You Can't Take The Sky From Me

So now that all of my recapping is done, I can move forward with things that have happened since I've returned home from both West Virginia and Nebraska. And, for the most part, that is...well, remarkably little.

I have now been back home, alone with my cats, for a full week. In that time, I've done a lot, but little has actually happened. In addition to writing those recap posts, most of my time has been spent doing household chores and sleeping. With eleven days of my winter break remaining, I have been trying to rest and make myself feel better as much as possible after all of the traveling I did during the first half of my break. As mentioned previously, doing all of that running around completely burned me out and exhausted me. Daisy told me that in my previous post, the New Year's Recap, Part II, that I confused a bit of the timing on some of the events. I told her if that were the case, it was because I didn't remember it correctly because my brain was shot.

Now, after a week at home alone, I have been able to recuperate somewhat...yet I am still not sleeping well. I sleep for about six hours at a time -- no longer, no shorter. I am constantly cold regardless of the weather or temperature outside; for example, right now it is 48, humid, and foggy outside, and I'm wearing layers. My fingers hurt because they're so cold they're numb. I'm wearing two pairs of socks and a pair of slippers, yet my toes are still cold. Yes, I have poor circulation -- one of the many reasons I hate winter. As the years go by, I've found that my body has become increasingly intolerant of temperatures below 75 degrees. If I were to set the thermostat in the house to 75, it would mean I'd be paying a $300 a month electric bill (since the furnace is electric). That, obviously, I can't afford, so I just have to be cold and miserable throughout most of the winter months. My thermostat is set at 58 right now, where it has remained for the past week. The furnace will occasionally kick on.

Add to this that I think I'm getting sick with something, or at the very least I don't feel well today. It's also been raining for the past two days, and my allergies have been going crazy due to the weather change, so that may have something to do with it. I've spent most of my waking hours today feeling fairly queasy and out of sorts; Daisy told me that I need to eat something and lay down, but I tried that and it didn't help -- eating a sandwich actually made me feel worse, really. I know it's not exhaustion, because I've been able to relax and de-stress (for the most part) a lot this past week, but I just don't feel well. I went to bed tonight fairly early, only to be up and down for most of the overnight hours, feeling out of sorts.

I have, occasionally, gone shopping for necessities only; my parents, as mentioned before, got me a Walmart gift card as part of my Christmas gifts, and I used that to go get some groceries for myself and the cats. I also went to the discount grocery store here in town two days ago, and got a few things there as well, but aside from that I haven't left the house. I'm trying to watch my budget like crazy, as I do have bills which need to be paid between now and when my next paycheck and student loan money comes in (and not a lot of money to spare in the interim), which brings me to my next point -- I'm not going to be able to make it to Chicago with Daisy and her friends.

Let me backtrack a bit -- about two months ago, Daisy got a handful of free tickets for the bus line called MegaBus. I don't know much about it, really, except that they were giving out free tickets and she was able to snag some of them. She chose Chicago as the destination, as she and her friends love to go there on a regular basis to get out of Omaha every once in a while. She got extra tickets because they were free, and she wanted me, Rae, and Jay to make a big trip with she and her friends. Rae and Jay were unable to do it, so that left me, Daisy, and three of Daisy's friends from Omaha. One of those friends also had to drop out, as she couldn't get off work, so that left but four of us (and extra tickets) -- me, Daisy, and her two close friends -- only one of whom I've met, as the other was out of town while I was in Omaha.

I told Daisy long ago that I would have to be extra careful with my finances during this time of year, as December and January, along with June and July, are the lowest points for the finances of any teaching assistant such as myself -- after we got paid on January 4th, we don't even yet know the date of our next paycheck, which will be the first paycheck of the spring semester. Usually, we get our first paycheck for the spring around the first week of February, which is a month's gap (or more, depending on how the days fall) between pay periods. Not only would I have to worry about money, but at the time I told her we'd especially have to worry about weather during those scheduled dates -- she got the tickets before the semester ended, roughly, and the travel dates are for January 14 through January 17. The bus ride from Omaha to Chicago is nine hours long, and I made it explicitly clear then that if the weather was awful -- or predicted to become awful -- that I wasn't going to make the trip regardless of how good or bad my finances were at the time. Mind you, I'd told her this even before I got caught in the snowstorm that kept me earthbound in West Virginia for two extra days over Christmas. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck on a bus, or to be stranded in one city or the other, due to inclement weather.

The forecast for Chicago for the next week is supposed to be nice and in the high 30s/40s, so that wasn't a problem.

My finances, however, are.

As you folks know, I basically survive on student loans during any given semester; I have little choice, as my position as a GTA pays so little. The existence of these loans put gas in my car, keeps the lights on, and keeps food in my pantry and refrigerator. And for about a month before they drop for the next semester, with the lack of regular incoming paychecks due to one pay period ending and another not yet starting, I end up really, really poor. Hence why I'm budgeting everything now and am only getting what I need to survive when I go grocery shopping -- I've still got bills to pay with the money I have left before I get those loans and before the next pay cycle starts up.

Usually student loans will drop into my account at the school, my refunds and student fees will be processed, and I will get the deposit into my bank account free and clear about ten days before the semester starts. Usually.  This year, the semester starts on the 22nd, which means everything would normally drop around the 12th -- this coming Saturday. However, upon logging into my financial aid account earlier this week, there had not yet been a date posted. Upon logging into it tonight to check again, it had been updated with one -- the 15th. The 15th is Tuesday, right in the middle of the proposed Chicago trip. It always takes about two extra business days for the money to be processed and deposited into my account, since my bank account is in West Virginia. This would put actually receiving that money, which I had hoped to use some of during the trip, on the 17th -- the day we'd be returning home. Without that loan money dropping and clearing my bank account beforehand, I would have no extra cash whatsoever to make the Chicago trip with. I have two credit card bills and a cable bill that must be paid with the money I have now, as they're coming due a few days after the trip -- which means I have to pay/take care of them before the trip would take place (read: by this weekend) in order for them to arrive and be processed on time. In a nutshell, my financial aid being delayed for a few days longer than normal basically screwed me out of being able to afford to go on the trip -- while the trip to Chicago itself is free on the MegaBus, anything we would do there certainly would not be, including the hotel, food, and/or anything else.

And that, of course, is also barring any sort of complications with that money coming through and being deposited on schedule, which has happened in the past -- when I was an undergrad at WVU, there were a few semesters where financial aid came in a week or two, if not longer, later than expected. I've had friends who have gotten loans or scholarships in the past who have (for one reason or another) had them delayed by a month or more. I'm not necessarily a pessimist, but I'll be damned if I don't always prepare for the absolute worst-case scenario. That scenario would be, essentially, going to Chicago, spending money there, and then coming back to find that my bank account was empty and would remain empty for some time until everything was sorted out.  Again, I'll remind you that I must have at least some money for bills, food, and rent -- the latter of which will be due shortly after we would return. Without knowing when my next paycheck is going to be as of yet, and looking at what little money I do have right now, the heavy financial risks outweigh the positives of trying to make such a trip -- not to mention that I would be hard-pressed to have fun while I was there because I'd be so stressed about whether I'd be able to survive financially once I returned home. Based on that, I told Daisy that I would not be able to go.

Daisy offered to give me a loan, or to pay my way for things while I was on the trip so that I wouldn't have to spend any money there, but I refused. That's not her job. I am not her responsibility, financially or otherwise, and more importantly, I'm not a mooch. Daisy is also worse off right now than I am; no, she doesn't have to worry about paying rent, but she has been unemployed for the past two months and is living off of her unemployment benefits until she gets her next job or until those benefits run out. I am not going to be another strain on her financially, whether she wants or offers for me to be or not. She called my fear that something may get screwed up along the way "illogical," and perhaps she's right -- but again, I don't take unnecessary risks, and like I said, when my survival is on the line, I plan for the worst. I don't want to get stuck in another "let's find stuff of value to sell so that I can eat and pay rent" scenario like I was this past summer -- especially not in the winter, and even more especially since I don't really have anything else of value. She accepted this, though she (and her friends) weren't necessarily happy about it -- Daisy called it "a choice" that I wasn't going, that it must've meant that I really didn't want to go, because if I did I would find a way, I'd enjoy it, and would be confident in the fact that everything would work out.

This is not true. Daisy is a bright-and-shiny optimist. She may say she's a realist, but she's really an optimist who has, for the most part, been really lucky in those "everything will work out" scenarios. I, from experience, know that's not always the case, and I also know that if luck truly exists, most of the time it decides to point and laugh at me. In this case, this is another one of those scenarios where I'm stuck with a lack of control. I've mentioned before that I am not a control freak by any stretch of the imagination, but I do like to have at least a little bit of control over my life and what happens to me. When it comes to paychecks and loan disbursements, I can't control those -- they just have to happen, and they happen on a timeline I don't set myself. Therefore, the only control I have over my finances for the moment deals with the finances I have in my possession right now. I tried to explain to Daisy that it's not like I'm skipping out on this trip to be a flake or to snub her and her friends (because yes, I know it would at least be an adventure, fun or otherwise), but because if there's one thing I must always be deathly serious and watchful of, it's my finances.

Let me explain a bit. There's a reason I don't go out spending tons of money on useless, stupid things. There's a reason I don't go out to eat or go out drinking with my friends when I'm invited. Hell, it's the same reason I drive a seventeen-year-old car and don't live actually live in Wichita proper -- it's because the important things must come first before I can have any "fun" or do anything extra for myself, and I have to be able to keep my head above water. Everything I have must be focused on my survival, and when it's as expensive as it is these days to survive on one's own, that leaves little left over for anything else. For example, regardless of how much money I have in my bank account, the bills and rent are always paid first -- even before I go out to get groceries or put gas in the car. Survival rule #1: make sure you have adequate shelter and necessities taken care of. If necessary, I could survive on the food I have in the house for a month or more before everything's exhausted and gone, but if I don't pay the bills, I don't have a home, lights, or heat. The problem is, once those first-and-foremost important things are taken care of, then I must take care of the food for myself and the cats and the gas for the car, and there's not usually a whole lot of money left for any given month. The loans help with that, yes, but when they're not there (as is the case right now, until they drop) there's nothing left but to hunker down and wait for more money to come through. No, I don't drive a new car. No, I don't buy new clothes unless I can afford them and truly need them -- the stuff I bought in Omaha was less than $50 total, all paid for with cash I received for my birthday/Christmas. No, I don't go out to eat or drink with my friends -- it's even a bit of a splurge to me to be able to order a pizza if I want one. Because I don't do these things, I can actually survive and live a life that -- while it may not always be comfortable -- it is live-able. Believe me, I've sacrificed a lot of things to be able to survive on my own. I take pride in being able to do it, and I take pride in what I have, even if a lot of what I have most others would take for granted.

But, as I told Daisy tonight, that doesn't mean I'm not completely fed up with being poor and never being able to have any fun or enjoy myself. There is something ingrained in my psyche where I am so uptight that I can't truly enjoy myself anymore without stress, and it's because I've become conditioned to the fact that something can, and frequently will, go wrong -- something that usually throws my life or finances into havoc. If that happens enough, you get used to it -- you grow to expect it, you grow to plan for it. 90% of the time, I'm one step away from complete and utter financial ruin. For example, if my car -- which is patched together more than the Millennium Falcon -- blows a major part? I can't afford to replace it. Hence why I avoid the risk of that happening as much as possible by driving it as little as necessary. When I had to make those major repairs on it in the fall, it almost ended me. That took 2/3 of the money in my bank account at the time, and cost several hundred dollars' more than I have to my name right now. Believe me, the myth of the "poor graduate student" is not a myth.

So, for all of those reasons, I told Daisy that I was not going to risk the trip to Chicago; even if my loans drop on schedule, I am still poor until after we would return, and in the interim I still have bills to pay, still have food to purchase, still have gas to put into the car. Yes, I was looking forward to going. Yes, I was excited about it, and yes, perhaps I'm being a bit irrationally paranoid and worrisome about things -- but as I also told Daisy, I have to look out for myself. I have to plan for the worst because, yes, sometimes the worst does happen. No matter how much I try to explain my mental processes of risks versus reality to anyone, I'm not sure anyone will ever fully understand it but me. Everyone thinks it's irrational for me to worry as much about money as I do until they find themselves in my shoes, selling anything they have of value just to be able to pay rent and eat. I can tell Daisy and her friends are a bit frustrated with me because I dropped out of the trip, and that does upset me, but there's little that can be done about it. I don't like to disappoint or frustrate people, and I don't want to give people the expectation that I'm always going to flake out on them, because that's not who I am -- but I can't ignore the important things, and I can't just push them aside and "hope for the best." That's also not who I am.

On Monday morning, then, Daisy and her friends will leave for Chicago and I will be at home here in Kansas alone with the cats. On the plus side, my mother can send the boxes of my Christmas stuff to me now whenever she wants to do so, as she doesn't have to worry about me being out of town when said boxes would arrive. I have eleven days before the spring semester starts, days which I'll be here and not planning to go anywhere.

As for the spring semester itself, the department has been relatively quiet as of late when it comes to any information and/or class schedules. In fact, the university seems so far away at this point, like a distant memory -- not someplace that I'll be returning to within the next two weeks. I may have mentioned it before, though I can't remember if I did or not, that the reason my loans/student status/financial aid in general is coming through okay and normally is because I had one of the ladies in the financial aid office look at my account shortly before I flew out to West Virginia. I wrote about that here, but I don't know if I ever followed up on the other half of the story -- the night I left on my flight, I had a voicemail left on my phone that told me that my account had been looked over, they were well aware of my situation and that it was my last semester/I am graduating in May/etc, and that my records have been updated to reflect that information -- in essence, I don't have to do anything else, and everything is wonderful, fine, and peachy keen. This was very helpful and soothing to my mental state, and it also means that my proverbial path to graduation is clear and unfettered by any paperwork or bureaucratic issues.

Of course, the hardest part is still to come, even though I've finished with all of my actual coursework and classes -- I still must do all of my reading and studying for comps, and I must overhaul and completely finalize my thesis for printing and reading by my advisors. I also must find a third reader for said thesis. I have told Daisy, as well as my parents, that this will be a lot of work, but I'm not sure I can actually explain how much. I will be reading close to fifty books this semester -- not only books of poetry but books on critical and poetic theory -- and I will basically be rewriting and re-compiling my own collection of works...as well as teaching two classes as I always do. While I will have a bit more downtime (read: I should only be on campus two days a week), that downtime will be filled with all of the work, reading, and studying I will have to do. This semester is the culmination of the entire past three years worth of work I've done in the MFA program, and once the semester starts, that has to take precedence. So long, sleep. So long, most social interaction outside of the department. So long, hours and days spent doing nothing but relaxing and spending time with Daisy. If I thought I was a hermit before, this final semester of graduate school will take that to an entirely new level. I foresee many days, if not weeks, where I do little but teach, grade, and take care of my work, becoming a figurative ghost to my friends and loved ones. When I emerge from my self-imposed exile in May for graduation, I may very well be a shell of the man you used to know, with my love of reading and writing anything extinguished from my psyche, but with a degree in hand.

I've asked my parents if they plan to come to my graduation, and they do not yet know; the family dog is fifteen years old and isn't in the best of health, so while their cats can be boarded for a few days if necessary, he cannot be. Therefore, any trip they both make anywhere, he has to go with them. They take him to the beach when they go, too. However, there's the problem -- my mother doesn't fly. She hasn't flown on a plane in over twenty years. She's rather apprehensive about it, and isn't a fan. Not only that, but I can't have dogs in my place anyhow -- my landlord has forbidden it. In fact, I pay an extra $25 in rent every month (and have since I moved in here in '09) as, basically, a deposit for me to have the cats. While there is definitely more than enough room in my place for them to stay for a few days to see me graduate, all of this means that I don't know exactly what they're going to do when I do. I've expressed to them that I'd like them to be here -- if only one of them, at least, so the other can take care of the dog if necessary -- but who knows whether or not that's actually going to be able to happen. I can't force the issue on them; they know it's important to me, and all I can do is leave it at that -- if one or both of them can come, they can. If not, they can't. There's nothing more I can do or say about it. I have no "graduation plans" anyhow. I just want to get my degree in hand, come back home, and never have to return to that campus again if at all possible -- believe me, I've spent enough time there over the course of the past three years.

To take my mind off of all of this possible impending doom and stress, this week I sat down with the Blu-ray set of Firefly and Serenity, and re-watched all of it. As previously mentioned, I bought Daisy the Firefly DVD set for Christmas, and I haven't seen the series since it first aired ten years ago (and only about halfway watched Serenity once). Re-watching all of it in the peace and quiet of my own house, without distractions, helped me appreciate it more, and helped me decompress a bit after almost three nonstop weeks of travel and running around. I never have time to truly enjoy a movie or series anymore -- something always stops me from doing so -- so, really, the only time I have to sit down and watch something is in my downtime between semesters. This is why I have a stack of relatively new DVDs and Blu-rays that I have not yet even removed the plastic from. I've always envisioned having some vast amount of free time and an ungodly amount of independent wealth sometime in the future, enough to where I would have no responsibility in anything for a while and could just lounge around and watch them all, but I somehow doubt that will ever happen. Daisy enjoys Community, but other than that and the new Spider-Man movie, we haven't watched anything together -- she's picky on what she watches; she doesn't like anything with gore or violence, and for the most part her sense of humor is drastically different than mine. She's also, as I've mentioned before, not nerdy in the least (which is why I attempted to culture her a bit in the nerdy ways by purchasing Firefly for her). This, needless to say, limits the options of things we can watch together. This is also the girl who has never seen any of the Star Wars films, mind you. So...yeah.

Anyway. I've digressed.

As mentioned before, I'm feeling ill and have been up and down all throughout the night. I don't know what's wrong with me, but last night I had an awful headache for hours, coupled with some sort of queasy stomach ailment. This has continued in a nice ebb and flow for the past twelve hours or so, which is making me wonder if I have some sort of (very) mild food poisoning or stomach flu. I'm not weak or having chills, fever, or coldsweats or anything like that -- I just don't feel well. I've eaten small amounts of a variety of things to see if they change my sickness level, and sometimes it works for a short time. I'm not throwing up or anything, in case that's what you thought. I just feel shitty. As I've slept relatively little, I would imagine I'll spend most of the day in bed. It's better for me to get sick now than to get sick during the semester, obviously, so hopefully whatever's making me feel ill will work its way out of my system.

This does not, of course, stop my normal chores around the house; in the next day or two I'll have to venture out shopping again for a few small items I forgot the last time I went to Walmart earlier this week (motor oil, shampoo, some bread, etc) and I need to do other odds-and-ends like vacuum the rest of the house and do the laundry that's piled up over the past week. Daisy's worried about me being sick; she's uneasy when she knows I'm so far away and she can't take care of me, or even really know what's wrong. I've told her not to worry, that whatever this is, it shall pass, and I'm fine -- it's just that between now and then I still feel like shit. Daisy herself has been to various doctors for checkups and the like three times this week already, so I can understand her concern.

On that note, though, I'm going to try to go back to bed and see if I can sleep off the ills. I'll keep you updated over the course of the next few days on what happens in my life, of course.

The New Year's Recap, Part II

Before I continue, I must apologize to those many folks that I've been out of contact with for some time, and if you're reading this, you may be one of them. My entire life as of late has consisted of one of those "so many things to do, so little time" scenarios; even though I don't have to return to teaching or schoolwork for sixteen more days, I still have a lot of stuff that's been keeping me busy, as until earlier this week I was basically traveling nonstop since classes ended three weeks ago. Many friends have sent me messages or emails over the past several weeks, and I've only been able to respond to a few of them -- the most pressing and/or necessary ones. Be assured that I've read them (at least, I think I've read all of them), and that I'm fine, but even during my time off, life is hectic. Case in point: I have not even gone grocery shopping since well before I left for West Virginia; I didn't go when I came back home, and when I stopped at Walmart on the way to Omaha all I got was food for the car ride and cigarettes. That's how busy I've been as of late. Since I've returned home to Kansas, I've done little but catch up on sleep and take care of household chores (laundry, dishes, etc). I'm trying to get a little downtime, trying to get some peace and quiet -- a little isolation in the madness around me, so to speak. Writing here helps with that, as does being able to sleep until I wake up naturally, and shunning my computer in favor of listening to podcasts in my earbuds or decompressing by watching some DVDs (I just purchased all of Firefly and Serenity on Blu-ray this week with Amazon gift cards I received for my birthday/Christmas). I desperately need this responsibility-free time without having to worry about any pressing issues.

With that said, and apologies given, let's continue with the story.

I don't know what time I woke up on the morning of New Year's Eve, or even if it was still morning at all. I just remember that I woke up in a strange room, mostly naked (sorry for the mental image there, folks), and that Daisy was nowhere to be found. I smelled bacon. Daisy's father, before we'd gone to bed, told me that he was going to make bacon for everyone in the morning, so my Holmes-like deduction skills led me to believe that everyone was downstairs and were having happy family time. So, I got up, dressed, went to the bathroom, and then descended the stairs -- where I met Daisy's four-year-old nephew before anyone else. The kid's adorable -- and a little blonde ball of energy, running around and screaming a lot, because that's what four-year-olds do. I silently made a plea to whatever deities that could hear me that I want daughters, not sons, since (hopefully) they'll be less rambunctious. After all, I was four years old once too. But, again, the kid is very sweet and fun to spend time with, even if seeing a child run around as much as he does makes me feel much more like an old man than I actually am. At this time, I also formally met Daisy's mother -- who I'd talked to via Skype before (albeit briefly) and have had conversations with on Facebook, but had never met in person. I got to meet Daisy's sister as well, the mother of the aforementioned child, who is but a year or two younger than me. Remember, Daisy is still the "baby" of the family.

I've mentioned before that Daisy's family, in the very limited interactions I'd had with them up to that point, had always been very receptive, warm, and nice to me -- they'd invited me up numerous times, told me to feel welcome and to make myself at home anytime, and this didn't change -- they are wonderful people. Everyone was happy to meet me, and I felt truly welcomed with open arms. I don't feel this way in a lot of situations, really, especially not in the homes of people I'm mostly unfamiliar with. Hell, I don't feel that at ease in most of the homes of my own extended family members, yet with Daisy's family I didn't have any of my normal social anxiety or nervousness -- just the opposite, actually. I relished in getting to meet them, getting to mingle and talk about my life and all sorts of different stuff. In me, Daisy's father also found someone to share "guy stuff" with, as he is constantly surrounded by women. He had found someone to talk to about computer stuff, someone to show his knives to, and someone who can appreciate subjects and objects such as these on multiple levels. This was comforting to me, as well; it was like talking to my own dad on a certain level. Daisy's father and my dad are both aging hippies who love tie-dye and work on computers for a living, though (as far as I know) my dad doesn't collect knives. But I do. Oh, I do.

Ahem. Anyway, where was I?

Oh, right. So, plans were set in motion to do a big New Year's Eve dinner/finger-foods/party thing with everyone there. Daisy's other sister, who lives a little more than two hours away from her, couldn't make it in, so it was just the six of us -- me, Daisy, her parents, her sister, and the kid. There was a lot of cooking that was happening around me -- Daisy had made a vegan quiche while I was sleeping (which was really, really good), and cheesecakes, breads, dips, and other snacks would be made for the evening. Daisy's father threw steaks on the grill for those of us meat-eaters, and it was eventually decided that we needed some other stuff to make the party platters complete, so Daisy and I headed out to Whole Foods.

I'd never been to a Whole Foods in my life. They don't have them back home in West Virginia, nor do they have them anywhere around me here in Kansas. Wichita was supposed to get one a while back, but if they ever did, I haven't heard about it. Regardless, Whole Foods was a completely enlightening experience for me, as well as one which tells me that if I ever want to shop there on a regular basis, I must have a six-or-seven-figure income. No, that's not a joke. 12-ounce bottles of fresh-squeezed orange juice? $2.79. For twelve ounces. For people with average mouths, that's basically two swallows (and there is another rather creepy mental image for you). For those of you interested, I believe the half-gallon jug was something like $14. For orange juice. Yep. That, in a nutshell, tells you about Whole Foods.

Mind you, the store is gorgeous, and not everything is that expensive, but that's just an example. And, I'll add, the store was packed with people shopping. Clearly, people who live in Omaha -- and Daisy's family lives in a really nice section of the city -- have too much money to spare. For a guy like me who worries on occasion about whether he'll have enough money to eat and feed his cats, and who turns down (or turns off) his furnace in the winter whenever possible because the electric bill is so high, it made my mind spin. I was, shall we say, overstimulated by the sheer amount of opulence in this store. I'm not sure Daisy overheard the cashier (who was one of her friends from high school, or something) when she read the total to the customers in front of us, but it was over $200 -- and they had, maybe, four grocery bags full of things. I didn't dare ask Daisy how much it was for the stuff we picked up. Well, I probably did, but I don't remember how much it was; her parents had given her the credit card and told her to get whatever she needed.

To put that into perspective, I am thirty years old. I lived with my parents as well until I was Daisy's age (she's twenty-four; I moved out a month before my 24th birthday). Never, ever would they have trusted me with one of their credit cards to get groceries or anything else with. Hell, even now, my parents don't even trust me enough to borrow and drive one of their vehicles, even though I'm the safest driver I know -- which I've written about here in the blog before.

But, again, I digress.

I really liked the Whole Foods experience, but it became abundantly clear within the first ten minutes I was in the store that I would never, ever be able to afford to shop there. Unless being a very highly-paid university professor or Poet Laureate is in my career future, I'll never be able to justify shopping anywhere more expensive than Walmart. Hell, even Dillon's (the Kansas version of Kroger/Baker's) stores are a bit pricey for me most of the time. If you think the prices for orange juice were high, you should've seen the prices for fresh produce, coffee, or nuts. Good lord.

Daisy has told me multiple times that she lives a "life of privilege." I was beginning to see this a bit more after visiting Omaha. My house here is nice enough for me and the cats, but compared to her parents' house? My place is a slum. Her parents have one of the nicest houses I've ever been in. Now, mind you, I come from simple folk living simple lives in West Virginia, and I make less than $10k a year as a GTA, so I'm not necessarily used to the, ahem, finer things in life. I usually find it troubling enough just to survive, keep the cats fed, and keep the lights on. I use Dollar Tree dishwashing liquid as laundry detergent, for example. I put on a good show -- I always make sure I look good and smell good, I make sure my clothes and body stay clean, etc., but that's mostly just me trying to take my (and anyone else's) mind off the fact that I am, in reality, dirt poor. That's why things like the Whole Foods experience (and my shopping experience the next day, which I'll get to in a bit) were so jarring for me. I so rarely treat myself to anything because I can't generally afford to; I've mentioned to Daisy before that it is very rare for me to buy any sort of clothing for myself that I don't absolutely need, for example -- most of my underwear, socks, and t-shirts are over ten years old. Most of my pants are over five years old. With the exceptions of a few pairs of shoes, two coats, and some ancillary stuff like gloves and long johns, I never get myself any sort of clothing until something's falling apart and needs replaced.

I'm mentioning this because, to use the word again, I've seen a lot of opulence over the course of my holiday break. This isn't a bad thing, of course; both my own parents and Daisy's parents have made careers for themselves and can afford everything they have. But, I will say that it is, to use another word again, jarring. I've never been a big fan of money in general, not even the concept of it, but I do know that it is one of those necessities in life. And, additionally, seeing not only my own family but Daisy's family as well living quite comfortably makes me wonder if I'll ever have that sort of life, because -- given my chosen field of study and marketable skills -- I don't know if it will ever happen. I'm not saying this out of envy or jealousy, but rather out of a growing sense of hopelessness for my future and my ability to survive and provide not only for myself, but for Daisy and our probable future children, as well. I'm also saying this out of a sheer sense of awe, as over my break I've begun to notice things -- little things -- that never popped up on my radar before, but things that I definitely notice now. Being a poor grad student, I don't know anyone in my circle of friends that has a car less than ten years old, for example. My Monte Carlo is seventeen years old and has almost 230,000 miles on it. Yet, Daisy's family has three cars, one for each of them, all of them relatively new (or at least made in this century). My parents have two vehicles -- granted, my mother's truck is twelve years old, but she never drives it. Is it just because I'm a poor graduate student that I'm noticing these things, or is it that I've made some really poorly-planned life choices over the years? Is it both? It's these things that keep me up in the middle of the night writing blog posts and worrying about whether I'll ever be totally self-sufficient or financially comfortable, unless I fall ass-backwards into money (like via the lottery, or something).

Ahem. Anyway. I've digressed again and steered this story waaaaaay off course.

We returned home to Daisy's house and had a wonderful New Year's Eve dinner; as mentioned before, Daisy's father prepared steaks on the grill for us manly-meat-eating-men (I don't know whether Daisy's mother or her sister had one, but I know the two of us had them), and drank champagne. Good, tasty champagne. I was told to eat and drink as much as I wanted, and I did -- though in moderation. I'm not a big drinker. I could count on one hand how many times I've been drunk in the past three years. I also don't eat a whole lot; my body has, over the years, become accustomed to only eating what (and when) I can afford to, and thus I usually only eat one meal per day -- even when I'm home from school on breaks and the like. Daisy keeps telling me to eat multiple small meals every day, but I just can't do it -- it will make me physically ill to eat that much or that frequently. Believe me, most of the money I spend at Walmart over the course of any normal shopping trip is spent on three things:

1.) Cat food/litter/supplies
2.) Coffee
3.) Cigarettes.

That being said, I have been eating substantially healthier since Daisy came into my life...I just don't eat seven or eight times a day, because not only would I gain a ton of weight back that I've lost over the course of the past six years or so, but I would make myself ill. Therefore, even when I'm told to make myself at home and that anything I want, I can have while I was visiting Daisy's parents, I ate relatively little -- when they cooked, I ate, and aside from that, I only drank some orange juice (not the expensive, Whole Foods kind, but normal juice), had some coffee and a bagel, and whatever snacky-stuff Daisy offered me -- I am now hooked on something called "veggie straws," for example. I do have discipline, tact, and respect -- I've never been the kind of guy to say free food? well, don't mind if I do! and eat the entire contents of someone's refrigerator or pantry. I see that sort of behavior as advantageous and disrespectful.

Anyway, after dinner all of us sat down in the living room to find a movie to watch; Daisy's father has the network hooked up to the television there, so with Netflix and Amazon Prime, they can run basically anything into that television. After a while, we settled on Firefly; this was of great interest to me as I'd just purchased the entire series for Daisy on DVD for Christmas, and I hadn't seen any of the series itself since its original television run ten years ago (also why I purchased the Blu-ray set for myself a few days ago, to get back into the series). Daisy's father started off at the beginning, with the two-hour pilot. About half an hour into it, the ladies of the house were bored with it and went upstairs to bed -- almost all of Daisy's family goes to bed early, with the exception of Daisy herself. Her father and I watched the entire pilot episode, and then, after I had a smoke break, he told me that he was going to bed as well, as he wasn't nearly as nocturnal as I was. Knowing that Daisy certainly hadn't gone to bed herself, I went upstairs to see what she was doing -- only to find her bedroom empty. This meant that, more than likely, she'd fallen asleep with her mother.

Mind you, this was around 10PM on New Year's Eve, and I suddenly found myself the only one fully awake in a house full of people a full hour before the ball dropped in Times Square. Daisy came downstairs again shortly thereafter, as (I presume) her father woke her up and dragged her out of bed away from her mother, so he could go to sleep. We had some snacks and watched the ball drop, watched some of the TV festivities for the New Year, and played Wii for a while before going to bed ourselves, rather unceremoniously (we were both really tired). In the interim, she snapped a beautiful New Year's photo of us:

It is one of my favorite photos of us we've ever taken together, and yes, I did dye both of those shirts myself.

The photo also shows just exactly how large my head really is.  Physically, I mean. I have a big skull, apparently.

Yes, she put on lipstick for that photo. Because that's Daisy for you.

I will also add that New Year's Eve in Omaha isn't much different than anywhere else -- as soon as midnight strikes, there is an ungodly hail of illegal fireworks being shot off in all directions, everywhere, as well as (I can only assume) quite a few firearms, lots of screaming and yelling, and mass chaos. Daisy and I stood outside on her back porch for a while to watch/listen to it all before we became too cold to continue to do so (the temperature in Omaha that night was in single digits). I can only imagine the craziness here in Newton, as there's, ahem, less law out here where I live on the southern side of town, and almost all New Year's Eves here (as well as other holidays such as July 4th) are nuts with fireworks and other assorted redneckery.

Anyway, let's continue.

The next morning, the beginning of the new year, Daisy and I had plans -- she was going to show me the mall and some other shopping areas around Omaha, since it was too cold to go to the city's other attractions, and we'd be going back to Kansas on the 2nd. There was little time to do much else, and when it's cold and I'm somewhat sleep-deprived (read: if I'm not sleeping in my own bed), my energy tends to peter out quickly. Add to this that I don't know my way around Omaha, and it was basically up to Daisy where we were going to go. I'd told her that I wanted to see the mall there (if she didn't mind), to see how different/better/worse it was than the one(s) here, but other than that it was up to her what we did; I was her guest, and she knows the town and its locales much better than I do, of course. So, she decided we'd go to the mall first, and then go meet up with a mutual friend at Gordman's (which is, apparently, a department store chain, but I'd never heard of it before) before going home. She wanted to show me Trader Joe's, too, but by the time we were done with everything else, we decided not to go there for several reasons, which I'll get to.

One of the closest malls to Daisy's house (because, yes, there are multiple huge malls in Omaha) was Westroads Mall, which is sort of a goofy name, yes, until one remembers that an absolutely horrific shooting took place there a few years back. So I was going to a mall with, ahem, a history of violence. It was also a massive place; Two floors, four walls of shops (think of the mall laid out as if it were an elongated letter H with stores all along the contours, both inside and outside, of the letter). Some of the larger stores had three or even four floors within them, though I didn't explore them all, and was overall quite impressive. If I thought I was a bit overstimulated going into a Whole Foods for the first time, that paled in comparison to Westroads Mall. We wandered through the mall slowly; I tried to hurry, of course, as Daisy's feet tend to hurt if she walks around too much (I swear, I need to get that woman some better shoes at some point). I could've spent twelve hours in that mall and not looked through everything I wanted to look through.

However, the mall itself was rather frustrating; apparently, everyone who lives in Omaha and shops at a mall for clothing must be thin, because nowhere had clothing in my size. Case in point: we went to Old Navy, a store which I love, because the clothing there is nice and it's also fairly inexpensive. I found a new wool peacoat, a really nice one, to replace the one I have that's falling apart. It was also 60% off of it's original price, so the final price would've been about $30. While that's more than double what I paid for the one I wear now, it was absolutely an amazing deal. Except that they didn't have it in XXL. I tried on the XL; it fit, but would not comfortably button across my stomach. This is in Old Navy, for fuck's sake; I can usually find XXL in anything at Old Navy. In this store? I didn't see one single item of clothing in XXL, not even in the t-shirts. The shoes? Yeah, no size 13, which is what I wear. The pants? Nothing above a 38 waist (I wear a 42). Most of the other stores we went to were similar, as well. Nothing in my size. Only JCPenney had pants in my size, but they were too expensive -- ironic, since if I'm shopping in a mall, I tend to get clothing from Penney's a lot. After about two hours in the mall, Daisy's feet hurt and I was becoming really frustrated. Yes, the mall was nice, but if I couldn't find anything, I felt like I'd not only wasted my time but wasted Daisy's time as well -- we could've been doing something else, something more romantic together.

Finally, at the very end of the mall on the top floor, I found an oddity -- one of the very few remaining brick-and-mortar Suncoast stores. I was awed; I didn't think Suncoast stores even existed anymore, because I hadn't seen one in almost ten years. They used to have stores in the malls my family went to in Pittsburgh when I was younger, but I thought they closed them down years ago. To actually enter a Suncoast store again was like stepping back in time to 1999, before most of my nerdy clothing and movies would be purchased from places like Amazon. I have many fond memories of Suncoast stores; some of my favorite films have been purchased from them, as well as some of my well-worn favorite t-shirts. Needless to say, I was stunned that any of them were still around.

It was in that store which Daisy and I made our only purchases in the mall -- I bought the DVD set of the new Beavis and Butt-head episodes that aired last year for $10, and she bought a copy of one of the Rugrats movies for her nephew. I could've spent much more money in that store if only I could afford to spend it. With that, we left the mall; Daisy's feet were already sore, and we had to get to Gordman's before it closed (it closed at 6PM on New Year's Day for some reason) so that we could meet up with our mutual friend who worked there.

Gordman's was an enthralling experience as well; as mentioned before, I'd never heard of the store. They don't have them where I'm from, and if they have them in Wichita anyplace, I've never been to one. I would describe it, roughly, as akin to a Kohl's store, or a much nicer T.J. Maxx. It's a big department store sort of place, but one that's a little more upscale than most, and it sells a little bit of everything. It was in that store which I had a little more luck finding some clothing; I bought a Nirvana shirt (I used to have two Nirvana shirts, but my ex took them with her long ago), three bags of coffee, and a mug/nuts/chips gift set -- the latter two items being deeply discounted in after-Christmas sales, as they were Christmas-themed things. The coffee was Christmas-branded (but believe me, all coffee is coffee) and the mug was part of a "Man Cave" gift set; on the side of it, it says MAN CAVE: Eat, Drink & Whatever. Grand total: $20 for everything. Daisy bought some coffee and one or two other little things, though I can't remember now what they were. The coffee, I might add, was not for her to drink but rather to leave open, in the car, to make her car smell like coffee. Yep.

Truthfully, I could've spent a lot more money in Gordman's as well, if I'd wanted to. There were many things in the store that I wanted and could reasonably afford, but it came down to what I needed more than anything else, and what I would reasonably use. The coffee was cheap and will provide me with inky black caffeinated goodness for probably two months. I will admit, however, that I bought the Man Cave mug and Nirvana t-shirt solely because I wanted them.

It was at this point, upon leaving Gordman's, that Daisy saw that she'd had four missed calls from her parents and sister. Apparently dinner was ready and we were going to miss it if we didn't come home then (we hadn't left for the mall until around 2:30 PM or so, if not later). Therefore, we didn't go to Trader Joe's on the way back home, nor did we stop at the other Old Navy store that Daisy wanted to take me to in order to see if I could find that coat in my size there -- we just went back to the house and had dinner. Dinner was stuffed pork chops (again, for us meat-eaters), beets, squash, and baked potatoes, and white wine.

I am not a huge fan of beets or squash. I say this here because I was too apprehensive to tell Daisy's parents this fact. While I will eat squash in certain dishes and in certain ways, I usually eat it smothered in butter and cheese, or breaded and fried. Beets, on the other hand, I've never eaten unless they came from a can, and even like that it's probably been fifteen years since I've had any. Luckily, the pork chops were huge and the potatoes were even larger, so I was able to fill up on those and avoid the issue...until Daisy brought it up at the table that I hadn't gotten any beets or squash.  

Dammit, woman! You blew my cover!

I did eventually eat a beet at the table with Daisy, but I did not get any for myself. When she cornered me in the kitchen later and asked why I hadn't gotten any, I told her that it was because I wasn't a fan, and begged her not to tell her parents this before I went home, so that they wouldn't feel bad about it -- after all, they'd cooked a wonderful dinner, and the potato/stuffed pork chops were, believe me, more than enough to fill me up. In classic Daisy fashion, she waited until I was out of the room before telling her parents this fact less than five minutes later, and I felt like a complete asshole. It was fine, of course, and they understood/didn't mind, but I just wanted to let the subject drop.

As an aside, I'm really not a picky eater and don't want to be pigeonholed as one; however, when one is in a serious relationship with a hardcore vegan, one will find that vegans eat lots of weird fruits and vegetables. I've not yet come across a fruit I didn't like, but certain vegetables -- and only certain vegetables -- rub me the wrong way. Daisy, for example, makes "bacon" out of eggplant, which is on my (short) list of foods I can't stand. Other items on that list include asparagus, pickles, mushrooms, olives, baked beans, etc. Yes, she loves all of those things too, and calls me a picky eater. Hm.

I'll let the sheer irony of that last sentence sink in for a moment before I continue. If you don't get the irony, I'll spell it out for you (for my own mother brought it to light when we were discussing how I cook when Daisy is in town) -- Daisy, a vegan, is calling me a picky eater. Yep. There's your irony for you.

Despite this, I love that woman with all my heart, and wouldn't change a thing about her.

Ahem. Anyway.

Throughout all of the day's events, I also found out that Daisy had a yeast infection (don't worry, she said it was okay to write about all of this). That night, her mother gave her a one-dose pill that would cure it "in 24 hours" or something like that. She took the pill and didn't think much else of it, and it made it go away.

Until the side effects kicked in.

The next morning, we were planning to get up early to drive back to Kansas. The plan was to leave sometime around noon so that we wouldn't have to drive in the dark, get back here, and then for her to stay the night, sleep in as long as she needed to, and to get some breakfast before heading back up to Omaha. I would again fill her gas tank before she left town so that she didn't have to worry about that, either.

All of this happened, of course, but it didn't happen on the timeframe we expected it to -- and, for once, this wasn't able to be blamed on Daisy Standard Time.

When we awoke the next morning, Daisy was sick and in pain. Like, not your normal, casual stomach sickness and pain, but the kind where she was very upset, writhing around, crying pain.

Daisy doesn't do this. Daisy actually has a very high tolerance for pain and discomfort -- it takes a lot to get her feeling bad enough to cry and moan about it. Even when she's really sick, and she's been sick a few times since we've been together, she's only moderately whiny about it. This time was apparently much worse -- and she knew exactly what had caused it. The side effects of the yeast infection pill were listed as cramps and nausea, and she had both in spades. She was pale (yes, more than usual) and in cold sweats, in bed, crying because she felt so badly. She called her doctor, who said to eat a light diet of things like bananas and rice until the feeling passed -- which, of course, didn't help her much in the then and now. Her mother asked me if the cats would be okay an extra day if we couldn't make it back home that day, and I responded that yes, they should be fine; I was fairly certain they'd have enough food/water/litter to last them an extra day, if necessary, though at the time I was more concerned with Daisy's health and well-being. My cats had just survived a full week on their own during my trip to West Virginia, and had been just fine. If I'd been forced to stay in Omaha an extra day because Daisy was sick, they would've been just fine then as well.

Daisy stayed in bed and her mother looked after her, making sure she was okay. I stood on the back porch and smoked, worried about my beloved, but also knowing better than to get between her and her mother when she was feeling bad. Daisy is close to her mother, which is a good thing. Her mother later confirmed to me my thoughts -- it takes a lot for Daisy to show pain and/or cry from it, and that made her worried as well.

Daisy came downstairs a bit later, feeling somewhat better. The pain and nausea was coming in waves, but between those waves she was mostly okay. Her father got her some sort of nausea medicine in pill form -- I can only assume it was something akin to Dramamine or the like -- and she took some of them. We laid on the couch together, and as her father had gotten the network running through the TV again, we watched 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. You know, the old Disney movie. Her mother and sister had gone out shopping, and her father was working upstairs, so it was just the two of us downstairs on the couch. I sat with her to take care of her and did my best to help her feel better -- rubbing her feet, cuddling with her, etc. I just wanted her to be okay.

After a while, she said she felt better. It was still coming in waves, but each wave was less intense than the last, and she was beginning to feel mostly normal again. By this time, it was about 3:30 PM, and she felt good enough to get up and leave the house -- so, very slowly and gingerly, we got our stuff together and I told her father goodbye, making sure she got some extra nausea pills for the road, and we left.

I don't know if I've mentioned before that Daisy, in order to not become nauseated when she drives, has to snack and munch on something. At least when driving long distances, anyway. I offered to take over for her once we got out of Omaha if she needed me to, but not until we got on the straight-and-narrow path back to Kansas, since I didn't know how to navigate around the city and didn't know where I was going until we got out of the city itself. Again, Daisy's car is fun and easy to drive, but I wasn't going to risk driving in afternoon Omaha traffic when I have no clue how to get out of that mess of a metropolitan area. She says that it's easy to figure out where you're going once you get used to it -- yeah, sure it is, if you've lived there for years. To me, it's a mess of snaking highways and by-ways that is one of the most confusing sets of interstates I've ever seen. And, mind you, I drive into a massive city myself (Wichita) four days a week. It didn't matter, however; the further we got out of the city, the better she felt. We had things to munch on in the car, and I think putting something on her stomach helped her feel better. By the time we got to York, it was getting dark, and we stopped (once more) at Walmart, because she wanted Subway. It's sort of a tradition for her to get a footlong veggie sub at Subway whenever she makes a trip to or from Kansas. This time around she was lucky; they made the sub, but were having problems with the cash register -- it wouldn't turn on or work. The cashier told her just to take the sub for free.

If I would've known that was going to happen, I would've gotten the biggest double-meat, double-cheese steak sub they made. Alas. Daisy told me once we were back in the car that this is the second time that's happened to her at that particular Subway. And, for the record, the veggie sub she gets is vegan -- she doesn't put any mayo or cheese on it, only mustard. And she loads it down with all of the veggies they have, including pickles and two different kinds of peppers. Good for her, I say; she's found a fast food place where she can actually eat something.

By the time we got back to my house, she was feeling just fine -- and she'd already eaten, so I didn't have to cook anything for us. She was, however, exhausted. Running around for the past several days had worn her down just as much as it wore me down, and she was super-tired. It was also about 10:30 at night when we rolled in here, the cats were incredibly happy to see us, and it was really cold (as I'd yet again turned down the furnace so that it wouldn't run all the time while I was gone).

"Well, I'm going to go to bed and read Twilight," she told me.

"I'll be in my room on the computer, drinking copious amounts of coffee and smoking," I told her.

"I know," she replied. "I love you. Wake me up when you come to bed."

"It probably won't be for about..." I looked at my watch. "Six hours or so."

"At four in the morning?"

"Probably."

"Okay. Still wake me up so we can cuddle and go back to sleep."

"Deal."

We mesh so well.

And with that, she went to bed. I joined her myself around 3AM or so, and did as she asked. We slept until around 11, and then I cooked her breakfast before she left around 2PM to go back home. She got home that evening just fine as well.

And so ends my very, very long New Year's recap post. Now, on January 9th, I can actually start writing about things that are in the present once again. Took long enough, didn't it?

The New Year's Recap, Part I

First of all, folks, happy 2013. I know I should've said that in my last post, but eh, I was still writing about stuff that happened in 2012. And really, about half the events that this post will cover happened in 2012 as well, though they do bleed into the new year. Usually I do a year-in-review post once the new year hits, but I don't really care to this time around. Lots of good things happened, and lots of horrifically bad things happened as well. I'll leave it at that and say that 2012 was a mediocre year -- could've been a lot worse, but could've been much, much better as well. And many good things did happen to me in 2012.

But that's not what this post is about. This post is about the trip to Omaha to spend the New Year with Daisy and her family.

I will start out by saying again that Daisy's family had given me what amounted to, basically, an open invitation to come up and visit at any time from early July forward. They were very enthusiastic to meet the man who had, ahem, stolen their youngest daughter's heart. Putting it that way sounds a little creepy, I realize, but Daisy has two older sisters -- both of whom are married and have children. Daisy is, effectively, the "baby" of her generation, and her parents have invited me to visit numerous times, but something has always gotten in the way of that happening -- whether it was when I was teaching, when I had my own schoolwork to do (as you recall, I planned to go up there for Thanksgiving, but I had papers to grade and projects/papers of my own to complete), weather issues, or the fact that I was in West Virginia over Christmas. Omaha is about five hours to the north of me, roughly. I now know that a trip up there (or back) takes a little over six hours, depending on how much traffic we have to deal with and how many stops we make. For the vast majority of the trip either way, the drive is made on U.S. 81, which is basically a straight line north or south, depending on which way one is going. I don't know exactly how many miles it is; I just know how long it takes, and I also now know that Daisy's Hyundai will make it (plus driving around Omaha a fair amount) on a single tank of gas, which my car certainly wouldn't be able to do. In fact, as I've mentioned before -- citing concerns about how old and falling-apart my Monte Carlo is -- Daisy's father long ago insisted that I don't try to take it the round trip to Omaha and back, instead telling her to come get me in her car. In reality, now that I spent $1400 or so in September fixing up the Monte Carlo, it would probably make the trip okay, but I would also be spending roughly $150 or more in gas on each round trip, as the car gets (on average) about 20-22 miles to the gallon, and it has a small tank for the car's size.

But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's properly start the story.

I got home from West Virginia on December 28th, two days later than expected. I was exhausted; traveling and doing all of the stuff pertaining to my trip was excessively draining not only physically, but on my psyche as well. I'd been in West Virginia for an entire week, it was colder here than it had been before I'd left (and colder than it was back home), and I came back to a house that was empty of most foods -- I didn't go shopping before I left because, really, what's the point -- and cats who missed me dearly but had torn up their room downstairs as well as vomited places I didn't think it was possible for cats to vomit in (i.e., behind the couch). This is why I ordered three large pizzas, a box of cheesesticks, and a 30-piece chicken nugget package from Papa John's and said "fuck it" once I got home; I was tired, I didn't want to cook, and I had a bunch of bills in the mail, a bunch of dirty laundry to wash, and a week's worth of emails, Facebook notifications, and other stuff to check up on, as my laptop was so slow on my parents' network that I couldn't accomplish a lot of that stuff (or write here, as I am not yet used to the keyboard of it).

The 28th was a Friday, and I got home that night. Daisy knew that I'd need some time to myself once I got home, time to decompress and relax and just be alone in my own environment, my own little bubble, but that bubble was also supposed to be two days larger than it ended up being. We had planned long before I left for West Virginia that I would come up to Omaha for the New Year -- both of her sisters were supposed to be in again (in reality, only one of them was there), and her parents had planned for a house full of mirth, New Year's Eve foods and the like, and fun. Because of this, Daisy asked me when I'd wanted to come up, as she would be coming to get me (see above where I mentioned this). I told her before I left on my flights that the 30th, Sunday, would probably be good -- it would allow me to be there before and after New Year's, and would give a little wiggle room to do stuff around the city, get to know her family a bit without it being an in-and-out trip, etc. So, really, we'd pretty much set that in stone.

The problem, however, once I got home was twofold -- one, I didn't get home until the 28th instead of the 26th, which meant that I would have very little downtime, and two, there was a snowstorm (yes, another one) that was about to hit me in Newton, as well as a lot of places north of Rt. 50, on the 30th. On the 29th, Saturday, every time I checked the weather, the forecast was worse than before. First they were calling for an inch or less. Then it was 2-4 inches. Then it was 3-4 inches, with Newton and north of here (between here and Omaha, basically) getting the worst of it. I told Daisy that I wanted to wait to see if the weather people could give any sort of accurate prediction of when the snow would roll through, and how much, before she got in the car and decided to make the drive -- there was no use risking her or both of our lives and her car just to get me up there for New Year's Eve the next day if it was going to be horrible weather and horrible driving conditions. I'd also reminded her that I'd just been stuck at my parents' house in West Virginia for two extra days during a snowstorm, and didn't necessarily want to repeat the experience in yet another family home without access to my car or my cats. I'm sure you folks can understand that I was a bit, ahem, shell-shocked about winter travel at this point.

This, predictably, started a bit of a fight between the two of us. Daisy didn't want me to miss New Year's Eve with her family, while I on the other hand not only needed a bit of downtime, but didn't want to risk either of us getting caught in awful driving conditions for the ten hours that Daisy, at least, would be on the road -- she'd be coming down here to get me, using the bathroom or getting something to eat quickly, and then we'd be turning around to go back up north to Omaha. That's a hell of a lot of driving if the weather is bad during it. I told her that it may be easier to spend the night and then go back up in the morning, but with the storm coming in, that wouldn't be possible -- it was, in fact, possible that we'd be stuck here if it snowed/iced as much as they were calling for. Daisy explained to me that it was a big deal that I was coming in for New Year's Eve, and that it was very important to not only her, but to her parents, which I understood. I was more concerned with our safety than anything else. I worry about her. Even though her car is good and all four tires on it are brand new, that doesn't mean anything when there's a shitload of snow and ice on the road -- so I told her I just wanted to relax and wait a bit to see exactly when the weather was going to hit, and find out exactly what it would be.

We made up quickly, of course, and I learned yet another lesson about how to take care of issues the two of us have every once in a while. Our relationship is wonderful; there isn't a thing I would change about it in the least, but neither of us like conflict. When conflict comes up, I'm the kind of guy who storms away from an argument to avoid dealing with an issue until cooler heads prevail, and she is the kind of woman who hates being walked away from, who wants to discuss everything in a cool and calm manner to facilitate better communication, even if we're right in the thick of it, and wants constant validation on everything. When we're frustrated with one another, because of our personality differences, it can be difficult. We've been together for a while now, and each time we have a disagreement, it tends to be a shorter tiff than the last one, because we're each learning how to work with one another. And, I'll remind you folks, Daisy and I don't fight. At all. We've never had a yelling match or anything like that where we were both actually angered to the point of rage. For one, even though I tend to yell when I'm angry, I've never yelled at Daisy. I don't think I ever could. And Daisy doesn't yell at anyone (well, not usually). She is quite possibly the biggest pacifist I've ever met. Even our most heated disagreements or problems -- which are rare -- have been solved and/or smoothed over in a matter of hours, as was this one.

I found out that the storm was supposed to hit here in the overnight hours of the 30th, which was Sunday night. This meant that if she came down on Sunday during the day/afternoon, and we made it back up to Omaha that night, we would miss it and would be there before it swept through. So, basically, the original plans remained unchanged, and we'd had our little spat about the weather and the trip for nothing. Live and learn, I suppose. Daisy planned to leave on Sunday morning, get down here in the afternoon, and have us back up there to Omaha by the late evening hours.

I will once more remind you that Daisy operates on Daisy Standard Time. This means that there's no telling her when to leave the house, or how, or on any timeframe whatsoever. When she leaves, she leaves. When she gets here, she gets here. For example, she gave me a rough estimate of leaving before noon, which was about as accurate of a timeframe as I could get out of her -- and then she sent me a message at 3:30 PM that told me she was finally leaving Omaha. This allowed me a little more downtime, at least -- I'd been home for maybe 36 hours or so at this time at the most, and would now be re-packing everything and re-prepping the house for the cats in order to leave again. Was I exhausted? Well, I'd gotten one good, normal night of sleep in my own bed in the interim, and had some time to myself, but I have to say that I probably would've been a bit nervous about meeting Daisy's parents were I not so frazzled and tired from just getting home. At that point, I was still mentally drained, and while I was definitely enthusiastic about my trip to Omaha, I was -- as they say -- basically running on fumes. More people to meet, people who are happy to see me and spend time with me? Sure, let's do it. I was gung-ho for it, despite being burnt out. Daisy's parents had been nothing but incredibly kind to me in the few interactions I'd had with them via Facebook, so I was all for it.

Because she left so late, Daisy arrived at my house here in Newton at almost 10PM. She stayed for maybe half an hour before we left again, closing everything up and first making a trip to the gas station for me to fill her tank (since she was driving all that distance and all), and to Walmart for foodstuffs before getting on the road. In the process, I lost my wallet (don't worry; I found it a few minutes later in her car) and dodged a Newton city cop who was eyeing us suspiciously before we left town.

The drive north was relatively uneventful; it was, as I said, basically a very long straight-stretch until one reaches the Nebraska border. It takes, ahem, a long time to reach the Nebraska border from here. I'm estimating about three hours of the five-and-a-half-hour drive is just driving north through Kansas. We were also doing it late at night, which means nobody was on the roads with us after a certain point, say, around 1AM or so.

Around 3AM, we reached the town of York, Nebraska. Mind you, until this past week, I haven't been in Nebraska in over twenty years -- my last drive through there was in 1991. York is about ninety minutes or so from Daisy's house in Omaha. We stopped at yet another Walmart to go to the bathroom, where I was able to post this update to Twitter from my phone:

I considered it one of my finest tweets of the year, though I think it went mostly unnoticed by most of my followers.

There was not a single customer in this Walmart at 3AM on a Sunday night. Not a one. We were the only ones there aside from the workers, only three of whom we actually saw. The rest of the store was deserted. Because I hate going someplace just to use the bathroom and leave, I decided to wander up around the registers and look for gum -- gum would stop my breath from smelling horrible around her family after trips outside to smoke over and over again, and while doing so, I remembered that my electronic cigarette was still in West Virginia -- you may recall that I left it there so that the TSA wouldn't think I was carrying a bomb back home with me when I flew back, as it had caused a hassle in the Wichita airport. If I bought another one at Walmart, I would be able to at least somewhat prevent the need to go outside every hour or so I was awake in Daisy's family home. So, I asked the cashier if they had any of the full kits (as it was in Walmart where I bought my first one, so I knew what they had available).

"We only have the kits in menthol," the cashier said. "You said red, right?" The red ones are the "full-flavor" ones,  which is what I wanted.

"Yes," I replied.

"Well, I don't have those, but I have these things, whatever they are, and they're red." She held up a slim pack of what looked like the cartridges, but they had a different design on them. "It says there are six of them in there," she added.

"Can I look at those without getting in trouble?" I asked. She'd have to hand them to me over the counter before I bought them.

I'd never seen them before -- they looked new. When I examined them, I found out what they were -- disposable electronic cigarettes. Smoke them until they ran out of juice, then toss them. They did, indeed, come six to a pack, and never needed recharging or cartridge refills. Hm, I thought. How convenient.

"Yeah," I said, "I'll take those." They were $15 or so, based on my total with the two big packs of gum I'd picked out -- $20.01. 

Perfect; I now didn't have to worry so much about going outside every twenty minutes while I was at Daisy's house; the electronic cigarettes, in case you aren't familiar with them, let out water vapor instead of smoke -- odorless, colorless, and non-toxic water vapor that quickly dissipates in the air once exhaled. They're not the same as real smokes, but they do in a pinch, and these ones I could toss once they were empty. I decided they'd be a good stop-gap measure until my parents mailed my normal one back to me with the rest of my stuff from back home. Satisfied, we got back into Daisy's car and made the rest of the trip to her house, arriving there (finally) around 4:30 in the morning.

Daisy's father had waited up for us; I was able to meet him, briefly, and shake his hand before we went to bed. We were both tired; Daisy had just driven ten hours. This is, roughly, the equivalent of driving from my house to Denver, Minneapolis, Houston, or Chicago in one day. Yes, I did look up travel distances/times to those cities, in case you were wondering. It's a lot of driving, and I wanted to put that into perspective. We were awake long enough to bring the important stuff into the house (my bags and the like) before we crept upstairs, quietly, and went to bed in Daisy's room.

"I hope your family doesn't think I'm going to be awake before, say, noon or so," I told Daisy. "Because it's 5AMish right now."

"Honey, they don't care when we wake up," she replied. "They know we were driving all night and they're not expecting you to be up bright and early with the sun or anything like that, even if they are."

And with that, almost immediately, we passed out.

The rest of the trip? Well, my friends, that story will be told in the next post.

The Christmas Recap, Part IV

Yes, I totally understand if you folks are sick of reading these posts at this point -- I've been traveling so much that I just haven't been able to sit down and cover everything that's happened, and everything I went through (read: the nightmare) to get home from West Virginia.

I have also gone to (and returned from) Omaha, and spent the New Year with Daisy, her parents, one of her sisters, and her nephew. It was fun. Daisy and I returned to Kansas last night, and she spent the night here before driving home this afternoon. I miss her already, but I am also glad to get some true alone time to myself for, really, the first time since before my birthday. I was home from West Virginia for a little more than 24 hours before I made my trip up to Omaha. I'll tell the story of that trip in my next post here, but if you're wondering why I was only back home for 24 hours before I immediately went to Omaha, keep reading.

I also warn you now that this is going to be a very long post, as there's a lot to tell. A lot to tell. So, if you're not interested in all the details of how and when I got back home, you may just want to skim or completely skip this post. It's up to you.

So. I last left off at Christmas Eve. Christmas Day was last Tuesday; I was scheduled to fly home on the 26th, which meant that we'd have a quick Christmas, I would pack everything up, and then get the flight back to Wichita before I had a few days in the interim to decompress with the kitties before I made the journey to Omaha to spend the New Year with Daisy.

This is not -- I repeat -- is not what happened.

Christmas itself was wonderful; my parents loved their gifts from me -- a large assortment of tie-dyes for both of them being the big stuff that I had to ship home, along with DVDs of The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, and The Amazing Spider-Man. Yes, discs that I purchased, not copied discs. I got them a few other things while I was there, as well -- I may have mentioned before that I bought my mother a few jackets, as well as a few Captain America t-shirts for my dad. I also had to ship, along with the above items, a mini-theremin that my mother had me order for my dad, as my mother will never order anything online with her credit cards (she's quite paranoid about online shopping). Instead of paying me back for it, I told her to get me a pair of pants and a sweatshirt so that I could save space in packing when I flew out. She did this -- that's why she ended up getting me two of my cheaper sweaters at Gabe's when I was there this time around. The pants I wore for most of my time there, and ended up wearing them back home to Kansas.

The vast majority of the stuff my parents got me for Christmas is still sitting in the overstuffed chair in my room at my parents' house, as I could not bring it back with me on the plane. They will be shipping it to me within the next several days, once the weather back home clears up (they've been getting lots of snow since the night I flew back home). This also includes a lot of stuff I brought with me out there, but didn't have room to fly back with. There were a lot of gifts, so I know I'll miss some of them, but from what I can remember, here's the bigger stuff:

• A massive faux-fur throw blanket
• A crock pot as well as a rice cooker (this must be the year of appliances, no?)
• A thickly-insulated WVU zip-up hoodie
• A stack of trade paperbacks of different Marvel series
• Pajama pants and a long-sleeved thermal shirt (both of which I brought home)
• A stocking full of coffee, candy, jerky, and the like
• A $50 Amazon gift card, a $50 Walmart gift card, and a $50 Visa gift card
• Some cash (most of which has been spent now; trip to Omaha, remember?)

Etc. When they ship my boxes of stuff to me, I will be sure to get pictures to post here. There was a lot of it, and until it all arrives, I can neither remember it all nor do it justice with a simple bulleted list. As always, my parents went all out for me, even though they really didn't need to. I'm also pretty sure they know what they want to get me for next year's Christmas -- I went nuts over their Keurig machine (because it's oh-so-awesome) and a few other things they had at the house. With the $50 Amazon gift card adding to the $25 one Wayne and Jane gave me when we had lunch with them, I was able to order a new Hamilton Beach BrewStation coffeemaker to replace the one I had before, which died after about five years' use this past summer. I also ordered all of Firefly, as well as Serenity, on Blu-ray, as I'd purchased the simple DVD set for Daisy for Christmas and I wanted the extras the Blu-ray sets offered. I did this last night after I got home, actually. But, again, I'm getting ahead of myself.

My dad went to his parents' for Christmas, and mom took a nap on the couch. I, in the meantime, did all of my laundry in preparation for my trip home the next day, talked to Daisy for a while on the laptop, and eventually went to bed fairly early myself -- I would have to get up early, as I knew we'd be leaving the house at 8AM to get me on my flight. Before I went to sleep, I set my OS to upgrade to Ubuntu 12.10 (from 12.04), as I knew that would take most of the night with how slow my parents' internet is at home (read: terrible). As a result, I was in bed and passed out even before my dad got home from his parents' around 11 or so. It was a good Christmas, just fairly uneventful.

When I woke up the next morning, the 26th, is when the problems began.

I woke up around 3AM or so, unable to sleep any longer on my old bed in my room. This was fine; it would allow me to wake up, get some coffee in me, and shower before I would have to get ready to leave the house to catch the plane. My flight out of Pittsburgh would leave at 12:15. This meant we had to leave the house no later than 8, as it is a 90-minute-or-so drive up to the airport, and with everyone flying home after Christmas, the security lines were likely to be a nightmare. Leaving at 8 would give us a little wiggle room, so to speak, when it came to getting in and out. I'd first fly into Chicago/O'Hare, and then from there fly back to Wichita. I'd spend less than three hours in the air, but more than anything else it was the hassle of the airports themselves that made the trip really long.

However, the weather had other plans. In the overnight hours of Christmas, Winter Storm Euclid -- which had torn through the south, causing tornadoes and crazy amounts of snow/wind/rain -- had made its track north, and was scheduled to hit my parents that afternoon.

Once my OS had upgraded cleanly, between 4AM and 5AM I checked my flight status on the American Airlines website -- both flights were on time and not delayed. This was tricky timing, really; the storm was going to roll into the area around noon or so, and my plane was to take off at 12:15, which is why I was checking my flight status. Chicago, which I was flying into first, wasn't supposed to be hit by the storm at all -- it was going to go juuuuust south of the city. So it was, really, all a matter of timing. If I could get off the ground and above the clouds before the storm hit Pittsburgh, everything would be fine. It wasn't doing anything at home but spitting snow and a little sleet -- like it always does on top of the mountain -- so we weren't too concerned with the roads. Around 8AM, we began our trek to the airport.

Then we noticed something.

The further north we drove, the worse the weather got. Shortly after we crossed the border into Pennsylvania, it became all snow -- heavy, wet snow -- the kind that packs down onto the roads and makes everything a mess. This was not a good sign. We stopped at a rest stop so that I could pee before we got to the airport, and in the time it took me to go to/from the car and back, my coat and hair were covered in snow. This did not bode well. Still, before I left the house, I had checked and my flights were on time, and when I'd landed in Pittsburgh on the previous Friday, it had been snowing almost as hard, so I wasn't incredibly concerned yet. I also had my phone on, in case the travel agent or airline would call or text with updated info on the flights or delays for them -- which they almost always tend to do when anything changes from the normal schedule.

So, we got to Pittsburgh and it was snowing like hell. In fact, it was snowing the hardest I've seen it snow anywhere in the past seven or eight years. My dad's truck got covered in the parking lot almost as soon as we'd parked it, which wasn't a good sign. Getting inside and brushing ourselves off, we looked up at the big scheduling screen -- only to see that my flight to Chicago had been canceled. Yep. Canceled. We double-checked.

Hm. 

This had never happened to me before on any trip I'd been on. However, I didn't even let this discourage me too much; after all, I knew even then that if my flight had been canceled, I'd be put on the next available one to Chicago, and that would be the end of it. The same would happen in Chicago once I got there. I'd get home a little later than expected, but oh well. It was understandable with the weather conditions, really.

"Well, let's go upstairs to the check-in counter and see what's going on," Mom said. So we did...only to be greeted with a line that was about thirty people long, and stretched back through the airport's check-in lobby area. Christ.

After waiting for a good ten minutes or so, I told Mom to hold my place in line, because I wanted to try something -- I had my e-ticket number, which would allow me to print out boarding passes from the automated check-in machine...which did not have a line for it. I knew my flight had been canceled, but if I tried to check in, I thought that maybe it would give me an updated or replacement flight number and time, which would be all I needed as long as it gave me boarding passes. It was, at least, worth a shot.

When I put my number into the machine, it gave me a single printout that said I needed to take it to the counter and discuss my flight with the attendants on duty. Okay, I thought, this is because it's been canceled, which I already know. It appeared that there was no way that I was getting out of waiting in line for an hour with everyone else who was unhappy and disgruntled and just trying to get into the air. I came back to the line and relayed this information to my mother, who waited there with me for who knows how long until I was able to get up to the counter.

"I tried to check in and it gave me this printout," I told the lady there.

She asked me for my ID and then for where I was going. I told her Chicago.

"Yeah, it's canceled," she said.

No shit, really?

"Okay, so what do I do?" I asked her.

"There's nothing else going to Chicago today," she said. "Everything's getting canceled because of the weather."

"Nothing at all?" my mother and I both asked, at basically the same time.

"Nope. Earliest flight back there is Friday."

That was, at that point, two days away.

"Yeah, that's not acceptable," my mother said, speaking up. "My son needs to fly back there today."

"All I can do is tell you to call this number," the lady said, handing my mother a card, "and they will do what they can to help you. I can't do anything else from here."

We wrote down the number, and pissed off, left the line.

"Call [travel agent]," I said. "It's all we can do. See if she can switch me to another flight."

So that's what we did. Walking to a quieter part of the airport upstairs -- the drive-up baggage check drop-off -- we called the travel agent. She found a United flight for me that left at a little after 1PM, would fly into St. Louis and then into Houston, but would get me back to Wichita around 11PM that night. I let my mother make the arrangements and went outside to smoke (since there's a designated smoking area right there at that spot). While I was outside, I heard the baggage claim guys say that Southwest had canceled all remaining flights out of Pittsburgh for the remainder of the day. I was immediately thankful that I wasn't flying Southwest, but it was snowing like hell, even harder than before.

Anyway, we told the travel agent to switch my ticket to the United flight, and she did. She then told us to go back to the American Airlines counter and tell them to update my flight records and information in their system so that they would know of the transfer -- and to also tell the woman there that it was bullshit that she said she "can't do anything else from here" -- American Airlines canceled my flight, so therefore it is their job to find me a new one, whether it's on their airline or not, not anyone else's. All of that can be, and is, done from that counter. Since my travel agent did the counter lady's work for her, and found me that flight ready-to-go, all I had to do was tell her to update my ticket info in the system, and then I could go to the United counter and check in there. In essence, the woman at the American Airlines counter was not doing her job, and was being obstinant about it. So, we got back in line, and 20 minutes later, finally made it back to the counter again.

"I can tell you there's nothing flying out of here for Chicago at all," the lady said.

We know that, dumbshit.

"Look," I said, "my end destination is Wichita. I don't have to fly into Chicago. I just need to get on something that'll get me to Wichita."

"We've called our travel agent. There's a seat on a United flight at 1. She said all you have to do is update the ticket info to get him on it," Mom said.

"Ma'am, there's nothing flying out of here; you can go to any counter and they'll tell you the exact same thing I'm telling you. There's nothing more I can do from here except to tell you to call this number," she said, repeating the number to my mother.

"Then you call my travel agent and you talk to her," Mom said, about ready to slap this woman. "Because he's all ready to fly out on this flight that is still on schedule and on time, and all you have to do is update his info in the system."

"I'm not calling your travel agent," she said, laughing at us like we were the ones being assholes. "I told you, there's nothing flying out of here today, and I don't care what your travel agent says -- we have nothing else leaving. Not my job. "

"Yes, yes it is," my mother said, becoming even more pissed off. "You canceled the flight, therefore it is your job to get him on another one. We've done that already."

I would've been embarrassed at my mother's outburst at this woman had she not been absolutely right about everything that had been said, and had this woman not been a complete bitch about typing a simple updated flight itinerary into the computer in front of her. As it stood, however, I was just as pissed off at her as my mother was. She didn't even take my ID again to, y'know, actually do what she was supposed to do; instead she again repeated to my mother that we were to call this certain number, and that she couldn't do anything else.

"Forget it, Mom," I said, "let's just go. We'll call [agent] back and then if there's nothing else that can be done, we'll call this number."


And we left the counter for a second time. I can't remember any time where I've had worse customer service anywhere, for any goods or services. Mom called the travel agent back to see what was going on; I told her that whatever she could do would be fine, I didn't care where I had to fly through or when; as long as my end destination was Wichita, it didn't matter. I went out to have another smoke while she called the travel agent again, as I was more stressed and pissed off than I'd been in a very long time. I was either going to fly out or I wasn't, but regardless there was little I could do. I was, quite literally, along for the ride on this one.

When I came back in, I was told that the United flight that I was supposed to get on was indeed in the system and indeed had open seats while we were arguing with the counter lady, but in the interim it had been canceled as well -- along with all of United's other flights out of Pittsburgh. United, Southwest, American Airlines, and US Airways had canceled all of their flights out of Pittsburgh for the day. She said that she'd see if there was anything else she could do, and would call us back.

A few minutes later, when she called me back on my phone, the situation was grim.

"Flights are falling like dominoes," she said. "What I can tell you, sadly, is that you're not getting out of there today. The good news is that there's another United flight that leaves tomorrow night at 6:45, but there's an extra charge for that. It'll be recouped by American Airlines, so you'll be able to get some money back from it, but it's a shady shot -- it'll be coming out of D.C., and if it's delayed you'll miss your connection in Chicago and you'll be stranded there just like you're stuck in Pittsburgh right now. The other option is to fly out on Friday at the same time you're flying out today."

"Well, talk to Mom and we'll figure something out," I said. "If I can't fly out today, I can't fly out today -- but I'd like to get home as soon as possible, since I've got the cats."

Our travel agent has known me/our family for as long as I've been alive, basically -- my mother has been friends with her for as long as I can remember. There's little she wouldn't do for us.

That's basically all there was to it.

"Well, there's no getting out of here today then," I said. "Might as well turn around and go back home before it gets any worse outside."

By this time, there was a good two inches more snow on the ground and on the truck. The roads were quickly becoming terrible. The storm was hitting earlier than expected -- we'd been inside the airport for barely an hour. It was only a little after 11, and my flight hadn't been expected to lift off until 12:15. When we left, the board was filled with canceled flights -- the lady at the American Airlines counter was right about one thing, at least: nothing was flying out of Pittsburgh that day. I would have this confirmed to me later that night once I got back home; thousands of flights had been canceled and almost all airports from Virginia to Maine had basically shut down.

"This is why I don't travel in the winter," I told my parents. "This is why I really don't like to travel, period."

"It's not our fault," Mom said.

"I know it's not. I'm not mad at you guys, not at all. Can't help the weather, can't change that."

I was really frustrated. My worst nightmare had come true, the one that kept me from visiting home last Christmas or during any time in winter -- the fear that I'd get stuck there and be unable to get home, leaving my cats stranded for extra time here in Newton with limited food and water to last them through the additional days. But, as always, I do my best to prepare for the worst -- I'd given them three massive bowls of water, two fresh litter pans, and three overflowing bowls of food (probably the equivalent of an entire bag of cat food between the three of them). While this calmed me somewhat -- knowing that they'd probably be okay, it didn't really ease my nervousness that much. Regardless, there was nothing I could do about it until I got back home to take care of them. I just had to wait and get home whenever the weather, and the flights, would allow me to.

The drive back home to West Virginia was very, very slow -- about 35mph the entire way, as it was snowing hard and people were in bumper-to-bumper traffic because of it. I don't know how long it took to get back to Morgantown, but I know I slept through a good chunk of it, as I was exhausted, stressed, and frustrated. Once we were back in town, we stopped at the drugstore because the parents had stuff to pick up, and I bought two packs of cigarettes -- I was expecting to be home, and hadn't brought more than a few packs with me because of that, so I had to prepare in case I was stuck home longer than I was already fearing I would be. We then went to dinner at the other Mexican place in town before going back up the mountain. Morgantown hadn't gotten any of the snow yet aside from some light snow showers; apparently, for some reason, the storm was tracking more north than south, and Pittsburgh and north of there was going to get the worst of it. Jane texted me to make sure I was okay and wasn't still stuck in the airport (I'd tweeted that my flights had been canceled), and told me that it had finally stopped snowing in Pittsburgh for the moment.

That night, we made arrangements to call the travel agent back in the morning -- I told Mom that if she could get me on the 6:45PM flight the next night without problems or delays, I wanted to go for it. If not, or if there was an issue of some sort, I had no choice to wait until Friday. Of course, you can understand that I wanted to get home sooner rather than later, not just because of the cats (which were a large factor, obviously) but because I was exhausted and because the Wichita airport charges me more for every day my car was parked there. As it was the end of the year, I was (and still am) at my lowest point for money, really -- I had cash, but those parking machines only take cards. Again, something else I didn't really have control over. I'm really not a control freak or anything like that, but I do like to have some ability to control the situation I'm in most of the time, or at least control small parts of it. This time I just had to deal with it -- I was stuck in West Virginia because of weather, and there was nothing I could do about it. It's not like I could wave my hand and magically make snow disappear or make flights take off. I just had to wait.

In the meantime, Mom went to bed early that night, and us men stayed up to watch The Avengers, which my dad hadn't yet seen. The snow was coming down pretty good, and I didn't know if we would be able to easily get out the next day even if I could get on that evening flight. At 3AM, right before bed, I checked Pittsburgh Airport's arrivals and departures list from my laptop -- everything was, once more, flying in and out of the airport on schedule, without even any delays. This I took as a good sign. I left a note for Mom on the counter to tell her this, and to reiterate that if I could get on that evening flight, to get me on it when she called the travel agent back in the morning.

When I awoke in the morning, Mom called the travel agent and found out that for some reason I couldn't take the evening flight -- mainly based on the delays out of D.C. and the very real possibility that I would be stranded in Chicago if anything was delayed for even a few minutes, which would leave me flying out of O'Hare on Friday anyhow since the flight in there was so late. It wasn't worth the risk or the drive back up to the airport in the weather again, so Mom got me booked on the Friday flight home -- same times, same airports, same flight numbers and everything. It was either that or wait even longer, something I didn't want to do when I was already worried about the cats. Friday it was, Friday it would be. Two days later than I'd planned, but I should have been able to get home just fine.

This was not the case.

I got up at 5AM on Friday morning. I set the alarm clock in my room, even, so that I could do so. This will mark the only time over the course of my entire winter break that I will get up that early. I made coffee, checked the weather, and checked my flight statuses. I was good. The flights were on time, and everything was looking good. Most, if not all, flights had resumed in the wake of Euclid, even if some of them had been delayed here and there. However, we were facing the same sort of weather situation that we'd faced two days earlier -- about twelve hours after I was planning to fly out, a second significant snowstorm would hit the area (which, according to an email from my mother this morning, is still happening back home; she said it hasn't stopped snowing since I left the house). If I didn't make it out on Friday, I didn't know when my next opportunity would be; I was quite literally flying between storms and over some others. Not to mention that the airport, once we got back there, was a holy hell clusterfuck mess. If I'd thought that it was busy on the day after Christmas, I was wrong. Oh hell was I wrong.

This time, the American Airlines counter line was twice as long as it had been two days before -- and yes, the same woman was still working there. Knowing that my flight was on time and had not been canceled that day, I walked right up to the self-check-in, typed in my ticket number, printed my boarding passes, and got the hell out of there. I resisted the urge -- a very strong urge, mind you -- to give the woman at the counter the finger. I internally applauded my use of self-control.

Finally, I was in the security line. I told my parents goodbye, and they left. I told them that if anything changed, I would let them know -- but otherwise I would make sure to tell them once I got back on the ground in Wichita so that they weren't worried about me. Security went quickly this time around, and soon enough I was on the way to my gate.

My flight was scheduled to fly out of gate D88 -- the very last gate at the very end of the D terminal at the outer edge of the airport -- and I sat down at the gate around 11:20. My flight was scheduled to leave at 12:15. I waited. I ate a box of Goldfish crackers and two packs of peanuts I'd brought with me from home, so that I wouldn't be hungry and wouldn't want to spend a ton of money on airport food; money was, and is, at a premium. There was a flight in the gate scheduled to fly out before mine did; it was going to New York. There were a lot of people waiting for that flight, which was supposed to leave at 11:30. It had not even arrived at the gate yet. Hm. I should've taken this as a bad sign.

It came in about half an hour late, and took another 15 minutes to unload everyone. That put it at 12:05 before the New York passengers could even board their plane. I had my earphones in, but I heard the announcement: my flight was delayed by an hour, and it was completely full and overbooked -- anyone who could wait and take a later flight, please come to the counter and you will get a $250 credit and free baggage check, etc. My flight out of O'Hare, now that my flight out of Pittsburgh was being delayed until at least 1:15, would be almost directly after I got off the plane there -- I would have to get to my gate quickly once I got into Chicago in order to make my flight home to Wichita. I wasn't incredibly concerned about this, as I had a bit of wiggle room in my flight schedule, but it was still a pain in the ass to be on the ground when I should've been in the air.

1:15 came and went. The flight got delayed another fifteen minutes. On the other side of the D terminal from where I was sitting, a flight through Dallas had been canceled, and they were trying to cram two planes' worth of passengers onto one flight. This furthered my resolve that I am never fucking flying on American Airlines ever again. These people clearly need to get their shit together.

Finally, my plane pulled in, and by 2PM I was in the air, bound for Chicago. I got on the ground there without incident, found the terminal I was supposed to board my flight on, and saw....that it was delayed.

Who could've guessed, right?

I had about an hour to kill now before I would be able to even board the plane back home, and I was starving. I went to some deli place in the center of all the terminals in O'Hare and bought a sandwich and two bags of chips. It cost me $15, but it was apparent that I wasn't getting home before dark anyhow, so fuck it. It was also $6 for a bottle of water at Starbucks, too. Six goddamned dollars. For a bottle of water.

Again, let me reiterate: I hate to travel.

I returned to my terminal to find that there were no chairs available to sit in. That's how crowded that terminal was. We shared a gate with the British Airways gate, which had a full load of passengers flying back to England (I can only assume), and my flight was completely full up as well. So, I said "fuck it," and sat in the middle of the floor, eating my sandwich and chips, with people staring at me. I was tired, I was hungry, and I no longer cared. I just wanted to get home. I texted Daisy to tell her that I was on the ground in Chicago but my flight home, again, was delayed.

I finally got off the plane in Wichita around 5PM. It was dark. It was cold. And my car still needed me to pour a quart of oil into her, which I did. I drove home in the cold and dark, exhausted, to find my cats just fine -- they had drank almost all of their water and decimated their food, but they were fine. And I was home. I immediately ordered -- as mentioned before -- $60 worth of Papa John's pizza, and had a horrible-for-me feast. It was over. I was home safely.

So yeah, there's my story of the trip. I told you it was long. Next, I'll tell you the story of the trip to Omaha...