Amtrak: Portal to the Underworld

I took a train ride up to Chicago yesterday. The last time I took the train up, it was quite pleasant. Sure the train ran a little late, but 45 minutes wasn't really any bother. Yesterday's train however, ran much much later than that.

I was supposed to be on my merry way at 11:43 in the AM. We didn't push off from the station until close to 3. Once we got moving, things seemed to be fine. Sure, I was three hours later than I had planned but I spoke to my friend up north and we made arrangements for me to get out to her place by Metra. No big.

About an hour into the ride, we stopped. And stay stopped for what felt like an eternity. The natives began their slow descent into insanity.

There were a handful of hairdressers on board who were headed to a big beauty show at McCormick Place. Having been in the business I knew things were going to get rowdy in a hurry.

Next to them was a group of older women celebrating one of their birthdays. They too partook of the 4 dollar cans of Bud in the dining car.

One of the birthday party girls sounded like Britney Spears on a bender. You know how people sound when they make fun of a southern accent? Multiply that by 100 and you'd come close to how cranked up this woman sounded.

Then there was the woman who freaked out on a dude while the both of them stood right next to my seat. It seems that the man (who later revealed he was 48 years old) had made a suggestive remark to one of the woman's preteen daughters.

"If you even look at my daughter I'll cut you up, motherfucker" is one of the more delightful zingers she screamed at him not two feet from my head.

The dude most definitely deserved it. I just wasn't in the mood to be party to any bloodshed at the moment.

Later that same man was "detained" on the lower level for smoking in between cars (during one of our many standstills of the trip) and getting belligerent with a conductor. He was really drunk, and this did not help his case. Nor did him shouting, "I am not some ni***r! Don't treat me like some ni***r!". EEP.

At some point the birthday girls and the hairdressers started calling the Amtrak 800 number to complain about the delay. Nothing is more entertaining than listening to a bunch of drunk yahoos trying to sound sufficiently angry without slurring on the line with some operator who couldn't possibly care less that there was a bunch of drunkards stuck on the track in bumfuck Illinois.

One passenger lamented that she really needed to smoke. I mentally agreed with the sentiment. Redneck Birthday Girl, ever the patron saint of drunkards, had a mini lecture session.

"You shouldn't smoke! You're so young! It makes you stink! It's so EXPENSIVE!"

And the best line of the entire night:

"Think about how much more you could drink with all that money!"

Once we finally started moving the mood lightened a little.

I decided that since I wouldn't have time to get ready before the show, I would pull a cheap hooker move and put my makeup on in the train bathroom. Sometimes I astound myself with the magnitude of my class. Yeah...

After that I decided to go full force and change my clothes, but was then informed no one was allowed downstairs to the bathrooms because of the aforementioned drunk, loud guy being "detained".

I shared my quandry with the hairdressers and they kindly offered to hold up their coats so I could change right there in a seat. Again with the class.

We finally got to Union Station around 7:15. Only about FIVE hours late.

I was just glad it was over.

After some phone tag and some well deserved smoke breaks, I was on my way to meet up at the show.

I ended up having a fantastic time with some wonderful friends.

I'll probably take the train again. I'm a sucker for punishment and really...what else do I have to blog about?

Playing Catchup

This weekend I went up to Chicago with my friend Travis to see a "band" named Girl Talk at the Metro. What a clusterfuck that was.

Don't get me wrong. I had a fabulous time. We stayed with one of his oldest friends and her husband and I couldn't have asked for better hosts. The evening was a late celebration of the husband half of our boarders.

They had a little get together before the show, and hired a limo to take our tipsy asses into the city.

Travis did my hair and makeup and the end product was stripperific. I loved it.

The show wasn't slated to start until 11pm, so I was leery that I was even going to make it there without falling asleep. When we got to the Metro, the line was wrapped around the block so we hit a nearby bar to kill some time.

Sometime after midnight I looked up at one of the television screens to see that Obama took South Carolina with 55 percent. Suddenly I caught my second wind. How amazing is that? I was positively giddy.

I was so excited that I nearly forgot that we still a show to attend.

At close to 1:30 in the motherfucking morning, we stepped foot into the show. I didn't really know what to expect. I'd never even heard of this "band" before, but it was a free ticket and a weekend getaway so who am I to complain?

That was a joke. I'm totally going to complain.

The show was basically a dude on stage with a DJ setup, playing his CD and pretending to spin records. I think.

I was so confused.

The music was fun. It was basically "mash ups" of intertwined riffs and samples of everything from Elton John and James Taylor to Britney Spears and--I swear to the babyjesus--a snippet of a Tones on Tail song. Crazy.

Travis and I agreed that the whole ordeal made us feel elderly, or "oldsters" as we lovingly referred to our posse for the night.

The people watching was amazing though. I am such a stare queen in situations like that, and I was not left hanging for a moment.

I will say that while I joke about feeling old, I know I'm not. I am however too old to deal with the shitastic bathroom situation at the Metro. It was gross the last time I was there (13 years ago. Mazzy Star.). The full magnitude of its gut wrenching nastiness is even more apparent now without a cloud of smoke to cover it up.

We didn't get back to our hosts' house until almost 4 in the morning. Christ, who do I think I am?

The whole night can pretty much be summed up by the mental image I have burned into my retinas of a girl and her friend parting the crowd just fast enough to puke at my feet.

But seriously, I had a great time. Next time though, I think I'll go to the early show.

It's Tattoos, Ya'll!

Last night Audrey got out of the tub and proceeded to return her entire dinner into a towel I heroically swooped under her mouth just in the nick of time. I kept trying to scoot her closer to the toilet as wave after wave of chicken/broccoli/french fry goop came pouring out of her gullet, but she kept backing up.

It was kind of funny.

"BLORT!"

"Come this way honey..."

"BLORT!"

"No, not towards the door...this way. OK, in the towel then."

A couple hours after I got them in bed, Mina was up and ready for her barf-o-rama.

This morning, Mina was fine. Audrey seemed fine, but after eating and then un-eating breakfast was in for a day of couch surfing and little else.

She even puked up the juice she drank, and won't go near the Pedialyte (I can't blame her. It looks like urine on the morning after a loooong night of drinking).

The only good thing about your kid being sick is the primo snuggle time.

The poor thing can't keep any food down so she is not in her usual tornado mode. Normally she isn't very snuggly, but today we got to spend some sweet moments stretched out on the couch, catching up on Blue and Franklin, just cuddled up warm and cozy.

I'm letting her sleep on the couch not so much as a "special treat" but to make sure I catch any further throwing up incidents. We just got the floors done and my mother in law got us this rockin new rug that I would like to try and keep puke(and dog poop) free for as long as possible. I don't ask for much.

If you've read this far without feeling queasy you probably have kids of your own who's puke you've caught, shit you've wiped and snot you've sopped up. If you don't have kids, then my apologies and I hope you weren't eating.

I really thought it was something they ate, but Audrey feels like she has a fever now so I think she's legitimately sick. My supergreatkickass friend Rachel was planning on have my girls over for a slumber party on Saturday, but I think Audrey is going to have to sit this one out. We'll see.

My husbitch and I had big plans to go down to St. Louis for the Old School Tattoo Expo. I told him that if Audrey got sick again, he could stay home and I was still going. I was kind of half-joking, but he gave me the "Fine. Whatever" look.

I think I might still go. Is that too Britney of me?

Weighing In

I've resisted until now, but it looks like my rabid obsession with stupid people has won out.

Oh Britney....

Did fame at an early age warp her grasp of reality, give her an overinflated sense of entitlement and rob her of a normal childhood? Yes. (paging Michael Jackson)

Is she a drug addict/alcoholic/fame whore? Yes.

Should she have ever been allowed to breed. Fuck no. There should have been someone on her payroll with the sole job of sneaking birth control pills into her Red Bulls every morning.

But she did breed, and I could weep for what those poor little boys have probably seen and been subjected to. Being dropped out of a highchair is likely the least of their worries.

I think she thought she wanted the domestic life, but (in obvious news) not only did the husbitch turn out to be a skeezy loser,(in more obvious news)it turns out that having children is hard work.

"Oh mah gawd, like, why aren't they just sitting there being cute and stuff?"

So, here's the thing. Now that she's had her children taken out of her custody, why does everyone assume that she wants them back?

A quick scan of the supermarket checkout stand and a few minutes of E! is sure to clue even the most die hard Britney fan that she couldn't care less about being a mother.

I think she's relieved not to have to take care of (or rather pay someone else to take care of) her kids while she blows some douchebag in the hot tub at the Palms.

She's not going to go to rehab...rather, she'll go for show, but not take it seriously. She's not going to stop flashing her bald vag at the paparazzi, and she's not going to get those kids back. If she doesn't want them back, why would anyone want her to have them?

I don't understand how anyone who's given birth doesn't want what best for their offspring. In this case, the best thing for those boys is not being around their trainwreck of a Mom.

I would actually think more of her if she just fessed up.