I got home yesterday at 4:30 pm. My pajamas were on by 7:00, in bed by 7:30, read one chapter, lights out (not that it was dark) by 8:00, and sound asleep in 5 minutes. After 11 hours I felt delightfully refreshed. Two hours later, I was feeling heavy-eyed again. Fun times in Columbus at the TNNA Market! It wouldn't have been so bad if I had acted intelligently and gone to bed early each night to be ready for another busy day. But, nooooo, I stayed up till after midnight talking with my good friends from
Twisted Yarns.
The exhaustion started before that, though. I only got about 2 hours of sleep before my flight since the alarm was set for 2:45 am, but I woke up at 2:15 to just stare at the clock, waiting for 2:45. Luckily, I was entertained by listening to late-night radio and a man who had his aura "read" by sticking his finger in a machine where they could see his aura "glow" (he then went into a room where all sorts of gases were blown at him, and then his aura was re-read and was...different!), and a woman who feels that people are sneaking into her house and poisoning her Frosted Flakes since she feels sick every time she eats a bowl of them!
I felt as though someone should have checked my aura as I was driving to the airport. It was 3:45 am and hardly a soul was on the road. The speed limit was 45 mph on a 4-lane street, and I was doing slightly over 50 mph when a car pulled directly behind me after entering the road froma ramp. Red lights went off in my head, luckily, since when we drove under a street light I saw that it was, indeed, a police car. Not wanting to appear even more guilty, I took my foot off the gas to slowly reduce my speed. Eventually he or she must have decided that I had learned my lesson for the day and pulled away from me.
Things seemed to be running fairly smoothly at the airport, but I was so sleepy I almost didn't realize that I was being waved into the dreaded scanner. I have a thing about that machine. It's not so much the picture-taking as the incomplete testing on long-term effects. So, I requested, for the second time, to be patted down. This seems better to me. The TSA ladies have been nice and polite, and use the back of their hands at "sensitive areas". After the pat-down, you are instructed to stand where you are while they run their gloves through a scanning device. Beep-beep-beep. Her gloves read positive for "chemicals". Chemicals? I'm trying to think ...deodorant?...laundry detergent?...no perfume...what? Now I got to enter the "private room" with two TSA ladies for an additional pat-down. Great. Do I want an attorney present? Truly, it wasn't that bad. Just more of the same. We even discussed underwire bras and how the wire broke for one of the ladies. (Ouch.) A few more minutes and I was declared "clean".
Luckily, from then on things got better. The other passengers didn't even shy away, thinking that there must really be something up with me since I had a double pat!
Home. Still sleepy, and trying to put faces, names, and business cards together. Bit by bit, it's all coming back to me. I met so many interesting people while at Brown Sheep's booth and walking and walking around the convention center floor.
To market, to market, to buy a fat pig.
Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.
To market, to market, to buy a fat hog.
Home again, home again, jiggety-jog.
To market, to market, to buy a plum bun.
Home again, home again, Market is done!
