(On the plane to JFK Airport, New York)

Turbulence is jerking us around a la Garden State, making it difficult to write properly. It's hard to leave California. It's a state I'll remember forever afterwards for its undisguised beauty. We were driven to the airport by the same guy as the night before, and he was still rather crabby, but very helpful with the luggage. We swooped out of Days Inn in about 1/4 of the time it took to get in.

It was 5am and still dark, of course, but that gave us fair room to take in L.A. one more time - the night lights dotting the skyline you can always see, because that's how the landscape is, stretching out wide and open. Wiry palm trees sprout out in batches along the roadside, their silhouettes gangly and distinctive against the navy blue sky.

Then we got to the airport, which you can't judge the people by, its being only a portal where manners are occupied, brusque, impersonal. "Have a good flight," our driver says after helping us unload, making me think he isn't cranky after all, just less in possession of the power of charming words and sleepy in the wee hours of the morning at a job which you must be bright and alert. If I could draw him, I would - angular nose, dark features - mark of the diligent, lovely Armenian drivers forming their own layer in society. How much did we know about them before, aside from the fact that they have a church in Singapore?

We were all checked in and ready to leave by 6am, our flight only due for 8am. So we settled in a cluster of seats and listened to Jeff Buckley sing about how love is not a victory march. Since boarding, I have seen Sean Astin, John Corbett and Tom Hanks make fools of themselves in Elvis Has Left the Building and eaten a breakfast bar and half a croissant sandwich for lunch.