So I'm en route to Anchorage. Presently I'm at Portland Internat'l Airport where they have free wireless (score!). Of course this means that I end up checking my work email even though my cheeky (too cheeky?) vacation reply says that I will be having too much fun to do so. I work *far too much* and take my job too seriously. I have to remind myself often that it's only work.

But speaking of work - today has been an interesting day. Originally I was supposed to have crazy routing to Anchorage. It was SBA-LAX-DFW-ANC. This AM at SBA they asked if they could reroute me through Portland and then on to Anchorage. I'd leave 2 hours later and arrive an hour earlier and skip Texas. All good. Then the chap said he'd put me in first class all the way. Turns out that was a lie but that's okay... Actually the annoying thing is that because my routing changed that put me on the security radar and I got those damn SSSS dealies on my boarding pass. Airport security screening. Ug. That is a rant for another day but trust me - it IS a rant!

I took advantage of the time to relax and have a massage. No, not really. Actually I went to work (!) in the spare time. SBA is so close to work that I can watch the runways from my office so I figured I could just pop over there and finish the project I had really wanted to get done yesterday. So I popped over to work and finished my duplicates weeding in the F1402-1419s (yesterday I made it to F1418+ damn it!). I know it sounds lame but I was actually quite pleased to get that done. And it is a Good Thing I was there since I was able to discover a problem in the procedures followed by those completing the next step (circ staff actually removing the duplicates from the shelves). Yes, my being there Saved The Day. Well, not really, but I am glad to have finished the project.

So now I have 3.5 more hours to kill at PDX. I'm probably going to finish the "brit chick lit" book Kirstin passed on to me in Vegas. Some Marian Keyes trash. A bit of brain candy after having read TC Boyle DROP CITY, then Chuck Palahniuk SURVIVOR then TC Boyle TORTILLA CURTAIN. Marian Keyes is definitely not deep or depressing. I might stroll through the Powell's Books branch here at the airport to see what will be next. I keep thinking I should do crossword puzzles but they usually leave me feeling quite daft. Perhaps I'll see if Powell's has some crossword puzzles for people who aren't as smart as they think they should be. Yes, that would be the book for me. Crosswords for the intellectually insecure. Yeah, perhaps Will Shortz has made said compilation.

Tortilla Curtain is really an amazing book. A friend told me he likes TC Boyle because even the villians are multidimensional. I'm not sure I would agree with that statement with regards to Tortilla Curtain. There were villians but they weren't really developed. What was interesting was the development of the 2 protagonists -- Candido and Delaney. We watch them both struggle to retain their humanity; and as they make decisions that threaten their very essence we are both repulsed by them and sympathetic towards them. Delaney disgusts us and himself as he finds himself thinking thoughts that are more and more racist. We are shocked by the racist conclusions to which he jumps but since he, too, is shocked by them we forgive him when perhaps we shouldn't. TC Boyle makes that spiral towards bigotry almost understandable and that familiarity is frightening. Candido's character isn't as deeply textured as Delaney's yet his struggle is similar. He starts out as a proud man with strong ethics and finds himself justifying stealing and even hating the Haves as his situation becomes so desperate as to border on the unbelievable. We can't help but reflect on the nationality of the hands builing the Fence along our southern border as Boyle describes the undocumented Mexican workers building a stucco wall in Delaney's neighborhood precisely to keep them out. I guess importing "undesirables" to build devices to keep themselves out is a time-honored hypocrisy. Did the Chinese use Mongols to build the Great Wall?

Well I think it is about time for me to see if any of these PDX eateries has some fine Oregon microbrew for me to sample. This is my first time in the Beaver State but I won't venture out of the airport. It does seem to be a mighty fine airport. I haven't checked out the bathrooms yet (Detroit's Northwest terminal has some nice ones -- long stalls so you can wheel in your rolling carryon and still close the door. I hate having to hold my carry on over the toilet just to get the stall door to shut) but the free wi-fi and independent bookseller presence is giving it high marks. I also have a couple of podcasts of Grammar Girl and This American Life so I'm all set!