Live from Schipol

How is it that Europeans can smell clean yet not perfumy amid a cloud of cigarette smoke?

And why didn't it occur to me that I would find it very difficult to spend a four-hour layover in a very small place within a very small country from which HB hails? A place that happens to be filled with people and things and general quirkyness that simply pummels me with HBness?

Yeah. I don't know, either. But it's enough to drive a gal to smoke. And drink. And hang out with rugby players at the airport bar. Okay, not really. I'm too grumpy. But maybe that'll be next--cheer me the hell up!

WiFi's pricier here: 10 euro for the day. But still worth it for killing time, kids.

I didn't sleep a wink on the plane. Instead I read the drivel that I'll be workshopping for the next two weeks. How about a 58-year-old woman from Houston's book-length memoir about the month she spent in spiritual retreat writing and teaching yoga in Ireland after she finally got her college degree. Could be inspiring, could be right up my alley, right? But instead it's full of horrid cliches and wonderment at the leprechaunian magic and spirits in the hills and blah, blah, blah. I don't know how not to rip her a new asshole.

Maybe I just need some sleep.

I've got to get off my high horse. But she's calling the friggin' thing "And that would be Ireland." As if. Why can't people try to be experts about themselves and themselves alone, albeit in different contexts, instead of trying to write about entire peoples and cultures with sweeping generalizations as if they know anything about anything? Huh?

And why have I encountered birds flying around my head and perching near me in two out of three airports I've been in this trip? And a toad in my garage (no, that is not a euphemism for anything! although I'd take it if it were more delightful than the fright I got in finding the damn thing hop out from under a garbage bag this morning.)?

I also watched two in-flight movies: Failure to Launch--nice eye candy in the form of one of my favorite Texans, Matthew McConnaughey, and his oddly long torso, but otherwise stupid; and a fucking fabulous documentary on The Ballet Russe. Those dancers seem to get it right so much of the time. Except when they start marrying their directors and choreographers. Bad, very bad. But they still manage to live for-practically-ever and keep dancing in some form or another into their dang 90s. Amazing. Loved it. Loved the history, seeing the costumes, style, bodies change over the 20th century.

I think I might need to tell somebody I'm here and planning to transfer onto my flight to Prague. Laters y'all.