reasons i hate flying

The main reason I hate flying is because every time I board a plane I'm afraid I'm going to die. To combat this pretty irrational fear, I've developed several "don't freak out" flying techniques, including (in order of importance): 1. xanax 2. soothing mantras such as "the pilot doesn't want to die today, so he'll get us to our destination safe and sound" 3. sleeping 4. more xanax. If I'm awake during a flight, chances are I'm highly medicated or I'm quietly freaking out inside my head, trying to convince myself that everything will be alright.

For someone that travels as much as I do, you'd think I would have gotten used to the whole flying experience by now. But no, it doesn't work like that I guess.

The OTHER reason I hate flying is because airlines today totally suck and flights are always late and/or canceled.

Rod was supposed to be here two hours ago, but he's not because his flight was delayed leaving LAX and he missed his connection in SFO and they couldn't get him on another flight until tomorrow. I literally had a minute-by-minute countdown going on until his arrival, so I was very sad when I opened my Gmail inbox today and saw a message from his brother explaining that Rod wouldn't be arriving in Shanghai until Saturday.

Current countdown: 22 hours. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong tomorrow. I'm also going to be buying a direct flight home so I don't have to go through the hassle of being stuck in a connection city. Can you imagine how horrible that would be after 10 months in China and just wanting to finally be home? It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.