TAKING THINGS FOR GRANTED . . .

Like heat. My house didn't have heat for several hours today. It wouldn't be such a big deal except that it was 20-degrees outside today (in the sun), and I tend to feel like I'm freezing if the temperature falls anywhere below 72-degrees anyway. I had the fleeting thought that if the situation did not get fixed (by the guy we are all supposed to call in situations like these), I would, no matter how many layers I donned, freeze to death in my sleep tonight. No one would know for days, and then thank goodness for the cold because at least my body would be slow to decompose and would not stink. Alright, it was more than a fleeting thought, and I thought, in conjunction with that longer-than-fleeting thought, that I did not really want to die, and that I would probably come out of this with just a bad cold. But still. I'm glad I have heat now. I don't like not having heat. Heat is good. Everyone should have heat. And come to think of it, I'm sad that not everyone does.

***

Like airplanes. Over 100 folks were stuck on a JetBlue airplane, sitting out on the tarmac, for 8 hours yesterday afternoon during the Nor'easter that blew through the East Coast (spitting out ice in a stupid wanna-be imitation of what should have been wet, glorious, fluffy snow, like the snow of yore). Life stank for those passengers, sitting out there with overflowing toilets and a depleted inventory of snacks and beverages. I think if I had been there, I, too, would have been the utmost picture of misery. But I wasn't, and so I'm going to pontificate. When an aircraft pulls away from the gate and out onto the tarmac -- or sometimes, even when it's still AT the gate -- it is no longer free to pull back INTO a gate to let passengers out. Airplane traffic at major airports is so congested that when one plane pulls away from a gate, another one slides in almost immediately. On days like yesterday, with inclement weather grounding planes all over the East Coast, NO gates are free to release passengers. Ground crews are likewise overwhelmed. If they're not trying to de-ice planes as quickly as possible in the hopes of getting it off the ground, they are trying their darndest to clear the runways and gate approaches so that landing planes have a safe place to touch down. And if the weather just gets too bad, it's just not SAFE to have ground crews out on the blacktop, so they send everyone indoors or home. Everyone, from the pilots to the folks in the control tower (who you know were going insane yesterday) to the ground crew to all the ancillary third-party service providers, has rules to follow, and in this day and age, if those rules aren't followed to a T, bad things happen. You can't just bring a plane to a gate and let hundreds of people loose in an airport. You certainly can't pull a ladder up to the plane and let hundreds of people loose on the slippery tarmac. You can't even pull the service carts over to restock water and pretzels. There are rules, and the rules are there for everyone's safety. Yes, I can imagine it sucks big eggs to be stuck on an airplane for 8 hours (a plane that isn't flying to a destination, that is). But whining about it is useless. We are lucky to be in an age where we can travel anywhere we want, anytime we want, and sure it frustrates our immediate-gratification-wanting, entitled American selves when that doesn't happen. But the bottom line is, sometimes Mother Nature and the rules rule.

***

Like trust. It's a romantic notion to want to trust people, and to have them trust you. It's nice. It would work out great in a perfect world. I like it, no, I LOVE it, when my friends trust me and I can keep their trust. I love it, too, when I can trust them and can know exactly their care for me and how much they want the best for me. I DON'T like it, though, when my trust is sought and sought and sought, and then when I finally decide to give it, I feel sort of ... dirty afterward. Like the other person got what they wanted, and I just have "SUCKER" written across my forehead. Trust is sort of like your virginity - once you give it away, you can't ever get it back. You just sort of stew over the fact that you gave it away when you weren't ready to. So hold onto it. Trust is precious. And sadly, not everyone deserves yours or mine.

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Like closeness. I had it, and I don't have it, and I haven't heard from it all week. I should've cherished it and been more careful with it while it was here with me. Let that be a lesson to you all.