Good Music, and Birthday Wishes

So tonight (Thursday night/early Friday morning) after dinner at an Italian restaurant in Seville Plaza somewhere, I'm out in KC at an establishment that features a band that plays covers. Normally I'm not into cover bands. Not much respect for groups that don't write their own music. But this group was fun. They played everything from EW&F's "Let's Groove" to Salt-n-Peppa's "Push It" to the Gap Band's "Let It Whip" and even some song by the Rolling Stones, which one escapes me at the moment but I remeber at the time thinking, "Wow, this is the Rolling Stones."

Interestingly, at about 1 or 1:30 a group of people started coming in who had apparently been to a Halloween party. We had Supergirl, Spiderman, a flapper, the shorts-wearing guy from Reno 911, a French maid, a sailor, a hockey player ... most were not original costumes, but it was fascinating to see folks dancing in such an odd variety of attire. A good evening.

And as I realize that I am now a few hours into Friday, Oct. 28, I'd like to wish a very happy birthday to my daughter, Anna Grace Jackson, who is six years old today. My how time flies. I can still remember her coming into this world with lots of black, straight hair, which all fell out within a couple of months. Now she's got locks of brown curls and is an amazing child. I do indeed wish her the best.

Sleep seems necessary and imminent, so goodbye for now, but more later.

Kansas City Here I Am

On the road again ... after just a few days back in Radford, including the opportunity to celebrate my daughter's birthday (which is actually tomorrow 10/28), I am now in Kansas City for a convention. I have flown three times in a month, and each time I have flown from Roanoke, Va., and then had major delays at my connecting airport. First it was Dulles, then Charlotte, and last night in Detroit. I must say, though, that the Detroit airport was pretty nice, so at least there were a few things to occupy my time as I spent three hours there.

The reason our flight was delayed last night was because the flight crew was delayed. Here's my suggestion: There needs to be a backup flight crew on call at all times. They can live at the airport like firemen live at the station. When one crew is delayed, they sound the alarm in the flight crew airport station, the backup crew puts on their uniforms, slides down a pole, and comes to the rescue of poor stranded travelers like me!!

Well, this is a short entry, but more to come soon.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

...And common sense. Why is it that people seem to not know how to conduct themselves in public these days – and probably in private?!

In my recent trip to from the cradle of civilization (that’s right, southwest Virginia) to New York City, I had some curious incidents along the way. Many involved various modes of transportation. In the picture seen here, Goucher College Creative Nonfiction guru Patsy Sims and fellow student Deanna Mayer lead the effort to figure out our way through subterranean New York. I’ll hand out some cheers and jeers (yeah, I know this idea is stolen, but I haven’t had nearly enough sleep of late – by the way, Kevin Nunley, hope you had a great birthday bash Thursday night!)

Cheers: My taxi driver in NYC. Three of us get in the car. We tell the guy an address. He doesn’t talk and takes us to where we want to go. This is opposed to a cab driver I had in D.C. a couple months ago. Me and a friend get in, give the cab driver the address, and he turns in to Chatty Cathy.

Look, I just want a ride to my desired destination. Unless this is Taxicab Confessions, I don’t want you to be chatting it up with me. If I have questions or comments, I’ll make them. Your unsolicited insights on music are not what I want to hear on my way to dinner.

Jeers: The awkward family. I’m in the airport in Roanoke, Va., and trying to buy a Coke, and this family is getting in my way and on my nerves. The mom is taking forever to make a simple purchase at the counter. One of the sons is hovering in front of me. The kid is probably 11 or 12 but is big for his age. He was about as big as me. But by that age you should have learned about 1. personal space and 2. not walking up and standing in front of somebody in a line. So the mom buys each of the two sons a whole pack of some sort of crappy gummy candy products and then they all proceeded to lurk around the waiting area. The little brother seemed to be trying to avoid the big brother, who would just follow him around. Listen, people. Don’t wander in an airport. Your airport awkwardness makes people nervous. Get your snack and either sit down or stand against a wall somewhere.

Jeers: The homophobe on the train from Manhattan to Newark. This lady is well dressed and speaks in a Jamaican-sounding accent. She’s on her cell phone on a morning train from Penn Station to the Newark Liberty International Airport. She’s talking very plainly to someone (possibly her child) about not bringing a lesbian into her home. “It’s against my faith,” she repeated at least a dozen times as she proceeded to say that she didn’t want a “faggot” at her house. OK, I could easily jeer her for the hypocrisy of talking about her faith while being judgmental and narrow-minded and using terms such as faggot, but that’s not even my point. Why do you talk to someone on a cell phone in a very public place about matters of sexual preference? “When you’re old enough,” she would say quite plainly, you can make your own decisions, but right now I don’t want no homosexuals in my house. It’s against my faith.” Well perhaps your faith should incorporate common sense so you wouldn’t sound like a broken record on the phone in public while discussing a very private matter. After she continued to raise the volume on her voice, fully showing all of us on the train her ire, she ended up hanging up on the person she was talking to.

Cheers: To the friendly people of the Big Apple. New Yorkers have a reputation for being rude – or at least too busy and self-absorbed to offer a kind word or even a look in the eye. Our group, struggling to find its way to various addresses around Manhattan and taking the subway from one place to another, stopped people on the street and in the tunnels several times to ask questions. All were friendly and gave courteous replies. One guy even told us to follow him and led us to the appropriate street from out of the subway, then handed one of our group members his business card and said if we needed anything else while we were in town to let him know. And just as I was losing my faith in humanity … .

Well that’s it for now. Have a good weekend.

Welcome!

So, I'm in New York City this past week with a group of fellow Goucher College MFA (in Creative Nonfiction) students and we're talking to editors and agents and whatnot, and a few of these publishing types ask if I have a blog, to which I reply, "Um, no." They said they thought it would be a good idea.

Now that I've left a nothing-to-do place like NYC for the cultural and social capital of the universe known as southwest Virginia, I have indeed started a blog. This is it. You could be, like, saving the world or something. But instead, you're reading it. Stunning, no?

In the future, I will be posting about the things in life that I find amazing. Many of these things fall under the premise of my rules for living. Miss Manners has had her tired rules of etiquette for, what, a thousand years? I will be talking about manners for the 21st century. Common sense stuff that is obviously -- and amazingly -- lacking in a world that has very little common sense.

So stay tuned for thoughts on planes, trains, and automobiles, particularly as they pertain to my New York trip.

Thanks for reading this first blog entry. I'm actually amazed that you're taking time from your busy day to read this. But if you have time to kill -- particularly while you're at work and feel like doing nothing productive, further destroying our economy and ensuring that the United States becomes enslaved to China -- feel free to check back often. Remember, here at Maybe I'm Amazed, Inc., we aim to enlighten AND entertain.

See you soon!