The Day the Music Died

I have a borderline unhealthy tendency to kill Apple products.

Before you tar and feather me, it’s not on purpose.

In fact, this unintentional bad habit of mine causes me more stress than Lindsay Lohan refusing to see the light and understand that tights are not pants.

Which is to say, it stresses me out a lot.

The scenario usually plays out like this:

Oooooooh! Shiny new ________! (iPod, MacBook, iPhone)

(2 minutes later)

God dammit. I’ve already gotten a scratch on it. But it’s OK because from now on I’ll be EXTRA careful.

(2 weeks later)

Holy shit, I’ve gone and dropped it. It’s okay. Everyone is alright. But that was a scare. I will NEVER do that again.

(2 days after that)

[dropped again] Oh my god, somebody take this beautiful piece of machinery away from me before something tragic happens.

(2 months later)

Ok. I’m used to this. This is an electronic device, not a person. It’s okay if it gets dinged. Those are love wounds. It still works like a charm, so even if it gets a little abused, it knows I love it and it won’t fail on me. I mean, it’s not a person. It’s a gadget. It will be fine.

This is where things get dangerous. Because it’s at this point that I stop freaking out if someone comes within 20 feet of me with a drink in their hand. I might leave my precious baby unattended or in my car while I run an errand. While I’ll never (ever) be so thoughtless as to stoop to putting stickers on anything that also has an Apple logo, I generally get a little careless with my toys.

And then bad things start to happen.

Things like a dent in my first PowerBook.

And the iPod graveyard which is now home to six poor souls. Of all sizes, too. Shuffles. Minis. Generation after generation.

Steve Jobs, if you’ve ever wondered what that icy chill is that runs through you every now and then? That’s me, breaking one of your gifts to the world.

Most recently, my iPhone became the latest victim of belonging to me.

It started quite innocently, actually.

I stepped on the cord to my iPod shuffle, it was the last surviving member of my group of proper iPods. But stepping on the cord meant that not only could I not charge it anymore, but I couldn’t add or shuffle around any of the songs. The only thing worse than the same playlist over and over again is running out of power mid-run, ending the momentum you’ve built up while jamming to Rumors. (What? I said that she can’t tell the difference between tights and pants, not that La Lohan doesn’t, on occasion, release a pop tune that you can, um, shake your groove thing to).

So, to stave off being 3 miles into a run and having to make the return trip in dead silence, I started running with my iPhone.

I’d seen people do it before. I always thought they were CRAZY. I’d usually think Why would you risk it? What if it started raining? But unfortunately, one day I stopped scoffing and started to mimic.

And, eventually, I got cocky and tried to be a hero. Obviously, it can’t be that bad, I thought. And? It wasn’t. For a good month and a half, I ran with my iPhone without incident. I clung to it tightly and made it back from every run iPhone intact.

And then.

Tragedy struck.

Funnily enough (or not, if you’re me), it didn’t happen during the run, but actually right before. In fiddling around with it, trying to find the perfect SOTRJ (Start of the Run Jam), it slipped, like a stick of butter, out of my stupid little fingers and landed face first on the ground.

Now, I’ve dropped my my precious baby before. In fact, I’ve dropped it so many times that I long ago stopped getting that sinking feeling when it happened.

But this time, as I leaned down to pick it up, it felt different.

Something felt wrong.

Turning it over, I saw the gravity of what I had done: the time had come, the beautiful face of my phone was scarred forever.

If you don’t think this is a big deal, try being the owner of an iPhone that has gone through a trauma like this. I can’t get it fixed here in Oz, so the cracks which run like horribly inflamed veins all over the screen have to stay for the time being. As such, it’s pretty noticeable that something bad happened when I pull it out to use it. People gawk. They ask what happened as if I had just told them a relative had died. Other iPhone users? They are the worst. They look at you as if you’re an overly aggressive husband who beats his wife. In my case, however, this might not be far off from the actual truth.

So.

I’ve come to terms, of sorts. I can’t get it fixed, so I’ve learning to read texts through the cracks, face the phone downward when there are prying eyes around, and to choke back the shame when I look down on my phone and am faced with the enormity of what I’ve done.

It still browses the Web.

It still plays music.

It still delivers Texts From Last Night on time, every time.

It still makes calls (ha, a function that exactly 0.2% of iPhone users actually utilize).

Future Apple products that might be owned by me one day, if you’re out there, listen up:

I’ll love you as best I can, and I’ll mourn you when I eventually maim or kill you. I’m sorry in advance.

Love,
BoJo

Misadventures in Oz

All good things come to an end, right?

We’ve had a pretty easy run most of the way up the coast.

Hostel owners have welcomed us with more than open arms. Benny has held up surprisingly well with two US drivers who could maybe change a spare tire if they pooled their knowledge and prayed to the spare tire gods.

We hadn’t even gotten lost.

Until yesterday.

We had every intention of leaving Emu Park and heading up to Mackay. We woke up early, said our goodbyes to Paul and Mandy, our fabulous hosts at Emus Beach Backpackers Resort, and were feeling confident with a 9AM start time that we’d make it to our next destination swimming in time.

We hit our first hiccup when we couldn’t get our accommodation in Mackay sorted out in time. But that’s ok, we thought, we’ll hit Mackay on the way back to Sydney, so we’re not repeating all of our stops. That meant next stop: Airlie Beach. We had to be there Sunday night or Monday morning anyway to catch our boat, The Pride of Airlie, for a 3-day sailing trip out to the famous Whitsunday islands.

Simple enough, right? There’s like, one road that leads up the coast, so a change in destination like this doesn’t really change our driving plans other than extending them a few hours.

Except for the accident.

Not us, and not a bad one. In the States, because nobody was hurt, it would have been cleared from the road in 20 minutes and everyone would have been on their way.

Things don’t work that way here. We were told immediately that it would be a few hours before they were able to clear the debris from the road.

The one road that heads north. We were also told that there is a route we can take, around the Capricorn Caves, that would drop us back onto Bruce Highway a couple kilometers up the road.

Perfect. We thought. Perfect. A small scenic detour and we’d be on our way. Airlie Beach? Here we come.

Except for getting horribly and horrifically lost.

We weren’t the only ones to think it would be a good idea to save a bit of time and head around the accident, so we were feeling pretty okay in a 2 – 3 car caravan taking the same route. Until I realized with a sinking feeling that there were no cars in front of us. And none behind us. And no houses or farms or signs of life other than livestock and fences to be seen for kilometers on end.

We were still heading north, so this didn’t feel like the end of the world. Our travel maps didn’t zoom in far enough on the area (if these roads were even represented on maps, which is definitely not a given), so we were completely dependent on a wonky GPS who couldn’t tell us if were even on Earth much less where exactly in the backcountry of Queensland we were clipping along. Heading north until we got somewhere seemed like a great idea until we got to a fork in the road. Both options looked like they led to a little remote shack in the woods. And I’ve seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

This is the part in the story where I start to get nervous.

We decide to follow the signs directing military vehicles where to go figuring if the military has to go there, it can’t be that bad. And there has to be a there there. Unfortunately, following those signs only led us to scarier terrain, including a crossing over rocks and creeks and uneven roads that I had absolutely zero confidence that our little Toyota HighAce that could would make it through.

Well we did. Barely, but we did. We also came upon a field of cattle who looked too skinny to have been taken care of by anyone in a long time. When they started getting up and running and making a formation that looked like they were about to start chasing us, it was time to turn around.

Screw finding our way or cutting out traffic. We had been driving for 45 minutes and there were absolutely no signs of life other than killer cattle.

We made our way back to the start of our misadventures to find that the accident still hadn’t been cleared from the road. Deciding to turn around and get lunch, I slowed down to ask a police officer how long he thought it might take the crews to clear the roadway.

“This is a highway. You can’t stop here.”

No shit. Even though, you know, there’s nobody behind me because they’re all stuck behind a semi truck that you are all taking your sweet time to clear from the road, no shit.

I put my foot on the gas a little bit to speed up to a slow roll and asked him the question again. I think this probably pissed him off so he just mumbled something and I took that as a hint to, um, not antagonize the authorities in a foreign country.

After eating lunch and crossing our fingers, we returned to find Bruce Highway, and our path to salvation, cleared. At this point I’ve been behind the wheel for a solid 4 hours with another 4 of driving ahead of me. No es bueno. It’s another hour and a half before I tell my pride to shut up and hand over driving duties to the other Bobbi. It’s a minute and  half before I’m cuddled in the passenger seat with a pillow and my stuffed emu, fast asleep and dead to the world.

As you can imagine, by the time we made it to Airlie Beach, I can’t muster the strength to care that we don’t have a place to sleep or two mobile phones between us that have a signal or have a battery. I can’t bring myself to care that it’s about to rain or that I just drank a bottle of water and sleeping in a campervan means that you don’t have a bathroom at ready disposal.

I just want to sleep and be happy that the man whose house we drove up to to ask for directions didn’t kidnap us and lock us in his basement.

Steal my sunshine.

Cloudy day in Port Stephens, Australia

I like to wallow in the clouds.

You know the ones: It’s a beautifully sunny day and the last thing anyone wants is for one of those funny shaped masses to roll by and scar the perfect sky.

But I do.

For me, those clouds mean a break from the heat, a break from having to squint my eyes and be sunny and having to live the moment.

I know that I lead an incredibly charmed life, and I’m more than grateful for that, but sometimes I need to steep myself in a little turmoil. I need to wake up and have time to break down and feel something. Putting on Something Corporate and having a good cry even if nothing is wrong makes me feel better. I’m a firm believer that listening to Everybody Hurts when you’re hurting is absolutely the best thing you can do for yourself.

I know that the doctor’s recommendation for a broken heart is to not think about it, to move on to greener pastures and that eventually, with time, the heart will heal itself. Frankly? I think that’s crap. I think it’s running away from a problem at its worst and that, especially in matters of the heart, you need to let yourself be broken. You need to be completely unreasonable and you need to go a little bit nuts. If you don’t? Either your heart isn’t actually broken or your in for a world of hurt when the feelings you were trying to run away from eventually hit.

And they’ll always hit.

Now – I’m not a sad person. Sarcastic as hell? Yes. Dry? Yes. But tangled in the deepest throes of depression? Absolutely not.

But when I’m having a sad day? I need it. Being told to cheer up? Sucks. I get that nobody likes a Debbie Downer, and I try to keep people out of my Greatest Hits of Breakup Music marathons lest I scar their sunny day. But in return, I want them to keep their sunshine out of my clouds. To let me have my moment and let me work through it by just being sad cheers me up more than hugs and promises that “everything will be OK.”

A good friend of mine used to yell at me every time I put on a song that was remotely tinged with emotion. She’d kill me right now watching me type away about broken hearts while listening to Matchbox 20. But this is therapy.

Being sad? The clouds? They feel good. I can stop squinting long enough to miss the sunshine and appreciate the clear skies when they return.

The loser’s guide to traveling alone.

Who am I kidding?

We all know I’m not a loser.

But, sometimes traveling alone can make you feel that way.

Your shots consist of a series of “self-portraits” in which you try to find the perfect balance of background and nostril because you’re too embarrassed to whip out your travel tripod in front of the bus of Asian tourists.

You’re the only person in your hostel room that isn’t part of a group that’s traveling together.

You sit in the common area and instead of people flocking to sit at your feet and hear your travel adventures while little bunnies braid your hair, they continue on as if you aren’t there.

Traveling solo has its perks (many, many perks), but it can screw with you a little bit if you don’t go into it with the right mindset and a few essential pieces of gear.

1. Invest in a good book and/or (I can’t believe I’m about to say this, I’m a real book kind of girl) e-reader. You want to do this not so that you can bury your nose in it and hide after only 5 minutes of trying to socialize in a common area. Sometimes you do have to walk up and introduce yourself. So do that. People will respond and more often than not be nice to you. Depending on where you’re traveling, people might not approach you because they’re simply not sure what language you speak. But you do need to have some sort of travel reading with you for train rides that aren’t particularly scenic or for the ability to read something that isn’t the menu when you find yourself in a restaurant by yourself. Just make sure you don’t use it as a tool for anti-social behavior.

2. Hone your elevator speech. Don’t rehearse it. But have a general idea of what you want to get across when people ask you things like, “Where are you from?” “Where have you traveled?” “What’s your favorite part about so and so?” These are the traveler’s equivalent of the just-back-from-summer-break-college-questions. “What did you do?” “How was home?” “Are you ready to be back?” The questions themselves get redundant which can either make you lazy, causing you to provide one-word answers, or make you want to elaborate and get in that random, minute detail that you forgot to tell the last person. Here’s the thing, nobody wants to hear, “It’s OK,” with no further explanation in response to a question about a place you’ve visited, but they also don’t want to hear about that time you were caught in a toilet stall with no toilet paper and you had to tap out SOS in Morse code on the bathroom stall because you didn’t speak the native language.

Or maybe they do.

But it’s always good to keep a mental note of your stories and experiences that are likely to bring out the most lively conversations with people. Story swapping is a great way to make friends along the way, so try to make the most of it.

3. Chin up. WAY up. Not everyone is going to want to be your new best friend. Some people are already traveling with their close friends or significant others and might not be interested in picking up another person for the group. This doesn’t mean that they hate you and want you to die a slow painful death, this just means that their travel companion needs have been met. Move along and meet someone new.

4. Whenever possible, have a local phone number. It’s free or cheap to unlock your cell phone and pretty inexpensive to get a local SIM card (just don’t get an Orange plan if you’re in the UK. They are communists will go out of their way to be unhelpful). Why do this? Well. One, if you’re traveling alone, you need to be able to call hotels, cab services, or emergency services should something happen. So always take note of those numbers. But two? Smoke signals aren’t all the rage anymore, and when you do make friends, you want to be able to call or text them to make plans to meet up.

5. Go see and do things anyway. There are some activities you may not feel comfortable doing without a travel partner. This is going to be different for different people. For me, I was worried about going sand boarding by myself. Who would stand at the bottom of the hill and stop me if I went careening off into the middle of the desert? Who would I take silly jumping pictures with at the top of the dune? While it would have been nice to have a friend, I had a great time regardless. Talk to your tour guides or instructors, they’ll give you great insight into the area or activity that you maybe wouldn’t have gotten if you were immersed in conversation with your travel partner. And better yet? Talk to the other people around you. Chances are you’ll have something in common with someone in the crowd, or you’ll find someone else that was on the lookout for a travel buddy of their very own.

6. Embrace it. I don’t think you learn more about yourself doing anything as when your traveling alone. You get to take in experiences in a different way, unclouded by someone else’s internalization of it. You get to go where you want, do what you want and be where you want on your own timetable. Plans can change more easily and often for the better when you have only yourself to consider. So yes, traveling with a buddy is fun. But traveling alone can be life-changing. Don’t be embarrassed if you’re taking self-portraits or setting up your tripod for the perfect shot. That picture will last forever and a possible judgy look from a fellow tourist will fade quicker than you think.

The fannypack they are wearing, however, won’t, and you can take solace in that fact.

Epic-style rant, coming right up.

It’s a foregone conclusion that I would have an opinion on what’s going on in Congress right now.

Expressing that opinion, at least online which means FOREVER, has been a bit of a back-and-forth issue for me.

But I’ve moved on from worrying about what my digital footprint might one day reveal about me should I one day decide I want to take over the world and on to – WHY.

Why allow your ⅓ of the apparatus this country needs to function to become completely ineffectual?

Why block crucial legislation – that you previously would have supported, mind you – because you hope to be re-elected?*

Why decide to be a public servant if you REFUSE TO SERVE THE PEOPLE?

I’m not very plugged in to what’s going on anywhere these days, much less the viscous 24-hour news cycle that we’ve come to know, hate and yet still be enslaved to in the US, so forgive me if Bunning has decided to sit the fuck down or if we all of a sudden have universal health care.

Apologies if the wrongs have righted themselves in the last few days while I’ve been off the radar.

But I suspect they haven’t.

And that they won’t.

Because people, in general, especially the ones that run for public office, are dipshits.

If you thought this was going to be one of those posts in which I don’t curse because I know my mom is reading, you thought wrong (Hi, mom!).

Because, really? Congress is full of a bunch of unapologetically douchebaggy, full-of-shit assholes.

If the only thing governing your decisions is whether that decision will ruin your chances at re-election? I really don’t want you having a say in whether I can go to the doctor without it bankrupting me or not.

I don’t have a desk job right now. I don’t plan to ever sit behind a desk again unless I own the damn building.

Does that mean I don’t get colds anymore? Not so much. Does that mean my bones won’t break? Not quite. And I’m clumsy. Does it mean that I might one day enter into a serious relationship (stop laughing) and want to, oh, I don’t know, have access to birth control? And a gynecologist? Yeah, NOT SO MUCH, Congress.

I want all of those things.

I want to not worry about getting the flu. Or falling. Which I do, like, 9 times a DAY. I want to know that if I get breast cancer at a young age, which is not even close to out of the realm of possibility, that I can get treatment.

Or better, that it can be prevented because I will have had access to regular screenings.

I was in London (where there’s universal coverage) living with my sister for a bit, and after (she gave me) a fairly serious bout of food poisoning, she suggested I go to the doctor.

My first reaction?

I can’t afford to.

I’m pretty sure that’s horrible. I’m pretty sure that a smart, Ivy League educated, capable young woman shouldn’t have to be afraid to even get treated for something minor because it would financially impair her.

With all of the debate about having a public option and how that would somehow cause tiny baby bunnies to simply fall down and expire from the horror; with all of the debate about abortion and how that can hold up passing any sort of reform; with every single second of the debate being reported ad nauseum across a kabillion different news outlets – I’m left feeling a little bit exhausted.

I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, it makes me not want to care. Which is dangerous. I know I’m in my 20s and this is where we think we’ll live forever.

But I won’t.

And I will get sick.

And I will get hurt.

And when those things happen? I don’t want my primary concern to be, “how will I pay for needing medical care?”

I know that politicians, even the biggest tree-hugging-socialism-loving-prius-driving Liberals, love their millions of dollars budgets and have cushy jobs that they want to keep, but doing things like blocking a standard vote because you hate the party in power or making a decision based on your own personal beliefs rather than the beliefs of the people who elected you SUCKS.

So whether you’re a Democrat who hates that women can decide what to do with their bodies or a Republican that hates that Democrats are allowed to continue existing on the this planet, you’re basically making life suck for a lot of people.

This isn’t a party thing. I can debate fiscal or foreign policy until I’m blue in the face. And I won’t always come down on the Left’s side. It’s a question of allowing people the right to not be sick. Or if they are, and terminally so, to get care that will comfort them and ease their pain.

I’m not the illegal immigrant some claim to be trying to keep from freeloading off of our healthcare system (if you can call it that). I’m not a person unwilling to seek or keep stable employment or to contribute to society. I’m not a member of the underclass that is so often forgotten. And I’m not one to let rants go on forever and ever with no end in sight.

So I’ll end it with this:

Stop being idiots. If you can’t or don’t want to govern and legislate, move the hell on to another profession.

*That goes for Republicans and Democrats.