My Own Planet

Does this mean I'm an...adult?
I honestly couldn't tell you what I was most excited about yesterday: The fact that our pub-quiz team managed to command the lead after the first round of trivia last night, or the fact that my company is now offering vision insurance to its employees. Considering that, immediately after that high, our quiz score steadily declined throughout the night until we were left in our usual position of tied-for-fourth-from-last, and that the vision insurance will allow me to get a brand-new pair of glasses for just $25, I'm inclined to think it's the latter. Sure, our brief moment on the top was great, but my current pair of glasses has an outdated prescription, an arm that I had to super-glue back on, and a frame that is partially covered in nail polish thanks to an incident in my makeup bag while traveling. I really need new glasses.

Yatta!
It took some extraordinary measures (like upgrading my Netflix plan from two-at-a-time to three-at-a-time, and downloading a bunch of software updates for my computer so that I could actually watch the final episode that I purchased from iTunes) and a little bit of sacrifice for the greater good (on Dave's part, mind you, not mine--I made him watch the first few episodes with me and, just when I'd gotten him hooked, took the discs away from him in the interest of sticking to my stringent schedule), but just in the nick of time, I managed to pack in all 23 episodes of the first season of Heroes in time for tonight's premiere. If "managing to watch an insane amount of TV when my schedule was already pretty full" can be considered a superpower, that's definitely the one I have.

Does my MO need an MO*?
In the years since I shed my amateur TV-watching status and turned semi-professional, I've developed a system for adding new shows to my roster. This involves not watching any shows when they're first introduced (Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives were exceptions to this rule), instead letting other people (usually Francesca) be the guinea pigs and tell me if they're worth watching. If so, I will then drive myself crazy by trying to watch an entire season of said show on DVD during the two weeks between when I can get it from Netflix and when the next season premieres.

This is what I'm doing right now with Heroes and, in combination with all the other stuff on my to-do list, it's been a little stressful. So I'm blaming my questioning of this method, combined with the fact that Josh Schwartz's shows have been known to go sour after just one season, on the fact that I actually watched the premiere of Gossip Girl last night.

I knew the day would eventually come when I had to admit that I was too old for high-school shows, but I didn't think that day would come at the tender age of 27. But I couldn't miss its arrival last night, as sat with my mouth agape while witnessing the martini-drinking, text-messaging, couture-wearing, graphic-sex-in-public-places-having exploits of today's uber-privileged youth and marveling at how far and fast we'd fallen since the days of 90210 (in which subjects like drugs and sex were always broached from behind the morally conservative veil of the Walsh family) and Dawson's Creek (in which the only thing remotely scandalous was how many big words they used). And that's not even addressing my real problem with Gossip Girl, which is that it's got all the no-holds-barred soapiness of The O.C. without any of the tongue-in-cheek irony that made that show actually good (and, all right, eventually led to its downfall).

I guess all of this is a long-winded way of saying that I'm thinking my one-season-delay system of finding new shows might not be such a bad thing, if it meant I could have that hour of my life back.

*Uh, as in "makeover"...yeah, it's a bit of a stretch. Go with it.

Gettin' busy
It seems like at the end of each season (in this case, summer), there's an all-too-brief lull in which my calendar is completely empty, immediately after which it somehow becomes completely full. The pre-fall lull has already come and gone, and I've already been catapulted squarely into hectic territory. Looking at my calendar yesterday, I realized that I'm only going to be in the office for 12 days during the month of October, thanks to a wedding, a trade show and, oh yeah, that two-week trip to Thailand I may have mentioned once or twice.

Speaking of that, the event that kicked off this crazy autumn was a work-related visit to Cincinnati this past weekend, during which Bri and I got to sit down and actually plan our trip. To co-opt a phrase from Barney Stinson (Are you watching How I Met Your Mother? Why not?), it is going to be legendary. There will be elephant riding, bamboo rafting, kayaking, snorkeling, temple visiting and, if history is any indication, Britney Spears. Yep, it seems that we were unable to even get through our planning session without pausing to watch Ms. Spears' latest VMA performance, then analyze what went so horribly awry by comparing it to a few of her better efforts. So it seems that Brit is destined to be our traveling companion again for our latest Excellent Adventure. Let's just hope that, in the past three years, our travel skills haven't gone the way of her career.

Apparel for a very small subset of Americans
Today I went into American Apparel for the very first time in an ultimately fruitless attempt to find a swimsuit to take to Thailand. (Tip: Don't ever try to buy a swimsuit in September unless you just really like feeling frustrated, because everything will inevitably be in weird sizes and non-matching colors or, in the case of Victoria's Secret, who is currently holding hostage the one swimsuit that I really, really wanted, backorded until four days after you return from Thailand.) Ahem. Where was I? Oh, right, American Apparel. As I pushed through the racks of neon-yellow tube dresses and electric-blue leggings, it occurred to me that this store really is courting a very specific subset of the population: small, socially conscious, moderately well-off hipsters who wish it was still the early '80s. Twenty minutes in the store, and I'm convinced that anyone who shops there with any regularity must fit all of these parameters. It seems like too small a cross-section of the population to sustain a business, but American Apparel seems to be doing pretty well for itself, so perhaps there are a lot more small, socially conscious, moderately well-off hipsters who wish it was still the early '80s out there than I thought.

College rule
There are some people who, long after school ceases to be a major factor in their lives, just can't shake the association of September with going back to class. I am usually not one of those people. In the five years since I washed my hands of secondary education, I've managed to regard the beginning of September for exactly what it is: more of the same old, same old, albeit with the promise of slightly cooler temperatures on the horizon.

But this year, I've been bombarded by reminders of college. Well, "been bombarded" might be a misnomer, as I was primarily responsible for pretty much all of the bombardment. First there was the five-year reunion with Nikki, Diana and Kristen at our alma mater, aptly designated a "culinary nostalgia tour" by Holly, as most of the weekend consisted of noshing on our favorite Columbia delicacies (Booche's and Flat Branch burgers, Shakespeare's pizza, a Quinton's TAC, a glass of Les Bourgeois' Estate-Bottled Chardonnel and Pasta Factory toasted ravioli and chocolate fudge cheesecake in one weekend? How did I get so lucky?) while trying to figure out exactly what we used to do in Columbia to pass the hours between meals (I guess must've spent some time going to class and studying...).

And although it seems like a reasonable idea, I swear that I did not intentionally plan to follow this foray back into my college days by watching Undeclared via Netflix. It just happened to be waiting for me when I got home, the latest installment in this summer's Judd Apatow Experience (a thorough study on the concept of whether Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen can live without each other, or if they're actually one of those parasitic life forms, achieved by watching Freaks & Geeks, Undeclared, Superbad and Knocked Up in rapid succession). Anyway, I had my suspicions that Judd had somehow used my own college experience as a blueprint for his show when I saw how similar the dorm rooms were to my own beloved concrete bunker in McDavid Hall (which, BTW, is now air-conditioned--spoiled little brats), but last night, when I heard Seth Rogen tell one of the other characters, "You're just trying to fatten me up so you can eat me," I knew it was true. That's what Diana and I always used to say to each other when presented with an offer for some microwave popcorn. Whoa.

Is this the universe's way of telling me that I should go back to school? I hope not--I like the food, but I don't think I'm ready for all that class and studying stuff again.

Why do I put myself through this?
One of the D.C. area's three airports is located within about 10 miles of my apartment. Another one is located within about 10 miles of my office. And yet, 90 percent of the time, I choose to fly out of the third--Baltimore-Washington International Airport, which, as my boss has pointed out, is something of a misnomer because it's really nowhere near Washington at all. Whether I drive or take the Metro-bus combo, it typically takes me at least 2 hours to get to BWI--it's not uncommon for my journey to the airport to actually take longer than my flight to my final destination. As I sat in horrible D.C. rush hour traffic on Thursday afternoon, I asked myself the above question over and over: Why do I put myself through this?

The answer is pretty simple: Southwest. I love flying Southwest (and they, unfortunately, love flying out of BWI). It's not just that they're cheap, or have far better customer service than other airlines, or have (what I'm convinced are) roomier seats, or give you snack packs with word puzzles on long flights, or have an in-flight magazine that's actually really good, or that I've managed to master their open boarding process, or that I've earned three free tickets since I started flying them almost exclusively a few years ago. I guess it's a combination of all of that, but what it really comes down to is that when I had a horrible experience with another airline, they managed to make it all better. And since then, they've done nothing to suggest that they're in any way unworthy of my high esteem.

But lately, I've been wondering if my loyalty really needs to be so undying. Right now, for example, I'm on hour two of a seven-hour wait at the Kansas City International Airport simply because, unlike my boyfriend, who spent a small amount of money more on a flight that will get him into one of those centrally located D.C. airports at a reasonable hour, I insisted on booking the cheapest Southwest flight I could, even though that means that by the time I get home, he will have had hours to relax and recharge after our fabulous weekend reunion with my best friends in our college town. Meanwhile, I'll be covered in that film of exhaustion and general yuckiness that descends upon you when you spend seven hours in an airport.

Then again, thanks to my iBook and KCI's free wifi, I'll be all caught up on my blog reading, freelance work, Solitaire-playing and possibly even some TV-watching, which let's face it, is exactly what I'd be doing (albeit with more comfortable seating and about 5,000 fewer people) if I were spending these seven hours at home. So it looks like my loyalty to Southwest isn't going to fade anytime soon...or at least not until hour five, when I run out of Internet videos to amuse me.

UPDATE: It's five hours later. My flight has been delayed. I'm listening to "I Hate Everyone" by Get Set Go, which pretty much describes how I feel right now after sitting in an airport since noon. My feelings toward Southwest are going downhill at a pretty rapid clip.