Moderate Turbulence

3:30am and Orlando International Airport has, for once, chosen mercy. There is nobody in security. Not a short line, not a manageable line, actually nobody, most of the checkpoints are closed and the few employees standing around seem almost surprised to see passengers.

I remember this airport differently. I remember a security line so long I finished three chapters of a book while standing in it, inching forward every few pages. I remember flying in this week and seeing a line that looked five miles long. Today I walk straight through and suddenly have two hours to kill.

Nothing is open on the other side but I do not want anything anyway. The sin of last night’s gluttony is still sitting in my stomach in layers.

Brisket. Fajitas. Hot dog. Baked treats. Frozen dessert drinks. Whatever else crossed my field of vision and failed to get away fast enough. I ate like winter was coming.

Worth it.

The day had improved considerably by then. Universal is one of those places I can be genuinely delighted to be in even when parts of it have acquired associations I did not ask for, and Harry Potter world in particular now has a stupid amount of somebody-else residue stuck to it.

I know almost nothing, and am interested in absolutely nothing, about Harry Potter. The last two men in my life knew plenty. It is hard to wander around somewhere built entirely out of a thing other people loved without occasionally remembering the people.

Fortunately I had good company, which fixed most of that.

Gossip is also sinful.

That said, I spent part of the evening with the CEO’s sister and our top producer’s daughter - an arrangement that turns out to be extremely productive for anyone whose interests include learning things you had no business knowing five minutes earlier.

Before we got to the good stuff, I asked one of them if she had been working out because her legs had been absolute fire in her outfit Wednesday night. She says yes, then says she wants my abs.

Happy to trade, I tell her. I have no physical assets. I could retire on those legs.

No one wants a woman with abs. When was the last time anybody met an abs man? Legs men, meanwhile, are everywhere. Spiritually, I am one of them.

Then the tea starts spilling.

Apparently DEgen had not merely been putting the moves on me. DEgen had been putting the moves on everyone… and more aggressively, for that matter. MUCH more aggressively, even.

This delights me more than it reasonably should. Grieves me somewhat, too. Greasy little fucker was holding out on me!

I had wondered where he had disappeared to. Now I really wondered. Maybe somebody took him up on it. I enjoy playing with fire as much as the next idiot but that particular fire is married to the sister of one of our executives, which should make him substantially less attractive.

Almost does.

Earlier that morning I had also placed third in the 5k, which mostly made me wish I had listened when ChatGPT told me not to run a 5k on a sprained ankle.

People kept congratulating me all night.

This was awful.

Contrary to what dressing like I am trying to win a hostile takeover might suggest, I hate being the center of attention, and apparently placing third means people continue remembering you did it hours later.

I had planned to jog the whole thing. That lasted until I saw people I knew catching up behind me. One passed me.

Well.

I was simply not going to stand for that.

After about mile one the ankle stopped hurting, which I correctly interpreted as adrenaline and then completely ignored. I ran much faster than I had any business running and pounded the pavement all the way through.

By the time we got to Universal it was time to pay the piper, and he only accepted payment in pain… excruciating pain. All we did was walk and every ninety seconds or so I had to tell myself not to cry.

This morning the ankle is threatening to secede from the bodily union. I am inclined to grant the petition just to stop hearing from it.

No painkillers for me, though. Not even OTC.

I am such an extremist.

We took the Harry Potter train, which was pleasant, then a thrilling Harry Potter simulator ride, which was somewhat less so; my stomach briefly threatened to return the entire dessert buffet to its original location, possibly with interest. It stayed put, though.

A small miracle because I had eaten everything. The cornbread deserves special recognition. Best cornbread of my life. Not best theme park cornbread. Not best banquet cornbread. Cornbread, period. Then frozen butterbeer. Cookies of several denominations. Brownies with nothing special about them except apparently being the best ordinary brownies on Earth.

Back at the hotel I had just enough time for a two-hour nap before hooking up with my ride share companion: a junior advisor that I have watched gradually materialize into a whole-ass advisor.

I told him I was a proud mom.

I have done absolutely nothing to get him here.

Still proud.

And still mom. I am old enough to be, after all, even though no one here seems to think so. My age became a recurring guessing game this week for some reason. Multiple people. About half guessed somewhere in the mid-thirties. The other half said 29.

The hopeful horny Labrador annoyed me as much as a real dog would have, so I blew him off. Everybody else got rejected too. It was easier this year anyway. A lot of my hardest, fastest pursuers had brought wives and families along for the theme park, which took some of the usual pressure off by making everyone behave like a person with relatives.

Sex was still a constant topic of conversation. I kept brushing up against it, leaving enough room for maybe, letting that be entertaining. As usual, nothing ever went beyond that.

Four hours of sleep a night all week, give or take, plus those two before this morning’s Uber. Conference math 101. This is so much easier with speed. Or at least caffeine, usually five cups by noon. Obviously all of that means I am very much on edge every time.

Kept the edge this year. Just made it straight.

My usual partners in crime spent the first several days vaguely offended every time I declined an alcoholic beverage.

drink?

no.

drink?

still no.

something else?

also no.

Then more offended when I could not supply whatever else they hoped I might have brought. Sorry to disappoint the constituency.

By the final night everybody seemed to have gotten the message.

This is actually a first.

I do not think I have ever done one of these without putting something in the system. Stimulant, depressant, social lubricant, chemical adjustment, pick a direction and pull.

This time I just did it.

No sleep & no coffee? No problem!

I need nothing, but please do not mistake that for a victory lap. In fact, I am rather tired of how often my life keeps reinforcing that lesson.

I kept waiting for the part where I would hate how hard it was, or miss how nice it used to be, but I might as well have been waiting for Godot; neither sentiment ever showed up.

There were dinners and meetings and strangers and crowds and people needing conversation and people wanting to continue conversation long after I had used up all the peopling I had in me for the day. There was almost no sleep. Certainly no rest. There was copious networking, flirting, gossip, propositions, too much food, not enough food, too many hours in uncomfortable shoes, too many hours generally.

And it was fine. As always, I was fine. Self containment reconfirmed yet again.

By the end I am yawning hard enough to hurt myself, my head aches, I am pale and sweaty in that specific way I get when I have skipped the amount of sleep required for basic mammalian maintenance, but I feel okay.

Mostly I want to go home. Put my ankle up. RICE that shit.

So now I am sitting at the airport ridiculously early, outside still warm enough that I was sweating and inside cold enough that I am regretting what I am wearing in both conditions. But I have always liked waiting at the terminal once I am through everything. I do not mind being early. I like knowing I have nowhere else I am supposed to be yet.

My bag is heavier than it was when I came down.

This is partly because I barely had room when I packed, and then I acquired more things anyway. Conference swag, tchotchkes.

It is also because there is a hundred-dollar Harry Potter wand in it.

Not mine.

Obviously.

I bought a hundred-dollar wand for a man I have already written off and who appears to have made a similar decision regarding me.

Excellent use of luggage capacity.

I am not entirely sure why I bought it.

I do not look very hard at that.

I saw it. My brain screamed his name. I bought it. These are facts. I do not need to open a closed case to investigate further.

It does mean something is still connected under there somewhere, I guess. A softly blinking little indication that the system is not quite as empty as I would otherwise assume.

What it is indicating is less clear.

Affection feels too generous. Hope seems wrong. Attachment sounds repulsive. Grief is too dramatic. Maybe I saw something he would love and for a few seconds it was still natural to want him to have it.

Maybe that is all.

Maybe not.

Either way I now own, at least for the moment, a very expensive wand for a person who may never receive it.

Work bestie will wake up eventually and receive several pounds of concentrated tea. DEgen’s office-wide sales strategy alone deserves oversharing.

Until then, I sit.

Two flights. No middle seat on either, thank the good Lord above. Several opportunities to lose consciousness against an airplane window. Then the shuttle back to my car, which I refuse to think about because that belongs to me six hours from now and she can deal with it.

My carefully curated sleep habits have been completely destroyed by this week, although maybe I can accidentally fix them by being exhausted enough to pass out at a respectable hour tonight. I have been waking up earlier every day anyway. Perhaps I went so far off course that I came around the other side.

Would be on brand.

For now I am cold, sober, underslept, overfed and early. I am tired enough that the airport feels almost peaceful, and relieved enough to be going home that I do not need to make the week mean anything more than it did.

I sit there until takeoff happens and I fly away home. Until next time, Florida. 🫡