Believe it or not, no alcohol was consumed in the writing of this post

This weekend, I learned a lot about friendship.

We – there’s a few of us in this together – have been doing this for over two decades. We might not see each other for a year or more, but put us in the same room and we've never been apart for more than 10 minutes. Put on the cheesy movie. Cook up a frozen pizza or a pot of pasta.  Catch up on the small stuff – and then get to the big stuff that you need to talk about with people who have known you for so long that you realize they knew you before you even had a real personality; Growing up together and figuring out life as it happens, because that’s the only way to start figuring out life. And they really are the ones who know how you got to Today.

There was a baby, when we were probably too young to even know what having a baby meant, but one of us (obviously, not me) was having one, so by God we were going to figure it out. Dealing with boys – and then men – before we knew what the difference between the two even meant, much less how to deal with the transition between the two.  Marriage, Divorce, Messy families –  before we learned that sometimes family just plain means messy and hurt feelings –and finding out that you learn a lot  about yourself when things get Messy and Hurtful. We have figured out so many Very Important Things together that we should have a freaking Nobel Prize in Life. Or at least, I assume that's what the multiple empty bottles of wine at 2 AM mean.

But most of all, friendship.

Friendship that grows from stupid boys to uninterpretable relationships to realizing that no matter what, there are some people that will always have your back. No questions asked – or at least, no questions that have wrong answers, because even bad answers are accepted. An understanding that sometimes just pouring the next glass of wine is affirming that we’re all in this together.

I think I've had the easiest path of all of us.  But I know I am lucky because we've shared the path together.

*** Seriously. No wine for me tonight. You should see the number of bottles we emptied over the past two nights.

****Also, too, inside joke: We should probably start making contingency plans for when one of us stops reacting to the volleyball scene in Top Gun. Do any of us know CPR?

Good Grief Jesus Jones

I got a request via email to provide a list of titles and money spent in a certain area. I whipped up a spreadsheet, clickety-clacked the information into it, tied it all together with a few well-placed and nicely-formed formulas and clicked on "email", feeling like I had earned that hour's income.

A minute later, the email was returned to me because the recipient's email inbox was full.

So I called him and let him know that I had the info waiting for him.

Me : But I can't send it because your inbox is full. Should I print it up for you?
Him: No, I don't know what's wrong with my email. I cleaned it out yesterday when this happened.
Me: Are you storing it on the email server or on your computer? If you store it on your computer, you won't really have a limit. A lot of people forgot to make the switch when our email changed last month.
Him: That's it! Do you remember how to do that?
[Please note that I'm feeling pretty gosh-darn smart right about now]
Me: Sure. I've got a document with screenshots to walk you through it. I'll email it to you.
Him: Umm...

Thank God It's Friday, indeed.

My brain needs an external hard drive

That's really all I have to say about that. I don't think those even exist in the Star Trek universe yet - which everyone knows is basically a crystal ball into our future - so I'm pretty sure I'm out of luck.

Great Things About My Life

1.) I have air conditioning.
Dear Baby Jesus, it is hot. The heat index got up to 110 today.Right now it's 10:30 PM and the heat index is still 95. The iced rum and coke {zero} make this much more tolerable.

2.) I have the most awesome lawyer ever.
The Professor & I met with our "lawyer" today to get our wills, powers of attorney and health directives set up. "Lawyer" is in  quotes because:
a) we pay him in bottles of Jamesons Irish Whiskey;
b) his wife feeds us lunch afterwards;
c) we have done the above at his house and then all go for a 2 hour swim together.
Seriously - is your lawyer that awesome???

3) We had dinner with The Beloved Stepson tonight.
In all seriousness, watching this boy young man grow up has been incredible. Having intelligent conversation with him rocks my world, because he's so freaking smart and intelligent.  The fact that he actually listens to what I say (I guess, to be fair, and I to him) - instead of rolling his eyes the second I open my mouth - really introduces a feeling I can't describe. Not that we agree on everything, it's just that we can have a conversation with different opinions that is still respectful and insightful, and yet doesn't devolve into "FINE!" and a stomping off and door slamming. I will never miss hearing "FINE!" in that Tone of Voice.*

4) The Professor & I finished our Saturday evening by going to Whole Foods and buying 12 bottles of wine. Life will be good for the next few days it seems.

*I may in 20 years or so say that I miss hearing "FINE!" in that tone of voice. I promise you, it will be the dementia speaking.

All By Myself

The Professor's gone to do his summer duty of grading AP exams (it's good money, but dear sweet baby kittens, the boredom of grading papers in Missouri for a week cannot even be exaggerated) and so I have a weekend alone to stew in my own juices.

That sounded a lot better in my head. Now I feel like a pile of strawberries in sugar.

ANYway, I have a Saturday ahead of me with absolutely no plans. The only thing on my to do list is "clean litter box", which isn't the most fun chore I can think of but at least it's not exactly time consuming. I have it in my mind to sit on the couch and watch Star Trek on Netflix all day. Because I know how to rock this house.

Update: Saturday morning:
Hey! I forgot to hit publish. You know what happens when you don't hit the "publish" button? Your blog post stays locked in Blogger and no one sees it.

I'm paying a large chunk of my income to the government in the form of student loans because they put me through 2 degrees and 9 years of 2 Universities. Yet I still forget how blogs work after the ... *cough*...um, well, let's not get caught up in how many glasses of wine I had last night, let's just say "after the last glass of wine".

9 AM: The litter box is cleaned.  Also, the cats completely agree with the Saturday Couch Plan.

11:30 AM: The Hallmark Channel is running a marathon of The Waltons,which may be dangerous to my tear ducts. At this point, to get off of my couch would be an insult to the universe.

11:50 PM: Holy Slothfulness, there's a Little House on the Prairie marathon tomorrow. I may be dehydrated by Monday.

One of my employees is getting a new computer, because her old one stopped playing nicely with others. Since I know how to plug the damn thing into the wall, I get to to be the one to deal with our IT people. This requires an advanced degree all on its own.

Step 1: File a request with IT:  "I have a brand-spanking shiny new computer - still in the box! - that needs to be hooked up to the network. The employee is at work stoppage due to broken and exploded old PC that has gone to a better place. Please help."*

Step 2: Negotiate
Email from IT: Can you give me the computer's MAC address?

My reply: Sorry, it doesn't have one because it's brand new and has never been on the network.

Email from IT: Can you give me the computer name?

My reply: Sorry, it doesn't have one because it's brand new and has never been on the network.

Email from IT: It should be on the paper attached to the front of the machine from the last workstation that had it installed.

Me: It's never been installed at another work station. It's brand new. I still have the box. Will that help?

Email from IT: the address and name would be helpful.
 
My (Silent) Brain: IT DOESN'T HAVE ANYTHING BECAUSE IT IS BRAND NEW AND YOU ARE INCOMPETENT AND WE WILL JUST DO WITHOUT COMPUTERS FOR EVER AND EVER AND MY BRAIN IS LEAKING OUT OF MY EARS.

Right now, the employee is computer-less. I don't know if IT wants me to break out a Ouija Board to divine the address and name for this machine, or if they have a method that will involve me being allowed to turn the damn thing on at some point in the future. They've stopped communicating.  Honestly, it's a lot more calm in my brain now that I'm not retyping the same information over and over. Hey, did I mention that this is a brand new computer? Could you tell my IT people?

*The original request may have been more formal, but it was certainly clear that it was a BRAND. NEW. COMPUTER.

Unleashed

I've started having waking nightmares - or maybe they're fantasies - that my tongue is going to completely break free of the leash my brain has on that keeps me from saying exactly what I want at completely inappropriate times. I can't tell if I'm horrified at the thought or unbelievably tempted.

I'm never one to tell you that I like your skirt if I don't (do you like it? that's what matters, not my inadequate opinions! Why are you crying because I don't like green tweed???), or pretend for very long that I like a person that I'd rather never set eyes on again (I'm pretty good at leaving rooms just as certain other people enter, as I inevitably must leave to look at that invoice I need check on or that wine glass I need to fill. Sometimes both things may happen at once).

 But somehow even thinking about telling a lady in a wheelchair to mind her own business just seems over the line. Even if she was being an interfering busybody in the first place, even if she followed me through 3 different aisles in Publix telling me that I was carrying my purse wrong, my hair was "cheaply dyed" and god knows what else... Still, it felt like yelling "How much I spend on wine is none of your damn business!" in the middle of the grocery store would be a tad harsh. She probably would've run me over with her Rascal, too, which would not have made the hair situation any better.

Yet still, my brain introduces the image and I'm immediately scared that my tongue will be lured into action, jumping into the fray with no helmet to protect itself from the wrath that will surely follow. One day that leash is going to snap and God, I hope it's worth it. Will someone remember to sneak some contraband rum into whichever asylum I end up?

All The Live Long Day

The chaos continues unabated. I should really write down the stories so they are never forgotten, but it seems almost cruel to the people who don't realize how ridiculous they are being. How anyone can be that un-self-aware is beyond me, but there you have it. I guess if you're the kind of person who needs to call someone in another department to yell at them for 5 minutes for not turning off the bathroom light, you're also not the kind of person who does a lot of thinking about good time management skills.
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There's a growing misconception that I have direct access to my boss' brain waves. I keep getting questions that start with "Is he going to___________?". I always - and I mean always - have to resist the urge to say "How the hell would I know?", because I try pretty hard not to even mildly curse at my employees. Rest assured - if I had a telepathic link into his brain, I would spend my time trying to get him to bring cheesecake to work every day. I would not be worrying about where he's thinking about placing the clock.
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The entire organization - ~75 people - had a team-building day a couple of weeks ago. One of the "games" we played was a version of bingo that's pretty popular around base. Each space on the bingo card lists something like "Born in the same month as you" or "has the same favorite color as you" or "has visited at least 3 other countries". You have to find a different person to fill in each square. So I had to find a person born in November, and a different person that likes the color blue, etc. I learned 2 things about how people think of me that day: 1) One of the squares was "Likes to cook". Now: I know I love to cook, but I didn't realize a) how many people know that, and b) how many people do NOT like to cook. I think I was the name on about half of those "likes to cook" squares. 2.) One of the squares was "has at least 1 tattoo". About 5 people - and these were people I actually spend breaks/lunches with, not people I barely acknowledge - have always assumed I had a tattoo somewhere and asked me to put my name down. At least I had the cooking thing to fall back on.

Heat

Reason 1,628 why I am glad I am working in the trailers and not in the building: This just came through email: "Group X & Group Y* are trying to determine if one or both of the boilers in Room Z* are operational and whether any heat can be generated for the main library." *Not their real names

New Year

I woke up on January 1st with a head stuffed full of ickiness. No, it wasn't a hangover (at least I've never had a hangover that involved snot, but I guess there's a first time for everything). So let's hope I'm getting any and all illness for 2012 out of my system right out of the gate so that the rest of the year can be snot-free. There's a new blessing for you: "May your new year be snot free". Amen.

I got my greedy little paws on my new eReader yesterday. Charged it up, took some [expired] cold meds and then tried to transfer books from my laptop. Anyone else see a problem with that sequence of events?

So I've put the eReader away until cold meds, expired or otherwise, are no longer needed. The SyFy channel has a Star Trek marathon on, I have cold pork chops to keep me hydrated(?) and my cat is in desperate need of some snuggling on the couch after four days without me.

Happy New Year! May it be snot free!

New Year

I woke up on January 1st with a head stuffed full of ickiness. No, it wasn't a hangover (at least I've never had a hangover that involved snot, but I guess there's a first time for everything). So let's hope I'm getting any and all illness for 2012 out of my system right out of the gate so that the rest of the year can be snot-free. There's a new blessing for you: "May your new year be snot free". Amen.

I got my greedy little paws on my new eReader yesterday. Charged it up, took some [expired] cold meds and then tried to transfer books from my laptop. Anyone else see a problem with that sequence of events?

So I've put the eReader away until cold meds, expired or otherwise, are no longer needed. The SyFy channel has a Star Trek marathon on, I have cold pork chops to keep mehydrated(?) and my cat is in desperate need of some snuggling on the couch after four days without me.

Happy New Year! May it be snot free!

On the radio as I drove to work this morning...

I heard this traffic update: "There's also a lot of fog rolling off the river, so be careful if you're southbound on I-65 this morning." Do they not warn the north bound drivers because they want them to just drive off the bridge? Does the fog only matter if you're driving south? Do the north bound lanes have magical fog-repelling features? If they do, wouldn't it make sense to put them on the south-bound lanes, since that's the direction of rush hour traffic? Am I the only one who thinks of these things?

Tornado Warning!

Working from trailers, there is nothing to compare to the rush of hearing the tornado sirens go off. The excitement never ends around here. PS Don't worry Mom, we went into a safe place in the building, from which I am blogging.

Incomprehensible

5:55 AM: I leave for work.

6:16 PM: I arrive home.

6:30 PM: I try to catch up on emails.

6:45 PM: Brain transmits the following: "Bleep. Blurp. Ghag. Wine?".

Bottom line: I'm glad tomorrow is a federal holiday.

Life

The stress levels have been steadily rising 'round my little slice of the Deep South these past few months, and the forecast isn't looking much rosier for the future. So instead of dwelling on Gah! LIFE! I don't want to be an adult anymore!, Let's focus on the good. Wait, first I have to say that at work we are now firmly ensconced in our trailers. And they are as trailor-ific as we can make them, which is, sad to say, not so much. On the other hand my department has the only trailer with a sink in it that is not located in a bathroom, which gives us a nice little kitchen-ette area now that we have the mini fridge, microwave and coffee pot plugged in. This is in direct contrast to another trailer, the staff of which chose to convert one of their bathrooms into a break room by covering the toilet with a table and tablecloth. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of that. So, on to being an adult: I made a doctor appointment a few weeks ago. In the whole "let's pretend I'm not an adult" phase of my life - a phase I'm being pushed out of against my will - I've never had annual blood work done. If I don't know that my cholesterol it is over 400, it doesn't count, right? Well, that was my thinking. But The Professor - who sees his doctors regularly whether he needs to or not - started insisting daily (instead of monthly) that it is necessary, and I finally caved. It had been 4 years or so since I'd seen my good ole Doc, and then it had only been to get a note to say I was fit enough to do some PT at work. It's been over seven years since I've needed to see him. Maybe he missed me? And apparently I am completely un-adept at making routine phone call's to a doctor's office. Me: Hi, I need to make an appointment with Dr S. Her: Ok, what's he seeing you for? Me: Oh, I'm fine, I need just to get some blood work done. Her: What kind of blood work? Me: Um, I don't know, cholesterol? Her: How often do you have that checked? Me: I never have, that's why I want to come in. I want to get some annual blood work done. Her: Annual... Me: Well, let's try this: I'm going to *start* getting blood drawn once a year for whatever it is adults need their blood tested for. Her: Ok...{silence}... Dr S will talk to you about it and figure it out when you get here. AND! Did you know that they force you to fast before you come in for this nonsense? Not only can you not eat breakfast, but you already know you're going to get used as a pin cushion! No wonder the receptionist was confused - she was wondering why I was volunteering to come in! Anyway - yes, I'm finally getting to the good part of the blog post - it all came back wonderful. Cholesterol, triglycerides (What the HECK are those, anyway?), iron, liver, thyroid...my blood is so healthy it could take your blood out in hand-to-hand combat. The technician actually wrote "Great!" at the bottom of the report, which kind of made me feel like I was getting a report card, but I didn't get the gold star. And just to prove I'm not really an adult yet: They had so much trouble with my veins (I got to get pricked by more than one needle. Fun!), that they had to get out the little bitty needles they use on kids and stick me on the side of my elbow, instead of in the crease like normal. And then I almost passed out. Because they probably took too damn much of my healthy blood.

Renovation Ramblings

When I started at my library a little over six years ago, there was a small buzz of excitement in the air - the plans for a long-awaited renovation had been delivered a few weeks before, and everyone was still interested in the new configuration (note that I said "interested" and not "excited" - those who had been in the government's employ for longer than 4 hours knew better). What I saw was that my department would be all over the place during the process, so I purposefully did not bring in a lot of personal items into my cubicle world; no need to decorate the place up only to have to move it all around the universe every two months, I told myself. Six years, three positions and some very full desks later, half of the reference staff has retired or moved on - and the contractors are just beginning the renovation. The hold up was your typical nightmare of problems - contract problems, spending cuts, contracts expiring, squirrels made the contracts into winter nests and had babies in them - you know, the usual excuses. And now - finally - the time is nigh. They've started Doing Things to the building. This building is something like 382 years old (or 70, whatever) and nothing in it is up to code. Nothing in it even works right - except, of course, the librarians. {cough}.

• Broken boilers? Check. We all have blankets, sweaters and fingerless gloves at our desk.
• Broken Air Conditioning? Check. We all have ceiling fans, plus at least one fan on our desk. Some of us {ahem} have two. To keep it interesting, however, the A/C also breaks in the other direction - more than one person has been using a space heater on days when the outside temp is over 100.
• Bad electrical wiring? Check. The power shuts off randomly several times a month. And then there are the days that the fire alarm claims that the building has turned into an incinerator. So far, it's never been accurate, but I'll take it, since it's best that it be wrong in the right way (Aside: "Wrong in the Right Way" is an awesome name for a rock ballad, and I should get paid for it if anyone ever uses it. I'll be sure to sue and use my blog as proof should it come to that).
• They removed the asbestos last year, though, so we're already on the road to improvement!

The fun news is that the power, heat and air will grow even more unpredictable than usual over the next 18 months, since they're literally replacing everything associated with power, heat and/or air. Which doesn't make me feel very safe and secure about this building in which I've been working for 6 years, but I'm still alive so...that which does not kill me really does make me stronger. The contractors offered us some trailers to use during the Reno. This process is going about as smoothly as could be expected:

• They offered us three triple-wide trailers to be used by staff until the project is complete. They took us to view them, told us they would reconfigure the temporary walls inside to our specifications, and that we'd have them next week. That was 7 weeks ago.
• A week later, they said "Three triple-wides? No, no, no. You'll get a couple of single wides. Next week."
• "Next week" we were told "The two double wides you're getting will be here. Next week".
• Last week, the original three triple wide trailers were installed behind our building, and we were told that we'd have to deal with moving the plywood walls ourselves. We are librarians, not carpenters, people!

This week, the building started vibrating. Need I mention that buildings - especially ones anchored by the wight of over half a million books - are most assuredly not supposed to shake. I'm told it's because they are compacting the soil for the building addition, in preparation for the concrete foundation. My brain - which is rattling against my skull - is Not Happy with life and desperately wants the trailers to be ready. I'm telling myself that it's like a giant body massage, except that my brain is calling bullshit on that as it jumps around inside my skull like it's playing dodgeball with a demented orangutan. This process is bringing daily surprises to our lives, which I keep telling people keeps our brains youthful. I also keep getting dirty looks immediately after I say that. Ok, so the water main has been accidentally broken into so many times that the toilets always look like they've just been used (you are so very welcome for that visual). And yes, we've been evacuated twice because the contractors created a gas leak. But we'll have a working HVAC system sometime in the future. Optimism, people! They successfully removed the asbestos, remember? Not that I'm holding to the contractor's 18 month estimate. My current estimate is 3 years. I don't know if the Wine Cure will hold out that long - I may become immune - but it will be fun to find out! One thing that made me laugh out loud: Each triple wide trailer has two bathrooms. When we went to take a look at the trailers in the old location, there was a sign on one of the men's restrooms that read something like this:

"Gentlemen: If you need to sit down to complete your task in here, please go to Building 600".

September 11, 2001.

Being a librarian, that is a date I frequently come across - it's a subject heading, used for both books and also for articles used in the Air University Library Index to Military Periodicals (AULIMP), which my library produces. I guess, as a result of the latter, I've gotten a little immune to what it actually means.

The Professor and I talked today about what we remembered about that day. I was an undergrad - actually, I was due in one of his classes that day. I remember that I woke up and got in the car to go to class, listening to NPR and thinking that the news coverage was about the previous attack on the World Trade Center, because - surely, the US wouldn't be under attack? Surely, it was just a normal day?

After 10 minutes in the car, on my way to class, I realized (ok, belatedly, it was a long night before) that it was happening in real time; it wasn't some kind of anniversary special report. I got to the university and my class was cancelled, so I turned around and went home to the apartment.

I remember calling my mother - I knew none of my family was in New York City, or Washington DC, but I remember needing to hear her voice. I remember standing in my living room, talking to her about what was going on - not the actual words. Just that hearing her voice was all I needed then.

And then I had to work a night shift at the restaurant. It was so quiet. There were few customers, and none of them wanted to be anywhere but the bar - because that's where the TV's were.

I remember being afraid - "what if it's just the first attack? What location is next? What's the new normal?". Living in a small town, in the Deep South, I wasn't in any danger - I'm probably not living where someone would choose to hurt the US. But still, the danger was there in my mind.

I was lucky. I lost no one. But I'll never forget the fear of That Day.

Cell Phones

I caved earlier this year. I got a smart phone. I'm still not all that convinced that it's worth the monthly data plan. I have ZERO reception at work, thanks to the metal encased room in which I work. My laptop is within 10 feet of me if I'm at home. And I'm boring enough that I spend the vast, vast majority of my time in one of those two places. But I got sucked in to the Android world, and I have to admit, that I do like my shiny little piece of hardware. What I most emphatically do not like are other people's smart phones. Yes, I think it's awesome that every little piece of trivia can be looked up in 30 seconds or less. But when you whip out your phone to fact check every statement in our lunch conversation - requiring the words "let me look that up" to be uttered every five seconds - I am going to be annoyed. I went out to lunch with you, not your iPhone. I think it's wonderful that you are so close to your mom/cousin/Great Aunt Hilda that she sends you a picture to your cell phone every time she buys a new pair of shoes. But the resulting text conversation that lasted for 5 minutes while you kept saying "Sorry, just one more thing" to me? Is the reason we probably won't be hanging out much in the future. Yes, I know you can check your email/Facebook status/Twitter feed with a flick of your thumb. But I didn't make plans with you to watch you bury your face in your phone and make "uh-huh" noises at my conversation attempts. If I'm that boring, I have a simple solution: don't make plans with me. And I always feel sorry for people who are with someone who is clearly with their phone, and just happen to be sharing a booth with their dinner partner. When I was waiting tables - back when cell phones were just phones and not mini computers - I saw arguments about it (not to mention that, even today when phones in general have been around for a year or 100, a lot of people don't realize how much louder they speak on a phone). Gah! You are probably not that important! There are very few people who are. Take 45 minutes to talk to your kid, instead of saying "just draw me a picture" and then talking for 15 minutes about yesterday's round of golf. I am seriously beginning to feel like Ashley Judd in that Star Trek:TNG episode, "The Game". Any minute now, someone is going to hot glue my phone to my hand and wire my eyes open, trying to bring me into the cult. I just hope they slide open the phone so my keyboard is visible first.

Jetlag

My brain is stuffed with cotton, and that cotton has been soaking in some kind of heavy syrup for a week and then woven into the tightest weave ever before being stuffed inside my skull. I'm not sure where my brain went. I think it's hovering about 2 feet above my cotton-filled cranium, watching everything I do through a haze of cotton plants.

That is how full my head feels at the moment. I'm not drunk, although my ability to think is more impaired than usual.

Jetlag.

I can honestly say I've never experienced it before.

Speaking of travel, I never want to fly again. I say that every time I get off of an airplane, so that statement doesn't exactly express intent. I'm going to Italy next year, after all, and I'm certainly not going to cross the ocean on a freaking boat. Given the choice of 12 hours of panic-ing out (plane) versus a week and a half of hysterics (boat), I'll self-medicate and do the 12 hour thing. I've seen Titanic. I don't think I can be sedated enough to even step foot on the Queen Mary 2.

Speaking of flying, those airlines really have a thing going there. People pay truckloads of money to go to DisneyWhatever and Paramount TakeMyMoney Studios and ride those crazy upside-down-stop-on-a-dime-with-a-side-of-heart-attack machines they call roller coasters. The airlines? Give you the same sensation but charge you $600 for a ticket and $10 for a sandwich. Oh yes, they no longer give you food on trans-national flights without charging you for the fake mayo.

The only fun thing about flying is the few seconds before landing. The Professor and I have a game where we try to guess whether the pilot is former Navy (the pilot doesn't slow much before the wheels touch and the landing is hard enough that it feels like you are going to actually tunnel under the runway) or Air Force (gentle landing from a pilot that knows he has space to not kill every organism on board, that then makes you worry that he is not slowing down enough and you will plow through the buildings at the end of the runway).

So either way I always think I'm going to die. But I get a few seconds every flight to play a game. Somehow, I never find that a worthy trade-off. Yay for games?

And yesterday - or two nights ago, more specifically (I think) - two of my three flights started with the pilot saying "The first half of our flight should be fairly smooth", which leaves my brain an hour and a half to wonder what the hell is going to happen in the second half of our flight. Is there a herd of pterodactyls waiting on the other side of the Rockies? Is the fake mayo going to respond unfavorably to the change in air pressure and spontaneously combust? Why is Blogger telling me that "combust" is not a word?

So, jetlag.

Jetlag

My brain is stuffed with cotton, and that cotton has been soaking in some kind of heavy syrup for a week and then woven into the tightest weave ever before being stuffed inside my skull. I'm not sure where my brain went. I think it's hovering about 2 feet above my cotton-filled cranium, watching everything I do through a haze of cotton plants.

That is how full my head feels at the moment. I'm not drunk, although my ability to think is more impaired than usual.

Jetlag.

I can honestly say I've never experienced it before.

Speaking of travel, I never want to fly again. I say that every time I get off of an airplane, so that statement doesn't exactly express intent. I'm going to Italy next year, after all, and I'm certainly not going to cross the ocean on a freaking boat. Given the choice of 12 hours of freaking out (plane) versus a week and a half of hysterics (boat), I'll self-medicate and do the 12 hour thing. I've seen Titanic. I don't think I can be sedated enough to even step foot on the Queen Mary 2 herself.

Speaking of flying, those airlines really have a thing going there. People pay truckloads of money to go to DisneyWhatever and Paramount TakeMyMoney Studios and ride those crazy upside-down-stop-on-a-dime-with-a-side-of-heart-attack machines they call roller coasters. The airlines? Give you the same sensation but charge you $600 for a ticket and $10 for a sandwich. Oh yes, they no longer give you food on trans-national flights without charging you for the fake mayo.

The only fun thing about flying is the few seconds before landing. The Professor and I have a game where we try to guess whether the pilot is former Navy (the pilot doesn't slow much before the wheels touch and the landing is hard enough that it feels like you are going to actually tunnel under the runway) or Air Force (gentle landing from a pilot that knows he has space to not kill every organism on board, that then makes you worry that he is not slowing down enough and you will plow through the buildings at the end of the runway).

So either way I always think I'm going to die. But I get a few seconds every flight to play a game. Somehow, I never find that a worthy trade-off. Yay for games?

And yesterday - or two nights ago, more specifically (I think) - two of my three flights started with the pilot saying "The first half of our flight should be fairly smooth", which leaves my brain an hour and a half to wonder what the hell is going to happen in the second half of our flight. Is there a herd of pterodactyls waiting on the other side of the Rockies? Is the fake mayo going to respond unfavorably to the change in air pressure and spontaneously combust? Why is Blogger telling me that "combust" is not a word?

So, jetlag.