What a day. Tube to Paddington. Had wanted to leave at 7:00 but was happy to be cuddled up in bed with Stuart so I ended up leaving at 7:45. He’s been sick- it appears that the oyster has been acquitted since it looks like he had the same thing that I had. (Between the two of us our room is rather toxic at the moment. If you lit a match the room would be a fireball from the methane.)

There was a guy on the train that looked like he was dieing of cirrhosis. He was half passed out a droplet of snot hanging on the tip of his nose. He came to, pulled out a rolled cigarette and lit it. Of course no one said anything. We all just shared bemused looks with each other, “Look at the crazy sick man smoking when he shouldn’t be. Isn’t he disgusting? Aren’t we better than he is?” The whole thing depressed me because he was obviously in a bad way, but no one said anything. We all had places to be.

Heathrow Express. Get to the airport at 9:20. Stand in queue for 1 HOUR to check my bag. 1 flipping hour. Buy my dollars (ah the exchange rate going this way is a beautiful, beautiful thing), do the take of your shoes security dance and then get on the plane.

Excellent movies on board. Saved some for the way back. Watched Little Children (excellent) Dreamgirls (very good and some fantastic performances) and Infamous (the other Truman Capote In Cold Blood Movie). Infamous isn’t as good a movie as Capote, but there are some really wonderful bits in it. (Juliet Stevenson does a wicked Diana Vreeland impression.) Get off the plane- zip through immigration and wait for baggage. And wait. And WAIT. For an hour. . .

There was a delay getting a good portion of the luggage out and some muppet stuck a bunch of luggage over in the over sized area. . .so we are craning our necks at the carousel and the bags were stuck in the corner the entire time.

Found Jolie who sweetly saved me paying for a cab during rush hour. Driving toward LA I pointed at the horizon and squealed, “Oh! Look! Smog!”

We drove up Sunset Boulevard from UCLA all the way to Hollywood, checked me into my hotel, (free wireless!), got a bite (at the fantastic Village Pizza) and now here I am about to crash. It’s 9PM PST - 5AM GMT. Feeling awake and tired at the same time.

I think sleep would be good.

Is funny- everything is familiar and foreign at the same time.

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