As a soft-G person, I liked the rationalization that if you treat it like an initialism (g-i-f), the soft G makes sense. But if we extend the "how do you pronounce graphic" to other letters, we'd be changing the pronunciation of a lot of vowels in things like NASA or FBI or scuba.

Same. I was on a 15-hour flight and realized minor dehydration gave me an uneasy stomach. I'll take extra bathroom trips if it means less discomfort.

My last flight into ORD landed 40 minutes early. We parked for 20 minutes and they let people use the bathroom as we waited for the gate to be available before resuming taxiing. We got to the gate 10 minutes late.

One of my favorite faculty anecdotes was when Dr Dickey told a story shout some Eliot conference in StL and visitors really wanted her to take them to some spot of biographical significance. "It's a parking lot now, but sure we can go."

Early modernist here: my grad institution had a lot of medievalists involved in department administration. They may have been the more active/vocal part of the MedRen interdisciplinary group, too.

I did that route, getting on at Fargo. My partner and I (mid-30s) were usually the youngest people in the dining car. Wasn't uncommon for older travelers to say they preferred it to the hassle of air travel. We'd fly if we had to do it again, unless stopping at Glacier NP.

I'm willing to travel for brownies

There's a line in Viet Thanh Nguyen's "The Uncommitted" that seems apropos...

My partner got me a Sodastream to try to economize my soda vice. I used to buy Pepsi in bulk for similar reasons.

We were so disappointed they were closed for the season when we visited over Easter a few years ago. All the billboards!

It's also awful and should be avoided at all costs.

I am also not a big fan of Chicago-style deep dish, but it's more tolerable.

(Also, hi, Rebecca! Sorry my first interaction in a while is StL slander)

The heart wants what the heart wants