In case of a water landing, swim for it.

While going through security at an airport recently, as I was taking off my flip-flops and flopping them into my gray bin, a man looked at me in wonderment. “We’re still doing shoes?” he asked. I said yes, but in my mind, I was thinking, “We’re lucky we still have our clothes on.” Because you know, we’re not that far from checking in our clothes and flying in hospital gowns.

Another thing that baffles people is the liquid restriction. There are signs everywhere, but every time I go to the airport, there are always piles of water bottles (Michael Vick), shampoo and toothpaste off to the side. If you don’t know the rules of travel, and are too lazy/stupid to look them up, then please, don’t fly, because you’re just gumming up the works for the rest of us who know what we are doing. And, you know you’re flying, and you know what you can’t go through the security screening area wearing. Why are you all bundled up in lace-up shoes, jackets, cardigans and belts with pockets full of change? Let’s get it together, shall we. Again, gumming up the works.

Speaking of traveling clothes, nothing makes me laugh harder than seeing what some of you people choose to wear when flying. Seriously, do you own a mirror? You want to be comfortable, but it’s a plane. It’s not your living room. Have some respect for yourself and the people that are forced to look at your beer gut hang out as you try and put all your belongings in the overhead bin.

Let’s go back to the quart bags for a second. I never want to check a bag. I’ve had them misplaced and just plain lost so I’m very wary of turning them over to the airline. But, I have high-maintenance hair, and I wear contact lens. I need my hair goos and my eye potions. And that doesn’t count my makeup and toothpaste. My quart bag is always a breath away from busting open. Which begs the question, why can I bring a lighter on the plane, something I can use to actually set something on the plane on fire, but 4 ounces of shampoo will apparently bring it down?

So this weekend, while waiting at my gate in Miami, a couple came up with twins in a stroller. Everyone was all, “Oh, aren’t they cute…” While I was thinking, “You think they’re cute now, wait until they’re screaming like howler monkeys in the seat next to you.” And I was right. Those “adorable” twins screamed bloody murder most of the trip. I know, I know, babies cry. Whatever. It doesn’t mean it’s not the most annoying thing in the whole traveling experience. Personally, I think there should be two kinds of flights. Flights for people with their kids, and flights for the people that just want to sit quietly, read their books and listen to their iPods in peace, while trying to ignore the overly chatty person sitting next to them. Just because I offered you a piece of gum doesn’t mean I want to know your life story.

Be big and let go

There's no video for this song, but it's awesome and sums up my feelings for the day. Enjoy.

Talking to you is like talking to you

I love my parents. They are great people. However, like parents do, sometimes they do tend to make me want to reach through the phone and flick a nose or a forehead.

One of my most recent conversations with my dad is a perfect example. As some background, we are all in a football pool, and my mom is in charge of collecting everyone’s picks and emailing them out, usually on Saturday. I was out of town for the weekend, but could check my email, and I never received the picks. I got home on Sunday night, and still no picks. So I called my parents and my dad answered. After the usual pleasantries, it all went downhill.

Is Jan going to send the picks? It's 8 at night. 95% of the games are over and I have no picks.
Yeah, you're getting too good, so we're not sending them to you anymore. (I'm in second-to-last place, so.... )
Nice. No, really, I just checked and I have no picks.
Oh, she sent them this morning.
OK, well, I didn't get them.
Well she sent them. Did you check?
Yes, I checked yesterday, this morning and just now. I have no picks.
Well she sent them (What time did you send them?)... She sent them at 10.
I don't have them.
She sent them this morning. Did you check?
Really?!?! This is the conversation we're having???

It's like talking to a wall sometimes. I laughed about it with my sister, and my friend Chris, who said he had a similar conversation with his dad. Our moms, sharp as tacks. Our dads... well, bless their hearts.

I talked to my mom last night. She told me that my dad has to go into the hospital on Sunday in another town to get new heart medication. He has an arterial fibrillation, and this new medication has the chance of actually stopping his heart, so he has to stay in the hospital for a few days for observation. I called him today. Just to chat. I ended up babbling about stupid things, like the frog that got in the apartment that I had to rescue from the cat, and the mistake I found in a Star Trek reference in an article I was editing, and the huge white birds that I finally figured out were herons and egrets. I just wanted to talk to him before he went in the hospital. He said he was nervous, and I told him not to be, that it would be OK. I am sure he appreciated hearing from me, but there's a part of me that thought he was probably thinking, Frogs? Birds? Really?! This is the conversation we're having??

Body Count

5 stiffs, 31 points. Godspeed, Deborah Kerr. I am going to watch The Grass is Greener this weekend as a tribute.

You're gonna carry that weight

A friend of mine (yes, the same one with the "rock and roll" poster and mini fridge in his room) asked me how someone we went to high school with was doing. Someone I had not given any thought to since sometime at the end of June 1989, which was probably the last time I saw J (I'll protect his identity). So I of course responded with "How the hell should I know?" My friend then went into a long rant about what an ass J was IN HIGH SCHOOL, and how he once threatened to kick J's ass in the hall. First of all, no, that probably didn't happen, but whatever! It was HIGH SCHOOL. Seriously. I said, "you've really got to let that go."

It got me thinking about grudges. Everybody has them. Big ones, small ones and ones that you share with other people. And even though you can't see them, they take up a lot of space. In your head. In your heart. They're heavy to carry around, especially if you have to carry it by yourself.

It's easier, sometimes, to let them go. Just be the bigger person, take a deep breath and let go. Accept that some people just suck, and they are careless with your feelings. If you have something to say to them, say it. Get it off your chest. Even if you just write it in a letter you'll never send. Scream if you need to. Or cry (it's better with wine). You'll be surprised how much lighter your head feels without a big fat grudge taking up space that you can use for other things. We all have baggage, but it's nice if it fits under the seat in front of you or in the overhead bin.

Although, if someone was a bitch in high school, and over the years she continued to be a bitch, you're totally allowed to laugh your ass off when she and her second husband show up on Dr. Phil. (It's even OK to burn it on a DVD, isn't it?)

Video Rewind

I don't know what happened to the video I had up yesterday, and You Tube is not coming up today. So play "Stuck in a Moment" by U2, and just imagine Bono's hotness.

Oh what a night

I am a pack rat. I save things that really should have been tossed a long time ago. Like my Duran Duran poster. I bought it when I was 15. I still have it. Well, at the moment it's in Atlanta, but I left instructions that it is to be saved. Why? It just sits rolled up in the closet. I'm surely not going to be hanging it up anytime soon. There are certain things that, while totally cool tacked up to your wall up until you graduated from college (what? I couldn't bear to take it down) that now that you're a grown up have no place on your bedroom wall. Even if you do put it in a frame (which I did not, but someone I know has a poster hanging in his room that, while he claims it says rock and roll, I'd call it "Dorm room, circa 1991). He also has a mini fridge in there, and a lifestyle that pretty much resembles that of a (maybe) recently graduated frat boy. But I digress.

I was in New York in February for my sorority anniversary, back in my small college town. Everything was the same, and yet completely different. Our favorite bar was still there, but was dark and quiet. Quite the contrast from the crowded, noisy, and yes, kind of disgusting place we spent every weekend night (and some school nights. And ok, some days too) so many years ago. Well, not THAT many. One of my sorority sisters said that she wished she could go back and have just one night at that bar. To be 21 again (or 20 or 19, but, well, whatever, my ID was good) and have one night to do it again. Not knowing what she knows now, no. Just a night where we were all young and dancing and had not a care in the world except whether or not our Pi Kap/Delt/Sammie/TKE (those damn TKEs) crush was there and was checking us out. I am with her. I would love to have one night back, where my biggest worry was whether or not it was going to be snowing on the walk back to the sorority house (because of course I didn't have a coat). I don't know if I'd just want to go back to that girl I was, not knowing what I know now. To repeat the same stupid things. To get my heart broken again, or break a little piece of someone else's. But then again, I guess I'd have to agree with her. Ignorance is bliss. It would be better not knowing, and just happily take a swig of my Milwaukee's Best Light long-neck (We were in college. We were poor.) and dancing to Groove is in the Heart or Just Like Heaven. Good times. Really good times.

So yes, we're "grown ups" now, but we can't let go of that time completely. It's what brought us here. So while it's no longer appropriate to decorate your room with posters stuck up with blue gummy mounting squares and frat paddles, (and the thought of a Beast Light makes you want to gag) you still hold on to those things that take you back. The Duran Duran posters and the concert t-shirts. Tucked away in drawers and closets, to be taken out and looked at fondly, like an old photo of a bunch of laughing sorority girls in jean shorts with leggings and flats. In February. Damn we looked good.

I'm stuck

I have something rattling in my head, and I'm not sure how to express it, so in the meantime, enjoy the hotness.