Wherever I go, there he isn't.

It was a long flight but we made it.

This is the 2nd trip I've taken since Dan died. It's funny how both times I haven't expected to miss him while I travel. Change of scene and all that. But that's not how it's gone.

When I went back to the alumni weekend for my MFA program, I felt his absence immediately. He'd gone there with me for my graduation, and it was almost as if I could see him every place he'd been over those few days.

 Dan never came with me to Maryland to visit my mom at my brother's place when she lived out here, but I always talked to him on the phone when I got here. Right now, we'd be talking. Me on California time while everyone else here has gone to bed. I'd be telling him how my mom is and how I have a giant lump on my arm because of an idiot crashing into me with a computer bag. I'd be confessing that I had 3 gin and tonics on the plane and telling him about the novel I'm reading and why he would like it. I'd be telling him I miss him, and he'd tell me that things were great with him except that his girlfriend was out of town, and  he'd remind me to send him my return flight info, and then he'd be there at the bottom of the escalator when I landed.

Life will just go on like this, I guess.

In happier news, my mom is the queen of traveling. Sat in that middle seat and just rolled with it. Ate her cookies, drank her coffee, read her magazine, watched the guy across the aisle who somehow got the flight attendant to bring him five bottles of whiskey and a beer. All at once. And a glass of ice. I thought that would get interesting, but it didn't. We both snoozed a bit. And here we are.