Portable Mind: A sort of travel guide

cancelled.

My birthday last week slipped by without much fanfare, which is totally fine with me; except that it’s always a good reason to take a trip. I’d planned on traveling to LA, but the trip was cancelled. Now, I'm most likely not traveling until December. Try not to get too depressed.

So what to give myself for my birthday (because, you know, this only happens once a year)? The $395 perfume or $348 bag? Each one is worth the price of a plane ticket, so I figure, it’s almost the same as if I’d hopped into seat 6A on Continental from EWR - LAX last Friday.

Almost.

Grounded

Waiting is familiar to me. Having traveled so much, I am used to unplanned downtime in inconvenient or uncomfortable places knowing that sometimes it is the necessary course to a better place.

14 days ago, I sat in this hospital for 12 hours waiting for my father to get out of surgery. He was in with cancer and the doctors were removing the tumor. I anticipated that the end result would be a better quality of life, to be sustained for another five, ten, maybe even twenty years. It turned out that the surgery was too late. The cancer had already spread to his brain and is now inoperable. I don't know how much time we have... could be 2 weeks, could be 2 months. For now, the great big world I happily move around in has been reduced to room 6N29 in New Brunswick, NJ and armchair travel.

So I'm reading while I'm waiting... Travels with Charley, Maximum City, Paris Out Of Hand, Amsterdam, The Art Of Travel

...and hoping for a miracle.

Dream all day

Two weeks from my next trip and I'm experiencing some kind of cabin fever. It's not like I don't have a ton of work to do -- several marketing plans due this week, French classes practically every night, a pile of books to read -- but I am somehow finding time to do the most inane things, like watch wretched television shows, e.g. South Beach and Beauty and The Geek or shop for houses I cannot afford. Anyway. While online updating myself on the world of travel, I discovered that Donald is now in the online travel business. Turns out there are some great hotel deals to be had via his site, competing with two of my faves Quikbook and Tablet Hotels. On gotrump.com I found a $219 rate at Parker Meridian in NYC (practically unheard of) and $219 at the Century Plaza in L.A. Quite impressive and worth checking out.

In other news, The Posies are back together and currently touring in Europe (grrr). Dream all day.