Oklahoma is my least favorite musical.

Oy. Has this week ever been insane.

As you all know, my mild-mannered day job is that of non-profit conference and event planner. Some of the most sexy of my job duties include the determining how much coffee 50 people are likely to consume between the hours of 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM, which trainer will hate me the least upon being asked to stand in for one of their peers that suddenly planned a last minute trip to Guam, and deciding where the conference is going to be located from year-to-year. Of all the responsibilities laid at my (cluttered) office door, the one that is usually the most fun for me is the last of these.

Because my organization is a national non-profit, we hold our conference in cities throughout the United States. The decision as to general region is made by the higher-ups and is usually based upon where we have the most constituency. In order to choose the hotel properties though, someone has to visit those states in particular and view the facilities in order to determine which of these may be right for our participants. That person is me. This responsibility has been pretty awesome- sending me to places I do not have the cheddar to visit myself, such as Florida and Alaska. I also get spoiled while I am there- getting fun swag and staying in luxurious locations. Not a bad way to spend your 9-5.

This week, I undertook the slightly less glamorous task of visiting Tulsa, Oklahoma, in an effort to find the location of our 2014 conference. The work portion of this trip can be summed up with the following bullet points:

• Tuesday night: Check-in. Hotel #1. Fellowshippers conference taking place- man those Christians know how to rock out! Oh, they gave me a double queen room instead of a king (mental scratching-out noise in my head). Free chocolate!


• Wednesday Morning: Hotel Tours. Lots of food. Too many stairs. Thank you for the steno pad holder and flash drive with the hotel name on it, it will make the perfect addition to my collection.


• Wednesday afternoon: Check-in. Casino Hotel. Oh my gosh, they gave me a three room suite. Giant gift basket of food! Tub built for three! Six-head shower! TV that emerges from a cabinet with a remote! Maybe I should go pick someone up at the bar, just to show off . . .


• Thursday Morning: Casino Hotel site tour. Oh no, my salesman is gorgeous and looks like Jack from "Lost". Don't they have any ugly salespeople? How do they expect me to do business when I cannot form coherent sentences? Those are nice shoes. Oh, he's gay. This I can work with.

This brings us to Thursday afternoon, where I checked in at the airport for my flight home. I was ready. Oklahoma was approximately 102 degrees in the shade, and I have sweat coming out of crevices that were not even aware of the existence of sweat prior to this trip. I stepped onto the plane and it was the tiniest plane that I have ever seen. I looked around to see if my fellow passengers were clowns who had decided to take to the skies but maintain the hilarity of a miniscule means of transportation. Excluding the woman with the heavy makeup and New Jersey accent, they were not. Prior to the stress-based semi-blackout I can remember having the cogent thought of, "Wow- how much would it suck to get stuck on THIS plane?"

Stoooooopid.

A lot happened in a short period of an hour and a half. Ten minutes after heading out onto the tarmac, we were informed that air traffic control was not allowing anyone into Denver and that we would have to wait an hour just to hear any news.

At this point, things got ugly.

In the interest of keeping this account light and brief, the highlights were these: 1) an old man is threatened with being put on the no-fly list, 2) the stewardess aptly exhibits the lack of crisis management training in the United Airlines air hosting program by yelling at the passengers, 3) my plane-based claustrophobia rears its ugly head, and 4) the pilot experienced first degree burns all over his lower extremities, resultant consequence of the LIES to us about our estimated time of departure and the effects of such fallacies upon ones pants. Truth told, it was the worst 90 minutes that I have experienced in recent history.

Gratefully, the people in charge of my trip were able to connect me with a free hotel for the night which provided a free shuttle from the airport. This free shuttle turned out to be a life-saver since I was twiced peed upon by Lady Luck and forgot my wallet at the airport. It was 9:00 at night when I had to be taken back to Tulsa International by a sweet older gentleman with large teeth and a lazy eye named Manuel. Sigh.

Today, I hit the airport again, only to learn that my second flight had been cancelled and that the first flight out would be tomorrow morning at 6:30 AM. This will mean that, on the morning that I turn 29, I will be up at 4:00 AM, getting on my third scheduled flight in as many days. Hopefully, the scheduling on this one is not just theoretical.

Needless to say, this has made me grumpy. In the shuttle on the way back to the hotel, I sat with my hands behind my head thinking, "I am never leaving this ridiculous city." and threw myself a good old-fashioned pity party complete with teeth gnashing and comparisons between the city of Tulsa and Satan's sweaty ass crack.

Then I stopped and told myself to stop feeling like life's bitch.

I have a good life. An extraordinary one really, and this is really just a bump. It's not even a real bump- it's one that I am seeing through a great big magnifying glass known as lack of perspective, and as soon as I take that magnifying glass away it will lose both its importance to the overall picture, as well as its excruciating definition. With this in mind, I would like to take advantage of the opportunity to do something positive that I have made a pretty regular practice for some years now.

Every year on a holiday (usually Thanksgiving or Christmas, but I have done birthdays before too), I take advantage of the opportunity to write down a list of people, places, things, experiences, feelings, etc. for which I am extremely grateful. It helps to remind me of why I am here and that I need to constantly be working to re-pay those that love me- both earthly and otherwise- for all that I have been given. It also helps when I need to get over myself, as is clearly the case today.

So without further ado, I give you:

Awesomeness Squared- The Good Bits v.2011

1. My family. I have amazing and inspiring parents that believe in social justice, empowering future generations, and the potential of a human mind. My siblings have each made choices this year that have showed that they are advocates for happiness- both for themselves, their partners, and their children. My neices and nephews are hilarious, generous, sweet, fierce, and strong. When I grow up, I want to be like all of you.


2. My faith. Although I struggle, I have been given the opportunity in my life to feel that there is truth- something absolute, finite, and unchanging. I know that there is something greater than myself because I have had the opportunity to find solace when there should have been only darkness, and because I have too often been fortunate to be on the receiving end of "right time, right place."


3. My friends. Over the last 15 years, people have floated in and out of my life for various reasons and seasons. To them, I am grateful for the game-changing, for being a part of the cheering section, and for the memories forever immortalized by my addiction to literary documentation. To my "lifers"- there aren't words. We have grown up together, cried together, shared our most important moments, suffered through death, illness, and constant change . . . and we did it all while looking fab. I love you with all the bits of me.


4. My job. I applied to work at my organization with the intention of quitting as soon as I got a better job. Who knew the better job would be within the same organization? I love what I do- I love the playing on computers, working with money, working with people, anticipating needs and problems of certain situations. As this job evolves and my responsibilities take on more of the attributes of my strengths, I realize how much it is true that sometimes we clear our path, and sometimes the path is cleared for us because it is the one we need to follow.


5. Writing. I figure myself and the world out by putting my fingers to a keyboard. I haven't found my whole story yet, but as soon as I do, I promise to jot it down.


6. Weaving. Thank heavens I dropped my "History of Theater" course Winter Term of 1997.


7. Books. Thank you Sherman Alexie, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Ray Bradbury, J.K. Rowling, Rudolfo Anaya, Kurt Vonnegut, J.D. Salinger, Michael Chabon, Shel Silverstein, Cormac McCarthy, Roald Dahl, David Sedaris, Stephen King, Anis Mojgani, George Orwell, Oscar Wilde, and Dr. Seuss. To those I have forgotten- you know who you are.


8. My apartment. Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood, when blackness was a virtue, the road was full of mud. I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form, Come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the storm.


9. Music. I love to sing- sometimes it sounds good. Sometimes it doesn't. For the most part, I love the performers that I discovered in my late teens- Guster, Matt Nathanson, Ani DiFranco, late sixties Beatles. I think I love them mostly because they have the fingerprint of my twenties in their lyrics. Honorary mention to Bob Dylan, Glen Hansard, and Van Morrison, all of whose voices and lyrics are what I hope forever sounds like.


10. The Ocean. We have been out of touch for a while. I think it is time we reconnected.

I better leave soon- it's unfortunate that my vehicle for meditation is also the means by which others check their Facebook and there is a line beginning to form for this public terminal. I leave though, feeling richly blessed and ready to enjoy the king-sized bed waiting for me to climb into its cloud-like Egyptian cotton sheets. Remembering the reasons that I wake up each day makes me feel a little bit better able to handle what life tosses my way.

If they cancel my flight again though, someone is losing a testicle.