(Schiphol airport)

It's funny how I can make my body do anything - nearly anything - I want it to, but after 21 years I still cannot make it go to sleep. I don't know how to fall asleep! I lie down when I'm tired, or sometimes just bored, I pull my blankets up, curl into a loose knot, and close my eyes. I know how to make the conditions favorable for sleep. But all I can do really is close my eyes and hope it washes over me. Think sleepy thoughts and wait. Sometimes ask, "Okay, now, body? Now will you sleep?" It decides for itself. An hour passes and it remains belligerent. "Fine, then. I will read Sylvia Plath again to spite you." Another hour. "Now?" And I'm nearly pleading -- now, most, I'll have four hours of rest. No, no. I close my eyes and try to think nothing thoughts. Damn body. Still have no control over it.

So I'm going on perhaps one hour of sleep. Perhaps ten minutes. And at noon, it's already been a long day.

Francesca and I didn't know until yesterday that our plane departed at 9:25 AM, not pm. We were to miss TWO days of classes, then -- but a day in London! What a lark! What a plunge! Right? So that was cool -- we made our plans: the National Art Museum, Dali Universe (I truly hate Dali), a swanky dinner, a play (about dearest Sylvia), crash. Perfect. Up at 5:30 am. Yes, worth it.

So I got up, got out the door on time, got to the station, right on schedule. Francesca got route suggestions at the ticket counter. I went where I was told.

Looked out the window -- the scenery was familiar -- desperately familiar. I kept my mouth shut. Woerden -- hmm. That windmill -- that field -- that building under construction -- I swear I've seen taht very sheep before. When to say something? When to reveal myself for the paranoiac I am, when to same the day? Gouda. "Francesca... I think we're on the way to The Hague." "Should we get off here?" Panicked, I was firmer than I should have been. "Yes."

We were, indeed, four stops from the Hague. Who gets to Amsterdam from Utrecht via Den Haag? But as we looked at the boards and schedules -- "Should we go back to Utrecht?" "No, that's another 30 minutes." "Should we go to Amsterdam Centraal?" "Maybe -- but that train doesn't leave for 30 minutes, and then we'd have to back-track." "So to the Hague, after all?" "I guess so." That train was 10+ minutes late, and then it was another good long wait for the train to Schiphol. Which itself was a good 30 minute ride. "Francesca, we don't have a chance now, we've missed our flight." "Don't say that. If we stay positive --"

If we stay positive, what? The plane might be delayed on this beautiful, sunny day? Interstudy might offer to pay for a second plane ticket? No. "It's over, Francesca, it's over."

As the minutes ticked by to 9:25 and we discussed our options, she became more depressed and I -- not even resigned, perhaps actually happy. "I'll pay anything under €100," I said. "I won't pay more than €50" said she. "Worse comes to worst, I think a bus to London is €32." "I won't take the bus." She was so pissed at the thought of missing two museums that we didn't even know we'd be able to see until 12 hours before that she was ready to sacrifice the whole trip! And oh, she dramatized it -- head in hands, sighing heavily. Always, "I can't believe this. I blame the woman at the counter." And I watched the scenery and even smiled at how absurd the whole thing was -- twenty minutes. Time. Ridiculous.

So we made it to Schiphol. Our plane had left 10 minutes ago. Ran to the check-in counter -- me with my inexplicable shin splints, she with her bad knee. Breathless, "we just missed our flight, what can we do?" €40 for the 4:00 flight to London, and only 3 seats left so we'd better make up our minds quickly. "Let's book it, right?" I said. She didn't want to. Called our contact at Interstudy, no generous offers there. Stood in line at the KLM counter. It would have taken an hour just to ask -- and how could we find a better fare, if we could find a fare at all, and earlier? Francesca was so pissed she'd miss her whole day in London. "We'll still have the play," I reminded her of the obvious. She didn't care. She wanted the art. I didn't mind missing the art.

But I did mind missing London and the trip altogether, so I made the decision to go back for the €40 deal. Along the way she tried to stop at every counter to get a fare quote. I was fed up and kept walking, not looking back to even acknowledge her dawdling. I took the €40 at 4:00. Francesca, when she finally caught up, asked if there were any other flights to other London airports. Yes -- one seat on the 1:00 to Gatwick. "Take it," I said. I didn't mind. Truth be told, I didn't really want to go to an art museum, and really not with another person with such different tastes. Really not to Dali Universe. I promised I didn't mind. She took the 1:00.

So -- here I am at Schiphol, waiting for the 4:00, day not ruined at all. I get some solitude, I get my Sylvia Plath, I get my Lani and my Josh, and I miss disturbing surrealist nightmares of art. For €40 still well worth it.

Francesca cheered up. She also threw up, but that's no matter. We had vlaamse frites and talked about boys -- she wants a man's man: "every girl wants one"; not I, said I -- and children and taste in food and the worst sides of ourselves. Time passed agreeably. Still and all, when I say there is something "insidious" about the taste of Dutch Coca-Cola she hs to ask what insidious means -- she knows what it means, but she just has to check, because she doesn't understand why I would choose such a word -- I revised to "malevolent" -- to describe such a benign thing. And this is how I manage to draw that fine distinction between those who have real friend potential and those who don't.

Look at me, I am that girl completely unafraid to sit in a random spot at an airport for nearly an hour and journal. I like being this girl, at least visually -- for in my thrift store trench coat, short hair and glasses -- Bic pen notwithstanding, I must look far artsier - far cooler - than you and I know I am.

(later)

At the gate, an hour to takeoff now. Dar Williams' "Are You Out There" in my ears. I want to scream it out. It's one of those few, special songs that always makes me feel. Almost angry; righteous or empowered -- god, something, overpowering. But I won't be that particular girl. (Though I don't think that particular girl is allowed to exist in public, ever.)

I won't lie -- I'll try not to feel ashamed -- I will be happy to be in the world of the English-speaking again. Yes, I feel ridiculous, selfish, but sometimes to wake up to loud, foreign - worst of all, joyful - voices on the street, just sometimes... it is annoying. There, I said it. Revile me now.

I'm so tired. I'm so glad not to be walking around an art museum now, listening to Francesca's pointless observations, making remarks I don't mean or care about or understand. So much nicer to be solitary, flying alone again, listening to Chris Botti.

British businessman just sat down, oh-so-Britishly.

[omission... I want to write it, but! omission.]

British businessman just said, "Have you quite forgotten all that?..." oh-so-Britishly. So adorable. I'm glad to be going to England!

Also, British businessman's companion is gorgeous. She caught my eye as I wrote that, but I am not unnerved, because she is that gorgeous, and I've fallen in love with the both of them.

Girl across the room is fighting off tears and quite obviously losing. Until JJG's "Everyday" came on I wanted to let her think I might be in the same plight, whatever that may be, but since then I'm obviously in love with life again.

I don't know about writing, looking around and writing again. It is quite obvious that I'm writing about people. Besides, no one here is all that interesting.

Perhaps I'll turn down Howie Day and eavesdrop on the smartly dressed, beaming, lovely and businesslike oh-so-British couple inches away.

(later)

On the train to Liverpool St. now. And oh my god. Oh, I want to take a picture, but it would never do. Amazing. I am alive and in Europe and looking at that English sky.

This by far exceeds my excitement landing in Amsterdam. I knew nothing of Holland before I chose it, before I knew it as the mecca of gender studies, nothing but cheese and clogs and windmills. I was not expecting anything; I had no reason to love it before making it my own. But England! How I have loved England. Torvill and Dean, the Beatles, Austen and Woolf and Forster, Emma Thompson, Harry Potter. How I have loved this country. So much of my life loving it and its geniuses. Not time, not space can separate me from the twelve-year-old girl who firmly believed she would one day move to London, fall in love with a dashing Brit, and live happily ever after. Oh, Lauren! We're really here!

And all as a Brit croons to me:

And nothing else compares...
Home, home, where I wanted to go.