Another year, another Word document for my writer’s journal. This marks thirteen years of my keeping a writer’s journal and five plus years of using it as the source of my blog material. I’ve now kept a written record of over one third of my life. Pretty amazing when you think about it that way.
I will post my New Year’s Resolutions tomorrow as today marked the last day in which I was allowed to not follow them (come on, it’s the weekend. I’ll start on Monday.) Instead I will tell three of the travel nightmare stories that I have had to suffer through over the past month.
Story # 1: I was able to avoid the Northeast blizzard by secluding myself in lovely Florida. Got out before the storm and laughed heartily as Philadelphia was hit with two feet of snow that ended a few hours before my flight was supposed to take off. I was wondering, ok worrying to the point of obsession, that the flight would be delayed or cancelled and that I would have to struggle to get on another flight. But after all my checking I saw that my flight was on time and went to the airport.
Kim dropped me off at the airport and we said our goodbyes. Checked the airport monitors and the flight showed on time. Walked over and bought a donut at Dunkin Donuts because I freaking deserve a donut every once in a while. After finishing the donut and walking toward security my phone rings and it is the airline letting me know that my 6 PM flight had been delayed to 12:15 AM. I had been in the airport maybe ten minutes. I go back to the front desk to find out that they have a plane and a crew but no clearance from air traffic control in the northeast to take off so I was told to hang around the airport for six hours, then fly for three and then drive home through two feet of snow in the middle of the night.
Instead I called Kim, changed flights, and spent the night in a much more agreeable manner. Which would have been better if I had listened to Kim in the first place and changed my flight before we even left for the airport. That is what I get for trusting the internet.
Story # 2: Flying home from Chicago the day after Christmas. My flight was a little delayed, which made sense given the fact that it was slightly snowing and that this was the day after the underwear bomber incident. But we all get on the plane fine and pull away from the terminal. But then we stop. I’ve flown out of Chicago a bunch of times and never had this happen. Then we are told that we must return to the terminal to let a passenger off the plane.
So we do that and after the passenger leaves we discover that he had fallen asleep on the previous flight and forgot to get off the plane in Chicago. It was nice that they told us this after he got off because if he did that beforehand we may have pummeled him with our carry on luggage. Then, since we were at the terminal, we had to deal with a maintenance issue. Plus, because we had been on the ground so long they had to deice the place. So we were an hour plus late leaving the airport when we had originally left the terminal on time. And to make matters worse, the baggage carousel in Philly broke and we had to go to another terminal to get our bags.
Story # 3: Arriving in Philly once again, different flight this time. Actually had landed on time for what seemed to be the first time in months. The thrill was short lived as we sat on the runway for half an hour for a gate to clear out so we could pull in. There is nothing more annoying than just sitting on a runway knowing that you are home but you still can’t get off the plane. It was just abysmal.
All of this just makes me want to work out the last few bugs in my teleporter.
14th Best Album of the Decade: Jon Dee Graham “Full” (2006): I have probably seen Jon Dee in concert (either by himself or playing guitar in someone’s band) more than any other performer this decade. I have enjoyed every single show. His music is Texas singer songwriter but I like to think of him as a more noble Tom Waits. The lyrics are dark and there is the growl in his voice but at the end of the day there is light. To quote the man himself, “False hope is still hope.”
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Freedy Johnston “Blue Days Black Nights”
2) Soundtrack “The Slaughter Rule”
3) U2 “October”
4) Neko Case “Middle Cyclone”
5) Lyle Lovett “Step Inside This House”
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