You Are Not My Lucky Star

I'm cheap. Despite what my credit card balance may say about me, I really don't enjoy parting with any more money than absolutely necessary. Which is why, when my friends brought up a last-minute trip to New York City this weekend, I championed the cause of taking one of the Chinatown buses. Since we didn't want to die or end up with third degree burns on the side of the Pike, we decided to take Lucky Star, a bus line that doesn't feature so prominently in the local news, but was still cheap.

Let me tell you this right now. Never again will I take a bus that has a schedule with the appearance of a Chinese takeout menu, no matter how many of my eggs I must sell to pay off my trip.

The ride down to New York wasn't bad. When we boarded the bus, everything appeared to be in order. The bus reeked of disinfectant at first, but faded as waited for everyone to get on. No new funky smells overpowered us, and the bus backed out of the dock. As it jolted forward, the bathroom door swung open and hit my leg. My friends laughed uproariously as I kicked the door shut. The driver navigated the frightening curly-q ramp down to the Pike and the door kept swinging open. As I tossed my bag against the door to keep it shut, the guy sitting in front of us pointed out there was a bungee cord hanging on the side of the loo to keep the door from swinging when someone wasn't inside.

"Of course it's a bungee cord," I said, "because a bus' bathroom door is just like my Mom's garbage cans."

But we all had a good laugh, the bus stopped once at a Roy Rogers in Bumblefuck, Connecticut (quoth I: "I hate Connecticut."), and we arrived in Chinatown, New York almost exactly on time. We went to our hotel, walked around, met up with a friend, went shopping, had an amazing dinner in Little Italy, got picked up by the sailors' pimp at a wine bar, walked through Times Square at 1am, and went to bed. At an entirely unreasonable hour, we got up to head back to Boston. We waited by some trash cans in Chinatown for the bus to pull up.

The first sign of trouble was the bus itself. While our Boston to New York bus was emblazoned with the Lucky Star logo, this bus had an '80s-inspired aqua and hot pink brushstroke design, with no company logo. It was dinged up in the back. As its driver attempted to execute a three-point-turn in the middle of Chinatown, we got a little nervous.

Once the bus circled the block and pulled into its spot, we boarded. Unfortunately, this bus didn't have three seats next to each other in the back, so someone would end up in their own seat, ready for any freak that had $15 and a desire to see Boston in the springtime to sit next to them. We went toward the back of the bus, but I had everyone turn around due to a a funky human waste stink in the back. There was not even a hit of disinfectant. And where there were shopping-bag sized trash bags on every aisle seat on the bus the day before, there was just litter bouncing around on the floor on this bus. We grabbed some seats, with A sitting alone near a window so she could sleep.

As we sat, I began to notice things were not as good as they'd been on our trip down. The seats were ripping apart. The roof safety hatches appeared to be caulked shut. There was a pronounced odor of piss throughout the bus. There were a greater number of freaks on our bus from New York. There was the girl who is always on her cell phone and never turns it to vibrate. There was a homeless man who added to, but was not the cause of, the piss smell. An old Chinese lady yelled at the bus driver as he helped her store her belongings in one of the few overhead bins with a protective string to keep things from raining on passengers' heads. A ended up with a guy who could easily play football he was so big sitting next to her. Fifteen minutes late, the bus jerked out of its stop and on its way out of Manhattan.

I refrained from donning my headphones until we hit Connecticut. I looked around at the Bronx as we left the city, mentally sang "Jenny From the Block," and watched the old Chinese lady flip through her newspaper and tried to guess what the stories were about. I didn't breathe too deeply so I wouldn't gag from the overwhelming stench of urine. I stopped breathing entirely when the homeless guy wandered his way down the bus and started telling the bus driver something, and didn't take another shallow breath until he got back to his seat. Finally, we stopped at some rest stop on 95 in Connecticut (I fucking hate that state) with a McDonalds. Grateful for the chance to breathe some relatively fresh rest stop air, I got off the bus. After peeing and buying a coffee, we went back outside to where the bus was.

"Where is the bus?" Steph asked.

"Over there," A said, pointing to the one sad diesel pump with our one sad bus next to it.

We stood around and I sipped my iced coffee. The homeless guy wandered around, looking to make friends. He would mumble something, a nicer person than me would try to talk to him, and the homeless guy would say "No hablo Englais." He drank a Fanta he'd begged off someone.

I noticed I was about halfway done with my coffee, and saw that our bus driver was still pumping gas into the bus.

"We must have been on the fumes," Steph said. The bus driver removed the pump, then started fiddling with the gas cap.

"He's little," A commented. "Look, he can't even get the gas cap closed."

I was three-quarters done with my coffee. The driver was still unable to close the gas cap or the door to the gas tank.

"Come on, righty-tighty, let's go," Steph said.

"This delay is because I fibbed," I said. I've told a greater number of fibs this week than I usually do, and I think karma kicked my ass with this bus trip. Duly noted, karma. I'm sorry I fibbed.

Finally, the bus driver drove the bus back over to the waiting passengers. As he pulled up, we noticed the door to the gas cap was swinging freely open and closed. Someone went to the window and pointed this out to the driver.

"Surely he must have some bungee cord on this bus somewhere," I said. We climbed the stairs back into the bus that smelled like piss as the bus driver grabbed a pair of pliers to keep the gas door shut.

"We're never going to make it home," Steph said.

"We can call my Mom to come get us," I replied.

"Do you even know where we are?"

"No idea."

After a half-hour layover, the bus started back on its way to Boston. My iPod decided to play a funny joke by locking up on me. "Oh fucking no," I said to it, rebooting it. It then forgot that it had 1800 songs on it. I rebooted again, it realized the gravity of the situation, and it started playing my music. During the lull in music, I heard the homeless guy talking to someone behind me.

"No hablo Englais. But I don't speak Spanish either." Steph cracked up.

About forty minutes later, I noticed the bus was slowing down and merging to the right for an exit-only lane.

"Oh hell no," I said.

"What?" Steph said. "I just fell asleep. Are we stopping again?"

"Yeah we are."

"What the fuck?" A said, opening her eyes.

"Why do we need the Roy Rogers?" I asked. "Weren't we just at a McDonalds?"

But we had not yet stopped at the China Buffet. We got off the highway and pulled in to some strip mall in Northern Bumblefuck, Connecticut for a food break. After we'd all just eaten. Some people got off the bus, but most remained on board. Some sadists brought take-out back on board, giving the bus a nasty smell of urine and fried rice. It was horrendous.

"Never again. We are taking the train next time," Steph said.

"Agreed," A and I replied.

"I'm sorry I lied," I added.

To add insult to injury, the bus that left New York an hour after ours left pulled up while we sat in the lot. It was one of the newer models, and it appeared to be in better working order. We contemplated a mutiny, but stayed on our pee-stink bus. After twenty minutes, the driver found the one straggler and started the bus. We headed for the exit of the plaza. The driver attempted to exit from the "entrance only" lane. Steph jumped up in her seat, flung her hands in front of her face, and exclaimed "Oh my God. We're going to die on this bus" without a hint of irony or exaggeration.

The driver backed up, in theory to aim for the correct exit lane. But no. Instead, he just straightened out and headed for the entrance lane. I just started laughing hysterically as a Jeep headed for us, stopped, and let us go. Even the guy driving the Jeep was laughing his ass off. I thought about asking him if he'd mind a trip to Boston with three pretty girls. I wasn't laughing because I didn't think we were in a bad situation; I was laughing because there was nothing else I could do. We tried contacting every person we could think of who could get us at the plaza and bring us to another mode of transportation to Boston, but no one was around.

After unsafely getting back on the highway, the bus continued on. The bus shuddered so hard that every inch of fat on my body jiggled, making me horribly uncomfortable. After speeding at what easily could have been 100 miles per hour, the bus driver started slowing down quickly. When I looked to see why, I saw a Connecticut Statie sitting on the side of the road. Somehow, he didn't pull our hot mess of a bus over for speeding and generally being a cesspool on wheels. After the slowdown, I noticed the bus was shuddering even more and moving really slowly. The hills had been a problem for both buses to handle. On the downhill, we flew. When climbing uphill, all I could think of was the Little Engine That Could. "I think I can. I think I can." After we slowed, the bus barely made it up the hills. The engine sounded off, but I couldn't tell if the driver didn't know how to downshift, or if it was a mechanical problem. After going thirty-five miles an hour for about two miles, the bus started slowing down even more on a flat section of I-84.

"We are not going to break down," Steph said.

"Yeah we are."

"Perfect. That's just great." Steph jumped as we were nearly hit by a large truck. The driver, who apparently couldn't admit when the jig was up, remained in the travel lane until he had no other option but to pull over. My fat jiggled violently as the bus went over the rumble strip and ground to a halt, much to the vocal chagrin of the passengers.

"I want my money back," I said. "I am so not even kidding." I said this a bit too loudly, and the other passengers laughed at my riotous declaration.

Vehicles whizzed by our pee-stink bus as we sat idle for the first time in the whole trip. Even when we were at the China Buffet the bus stayed on. Either the driver was ignoring the law that you can't idle a bus for that long, or if he'd turned the bus off it wouldn't start again. After standing for a minute or two, the engine roared to life, and by some miracle the bus sloppily merged back into traffic, nearly getting hit by another shipping truck.

"We are going to die. It is going to happen," Steph stated.

"I am sorry for everything I've ever done wrong in all of my life. I am not a praying woman, but I am about to become one. I'd call my Mom, but I don't want her to worry."

Somehow, some way, our piss- and Chinese food-scented bus made it into Massachusetts. After sitting in tollbooth traffic because the bus didn't have an EZ Pass (how is that even possible? A friend of mine has an EZ Pass and she doesn't even own a car) we powered our bus with hope. Just outside Newton, we saw another Lucky Star bus on the westbound side of the Pike that wasn't as lucky as our shit bus, and had all its passengers in the woods and the hood of the bus was open.

"That was a gift that we didn't end up like that," Steph commented.

Buddah, Allah, God, Jeebus, Pan, whatever deity it took to get that horrible bus into South Station with all of us alive: Thank you. I'm sorry I did wrong. Ever. I have learned my lesson. I also learned never to take a Chinatown bus again.

My friends and I grabbed our stuff and hauled ass past the hordes of people waiting to get to New York. I sat on the T, thankful to be back in Boston, aware that I looked an absolute fright and almost had to smell like I'd pissed myself. I got home and showered immediately. I washed myself with antibacterial bar soap, then gel soap, then a body scrub. I used a ton of shampoo on my dirty hair. I gave myself a clarifying mask to remove all trace elements of piss smell out of my pores. I sit here, waiting for A to pick me up in her car that works and doesn't stink of pee and bring me to the beach to get away from the smell of city for a while. I very well may toss myself into the icy Atlantic to shock even more grime from my body. In any case, I'm not going to take the Chinatown bus again, ever. Can I interest you in some of my eggs? I've got to start saving up for an Amtrak ticket.

Oh So Pretty

I've had a lot of good fortune in the genetic lottery. I got my Dad's height and knack for not gaining weight easily (largely because I'm lacking a sweet tooth). I've got intelligence from both sides. Aside from missing out on my Mom's boob gene, I've done well. And, during my teenage years, I hardly had acne.

I was one of those lucky teenagers. While everyone around me poured everything short of turpentine on their faces in an attempt to stop the dread red bumps, I bemoaned the occasional behemoth zit that would erupt on my nose. But once I knocked it down with some mild face cleanser, my skin was back to normal.

While most of my peers have seen their acne abate, mine has gotten worse. When I started my job out of college, my skin flared up. I don't know whether it was the new sedentary lifestyle, my poor food choices, or just the stress of paying the bills on my own that did it, but I had acne to beat the band at twenty-two. Along the sides of my face, on my chin, just about everywhere. The pimples were bad enough, but my skin is nearly translucent, so they'd leave scars once they went away. To this day, I have scars on the sides of my face from pimples I had four years ago.

Recently, I've started breaking out on my chin. I try to remind myself to not sit like the Thinker, to wash my face thoroughly twice a day, and to wash my hands often to keep rouge bacteria off my face when I inevitably end up sitting with my chin in my hand. It was not fun to go on job interviews with my face all broken out. While I was home with my Mom, we watched a Proactiv presentation on TV. I will follow Kelly Clarkson to the ends of the earth, such is the power of my love, but watching "normal" people talk about how their acne and acne scars cleared up almost convinced me. My Mom, who is in her fifties (er, 30s?) still breaks out, and we both thought about ordering a trial kit, but didn't.

The Easter bunny apparently heard my plea, as I found a small travel kit of Proactiv on my dining room table. Since a zit had cropped up on my chin sometime on Saturday, I gave it a whirl. I washed my face with the cleanser. It stung a little, but I figured that was the medicine doing its work. I used the toner, the moisturizer, and went to Easter dinner. When I got back to Boston, I did the routine again. The face wash felt like liquid sandpaper entering my pores. I noticed my face was becoming rough and bumpy, especially on my cheeks. My zit had gone down remarkably fast but the rest of my face looked unusually ruddy.

The next morning, my face was still red and rough. I used my normal Neutrogena face wash and combined it with the Proactiv toner and my regular day moisturizer (with SPF 15 to keep me looking young). All day, my face wash flushed and red like I had a fever. I haven't used any of the Proactiv stuff since Monday night and my skin's texture is still off and my face is a little redder than usual. But, on the plus side, my acne scars did go down a little.

I think once my skin returns to its regular state, I may try the toner on its own to see what happens. I had a roommate who had the Proactiv mask which I used without incident, but that was back in my acne-riddled days. And I'll probably keep the small vials of liquid sandpaper around in case I have a troublesome spot again. But for my sensitive skincare buck, I'm sticking with Neutrogena.

Tomorrow, I'll review my tampon preferences in excruciating detail. (No, not really. Come back!)

Make Me Somewhere I Can Call a Home

If I see a ham again anytime soon, I am going to vomit. Seriously.

I don't want to make this blog a personal version of Angie's List, but I need help. In a couple of months, I'm going to have to move out of my free living arrangement. It's been great, and viewing the balance in my savings account has actually become somewhat pleasurable lately, but I want to have a space of my own again. A place to hang all my clothes up, get my books out of their boxes, listen to music with profanity, and talk loudly on the phone again. And cook at any and all hours of the night.

I've been perusing Craigslist, just checking to see what's out there. I've seen some places that may have potential, but I'm hesitant to just pick any realtor, especially if they charge a full fee. I got screwed on that deal last time and I don't want to pay a month's rent to get lied to again.

So, good readers, I'd like to hear of any good realtors you've used. I'm looking to be primarily in the Somerville/Cambridge/Southie area, but would also consider my haunts of Brookline/Brighton and possibly Eastie. I'm probably going to be in the market for a studio. I'd ideally not pay a fee, but for the right place I'm willing to suck it up. Conversely, if you've had any bad realtors, let me know about them too.

I promise I'll write something funny one of these days.

Friday, I'm in Love

Do you ever get mad? I mean, of course you get mad. But the kind of mad where you can't even pinpoint the source of your deep-seated anger, thus your anger ends up coming out in alarming levels in situations that don't really call for it? The T is where this usually happens to me. Somebody doesn't get up for an old lady, some bitch with a huge bag keeps nudging me in the small of my back with her ginormous suitcase, this guy won't move his hand a fraction of an inch to give me a better position to not go flying during an abrupt stop. While these things are annoying, my mind will immediately start flinging profanities around my skull, and I desperately try to harness the Force and send the offending person flying through the window and be shredded to death by the broken glass.

This is one of those things that isn't normal, right?

I think I have it figured out, though. I can't do what I want right now, and it's pissing me off. I don't mean this in the Paris Hilton, Veruca Salt way of wanting everything my way, but just one thing my way would be nice. A nice apartment I can afford. A new computer. Maybe winning a car or a large sum of money. Paying of my credit cards. A nice haircut. None of these things are possible right now. I did get my tax return, and aside from $100 of that money, I've got to hang onto it until I figure out the apartment situation. (Andraste, thanks for the offer. Right now, I'm staying put in the free living until they give me the boot, which should be June 1.) The sensation of being stymied in every way is just hugely frustrating to me. I feel like a college kid, scrimping for every little thing, but I'm 25. Things should not be this hard for me. I'm well-educated. I'm smart. I'm pretty. I'm talented. Dammit, something's gotta go my way.

I may take $100 of my earmarked fun money and buy Lily Allen's CD this weekend. I can not get enough of the song "Smile." Any song that embraces schadenfreude so fully is okay in my book. Also good is the song "Knock 'Em Out" because I too hate sketchy guys in bars, who seem to be the only kind of guys I meet. A little sketch to my men is fine, but if you've got gray hair and a tan line where your wedding band was until an hour and four beers ago, I don't want to talk to you.

Also on my to-do with money list: buy a new pair of nice jeans. I have this problem where I'll buy a pair of jeans at the Gap. I try them on, I'm not sure in the store, so I get them home and wind up loving them. Like an asshole, I don't go back to the store right away to buy another pair or two, and then the Gap discontinues them. The pair I have is about two years old, and I love them. They're kind of a trouser jean with a crease down my shin, hug the ass firmly but not too tightly, skim the leg, and fall at the perfect length for either flats or heels. Does the Gap make them anymore? No, no they do not. I'm not a terrorist, but I'd like to send them a clear message about their practices. "Dear Gap, Please bring back the flare curvy whatever-the-fuck you sold two years ago that make my ass look nice. I tire of trying on your jeans with the eight-inch-long zipper-cock and uncanny ability to fall directly on the fattest part of my tummy pooch. Die in a fire. Love, Amy."

So, in short, I need a beer. So much for quitting drinking after St. Patrick's Day. Have a good first weekend of spring, y'all.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Okay. First you break my aspiring fashionista's heart by telling me that the Filene's Basement in Downtown Crossing is closing for two years for a remodeling job like so many of the women who shop there have done to their faces. Fine. Except it seems kind of sketchy and maybe Filene's won't ever open again, leaving me bereft.

But the real kicker is this bit of news:

Filene's Basement, the Boston landmark that birthed the bargain, said it will close its original downtown store this year, and it's unclear whether it will retain its famous "automatic markdown" system when it reopens after two years of renovation.

What? What is Filene's Basement without the Automatic Markdown? It's like peanut butter without jelly. Sonny without Cher. Mitt Romney without his hair. It's just not the same. I walk by the Filene's Basement on Boylston Street on a daily basis and I never go in. To me, Filene's Basement isn't plasma-screen TVs, mannequins and doormen who aren't homeless guys looking for T fare. Filene's Basement means waist-high bins full of coal with the rare diamond somewhere inside. Filene's Basement is a bunch of bargain-hungry bitches burrowing through clothes like starving animals tear through prey. Filene's Basement is the paper signs with the same handwriting on each. Filene's Basement is the torture of bearing your cellulite to all the other women in the dressing room in the hopes of looking great in that bargain-basement find you tore out a chunk of some bitch's hair for. That is Filene's Basement to me, not this glorified Marshalls angle they've recently taken.

I don't know what's wrong with the Basement as it is now. It is not a thing of beauty but it's not meant to be. Since the Basement as it is now remains one of Boston's top tourist attractions and is recommended by endless local magazines as the best place to find a steal on designer clothes, I don't see why Filene's Basement needs to fix what ain't broken. Why can't the Basement elect to age gracefully?

My Mood's Staying Vicious

In the past few years, I've become a gym rat. Not in the sense that the majority of my social interaction happens within the hallowed walls of the gym, but if I don't go to the gym at least a few times a week, I go batty. I get cranky, I can't sleep, and I start feeling the fat cells coagulating around my midsection in earnest. Going to the gym also allows me to eat french fries and drink beer without gaining a ton of weight. Sure, I'm no supermodel, but life is too short to turn down pasta and wine.

I joined the gym I belong to about a year and a half ago. After going to a gym in Brookline for a year or so that was far too small, then not working out while I was dating the Whatever, I'd had it with the lack of physical fitness in my life and noticed a new gym near my office. The gym had been remodeled and had a pool, so I decided to join. It wasn't cheap, but I was there several times a week which made it worth it. Occasionally, I didn't get the piece of equipment I wanted, but I could generally get in and work out with a minimal hassle. This fall, however, it started getting too busy. If I didn't leave work promptly at 5, I would have to wait for any equipment at all to be open. Machines started breaking, making the lines even longer. I dreaded the arrival of the post-holiday crush of people.

Since the new year, it's been bad. I've been leaving work at 4:58 to get out of the building and walk a few blocks to the gym before everybody else can change and get the equipment. Even then, if I don't change lightening-quick I get stuck on some horrible treadmill I trip on or the rowing machine. Last night, however, I had a meltdown.

I usually take a Wednesday night pilates class because I loathe sit-ups. The pilates is nice because it does all the ab work without all the stupid crunching and flashbacks to the Presidential Fitness Tests in elementary school. The Wednesday class instructor is very thorough, so I try to go to her class. Tuesday nights are better for me time-wise, but the instructor who teaches that class just yells and doesn't check to make sure everyone is doing the moves correctly. Last night, I ran into the locker room from the cold outside at 6:15 to make the 6:30 class. The locker room was buzzing with women. I went to a locker without a lock. There was stuff in it. I opened another lockless locker. Stuff. Stuff. Every locker I opened had someone's stuff in it.

Ladies! If you can shell out $75 a month for dues, you certainly can shell out $5 for a combination lock at CVS. Not only will it keep women who aren't as opposed to stealing as I am out of your stuff, but it clues other people in on whether there is stuff in the locker. I think I am going to resort to vigilante stealing to teach people the value of a lock. Watch your socks, ladies. The next occupied and unlocked locker I open will have me stealing the socks within and making puppets out of them. I will swipe your deodorant on my pits. Steal a spritz of your designer perfume. Read the salacious details of your life on your Blackberry. Don't mess with me.

I started throwing a fit. "I pay $75 a month and I can't even get a fucking locker in this place without waiting? I'm month-to-month, bitches. I'll join Healthworks so fast their heads will spin." Thankfully, Amy was finishing up her shower and she dumped her stuff on the floor so I could throw my things in a locker, put on my workout clothes and head over to pilates so I could hopefully get a spot in the front of the room so I could see the instructor even without my glasses.

When I got to the pilates room, it turned out Wednesday night instructor wasn't in so I had Tuesday night instructor. I would have felt like an asshole walking out before to class even began, so I decided to try and deal with her style of teaching. The class started ten minutes late because there weren't enough foul-smelling mats in the room and Tuesday had to go get some. Many people were new to pilates and had no idea what the instructor was talking about as she barked at us to do moves. "Where's your belly?" she'd ask. "It should be sucked in and up." She didn't walk around to correct people, just kept barking. A few people got up and left in the middle of the class. I sat through it, but I missed my Wednesday teacher. If she asks me where my belly is one more time, I am going to cut her, I thought. If that woman who seems to be a devotee to Tuesday makes an orgasm grunt noise one more time, I am leaving.

I managed to get through the class, made my return to the still-crammed locker room, and got out without stabbing a skinny bitch with her own elbow, but it was a close call. I grabbed one of the "suggestions" forms to fill out at home and drop off tonight. I understand that a gym is a business that wants to make money, but signing up endless scads of new members without even considering the capacity of the club is stupid. Members won't encourage their friends to join (Kristen and I have had several people sign up on our recommendation) if the members that already go can't work out properly. I know that the crowd will drop off a bit once the New Year's Resolution people peter out, but it's frustrating to not get done what you want to get done. I overheard someone else complaining that the pre-work crowd is also too big now. The only decent, long workout I've gotten in was on Saturday afternoon and even then it was much busier than other Saturdays have been. I am not a member of some spandex-clad cattle heard that will just loiter around and chat with the old lady who can't let go of her youth as she uses the stair climber. I want to get in, get sweaty, and get out in time for Idol. If I can't do it in my club, I'll find another.