Dichotomy

I've wanted to do this post since I was staying in a hotel room in central London nearly exactly one month ago. Now I'm finally doing it.

dichotomy: division into two usu. contradictory parts or opinions

See the following:




Before





After


It's not a trick of the light. The shoes really, in this case, do say it all. Very eloquently, too.

Murphy and Me XXXIII

[Happy Wednesday, Heather.]

"Was it awkward?"

I looked up from my miserable attempt at physics homework to see Murph turned around in his desk chair. It was a change of scenery for me, doing homework in the fishbowl as opposed to the lounge on the fourth floor. Dev was at a mandatory movie thing for Soc and Murph was workin' on something. Or flat-out Facebookin'. Not that it mattered.

Well, okay, maybe it did matter in the grand scheme but right now neither of us gave a shit.

"Was what awkward?" Call me clueless. It should have been my default setting.

Murph closed the lid on the laptop and turned to straddle the uncomfortable wooden chair the Colleges provided in every room. "Being at the game by yourself."

Oh. That. Ridiculously awkward, truthfully. "Not bad."

His eyebrows crawled for his hairline.

I ducked my head, cheeks burning. "Okay, it was awkward as hell." Put aside my papers and grinned in a slightly chagrined way. "I didn't know where to sit." Which had been the least of my problems that afternoon. Between that, wearing Murph's hat (the sweatshirt seemed a little much), and having no one to talk to between plays, it had been more of a nightmare, really. A semi-social nightmare I didn't want to repeat anytime soon.

"You didn't know who they were, did you?" There was only gentle amusement in his eyes. And a kind of understanding.

"Not a clue. And, I don't want you to feel bad, but I probably wouldn't have sat with them because it would have been the first time meeting them and I'd like to have you there for that."

The unspoken just like when you meet my parents hung between us, practically tangible.

Which, actually, led to my next question. When I worked up the courage to ask it.

"Yeah," he said. "I know what you mean."

Glad one of us did.

I twirled a curl between two fingers. I'd been leaving my hair down a lot more recently. Murph liked my curls and, well, it made me feel more feminine in contrast to slide-tackling an opposing player a couple times a week and generally channeling my more manly side. It was also one of those easy ways to make my boyfriend's hazel eyes soften without much effort. Not that I wouldn't make an effort, but sometimes the easy stuff was worth just as much as the stuff that required a ton of effort.

Murph, however, would always be well worth whatever I needed to give.

To a point. I wasn't a completely moron about some things.

"Murph." I looked at him fully, fighting the urge to fidget with Smokey. The stuffed dragon sat to my left, balanced upright by dark red pillows. "Look, you don't have to answer right away, and I won't mind if you say no, but I just wanted to ask you because it might be something you want to do. Or you might not want to because it might be too soon." Rambling much, Olivia? Holy shit.

Murph stood, crossing the three steps to the bed and planting his palms on the mattress on either side of my hips. He brushed his cheek against mine as he whispered in my ear, "Breathe. Slow down, and breathe." He backed up enough for me to look at without going cross-eyed. "What's up?"

"What are you doin' on Sunday?"

He shruggled. "Nothin'."

"Practice?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

Took a deep breath. Then another. "Do you want to come with me to my house for dinner?" Where I'd found the focus and courage to ask that much was a total freakin' mystery.

"You mean where you live when you don't live here?"

Maybe I wasn't the only one with...issues. "Yeah. With my parents, and my sister and niece, probably, too and if you don't want to I understand and it's fine, really - "

"Yes," he blurted, stopping me mid-ramble. I stared. "Yes. I want to come to dinner at your house. With your family."

Could I kiss him? Was that a good way to show relief? Either way, it was what I did, and I don't think he minded.

He touched his nose to mine, hands now close enough to rub the outside seam on my jeans with his thumbs. "Stay tonight?" he asked softly.

This was the first time - other than when that creeper had tried my door - that we were considering spending the night together during the week. It was usually only on the weekend - Friday and Saturday - and the other five nights I slept in my own bed with only Edgar to snuggle with. We hadn't talked about keeping it strictly to weekends. We hadn't talked about it at all.

Then again, with my tendency to over-think and subsequently freak out, maybe discussing things like that wasn't something we should do. Seemed to be doin' just fine on our own.

I was nodding before my brain had worked out I was saying yes. "Yeah, I'll stay tonight. The room's locked."

There had been a bit of time to kill once lab had gotten over with, and having the necessary books and things - in preparation of some time between that and practice - had meant spending a couple hours in the library had been a necessity. Which meant I hadn't been back to the room since leaving that morning.

"I've got stuff you can borrow." He pulled back, flushing. "If you want. If you'd be more comfortable in your own, I get that - "

Cue flaming cheeks. "I'm a little lazy right now, so if you've got anything you can spare, that'd be fine by me."

"I think I can find somethin'." He kissed my jaw. "How much do you have left?"

"Bit more physics and maybe some reading for T-S Britain." Which, considering he was a history major, why wasn't he in class with me? "Murph?"

"Yeah?" He retreated to the dresser. "Shorts, sweats, boxers?"

Care to add a stroke to that list with that last option? I'm not good with too many choices - picking a phone during my two-year upgrade? Takes hours. "Why aren't you in my class?"

"Well, you're a chem major, and in the science group for the teaching cert - " Forgot about that - "but for Kennessette's class, I've already taken it." He held up a pair of plaid boxers. Red plaid to match the comforter. Probably not intentionally. "These okay?"

I nodded. "How did you manage that?" There's a whole lot of information that comes through the newly made college email account in August - stuff about roommates, meal plans, and general information about campus - and there's also pre-made academic schedules that seem like they don't come with much wiggle room to change anything.

Then again, a science major has a pretty set, slightly unmovable path, anyway.

"I was supposed to take this four hour film course thing and that was not something I wanted to do." He held up the shirt I'd worn my first nap during pre-season. "So I took two of Kennessette's classes concurrently." He grinned. "Add-Drop forms are great."

That they were. "Oh." He tossed my new pajamas to my left while physics and I got reacquainted. And promptly decided this was a head-desk moment of epic proportions. Hate physics. With a passion. "Would that be why you get the Tudors and the Stuarts backward sometimes?"

"Like you flip the noble gases and the alkaline metals."

Touche. And why that happened was still a mystery to me.

Murph slid into his chair and opened the lid on the laptop; I went back to physics - half-assed using vectors - and more or less zoned out until he started chuckling.

"What?" Looking up at him was not required.

"Do you always swear like a sailor when you get frustrated with homework?"

That made me look up. He was straddling the chair again, smiling. "Was I talking to myself again?" Wouldn't be the first time. Or the last.

"More like swearing at every physics-related thing under the sun." He grinned. "I think it's cute. Funny, but cute."

Only for Murph would my potty mouth be cute.

I bit my lip, ducking my head. "You are somethin' else, Murphy." Somethin' else which had completely stolen my heart.

Somethin' else to break me in a couple months when this invariably went south.

"You know what?"

He rested his elbows on the back of the chair, curling his ankles around the legs. It was really the only way to be comfortable in those godawful chairs. He gave me his hit me look.

"I'm thinkin' I'm done for the night." Seriously. Freakin' despise physics. Snuggling with Murph? So much better than vectors and shit I don't understand and therefore get frustrated with.

"I like that thought."

Really? No kidding. You like almost everything that involves me pressed against your chest. Which is fine by me, too.

It took a couple minutes for me to repack my bag - so as not to forget anything in the morning - and he was the one changing in the bathroom this time. The boxers had to be rolled, the t-shirt was...big (no other way to accurately describe it) and everything smelled almost overwhelmingly of Murph. Tonight it was my clothes piled in his desk chair, my wallet next to his on the desk. I leaned against the bed, barefoot and contemplating how much and how well we fit.

And how hard letting go would be.

If there was a way for me to not be so uncharacteristically pessimistic, that would be fabulous.

"Murphy?" That was Dev's voice out in the hall. "Lock yourself out again?"

"Funny." Murph this time. One good - and bad - thing about living in a the fishbowl is that someone could be sitting on the couch on the other side of the lounge and sound like they were standing at the foot of the bed. That was with the door closed. "Ollie's in there. Changing."

"She staying?"

Maybe this was not a conversation to be overhearing.

"Yeah. I - I asked her to. I know we usually do this on weekends - "

"Murphy. Not a big deal. S'not like you're attached at the hip. You guys have a better balance than you and Manda did last year."

That was heading into dangerous territory; could practically see Murph bristle through the blinds.

"Yeah. Ollie's not Manda. She's..."

"I know. I get it. So shut up before you embarrass yourself."

I grinned. Then padded across the room and opened the door, startling the boys so much Murph nearly dropped his jeans, Dev having found him waiting after he'd changed. "If you two are done having a bromantic moment, I'd like to steal my boyfriend and get around six hours of sleep."

Figured to catch hell from the bromance remark, but Dev slid right past that, pointed to my thighs, and asked, "Are you wearing pants?"

Murph did drop his jeans at that one - shirt, too - and punched Dev on the arm.

"What? It's a valid question," he squawked, rubbing his arm and gesturing in my direction. "It looks like you don't have any pants on."

I lifted the shirt hem, giving him a half-assed stink eye. "Pants." With that, I went back in the room, crawled in bed, curled around Smokey, and started slowly counting to ten. Murph and Dev were in the room by four, Murph in bed by nine, and thanking Dev for getting the lights shortly after he finished curling around me. He kissed the back of my neck.

"For the record," he murmured, "I don't have a bromance with my roommate. We're not the lacrosse team."

Oh, snap! I snorted. "Don't let them hear you say that."

He chuckled, one hand up under the shirt and flat on my belly. "They're good guys." He shrugged impossibly closer; Smokey was nearly strangled against my chest. Dev tapped quietly on his laptop, Beethoven barely audible in the quiet. Neither of us minded - it was almost like a lullaby.

WW What?

I haven't actually made any New Year's Resolutions. Then again, you don't really have actually write that resolution that everybody tries - and sometimes succeeds - in taking part and actually doing each year.

Losing weight.

The idea is kind of always in the back of my mind. Shed a few pounds, maybe get back into some of the dresses I used to wear when I was transitioning into high school/those early high school years. Or, if you really want to put a point to it, when I was a three-sport athlete and running a schedule that nobody in their right mind should really run on for more than a couple weeks. Not to mention I have a 5K in the spring to run with my sister.

So, tonight, Louise finally did something definitive about losing weight. Nothing like stocking up on weight loss pills or ordering weight-loss food off the internet or anything, but, well, my mom's been a part of Weight Watcher's for a year (maybe, I think, I'm not too sure on the specifics) and I more or less inherited some of the stuff that she doesn't use anymore (and she's going to try and get me some of the newer stuff).

Yup. I've become an unofficial, on my own, member of Weight Watcher's. I've calculated my daily points - I get 26 - and I start the whole kit and kaboodle tomorrow. Which means that last bowl of Neapolitan ice cream I'm going to eat tonight isn't going to count for my points total.

I'm excited at this. This is something definitive. Something that is, with me sticking to it, going to help me lose some weight. Coupled with exercise that I'll have available on campus (walking to class, Zumba [if I can make it on those nights, and depending on my homework schedule]) this just might work.

So, in a way...I guess this means I can start a sort of series about keeping on track. Or, if I can get really cheesy, on point. Yeah, I know. This is a little new for me, too, and it's a little bit freaky.

I'm on the same weight loss program as my mother. If it worked for her, might just work for me, too. And she's done so well and lost a lot of weight.

In other news, I got a haircut. Which I completely and totally love. When I get a photo of it - namely when I find my camera somewhere in this house - I'll post one.

I think that's all I got for now.

Habit

I've got no qualms about coming out and saying I'm a bad blogger.

How long as it been since I've last posted? How much upheaval have I gone through between then and now? Downright disgraceful on my part, truthfully. Never mind that I was running on about five hours of sleep that first official day back, still trying to reset my sleep schedule, and being bombarded with family and the fact that Christmas was only two days away. Excuses, excuses.

See what I mean?

Anyway, it's post the first of the year, so welcome to the first official post of 2011! Cue fireworks and singing of that damn song. Or, you know, you could just keep reading. That's cool too.

I thought about doing, before it hit New Year's Eve, a best of 2010 post to maybe reflect on what had happened, all the exciting - and not-so-exciting - and crazy, stupid, fearless, terrifying, etc stuff that I had done over the past year, reflecting on my three months (that feel like a dream, or that they happened to someone else and I watched) I spent in Wales, and whatever else happened that might have been newsworthy or just noted.

I didn't do one. Firstly because, like I've mentioned, I'm a bad blogger and secondly, I was just too damned tired to really focus and pull something like that together. I still have moments when it boggles me that I'm currently home and not still over on the other side of the Atlantic. Moments when I realize that I can walk down the hallway to my own bed, tripping over my own black cat, and not wander around the corner into the bathroom of some hotel in central London. Or wander to a public bathroom in an airport terminal.

So, things are adjusting. Or rather, Louise is adjusting to things.

But there are changes. If you were to sit on the back porch with me (proverbially, at the moment, as it's pretty damn cold here), with a cup of coffee, and just talk with me, you'll see changes. Little things, the way I'll go to say something and have to kind of think about whether that word means the thing I want it to or it means something different. The way my Facebook stream has a mix of both US and Welsh names in it, the way that one has subtly more or less switched itself to being sort of one top and the other a sort of background. Not that any of those people are to be considered background, but I'm hoping you're understanding what I'm having difficulty putting into words.

And that's partly why I haven't really reflected. For as good as I am with the English language, I'm struggling to put this experience into something that can be easily accessed, understood, and shared with the rest of the world. I don't know how to say what I'm feeling.

I don't know how to get what's going on in my head out onto paper or into a sequence of ones and zeroes that lets others read it, too.

Which, honestly, drives me up the wall to a point. We're used to me rambling, but this? For me to attempt to get this out would be crazier than what I normally post. Yeah. That's where I'm at.

But, hopefully - namely when I can find my camera in this post-holiday slow-down - I'll put up a couple pictures of those last couple days in the UK. Namely this post that's been in the back of my mind to do. Something about sneakers and a big, fancy word that I'm going to have to double check the definition of in a dictionary. Anyway. Hope everyone out there had a happy holiday season, a great New Year, and as for resolutions? That post (sort of) will come later.

Small Favors

I'm not sure what exactly to write about that doesn't start with the phrase I'm on the edge and thinking too hard makes my already sinus-stuffed head feel like it's going to implode.

So I'll start this by saying I spent two and a half hours of my life with Sir Ian McKellen on the other side of the woman next to me at the play Deathtrap, which was quite good, too. The man nearly stepped on my toes when he got up for intermission. And no, I didn't ask for a photo or an autograph or anything, because the man was more or less just there to see a show with a friend, and I wasn't about to interrupt that. They have lives, too.

On that note, the others ran (almost literally) into Hugh Laurie on Monday. Apparently he lives around where our hotel is. Again, no photographs or autographs.

I'm sitting in a hotel room in central London, trying to find the words to adequately describe what exactly is going on this head of mine. Or, what feels like a swollen melon sitting on top of my shoulders, truthfully. Particularly my forehead and under my eyes. Oh well. It just needs to sit there a bit more.

There's what we want and then there's reality. Ultimately, we have to come to terms with the fact that sometimes they aren't going to match up. I'd like to be home for Christmas, but depending on the weather - something completely outside of my control - that might not happen. You have the optimist on one side, and the realist on the other, and they might not play nice. The saying is best laid plans of mice and men or something to that effect, and it's completely true. I'll recognize there's a big different being stuck in London and stuck someplace completely away from it all. Hell, I even know what it's like to be stuck in the airport for days on end, and I'll tell you, I was pretty damn ripe by the time I got to where I'm currently at on Monday.

Like I said previously, I know both sides now.

It's in no way what I want, but it's what I've got, and what I have to deal with.

A month and a half from now we'll look back at this, look at the pictures, sort through the recent Underground tickets, and we'll laugh. It'll make a great story, when it's not so raw. We'll laugh, we'll make Tom Hanks references, and we'll joke about it as best we know how. That's how, eventually, it will be seen. It's an experience. That much I can't deny. But it's not one that many people willingly choose, honestly.

I would like, very simply, to go home. That is all I ask.

Moving

I told you I had an odd sense of humor. As in the title of this post, and the fact that I've now moved from Heathrow to a hotel not far from the Bond Street Underground station in the borough of Westminster.

And believe me, it's a nicer hotel than I would have chosen had I been the one to choose originally. Namely, this one would have been classified as a little out of my price range.

The last time you heard from me, I was sitting on the fun side of security at Heathrow, waiting to get on a flight to JFK. As I'm not posting the joys of being home, it's safe to assume that I'm still in London. That assumption would be correct.

It's been an interesting few days, to say the least. If you've been following me on Twitter, you'll see some of what I've been posting [including the one from the reporter at CNN who wants me to email him, and I still need to do that, too] and the responses.

Despite all the good thoughts, karma, prayers and whatnot, if it continues to snow - and stick - there is the possibility that we won't fly out on Wednesday and we'll be spending Christmas in London has an HWS family.

An HWS family in which they're happy to have me back.

I'd been "Tom Hanks-ing" it from Friday until late this afternoon, sleeping on the second floor of Virgin Atlantic departures since then. Except for Saturday night on the floor by some exchange bureau near check-in point F or G. I woke up during the night, mostly because I was really freaking cold, and sat up, looked around, and thought why are there so many people covered in tin foil? Then figured that if I was having that thought, oddly reminding me of when my sister was sleeping in the tent with the dog at the lake and saw my aunt in her nightdress, wandering around, I needed to lay back down and go to sleep. Which I did.

It was really difficult to keep track of days, because, eventually, they blended together. It didn't so much happen that first morning, but Sunday into Monday it really started to.

Saturday was the day I fought with the airline to get my bags back. I had checked my backpack - not only was it too large, apparently, to be in the cabin, but it was too heavy, too - and there was also my suitcase, too. The suitcase wasn't an issue. The backpack was the issue because it had my meds in it. Not the Align, the important one, but the other stuff that I needed to supplement it. And the longer I go without my meds, the more things get....interesting.

It took multiple trips to Arrivals (where the baggage was supposed to be, as it was still on the plane at the time) and upon the fourth trip downstairs to try and find out when my bags were coming off the plane, only then did the Virgin Atlantic representative actually ask if there was anything she could do for me, if there was anything she could get me. I told her no, I just needed my bags (because, yeah, making my own dosages with something that wasn't even close to being the UK equivalent was not going to happen) and she actually was the first one all day to take my bag information off from my passport, and also my mobile number in hopes that when she knew when the plane was being unloaded, she would let me know. I assumed this was going to be true.

Despite having my mobile number, they didn't call me. However, the moment I hit the departures floor, she immediately remembered me, pulled aside another rep, and sent me with her to Arrivals to fetch my bag. The suitcase was on a trolley, and the backpack was on top of that. First thing I did after returning to my spot in the second floor of Departures, was to crack open my bag, ingest my meds, and then check to make sure the breakable stuff I had wrapped in clothes and in the bottom hadn't broken. It was intact, but the entire right side of the bag was wet. Like it had been dropped in snow.

Not a big deal, but, well....makes things in there not smell great.

So, now it was Sunday and after some phoning home, we decided that it would be best for me to stay at the airport and maybe hope to get on a standby list. Then the news came in that there was a rescheduled flight that we had seats on for Wednesday. I have a printed e-ticket, and a guaranteed ticket on this flight. But we wanted to see if maybe there was a way for me to get something earlier.

Which, ultimately, didn't work. So I wound up spending another night on the floor of the airport.

And, as there is a mirror above the desk, I'm looking at the circles under my eyes that somehow keep growing. Not great.

Monday turned out to be a bust, and then information trickled in from the homefront that it was best for me to find the hotel everyone had been living at while I had been living at Heathrow, and it was made that I was to find that and check myself in.

Feeling like a bag lady, I trotted down the elevator and then out into the cold, slightly snowy London air and headed for Arrivals. That would take me down to the Heathrow Express - the train that gets you to London Paddington in fifteen minutes. And they weren't charging for it because of all the snow had done to travelers. From Paddington it was down to the Underground and then, one transfer later, I was at the corner of Bond Street and Oxford Street (I think) and wondering where exactly to go next. After a bit of wandering (which is more or less what I'm famous for, really) I found the hotel.

Not too long later I was in a room with an actual bed, a shower, and thinking that it was proverbial heaven, truthfully.

It's weird. I have internet access (free, too!), a bed to sleep in tonight as opposed to the floor, and I was able to take a shower and find some different clothes to wear. Though what I'm going to wear to bed tonight is a completely different story as most of the rest of my clothes are packed in space bags with the air sucked out. And unless someone wants me to give myself a slight hernia by sucking that much air through a straw, I'm not opening them.

The most important part of this is that I've seen both sides to this story. I've seen the I don't have anywhere to go, and the airport is now home until they figure out how to get me to where I need to go and I've also seen the I have the opportunity to get out of this place for a while, get a shower, sleep in a bed, and generally wander around London until we're supposed to fly. I know which side most would prefer - it's the side I'm currently on. But I've seen both. Done both. And that's been one of those experiences most people should really have.

It's truly how the other half lives.

I'm in London until Wednesday, at the earliest. I'm back with the rest of my student cohorts, and we're planning on seeing a show tomorrow night. Something to pass the time. To keep ourselves occupied and see some of London that we haven't seen before.

And I just found something to sleep in, which just made my night, really. It's the little things right now, like being connected to the internet and being able to call back home. It's things like that right now that make a difference. A big difference, really.

I understand that I'm lucky. I'm in a hotel when I could be spending another night at Heathrow under a blanket on a foam mat on the floor in some corner with my luggage. As it is, I'm going to crawl into a bed and sleep like I'm dead, probably, and hope the bags under my eyes don't get any larger or I'm going to be giving a raccoon a run for his money.

I would love to be home right now, layin' on the couch with the dog or curled up in my own icebox of a room (backside of the house, gets a little chilly in the winter) and wondering if I'm going to be making Christmas cookies with the Smidget, but I'm not. I'm in London - Borough of Westminster, to be exact - and if things go right-side up, I'm leaving on Wednesday to actually head home. If they go pear-shaped, then we're looking at spending Christmas on this side of the Atlantic with some of the alums that we can find in this country.

Bright side of life. Make the most of what you've got when you've got it. Right now, while this might not be ideal, it's better than what it had been, and better than what some still have. That's always a good thing to keep in mind.

At Home in Heathrow

[I wrote this Friday night (I think) and it was the first time that I was, well, more or less aware that I was going to be living in an airport for a couple of days. Now that I have internet access, be prepared for, well, a series tentatively titled At Home in Heathrow. I have a sick sense of humor, don't I? So, this was actually written Saturday before I was supposed to get on the plane to come home. My how plans have changed.]

I know the time stamp on this sucker is going to read something different, but I’m currently sitting on the fun side of airport security waiting until I can board my flight home.

So, yes, I’ve been living at Heathrow since yesterday at about six-thirty at night. It’s been….real.

Let me back up. Yesterday morning I get a call at about nine-something (woke me up, I’ll be honest, I was sleeping in) and it’s the International Officer asking me if I’ve looked outside. Out the window there’s at least a good couple inches of snow on the ground. Not much by New York standards, but definitely more than the UK can handle. She then proceeds to tell me that because of the weather, the bus company isn’t sure if they can successfully get us there on time if we leave in the morning. So there’s going to be a bus leaving at one in the afternoon.

Cue Louise’s temporary panic because there’s nothing in my room that’s packed. There’s part of my desk done, but other than that? Nadda.

Anyway, she tells me she’s going to call back when she finds out what time the bus is leaving and then she’ll want to know if I’m going to be on it.

Holy. Shit.

This is not how I wanted to leave the country in a state of semi-panic.

So, I get up, get around and take a shower, and then start to power pack my room. She calls me back around ten and tells me the bus is going to leave at two, and if I’m going to be on it. There might not, because of the snow, be another way to get to London if I’m not on this bus.

Hence, Louise needs to be on the bus.

Do not ask me how I managed to pack an entire room in the time available, including the three bags I had with me, and they are all stuffed. It’s ridiculous.

This was, however, not how I wanted to leave. I didn’t want to be rushing around and leaving like this. I wanted to take my time packing, saying goodbye, and maybe having a snowball fight with Jess and Jen before I had to leave. It didn’t happen. I didn’t get to hug Math, or say goodbye to some of the other internationals because they weren’t available, and I was in a time crunch. It wasn’t ideal. But what can you do? They were the circumstances presented, and, quite honestly, I want to go home.

Looking at pictures on my camera of the people I’ve left behind is not the right thing to do at the moment. Though the ones we have when we found a space to claim as ours for the night in the airport? Those are priceless. And Heathrow provided blankets, too. So I have this horribly ugly brown fleece blanket with me that someone gave me at about one-something this morning, along with a bottle of water that I didn’t drink.

Luggage was an issue. Not only was my suitcase overweight (power-packing in three hours? Yeah, that’s gonna happen) and, apparently, my backpack that I took with me on the plane in the cabin was too large and too heavy. Therefore, I had to check that.

That did not make me a happy camper. Especially because I have my Newcastle Brown Ale glass from the Rose and Crown Hotel in that backpack and the stuff that Jess and Jen gave me for my birthday, all breakable. And I was going to have that with me to, well, not break it, and now it’s in with the rest of the luggage. However, I was a good person and wrapped it in clothes before putting it in there, so it should be okay.

Hopefully.

On the bright side of that, when I did self-service check-in, I changed my seat. Was supposed to be in the middle on the side, but now I’ve got a window seat. Which makes things better. Not great, but better.

I won’t tell you how much I’ve shelled out to be able to get my overweight suitcase and extra bag on that plane, but it can’t very well sit in Heathrow, can it? And I can’t really repack it because, well, where the hell am I gonna put that stuff? Exactly. At this point, I will do what I need to in order to get home.

Now I’m currently sitting outside a T.G.I. Friday’s and a Jo Malone, listening to Nate play his guitar and thinking that I might have been in this airport too damn long.

There are some truly hilarious pictures from last night, sleeping on the second floor of departures, and, honestly, I slept really well for about five hours on the floor. I will be submitting that photo to This Week in Photos on the colleges website because, well, it’s priceless. Come study abroad and get stuck in airports! Spend the night with your fellow students in a public, co-ed sleepover experience!

Bright side of life, here, people. Bright side of life.

I’m still torn. On the one hand, I want to go home because I haven’t seen my mother in weeks and my sister, father, and Smidget in months. I wanna have filter coffee in my kitchen with my sister, and I want to wake up in the morning because Mads is standing by the side of the bed just staring at me, maybe poking me to see if I’m real and I’ll move over and crawl into bed with me. I’ve missed that. I’ve missed her and her three-foot tall barely containable endless energy.

And if I have to listen to one more security announcement, I’m going to freak out and curse in languages I don’t even know.

What’s making this more bearable? The venti-sized Starbucks peppermint mocha that I’m consuming while I’m writing this and the fact that, yeah, I’ve gotten really used to running on not a lot of sleep over the past couple of weeks. That, and I’m predicting when I get on the plane, I’m going to be asleep before we’re even off the ground.

Shit. The pack of gum I bought specifically to help my ears pop? That’s in my backpack which is now a checked bag. Damn it. I’m going to need to bum some gum off someone if I’m going to make it through take-off without a ton of pain. Sometimes my ears won’t pop.

Again, bright side – I figured out my calling card last night. I couldn’t call the 800 number straight away, I had to call the international connection (for free) and then have them connect me through to AT&T, then I could use the card. Simple once you figure it out, a little complicated and a hell of a lot of frustration when you don’t know what you’re doing.

My laptop sports a Mind the Gap sticker from London on the lid. Perched at a jaunty, angle, of course, and hopefully a conversation starter if I’m in the library and someone’s wondering.

I should probably start thinking about articles to submit to the study abroad journal back home, but I think I have other things to worry about at the moment.

My teeth feel incredibly fuzzy. Brush my teeth, you suggest? The toothbrush and toothpaste are in the backpack, along with most of the pills. It’s been absolutely lovely. What can you do, though?

Yup. I’m going to get on that plane and probably be asleep before we even take off. Me and my window seat that I changed when I checked in. Still makes me smile when I think about that. I like window seats. Not only do I get to look, I get something to lean against.

Let’s talk about re-entry. As in, re-entry to America and American society. It’s going to be an issue. I’ve spent three months getting used to this system, this way of life (and driving on the left side of the road, thank you very much) and maybe it’s a good thing I’m not going to be able to drive until roughly next week because my license expired. Dad has to take me down to DMV sometime next week so I can renew it, and then I’ll be able to drive. Hopefully, I will have assimilated enough to be comfortable driving again and not feel like I’m going the wrong way.

Right. I’m almost out of battery on my laptop and I don’t feel like digging out my plug and my adapter, and…I will see you on the other side of the Atlantic.

Hopefully sooner rather than later.