Category Archives: Travel

We think that we’re locked into a life. But we’re not. We think we have to do things a particular way, go down a particular path, go through particular motions. But we don’t. I see the absolute joy and surprise … Continue reading →

Sometimes I wonder how I got here. I can’t say that I should have planned my life better, because of course, I did plan. I planned and planned and it was all wrong and came crashing down and I was … Continue reading →

Car service to the Miami airport, headed for my flight to Sao Paulo, Brazil, the conversation began as always: you travel so much — surely you don’t have a husband or children. But then, a departure: not a prediction of … Continue reading →

I should have lots to write about. I’ve been traveling for weeks: Atlanta, New Orleans, San Francisco, a convoluted route through London and Istanbul to Israel, then Jordan, and now Cairo. Another day and then I’m off for a day … Continue reading →

Business travel is built around the idea of the solitary. When you check into business hotels, you’re given a single room key and there’s only enough of that awful hotel room coffee for one. You’ll often get a king size … Continue reading →

Quote seen on a wall of the Salt Lake City airport. Fucking Tolkien. Summing up in seven words what I’ve been trying to say in hundreds of journal entries. Two nights ago, I was at a dinner for an event … Continue reading →

I live within movement. The cabs, the trains, the airplanes, the airport lounges, even the security checkpoints are my living room, my office, my route to work. The other day, someone was driving me to an event and asked if … Continue reading →

True story. A couple of weeks ago, I started an entry with this title and saved it as a draft. But then I never actually wrote the entry. I had been planning to write about how I have this tendency … Continue reading →

They don’t know what to make of me. Yes? They look at me quizzically, not sure what I’m doing there. Once it took three people to figure out what I wanted. The first thought he didn’t understand me and sent … Continue reading →

A storm came through today. Heavy rain and cracks of lightning splitting the sky and booming thunder. We could have been in the midwest — Arkansas or Missouri or Oklahoma. The power flickered and then was out. When the rain … Continue reading →

I walked up to the cab and hoisted my bag up into the trunk. The cab driver said he would pay me $100 if I could get his wife to carry a bag that heavy just a few steps. She … Continue reading →

Overhead, a woman on her cell phone. Her flight was on time. Could the person on the phone still pick her up? Yes? Who all was coming, then? Were they coming in to the airport or parking? What time was … Continue reading →

I just drove twelve hundred miles in a 77 MGB. It even nearly made it, only running out of oil once and requiring just one push start. Driving an old rattley car that you really have to concentrate on to … Continue reading →

What choice do I have but to keep going? I may fail, I may make mistakes. I’m only human. But why dwell there, on that, on my imperfectness. Why live in frozen imperfection? I sometimes see this glimmer beyond “I … Continue reading →

Right at this moment, I’m on a train, visiting states by looking out the window. We just made a stop in Delaware. Delaware! Now Maryland. I’ve never been either of these places before. They seem pretty, as far as I … Continue reading →

I should be working right now. Lord knows I have a lot to do. Too much to do. A crushing avalanche of todoness that threatens to bury me beneath its suffocating, all-encompassing grip. But instead, I’m wondering at the sign … Continue reading →

In another airport. I’m starting to like the airports, really. Maybe it’s like that thing that happens with kidnapping victims when they fall in love with their kidnappers and they fight against all odds, the police, and a world that … Continue reading →

I had a very odd feeling this morning. I stepped into a cab, and something seemed wrong. Like the cab was off-kilter or something. And then I had the following three thoughts in rapid succession: The driver is sitting on … Continue reading →

I curiously continue to lose weight. This despite a diet that has variously consisted of the following: potatoes (in many forms)  and pints (Dublin), room service, more pints, and tequila (London), vodka, cheese, and a bit of chocolate (Zurich), mashed … Continue reading →