I slept well last night. Around midnight (New York time), I conked out. I would have slept the entire night had a certain disfigured baby not started screaming at around 4am. I have this theory that if you run to a baby every time it cries, you condition it to cry every time it wants you to run. There are times, of course, where you have to go to the baby—it might have a dirty bum (igh) or hunger or be uncomfortable or be twisted in its blanket. But most of the time, especially during the night, it cries for little reason other than it wants you to run. Following through with my well-schooled baby psychology, it would be best if the parents not to run to the baby every time it cried. Even withstanding the aforementioned, I know nothing about babies, but it seems my hotel neighbor shares my lack of knowledge and implemented the no-run-baby experiment the last two nights. When the baby started to cry at 4am, there was no response, no rocking, no coddling, no (please!) walking with the baby to the ice machine. Instead, the baby wailed and wailed until it cried itself back to sleep around 6am. (Either that or the parents were sloshed in the hotel bar—I should have called social services to have the monster removed; why do all my good ideas occur after the fact?) By the time the monster gave up, I managed to sleep only fitfully for the last couple of hours before it was time to awaken.

Speaking of awakening, my alarm went off at 8am, leaving me with plenty of time to shower and pack before heading to Newark airport for my 11am flight. The taxi took less time than I expected, and I arrived by 9:30am, leaving me ample time to check in, eat breakfast, and wait comfortably with no suggestion of anxiety. The thing about 11am flights is that if the flight leaves, for example, at 2pm and not 11am, arriving at the airport for the earlier flight time means you’ll sit around for many hours. I somehow did that. I always had an inkling that the flight left at 2pm, but when I spoke to evil Doolies last night, she said that that didn’t sound right. How can it leave at 2pm if you arrive at 5pm? The answer, of course, is that there’s a three-hour time difference, which turns what would be a three-hour flight into a more realistic six-hour flight. This was all lost on me late last night, and when I checked the calendar on my Phone That Is Smarter Than Me (PTISTM—I have to work on that acronym), it agreed with Doolies (I’m not sure how that happened). It worked out for the best, however. I now have many hours to write, check e-mail, and perhaps even work before I get on the plane. Once on the plane, my plan is sleep, read book, catch up on magazines, relax.

I was thinking about the gym and I came to this great realization: the thing about the perfect body is that the body was never meant to be perfect. There, take that evil gym! Of course, if I worked out to have a “normal” body instead of a perfect body, I’m not sure if that argument would work. Look at Bruce Lee! For all his perfection, he still died young. Ergo, I shouldn’t work out. (It’s like a mathematics proof: lots of steps are skipped because of their obviousness to any PhD-toting, small-headed, beady-eyed, pocket-protector wearing genius.)

I should trap myself in strange places with internet more often. When I have fewer distractions and no escape, I write more. (We won’t speak of quality since that is always an empty discussion.)

The last time I was in Newark airport, I grew famously sick by eating Nathan’s famous hotdogs. During that flight back to Seattle, I vowed never again to eat hotdogs, and especially not Nathan’s hotdogs. I just finished lunch at Nathan’s. I don’t know what it is about comfort food, but I’m a sucker for it. While in New York this time, I visited a diner twice for a grilled cheese sandwich. I have tried many times to duplicate this sandwich at home and failed. It’s amazing how every diner in New York cooks the same tasting grilled cheese sandwich. I have a nagging suspicion that the secret sauce is the use of lard as the fat during grilling. I’m trying not to dwell on this any more than is necessary, however. I’m also hoping that I won’t suffer for my poor lunch choice. The jury is still out on that question.