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2005-01-18 - 1:46 p.m.

Hearing a faint bleat, bleat, bleat in the distance I awake at the unheard of hour of 4:00 a.m., turning towards the left and reaching down to grab my mobile phone I look at the screen and recognize that it is time to GET UP! I hit pause and fall back asleep until 4:27, then I ooze myself out of bed and walk, eyes closed, to the kitchen and fumble about with the kettle to heat water for coffee. Still, essentially, sleepwalking I make my way to the bathroom and turn on the water for a shower, stepping in to the tiny stand-up I am lovingly, and tenderly awoken by the warm water. By the time I am shaving and brushing my teeth I am 100 percent awake. Coffee in hand I check emails (none �thanks everyone), and then read the LA Times online. Figuring it is about time to wake Junior I am back in the bedroom faced with a little dog that has no desire to get up, let alone traverse the dark we call 5:15 a.m. in Paris. Outside the streets are wet and the wind is blowing rather fiercely, except for myself and a very grumpy Junior there is not a soul around this tiny part within the 5eme. Passing the Boulangerie I notice there is some life behind the drawn shades, but no smells of warm bread are escaping, perhaps the wind is too much to allow a lingering scent near the front, shuttered, doors. Junior finally finished we are back inside the heated walls of my apt., I grab my satchel (the gift from Trixi), kiss Junior on the head and add pleads to her to be a good dog whilst Mme. Baudel is showing the place to a list of potential renters today, and I am back outside to the cold.

The walk to the Luxembourg RER is not long, maybe 12 minutes, but I am surprised to see no life on the way, none! It is nearly 5:40 and I�ve yet to pass another human. As I turn left off Gay Lussac Blvd., taking my usual shortcut to the beautiful garden, I finally run in to another soul, a Korean woman pulling a behemoth suitcase, she must have just gotten off the RER. The station is virtually empty, the lone ticket booth/information woman is reading a magazine and drinking I am sure coffee or tea, the steam rising from her mug. On the platform I am alone, on the opposite platform are two Muslim women, one in head scarf the other not. I read the board and am delighted, no, euphoric, that the next train is an express, only 5 stops between here and Aeroport CDG Terminal 2, yes! I take out my ipod and listen to the amazing score from the film Birth, instantly I am transported to my own world of fiction (I write to this music constantly) and shut my eyes, knowing that when the train approaches I will feel it�s arrival by the gentle vibrating of the bench I sit on.

Since it is only a 2-hour flight I have decided to break my rule (and save my miles) and fly coach. I am convinced I can do it, but as the train approaches the final stop of Term. 2 and I disembark along with about 100 others (when did all these people get on??) I realize I can�t. It�s odd, all my old fears of flying creep right up on me. Maybe, I think, it is because I am flying without Junior, I try to think of the last time I flew alone, completely alone, and I can�t think of it. I am either always with someone or her. Honestly, I just can�t come up with a flight I have taken alone since I was officially not afraid to fly --sometime in 2000, March, I think, to Chicago and St. Louis Ad Agencies, no not St. Louis, where was that one Agency? I can�t remember, somewhere I had never been, we only spent the day there listening to pitch after pitch after pitch, so many that when the Q&A started I had been in my zone for so long that I had forgotten my opinion was going to be requested, using my tried and true I said with confidence �I felt something with each one, but something also seems to be missing from each of them, I am not convinced that I was shown anything that hasn�t been seen before. I would suggest taking parts of each campaign and see if that doesn�t merge in to exactly what we are looking for, perhaps it�s the structure that I have seen before, see if you can reassemble so the outcome leaves us with a feeling of complete newness.� My standard; it rewards their efforts, reminds them that in advertising it�s never right on the first try (we pay way too much money to let them get away with that, even if we like it we can�t say that, we�ll go back to the original, and good, ideas from the beginning when we are at the end) asserts my position as creative director (and almost ultimate veto power), shows that I am flexible and open, allows my boss to smile and nod and pretend he is creative (why does Creative ALWAYS have to report in to Marketing???), he can throw in very helpful comments like �Yes, exactly, I think the real goal here is to see something completely different� If I am in a patronizing mood I can add �Right, that�s perfect, I was hoping to communicate that, but you�ve nailed it!� He will smile, and silently remind himself that�s why I need him, to really help me articulate my thoughts. The agency guys will all ooh and ahh, like he just quoted scripture to a bunch of newly baptized zealots. A bullshit arena; advertising. �but I digress, back to the flight. I approach the counter and before I hand over my passport and Air France Frequence Plus card I say, �Can I upgrade to business?� The woman, apparently not too happy to be working this crap 6:30 a.m. shift says, �Can you tell me where you are going first?� �Ah, oui, excusem moi, Berlin� She punches a few keys in and says �Yes, but it will be 10,000 miles� suddenly feeling very stingy I ask if the plane is full. �No, it is quite empty really� she answers. �Could I have a row to myself?� �Yes, I can do that, but if someone checks in to another agent, they might seat a person in that row.�

Deciding to take my chances I just nod. How bad can it really be? Unless it�s a nervous flyer, that�s the worst, if I sit next to someone who�s already anxious then it makes me anxious. I sat next to woman who was terrified to fly on a flight from Philly to NYC once, years back, to add paranoia to paranoia it was in a storm, and the seatbelt sign never went off, with each bump (and there were about 3,000) she pressed her hands even closer together in prayer and emitted an excruciatingly sad �OH!� She was praying so hard I was convinced God was so tired of hearing from her that he would take the plane down just so she�d stop pestering him. When we finally landed, flooded with relief, I wanted to reach out to her, to help her, to take away some of the pain, and to spare her next row mate the agony she had bestowed on me. Convinced of my caring, my good nature towards my fellow man/woman, sure my words would bring her the peace she so clearly needed, I turned to her and said, �See, it wasn�t that bad at all, we are completely safe!� My Mother Theresa wisdom was greeted with a dirty look and a snort. When she got up and grabbed her Samsonite rolling carry-on I took a quick second to feel her seat, hoping she had had an accident.

My flight boarding I walk through the business section and notice it is rather full, I am in row 12, the first row of coach after business, and true to her word and luck be my lady, I have the row of 3 all to myself. As I look around the cabin I notice that the very few passengers in coach all have their own row, those poor business folks all have a row mate, hmm, something to keep in mind for future jaunts from Country to Country here on the continent. Still dark outside, we taxi, take-off and are airborne heading northeast. Out my window I see the peeking of the sun, as we fly the sun grows larger and larger, it is really quite beautiful, this giant yellow/red circle on the horizon, oh how I wish to feel that sun on me, this cold and rain bites. By the time we land it is early morning, the sky is blue but it is bitter cold. It is only 1 degree Celsius and I�ve forgotten my scarf. Tegel is a much smaller airport than I remember, in fact there are only European airlines that operate out of here, no Delta, no American, no United, none. The new Brandenburg giant airport is being built but won�t open until 2010.

As we leave the plane and step in to the Jetway we are faced with 4 policemen and one huge, muzzled, German Shepard that is being (barely) restrained by one of the officers. I wish I could telephone Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder right now �You see Gerry, this is why you have an image problem, who wants to get off the plane in a Country and the first thing you see are uniforms and giant, angry dogs. And you wonder why people think you are still Nazis. Take a clue from the Hawaiians, greet us with leis�or at least a beer and a pretzel, this dog and police show you got going on doesn�t really do the trick. I don�t feel �Wilkommen� I feel �Veel gonna get you�. Slow down on the aggressive shit buddy, or at least copy the French and just ignore us as we arrive.�

And so begins my quick day in Berlin, for my flight back is at 6 p.m., back to Paris�back to�home?

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