Lagging Jets

I've never been much of a world traveler, so my experience with jet lag has been quite limited. Previous trips across time zones have involved long acclimation periods and interim stops for easier adjustment. This time, however, I settled quickly back into a six-hour difference and the effect was to make me into what I might imagine myself at age seventy or later...rising at five in the morning and very desirous of sleep at about nine in the evening. As someone whose mind often doesn't get going until nine at night many times, this was an adjustment. For those who travel very frequently and very great distances I can't really fathom how they manage to function. Perhaps you just stop thinking about it and just settle into sleeping when you can and not when you can't, which is rather how things are anyway.

The other odd adjustment is to more normalized life. Having never been to Europe before, inhabiting that space was pretty amazing. Of course I wonder if the magic wears off with living there, having to work a regular job and whatnot, as those are the things that tend to breed the resentment and dislike with a place of residence. As one who studied history as an undergrad, I couldn't help but be overwhelmed by the history of London and Paris. That's a rather silly statement and qualification as even if you, or I, hadn't studied history, there is a very strong chance that I would have been overwhelmed by the sheer history of what was around me. It comes down to this for me: I love me some old shit. Lots of old shit just looks cool, and I love that there is a story behind it. In there is some relation to my brain's focus on the most inconsequential minutiae.

Plus, England is a land where the pun and wordplay seem more accepted and though I wasn't running through the streets — although I was running through the streets — shouting puns receiving responses of uproarious laughter, it's just there.

Then there was Paris, and that place is pretty swell. One of my favorite things in visiting amazing foreign spots is how amazing they are to me, in many ways just by virtue of being foreign, and to the locals it's just where they live. Sure, many probably do appreciate it, but plenty will take it for granted much the way I take much for granted over here. And many too will wish to come to the United States, this reciprocity whereby the foreign is always exciting. Like many mental phenomena, it has its strengths and its weaknesses. I mean, hell, I was even intrigued by the different scams they run in France to rob you. I mean, after all, pickpocketing is a lost art. I am quite sure I have this look in my eye wherever I go where canvassers and grifters know they can start talking to me and maybe fleece me for a few bones.

At any rate, even though this is a personal blog, this diaristic entry is getting too diaristic for my liking, so that should do it for now.

Stay safe out there.