Insomnia

So it's 7-something in the morning, and I can't sleep. It probably has something to do with the fact that it's way too warm in this apartment (our high temperature hit 84 degrees outside yesterday). It probably has a lot more to do with the fact that I'm stressed out. Cory and I are in the process of buying a condo, and every day I get about 10 more forms in the mail from the title company and our mortgage broker. There's also a good chunk of wedding stress jammed in there, too. Basically, it's all just money-stress, even though the majority of the money we're spending isn't even our money. In fact, it's probably because the majority of the money we're spending isn't our money.

At some point, I should probably write about my brief, ill-fated trip back to Michigan a week ago. It wasn't a trip I was looking forward to making in the first place, and it ended up being a lot worse than I anticipated.

First, it was just way too short. I'm not allowed to take time off during sweeps, which means vacations in November are typically out of the question. I never get to go anywhere for Thanksgiving... in fact, I think I've been allowed to take Turkey Day off exactly once since I started working in television seven years ago. Anyway, thanks to a little creative scheduling, I got to take a day off this month (last Sunday). Since Mondays and Tuesdays are my regular day off, I managed to take a long weekend to fly back home.

Second, I hate travelling. Actually, that's not true. I really enjoy travelling. What I don't enjoy is taking a vacation and spending half of my vacation time on the road. Actually, I don't like going anywhere that takes me longer in travel-time than I'll actually spend at my destination. (This theory extends to work, too. I often have to drive 1-2 hours one-way to shoot a game... but I can only stay for about half an hour because I have a deadline to make. So I drive three hours and spend half an hour at my destination. That drives me crazy!)

Third, I knew the trip would be inherently stressful. I was going back home for my father's wedding. I really wanted to be there, but I also knew that it would drive my mother crazy. I was staying with her, and I knew I wouldn't get to spend much time with her, and I knew she'd be pissed as hell about the whole thing. So I had that to look forward to. I actually made a hotel reservation... just in case.

But there was a factor that I didn't take into consideration.

Food Poisoning.

I woke up Sunday morning at 6:30 feeling terrible. I spent the next five hours running back and forth between the bedroom and the bathroom, all the while trying to pack for my trip, and praying that I'd run out of human waste before I had to leave for my flight. If you've ever had food poisoning, you know how miserable the experience is, so I won't go into the gory details. By the time I left for the airport, I was so physically weak that I couldn't pick up my suitcase to put it in my car. (But that's why I keep Cory around, right?)

You know how, when you're sick, you're particularly irratible? Try flying on the weekend before Thanksgiving when you feel that way. I cannot express deeply enough my contempt for people who don't understand the concept of a single-file line.

To make things even better, as soon as I arrived in Detroit, I threw up in the airport concourse. Welcome home!

For the duration of my visit, I ate virtually nothing. A baked potato (which I didn't keep down). Two slices of apple pie. Soup. Four bites of a sandwich. The food at the reception looked so good (and smelled so good), but every time I took a nibble of something, it tasted funny, and I had to throw it in the trash.

By Tuesday, and my flight home, I felt almost normal again. I only had to make two trips to the bathroom during my return flight (a significant improvement over Sunday's flight). By Wednesday, I was even eating solid food again. So pretty much, I was only miserable the three days I went back to Michigan.

I guess it's true... You can't go home again. But I've known that for a long time.