this had better be it. usually, when i travel to a conference at a city of interest to my husband, mike (aka, "my crew"), mike comes along too and is there to do his own thing but also to help me w/ carrying equipment and all around mental/moral support. here i am at the Nittany Lion Inn . . . PSU, home of Joe Paterno, football coaching legend. you should have heard the young Chem freshperson/"mensa kid" (literally) who sat next to me on the plane when he began to talk about how people here consider/revere/worship Joe P. wow. so but mike didn't come along this time because he's teaching, it's pricey, etc. i've done this alone plenty of times. it was a mutual decision (mike is fabulous), i'm an adult, blah, blah . . .
so i'm alone, carrying a lot of tech stuff (and had to cram purse-type things in w/ my other stuff, so no purse, which is really awfully and embarrassingly disorienting), and wouldn't you know that on this trip, i get a little sick from nerves (all day) and need about 5000 bathroom emergency trips (sorry) and that in Atlanta, supposedly a 2 hour layover, we are asked to change gates SIX times (not inspiring confidence that anyone in the airline knew what they were/are doing) and leave 2 hours later than planned (none of this helping said nerve/stomach/headache/stress issues), and no mike around to calm me as he so often can and does. a lovely woman chatted w/ me at one of our gates, and she loaned me her cell phone to let me call home if only to connect to a friendly voice because i was down, a little panicky. ick. oh, so why no cell phone? some weird resistance; we use one, sparingly, between us, and plus it costs less for mike to call me (roaming charges) . . . that may have to change. but then i started thinking about how completely childlike i was being (still, i'll defend it because this was a horrible day -- just. too. much.) . . . about how my line home has created a dependency that's troubling, about how, when faced w/ seeking to get by and possibly even to connect w/ strangers, i was delightfully surprised and ended up by chance talking w/ Laura (the cell phone loaner) and her daughter Brittany (who joyfully told me about her trip to Florida and even showed me her bandaged foot -- a coral incident) and Elizabeth, who is at this conference; she helped me by talking w/ me about the conference, her paper, film and rhetoric, as we were waiting at what would turn out to be our last gate. yes, she helped, but by this time i had taken a prescribed (for nervous stomach issues, which often present on stressful days like yesterday) robinul forte, so i was chilling out and my internal organs were righting themselves (why can't they behave?!).
8 hours sleep (w/ earplugs . . . noisy kids), and now i'm up and ready to go see what's what, who's who, etc. i present later today, at 5:00. this should give me time to try to have a decent lunch of some lean protein (no food yesterday . . . even my beloved Delta-feature treat, those Biscoff cookies, weren't making my life happy, like they usually do), time to go get into the flow of the conference, and generally see that life is okay, even mine, even though i had thought about turning around and heading back to Utah during one very low point in Atlanta. so i'm here. it could be cool.
none of this speaks very well to my web space's theme. i am mostly up, feeling okay, and needing to share. if you've indulged me so far, why? (and thanks).
note: i use this showerhead image often; it seems to remind me/us of something a friend told me long ago, "everything is fixed in the shower." reductive, yes, sometimes feeling exactly right, also yes. plus, i love this showerhead. so simple and clean and bright . . . something i'm going for . . .
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