For the first time in forever and a fortnight, I feel like myself. I am in my zen place: Beyond Security. Beyond TSA. Good to go, ready to leap up into the blue.

The airport is not fraught with the past. If I wanted I could conjure all sorts of connections and memories, but they don’t shoulder ahead of everything else in line and start rending their garments. I’m looking at the Food Court video display, waiting for the tumbling Krinkle-Kut fries to remind me of Cancun trips, but they’ve changed it, so that will be avoided. Why, there are old friends here, in a merry mood:

If you're from these parts you know exactly what percussive motif to start slapping on the table or your thighs.

I’m trying to remember if she drove me to the airport when I went to England for Christmas. Surely yes, right? But I’ve no memory. No - she’d had the foot operation, couldn’t drive. So the last time she took me to the airport was October, five days before she dropped the nuke in an email. Wait - I was here in November to go to Boston. Did she take me then? How odd would that’ve been? Say hello to our daughter and my sister. Had she left for Thanksgiving in AZ? What happened to the dog?

OH MY GOD THE DOG I FORGOT

Kidding. Birch is being watched over by the Giant Swede’s ex-wife, just to let you know how genial things are here up in the great Northwest, as they used to call it. I don’t hear that so much anymore, since the Pacific NW seems to have claimed the whole Northwest idea, and Minnesota is simply the Midwest. I’d say the Upper Midwest, but the only thing around here that gets the Upper term is the toppermost part of Michigan, he says, knowing this will probably be edited out as pre-trip throat-clearing. Or not! I’m planning a three-day Bleat blitz here, and it’s my damned site. Anyway: I am free of the leash. For the first time in 2 months I am not looking around or tugging or getting tugged. It is liberating.

Not so much for him, I’m sure. The appearance of the suitcase caused unease and suspicion. This morning I took him down to the lobby to wait for Ex-Mrs. Giant Swede, and he was panting and grimacing and wondering how this all fit together. I let her go up with him in the elevator and stayed behind, which caused dog confusion: he stared as the doors closed, unbelieving. But I’d doped him an hour before with doggie downers, and from what I hear he’s settled. As long as he’s not alone.

So here’s the plan for the day: walk to gate. Board. Fly. Arrive. Stroll off, get bus to T station. Blue line to Gov Center, wait for the screechy Green D to round the bend, take a long trip to the leafy environs, walk to house, hope the key is where it’s supposed to be, maybe walk to Whole Foods to get breakfast / supper things. I have the house to myself for the night, so I’ll write the Substack. Sounds good.

Ah, forgot the first thing: spend half an hour walking slowly around the airport, killing time, adjusting, decompressing.

Let’s go!

Note: this will only be up for a day because I'm sure I'll get dinged, but, this, Dream Come True, is from the latest album by Kinobe, a one-man project whose music someone in the YouTube comments concisely described as "Pink Floyd meets The Young and the Restless." I hadn't been able to listen to the new album because it reminded me too much of the Golden Era of 2022 - 2024, when this was the soundtrack to ease and abandon and swank cool.

This would be a good time to take it back. I put on my headphones, and let it all go.

LATER I am at the kitchen table of my in-laws. Home is where the devices all automatically connect to the internet because they know the password.

Had an interesting plane experience, which made for the subscriber column at the Substack. Had to write something, and that seemed to be the most fruitful of subjects. It was an ordinary flight, and short - well, if you sleep, it’s short. I had my sandwich and watched half a Perry Mason, then slept for a while. Woke, ordered coffee, watched the rest. The fellow next to me was about nine feet tall, had the jock demeanor of the college athlete, and spent the whole trip coding.

Here, in case you don’t subscribe: the video I used to illustrate what happened. As we approached I saw another jet that looked closer than anything I’d seen before. But hey they know their business and we’re still descending and

OKAY THEN

What I learned later was the existence of the actual TOGA button on the throttle. Never experienced anything like that, and frankly, I was relieved. When I texted about it to my in-laws, they said "you're going to be on the news!"

What?

		I guess there's a trend

After we finally landed, I figured: an hour to my final destination, as noted above.

Took two. Slow bus to the transit station, which has its own industrial charm.

Underwater to the mainland, out at Gov Center. As I had foreseen, there was the Screechy Green, appearing from the tunnel like a crotchety apparition:

It’s always counterintuitive to me that it goes that way, when in my head it should be going the other way, but I’ve done this enough times so I know. It being rush hour, it was packed, and I was stuck in the middle without a good handhold, trying to keep my balance with the power of my shin muscles. The train emptied out at Kenmore, though, and I got a nice little window seat for the rest of the trip into the green beyond.

Always love coming here. It feels so late-19th / early 20th century, sensible but romantic in that wild-nature way preferred by men with substantial white beards who were enthusiastic about the natural world and graham crackers and cold-water baths. The road from the platform to the neighborhood:

I walked around for a bit, noted the big solid church . . .

. . . had a good burrito at the neighborhood place for incendiary foodstuffs, then walked to the nearby lake at sunset.

Lovely, civilized part of the city.

Now I’m back at the house, by myself; they’re not arriving from their NH home until tomorrow. This is their Boston ground-foot. I’ve had Thanksgiving here and other visits with Not Yet Former, and last fall’s trip by myself. Lovely neighborhood. I could see living here but, well, Boston prices. There’s a new condo down the block, featureless, with 1bd-1bth units smaller than Fred Base One going for $825K.

Beautiful neighborhood, but there was of course that one faded piece of the past that caught my eye.

This was a light brisk entry. TOMORROW: stories galore.

That will do, I hope. Substack up around 11.