14-Sept

London Heathrow:
I wake from my umpteenth nap to the automated voice telling me that some flight is closing. I check the time and conclude that it couldn't have been mine. I go back to sleep.  A five hour layover in LHR with little to no spending money goes something like this: walk, sleep, walk, drop 1.39£ on gum because I'm tired of post-nap breath, walk, nap...find better nap spot. I think you see the pattern. It gets to the point that as I walk I can point out where I've already slept. It's as if I've marked territory all over the terminal, but fewer body fluids involved. Any way, that sort of behavior wouldn't be very polite British of me, now would it? I'm not sure the assault rifle-toting military security gents would appreciate such behavior.

Strange discovery of the afternoon: The London 2012 Olympics mascot looks like a metallic version of a character from Yo Gabba Gabba.

I'm a victim of Hollywood, of the romantic notion of meeting someone while laying over in a terminal or finding the perfect neighbor aboard your flight. This doesn't have to be for romance, necessarily, so much as a companion to share lost time, both accelerating through the sense of delay and creating a single, standalone moment...a memory of a happenstance encounter. But what are the chances of this? It happened in the row behind me. Two individuals who both missed their earlier flight, having a joyous -- and a bit raucous -- time to pass the ten hour flight. There was an empty seat next to them and I thought about asking to shift, particularly as I studied my row buddies: an elderly Indian couple who didn't speak English. I passed, however,  and thankfully so: She turned out to be one quite rude traveler.

I gaze out into the darkness of Italy as I pass by. Small patches of light mark the towns, and I use the overhead display's map of our current position to envision the black beyond the light as the coastline and Mediterranean sea. I think that's the coast. I think I'll be walking through there in a couple weeks. These are things I can only think. No answers are available with the sun having already parted from my sky. Until I get there. Then I'll know where I am.