serinde

So. Passport. Quite, quite missing.

Simultaneous with this, I have been reading (on nedlnthred's earnest and, in the event, utterly accurate recommendation) Eat, Pray, Love; which I'm halfway through the "pray" part, and one of the consistent themes is about the author's learning to open herself to what abundance the universe/God/whatever you want to call it is prepared to give her to answer her needs. This is also, of course, a consistent theme in yoga (which the author practices; well duh), and it's entirely in tune with some central ideas in the Artist's Way, and if you squint a bit it's pretty close to a lot of aikido concepts too.

If I'm trying to follow these paths, perhaps I should listen to the points where they all seem to be in agreement, yes? No matter how tree-hugging hippie nonsense it may seem to my corn-fed superego. So as I lay in bed last night, I stopped racking my brain for Where Could The Goddamn Thing Be, and relaxed both body and mind (yoga people: aiming for the kind of head-state you get during shivasana) and just peopled it with a wishing/wanting/desiring to receive the location of my passport.

Three minutes later, a picture came in, which was of the black tote bag with the shiny embroidery that sweh brought me back from London, which was still at the house (or inna box, but I thought it was at the house {which it was}). Um, okay. We'll try it. It's plausible.

So here I am in Fair Lawn, and there is the tote bag in the library closet, and THERE IS THE FUCKING PASSPORT.

Thank you, O universe. Or O subconscious. Or whatever combination of influences led me here.

Can't find the God. damn. passport. anywhere.

First, there was a mad cleaning/putting stuff away frenzy in preparation for the arrival of nedlnthred's parents, and that was Good. (HEY YOU CAN SIT IN THE LIVING ROOM NOW)

Then there was, or I should say "is" as I'm in the middle of it, the process of tearing all of the places where my STUF resides in the effort to find my passport. I've just been through the media room (also known as "the sage room", "the room dariodevil was staying in", "the office cats' suite", and "Jesus Fucking Christ it's cold in here"), where I was pretty sure it wasn't, but there was always the off-chance bubblehead possibility; and I have not found it there, but I have done a considerable amount of reorganization. For instance, all my DVDs are on shelves now (and by that I mean "contiguous shelves", not "stacked haphazardly on ten different ones next to books, CDs, and God-knows-what"), and in order. Also I have rounded up miscellaneous items that weren't anyplace intuitive and put them in a more sensible location.

Meantime, Beth's former housemate (the one who went sorta loopy last winter) has FINALLY FINALLY come with helpers to take away all the masses of stuff she left here. Hallelujah, and also Praise the Lord. This will help considerably. E.g., traffic in the upstairs hallway was not materially assisted by the presence of a filing cabinet taller than me, nor yet a dressmaker's mannequin.

...which latter, based on the sound f/x I just heard, would seem to have tumbled down the stairs. Oops.

Now: to disassemble my bedroom. This will be !fun. But if my passport has not fallen into a wormhole, this is where it will be.

(Possibly is now also taking an antihistamine. I have kicked up enough dust etc. to have generated my patented impression of a 19th century consumptive.)

Does anyone really believe it's only 35 minutes to go the whole length of the 7, from Times Square to Flushing?

Join us as we explore the winding tree-lined streets of the historic West Village. Seek out classic "mom and pop" specialty food shops, Italian eateries, and charming neighborhood restaurants. Learn about the history, culture, architecture, and entertainment offerings that makes Greenwich Village so unique from the rest of New York City. Discover a literary speakeasy from the roaring 20's, the old Italian neighborhood, hidden gardens, the narrowest house in NYC, plus much more!

audiovile: it seems that Murray's is on the list of explorations. Ahem.

Neither my passport nor my checkbook is in their accustomed locale. (Indeed I haven't seen my passport since moving, I don't think. Or have I? fkdljaf;jsdkf;jaskdjkdf)

A number of you took amusement from my relay of messages-inna-bottle from elibalin's Expedition of the Damned to outer Pennsylvania. You same lot are likely, therefore, to enjoy his expanded notes.

So, almost everyone at CUNY other than the Big Shot Executives is represented by (and pays union dues to) one of two unions. The faculty and certain random others (e.g., the "educational technologists" downstairs, and the Lab Guy) are part of PSC; everyone else, from $OFFICEMATE to minions to the hewers of wood and drawers of water, are in DC 37. Both of those units negotiated new contracts that just went into effect, so everyone got a nice whomp of retroactive pay in today's check.

Except for three people, that is: $BOSS, spride, and myself. We are "classified managerial" staff. We get benefits like the PSC members, but other than that our salaries are governed by the whims of the CUNY Vice Chancellor for Faculty and Staff Relations. When it pleases him and his court to so do, he issues a "Personnel Policy Bulletin" which declares unto the people that yea, the Classified Managerial titles shall be increased unto 2 or even 3%.

Now, the last one was almost two years ago, so it might be expected that a goodie may be coming down the pike; except that the city and state budgets are both completely in the shitter. The unions, of course, are large and powerful and can say to CUNY "I do not give two tugs of a dead dog's cock for your budget issues, you will give our people raises or we will walk," and CUNY hears and tremblingly obeys. We few haunted spirits do not have this kind of clout, and can go whistle for MOR MUNNEYZ.

(There is also the concept of a "merit increase", which is controlled at the college level, but my gossips tell me that Her Presidentness--a corporate lawyer appointed by Emperor Rudy, she is--has been sitting on the sysadmins' merit increases for, let's see it's now November, so for a full year.)

I have many burbling thoughts about the current Disney World experience, but I am tired and am not sure I'm up to putting it all in. We shall see how far I get. In meantime: I have a bunch of delicious leftover gloppy Moroccan food; do we think it's likely to get bounced by the TSA as a Spooooooky Liquid? It's a little thicker than curry.

Magic Kingdom, the Short Form: There's really not a lot there I'm interested in these days. Space Mountain, chiefly, which I will walk across broken glass for. (I do not, however, recall it shaking my bra off on previous visits.) Some of the Tomorrowland stuff is still kinda nifty in a wacky retro way, and I'll admit to having a good time on the rocket ships.

General Annoyance: Any ride where they have decided to "reimagine" it, not by redoing it entirely, but by having $PRODUCT pastede on yay. The most egregious example of this was Stitch's Great Escape, neé Alien Encounter. They changed almost none of the physical plant except cosmetic lettering & labelling, and making the horrific Cthulhoid alien that crops up in the middle into a 3' tall Stitch. Everything else was animated projections on viewscreens of characters you have not heard of and do not care about with an exceedingly lame plot sort of pieced together around it. -500, would not ride again, even if it was pouring rain outside.

Similarly, in Epcot, the Living Seas, formerly an actual learning experience (however mild), is now "The Seas with Nemo and Friends" which consists of you riding v e r y s l o w l y through a tunnel while having characters from the film projected onto empty fish tanks or undersea sets in front of you. There is even less plot than the previous example, and mostly consists of every character calling "Nemo! Nemo!" while Nemo giggles and swims offscreen. I wanted to take an axe to the whole thing.

Less annoying: Pirates of the Caribbean now has animatronic Captain Jack Sparrows in random places, in a sort of Where's Waldo kind of way. Meh, whatever. Expected it. Universe of Energy now has Ellen DeGeneres imported, without the ride/experience/thing changing much; also meh, whatever. There are still dinosaurs which is, I think, what most people who actually give a crap come to the table for.

A far better example of a partial redo is Journey into Imagination, now Imagination!. They decided that the weird bearded guy wasn't doing it, but Figment the dragonling was, so they re-themed the concept as an imagination lab thingie where Figment is sort of created, or discovered, or something. There are still elements of the previous version, there are even some recycled sets, but it doesn't feel patchwork; the whole thing hangs together tolerably well.

Some really awesome new shit: Test Track (formerly Worlds of Motion) (it was always a GM commercial, but now you get a bitchin' ride that goes very very fast beforehand) and Mission:Space with its space training simulator. I was prepared to be annoyed, because I sorta liked Horizons with its Visions of Future Cities in Inhospitable Environments (though I expect it would be awfully dated now); but the simulator converted me. I am here to tell you, my children, that 2.5 Gs doesn't sound like much until it is pulling on your face. Total Fucking Nerd Moment: I spotted the old Horizons symbol, from back when Epcot had such things, in the center of the wheel-shaped space station model right inside the entrance on the right side. Nice touch.

There is a new ride in The Land, called "Soarin'", which is apparently all that and a bag of chips, since the line was never less than a hour. So I did not bother.

Post-ride playground breakdown: Mission:Space awesome, Spaceship Earth and Test Track pretty good, The Seas, Universe of Energy, and "Innoventions" (formerly Communicore) meh (though that latter is probably better for smaller kids; but words fail to express my opinion of the "Segway Test Zone"), Imagination! serious weaksauce--especially compared to what it used to be.

World Showcase is as it has ever been, only with a Food and Wine Festival added. That is where all my money went. Little kiosks all over the place, each brought to you by a different city's tourism board, with delicious bite-sized food from said place. And they were all good. And since each one is only $3.50 - $5, you think "oh, well, that's nothing" and oh look, there's a wine or beer pairing and that's about the same price, well that's fine, and pretty soon you're blotto before you're halfway around the lagoon. There were a lot of very, very merry people, in a way that is not usually consonant with the Disney Experience. This was mildly hilarious.

Also, let it be noted that Orlando city buses are a functional but tiresome way to get to and from the parks.