Chicago, IL

Today’s the day.

Today’s THE day.  Today’s the DAY.  TODAY’S THE FRICKIN’ DAY.

The long-anticipated day is finally here.  I’ve got a one-way ticket to Bangkok, a three-month supply ‘a contacts, and a smile plastered from ear to ear.  I even shaved my legs for this.  My ENTIRE leg.  BOTH of ‘em.  This is big.  This is really big.

Frankly, it couldn’t have come at a better time.  The holiday season is officially over, and with it, the hopes of fitting into any of my clothes.  That was my plan all along: to overdose on Christmas cookies and then vanish into the wind like Keyser Soze.  And just like that………. she was gone (girl).

Did anyone else gain a couple pounds the freshman fifteen this break?  I went ALL IN.  Brownies, cookies, chocolates, frozen bananas, you name it.  Definitely didn’t need to tackle two pieces of that Cheesecake Factory cheesecake, but here we are = I haven’t been able to breathe for eight days and my arteries have closed up shop.  Blood’s trying to move through my body like diet coke through a twizzler straw.

I am READYYYYYY to stop eating my weight in peanut clusters, get OUT of this 1-degree weather, and start this bloody thing.  I think I’ve been ready for this trip my whole life, which is why I never got nervous during the planning process.  Knocking off a few items on my to-do list every day, it’s been stress-free and smooth sailing.

Which is odd.  To say the least.  Because my life is a comedy of errors and excellent time management doesn’t really mesh with who I am as a person.  Why has everything been this easy?  Why hasn’t anything gone wrong?

Needless to say, I’ve been waiting patiently for the other shoe to drop for MONTHS.  Then, yesterday happened.

OK, so here’s the thing.  I’ve been doing things EVERY DAY.  For MONTHS.  Making playlists and researching weather patterns and opening up new checking accounts and moving out of my apartment and compiling lists of the 100 most iconic cocktails (all the ingredients AND the preparations) just in case I land a gig as a bartender sometime in the next year.  The problem is………… I never prioritized the choosing of clothes to bring OR the business of packing them.  Up until yesterday at 4pm, I had only laid out 2 t-shirts, 1 tank top, a jacket and a sweatband.

On top of THAT, who doesn’t notice that their Illinois Driver’s License expires mid-2018 until yesterday?  YESTERDAY.

Hello, panic.  Nice to see you again.

That manicure I wanted to get?  Not happening.  One last kickboxing class at the gym?  Not a chance.  I was literally RUNNING through parking lots during my errands and speedwalking through the mall to snatch up the last of my provisions = almonds, an iPad case, and since I was there……. why not pop into Athleta to get a couple yoga tops, since I’ll be doing yoga for the next month?

(Apparently, yoga has a dress code and it’s not my typical cotton t-shirt.  Judging solely on Fabletics commercials, the uniform consists of long pieces of fabric sewn together to resemble a tank top, but is not, in fact, a complete shirt.  Once you take off these tattered ‘tank tops’, you have absolutely no idea how to put the straps back together or which body part goes through which hole.)

I bought three but BACK TO THE EXPIRING LICENSE.  Just in case I have to drive a rental car (or a 15-seater van back & forth to a Portuguese surf camp), I need a valid driver’s license.  Luckily for me, my speeding tickets (plural) from a five-week work assignment in North Dakota are still on my public record, so I had to retake my driving, motorcycle AND vision tests in order to renew.

After passing my driving & vision tests with flying colors, the motorcycle test was up next.  I hadn’t studied the material since I took the original test back in 2007, but I figured I’d be fine.  I figured wrong.

Then, it was BACK to the first line (snaking to the entrance doors) to get a receipt.  WAIT for my number to be called before stepping up to the second line to exchange my receipt for a ticket.  TAKE that ticket to the cashier line who accepts my payment and ushers me to the lady at the back counter to administer the test.  Again.  It’s like a comedy of errors.  (Oh, heyyyyyyyyy familiar feeling making a fashionably-late entrance at the eleventh hour!!  I thought you weren’t coming!)

Speaking of fashion, I was in such a frenzied rush yesterday, that I left the house in my pajamas without so much as washing my face.  Yep.  The prize for finishing all FOUR of those exams was a portrait of myself, looking like a day-old prostitute who’s fallen on hard times.  Thank God I get to keep it for the next four years as a memento…….

All things considered, taking multiple written tests at the DMV is exactly how I wanted to spend my day yesterday.  Post-DMV debacle, I went ahead and chose 300% of the clothes that would eventually fit in my bag.  Before I packed them, I wanted to douse them with this industrial-strength bug spray I bought for Africa last year (that lasts for 2-4 months).  You’re supposed to spray it outside because of toxic flumes blah blah blah, but it’s NEGATIVE DEGREES OUTSIDE with wind chill so THAT wasn’t happening.

I chose my parents’ upstairs bathroom as the ideal location because it’s an entirely enclosed space with one, teeny weeny ceiling fan.  I think I might be high right now.

Besides actually packing my bag, I spent my final few hours in the states:

• Ordering one last You Pick 2 from Panera
• Shaving my legs with all the nervous energy in the world
• Using half of my travel band-aids on my newly-shaved legs
• Jamming the maximum number of Q-tips into my miniature Q-tip container with the same determination of Desmond Doss in Hacksaw Ridge. One more.  Just one more.

Bon voyage and ta ta for now.

I’m off to the Land of Smiles…………. but first, coffee about 24 hours of travel.

And so it begins.