Back in the saddle again...

You know, I always felt that song had such a crazy sexual connotation to it. In this case, I am actually using it to refer to the fact that I'm back to "normal" life. The months leading up to my conference presentation were difficult, but they allowed me to not think or worry about certain aspects of my life because I didn't have the time. As soon as I came home, it all rained down upon me and I had a sense of paralysis. But, the students turned in their papers and that made me get off my butt.

On the first leg out to wonderful (she says sarcastically) South Bend, IN, I sat next to this guy:
He's actually pretty cute in person, this Andrew Firestone guy. I really didn't know it was him until I was about to get off the plane, to be quite honest. It actually kind of sucked sitting next to him because he totally invaded my personal space. I mean seriously. His balls CANNOT BE THAT BIG. I had the aisle and he had the window, so he was totally doing that "guy spreading his legs thing" into my legroom. At first, I tried to shrink myself down as small as can be (and I'm not a huge person, by any means). But after a while, I got pissed and decided that our legs would just plain have to be touching because that was less uncomfortable for me than trying to not be in his way. This is a big thing, because I am not a stranger-touchy person. I HATE touching people I don't know. Big time. I mean, I'll give up my 3-foot stranger-danger boundary when I'm on a plane. I get that. Hell, when I travel with my husband, I'm the person sitting in the middle because he's bigger than me, and then I really have to just deal with my personal space issues.

The weird part is that when he finally fell asleep, he actually moved over. His balls apparently don't need as much space or air when he is sleeping. I still don't get it. Why, when you are awake do you take up my room? Why, when you fall asleep are you far more cognizant of other people's space? Whatever. I don't care if your family owns wineries and stuff. I don't go to your winery tasting room because it's too damned touristy. And, you know what happens in overly touristy tasting rooms? NO FUCKING PERSONAL SPACE because there's too damned many drunk-ass partiers there. (I also don't like smelling other people or their cologne/perfume while I'm tasting wine either.)

When I told M about sitting next to the Firestone Bachelor guy, he just said, "well, at least you got to sit next to a cute guy!" I had to explain to him that it was not a plus in my book because Cute Guy was being some weird kind of jerk.

Otherwise, my plane rides were mostly uneventful. Got to sit next to my advisor on the way back and apparently annoy people because we were talking. But no one had the cojones to say anything to us about it, so poo on them. At least I didn't have any claustrophobia episodes on the plane, which is something I've become increasingly concerned about, as I get mild panic attacks every now and then.

And on to more important things:
May I just say that it is currently 9:45 in the morning and it's already 75 degrees? This past weekend has been absolutely beautiful--one of those weekends where I ate the most awesome strawberries ever and don't want to move from my seaside SoCal location. Even though most of my friends are now gone. I guess I have to take comfort in something, yes?