Home for the Holidays

This is the first time I will spend Christmas away from my family. My dad's an airline pilot, you see, which means I fly for free, but only if there's extra room on the plane. Paying customers first. There were no open seats on any flights to MSP today, or yesterday, or the day before. Lucky for me, tomorrow's flights are wide open: nobody travels on Christmas day.

Waiting all day at the airport wasn't fun (nor was an additional $70 in cab fairs), but I'm not really busted up about spending Christmas eve/morning alone in a chimneyless apartment. We (my family) don't have a real tree this year. It's some synthetic simulacrum; a geometrically perfect and odorless arrangement of plastic. I already have my main Christmas present: an Alaskan hat (received in advance for Neil's broomball party). So I don't miss the tree, I don't miss the presents. I don't miss the fam (I spent last week at home). I don't really miss The Event (you know me and my religious holidays).

Sure I'd rather be home. I'd rather not spend Christmas day on a plane, and I'd really rather it were not a 6:20 AM flight. But on balance, I can't complain. I'll have a soothing Christmas Eve wank, read a book (I'm still on Exodus), and then go...

Home for the Holidays.