The second job nearly killed me. (OK, maybe I exaggerate...slightly...but it undoubtedly turned me into a sleep-deprived zombie every weekend.) I liked my coworkers and didn't mind the work - counting and recording revenue at my local amusement park - though it was often tedious and dirty (I couldn't wait to scrub my hands after handling that filthy lucre...have I mentioned my germophobia?), but I hated working nights, sometimes beyond exhaustion until 2:00 a.m. (after a full eight-hour workday on Fridays). All for Paris, I constantly reminded my weary, bleary-eyed self. As much as I love summers, it was an unmitigated relief when this one - and its accompanying job - ended.
When it did, I was faced with over six months of adventure-free living while I planned and fantasized about my late-spring Paris escapade, which in September felt a lifetime away.
And then, unexpected news, and my even more surprising response to it. Stevie Nicks, one of my longtime heroes and all-time favorite musicians, announced her fall tour dates (with The Pretenders, no less), none of which were anywhere near my rural hometown. But that didn't stop me. Maybe it was the loss of David Bowie, Prince, and so many other musical icons earlier that year, but I decided I needed to go. I didn't care where or when; when a 68-year-old music goddess whom you've never seen in concert announces a tour - maybe her last one ever - you find your way there.
So, by process of elimination, searching for a Saturday concert date that would allow me to fly down and back without missing a workday, I settled on Houston, TX, on Saturday, October 29. I scoured the internet and successfully found a presale ticket code, which earned me a 24th row floor seat (not bad, I guessed), and booked my flights and an inexpensive overnight hotel room.
My anticipation steadily grew during the subsequent six weeks. But then, the week of the concert, my excitement flipped over to full-blown anxiety. I started second-guessing everything: the cheap, poorly-reviewed hotel, the unimpressive concert seat (I found better seats for the same price after I bought my "best available" seat), and especially the flights, each of which had 50-minute layovers. In my excitement, I'd hastily booked them based on the departure and arrival times, with no real consideration of layover length. I lost several hours of sleep worrying about the trip, wondering if I should switch flights at a steep cost. In the end, my frugality won out, and I told myself (while anxiously tossing and turning every night) that all would work out fine in the end...though I didn't fully believe it.
The day of the concert dawned and I got up, dressed, finished packing, and headed to the airport with plenty of time to spare. It was while I was waiting at my gate that everything turned sideways. My departing flight was delayed for thirty minutes (the plane's toilet overflowed, I found out later, an apt metaphor for that day's events), and with each ticking moment, my chances of making that (overbooked!) connecting flight (DC to Houston) plummeted. By the time I finally boarded my DC flight, I knew - unless my connecting flight was seriously delayed - I had little hope of catching it. I never relaxed for a minute of that cramped 75-minute flight and had to stand on the tarmac for several more minutes after arriving and deplaning to pick my roller bag out of the makeshift baggage claim before I could frantically run the length of the airport to my gate.
I didn't reach my gate until 1 p.m., much too late for my 12:40 flight to Houston. I was panicked, but not completely hopeless as an elderly man at the United ticket counter slowly, painfully searched (typing with a single finger) for the next available flight to Houston: a 5:30 p.m. departure that would arrive too late for me to attend the 7:00 p.m. concert.
I was crushed. Absolutely devastated. For two hours, refusing to accept a Stevie-less fate, I Googled every imaginable option - plane, train, car, bus, horse, or buggy - that might get me to Houston in time for the concert. But there was nothing. Fighting through my crippling funk, I started tentatively considering another concert in another city...not that I wanted to ever fly again after this fiasco.
My flight into Houston was mercifully uneventful and - ironically - arrived early. Since I'd already booked the flights and hotel, I figured I might as well carry out that part of the trip ("You can do some sightseeing," my mom helpfully suggested, which made me laugh (I, in fact, arrived after sunset and left before sunrise and saw nothing except the airport and my hotel room) in spite of my sadness)).
Unfortunately I didn't sleep any better in my room - where I gratefully collapsed after arriving at 9 p.m. - than I would have at the airport, but it was worth the trek just to change my clothes, take a long, hot shower, and enjoy blessed privacy after close-quartered plane rides and long airport waits. Downtown Houston was incredibly noisy - I slept better in Vegas - with all-night sirens, car alarms, street traffic, trains, and obnoxious hotel guests keeping me awake.
The funniest moment of that long, mishap-filled day was hearing "Edge of Seventeen," one of Stevie's biggest hits blaring from a passing car that evening while I attempted to sleep, providing much-appreciated levity...and irony. And that, my friends, was the closest I came to hearing Stevie Nicks in concert that night in Houston.
