It’s 8:00 on a Sunday evening, and, due to DST, it feels much earlier. Also, I spent a significant chunk of the day drifting in and out of sleep—finally awakening completely and emerging from my blankets around 4:30pm. I’ve had quite the week. It’s been comparable to an out-of-body experience—that surreal feeling that swirls in your mind until you insist you must be dreaming. And not even necessarily because everything feels perfect. It’s just unusual. I’ve been in Boston for just over 6 months, and it does not feel as though it’s been nearly that long. I could dedicate an entire post to these past 6 months, but I think I’ll stick with this past week. It has completely taken me out of my comfort zone and routine. So here’s a recap of comments, observations, etc:
- I spent the entire week prior to my trip panicking about navigating Logan International Airport. Not about flying. The airport. Additionally, I also deluded myself into thinking that my suitcase (which I had severely underpacked) managed to weigh more than 50 pounds. And so in the hours before leaving my apartment for the airport, I consumed a fair amount of Pinot Grigio.
- I survived the direct flight to DFW Airport. All 3.5 hours of it. Thanks in part, I’m sure, to the $7 vodka cranberry I ordered in flight.
- My brother has a gorgeous family. Anyone who knows me well knows I’m not a fan of children—mostly because I don’t know how to act around them. I tend to be awkward and fumble my words as I try to decide whether or not to talk to them like infants or adults. I, apparently, have no in between. However, I think I navigated this children-filled realm quite well. I played board games and hide-and-seek, colored pictures, read naptime and bedtime stories, and gave hugs and kisses.
- My brother works a lot. I wish I saw more of him. But seeing him at all was absolutely better than not.
- I ate outstanding Tex Mex and awesome, real BBQ, too. They also bought me Girl Scout cookies. Somebody get me a gym membership ASAP.
- The temperature reached 85 degrees on Monday, and I wore sandals. It felt funny, and my feet were pale. Similarly, I realized while on this trip that I have total winter body: so pale and unfit. Again, where’s that gym membership?
- Saying goodbye was quite difficult. I could not control my emotions as I confusedly went through security at the airport. I thought the airport would be a place where it could be socially acceptable to cry. It’s a place of goodbyes. But people stared.
- I survived 3 hours of the flight back to Boston. With only half an hour left, I nestled against the window and closed my eyes. And then it hit me that I was about to vomit. I tried to breathe through it. Can you even throw up in the restrooms on an airplane? It didn’t work. I could feel the color draining from my face, could feel the lump in my throat and the cold in my stomach as I started to sweat. I asked the others in my row to let me by and stumbled to the bathroom, faces of passengers blurred. I wondered if they could tell I would be sick. I stood between the two bathrooms and could only make out the word “PUSH” on each. I couldn’t make out any indication if either was occupied. So I started frantically pushing on both of them at the same time. I was dizzy. I couldn’t see. I felt myself slump forward over my waist. The next thing I know, I’m being set down on a seat in the flight attendant’s cabin. I had temporarily blacked out. The flight attendant blasted cool air on me and handed me a package of crackers that I could not open because my hands were tingling—the same exact pins-and-needles feeling when your foot falls asleep. She left me back there for a while. I ate the crackers, trying to break them into pieces with my numb, sleepy hands. Breathing deeply. The nausea had passed, but I felt incredibly shaky. About ten minutes later, she re-entered the cabin to ask if I wanted to see the doctor seated in the last row, just behind me. I agreed, though I wasn’t sure what he could do for me. A goofy heavy-set guy in his forties and wearing glasses sat beside me. Asked me a few questions about what had happened. Eventually concluded I was hyperventilating, a result of a minor anxiety attack. To me, it had come out of nowhere. I hadn’t felt nervous or anxious about anything, really. Nothing out of the ordinary, anyway. Anyone who knows me also knows that I have generalized anxiety disorder, anyway. But I’d never had a physical attack like this one. He gave me a paper bag to breathe into, explaining the physical cause of hyperventilation, which I didn’t necessarily care to hear. I had to return to my seat as we landed, still breathing into the paper bag, and still being stared at by nearby passengers. I felt completely fine soon after landing. Such a strange experience.
- The next morning, I intended to be up early to register on-site for AWP. For those who don’t know, AWP is the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. It’s a massive 3-day conference of panels, readings, and a huge bookfair held in a relatively large city every year. And this year it was in Boston. Unable to get myself up early, I headed over around 1 in the afternoon, only to wait in the registration line for 3 hours. I met someone in line, though, so that was cool.
- Redivider 10th birthday party on Thursday at Boston Beer Works in Fenway: fun.
- Whiskey’s Steakhouse for drinks after that with classmates: also fun.
- Up early on Friday to trek in a snowstorm to hear Nick Flynn and Stephen Elliott on a 9am panel about Post-Genre Lit: fantastic.
- Went to a reading to hear my professor Joan Wickersham (as well as Pablo Medina, Tracy Winn, and Christopher Castellani): wonderful.
- Lunch at an awesome salad restaurant: Tossed.
- Met Amber Tamblyn (poet and actress in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants—but probably other things, too)
- Absolutely awful panel on writers using Tumblr—I left early.
- Checked out the bookfair (writing programs, publishers, lit journals) and bought a few new journals. I’m most excited to read the latest issue of The Normal School. The people at the table were awesome.
- This mug:
- This t-shirt:
- Saturday panel at noon (“Memoir Beyond the Self”) fell far below my expectations. The writers demonstrated disdain for their own work and one even advised the room to avoid writing nonfiction at all. Thanks, dude.
- My undergrad professor Lorraine Berry (whom I found at the bookfair the day prior) was at the noon panel and was her typical bad ass self, asking the panel about the role of gender and race in writing memoir, which the panelists had so blatantly ignored in their conversation. Awesome.
- Favorite panel: “How To Lose Friends and Alienate Loved Ones”—put together well, witty writers/panelists, most informative.
- Emerson Reception that night included a free drink and meeting a few new people.
- Went out for drinks with a classmate and my line friend. A good time.
- Total immersion in Writerpalooza 2013 = a very, very tired girl today.
I’d been waiting for a week like this.
Untangle 