Mr DeMille, I'm Not Ready For My Closeup

Today has been the shortest day ever. I don't mean, like, officially or anything: I just mean that I took off from San Francisco before the sun had risen and landed in New York after it had set. My entire day has been in darkness, which has given it a weird truncated sort of feel. Right now, it's 9:15pm and I'm sitting alone in a hotel room in Queens, where I have just finished a vending machine soda and a soggy sandwich that I bought at 7am in San Francisco with the misguided hope that it would, uh, travel well. Which, needless to say, it didn't. I have also been fake interviewing myself all evening---out loud, using my pen as a microphone, OH YES I DID---in order to prepare for the live TV interviews I'm going to have to do tomorrow from LaGuardia airport. I'm pretty sure the person in the next room has heard me talking to myself about Thanksgiving travel for the last hour. Hopefully, they picked up some good tips.

(If you are traveling on the Tuesday or Wednesday before Thanksgiving, by the way, you might find it helpful to follow our Twitter updates from 12 of the busiest airports across the country. We'll be tweeting roughly every 10 minutes or so with updates on check-in lines and security wait times and just how many newborn goats you're going to have to sacrifice in order to make that flight. Also, check out that widget on the page, isn't it pretty? And fun? And useful? I think we all know which clever web developer built that.) (Hint: I'm married to him.) (No, not George Clooney, my other husband.) 

Anyway, apart from the fact that my cab driver got totally lost on the way to my hotel (in the dark and the rain, while yelling at me for not knowing where my hotel was, LIKE I HAVE BEEN HERE BEFORE, BUDDY, eventually pulling over to the side of the road so I could try and GPS-map it from my iPhone and then recite the directions to him from the back seat), life is swell. I'm reporting from LaGuardia on Tuesday and Wednesday---wave if you're going to be there!---with possibly the world's most uneven bangs (more on which later) and what I can only imagine is going to be industrial-strength concealer considering I have to be there from 6am to 6pm, and then on Wednesday evening, I'm heading to Connecticut, where Sean is going to meet me that evening, to spend our first married Thanksgiving together with my new in-laws.  

I am very much looking forward to the Connecticut part, not least because it's the same town where Sean and I met in 1996 and where my family lived for six very happy years, and I haven't been back there since early 2005, which makes it a fairly long absence. I have such great memories of this town, and I have already convinced Sean that we must make a triumphant return to the little half-moon crescent of beach that was the site of our very first meeting, and also the Dunkin Donuts where he first a) gave me his number and b) took me for our first unofficial date (uh, I know, classy or what? Not to worry, our first official date was to see G.I. Jane. Even better!) I half expect these places to have put up golden plaques in our honor now that we're married, sort of like they parade around the engaged couples who met on match.com.

Saturday, of course, is Sean's high school reunion, where the famed French ex-girlfriend who may or may not make an appearance has also now been revealed not just to be French but also to be a FASHION DESIGNER, ARE YOU KIDDING ME. Truthfully, I'm not really half as rattled by this as I'm making out, but at the same time, if there is a moment at which you would like to look your best, I think we can all agree that it's when you're going to meet your husband's FRENCH FASHION DESIGNER ex-girlfriend, am I right? (PS: what the hell do I wear?)

And speaking of looking one's best, I went and got my bangs trimmed after work on Friday---as you had all urged me to do----and the whole thing, which took less than three minutes, ended up costing me $20. I happened to mention this on Twitter, where I was met with such a landslide of outrage---your stylist charged you $20 to trim your bangs? My bang trims are free!---that I started to wonder if I had, in fact, been swindled. (And in fact, my stylist charged me $24 to trim my bangs, because I then felt compelled to tip.) It's tricky, because I like this stylist and she has given me some rockin' haircuts in the past, but man, her prices are already extortionate enough, and I'm not sure I can afford the maintenance on these bangs, you know? Particularly since I am not really very happy, right now, with the way they turned out. Although that might just be because I'm really crap at styling them.

Anyway, my expensive bangs and I are going to bed, since we have to be up before it's light out again---at this point, I feel as though I am turning into a vampire, which, luckily, is really very much in keeping with the zeitgeist, is it not?---so I'll bid you adieu and wish you happy travels if you're heading home (or anywhere) for Thanksgiving. Remember to check in online, arrive at the airport two hours early, know your baggage fees, and double check your itinerary 24 hours before you leave in case of schedule changes. There you go, you can have those tips for free. Just like the person in the hotel room next door to me.