Eat the Damn Cake

Our flight is delayed. We’re sitting in the airport in Columbus and it is raining. Cars slide around a curve in the road below. We have a layover in Detroit, on the way to San Francisco, and it looks like we might miss that plane and be stuck in Detroit. Which is not really the place I would choose to be stuck. But hey– it’s an adventure, right?

(Bear, being frustrated at the airport, and my terrible, terrible Dell laptop with the touchpad that is STILL not working. DELL– WHY?! ANSWER ME!!)

A woman nearby is talking in Hebrew on her phone. I am trying to remember the Hebrew I learned in college. I was never fluent. I understand these words: “this” and “they” and “want” and “house” and “I know.” I almost understand a lot more. I think that she is a realtor, because she says “two bedroom house” in English.

I am not actually bored. I’m just suspended.

Do you know what I mean? I feel like I should be irritated and irritable, but I can’t seem to muster an opinion. I’m just here, randomly, in Columbus, after having been, randomly, on the west and then the east coast of Florida, and I’ll be in Detroit soon, and then California, and then…in Manhattan again.

………….

Update: We made our connecting flight. It was also delayed, which we didn’t know when we ran full speed through the Detroit airport, passing fifty gates before we reached ours. We both felt like we were definitely going to throw up when we got to ours. And after we both stopped feeling like we were definitely going to throw up, we felt like we should really go to the gym more (which is a little difficult for Bear, since he goes most days).

And then we were on the plane! Reading the Sky Mall catalogue. Who knew it was the hub of American ingenuity? It was full of wildly creative products that you can’t ever imagine using. Spot check for cardiac arrhythmias on the golf course! Even the models in the ad looked confused. A recreational oxygen machine. A shoe sanitizer that looks exactly like a microwave. A weed whacking golf driver (golf was a theme). And then things you would definitely want, like MagicShowerhead with LED light technology. Bear wanted the World’s Largest Write On Map Mural. We both thought the two versions of the Ultra Sonic Barking Dog Deterrent sounded pretty smart. One was smarter, though, because it looked like a birdhouse.

(posing, like the sexy models we are, on the plane)

We played cards and he almost, almost beat me at ERS (where you slap the deck if a card repeats or repeats with a card in between), which would have been a terrible blow to my ego, since I RULE at that game.

(I used to think, when I had braces, that I should only smile with my lips shut. I see now that that always looked really dorky)

And then, finally, California emerged beneath us and we sank impossibly low, so that the belly of the plane was practically grazing the tips of the little waves on the Bay, and we landed. I was so happy it startled me. I felt like I was coming home. But to a home I really like. I always feel happy to land in New York, but things are gray and ugly, and I’m more happy in anticipation of seeing my apartment again, and being in Manhattan, where the buildings are comfortingly tall and have a familiar gleam. But California is beautiful all over, and I can’t help but begin to really love it. Kind of the way teachers automatically prefer beautiful children in those horrible studies about how beautiful people succeed at life and everyone else has to work really, really hard.

Now I am sitting in the kitchen at my mother-in-law’s (hate those dashes! Such a silly hyphenated wordset! I just made up a word so that I didn’t have to use a dash in a sentence complaining about using dashes) house, feeling utterly content. Which is rare for me. Usually I’m thinking about what I’m forgetting to do. I should be working on that article. Did I pitch Vogue? Should I remind the Marie Claire editor for the fifth time that she was interested in that piece of mine? I should do that. I should make a list of potential jobs and start researching them. I should work on that book. No, the other one. I should work on a book, damnit! Why am I not working on a book right now?! Why, when I try to work on a book, do I end up staring blankly at a page for hours until I get up and eat a lot of food?

But really, I’m not thinking any of that now. As though my brain has hibernated that part of itself. Given it a time out. Locked it in a convenient closet, with sound proofed walls and a lot of padding, too. I don’t care. Lock it up.

I am watching Bear eat what appears to be sauerkraut out of a jar. He also appears to still be mostly asleep. He’s just wandered upstairs. I am enjoying the rain, which looks gentle here, rather than ominous. The roses are truly gigantic.

*  *  *

Un-roast: Today I love the way my whole body feels when it’s been running a lot and then it lies down. Bliss.

P.S. Just read this piece about Detroit. Interesting. Sorry for the diss!

P.P.S. Thanks for the Stylish Blogger award, Danielle! I appreciate it!