Why not fly and rent a car down there, Tommy?

It's fairly expensive. For the same amount of money I can take a train to Jackson, MS and have a sleeper car on the way down. (I'm doing an experiment to see if I can sleep in coach on the way back, arrive in Chicago 9:00 AM, walk two blocks and catch a train to work.)

On the one hand, I love the growing up Goth article. On the other hand, I'm having to rein in my reaction of "obvious news IS OBVIOUS!"

But still, external validation is nice.

It's fairly expensive.

I know Southwest has had some great deals lately and they fly from Midway to Birmingham. I don't have a ton of vacation time so I'd rather pay a bit more and get someplace faster, though, if the point of a trip is getting to the place and not the trip itself. Also, my car has quite a few miles on it and I wouldn't trust it to go too far afield. It is fun tooling around in Bob's convertible though when the weather is nice!

I know Southwest has had some great deals lately and they fly from Midway to Birmingham.

Huh. Yeah, they do. I searched airfares on Yahoo Travel (force of habit) and no Soutwest flights showed up. Oh well--the train will be fun and next time I can fly down. Thanks for the tip!

eta: Oops, fares I saw were for one-way! But Southwest is still cheaper than other airlines....

Change of subject, someone on another board is just now watching Buffy for the first time, with a future lineup of Angel. He was commenting on his reaction and said, "I can't believe how quickly I've become a Buffista..."

I wanted to nose-to-nose him and demand his papers.

Yesterday, DH was driving to work in the morning. A car pulled out in front of him and he tapped his horn, and, annoyed, flipped off the driver.

When the car turned, DH noticed it was a nun in full habit.

A rosary is no excuse for bad driving habits.

I nearly got into an accident a few days ago. I was driving home, and there's this point where the road has no visibility whatsoever -- it curves pretty sharply at the same time that it goes downhill steeply, and the curve is going around this rock this, so that for a while there, you really can't see more than about ten feet in front of you. The speed limit is 45. I was leaving a pretty good distance between me and the car in front of me, but then I got around that corner and realized that that car had stopped. I had to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting it. The next car around the bend had to swerve into the turning lane to avoid hitting me. There's a stop light about 3/4 of a mile up the road, and there were enough cars on the road that day that it got backed up to there.

bad driving habits

I see what you did there.

I have to qualify this by saying I only read the first page, but to me it simply came off as setup.

The stuff that makes me roll my eyes is near the end:

Indeed, my single friends housed me as I flew around the world to research this article; by the end, I had my own little (unwritten) monograph on the very rich lives of the modern-day single woman. Deb gave me the use of her handsome mid-century apartment in Chelsea when she vacated town for a meditation retreat; Courtney bequeathed her charming Brooklyn aerie while she traveled alone through Italy; Catherine put me up at her rambling Cape Cod summer house [...it goes on like that]

Perhaps she should swap "modern-day" and "very rich" in that first sentence. Also, this is how she illustrates how fulfilled her friends are: they have lovely homes and go on exotic trips. There is no other information about them in the entire piece.