Greyhound adventure

Yesterday I woke up at 4 o'clock in the morning, rode a Greyhound bus for fourteen hours, and almost got stranded in Cincinnati.

It's the type of adventure I've wanted to take for a long time. Many of my friends (especially the ones who are writers) think it's one of the best ways to find something to write about.

Sarah was in Michigan for Thanksgiving and her birthday (which was that week as well). Then she planned to drive to Bowling Green, KY to visit her boyfriend. So she invited me to come with her, and picked me up along the way. She's driving back to Oklahoma today, so I had to find a way to get myself back to Michigan.

Amtrak was out because there aren't very many Amtrak stations in Kentucky, and the ones I did find were nowhere near Bowling Green. So I decided to take a Greyhound bus.

I purchased a ticket less than a week prior to the trip, and because of the Thanksgiving holiday, decided against having it mailed to me; I wanted to make sure it arrived on time. So I opted for a "will call" ticket; I'd show up at the bus station half an hour before departure and pick it up at the ticket counter.

Except when we got to the bus station in Bowling Green, it was closed. I assume that's because it was five o'clock in the morning. So Sarah and Kevin waited with me for the bus to show up, which was nice of them. It was dark and rainy.

My lack of a physical ticket turned out not to be a problem, so I hopped on the bus and rode it to Elizabethtown, then Louisville. In Louisville, they made everyone get off the bus and then get back on. And my internal monologue was like, "Oh shit, I should probably go to the ticket counter and get a ticket." But there really wasn't any time to do that, so I tried to re-board without one, and didn't have any problems.

So then we rode to Cincinnati and repeated the process of getting on and off the bus. I was slightly irritated by this policy, because for one thing, I'd been riding the bus for about six hours by that point, and was tired of accounting for all of my things. And secondly, we were only expected to get off the bus at the big, busy stations. I've posted before about my spatial impairment; because of it, I get really overwhelmed by crowds and signage and whatnot. And it was the Sunday after Thanksgiving, so everyone was out and trying to get themselves home after the holiday.

But whatever. When I got off the bus, I took my purse with me, but left everything else near my seat (duffel bag, coat, library book). But then I wasn't allowed to re-board the bus as I had been in Louisville. I knew that lack of a ticket would catch up with me sooner or later. But why did it have to happen at a busy, crowded bus station right when everyone was boarding?

[Insert headache here.] I was pissed off and upset (if the station in Bowling Green had been open when I arrived, this wouldn't have happened). But I maintained my composure and trudged over to the ticket counter. Except I was right behind a cranky alpha mom who was trying to get a ticket for her teenage daughter. And the lady at the counter wasn't too pleased about having to deal with her. And let's face it: I look like a teenager myself. So she snapped at me about how I should have gotten my ticket in Bowling Green and then muttered something about having to work at the Greyhound station during the busiest travel day of the year.

And then I looked out the window and saw my bus pull away. With most of my shit aboard with it.

At that moment, I sort of wished that I had a pushy alpha mom to stick up for me; I saw the teenage girl line to board a bus to Chicago and shot her a dirty look. And then I started crying and called my mom to let her know what was going on. The conversation went something like, "People are assholes and my stuff is on its way to Detroit but I'm not. Instead, I'm stranded in a city hours from home where I know no one. Fuck, fuck, fuck."

She told me not to start any fights with anyone (lulz?) and to maintain my composure and if worse came to worse, she and Dad would drive down and get me.

It was kind of comforting to know that there are people in my life who love me enough to offer to drive all the way to Cincinnati from Detroit to pick me up on the busiest travel day of the year. Since I knew my bus was gone anyway, I took my sweet time calming down. I went pee and found some coffee and got myself into another long ticket line to see if I could get onto another bus to Detroit.

As I was waiting in line, I received a text message from my Dad asking if I knew yet whether I needed him to come get me; he was looking at maps online to figure out the fastest route to Cincinnati.

For the record, I hadn't planned on taking my parents up on their offer. I was exhausted anyway; I figured that if I was indeed stranded, I'd get a hotel and take the earliest bus the next day. But I have to hand it to my dad. I complain a lot about how he's the family patriarch; he's protective as fuck, and I'm pretty independent. But he'd do anything for me.

I got to the ticket counter and tried to stay calm as I explained what had happened. The woman took my debit card and ID and once she realized that I wasn't some kind of blubbering incompetent teenager and that it was Greyhound's fault I was trapped, she apologized and got me a ticket for the next bus to Detroit (which turned out to be not too far behind the previous bus I'd been on). Then she called the bus station in Detroit to tell them to hold my stuff for me when I got there. I was happy to know that the problem had been fixed, but still irritated by the fact that people only treat you kindly if they know that you've given them money.

Anyway, I boarded a crowded bus and called my parents to let them know that I was fine and would be home in a few hours. The guy sitting next to me overheard my end of the conversation and said, "It sounds like you've got a long way to go."

"Detroit," I said. "And I'm traveling from Bowling Green, Kentucky."

The lucky bastard got off in Dayton and a whole slew of new people boarded. We repeated this process in Lima, Findlay, and Toledo. The Toldeo-to-Detroit leg of the trip was the roughest for me. Between Findlay and Toledo, the bus had been pretty empty, and, beyond exhausted, I'd put my purse beside me and greedily took up as much space as possible. I had sort of intended to do the same between Toledo and Detroit; by that point, I'd been Greyhounding for thirteen hours and wasn't in the mood to interact with anyone. But as more and more people boarded, it became obvious that I'd have to give up the seat beside me.

"Stop being a dick, Amelia," I told myself, and cleared the seat beside me. And instantly, another passenger appeared and sat down in the seat. He was a friendly old man who wanted me to teach him how to use his very basic cell phone. I took a few deep breaths and mustered all of the patience left inside of me. Normally I would have been happy to help someone with something like that. But hours ago, my internal monologue had started whining about how it just wanted to go home and eat dinner.

An hour or so later, we finally arrived in Detroit. I picked up my things and waited outside for my mom to pick me up. I was actually glad that she was running late; it felt good to walk around in the cold air for a bit.

When I got home, I took a shower, changed into my pajamas, ate some eggs and toast, drank a cup of tea, and fell asleep with my kitten at my feet. I never thought I'd be so happy to be in Grosse Pointe.

Weird and stressful as this experience was, I'm glad I did it. And I think that my writer friends were correct; I sort of think that everyone (writer or not) should spend fourteen hours on a Greyhound at some point in their lives. The world would literally swell with interesting stories.

Life lately

It's been a really dreary fall in Detroit. I don't think I've ever suffered from seasonal depression, but I'm definitely feeling weird and apprehensive about the coming winter months. I've spent the past few months feeling hungry for sunlight; I can't seem to get enough-- not that there's much to get around here these days. It's rained a lot, and now that we've turned the clocks back an hour, it gets dark around 5 p.m.

But I'm still pretty excited about things. Namely that:

• Sarah will be in Michigan this coming Friday, November 18.
• A week later, on Friday, November 25, she and I are driving to Bowling Green, Kentucky (where the guy she is dating lives-- Sarah will be moving there too after she graduates next month). We'll spend a couple of days together there, and the 27th, I'll take a Greyhound to Michigan and she will fly back to Oklahoma.
• I may visit Saginaw the first weekend in December, but this is still dependent upon my friends' schedules. We'll see, but if that works out, it'll be good, because so many people I care about live there, and I miss them.
• On December 10, I'm going to see Tori Amos in Chicago with Lura (which is ridiculous because I've already seen Interpol and gone to Lollapalooza this year, but whatever).

So much random travel. And somehow I keep winding up in the South, of all places. More important is who you're with, though, and I'm so excited to spend time with Sarah. We haven't seen each other since January, when I flew to Oklahoma to visit her. The other day we had this weird "Internet slumber party" where we got on Skype and braided our hair pig-tail style while drinking (bourbon for Sarah, beer for me), if that tells you anything about what our friendship is like. We are ridiculous, but she means a lot to me. Everyone needs friends like that.

In other news, I'm finishing up the first edition of my zine; I'm glad that I actually made one. I was kind of afraid that I'd talk about wanting to make one, but never actually do it. But it's coming together quite nicely, actually.

I spent this weekend working more than usual (I had to babysit on both Friday evening and Saturday afternoon), so decided to treat myself to Han Nolan's newest book. I'm almost done with it; I love YA literature so unreasonably much. The stuff I have to read for my degree program gets depressing sometimes. YA lit is also kind of depressing (the book I'm reading now addresses issues such as teen pregnancy, infidelity, and suicide). But I feel like it's easier to deal with because I've been there already-- it's only been four and a halfish years since I graduated from high school.

Just trying to keep myself grounded, I guess.

Lollapalooza and other Chicago adventures

Aside from the fact that I came home from Chicago to news that my cat had passed away while I was out of town, the weekend was fucking awesome.

Going to Lollapalooza was my friend Toni's idea. She spent last summer campaigning for someone who ended up not getting elected, so decided that this summer, she deserved to have as much fun as possible.

So I spent months being a hermit in order to be able to afford to go with her.

'

And damn, was it worth it.

Toni was excited for Lollapalooza itself, as was I. But I felt oddly luckier than her, because I had another good reason to visit Chicago. My friend Stephanie lives there. I've written about her before-- a fellow feminist and poet, she has long been a great source of sanity for me.

A few months ago, she started a literary collective called the West Side School for the Desperate, and offered to let Toni and me crash there for the weekend. I'd been really curious to see it; from talking to her, I knew that it wasn't a normal apartment. But I didn't really know what to expect.

As it turns out, the WSSD is actually listed as a commercial property. It used to be a Good News Bible Church (lulz), and before that, was a bakery. Now, Stephanie and her roommates use the main area as a performance space. Near the back of said performance space, there's this tiny door leading to a kitchen. There's a bathroom back there too. And they sleep in what I guess used to be closets. The walls to those rooms don't go all the way to the ceiling. It's hard to explain without a visual. But it's really interesting and open.

The night Toni and I arrived, Stephanie and her roommates were hosting a poetry workshop at the WSSD. So we sat in on it. It was a weird experience for me, in both good and bad ways.

One of Stephanie's roommates Julie (who also went to high school with us) has a background in visual art, not poetry. But she still wanted to find a way to contribute to the workshop. So she handed each of us a piece of surrealist art and had us write poems about them.

I hadn't written a poem in a very long time, and doing so felt really good.

Workshopping others' pieces was another story. Toni realized just how much of a nerd I was in high school, because I explained to her that that's all I did in my free time. But I hadn't taken part in a productive workshop session since early 2009, so when Stephanie put me on the spot and asked for my opinion on someone's piece, I stumbled through a response. It was weird, because that's something I used to feel confident about.

After the workshop, we all wound up at a nearby karaoke bar, and after a couple of pitchers of beer, Stephanie and I sang "Fuck and Run" by Liz Phair together. It's good to know that even though I've not been active on the poetry scene lately, Stephanie and I are still close-- even though our interest in poetry is the reason our friendship developed in the first place.

The next day, Toni and I finally headed off to Lollapalooza. But not before a delicious lunch at a sushi place across the street from Grant Park.

I love hanging out with people who love seafood as much as I do.

That day, we saw The Kills, The Mountain Goats, Crystal Castles, and Ratatat. The last one was probably my favorite. The only group that was sorta disappointing was Crystal Castles, if only because they stopped playing abruptly and disappeared forever and no one knows why or where they went. :-(

I think Toni and I were both surprised at how utterly exhausted we were after our first day at Lolla. Having been on our feet all day, we literally limped back to the West Side School for the Desperate-- arriving, appropriately, both looking and feeling pretty desperate. We slept for 600 years that night. It felt awesome.

The next day, Toni caught a train to Oak Park to meet up with her aunt for lunch. This gave Stephanie and me some time to spend alone, which was nice.

A few years ago, Stephanie and I got together on Christmas Day and watched a few episodes of "Curb Your Enthusiasm." One of the episodes we saw was the one about the Larry David Sandwich. In it, Larry has a sandwich named after him. And he's disappointed, because the sandwich is made up of whitefish, cream cheese, and capers. And who the fuck likes those things?

Stephanie and me, that's who. We were like, "Man. People need to stop hating on the Larry David Sandwich. That shit sounds delicious."

We proceeded to raid her parents' fridge for fish. This was especially hilarious because her family had just eaten Christmas dinner, so there were piles and piles of delicious leftovers for us to eat. But did we want any of it? No. We wanted whitefish.

For the record, we didn't find any, and ended up eating leftover ambrosia instead (mmmmm). But since then, we've said that we'd someday eat seafood sandwiches together.

Soon after that, Stephanie discovered a classy sandwich shop in her Chicago neighborhood. She has been nagging me for literally years now to come visit her so that we could eat delicious sandwiches together there.

One in particular is named after Alice Walker. It contains salmon, avocado, cucumber, feta cheese, and wasabi mayo.

So, needless to say, we officially (finally!) declared Saturday, August 6, 2011 "Sandwich Day," and went to this sandwich shop together. And I ate an Alice Walker sandwich and my life was forever changed.

After that, I met Toni downtown for more Lollapalooza madness. We saw the Black Lips, Death From Above 1979, Ellie Goulding, and Beirut. Again, the last one was my favorite, mostly because they played an encore, which is virtually unheard of at Lollapalooza.

Sunday was pretty intense. Stephanie took us to a classy breakfast place for crab benedict. Except they were out of crab benedict. :-( So we ate various other delicious things instead. And then Toni and I headed off to Lollapalooza, day 3.

We got drenched, and our electronic devices (namely my cell phone and her iPod) were taken as casualties. But it was my favorite day of the festival.

We saw Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. in the blazing sun. They did a rock cover of "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston, which was the most hilarious thing I have ever experienced.

And then the clouds rolled in and the temperature dropped 10 degrees. During that time, I ate a delicious vegetarian wrap thing that completely blew my mind.

All I care about is food. Don't judge me.

We headed off to see the Arctic Monkeys, and that's when it started pouring. It poured for at least half an hour, which was long enough to turn the ground to muddy mush. Also, our clothes were completely soaked through.

I danced in it, because I have no shame. You have not lived until you've experienced an outdoor concert in the pouring rain. Just sayin'.

But that was just the beginning. The skies cleared (there was even a rainbow), and once the Arctic Monkeys finished their set, we wandered over to another stage to see Explosions in the Sky.

After that, the skies darkened again and it poured even harder than it had the first time. The whole park flooded. We watched the Foo Fighters from a distance and then got delicious falafel pitas. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, more food.)

We heard the Cold War Kids playing nearby, but didn't stick around long enough to figure out whether they played "Hang Me Up to Dry." It would have been extremely appropriate.

We found our way back to Stephanie's, where we took turns showering. Stephanie had milk and cookies out for us, which was super cute, and then we went to bed at 11 p.m. because we're old and boring.

And that, my friends, was my Lollapalooza/Chicago adventure. It was both excellent and delicious, even if it ended badly.

I'm not just referring to the death of my cat.

When my mom heard about my waterlogged cell phone, her solution to the problem was to dig through drawers until she found my very first cell phone (circa 2005). She took it to Verizon and got it activated for me.

So until it's time for an upgrade, that's what I'll be using, I guess. Lollapalooza and Mother Nature teamed up to force a reunion between me and my 16-year-old self.

Never thought it would have ended that way, but okay. I still count the weekend as a win.

30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 24

Somewhere you would like to travel.

We totally did this already.

30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 13

Somewhere you'd like to move to or visit.

I've been dreading today's prompt because unlike a lot of people I know, I've never really drooled over any specific location. My friend Katie loves Nova Scotia. Lucy and Sarah both went to school at NMU and really love the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

But I've never experienced any level of attachment to a certain place.

Don't get me wrong; I love the idea of traveling. But I'm terribly indecisive. And given my background, that makes sense. My dad's from Lublin, Poland; my mom was raised in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Yet somehow, my sister and I wound up in Michigan.

I didn't travel much as a kid. But I knew a lot of people who did. And I was jealous. So in the fifth grade, I started collecting postcards. I don't remember where I got the idea, exactly, but I hadn't yet discovered the Internet, and considered postcard collecting to be the best form of virtual travel. So whenever someone I knew mentioned that they were going somewhere, I asked them to either send or come back with a postcard. I still do this (hint, hint).

Meanwhile, whenever I went somewhere, I'd make sure to pick up a postcard or two. I still do this. I brought a few back with me from Pittsburgh this past March.

The picture above includes only a portion of my collection. It has grown to include not only places, but things that interest me: everything from art to literature to ridiculously cute baby animals. I also have a whole series called "Great American Women." Each postcard includes a picture of an American woman with a description of her contribution to history. There are something like twenty-five of them.

If I ever live in one place long enough, I'd like to use my postcards as wallpaper. But for now, I settle for making posters and decorating notebooks full of poetry with them. I still don't really know why I continue to collect postcards after all these years. But every time I look at one of them, I'm reminded of who gave it to me or where I was when I picked it up. I often don't even remember to ask people to send them anymore. But they still do. I've even gotten a few in my mailbox over the years that just say, "This is for your postcard collection."

I took a class my senior year of high school called Literature, Culture, and the Humanities. In it, we covered everything from literature to architecture to film to paintings. I feel like that's my postcard collection in a nutshell. So, this is everything that matters. Yes, that's right, the entire world matters. And yes, I can fit it into a box that I store under my bed.

It kind of makes me feel better about not knowing what the hell I want to do with my life, where I want to focus my energy. But I digress.

Let's take a spontaneous trip to Pittsburgh!

On Wednesday afternoon, I was sitting at the Cass Cafe near Wayne State, wasting time on Facebook. My friend Jamie (who is a student at SVSU) had posted a status about how she was packing her bags and heading to Pittsburgh for the weekend with a band of nerdy English majors.

Nerdy English major that I am, I offered love and cookies in exchange for a ride to Pennsylvania.

Moments later, having seen my comment, my friend Stephanie offered to take me along. Apparently, one of the people who was supposed to be going on the trip couldn't get time off work, so Stephanie had an extra spot in her car.

I eagerly said yes and spent the next hour or so frantically packing and wiggling my way out of work. And to Pittsburgh we went.

I don't know why I'm blogging about it, really. I don't see this post benefiting anyone other than me. But I have to write about it because I had a damn good time. And it's been a while since I've enjoyed myself that thoroughly.

Their reason for going to Pittsburgh was the Sigma Tau Delta International Convention. I'd never been to a conference before; the experience left me feeling personally validated, but professionally doomed. In other words, I'm smarter than I feel and need to tell my various insecurities to shove it. But smart though I might be, I'm getting a degree deemed useless by people who are more pragmatic than I am. So I need to find someone willing to let me live in their basement for the rest of my life, because I'm going to be penniless. (Anyone? Anyone? As always, I will provide love and cookies.)

But at least I'm not the only one who's freaking out about the future. During our three days in Pittsburgh, we had a lot of coffee-fueled conversations at 2 a.m.

And by day (when not at the conference or napping), we wandered around Pittsburgh and were exceedingly silly (as evidenced in the photo included with this post). From left to right: Carolyn, Jamie, me, and Stephanie in the oldest building in Pittsburgh. We stumbled upon it accidentally while waiting for Carolyn to pee in an outhouse (let me reiterate: we were very silly). Naturally, the tiny one in a bonnet got to hold the gun. :-)

(But don't worry. I'm a pacifist in real life, I swear.)

On Thursday night, we ate at a Lebanese restaurant called Kassab's (recommended to us to a literature professor at SVSU who happens to be from Pittsburgh). Anyone who knows me knows that I love food about a thousand times more than the average person. My mom has said that watching me eat is like watching a kid open gifts on Christmas morning.

And Lebanese food just happens to be way up there on my list of favorites. So I was particularly vocal about how much I loved the falafel and stuffed grape leaves. In fact, by the end of the weekend, I'd acquired a new nickname: Falfy. And the others were ready to lock me in isolation out of fear that I'd eat their souls. I am not exaggerating.

Other highlights:

• The view from the condo where we stayed. Pittsburgh at night is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.
• The shower at the condo. Seriously, hear me out on this. Settings included "massage" and "monsoon." Monsoon!
• The condo was up on a mountain (hence the gorgeous view). So naturally, whenever we drove up there we sang, "She'll be comin' around the mountain when she comes..."
  

I could go on, but you get the idea. Suffice it to say that the trip was amazing. My friends are brilliant; this weekend was full of nerdy hilarity (and some not-so-nerdy hilarity, too). I lost count of how many times I said, "I am so, so happy right now."

I didn't realize how much I had needed that spontaneous vacation until I got back home to Grosse Pointe [insert sigh here].

What the hell am I doing with my life? There is a world out there, and I need to be part of it.

Things I'm incredibly excited about

1) This morning I booked a flight to Oklahoma to visit my friend Sarah, who's living there while she finishes her MFA at Oklahoma State University. I'm really excited about it; I haven't seen Sarah since December of 2008. She is one of my favorite people; we met in 2005 as students in Mary Ann Samyn's poetry workshop at the Controlled Burn Seminar for Young Writers. Since then, we've done a good job of keeping in touch, even though we've never lived in the same city (and now don't even live in the same state). When I was still in high school and living in Grosse Pointe, she was in Saginaw. The year I moved to Saginaw to start college, she moved to Marquette to get an MA from NMU. And now I'm back in Grosse Pointe, and she's in Stillwater, OK. But at the end of January, I will be in Stillwater, too. :-)

2) In an earlier post, I mentioned that Michael Franti is on the list of people I'd like to high five before I die. I spent an entire week trying to win tickets to a pre-concert meet and greet through a local radio station, but was unsuccessful. Well, my hope has been rekindled! Turns out Michael Franti will be hanging out at Borders in Ann Arbor on Monday, 11/15, playing a few songs and signing albums. (And hopefully giving me a high five!) Oh, man. Power to the peaceful!

"Hold your head up, you silly girl."

I have a lot on my mind lately, and don't know where to start. That said, this post will likely be all over the place. You've been warned. Proceed at your own risk.

I'll begin with some good (albeit belated) news: On August 4, California's Proposition 8 was deemed unconstitutional by Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker.

As I think I've mentioned before, I'm a total news junkie. I watch both CNN and the local news every day, follow various news sources on Twitter, and read whatever my friends post to Facebook, as well as articles in the papers I find lying around the house/campus. But the day Prop 8 was overturned, I happened to be out of town with a friend (more on that later), and therefore, wasn't near the TV or computer. I didn't hear about the ruling until the following day.

Figures. I tune out for a grand total of twenty-four hours, and just look what I miss!

But I'm so happy about this. And hopeful. Incredibly, incredibly hopeful.

And I guess this leads me to something else:

Despite the good news, I don't feel like I have much of a right to celebrate. I'm not contributing enough to the effort to better the world. I keep finding myself in situations where I can't decide whether it'd be best for me to shut up or speak out.

I'm pretty opinionated, but I know that trying to discuss particular topics with certain people would be futile, and choose not to waste my energy on such interactions.

And yet, as someone who believes deeply in diversity, and knows that achieving it is impossible without communication, I find it tremendously difficult to be quiet. By shutting up, I'm going against what I believe in. Yet by speaking out, I'm only pissing people off, because so many of them don't want to listen to what I have to say.

I think people are afraid to communicate because they assume that by accepting what I have to say, they're agreeing with it. That's not what I'm asking for. (We wouldn't be very diverse if we all thought the same way.) All I want is to be able to speak as loudly as those who get away with spouting off every day as if theirs is the only opinion that counts.

Earlier this month, I went to Memphis, Tennessee and Cleburne, Texas with a friend who wanted to visit some of her friends and relatives. Being in the South was one hell of a weird experience for me: Every little thing got on my nerves. I heard a song on a radio station down there that began: "Our houses are protected by the good lord and a gun." And all the way through Arkansas, I made a game out of counting bumper stickers that mentioned Jesus and/or Glenn Beck.

So here I am, telling people I believe in diversity, and yet, whenever I find myself surrounded by people whose mindset is different from mine, I want to be with people who think like I do.

And I've found myself in this situation many times: My decision to leave Saginaw was largely based on the fact that I felt like I was wasting too much of my energy defending what I believed in, instead of actually accomplishing anything.

And yet, I even find it difficult to communicate with members of my own family. My mom gets all up in arms whenever I mention that I'm not a fan of capitalism. My grandmother refuses to accept that I don't believe in God.

It's frustrating, because all I want is to be accepted, and yet how can I ask for that when I can't seem to accept others for who they are?

It's all way more complicated than it needs to be.

Traveling crazies

My trip back to Michigan was pretty hectic, but I'm here, so it's all good.

I flew from the little Durango airport to Denver, then from Denver to Detroit. The guy who took my ID as I passed through security at the Durango airport studied it for a very, very long time before letting me pass on through. I began to wonder if something was wrong, but then I noticed his name tag. We had the same last name. Both of us were incredulous and a half. My (our?) last name is pretty uncommon; neither of us had met another Glebocki before. He asked me who my parents & grandparents were, but didn't recognize any of their names. And I didn't recognize any of the names of the relatives he mentioned. Weird. Cool & interesting, but weird.

My flight was scheduled to leave Durango at 5:15 (mountain time), but left 30 minutes late. So my 40-minute layover in Denver turned into a 10-minute layover. Ran. Or sprinted, rather. Made my flight with seconds to spare and pain in both my legs and chest.

Arrived safely in Detroit just before midnight (eastern time). Cha-ching. But then my luggage didn't turn up on the conveyor belt . Found out it's still in Denver. It didn't make it onto my flight. Not surprising, because I barely made it myself. So they're sending it to me today.

When I got home I was greeted by the affection of pets and a delicious late-night dinner of pierogi and margaritas, compliments of my mom.

Prior to this trip, I'd never been on an airplane. And I went alone. Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I'm spatially inept, so I'm rather proud of myself for managing to get there & back in one piece. And I had fun to boot. Besides, how could anything that ends with Polish cuisine and alcohol possibly be anything short of awesome?

Keep on livin'

I started this blog months ago and I still don't know what I'd like to use it for. For now, we'll settle on randomness.

I'm in Durango, Colorado right now, visiting my friend Victoria, whose mom bought me a plane ticket as a Christmas gift. I arrived on December 24 and will be heading back to Detroit on January 2.

I know it sounds touristy of me, but the Rocky Mountains are friggin' gorgeous. I wish I had something pretty to look at in Michigan (maybe I do but I'm taking it for granted because I've lived there all my life). I don't travel much, so I dig the scenery. I can see the mountains at any time, wherever I am: through the windows of Victoria's house, from the coffee shop in town, and from the road to New Mexico (yes, we went to New Mexico, just to shop at Target; it was amusing and a half).

I definitely needed to get away for a while. Just like every other 20-something out there, I've been trying to figure out what the hell I want to do with the rest of my life. Wishing I could be as happy as I was two years ago. Mustering up enough energy to make the changes that will (hopefully) make me as happy as I was then.

In the meantime, I'm drinking wine, watching countless episodes of Gilmore Girls, and reading some good books (the new Francine Prose book and this year's edition of _The Best American Poetry_, among others). Eating junk food and trying to relax, even though I had a nightmare about Cardinal Sins last night--the first of the semester. And the semester hasn't even started yet!

Sigh. Whatevs. Bring it on, 2010. Bring it on.