from logan

Apparently, Mercury is retrograde. I did not know this until I tried to travel today.

Correction: I did not know this until I tried to make a withdrawal at my bank today that would allow me to EAT while I travel. For some unknown reason, the ATM machine didn't recognize my PIN, and stuck its tongue out at me several times instead of giving me money. So I had to go inside to the horrible counter that is staffed by trolls and ask the queen troll for my money.

She mostly gave me one of those arch looks while starting to say you'll have to sit and wait for a customer service representative when I explained that I didn't want the PIN mystery solved right now, rightnow I wanted MY MONEY. So I could get on MY PLANE.

So, that transaction completed, I scampered back to work to finish the one or two tasks that I had left to do, waved up at the windows where Lindsay used to work, and paced around, waiting for my husbandish ride to the airport to arrive. In the meantime, I was informed that the reason my bank experience went awry is because mercury is retrograde.

Apparently, it is in vogue now to invoke poor Mercury when things go wrong, Not that this is wrong -- it's just that I was doing this a LONG time ago, and I take offense at people I have known for less than two years trying to school me in the mysteries of M.Ret.

I just want to go on record that I have been leaning on this excuse for things not going my way for DECADES thanks to my astrologically hip Dad, who informed me of the vagaries of Mercury back in the 80's. He used to mail me eash week's copy of the Provincetown Banner, just so I could read his favorite astrologer's regular column.

Well, I don't know if it's true, but I do know that my travel plans thus far have been supremely FUBAR.

First of all, of course, this is my first flight since that long-ago trip to Amsterdam back in 2002 (?) and lots has changed since then in the ways of airport security. This was my first time with the whole SHOE thing, for instance. Which is fine. I don't really have any problem with baring my booties in public. I just felt like a dork for not taking them off right away like a seasoned pro.

So I make it past security, and the place is socked in with fog. This is the same fog that contributed to our taking a wrong turn on the way to Logan and ending up in the Sherwood Forest. I swear to God! So that lost us about 20m minutes, but I needn't have fretted, of course, as the fog (or the line of thunderstorms, or something weatherish) has also caused my flight to be delayed, first by 2 and a half hours, then by another half hour on top of that.

All I can say is, THANK GOD FOR LAPTOPS and THANK GOD FOR THE INTERNET.

If it weren't for you two, I'd be lost. Truly.

So here I sit, facing out a dark window onto the strangely quiet tarmac, my beautiful laptop keeping the tops of my thighs a nice toasty warm. It's really kind of soothing, even has a bit of the old hot water bottle effect -- which is awesome because OF COURSE I HAVE A CONDITION HERE. Yep. Day One.

And they just announced that the flight to Philly (I am going to Pitt) has been outright CANCELLED for the night. This has led me to entertain thoughts of perhaps I will need to get a hotel room here in Boston before proceeding onto Pittsburgh, horrendously late for my conference. I am already looking at arriving in Pittsburgh around 2 am, well after the last shuttle leaves the airport to my luxurous hotel and my waiting bed with soft, high-thread-count linens.

All of which, you know, is just fine.

I actually didn't intend to make this a rant at all -- it just seemed like it should be one, I guess. I am honestly having a blast, sitting here with my awesome laptop, typing happily away on my blog. I've already checked half of my daily blog reads, which means I still have half of them left. I kind of love airports, too. I have always loved the random sampling of humanity in an airport terminal, and the whiff of glamorous lives being lived that attaches itself to every well-tailored businessperson I walk past.

I love the sense of being encased within a self-sustaining world of one's own, a place with restaurants, health care, and all manner of technicians, maintenance men and caterers and pilots and cashiers and OOH! there's a random cluster of guys wearing state police jackets over in the hallway near me!

And airplanes and gas trucks and baggage carts are gliding silently past me at my scenic post.

And no matter what, whether here or in Pittsburgh, I will sleep on clean, soft sheets tonight in the warm, sterile embrace of a nice hotel room somewhere. True, without kittens. But every once in a while, a girl's got to travel.