So, I arrived at Gatwick at 6.30a or something like that, all a bit loopy from lack of sleep.

When the plane landed, we all leapt to our feet once the "fasten seatbelts" light went off and rushed to the door, panting like wolves. Then had to stand there for ten minutes because the bridge wasn't working and they had to wheel a set of stairs for us to descend down to the tarmac like the Beatles.

Then we walked to an elevator that opened its doors and turned out to be a subway train. The Secret Train took us to Passport Control, where there was absolutely nobody, and we just sailed through, went to Baggage Claim, where my Baggage was just coming round the bend!

The whole thing took about three minutes. Four, if you want to count the Secret Train.

I, of course, had seven hours to kill before my Glasgow flight, so it just figures. I managed to fill some time by finding a bank machine (the new £10 notes look like Christmas wrapping) and going to the bathroom (not at the bank machine, later, in the bathroom), where I ended up spending a leisurely half hour in the big stall changing my clothes, then brushing my hair and teeth at the sink. I felt a good deal less grubby afterwards.

And there is something very jet-set about being naked in an airport bathroom. Though that may be just me who thinks that way.

I took the Gatwick Express into London, which was very rocky, but massively comfortable after those tiny Virgin seats. I splayed my legs like a basketball player just for the joy of actually being able to do so.

It was very grey and drizzly outside the window, exactly like New York was ten hours before, so I didn't actually feel as though I had gone anywhere yet.

Got to Victoria, wandered around for about a minute and a half before realizing that I really couldn't manage to stash my luggage and go do something, not on 14 minutes of sleep, so I went to Paddington and took the Heathrow Express.

I was looking for a car to get into (train car, stay with me), and noticed that several cars had signs on them saying "Entertainment-Free Zone". I wasn't exactly certain what that meant, that maybe I would be too entertaining for the car, or that I'd have to take my Walkman off, so I chose a car without that sign.

When I sat down, I saw that they had TV sets playing the worst music videos that one had ever seen, which made me realize that perhaps I was wrong in choosing this car. Or that the cars were mis-labeled, and the one that I was in was the true Entertainment-Free Zone.

Got to Heathrow, attempted to check in and get rid of my luggage, but they wouldn't let me do so until two hours before my flight, and it was actually three and a half hours or so before.

So I sat down to write in my journal...and it was gone! And it occurred to me that I had left it on the Heathrow Express. Of course, I had only just begun writing in it, but I had written this entire entry already, and did not want to have to redo it and the other ten pages or so of gold that had already dripped from my pen.

So I dragged my luggage aaaaaallllll the way back to the Heathrow Express (and trust me when I say that it was a really long walk), and after some more wandering helplessly about, found the office, where there were five men sitting around drinking coffee and reading the paper.

I told them about my book, that I had left it about fifteen minutes before, and they told me that lost stuff came to that very office, in fact, but only stayed for two hours, then went up to the Lost and Found on the second floor. Of course, I had to go to Glasgow, but I could check when I get back on Tuesday.

At that point, I just sat down on a bench and read and tried not to fall asleep and waited for time to pass so that I could check in my luggage. Then I thought that maybe I would wait until it was time for me to check my baggage, and then I'd go back to the office again and see if the book had been turned in, because why the hell not?

And I couldn't wait for longer than two hours, so I went back again, and the room was filled with five women sitting around drinking coffee and reading the paper. It was as though the five men who were there before had just put on skirts and wigs in order to fool my addled, sleep-deprived brain.

So again I explained about my book and asked whether it had been turned in, and it hadn't, but then one of the women asked me, "Does it have a Chinese medal on the front?" "Yes!!" I cried. "I found it on the train and turned it in at Paddington!" "My plane leaves in an hour and a half..." "I'll call them and tell them to send it on the next train, so you just wait by the platform and they will bring it to you."

And they did! A woman stepped off the train, I saw my book in her hand and lit up, and she just grinned and handed it to me, then stepped back onto the train, like the Journal Fairy. I went back into the office to thank the ladies, but then it was just one man sitting alone drinking coffee and reading the paper. I think that the office does magic tricks.

At this point I realized that had I waited until 12.30p to check for my book, as I had planned, I wouldn't have gotten it, because the one person on earth who knew where it was would not have been there! This was the second thing that happened where I made a bone-headed mistake and was saved by the seat of my pants.

Then I finally was able to check my luggage and be free of dragging the fucker around. I had an hour before my flight, and there wasn't a gate assigned just yet, so I wandered over to The Body Shop and realized that I was on vacation and could buy things, because the No Buying Year was on pause while I am on vacation, so I got some Lemongrass Foot Spray and was very very happy.

Wandered about a bit, occasionally checking for my flight gate, and my flight was never listed, but I was too tired to think that this was strange, until 1p or so, when I finally thought to check my ticket, and it wasn't a 1.30p flight, it was at 1.15p instead, and, according to my ticket, boarding was over, so I started running and rushing and panicking and tearing and things to the gate in question, and got there to find that they hadn't actually started boarding yet, because the plane had gotten in late and they weren't done cleaning it yet.

And that was the third thing that happened that made me believe that something is looking out for me, because I just wander around, staring at the sky and drooling, and something nudges me gently in the correct direction, herding me through my life, because by myself I would just drown in the rain.

Upon takeoff I immediately fell asleep like a ragdoll.

The seat was, strangely, wider and more comfortable and on Virgin, because it is far more important to be comfortable on a flight that goes for an hour and a half than one that goes for seven hours. Apparently.

And they fed us a full meal! On American flights shorter than six hours, they feel that you can get by with three crackers and a grape, but Britain is civilized and feels that if you even sit on the plane for a minute and half you need to be stuffed like a goose.

Arrived in Glasgow just about ready to die from lack of sleep. I got on the bus to the coach station near the B&B, and actually fell asleep about four times. I woke eveytime it stopped in a slight panic, thinking it was my stop, but the thing that kept me from fucking up, kept me from fucking up and I got off at the right stop.

And I got into a cab to go the short trip to the B&B, dragged my suitcase up the steps, got to my room, and collapsed on the bed as though I were felled by a tree.

About three hours later, my roommate, Molly K, another of Greg's ex-girlfriends, came and woke me up for the dinner over at Greg and Elaine's hotel.

I just realized that, in this story, there is a Molly and a Fran! And this Fran is a man as well. Just trying to make certain that my life is as confusing to read about as it possibly can be.

Anyway, at the dinner were all these people whose names I never really got, but who were entertaining as all get out. The ones the I knew were Greg and Elaine, of course, and Fran Z, whom Greg and I have known since college, and Greg's mom, and Jonty, who thought that he was the reason that Greg and Elaine had gotten married, because he had introduced them, but it was in factme who was the reason that we all were there at that very little minute, because Jonty was my sub-letter when Greg and I were living together and I went to LA for a month or six weeks of something and was too cheap/poor to pay the rent when I wouldn't be there for so long. So it was me, you see!

Everybody was really fun, and the food was great. It was a prix fix menu, so there was a starter, and all three looked so unlike anything that I would ever put in my mount that I just sort of closed my eyes and chose the least revolting one, the carrot soup. Which, weirdly, was delicious! I must have been tired.

One year ago today:
For a girl with an Irish last name, she really hates a uilleann.

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