T minus seven and counting

I'm not normally much of a worrier (particularly about things out of my control, which is the category under which about 90% of the things I might worry about generally fall). That said, I've been more anxious than usual about my departure for the east coast tomorrow. It's probably all the horror stories I've heard about canceled and delayed flights lately (CBS News's story about thousands of displaced travelers today due to airplane inspections at major hubs likely didn't help). I've never been booked on a flight that was later canceled or overbooked, but for some reason, I got it in my head that tomorrow is when it would happen. Tomorrow, when I'm relying on getting to Philadelphia early enough to drive to Boston with Lara early enough to meet NPW and Noelle for dinner. It's a crazy travel day I've got planned, and it starts at 7:00 tomorrow morning. Except really, it doesn't. Somehow when I booked my 7:00 a.m. flight, I neglected to do the backward math and realize that a 7:00 flight means I need to be at the airport shortly after 6:00, which means I need to leave my house by 5:15, which means I need to get up at, oh, around... 4:30?!? That is 4:30 in the a.m., mind you. Obviously I should have gone to bed right after the 6:00 syndicated airing of The Simpsons tonight.

I am very, very rarely awake at 4:30, and on the unusual occasions that I am, I much prefer it be because I've not yet gone to bed, and not because I need to be up and showered and ready to go through airport security. It should be interesting to see just how this goes.

In any case, I have my boarding pass printed and all I can do now is hope for the best. Really, though, I likely needn't worry. I'm sure my flight will depart on time, I will be showered and packed and on it, and tomorrow night at this time I'll be beating some of my favorite Internet friends at Balderdash.

I'm deciding to ignore the bad feeling I had about this flight because of a new theory I'm working on--a theory that, basically, my instincts are crap. I've realized for years that I can't trust my gut the way conventional wisdom says I should. This is particularly true in dating... On the rare occasion that I have a good feeling about someone, I'd like to think it means something, but it's been proven to me time and time again that it does not. Take The Scientist, for instance. If my instincts meant anything, he would have realized that I am immeasurably more fun than a microscope and he would have left the lab and become my new boyfriend by now. Such is not the case. My gut knows nothing. My gut is both squashy and unreliable! I ask you, what good is that?

Rather than focus on the negative, however, rather than refuse to draw generalizations based on a handful of isolated incidents, I've decided to embrace this realization and make it work for me. If I can't trust my gut on good things, maybe it's routinely wrong about bad things as well. I'll ignore the good intuition AND the bad! Live a life without instincts! It's liberating, really. I feel freer than I've felt in years.

OK, that last part may not be entirely true, but it's something I'm pondering anyway. Not as much as I'm pondering how very tired I will be all day tomorrow, but pondering it nonetheless. Speaking of which, 4:30 is getting closer and closer every minute. I'd really best turn in by now.

Have a fabulous weekend, everyone. I'll see you on the other side of the Great Blogger Meetup of '08.