Phone Notes Part IV

Hey, Friends.

Yup, it's time for more Phone Notes!  Or, if I'm being totally honest about the situation, we should really be calling this:

Things I Meant to Write About, Didn't Have Enough Time to Write About, and Then Promptly Forgot About

Doesn't sound quite as good, even if it's true.  These are the things that get swept by the wayside.  I obviously thought enough of them at some point to bother to make a note about them, fully intending to do something greater with them.  Although, I honestly don't know what the hell I was thinking with some of these as there is no way to expand upon it.  Think of it as a peek into what I thought was worth saving at the moment -- whether because it seemed amusing, important, or terribly deep at the time.  

Now a word for our newer Friends...

Hi there.  Phone Notes is something that has happened here a few times. There is no set pattern. Usually it occurs when I realize I have a crap-ton of stuff on my phone that I really should just clean out.  Rather than just delete it and send it into the void, I share it here with all of you.  I'm not saying there will be any ground-breaking revelations here.  You might even get done and wonder why you bothered to read my nonsense in the first place, and rethink how you could have better spent those precious moments of your life.  I hope it's not the latter, but I realize that it is a possibility.

So let's get to it, kids.  I don't remember the context -- or what particularly set me off if it's a rant -- for a lot of these tidbits.  When I do, I'll flesh it out a bit with additional information and/or commentary that looks like this. You will otherwise be getting exactly what I put in my phone, edited slightly to make it easier to read -- like fixing typos and auto-corrects, and adding punctuation so it isn't just a big blob of text.


1) We're starting with one in which I know exactly what was going on, so be proud.  I was on the train with my niece, Lili, headed to see Twenty One Pilots at Madison Square Garden.  I had used the app to buy the train tickets on my phone, but she didn't know that. She started asking questions about what happened if you got on the train without a ticket.  I told her I didn't really know -- I assume they just kicked you off.  It took me a second to realize that she was asking because we hadn't stopped to buy tickets, but once I explained that we had tickets she was good. The Universe, however, seemed to have heard her question and decided to give her an example, up close and personal.

People sitting right behind us on the train have no tickets.  Guy said the chick with him had them, but she had gone to use the bathroom.  One stop later she's back & conductor asks for tickets.  She doesn't have them.  They say they have no cash, no cards, no way to pay.  Conductor asks for ID. They say they don't have that either.  Conductor leaves and says he'll be back.

Conductor comes back at Garrison stop.  Tells them they have to get off here -- they aren't going to Grand Central.  Guy starts cursing and refuses to get off the train.  Conductor says we will all sit here while they call the cops to remove them.  Another conductor gets involved.  Magically she now has the ability to pay, but now her account will be "fucking negative".

Lili abandons me and puts on her headphones.  3 stops later and they are still fighting (loudly) about how this is all his fault.  Her account is "fucking negative" because he wouldn't stop at the bank on the way to the train.  She wants $44 at least to cover the ticket and the charges for going negative....

Still arguing half an hour later.  Apparently they have to catch a flight to Miami.  He has to be at work by 11?  Now she wants $80 and why did she even have to come here in the first place.  He says something about it being his birthday, and she says, "Well, it's not your fucking birthday anymore!"

**Now I'm curious: do they actually have plane tickets?  They have no luggage.  And if they didn't bring any ID, like they said, how the hell do they plan on boarding a plane?**

Fighting starts again as we near Grand Central.  She is still carrying on about her account going negative.  He loses his cool and says that he bought the plane tickets, he pays for everything when they are in Miami, what is her problem, it's his birthday and he wanted to see her, etc. She says he still owes her $44.  He finally snaps and yells at her to "Please, just shut the fuck up about the $44! You know I'll pay you back when we get there!"  And it seems to work.  For the last 5 minutes on the train I don't have to listen to them having the same endless argument.

2)  3/7/16 10 pm.  I'm seriously craving raspberry Jell-O right now.  I can't even begin to reason why. I haven't had Jell-O in ages.  Something about the idea of raspberry Jell-O just seems so perfect and I'm truly bummed by my inability to make this happen.

3) 4/16/16 @ 1:20 pm.  WRRV song played at 12:50 pm.  Random, but I know why I did this.  I must have been driving somewhere in my car, really liked the song they played, and jotted down the time so that I could attempt to look it up on the Song History later on their website.  Technology defeats me on many occasions.  I went from a car with a broken cassette player to one that has bluetooth, and plays from my phone, and has Sirius.  Totally skipped the whole CD player phase. While being awesome, it thwarts me when I want to use my phone to identify a song.  I've tried it several times (while parked, not driving) and it never works.  As soon as I touch my phone it either assumes I want to make a phone call, or it starts playing the music I have on my phone. I cannot get it to cooperate and just let me Shazam or ask Siri for the song. So now I am reduced to making notes and looking it up later.  And no, I have no idea what song inspired this.  I'm assuming I really like it though.

4)  "I like Britney Spears, but she sounds like a little girl when she sings." -- My nephew, the  9 year old music critic.  

5)  Found this in the donations at work:

A whole book about it. And no, I didn't read it. Is this true, guys?  Seems like poor decision making if you are actively choosing to marry someone because she is a bitch.  Then again, I'm single so what the hell do I know.

5)  I've got nothing on this next one.  I've no idea what I was looking at, but I'm assuming I was randomly flipping through Instagram late at night.  You know, when I should have been sleeping.

Did you ever look at someone's Instagram account, and it seems like every day they are at some amazing place or fabulous party?  I often wonder how much of that is real.  Like, did they really go to this crazy party and then climb a mountain the next day, or did they go to that party for like 5 minutes to take the picture and make themselves seem cool on social media?  I mean, maybe they really have the energy to do that kind of stuff every single day.  I don't know.  It makes me wonder what actual reality is versus what they want everyone to perceive as their life.

I don't know where I'm going with this.  If it's all spot on and accurate, then congratulations on your wonderful life.  If it's not, and this is all planned and choreographed to make yourself more popular on social media?  Then I feel bad for you, and a little bit worried.  Your self-worth should never be dependent on the number of "followers" you have, or how many "likes" your last picture got.  Yeah, it's a nice ego-boost, but don't make it the sum total of who you are.  I don't know you.  I don't even follow you.  But I hope you know you are more than that.

6)  You know those people who always seem to be in a good mood?  Like they are perpetually perky?  Normally it's cool.  I can even admire their spirit when they try to find the silver lining in a bad situation.  Other times they annoy the hell out of me and I kind of want to slap them back to reality with the rest of us.  I'm guessing I was in a bad mood.  Sorry.  I'm not a saint.

7)  Yesterday morning, on the way to work.  My mind was clearly blown.  Just got a bagel for breakfast.  They toasted it, and then they put butter on it before they put on the cream cheese.  Seemed weird, and I assumed they screwed it up, but OMG.  How have I not been doing this my entire life? I know it's just extra grease, essentially, but it was so unctuous and satisfying.  Or maybe I really enjoy butter in the morning more than I ever realized.

8)  Now you're in for a treat, Friends.  I found an old voice memo on my phone.  I was clearly irked with the behavior of some people on Twitter, but I honestly couldn't tell you now who it was that sent that final message that made me snap.  I'm guessing I probably don't follow them any more.  Added bonus (if you want to consider it that): you can hear me curse, and breathe loudly, because I apparently held the phone very close in the moment.

Listen to me rant! You know you want to!

And there you have it, Friends.  These are the kinds of things I find relevant enough to make notes about.  If you are just dying to see more of these little forgotten moments, you can find the previous installments of Phone Notes here:  The classic, original phone notes, Phone Notes II: Electric Bugaloo, and Part III.

Thanks for reading.  I hope you enjoyed our time together, reliving the flotsam of my mind. Don't feel obligated to click on those links.  It's really just the short version of the stuff I post here all of the time, except I didn't attempt to pretty it up or expand upon it.  I doubt it will give you deep insights into my warped mind.  Or maybe it will -- I honestly don't know.  I'm pretty sure you can get more than enough of my ramblings just by scrolling back through old posts.

I Feel Like We Just Did A Complicated Math Problem

Hey, Friends.

Math was never my best subject in school, which is a big part of why I ended up majoring in English. I'm still pretty convinced I only passed Calculus in college because my professor was leaving at the end of the semester and we all reaped the benefit of a wicked curve.

Why are we discussing math?

Remember those word problems you used to get in school:

Train A, traveling 70 miles per hour (mph), leaves Westford heading toward Eastford, 260 miles away. At the same time Train B, traveling 60 mph, leaves Eastford heading toward Westford. When do the two trains meet? How far from each city do they meet? 

(You can read all about that fun problem, if you are denying for the technicalities, here.)

My friend and I are going to see a concert tomorrow night down in New York City.  I feel like we just completed the same type of math problem while trying to figure out which train to take to A) ride together if possible, and/or B) at least reach Grand Central at approximately the same time.

It really shouldn't be that hard, as it is just reading the timetable of the train, but there are a lot of factors that went into it.  

Person A has the easiest part of the schedule.  She took the whole day off from work as soon as she got the tickets.  She rarely calls in to work and has a shit-ton of benefit time to use (assuming she can get it approved in advance -- that's the tricky part), so why not?  Not knowing what the plans would be, she wanted to have the whole day available for fun time --even if that only meant being able to sleep in late.  She literally has nothing to do but drive the 5-10 minutes to the train station, pay for parking, buy the train ticket, and get on the correct train.  She is a slacker. I'm Person A so I can say this.  I wouldn't defame my friends!

Person B is a responsible adult and is going to work all day.  This is one of many reasons why she is allowed to educate your children.  She will be getting on the train at a different station, approximately half-way to the destination.  She does not have to work the next day, so no worries that young minds will be unduly impacted by the concert experience.

What train should Person A take that will work with Person B's schedule and still get them to Grand Central in time to eat before the concert?

Person B has two different times she could potentially leave work, one of which is far more likely than the other.  Person A starts checking the train schedule, and comes up with a train that looks plausible:  it leaves her station and stops at the station where Person B would be boarding the train. They agree that it might just work.

**2 hours later**

Person B reports that the plan is not going to work.  Traffic is going to majorly screw things up.  I will take poor Person B 45 minutes to get near the train station, judging from today's traffic.

Now what train shall they take to get to the concert?

Person B looks at the train schedule and comes up with two possibilities:  one where they ride together part way, and one where they meet in Grand Central.

Person A is still a slacker, and now only needs to get on the train an hour later.  She will sit by the window and save a seat in case Person B is able to catch that train and continue their journey together.

Will Person A and Person B manage to get on the same train?  

Will they end up meeting in Grand Central, taking trains that will arrive approximately 15 minutes apart?

Will there be a problem on the Hudson Line, and Metro-North will make all of their planning irrelevant?

Will they eventually get to see Of Monsters and Men in concert?  

Stay tuned!

And this time Person A is going to make sure she brings her portable charger, complete with all the necessary pieces, so that she does not end up with a dead, phone-shaped paperweight before the day's adventures are over.

In Which We Go to the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon!

I was incredibly lucky and was able to go see the taping of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on March 11th (the 17th episode!).  I have to thank my big boss, the Library Director, for indirectly having made this possible.  The only reason I was able to get tickets when they were released for March was because we were having a massive snow storm here and the library was closed.  Had it not been for that snow day I would not have seen the announcement, and the entire month of tickets was gone in less than half an hour, I think.  So thanks, Boss Man!

I scored a reservation for 3 people, so my friends Chris and Kate came with me.  We took the fabulous Hudson line down, just before noon.  Since I thought we might not have a chance to eat lunch before the taping, and one person was coming directly from work, I decided to pack a lunch for us to eat on the train.

I was a little overzealous in my lunch preparations.  I wanted to make sure there was something that everyone would eat.  So along with the water and Yodels (because who doesn't love a Yodel?  No one, that's who.) I made sandwiches....a lot of sandwiches.  I made bologna & cheese with mayo and one with mustard, turkey & cheese with mayo and one with mustard, peanut butter & grape jelly and also peanut butter & strawberry-rhubarb jelly.  I was making options, people.  I also cut them each into four quarters.  I thought it would make them easier to eat, but it kind of looked like I thought we were on a kindergarten field trip or something.

The trip was off to an auspicious start when I scored a close parking spot at the train station, and I did a kick-ass job parallel parking.  I hate parallel parking and never do it if I can possibly avoid it.  Driveways and parking lots are how I roll.  To commemorate my awesome parking job and because we took it as a good sign for the way the day would go, we took a picture.

The giant bag in my hand?  Yeah, that's our lunch.

We got our tickets and the train was on time.  I normally have the worst luck with the train and end up sitting somewhere stuck for an hour with "equipment on the line".  We are super lucky that we went on Tuesday, as we would not have been able to make it on Wednesday.  There was a horrible explosion in Harlem in which people died, and it shut down train service for several hours.

We got to Grand Central with plenty of time to spare.  Since I packed enough food for a small army, we had some leftovers.  We knew we could not take it into the studio for the taping, so Chris gave it to a homeless woman we saw begging for money.  She seemed really appreciative, and it was just the right thing to do.

Since the main branch of the New York Public Library was pretty much on the way to claim the tickets we decided to go visit.  

Hi there!  Also, my hair is a hot mess (I'm in the center.)

They have an exhibition on children's books at the moment.  It is really cool, and you should check it out if you get a chance.  They have very cool things like this:

Those are the original toys that inspired A. A. Milne to write Winnie the Pooh

After checking out the exhibition it was time to go claim our tickets.  I had a confirmation for three, but you have to get there to claim them and that part is on a first-come, first-served basis.  We got to the assigned pick-up point in the NBC Experience Store at the earliest time you could start claiming tickets.  Other people got there earlier.

This would be the time I began to worry we might not get in.

The couple in line in front of us were very nice and friendly, which was great because we were going to be spending some quality time standing in line with them over the course of the afternoon.  They were visiting from San Antonio, as it turns out.

We presented the confirmation and our photo identification, and we got our tickets and wrist bracelets.  Now it's real!!

They give you chocolate, too!  Thanks, Tonight Show!

That was all done pretty quickly, considering the line they had to work through.  You then get instructions to meet by the Golden Escalator by a specific entrance at a specific time.  Um, okay.  We had some time to kill before we had to do that.  It was like an adventure in Wonderland or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: "Find the XX entrance and then wait by the magical Golden Escalator!"

We wandered around a bit, as we also got insanely lucky with the weather that day.  It was in the 60s outside.  I know that doesn't sound fabulous to a lot of people, but considering that today was back to being 18 with a "feels like" temperature of 2 in the middle of the afternoon, this was awesome!  (And I had to get an iced coffee as I had not had nearly enough that morning.)

We find the Golden Escalator, and now we get to line up against the wall in order of the numbers on our tickets.  Sounds simple, right?  Nope.  People were all just trying to jam up near the front of the line.  It got to the point where Chris was just holding up his ticket with the number so people could figure out whether to get in front of us or behind us.

Once that mess got as organized as it was going to be, we got to go upstairs to....wait in line some more!  But now we were in a special roped off area.  We were getting closer.  So exciting!  One of the NBC gentlemen (I'm not sure if he was security or a page) checked to see if we were in order, and then told us we did a much better job than the folks in the front.  

The upstairs line, it turned out, is where we had to queue for the metal detectors.  They gave us all the instructions on how to proceed when they called each group.  It really was very well organized.  They also told everyone to take a picture of their ticket at that point, as they will be taking the ticket shortly.   :(  The woman in front of us was really kind of bummed she didn't get to keep it.  They also instructed everyone to turn off their phones -- not just silence it, or put it away -- turn it off.  If they so much as see your phone out during the taping they will kick your ass out.

Once we got through the metal detectors we went up an elevator, and then we stood in line again.  This was actually super-fast as they told you where to sit.  I'm not sure how they determined the seating, as we did not end up remotely near the couple from San Antonio.

And then it was awesome!  The Studio!  The Roots!  Jimmy Fallon!  The guests!  We were there for the episode with Tyler Perry, Billy Eichner, and Juanes!

Best part?  We totally got to be on television!  Billy Eichner and Jimmy Fallon went into the audience.  We weren't directly involved in the game, but we got a lot of screen time by being behind people that they spoke to. 

In the clip above, when they circle around and start talking to this woman in the black shirt?  We are sitting right behind her!  You can easily spot my friend Chris in the white shirt sitting on the end.  I'm next to him, and Kate is next to me.

As if that wasn't exciting enough, Chris is now totally in a BuzzFeed gif set!  BuzzFeed

The part that surprised me the most out of the whole process was how little time the guests were actually there.  I know they edit the show before it airs.  I thought Jimmy would talk to Tyler Perry for a long time, and then that would get edited down to what you see on the show: highlight certain parts, or edit stuff out if the guest didn't like how they looked, etc.  Nope.  He was not there that long at all.

Also, we were there for the 17th show in a brand new studio.  They had to tell people during the warm-up that they were not to stick gum under the chairs!  Yeah.  Brand-new studio, barely 3 weeks in use, and some assholes had already stuck gum under the seats.  This is why we can't have nice things, people!  I'm disgusted, but not surprised.  I work in a public library.  You would not believe the shit (sometimes literally) that people will do.

After the show we wandered, ate dinner, got dessert from Magnolia Bakery, and caught the train home.  We even made it home with enough time to watch ourselves on the show that night.  I can't speak for Chris or Kate, but I know I totally freaked and shot video of my television on my phone when I realized we were going to be visible.

All in all it was a fantastic day!  Next time I am going to try for tickets to Late Night With Seth Meyers!

**Edit:  I almost forgot: I had my very first celebrity sighting!  No, not Jimmy Fallon or the guests on the show.  When we were out walking after the taping I saw Ted Allen also walking down the street.  I did my very, very best not to spaz out and to act like it wasn't the first time I had actually seen a celebrity just out in the wild, so to speak.**