pain at 30,000 feet (and on the ground)

My flight left at 6 am. That meant I left the house at 4 am. There was some talk of Wes taking me to the airport so that we would save the $30 car fare, but when I looked at his face at 12:30 as we were getting into bed at last, I knew there was no way that waking him up in 3 hours was going to be a good idea. It was worth $30 to let him sleep an additional two.

The flight to Dallas had a zillion people on standby and they asked for volunteers to give up seats for vouchers and I became VERY excited. I never am able to do those things because it always seems to happen when I need to be somewhere at a certain time. But this time… I was actually getting in 4 hours before Wes and GMB so a delay would actually work better. They found me a flight that got in pretty much exactly when Wes’ did and told me that they would let me know if they needed my seat. Which was baffling. How do they not know if they need my seat 10 minutes before boarding with 30 people on standby? And in the end, they didn’t need my seat but yet I saw them turn away a standby customer. Why couldn’t she have my seat and give me the voucher, dammit? Hmph.

So I went to Dallas. And when I got there I discovered that it was probably a good thing I hadn’t changed flights to match Wes’. Because Wes, who had been SUCH a good boy and gotten him and primpy GMB out of the house at 7 sharp as instructed, was going to be stuck at JFK for a long, long time. And then he was going to be stuck in Las Vegas (his favorite place, doncha know) for four hours later on – ironically, they went this way because they needed to use the ticket that GMB had not been able to use for the Vegas trip last September, and they ended up stuck in a Vegas layover from hell! Because a certain airline my family likes to call America Worst really messed up and Wes and GMB had to pay all. day. long. It ended up taking them 18 hours to get to SFO. Luckily, Wes used the unexpectedly long layover to take GMB to The Vegas Strip to show him the fun he had missed in September, and thus they were not at the airport when a man was shot after taking a child hostage to get through security. Yeah. Which led to… you guessed it… another delay!

As for me, I was nearly done in by pain yesterday. Flying always hurts like hell – all that sitting makes body parts fall asleep and get extremely stiff – but flying on Cycle Day One with some mega crazy ass cramps added a whole new dimension to my pain. I guess it makes sense that my horrible, horrible period cramps make my fibro act up – considering that it may be a nerve disorder and that my body just sends out too damn many pain signals, maybe the real pain signals of the cramps just make everything go haywire. Pain starts at my uterus and just radiates out to everything. There were moments on the second flight where it was all I could do not to actually cry out. By mid-afternoon, after lunch and the grocery store with my parents, my knee strangely hurt so much I was limping slowly.

I am much better today. Random pains but the cramps are really mild and I have been mobile all day. We saw my parents’ new condo (they are going to sell the Marin mansion next year) that is right across from the ferry building and simply resplendant in eighties decor (they are spending the year remodeling).

Mostly, being in SF still has a tendency to make me sad and therefore cranky. I miss it, when I really admit it to myself, and sometimes I really wonder what life would be like as a grown-up here. Then again, the parking meters are hideously expensive and walking the hills would kick my fibromyalgic ass so maybe not. Not that it’s even a real consideration. I am so head over heels in love with Brooklyn that there is no chance I will leave it (until Wes forces me into Chelsea as payback for the years spent in my beloved borough – that’s for later in life, a deal I foolishly made to get him to move out of Manhattan in the first place – we’ve always been long-term planners). I feel giddy sometimes when I am in Brooklyn. It is an overwhelming love that knows no bounds. My love for SF is more like my love for my exes. I know it probably wouldn’t have worked out, but sometimes I can’t help but wonder.