alright, then. houston it is.

There are two ways of looking at it, I suppose:

a). I paid a certain amount of dollars to ride on an airplane and, as it turns out, I got to spend an extra two hours on that airplane for the same amount of money. Neat-O. And if I absolutely LOVE the act of simply being inside of an airplane (even if it happens to be just sitting on the tarmac, parked at the Philly airport), then even better.

OR

b). I had to spend an extra two hours on the plane because of what seemed to be a little bit of rain. This was confusing because I flew in a legit MONSOON in Japan with no trouble at all. But hey, that was Japan. Perhaps they are a little riskier or something over there. I mean, they regularly deal with earth quakes and sushi. At least that was the impression I got when I was over there. But back to those extra two hours–because they made me miss my connecting flight. And then surprise! I am staying in Houston for the night. Isn’t there some famous quote about Houston? Something about the moon? “Houston, we have landed?”, right? Or is it “Houston, we have a problem?” Well, either way, they both sort of apply. And not only have I landed, but I am staying for a bit (which is a little problematic, considering I meant to be staying in LA tonight).

But I only got a little bit upset when the airline told me they wouldn’t put me up in a hotel because it wasn’t their fault. Not cute. Not when you can’t get out of here for another twelve hours. But then they did tell me they could hook me up with the special you’re-stranded-so-we’ll-cut-you-a-deal-hotel-price, which was still not cute, but at least maybe a little bit cuter. If you dim the lights and squint your eyes, I mean.

But then I felt this real sense of calm anyway. I actually thought it was kind of funny, kind of adventurous. Especially when I went to find the free shuttle, saw nothing, so picked up the nearby handy-dandy information phone that was obligingly marked with a huge I and dialed the button that said: traveler’s guide.

And then I heard this:

yeah, nothing.

And then I actually did laugh. Because the irony was that there IS NO TRAVELER’S GUIDE. hahahahahahaha.

And then my phone was dying and silly me packed my charger in my checked bag. Good idea, Jessica. It’s not like you haven’t been touring a lot and understand to always bring your essentials with you.

But then I met Meredith. Kind, kind Meredith. She was stranded, too, and staying at the same hotel and happened to have an extra charger and lent it to me. Just handed it right over and I just dropped it off at the front desk for her, now that my phone is good and charged again. I love when people are so kind like that and there’s absolutely nothing in it for them. It has the reverse effect of whenever I visit a Wal-Mart and then leave wondering if there’s anything good left in the world at all and really, what is wrong with wearing pants that have an actual zipper and fly?

And then I did something really different for me and turned on the television here in my hotel room. I proceeded to watch a pretty beautiful movie, actually. And considering that I had already watched a not so beautiful and kind of dumb movie on the plane, I averaged about 200% more than usual in terms of movie watching I do per day. And I got to go to the vending machine and buy some snacks. You have to understand something about me: I LOVE snacks. I really do. Things like peanut butter crackers and animal crackers make me strangely giddy inside. Which is what I bought from the vending machine and happily ate while I was watching that pretty beautiful movie I already mentioned.

So no, as it turns out, I am not quite in LA.

Yet.

I will be there tomorrow, though, and in the meantime, it’s been a pretty fun evening anyway. Plus there’s a hot complimentary breakfast to look forward to in the morning, and that ranks right up there with snacks in my book.

If I were to actually write a book in which I rank different food, that is.