it’s a trap!
(not a reference to transexuals)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dddAi8FF3F4
A few days ago I caught myself actually looking forward to visiting my parents for Thanksgiving. Moronic, I know. But it’s a change of scenery and a distraction. Speaking of distractions, last weekend I got about a foot of my hair chopped off and am now sporting a sleek bob that may or may not remain sleek, depending on my ability to master the hair straightner and various styling products. I have ridiculously thick hair that could easily get super poofy when it’s this short. Plus I twirl it compulsively, which doesn’t help.
What else? I’m re-sending the care package to J, since the last one never made it. Somehow his address label came off and it wound up in USPS limbo for 2 weeks before finding its way back to me. It was clear when I opened it that someone had rummaged through everything. I guess an un-addressed package is kind of suspicious and warranted a thorough search by the postal people. Awkward when the contents include a very personal note, a photo of you and your boyfriend, and last but not least, a pair of your panties. But hey, I’m just happy to have my stuff back (I really thought it was gone for good). Plus, I’m sure they’ve seen weirder things anyway.
T’s Texas wedding was fun. Fort Worth wasn’t at all as bad as everyone made it out to be. Though to be fair, all I saw of it was the downtown and the fairly touristy Stockyards. I was a big fan of the Stockyards, actually. Touristy as it was, I feel like it still maintained a touch of its own cowboy style. Yeehaw. The wedding was really well done, I thought. Not a huge fan of the Catholic ceremony. Too much getting up and sitting down! Just kidding. It was mostly what the priest had to say about love that got to me. He went on and on about how love for each other is an unnatural emotion for people, and how it can only arise from our love for god. Marriage works because the participants see god in each other. Uhm, what? As someone brought up pretty much religion-free and who identifies as an atheist, it kinda annoyed me. On the other hand, I really liked some of the other things he had to say on the topic of marriage. Things like passion and lust not being constant, and marriage not always being easy, but something you need to constantly work on. I realize they’re cliches, but he spoke well about them (certainly did a better job than I’m doing here).
The reception afterwards was lots of fun. I missed J a lot during the slow dances. Actually, I missed him a lot during the whole trip. On Saturday, when I was missing him the most, he wasn’t being very responsive with the text messaging, which made me a touch emotional. Yeah. I cried (very briefly) on the dance floor at one point, but it wasn’t too bad. Ehh, maybe it was. I brought it up the next day, but in a crappy roundabout accusatory fashion that made him defensive (rightfully so?). Turns out he’d been at work until 5am analyzing his data. Meh. This fucking paper really needs to get finished so I can have my boyfriend back.
Anyway, the trip ended on an exciting note when I almost got arrested at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (slight exaggeration). Back story: At the Stockyards, I purchased a small refrigerator magnet as a souvenir for J. It had a piece of wood in the shape of the state of Texas with a silver gun (about the size of my pinky) attached to it next to an inscription that read "Texas. We don’t dial 911." Har har, get it? I didn’t even know the gun was actual metal – it could have been made of anything and painted silver. Anyway, I don’t know if it was the angle they X-rayed at, or something to do with the diffraction, but when my backpack went through the security scanner it looked huge. I mean, it legitimately looked like I was packing heat. For some reason, when my bag wouldn’t come down the conveyor belt, and a bunch of TSA officials gathered by the scanning monitor with confused expressions, I thought the X-ray machine was broken. I even walked over to them and asked if I could move over to a different station. To which they responded "No ma’am, there’s a suspicious object in your backpack. We’re waiting for the officers to arrive." My first thought was "holy crap, this better not be about the tube of toothpaste I forgot to take out." Then two armed officers showed up. They pointed to my backpack and asked for confirmation that it belonged to me. Then we stepped aside and one of the officers placed my bag on a table, while the other remained by my side. I was asked to keep my hands where they could see them, and not to reach for the bag. I was told they were going to open the bag. I was asked if I could think of anything in there that resembled a handgun. A handgun. When I hear "handgun" I think of handgun sized things. A hairdryer maybe? But I hadn’t brought one of those. No, I couldn’t think of anything. So they went in. Or they tried to. The bag has two zippers, one of which is permanently jammed. The officer, of course, went for the broken one. As I started explaining that he should use the one on the other side, I instinctively pointed to it. Big no-no. "Ma’am, do not reach for the bag!!!" Holy crap. Eventually he figured things out, and dug past my socks and bras until he reached the bag from the souvenir shop. That’s when it clicked. I actually said "you’ve gotta be kidding me." The cops took it in good stride. "Guess someone dialed 911 this time, didn’t they? Well, our work here is done." To which I joked that I felt safer already. The TSA folks on the other hand – most humorless people on the planet. Thank god I caught a ride with my friend that morning and arrived at the airport 2 hours before my flight.
Hopefully tomorrow’s flight home will be less eventful.