Closely Watched Planes

I'm sitting in Heathrow waiting for my plane.

This seems like the shortest time I have ever been anywhere - I feel like I've just arrived. It may be that I travelled on Wednesdays, so instead of doing my class (exhausting) and then flying home the next day and being exhausted on the plane, I did my class in the middle of my stay and seemed to never get over jet lag. Or it may be that I had many more things to do this time - a class Thursday night and an interview on Monday for "Raindance Television". Or maybe it was just all of the things I had to do *before* I hopped the plane to London.

This time was also disorganized on my part - there were all sorts of people I planned on meeting while I was here, and some slipped through the cracks (Sorry, Janet!). part of that was due to the *possibility* of Raindance asking me to do an additional evening class *after* my weekend class. That was up in the air until I was down on the ground and arrived at the Raindance offices on Thursday... a few hours before doing my 3 hour thriller class. Because Friday ended up being "recovery day" that left Monday and Tuesday and last minute planning.

Next time: I plan everything in advance. I will have a drinks night and a coffee/tea afternoon.

*** Over Eight Hours Later... ***

I'm sitting in Dulles Airport. The mystery of the 15 hour, 41 minute flight is solved - an unlisted plane swap in Washington. Maybe they don't want terrorists to know. But the problem is, after more than eight hours getting here, with 5 hours left to get to LAX, my flight is delayed by 3 hours. Sweet! So I'll be pulling into LAX around 3am... and then take the Flyaway Bus to Van Nuys, then take a taxi home... and I realized I have no liquids in the fridge, so I'll have to go to Ralphs (open 24 hours) - I'm probably not hitting the pillows until 5am or so!

And I'm stuck in the airport - it's hot - I'm tired and grumpy - the guy sitting next to me on the plane kept invading my space all the way from London. I am tall, but believe I should keep my arms on my side of the armrest. This guy must have poked me in the ribs with his elbow 150 times. And his feet were under the seat in front of *me*, kicking at me. And he was probabaly ten inches shorter than me - no reason to spill into my space. There was a point where I almost hit him... but that would have resulted in me being kicked off the plane...

Which gave me an idea. Terrorists should have a decoy guy on the plane to scream and get the secret Air Marshals to expose themselves. I had another idea about a section for parents traveling with kids - sound-proofed and isolated from the rest of us. Okay, I'm just grumpy. And I think I may have missed the restaurants - they seem to be closing right now.

I can't wait to get back to LA and sleep.

- Bill