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Some people (me for example) like watching romantic comedies. I frequently hear this: when I go to a movie, I like to forget about the reality waiting for me back home. I want to be happy along with the couple on the screen.
It struck me that increasingly, this blog is turning into one romantic comedy. Like the movie form, it is not especially funny, but it stumbles along hoping to entertain – myself if not the reader.
Anyone who knows me, knows also that this has been a rather tough winter for me. I’ve a lot going on at work and just about at every front and I find most of it very trying and unamusing. Ocean goes through phases and it has definitely hit a level of inconsequentiality that is astonishing to a reader who may have logged on prior to the elections, for example.
This morning, at the Denver airport, I wrote tentatively a post on a more serious topic – having to do with the EU. I used to love writing about things having to do with the EU. Not anymore. I read my own post and deleted it. It struck me as wrong for the here and now.
I know there is a danger: one of these days I will slide into writing about something so trivial that it may as well appear as a blank page on the computer screen: it will say absolutely nothing.
For now, I am running with my own inclination. Martinis, truck stops, hair color, barnyard manure if I come across any that strikes me as amusing. Nothing serious. Not this month or next, for sure.P.S. to the kind reader (click onto his cool new blog here) who suggested that perhaps I should have purchased the whoopass t-shirt (see last night’s post here) and worn it to class this week, let me assure you, the students may have laughed, but some of my senior colleagues would not have been amused.
Though we are a noisy nation (no problem picking out Americans abroad – they talk ten notches louder than everyone else; it is a vast country that we inhabit and we have trained ourselves to shout in order to be heard from Maine to California), on planes, people for the most part tend to be quiet.
They were quiet when we were settling into our seats. And very quiet when I took out my cell for a quick call to my man Jason who was to work on my hair this afternoon were it not for my complicated layovers and missed return connections. And they were super quiet when I said to the Salon receptionist: what do you mean you cannot find Jason?? I need to beg him on my knees to take me this week. I cannot stand the color of my hair another minute! He’ll do this for me, I know he will! Please go find him!
And they continued to be quiet as I said, while getting up to disembark, right into my reconnected cell: well if you cannot find him go search for Robyn, his assistant. You do not understand, this is a color emergency!
Everyone heard, everyone smiled with understanding (after all, they had full view of my head of hair). But I had to do it anyway. I was past being embarrassed. I needed action.
[BTW, have I said this before? 70% of women past 40 color their hair and 17% of men do. Just keep that in mind as you next scan the heads of people in an audience or an airplane.]
There was a time when passengers, overloaded with carryons, brought out a little secret smirk in me. I would embark smugly on a nine-hour flight with a novel in hand and a dainty purse swinging from the shoulder and that would be it. Crazy people, those who think they need every piece of entertainment on board, or who load themselves down with souvenirs and travel purchases. Plain nutty.
That was then. This trip is reason enough to feel regret at my past smugness. I am loaded down by projects I want to work on but don’t have time for back home. I am burdened by a computer that was purchased when lightweight was not an option. Burnt by too many instances of lost luggage, I have all important items stuffed into the computer bag. My handbag has life’s essentials, which, as of this morning, appear to include a lifetime supply of tictacs and my growing collection of coffee cards. And on this leg of the journey, I also have a little crate of wine purchased in Sonoma and Napa. Oh, and the gorgeous pear apple vinegar from Sebastiani.
The United cart, the one that transports elderly and disabled travelers, stopped and asked if I would like assistance. I accepted. During the ride I made all sorts of promises to myself about dainty purses and novels for the future. The very distant future.
A treat from United (the airline that is making this little Colorado getaway possible, as explained in the post below): I have two breakfast options: a full, warm breakfast at the Crystal Inn, or the use of a $4 coupon for breakfast anywhere at the airport.
Which would you choose?
True, the Crystal Inn breakfast has its advantages: the shuttle bus driver could not praise it enough: and they give you warmed up sausage patties or bacon with your cereal and toast! But then, this was the same guy who highly recommended the frozen sandwiches at the truck stop, easily reheated at the communal Crystal Inn microwave.
But a $4 coupon? A latte alone is $3.65. What a snob, you’re thinking, she has to have a latte while the rest of America struggles with watery coffee. And there’s your answer: the rest of America struggles with watery coffee. Go ahead and struggle. I prefer to shock myself into existence in the early hours of a day. The decision is made: I’m heading for the airport.
