Tuesday, May 22. I wish I knew why I always seem to wake up earlier than an early wake-up call; no doubt in anticipation. This morning I woke up 5:00 AM. Tried to get back to sleep and couldn’t. I did a little work, and while I was doing it I realized I didn’t earn any money whatsoever on my trip to the UK except for the books I sold at the conference—I just did a bunch of volunteering and spent pounds upon pounds. I’m not sure it was supposed to go that way, but I had a wonderful time. Then, before I knew it, it was time to catch my taxi. I had taken the word of the woman behind the Days Inn desk that I needed to get to the airport two hours early. I really didn’t. An hour and ½ would’ve been fine, but she was right about the lines being horrendous, first for the bag drop off, and then getting through security, and then worst queue of all was getting onto the Ryanair plane. I really have a problem with this airline; they are so disorganized and charge for every tiny extra thing, even water on the plane. The seats don’t recline; there is no seatback pocket. It’s like they go out of their way to make life miserable for their passengers. But they’re inexpensive. Worst of all, once we finally got seated on the plane, the pilot announced over the intercom that we were going to be delayed by two hours. They would not let us off the plane! It was really cramped and hot. And for the first half-hour they wouldn’t even let us take our seat belts off and stand up. I could see people around me getting very irritated and disgusted. I couldn’t really blame them, but I also know it doesn’t help. As it turned out, we had to wait only for an extra hour, but that was long enough. Then, about 20 or 30 passengers were left at the baggage claim for another 20 minutes, after everyone else had gotten their bags, me among them. No one knew what to do, so I asked security and they said I had to go to lost and found. But that was way far away. By the time I got there and had them check on where the bags were, the bags had apparently come while I was away. So I was the last one to get my suitcase. Agnese was waiting for me all this time. She had graciously offered to host me in Verbania for a couple of days—a gorgeous part of Italy. I had met her with Monica, my Italian publisher, on my trip to Italy last year. Clearly, the day ended way nicer than it began. Agnese dropped me at my hotel, where I took a luxurious bath, came by for me and fed me home-cooked pasta, gave me a shiatsu massage (which if anyone doesn’t know—I didn’t—is done on the floor on a blanket or pad with clothes on, by pressure points along the meridians). Agnese is an expert at shiatsu and she loves doing it. Then she brought me back to my hotel vicinity, we walked along the streets at night there for a while—beautiful with the lights on the lake—and got some stracciatella gelato. Then she drove home and I went up to bed. Another great day!