it's only me you and the dance floor

This is a little strange - I'm sitting in the San Francisco airport, and there's a guy wearing a gold satin eyemask sitting on one of the chairs near me. Thanks to my recent obsession, it of course reminded me of the guy wearing a gold chinplate in Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" video, which is perhaps a sign that I need to stop watching it quite so much.

I'm about to get on my flight to Memphis, and from there to Des Moines; my strategy this winter was to fly through a Southern city in an attempt to avoid getting stranded someplace, and so far so good. It really has nothing to do with my decision, though, since there is no bad weather in Denver, Chicago or Minneapolis right now, but I'm still relieved. With any luck, I'll make it there on time, my family will pick me up, we will have breakfast, and then we will finish our Christmas shopping. And hopefully my bags make it too - I bought more of my Christmas gifts for people in person rather than online this year, which means I had more to take home than usual. If my bags disappear, it will be a sad story.

Anyway, I successfully woke up at 6:15 and was out the door by seven, with the intention of making it to work by eight so that I could study for an hour and a half before my exam. It was all going swimmingly until somewhere around Redwood City, where traffic ground to a halt. It took me half an hour to get to the next exit, which I promptly took since I know the surface streets in the area; even though they were backed up too, I made the right decision, and so it took me "only" two hours to get to work (some people reported 3+ hours from the city to Mountain View). There was a multi-car accident with an overturned vehicle near Palo Alto, and one of the victims died, so it makes sense why traffic was so backed up. In fact, it was going so slowly that while I was annoyed that I couldn't study at my desk, I was able to read thirty pages of the study guide while sitting in my car. This ultimately paid off, and I passed the second exam with flying colors, freeing up the rest of my day to try to get things done before the holidays.

I left the office around three, ran errands, was home by five, and then spent the rest of the evening cleaning the apartment and packing. I took a quick shower so that my family wouldn't have to deal with my stinkiness, and then Katrina came over to get the spare keys so that she could potentially stay at our place this week. Together, we went to Martuni's (a piano bar with a predominantly middle-aged gay male clientele) to meet up briefly with Vidya (aka Vidius Chandicus, the beloved Chandlord) for her birthday. I was only able to stay for half an hour due to the whole about-to-get-on-a-plane situation, but I'm glad I got to see her despite the brevity. Then, I dropped Katrina back at my place and made it to the airport just in time to write this post before getting on the plane.

That's all for tonight - by the time I write again, I will (fingers crossed) be in Iowa! Finally, happy birthday again to Vidya - and happy birthday to my mother! (or, as Vidya called her in the email she asked me to forward, "the Swampmom") Goodnight!