(Actually, this will be posted well after I fly out.) If you are one of those people who can easily shake the feeling that you’ve forgotten something when going to travel overseas, then you’re lucky. I always have some nagging feeling that I’ve forgotten something. Last trip home, it was whether or not I locked the front door on the way out; I worried the whole way and then had to call the landlord in Japan to go and check for me. This time, it’s a general feeling borne of having left in too much of a hurry.

Usually I’m much better about time when I leave on trips, often giving myself hours of extra buffer time. This time I cut it close on leaving the apartment, and rushed around in a slow-motion adrenaline half-panic while trying to throw everything I needed into my backpack and figure out what did I forget this time? Strangely, I think this time I didn’t forget anything, unlike my usual experience of have left behind something considerable though not major. On one trip to Wisconsin a few years back, I forgot to pack my shirts, and remembered while on the airplane. And it was a business trip, so I couldn’t rely on home support. I had to stop off at a shopping mall on the rental car ride to the hotel and buy a few new shirts on the fly.

But on this trip I think it’s all going smoothly. Got to the train station just in time to catch the train (though the taxi driver played hide-and-seek with me at first), got the express OK, got into the airport and just beat out a very long and tedious line at check-in, then went straight to this nice computer lounge. Heck, I even got seats way up from, row 20 on the way home (and row 19 on the way back).

And I even remembered to lock the door this time.