gurdonark

The travel to Los Angeles seemed particularly exhausting this time. I think food was partly to blame; I'm just not "good to go" on those odd little snack boxes they hand out on airlines nowadays. Not healthy enough to give that feeling of moral superiority, not filling enough to sate one's appetite. I had a layover in Vegas this time, and found myself a bit down with that "irregular meals" kind of down that one gets, if one does not always handle irregular meals well. I always test on the borderline for all those hypo blood sugar things; thankfully, never have to take medication, but I don't do well when I miss meals.

Of course, somehow I went from "working well ahead, going to go to the airport early" to "gotta rush to the airport". I don't know how it is that I think of ten things I need to check just before time to leave for the airport. I do know it's a very bad habit, in need of breaking.

I picked up Nick Hornby's novel "How to Be Good", and though I enjoy it, it's not quite as fun as I expected. I'm about halfway through it now; nothing like an airline ride, when one can get lots of work done, and still be able to read a lot of novel. The plane was late, and instead of landing during daylight, we reached LA just after dark. I had to direct the cab driver to the right place, although it is not a hard place to find. I'm staying with my friends

kenmora and his wife Heidi, who were nice enough to invite me over to stay at their place. This contrasts with my usual "hotel by LAX and watch Deep Space Nine at 2 in the morning" regime. It's interesting to discuss with people who know me the editorial choices I make in my journal; I believe I won a full acquittal on the charge of "wrongful omission of family matters", but perhaps the jury is still out. It is odd, I suppose, to omit one's spouse's name in one's journal, but I think that her privacy dictates this as right for me now. The counter-argument, as

kenmora recently put it, is that a journal written without extensive discussion of my spouse is in some ways written on swiss cheese rather than paper. Still, I think I like things for now as they are. As my wife writes very well in her own right, if she wished her life broadcast, I believe she would ask for her own journal code. I do not mean to imply, though, that there is a "right" answer on this one. I see this as one more Topic A, a matter intentionally omitted from the journal, and yet a matter which pervades my life. I guess, though, that this is why I see this journal as about something other than strict biography. I see it as a more ethereal thing, not quite literary, but certainly not a comprehensive guide to my marriage or my family or my work.

To speak of editing in a different context, though, the Chicago beating deaths, in which neighborhood folks beat to death two folks who ran a stop sign and hurt some folks, has made me disappointed in NPR coverage. I sense "missing facts" everywhere here, and instead I hear the local neighborhood booster telling us about how they don't like killings in their neighborhood. I used to rely on NPR, but its recent coverage in this story and on foreign affairs no longer seems incisive;it seems much "safer" and "positive" or "negative about them out there" and even rote. I wonder if this is (a) just me (b) editorial change or (c) staff cutbacks.

I have gotten literally scads of cool mail art stuff lately, and I'm told more arrived today and awaits me. This mail art thing has been fun. One of the nervousness.org folks even wrote me a soothing note after I placed a bit of abashment about relative art skills in my LiveJournal. People can be so darn nice sometimes; I notice these stressful times have the fringe benefit of making many of us realize how nice we all need to be, whenever we can. Not "nice" in that "Tigger" perky way that

espvivisection mentioned lately in her journal, nor that "bouncy nice" that

nacowafer mentioned recently in hers. I mean really nice, the kind of nice that makes one do the nice thing, and not mind being effusive in a good cause. Even though I grew up in the south, and can say "how're y'all doin?" with the best of them, that true niceness is what always matters to me. Right now, though, what matters to me is getting a good night's sleep, making my hearing on time, and getting back to Texas. That, my friends, would be truly nice.