Not to sound unkind, but sometimes you meet people and you don’t want to be their friend.  At the ripe old age of thirty-six, I’m trying to figure out how to get this message across, in the nicest way of course.  Ah, the problem with being a woman, we’re always trying to be nice about it.

Here’s the scenario.  Met a woman through work.  She drives me nuts.  She’s one of those people who, though she’s a black woman my age, felt free to tell me that she’s not a fan of living or working or being around black people.  I know, I know, I should have said to her right then, I’m black, maybe you shouldn’t be talking to me either,.  But did I do it?  No.

Instead, I let her pester me, interrupt my workday, and drag me to tasteless ’safely ethnic’ lunches.  When she got another job, paying almost three times as much as our meager salaries, was I jealous, no.  In fact, I was quite relieved.  I wouldn’t have to see her day after day, thank goodness.

Every so often, I get an e-mail from her.  “Hey,” she writes, “Let’s get together.”  I’ve put her off for months being busy, and all that.  I just got one two days ago.  DH, who met her at a party and found her fantastically boorish, said, just never respond to her e-mails, she’ll get the hint.

That seems dishonest somehow; a sin of omission.  Now I’m trying to figure how to distance myself without being mean - that woman thing again.  Age has brought wisdom to a lot of things, but not this.

Sometimes nice things happen, even when I don’t flash my cleavage.

Yesterday, I got a new keyboard. (Don’t ask. I’m buying new components, monitor, keyboard, mouse, while I debate about which new computer to buy after seven and a half years, but I digress). Of course the new keyboard uses a USB connection, and my old computer only has a couple of USB slots, all used up by stuff. So I was off to Staples to get a USB to PS/2 connector. Despite the acres of stuff in the store, there’s no connector. I see a guy, who, to tell you the truth, look quite put out by a day of working in a big box store, but I asked him anyway if he knew where in the vast aisles, I could find this tiny thing.

Oddly, he started fishing in his pocket. I stood there patiently, and lo and behold, he pulls out a connector. He asked me, “Is this what you were looking for.”

It was exactly what I needed, so I nodded. He put it in my hand and said, “It’s yours! Have a good day!”

I smiled, took it, went home, and here I am typing today.

That, for a while, at least, will make up for all the sour faced, foul tempered folks I usually deal with.

On March 27, two years long overdue, I decided to take a two and a half week long vacation to Portugal. I have always abided by the policy of using the national airline of any country I fly to, British Airways to London, Japan Air Lines to Tokyo, Air France to Paris, and so on. My last Air France trip left something to be desired (what I only paid for a reservation, not a seat, so you can bump me?), so I thought, why not try a domestic airline. United flies to China, American to Europe, the Carribean, and South America, how bad could it be.

When I picked my dates, and confirmed the availability of First and Business class seats, I hesitated two or three days. A domestic airline, I thought - will I ever get off the ground. I thought thirty-six years of life had taught me to trust that gut instinct, but I studiosly ignored it and agreed to pay $6,968.48 (yes, that’s $7000 folks) for two tickets to Lisbon, Portugal.

Not to self: ALWAYS follow your gut feeling.

The start was not auspicious. My DH, Vortigern, was in the shower when the phone rang at 6:58 AM on May 23rd, an automated voice announcing that my flight was cancelled, but the ‘voice’ promised they were making other arrangements. Worrying more about the finicky weather in Lisbon than my flights, I hastily jotted down the number and called back. Oh, I was told, I know we gave you that customer service number, but it’s only for domestic travel - you really have to call this other number. Shower delayed, I called the second number.

I was on hold forever, before finally reaching someone. “No,” she says, “we have no other flights for you. Do you want to leave in one or two days?”

I didn’t scream. That’s what age does. “No,” I informed her. “I am going to Europe today. The only issue is how you are going to get me there.” The dangers of using a cordless phone in the shower, aside, the agent was able to book two business class tickets on Lufthansa leaving three hours later than my flight. “But,” she insisted. “I should leave for the airport RIGHT AWAY to CONFIRM the already confirmed seats.”

Promptly at 8 or so, I got to the airport. (There was surprisingly little traffic on the 405 - the only good karma of my travels), only to get to the USAirways desk and find out I didn’t have a seat. So, my seat was reconfirmed, again (redundant, but what happened) and I amused myself in the airport lounge for two hours while I waited for the Lufthansa gate to open. (That’s a really funny story, but not for this bitch session).

I get to the Lufthansa counter the very minute it opens. What? I don’t have a seat? Imagine that. I stood there until I had a seat. Then I waited another two hours for my flight. Needless to say my IPod and other in flight amusements were quickly losing battery power.

I had a wonderful exprience on Lufthansa, although I ended up doing what I wanted to avoid, flying to Frankfurt, past my destination, they flying back to my destination. All told an eight hour delay on the front end of the trip, twenty one hours of travel, and I missed the weekly market in the Alfama.

After weeks of travel, I had pushed my flight plans to the back of my mind, but I woke up anxious the morning of my return flight. Thank goodnes I can not see into the future, otherwise I would never have gotten out of bed the morning of June 10th. The good news: there was an actual plane, and I was going to take an actual USAirways flight.

I should have been suspicious when the screen kept flashing Lisboa/Oporto - Philadelphia. I kept asking myself, why Porto. It was a direct, over ocean flight to Philadelphia. Boy was I ever wrong.

My flight was scheduled to leave at 10:35. Once we’re seated on the plane, the flight crew informs us that they have no jet fuel in Lisbon, and will have to fly to Porto to get fuel, but we will surely all make our connecting flights. So we sat on the tarmac for an hour before take off for no specific reason. But I had had that one mimosa, so I was feeling no pain. Then we make the one hour flight to Porto, where refueling takes an hour while we sat there, then we sat on the tarmac for more time - no explanation forthcoming. At which point I asked for water or food or something, because that mimosa had worn off. There was a lot of bitching at DH, but we got a 100 calorie bag of Sun Chips and some nuts. I hate junk food, but scarfed down those chips like you wouldn’t believe.

At 2:00 PM or so, we finally get in the air for the seven hour flight to Philadelphia. I won’t discuss the other crappy aspects of the flight because fouled toilets and video screens only dispensed upon request were the least of this flight’s issues. We land in Philadelphia, but lo and behold there’s no gate available and again we’re left sitting on the tarmac in one hundred degree heat and humidity. The flight crew had ordered a people mover to get us off the plane, but it didn’t come. I knew things were really bad when the pilot put his bags down for the fourth or fifth time and was yelling into his cell phone to get a bus over here so we could all get off the damn plane.

It was clear that we were going to miss, by a mile, our connecting flight because of passport control, baggage pick up, and customs. I walked/ran NYC style to the USAirways counter to get there first (a very good move, BTW, maybe) to get on the first flight to Los Angeles. The ticket agents announce that they’ve made provisions for all of us, except, of course, they hadn’t.

Can they get us those first class seats we paid dearly for, I asked.  No, unless we want to travel in one or two days (what’s up with this question over and over again? We’re flying because we’d like to get there today - horse drawn buggies are for people with more leisure time).

And here (what you’re still reading?) is where the true nightmare begins. I agreed to fly standby in coach on a direct flight to LAX that’ll land at 9:30 PM or so. I’ll skip world’s nastiest gate agent, and get to the nitty gritty. After the plane if boarded, I’m told to find any available seat in coach, which I do. Then we sit on the tarmac, and sit, and sit.

The excuse this time. A fully fueled plane (well, at least we have fuel) can’t fly efficiently with the headwinds, so they’re going to take some fuel off the plane, and we’re going to have to stop an refuel some where in the midwest to complete the trip to LA, but it shouldn’t add more than an hour to our landing time. (VERY WISHFUL THINKING). In the time it takes to take fuel off the aircraft we miss our take off window and we sit on the tarmac for a couple of hours waiting out a sudden storm. Needless to say there are some passenger incidents and the air marshalls have to remove someone from the plane.

There is no food and little water to be had, but after three hours (I think, I was kind of loopy by then) we take off. This was world’s slowest flight. I felt like I could have run alongside faster, Fred Flintstone style. We land in Kansas City, Kansas or Missouri, I don’t know - whichever has an airport - to refuel. A woman got sick everywhere and we had to pull up to a gate to get her off the flight. Finally, we’re airborn again and it took forever to get to Los Angeles. And mind you we had no food, no water, disgustingly foul bathrooms, and a short-tempered flight crew, which didn’t make that trip pleasant. I was never so happy to land at almost 3:00 AM, only nine hours after I was supposed to arrive.

Final score, flights booked, four, flights taken one.

A short, violently turbulent flight would have been preferable to this USAirways hell. Needless to say no more than three employees told me I was insane to fly the airline and that they were only there for the pension. The customer relations person I’m working with to get my refund asked why I didn’t fly British Airways.

I told her in the future, I will.

Tomorrow morning, I leave for a three week vacation in Portugal.  The question I’ve received more in the last week than any other is: Why Portugal?

When I’ve gone to London or Paris, I’ve never received this question.  Not even Tokyo, but when we went to Seoul I got the same questions.

The true answer: Why not?

I like traveling and it’s better going to countries I haven’t visited before.  We were negotiating a location and each of our dream destinations fell by the wayside.  For Adam it’s Greece.  For me it’s Australia.  Randomly, we discussed Macao and Goa and realized those two areas had one thing in common, Portuguese colonization.

We figured why not go for the real thing.  Portugal has a lot going for it as a vacation destination: temperate weather, a vibrant capitol city, and for DH, castles, castles, and more castelos.  He likes ancient ruins and it seems that Portugal will have that in spades.  We’ll be driving to every eroding brick in the country, if my itinerary is correct.

It may not be traditional, but nothing else in my life has been so far, so why start now.

I got up this morning and put on a reversible T-shirt - back to front, not inside-out.  I think it got it at The Gap or American Apparel.  The idea is that you get a scoop neck and crew neck in one shirt, the mullet of shirts (business in the front, party in the back).  I put it on, crew side forward, and went on about my day.

I briefly stopped at the mall to get something for the upcoming trip, and decided to try on a cute, but overpriced tank top, I saw on a mannequin.  Unbeknownst to me, however, when I put my shirt back on, it was scoop side front.

I left the store, and all of a sudden, I couldn’t keep men from smiling, and chatting, and thanking me for my smile.  It was like night and day.  For good ten or fifteen minutes, I couldn’t figure out what in the heck had changed.  I was the same person who’d left the house this morning in grotty, pet hair laden, sweats, sans jewelry and makeup.

Then, inadvertantly, I looked down, and realized I’d brought my milkshakes to the party.  I debated turning the t-shirt back to the more, uh, conservative side in the car, but instead opted for the great service that came my way at the library, and drug store, and Trader Joe’s.

DH (Vortigern) laughs when I use my, uh, ‘charm’ to get discounts, free stuff, good service (especially at electronics stores and auto repair shops).  But the female body, like it or not, has a certain, uh, currency.

When I was sixteen, and self-conscious, it used to bother me.  Now I think if I can get stuff and I don’t have to do a darn thing but stand there and look cute, then all to my benefit.

I suspect my fellow sisters would find the paradigm inherently sexist.  I say, let men lead with their, uh, brains.

Dear husband is forever advising me of what I should be writing about on my blog.  I’m working on other stuff, I said.  You should write them yourself.  So, he’s been gathering his thoughts, taking notes, and scribbling late into the night.

I suspect you’ll see more of him around here in the near future.

I don’t know which is harder, writing or running.

For the last six weeks or so, I’ve been training to run a 10K race.  When I was in high school, I was lucky if I could complete a mile in 15 minutes.  I specialized then in being skinny/flabby.  I ate what I wanted, never exercised, maintained 125 pounds, but was in terrible shape.  After I put on weight at the ripe old age of twenty-five, I decided, at twenty-nine (we’ll just ignore those intervening years) that maybe I shouldn’t just be thin, but fit too.  So I started exercising.  It was hard.  I was thrilled when I got my mile time to ten minutes.  Of course, I started thinking I could run more than one mile.

I started training for a 5K and did two last year.  The one five mile race I tried kicked my ass.  So when one of my trainers started a 10K clinic, I signed up.  Am I the fastest?  Not by a long shot, but it’s okay being last.  A lot of the other slow (not as slow as me) runners dropped out.  But I’m hanging in there.  Saturday I was able to run six miles in an hour.  Even though I can run a faster mile - less than eight minutes - I can maintain ten minute miles for a longer period of time.

When I finished my run this week, everyone else was done, sipping water, and eating oranges.  I may be last, but I haven’t quit.
This week my romance writer’s group has dedicated this week to writing, writing, and more writing.  So, I move on to a harder task writing a book.  I always start out with the best intentions.  It’s like a pop essay quiz: Imagine if these characters encounter this situation . . . discuss . . . .

Ideas abound, I take notes, then comes the hard part, putting words (that make sense) on paper.  I’m on page 63 of my current novel (about a third of the way through), and I’m trying to get at least a draft done by the first of August to pitch it as part of a series at a writer’s conference.

To say it’s slow going would be an understatement.  But if like running, I keep at it, I’ll get to the finish line, even if I’m not first.

I just need to collect my thoughts . . . soon you will see it here . . .

For the first time in 10 years, I’m not actively looking for a job.  I’m very frustrated with trying to fit a round peg (me), into a square hole (traditional jobs).

Looking back on how I spent my time in Los Angeles, I’m struck with how much time I’ve spent applying for jobs I could do with my eyes closed, interviewing for jobs (many I interviewed for more than four or five times), buying interview clothes (to go with weight gain and loss), and keeping my fingers crossed.  I can’t think of one thing I’ve gained from the experience, except an understanding that I’m not not the right fit.  I’m too black, too educated, too experienced, too driven, somehow just not right.

One of the blogs I read regularly (Romancing the Blog) opened a topic of discussion on what we’d do with our five lives.  All of my alternatives, of course, have me in a job.  In two scenarios I imagine myself living in New York City (Manhattan, even!), working as a journalist or in publishing.  In one scenario I live in Los Angeles working in television programming.  Oddly the scenario I’m living would not be on my list.

I never contemplated a life in LA that involved me living on the fringes of law or entertainment, and working on my yoga practice, or training for a 10K.

Redefining oneself is difficult, but I’m going to try to take the time (and not think about money lost) to figure out how to best live those remaining years.  The first step, though, will be not spending three or four hours looking at job ads, networking with reluctant advisers, and applying for jobs I know I’ll never get.

Well this week was better book wise. From at least two of the books I read, I got exactly what I expected.

The good.

Dear John, by Nicholas Sparks.

This is what I was looking for from a Sparks book when I took a few of them out of the library last week. I was interested in a tale of everlasting love from a man’s perspective. And that’s exactly what I got.

The Sex Quotient, by Jamie Sobrato

Ok, maybe my reading life is like a trip to McDonald’s. I want my Big Mac, and I’m happy when I get it. This was formula romance done well. The writing was great and the characters had depth. I often think the endings and HEAs are resolved too quickly, but I know that page limitations often make this very difficult for authors.

The not so good.

Intern, by Sandeep Jauhar.

I’ve periodically read this author’s essays in the New York Times. A skeptic of the medical profession, I picked up the book looking to see what an doctor had to say about the grueling process of internship and residency. For me the book was a little too self indulgent, masturbatory self-reflection, and egotistical - (yes, I’m aware I write a blog which could be called the same). If I wanted descriptions of the beauty of Manhattan, I’d read something else. If I was looking for acceptance of a flawed system, then I’d talk to the dozens of lawyers I know who celebrate a system that doesn’t help them or their clients, oftentimes. I’ve read a better book on this topic years ago, but can’t quite remember the title.

The Big Heat, by Jennifer Labrecque

How do I know when category romance is going to fail me? When a book by a prolific author has large type and big margins. That always screams book on deadline needed to fill monthly line up. This did not disappoint. The big-bad-bounty-hunter hero was too stoic for me. All that I want to boink your brains out, oh and marry you, but I refuse to declare my love. A bit of a ho hum. At least it was free.