thumb-typing at you from the oakland airport

Friday, apr. 6, 2007   |   0 comments

Oh boy, I’m at the dark end of another one of my zany plans right now: in an effort to save some cab fare, and force myself into a situation where I’d maybe get some writing done, I had Marco drop me off at the airport on the way to work, at 6am, seven long hours before my flight. (Oh, I’m going to LA on a fun last-minute trip, for FREE — Megan had some Jet Blue miles that were about to expire — and Liz Dunn is going to be in town, doing some rock thing, and also Anna Beth and Allison are visiting from their various far-faraways, because yay it’s Pam’s birthday, and Megan has a brand new Great Dane puppy named Lottie, and Tom and Mouki and their teeny twins are here, and Gene’s band is playing somewhere, and my three god children and family are all fired up and bunny crazy for Easter…so my worlds are all aligned for glory in Los Angeles this weekend!) Except that the airport people won’t let me check my bags until four hours before my flight, and the Peet’s is on the wrong side of the XRay forcefield, and I can’t really start writing until my coffee situation is sorted out…so here I sit in the Giant Burger, in my fluffy sleeping socks, surrounded by bags, hoodie hood up, just another airport zombie.

PS: As anticipated, I maybe totally jinxed the car with yesterday’s anticipatory post! I bought it, yes I did, sure, and then I drove it home, parked it, got out, noticed I was taking up two spots, got back in and…the car wouldn’t start. It fired right up when I test drove it, and when I got in to drive it away — the two situations in which it would have been very helpful for a problematic car to reveal its non-starting ways, but no — the Accent waited until I was the free, clear owner to dig in its heels. How rotten is THAT? Marco was able to jumpstart it this morning, and he’s going to get the battery checked out using the battery-o-meter at his work, so maybe it’ll turn out to be something minor, like a new battery. And not, sigh, an alternator, or some other devilish $500 thing. (Why is it that automotive disasters always ring in at $500, minimum?) Keep those legs crossed for me! But also…it turns out the car has this unfortunate spoiler that I’m now minorly regretting? It sort of ruins the nice, nurse-shoe line of the car? Which was the whole point of the thing? Oh boy, have I made the wrong decision, buying this car?? (This is my way: I make headlong, gut-motivated decisions, then I experience small, haunting regrets which linger until the next big ill-advised purchase comes along to distract me.)

PPS (later): They just lost one of my shoes in the XRay machine! Poof! Oh, there it is…it just got trapped in space and time for about three weird, panicky minutes. Oh, if only you could talk, left denim American Eagle slingback sneaker! What a story you could tell.