Sleep Talking in LALA Land

It's 7:39 in the midst of a passive morning in Los Angeles. Jet lag dragged me out of bed and into the quiet living room, but it's nice to feel like you're the only person in the world for a few hours after waking up. Although Phoebe, my host, did hear me stirring enough to wake up and tell me that I kept her up talking in my sleep. If my subconscious is any indication of my preparedness to go to Thailand tomorrow, then I'm still decoding:

"It's fine, they're just curlicues."

and

"Turn around Grandma, it's time for your spankin'!"

I'm indulging in anticipated nostalgia by eating whatever cheeseburgers I can get my hands on. Though, In 'n Out has always had that effect on me. On the other hand, I'll be ready to selectively forget some things about these great states.

On the Dalls/Ft. Worth-LAX leg of yesterday's flight, I was sitting in the widow seat near the back, shyly eyeing my possible seat mates like the new kid on the school bus. Then a 10-year-old girl with her mother, both dressed in matching bejeweled velour tracksuits, whose hair was lighter than my skin and whose sun drenched skin was almost as dark as my hair, sat down next to me with a curious mesh box. Inside, I glimpsed two wet little eyes that I later learned belonged to a ten-week-old Chihuahua named Prada. Prada sat shaking on my lap during takeoff where the girl asked me to hide her from the flight attendant so that she and her mother could finish their reeking boxes of Popeye's chicken. The attendant didn't see Prada as I held her, covered by their leopard-print inflatable neck pillow, but she smelled her about two hours later. The girl, fuming, carried her soiled puppy and carrier to the bathroom to wash. The flight attendant, sitting next to the bathroom doors, looked at me and hissed,

"This is why we don't like dogs on board."

When we returned to our seats, whimpering Prada was reprimanded for being an "idiot dog," and lightly kicked under the seat by the mother and daughter, who then resumed playing Angry Birds on their twin iPads.

Phoebe has to go observe at Warner Brothers Studios today because her uncle is the director of some sitcom, and we figure security forces impenetrable enough to ward off Charlie Sheen are certainly going to keep me out. My fellow Chiang Mai-bound buddy, Evan, who landed last night after I went to sleep and is presumably sleeping somewhere in this house, and I are going to explore today.