so tomorrow morning we're getting up at 2.30 or 3 or something in order to get a 5.30 flight to atlanta so we can sit around all day to (hopefully) get on an evening flight to england. why, you might ask, are we getting up so goddamn early when a civilized midday flight would've done just fine? because, i might answer, when you're flying standby, and all the flights from philly to atlanta are full ("this flight is Not Recommended for standby travel" says the soothing female voice on the employee travel line) and you need to get to atlanta, you have to suck it up and get up for the one flight of the day that is empty. which is at 5.30 am.

this, of course, so we can spend the entire day in atlanta in order to have the priviledge of standing by for a flight to england. we'd like to go to manchester (one hour from liverpool, where we are going to catch an everton game), but that flight is full. so we're also trying for the 3 flights to london (4 hour drive to liverpool). sigh. this is the downside to being a child of an airline employee. the fact that my dad is a pilot is usually really cool--when i was younger i got free tickets anywhere d---- went. that is what allowed me to carry on a long-distance relationship with my college boyfriend, when he was in boston and i was in charlottesville. i just flew up once a month. but it's these times, when you have to take some ridiculously inconvenient route, when i wonder if maybe i should've just bought a ticket. i mean, i *did* buy a ticket! granted, it was $300 and we'll go business class (and really, that is the *only* way to go overseas) if there's room. but still. i have a 12 hour layover in atlanta.

aight. enough complaining. i'll tell you about last weekend, when karl and i were padding around in our bathrobes and he was telling me some banal thing about ... i don't even remember, and while he was talking he casually tied the belts of our robes together. so we were attached. so for most of the day i followed him around the house, or he followed me. a couple of times i threatened (ha!) to escape by just sacrificing my robe and walking around naked. which karl knew was an empty threat, since i'm always cold and even in our well-heated apartment, there's little chance that i will be walking around naked in the winter. summer, sure. winter, no. finally i sacrificed just the belt, and he capitulated.