WASHINGTON -- And 2 a.m. here. Which is a problem, since I'm wide-awake.
Jet lag does bizarre things to one's body. How can I spend 32 hours awake yesterday, including packing, a last-minute basketball shootaround behind the Beijing bureau, a delayed 13-hour flight, which caused a 5-hour pushback in New York, followed by a one-hour flight and a two-hour conversation with my mother, then sleep for eight hours, put in a full day, then sleep another two hours, then wake up at midnight, wide-awake and unable to fall asleep two hours later?
This will create problems over the next few days. But no use fighting it. Might as well get something done.
I promised a post from the plane, but if I can't stomach pseudo-deepness in my writing, I'm not going to subject you to it. All I came up with were tick-tock observations common to any transcontinental flight, so chalk one up to writers' block. Jet lag -- now there's a topic for the muses. I'm thinking about late afternoon in Beijing on the Tuesday after I've left, and I'm thinking about everything I have to get done in the next couple weeks, and how life in America would be simpler if my internal clock weren't still set to China time.
I saw my mother back to Minnesota today. She's been house-sitting my condominium in Virginia the entire time I've gone, and my condo is the better for it. I don't think it's ever been so clean, and my mother, who I think could do home improvements professionally, did some necessary caulking and some appreciated painting. She even made a new short-curtain for my kitchen window. These are the things that remind one how special home is after the grand adventure. And of how thankful one should be to come from a loving family. Blessings abound this Thanksgiving season.
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