after one long season of waiting

Without a doubt, the worst part of writing anything long is the first sentence. I've been agonizing over mine for the past... fifteen minutes? At least? (I still don't like it.) The sun is rising right outside the window here, though, so I'm kind of left wondering whether it'll be suspicious if I get up and move so I'm actually facing it. (It was suspicious that my socks don't match.)

Back to this first sentence thing, though. I think I'm thinking about it too much, because every phrase I use, I double-check it against the kind of genre it's likely to invoke. Using the phrase "men and women of The Independent" (being the temporary name of my newspaper) brings superheroes to mind too easily. Which might be fun, but isn't necessarily something I think I can sustain. And my story has nothing to do with superheroes. Spies and conspiracy and social... oddness, sure, but superheroes not so much. I do think I've solved the slight problem I was having with two of my main characters, though... by making their situation more complicated, of course. And I still figure it's okay that the one character with the most in-depth story in my mind right now won't even exist for the first few chapters, because he's a plot point as well as my token Holmes-based character (rather than being based on all of the characters based on Holmes that I tend to base characters on. It sounds better that way.)

I kind of wish I still had the British English spell-check... never thought I'd miss Word for that.

I wonder if I'm morally obligated to make Heather a Strong Female Character. To me, she's a bit of an idiot. I wonder if people will like her. I love that I get to wonder that. I can't wait until I get to start torturing characters. If I'm worried about being suspicious, though, I probably shouldn't be sitting here smirking to myself about that. Probably looks like I'm plotting something nonfictional. I also love that, two sentences in, suddenly Heather is 500% more bitter than I thought she was, and I've discovered that I undershot her age by almost five years. And suddenly she has a boss that might also be interesting. (I'm starting to fear that I'm going to have too much going on here, but at the worst my intro plot-thing can be relegated to a sort of comic relief. Which it was going to be anyway, pretty much.) Don't you love this inspecific rambling?

And, now that this entry is almost four times as long as what I've managed to write, I think I'm going to stop... because I've realized that I'm desperately, desperately in need of outlines. But at least I've got my first paragraph, and that's a lot more than I had yesterday. And I think it's a paragraph I might not go back and erase completely later. So yay! Now I just need to get my brain around using my sketch book for outlines. I wish I understood why I was so picky about using each notebook for one specific thing. Outlines are sort of like drawings. (My notebooks are the only thing I have that's organized. Well, maybe aside from my computer. But that's it.)

So... I got up this morning at nine. Decided nine was too early, since it was definitely four before I actually fell asleep last night, and reset my alarm for ten. I was already packed, it was okay... no big deal, just an hour less to get the perishable stuff out of my fridge. Then at, oh, 9:30ish the phone starts ringing. And my roomie picks it up I hear "Yeah... yeah? Okay... umm... I'll tell her, thanks." I roll over, she comes in... and my flight's cancelled. Fun, huh? So I drag myself out of bed and call my mom, who's basically thoroughly unhelpful, because I was half-awake and she was telling me to tell the airline that they'd ruined my life. Longish story shorter, I had to call the airline and find a new flight... which brings me here, at O'Hare, two hours earlier than scheduled, waiting for my flight to New York City. And then to Cleveland. I'll be getting home two hours later than planned. Four extra hours on my part... not that I mind, though. I mean... it's an adventure. It was either this, or brave public transportation after dark and catch the 9:00 flight. Not terribly fun. I'm going to get to fly out of NYC at night, though. That ought to be pretty. I'm only there for an hour though, or I'd try to find a way to scurry out of the airport and wander around. As it is, I think I'll go on a free wireless hunt. It's probably not going to be easy, but... well, I'll figure something out. I hope I'm at the right gate... they changed that on me, too. Now I know why people hate airports. This is the first time they've betrayed me (though I've only flown now, what, four times?), and I can't help but find it totally hilarious. Mostly because, wow, I'm not counting this quarter over until I'm home safe and sound, and apparently the world is not quite done testing me yet. I hope I pass. I mean, otherwise I'll be calling my other roomie who's home in New York and seeing if I can spend the night at her house or something. Actually, that might be sort of fun. But I also hope it doesn't happen. I'm more than ready to be home right now. Oh yes.

-- And then, At Laguardia --

And now my clock is officially set to Eastern time. Funny, this airport doesn't feel like New York at all. Probably because it's small and not hyperactive. Interesting.

Also, I'd like to lodge a complaint about the lack of free wireless. Unless I could hack their secure network (which I will not do, because I'd like to be able to catch my plane and not get arrested and interrogated for some sort of crazy-type crime). I know there's no obligation to provide free wireless for people in airports -- in fact, it's probably a rather lucrative thing considering all the business-types around in airports. But... um... I've been rerouted to New York City, darnit, I flew over the city I was supposed to be landing in about now, so free wireless shouldn't be that much of a problem. It'd placate me. (I won't let on that I'm only slightly annoyed, and far, far more amused than anything else). Also, seeing the sunset from the plane and then flying over Manhattan as all the lights were coming on? Pretty freaking cool.

I always feel obligated to make entries in airports anymore... (the whole two times I've been in one previously). But it's a nice time to sit there and thing about things, since there's really nothing else to do. I wonder what this woman across from me thinks of all my stickers. I hope she doesn't think I'm somehow corrupting her little boy, who seems quite intent on looking at them. Hehehe.

So... storage went well. Being berated by the evil thirteenth-floor lady wasn't nearly as emotionally scarring as people made it out to be. Even though she did yell at me for waiting until the last minute. I was all shy and non-confrontational, though, so she eventually redirected her anger to other people. (There were some with fourteen boxes. Fourteen boxes. Omgwtf. We're only allowed five! No wonder there was no more storage space for people on the tenth floor. Brigands!)

Then the UPS people were like, fifteen minutes late getting in to set up. Then their computer wouldn't boot up. I gave it a quick once-over, but it didn't make any sense to me (weird Windows200-Pro Compaq thing). It did eventually start up, though, and I was first in line, and I'd been chatting with the poor lady for the past twenty minutes or so, so she got me through quickly and thankfully nothing was over the weight limit. Plus it cost me less than a hundred dollars! That means this trip home has cost us about... oh, $150 dollars. Which is half what my parents have to spend to come pick me up. So, that in addition to the money I sent them should more than make up for the iPod I made them buy me. For my birthday. (I'm such a martyr). Might've been nice to part with an extra hundred or so to spare myself the stress of trying to store and send everything this morning, though. Then getting on the bus at ten when I'd intended to be out by 9:30. And running around with piles of garbage and hoping very much that I hadn't forgotten to pack or store anything important. There is one roomie who hasn't checked out yet, though... so we should be okay. There was a random plate and stuff that I left on her desk... I hope she takes care of them for me. And there's still food in the pantry. I think we tossed all the perishable stuff, but there's cans. I hope we don't get charged to remove them. Grrr.

I just realized I don't know my seat number. Or my... whatever it is. Boarding... order... thing. (My airport lingo is l33t). The plane looks a bit bigger than the last one. It's not a tiny regional jet! It's like... closer to normal-size. Ought to be interesting. I think I might end up dozing off even if I've got a window seat this time. But I think my spot's left entirely up to random.

I didn't expect to have to walk so far from the CTA stop to the terminal. Holy crap...