Soon enough I missed the west coast and redacted my statement on never flying ever, ever, ever again. And I was running low on diapers. I was dropped at the airport in Orlando, armed with slightly more plane travel knowledge than I’d had the week before, which doesn’t count for much. The stand-by flight that was to get me to LAX in one shot was booked solid, BUT OF COURSE. My only option was to wait three hours, hit a flight to Newark, transfer planes and head straight to Los Angeles. It was like someone tried to sum up a massive trigonometry formula in a short sentence. DOES NOT COMPUTE. So I was like, that is hilarious, please step aside ‘cause I’m going home now.
This is so much like my early college experience. How do so many people DO this? How do they know what to do and where to go and when to do it and how to do it and in what order. I have nearly thrown my hands up and given up trying on so many occasions. And then I pop a Zoloft and skedaddle to class.
Turns out they were serious and I was stuck. One might have thought the apocalypse had shown its first signs of dawning if they were to hear the voicemail on my parents’ answering machine (‘member those?). It was all sniffles and choked sobs. I was being held against my will and would never, ever break free from the evils of air travel. Woe was me and no one else. No one had ever experienced such horror in all their days. Why did I ever leave the state? Ad nauseam.
After a month or so of waiting in the terminal, I boarded for beautiful Newark, New Jersey. I was warned that I’d need to rush to my next flight as it was departing very shortly after it landed and I stabbed the informant with my eye daggers and also a nail file. It was a short flight north and it involved a small, wet sandwich. The flight attendants were of the nicest variety, stocking me up on a little extra juice for Kiddo and letting me bring the carseat on board with me to sit in empty space next to me. The nightmare began again when we touched down in Newark and I was ready to sprint to the next gate with no direction. Maybe the panic on my face was so physically apparent and maybe the person I asked did not trust this wild-eyed child with a smaller child on her hip. She used a radio to call for a gentleman driving a little golf cart to pick me up and rush me to where I needed to be. When he arrived I loaded my backpack onto the seat of his cart and he drove away. I don’t know if he thought it was the weight of my body or if he just hated me but he drove away. With my backpack. And y’all… I sat down on the floor in the airport and I cried.
It isn’t my proudest moment. But it’s up there.
The same lady that had called for backup found the calamity shaped heap with the stunning blue-eyed baby and quickly called the gentleman again. She called him with a vengeance. And he came back, sheepish, and drove Kiddo and I with every last one of our possessions over to the next gate at a whopping 11 miles an hour.
The flight to LA was quiet, dark and calm. It was deep breathing and relief. It was all almost over.
And then Kiddo pooped. And the thing about her having this one last rank diaper of the trip was that the unexpected three hour delay before New Jersey had utilized the last of our travel supply of diapers.
An aside: I do not enjoy corn. Only within the last year have I taken to liking it on the cob. My kid loves her some corn but I didn’t know that yet because it was just not in our kitchen. While in Florida my aunt fed Kiddo some corn. A lot, apparently. And this is how I learned, and I am very serious here, that the whole corn-in-your-shit thing was not a big joke.
At this point I’d changed 450,000 dirty diapers though never in the not-so-generous space of an airplane changing table. Imagine my surprise when I opened that diaper FULL of corn. The initial shock of it was almost enough to LOL in the confines of that rank little bathroom. She couldn’t continue sitting in this mess but I had absolutely no options. So I changed her into some fresh, footed pajamas, went back to our seats and wrapped her up in the tiny square of an airline blanket in hopes that it would not be used to absorb anything but if it was? Don’t bother me to care. Had we run out of diapers at any other point in the trip, I simply couldn’t have handled it. The running theme here is that I couldn’t handle much of anything. But we were going home now and I’d be damned if there was any stress left in me.
We descended into LA and I was so relieved that I nearly burst into tears. I hobbled around with our belongings through the airport until I reached Josh’s arms. Fucking home.
And then Kiddo, perched on my hip, peed right through those pajamas and all down my side.
I didn’t travel again until the summer of 2008 and a few times since then. It’s the easiest thing in the world. I am without the melodrama and I used up all my freak-outs during that initial trip. Unexpected layovers and last minute changes are met with a smile. I love to fly. Kiddo continues to be the easiest child in the entire world to take anywhere.
In March of 2004, I decided to fly to Florida to visit my cousin. We’re just about the same age and we’d been built-in best friends since we could crash our walkers into one another while our parents drank beer on the patio. Her family had moved across the country on account of my uncle’s job transfer and I’d yet to visit her there.
The thing was, and there were some things, I had never flown before. And I had fourteen month old. That I was going to take with me. And I was eighteen without a friggin’ clue about anything.
WOO!
This is much like now though the difference is that now I know I don’t have a clue. No one told me when I was eighteen, “Uh, hey friend? Those little anecdotes about life in this society that one acquires through time and experience? YAIN’T GOT ANY.”
Kiddo looked about like this at the time. Do you just die? I die.
My mom’s best friend worked for an airline at the time so I purchased an inexpensive flight through her. There were going to be a couple hiccups but with prior knowledge and planning they would be no thang. The flight to Orlando would layover in Houston but I could stay on the plane and wait for everyone to re-board. (This was incorrect.) The flight home was a stand-by flight but it wasn’t even half way full so it would be a non-issue. (This was incorrect.)
My dad and my boyfriend delivered Kiddo and I (and my duffel bag, backpack, carseat and diaper bag) to the LAX labyrinth. It was a teensy tiny LOT overwhelming. I had kind of forgotten that I tended to get hysterical and anxious when I had to part with Josh (doth thee have some issues, Calamity?) and I became an inconsolable mess. Once inside, Josh was allowed to help me carry my baggage (as he’s done for almost a decade now, ho ho ho) until the security point where I took over and managed to maneuver one thousandy pounds plus a living, moving (adorable, chubby) being through the metal detectors and the like. Again: first time. I didn’t know I had to take my jacket and shoes off and was impatiently told to step aside and do so. In the process, I set Kiddo down and she promptly began crawling away from me. I was already exhausted, heart racing, hot and wanted someone to hold my hand. But I remained calm and collected NOT AT ALL.
Unlike most aspects of this trip, I had experienced a metal detector/baggage scanner situation once before. My mom and I went to court when I was but a wee unpregnant teen for a traffic ticket I’d received. We were sent back to the car three times. Giant novelty safety pins (why?), disposable cameras and Swiss army knives? Not allowed in court.
My belongings went onto the belt and the kid and I went through the archway o’ safety. My favorite black jacket never came off that conveyer belt, may it rest in peace. Onward to the boarding area, a kind gentleman chased me down to return the trail of items that were spilling out of my back pocket including cash and lipstick. Why, thank you, may I wipe mine and my toddler’s snot trails on your sleeve?
By the grace of something holy, we made it on that goddamn plane. But I could not stop crying. Despite my efforts at discretion, my seatmate asked if I would be alright and offered comforting platitudes. There would be nothing to worry about, she promised. She did this all the time. But being thousands of feet in the air was not a concern for me. It was being lost and confused and lonely and full to the brim with regret for trying to be a big girl and thinking I could just go across the country with my baby.
In Houston, we touched down and I was asked to exit the plane. I asked if I could just wait in my seat but there would be none of that. I stayed as close to the gate as I could, knowing that if I even looked away for a second it would disappear and I would be trapped in Texas forever and ever.
The plane nor the path to it disappeared on me. I took my seat with the angelic one-year-old and we set out for Orlando.
My cousin found me quickly in the airport when we landed. We waited for my checked baggage and it seemed that (one of) my worst nightmares had, of course, come true. I knew that I couldn’t trust my luggage all out of sight and tucked away under the plane. The carseat did not make it. It was hanging out in Houston, not being sat in by any adorable diapered butts.
We risked the drive to Cocoa Beach with Kiddo in my lap. When we arrived I swore off travel forever.
To be continued with: New Jersey, corn & pee!
Another college semester has begun. Another half-baby-step toward a degree. It feels like it’s been a while since I’ve been studious and collegiate and the like, having skipped out on the summer semester. (I didn’t cry about it this time.) I’m taking a cultural anthropology class to fulfill the last of my social science requirements.
Except that I almost wasn’t.
The class was full, they’re always fucking full, and I had to show up on the first day and beg to be let in. By beg, I mean show up knowing I was seventh on the waitlist and hope that exactly that many enrolled students didn’t show on the first day. Myself and about a dozen other hopefuls lined the wall in the classroom, eventually taking a seat on the hard floor. For over an hour we listened to this teacher that we might not see again. When he got into the attendance around the hour and a half mark, our eyes and ears perked. Only five students had missed that first day and were immediately replaced. But two people ahead of me on the wait list didn’t show up either and there it was. I was the final person allowed in the class and I could attend school for another semester.
One week down and I am absolutely fascinated with the subject.
Yesterday after work I hit the campus library to take advantage of the late hours and the available textbook for my class while I wait for mine in the mail. Though I’m not really, I feel a lot older than the other students there. Like I’m playing a part in a role I have no business being in. It’s hard to shake.
At the end of class on that first night, excited to have made the cut and even more excited to head home for the night, I was stopped by a girl looking to borrow a cell phone. For a second, I could only consider what a lot of untrusting people might consider, which was that she would run off with it. I handed it over anyway and got into a sprint position, fully prepared to chase her down and tackle her if necessary. She dialed a few numbers with no response and was looking a little more than worried. She told me she had no ride home. As it turned out she lived closer to my house than probably any other student on campus. I am not quite local to the school and the people in my area would probably attend a different, closer college over this one. Is it weird that I had no second thoughts about letting the little stranger into my car but almost wouldn’t let her touch my phone? We got to talking and introducing ourselves on the long drive back. She was barely older than I was when I was pregnant with Kiddo (see: YOUNG) and she was freshly knocked up as well. She grew up in the same area that I did and attended the same schools that I had.
IT WAS LITTLE ME.
It’s possible that I didn’t even drive her home, just dreamt about a meeting with my former self for the purpose of giving inspirational advice. Which, of course, I didn’t offer. It was the usual foul-mouthed blather on my part. One should expect nothing more and nothing less. And this explains why I am the way I am.
-CJ
With so much sadness, that Seattle trip never did pan out.
I declared my weight loss goal to the world three people listening and then I did not make it. Shocked, you are? The move completely uprooted my routine and I shouldn’t have allowed it to happen but I did. The stress and sadness and relief plus good dose of blood, sweat & tears that comes with a move from the city you’ve adjusted to after three years back to your hometown took precedence over the evening workouts and inspired more than a few not-so-healthy but oh-so-quick-and-delicious meals. I checked last night and found that I put back on two pounds, which is most definitely better than putting it all back on which I was pretty sure had happened. My brain does not allow for much hope. Ditto: optimism.
Josh and I picked up some gym passes at the nearby big name workout spot. It’s been about a week and we’ve logged a few sweaty hours. For now, and this may quickly pass, it seems like time flies at the gym. (It is note worthy that my brother pronounces it ‘the guy-m’ and that is how I find myself saying it as I type.) I was pushing for twenty minute workouts and then twenty-two and then twenty-seven, up to thirty when I would work out at home. I don’t know why they went up in those intervals, just roll with it. At the gym, an hour flies by so quickly, I almost don’t want to get off the treadmill because I’m so close to figuring out the puzzle on Wheel of Fortune. (The TV options are pretty dismal at the gym. I stick to podcasts until I see BEFORE & AFTER on the screen. It’s the best category.)
I recently upgraded from a fat little Verizon phone to my very first smart phone, courtesy of Ree, who will always have the latest of the greatest in phone technology. I must say that this thing is beyond smart. It is brilliant. I am so, so in love. (Before I even had a period on that sentence the thing froze in the middle of a text to my sister.) Okay, it’s not perfect but neither am I. And this little first generation Droid accepts me for who I am and doesn’t judge my application choices. What do I need to know about fun and useful apps? I found some snazzy photo ones that I like so far and I’m obsessed with Words With Friends. Which debuted on Facebook and inspired some word-happy dance moves all up in the living room. I got Calamity Mom playing too and posted this message on her wall:
‘Wall’ is a really stupid word for that space. May I suggest: table top.
-CJ
