Long days, in my experience, start early.  School, travel, surgery and work all have one thing in common: an alarm. I got up yesterday around 5, took a shower, grabbed a glass of orange juice and gave my Toby-dog one last hug; I was on the plane by 7:15 and in Chicago by 10.

The flight from Chicago to LAX was delayed by broken video screens and toilets. The pain of delay was eased by the presence of one George Wyhinny, who managed to make the flight, in true George style, by the narrowest of margins. The long layover in LA allowed me to take the nickel-stop tour. George and Lisa took me to the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a variety of other places I could live without.

I’d rather not live without Lisa and George, but I rather doubt they’ll be visiting me in la Cambodge. Lisa had memorized the landmine fatality stastics. George is maybe a few months and a hundred prayers short of fame.

There is certainly a lot to be said for saying “Fuck it” and hitting the road, but there is probably just as much to be said for staying put—for friends and routine. It is hard not to wonder if some sort of contentment is the casualty of my stir-craziness—one of those heisenberg things.

On the plane, I met a young woman, younger than me, who was headed to see her baby-daddy, a marine who will be heading to Afghanistan as part of the 30,000 strong cavalcade-of-hope-surge-apalooza. I didn’t know what to say to the girl. I was genuinely shocked to meet someone so directly involved and directly affected by a subject that gets tossed around my living room like another chew toy. 

The realization that I don’t live in America The Country so much as I live in a small exotic sliver of the States is fairly reassuring as I wing my way to Phnom Penh. I have to think I can handle a sliver, maybe even a slice, of Cambodia.

Here’s hoping anyway.