WARNING:  The community activist in me may be cutting loose with this post because I still feel crappy, am pissed and am exhausted….exhausted in part thanks to AMTRAK.

While they are running around kissing corporate ass in America and pretending to think pink just for the publicity of it all – they are shipping country music star Martina McBride east on the barftasticaly titled “Pink Together Express so she can get to New York City  to sing for her supper and apparently light the Empire State Building pink so it looks like a giant penis rising above New York City.   (sorry but the building is phallic looking in design no matter how wonderful, so you color it pink and voila! New York has a giant penis)

Pink Together is a saccharine sweet campaign developed by General Mills in their apparent commitment to monster charity Susan G. Komen – because you know there are no other worthy charities out there helping women with breast cancer…..

I guess I should look for pink Cherrios to eat for breakfast?  That indeed would be barftastic.

So what has my skirts in a bunch?  How about the heart stopping squeaking grinding noises that sounded football stadium loud at 2 a.m.?  Did I mention the blaring horns and klieg bright lights?

Yes G. D.  Amtrak! I have been thru breast cancer and sick for a week straight because my immune system is a mess and FINALLY fall asleep to stay asleep and there they are with lights blaring and this ungodly squeaky noise and HORNS. No, I don’t need sleep at all — being woken up at 2 am is JUST PEACHY and puts me SOOO IN THE PINK.

I know with all the rain the tracks have taken a beating, but they should have to tell affected residents when night work will happen.  That way people like me have the option of at least getting ear plugs. 

The reality of the area in which I live is the train tracks cut us in half – all socio-economic levels are affected (I don’t want the mistaken visual of Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink living in a shack next to train tracks because here the tracks slice suburbia in two.)  Along with that reality comes the occasional smack you in the face realization that the railroads don’t give a crap about their neighbors. 

From noise and night work that scares the shit out of you when it happens dead in the middle of the night withoout warning, to the random acts of spraying herbicides as a way of “maintaining” their landscape – and they always misdirect the spray killing off gardens with their industrial strength carcinogen-laden sprays (you know how “cancer friendly” sprays like that are, their storm water management plans of flooding neighborhoods rather than dealing with retention basins and improvements to their banks and so on.  In my area they also abandon bridges that cars and people go over every day – the ones around here are scary and it is but for the grace of God that no one has been killed in a bridge accident.  

Hell, a lot of their train stations are not even completely  ADA accessible around here (Ardmore and Paoli at a minimum) I could go on, but I won’t.  I won’t mention the fact that with all the rain the awesome day workers that check the tracks for Amtrak told us that enough of the banks around the tracks were eroding out they were concerned if they weren’t bolstered with heavy rock followed by some storm water management that there could be serious problems – but hell what’s the potential worry of a train derailment in your neighborhood when you have been through breast cancer?

See what happens when you wake up a breast cancer survivor who has been kid sick for a week?  SUPER CRANKY PANTS.

I haven’t slept in a WEEK. I finally fell asleep last night.  But no, there I was wide awake at 2 a.m. damn them.  And today? Today the left breast is throbbing in pain – must be lack of sleep solidarity. Swell.

But hell you all keep flitting through with your dyed pink butterflies. 

No fake pink plastic or rubber trees were harmed with this post but the thought crossed my mind.