When you're away from home by yourself in a strange city, you have a lot of conversations with yourself (in your head of course). And one thing I realized while in DC was that I havea few odd habits (more than a few, my friends would probably say, but these were specific to traveling). So, in no particular order here are a few of the fears, habits and phobias I realized travel with me where ever I go.

1. Fear of snakes getting into the plumbing and slithering up into the toilet. I hate snakes, and the idea of discovering one in the toilet bowl always prompts me to put the lid down. I realize the chances of this actually happening are about one in three billion, but doesn't it sound like a story you'd hear happening in some Florida town, much like aligators living in the sewers?

2. Discovering someone else's socks in my bed. Now, I realize that housekeeping changes the sheets before a new guest arrives, however I always peek under the sheets looking for stray socks, a sure sign that I should check out immediately and never return. I think this goes way back to my childhood, when my family stayed at a friend's Vermont ski house, and I did, in fact, discover a sock in the bed I was supposed to sleep in. It's grossed me out ever since.

3. The wings falling off the plane. Sure, they're bolted and welded and all that good stuff, but when you see the wings shaking and vibrating and getting pelted with rain and turbulence, that's not much consolation. They're just long thin metal things holding on for dear life. As am I.

4. Falling asleep on the plane with my mouth hanging open and my head bobbing back and forth. Could there be anything more disconcerting that being the person whose jaw is hanging slack as she does one of those head bobs onto the shoulder of the guy next to her? Still, I sleep like a baby on planes, am always passed out before we even take off. Until I'm jarred awake in time to see those wobbly wings out the window. Then I'm back to #3.

Am I the only one who thinks that guy on the tail of the Alaska Airlines planes looks like Johnny Cash in a fur-trimmed parka?

Today I was in Washington, DC for the Fictionista Chick Lit Tour, and I have one thing to say: could our founding fathers have created a more convoluted road system? Naming streets after letters, that I can understand, pretty basic. Using numbers, again, easy, done in cities across the nation. But throwing in diagonal streets named after states, and then tossing in a few ring-arounds in the form of pretty grassy “circles” to boot? Well, that just screws the whole thing up. I swear, in the course of the day we must have crossed M and K streets three billion times, so many in fact I was beginning to think they messed up the alphabet.

But, in any case, I got to see my friend Tracy, and that was great. It’s been over eight years, and I swear she looks exactly the same. Of course, the frozen lemonades and citrus vodka may have skewed my eyesight, but it seemed like she hasn’t aged a day since our time on our college field hockey team. And, all in all, DC is a beautiful city. And the Hard Rock event was fun. Now it’s back home for two more events before heading to NYC on Friday. This junket stuff is exhausting, but at least I understand the road system in Manhattan.