I spent Thanksgiving almost entirely within the four walls of my apartment, apart from going to the gym in the morning. With friends visiting their families, and nothing to interrupt me, it was a perfect day to start shooting a short personal movie I'm making. It's the first time I've done a lot of work with lighting, and each little shot took a good while to set up, using my home-made studio lighting setup. Film lighting is an art-form to itself; cinematographers call it painting with light. The most common lighting setup uses three lights; one, the key-light, is usually the brightest, and is used to illuminate the scene from more or less the same direction as the camera. A back light is meant to cast a bit of an aura around what's being viewed, in order to make it stand out against the background. Finally, the fill light fills in any strong, unwanted shadows cast by the other two lights.

I'm not sure that you're supposed to light a tuna-melt the same way you light a person. But I tell you, no tuna-melt in Hollywood history has received the loving cinematographic attention I gave mine during the first shot of the day. Imagine three big, hot lights, a large, heavy tripod, and me all squeezed into my tiny kitchen while I filmed the tuna melt cooking in the toaster. You'll have to see the finished movie to see why the tuna melt was important. After the shot was complete, I consumed the tuna melt, of course.

Five fifteen, early this morning, I was hydroplaning my way to the airport through the biggest downpour of the rainy season this far, running already a little late for my six-thirty flight, and cursing the person who was responsible for booking me on such an early flight. Since I don't have a secretary, there is an extremely limited list of people to blame for forcing me to get up at 4.15 in the morning.

I lucked out with a parking spot in long-term parking, finding one near the exit almost immediately. While I gathered up my belongings, I saw in my rear view mirror, through the tempest, the lights of the parking shuttle approaching, so I made a mad dash to cut it off before it reached the exit. Normally, they won't stop for you if you're not at one of the bus stops, but as I stood there, my flimsy umbrella blowing inside out, the driver took pity on me and welcomed me inside.

I flashed a mock pained smile at the nearest fellow passenger, the kind of smile you only share with strangers when you've all suffered through the same weather moment. Since he happened to be an old gay man, he spent the next five minutes staring at me, trying to make eye contact. I was sitting there, thanking my luck at getting in and out of the parking lot so quickly when I realized that I'd made a terrible error. I'd made such a rush for the parking shuttle that I'd forgotten to bring my suitcase with me.

Lord. I played it cool, though, checked my watch, which now read 5.30, and decided to stay on the shuttle until it returned to the lot. The lady driver, no doubt wondering why I'd not gotten off the bus at any of the stops, asked me what was up. So I bashfully explained to her what had happened. She dropped me at the exit to the lot, and radioed the next bus, which was approaching the exit, asking him to wait for me. My umbrella had completely died, by this point, so I had to run through the pouring rain, grab my suitcase from my car, and run back to the waiting bus. I was soaked. For some reason, my left ear was particularly wet, and I spent the trip back to the terminal trying to empty it of water.

I'd imagined that not many people would be flying so early on the Saturday after the Thanksgiving where people are less likely to fly than ever before. But the lines of people checking in were enormous. Fortunately, there was absolutely nobody in the first-class line, which I can use on account of my gold-card frequent-flyer status. But there was another line at the security check-point which took me twenty minutes to get through. I made it to the gate ten minutes before my flight was due to depart, only to find everybody standing aimlessly around. Things were running late because the plane's galley had flooded, somehow. Pheww.

We took off only ten minutes late, despite the weather and the late boarding, and the plane was only two thirds full. I'd gotten a nice upgrade to the half-empty first- class cabin, so I had plenty of room in which to panic when we ran into the worst take-off turbulence I've ever experienced. I thought I must have looked brave when I just smiled at the flight attendant, as we bounced around. But my smile vanished as I suddenly grasped the arms of my chair when both my heart and the plane went into free-fall for a couple of seconds. It's the first time I've ever experienced weightlessness. I've spent a lifetime avoiding roller-coasters and didn't expect to be on one today.

Unfortunately, we experienced something just like it in Chicago too, as we neared the airport; though it wasn't as violent as in San Francisco. The flight to Ronald Reagan, however, was smooth, apart from the extraordinary security arrangements. Soon afterwards, I was in my hotel, the Washington Marriott, for the weekend, lounging on the beautiful bed spread.