On Monday of this week, I flew to Kansas City, MO for a work meeting. As the plane touched down, a young woman seated behind me said, “Kansas City is so barren! So brown.” Which summed it up quite well. The weather was dreary throughout the visit and seemed to match the landscape. None of my work colleagues were impressed with KC either, which makes me feel a little bad for our colleague who lives there. Next month, we are having 2 different sets of guests visit us in Richmond. Will they they Richmond is as bland as we thought KC was? Nahhhhh.
I’d been exhausted leading up to the trip and when my period arrived I thought, “Oh. It’s only thatasshole. No cause for alarm about my sleep filled weekend leading up to the trip.” The hotel store was stocked with Midol but not feminine hygiene products. I dismissed the thought of asking our new CFO to swing past a CVS. I’m open but not that open. It occurred to me that a door dasher can bring you anything so I had him leave tampons at the front desk of the hotel. This idea made me feel like a genius!
When I left my laptop cord behind at the hotel on the final day of the trip, I had Uber bring it to me. What a time we live in when you can bail your over taxed brain out of one jam after another.
My plane landed in Richmond at 11 PM on Wednesday night. I got up, did laundry, packed and prepared to leave for writing retreat led by the same woman whose retreat I attended in January. The thought of the back-to-back trip felt like a lot - Andrea encouraged me to go. Incredibly, my left ear remains plugged up. Less so, but plugged up all the same. It’s tiring. I’m tired. Whatever upper respiratory nonsense I had going on has left me with a little wheeze and some shortness of breath. I’m using the inhaler Andrea got for her pneumonia. I know - I may have to subcuumb and go to the doctor once again. I’ve gone to the doctor more this year than any other year, or so it seems. Is this 48?
I received my manuscript back this week - it had surfaced from another round of edits, this round, less intense - spelling out numbers and italicizing words, etc. I completed the edits and resubmitted today before making the trip up the winding roads to the retreat.
I rolled in just in time for dinner with the group. The name of where we are staying has the word “wilderness” in the title which is an apt description. It has a “Camp Crystal Lake vibe”. The heat register in my room is on the floor by the head of my bed. It’s as if hell is directly below me and the heat is rising. I opened the window & was a bit startled to realize it doesn’t have a screen. I pictured a raccoon climbing into bed with me, then worse, Jason himself from Friday the 13th.
As no doubt predicted by Andrea, now that I'm here, I'm grateful I made the 3-hour car ride from Richmond to be with this group of brave, vulnerable, bad ass women writers here at Crystal Lake (or whatever it's called).
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