This is the kind of shit I come up with when I don't have anything funny to say

Do yourself a favor and skip the entire middle section of this post. It is insane.

I've clearly been slacking on the blog posts. So I've promised myself all week that I would post something. So basically I'm warning you that I have nothing of substance to say and this is all going to be fluff and bullshit. Consider yourself warned and your time wasted.

Caitlyn... what has she been doing? Smacking me in the damn face, that's what. This started on Monday after I got home from work. She was in a mood. She had baby PMS. Every time she looked at me, it was to scowl and when I'd scowl back, she'd give me her best "whatchu talkin' bout Willis" look and smack me. Little jerk. According to the babysitter, she had been doing this all day. On Tuesday she seemed better, and she was her sweet, pleasant self for the babysitter. Then she got home and gave me dirty looks. It seems it's become something of a game for her. She isn't necessarily in a bad mood when she does it, she thinks it's funny. Obviously, I do not, and when I react unfavorably to her hilarious new game, then she does get pissed off and I get the scowl/smack combo platter.

As I had no real direction for this post to begin with, I'm going to veer off topic right here. The scowl/smack combo. It reminded me of something that I'm going to share with you. You will be better for it. Your life will never be the same again.

You know how sometimes, someone has offended you to your very core? Maybe it's your husband (usually it's your husband) and he's inadvertantly implied that you don't need a second Entenmann's chocolate donut. Maybe you are trying to discuss something important with him (or at least you will pretend it was important after it becomes clear that he has no idea what you just said) and he won't stop playing Call of Duty long enough to listen to your concerns. Maybe you've simply realized you hate his face.

My point is, you need to take action. You need to make it clear to him that these kinds of behaviors (and faces) are unacceptable. But how can you accomplish that? He's already ignoring you, and it only gets worse when you start to nag him. What can you possibly do to make sure you have his full, undivided attention? What will send the message that you mean business and that there will be consequences to his actions?

2 words, my friends:

FACEPUNCH/MOUTHFART.

And yes, I do consider it to be only 2 words. They are compound words, obviously.

The beauty of the FACEPUNCH/MOUTHFART combo platter is the many levels on which it is satisfying. First, you get the facepunch. A physical manifestion of your feelings. A call to action. The action of punching someone in the face. Don't feel bad, he totally deserved it (that donut thing? Yeah, he totally DID call you fat.). And it makes the second part of the platter so much easier to administer. Even if you've not been successful in knocking him to the ground, you've stunned him momentarily. He can't believe you just did that, you crazy bitch! And he surely isn't expecting part 2.

The mouthfart. This one isn't easy, and it rarely works more than once, because you only have the element of surprise on your side that first time. Pick your mouthfart moment carefully. You don't want to waste it. Also, nobody is going to stand by and willing let you fart in their mouth, so you have to be quick. Don't try to pull your pants down or some shit. That will put you in a vulnerable position and end your moment of triumph before it even happens. The mouthfart must be stealth for it to work. The elusive and unexpected mouthfart is the thing of legends. Make yourself a legend. FACEPUNCH/MOUTHFART will live on forever, haunting the dreams of your victim (husband).

Now back to our regularly scheduled program:

So Caitlyn is scowling and smacking. And besides that one day, it seems to only be directed at me. Last night, since time-outs haven't done a damn thing to head this off, I thought that maybe if I smacked her on her hand, just hard enough for her to realize it was unpleasant, maybe she would knock it off. I didn't do this unprompted, of course. I waited for her to smack me first. And when she did, I gave her a little slap on her hand to show her that hitting hurts.

And she smiled at me. And not just a regular smile either. She cocked her head to the side and gave me her best, side-eye "is that the best you got, bitch?" smile. She was unimpressed. Apparently hitting only hurts if your baby isn't a thug.

So I'm working on this. My mother thinks that maybe her time-outs need to be more than 90 seconds long. I wish I were exaggerating for entertainment value. 90 seconds is the absolute longest time-out she has ever gotten. So it's probably my fault for being terrible at disciplining my kid. It would probably be a little more impressive if I could wait a full 2 minutes or something.

So, any suggestions? Is my kid an asshole? Am I? Obviously she has decided to hate me from an early age since I'm the only one she's smacking, right? I thought I had till she was at least 13 before she hated me.

Damn it Feels Good

Nadine pointed out to me today that my blog format is kinda shitty. I've been noticing problems with some stuff too, but I am not good at this shit, so she sent me some links to templates and she's going to help me figure it out.

The problem is that I can't seem to find a template that conveys my vision. It has to say "KIDS" when you first see it, but then you realize it isn't actually for kids at all. My first thought, upon realizing this was that I need a template that includes Elmo drinking a beer. Or a couple of Muppets having sex. Do any of you know where I might find such a template?

On a completely unrelated note (Am I master of segues? You betcha.) Caitlyn has a new thing she's been doing and I just found out why. How to explain?

Did you all grow up in the ghetto? I can't say my town was exactly "the ghetto" (not then anyway), but it was most certainly ghetto-adjacent. So you know how sometimes when you are in the ghetto, you want to acknowledge another gangsta? What do you do? You don't smile. Not unless you wanna get shot. You don't shake a motherfucker's hand. And you sure as shit don't go up to him and say "hi there buddy! How have you been?".

No. What you do is a brief half-nod type gesture with your head. It isn't a regular nod exactly. There is no up-and-down motion. Just a quick up motion. You get what I'm saying here? It's a simple greeting. It says "I ain't no pig" or "I'm a Blood too" or "smiling is for bitches". What it doesn't say? "I still shit my pants". Someone needs to explain this to Caitlyn.

I've mentioned how much I love my new babysitter. She has taught Caitlyn so much and spends quality time with her and it's all great. We have been with her for almost 3 months now though, and I've yet to meet her boyfriend, who lives with her. This isn't a sticking point for me ... we tried to arrange a meeting and it just didn't happen because he works almost constantly.

So the babysitter and I were discussing this the other day. She mentioned that he was home the other day and offered to watch the kids while she ran out to the store or something. Despite the fact that this is the father of her son and that she trusts him completely, she respectfully declined to leave Caitlyn with him because Rodolfo and I had yet to meet him. She pointed out to him that he should think about how he would feel if they were to leave their son with a babysitter and came to pick him up to find him with someone they didn't know. It was an excellent point and I greatly appreciated her respect.

This isn't the point. My point is that we were discussing her boyfriend. She was saying how he usually comes from his first job and is home for a few minutes before leaving for his second. She pointed out that Caitlyn does know him, but mostly in passing. She told me that when he sees her, he greets her in a way that is unusual to greet a baby. He greets her with the thug head-nod. And she responds to his greeting, naturally, by returning the gesture. Which explains why she was doing this last weekend at my mother's house. I couldn't figure that one out for shit.

So once again, Caitlyn has proven that she is the Tupac to my Bow wow. I simply can't keep up with her level of street cred.

Do You Believe in Santa? How about Tylenol? Jesus?

Caitlyn is getting molars. I think. I mean, she's being an asshole and she's screaming a lot and won't sleep for more than 3 hours at a time. That sounds like molars, right? Fucking molars.

Last night was day 4 of Caitlyn's marathon screaming at bedtime. It was exceptionally bad because the screaming started well before we put her to bed. I frequently take showers with her as opposed to giving her a bath and she usually loves it. Last night though, she spent about half the time with her head on my shoulder while she shattered my eardrums with her wailing.

She screamed for another hour before bed, but she finally did go to sleep. For an hour. Then she woke up and cried for 10 more minutes before we all finally went to bed for the night. And by "the night" obviously I mean for another 2 or 3 hours.

The first time she woke up, she only cried for 5 minutes and dozed back off. Another hour after that when she awoke again, we figured we would give it a few minutes and hoped she would go back to sleep on her own. That was not the case. After 5 minutes of ear-shattering screams, I tried to console Caitlyn and gave her a bottle. She refused the bottle and nothing I did could calm her down. That isn't easy. When you know your kid is in pain and nothing you are doing is helping... man, you just sort of feel like an asshole.

About 25 minutes into this ordeal, Rodolfo and I were scrambling for anything that might help. I even took a teething ring out of the freezer at 4:30 in the fucking morning because I thought she might want it. She did not. Then I realized that enough time had passed and she could have some more Tylenol. In case you are wondering, it's really hard to find an bottle of Tylenol at 4:30 in the morning, because Rodolfo gave up after roughly 10 seconds and told me to find it.

I found the Tylenol and figured I had another 15 or 20 minutes till it kicked in, so I laid Caitlyn on my chest and tried to close my eyes. She continued to scream. By the time 10 or 15 minutes had passed I was exhausted and frustrated- especially since I was taking care of the baby while Rodolfo went back to sleep. He is working a late shift today (meaning he can sleep as late as Caitlyn does) and I had to be up at 6:30 this morning. I didn't point this out right away though, because he is usually really good about getting up with her at night. Until.

Caitlyn's crying had jarred him out of his peaceful slumber once again, to which he responded "I knew Tylenol wasn't going to do anything. I don't even believe in Tylenol". That's right, folks. He doesn't believe in Tylenol. And who can blame him? Tylenol is a Scientologist.

My husband is Hispanic. He is superstitious. Once, when Caitlyn was only a couple of months old, he was convinced that someone had given her the "evil eye" when I took her to the mall that day because she was being really fussy when we got home. He immediately got his mom on the web cam where she said some sort of prayer to... exorcise the evil eye, I suppose? And did I mention the part about the egg? He didn't do it, because he doesn't know the "right way" (is there a right way to do voodoo?) but his mother explained to him that he should take a raw egg and roll it up and down Caitlyn's body. When he is finished, if he has done it correctly, the egg should be cooked, which would indicate that the heat from the bad vibes have been removed from the baby and absorbed into the egg. I mean, if my baby's body is hot enough to cook an egg, I'm going to take her to the hospital because she probably has some sort of horrific infection, but I guess it could totally be the evil eye too. But really, who needs antibiotics when you have an egg. Did I mention that she didn't have a fever through any of this? Evil eye is stealth like that.

So as I was saying, this man decided that he does not believe in Tylenol. Because, fucking TYLENOL people. Science and modern medicine is total bullshit anyway. Except for that time he had thyroid cancer. And appendicitis. But seriously, those were isolated incidents. If his mom had been in the country, she would have just cured him with an egg or maybe with the cancer she would have had to sacrifice a live chicken or something. I don't know how that shit works. I'm not a (witch) doctor.

My point (if I ever decide to make it) is that the comment about Tylenol pissed me off. It was the one thing that might have actually helped Caitlyn feel better and let us get some sleep. And this dumb ass is telling me he doesn't believe in it after 10 minutes of waiting for it to kick in so his beauty sleep is no longer being interrupted. I rolled my eyes and made a snide comment about how he's a moron or something like that. And he got ridiculously pissed off.

And then we had a fight at 5:00 in the morning while Caitlyn screamed in the background. That's what happens when you don't get any sleep. You have irrationally strong responses to Tylenol and snide comments and you wanna murder your spouse.

And now back to work ... the work of trying not to fall asleep at my desk. Fucking teething, man.

Lessons I'm Going to Learn for You

So you thought that last post was pretty bad, did you? Well you are in for a treat. I've done something monumentally stupid. I taught my kid the word "asshole".

I'm kind of notorious for being a bit of a klutz. So was the case last week, when I bumped Caitlyn's head on a doorway. For the third time. Rodolfo made some jerky comment to the end of "Caitlyn is in danger every time she is with you", which probably doesn't sound THAT mean, but you see, I was PMSing. And Rodolfo is notorious for being an asshole.

Naturally, I reacted by telling him he was being an asshole. And then I turned to my 13 month old daughter; "Caitlyn, tell Daddy he is being an asshole". Caitlyn responded without missing a beat: "Asshole" (Yes, in fact, she DID say it with a capital "A". She's gangsta like that.). And so began the watching of my mouth.

Now usually when Caitlyn starts saying a new word, she needs to be prompted in some way to get her to say it. She sees the cat and says "kitty'. I'll sing a song to her and she sings back (doo doo doo, doo doo doo to the Rocky theme song when my dad started singing it to her this weekend, and the same while I made the "dun-dun dun-dun dun-dun" you-are-about-to-be-eaten-by-a-shark Jaws theme while we were in the pool). And Da-DEE. Oh how she loves to call her Da-DEE every time she sees him. So what, you might wonder, would prompt her to start saying "asshole" 25 times a day?

The dog. I'm starting to see a theme in my mommy failures. I have no choice but to take the credit for prompting her to say asshole, but my husband refuses to recognize his involvement in all of this. If I haven't mentioned it before, here it is: Rodolfo hates the dog. HATES. Really. Before Caitlyn's birth, he merely tolerated the dog, but now he constantly reminds me that I "don't have time for a dog and a baby" and presses me almost daily to find a new home for him. Whatevs dude. My point is that he has a little nickname for the dog. Can you guess what it is? Yup, that's right. He calls the dog "asshole". All. The. Time.

All of these elements led to one inevitable conclusion. With such an exciting new word in her vocabulary and the nearly constant prompting to say it (I mean, that's what Daddy says every time he sees Joey), Caitlyn has come to call Joey "Asshole". She seems 100% convinced that this is his name, which explains the capital "A", I guess.

I'm doing my best to correct her when she does say it, reminding her that, in fact, the dog's name is JOEY. But to no avail. And when she does say it, she says it like 10 times in a row. It's really hard not to laugh. Rodolfo is significantly less amused.

Lesson? Learned, my friends. Let me take this one off your hands for you. Don't tell your kid to say asshole, okay? Ever.

Mommy Fail- The Dog Shit Diaries

Yesterday after work I decided to take my lovely daughter and our dog, Joey for a walk around the block. The weather was warm but not oppressive and we all needed a little exercise, so I leashed up the dog and shoe'd up the baby and off we went.

I'll start by saying that I knew this wouldn't be easy exactly. I'd chosen not to bring the stroller because I thought she would like to walk. Caitlyn is pretty sure in her footing now, so I wasn't so worried about her falling but there were other issues that made it a challenge. Joey can get a little overzealous on his walks and I tend to be THAT woman, with the asshole dog dragging her around the block. And that just doesn't work out so well when you are trying to hold your one-year-old's hand. And did I mention how there aren't any sidewalks on half the streets around my house? Yeah. Complicated. But I knew my daughter would love the fresh air and anything that drains some of her toddler energy is worth the effort on my part.

It started off okay. We walked around the corner and through a sprinkler, which Caitlyn thought was hilarious. Joey got halfway up the first block and took a shit. It was then that I noticed the plastic bag I'd chosen had a bit of a hole in the bottom. Still, I solidered on, doubling the bag over onto itself and being a good dog owner who doesn't leave their dog's shit all over the place.

We were halfway around the block when we hit the first street that has a sidewalk. I thought I could breathe a little easier because I could let go of Caitlyn's hand for a while and not have to worry about her running immediately into oncoming traffic. I could wrangle the dog a little better. I could let her frolic on lawns and shit. And frolic she did. She spent a good 5 minutes running in circles in front of one house while I tried my hardest to corral her back onto the sidewalk.

At one point during Caitlyn's frolicking, the dog started pulling me in the opposite direction. She was safely in the grass and Joey was dragging himself toward the street side of the sidewalk. I finally righted him and he promptly moved toward the lawn and took another shit. Caitlyn was a couple of feet away on the same lawn, so I quickly moved in to scoop up the poop.

As I bent down and took my eyes off of her for just a second, Caitlyn decided that lawn time was over and crossed the sidewalk toward the street. Just as I lifted my head, a bag full of poop in my hand, I saw why she left the lawn. I'd miss something critical when Joey pulled me toward the street. It happened in slow motion from there. She was leaning over, EVER....SOOO.....SLOOOOWLY. She reached out her hand toward her target, her fingertips brushing the treasure she sought. In a mere moment she would have it fully in her grasp, where it would surely go promptly into her mouth. No, I had to stop this. "Nooooooooo", I shouted, abject horror clear in my voice. "Dooooooon't eaaaaaaaaaaaaat the DOOOOOOG SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!".

Like a ninja I grabbed her, shaking loose her grip. She dropped the dog shit back into the grass and looked up at me with confusion in her eyes. I grabbed my plastic bag and quickly scooped up Joey's little gift. That's when a second tragedy befell me. The bag tore. And now we both had shit on our hands.

The second half of our journey around the block was spent with me scolding the dog for...taking a shit I guess? And pushing Caitlyn's hand away from her mouth because she chose that very moment to decide that her fingers were delicious.

We got home where I promptly scrubbed us both clean. Once that was accomplished I could put her down and let her play while I fed Joey. So of course I dropped a piece of dog food which she immediately (ninja genes and all that) grabbed and put in her mouth before I could take it away from her. I guess she wanted to compare the before and after? She was very pissed off when I took it away. She's spent the last 2 months trying to sample that damn dog food.

So that was it- our eventful, disgusting walk around the block. Next time, I'm bringing the damn stroller.

IVF is Fun Like a Roller Coaster is Fun Until Someone Falls Out

This weekend was kind of a busy one. I helped Nadine move on Saturday, then came home all jealous of her fancy new place and decided that I couldn't wait another second before getting my house in order.

The thing is, I've lived in my current apartment for 2 and a half years. And I'm just getting around to this shit now. It isn't my fault, exactly. You see, the thing is that I moved in February of 2009. I was 5 months pregnant with my son and vomitting and exhausted pretty much constantly. Then there were the 6 months after that pregnancy ended. Obviously there were emotional issues which made me not give a fuck about my house. Then there was IVF #2. Lemme break down my IVF cycle for you, to give you an idea of what I was dealing with:

Step 1: 2 weeks- birth control pills. They do this to stop your eggs from starting to mature because they want them all to be at the same level so you get more than one egg when you start stimulation. My body was not happy about this. I pretty much had what was essentially PMS for these 2 weeks. Murderous fury raged through my body. I hated everything.

Step 2: Stimulation. I actually had this easier than most IVFers. I did a minimal stimulation protocol which means I used Clomid instead of all the scary injections. But here's the thing about Clomid: You know those barren ovaries from 2 weeks ago? Yeah, they are in crazy estrogen mode now. Your body is flooded with crazy. All you can think about is ice cream and procreating. You pass by a high school and see a 17 year old on a skateboard and think how he's probably got healthy sperm. And you muse about how easy it would be to get a 17 year old to impregnate you. Way easier than IVF, that's for sure. Oh sure, he might be a little turned off by the sweating and irrational mood swings and maniacal cackling, but he would get over it. And you were going to Babies R Us anyway... I bet you could just buy him a video game and offer some poon and he would totally go for it.

Step 3: Monitoring. Technically this is part of the stimulation process, but it's just so fucking laborious that it needs to be it's own step. It went a little something like this: Go to the doctor, have blood drawn, drop trou and get violated by the dildogram. Go to work and wait several hours to get results and find out when your next appointment is. Phone obviously rings while a customer or your boss is standing in front of you and you have to excuse yourself to check on your eggs. Receive call, obsess. Repeat at next appointment, 4 days later. Repeat at following appointment 2 days after that. Repeat at appoinment after that, another 2 days later. Repeat another day after that. And the next day too. Oh wait...is it finally time for your retrieval? Perfect! I'm sure my job will be fine with 2 days notice. Oh and that Lupron nasal spray that tastes like a dead cat? SERIOUSLY, I've been looking forward to it!

Step 4: Egg Retrieval. Oh, how to put this delicately? Stirrups. Giant needle through your vaginal wall and into your ovary. Suck out contents of ovary. Repeat on the other side (did I mention that you aren't sedated? Yeah, a low dose Valium sounds totally appropriate here). But hey, you get the immediate satisfaction of knowing that they were able to retrieve eggs from all 3 of your mature follicles... but hey now, what's that about a "broken" egg? What the fuck is THAT supposed to mean? God, embryologists are SO fucking vague.

Step 5: Did you think monitoring was something fun to obsess about? Oh, yeah that was nothing. Did the eggs fertilize? Oh yeah. OK good. Except for that one broken one. I guess I should have expected that. Are they growing? Are they growing FAST enough? When are we scheduling the embryo transfer? Oh what's that? Only one of them made it past day 2? Fuck. One shot...

Step 6: Wait a fucking month. This isn't the usual, but Clomid can mess with implantation and I didn't get pregnant on my first fresh cycle, so my RE recommended freezing the embryo at day 5 and waiting a month (I should also mention that we went through all the motions of a cycle right up to scheduling a retrieval the month before this but cancelled at the last minute because we just had a bad feeling and something seemed...off).

Step 7: Bleed. Call doctor, start monitoring. Again.

Step 8: Finally, FINALLY schedule embryo transfer. Hope embryo survives thaw. Like half of them don't, in case you were wondering. Wouldn't that just be a bitch.

Step 9: More stirrups. Giant squirty straw. One live embryo, described by the nurse as "beautiful".

Step 10: More fucking waiting. Oh, and don't test at home because we gave you a shot of hormones that will turn the test positive even if you aren't pregnant. Oh and did we mention how we don't think you have had enough hormones in your body for the last couple of months? Take this estrogen and shove these progesterone suppositories into your vagina twice a day. They will give you symptoms to make you think you are pregnant even if you aren't. Oh, and they are gonna leak and stain your undies. Do you feel sexy and fertile yet?

Step 11: Test at home anyway. Feel excited but not too excited because it's-probably-just-the-shot when the test turns positive.

Step 12: Blood pregnancy test. Wait half a day to get results. Cry like a little baby bitch when they tell you that, yes, in fact you ARE pregnant. Mom doesn't appreciate it when you call her sobbing with GOOD news.

Step 13: Don't get your hopes up just yet bitch. Remember the last time you were pregnant?

Step 14: Schedule appointment with new OB. Start on blood thinners and baby aspirin because maybe you have a clotting problem seeing as how you had a late term loss last time.

Step 15: 7 week ultrasound with fertility doctor (RE). All is well. Baby has a heartbeat.

Step 16: 8 week ultrasound. Is that bleeding? Yeah. Sometimes that indicates an impending miscarriage. Fingers crossed, bitches.

Step 17: Be pregnant. Don't have a miscarriage. Don't eat deli meat. Call doctor crying because you didn't know the fondue cheese dip had liquor in it and you are pretty sure you are going to have a miscarriage. Finally stop vomitting at 16 weeks. Call doctor crying because you are pretty sure you are having a miscarriage. Baby starts sleeping in cycles. Call doctor crying during all sleep cycles because you are pretty sure you are having a miscarriage.

Step 18: Have a baby. Who would have thought? Baby is lovely and perfect. Spend first 3 months of her life imagining every horrible thing that could happen to her. Wake up in the night frequently to make sure she is still breathing (I still do this sometimes).

Step 19: Exclusively pump for 9 months, because this baby will not goddamn latch.

Step 20: Finally relax and enjoy motherhood. Maybe now you have time to address this shithole you live in? Fucking lazy whore...

So seriously people, don't judge me. I DID get around to it eventually. How do we feel about yellow?

Something Strange in the Neighborhood

You remember how in one of the Ghostbusters sequels there was that river of demon slime? I'm pretty sure that happened for real today.

I take 2 trains- the first takes me to a train station just on the NY/NJ border, then I take the PATH train (underground subway type train) across the river into the city. The way it works is that all the PATH trains go between NJ and NY but there are different start and end points. There are trains to 33rd street from 2 different locations and trains to the World Trade Center from 2 separate locations in NJ. So usually, when there is a delay, it involves one line or one station in particular. Unless there is a major technical issue, it's rare to see all the lines having problems.

This morning they were making announcements over the station's PA that there were 15 minute delays across the board from all stations into NY. The reason? A "sick passenger". Really now. Explain to me how a sick passenger creates a problem like that across multiple trains and multiple stations. It doesn't make sense. My theory? Demon slime of course.

I don't doubt that someone got sick, but the circumstances made me wonder what kind of sick would cause that kind of problem. I could only come to one probable answer: the sick passenger in question was projectile vomitting demon slime. And let me tell you, the city of New York did a stellar job of cleaning up that demon slime quickly and efficiently before anyone who isn't as smart as me could ever figure out it was there. Props, NYC, props.

While we are on the subject of trains, can we take a moment to talk shit about one of my fellow commuters? Of course you want to hear about the inane bullshit of my daily life! That's what blogging is for!

So while I was waiting for my demon train this morning, I found myself ducking another passenger. There's this woman. I usually run into her on my way home and I was not about to expend that kind of mental energy at 8:00am. I'm not a morning person. If she'd have seen me, I might have told her to leave me the fuck alone.

It isn't that she's an unpleasant person exactly. It's that she wants to chat every fucking day and I have absolutely nothing to say to her. It's my fault really. The PATH usually does run pretty close to schedule, but in the afternoons I never have more than 3 minutes from the time the PATH pulls into the NJ station to make it to my train home, on the other side of the station. If we are running even 2 minutes late, I can easily miss my train. Often, I'll have to run to make it. So I have the timing down to a science. I know what the cut-off point is for walking as opposed to running and if we leave the NY station past a certain time, I can be absolutely certain I won't make my train.

Lots of people take the PATH, but you can always tell the people who are trying to catch the same train home as me. We all crowd into the first car of the train, the one that's closest to the stairs to give us enough time to haul ass to our train home. Once, while on the PATH I heard a woman comment how she didn't know if she would make her train. All the trains run on the same schedule every day, so I was sure she had to be talking about the same train I take. So I asked her "the 5:25?". She said yes and I informed her that, on that particular day, we were running a bit ahead of schedule and would make the train with time to spare (one of those rare 4 minute days). She was happy to hear that and thanked me. I felt all cool and insider, like I fucking BELONGED working in the city.

Over the next few weeks, I noticed that this woman was frequently on the PATH with me. And every day she would ask me about the time, if we were going to make it. Then she started following me onto our other train and sitting next to me and wanting me to chat with her. Now, I'm not an asshole or anything, but I have a 1 year old at home. I need wind down time. And my little train ride is it. That's my downtime for the day. Still, I'm naturally polite, so I tried to find things to talk about.

She's much older than me. If I had to guess, I'd say she's in her 60s. I figured babies are always a hit with granny types. I talked about my daughter. She wasn't interested. It was obvious to me that she doesn't have any kids. Which is cool, if that's what she chose, but like, fuck dude. If she isn't a grandma, what the fuck else do I have to talk to her about? What do I have in common with this 60 year old woman that makes her think we are besties? NOTHING people. I've got fucking nothing.

Yesterday I made a point of telling her how TIRED I was and tried to nap on the train home. She wasn't having that. She decided to tell me about how her boss is a bitch and treats her like she's incompetent. All I could think was how she didn't seem to be the most perceptive person and that her boss is probably right. Is that mean? Yeah. It's kinda mean. Then she commented on how "slow" that part of the commute felt to her. Yeah bitch, it wouldn't feel so slow to me if I WAS SLEEPING LIKE I WANNA BE!

But I digress. Bitch is annoying. That's all I'm saying. And slime. Fucking slime.