pdx schmdx

i am at the airport right now. the portland airport has its own wireless network, which makes it totally worth having to take your computer out of your bag at security. especially when your flight is delayed two and a half hours. a one and a half hour flight, delayed two hours. silly. and actually, security was a breeze. there is no one at the airport right now. when i dropped jake off yesterday morning, it was a zoo; we stood in line for 45 minutes while two attendants helped the line of people who actually needed to talk to someone because they were old or going to denver, and like eight attendants were helping people who were in the self check-in line. silly. i wanted to scream. but there's no one here today - checking in took about eight minutes. i got here really really ridiculously early because i thought i was going to have to stand in line for hours (i never stood in line at all) and i was sure i would forget that i had lotion or a drink and get in trouble ( i didn't), and now i'm just bored. i've eaten a burrito, an oreo fixnmix from wendy's which was pitifully far from an oreo milkshake, and a bigkat kitkat and my original boarding time hasn't even rolled around yet. any time i have kitkats, i could just eat them forever, but the second i take a bite of a bigkat i'm already satisfied. i threw away the entire second half.

awesome. orbitz just called again to tell me my flight was delayed a little bit more, and then during that call i got a call waiting, also from orbitz, telling me my flight was delayed even more than that. i wonder if orbitz gum is by the same people as the ticket people. i think their marketing campaigns are pretty similar.

on the train on the way to the airport, there was this woman talking on the phone. usually i get pretty annoyed at people talking on the phone in public places - not that they're being intentionally rude, just that they're apparently dumb or self-absorbed enough not to be able to read social signals that tell them that it's inappropriate. you know, people rolling their eyes when they laugh like a horse or sometimes just straight up glaring at them (this is my style, especially if they are using swears). i mean, i am not an extra perceptive person, but i can tell that when i'm on the phone on the bus or in an elevator, people are annoyed and don't want to hear whatever i'm talking about, even though it's usually delightful. it's like reverse privacy - people on phones don't care what other people know about their lives, but other people don't want to know even a single thing. anyway, if i can tell that it's not an appropriate thing to do, most other people should too. i think the majority of people know this by now, so when someone does do it, especially in a horsey voice, it's especially irritating.

as should be obvious by now, this woman had a horsey voice. i didn't really get irritated, though, because her end of the conversation was so transparent and pretty pathetic. she was obviously talking to a family member, and trying to impress upon them how many people cared for her and how many different households she was invited to for christmas and not to worry about her spending christmas alone. all well and good, although she also told the person that she was walking to her car, which she obviously was not because she was on the train right across from me. it made me feel pretty sad, and really lucky that i'm going home for christmas to people i care about and haven't seen in a while and we're all going to have a terrific time together.

i know my work friend/boss reads this blog, but hopefully i'll post a bunch after this and it will be so far down that she'll miss it. this christmas, she decided not to let her husband by her something pretty expensive that she really wanted. instead, she spent money on buying presents for children whose families couldn't afford to. then, on christmas day, she wants to go to mcdonald's and buy a bunch of breakfasts and hand them out to the homeless. her selflessness just shames me. sometimes we talk about people who are so awesome that we are simultaneously ecstatic to have them as friends and hate them for being way more awesome than us. when we talk about these people, i almost can't believe that she would be jealous of a friend of hers for being more awesome than her. look at the stuff she's doing for other people this christmas! also, her apartment is totally awesome! i'm really glad that my cat is spending the holidays there. maybe he will learn a little something about selflessness.