The Check-in Kings

I know how it sounds when I say it out loud. If you asked me what I’ve done in the last week it sounds unreal or that I’m bragging about it. First there was watching the end of the Tour de France along the Champs Elysees in the shadow of the Arc de Triomphe, followed by meeting Liverpool FC legends Robbie Fowler and Ian Rush at a private event in New York City. Then I got to go to the Tate Modern museum in London and have a drink at a bar where the Clash used to hang out. The very next day I was in Chicago at Lollapalooza listening to some of my favorite bands. All of that stuff happened in six days!

My friends that follow these adventures on Facebook tell me how exciting my life must be and how much they envy whatever it is I’m doing whenever I step out of my house. Well, that’s exactly the downside to this job and lifestyle, I’m NEVER at home. That’s something that non-airline people don’t always get. Yeah we do a lot of fun stuff all over the place, but that is really the silver lining to a job that keeps you away from all of your loved ones for most of the month, every month, for years on end.

If you don’t love your friends and family, then yeah, being a flight attendant is the perfect job for you, but most of us see major drawbacks to it. Plus, it doesn’t pay that well so you have to fly extra trips just to make ends meet. When I pick up a trip to Milan, it’s because that’ll be the difference between me being able to pay all my bills that month or not. Some of my friends don’t see it that way and just see that I posted a photo of George Clooney’s place on Lake Como. Trust me, I’d rather be at home doing something. anything. or even nothing. But yeah, seeing that house was interesting so here’s a photo, what of it?

If I’m lucky I’ll get to go home twice a month for 6 days each time. The first of these days is spent repairing whatever broke in my house while I was away for the last week and a half. This is also when I try to resuscitate my garden and mow the lawn. I refuse to talk to anyone for at least the first thirty-six hours after I get back, I need to be alone and decompress.

The next day I’ll do all the chores and run all the errands than need to be done. I may have a chance to watch whatever I DVR-ed if I’m lucky. The second night is usually spent alone, holed up in my house. Pure heaven. I don’t think normal people appreciate their beds as much as flight attendants do, especially if you’re sleeping in a bunk bed at your crash pad in a boring part of Queens several nights a month.

By the third day I’m ready to be social. The next three days I’ll try to cram in as many friends and loved ones as I can. Luckily most of them get along so I can suggest meeting up in a big group. Some don’t play well with others so I have to arrange one on one time with them. I always make sure to have at least one meal with my mom while I’m at home.

Back in my single days I’d have to try to find a way to have a date at some point too, but most girls aren’t that understanding of my schedule. More than one relationship fizzled out before it even started simply because I wasn’t there. Relationships are nearly impossible, it’s almost as if you need to find someone who likes you in theory, but doesn’t really want you around. Even if you are at home, half the time it isn’t during the weekend so good luck finding someone employed who wants to have a big night on a Tuesday.

The last day off is never fully relaxing. I have to prepare everything to be neglected again. I have to repack for up to two weeks. I also have to keep my eye on the flight loads to make sure I can get back to New York in time to work my flight later that same day. If the flights are full, I have to cut my time at home short and go back a day early, back to that damn bunk bed.

Having a roommate is an obvious way to help out with the mortgage payments as well as keep an eye on the place, but to be honest, that’s the last thing a flight attendant really wants. You have a crash pad with a dozen other people in a small apartment and then you’re on a plane with hundreds of people every day. The last thing you want when you go home is another human being to deal with and the last thing you want to talk about is your week at work.

At my high school reunion last year so many people told me how much they loved seeing the photos I’ve taken all over the world and reading about whatever it was that I was up to. I’m glad they enjoy that, but I don’t think a single one of them believed me when I said I enjoyed reading their updates about the little things at home just as much. There’s a lot to be said about just sitting back and enjoying your home and your family. Just to feel a part of your community is pretty amazing. I feel like I’m just popping in to make an appearance the way Larry did on Three’s Company, or better yet, Mr. Furley.

I appreciate my job and the opportunities I have, and I’m well aware that I can quit anytime if this lifestyle gets to be too much of a hassle. I know a lot of people would kill for this job, it’s not an easy one to get. But trust me, there’s a different side to it. If you’re judging it simply by the check-ins on Facebook, then you may never realize it. The grass is certainly greener on the other side 99% of the time.

I guess the main point is that we all give up something to live the way we do. Everything comes with a price and hopefully the price you pay is worth what you’re getting back. Everyone needs to find their own way to reconcile their dreams with their reality and make sure they’re doing what they’re doing for the greatest good possible.

I will never begrudge a stock broker for his fancy car and big house. I know what he has to do to get it and that’s not worth it for me. I will never make fun of someone who quits their job to move to Costa Rica just to sell seashells on the sea-shore to tourists. If that makes that person happy, then I’m happy for them. We have just one life so find a way to make the important things come first. We all have the ability to change our station, as terrifying as that may sound.

As many friends I have who like to keep tabs on what I’m up to in my travels, there are almost as many who think I’m just showing off by simply mentioning where I am and what I’m doing. It’s not that at all, but I do focus on the positives and don’t apologize for that. We should all be doing that. We all have positives and then other stuff we just deal with in order to live the life we want. They’re called sacrifices, and yes, flight attendants sacrifice too. We miss out on a lot at home, and not just the obvious things like holidays, though waking up in my own bed on Christmas morning would be nice for a change. It’s really dumb luck if we’re off and at home in order to go to things like: birthdays, parties, recitals, Monday night football, Taco Tuesday etc etc. All those things normal people take for granted.

This job has a shelf life for me. It was the best thing in the world when I was in my twenties, but soon the forties are coming and my priorities are changing. I love being home more than anything. This adventure I’m on has lasted over sixteen years and I’m trying my best to experience as much as I can, while I can. It’s not a non-stop party though, it never has been.  As time goes on, the balance is shifting on whether or not the positives outweigh the sacrifices. I think flight attendants are just better than most at taking advantage of their occupational benefits and using social media to let their families know what they’re up to.

Straight Guy in the Queer Skies now comes in book form. Check it out HERE. To see my photography page, please click here!

Interview with a New Hire

Time will tell if it’s a good or bad thing if people out there in the real world listen to my words and use them to help make life altering decisions. One of my young readers, Jaysen, tells me that I helped him make up his mind to pursue a job in the airlines. I’m not sure if he’s stroking my ego or being sincere, but nonetheless, he got hired as a flight attendant and as luck would have it, he now works for my airline!

I haven’t had the honor of flying with him just yet but I have introduced him around the JFK base and also to some of my friends back home in Austin when he had a long layover there a couple of months ago. He just completed his required 6-month probationary period and now he’s officially a stewardess like me, but younger with fewer laugh lines and more hair. Here is what an ordinary guy has to say about the flight attendant position/lifestyle after six months on the job… 

How old are you and why did this profession appeal to you in the first place? I doubt a high school guidance counselor suggested it to you, right?

I’m twenty-eight years old and a musician. That’s what has put money in the bank some way or another up to this point. One day I was doing some stock trading (a hobby) and came across a news article that said our airline was hiring. I love to travel and was in between music gigs at the time, so I thought, “Why not?” I applied for the job on a whim, never thinking it would actually happen.

I got a notification that I was selected for a phone interview and then after the phone interview was chosen to go to headquarters to interview in person. That went extremely well, but I still wasn’t sure if the job really fit with my music career. I got online and started doing more research about the job and that’s when I came across your blog. The blog led me to buy your book and after reading it, I knew that this was something I had to try. It’s such a flexible job that I’m able to work on my music just as much as before, and now I have great travel and health benefits.

I’m curious to see how you use this job in your music career. There are many possibilities for you.

To be honest, when I started this blog and wrote the book, I never dreamed that a stranger would be interested in what I had to say. I really thought I was just doing something to make my friends laugh. God bless the internets. Which of the clichés about passengers, pilots, flight attendants have stood up?

Passengers – It seems that anytime anything goes wrong, most of the passengers assume that we have much more control over the situation than we actually do.

“They made me check my bag before I came through security.”

“I didn’t book my ticket a month ago to sit here with mechanical problems.”

“This weather isn’t that bad. Can’t we get out of here before the really bad stuff hits?”

It’s funny that sometimes when we have delays, some of the passengers get notified on their smartphones before the crew even finds out. That being said, there really is very little we can do in most of these situations besides lend a listening ear and agree that the situation is less than ideal. As you say in your book, nothing defuses a bad situation faster than agreeing with the person. (Nice plug, thanks)

It’s frequent that I have people complaining to me as they are boarding, saying that someone along the way was “extremely rude to them.” I always look them in the eye, smile, and say, “I am so sorry that you were treated that way. But now you’re with me, and I’ll be kind to you!” That usually gets some sort of smile out of them and gets the flight started on the right foot.

Pilots – Ego.

Flight attendants – I would have to say the gossip. There’s an old saying about spreading information: “Tel-e-phone, tell a flight attendant.” And it really is so true. Something small happens before you leave on a trip — say someone has a small fender bender in the airport parking lot. By the time you return three days later, the whole base knows about it and “some guy drove his car through the side of the airport and three people were killed.” And since flight attendants are constantly traveling, you’ll even start to hear the blown up story at other bases as well!

Very true about the gossip mill and our propensity for exaggeration. We’re a dramatic bunch for sure. I’m not sure if Ego is a bad thing for pilots, but it’s definitely true. What was the most surprising thing you’ve encountered on the job?

It’s astonishing how many passengers play Candy Crush! We’re talking like 1 in every 5 people is busting chocolate bars at some point during the flight (this sometimes includes flight attendants). This goes for just about any trend out there. The plane is an amazing place to see what is trending and what trends are fading out.

Also, I’ve been surprised at what makes people applaud after we land. There have been flights where everyone is laughing and happy and some great interactions have taken place between the crew and the passengers inflight but it is dead silent when we land. On other flights, people are mad and complaining about the temperature, we run out of the most popular drink options, the plane comes down hard and bumpy on the landing, and people start cheering! Am I missing something here?

I love the Dominican passengers for that reason. Things can get heated and voices raised, but it’s still all good at the end of the day. Love me the DR flights. And yeah, you always know the hippest new games and books because you’ll see them all over the place. What is your least favorite part of being a flight attendant? 

Honestly, my least favorite part of the job is having to see people at their worst. I like to think of the plane as a magical, giant tube that shows peoples’ true colors. Some people manage to be so incredibly gracious and kind, even when we have delays or things go wrong. One day we had two mechanical delays on the same flight and a couple missed their flight to South Korea AND their wedding the next day! Yet, they were the two kindest and most understanding people on the plane. Others, though, fall apart over the smallest things and lash out — sometimes for seemingly no reason at all. One first class passenger flipped out on us once, because there was a bag in the overhead bin above her seat. Mind you there was still plenty of room for her luggage — the issue was that there was any bag other than hers in the 6 foot long overhead bin. I don’t know what it is about being on the plane that drives people to that sort of behavior. Maybe it’s the music that plays during boarding that sounds like a Japanese funeral. Or maybe they are on their way to a funeral themselves. I try to take a step back when people are rude or hateful and give them the benefit of the doubt. Many will come around when you treat them with kindness. Others don’t, but at least I’ve tried.

Wow. Those people missing the wedding deserve sainthood. That’s amazing. I find people on domestic flights seem to get more bent out of shape about stupid things than international passengers. Not sure why. What were you not prepared for when you started this profession?

I didn’t realize how hard flying is on your body! One or two flights won’t do much, but when you spend 80-120 hours in the sky a month, it’s very easy to get dehydrated and fatigued. Once you get dehydrated, being on the plane is miserable! I honestly think that staying hydrated is honestly the hardest part of the job. That being the case, I drink 1-2 liters of coconut water between trips and several liters of water a day on the plane. Even that sometimes is not enough.

Also, it’s a very physical job. They told us this in training, but I think several of us were thinking, “Yeah, yeah, yeah…what’s so physical about serving people drinks?” Boy, did I ever have a shock when I got “on the line” and started pushing the 300 pound drink cart up the incline of the aisle!

True. And being a nice guy I’m sure you help weak and elderly people with their overhead bin items, even though you’re not supposed to. I do that all the time, it’s really the only exercise I get. It’s also surprising how much walking you do during a flight. It doesn’t seem like you do that much but I know some people who have worn pedometers and it was shocking. Do you think you’ll be doing this in a year? 5 years? 20 years?

In a year? Definitely.

5 years? Probably.

20 years? Never say never.

I think I would’ve said “Probably not” when I first started and thought about the 5-year mark. Twenty years would be a resounding “Hell NO” but I guess I should rethink that since I’m in year 16 now. What in my book was dead wrong or dead right?

“Straight Guy in the Queer Skies” is pure literary gold! So much so that I think it should replace our in-flight manual that the FAA requires us to carry. Everything in the book is dead-on (and no, Brian is not paying me to say this)! There are a couple of things that have really resonated, though.

First of all, nobody tells you how they want their coffee!

They just say, “Coffee.”

And then you say, “How do you take your coffee?”

And they say, “Regular.”

And you say, “What does regular mean?”

And they say, “You know, regular!”

And you say, “Do you like milk and sugar?”

And they say, “Milk, no sugar.”

And you make the coffee and hand it to the person and they say, “Where’s the sugar?”

This sort of interaction takes place multiple times each flight.

Another point that consistently rings true is how each route you fly has its own unique set of passengers that come with their standard sets of preferences and behaviors. This is true to the extent that on most routes one can predict which drinks and food items will be the most popular before the people even board the plane. Most flights touching Dallas will have some Dr. Pepper drinkers, whereas on flights going to New York, you get several people asking for “seltzah.” It becomes predictable and even funny after awhile. Besides, Miami. If flights were Uno cards, the route between New York and Miami would be the wild card. Anything can happen on those flights. Anything!

Case-in-point: One evening, I had a family board a Miami flight and sit in first class. There was a mother, a father, and two young girls. I noticed during boarding that one of the girls didn’t look like she was feeling well. Her dad said that her stomach had been bothering her, so I got her some cool ginger ale to try and help settle her queasiness. (Spoiler Alert: she had the stomach flu.) We take off and are about 10 minutes into the flight when the other little girl begins projectile vomiting EVERYWHERE — onto her seat, her mom’s seat, the back of the seat in front of her, and all over the floor around them. It was honestly fascinating that such a small girl could have so much vomit stored in her body! (Spoiler Alert: she had the stomach flu, also.) We were still ascending, so the vomit began running under the girl’s seat right into one of our highest priority passengers’ brand new Coach hand bag. While I’m down on my hands and knees wearing vomit-covered gloves, cleaning up the mess, one of the other first class passengers taps me on the shoulder and demands to know why he has not been served his dinner yet! That’s the sort of behavior that’s typical of those flights.

Oh yeah, not just Wild but Wild Draw Four on Miami-NYC flights. Strangely enough I have not had a projectile vomiter on a flight yet (knocking wood.) Was there a time in your probationary period when you wanted to go off on a passenger or coworker but didn’t because you could get fired? And thanks again for the unsolicited plug- Straight Guy in the Queer Skies can be purchased here.

In the grand scheme of things, difficult passengers have been easy to handle because if they throw hate your way, you never have to see them again. That being the case, it’s not that hard to be diplomatic and “kill em’ with kindness.” It’s the occasional “difficult” flight attendant that can be challenging, because you might have to work with the person for several days. You just have to take a deep breath and keep on keepin’ on.

On one particular flight, I walked up to my gate to get on the plane and was quickly greeted by another flight attendant on my crew. The first words out of her mouth were “Hi, I’m (insert name) and you must be Jaysen. I see that you’re new and that being the case, you probably haven’t ever worked this position before so there are two options: I can switch positions with you and you can work in the back (I was working first class), or I can come up and work on the other side of the meal cart with you and teach you how to do it. I had been working for several months already and had done this position before, so I remember thinking, “Or option three: You can do your job and I can do mine.” Maybe this lady was really trying to be helpful, but my gut said that she was unhappy with her position and really just wanted to switch. But I’m always up for learning something new, so I told her that I had worked the position before, but if she liked, she could come up and work the meal cart with me and maybe give me some pointers along the way since she had been doing it quite awhile longer than I. Long story short, this translated into us working the meal cart together while she loudly criticized my serving techniques in front of the passengers. And it was all trivial things that she criticized that didn’t affect the service one bit. It got to the point that customers were concerned and were asking me quietly later if that harsh lady was my supervisor. I don’t know if people felt sorry for me or if the contrast in customer service techniques worked in my favor, but I had multiple customers that day ask for my name and say that they wanted to write a good letter to the company about me. That was also the day I realized how much sitcom potential this job has.

Yeah, it’s rare that a coworker will selflessly offer to help you by changing positions. Nine times out of ten they want to have your position and are masking their intentions under the guise of helping you out. Good for you for standing your ground. I’ve seen more bullying on the plane than I did in Junior High School. I’m also shocked that an intelligent show hasn’t been created about the flight attendant lifestyle or even about a crash pad in itself. Someone needs to get on that. Vince Gilligan? I’m looking in your direction! How has the job affected your relationship with your girlfriend?

Being based 2,000 miles away with a random schedule has not been easy, but being able to see each other for pennies on the dollar helps a lot. She has been very supportive of me taking this job, even though it means we don’t get to see each other as much as we would like to. Our company allows employees to register one person as a flying companion that has the same travel benefits that we do. I registered her, but kept it a secret for awhile. She’s working toward a pHD and recently graduated with her Master’s degree. As her graduation gift, I surprised her with the news that she was registered as my travel companion. Now I can go see her when I’m off and she has the ability to come see me or meet me someplace when she’s got down time. Win-win.

It’s totally do-able to sustain a long distance relationship in this biz, the biggest obstacle is trust I think. Do your coworkers believe you when you tell them you’re straight? Do any of them think that in a years time you won’t be? I still have a few friends that think year 16 is the one when I come out.

Most of my coworkers seem to believe that I’m straight — at least to my face. I’ve only had one lady say that she assumed I was gay until I told her otherwise, but she said she assumes that about every guy she works with (nice save). I usually make some comment about my girlfriend during the trip and most of the old timers’ ears perk up at that and start asking me questions about my relationship. Some of them even ask for relationship advice. Most of the senior male flight attendants I’ve flown with have been gay, but I’ve been shocked by the number of straight new hires I’ve come across — some that even have wives and kids and like to talk football! Either I’ve come across a good amount of the rare exceptions in the past six months or quite a few straight guys are starting to figure out what a hidden gem this job is.

Yeah that’s going to continue. Six days ago a lady said the same thing to me about assuming I was gay because of the uniform. It’s fun to mess with people. When she asked if I was gay, I said, “Only on layovers.” That confused her and delighted my Purser. Does your dad admit that he has a son that’s a flight attendant?

You know, it’s awesome how supportive my dad has been of this whole choice. I think at the end of the day, he’s just glad that I am doing something I enjoy. He’s always concerned that I’m not making enough money as a new hire to support myself in New York, so he checks up on me from time to time  to make sure I’m doing alright. When I graduated from flight attendant training, my parents drove in to celebrate with me. My dad picked me up from my hotel to take me to the ceremony and when I walked out in my uniform, he got this big smile on his face. He told me how proud of me he was and said he didn’t really care what kind of uniform I wore — it was just really cool to see me in a uniform. Given my dad’s military background, that meant a great deal to me.

Since they have amazing flight benefits too, you should take them somewhere. Paris or Rome or Tokyo maybe. Have you taken advantage of your flight benefits yet?

I’ve used them some, but I was cautious of doing much traveling on probation, because if for some reason I hadn’t been able to get on the flight back to work in time, I could have been fired. I have used my benefits to commute home quite a few times, though, and my girlfriend and I flew to London for a week last summer. Now that I’m off probation, watch out world — here I come!

Where are the best and lamest places you’ve had a layover in?

My best layovers have been in San Francisco and Austin. My lamest…any layover where we’ve stayed a few feet from the airport.

When you get old like me you’ll sometimes cherish those boring layovers where you’re forced to stay in and relax. SOMEtimes. Have you witnessed any cheating wives or husbands? 

Yes, but not so much flight attendants / pilots, as passengers. There have been a few times when I’ve seen passengers “with a ring on it” getting a bit too friendly with the person sitting next to them. You know it’s not the person’s spouse because you have a front row seat to the whole show — the “let me help you lift your bag”, the introduction of names and what each person does, and then the hours of jovial conversation that follow. The worst case of this I’ve seen was on a transcon flight to LA awhile back. This guy and lady end up seated next to each other in business class, both wearing wedding rings. The quality of their conversation was growing friendlier in direct correlation to the number of drinks they were consuming, and we noticed they were beginning to get a bit touchy/feely with each other. Long story short, another passenger comes up to the purser of the flight saying that he has just witnessed two people sneak into the lavatory together. The purser banged on the door, telling them she knew they were in there and that they needed to come out. The door slowly opened, the “couple” quietly slinked back to their seats, and we didn’t hear much from them the rest of the flight.

Someone recorded their shame on their smart phone right? Is it on YouTube? Classy. Have you had any medical situations or emergency landings?

Since I started the job, things have been pretty low-key in the emergency department (knock on something — there’s not much wood inside an airplane). However, in training we’re required to assist on some flights to get a feel for the job, before we’re on the plane working the positions by ourselves. Around the time I did my first assistance trip, the movie “Flight” had just come out, with Denzel Washington playing an inebriated pilot. That day, a passenger told one of the flight attendants during boarding that she suspected she smelled alcohol on the Captain’s breath when she talked to him in the terminal. The flight attendant had to call in the report and the flight was delayed for an hour while management came down to the plane and breathalyzed the pilot in question. Luckily, it was a good natured Captain who passed with flying colors and laughed it off. In fact, he kept calling back jokingly, asking if we could get him something to drink. After we finally took off and got up to cruising altitude, a passenger stood up and passed out in the aisle. Once she had regained consciousness and we had helped her be seated again, we hit some pretty turbulent air and the majority of the last pick-up service was collecting used sick bags. Welcome to the glamorous world of flying!

Gross. You deal with much more puking than I do, thank God. Do you like the general public more or less after these six months as a flight attendant? 

My view of the general public hasn’t really changed. I guess if anything it’s just been more reinforced. I gave up hope in humanity as a whole, a long time ago. But I still hold out hope for people at an individual level and I think anyone can affect change around them. For example: A few months ago, I was working a flight that started as the flight from hell. There had been weather that day, so many flights were delayed or cancelled. As people were filtering onto the plane, everyone was mad and complaining about their connection situations and how late we were. One group of nine people were absolutely livid because they were connecting from an international flight and two people in their group didn’t clear customs in time to make it on our flight. The other flight attendant and I made up our minds from the get-go to just smile and have fun. One by one, we talked to people, smiling, laughing and joking, and one person at a time, the lightheartedness began to spread (a few comped drinks to those most inconvenienced didn’t hurt, either). We were genuinely kind to people, but then I sat back and watched as the people we were kind to started being kind to the people around them, and then those people were kind to the people around them. It was a chain reaction from the front of the plane to the back. By the end of the flight, passengers were mingling with people sitting in rows other than their own, and one could periodically hear outbursts of laughter all throughout the cabin. When we landed, the entire plane applauded. It took very little effort to turn that flight around — once we started it, the people did it on their own. Anyone can do that anywhere — the issue is that most people don’t take the time to try.

So what happens on the plane should be implemented into society to save all of mankind? You might be on to something. What is the best part of the job? 

They say that this job is not just a job, but a lifestyle, and it is so true. For some new hires, that is a deterrent, but honestly, it’s my favorite part of the job. If you’re resourceful with the travel benefits and scheduling flexibility, this job allows you to live in a way that would be nearly impossible otherwise. There are flight attendants that live all over the world, doing incredible things. They commute into their base when it’s time for work, and after they’re finished, they commute back to wherever it was they came from. It’s such a flexible job that for the most part, it allows you to be where you want to be, when you want to be there, doing whatever it is you want to be doing.

Very true. For me it’s a very easy means to a fantastic end. Have you had to sell out even a little bit for your airline job? 

There have been some tradeoffs for sure. I’m most comfortable barefoot, in a t-shirt and cut-offs, doing something outdoors. Now I have a job in which I wear a suit and tie everyday inside a giant metal container. Also, I’m a big supporter of local economy and small businesses, and most airlines are obviously large corporations. I work for “the man,” but it truly is one of the coolest jobs I ever could have asked for.

We most certainly work for a big heartless corporation. We, like most flight attendants, are nothing more than employee numbers and very replaceable  Some people hate feeling so insignificant but I kinda like it. There are advantages of being a part of a massive operation and being able to fly namelessly under the radar. The travel and health benefits are fantastic for starters. Do the senior flight attendants treat you well or are they annoyed at how new and inexperienced you are?

98% of the senior flight attendants I’ve flown with have treated me with nothing but kindness and respect and have been more than helpful in teaching me the ropes of my new job. The other 2%…well, maybe they were just having an off day.

Those 2% have off days every day. They’re just called “days” after awhile. We all have a mental list of coworkers we never want to work in the same cabin in. Are your new hire friends more professional or the seasoned veterans? 

I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly on both sides of the coin. The new hires are fresh out of several weeks of intense training, so most of them are pretty by-the-book and they do a great job with the people. It’s just that we’re still learning and a bit unsure about how to handle some of the irregular situations that come up from time to time. Some new hires handle this uncertainty with cockiness which doesn’t get them very far. Others handle it with humility and respect for the senior flight attendants, and they are well accepted and very effective.

A great deal of the veterans are very professional, and while not always by the book or adhering to uniform regulation, they have amazing experiences over the years that have taught them how to give the passengers what they want and deal with the crazy situations that crop up sometimes. This job can be strenuous and it seems like it’s easy to get burnt out being on the go so much. Also, since 9/11, things have gotten far less glamorous for travelers and flight attendants alike. That being said, I have a high respect for the senior flight attendants that still do their job well after so many years of flying. The ones who are burnt out and don’t want to be there crop up from time to time, but I’ve come across far more senior flight attendants who do a fantastic job than those who don’t.

For me, the new people have been very VERY strong when it comes to looking the part. You guys are put together and look immaculate. The rest of us are shabby and more comfortable. However when dealing with the passengers I think there’s only so much you can teach people in a classroom. The new hires seem very robotic when dealing with passengers’ concerns. They do the right thing but don’t always sound sincere. They may also use 1000 words to address a concern but a seasoned veteran will deal with the same problem, getting a better result, in 50 words. I guess it just comes from seeing it all and dealing with it many times over. Some of the new hires tend to freak out about little things. I had one the other day that wasted fifteen minutes running around the plane looking for a Coke when we all knew we only had Pepsi left. When the search ended in predicted vain, the girl put on her “devastated” face and apologized for not being able to give the guy a Coke. She tearfully asked if Pepsi would be ok and prepared to get slapped across the face. He said “Of course it’s ok” and that was that, not a problem at all. So rather than nip it in the bud and fess up about the lack of Coke and ask if Pepsi was alright, she ran around, bothered every cabin, and made her cart partner work much harder. Being scared to death of giving a passenger any kind of bad news is definitely a new hire thing. I was like that 16 years ago.

I guess that’s it for now. I really hope Jaysen enjoys his career at our airline. It seems like he is so far. I will feel slightly responsible if he ends up hating the job and wasting the best years of his life. If you have any questions for Jaysen that we didn’t address, send me an email and we’ll answer them post haste.  easley.brian@gmail.com

Prepping for The Amazing Race

It’s always been a dream of mine to be on The Amazing Race. Out of all the reality shows I think that’s the one I could do the best on, and would enjoy the most. I would do it without the million dollar prize. I really could not care less about the money, I just want the experience.

Survivor would be an epic failure as far as reality shows go. Fear Factor just seems pointless. Big Brother even more so, but at least you have a chance to hook up with someone. Plus no one is watching that show in case you have to do something embarrassing. Actually American Gladiators would be alot of fun, if it were still on.

I’m a great armchair quarterback when watching The Amazing Race at home and of course I always make all the right decisions. Just like watching Wheel of Fortune at home where it’s always your turn and there are never Bankrupts, you have that same luxury with watching Race. You never get the cabbie who needs to stop for gas or ask for directions. You never get on the flight that has to divert to Botswana.

Even when the less-than-ideal situations arise, I think I’d still do alright. I can cope on the fly pretty well and my experience as a flight attendant would certainly help navigating through airports and running around in weird cities.

I would help my cause beforehand for sure. I would do everything possible from the moment I found out I was on the show until we took off to meet Phil. I’m starting a list of just what those things would be.

Let’s say I get 6 weeks to prep before the race starts. Let’s also say that I don’t have to go through the audition process of picking a partner. I’ve been doing that for years. I have a few people who are potentials. Some of the ones I would perform the best with aren’t necessarily the ones I’d want to be with 24/7 for however long the race lasts.

Some of the ones I know I would love spending every second racing alongside aren’t necessarily the ones I’d succeed with in the competition. It’s a fine line and very few people would satisfy the criteria to make the race both fun and lucrative. Selecting your sweetie can be a brilliant or horrible idea.

Ultimately I would pick a partner based on my weaknesses, mainly eating anything gross or in large quantities. Partner must also speak at least one other language fluently. Not German though, I know enough of that to get by. Partner must also have to be able to tolerate me thinking I always know the right way to go. Partner must also hold their tongue when I’m wrong and we end up in a Turkish prison.

TO-DO List

1)  Clear things up with work so it’s not a situation of me having to quit to be on the show. I think that’ll be easy, my airline has had flight attendants on the show before. They didn’t fare too well, but we were proud of them all the same. Redemption!

2)  Start running and getting into as good of shape as possible. Take up yoga. Maybe a dance class as well. If I can’t learn rhythm, learn to fake it.

3)  Learn to drive stick. I have only done it once and that was for five minutes in driver’s ed. It was in a straight line in the high school football stadium parking lot. Stalling occurred.

4)  Get Rosetta Stone for two languages not known by my partner, one being an Asian language. Have partner get the basics of one or two new languages as well, maybe sign language too. This will mainly be done while on the treadmill or on days when I’m too sore to exercise more.  Multitasking will be the key to my training.

5)  Watch every season of The Amazing Race thus far and take meticulous notes on everything imaginable, including: which legs usually have U-turns, Non-eliminations, etc etc. Note, it’s always a good thing if Phil seems extremely sad if he tells a team they’re the last to check in. Nine times out of ten it means you’re still racing, you’re not really the last team, or it’s a non-elimination. Watching all 20+ seasons can also be done while running on treadmill or stationary exercise equipment.

6)  Memorize passport number. Get global entry for when landing back in the USA.

7)  Get into the habit of always having a large backpack with me and get to where I can run short and long distances with it on my back. Also get to where I consider the bag as an extension of myself to where I would never leave it on a funicular, gondola, in a taxi, or on the wing of a plane.

8)  Try to learn to eat new foods. Find hypnotist to help in that. Or maybe take one of those sexy classes where they teach you how to really relax your throat muscles and allow things to go in without gagging. There’s always a bingeing challenge.

9)  Get to where I can swim long distances

10) Brush up on rock climbing, scuba diving, and canoeing skills. Maybe get somewhat proficient in synchronized swimming and basic gymnastics.

11) Get to where I can run a mile comfortably in snow, sand, and whilst carrying/dragging heavy, cumbersome objects.

12) Learn to communicate with animals, especially notoriously stubborn ones

13) Get full physical and tune-up from my doctor. Find the line of legal supplements/illegal steroids and don’t cross it.

14) Pick out wardrobe. Be prepared for all climates and possible meteorological phenomenon. Shop around for advertising deals from local stores. Let everyone know I can be bought. My team can look like a Nascar vehicle if necessary. I don’t mind having Coke on one sleeve and Pepsi on the other.

15) Last but not least is going to couples therapy with my partner. Even if I go with my mom or childhood friend, it wouldn’t hurt to have some sessions with a professional. Maybe we could learn some tricks of the trade to bypass potential fights.

That’s a pretty good start I think. Six weeks of working on those 15 things and I bet I’d be as ready as possible to take on the race of a lifetime. My passport has been needing some new stamps. It’s feeling neglected. Now I just need to get on the damn show and everything will be perfect in my world.

Follow me on Twitter or check out my book!

UAE/Oman Cruise

I like cruises and I like the Middle East but I didn’t know how the two would combine. It didn’t seem like they’d mesh well together, that you should just focus on one or the other.

Well I was wrong to worry. The two complemented each other perfectly. It really was the best of both worlds. Along with good food, easy accommodation, a variety of entertainment, and a good price, we got to see alot of shit as well. There was a tour of the world’s tallest building, gorgeous beaches, dolphins, Omani fiords, camels, coffee with Bedouins, 4x4s over sand dunes, many mosques, and confusing graffiti.

Any time I go on vacation I want to come back with some photos. Even if I have the time of my life on a trip, if I don’t have some quality pics to go along with it, I see it as a bit of a bummer.

It was impossible to leave the Emirates/Oman without great pictures, all you had to do was open your eyes. Even Amanda had some breathtaking pictures, all taken with her phone.

Along with a collection of photos, we had a collection of quotes. I think they work best if you read them completely out of context.

“I’d eat a snake while looking at a snake.”

“I’d rather think about ninjas than Jesus Christ. ”

“I wonder how many times you’re going to bleed on this trip.”

“Beak down, ass up…that’s the way we like to shit.”

“Why do you have to hurt me anytime you want anything?!??”

“I want to know the weight of the Burj Khalifa in Mentos.”
“Or bibles.”

“My shovel was my best friend.”

Waiter – “you want to be sexy all the time?”

“I would mourn your death, we’ve discussed this enough times.”

“I’m on a dhow/you’re going down.”

“If you didn’t want to get yelled at by strangers, you should have just stayed in your sun chair.”

I’m currently pricing Around the World cruises.

It really is a slippery slope though. You take a trip like this and all you can think about is where else in the world you want to hit next. It becomes an obsession. It’s like adrenaline junkies always looking for the next fix. It just keeps getting worse. The more places I go, the more I want to visit. Discovering things like how the Middle East isn’t scary and is completely bad ass doesn’t help matters.

As of now I have big trips I am positive I’ll take as soon as possible, but even if I knock them out as quickly as possible, It’ll take four years to do them all, unless I win the lottery. Southeast Asia, Nepal, Greece/Croatia, China, Machu Picchu, and Antarctica are a few. I think Nepal is the Fall is next.

Sometimes I think that I’d be better off if I never left my hometown and had no idea how amazing the rest of the world is. It’d certainly save me alot of money if I bought into the propaganda and truly believed that America is the only worthwhile country in the world. That’s what we were taught growing up, maybe they were just trying to save me money.

Road Trip- The Retrospective

I landed in Los Angeles Sunday morning. I’m glad I sprung for First Class because I’d just landed in New York at 6am from the Rio trip I was working. The flight to LA left at 7:30am. I slept all the way to LA and got in before noon. Amanda had started the drive without me. She made it from San Francisco to Los Angeles the day before and was staying with her friend in Culver City. I missed out on Day 1, which apparently included alot of rainbows.

Even though I was well rested and we could’ve hit the ground running, we decided to spend the day in rainy LA eating the Shakey’s buffet among three different Latino birthday parties.

Amanda went to sleep early, mostly because of her heavy-duty cold medicine, maybe because of the wine too. We found her lying suspiciously on our hostess’s bedroom floor and put her straight to bed. Later we found out that she hadn’t really passed out, she was lying there playing with the cats and then just sort of dozed off.

We both slept on the floor by accident that night. I woke up on the floor because the air mattress I was on had slowly deflated through the night. I woke up with my backbone on the ground and the sides of the air mattress up in the air like a taco.

We had a kick ass breakfast at Green Peas and then hit the road for Day 2 in a very un-socal drizzle. We set the Tom Tom on a soothing Aussie voice and instructed him (Tozza) to direct Amanda’s Cabrio to Las Vegas. The drive from LA to Vegas is pretty boring, but it was fun to think about all the legendary trips people have taken over the years on these roads- both real and on-screen. We made several Swingers and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas references, especially near Barstow when I started texting the opening lines of Fear and Loathing to everyone I’ve ever seen the movie with. After a half hour of that I just posted it on my Facebook wall.

The little silver German car was stuffed with Amanda’s final belongings and my suitcase as well as a cooler full of random snacks and drinks (none of the radiator cheese sandwich elements.) We had everything where it needed to be. We always had direct access to the food, a camera, our phones, and our jackets. Everything else was a chore to get to. My lap was nicknamed Best Buy because of all the electronics on it at any given time.

This was our shortest day on the road so we had plenty of time to stop and smell the roses. There just wasn’t much to smell. Plus it was still overcast and nasty outside. It was right about Barstow when the skies finally began to clear up. By the time we saw the sign for Calico, the silver mining ghost town, it was downright pretty outside.

I’ve always wanted to see a ghost town so I was stoked. We pulled off without even discussing it. We paid a shit load of money to see something that wasn’t there, which seemed weird. The abandoned town had been rebuilt to how it had been back in the day, but that isn’t what I wanted to see at all. I wanted the buildings to be old and neglected. I didn’t want the fire house to be new, sturdy, and decorated with Christmas lights. I didn’t want the jail to be a Starbucks. It just figures that in a town that hasn’t had a resident in 50 years, Starbucks is still thriving.

Even though there was plenty of disappointment in Calico, it was still a good stop. It was cool to get a glimpse of how the mining town operated when it was fully functional. I was just hoping for better photographs of neglect and desolation, not new buildings with bus loads of Chinese tourists standing around.

We grabbed a cold fountain soda from the young girl dressed in time-appropriate clothes who had just started studying Psych in college. While we sipped on our $3 drinks we checked out the hotels in Vegas. I didn’t care where we stayed but Amanda wanted something slightly nice. At some point I wanted us to stay at a proper interstate motel because that’s a huge part of the road trip experience but it was definitely a good idea to take advantage of the low season in Las Vegas. Early December is a great time to find a bargain. We opted for the MGM Grand, made the booking, and then got back on the road.

Before we knew it we were in Las Vegas and minutes after we had checked in and jumped on the bed, we were being invited to the Mystere Cirque du Soleil show by my friend Kitty who works for the show. She told us to show up ten minutes before showtime and she’d get us in and give us a tour of the stage afterwards. That was fantastic news, we were definitely excited. Amanda had never even seen a Cirque show before.

We had just enough time for a buffet so we did an internet search for the best ones in Vegas. Of course every website said something different but most were consistently raving about The Cosmopolitan. It was on the way to Treasure Island so that worked out perfectly. After tomato basil soup, creamy garlic soup, pickles, custom-made mac-n-cheese, thai rice, green beans, espresso dusted cheese, french onion pizza, margarita pizza, molton chocolate cake with caramel sauce, blood orange sorbet, and a ginger cake, we were ready to waddle over to the show. That was just what I had mind you, Amanda had an equally shameful/wonderful feeding.

We’re slowed by the Bellagio water show but got to Treasure Island just in time for the performance. The show was amazing and of course Kitty had it so that we were two of the people that got fucked with by the MC during the pre-show. I should’ve been suspicious of that damn spotlight on us!

After the show she took us behind the scenes and below the stage and showed us every single piece of costume and equipment used in the production. That was remarkable. The space was confined but they sure made the most of it. We even got to see the secret entrance for the celebs. We also got round red nerf noses.

We had talked about going to Frankie’s Tiki Room but we needed to get up early so we just had one quick drink at one of the casino bars and then called it a night. We were out of the room by 10:30am, losing money in the casino by 10:45am, on the road by 11am, and eating a horrible Taco Bell breakfast by 11:30am.

Amanda had driven us all the way to Las Vegas but I got the wheel on Day 3. We were going to go down to Arizona where we’d catch I-40 and then take that all the way to Oklahoma City or at least as far as Amarillo if we decided to go to Dallas instead of OKC. The weather was perfect and the scenery was rustic to say the least. I was a bit more used to the landscape than Amanda. It must have looked like the surface of the moon to the Jersey girl. She kept asking how people could live out here with nothing to do. I understood much more than I let on. You develop an amazing imagination.

There wasn’t much to see between Vegas and Albuquerque as far as interesting stops, at least not while the sun was out. We got to the meteor crater near Winslow AZ right at 5pm, just in time for every employee to tell us that they’d be closing at 5:30pm sharp and that the bathrooms would be closed at 5:20pm. Even with that drilled into our heads we still ended up getting scolded for trying to pee too late. Again, we paid alot of money to see nothing, but we still enjoyed it.

The sun was setting in gorgeous colors by the time we headed back to the interstate, yet we still had five hours of driving to go. The car’s Low Fuel light had been blinking which freaked Amanda out like I’ve never seen her freaked. It looked like it came on with ⅛  of the tank left which I thought was plenty to get to the next town but I could tell she wasn’t comfortable at all. To keep the peace I pulled into space station-gas station right at the interstate. We grabbed some caffeine and started with the most boring part of our journey. There was nothing to look at except for 18 wheelers and stars, and we got millions of both. There were also a million billboards advertising all sorts of jerky.

Amanda found an app that told about roadside attractions and trivial facts about the path we were taking. Because our route ran almost on top of Route 66, there were lots of interesting and random things to see and learn. We both had our iPods so we were never short on good music to listen to, though the noise of a rag top convertible going 85 mph makes a lot of noise.

A very kind Arizona highway patrolman pulled us over but let us off with a warning, it’s amazing how having a pretty girl in the car makes those encounters go so much smoother. She didn’t even have to mention that her dad is a retired policeman. That would be the first time we got away with breaking the law on this trip.

We needed gas again when we got to Milan, NM and we were both starving. We tried very hard to satisfy two needs at every stop. As luck would have it we were right next to one of those classic truckstop diners called the WOW diner. We feasted much like we did at the Cosmo buffet but for a fourth of the cost as the employees and locals watched the Victoria Secrets fashion show on TV.

It was still two hours to ABQ but we pressed on. Amanda booked us a room at the Radisson even though we really should’ve waited until we stumbled upon a bizarre motel right off the highway, something that you’d see in a horror movie. That may be my one regret with this trip.

I kept the speed down and cursed that the cruise control didn’t work. We get into ABQ and find the hotel with little problem. After some attitude from the front desk lady we get our room. Twelve hours later we’re waking up in a panic because we overslept.

We’d already decided to skip OKC and instead go to Ft. Worth to visit some friends but now we’d be rolling into town after 10pm. So much for that. We grab a Sonic brunch and get back on the road. I’m driving again because Amanda is groggy from her cold medicine, which is the main reason we overslept in the first place. She turned off the alarm and went back to sleep whereas I didn’t even hear the alarm to begin with. I knew she shouldn’t be driving when she offered me her toothpaste whilst asking, “Do you need this toilet paper?”

Day 4 was supposed to be slightly longer than day 3, but now most of the drive would be at night. It looked like we’d be getting to Cadillac Ranch outside of Amarillo just as the sun would be setting. We get on the road and finally get to see what New Mexico looks like. It was already pitch black when we entered it the night before so this was our first glimpse. It was barren but more mountainous than desert. It was a whole bunch of nothing but I didn’t mind. I like how easy it is to get lost in your thoughts while driving out west. It reminds me of growing up in West Texas.

Every now and then Amanda would ask me random questions like What would I buy if I won the lottery or What would I name a boat if I had one? Those always made for some interesting conversations. We also made way too many bad puns and jokes along the way, like wanting to ask the residents of Gallup how they felt about a variety of issues.

When we got to Texas we got out of the car and took a photo of Amanda with the the Welcome to Texas sign. Actually I stayed in the car with the engine running because we were running late.

We make our way to Cadillac Ranch and have a quick photo shoot amongst the kids spray painting the cars. There were empty cans everywhere but we found a couple that had a little left in the tank so we left our mark as well. The second time we broke the law on this road trip and got away with it!

I love the smell of aerosol paint cans and it shocked me that Amanda doesn’t. She loves the smell of jet fuel but not spray paint. Strange. Funny what you learn about people when you spend so much time together in close proximity.

After contemplating the 72 ounce steak in Amarillo we get off of the interstate and onto state highway 287 all the way to Ft. Worth. Since we were getting in too late to see our friends we called off the meeting and decided to just power on through and make it to Austin without stopping. We quickly checked with Tozza and he said that even though we didn’t need to go through Ft. Worth anymore, it was still the fastest way to get to Austin. That was about the time I saw the one and only shooting star of the trip. I made a wish.

It was getting to that point where we needed to think about food since places would be closing soon. We didn’t worry since Wichita Falls was less than an hour away. At the very least we’d hit a Denny’s or IHOP if the normal places were closed.

Wichita Falls came and went and we didn’t see anywhere to eat. All the normal places closed at 9pm and we just never saw an all-night place. We may have been distracted by me taking long-exposure photos while driving and Amanda talking to her mom on the phone. Before we knew it we were out of the city and in the middle of nowhere again.

Our Low Fuel indicator light came on around Bowie. As soon as it came on she wanted to stop but I saw that Bowie was only 12 miles ahead and had better food options than the no name town we were passing. That was the closest thing we had to a fight. She just didn’t trust that we’d make it. I promised that I’d be the one to walk to the gas station if we ran out of gas, but leaving her alone in the car on a lonely country road wasn’t exactly a better situation. It was a tense and silent ten minutes.

To be honest we were further into the danger zone after the meteor crater, I guess she just didn’t realize it at the time. We make it to Bowie and we both let out a sigh of relief. We fill up with gas and head next door to the Armadillo cafe just to find out that they’re closing. Amanda took over driving again so I caught up on all of my Words with Friends games.

Ft. Worth was just up ahead, there would for sure be somewhere to eat there. By the time we get to Ft. Worth and get back on the interstate, we realize we’re on the home stretch. Food didn’t really seem that important anymore. It was less than three hours to home.

The drive from Ft. Worth to Hillsboro to Waco to Temple to Georgetown is a very boring one but at night it isn’t as bad. At least when it’s dark you can’t see the ugly scenery. We rolled into my/our driveway at 1am. We hadn’t planned on driving for 13 hours the last day but it really wasn’t that bad, especially considering the only meal we had was Sonic in Albuquerque. I made a feast when we got inside.

I had trimmed the under-brush of my two trees in the front yard a few weeks ago and never got around to throwing all the branches away. I had the carnage in two huge garbage cans. We took full advantage of Amanda’s convertible to dispose of the dead limbs. We took the top down, crammed the garbage cans into the back seat and drove to a secluded part of the subdivision where we dumped the branches as if we were disposing of a dead body. The third and final time we broke the law and got away with it. And with that, the trip was officially over and we could go to sleep.

All in all the road trip was a phenomenal success. It was good to know that we could stand being around each other for nearly five days straight. The furthest apart we were physically was when I was standing at the gas pump and she was inside in the restroom writing on the wall (they encouraged that, not the fourth time breaking the law.) Other than that, we were always within touching distance and that didn’t seem to get old, so that’s a good sign since now we officially live together.

Zen and the Art of the Road Trip

The freedom of the open road is a wonderful thing. I used to love taking road trips when I was a teenager. It was the quintessential rite of passage for a teenager in the 90s. I drove from Austin to Los Angeles, Atlanta, Washington DC, New York, Chicago, and most national parks within one hundred miles of any road leading to those cities. I would go out of my way just to cross a border in order to tick another state off my list.

The trips weren’t really that free and easy though, I had everything planned down to the penny we’d be spending on food, gas, and hotels as well as how far we’d be driving each day and how long we could sleep in before hitting the road again. I even calculated when my Prelude would be getting low on gas and where the nearest Texaco would be. That was the fun part for me. So in reality there wasn’t much wiggle room at all and certainly not too much freedom once the trip began. The freedom came in the days when I sat down with my trusty rusty Rand McNally road map and came up with the game plan.

I wouldn’t always take the most direct route, in fact, carefully penciling in spontaneous side trips and excursions was part of the fun. I always give my self an hour for an unexpected photo shoot somewhere en route. I tend to avoid the interstates if there’s something scenic to see on the smaller roads. If I’m driving from San Antonio to El Paso however, I want to be on the highway that allows me to drive the fastest because there is precious little to see between those two places. Next!

I love everything about road trips, even if I’m doing them by myself. As long as I have some music and a cooler full of snacks and drinks, I’m good. The only thing I don’t really like about road trips is when I’m taking one with someone who refuses to speed or needs to stop too often. I’m a huge believer that you should never stop for just one reason. If you need gas, then make it meal time as well. No stop on the road should last more than ten minutes. Nothing is more annoying than having to repass cars and trucks you’ve already passed before. It’s just embarrassing. Those drivers, though going slower than I, are all laughing at me because they know I don’t know how to properly manage my road trip. If at all possible, eat the food while you drive. If I could rig a bathroom in my front seat, I probably would. I’ve often wondered if I could just cut a hole in the floor and install some sort of tube leading to my crotch area.

On one trip through the desert going out to LA, I came up with the idea of a radiator cheese sandwich. I had all the elements for a grilled cheese sandwich in my cooler but no way to melt the cheese. I was in the middle of nowhere and a cold cheese sandwich seemed boring.

I got the bread, butter, and cheese out and made the sandwich.  I wrapped it up in aluminum foil and opened the hood of the car.  I placed it on the radiator and gently closed the hood, only slightly squashing it.  After a good fifty miles in the midday sun, it would be ready. I headed west on state highway 60 for half an hour. When it was time to take a piss break on a dry cactus I opened the hood to see what kind of mess I made of my engine. Surprisingly it worked out very well. I sat on my car to watch the sunset and ate my sandwich, deliciously melted to perfection, albeit a little soggy.

When I got my flight attendant job that’s how I spent my first vacation. I was so sick of cities and airports. I had two weeks off so my friend and I got in my car and drove from Austin to New Mexico, up into Colorado, over to Utah, back down to Arizona and then back. We hit every park we could find: Mesa Verde, Arches, Bryce, Zion, Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, White Sands, Big Bend, and even stopped to see the huge meteor crater. After a few days stay in Ruidoso, New Mexico I was ready to get back to civilization and the real world. Mission accomplished!

I haven’t been on a proper road trip since then, and that was in 1999. I’ve driven from New York to Austin a couple of times but that was basically by myself in a moving van. It didn’t really count for some reason, probably because that drive is very boring except thru Pennsylvania Dutch country. It was a drive of necessity rather than pleasure. Getting two speeding tickets in the state of New Jersey didn’t help my outlook on the adventure. I spent the next few days staring at my speedometer and double checking with every speed limit sign.

Tomorrow that’s going to change though. As soon as I land back in New York from this Rio trip I’m on, I’m catching a flight out to Los Angeles. My girlfriend has packed up all of her belongings and we’re driving her stuff from San Francisco to Austin. For those who are wondering, the drive is 1760 miles, almost to the mile the same distance from Austin to New York City. If you drove straight it’d take 25 hours. We plan on breaking it up a bit.

Since the girlfriend has to be out of her apartment today, she’s going to start the trip without me. She’s making it down to LA and that’s where I’ll meet her. From there we’re going to spend a day there with our friends and start driving the next morning. Though we don’t have any real obligations or places we HAVE to see, we’re probably going to follow this plan. We’ll make it to Las Vegas the first day (or Grand Canyon) and call it a day after a relatively short drive. We’ll enjoy the evening and start early the next day.

I’m not sure how I feel about doing my first road trip with a Navigator. I’m a purist and would rather just have paper maps but I guess I should get with the times. There’s something special about holding a map and figuring it out though. When you input a destination you go from being the leader to a follower. You aren’t calling the shots anymore. You exit when she tells you to exit and you stay left when she tells you to stay left. I used to pride myself for my map skills, it’s becoming a lost art in my own lifetime. Just being able to fold a map was something to brag about. Now there’s probably an app for that.

There’s talk of spending a night in either Dallas or with my family in Oklahoma City so the halfway point to either of those places would be right around Albuquerque. That would be the logical stopping point for the next night and an appropriate spot since we both love Breaking Bad. Maybe they’re still filming the last episodes and they could use a couple of extras to OD or something. That’d be sweet.

Stopping once between Vegas/Grand Canyon and OKC/Dallas would also mean driving ten hours the second and third days on the road, which is what you really need for a good road trip. If you’re not cramping up and suffering from highway hypnosis then you’re not really on a road trip. If you haven’t drifted into the path of an 18-wheeler at least once, causing him to blare his horn in terror, then you need to get back out there and do it properly.

We’ve already discussed music playlists and games as well as what we want in the all important cooler. I haven’t told her about the existence of radiator cheese sandwiches but I have a feeling I’ll spring that on her somewhere around Barstow. Maybe I’ll slide one onto her radiator when she’s in the bathroom during one of our predetermined gas/potty breaks.

After a night in Dallas or OKC we’ll be on the home stretch to Austin. I could do the drive on I-35 from either of those places in my sleep and I have done so before. There will be nothing interesting to explore for me on that last day but it’ll all be new to her. It’ll be a stretch of highway she’s going to need to learn well. Hint, always take the West split through the metroplex. Going thru Fort Worth is always better than going through Dallas.

I’m looking forward to the trip. I keep forgetting the main purpose is to move her into my house so that we can start living like a normal couple, as much as two flight attendants can live like a normal couple. I guess if we can survive several days on the open road together going through the barren Southwest, then we can handle anything. I just wish gas was still at 1999 prices and Motel 6s still cost $6 a night.

Click here to check out Locations NYC, the ultimate tourist app for exploring New York City and here for my book Straight Guy in the Queer Skies. It will answer any and every question you’ve ever had about the job and lifestyle of flight attendants.

Incovenienced Abroad: Scared In Switzerland

This entry is mostly done by the lovely Amanda, guest blogger to this site and my partner in crime for my trip to Zürich on Cinco de Mayo.

When I got the invite to join Brian on his twenty-four hour Zürich overnight recently, I jumped at the chance. I am also a flight attendant, so I used my flight benefits to hop on his flight in and tour around the city for a fun weekend in another country. We had a great time wandering around Old Town Zürich, sitting on the lake, and just generally soaking up the local flavor. I love spontaneous adventures.

Little did I realize the adventure part was only just beginning when we met the rest of the crew in the lobby the next morning waiting for the hotel van. I was already a little nervous about my timing – I still had to check in at the ticket counter and make my way through both security and passport control before boarding the flight home. But the airport wasn’t too far away, and, as a standby passenger, my name wouldn’t be called until the end of the boarding process anyways. As long as I checked in pretty quickly, the ball would be rolling and I’d no doubt waltz to the gate at the beginning of boarding, at the very latest.

I wasn’t too nervous until I heard more than one person on the crew say, “Where in the world is our van?” My heart sank a little deeper each time I heard it. I looked at Brian’s face, and his eyes were fixed anxiously on the street outside where it was supposed to meet us.

Finally I heard someone announce its arrival, but my momentary relief washed away as the tired inbound crew very slowly hopped out.

I floated through the next few minutes, feeling a bit defeated and incredulous at my poor decision to not go to the airport on my own. Meanwhile, Brian explained to the van driver that I need to get to the ticket counter ASAP. Another pang of disappointment hit me as the driver replied, “Ticketing is in another building.” He then offered to drop me off there to save me a little time.

“Yeah, when he said that another building was involved I honestly thought there wasn’t a chance in hell she was going to make it. Even with an on-time pick up from the hotel it was going to be a photo finish. When the van came 20 minutes late I thought she had a 5% chance. Once I heard about this second building noise, I was already thinking of how I was going to explain it to everyone back home.

 I was going to come out looking like an asshole any way I spun it though. You don’t take your girlfriend on a trip to another country and leave her behind. I’ve never met her parents but I’m sure I’d be beaten severely the first time I did.”

The whole ride to Zürich Airport I wrung my hands nervously as I stared out the window at what I hoped would be my last glimpses of Switzerland for the day. The flight wasn’t full, that I was assured of, so I knew I wouldn’t be competing with other passengers to get on their flight, but I still had several hurdles ahead of me. Both Brian and the Captain assured me that they wouldn’t take off without me, and that was a bit of a relief. But who wants a delay attributed to them, especially when it was my own dumb choice to save a few bucks and not jump on the train by myself an hour earlier?

“I’m not really sure if I could’ve backed up that promise of not leaving without Amanda, but I felt like the words needed to be said to her at that moment to prevent a breakdown.”

We pulled up at Arrivals to drop off the crew. I watched everyone hop off without a care in the world. I don’t know if I felt more sad or stupid, but definitely a combination of the two. Brian and I stared at each other with forlorn eyes, hoping we’d be seeing each other again before the flight departed. The van driver got back in and drove me the 150 or so feet to the Departures area, and he quickly got my bags out for me and pointed me to the correct counter.

No one was in line! And there was an agent, hallelujah! All that panic for nothing!

I sighed with relief as I handed the agent my passport and ticket, telling her I was going to New York. She took them and began typing away on the computer. Suddenly, her countenance changed just a little, and she asked me when I packed my bags, and who packed them. I thought to myself that she must be new, because she seemed a little nervous when asking me. I told her I packed my bags, just an hour ago.

“When did you purchase your bags?”

Okay, I thought, this is getting a little weird. “Um, nine years ago and…thirteen years ago?” I had no idea.

“What electronics do you have on you?”

“A phone and a computer.”

“When did you purchase them?”

Oh my God! I don’t have time for this!

“Two years ago and six months ago.”

She turned around and led me with a wave to a counter behind her, where another agent was waiting, this one bubbly and cute. She was handed my passport and ticket, and I began to unclench a bit. After some typing and a little difficulty processing my ticket, which was solved with the help of a stocky and sturdy woman seated next to her, I was handed my boarding pass and passport with a smile. Whew! I turned around and started marching away. Success! And wow, I even had a seat assignment! 20E. And my name is Denise.

Wait a minute, no it’s not.

I immediately turned around and trotted back to the ticket counter, as wearing my backpack forced me to do. I saw the agent and anxiously informed her of the mix up. Her eyes widened, and she told her large coworker in German of the error. “Scheiße!!,” she yelled.

I laughed aloud at her loud swearing. It was funny, but I also was looking for something to distract me from my tension. The first coworker again got to work, still confused as to how to check me in, but after a phone call to a supervisor and checking, double-checking, and triple-checking my new boarding pass, I was off and trotting once more.

Security was a breeze, and I was once again reassuring myself that I’d been panicking for nothing. I couldn’t wait to see Brian and laugh with him at how silly it all was. I followed the signs pointing toward my gate number, and I felt like I was in the clear. I’d even considered browsing through Duty Free, because I’d already been through the two places that could possibly hold me up. I decided against it as soon as the perfume cloud wafted into my face, and headed down an escalator that led to the boarding area. When I got to the bottom, I saw a sign pointing toward Passport Control.

“I would have killed her if she showed up with a bunch of Duty Free purchases. I was absolutely freaking out while I was trying to get my First Class galley together. Every other second someone was asking me if she’d boarded yet or if I was starting to get worried. Ummm yeah, I was getting a tad concerned.”

I always get nervous walking through Customs. I’d blame the show “Locked Up Abroad,” but I think my minor fear had started before that. I guess I feel like I’m going to stutter when posed a question, as I sometimes do when I am on the spot, and it’s going to set off alarm bells, which will then bring about an interrogation in a dark room for hours, with one agent screaming in my face, another with a clipboard analyzing my behavior.

It’s never happened, but I fear it nonetheless. I gulped a little and went up to the friendliest-looking agent, a frizzy-haired lady named Claudia. She was talking to a plain-clothes agent in her booth and she cheerfully went over my passport. I began reviewing in my head how I’d answer the question I was expecting her to ask, which was why I’d only spent twenty-four hours in Switzerland.

Instead, after lots of typing, I noticed her brow furrow and her conversational tone turn inquisitive toward her booth mate as she pointed at the computer screen.

“Have you ever lost your passport?,” she asked me, but more in a friendly way than suspicious.

“No,” I’d responded, thinking little of it, “but I just used it yesterday.”

“Hmm. It looks like it was used again,” she said. The lump returned to my throat. “Are you sure you’ve never reported it lost or stolen?”

“No, never. I’m a flight attendant, I have it on me at all times.”

“So you’ve never lost it?” A big smile crossed her face, and she sang, “Never ever ever?”

I laughed nervously. “Never ever ever!”

“When does your flight leave?”

“In thirty-five minutes!”

She cartoonishly grabbed her hair, stuck out her tongue, and yelped. I couldn’t believe I was in the real world at this point. She called up a fellow agent, and she assured me that agent would be here right away and they would try to get it taken care of in time for me to catch my flight.

“At this point the gate agent had told me that she had checked in so I felt very good about her making the flight. My biggest fear had been that the flight was set to depart in less than an hour. Since my flight was the only one my airline operates each day, there’s no need to keep the counter open after the JFK flight checks in. I had no idea all of this drama was going on and there was no way she could let us know.”

The next agent, a very pretty younger woman, came to her booth and looked over the screen with her. I looked at this new agent pleadingly, hoping she would somehow make it all go away.

My hopes  were dashed when I saw her writing Claudia’s full name and badge number on a form. Claudia then said to me with a reassuring smile that I was to go with this new agent and it would be sorted out. I couldn’t bring myself to look around the room as I was being led away by the armed customs agent. I was absolutely sure that everyone around me thought I was about to start pooping balloons of cocaine in the Customs toilet (if that’s what they make people do). I’m sure that’s what they told their friends, at least. “You’ll never believe it, I saw a drug mule get arrested,” I’m sure they said. “She looked so guilty!”

I was led to an office in the corner of the room, where I was sat on a bench behind it, I suppose to avoid nosy stares from other passengers. I was again asked if I’d lost my passport ever in my life, and once again I answered with a confident NO!

She told me to wait there as she went into the frosted-glass office, where another officer had been sitting. They again stared at the computer, scratching their heads and obviously producing no answers. I tried desperately to send help messages telepathically to Brian on the plane. All I wanted was for him to reassure me, and I knew there was no way for that to happen. I wanted to cry, but I also wanted to hang on to the shred of hope I still had left.

“I did not receive that telepathic message.”

My final obstacle after this was to get to the gate and get on the plane, so if it was resolved soon, my fate would mostly be in my own hands. That said, I also began thinking out a contingency plan for flying back to the US whenever this fiasco was over.

I saw the female agent get up. Perhaps she had good news! She bent down to pick something up before walking out of the office. Something jingly.

HANDCUFFS!!!

I nearly fainted as I saw them. I’d done nothing wrong! I wondered if Brian would think I was cool if I went to a Swiss prison. That’s kind of hot, right?

“way hot.”

As soon as I saw and heard them, though, she’d clipped them to her belt. Of all the times to accessorize, she had to pick that moment! She looked at me empathetically, however, and said, “I am so sorry for all this, I am going to check with one more agent. Stay here, I’ll be right back.” She quickly disappeared, and so did my hope for getting on the flight. I watched everyone else walking freely to their gates, and I felt like a mangy dog at the pound, being passed over by prospective owners and aware my days were numbered.

Finally, I saw the agent quickly heading back toward me. I readied my wrists for the handcuffs, just in case. She again apologized. “We’ve found nothing. I’m very sorry, have a great day.” Really? Nothing? All of this and it was suddenly okay? I didn’t waste time asking more questions and I ran off like a crazy person toward the tram to my gate – the final obstacle.

Of course, the tram pulled away as I reached it. I tapped my foot nervously as I stood there sweaty and frazzled, physically feeling every second ticking down as I waited. The next tram finally arrived and I cursed its slow speed. When it arrived at the departure gates, my inner New Yorker came out and I pushed my way though the doors first and ran, no longer rolling my suitcase but running with it, down corridors and up the escalators, until my gate was in sight.

There were still plenty of people boarding. Success! My name was called shortly after at the podium so I could get my seat assignment. It was all over. I handed my ticket and passport to the final agent I had to go through. She was smiling until she put her hand up in a stop sign.

“Have your bags been out of your possession at any time?”

I looked around. No one else was being asked this question. I wasn’t imagining this – I was a suspect.

“No,” I replied with exasperation. She began looking through my passport and at my ticket again, and told me to wait. I started again trying to summon Brian with my mind, but that worked as well as it had the first time. She called a second agent over, and, with a raised eyebrow, pointed to the security sticker on my passport. He instantly told her it was fine. She waved me through. I felt like I had no physical or emotional strength left in my body as I entered the jet bridge. I could see Brian on the plane, watching for me to board. I collapsed in his arms with relief, trying to laugh about it, but not at all ready yet.

“I don’t think I’ll ever tell Amanda that she was being punked and all those agents were in on it. Even the inbound crew and the driver that were so late were in on it. Ok, not really.”

He quickly poured me a glass of champagne, which I drank so fast I nearly choked on it. I wondered what lay ahead of me in the US, but at least it would be on my own soil when I would potentially be held and questioned.

I slept through most of the flight home, except to occasionally review the situation with the crew and finally start laughing about it. I hurried off the plane in JFK, anticipating a problem, but got through Customs in a blink of an eye, perhaps because the agent was too busy reviewing the previous night’s basketball game with either a traveler or an agent in plain clothes going home for the night. I met Brian by baggage claim, and I don’t think I’ve ever chanted “USA!” with such little irony in my life.

Before we even started our trip to Zürich, Amanda said she wanted to write about it. I think she secretly sabotaged her ordeal to make it seem more dramatic/impressive, like in Chuck Palahniuk’s “Haunted.” At the very least she may have done it subconsciously 🙂

You can follow Amanda’s Twitter

And also My Twitter

Down Time

I haven’t been writing a lot in my blog because I only feel inspired to write about airline stuff when I’m actually flying.  When I’m off for a while, the airlines and the job are the last thing on my mind.  A few people have given me shit about that so this entry is about how much I love not flying.

And this is why I haven’t been flying.  In April and May I held a schedule that went to Tokyo Haneda.  Most of my trips in April cancelled due to the radiation and in May they cancelled due to the extremely light flight loads.  June was an on-call month so July is the first time since March that I’m really having to fly.  I’m not going to lie, it’s been wonderful.  True, I had to sacrifice my vacation for 2012 to get paid for all the cancelled trips this Spring, but it was worth it to live like a desperate housewife for two months.

I’ve discovered in these last few weeks that I can very easily spend days at a time in my house all by myself.  I’ll get into a habit of editing photos, printing photos, framing photos, working on my book, playing video games, chatting with people worldwide on the internet.  For awhile I’d only go outside to lay out in the backyard for an hour and then come right back in.  I wouldn’t even put on a bathing suit, just boxer briefs.  No one seemed to mind.  I don’t really shower or shave during this time but no one is around to complain. All this month people have commented on how tan and healthy I look.  The secret?  Being a creepy recluse.

So I figure I got a little glimpse of what it’ll be like when I finally win the lottery.  I thought I’d get bored without a job but I found out that’s not true at all.  I can keep myself busy with all my projects and Call of Duty fills in the gaps. I think that’s why I want to win the lottery so badly, not for the riches, but just for the leisure time it’d offer.

Now I’m back to a normal routine though.  I get to come home twice a month for five or six days each time.  The first day is usually spent doing nothing.  After sleeping in hotel rooms on layovers and then in a bunk bed at the crash pad in New York, it’s so nice to just lounge around in a big house, all by myself… finally. Sleeping in a king sized bed is a treat you cannot fully appreciate until you spend the majority of your nights in the top bunk of a bunk bed with several other people in the room, or in a hotel bed that you just know hasn’t been cleaned as well as you’d like.

After a day or two of being anti-social I’ll usually find out what my friends are up to and the rest of the evenings will be spent with them.  I’ll never go to bed before 3am and never wake up before noon. I’ll always make sure I do something with my Mom as well, last night was Olive Garden.

Today seven friends and I are heading down to the Guadalupe River for a weekend of decadence.  We have a rent house on the water and enough food, drink, and accessories to last us a full week, even though we’ll just be there two nights.  Two of the people going I went to Kindergarten with. These people are very important to me and I always make sure I see them every time I come home. Pals.

The party will end Monday morning and I’ll have to immediately head back to the airport and catch a flight to New York JFK.  I’ll sleep for a couple of hours in the Quiet Room and then sign in for my trip to Zurich that evening and just like that, it’s back to reality!  Twelve days in a row of flying and then I get another little Austin vacation July 24-29. That’s how it goes, you cram as much as you can into your time at home, including doing nothing time.  You cram as much as you can into your layovers abroad. In between work trips I usually have about twenty hours in NYC so I’ll make sure I see my friends there for dinner, a movie, or drinks.  It just never stops.  Ever. I’m not sure it ever will, until I win the lottery.

Then you try to think of a way to actually enjoy your flying benefits, maybe plan a trip to Egypt like I’m trying to do right now. Friends and family in other cities want you to come visit and don’t understand when you say it’s hard to find the time.  Yeah, we may only work 15-18 days out of the month but when you take into consideration all the commuting time and alone time you need to decompress, you really don’t have that much time to fly somewhere else, especially when you just want to be at home in your house that you’re spending a lot of money on.

Besides, on your days off being at an airport is the last place you want to be. Being on an airplane sounds like torture.

I still haven’t figured out a way to date anyone living like this.  I’m not in Austin enough to date anyone here.  I’m not in New York enough to date anyone there. Even if all my trips were to one city, I wouldn’t be there enough to see someone there either.  I get why stewardesses have a guy/girl in every city.  I don’t have that, but I can see the benefits.

My last girlfriend was a flight attendant and that’s as good as it gets unless your partner has money and you don’t have to fly a full schedule. You can reasonably date someone if you’re lucky enough to live in the city where you’re based, but if you’re a commuting flight attendant, forget about it, you’re doing to die alone. You aren’t even around enough to get a cat.

Couples Therapy on a Budget

I’m wondering what people used to do after domestic disputes in the past.  The only thing my girlfriend and I can stand to do together after a fight is stare at the TV for an hour until we’ve calmed down enough to start to be civil.  It’s actually the perfect segue from the moment when you both acquiesce and decide to stop the fighting until you’re ready to be pleasant again.  I can’t just go from being pissed off to cordial at the drop of the hat so the TV time out is perfect.  Yeah, we’re doing something together but we’re not talking or even looking at each other.  It’s perfect.  But before TV did couples just sit on the couch and listen to the radio while they cooled down?  Or the victrola?  What about a thousand years ago?  Did they just take walks in silence or stare at the fire?  You may not like the television and call it the “idiot box” but I think it’s done wonders for my relationships after a fight and definitely helped things with my parents through my teenage years.  It’s the super glue that’s kept everything together, which might be a blessing or maybe a horrible distraction that allows us to sweep the real issues under the rug and pretend they’re not even there.

September 10, 2001 NYC

This was my last entry before the attacks happened just hours later. Funny how the things I was sweating about in here (girl drama: trying to get over one by forcing myself to like a different one) all of a sudden didn’t matter at all just a short time later. I was 26 years old here.

“I thumb through the 100 blank pages of a brand new black-n-white spotted notebook, wondering how I’ll fill it all.  Do dreams and infatuations really go that far before it all gets redundant?  Is this it?  Is this the one that’ll break through?  There’s still soul in my screams; devotion in that sacred old notion.

Rereading everything I’ve written in the last two years sounds like a broken record:  La, la, la:  Drinking, pills, Justine, flying, don’t know where we stand, drinking too much, too many pills, flying, Justine, layovers, what is she thinking?, Justine, bars, pubs, lounges, Justine, flying, Valium, Vicodin, Soma, Xanax, Justine, Hydrocodone, Percocet, K, dreams of plane crashes, Justine, sex, Justine, Justine, and more Justine.  Blah, blah, fucking blah.

The first page is always the hardest page.  Here we go…

Earthquakes shake thoughts from my cluttered head down to dusty pages.                                           A useless summer fades to deep cool autumn.                                         I missed the trees shed snowy buds in classic beat songs, print, and verse until the last blast of Reading rite, savior strokes, and on!air!library gave me hope.   I just needed something new to believe in, a voice from my static struggle and                                                                  soma celebration.                                                               Dig this new sound.  Remember the old thrills. Things are starting to happen                                      and I have butterflies in my stomach again.

I lay on the hotel bed with my head resting on the small of your back as you watch syndicated American reruns.  I rub my hand lightly up and down your newly shaved leg over and over and remember the noises you make and how your skin gets moist from rolling around in my bed and how that’ll never happen again.  It happens in slow motion over and over again in daydreams and in those warm semi-conscious, drifting-to-sleep moments when I smile and sigh and pull the covers up closer to my face and forget about everything else and turn into a child again.”

Yeah, I’m not sure exactly what I was talking about there, but I remember how I felt. I felt a lot like it sounded- very scattered and confusing but at least I knew I was feeling something, I just didn’t know what to do with it. I don’t seem to feel things like that anymore. In some ways I wish more than anything that I could go back to that time when everything was possible and the future was wide open.  Then again, in other ways, there isn’t enough money in the world.

June 27, 1999 New York City

Came across this old entry from my journal when I was brand new to the job and brand new to New York City. Seems like such a long time ago, definitely bittersweet remembering that time in my life. I think I had just turned 24.

6-27-99

“We met underground, the first person I have ever met underground.  I just love saying that.  It sounds like a fairy tale, like she was a troll or something.

The whole subterranean encounter was guided by the Fates.  She never takes the F train out of Queens, I never take the F train from La Guardia to the East Village, but there we were, the only two people in the car as I get on the Manhattan bound F train at Roosevelt Avenue.

I see her dressed like a glam angel, velvet pants and glitter all over.  I sit across from her and then become shy, I think it was too obvious.  I could have sat anywhere in the empty car, but I go out of my way to drag all my luggage across the car, to her sights, directly in front of her.  Now, I just sit and let my mind fantasize about what could possibly happen at this particular moment in time.  I could get a wave of courage and say something profound or charming, I could make and hold eye contact, sending soft electricity into her spiky Central American head.

Instead I sit facing her, but looking down or away, pretending to read the ads for laser eye surgery, reading and rereading the lame “poetry in motion” lines, trying to figure out how the authors got their stuff on these Barnes and Noble ads.

“Do you need a map?”

“Excuse me?”  I reply.

“Do you need a subway map?” she asks again holding up the map she was using as a fan. This was the start of the hottest Summer on record for New York City.

Realizing that I look like a tourist just off the boat with my luggage, I see where she’s coming from.

“No, I live here, I’m just getting back from work.”

“Oh yeah? What do you do?”

“I’m a flight attendant.  (I cringe saying that, now I’ll have to make an effort to prove my heterosexuality)  I’m just getting back from San Francisco.  (Again, digging myself deeper)”

She just looks at me for a second and says in a straightforward manner, “Do you want to go to a party with me?”

I think about how odd this is.  The script of the conversation says, “This girl is a freak” but the look in her eyes and my sixth sense says I should roll with it.

“Sure,” I say, trying to sound as causal as possible, like that’s something strangers ask me all the time, “but I need to go by my place to get changed and drop off my stuff.”

“Okay.  Let’s do it.  My name is Alley.”

That’s how it started, randomly on the same train, randomly in the same car, and within fifty words we have plans for the night.

I take a shower while I let her meet my roommates, not knowing she was completely ignoring them and filling her notebook with line after line of brilliant prose and poems about the same things I was thinking about in the shower.

She said the party was way-the-hell-and-gone up in the seedier parts of Washington Heights, which was one of the reasons she talked to me in the first place.  That isn’t a neighborhood a young girl should be walking through alone at night unless she’s familiar with it.

Even as the two of us passed the toothless drunks and hardened thugs, I didn’t feel too comfortable.  Every loud dominoes game was silenced as we passed.  All eyes were scoping us out, sizing us up, and contemplating our agenda.  Alley strode confidently down the avenue and side streets toward dark and lonely Riverside Drive.

It was along one of the eerily quiet back streets that I realized I really didn’t know this girl and she could be setting me up.  We were walking through one of those nightmare gray and black asphalt roads with lurking shadows stirring in the peripheral.  I don’t really remember, but I think she was smirking.  I could be robbed and killed and no one would even know.  I’m sure a gunshot would be ignored around here; I’m sure a scream would get no response at all.  I tell Alley what I’m thinking in a laughing/joking manner.  She doesn’t reply.  Gulp.

We do finally find the dilapidated building just across the Hudson from New Jersey.  We buzz the apartment as the sound reverberates throughout the dusty building.  Some guy who sounds wonderfully effeminate and not at all threatening lets us in.

The apartment is full of kids who left home to make it in New York City.  They are all aspiring musicians, playwrights, actors, and models, all celebrating gay pride in glittery pixie dust, short shorts, fabulous hair, gorgeous costumes, and numerous drugs.  It was like the 70s were wrapped up and shoved into this cramped apartment.

Everyone was having a great time telling stories, prancing around, drinking cocktails and enjoying the sweltering summer in the city.  Then there was one guy who stood out immediately.  A very out-of-place, straight-laced, Jewish teenager in the middle of a living room full of queens and fag hags.  He knew no one in the room when he arrived at the party.  He was supposed to meet Alley there, but I delayed her a good hour.  So this innocent, awkward, straight boy was at the mercy of the fucked up queens and their desire for fresh seventeen year old tail.

He was awfully glad to see us, though he did hand out water-colored flyers to the whole gang, inviting them to his next gig at the Sidewalk Cafe.  Those one-man shows of his became huge in Alphabet City, that boy can be a superstar if he wants to be- Adam Green, The K Mart Cafe Poet.”

Funny thing about Adam is that he is making it. I saw him later that same summer in England at the Reading Festival. Even now I see him on MTV in Zurich. One of the songs he wrote as a teen is the song they sing in the closing scene in Juno. Check him out for yourself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Green_(musician)

Alley formed a band and then another band and yet another band, often with her twin sister. Right now she’s in School of Seven Bells with former Secret Machines/UFOFU guy, Benjamin Curtis.  Small world, I used to watch UFOFU play in Texas when I was a teenager.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_Seven_Bells

With all the success Adam and Alley have had, I can only hope that some of that magic rubbed off on me from that summer. I guess I’m just a late bloomer.

Jason

It’s truly amazing how one day can change your life.  It’s amazing how one sentence can change your life immediately and permanently.  “Brian, Jason’s dead!!” is all it took for me.

I can barely remember that conversation; I was in a weird mood that entire day, before I even heard those words.  My favorite photography professor JB had a heart attack that same morning; he could have died as far as I knew at the time.  I was twenty minutes away from leaving on a two-week road trip with my new girlfriend when the phone call came.  My mom said my brother was dead.

I immediately pictured him playing in the front lawn and running into the street, getting hit by a drunk driver coming fast around the blind curve.  I asked how and I was just convinced it was some kind of auto accident.  She said self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Immediately I grabbed my keys and headed for the door, my whole existence shattered by those three little words.  I told my girlfriend to unpack and that I’d call her later as I ran out the door.  I can’t imagine what she was thinking at that point.  The police offered to come pick me up and drive me the twenty miles to my mom’s house, but I declined.  I should’ve taken them up on the offer, my legs were shaking so hard; I couldn’t control them.  I had to put on the cruise control as much as I could but there was too much traffic.  I don’t remember any of that drive, but I’m scared to death that one day I’ll hear the songs that were on the radio during the drive and the whole scene will be relived in vicious detail.

As I got nearer to the house, I got the most surreal, mind-numbing feeling.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  The realization was that I was three turns away from the most painful, horrible, difficult, insane scene I would ever have to face in my life, and I knew that.

I tried to prepare myself the best I could.  I tried to put it all in perspective.  I knew I would have to be there for my mom, she would be hysterical.  I knew I would have to be there for Jason’s dad; Jason was his pride and joy, his only child.  I took the final turn and saw my house roped off with yellow police tape.  It was already worse than I imagined.  You can never get over the vision of seeing your house, your home, roped off with yellow police tape.  Don’t ever do that to someone, not even as a joke.

The block was covered with police cars and an ambulance.  I had to park down the street.  All these neighbors I never bothered to meet were standing around in their yards looking on.  I imagined the worst, but even if I multiplied the worst by a thousand, it wasn’t near.

I can only thank God that my mom didn’t find him.  We had just sold our house and the realtor was making the final check on the place to make sure everything was up to par.  That poor guy found the body; all of a sudden our house was on the market again.

The next two days I was so numb, I don’t remember any of it.  It was like someone else was living those days for me while my head was in suspended animation.  I remember spending that night with my girlfriend and crying so much it made me nauseous.  I’m told we ate at Olive Garden that night, but I can’t confirm nor deny that.  I have no idea how I drove us the two hours to the burial south of Burnet from the funeral in Round Rock.  My thoughts were so far away from the road, the directions, the speed I was going, the traffic lights, and the other cars on the road.  My head was splitting from crying for forty-eight straight hours.

One of the worst parts was being in the room when his father called Jason’s birth mother to tell her what happened.  I could hear very clearly from across the room, “What did you do?!  What did you do?!” coming out of the phone, followed by screams and hysteric sobbing.  I was also put on immediate suicide watch for his father and told to take all guns out of the house.  Later he thanked me for that.

It was a bittersweet day when we divvied up his clothes, CDs, and Nintendo 64 games.

After forty-two days, I had thought about him everyday since it happened.  I wish I could remember the name of his artwork he created with the garbage from the house they were building across the street.  Someday I will, I will not die until I know it.  Something “and orange harmony” maybe.  It wasn’t so much art as much as us just throwing shit into a mesquite tree and seeing what would get caught.  It was brilliant though.

He has my friendship bracelet now, he wanted one when I was making them but I didn’t have time to make him one.  He doesn’t even know he has mine, nobody does except for my mom, his dad, and my girlfriend.  I slipped it in right as they were closing the purple coffin; he loved purple.  He was way too smart and thought way too much about things, much too deeply too.

He’s the kind of person that if he can survive his own mind, he’ll contribute something incredible to the world when he’s older and more experienced.  He’s another example of how humans are just too smart for this world.  We’ve reached the limits of what intelligence can give us, now all the levels higher are nothing but detrimental.

I’ve tried to put myself in his final position and try to think of what he must have been thinking right before he pulled the trigger.  I sat where he sat near the bathtub, looking at my face in the reflection.  I spent an hour there with the discolored carpet at my feet.  I wonder how long he looked at himself with that gun in his mouth, hopefully not as long as I did.

The bullet hole is still in the ceiling.  Even after they filled it up, you could still see where it was.  I bet if I looked hard enough I could find the bullet, it should be somewhere in the attic.  He left a note, a poem; it was no accident even though several family members are convinced that is was.  It was called “My Life” but that seems wrong, he was only fifteen.  How much of a life do you have at that age?  He hadn’t begun living.  I still don’t think my life has begun and I just turned twenty-two.  If I were to kill myself and leave a note, I would have to entitle it “Prelude” or the “Developing years” or something like that.

Five months later at the girlfriend’s place in the suburbs of Dallas I had a dream that Jason was alive again.  He was dead but he just got tired of being dead or something and came back.  I’m not sure if our parents knew he was back or not, but I think at that time I was the only one who knew about it.  It made me insanely happy to have him back.

When I woke up, I felt very weird, not as sad as I should have been I guess.  It kinda made me happy to think of him as a living person again.  I’m starting to forget the way he sounded and looked when he actually moved around the house, not just as he does in my photographs of him.  All I know is that I wish he would come back to life.  Maybe he was speaking to me in a dream and that really was him and not just my mind.

In a way I’m glad I didn’t know him any longer than I did, I would miss him too much.  I knew him well enough to know that he was an excruciatingly nice, incredibly smart guy with the purest heart in the world.  I said that about him while he was alive, I’m not just romanticizing about him since nobody will ever have the balls to contradict me.

I feel we were just getting to the point where we would become great friends, he was at an age where I could get along with him better and we were getting into the same kind of things and loved the same kind of music.  The boy looked up to me like an idol.

It’s now been two and a half years; I can barely remember his voice.  I have no idea what the art piece was titled and I guess I never will.  I think about him only about once a month now, I know my mom and his dad do more.  I’m starting to forget what a great person he was and how much fun we had sitting around watching movies or playing with the cats or playing card games.  The inside jokes are slipping away without him to bring them up again.

Every time I eat at a restaurant with my mom and his dad I have to hear the same old Jason stories of what he did at Olive Garden when he had too much caffeine and how we couldn’t get him to shut up.  I think his dad regrets ever telling his son to shut up.  If there is one sound in the world he’d give up his life for, it would be the sound of Jason all hyperactive and being a silly fifteen year old.  He would be nearly eighteen now; he still wouldn’t know a fucking thing.