Airport? Or library?

Every few months or so I get the travel bug… you know, that desire to go to the airport, buy a ticket, and go… anywhere. The world is such a big and magical place, and there’s so much of it to see…

Unfortunately, for most of us, our responsibilities do tend to put a damper on our gypsy tendencies. (Although I just found out recently you can rent farmhouses in the Bavarian Alps extremely inexpensively… hmm….) I don’t know what started this little travel urge; maybe it was because a copy of Bridget Jones’ Diary I got from the library recently had a boarding pass from West Palm Beach to Nassau. A little depressing, really, that a paperback is better traveled than I am.

Fortunately, there’s a quick, cheap way out of Dodge — even for those of us with children and day jobs.

It’s called armchair travel, and it’s up there with chocolate truffles and bubble baths as one of my favorite treats.

Frances Mayes is, to my mind, the reigning queen with her Under the Tuscan Sun. (Not so fond of her Around the World, alas, even though I enjoyed it.) But there are lots of fun things out there; I read one recently called Monkey Dancing, about a man who took his two kids around the world for a year — what chutzpah! And then there’s Susan Allen Toth’s My Love Affair with England, which I’ve never been able to make it through but just checked out for the fifth time (hope springs eternal, I suppose). Bill Bryson, who also writes about England — and Australia, and America, come to think of it — is a riot no matter what he’s discussing. And yesterday I picked up a variety of travel essay compendiums to leaf through. I love sitting under my puffy white comforter reading about people eating mangos in the Caribbean (come to think of it, I think they did just that in An Embarrassment of Mangoes, an oddly titled but entertaining book). Now, that’s a question. Is it mangos, or mangoes?

Of course what I’d really like to do is have someone hand me a packet of money and say “Here. Go renovate a farmhouse in Southern France/Italy/Nepal/Switzerland/Czechoslovakia, write a book about it, and hit the NY Times bestseller list.” So far that hasn’t panned out, but if you know anyone who wants to invest, let me know.

I do have two trips coming up — one to San Diego in March and one to D.C. in May (for Malice) — and I’m looking forward to them. (I love the Chesapeake bagels with green onion cream cheese I used to eat when I lived in Old Town Alexandria — perhaps I’ll take a trip back down memory lane while I’m there.) And my in-laws are taking the whole family on an Alaskan cruise late in the summer; that will be wonderful. Need to track down Alaska books between now and then — and reread Gretel Ehrlich, whose book on Greenland I adore.

Unfortunately, however, since no Transatlantic flights are in my immediate future, I’m off on another paper voyage this evening. I don’t remember what I got at the library yesterday, but I’ll let you know. Perhaps I’ll be off to Greece. Or maybe Morocco? I’ll let you know tomorrow.

And oh, yeah. Word count. I somehow managed to type out 1300 words yesterday (many of which were done in the waiting room of the hair salon). I’m at 11853, which is really pretty respectable, I’ve decided, particularly since I started the book last Tuesday. And today was a big fat zero (I’ve been home for approximately twenty minutes, all of which has been occupied by putting up groceries and blogging). But I’m hoping to put in a 2K day tomorrow (Abby will FINALLY be back in school) and catch up a bit this weekend.

And I have to tell you that although it’s gray and a bit damp right now, it’s been springlike and wonderful here the last few days. Bought some pretty pink tulips to celebrate — and the narcissus in my flowerbeds is pale yellow and glorious. I love their smell — nothing says spring like daffodils! (And here’s a little confession — when it’s cold and gray and damp I like to pretend it’s because I live in England. I’m not kidding.)

So now that I’ve confessed my non-word-count day and my delusional fantasies about living in the Yorkshire Dales instead of Austin… How’s everyone else doing out there?

K