BROOKLYN - ALL I EVER WANTED - BROOKLYN, HAD TO GET AWAY

Thank the sweet goddess Minerva - I finally got a bit of a vacation this weekend.  I traveled all of 30 miles, but it seemed like I was in Rome -- and it WAS Brooklyn, so there were a lot of Italians.... It just felt like I was in a country shaped like a boot, alright? 


Brooklyn is actually a very beautiful area...I was surprised, because on Long Island, we're taught that Brooklynites glow in the dark and have prehensile tails, but then again, they think we all drive Camaros and wear big gaudy gold necklaces with our names on them (shhh...don't tell them, but it's true...they're so jealous. Mine's faded red with a wicked cool racing stripe down the hood.)


But, in all seriousness, it was like an adventure, leaving my apartment to head west -- the direction of dreams -- setting out with nothing more than a tank of gas, a reusable, eco-friendly grocery bag full of random clothing and a half-dead phone to creep along in traffic on the Belt Parkway for 14 hours.  Sandals, you can keep your double-strawed pina coladas and filthy hot tub full of newlywed sweat -- I'm on vacation and dammit if I'm going to stress myself out crossing a body of water. So it was either Queens or Brooklyn and...well, those of you who say "draw" instead of "drawer" (or anyone who has every gotten lost for 2.5 hours trying to get back to the LIE off of the Queensboro Bridge) will understand why I went to Brooklyn....


And holy shit - it was like I'd cured Cancer, or ringworm or irritable bowel syndrome at the very least.  The temperature was in the 50s and I was in very good company.  The visit culminated in a Super Bowl party, which was a smorgasbord-of-a-fest of listening to Give Me All Your Luvin' repeatedly, getting in heated political debates, waiting to see Madonna pulled across the field by slaves, silly dancing, belly laughter and sitting in the window singing Tomorrow like Annie to the alley cats with a beer and cigarette in hand -- my kind of party.


Returning to work after a four day weekend, however, was not as pleasant.  Besides having to wake up at 7:30, which only children who don't know any better and the mentally ill do, I had to dress up AND sit at a desk.  What?? This isn't how I remembered it.  If I had an emergency cyanide pill in my cube, I would have swallowed it.  It seemed like that kind of hopeless emergency. Really, when is our corporate society going to realize that putting me in a cube is like forcing an infant to dance in men's boots and a thong...or maybe I'm thinking of Toddlers in Tiaras?  Regardless, it was not fun.  


But, I'm back on the chain gang, and I guess that's the way it is between vacations.  They're kind of like the big business "safety word"...you can use them when you need a break, but you've been beaten and screwed either way.  


Well, would love to stay and chat, but some friends of mine and I are going to go lean against our Camaros at the flea market.  Peace.