Oh yeah, the website!
Yeah, I'm a tool for not updating, but it's been a busy week and a half [editor's note: uh, three weeks...but I did start writing this a week and a half ago! I was trying! You know I love you, baby!], so there's my excuse. Guess I needed some time to absorb everything and yadda yadda yadda. Sitting here, the year will end in a few days, and what am I doing with the rest of my life, anyway? Damned if I know. Sooner or later, I'm going to have to come to terms with the fact that I might not get to be an astronaut after all. But not today!
How'd I get back here, anyway? Well, let's see... December 18th was the day, the day I was to leave Tampa. We'd had a good night before, me, Jessica, Becky and Mike, just hanging around, mostly. I packed up my shit, made sure I was good to go, then relaxed. Stayed up a bit too late hanging around with Jessica, but oh well, I could always sleep on the plane.
I would get no sleep on the plane. We said sad, sad goodbyes at Tampa International Airport, which is a pretty nice airport. It's compact and smartly designed, unlike the twisting, convoluted behemoth that is Logan Airport back home. After stripping off my shoes, my belt, putting my cell phone in the little bowl, removing my laptop from my bag and putting it in a bin along with my bag and my coat, or maybe it was two bins - the whole thing seemed like some cruel intelligence test - I went through security. Fortunately, I passed and wasn't shot on sight by airport security, and headed to my gate.
"Welcome to Song airlines," the chirpy lady with the microphone said. "Today we'll be taking you to Boston! You'll be happy to hear that it's 73 degrees and sunny in Boston right now!" A long moment where no one breathed, where we all collectively thought, very slowly, Could it be true?
"Sorry, just kidding! Hee hee!"
Meh.
So after that little joke, we were allowed to get on the plane. I was stuck behind some loud-mouthed lady who reminded me just a little too much of all the townie idiots I'd grown up around and would soon be amongst once again. She was having a little trouble getting her ass down the aisle, despite the fact that pretty much the entire rest of the passengers were right behind her. Actually, I was right behind her and was treated to her whining and yelling and and and...I wasn't really paying much attention. I just wanted her to move, which she finally did a few minutes later.
Got to my window seat (yay!), got comfortable, and eyed the little screen that was embedded in the seat in front of me. That's a big thing about Song, I guess. They have little screens for you to play with during your trip. You can do a few free things, like watch teevee or play airplane trivia (more on that in a minute), and you can also do lots of stuff that you pay for, like pay-per-view movies and nifty games. It took awhile for the screens to start working properly, but it was fun watching them reboot and seeing all sorts of LINUX-related crap that I couldn't understand scrolling by. I hunkered down and stared out the window, not exactly happy to be on that plane.
Eventually the screens started working again, so I played around with that a bit before finding the trivia game. The cool thing is, you're playing against other people on the plane, and the faster you answer the more points you get (if your answer is correct, of course). Though I realize now that it's a good thing they don't allow firearms on airplanes or I would have shot a couple of people that day.
See, I was doing okay. I managed to be in the top five most of the time, but could never get to number one. Why? Because there were two people, MHASH and SH, who were apparently fucking robots with lightning-fast reflexes and a repository of the world's useless trivia in their stinking robot brains, because they just kept getting correct answer after correct answer, and they would almost always answer immediately, thus ensuring they got as many points as possible. Run-on sentences denote pure hate, by the way.
It got to the point where I was almost muttering curses under my breath, but I just...couldn't...stop. I needed to win. Even when the plane was approaching Logan for landing, I had to squeeze in a final answer or two. I WILL BE VICTORIOUS! Or not. I never did get to first, but I did okay. Fuckers.
And that was it. Then I was home. I went outside for a smoke and it was cold, but not too cold. And oh, hey, there's some snow on the ground! And...well, it hadn't sunk in that I was home yet. It's been three weeks and it still hasn't fully sunk in. But I'll write something else about that.