Connection

DALLAS-FORT WORTH INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT–Here I am in Dallas again, waiting for my connecting flight to San Francisco. My departure gate is near the spiky sculpture I noticed when I was through here around Thanksgiving. My connection is on a 767, one of those wide-body jets I love. Flying on them domestically gives me all the feeling of international travel, without the hassles. In fact, my connecting flight today–American Airlines flight 49, appropriate enough for San Francisco–originated in Paris, and the aircraft is just pulling up to the gate. (The plane at the next gate is departing for Zurich. The gate agent is making announcements in English and German, though with the echo in the terminal it all sounds like Greek if you’re not listening closely.)

I’ll be in California through next Friday. I’ll try to write a bit while I’m out there, but in any case, happy holidays and happy new year!

[Addendum: SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT–I’m here! The flight was pretty uneventful. The inflight film was A Beautiful Mind, which I didn’t watch since I’ve seen it before; I know airlines don’t exactly show new first-run movies, but come on, A Beautiful Mind has got to be several years old. One of the features they showed afterwards was the pilot of a new sitcom that premiered earlier this season, Out of Practice. Thom and I have gotten into watching this show. It stars Stockard Channing and Henry Winkler as divorced parents of a family of physicians (save one, who is a couples counselor). I started watching because (a) the one daughter is a lesbian, and I like to keep tabs on gay characters on TV; (b) one of the sons is played by cutie Christopher Gorham, whom I fawned over on the WB’s now-gone Popular; and (c) it has Stockard Channing being anything but the First Lady (granted, she is still a doctor). It’s actually pretty good.]