While I Was Not Sleeping

I got about five hours of sleep before seeing David off to his bus on Monday morning, and then spent the rest of the day frantically and unsuccessfully trying to track down travel adapters, rand, and luggage for my flight to South Africa. I gave up eventually and spent the night having a last dinner in NYC with Brady and Emma, calling people to say goodbye before I left, and then struggling with the dawning realization that I had forgotten to mail a box of files and some gifts from a friend that I now had to integrate into my luggage, and that it would not be physically possible for me to wrestle three suitcases and a messenger bag to the airport by subway, and that it was well after midnight and I had to be at JFK around 7am.

I made it to the cab by 6:45, literally drenched in sweat from our crazy hot apartment and dragging all of my luggage down to 9th Ave, fell asleep and had to be gently awoken by the cabbie, and made it to my flight and took off on time, which was pretty much a whole series of small miracles right in a row. My plan was to sleep on the 15 hour flight to Joburg, except then I sat next to a woman who took up her seat and half of mine, which made it a) impossible to sleep and b) impossible to watch TV, because her arm was everywhere and had enveloped the controls in my armrest to turn on my television. I didn't want to be rude to the woman, because it probably sucks to have someone draw attention to how much space you are taking up, and also she was reading the Origin of Species and I was like, I think I like you. (Instead, I waited for two hours and made my move when she bent down to get something from under her seat. Every film seemed to be a romantic comedy from the last two decades starring Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, or both Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson, so I watched the Darjeeling Limited, which I liked because I was not in the mood for a plot or any sort of intensity whatsoever.)

I made best friends with the flight attendant and she gave me a sandwich and let me shuffle back to her cabin in my socks for coffee throughout the flight, so that helped. And now I'm in Joburg and about to leave for Cape Town. I feel bad that I'm going to get there and pass out unexpectedly at some point before tonight. My body literally has no idea what time it is supposed to be anymore. All I know is that I'm hungry and I hope I get another sandwich.