Holiday

It took me 14 hours to get from New York to Chattanooga on Friday -- about as long as it might take to drive -- during which I spent time in four airports, and took four different modes of transportation (car to plane to car to train to bus to plane) How I prayed for a boat. And with all the shitty life-happenings that occured in the last four months, on top of the stress that comes with the (lack of) help given by the airlines, add that I'm tired and hungry and my battery is running out in my iPod -- I just cried all the way from Baltimore to Charlotte. If anyone noticed, they didn't asked me what might be the matter.

Airports are safe places. The whole time that the flights were delayed or changed, I didn't worry about a thing. I'm here, they'll take care of me, I kept thinking. Only when everything fell apart and I found myself in a taxi, in DC rush hour traffic, and then on a MARC train to BWI -- all places I've never been as an adult -- did I begin to get nervous. What if all this is wrong, I thought. What if I end up carjacked by crack addicts and thrown naked into a drainage ditch, left only for the wolves to have their fill, the buzzards to pick at whatever's left, and the maggots to finish me, finally. (Even in our nightmares, writers sew up the ends.)

My nephew, almost 16 months, is smart and adorable and knows about 20 signs -- my brother and my sister-in-law have taught him some sign language (some American and some invented) and it allows him to communicate exactly what he wants even though he doesn't have all the words. He has signs for Milk, Juice, Eat, Diaper, All Done, Where Is It, Drive, Sleepy, Please, and a bunch of other things. Although, as my brother pointed out, he seems to think that 'Please' actually translates into a kind of overriding Now-You-Have-To-Give-It-To-Me.

I think my legs were confused this morning when I asked them to walk the five blocks to the subway, since for a week I've been sitting on my ass. Between the transit strike last week and being in Tennessee just after, they seemed to have forgotten what to do.