Down south

I arrived at LAX early yesterday afternoon. I boarded a bus to a hotel somewhere in Anaheim. I plugged in the coffee machine and worked from my laptop for a few hours. I gazed out the hotel window a few times and had a good chuckle over the palm trees and the pastel-colored roofs of nearby inns and restaurants. I went to a cocktail hour, had an overpriced and totally perplexing dinner with some engineers, did some more work from the faux-oak desk in my hotel room, and slept soundly at midnight.


Travel, all by itself, makes me happy. But Los Angeles, or the "Los Angeles area," did a pretty good job of ruining my buzz. I did not want to leave my hotel room. I was too afraid that the cars and the smog and the rainforest-themed restaurants would eat me.

This afternoon, I went to Disneyland with a couple hundred of my colleagues. The outing enjoyed a very slim victory over a compelling alternative (staying in my hotel room, catching up on emails and following the Super Tuesday results). I nearly threw up on my friend Leo during some jerky Star Wars ride, but all in all it was a lovely time, with flashes of giddiness that I didn't think a theme park could ever again coax out of me.

Then I got sick, I'm guessing from a churro. I returned to my hotel room just before dinner and could barely conjure up enough energy to turn on the television and see how Hillary was doing.

My roommate was a bit baffled by my preferred resting position. She let me snooze for a good half hour, but couldn't resist taking this photo to convince me that this has got to be bad for my back. Does nobody else like to take catnaps at the lower half of the bed, feet resting on a chair and bum hanging off the edge?

Five hours later and I'm still pooped, sick, and so proud of Hillary. Tomorrow I get up at 5am for a long flight back to San Francisco.