a hilly seaside town

Hi, I am in Oxford. I arrived very late in a day that has for me been going on since Wednesday night and isn't over yet. I have had a nap and am still dead, but less so. The flight wasn't that bad, for all I still hate Northwest - I tried explaining to them that I had sinusitus and was likely to get up about twenty times an hour and could I have a seat with an empty one next to it - and got a blank, rude stare. (When I was sleep-deprived in SFO, I bought some coffee and found myself thinking how rude and obtrusive the server was, and when you start thinking like this, I feel, it is time to get some sleep and go home.)

Immigration on this end wasn't too bad at all - "Where've you come from? Oh, San Francisco, isn't that lovely. Baggage claim upstairs." - and neither was my journey back into Oxford, where shimgray met me, took me home and fed me bacon sandwiches to keep me awake. I had just about shifted time zones, so now my personal time is eight hours behind here. Hurrah. Etc. We went for a walk down the Thames towpath, and the air is that strange temperature between warm and chill, and saw cows and squirrels and a heron, and came to Iffley Lock looking very picturesque. There was the obligatary momentary vista of rolling countryside, too. This is England, again.

Back up north tomorrow, and back to reality, I guess. I have a job interview in a couple of weeks and a great deal of work to do before then, but in the meantime, I'm still in that in-between place, the transience between times and places, and it's nice to be still on California time, and it's nice to be home.