Saw this shelf at a bookstore in the MSP airport on Sunday:

Scientology tomes beat F. Scott Fitzgerald 5:1!

I, of course, find deep meaning behind Hubbard’s shelfmates: John McCain and Garrison Keillor. Hmm… The serial killer Dexter, too, looms just above the alien abduction freakshow–I mean religious texts.

(We’ll just assume Denis Johnson’s presence was a fluke).

Thanks but I’ll stick to the library. At least I can get my fair share of mental junk food without having to pay to get to the next level….

It’s almost noon on 9/11 and so far not a single person has mentioned–even casually–that something might have happened on this date in relatively recent history. Not a one. Nobody even gave me that wordless half-grin/half-grimace that means “I have no idea what to say, but I want you to know I care.” Oh, well. People here were 2,000 miles away when the tower squashed my uncle. They didn’t smell burned bodies. They didn’t get their hearts broken on a daily basis for months as missing posters were bleached by the sun, soaked through by fall weather and eventually left for dead.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Guess I’ll have to provide my own honor, my own memory. I’ll start by packing a suitcase. I’ve had enough of this small-town, world-events-are-for-other-people crap. By tomorrow night I’ll be back with people who understand that polo ponies are a poor substitute for living history.

Sorry, Wyoming. Ignoring the events of the past seven years won’t make them disappear.

I have a hard time getting dressed in September. The mornings are cold up in the mountains. I’m talking iced-over windshields. It’s hard to imagine, as I’m scraping my car at 7:00 in the morning, that the day will warm up enough to warrant sandals. It’s also hard to make myself scrape my durned windshield in the dark.

To add to my confusion, the weather can range 50 degrees within a single day. I’ve personally experienced this. It’s pretty easy to deal with such weather craziness when the backseat of my car can double as a second closet. But it’s much harder to pack half my closet and hoist it onto the NWA baggage scale.

No matter what I bring with me, I’ll wind up too hot or too cold. Just like Goldilocks, tasting her porridge. It’s a rare day, indeed, when I wind up dressed appropriately for the weather. I might just wind up repeating the same jeans and sweaters, or the same sundresses, at the risk of shoving more than I could possibly lug up a subway platform into my suitcase. Back injuries, after all, are never in fashion.

Worst case scenario, I can always go shopping….

Ever in search of the perfect pair of footwear, I’m also enough of a pragmatist to realize that such a lofty goal can never be realized. My favorite boots in WYO won’t work on NYC streets–at least not without an additional couple hundred bucks budgeted to cabs. I guess I’ll have to pass on the four inch platforms for my ten day vacation. I’ll be taller when I don’t have to walk so much.

Today, however, I received a package that melted away years of shoe cynicism. My new running shoes arrived, wrapped in miles of bubble wrap and weighing no more than a pair of socks. I cradled them both, one in each hand, staring at the fine work those Vietnamese children put into my Nike Luna Racers. They’re so lightweight, so finely constructed, that I do believe they might run themselves. I certainly hope so, as I don’t particularly have the energy to put in the effort myself.

Looking at this work of man-made material genius, I’m convinced that these shoes will run faster, farther, and for so long that I can eat dinner AND dessert. 

I just might skip my outbound flight and run the 2,000 miles to Manhattan. Look for the neon blur racing past Kansas on Friday morning….

This is the second time it’s happened to me. I got dumped online. Worse: I have absolutely no idea who did it.

All I know for sure is I woke up the other morning with one fewer “friend.”

The first time was easier to take.  I was deleted by a certifiably crazy woman who’d done the same to me once before. In fact, hers was the only actual letter–posted by the USPS–that I’ve ever received formally ending our friendship. I should’ve known that our rebirth period on a networking site couldn’t last.

This time, though, I can’t figure it out. After searching for my not-quite-the-bestest friends, or the ones I’d had to apologize to at any point, I don’t seem to be missing the most likely candidates for deletion. I checked for my fiance, and he didn’t delete my either, so I guess it’s not that big a deal. At least I won’t have to reschedule the wedding.

Funny that it bothers me, though.

I feel the same sense of virtual losss with friend requests I’ve sent out that never come back. Twice, I tried to add this slutty woman from high school who I hated with a passion. Twice! I mean, this chick’s hairspray consumption from ages 14-18 were written up by Al Gore as one of the most contributory factors in global warming. And still, getting rejected by someone I never wanted to be friends with in the first place sucks.

I should know better than to click “add” so quickly.

Time to search through my real friends and see if I can steal any more acquaintances….