Sorry for my silence of late; last week the Internet wasn't working in our apartment (happily, we were with electricity, unlike thousands of other Astorians) and this week, I've just been busy. (Ok, so some of the time I've been busy playing with the Sims. That still counts as busy, doesn't it?)

This weekend I'll be home again (probably taking Greyhound again, if you care) but I promise next week I'll pay more attention to you, ok?

xoxo,
Caro

I hadn't really thought out my visit home this past weekend beyond idly figuring, "Eh, I've got Friday off, might as well get outta town and see my family."

Wednesday night, I spent a few hours debating what the best method of transportation home would be. Trains? expensive, not great timing. Planes? roughly the same price as the trains, typically faster, but um, there's that tunnel problem. Automobiles? Chinatown is annoying to get to from Queens (note to self: figure out if there are cheap trains leaving from Flushing. This would be significantly easier to get to and aside from Main St. Flushing being one of the most overcrowded, unpleasant places in all the world (or, well, Queens), it would probably get one out of the city much, much faster) so Fung Wah was out, but Greyhound, perhaps? Cheap, but not the most comfortable. LimoLiner? Middling in terms of price, better in terms of comfort, but their timetables are pretty limited too... It was a great debate, documented for history in this lovely chart:



In the end, I opted for a Greyhound ticket that was less than a third of the Amtrak fare for the same leg. On my way back home, I ended up with an Amtrak ticket and a cab ride home from Penn Station, which may not have been the most economical of choices, but were probably much, much more pleasant than the alternatives.

Anyway.

I'm glad I got home because I had a very nice visit, which included sightings of my mother, pregnant sister, brother, little sister, father (eh, I think he came in the house mainly because a mysterious car was parked out front. It was a rental that Katie has because her car was hit. Nothing like curiosity to prompt your first communication with your daughter in about 6 weeks), Lillian, grandmother and grandfather. Which was all very nice.

As much as I love New York and am not prepared to not live in it at the moment, I do wish there was some way to make the distance between Boston and New York much, much smaller.

Saturday night, I slumped down in the back seat of the cab, a little drunk and a little proud of myself for (kinda) being able to do the responsible thing and shell out the cash for a cab ride home (back in the day when Maddy could accompany back to Astoria, I'd have probably taken the subway, but, um, there are psychos -- lots of 'em out there. Also, I am lazy). But my buzz was fleeting when the cab driver began making fun of me.

"So early! What happened?"

I glanced at my phone: 1:35. That's early? I mean, I guess -- certainly I don't lead the most slammin' night life ever, and yes, I could stay at the bar until it closed at 4 am. I also could do a few lines of coke, hook up with some international i-bankers and dance on a tabletop, but frankly, I didn't really think the situation called for it. Anyway, it was well after midnight, did it really warrant such mockery?

"Oh, nothing, I'm just tired," I said with a casual wave, because, for some reason, I felt the need to justify myself to the cabbie.

"Ahhh," he said with a sort of snort that I took to be mixture of condescension and bemusement. "You go out how many nights a week? Four? Five?"

I'm not really sure what he was getting at. Clearly, we'd established my career as a Party Girl was not something I pursued with great seriousness.

"Uhm, I guess, two? Three?" Does dinner at the most geriatric diner in the Lincoln Center area followed by an 8 o'clock showing of Wordplay count as "going out"? Does it really matter?

"Ahhh." The condescension/bemusement again.

I was tempted to tell him how I was kind of over that party scene, how I had things to do in the morning, how my boyfriend would be coming home from work when I got back, how even if I could regularly afford to stay out until 4 am getting wasted, it didn't particularly appeal to me, but then, I realized it really didn't matter.

I was mostly quiet for the rest of the ride home, shrugging and making non-committal "hmm" sounds when he complained about the guy begging for change at Queens Plaza and offering quiet "ahh's" that vaguely implied mild agreement but lack of interest in pursuing a conversation on the topic of how great Guiliani was. I don't know why I did that; I don't really think it's fair to assume the guy at Queens Plaza was faking his limp, nor do I think Guiliani was the greatest thing to happen to New York. But despite the disapproval his "Ahhh's" seemed to imply, it was late and I was tired and, in the end, I didn't feel like getting into it.

Because it didn't matter.

Yesterday, I made a trip out to Michael's. No, not the fancy-pants midtown restaraunt (just an aside: one of the incidents that led to my quitting was when I had a misunderstanding with an agent who Evil Bitch Boss was having lunch with and thought she was handling the reservation at Michael's. So I didn't make it. So they didn't have one. This led to EBB firing off a series of angry emails from her blackberry, presumably while sitting in a corner in Michael's. "They didn't have res for us. am. livid!!!!!" "so embarassed. had to sit in the corner. this place is all about who sees u!" and "call and confirm next time!! can't let this keep happening!" as if I routinely screwed up her reservations, when, in fact, that was the only time it happened.) The craft store.

I had this idea in my head that I'd make pretty invitations for my sister's baby shower (a baby shower that was originally going to be a surprise but then that didn't work out, so I suppose I can write about it here. Not like she actually reads this page anyway, I think.)

I had decided to do a simple design; just the basics on some pretty baby blue cardstock that I'd embellish with maybe some pretty paper punchout or a cute rubber stamp. I saw some adorable rubber stamps of baby duckies and another very cute one of a tiny onesie the other day in a super expensive paper store and thought Michael's would surley be cheaper. They were, but they also lacked the incredibly cute designs and pretty paper cardstock.

There were, however, a huge variety of scrapbooking supplies. This is a world I don't entirely understand. Or, I do understand sort of why someone might want to preserve their memories in pretty books, but how someone could get so into it. And just how it works. Beading also confuses me like that. I'd like to be the sort of crafty person who can make expensive-looking necklaces out of a few bucks' worth of beads, but where to begin? And just how does one take up cake-decorating as a hobby?

As I wandered up and down the aisles (which made me feel like I was in the suburbs instead of a few blocks from home) I became increasingly confused and overwhelemed. Would those invitations work with my printer? Would the rubber stamp ink smudge? And why, in God's name, do they not have any light blue cardstock that's precut?

So today, on my lunch break, I went to Papyrus and picked up some cute cards (but not homemade, nor, sadly, letterpressed -- I do love the look of letterpress, but it's like $2 a card minimum, which seems really silly.) So much for being crafty.