The question, as ever, is how to make this interesting, again, to you. I've tried to recap the experience with lots of very-very short videos and the occasional Google Streets embed, so you can get a better sense of the locations. There's also an unexpected twist of sorts, with some spectacular things to see.
Two months ago I got the offer to speak, and I said yes without thinking about particulars and cost. A week or so later I was standing alone in the break room area of my office, in the bleak midwinter, considering what was ahead: the improbable act of vaulting the ocean, landing in loved London and having a Dishoom meal with Natalie, then returning - as I absolutely farging MUST, to Walbers, this time not only to do a show - I’d done that two times - but do a show on my own. The possibility produced a flood of joy.
And trepidation. I had to come up with a speech. There would be a lot of moving parts, travel-wise, but I like that. But it was going to happen.We were going back.
Perhaps I love this airport because it’s familiar. Because it’s home, which means it’s exciting to leave and reassuring to return to. It seems like the world before the great institutional failure, before the economic malaise, before the downtowns emptied out. The shops are full; the restaurants busy. It seems like a place where things work. Where you assume they work. We’re supposed to believe an airport the ninth level of hell without the ice, but that's not my experience. Perhaps it’s because I’m at America’s Favorite Airport!
Really. So say the signs outside, and I believe it. I got to the airport early, of course, and decided to burn through some time by taking the moving walkway all the way to to the end of Concourse C. I’d never been to the end, and was unaware of its length. I think people miss their connections because the end of C is in a different time zone. I thought “needs dogs, though. There should be a place that just has dogs to visit.”
Hello: dogs.
It was a “therapy dog” you could pet if you liked. Chloe. She had a glassy eye that was the result of a scar, and facial coloring that gave her a permanently angry expression.
Ordered a cup of coffee from Dunkin’, guaranteed to be better and cheaper than the ‘Bucks or the ‘Bou, and settled down to watch a little vid Natalie sent: she animated the opening sequence of a documentary that’ll be shown at the Nantucket Film Festival in a few months. Had my last cup of coffee of the day, which is a sad thing to say. But so it must be.
WEDNESDAY, 8 PM OVER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN
Here’s the thing about our Age of Wonders: things fail and there is no recourse. I called up the New Yorker app to read the magazine, and yes I’d made sure to pre-load it with issues. Sorry! Can’t launch for the first time on this iPad because you’re not connected to the internet.
Excuse me, but this isn’t the first time. I just called up the app last night. Sorry! No magazine for you! Well, there’s always the Kindle, or rather the Kindle app. Same thing.
These are not words you want to see at the start of a flight. I could buy wifi, but who knows if that’ll fix it. Let’s just listen to music!
That song is not available in your country
But - but I downloaded it last night, Apple Music. From you! And I'm not even IN a country right now. Does this mean no one over the Atlantic an ever listen to music, because they're not in a jurisdiction that has licensing arrangements?
Well, it doesn’t matter. I’ve plenty to watch and read. Two episodes of the Detectorists - the last two - and of course Perry Mason. An old one and the new one, in color. Dinner, a movie & red wine, and, I hope, slumber.
And we know how that will work. Very, very poorly.
LATER
Hah: one of the guys on Perry Mason.
Yee hah, it's time for some Borden ice cream and card-house buildin'!
I think . . . I think I actually slept. A lot. It’s only an eight hour flight - well, seven and a half - and the departure time of 5 means there’s no opportunity for natural sleep. You have to pretend. The airline helps: the windows are closed and the lights are down all the way, giving you the idea that it’s nightynight time, but the rest is entirely a matter of will. You have to decide to lose consciousness ahead of schedule. Some take pills. I took melatonin once and woke up in the middle of the night convinced I was suffering a stroke, as I could not move and there seemed to be a black hole of constriction in my solar plexus.
That was on the Air France flight, and if I recall that one, the food wasn’t too good. The bread was off. Of all things, on an Air France flight. On this flight I got steerage grub. A dry unflavored piece of chicken so small they should have oversold it as quail or gaming hen, accompanied by a cold couscous salad with a solid jot of mozzarella. I had two glasses of a rich dry red wine, and it seems to have had the desired effect of all reds: it gently laid me in the swirling waters of Lethe. Not the deep currents, but the shallows by the shore.
It helped to have two seats. Being a short fellow, I could stretch out. The sleep was interrupted enough, but there were dreams, and where there’s dreams there’s REM. Waking with the realization that I had, in fact, had some true sleep coincided with the general bustle that precedes the official wakeup. As soon as I had committed to getting up I saw the coffee carts coming up the aisle and heard a stew ask if someone six rows up would like an egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast. Before I knew it I had two cups of lukewarm coffee and a very hot sandwich. I was up and the day had begun.
Made the mistake of looking at my watch. It was a quarter to midnight.
CAFE NERO, KENSINGTON It is a bright cold April morning, but at least the clocks aren’t striking thirteen, so I got that going for me.
Easy trip through passport control - everyone in front of me was denied, and had to seek assistance, but the unnamed international database approved of me and let me in. Down to the depths to the train, then a brisk ride into Paddington.
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