I didn't feel super chipper when I got home, but I was hoping that a few days off after working 21 straight days would re-energize me. But I still feel weird. Weird even for Vegas. Can't seem to shake this fatigue, can't seem to find a groove.
I guess it started last Saturday, my birthday, when I left Las Vegas after working a massive tradeshow. Leaving for the airport at 4am is surreal, but especially 4am in Vegas, which is totally unlike 4am anywhere else. New York may be the city that never sleeps, but Vegas also wakes the neighbors.
Also surreal is waking up wedged into an airplane seat to find that we've landed, as stupidly disoriented as coming-to in the recovery room. What felt like a single moment was in fact six hours. I'd been dead asleep the entire flight from Vegas to Dallas. That'll set you off for the day. The airplane-sleep induced blackout isn't nearly as recuperative as normal sleep nor as "nothing" as the drug-induced sleep from an anesthesiologist, in fact it's barely sleep at all. It's a tenuous sub-awareness, a clenched bout of bouncy boneless desperation pocked with senseless dreams of wagons over rutted roads and tinny, muffled proclamations from Rosie the Robot.
The worst part is that I'd upgraded myself to a first class seat for a hundred bucks. And I snore. How bad do I feel for the other people in the cabin? I don't even remember the plane taking off. I don't even remember the safety announcements. I woke up to the "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Dallas" announcement, looked around to find people looking at me. "You sure must've been tired," said one older fellow, with a smirk. "Oh no...was I snoring?" He grinned and nodded. I apologized with what I hope was apparent sincerity. I must have passed out immediately after buckling my seatbelt, snored my way across the entire southwest, snored all through the movie AND the in-flight meal (I seem to have a dim recollection of eggs being offered and my seatmate's tray full of yellow and white things). Sorry, everyone. I hope there's no video of Fat Woman Snores From Vegas To Dallas, but if there is, I would have to accept it as fair play.
All told, it is probably best not to sleep on a plane. The experience is too harrowing to your psyche. It probably takes entire days off your life. As does a hastily eaten mistake-in-a-rollup during a quick layover, sustenance desperately sought then immediately regretted from some obviously southern chain called "Popeye's." If you're a fan of this place, all I can then conclude is that this airport location is having issues. For one thing, I would not be surprised to learn it hires new clerks from the "Surly 'n Blemished" agency, and something they do manages to turn chicken into breaded, peppery rubber thongs that somehow achieve a consistency that's miraculously both dry and slimy at the same time.
Maybe it was the shock from the southern fried fiasco, but I don't remember much about the Dallas to Boston leg of my trip, only that I watched most of "The Debt" that I'd downloaded to my ipad. And how happy I was to see Joe waiting outside on the steps when my cab pulled up. I missed him SO much. I officially hate this trade show now. And some of my coworkers. But mostly the trade show.
So I'm home, and aside from a spotty work-attendance here and there, I've been just a lump in the sofa. Joe baked me a gluten-free chocolate birthday cake and I treated myself to angel hair pasta with shrimp sauce.
My mother sent me some things from her boutique. There are times when she picks just the right thing, but this time the only thing I'll say about what she sent me is that I've already re-gifted it to this fabulous drag queen I know.
It's nearly 7pm on Sunday, and Peapod will be delivering a big load of groceries sometime in the next hour, and I've cleaned about half the apartment top to bottom. The kitchen I did yesterday, it took me almost four hours to get it back to normal. The stove alone had about a month of abuse, grease and splashes, that was a good half hour from "crying shame" to gleaming. Today I did the dining room, living room and back porch, also reorganized the hall closet for summer.
But groggy. Still. GOD I hope it isn't another sinus infection. Not that I don't love and adore my ENT, but enough with the ears, nose and throat already! I still feel groggy, but this is one of those times when a person just needs to act-as-if. Fake it 'til you make it. Power through.
Or else it's time for a nap.
Nap sounds good.
And why the fuck is it called POPEYE's? If I'm going to a place and you tell me it's Popeye's, I'm expecting spinach and hamburgers. No spinach in the entire damn place.
