Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Dear Joseph Gordon-Levitt,

I think I love you. Let's have coffee sometime.

Sincerely,
Cindy

Deep thoughts, by not-Jack-Handey

Don't you think it's weird how cartoon characters always look juuuust a little bit like the actors who do their voices?

The Giggles.

When I was younger, I used to get hit by fits of the giggles. I never knew what might trigger a Laugh Attack, or how long it might last once started. A friend once clocked me in at eight minutes of uncontrollable giggling.

As I grew, The Giggles grew with me, into mere fits of silliness brought on by lack of sleep. I referred to this state as being Sleep Drunk, and it was often self-inflicted through Procrastination on Important Homeworks.

I've been mostly free of these diseases for some time now, with only a few instances of nearly-un-surpressable laughter bubbling up at inopportune moments. I was taken by surprise by a full relapse once, when my mind was under some sort of strange influence and I could not help but cackle at my pizza, but that's another story entirely.



My day was full of delays today, starting with our first flight out of Austin this morning. Also, the schedule was built with very little time between each of the four flights today, so there was no cushion time; each delay meant the next flight would also be delayed. The bad news is I did a lot of sitting around, fielding questions, and getting stared at angrily by passengers today, which makes me tired. The good news is our delays got so out of hand that they gave our last flight (and thus our overnight) to a different crew, and we got to come home instead of going to Appleton, WI for the night.

An unexpected Friday night off? Delightful! Especially delightful considering I start ANOTHER trip Saturday evening, after being scheduled to end this one Saturday morning. I was understandably in a good mood as I made my way home. Add to that the delicious, fruity dinner I had:

and you've got one happy ginger.

I sat in my room, mere hours ago, eating my fruit and reading the backlogs of a funny blog/comic I was recently directed to (Hyperbole and a Half - read it and love it) (also this one never fails to make me laugh. it's unrelated to everything else in this post, but it's so good it'll be worth it.)... uhhh, where was I? Ah yes, eating fruit and reading about bears and spaghetti noodles. I sat, eating and reading, and then I finished eating. I went upstairs to take care of my dish and locate my purse (which turned out to be directly next to where I had been sitting in my room), giggling slightly at one drawing or another I had just looked at. As I left my room, I saw a note I had written to remind myself to put the gel inserts into my new work shoes:

Put things in shoes.

I was struck by the image of piling things into my shoes -- marbles, twigs, matchbox cars, batteries -- until they were overflowing with flotsam and jetsam. Think about for a second, and (I hope) you'll see that it's a funny image, especially when left as an important item on a to-do list; it was even funnier to me, what with my not-working happiness and my sleepiness. I burst into laughter as I started walking up the stairs. It then occurred to me how ridiculous it was of me to be laughing while performing the simple task of putting my bowl into the dishwasher, and suddenly, I was unable to stop laughing. Every giggle only made me giggle more, until I could do nothing but shake my head and shrug when my roommate (can I call them roommates? I like it better that way.) asked me what was so funny.

The Fit has passed (unfortunately? fortunately?), but it reminded me of a simpler time. I hope I never grow out of getting the Giggles.




In other news, do you ever get an intense itch in a random but localized spot that, before you can even reach to scratch it, turns into a stabbing pain that makes your entire afflicted limb twitch? That's been happening in the center of my left shin ALL NIGHT. WHAT. THE FUCK.


In other other news, and contrary to what you may have inferred from both the subject and the distant date of my last post, I am not dead. The insects have not bested me yet. We are engaged in an ongoing war of wits. Or hand vacuums and wand dusters. You know, whichever.

And that's how Cindy died.

I came home from work this afternoon to find a spider has taken up residence by my hamper. I stared at him for a minute, not wanting to let him out of my sight, but not wanting to have to get closer in order to kill him. Resigned, I grabbed a nearby shoe.... and the spider ran for cover.

Intelligent insects are invading. This cannot be good.

Addendum

Please add to the previous List of Lost Things: my phone.

For 28 hours, I felt naked and scared. Now I'm back to my old phone, which sadly lacks the internets I've gotten so used to. Alas.

On the plus side, I found out you can text people from the internet, and my Razr not only allows me to be emo again, but also has TETRIS.

So there's that.

Casualties

So far in my time as a flight attendant, I have lost/hotels have gained:
- one watch (I later recovered it, though)
- one pillowcase
- one awesome razor
- one white t-shirt, slightly smelly

That's not much, really, considering I've been doing this for a year and a half. I always feel sad when I remember the things I've left behind, though.

I also often wonder how many hours I've exchanged. I often spend the night in different time zones, occasionally even three different time zones during one four-day trip! Am I losing hours of my life, or gaining? Or does it all manage to even out eventually?

These are the thoughts that plague me.

Numbers

One of my favorite things to ask my pilots is how old they think I am. Last night, my captain told me he wasn't sure I'd be old enough to go out for a drink. My first officer guessed 23 or 24. I confirmed 24, and he nodded and told me, "You look young, but you carry yourself older."

I like it.

Lent

I go to church every Wednesday and Sunday, when I'm not at work. I'm in both the choir and the bell choir. I used to be on the Board of Chritian Education, as did every other member of my family at one point or another. My dad used to be the church moderator. My sister used to be the Youth Director. My mom is the bell choir director.

We used to have two youth directors, Neil and Charlie, who took the youth on an MMT every year; that is, a Magical Mystery Tour. Our parents all knew where we were going, and the youth didn't know until we got there. Many good times were had, but those are stories for another day. The point here is that, out of all the youth that passed through my church while Neil and Charlie were there, I was the only one to attend every single MMT I was of an age to.

My family is kind of a big deal at my church, is what I'm saying.

And yet, I don't consider myself an ultra religious person. I dislike our minister, I zone out during the sermon, I don't read the Bible (and I certainly don't think of it as fact), sometimes I even skip out on the rest of the service after (bell) choir has (played) sung its piece. And, like everyone at some time or another, I have my doubts. Perhaps I'm some sort of church-going agnostic? I have faithful apathy?

But every year when Lent rolls around, I like to try to give something up. It's a nice practice of strength and resistance, regardless of the religious significance (which, if you were wondering, has something to do with Jesus wandering in the dessert for forty days/nights resisting the various temptations of the devil).

Last year, I gave up bacon and McDonald's, both of which I have also given up in previous years. One year I gave up (cheese)burgers as a whole. This year, I'm giving up something I've always avoided giving up in the past, something I always thought would be too difficult for me to succeed at: pop.

As a flight attendant, after a beverage service, I often have half-full cans of various beverages left. Not wanting to be wasteful, I generally drink all the ones I like: Coke, various juices, maybe a little Sprite mixed with cran-apple. My biggest fear in giving up pop this year is not the caffeine headache (no worries, I drink coffee now!), but rather that I'll simply forget and polish off my half cans on the plane.

I think it'll be my most challenging Lent yet, and my most hyper Easter.

Charlie.

The summer after I graduated high school, I started working for a woman from church. She worked from home, and she and her husband had just had a baby. She wanted someone to be at the house with him for anywhere from three to seven hours a day, depending on the day, while she got some work done. He was two months old.

I fell in love with him that summer. He'd cry and cry and cry, and I'd read to him and sing to him and walk with him. He'd fall asleep on my chest and sleep for hours while I just read and drank the chai his mom made for me every day. I memorized "The Cat in the Hat" that summer.

Then I went to college. I nannied again the next summer, and babysat whenever I was around. But the next year, I went to England. Slowly but surely I saw my sweet darling boy less and less. When I did see him, I was surprised by things like his ability to run and talk in full sentences. Full sentences! After summers of endless crying and not knowing what he wanted, here was this amazing boy talking to me in sentences!

Then I got engaged. I'm the youngest cousin, on both sides of my family; D had little cousins, including a perfect little flower girl, but the boys were all either too old or terrors, or both. Who better to bear our rings, I thought, than my Charlie?

The first week of July, I spent some time emailing his mom. She was nervous that he'd be too silly, but I assured her that he is too adorable, and no matter what happened, he could not wreck the day. She said she would consult with him and his dad.

Apparently, she asked him if he wanted to be in Cindy's wedding, and without hesitation, he said yes. Then they practiced. His parents took off their rings, put them on a pillow, and Charlie, my sweet little Charlie, walked around the house with them. She told him, now, you have to be serious. You can't be silly, because who's the center of attention that day? "The bride," he told her.

A couple of days later, when she told him that things happen sometimes, and it's okay, but Cindy's not getting married anymore, he sat down and cried.


I didn't have much regular interaction with Charlie for a long time after those first two summers. When I got the invitation to his sixth birthday party, I was blown away. How could he be SIX already?! Impossible. But there he was, eating cake and blowing out candles, loving Star Wars and Legos, and still speaking in full sentences. And the words he used! I babysat sometime around then, and he told me his mom smells good and is very pretty, and his dad is hilarious. Hilarious!

One night at choir a few months ago, his mom announced that she and Charlie's dad were going on a long-overdue vacation, and they would need someone to stay at their house and look after Charlie. Pam and I volunteered immediately.

L and B, you see, hadn't taken a single vacation together since Charlie was born, and they never even went on a honeymoon. So for two weeks, they were going to escape to Italy.

From January 24 through February 5, Pam and I stayed at Charlie's house and acted as moms to him. It was an amazing adventure, and a rather eye-opening experience. Charlie is perhaps one of the most well-behaved six-year-olds in existence. He is sweet and mannerly and smart and very self-aware and introspective and overall awesome. And yet, the two weeks I recently spent with him made me unsure if I ever want kids. See, my favorite thing about babysitting has always been the ability to give the kids back at the end of the night.

I did have a great time with him, though. Pam and I make a pretty great child-rearing team, actually. We took to him to school, bathed him, fed him, helped him make his bed every morning, read him stories every night. We took him and his friend to Chuck E. Cheese. We cleaned up after him, and tried fruitlessly to get him to use his napkin instead of the blanket as he ate his bedtime snack. We kept track of his mittens, which are always in a different place and never together. We smothered him with hugs (which he loved) and kisses (which he always wiped off) and tried to comfort him when he missed his parents. We learned how strange it is to brush someone else's teeth and cut someone else's finger- and toenails.

Regardless of what I decide in the future about having kids of my own, one thing is certain. I still love that little boy.

Reflections.

We celebrate the New Year year after year. And year after year, I forget that the date has changed yet again, and I write the old year on things well into March.

This year, 2009, was the first exception to this lifelong rule.

My resolution in 2008 was to take at least one picture every day. I posted them online, sometimes, and I had a little folder on my computer where I kept the chosen daily photos. Some days I had tons to choose from; other days, I had to work to find something to take a picture of.

I was doing pretty well at it, overall. I only had a couple of days where I fudged and stole pictures from other days. At the end of the year, I wanted to have a cute little photo book: My 2008 in Snapshots. And I was well on my way.

I gave up my resolution on July 9. I didn't even touch my camera for weeks. That was a time I most definitely did not want pictures of.

The year 2008 was supposed to be one of the best ever. It turned out to be... not the worst, necessarily, because a hell of a lot of good ended up coming from it, but certainly the most tumultuous year to date. And it was a year I was glad to be putting behind me, come the end of December.

Not once in 2009 have I written the wrong year.

Quite a few good things have happened this year. It's a year I'm happy to leave behind, because I'm excited to be moving forward, but it's a year I was thrilled to be in.

I have a feeling I might once again have trouble writing the correct year come January, but only because I can't quite wrap my brain around it. 2010? Really?!

Bring it on.