This one goes out to all the people who know that I travel a lot for work but don’t really understand what my work is or what traveling for it even means. Hope you enjoy a little peek behind the curtain of my life. If you ever see me in an airport at 5:00a… no you don’t.
4:00a
Wake up to cell phone alarm and hit snooze; mentally calculate how much time you actually need before you have to leave for ORD
4:09a
Get out of bed and shower; turn on the bright light to help wake you up faster even though that light makes you physically angry; consider shaving your legs but don’t
4:25a
Brush your teeth and do “skin care” (moisturizer that doesn’t have any SPF in it); mentally calculate how much time you have left before you have to leave for ORD
4:32a
Curse yourself for not refreshing your doubles and having to rip apart your suitcase to find where you packed your deodorant
4:34a
Have not as much time left as you thought (fuck); start the “light touch” make-up that doesn’t make you look any less young
4:47a
Put on clothes and pretend your old jeans pass as professional attire just because you’re in a blazer; dry hair
4:57a
Request a car with a 4 minute estimated wait time
4:58a
Get majorly annoyed when car is a block away and rush to pack your work bag
5:00a
Spot dead flowers on the table and make conscious decision to not throw them out right now (it’s only 2 days); lock the door
5:02a
Get mildly annoyed when car pickup spot is wrong
5:04a
Get in car
5:05a
Begin insufferable 20 minute conversation with driver who is “trying to discern your inner personality” (whatever that means) (he asks if you had to live in any book which one would you pick and you answer “The Haunting of Hill House”)
5:24a
Get out of car at Terminal 3 and shut the door quickly when driver pulls up his phone to ask for your information (“because it’s hard to make friends in Chicago”)
5:26a
Hand TSA agent the ID that you keep meaning to lose because your photo is a crying shame
5:30a
Make it through the detector without an alarm but have your bag put back through the scanner so they can “see what’s up in there” (never find out)
5:36a
Pick up an almond milk latte at Dunkin Donuts because you like to have no hands available
5:47a
Begin boarding 3 minutes early (that never happens)
5:51a
Inconvenience the man next to you by taking your seat (window) and quietly laugh inside your own head when the kid in front of him reclines back to sleep
6:20a
Push back from the gate for an on-time departure (that really never happens)
6:37a
Wonder how many people are pissed at the flight attendants for talking so loudly at 6:37a
6:52a
Put this notebook away to write on your iPad for a while; remember you have to do reviews for your team later
7:01a
iPad unexpectedly restarts in the middle of a sentence and you consider asking the flight attendant to throw it in her little gray trash bag
7:02a
iPad comes back and you lost the whole paragraph; spare a mournful thought over having no idea what you were saying a minute ago but know that it was definitely very good
7:36a
Close Scrivener to watch a bit of a movie because you have to pee and want to take your mind off of it rather than wake the sleeping giant next to you; think about how you should really start inconveniencing men more in your daily life
9:03a
Land at LGA and listen to the man behind you tell the man beside him that “Shawshank is top 5 of all time” as you arrive at the gate; wonder who is worse – him or you for only ever referring to airports by their codes
9:22a
Get in car to the city and ride in blissful silent peace for 36 minutes
9:58a
Drop bags at the hotel first (you never do that, mostly because you never stay this close to the client site); think about how you hope you can do dinner at Sofia’s alone
10:12a
Exchange texts with the project partner to meet up before going to the client; confuse him with names of nearby independent coffee shops and suggest meeting at the closest Starbucks instead
10:46a
Meet at Starbucks
10:47a
Go looking for a different Starbucks with outlets
10:55a
Arrive at the coffee shop right next door to the client and order another almond milk latte; work in companionable silence to fill out reviews for mostly people you barely worked with in the last three months
12:08p
Leave coffee shop for nearby expensive food court to fuel up for an afternoon of “candid conversations”
12:12p
Pick up some kind of veggie bowl while the partner gets a wrap and move your food around to make it look like you ate it; he doesn’t say anything but you know that he knows that you know that he knows you didn’t eat it
12:41p
Stop by CVS for Altoids and seltzer; confuse raspberry lime for cranberry lime and ruin your own day after checking out
12:46p
Walk over to the client’s office and settle in at a big shared workspace table in the middle of their floor
1:32p
Start meeting an hour early because we’re here and they’re here and what else do we have going on
3:24p
Wrap up meeting
3:25p
Wonder if you should go for a third almond milk latte but remember how coffee gives you panic attacks now
3:26p
Work on other things from your to-do list but somehow never get to check any of it off
4:52p
Say rolling goodbyes to the clients as they leave to go home
5:20p
Leave their office (mostly empty by now); agree to go to some fancy sushi place down the street with the project partner because you’re technically vegetarian but sure you’ll try tuna you guess
5:28p
Get suspicious upon arrival by the blacked out windows then find a normal restaurant inside; uphold suspicion throughout entire meal
6:51p
Wave goodbye to the project partner and walk four blocks back to the hotel; feel like it’s half past nine at night but waking up at four will do that to you
7:03p
Get back up to hotel room that’s facing construction; think about how it’s only 7:03p
7:04p
Go down to hotel bar for one more drink; decide that you’ll get it to go
7:06p
Sit down at the bar
7:07p
Order one of the worst Sauvignon Blancs of your life and decide to drink it there; text your friends about trying tuna
7:43p
Close out and go back upstairs; look up songs that are good for karaoke
8:56p
Stop traumatizing the hotel with tinny iPhone Spotify playlists; brush teeth and “wash face” with a make-up wipe
9:01p
Change into pajamas and get into bed
9:03p
Think about how nice it is to be in bed early and how excited you are to sleep
9:04p
Decide to watch a YouTube video; get out of bed to retrieve iPad from bag
10:56p
Turn off iPad 12 videos later and go to sleep