In my last journal, I said how I was going off on a sudden business trip to St Louis. Well, it turned out to be Kansas City. Fortunately, despite thinking I was going to St Louis, I'd actually booked my flight to the correct airport while still, somehow, maintaining the idea in my head that I was going to St Louis. Anyway, for all I know, I may well have been in St Louis since I didn't see anything of the region except hotels, business parks (my hotel was in a place called Corporate Woods), the airport, and the intervening highways. The closest I came to appreciating the location was when I was taken out for a Kansas-style barbecue lunch, with something called "burnt ends" and baked beans.

Even now, after all these business trips, I'm amazed at the corporate travel infrastructure in this country. That I can go directly from my apartment to a hotel anywhere in this country, by car, parking-lot bus, plane (or two), rental car shuttle then rental car, and have almost the same experience each time is pretty astounding.

On the flight into Kansas City (I'm still not sure whether the airport is in Kansas or Missouri - either way, I calculate this is my 23rd state), I sat next to a ten year old boy from Topeka memorizing a poem for school the following day, while his parents sat in the row in front of me reading their bibles. We didn't talk much, but each time we did, he gave me a big, sunny smile. Whenever I see kids like this I wonder at their self-comfort and ease. When I was his age, if an adult stranger had talked to me on the plane (assuming, for a moment, that my first ever plane ride wasn't taken at the age of twenty one), I'd have stammered, stuttered and blushed. I told him that I still remembered lines from the poems I'd had to memorize in school.

In Xanadu, did Kubla Kahn a stately pleasure dome decree.
Where Alf the sacred river ran
Through caverns measureless to man.

Or something like that. Was the river really called Alf? I seem to remember that we all thought that was a very funny idea.

Oh, I skipped, in my shame, something that happened even before I left San Francisco. I was waiting to board my flight when I decided to check my cell-phone voice-mail. As soon as I heard the voice in the message, my heart jumped into my throat for I realized that I was supposed to be conducting the rehearsals for my upcoming movie right now. In the mad rush caused by the sudden nature of my business trip, I'd totally forgotten to cancel the rehearsal. And the two male ballroom dancers who are the performers in my movie barely even know me. They're graciously giving of their precious time and expertize. What would they think now when I fail to show for my own rehearsals! I truly felt wretched about it, and I called them up immediately. But I made things even worse by calling one of them "Scott" (my friend who's producing the movie for me, and whom I'd just spoken to) instead of "Tom". Oh boy, this is not the way to make a good impression.

I'd been summoned to Kansas to sit in on a meeting with this start up company who are thinking of buying software and consulting from us to build a big reporting system. As usual, when I'm called into a situation like this with a bunch of strangers, and expected to be an "expert", I start off feeling like a complete charlatan. Almost as if I'm even pretending to be an adult, behind the sheath of my business atire. Actually, I still felt this way at the end of the meeting, but my colleagues didn't seem aware of it, and, indeed, pressed me into producing the first outline of the project plan for them. I always think that my height, and the trusty English accent cons them into thinking I'm to be trusted.

I was fairly dreading arriving home. My apartment is upside-down from starting packing on Saturday. And my cleaning woman is coming first thing this morning, so, of course, I have to tidy up for her. Then, in a week in which I'm supposed to spend my time finishing packing, I'm going to a benefit tonight, the Symphony on Wednesday night, and film class on Thursday. And for that matter, why am I sitting here wasting time writing this?