Whinetitled

I've always found it really… entitled? whiny? whinetitled? when people spend the entire time they're on an airplane trying to decide which part of the flight to complain about first. As if 1) they didn't just do something AMAZING that people all across history would DIE to try, and 2) it's some kind of contest to see who can feel the most victimized in the shortest period of time. Of course, I'm really good at being whiny and entitled (a part of my personality that internet commenters never fail to remind me of), so I'm gonna go ahead and bitch about the fact that, this morning, I got in an expensive futuristic luxury machine in the Midwest, was served cold beverages, had a TV available to me, and, this afternoon, got out on the west coast. I'm allowed to do this bitching, I think, because I had the decency to preface it with a few sentences to let you know that I realize I'm being whinetitled. That makes it okay.

The other thing that makes my whining okay is the fact that my carry-on bag had a heartbeat. Mina, my year-old tabby cat who has no business being on a plane, seeing as she is a cat, had to make the trek home with me (and back again) for Christmas vacation. My favorite part of my kitty's personality-- the fact that she has a super small capacity for showing affection/interest in anyone who isn't me-- also makes her a less than perfect candidate for being boarded or catsat. She makes herself ill (like, ILL) when she spends too much time around other people, she stresses out when I'm away for too long, and the idea of asking a friend to hang out with my terrified cat for two weeks sounded just a little bit less appealing than taking a terrified cat on a plane. Mina got forced into a cute little bag, a couple hundred bucks got forced out of my bank account (sobsobsob), and we both survived.

Would I have preferred to not spend my flight hunched over so I could keep one hand inside a pet carrier to keep my cat from crying like a human baby? Probably. Would I have preferred to not be surrounded by actual crying human babies? Perhaps. Would it have all been okay if an old homophobic man weren't sitting across from me and making LOUD, UNNECESSARY STATEMENTS about the fact that those crying babies had two moms? Yes. Would I have gotten over it all a lot faster if my sweet but long-legged neighbor hadn't spilled coke on me sometime around hour three? I don't know. I wouldn't have even cared about that last part if the combination of the crying babies and the errant ice cubes hadn't made Mina transition from crying to trying to claw her way to freedom. Scratch scratch scratch, shake shake shake, cry cry cry, bigotry bigotry bigotry, die die die. I've never been happier to see the LA skyline, I've never been happier to hear the chorus of people unlatching their seatbelts, and I've never been happier to let a cat out of a bag.

Now that I've got that out of my system-- and now that Mina is very peacefully napping under the Christmas tree in my apartment-- I am a content, sleepy lady. I like the first day of the year. I like pretending I'm on the cusp of becoming a person who eats mostly arugula and keeps her nasty thoughts to herself and doesn't pile garbage on top of the can instead of just taking it out. I like feeling like everyone in the world is hungover and optimistic and "totally going to work out five times a week" together. I really, really, really like being parked in front of an episode of The Office I've seen a hundred times (Dinner Party), full to the brim with black bean soup that I blended a jalapeño into like a frigging genius, and watching my cat take deep, comfy breaths. I'm pumped to be home and I'm pumped to be done. And I'm pumped to go to bed.

Miles run today: 3
Miles run this year: 3
Books read this year: 0
Burritos consumed this year: 0