-- Tuesday, February 22, 2000 --

1:58 a.m. Another quiet night at the adobe. The book I thought was going to be fun and quick and fun and easy has turned out to be anything but. So, I'm redoing another bunch of pages and taking a break right now to write a little here before I go back to the grind of it all.

If someone had tried to tell me last year that I would be sitting here, in the middle of the night, actually looking forward to writing a few sentences after a long day of correcting sentences ... well it just boggles my little wizened mind.

Meanwhile, a bona fide adventure is in the works. In just one week Igor and I are going to get into a boat (a big, normal, serious oceangoing vehicle -- not the Dinghy of Doom) and we're going to ride across the ocean, twenty-six miles across the sea, to Santa Catalina island and stay overnight there.

I will bring my own fluffy pillow and the bottle of champagne we've been saving since 1997. It's an expensive one, which I hope means there's less potential for a hangover. Maybe I'd better bring my heating pad and the Excedrin for Migraine, just in case.

And I don't know what to do about the laptop, the modem, the ISP, the digi camera, the daily update. I haven't missed a day in this daily journal yet, and it's surely possible I can become a mobile journaler. I'll be packing multiple extension cords.

I've also got to pencil in some time for gazing profoundly at whatever vistas we're paying good money to observe; plus several minutes for thinking deep thoughts and transferring said thoughts to my hard drive. I've got to remember to clear off the Smartcard so there's plenty of room for 144 dpi jpegs of the aforementioned vistas.

I am such a romantic. Is it any wonder why we never take a vacation? It's a lot of hard work to capture the essence of fun and relaxation in pixels, dots, and glowing embers.

I wonder if there will be stars? Will twenty-six miles be far enough away from civilization, far enough away from light pollution to see the night sky powdered with sugar?

What will Los Angeles look like when you look back at it, instead of forward? Can anyone in this business ever look past Los Angeles? Here, we know there be dragons, but there?

I'm always a little afraid to leave this town, if you want to know the truth. I'm afraid to find out that it might not really matter. And if it doesn't matter, then there's no good reason to come back.

If I plan this little jaunt correctly and budget my time to the minute, a few glances and sighs and some well-meaning small talk should do no harm. The trick is to not slow down for a minute. Make sure the cell phone has juice. Check and double-check the return schedules. Make sure the travel alarm is wound.

And do not, under any circumstances, take a deep breath.