4.30am, via Jacana

Sans deodorant for the duration of my intercontinental air transit (20+ hours). Ended up stinking rather badly.

Started in Jacana when I asked my usually accommodating driver if he could spare some roll-on and he said I could if i would but i don't so I won't. He wasn't carrying; he's not a user and it's not an issue because he smells fine, in fact I would go so far as to say he is mostly unscented.

5.45am. In the throes of final boarding for a flight to Brisbane, Sheryl Crow comes on the PA singing that song my mate Clarkey says makes her wanna hurl. I secretly adored this track up until the moment when its sentiment "If it makes you happy, why do you have to be so sad" became so goddamn appropriate it made me wanna hurl too.

On the plane sleep-deprived and deliriously Sheryl Crowed, I read Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King and am suddenly overcome by inspiration. I have a novel idea and it's a novel one and spend the next hour attempting to bottle it. In hindsight, the idea relies rather heavily on Henderson's considerable hiney, but it's a start. I'm besotted with Henderson's voice. I like this description of an ostrich: "How ostriches could bear to run so hard in this heat I never succeeded in understanding. I got close enough to see how round his eyes were and then he beat the earth with his feet and took off with a hot wind in his feathers, a rusty white foam behind."
Now I'm a fan of the on-demand set-up of in-flight entertainment I just wasn't impressed with the selections being offered. I watched The Ghostwriter by Roman Polanski first and got bored so fast I skipped ahead to the good parts of which there were none.

Watched a smug John Cusack in the Actor's Studio. Stopped watching it once his career dried up (circa being John Malkovich)

On Jesse's advice, I ordered cognac. The steward flew upstairs to get me it and came back exclaiming oh yummy I was smelling it the whole way! Sat down to watch Extreme Fishing in preparation for my brother's humorous tales of fishing the local waterways. The show stars a failed British actor named Gregson Robb (that's not his real name and did he fail in porn were thoughts that occurred simultaneously).

Ordered a red wine and watched a jolly good episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm with catherine O' Hara as Funkhauser's deranged sister fresh from the nuthouse.

After this I put on a disgustingly-poor doco about that Austrian guy who kept his daughter in the basement. Managed about ten minutes of that before it became intolerable.

In LA, I laid down a wad of cash just so I could arrive in Portland eight hours earlier than I was supposed to. The United bird suggested I repack one of my bags in order to make weight or cough up a $100 for checking in a bag that's overweight. I went to the side counter, got down on my knees, sore from drunken dancing, and rummaged through the contents teeming with delicates, hip-hugging undies and French auteur box sets (not mutually exclusive), stuff getting agitated as I sweated to get my suitcase ten pounds less heavy in front of a crowd of interested onlookers.

After changing my flight I phoned Mom to update her. Thankfully she was home and she hit me with a lot of impertinent questions, which I could barely hear because this cleaning lady behind me insisted on running her vacuum at the back of my heels. I told her the call was costly and the cleaning lady said okay, alright like the new estate song and then Mom said I'm bringing the kids (she's a bigwig local babysitter) and I said just warn them I stink okay.

They’re just songs by boys from two years ago

First ten songs that came on my shuffle on 2nd March 2008

Robot factory, Swell Maps
Security, The Saints
Slide, Luna
Are you old enough?, The Reels
Baby Comes Around, Ariel Pink
Postal Blowfish, GBV
Nothing Indeed, Minutemen
Sympathetic Anesthetic, Fire Engines
Cryptograms, Deerhunter
Woman and Man, Ween