Wendryn Doubt

We just got back from a road trip. I really enjoy road trips because there is so much time to relax, talk, listen to interesting music or audiobooks, and, at least in my case, sleep. Xander is very nice about letting me sleep whenever I need to. By the time we go on a road trip, it has generally been so long since the last vacation that I am rather exhausted. Knowing that I will be able to doze in the car is comforting.

I will write about the good parts of the road trip later, but today I have a different subject in mind. Road trips do come with their own challenges, and one that I dread is the assignment of hover factor. If the drive is one we’ve taken before, I know where we can stop to avoid a high hover factor. This time we were driving a route with which we were not completely familiar, so there were a couple of very disturbing restrooms.

Hover factor is a measurement of how awful the bathrooms are, specifically how little I am willing to touch anything. If I look at the toilet and I am unwilling to touch any part of it with any part of me, that’s a high hover factor. If I walk in and my feet stick to the floor, even a little bit, the hover factor measurement ratchets up. If I have to look in more than one stall to find one without strange substances on the walls, that’s a very high hover factor. There have been a few times in my life that I’ve elected to drive an extra several miles to get to a place that doesn’t make me gag as I walk through the door.

I am not very picky. I do not require extreme cleanliness in gas station bathrooms, and I certainly do not expect it. I do, however, much prefer bathrooms which do not induce nausea or an urge to cover every possible surface I might touch with toilet paper and paper towels, several layers thick.

One bathroom from the most recent trip was actually quite nice. It was a restaurant (and before you say that restaurants generally have nicer bathrooms, be aware that I have been in a few restaurant bathrooms that made me decide not to eat at the establishment) and, when I walked into the bathroom, I was greeted with a faint scent of bleach. The floors were pristine, every stall had toilet paper, and I did not worry about touching the faucet handles.

I’m sounding rather neurotic, I know. All of this stems, I think, from port-a-potties when I was little. We would go to various events and I would have a very hard time dealing with the smell, the flies, the heat, and the splashes where other people either didn’t aim very well or were, um, overenthusiastic. One that I remember with particular horror had a handprint on the wall. I do not know what substance was used to make the handprint, but considering the color and the surroundings, I can make a pretty good guess. I can go into a port-a-potty if I need to, and I can use it, but that is where the hover factor measurement began.

When we are driving to Arizona, we almost always stop at the Death Valley Nut and Candy Company. We get gas, since that particular drive does not have many options for gas, and I use the bathroom there because they have a very low hover factor. I can walk in, do what I need to do, wash my hands, and walk out without even once being tempted to check the bottom of my shoe to see what foreign substance may have become attached.

If you are ever in a position in which you own a place with bathrooms, be aware that you will be judged on those bathrooms, and, if the quality is lacking, if the hover factor is too high, you will lose customers. There are a few places I absolutely will not stop for gas even if I don’t need a bathroom because my memory of the desperate wish to be able to avoid touching anything at all is so incredibly strong.

Last week I got to go to Los Angeles. The initial reason was a business trip. That part of it was certainly worth the trip. I learned a few things that will help us in the future and I think we gave some other groups ideas on how to make a few things work better.

The best parts of the trip, though, were the parts not involved with work. I had the pleasure of staying with two members of my family that I don’t get to see often. I got in Wednesday night fairly late and then we stayed up talking much later, which was wonderful. I don’t generally like staying up late, but Wednesday and Thursday nights I stayed up with no problem at all and I had a blast.

We got a long lunch at the business meeting, so I walked a few blocks to the Museum of Contemporary Art. I got to see an original Jackson Pollock! Several of the exhibits were fascinating, including a video over the course of several rooms of a young man in a deserted city, moving to his own rhythms, which got faster with each room. There was a hallway with yarn across the top in different colors and angles. As I walked down the hallway, looking up, the patterns changed. It was unexpectedly beautiful. There are, of course, always pieces I don’t understand, the main one here being a large slab of polished black material (looked rather like a long table top) leaned up against a wall. I can’t say I got anything from that. I don’t go to museums terribly often, but I generally enjoy them when I get the chance.

The highlight of the trip, though, was a visit to the Magic Castle in Hollywood. The Castle is “the private clubhouse for the Academy of Magical Arts, Inc, a very special organization devoted to the advancement of the ancient art of magic.” It’s a really neat place. There are always magic acts, the food is very good, and there are a lot of neat things to see on the walls and throughout the Castle. The company was very good – my relatives had been there before, so they showed me around, and we talked about all kinds of interesting things. When we got back to the house, we talked for a while before going to bed. I’m pretty sure that between Wednesday and Thursday night I got about eight hours of sleep total.

I caffeinated a lot on Friday. I almost never do that, but sometimes it is completely worth it.

I love traveling. I don’t get to do it much, although hopefully that will be changing over the next few years. I like getting to see things I can’t see in Reno. I especially like places that are more culturally varied; Reno has some limitations in that area. We both like traveling together, even though it is sometimes stressful. I couldn’t bring Xander along on this one because he’s rather busy at the moment, but next time I go back, he’s coming, too.

We were planning to go to Australia at the end of last year, but it didn’t work out. We have another trip or two planned over the next few years, though. The travel bug never left; it just got delayed for a while. In the meantime, we’ll go on little trips and enjoy them.

Today was the first step in something pretty neat. We bought tickets to the Nutcracker. That does not seem like a big deal, on the surface. We’ve both seen the Nutcracker before, and, while we do enjoy it, it’s May. Why would I get this excited about tickets seven months from now?

Well, because the tickets are for a performance at the Sydney Opera House.

We’re going to Australia. We’ve been planning this for a while, but this step is the first tangible evidence that we’re actually going. Now that we have Nutcracker tickets, I feel like it’s real. I know we will actually get there, one way or another, and I’m incredibly excited.

While I’ve been to Canada and Mexico, I’ve never been farther than that. I don’t even have a passport (although that will change soon!) and, for a while, I wasn’t sure I would ever get to travel much. We’ve started to get to the point, though, that we will actually have both the time and the money to travel. We have a long list of places we’d like to go, and we will probably actually get to most, if not all, of them. Possibilities are opening up, and I think I may actually get to see some more of the world.

Tonight I filled out my passport application, and I will send it in soon. It’s a new beginning, a piece of joy and exploration to look forward to. It’s a start.

I keep moving forward and I keep looking for joy. I’m finding it in unexpected and wonderful places. I am generally happy, and when the bad moments hit, I have these pieces to hold to help me through. My husband can make me laugh at the strangest times, our dog is always happy to see us, and the cats are always happy to have a warm lap.

It’s a good start.