I woke up late this morning after pressing snooze no les than four times. I’ve been making a bad habit of this lately, but it’s probably related to stress at work, my home publishing project that is now mercifully finished, and my utter lack of enthusiasm about showing up early at the office. The evening before I was at a Board of Directors’ meeting at one of the member’s apartment—a quaint little thing: eight rooms on the 15th floor on 5th Avenue overlooking the Park and Temple of Dendor’s glass cage at the Met. It’s like a set on Gossip Girl…but it’s real. I don’t even *want* to know what that flat cost in the early 1900’s when her family bought it, let alone its current market value. Anyway, I woke up in my own decidedly humble but cozy abode about an hour later than I’d wanted to and rushed out to work only having packed about half of what I’d need for this weekend’s excursion to Florida.
I hopped on the Vespa and all was going according to plan despite my lack of morning coffee: the skies hadn’t opened up with rain and traffic getting to the Manhattan Bridge was reasonable. I pull up beside a small school bus, one of those miniature 20-seater cheese wagons that don’t take up the whole lane, and I waited calmly for the light to turn green, allowing me to zoom across the bridge and onto the other island. I was more than a little confused when the traffic cop supervising the HOV lane on the bridge waved me over in the middle of the intersection.
“License and registration,” the painful phrase that makes every motorist wince, regardless of his or her offense. I’d been caught lane-sharing by one of New York’s finest, and wouldn’t you know that he was actually going to enforce the law, unlike scores of his colleagues. I pull over, take off my helmet and shake out my dark blonde hair, hoping that some element of cuteness will predispose the officer to treat me kindly.
The problem was that I knew I was in the wrong. Lane-splitting is against New York State law, and things would only get worse when I opened my wallet to show my documentation. I will submit it for you, humble reader, in list form, so that it mystifies less. My good friend the police officer was quite confused, although I did my best to explain.
1. From New York State: license plates and vehicle registration
2. From Virginia: standard class diver’s license
3. From Florida: motorcycle test waiver (temporary license) expired in…December 2006 (oops!)
After a long lecture on my personal safety and several trips from the patrol car to my vehicle to the other detained vehicle (traffic violation unknown) back to my vehicle, the officer finally realized that in a bureaucratic SNAFU I was not licensed to drive a motorcycle in the state of New York. This meant the Vespa was also verboten.
If I were more of a talker, I could have gotten into all of the particulars, as I tried to do at the DMV the following week:
1. that I had been conscientious about plates and registration and updated them when I moved (and this is the most obviously observed violation)
2. that the only reason that I’d transferred my license to Virginia before leaving the country in 2006 was to vote against the arch-villain George Allen in the Virginia senatorial elections, and it wasn’t really my state of residence.
3. that I used to be a legally licensed motorcycle (and Vespa) driver in Florida, where they had out these things like candy compared to the New York test requirements, but I left the without switching my temporary paper license to a real one due to some minor “events” in my life at the time including but not limited to the subsequent inconsequential happenings:
a. the World Cup
b. the end of my indentured servitude to the Miami-Dade Public School system
c. being diagnosed with and getting rid of CANCER (skin cancer, yes, but still serious!)
I was a little busy. I am also a terrible procrastinator easily incensed by behemoth bureaucracies.
Thank you for indulging my excellent rationalization.
That Friday, I was unbelievably lucky. This luck would not continue to hold out, but for the time being the Fates smiled upon me. The officer let me go without so much as a ticket, free as the summer breeze that whips through the cables of the Manhattan Bridge. “Hallelujah!” I cried in my head, this could have been so much more of a hassle.
I continue on my merry but nervous way up and over the East River, then down to Canal and up Allen, like I had done on so many mornings before. I make it to First Ave and get stuck behind (you guessed it) another schoolbus.
There is absolutely NO way am I getting in trouble the traffic cops twice in one morning, so I wait patiently behind the cheese wagon until traffic clears up. As I stare blankly ahead into the back windows of the bus, it occurs to me that there are a bunch of teenage girls there, acting far to rowdy for an early Friday morning. Safe in my helmet-bubble I sigh a little thanks for the fact that I’m cut off from the noisy chaos that seems to be happening in the back seats.
That’s when I got flashed.
Yes, the ringleader took off her shirt in the window and jiggled her bra-less chest in my direction. I was so pissed that I just saw breasts before 9:00 am that I didn’t even crack a smile. No reaction whatsoever, except perhaps a small scowl. Apparently this was not the reaction that little miss exhibitionist was going for, and continued to bounce about, encouraging her friends to lift up their shirts too. At this point, I’m fairly incredulous that I have to sit here on my bike and wait for the damn light. I almost wanted to unzip my jacket and gesture at my own modest A-cups, the gesture equivalent of “Hey, dumb fuck—I’m a woman too, what now?” but after about 15 seconds of pondering that I realized that the girls on the bus probably thought I was a man, on my scooter dressed in pants and a wind jacket.
Where else are you going to find moronic teenage flashers in Chinatown on your morning commute? Only in New York.
Nudity, a brief shakedown with the NYPD, and then off to work. Just another morning, I guess =)
If, on a winter's night a traveler outside the town of Malbork, leaning from a steep slope without fear of wind or vertigo, looks down into the gathering shadow...on the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon around an empty grave, what story there awaits its end? -italo calvino
Showing posts with label Vespas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vespas. Show all posts
Monday, June 09, 2008
Thursday, January 19, 2006
New Year
I have long since stopped making New Year's resolutions, but since I'm talking to the kiddies about them, making changes has been on my mind. One of my downfalls is a deep-seated need to procrastinate on administrative tasks. For three months now, the following items have been on a to-do list posted next to my calendar
1. Get a dentist's appointment
2. Haircut
3. Helmet for Vespa
4. Insurance for Vespa
5. Reimburse self for medical spending by sending in receipts (most likely to be lost, like last year) to assholes at isurance company, and waste time talking to irritaing idiots on the phone in Tallahassee.
6. Take Astra to vet.
For some reason, the business of living seems to be taking up extraordinary amounts of time, and I haven't found the space in my schedule to actually get things done. During soccer season, just like last year, I tend to slip off the radar until things return to normal in the spring. Now that our last game is over, I can really start to get shit done.
Last night, I had an amazing evening in the kitchen, spending a full three hours preparing a layered potato souffle that all of the 266 TFA-ers ate as a "family" in our living room. It's nice to have a little core of close friends around here; it keeps things sane in an often insane existence. Cooking is one of those things that gets squeezed out of my schedule when it gets hectic. Now that it's a new year, it's time to get back to basics.
Basics includes doing errands such as the ones on my list. I took MLK day as a mental health day, returning early from a trip to D.C. Lately, I feel like I've spent all of my alotted travel time and most of my travel money making beelines back and forth from South Florida to Washington. I felt a little bad leaving early, especially since things were so fun on Saturday in the Spy Museum, but I was about to go crazy if I didn't start accomplishing random tasks. There's something very calming and satisfying about crossing things off a list.
Monday morning, after an hour + scouring and bleaching our bathroom, I called USAA, purchased insurance, and then set off on a 4-hour odyssey to Ft. Lauderdale in search of a motorcycle helmet. Somewhere off of Old Griffin Rd. past the trailer parks and the irrigation canals, there lies a warehouse full of bike supplies. I can't even begin to describe how out of place I was: no tattoos, no leather goods, no black clothing, no y chromasome. Thankfully, the people there actually knew what they were talking about, unlike the Vespa salesman, and I left with a reasonably priced helmet that will keep my noggin from going splat on the pavement. I feel much better. So much so, in fact, that my baby blue beauty is now my means of transport to work =). Since I don't have to lug around water coolers and 30 soccer balls, I'm free as a bird, and zip like one to school in the morning. On Tuesday, the kiddies nearly flipped when they saw me wheel in at 7:05. "Ms Dub! Give me a ride!" I heard as I scooted on by to the teachers' parking lot.
I haven't written in a while, so I keep forgetting about all of the stuff that's happened since the beginning of December. I started working for Miami Teaching fellows doing selection for the coming school year; that went well, despite sitting in a 42 degree classroom for 7 hours doing interviews. Didn't feel so hot that weekend, especially having been doused with icy-cold water after the soccer team beat "The West" that Friday.
We also have a new resident in the apartment, as of December 10. Astra came to us after a series of lucky coincidences on December afternoon. We were late for a soccer game, and I had to pick up some kids for Central while the rest of the team WAKLKED TWO MILES IN THE HEAT with Gemma due to supreme idiocy in the Central Athletic Department: the bus dropped the team off at the wrong field. I pulled up by the side of the school, right next to the big trash dumpsters on 19th Ave. to find three soccer players crouched on the ground next to a chain link fence. One of the girls was waving a Slim Jim through the bottom of the fence, into an abandoned lot full of cinderblocks and dissintegrating house fragments. Confused, I told the kids to stop messing around and get in the car. "Ms. Williamson, there's a kitten!" Uh oh, that's a surefire way to get me out of the vehicle. This kitten, not more than a few months old, was cowering in the overgrown "lawn" of the lot, shaking with fear. Her sibling, as the girls pointed out, had just been squished by a car tired all over the road. It was a grisly sight.
We picked up the kitten and christened Astra both for her luckiness and for Central's stirring motto: Ad astra per aspera; to the stars through adversity. She has been living with us for the past few months, tormenting Cervantes and being gnenerally adorable when she's not playing in the toilet.
I'm trying to get a fresh start on things, get more done in the day, and begin to organize my crazy life, but there's too many new responsibilities and issues cropping up that it's hard to keep track of things. Oh well, at least the weather is beautiful =)
1. Get a dentist's appointment
2. Haircut
3. Helmet for Vespa
4. Insurance for Vespa
5. Reimburse self for medical spending by sending in receipts (most likely to be lost, like last year) to assholes at isurance company, and waste time talking to irritaing idiots on the phone in Tallahassee.
6. Take Astra to vet.
For some reason, the business of living seems to be taking up extraordinary amounts of time, and I haven't found the space in my schedule to actually get things done. During soccer season, just like last year, I tend to slip off the radar until things return to normal in the spring. Now that our last game is over, I can really start to get shit done.
Last night, I had an amazing evening in the kitchen, spending a full three hours preparing a layered potato souffle that all of the 266 TFA-ers ate as a "family" in our living room. It's nice to have a little core of close friends around here; it keeps things sane in an often insane existence. Cooking is one of those things that gets squeezed out of my schedule when it gets hectic. Now that it's a new year, it's time to get back to basics.
Basics includes doing errands such as the ones on my list. I took MLK day as a mental health day, returning early from a trip to D.C. Lately, I feel like I've spent all of my alotted travel time and most of my travel money making beelines back and forth from South Florida to Washington. I felt a little bad leaving early, especially since things were so fun on Saturday in the Spy Museum, but I was about to go crazy if I didn't start accomplishing random tasks. There's something very calming and satisfying about crossing things off a list.
Monday morning, after an hour + scouring and bleaching our bathroom, I called USAA, purchased insurance, and then set off on a 4-hour odyssey to Ft. Lauderdale in search of a motorcycle helmet. Somewhere off of Old Griffin Rd. past the trailer parks and the irrigation canals, there lies a warehouse full of bike supplies. I can't even begin to describe how out of place I was: no tattoos, no leather goods, no black clothing, no y chromasome. Thankfully, the people there actually knew what they were talking about, unlike the Vespa salesman, and I left with a reasonably priced helmet that will keep my noggin from going splat on the pavement. I feel much better. So much so, in fact, that my baby blue beauty is now my means of transport to work =). Since I don't have to lug around water coolers and 30 soccer balls, I'm free as a bird, and zip like one to school in the morning. On Tuesday, the kiddies nearly flipped when they saw me wheel in at 7:05. "Ms Dub! Give me a ride!" I heard as I scooted on by to the teachers' parking lot.
I haven't written in a while, so I keep forgetting about all of the stuff that's happened since the beginning of December. I started working for Miami Teaching fellows doing selection for the coming school year; that went well, despite sitting in a 42 degree classroom for 7 hours doing interviews. Didn't feel so hot that weekend, especially having been doused with icy-cold water after the soccer team beat "The West" that Friday.
We also have a new resident in the apartment, as of December 10. Astra came to us after a series of lucky coincidences on December afternoon. We were late for a soccer game, and I had to pick up some kids for Central while the rest of the team WAKLKED TWO MILES IN THE HEAT with Gemma due to supreme idiocy in the Central Athletic Department: the bus dropped the team off at the wrong field. I pulled up by the side of the school, right next to the big trash dumpsters on 19th Ave. to find three soccer players crouched on the ground next to a chain link fence. One of the girls was waving a Slim Jim through the bottom of the fence, into an abandoned lot full of cinderblocks and dissintegrating house fragments. Confused, I told the kids to stop messing around and get in the car. "Ms. Williamson, there's a kitten!" Uh oh, that's a surefire way to get me out of the vehicle. This kitten, not more than a few months old, was cowering in the overgrown "lawn" of the lot, shaking with fear. Her sibling, as the girls pointed out, had just been squished by a car tired all over the road. It was a grisly sight.
We picked up the kitten and christened Astra both for her luckiness and for Central's stirring motto: Ad astra per aspera; to the stars through adversity. She has been living with us for the past few months, tormenting Cervantes and being gnenerally adorable when she's not playing in the toilet.
I'm trying to get a fresh start on things, get more done in the day, and begin to organize my crazy life, but there's too many new responsibilities and issues cropping up that it's hard to keep track of things. Oh well, at least the weather is beautiful =)
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Unease
Right now, I'm tired. My emotions have been run through the wash, spun dry, and frizzed out in the drier over the past month, and I don't quite have it in me to talk to people right now. Klu, if you're out there, I've opened up my phone a dozen or so times and tried to call, but for some reason I haven't gotten to it. Same goes for my older sibling up north. And Sarah.
I think I'm still reeling a bit and trying to readjust to my life down here without Dave. Being apart now isn't the same as last year; we've both got jobs that require to be up and about around the same time the sun rises, and we have households to maintain. We're becoming disconnected already, and I don't know what to do about it.
What I really want to do is retreat further from my relatively social existence down here. The people in my immediate vicinity are pretty amazing, and I enjoy hanging out with them a lot, but I'm getting to that point where I feel stifled by anyone, even people I like. My thoughts as of late have hearkened back to the old days, when I'd spend a Saturday engrossed in a book, then go watch a movie and cook dinner by myself. This weekend was like that, and it did me a world of good. Unfortunately, there was only about a day that belonged truly to me, and I need more than that.
School is, well, school, and things aren't really getting that much better. I was on campus by 7:00 am this morning for a parent conference for a a kid that thinks that his gold teeth are going to make him the next 50 Cent; I was stood up. At some point during 6th period (nobody's really sure when) a child put a wad of gum in my ponytail. It took me over an hour to notice it, and that was only after a well-meaning student pointed it out. The children in the class after them then put a 5-piece gum amalgamation on the seat of my chair in the hopes that it would stick to my ass when I sat down. I took one look at it, stuck it in the middle of the whiteboard, and proceeded to ignore the entire class for 35 minutes. The charming instigator of this stunt is a girl who showed up to class after 3 weeks of school, was absent for 2 weeks, then returns to class on a Monday morning. She proceeds to whip out a bottle of hooker-hot-pink nailpolish and paint her nails. This should not be normal, but hey, that's my life. But hey, at least I don't cry once a week after school, right? That's at least something.
I cried at the end of "Emma" last night. What's wrong with me? Maybe I should restrict my Netflix viewings to comedies and historical dramas.
Another factor that's subtly unsettling me is the encroaching birthday. After last year's success, I have this premonition that something horrible is going to happen, to bring back the litany of wretched September 18ths that plagued my young life: fights at pool parties; soccer girls and private school girls spreading rumors at slumber parties; lonely middle school parties; scum-like ex-housemates throwing spitballs in freshmen math classes; deadlines; unrequited love; etc. Rationally, there's not much that can top the things that have happened, but I'm on the lookout nonetheless.
The most exciting event, no question, is what I've been looking forward to for about a year; this afternoon, I drove home atop a 2006 Vespa LX 150, "aurora blue." Feeling the crepuscular light on my forehead as the wind blew whisps of gum-free hair past my temples, I felt miles away. My beautiful scooter whisked me home and off to dinner at our favorite cafe, and then we took a couple of laps around the apartment complex just for kicks. I mean, shit, if it gets 65 miles per gallon, I can afford a few victory laps. Happy birthday, me [grin]. Hell yeah.
So I'm driving the Vespa to school tomorrow, soccer practice be damned. My cleats can fit in the the bottom of the seat. The only problem is that my helmet is on back order, so it could be a week before that comes in. Oops =). Perhaps I should reevaluate tomorrow. I guess I'll sleep on it.
It's late already, and I've got forms to fill out for the District before bed, so I'm outie. Bleh. Something still just doesn't feel right.
I think I'm still reeling a bit and trying to readjust to my life down here without Dave. Being apart now isn't the same as last year; we've both got jobs that require to be up and about around the same time the sun rises, and we have households to maintain. We're becoming disconnected already, and I don't know what to do about it.
What I really want to do is retreat further from my relatively social existence down here. The people in my immediate vicinity are pretty amazing, and I enjoy hanging out with them a lot, but I'm getting to that point where I feel stifled by anyone, even people I like. My thoughts as of late have hearkened back to the old days, when I'd spend a Saturday engrossed in a book, then go watch a movie and cook dinner by myself. This weekend was like that, and it did me a world of good. Unfortunately, there was only about a day that belonged truly to me, and I need more than that.
School is, well, school, and things aren't really getting that much better. I was on campus by 7:00 am this morning for a parent conference for a a kid that thinks that his gold teeth are going to make him the next 50 Cent; I was stood up. At some point during 6th period (nobody's really sure when) a child put a wad of gum in my ponytail. It took me over an hour to notice it, and that was only after a well-meaning student pointed it out. The children in the class after them then put a 5-piece gum amalgamation on the seat of my chair in the hopes that it would stick to my ass when I sat down. I took one look at it, stuck it in the middle of the whiteboard, and proceeded to ignore the entire class for 35 minutes. The charming instigator of this stunt is a girl who showed up to class after 3 weeks of school, was absent for 2 weeks, then returns to class on a Monday morning. She proceeds to whip out a bottle of hooker-hot-pink nailpolish and paint her nails. This should not be normal, but hey, that's my life. But hey, at least I don't cry once a week after school, right? That's at least something.
I cried at the end of "Emma" last night. What's wrong with me? Maybe I should restrict my Netflix viewings to comedies and historical dramas.
Another factor that's subtly unsettling me is the encroaching birthday. After last year's success, I have this premonition that something horrible is going to happen, to bring back the litany of wretched September 18ths that plagued my young life: fights at pool parties; soccer girls and private school girls spreading rumors at slumber parties; lonely middle school parties; scum-like ex-housemates throwing spitballs in freshmen math classes; deadlines; unrequited love; etc. Rationally, there's not much that can top the things that have happened, but I'm on the lookout nonetheless.
The most exciting event, no question, is what I've been looking forward to for about a year; this afternoon, I drove home atop a 2006 Vespa LX 150, "aurora blue." Feeling the crepuscular light on my forehead as the wind blew whisps of gum-free hair past my temples, I felt miles away. My beautiful scooter whisked me home and off to dinner at our favorite cafe, and then we took a couple of laps around the apartment complex just for kicks. I mean, shit, if it gets 65 miles per gallon, I can afford a few victory laps. Happy birthday, me [grin]. Hell yeah.
So I'm driving the Vespa to school tomorrow, soccer practice be damned. My cleats can fit in the the bottom of the seat. The only problem is that my helmet is on back order, so it could be a week before that comes in. Oops =). Perhaps I should reevaluate tomorrow. I guess I'll sleep on it.
It's late already, and I've got forms to fill out for the District before bed, so I'm outie. Bleh. Something still just doesn't feel right.
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