I’m sitting in row 11 seat A on Midwest Express flight something or other. I was supposed to have been in seat 7D, sitting next to a very nice continental woman with a miscellaneous European accent. She was tiny. Maybe she was from Lilliput. Not sure. I do know one thing’ I hate typing on my mofo laptop keyboard. I keep turning on the caps lock. I’m a fast typist, about 70-80 words a minute, and I’m accustomed to typing on a wavy ergonomic keyboard.
The flight attendant looks like Beverly DiAngelo and she’s pissed at me because I swapped seats. My fruit plate was delivered to the European lady, whom I’m certain was happy to have it. I’ve just been served champagne and we have turbulence so I put my glass in my coffee cup, which is a good thing because my half-full glass just sloshed over everything. I called my mom this morning from Milwaukee’s airport. I had hoped to reach my little brother Jonathon before he went to school, but I wasn’t fast enough. It’s his birthday tomorrow and I forgot to tell him that I’d be missing it, cavorting with the online diarist community in San Fran. Instead, my mom told me that she had a dream about me last night. She dreamed that she was reaming me out because I’ve been ‘ignoring them’, as if we’ve been at cocktail parties and I’ve snubbed them repeatedly or something. Then she thought that maybe she had become a psychic friend because in her dream, I had missed Jonathon’s birthday too and she was yelling at me about that as well. I need to go pee, but the mofo drink cart is in the way. Gah.
The continental woman is cold. She is wearing a coat and already has a blanket but she just asked for another one. Maybe her little people world is closer to the sun.
Just had a thought for a song like it’s all about the benjamins but instead it’s all about the vitamins.
Ok, that was written on the plane with zero sleep. Esteban came home last night at midnight from his plane ride home from Atlanta. I was trying to sleep but couldn’t because I was too jazzed on the JournalCon thing. Finally, I realized that I had to wake up in something like ninety minutes, which immediately made me tired. Then I had crises about what to wear, what to do about the three spontaneous zits that appeared in eight hours, and how I was going to wrangle 56 tubs of PlayDoh into already maxxed luggage. What to wear: jeans, Tinker Bell tee exchanged about five minutes before I left for a plain white $7-turned$2.96 t-shirt and a red hoodie. What to do with the three zits: suck it up and be ugly and proud. What to do about the 56 tubs of PlayDoh? Stuff 40 into one of Esteban’s Novell swag backpacks and forget about it.
I of course, couldn’t sleep on the plane. My laptop gave out right about the same time that my creativity did, which is just as well anyway because I was pretty much using it only to play solitaire and listen to Me First and the Gimme Gimme MP3s. Then I had to listen to the ancient pair of tourists behind me expound about the parts of the United States that they expected we were going over at that point. ‘Why, that’s Tulsa, yes, I recognize it from 12,000 feet, I think I see Marge Schmidt’s house. She always did like such garish colors.’ I tried to sleep at that point but it was disturbing. I swear as God as my witness at one point, the man told his wife that we were going over the Florida Panhandle. I know. People are strange.
Oh! Today’s most momentous occasion: after almost a year of emails and talking on the phone, Chauffi and I met face to face. He picked me up at the airport, like a very good PA. And he had a chilled bottle of Dasani waiting for me in his car. That rocked my world. I’m getting misty right now thinking about it. Because we had priorities, he brought me shopping. I had my very first IKEA experience. It was so very fun. I bought two lamps for something like $8 a piece, a magnetic knife rack (again, $6) and some other stuff. Chauffi found a neat little metal lunchbox. We then went to Trader Joes, where I scoured some McCann’s Irish Oatmeal and some other oddities. Then off to drive around San Francisco, where we scouted out the Real World house, site of numerous Puck lugies and Pedro’s last few months. We drove down Lombard street, which is really honestly just ridiculous. That would be a suicide chute if they had snow here. I checked into the hotel and hung out with the Con folks. Met a lot of people. Saw Pamie (EEEEEE!), met MoPie and hugged immediately, because she’s my best friend and all. I also got to meet her poor ailing little Pigwidgeon. MoPie, Chauffi and I went tooling around downtown, in search of a Starbucks. A man with strange facial hair accosted us. It was my fault really. I made eye contact. I can’t help it. I’m from the Midwest. We’re a friendly people. Then we went to Starbucks where we ate lovely sandwiches and drank Iced Tea and tried unsuccessfully to get on the internet using Chauffi’s laptop. After a lovely light lunch, MoPie then went back to the hotel to do official Con stuff while Chauffi and I walked all over everywhere. I went to Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie,
Apparently, I embarrassed Chauffi when we stopped at French Connection United Kingdom to pick up a t-shirt as a gift. I picked up the medium shirt and went to check out. A very friendly little salesgirl asked if I needed a fitting room. Feeling extremely large in California in general (there is a significant lack of curvy round kind of people in this state), especially in a store geared for the fashion model type, I jokingly held the little tiny babydoll t-shirt up to my chest and said ‘I don’t know. Don’t you think it will fit?’ and then laughed. Chauffi said I was being mean. Then I had guilt. But then she said ‘So you’re from out of town?’ which I’m certain she meant in a friendly way, but still. Gah.
I’ve been awake for 22 hours at this point. I could have packed the remaining Playdoh in the bags under my eyes. I have so much more to write about. I have laughed more in the last ten hours than possibly in the last month. Also, it’s super to hang out with someone who is just as snarky as you are. It means that I’ll have company when I go to hell. The rest will have to wait. I don’t think I’m making sense anymore. Gah.
