Southwest Airlines sucks...

Headed for San Antonio, I changed planes in Baltimore. My app told me I was going out of gate B9. It was actually B5. The plane was fully boarded on time and ready to leave...but we sat there for a solid hour. We were still waiting for a bag from another flight.

For some reason I think they were bullshitting us.

So I got in an hour late, then Avis tried to give me a Toyota Tacoma 4x4. I drive a Civic. The smallest car they had available was a Malibu, so I took that but it's like piloting a barge. The hotel is okay, but I stupidly decided to travel up to Austin, today, to check out a store called Glass Coffin...and traffic was hideous thanks to construction, wrecks, and the usual Texas idiots on the road who won't go the speed limit and are in the far inside lane. What used to be a 1-hour trip took 2.5.

It's a fun shop, and I did find a book to help me with Blood Angel -- A History of the Vampire in Popular Culture by Violet Fenn. I think I'll read this en route home. On the trip down, I was reading Trust by Hernan Diaz, which won the Pulitzer for Literature, last year...and I am massively underwhelmed. I'm being told the story instead of experiencing it or getting lost in it, and it's becoming a bit of a chore to finish. I'm about halfway through.

I've already engorged myself with Taco Cabana and Whataburger...and found there are Panda Express and In-n-Outs all over the place. But tomorrow is Rudy's BBQ and Schilo's German Delicatessen, then Saturday is driving down to Aransas Pass for the family Christmas.

Brendan has a moment in New World For Old where he feels like he's broken free from his family's demands and limitations but winds up being called back in, and I can see that in me, right now. I love them all...and love living at the other end of the country from them so we don't have to interact every day. I'm sure they'd wind up hating me after a little while, I'm such a self-involved freak.

Which makes it hard to shop for them at Christmas.