I couldn't get to sleep until about midnight last night, which made waking up at 4:30 this morning all that more fun. I had a 7am flight to catch, and I'm glad I got to the airport early because there was an unusually long line to clear security. I was planning on snoozing most of the flight but a few things prevented me from doing that. One was the two business travelers across the aisle from each other directly behind me who thought the early flight would be a great time to (loudly) discuss the plan for their pending business meeting. The other was the guy sitting next to me reading the Wall Street Journal. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, "Hey...he was reading, how distracting can THAT be?" Well...he was reading a NEWSPAPER, which means every time he turned the page, he had to open the whole thing up, constantly jabbing me with his elbow when he wasn't taking full control of the center arm rest with it. Because he was taking up so much space, I was leaning into the aisle which meant - yes, you guessed it - every time someone walked down the aisle I got bumped.

My mom, sister and nephew happily greeted me at the airport then we went out to breakfast (IHOP - whoo-hoo!) and back to my mom's house, the interior of which was approximately 40 degrees. I forget how cold it gets here, and can't believe I grew up in this climate. Southern California has runied me for warm weather. I used to have a rule where I would only go home in the summer when it was guaranteed (nearly) to not be terribly cold, but here I am in fall.

It's my mom's birthday today so we're having a big family dinner at her place. Inspired by my compliments of the parmesian chicken I had at Green Street the other day, my sister is making it for dinner tonight. She's a really good cook, so I'm sure it will be just as good. My mom went out to buy cigarettes and bought a lottery ticket which ended up being a $75 winner. Happy birthday, mom!

The song of the day is "Lose Yourself" by Eminem off the 2002 soundtrack album for 8 Mile, the semi-autobiographical movie of his life. I've never really enjoyed rap music much, but for some reason, I really like Eminem. Not his obnoxious, obscene songs, but songs like this. He's got a really interesting way of putting words together that I find sort of hypnotic to listen to. When I first heard he was going to try to act in the movie, I scoffed, but I have to admit he did a pretty good job for a non-actor. I guess I'm not the only one who appreciates this song, as it won both an Academy Award and Grammy.