On Rambling (Or, Samantha Brown had better watch her back)

I want Samantha Brown’s job. If you’re not sure who she is, she’s the charming and charismatic host of the Travel Channel’s Passport to Europe, or Latin America, or wherever you want to go. (She’s also the only person I follow on Twitter who has responded to my tweets. Thanks, Sam!) I’m home sick today, which means that between the frequent bathroom visits (I won’t get more graphic than that), I can relish back-to-back episodes of Samantha Brown’s Passport to Great Weekends segment, where she took me first to Brooklyn and then to Cape Cod.

(Here she is crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. Doesn't that look like a better way to spend a dreary Wednesday?) Now I want her to come to South Florida so I can take her around my stomping grounds and be on her show – since I can’t steal her job.

Don’t get me wrong. I actually love my teaching job, where I get to meet people as exotic as Samantha does. (I teach English as a Second Language at a local college.) The big difference is that Samantha gets to travel to these exotic places and then say good-bye to these people while I spend sixteen weeks with mine and then have to give them a final grade, which they often don’t like. Well, the philosophy is that professors don’t give grades; students earn them. But nine out of ten students don’t buy that crap, and so I’m left having to look them in the eye when they sometimes fail, wishing I could instead hop a plane outta there as quickly as Samantha Brown does.

So as the sixty-degree rain falls from the oppressive gray sky today, exacerbating my headache and stomach cramps, I’m wishing I were somewhere else, maybe snuggled before a fire in an Alpine ski lodge or nestled comfortably in a hammock on Bali (channeling the fantasies inspired by Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love). If I had Samantha Brown’s job, I could do that and then spend the rainy days blogging about it.

(For the record, Microsoft Word does not yet recognize “blog” as a noun or a verb. How behind the times is that? It also doesn’t recognize “jonesing”, which is what I wanted to write earlier instead of “wishing”.)

Anyway, I’m rambling, which is what sick people do when they’re bored and jonesing to be somewhere else, to have someone else’s job, or just to feel well enough to stay away from the bathroom for more than thirty minutes. Incidentally, I just had to renovate my bathroom due to leaky wall tiles, and though it’s the last thing in the world I would have chosen to spend money on, I have to say it looks great. I also have to thank God I didn’t get this stomach bug one week earlier when dust coated the sink counter and a man named Jack lowered my A/C to 65 degrees and spent his days blaring country music while he worked. I like country music ‘n all, but I was home on Spring Break and so had to listen to Dierks Bentley sing about a Long Trip Alone, which is what I really wanted to take on my break instead of having to endure frigid temperatures inside my own home. I tell you, it just ain’t fair.

Then again, I could have needed the toilet every few minutes, which I guess puts things into perspective. And since perspective is a hard thing to find when you’re rambling on ‘n on ‘n on, I thank you for staying with me on this blog about absolutely nothing. I love you all!

P.S. (Beware: shameless plug coming) Did I mention that my novel, Looking for Anita, is a finalist for the ForeWord Reviews 2009 Book of the Year Awards?