I’m here and I’m feeling fine…Once I realized how much I could use a little sleep, relaxation, and complete irresponsibility I warmed up to my travels. My plane was filled with Steeler’s fans on their way to San Diego.

Yes, that’s right. The game is on Monday night, but these great Pittsburghers were well ahead of schedule.

“Oh, so you’re gonna play golf or go to the beach and stuff?” I asked my seatmate.
“Lady. There’s 150 bars and restaurants within three miles of our hotel,”
“Yeah, yeah. I see,” I said smiling at the self-satisfied sixty-fivish man sitting next to me.
“What beach?” his pal across the aisle said tipping his teeny Jack Daniels toward the opening in his Iron City.
“Gahh,” I laughed out loud as the one guy passed the mixture to my seatmate.
I was wondering if the steward was going to divert the plane back to the burgh due to someone byobing their own I.C. as the Zanax took me off into a deep sleep.

Two hours later I was landing in Dallas passing time in some bar that was supposedly replicating the stadium where the Cowboys played their games. Tough to pull off when twenty five guys and one woman, swathed head to toe in Steel City black and gold filled every inch of the 20×10 feet of space. And as I sat there at 10 am, sipping my coffee watching twenty ounce beers slide effortlessly down the throats of everyone in the space, I couldn’t help feeling like an individual for the first time in I don’t know how long.

I stared at the beers, smelling that scent, suddenly wanting one. Wanting to hop the plane to San Diego instead of the one to Tucson. Thinking at that moment, I could hang out with my new friends, go to the game then slip into obscurity. I’d never go home to anything even remotely resembling my life. Maybe that’s why I hadn’t wanted to go in the first place. Could I actually be one of those people who disappeared for twenty years until being spotted by the most unlikely person possible?

Of course not…but for those few minutes sitting there with people who for the next five days had nothing but booze and food calling their names, I thought maybe…maybe I could.

Anyway,

my sister Beth has a spa day planned for me then I’m going to watch Pablo while they go celebrate Jon’s birthday with dinner and a hotel…hey, hey, hey. they better not get any wise-ass ideas about slipping off into obscurity…there’s only room for one crazy person per family and I wrapped that one up long ago.

I am going on the road…this ought to inject some freshness in my writing…I’m visiting my sister, her husband and their new baby in Tucson, AZ…I can’t wait.

And I don’t want to go. I have extreme flight paranoia since 9/11. Unreasonable, I know, but I’m sure the thought of 9/11 on 9/10 would have been unreasonable too.

Plus, I am paranoid Beth and Jake will be hurt while I’m gone. My two biggest fears at press time are 1. them getting hit by cars–they’re still prone to dash out into streets and parking lots… 2. car accidents.

Oh, yeah, 3. fires. In the last five months, two families close to me, in proximity and emotionally have had their homes gutted by fire. I’ve always been afraid of it, but with these two instances, it ignites my thoughts way too much…Anyway, intellectually, I know everything will be great–I’m essentially going on vacation. I’ve only been alone once in the last four years…what am I, crazy???? Yes, in a way, yes.

Oh my gosh, I miss my blog and I hope I haven’t turned away any of the readers I have come to know and love….but Beth was admitted to the hospital because she stuck a bead up her nose.

And it got lost somewhere in her body. They weren’t sure where it was so she had what amounts to surgery to make sure the bead wasn’t in her lungs. It wasn’t.

This was good, but boy it made for a long thirty six hours and all the recovery time.

No sleep on those crazy cots in the hospital. But she was a trooper. I hate to compare my kids and would be horrified to know that I’m pigeon-holing them, but if it had been Jake in the hospital, I might be dead from stress alone. Beth is so easy going it’s almost sick…she is so easily calmed. Jake is not…no matter what the situation…believe me, he has his great points without a doubt, but easily being soothed is not one of them….anyway all is well, now.

Jill! Ms, Shiela and Mimi also garnered some votes, but I think the image of Jill’s lady, flying down the hill while nude, put her story over the top….Email me with your address, Jill so I can send your prize…Thanks for participating everyone…another contest will follow soon.

Quietly though… as you can see by the example below. I read this in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and this and a group of other letters were culled from nola.com

William Rhodes wrote, “We had worked and paid our house notes; the property next door we bought as income property for our old age. Now, I’m 60, and because I had no insurance, I Have NOTHING to pass on to my children except the knowledge of “How to Unclog Sewer and Drains.” Oh, Lord Jesus Christ, will you please keep us from being homeless; or if it is Your Will, take me from this world, so at least my wife will have my $30,000 life insurance, and maybe they can use that as a down payment for a little home they can call their own. I feel so sad.”

It is stunning to think that there are roughly a million people displaced and destroyed, yet they’re already fading into the background of our minds. I am so glad this (and other excerpts) was in the paper this morning. To have nothing, in the sense that this man has nothing, is simply unfathomable on an emotional level. I feel sad. This guy’s devastated and from where I’m sitting, broken. But who am I to think he must feel worse than simply “sad.” I’m sitting in my kitchen, sipping coffee from my favorite mug while Beth and Jake play dinosaurs…there is nothing for me to do beyond giving money and for that I feel disgusting.

So, I’ve been made aware that some men have traversed the site and gone away, unheard because of my little hostess blurb…
So, officially this site is and actually has been open to men.
I’d love to hear their perspective of life on the home-front…
Really I want to know…

The other reason today is Man Monday is due to my ride on the turnpike to visit my writing gurus at fatplum.com.
There I was headed up the PA turnpike when a white pick-up truck buzzed by and settled in the lane in front of me…
no biggie there, except, riding in the back were two men.
One had pulled his hood over his face and pulled the hood string so nothing but his hands were visible.
The other guy was sincerely and objectively the cutest guy in America–
a blonder, shorter haired Matt McConehey (wrong spelling I know).
He sat, arms crossed, wind whipping through his sun-tinged hair.
I could tell from a safe space cushion, at 65 MPH his eyes were piercing blue…
no really,…
all I could think was whatever joker was manning the vehicle, was going to wreck and catapult the two egg-heads in the back into Ohio.

Anyone who is familiar with the Pennsylvania turnpike can picture it.
Jersey barriers narrowing the lanes to thin ribbons…
huge trucks blowing by, jack-asses on motor cycles darting in and out of traffic…
and I’m behind the cutest guy in America, sure he was about to meet his demise…
I would have to rescue him from the rubble, explain to his parents what happened…
It would be a complete tragedy on so many levels…

These two guys sitting on something which had them perched high above the cab behind them, begging to die. If it were me, I’d be plastered to the floor, spread eagle spouting the Our Father until we came to a stop. Who were these two guys flipping off destiny with such gusto? Maybe he wasn’t the cutest guy in the world…
not the smartest, for sure.

As we cruised into the toll booth, I finally got my close-up…
Wedding ring…
And confirmed, cutest guy in America…not the kind you ever see in Pittsburgh…
As they turned left and I went right all I could think about was his wife…married to the cutest guy in America…soon to be strewn across the highway…

Give me your stories folks…don’t hold back!