Missing room service like sheer hell

When it comes to trans-continental jetlag, the second night is always the worst. - ancient Viking proverb

I was doing so well, too. I collapsed into my bed, (into sheets without, strangely enough, a 500-thread count, but well-fitted, thank you), and fell asleep at around 4:00 this morning (PST) and awoke reasonably chipper at around 10:30. A very welcome venti chai latte gave me the boost I needed to unpack while playing a Johnathan Richman record unreasonably loudly and doing a good bit of spazzy dancing. Then, to the park! Where Happy dumped various dumps (in a variety of textures and colours, thank you) and I inhaled great gulps of thoroughly excellent Vancouver air. Have I gone on enough about the air here? They should bottle it. They probably have. (It wouldn't be the same, though, without the ocean and mountains and trees, yes, goddamn it, the trees all absolutely covered in fat blossoms that wing past your head as you walk, nay, prance through your local park, all while keeping an eye, alternately, on the shirtless Japanese skaters in the skate part and the waggling of your dog's joyful butt).

Then there was Capers, for a large carrot juice. I could drink a bucket of carrot juice, I really could, but I suspect (and it's an educated guess) that it would lead to no very good end. Then home again, where much scrolling through neglected blogs and livejournals ensued. Even the more exasperating regions of the internet are refreshing, bewitching, after seven days in another place. But we mustn't linger, O no, not today, and out I went with Happy to the endowment lands, where together we sprung along the damp paths, I in my horrible backpacker's running shoes and her in her collar and mud puddles. She was ecstatic, let me tell you. She was frothing not a little bit at the mouth.

Dinner? Kibune! Paid for by? My father! With whom I discussed the weird, let's say hypothetical implications of having one's name affixed to a line of clothing. Charming man. Could I finish that last piece of gyoza? I could.

HOME AGAIN, to do a massive pile of laundry. My dad stuck around and ironed some shirts for me. I love the smell of somebody ironing shirts. It's one of the more comforting smells. They should bottle it.

If I seem overly enthusiastic, almost annoyingly so? It's the euphoria talking. Coming back from anywhere reasonably far away always does that do me. Especially when I don't have to, I don't know, start my first day of grade six or something on Monday. Certainly when, on Monday, I get to go to Saturna for the first time in ages.

And then, at 10:30, sensible young woman that I am, I put myself to bed with much lip-smacking and glad kicking of feet under the covers. I have, (I'm sorry to say), George Costanza's hatred of hotel room sheets being tucked fiercely under the mattress. In New York, I religiously untucked them every night, and every night the bottom sheet (which wasn't, however delicious to the touch, fitted) managed to come loose and sort of wiggle around underneath me as I slept. Infuriating!

What next? Next I lay awake for five hours, rolling around like a demented person, trying to find the perfect way to fit my head to the pillow. The problem being less the pillow (a perfect, unsquashy pillow) than, of course, my head, which is full of weird taunts and chanting, much like an elementary school playground in the opening of a 1940's Hollywood movie about Growing Up to Be a Real Man. I thought I could improve matters substantially by drinking litre after litre of bottled water, but (strangely, persistently), that only made me need to pee.

Thus: a post. From me to you. From sweet-smelling Vancouver to wherever you might be sitting and clicking, loyal reader. I wish you all the satisfaction (bottled or no) I can possibly muster at this ungodly hour. Have a reasonably lovely day. By which I mean: don't drink too much carrot juice. Et cetera.