Sir Boogie PICK-A-LOT

Today, on subway adventures, we have a special guest " Sir Boogie-pick -a -lot" joining us today. Upon first meeting sir pick a lot, I thought it might me a short pick. Maybe a little quick tug of war, while no one was looking. But, no, no such luck.

I enter the subway, looking around for a seat. Lucky for me there was one available next to a strapping young man. This young man wore designer lables. He looked around my age, however the mixture of gray in his hair made me wonder if maybe he was an older man trapped in a younger man's body.

I cozy on up in my seat, pull out my newest subway read, and take a deep breath. Aw what a peaceful train ride this is going to be, I assured myself.

Right then, out of the corner of my eye, I see the same strapping young man is violently picking his nose. As he starts his marathon gold dig, I quickly look at him, in order to make sure he catches the terror in my eye.

Now, it is one thing to pick your nose in the privacy of your own home, but in such close vicinity to me and my seat, is just unheard of and rude. I quickly gather my things and move to another seat, letting him know I do not approve of his behavior. When I move he stops picking, and I triumph, for I have made booger picker stop his cruel behaviors.

Aw, now it's back to me and my book. Until, again I am interrupted, because his arm quickly moves from nose, to lap, to now hair. He is playing with his hair, without wiping off the booger residue.

Now boogie hair is really a whole other story. Does he not know there are kids around. More importantly does he not know I am around. I want to scream stop, as he rotates from picking and petting his head. He teases me, I think he is finally done with this sick routine. GET HAND OUT OF NOSE! I mean I'm right here. Then she enters....

When I say she, I mean Heidi Klum herself. I mean this tall beautiful blonde that has everything put together, from the big bag to the tights to the slight heel on her tall boots. Her hair is perfect and she has her ipod in, she's probably listening to Chopin or Bach...She's just a well groomed girl. I bet she plans things and follows through with her plans. Aside from my personal girl crush on this woman, I realize this is the real test...
Will Sir boogie picker stop, when America's next Top Model is sitting right in front of him?

He makes eye contact with her. He too, notices her boots and well groomed everything. He nervously twirls his hair, there is still no insertion of hand to nose. Model Heidi isn't aware where that hand has been, to her he looks normal. Little does she know, that I know, we have a booger picker on our hands. No need to worry Model Klum, I'm already working on saving the world from yet another disastrous pick fest.

He actually looks really stressed out, that's probably why poor baby has gray hair to begin with. OH.... The booger picking is his nervous tick. Record time, it has now been five minutes and there has still been no hand to nose intercourse. I'm slightly insulted that he controlled his booger picking nervous tick with her, but with me it was full force, both hands in nose, non stop pick-a-thon.

I want to ask him, being insulted, why he stopped for her and not me? Story of my life. I'm the girl who dates the booger picker, because I realize that it's a nervous tick and love him for it anyways. Then, he dumps me. But, for the next girl, he wouldn't dare pick his nose in front of her and she tells everyone that not once in her life has she seen his hand in his nose. She doesn't even see him ever use tissue, because he doesn't have booger issues with her.

I want to tell him, excuse me, I'm worth it. I deserve to have you use tissue. I deserve for you to not have booger issues while I am around. I decide that I will not verbalize this, but he will know with my eyes, that I will not continue this subway ride with him and be the girl that understands that it is just a nervous tick. And, if I have to, I will get out at an earlier stop and walk 1.2 miles more, if it means I have made my self liberated point.

Of course he got off before I could prove my point. I never get the last word. I didn't change him. What did I do wrong? Was it the smell of work clothes, the coffee stains on my shirt? Was it the uncombed hair, the pen and paper that watched his every moved and analyzed it?

It's not me, it's him. Not every story has a moral, so sometimes we create our own morals, as to not make it a pointless adventure. The moral of booger picker train ride, maybe you should put yourself together before entering the world. We teach people what our standard of living is...If I let my flaws hang out, then it allows other people to let their flaws hang out. And, some flaws shouldn't hang out upon first encounter. In fact most flaws shouldn't come out until you are a long long way down the subway road of life.

The Subway Catcher.

Some people catch dreams, I catch moments. I am the moment catcher, and if there is a insignificant moment going on around me, I catch it and turn it into something grand. I also have a gift for catching creepers. If you are a creep, you find your way next to my seat. If you are depressed, lonely, suffering from hunger pains and just want a penny to maybe buy yourself a delicious crumb, you find your way next to me. If you haven’t seen a female in all your life and feel the need to express your love for the female sex, you find your way next to my seat.

But the reverse is true too. If you are doing something creepy and intriguing, I find my way towards you, so I can dissect your creepy behavior. I’m basically like Sherlock Holmes, except I don’t have a case, so I make one up as I stare at you.

It’s basically that me and creepey have a give and take relationship. They give me material and a way to kill my boredom, and they take from me, well they take what I’ll give them. Some days all I give them is an avoidance of eye contact. But, on my giving days, I’ll give them my left over’s or a touch of an encouraging smile.

This particular evening, was the eve of another non significant day. I was on my way home from work, and forgot to bring a book on the subway. I pull out my pad, thinking I’ll just look around and write a story about someone and then put it on my blog.

Ok, so there’s an asian woman sitting near me.  She’s not really giving me anything, not a twitch, nothing.

The train has stopped, it’s around midnight, and no one is giving me any material. Until, suddenly a balding Indian man starts humming. I wish technology would advance and I could add in a sound cue right here. And he is rocking and humming, and I am smiling and scrambling words down on the paper, “ Perfect, do something else!” I thought I hit blog gold,  but just when I thought he was going for the grand finale , the climax of my story, he just stopped.

It’s just man humming, that's not a story you boring humming man. 

Determined to make the subway ride a story, I persevere.  Suddenly I see a black and white woman, a little multiracial relationship…and they are both deaf. They are talking back and forth through sign language. She’s attacking him with her fist full of words, and he’s making jokes with his. And suddenly, they are on a rollercoaster of words, and of course probably saying things I could make a story out of…but no they had to be deaf and keep it all-private.

I started thinking about their condition, their deaf condition. While I would hate to be deaf, mainly because I couldn’t act, but also it would be hard memorizing all those words through your hands. However, I thought, how horrible would be it to be deaf AND have no hands. To have nubs. To be a deaf, nubbin  woman. How do you find your sexual being? How do you flirtatiousaly graze another man's arm when he tells a joke that isn't funny and you want to stroke his ego? 

The only thing that moves at that moment are your knees and hips. So, hypothetically, you could do a lot of circular movement, both with your hips and your knees. This limiting movement could be wrongly seen as a slutty approach to flirty ( hips, circular motion, etc.). It's just all very complicated when you introduce nubs and no ears into the picture. And, let me just say for the record I don't think flirting is the only thing you want to communicate, I just think it would be hard to date if you are a deaf  with nubs.

Ok, but back to story, I still don’t have one, and my whole day has been like that.  I have had nothing significant happen. There was build up, like the humming Indian man, and the imaginary deaf and nubs date, but metaphorically speaking there’s been no “ twitching” in my day. Nobody is even talking to themselves on this subway ride. 

I’ve decided I’m going to keep a calendar and beside it I’m going to have a yellow pen, to represent lemons ( cause there’s that saying some days are lemonade others are lemon) and on yellow days I’m just going to right sour. And, at the end of the year I’m doing to have a pie chart so I can keep track of days like these. That way each year, I can make the number less.

Moral of the story, there’s a lot of insignificant things that happen in our life’s. And if one was really to write beside each day significant and insignificant, I think you would find that there’s probably more insignificant than significant things that go on.  

A lot of times we mislabel, making someone or some event a significant representation of something we simply just want, because we are bored. We are bored with insignificant people and events, so we make things bigger than they are to satisfy our big dream hunger.

Label things correctly. This is a significant person or event that will change my life for better or worst. This is an insignificant person or event, that won’t change me at all.

Boredom is the culprit of all my greatest mistakes.

 Ok so, so change of moral: Don’t lie to oneself and make something other than it is to satisfy your boredom or loneliness. 

The Well Informed is Overrated...

The news depresses me. I have always envied the well informed individual, the one who wakes up in the morning and reads the news, meanwhile sipping on their important cup of coffee. So, this morning, feeling rather adult in my ways, I tried to adopt this ritual.

I think I'm going to never do this ritual again. It's a sick ritual and nobody should start their day with a heavy dose of bad news you have no control over. It's like BAM, al Qaeda is leaving video threats. BAM, America isn't leaving Afghanistan anytime soon. BAM, Man mauled by tiger at zoo. BAM, soldiers dead. BAM, not everyone is going to get flu vaccination. BAM, people are out of work and not knowing how they are going to support their families.

And out of all the news stories, the one most watch is David Letterman's apology for offending his wife. At first, I thought wow shallow America. But then I thought, yeah that's the only thing I can stand to read and watch at eight o' clock in the morning too.

I mean how to do you go out into the world confident, after digesting so many individuals who are defeated by circumstances. Really, I'd prefer to go back to bed than to read the news.

There was this one article on the Titanic Memorial, where they are going to have a Cruise follow the same route as the Titanic. At first, I thought ,this sounds interesting. Than, I thought, I don't know how I feel being trapped on a ship following the foot steps of a catastrophic ship wreck. It would be eery, fascinating, but too close for comfort.

That's when it hit me, it's all too close for comfort. I have family members that are out of work. I don't feel good, but don't have insurance to go to the doctor. Money and career choices are always, obsessively, on my mind. And, lately, I've noticed there are very few adults that I know that are working at their potential following their hearts desire.And, I live in a country that supports dreaming and pursuit.

Life happened, making their professional desires a luxury, and crap jobs that take advantage of you necessity. And yet socially, we recognize and honor the people that are using their gifts and getting paid for it. As if, there are some people that prefer to be your trash man or janitor, rather than pursue another career. However, being a trash man has allowed him to stay at home with his little girl when she gets off the school bus. I admire the people that have had to sacrifice what they love for the people they love. There's no ego in that, however that man knows his little girl can always rely on him to be at that bus stop. That to me is success.

Women in Rwanda, scared of getting raped, and at the same time pretending to their children that they are their protector. That's success. I wish their success wasn't that, but I find these woman much more powerful and strong than the woman I see myself becoming. I don't know if I could live in that fear and have any courage left over for my children. But women all over the world do it. My own mother does it.

I don't know what success is to me yet, but I do know I have the luxury for the time being to pursue what I am passionate about. I do know that failure is wasting that out of fear. I know that failure is becoming comfortable with waiting tables, when I have been blessed with other gifts. I do know that failure is waiting on someone else to do for me what I can do for myself.

I have this feeling that why do today what I can do tomorrow. This is especially true for things I hate, like laundry. Yeah, if I had a laundry room in my apartment, I'd love to do it. But walking a block with a heavy load, that you sometimes have to drag hunched over because it's too heavy... yeah that kind of chore always seems better fit for tomorrow. But, really, one should always do what they can as soon as it arrives, so you allow yourself more room to do more in life.

So Moral of the Blog: Don't read the news. Don't procrastinate. Don't force failure, fail out of effort.

Laura " The Mute" Buckner

If there is a faint harp playing sounds in the far off distance, I dance. If there is a drum beat from a homeless man tapping his foot, I dance.  It doesn't matter the scenario, if there is any sort of sound that sort of sounds like music, I dance. It's instinct.

Some people use pick up lines, I use pick up moves. Weddings and Cruise Ships, I really bring my two step up a notch. A bunch of lonely  people surrounded by love, feeling vulnerable and lost at sea, these situations are really were my dance moves get the recognition they deserve.  I call it dance moves, but really it's a mate calling ritual I perform to grab the eyes of potential suitors. 

When performing mate calling on the dance floor, one usually starts with a slight rotation of the hips and an isolated movement of the upper body. As the melody progresses, the body is more forceful, and if you are feeling courageous, you might add in arm movements above the head. But, again, when calling a mate, the arm movement above the head  signifies goof troop, which is not always a hit on the dance floor. I do not judge anyone for performing this move, I have been guilty of it too, but from personal experience, I have learned this is not a turn on to the opposite sex.  Also, while we are speaking of attractive dance moves, doing the stiff leg sea saw where you sort of hop like a kangaroo across the floor, is also NOT a proper move to use when trying to convince the opposite sex that you are a sexually desirable. Lastly, all the mime moves where you mime the grocery cart, mime the lawn more, lawn sprinkler, jack rabbit, all of these are better kept in the privacy of your own home, not on the mating call territory- So, I'm told. 

So, anyways, I'm at a wedding. Which I don't care if I know you or don't know you, if I am watching you get married, I am crying. It's just so  beautiful watching two people commit the rest of their lives together. Watching the two people look at each other during the ceremony, both full of inside jokes.  So, of course after watching the ceremony, I'm always convince that Mr. Perfect is around the corner, and we are going to accidently collide our spike fruit punch and I will spill mine on him and he will look into my eyes and say, " Your a mess" and I will know what he really means is, " I love you" and since the wedding is already set up I'll just borrow the dress from the girl and he can borrow the tux and we will turn their show into our show...

Ok, so anyways, when at a wedding, I feel an overwhelming amount of love. So, I proceed to the dance floor, ready to create my love fate, forgetting that my mom is off in the distance peeking at me. 

The dance floor, I'm learning, creates in me this monster, that needs attention in order to sustain life. Anyone that comes close to her dance circle gets beat up by the swing of  her hips. And it is unstoppable. I'm doing the funky chicken. I'm miming  everything from grocery cart, to toilet cleaner, to crack addict. I'm like a full power dance machine that is on auto pilot, and people gaze at it wondering when it's going to crash, but the machine never crashes. 

So, after five hours of full power machine dance moves, the party is over. I walk to the car with my mom. Yeah, my dance moves weren't the magical love wand I had anticipated.  So, dance machine sadly climbs into the car. Slightly high on attention, slightly low on the fact  I'm locked arms with mom. 

Well, then my mom says, " Laura, you give 100% on that dance floor,." I think to myself, " Aw poor thing is even proud of her peanut when she's doing the peacock and knocking down everyone that might inhibit her ability to spread her wings." But then she continues, " When really the dance floor only requires you give 50%."

She was right. I was overcompensating out of insecurity. My 50% was enough.  But, when do you know enough is enough. When do you know you don't need another coat of mascara? When do you know you don't need to lose one more pound? When do you know you've done all you can do to help the poor, to help someone? When are you just content, knowing you are exactly where you need to be, and more may come, but for right now the 50% is alright. 

I do everything at 150%, at least the things I care about. I love at that volume, I dance at that volume, I perform at that volume. But, it's too loud. 

Moral of the story:  Lower the volume so you can hear other's voices. 

There's more power in listening than being heard.