Meg in Transit

Part I: Let’s try this again.

Today is Thanksgiving, and I am spending it mostly alone with my dog, some old white wine, and a recording of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which I have somehow managed to make last all day by pausing every 5 minutes to do a task or get a little treat, or… I truly do not know where the day went, but here we are and I am still watching the parade.

This past Friday, I tested positive for covid. I had managed to avoid it up until this point, and though it happened at a terribly inconvenient time for my current job as ~high school art teacher~ due to the upcoming holiday break plus school commitments and just teaching in general, it really forced me to rest. I had a few days that were truly awful, but because I’m vaccinated and boosted many times over, I’m almost symptom-free at this point. I did, however, have to cancel my plans for this week, just in case. During this time, I felt guilty for not doing more, because of course I did. I felt like I should be using my time to prep for work, or to tackle the giant mountain of (clean) laundry in the corner of my room, or for general professional / personal development, but instead I watched one million episodes of Insecure and slept. I thought about the ole travel blog frequently, but until today did not have the energy nor the inspiration to write.

My inspiration was a random Instagram story about airport crushes. I remembered my draft of a post entitled, “A Mysterious Airport Lady,” that I had started in hopes that it would become my first blog post from the airport at the start of the summer. Instead, I was running late, and basically ran to my gate and immediately walked onto my plane, but that is another story for another time. I promise to return to it eventually. I have dusted off the draft, made a couple of edits, and left it below. I feel like if I am to write my blog belatedly, I need to have some kind of hook for my vast audience of approximately 5 people (Hi, Mom.) Perhaps alluding to travel romance is the solution. That, or continuing to mention the parade broadly with no other details, is that working?

Because I am known to dramatize a situation, I should say that I did not spend the entire day alone with the old wine. My mom arranged a socially distant breakfast with me, and we watched some of the parade together from different rooms. Yes, the SAME parade, that I am STILL watching. She asked me if she could make any of the traditional Thanksgiving foods for me, but, brace yourself, I am actually not a huge fan of most of the “traditional” foods, so I declined. When she left, I decided to reheat the rotini that I made yesterday and reopen a bottle of white wine that had been open for… months? I took one sip, dumped it, then promptly opened my finest screw top red. It’s all very glamorous over here. I have compared the Thanksgiving rotini to a Christmas fettuccine and if you understand the reference, please raise your hand now. Thank you.

Some of the reasons why I have yet to update my blog:

• I started two new jobs two days after I flew home + jet lag.
• I wanted to finally upload and share the 700+ photos I took in Ireland with my farm-mates before I wrote about it, but couldn’t figure out how to upload them to a google album, a storage issue or something.
• I tried to upload them to my laptop but… not enough storage and it needs an update.
• I cannot update my laptop because omg not enough storage.
• Cannot figure out how to create more storage, I think everything is in the cloud?
• What is the cloud?
• I have been perpetually exhausted for three months.
• Global warming.

Also, so many people are dying right now and I am still trying to figure out how to speak and write about it. I intend to.

Reader, I am working on it, all of it. Coincidentally, I was away for 94 days this summer, and today marks 95 days since I returned. I like to say that “life is weird” and “time has no meaning.” Maybe there’s a hook in there somewhere.

Tonight, though, I am going to finish this parade and the slightly better glass of wine, and share with you the incredibly silly musings of someone about to head out on an adventure, starting in an airport.

TTYL.

Part II: A Mysterious Airport Lady

Hello, it is I, the mysterious airport lady. In keeping with my constant romanticizing of every day activities, I will be taking you with me today as I fall hopelessly in love in an airport.

First and foremost, let me teach you how to be a ~mysterious airport lady~. There are five six steps:

Note: the word “lady” can absolutely be replaced with the word of your choosing, and, in this case, lady does not necessarily mean something gendered, it is a state of being. So, please feel free to choose the word that is best associated with your current state of being.

Another note: it should be known that the words “mysterious” and “fancy” as in “fancy airport lady” may be used interchangeably in this post. I get to make the rules here.

1. Go to an airport. This may feel like an obvious ‘step one,’ and really, upon reflection, I do believe you can *be* a mysterious airport lady wherever you are, however, in this instance, an airport is preferred. But you do you, babe.
2. Get there early. If you know me, you may be questioning whether or not I am actually the real author of this post, as I am not generally early. Or, ahem, always on time. However, in order to fully experience all of the airport lady experience, you should try to be early. It’s difficult to be fancy when sweating in security and running to your gate. (11/23 – this is in fact what I did. Foreshadowing…)
3. Choose a location to set up your mysterious lady scene. In my case, I have chosen a wine bar. It is not required that this location have alcohol or food, but that is an added bonus. Who doesn’t love, say, a mysterious muffin. A fancy fruit bowl. An elegant egg salad. Oh dear, moving on. Ideally, this location has a view of people walking by, say, an exterior restaurant table. I have chosen a table for two. You want the world to think, “Is she alone? Is she waiting for someone? Am I that someone?” Sitting at a bar is a bold choice if you want someone to actually, potentially, approach you. Proceed with caution. As a fancy and mysterious shy lady, I enjoy the risk and also safety that a table offers.
4. Buy a fancy drink. You may have created a strict budget for this trip, but just now in this moment, as I sit here with my glass of wine, I have remembered my budget and decided that budgeting starts after boarding the airplane, and that is a rule. Cocktail, mocktail, up to you. (11/23 – ALSO foreshadowing, my second ~secret~ budget, oops.)
5. Have a mysterious activity to do. Pull out your copy of Anna Karenina, get out your laptop and type, open a journal and sketch. Something studious, something mysterious, something fancy. Imagine you are in a café in Paris with a silk scarf (très chic) and a baguette. That is the vibe we are going for.
6. There were only going to be 5 but: Budget starts on airplane. No further comment at this time.

Congratulations, you are now a mysterious AND fancy airport lady. Next, you fall in love.

I may dive deeper into these separate adventures in another post, but I was fortunate to travel to Scandinavia aka Norway, Sweden, and Denmark in late summer, and then Vienna, Bratislava, Dublin, and London in November of last year. For the first trip, my airport travel was with my mother, so we were still fancy, still mysterious, but much more mother/daughter duo. On the second, a solo trip, I did in fact fall in airport love. Twice.

To be continued, dear reader…