Art Nouveau Ho

I'm back in London. Fear the Jetlag Zombie, who has no idea what time to eat your brains...

In DC, speedlime and I were lucky enough to get into the opening night of All's Well That Ends Well at the Shakespeare Theatre, a play Speedy hadn't seen before. There were a lot of good things about the production, but my absolute favourite moment of the night was Speedy leaning over to me to whisper, in shocked tones: "Wow, Bertram's a douchebag!"

Shakespeare's original audience probably said much the same thing.

I really should not be awake now, but at 3AM my brain insisted it was morning, so who am I to argue?

The flight back was OK, although my monster suitcase turned out to be so overweight that I had to shift 8kg of books into my handbag. I now have ARMS OF STEEL and hands of ow.

Many, many thanks to speedlime, quesadelia, badmagic and miriyab for hangin' and chillin' during my time in DC. You are all marvellous; may marvels befall you.

UK-side crew: Let's plan some evil plans, shall we?

Hurrah, I'm back! And feeling as though my brain's been hit with the Jetlag BrickTM, but that's only to be expected, I guess.

(Short rant) I hate night flights going east. Losing a night sucks. Unfortunately, during the winter, it seems like that's all there is. Flights from Britain to the US happen during the day; flights from the US to Britain happen overnight. During the summer, some airlines do an early morning flight out of DC, and I fly this way when I can, because it's so much easier to lose a day than a night. True, you have to get up at stupid o'clock in the morning to go to the airport, or not sleep at all-- but then, when you get back to Britain, you can stagger home and fall straight into bed. Vastly preferable to the night flight strategy, in which you arrive in the morning, push on through a bleary-eyed day in zombie style, give up and collapse about 5pm or so, wake up at 3.30am feeling fresh as a daisy, go "ugghh" and repeat for several days.

But I'm glad to be back! No, really! Just don't be surprised if you call me and I have problems speaking coherent English. Blurgle.

Semi-incoherent with jetlag, and rather aghast at the sheer volume of housecleaning that needs to be done before my first student shows up on Monday, but back in one piece.

This wouldn't be the case if it weren't for the universe-illuminating awesomeness of speedlime, who was kind enough to forsake sleep and drive me to the airport when my taxi failed to show up at stupid o'clock in the morning. I made my flight with moments to spare, and it's all down to her generosity. Speedy, I'm honoured to have you as a friend.

In fact, as I floated into unconsciousness last night, I was thinking how cool it is that so many of the best people in the world, ever, should be friends of mine. You guys make the universe a better place by your being in it. Seriously, you rock.