float_on_alright | Ah, My Brain (Reply)

I was just telling Reb about how I need to figure out what I want on iPad as far as media and what and delete anything I don’t want so I can be ready for the trip to England. I got all jazzed in my own head and I realized how much I’m looking forward to doing that. I haven’t had a trip where I had a reason to do something like that in a while. Sure, I flew out to California to see my friend earlier this year and that was a bit of a trip, but that’s not an overseas trip. Also, I went to California to see my friend so while we did some touristy stuff, the real purpose was spending time with her. This trip will definitley be about seeing the family a bit, but it’s also largely about getting to do the tours and such. That means I’ll be spending a lot of time on planes both ways, plus there’s a ferry ride to Ireland and we have to drive to and from the port and I’ll need entertainment for all that.

It’s kind of hilarious to me that I’ll be spending a shit ton of time making decisions about what shows and movies I’m going to cram on my iPad and what I’m proabbly going to do the whole time I’m there is read. Let’s be real folks. I’m a reader. Though I love TV and movies too. But I’m a massive reader and usually when I have the oppurtunity to do nothing for hours on end that aren’t being spend “with my family” (like the flights by myself), I sleep or I read. I expect it’ll be something like six hours dozing, thirty minutes eating and browsing the onboard entertainment and an hour and a half of reading on the long flights. Something about planes tends to lull me into a napping frame of mind. I’m not sure if that’s just a pavlovian response of many trips past or if I’ve trained myself or if it’s something of the combination of knowing that I don’t have to do anything except say I want the chicken and an apple cranberry juice for several hours and the rocking quality of the plane as it hits patches of air. Yes, I just equated light to medium turbulance with being rocked to sleep as a baby. But dammit, that’s what it’s like for me. I was terrified the first time I flew, but it wasn’t long before I found I really liked flying. There are still moments that make my stomach swoop uncomfortably, but on a whole I love to fly.

There’s a comedian named Jasper Carrott who has a quote something like, “It’s my contention that airports are more traumatic than flying.” He’s hilarious and if you have a few minutes to look him up, I super hope you do. Granted, if you’re not used to English (specifically Birmingham) accents, it might be difficult for you to understand what he’s saying. Still, “Day Trip To Blackpool” is one of the funniest damn things I’ve ever heard. Seriously, hilarious. My favorite stand up is probably still “The Five Levels of Drinking,” but I do love a ton of Jasper Carrott’s stuff and when it comes to consistently writing and delivering what I consider to be absolutely fantastic comedy pieces, Jasper Carrott is the man. There are so many by him that I love. His thing about “The Mole” is just one of the funniest things ever (“It’s driving me mental! If I ever get hold of it, I’ll… I’ll bury it alive!”, “If they found a mole in Birmingham, they’d eat it.”)

A, tangents, they’re awesome.

But back to what I was saying.

When I realized that I’m going to get to prep for a trip, I swear to God I felt like I lit up like a Christmas tree or some shit. I really haven’t done that in forever and I feel like I could spend hours working on it tonight. That I’m wound up enough to stay up until sunrise messing with it. I won’t stay up until sunrise doing that, but the temptation is defiitley there. I also know that my brain has latched onto this idea and that pretty much means I’m not going to be thinking about much else until I’ll finished that project. I’m hoping that because I have three weeks before I’m supposed to leave that I’ll be able to at least limit my complusive habits regarding it. We’ll see!

I’ve been trying to focus on what needs to be done at work before I go to England and the only things I can think of right now are my teen blog for October, the audiobook binge recommendation I want to write, the DigiLit Class, and maybe a Teen Volunteer schedule. I should also do some ordering for my NaNoWriMo events in November. Maybe getting The Wine Vault to pass around some advertisements. Oh, also my book club. I need to read my book club book and write my book club questions. And Hayley and I are doing Kitchen Chemistry on Wednesday.

Okay, I have plenty to do. I stand corrected.

I need to break that down and get as much of that done this week as possible because the next week is gonna fly by and the week after that I’ll be useless.

But that all sounds like a tomorrow problem.