let the recovery begin

written yesterday (sunday), posted today: sitting at the airport; waiting for my flight back to milwaukee. my flight is scheduled to depart at 4:28 but as i checked my bag the midwest lady told me the plane wouldn't arrive until 4:30. i told her i shouldn't have to pay the baggage fee since i was being inconvenienced by a late departure but she didn't buy it.

i'm taking advantage of the my wait to begin the recovery process (and drink a delicious, over-priced pumpkin spice latte). i can't even imagine how i would feel right now if i didn't like my family. but i do (like 'em). they're funny and intelligent and talented. my emotional exhaustion is primarily a reflection of my inability to maintain a high level of pleasant, social contact for days on end. very little alone time, constant noise and interaction, crisis resolution, sleep deprivation (playing beatles rock band with my cousins until all hours of the night was a necessary activity), and being confronted with the reality of mortality as i saw the grandparents who raised me, now in their eighties, dealing with all of those things that come with old age. in five days i went through almost an entire bottle of midol, purely for its excessive-emotion-reduction capabilities.

yesterday, grandma and i, and then later, my cousins, cousins' wives, cousins' kids, and i went to the marion mall to check out the day-after-christmas sales. being as fond of shopping as i am, my willingness to go with grandma is a testament to my love for her; my eagerness to go the second time is a testament to my love of books and the going-out-of-business sale at waldenbooks. my suitcase ended up at 49.5 pounds after i shifted two of the i-won't-say-how-many books to my carry-on (one suitcase is $20, one suitcase over 50 lbs is $75!).

last night a fuse blew on one side of the house and one of my cousins and i spent an hour looking at three different fuse boxes to try to locate the culprit (with a flash light, in the freezing cold, in our pajammers). i finally ended up reading out types of and amp levels of every antiquated fuse the house possesses over the phone to my uncle who was shopping with my aunt and another cousin in columbus. how they found replacement fuses in the middle of the night is beyond me (they had to go to three stores i found out today). so the power's back on in that side of the house and now my uncle has to return the space heater that contributed to the power outage in the first place. it was a little like christmas at the oswalds.

this morning we all went to church and then the house of hunan for chinese food. the fortune in my cookie told me to remember the date three months from today because something important would happen. so in case i forget, would someone please mark 27 march in his/her calendar? thanks. my aunt and uncle drove me and one of my cousins to the columbus airport after lunch and here i sit. surrounded by people and blissfully alone.