought, “Who does that?! Signs all around the subway cars clearly state there’s to be no smoking, no littering, and no radio-playing! If we give this one inconsiderate person a pass, anarchy will erupt!”

Then I thought, “Actually, a little music in the subway in the mornings would be nice.”

Then I thought, “No! 90% of this train probably hates this song, too, and if this woman wants to listen to it, she can put on headphones just like everyone else.”

Just then, another woman sitting near her must have asked/told her to turn it off, because she spat back, “I can do what I want.”

Read the rest here.

The other day, my friend Nik told me the story of a crying woman on the 4/5 train who, it became apparent as she sobbed to a friend, was on her way downtown to identify the body of a loved one who had overdosed. It seemed that she had found out the bad news that morning and looked as if she had been crying nonstop since. Her friend comforted her as far as Union Square and then left the train, reminding her that she should call him and his wife if she needed anything.

The woman continued to sob alone until another woman excused herself from the mass of other passengers the train and asked if she could pray with the crying woman. They bowed heads and quietly murmured healing words to one another until other people from other parts of the train car came to rub her back, lay a hand on her shoulder, and whisper encouragement.

Read the rest here.

I hate to post my own crap when I haven’t read anyone else’s blog in, like, a week, but I have to tell you this ridiculous story:

My friend Kim was in town from Boston this weekend and took me to the Fashion District on the west side of Midtown to meet another friend on Saturday afternoon. I was wearing a red and black plaid wool cape that might be a little bright for some people’s tastes, but as we walked down 37th Street, we saw store after store selling the gaudiest, most rhinestoned, way-more-over-the-top-than-my-cape-type dresses you’ve ever seen. They were only fit for something like a Miss America pageant–definitely not opening night of the Met nor singing a bluesy number on top of a piano at a lounge–so we were discussing how not one but a whole block of them could possibly stay in business. Out of nowhere, and certainly not prompted by anything we said or did, a man spoke to us. He was probably 40 and sat in his car along the curb, smoking a cigarette. Not missing his front teeth or anything but trashy enough that I could imagine him alone at a stripclub in Jersey on a weeknight. I didn’t understand what he’d said at first and didn’t have time to properly react, but two steps later, I realized that he’d called from his car, “Plaid is totally out this season! Don’t you read Vogue?“

You know when you get gifts from people that prove they really, really know you? And not only know you but actually get you and possibly even don’t mind you? Here are a few that I received at the end of the year that made me go, “Oh, crap, you actually pay attention to me when I talk to you, don’t you?”

In order of appearance in my life:

1) From Tracey, a pirated copy of The Peanut Butter Solution, which is probably my favourite childhood movie aside from Labyrinth. I don’t know why my mom would’ve taped it off of TV, but she did, and I must have watched that thing 700 times as a kid. It scared me to death, but it likely also cultivated my extreme taste for peanut butter as an adult. Having it back in my life feels like regaining a lost limb.

2) Also from Tracey, Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds Barbie. I don’t, like, collect Barbies or anything, I need you to know, but I do love the film, and I love that someone at Mattel is weird enough to suggest they make a doll WHO IS BEING ATTACKED BY PLASTIC BIRDS. I think she’s crazy-beautiful.

3) An owl locket ring from Kamran. Not two days before this arrived in the mail, we were discussing the steampunk movement on the way to work, and I told him that steampunk isn’t really my style. What I meant was that I like the aesthetics of it but that I’m too lazy to outfit my computer keyboard with typewriter keys and too conservative to wear goggles ‘round my neck every day. Having searched Etsy for the word steampunk to find the ring, he was worried I wouldn’t like it, but umm . . . it’s an owl on a locket with scrollwork on the band. There is nothing about this that is not me.

4) OMG, a vintage mink stole. Like, for real. It was fate, too, because mere hours before it arrived in the mail, Kamran and I saw this girl in the elevator wearing a fur, and I was like, “Why does she have that and I don’t?” And he totally goaded me into talking for ten minutes about why I love fur so much with absolutely no regard to animal life, knowing that I’d be getting one from him later in the day. It has a giant minky button in the front over the closure, and it’s so soft I no longer care to think about–let alone touch–kittens and bunnies.

My dad also got me a copy of Glenn Beck’s Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government for Christmas, but I prefer not to discuss that.

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but Wylie’s cooking and my camera make a pretty good team on donuts4dinner.

Check it out if you like food that looks nothing like it does in nature, food that costs more than your monthly rent, or chefs made famous by being “Top Chef” judges.

So, this Twitter thing is sort of over, huh? After talking about it for weeks, my best friend, Tracey, convinced me to join last week so we won’t become those old ladies who wear Winnie the Pooh t-shirts, still listen to Poison, and are afraid of the Internet.

I added the 36 suggested people from my Gmail contacts, and 17 of them have added me back. SEVENTEEN! The other 20 of them haven’t logged into Twitter since August.

The problem is that I think I really like Twitter now. I didn’t see the point of it before, what with my writing dissertation-length diatribes here and all, but now I see that Twitter challenges me to be a better writer by forcing me to cram all of my brilliant thoughts into 140 characters. Or to be willing to separate them into twenty different tweets of 140 characters each. Doesn’t that sound great?!

Plus, I like the interface, and I like that I have so many fewer friends on there than on Facebook that I have some interest in keeping up. At this point, I actually care what my Twitter friends are saying, notice when they say something about me, and care to reply to them. Some of them are actually clever enough that I want to retweet their tweets! I was so busy being annoyed that CNN and Ashton Kutcher thought anyone cared what they said that I totally missed the boat. Sort of like the way I might someday actually watch any of the Star Wars movies and find out they’re not lame.

So follow me on Twitter! And also follow Tracey, because she doesn’t just spout feminist propaganda on there, unlike on her blog!

There’s also Bachelor Girl! And Noel! And Tessa! And Aaron! And Serial Monogamist! And Nat! And those are the only people I’ll imagine you’ll know, but you should add them all, because I want all of my friends to be friends with all of my other friends.

Only in NYC would I need my friend Beth to pick me up after work last Friday and drive me to my apartment with my new TV that should have been small enough to carry but would’ve taken up an entire subway car with all of its packaging. Only in NYC would I know approximately three people who own a car and would the one who drives an Alfa Romeo convertible agree to haul my new flatscreen around.

And only in NYC, after a second viewing of An Education (OMG, just as good the second time) with said Alfa-Romeo-convertible-driving friend, would I return to my boyfriend’s apartment to find a Christmas tree simply pushed out the front door into the hallway when its duty is done. And a full two weeks after Christmas, no less.

It’s kind of neat, and it’s kind of awful.

Two days ago, I was on the green line express to Grand Central on my way home from work, leaning against the doorway as I meticulously typed a blog post about my newfound (and belated) love for Band of Horses on my BlackBerry, when a woman a foot away from me screamed, “Oh, my god!” and pushed everyone around her back toward the opposite end of the car. I looked up from my writing to see that the man sitting on the seat closest to me was vomiting all over the train floor, quietly but forcefully.

Read the rest here IF YOU DARE.

Maybe it’s inappropriate to start off the new year with ruminations on pedophilia, but while I was in Ohio for Christmas, my best friend, Tracey, and her friend Kim were in the midst of seeing all of this year’s potentially-Oscar-nominated films, and I tagged along to see An Education with them almost as an afterthought. It’s mostly plotless–a sheltered 17-year-old girl loses more than her virginity to an older man when she’s dazzled by his worldliness–and it’s not for everyone, but it was entirely for me.

It was a great story and all, but for days afterward, it was still consuming my thoughts in a way that I didn’t think it should have. I found myself feeling detached from everything I did, because all I wanted to be doing was watching that film again. I finally decided it was because the girl in the film, Jenny, reminded me so much of myself. Growing up in smalltown Ohio, I wasn’t at all interested in most of the boys I went to school with, because I was way too smart for them, and I don’t mean that to sound narcissistic. Even the ones who could hold a conversation with me didn’t seem to appreciate me in the way I thought my awesomeness merited. I didn’t find things much different in college, so I “dated” first a 35-year-old and then a 41-year-old and just didn’t think anything wrong with it. Brains and humor have always made people more attractive to me than classic good looks alone, and men twice my age seemed so thoughtful and funny. They got why I was so interested in literature, and they listened to the right kinds of music, only they knew bands and read books I’d only heard of. They were so serious about politics, unlike the boys at school who were only Republicans because their parents were. And they both lived somewhere other than Ohio, which was really the most important thing.

The sad thing I realized after watching An Education is that the main reason I wanted to date older men no longer applies. Somewhere between 18 and now, I figured out that the guys I thought were so wise back then had really just accumulated the sort of life experience you do when you’ve had a job, had a wife, had some birthdays. They knew bands I’d only heard of because they’d been my age when those bands were making music, just like I know more bands than someone half my age does. My best friends now are just as literate, just as politically-conscious, and just as funny as any of those guys were. In fact, my current boyfriend, who’s only a couple of years older than I am, is smarter and funnier than probably anyone I know. It wasn’t that boys my age were necessarily not good enough for me but just that I hadn’t met the right one. Not that I regret any of it.

My even sadder realization is that I probably already ended my tenure as pedophile bait without even realizing it, and despite being wise enough now to recognize that older isn’t always better, I’m still going to miss the attention. Sure, I can date 80-year-old men for their money in my late 20s, but no one’s going to question that guy’s morals or mental health. If I’m not attractive simply for my ability to get someone arrested for touching me, what do I have to live for? What’s the point of being seen with an old codger if it doesn’t garner him disapproving glares and me worried glances? What’s the point if I’m not being taken advantage of?

1) I spent the night with my best friend, Tracey, as I will do nine out of the thirteen days I’m in Ohio, and as she was dropping me off at my parents’ house yesterday morning, one local radio station played Soundgarden’s “Blow Up the Outside World”, and another played Grant Lee Buffalo’s “Truly, Truly” after it, and we affirmed our dedication to 90s music despite the overall concensus that it sucks.

2) While getting ready to go to my great-aunt’s house to decorate a gingerbread house with my cousins, I happened to turn on “Degrassi” to celebrate the fact that my parents have cable for the first time in my entire life, and it was the episode where J.T. gets stabbed! Which I had never seen before! It was meant to be.

3) I came home from my great-aunt’s house to find my dad, one of his friends, and my step-sister’s future husband using a wooden board in the backyard for target practice. I was surprised to find that I thought it was kind of cool.

4) My parents drove me two towns over to buy New Super Mario Bros. for Wii as my final Christmas gift, and the guy who checked us out at this tiny gaming store that probably sees ten customers a day told me, “Just so you know, this game is awesome.” I didn’t tell him that my co-workers Jeff and Steve stayed late at work with me every night the week before vacation so we could beat it on the office Wii before I left for Ohio.

5) My parents and I watched Julie & Julia, and then when they went to bed, I found an episode of “The Office” on. It was the one where Jim tells Pam he loves her at the office casino night and then kisses her. I am a sap and won’t apologize.

I bought a plane ticket to Ohio for two weeks’ worth of Christmas presents, Christmas parties, and Christmas-themed desserts at chain restaurants several weeks ago for $291.90. The night before the snowstorm hit, Delta canceled my flight but politely allowed me to reschedule myself for the next day. I was slightly disappointed in the delay but used the night to make a lot of unnecessary noise in Kamran’s apartment while he studied for his final exams.

Three hours before my flight on Sunday, I packed the last of my things, put on really comfortable underwear for the flight, and began saying goodbye to Kamran. Which mostly involved lots of “I don’t want to go!”s and “Let’s get back into bed and not leave for two weeks!”s. I WAS KIDDING. But moments before I left, I happened to check my flight status to see if there was any residual delay from the day before and found that it had been canceled.

Even though the streets and the runway had been cleared for 18 hours.

The Delta website wouldn’t let me reschedule again, so I called customer service, and after listening to twenty minutes of “White Christmas” and other ironic holiday hold tunes, I found that the earliest flight they would fit me on was on DECEMBER 25TH.

I called Orbitz, who I had used to buy the flight, and after twenty more minutes, the slightly-more-helpful customer service rep said I was approved for an automatic refund if I wanted to cancel the flight and start over with another airline. She said her computer wasn’t showing flights available until the 23rd, but the Orbitz website was listing flights on the 21st, so I gave her the exact flight numbers I wanted to book. She acted like this was all fine and dandy but then said, “Now, you know it’s a $25 fee to book over the phone, right?” EXCUSE ME? No.

So I selected my flights and tried signing into the site with my account to pay for them, but it said customer service was already logged in, which meant I had to manually enter my payment information. By the time I did that, my flight was gone. I chose another one and tried the same thing, but it was gone again. And again. Finally, though, I managed to snag a flight at 3:25 p.m. today, three days later than I was supposed to be home, for $452.

The great part is that when my first flight was rescheduled, my best friend, Tracey, said she was going to drive the ten hours from Ohio to pick me up, and we laughed. Turns out it would’ve been way faster. Hahahahahaha . . . ha . . . ha . . . ha.

My friend Roy sent me a link to Sketchy Santas yesterday, and while I appreciate their offerings, I think I have a photo of the sketchiest Santa of all:

Tracey may be smiling here, but not ten seconds before, she was crying out in horror from her car at this giant red-faced Santa. The thing has been hanging outside of my Crazy Great-Aunt Dorothy’s house every Christmas for as long as I can remember. The smashed nose is a recent addition, but the duct tape holding it up is not.

We’re thinking it may have been used as anti-American Indian propaganda back in the day. No?

I don’t remember when I decided I was pro-choice, but I remember distinctly that I was still calling myself a Christian when I did. (Realizing that God and I basically didn’t share any common viewpoints is one of the reasons I’m not a Christian today.) I understand that abortion is an extremely polarizing issue and that you can never argue your side well enough to convince someone who doesn’t already agree with you, which is why I like to talk about it so much. I find it unfortunate that the conservative argument is simply “because the church says not to”, because that precludes the need for careful thoughtfulness about the subject on the part of the believer. I also find it unfortunate that the liberal argument is simply “because I should have control over my own body”, because we rarely have control over own bodies when it comes to other kinds of protective legislature (i.e. seatbelt laws, drug laws).

I bring this up because this week’s New York magazine has an infinitely interesting article about modern views on abortion and how they’ve changed since the 70s, when women won the fight for the right to choose. I think the article does a great job of balancing the two sides (though, again, it’s not going to convince anyone of anything), but here are the two most interesting points from my side:

1) Until the mid-nineties, the political debate over abortion remained mostly in the theoretical realm, with the role of government at its center. Had it stayed there, it’s possible we’d be in a different place today. But in late 1995, a Florida Republican congressman named Charles Canady had a stroke of insight that would shift it to the realm of both the metaphysical and brutally physical, which is precisely where the pro-life movement wanted it all along. On the floor of the House, he introduced a bill that would ban so-called “partial-birth abortions,” a second-trimester surgical method previously known as intact dilation and extraction. The procedure was extremely upsetting to behold. In it, the fetus—or is it a baby?—is removed from the uterus and stabbed in the back of the head with surgical scissors. It’s a revolting image, one to which the public was ritualistically subjected on the evening news as the debate raged on the House and Senate floors. Defending it was a pro-choice person’s nightmare. Pat Moynihan compared it to infanticide. Clinton still vetoed the ban in 1996, but it was eventually signed into law in 2003 and withstood a Supreme Court challenge in 2007. More important, women were spooked. “A lot of our patients started asking whether or not the fetus felt pain after that, even if they were early along in their pregnancy,” says Albert George Thomas, who until two years ago had spent eighteen years as the head of the family-planning clinic at Mount Sinai. He adds that many women also came into his clinic expressing confusion about the size of the fetus they were aborting. Some were terrified that it was huge, even those who were coming in at six weeks. At that stage, it’s the size of a lentil.

2) Abortion counselors will also tell you that the stigma attached to the procedure is worse than it’s been in years. “When I started as a patient advocate in Ohio in 1996,” says Jeannie Ludlow, a professor at Eastern Illinois University who has written a great deal about abortion, “what I mostly saw were women who were thinking about abortion in individual ways—this is what’s going on in my life, this is what I’m thinking I should do. But by the time I left in 2008, our patients would be saying all that and ‘Oh, and I know I’m going to feel bad for the rest of my life,’ even if they seemed perfectly sure of their choice.”

I remember the truck that drove around my college campus with pictures of aborted babies plastered all over it, and I hated that I was supposed to be won over by emotional imagery in lieu of actual consideration of how a baby–and even a pregnancy–would entirely change my life in ways that I neither wanted nor was prepared for.

I know that it involves killing (what has the potential to become) human life, but I just can’t imagine myself regretting an abortion for the rest of my life like everyone wants me to think I will. I sort of want to have one, actually, just to make myself a t-shirt that says, “I aborted my baby, and I feel GRRRRREAT!” I don’t want to rub it in anyone’s face or anything, but I want some support for women who made the right choice for themselves and won’t be made to feel guilty.

I’m interested in your thoughts on the article and subject in general, as always.

It’s the time of year when NYC is overrun with tourists who are somehow under the impression that the city in winter is worth spending $350 per night for a hotel on. The Rockefeller Center tree lighting, the display windows at Macy’s, the New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square–these are all things that would be lovely in, say, Florida or California. But in New York, they’re painful and miserable because of the cold. So I guess those $350-per-night hotels are worth it, because that’s where they end up spending all of their time once they realize walking around Central Park isn’t so fun when the wind is eating your face off.

Anyway, I’m particularly annoyed by tourists for no good reason. I’m not one of those people who’s ever in a hurry, and I don’t have any horrible Christmas memories that make me want everyone else’s holidays to suck, but I require the subway to be quiet when I’m on my way to work. So when these massive groups of tourists all board one train car at 8:30 a.m. on their way to the Statue of Liberty every morning, I get my knickers in a bit of a twist.

On one particular morning, I was standing by one of the poles in the far end of a car, surrounded by French people. The French are especially bad, because they’re so darned happy. At least with the Germans, you get mean-sounding accents with harsh-sounding words that only perpetuate your bad morning mood, but the French are always kissing each other and pleasantly tying each other’s scarves around their delightfully pink necks, and all I want to do is knock them down a few notches.

Read the rest here and earn me some pennies.

My four favourite blog posts from the past week:

1) Amy doesn’t need to douche from Unapologetically Female.

2) How to be, like, a real writer from Bachelor Girl.

3) An animal body to keep you warm at night from Belly Shirts.

4) Who brought this guy? from Awkward Family Photos.

The rest of you were either boring or have locked journals that can’t be linked to, but that doesn’t mean I love you any less.