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leaving the midwest At the moment time has ceased to have any real meaning for me. The cabin of the airplane is subdued with the lights off and most of the windows closed. When I look out the window all that I can see is a mixture of blue and white. Thirty-six thousand feet below us is the Pacific Ocean. According to the screen we are traveling at roughly five hundred fifty miles per hour. The screen also says that it's ten-thirty at night back in Milwaukee, but that doesn't mean that mean anything to me. All that I know is that I left Los Angeles seven hours ago and that I won't get to Sydney unril another seven hours have passed. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe time means everything to me now. I don't recognize the movie on the screen. Earlier I fell asleep during The Wedding Planner. Jennifer Lopez may be easy on the eyes, but my body had had enough. Somewhere or sometime later I woke to see who I thought was Jewel on the screen. Later Hope told me that it was Cate Blanchett in a movie called The Gift. ... Blue sky and the left wing of the plane. Islands of cloud beneath me. ... The flight from Chicago to Los Angeles was crowded as I had suspected that it might be. Not being able to see out the window didn't help either. There were two things that I was grateful for on that flight. First there was breakfast. I was starved. Late on Saturday night Ann and I had shared a salad then Sunday morning came and I was off to Chicago. Raisin bran cereal and a cranberry muffin never tasted so good. The second thing that saved me was The New York Times. Within minutes of sitting down I had read the airplane magazine and was desperate to have something else to distract me. My books were packed away above me, so I asked my neighbor for a section of the Times. An article about the role of bullies in society, another about former president Ford and one about the current state of marriage helped keep me occupied. ... I love looking out the window of a plane. Everything is so self-contained. The plane is my world as we travel through a space that has no clear landmarks. Then again why would there be landmarks in the sky. Suddenly everything is a dull milky white outside the window. Maybe I'll have to watch the movie or read to pass the time. ... Los Angeles was fun, but we really didn't have three hours to socialize. We landed earlier than expected and were soon joined by my sister's boyfriend. Much hugging and cooing followed as gifts were opened. I had planned on meeting two people at the airport. One was my friend Dan of Jetpack fame and the second person was another journal writer, Charles. At first I didn't see either of them, but then I saw someone that I thought looked like Charles but I wasn't sure. So a few minutes later I made a call to the cell phone that I had been given and found out that I was right. My photo on my site had been taken down months ago so most if not all of the recognition fell on me. Once introductions were done a decision had to be made. How long were we going to wait for Dan to show up? Unlike Charles and my sister's boyfriend, Dan doesn't have a cell phone. ... Um, for some reason I stopped writing at this point and never got back to finishing that day. We never did meet up with Dan. Instead the four of us got something to eat and then my sister and I boarded the plane. I also want to acknowledge the fact that some of the above events are told out of order for some odd reason. I think that this has to do with us crossing the international dateline and my mind getting more and more addled. Not only was I getting more and more tired, but I also had some whiskey on the plane and that didn't help my concentration at all. I want to thank Charles for coming out to the airport that day to see us. He is the fourth person that I have met from the online world and it was good to meet him in person.
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