S. Worthen | Weblog

When I set out for London yesterday afternoon, I thought the aftermath of the London bombings would be the only world news I would be caught up in. Instead, our flight to London, originating out of Houston, was delayed by an hour or so by hurricane weather in Texas. At that point, there was still a chance we'd make up lost time - but then our tractor broke down in the middle of towing the flight from the gate, and had to be towed itself. Still, in the end, we weren't more than an hour late in arriving.

I had a very compatible group of seatmates. I was on the aisle, and never once did they ask to stand up during the flight until I did, right at the end. We were all trying to sleep. I might have tried working, but the "reading light" did a better job of illuminating the back of my seatmate's head than anything near me. The food, however, was about as lousy as I've ever met on an airplane.

London transit was a concern yesterday. Today, most of the system's operational. We didn't go out of our way to make it back to the flat, although the ungainly baggage meant a taxi for the final stretch was welcome.

Over the last many months, I've sporadically ordered on-sale anime to my home address, intending to collect it all the next time I was home. Thus, I had the fun of opening a number of cardboard boxes and rediscovering all over again what it was I'd purchased: Fruits Basket, the second two Slayers series, SM S, .hack, and the first three volumes of the Tsubasa Chronicles. There was even my very own copy of Bernard Silvestris' Cosmographia. Even though I'd ordered everything myself, most of the orders were long enough ago that I'd effectively forgotten they were coming. Opening the boxes was like a festival of gift-receiving, all the fun and excitement and suspense.

Sadly, I don't now have the fun of followup, the fun of playing with all my new toys. I had a surfeit of luggage and needed to leave things behind, rather than taking other things with me. In the end, the relatively slender and robust volumes of the Cosmographia and the first volume of the Tsubasa Chronicles were all that came with me. I feel as if I've been deprived of my presents - when, in fact, the separation was voluntary and I gave them to myself in the first place.