Category: Flashback

Drum Lessons

They are opening up a Guitar Center right next to our Trader Joes and they have a little promotional booth out front of the construction spot with a table and a little tent thing and a sign for all kinds of music classes. A group of boys in their mid to late 20s stands around the table talking to people as they walk by.

“We’re opening up a Guitar Center here and offering classes.”

“Hello! Can we help you with some music lessons?”

They are totally average, generally nice men. And yet! Whenever I approach them (on my way to get a fruitsnack or zucchini for zucchini pizza) I am transported back to junior high. I am suddenly the nervous, self conscious loser who has no business being around the cool musician/skater/athlete boys, especially in groups. I am just asking for ridicule, to be asked, “What do YOU want?” to be ignored even if I do have the gumption to say hi. I am 13 and I am asking, begging to be reminded that I am not cool enough, or pretty enough, or interesting enough.

This is me, at 27, walking past completely benign Guitar Center employees on a normal Sat/Sun/Monday afternoon. With my husband.

And every time we do walk past Kamel elbows me in the ribs, “Go ask them about drum lessons, Lauren! Go ask them.”

“No!” I hiss, like Kamel’s my dad and he’s telling me to go be polite and say hi to my friends at the video rental place. “No!” I say again, “not now.”

“You are so weird. I’m just going to go do it for you.”

“No!” I yank on his arm. “Let’s just get to the Trader Joes.”

There are two things going on. First, apparently I am afraid of boys. Or, more importantly, I’m afraid of the boys I thought were SO COOL when I was 13, because it’s not like the movies where the girl has a secret talent for bass and she woos them by being just as talented (probably more so) as they are and the lead singer falls in love with her despite her shyness. It’s not like that. It’s more like: I have no “cool-able” skill whatsoever and I’m probably never ever going to be all that cool, and those guys probably hate standing outside in the sun all day trying to sign up the neighborhood for lessons on various musical instruments, and when I sign up they will probably roll their eyes at me and think, “Ugh… another one? What does SHE want… like she’ll ever be able to play drums like a badass. What a waste of time.” So there’s that.

And the second thing is that I’m kind of done with doing new/challenging/scary things for a little while. In 6 months there was the new job, traveling for work twice, Barcelona, rock climbing, and hot air ballooning. The idea of drum lessons, even though I still want to tackle it, makes me feel very tired. I’m in my hibernating phase. And it has nothing to do with successfully avoiding the cool kids. I still have to walk past them and old my breath and turn invisible every few days. Obvi.

One year ago I was attempting to get my health on and you all had some excellent vegetable-focused advice. Advice I’m still taking!

Just To See How Awesome I Look Doing It

Sometimes on Fridays I take a break from thinking up stories and interesting tidbits to share and delve into my currently unpublished blog that goes all the way back to Nov of 2006.

This is from Today, but 2008 style and it made me laugh and want to hug myself. And those are the best Flashbacks ever. This was right at the tale end of my first year in grad school, I was working at a lame-o job, and living with two great room mates, one of which had a cat named Lilly. I was also a total goob. Take it away, past Lauren!

The truth of the matter is… if there was a camera following my every move, documenting or whatever, the world would come to realize how much of a complete perv I am. That and my disgusting narcissism, all of my bad hygiene, how truly curly my hair is, and how I’m a border-line animal hater. There would be a lot of humor in Lauren: The documentary and most of it probably audience laughing at me, not with me.

  • As I air hump in the bathroom mirror, trying multiple positions just to see HOW AWESOME I LOOK DOING IT
  • How i have to fight the cat because she is sitting on the toilet seat and she keeps swatting at me and won’t let me pick her up all while I am dancing around because i have to pee so badly
  • The truth behind just how many ridiculous self portraits i take
  • How secretly i love spending a weekend night in my room with the door shut completely by myself
  • And how – no matter how many solo adventures I take into never-before-experienced-territory – I really am terrified most of the time, and how i just grit my teeth and do it anyway because what’s even more humiliating than admitting that I’m scared is admitting that i couldn’t do something because I was scared.

And yes, today I have spent two hours at work planning my outfits for my trip to Paris, suddenly reading every travel commentary on the city, reading websites about the metro, google mapping my hostel and seeing how far random other streets are from it, and wishing that I was leaving tomorrow instead of in a month because then the compulsive fixation would be over sooner.

Flashback Friday: What Are You The King Of

Sometimes on Fridays I take a break from thinking up stories and interesting tidbits to share and delve into my currently unpublished blog that goes all the way back to Nov of 2006.

This is a flashback from March 31st, 2007. This was a depressing ass time in my life, I’m going to own that. I was so lonely and so unhappy and pacing the floor while I waited to hear back from grad school admissions people. I was living at home, all of my friends were still in school, and I was working at a very very boring admin job. I was lost. The scene has been set, here we go…

So this idea has been bouncing around in my head ever since watching my new favorite movie Stranger Than Fiction: What are you the king of? Dustin Hauffman poses this question to Will Ferrell’s character and Will Ferrell responds “nothing.”

But what it’s saying is everyone should be the king of something, even if its the king of your own life. Especially the king of  your own life.

It’s a fairly widely accepted idea that there is no fast and hard rule when it comes to perception. One person’s truth is not the same truth for the next person, right? We all see things in a slightly different light. But maybe people should feel and know somewhere deep inside them that they are the best, or maybe even have some sort of mighty grasp on something they think is important… and it doesn’t matter if the rest of the world doesn’t agree. It’s a kind of self-confidence and egotism that is actually character building. I know its important to be a selfless person, but having passions and confidence in who you are and what you want and in your abilities is equally important for being a complete person.

So the question is: What are you the king of?

What Has Been and What Will Be

There are so very many things I want to talk about right now. I want to talk about relationships, about relationship equality, about body image, about changing body image, I want to talk about cankles, and how I just watched my crazy downstairs neighbor smoke in the rain and then take off his sweatshirt and his shirt and dry heave and then 2 other neighbors asked him if he needed help and he didn’t respond, and then he hid behind a tree in the corner like someone on a bad trip. And then he came inside. I want to tell you all about these things in great detail.

But I am crazy town exhausted today, like if I could have left work early on wednesday and come home and slept for 12 hours, I would have. And if I could skip out on work right now I would. But I don’t have any free pto until… July, because I’ve spent it all even before I’ve earned it. Sigh. Sigh x 1000. And one of the big reasons why I have no usable PTO is Barcelona. We leave next TUESDAY! Can you believe it?? I still kind of can’t. To me heading off to Europe is still many moons away. But this is all just a lie I tell myself so I can get through the next few days of work.

And for those of you who don’t know (which is most of you), this is only the 2nd time I’ve been to Europe. Most everyone I know has traveled much more than I have. When I was a kid we didn’t travel outside the US and Canada, and when I was in college the study abroad programs were too expensive for me. So I vowed that I would go places in my 20s. So far I’ve been to Mexico 4 times and Paris once. And now Barcelona. But because you didn’t know me back when I was 23, I thought I would share some vintage Lauren travel moments. Alone in France, figuring it out as best I could:

I was by myself, so I took a lot of self portraits because fuck it, I’m in Paris and when is this going to ever happen again? Hopefully a lot. Because of these self portraits I feel like some of the photos resemble some Photoshop action. Like maybe I wasn’t actually there, but I just pasted my head in.

For the first few days I palled around with two Canadian dudes who were from Toronto. They loved to tell me how fucked up the United States was. One of them took this photo. I still think I look photoshopped.

This is me on the top of Notre Dame. I am clutching a tube. That tube holds a precious print of venus I bought at the louvre, it also holds an oil painting I bought for my parents. I left that tube in 3 places and had it magically returned to me. 1) At an ATM in Paris and a homeless man chased me down to give it back. 2) At the security gate in Huston and 3) In the bathroom above the sink at SFO on my way to Seattle to deliver it. It did, finally, make it to my parents safe and sound and now hangs in their dining room.

This is me, outside the Louvre at the fountains. At the time I was big into the kissy face. I no longer have that jacket with the peter pan collar.

My last day in the city I was bored. Super bored. I had spent 10 days exploring and I had nothing left to do and no more money and all the people I had met at the beginning had already left and I was done. So I decided to try and walk my way to the Eiffel tower from my hostel. And then once I got there I ate a hot dog in a baguette, spilled ketchup on my shirt, and took a million self portraits. And then I walked back.

This is a picture of my hostel room. I slept on the bottom bunk nearest the door. And I shared the room with 5 other people, mostly dudes. One of the dudes was a burly Italian who walked around in his little boy underpants decorated with an anchor and who snored so loud i had to use earplugs. The dude in the photo is one of the Canadians mentioned earlier.

Lots of people at work and such are asking if I’m excited for Spain. It’s hard for me to be excited until I’m on the plane because there is so much to do before I get there. A lot of people keep offering up suggestions on what to do and where to go and what to see. Some of the information has been super helpful (we’re definitely looking to rent bikes, we’re definitely going to enjoy the late night atmosphere), but mostly I’m looking forward to a self guided walking tour we’ve found and the ability to stumble upon amazing things you’d never had expected. And this time I’m really excited to have a buddy to go with.

It Flies, It Moves Like Molasses, It Never Ends, It Goes By Too Fast

This weekend I realized I will be 27 next month. Wait, no, I thought. That can’t be right. I just turned 26. What is going on with time? I asked Kamel, “What did we do between then and now?!” And he said, “You want me to make you a list?” Because yes, it’s been so much, but I’ll get to that on another day.

Time. I realize it’s only going to get worse, the herky-jerky back and forth. The odd slowmotion crawl paired with a fast forward speed I can’t anticipate or really explain. You have the 5 year plan and then the 2 year plan, and this year’s plans. This month’s schedule, this week’s timetable, today’s events. January was 1 year in a month, and February didn’t even happen… did it? The year I was 24 time stood still, it dragged, it went on into infinity. And then do I even remember being 25? I thought I would. I don’t think I do.

I don’t look back and think, “Where did it all go? All that time?” Because I was the one spending it, I have receipts. It went to school and friends and stressing over tests, over boys, over family. It went to fights with my favorite people, to making up with them, to fighting again in a constant cycle of being pissed off, then relieved they are still around. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about things, believing in things, worrying about things, planning things, making lists, and disregarding the lists completely. Going for walks. I’ve spent a lot of time walking.

We can count time, it’s measured down to the microsecond and probably even smaller than that, but who can tell? But we can’t measure the moments. For whatever reason the moments are above and beyond time. Time plods along but the moments stretch, or blip, or whiz by. They drag in agony, or trot along like they have all the time in the world. Moments have a beginning a middle and an end, even if the whole thing is just a … microsecond.

I am 26, soon to be 27.
I have been writing about hotels for 2 months, since Jan 2nd.
I have been writing stories since I was in 5th grade and I wrote about a woman who turned 40 and accepted her her lines and grey hairs for what they were: awesome.
I probably wrote before then, but I can’t remember. Time owns those stories.
I have been married for 8 months and 19 days.
It feels like 10 years.
My best friends have been there since I was 16. That actually is 10 years, and about to be 11.
I feel like I’ll always be 21 and simultaneously always be 80 years old.

Kamel told me recently (we talk quite often) that I am one of the most hard working, driven people he knows. I laughed at him and told him I could be working so much harder, doing so many other things if only I wasn’t so scattered or lazy or had more time. Time.

He said that’s what all the really hard working people say.

Our weirdo neighbor has an incredibly loud alarm that goes off at different times in the ungodly parts of the morning. Sometimes it’s terrible screechy jazz, and sometimes it’s even worse talk radio. He presses snooze. On Saturday’s this happens at 7:00 am. When this happens I always wish I had just a little more time.

Flashback *Friday: @ Work

Sometimes on Fridays I take a break from thinking up stories and interesting tidbits to share and delve into my currently unpublished blog that goes all the way back to Nov of 2006.

I realize it isn’t Friday, but I’ve been missing the flashbacks lately. Another rock climbing update will post tomorrow, but for today I found this flashback from March 1, 2007, on a topic I’ve am STILL fixated on. All of the weird, ridiculous situations we find ourselves in at work. The situations we shrug our shoulders at and try to ignore, when in reality… they are WEIRD. 

So I’m at work with nothing to do… I’ve finished my to-do list in three hours and my boss is at lunch so I’m just twiddeling my thumbs for a bit. So blog it is! There are a few things that I think about writing while I’m at work and then I forget by the time I get home, so I figured while i’m here why not?

Bathrooms to me are always fascinating places and the bathroom on the 17th floor of Pike Tower is no less fascinating than Green street’s bathroom or any other I have frequented on a daily basis. Basically, the bathroom experience at work is incredibly socailly awkward. And I mean: the most awkward bathroom I have ever been in ever. There are only a handful of girls on the floor so chances are you are most likely the only person using it at any given time.

But sometimes… the horrible times… there are other girls in there and in this situation this is what you will discover: The bathroom is deathly silent. You can even hear the ever-so-slight buzzing of all the automated sensors (water, soap, flush, etc). So you walk into a stall and it’s obvious when you are peeing, and even more obvious when you are not. I feel like I walk into a hypersensitivity chamber when I open that door. All of a sudden every move I make is audible. And because of this, everyone who walks in or who is walked in upon, is now INCREDIBLY PAINFULLY self-conscious. Probably the worst thing to be in a public bathroom. I’m a little saddened I can’t go more indepth into the weirdness of this one particular bathroom, but I have only been there three weeks and ive already compiled quite the list of weird stories, stories I will be sharing at another blog time.

So I work at a software company. A bluetooth software company. I’m surrounded everyday by very smart people. People who maybe aren’t smarter than me, but smarter in a different way than me. I’m sure I could write them into a corner, but they can wire me into a cyborg, so I think they win. Well the actual story is: The Fax here is a piece of shit. So one of my jobs last week or the week before was to order a new fax, and order I did. One of the things I’m a pro at is online shopping. It arrived all new and plastic. The office was excited, you could just feel it in the air. Well the fax wouldn’t FAX. It would recieve but nothing would fax out.

So last week I was in charge of fixing the problem…. in a room full of computer engineers… me…. fix the problem.

So i’m researching online, on hold with the tech people from the fax company, trying to follow their instructions over the phone like a mentally disabled monkey, etcetc. Turns out our machine is broken, they will ship us a new one. Fast forward to today (thurs of the week after) and we still don’t have a new working fax, just the old one that we had to re-plug in and the new one sitting in its box on my desk where I put it for safe keeping. So now I’m back on the phone, on hold for 45 min, then the guy tells me our re-order was canceled, that “we have to further prove that the fax is REALLY broken so please ma’am take it out of the box and plug it in, but you can only put me on hold for three min because we’re on a timer and after 3 minutes you self destruct the phone will hang up… so go.”

Holy Shit, talk about PRESSURE. I felt like I was on the Price is Right and by golly I was gonna get myself to the big spin! So I get it plugged in (in record time) and it won’t even turn on! It stays in standby. Two “on holds” later, the guy tells me that we can NOW process the order for a replacement and it should show up next week. But I swear to God I really hope it does… cuz I can’t TAKE another phone session with the fine people at Brother down in memphis Tennessee. No sir. I cannot

So this is my job, in all of its ridiculousness. And aren’t you lucky that I pay attention enough to share my insight? Ha.

*Sometimes I cringe at past me trying to be funny. Like when you see video of yourself as a 13 year old and in the video you think you are hot shit but then looking back you realize how much of an IDIOT you were! But at the same time it’s kind of endearing, like I want to hug her and tell her to shut up, but that I love her anyway. Also, the company I was an admin for put the blue tooth tech into the first iphone. And then I got into grad school and quit that job. And then a few months later they sold the company and everyone except a few engineers lost their jobs right before Christmas. Things have a funny way of working out.

Flashback Friday: And So Are You

Sometimes on Fridays I take a break from thinking up stories and interesting tidbits to share and delve into my currently unpublished blog that goes all the way back to Nov of 2006.

This is from January 26, 2007. With all of my past lives talk this week, this is so incredibly perfect, and I am very grateful I found it on my first try while reading through archives. I want to print this out in big letters and tape it to every wall in every room of my house… although that would probably be a tid bit creeps. So maybe I’ll just keep it here and make it easy to reference. Key words: Bad day, hope, worth, joy, beauty, female form, love.

On my way to bed tonight…yes at 10 o’clock… yes I feel like I’m in high school…. I saw myself in the mirror as I was brushing my teeth. My hair in a bun, all messy from watching greys anatomy on the couch, the left side of my face red from the pillows, my shirt all wrinkled and my completely swollen and very sore breasts (from pms) staring at me through my two t-shirts (yes I said it). I also saw that I didn’t floss today and that I’m unemployed and when people ask me what I did today I say nothing and mean it. And I hate when people ask that question. I see anxiety. A person who is sometimes difficult to be around, who shuts people out and needs to be alone when at the same time desperately needs people. I see a girl who is still insecure even though she fakes it as much as she can, someone who lives inside her own head most of the time, who is creative and sometimes misunderstood. I saw hips and stomach and arms that she has always thought were too flabby of all things.

And I saw someone absolutely 100% worth loving. Worth making babies with, worth traveling across the world for, worth flowers just because and sticky notes on the mirror in the morning, worth long drawn out messages from her friends just because they just had to tell her blahblahblah, worth an education and worth the opportunity to really show what she can do with her life.

I’m worth that. Me. With all of my flaws.

And you know what else? So are they. And so are you. Every single day we worth giving and receiving that.

Sometimes its just nice to be reminded.

*Thank you 2007 me

Past Lives

Maybe it’s Melvin still bouncing around in my head, or maybe it’s my bus rides around San Francisco, driving past old jobs, old (regular) haunts, seeing people I think I know.

The rain, the fog, the city.

Maybe it’s the quiet moments alone I have now. Maybe it’s the difference between working alone for so long and then being thrust into a world with so many people – even the people pretending to still be alone.

I’m not sure what it is. But it has me thinking about my past lives. Not the ones I had before I was born, the ones I’ve had since then. All the ones that live inside me, that I remember as if I could maybe be that person again, because I once was.

Like the time I was working so hard. So much harder than I am now – though I hate to admit it. Working 40 hour weeks and going to grad school full time (How did I ever do that? How were there enough hours? How did I sleep or eat or play? But I did… somehow I did.) and after work I would walk across the street to the Safeway because if I could get my grocery shopping done before I went home it meant I could spend the rest of the evening studying without having to leave my room. I had my purse, with the books and the papers and the snacks and the pens shoved into it so that it weighed down on my shoulder like an anvil, and my bags of groceries, also stuffed full in an attempt to make it all fit into two bags. And there I was, struggling the 4 long city blocks to my car, in the rain, (it’s always in the rain, or the wind, or the cold, or the heat so you sweat through your clothes) struggling to keep my purse from slipping off my shoulder, my finger tips aching from the weight of the groceries, and praying I’d get to my car before the bag ripped. I did this countless times, and it was always the same. The same street I walked down, the same struggle with the bags, the same threat of ripping and spilling all over the sidewalk, and the same thought.

“Sometimes life is so much harder than it needs to be. Sometimes life is so hard.”

Years before that, I’m in college in Illinois and I’m standing on top of the Krannert Center and I am desperate, so so desperate, for him to love me back. He is telling me he loves me, but he is also refusing to kiss me. He is playing a game, one we are both taking seriously. One that is ripping me into tiny pieces so that I blow away with every puff of his cigarette. It takes me a long time to find all of me after that. That girl, thinking she knew what love meant, knew what was good for her… that girl is sometimes me, sometimes I get a flash and I am her. But mostly I am not. Mostly it’s like watching a movie of myself. A memory I’ve replayed so many times it’s almost like a story I once wrote and I’m remembering the tragic plot. It feels familiar, but so far away.

Or my first job after moving to San Francisco. How powerless I felt. How much I needed the money, and how horrible they treated me. How embarrassed I always was, how self conscious I felt being a girl and having to ask permission to go to the bathroom, to have to walk across a big warehouse every time I needed to use it. Having my 10am routine pee commented on daily. Having my work scrutinized so much that I made stupid mistakes. Feeling like I had no way out until one day I was pushed too far and I quit. And the overwhelming relief I felt, and the power to never let myself be in that situation ever again. I still remember the way the desk felt, the way the room smelled, the way you needed all the lamps on because there was never any natural light in the office, the way the numbers on the phone felt when I dialed. It’s all there, but it’s not here.

We go through so much, we do so much. And it all piles up behind us. Big chunks of space and time. Sometimes I think, “This moment, this moment will be one of those moments I remember forever. This, right here.” But then the next day it doesn’t even occur to me to remember. I have been so many people, and yet I am always me. I have gone through so many times that, in the moment, felt epic. Now they feel like the travel time before a really great destination. Just the travel time.

Even my wedding, even engagement. That girl who got married 6 months ago was so saturated with feeling. She felt everything, absorbed all of it. Will never forgive some things, will never forget others. She simultaneously wanted to get through it and wanted it to last forever. But it was just a day and it was just a moment in time, a past life.

How many more will I have? Will there be ones that last ten years? Will they last 2 weeks? Will I remember them all? I want to write them all down like chapter books and line them up in chronological order on my book shelf.

Book 1, Chapter 1: Lauren realizes that if she doesn’t lighten up she won’t make any friends. She makes real efforts to be open minded and accept people for who they are. Sometimes this means she decides not to like people, no offense to them.

Book 2, Chapter 7: Riding in a speed boat around a lake in July, at sunset, listening and singing to John Mayer. It’s 2002, Lauren is with her best friend and her first real boyfriend. It’s the perfect temperature even with the wind from the boat, and she thinks that this is possibly the happiest moment of her life.

Book 3, Chapter 2: Pink pajama pants, a light blue camp t-shirt, a wooden desk chair that smells like all wooden desk chairs do. Lauren faces the wall while she studies, her roommate is behind her a foot, facing the opposite wall. They both have headphones in and are IMing each other. This is absurd, but also incredibly convenient.

And so on…

Flashback Friday: Dear Roommate

Sometimes on Fridays I take a break from thinking up stories and interesting tidbits to share and delve into my currently unpublished blog that goes all the way back to Nov of 2006.

When I first moved to San Francisco I lived in a horrible little apartment that had a mice infestation, and a shitty room mate. I would routinely write letters to her via my blog. This letter comes directly after the last Friday Flashback (Christmas, 2007). At this moment in history it’s January 2nd, 2008 and I had just returned back from Seattle.

Dear Roommate,

I know I have been gone for almost two full weeks and that probably confused and possibly even bewildered you, roommate. I can only imagine your distress at not having me there to curb your completely immature, inconsiderate behavior. Whatever did you do?!

I must confess that the day I left Seattle to fly back to our cozy abode, I had an intense panic attack involving sweating, nausea, and irrational (yet hidden) aggravation at everything moving or speaking. The fear: You hadn’t taken the garbage out for all that time and the mice had devoured my entire bedroom set. I don’t deny my crazy, I choose to accept, embrace and laugh at it.

My first apartment in San Francisco… before I knew there was mice.

When Patrick helped me carry my bags into our apartment, I was grateful you weren’t home to hear our exclamation of “What! Is that smell?!” I do know that the old crusty pot pipe on the kitchen table probably had something to do with it. But I wouldn’t find out the real cause, you sneaky roommate you, until hours later.

In the meantime I busied myself with Ousting the place several times (unscented) and being pleased that the garbage in the kitchen was virtually empty. After lugging my bags into my shoebox-sized room, I scanned my empty cupboards for an english-muffin-butter dinner, padding around in my stalking feet. At one point standing on the carpet, I realized that my socks were, indeed, wet.

Tiny, tiny little mice filled room.

I was puzzled.

When I went to the bathroom a bit later, I was startled to see a lot of my toiletries from the shower resting on the back of the toilet and on the sink. Not in the shower where they usually live, room mate. And the most puzzling of all was the disappearance of the bath mat. Which is an integral part of the bathing experience!

So I knocked on your door and asked you what happened. All I got was a vague answer that the bathroom flooded, but that it wasn’t poop. Thanks for the reassurance. And that you had cloroxed it. I believed you, even though the floor was still pretty sticky. And then you said you took my shampoo etc out of the shower so that your visitors wouldn’t use them. Odd. And annoying that you didn’t put them back.

This morning on my way to work I saw the vomit covered sopping wet towel in the garage, room mate. Could an extremely high flow of vomit possible clogged our three-in-one flushing toilet? Ive heard fables of such things happening but never truly believed in their mystery. Could this had been the bathroom Unicorn I had heard tall tales of?

I get that you like to party, but you live a disgusting life and I had to swallow extra hard to keep my breakfast down and focus on my light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel move before april in order to not march back in and shatter your stupid pipe all over the kitchen floor. You are not the only person who lives here! (Hello, the other person is me.)

Note: I don’t know what a “three-in-one flushing toilet” means…. do you? Cuz, 2011-2012 is out of that lingo loop.

Flashback Friday: The Holidaze

*Sometimes on Fridays I take a break from thinking up stories and interesting tidbits to share and delve into my currently unpublished blog that goes all the way back to November of 2006.

Today I’m not getting ready to go anywhere. I’m not packed, I don’t have a car waiting outside to drive me to the airport, I’m not worried about missing my flight. I’m still here, having my first married Christmas with just Kamel. Just us, in our apartment for the weekend (and then off to Mexico City on the 26th). Every tradition I’ve ever had for Christmas is about to be skipped. I’ve never missed a Christmas at home, ever. And in 2007, on this very day, I was also still in the Bay Area, but things were so, so different.

December 23, 2007

Christmas, 2007… 2 days after this post…

I spent a good portion of 4 years flying back and forth and back and forth from Seattle to Chicago during both thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, and the spring and summer thunderstorm seasons. And the amount of times I was delayed? So few I’ve forgotten them. For reals. It was a rare day that I was ever delayed. I was more often than not stuck at the airport hours early thanks to the shuttle service, but my flights were always on time. Now that I have been living and traveling on a coast, I have been delayed to some extent nearly every single flight. My conclusion? Living in the middle rocks when it comes to flight times. Coasts? Get the shaft every time. I’m contemplating a law suit for discrimination. Just because we have an ocean and you don’t doesn’t mean you can shit on my travel plans. Foo.

I’m sitting on an overly used gum-stained carpet at the terminal. Currently on hour three of a four hour airport visit. My flight home, leaving at three thirty, was delayed for 3.5 hours. Where was it coming from? Palm Springs. Palm Fucking Springs. Why there would be anyone leaving Palm Springs at this time of year is beyond me. Stay put Palm Springs! Let your family COME TO YOU. In the meantime I’m still here in San Francisco, (hi!) sitting on the floor, surrounded by laptops, attractive men in old-man-hats, and army folk going home from wherever they have been stationed. There’s the typical lap-eating, which is always awkward and messy no matter what you do to prevent such things, and the gurgling cooing screaming babies who everyone hopes does NOT sit by them, DOES NOT kick their seat, and hopefully falls fast fast asleep right around takeoff. Me? I’ve filled myself up with too many peanut M&Ms and Diet Coke, my legs are falling asleep, and I’ve officially been at the airport for longer than the duration of my flight. Classic.

*Note: Arrived at the airport at 2pm, was walking to the car by 950pm. Gross.

Where were you on Christmas, 2007?