37. Introductions

The first leg of my three-leg trip to London is behind me! I'm hanging out in my hotel room in Chicago trying to decide if I should even attempt sleeping. I have to wake up in three and a half hours to catch the shuttle back to the airport. I have the biggest fear of oversleeping and missing my much-awaited flight to London. Just two weeks ago I was flying to Florida and I woke up in my bed in Texas an hour AFTER my flight landed in Florida. Awesome. I will not let that happen again. I already set my phone alarm and the alarm clock next to the bed, and I set up two wake-up calls at the front desk. Thought about asking if I could just pay someone to come up and drag me out of bed at 3:30.
So, you know how when you're sitting at the gate waiting to get on your plane, you eyeball each and every person waiting there with you to pick out who you do and don't want to sit by? Or is that just me? Well, As I was sitting there, the United employee behind the desk said that we'd be on a small plane so we needed to check our bags at the gate. Then this blonde 30-something woman runs up to the desk.
"We're on a small plane??" She asks with frantic eyes. (I was up there getting my luggage tag)
"Yes ma'am, we're on that plane right there," the United representative said as she pointed to the plane pulled up to our gate.
"That one!?" Panic filled her face.
"Yes ma'am, is there a problem?"
"I'm scared to death of small planes! I cannot get on that plane! My husband booked this and he said he made sure it was a big plane!"
"I'm sorry, that's the plane we've always planned to use for this flight."
I had a feeling her husband was about to get it.
I was right.
She ran back to her husband and had a breakdown. I love having front-row seats to these kinds of things.
"You said you got a big plane!! You know how badly I freaked out when we flew to Memphis!"
Then she starts crying and looking obsessively at the tiny plane, willing it to multiply in size. Her two daughters now had panicked looks as well. The husband just shrugged, obviously not planning to whip out his Airplane Enlarging Magic Wand. How dare him. Well, I knew exactly who I didn't want to sit next to on the plane. I wanted to smack her across the face and tell her the small-plane pilots were real pilots, too. If she were to sit next to me, I immediately planned on slipping a sleeping pill into her Ginger Ale.
But, luckily, I did not have to sit by her. She did eventually make it on the plane. She sat at the front and her husband and kids sat in the back. He looked relieved not to have to deal with her. Smart man.
I was thankful when a girl about my age sat next to me. Those first five minutes with your new seat mate are crucial. If you don't talk to each other during those five minutes, you won't talk the whole flight. Or, if you do, it will be forced awkward talk. I was jittery and decided I had to talk to someone during the flight or I might go crazy. As she buckled her seatbelt I broke the silence.
"Did you see that woman flippin shit out there? The one scared to death of tiny planes?"
This prompted a 2-hour conversation. The only time we stopped talking was when we paused to watch the lighting out the window and see the city lights during the landing. Her name is Regan and she was in Texas helping her sister find an apartment. And to my surprise, they picked an apartment in MY APARTMENT COMPLEX! This revelation blew our minds. Out of the hundreds of complexes in my city, her sister is moving into mine, into the apartment across the street from me. Small world. Of course, Cayden and London came up in the conversation. She stared at me with her mouth hanging open.
"Shut up! This stuff doesn't happen in real life!"
"I didn't used to think so either."
I told her a Reader's Digest version of what you've read here in this blog so far. A few times in the conversation she reached over to touch my arm or my leg and said, "I just had to make sure you're real. This can't be real! Your life is like a movie!"
We talked about the guy she's dating, who texted her last weekend to tell her he "borderline loves her," after just three months of dating. Who says romance is dead?
She cracked me up with her Chicago accent. She gave me her sister's number and I gave her a link to Fairytale Beginning. So, Regan, if you're reading, it was so nice meeting you! And I borderline think you're a bad ass!
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Tomorrow's flight leaves at 6 am, stops in DC, and then finally takes me to London. I'll be on that plane for 10 hours. I can't even imagine what it's like to sit in those god-awful seats for a full 10 hours. I can't even sit in my comfy computer chair at work without going for a walk to strech my legs (AKA, going to Red Mango to order a small original frozen yogurt with raspberries, chocolate chips, and granola). I think I might actually go insane. I brought two books, The Lovers by Vandela Vida (available next month), and Oh, The Glory of it All by Sean Wilsey. If those don't hold my interest, I'm hoping they're showing some good movies on the plane. I wanted to blog during the flight, but my damn computer battery dies after 10-minutes. I don't think I can blog that fast. I have to try to stay awake for the whole flight so I can try to avoid the jet lag. I land in London at 4 pm Texas time, which is 10 pm London time. By the time I go through immigration and customs, find Cayden, and take the tube back to his place, it's going to be midnight there. But I won't be tired because it will only be 6 pm to me. But, if I don't sleep tonight, and I take a short nap on the plane, I should be set.
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I am freaking out about what it's going to be like to see him again. OK, I'm not really freaking out yet, but I know it's going to happen on the plane and I won't be able to blog about it then. I mean, what should I do when I spot him? Sneak up behind him and kick his ass? Drop my bags and do a slow-motion prance toward him, hoping someone plays cheesy music in the background? Nah, I don't want a sneaky Brit to steal my bags. Will he go in for the hug while I go in for the kiss? That's always awkward. I want to just run up to him, jump on him, wrap my legs around him, and lock lips until we have to come up for air. But that might not work for a number of reasons. For starters, I'd have to drop my bags. I'm rolling a small suitcase and then I have my purse and giant tote bag on my shoulders. I can just see myself getting completely tangled in them, until my tote frees itself and dumps over on the ground, spilling my panties all over the place. My panties aren't even in my totebag, but they'd find a way in there for maximum embarrassment. Also, if I jump on him and he's not expecting it, I could inadvertently tackle him, thus making him think of football (American football), which is not sexy.
But I'm just going to go with the flow. Do what feels right. When I think about what it's going to be like when I walk down the hall, into the arrival area where I'm meeting him, my stomach does flip flops. Not bad flip flops, good ones, like there are tiny cheerleaders in there (who obviously got there via the tiny plane) rooting me on. Just my luck, I'll be so nervous I'll show up with pit stains, hives, and have an asthma attack before I can say hi.

Either way, I can't wait!