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We met Alain in the country of Benin in 1999, at our little neighborhood church with its concrete block walls and wooden benches. We were all there because, unlike most churches in the area, this one conducted services in French, rather than one of the local languages of the city. Though it was a congregation of under fifty people, they came from all over the country and a few foreign locations.

Alain and a few other Congolese used to walk from the refugee camp  to participate in the church. He was in his mid-twenties then, very tall and so thin his skin seemed laid right over his bones. He’d read scripture passages in a calm, mellifluous voice, and our pastor was constantly trying to convince him to join the ministry. There were few capabable, spiritually mature men around, and Alain seemed like a prime candidate. However, the pastor’s many stories of poverty, persecution, curses and threats sabatoged his recruiting mission. Alain, had, after all, hidden under a bed while militants shot up his house, and he wasn’t eager for more trouble.

Our friendship with Alain developed in long stretches of hanging out at our apartment. Alain would help us with our French and we’d help him practice his English and loan him books. His education had been interrupted, but he was anxious to keep learning however he could. When we left Benin at the end of our two-year stint, Alain was still stuck there, wondering what to do with himself. Rumors kept coming from home. Was it safe to return yet? One relative would say yes, another no.

We kept in touch via email as Alain struggled to find a place. In all the messages he sends us, he signs off, “To God be the Glory,” whether the news is good or bad, and for a long stretch it was usually bad.He was young, smart, reliable, and full of dreams, and door after door had been shut in his face. He tried to get a political asylum visa to America, and failed several times despite his stories of fear and violence. I had friends working in NGO’s near his hometown, but there were no jobs open. A few years ago, his father died suddenly of a heart attack, and as the oldest son, Alain’s responsibility for financial contributions to the family increased. He started a small trading business between Benin and Congo-Brazzaville, but it didn’t bring in much profit.
Then, we heard he got hired by an American offshore drilling company, to God be the Glory! Then, a short, exuberant email– he was engaged! Things were looking up. He got promoted at work, and would have to do a week-long training outside Houston. Perhaps we could get together afterwards? We started making tentative plans for his visit. A few days before he was due to arrive, he sent a text message that his long-sick mother had died. “I am an orphan now. It is God’s will. To God be the Glory.” He buried her and the next day got on a plane. Now Alain was wholly responsible for the well-being of all his younger brothers and sisters.

We didn’t make any firm plans until Alain got to the states, because most of the West Africans we know tend to treat plans, dates, and obligations a little more loosely than most Americans. You just gradually push things into shape, adding bits and pieces, until an organic growth of a plan accrues, like lichen creeping across a rock. We exchanged phone calls and emails throughout the week of his training. Plane or overland? New York first, or Phoenix? Would he like to see the Grand Canyon perhaps, or attend a class at the university?

On Thursday Alain got a message that someone else was building on the property he had just purchased. He cancelled the New York part of his trip, and was having trouble deciding about Phoenix.

Then he happened to mention his vacation plans to his boss, who wasn’t pleased. The company had sponsored his business trip, and if he deviated from the schedule, Alain would have to pay his own return flight. Anyway, they wanted him to begin work right away. If it were an African company, things would have been much more flexible; a person could arrange a reasonable compromise by having a friendly conversation with the right person. The “by the book” attitude of Alain’s new employer took him by surprise.They told him he had to be out of the hotel by 12 pm Sunday, no ifs ands or buts. Alain regretfully cancelled his trip to Phoenix.

Later that night, he sent us an email: soldiers had begun random arrests in his country once again, and his family was encouraging him to do everything possible to stay awhile longer in the states. But his ticket was booked, he had to leave his hotel, he knew no one in Texas except representatives of his company, which had made its wishes abundantly clear. If he stayed, he might avoid trouble for awhile, but he would likely fail once again to get asylum status, and be sent back once his visa ran out. He’d have to pay his own ticket back to Congo, and he would have lost his job. His fiancee and brothers and sisters, meanwhile, were without his protection. Alain went back. He beseeched us to pray for his safety, to God be the glory. I called his this morning, but he had already gone.

One of the realities of being an itinerant person is that one becomes intimately familiar with the world of internet airline ticket purchases. Any type of purchase tends to stress me out, because of the overwrought sense of moral obligation I feel to make a good fiscal, social, and environmental decision. Plane tickets have the added stress of offering the illusory promise of getting a better deal somewhere else, if I just spend a few more hours looking. This is why I’m grateful for the meta-search sites that keep growing and becoming more interesting. A brief review.

• http://www.orbitz.com is my old standby, and I appreciate the helpful grid layout of the results and the options to expand the dates and locations of a search. I also like how it gives the actual total price, rather than the base ticket price. It is definitely the most elegantly designed site. But Orbitz hasn’t been coming up with the best deals lately.
• http://supersearch.travelzoo.com was one of the first sites to combine individual airline searches with metasearches on orbitz, priceline, etc. It does the best job of keeping up with new offerings, and I love it for that, though it can be annoying to open a new window or tab for each search, rather than comparing them side by side.
• http://www.kayak.com is a newer metasearch site that does allow you to compare prices side by side, though it has so many options for filtering, sorting, and altering your search that the results page feels a little confusing at first. My favorite thing about this site is the price trends graph that shows you how prices in your itenerary have changed over the past 90 days. I have never used this site to actually buy a ticket.
• http://www.cheapoair.com is another site I had never heard of until travelzoo pointed it out to me. It quoted me the lowest prices (including taxes and fees) of any of the search sites, for hard-to-find Christmastime tickets. It, like Kayak, searches individual airlines and several metasites to give you a price comparison in a table format. Its extended search form prefills things for you– so if you select PHX as your departing airport for round-trip, it automatically appears as your destination for the return. However, it does not have a flexible dates option, and it won’t allow you to compare two similar searches side-by-side in different windows. I haven’t bought a ticket from this site, but I will probably try it this time.
• It’s been awhile since I purchased overseas tickets, but http://www.1800flyeurope.com/ served me well last fall. I like its lists of packages and specials in addition to the regular search feature. And for getting around Europe itself, http://www.ryanair.com/ sometimes offers fares below one euro (before taxes and fees), if you regularly check in to their obnoxiously blinking, primary-colors site. Right now they’re offering hundreds of flights for free, but it must be a gimmick. I don’t have any experience searching for flights to Latin America or Asia, and as for Africa, well, it’s just dang expensive to get there, any way you try it. Maybe cargo boat is cheap.

The heat felt like smashed bananas, oozing down his scalp and over his ears.  If it were car wash-like, he’d be okay with it; stepping out of a building into a sheet of moving heat didn’t seem so bad.  But this type of heat was uncalled for, embarrassing, especially this late in the year. He had a giant yellow and orange arrow which he was supposed to point in a particular direction, for a certain amount of time, and in return he would receive $5.15 an hour.  There were plastic arm straps affixed to the backside of the giant arrow, which also embarrassed him.  He didn’t use them anyway, since he leaned against a post and kept the giant arrow pointed straight at the sky.  “Luxury Homes!  Tours All Day!” said the arrow in orange and yellow block letters.  He tried to hold his head as still as possible to keep the sweat from dripping. With any luck it would be hours before the realtor drove by and fired him.

Some stuff related to politics and voting.

The song Flag Day by the Housemartins (they are Brits and from the 80’s and jaded about politics, but who isn’t?).

The book All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren.  Better than either of the movies taken from it.  So ok, the guy gets corrupted. But it’s still interesting.

The original movie The Manchurian Candidate.  Ok, once again, nefarious communist forces are at work in the political process.  But Angela Lansbury makes it all worth it.
It appears that my politically-themed offerings might actually deter people from participation in the political process. Of course, we can’t forget Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  That Jimmy Stewart is such a cutie.  And in this one the idealists triumph.

Vote ye, vote ye!  Vote thy conscience, one and all.

This weekend I was on a mission: to touch the Pacific Ocean with my bare hands. It took some doing, but I managed it. First I had to drive six hours west across the desert and the L.A. basin, listening to each radio station for about three minutes before it faded into static. Then I had to find Dr. G, who was at a conference downtown. Then I had to help my little brother find me, as he was also driving into the city for the weekend. Many attempts to thwart him were made, including a fender-bender, bad traffic, and inexplicable tunnels and one-way streets near the hotel. He persevered and at last arrived. I also had to eat some yummy pumpkin and prosciutto pizza, endure an unannounced power outage due to “maintenance” and play constant phone tag with various family members. Finally I was in Santa Monica, trudging across a quarter-mile of sand to the water’s edge. There was a lot of trash in the water (pork chop bones, anyone?) and it didn’t smell so hot, but the seaguls were enjoying it. I put my hands in anyway.

I also visited a vintage clothing store recommended by a stylish friend of mine, where I scored some funky barely-used shoes. They look like leather sneakers, with skinny velcro straps instead of laces. The funky part is the tongue– a bright cartoon print, like children’s bedsheets. The brand logo on the heel uses the same print. Very japanse hipster. Now that the weather has become amenable to shoes other than flip-flops, I’ll be wearing them, like, totally, every day, and stuff, man. Rockin’. Trippindicular.

Then it was off to visit my grandparents, who once drove from a party in Palm Springs to Prescott, AZ, just to see if they would like it. We finally met up at my sister’s place in Long Beach for fun and conversation. This time we wisely left the Settler’s of Cataan on the shelf and watched the american version of The Office instead. We ate Mexican food and slept well. Church in the morning, fancy sandwiches, and a long drive back. I tell you, there was not a single occasion in Southern California that I got onto a freeway and was able to drive directly to my destination. Time of day and direction of travel didn’t seem to matter; traffic jams were inevitable. After sitting in traffic for an hour in Riverside, I begin to see why so many people are willing to leave their oceans and scenic byways and art and buzz and restaurants and celebrity sightings for the less happening but less crowded desert cities of Arizona. Me likey.

Favorite poems: Lucia Perillo’s.   Her book Luck is Luck is really good.  So is the older one I’m reading.  Here are the opening lines from “In Light of the Absent Constant”  which I think set up a great premise for a poem about distance of various kinds: 

I don’t trust the few fixed sums, like the speed

of the light that falls precicely on the lawn,

there but not there, clap on, clap off–

to indicate the shadow of the tree.

Something suspicious about that kind of precision

coming from something moving as fast as

the speed of light: you would think

we’d be dealing with a blurry edge.  Blur I could trust

in what comes from a distance:

Favorite pre-election commentary:  Jon Stewart’s primer on how to create an effective attack ad, followed by an incredible video montage.  (video should load automatically in a pop-up window).

Favorite song:  Bob Dylan’s apocalyptic folk ditty, “Ain’t Talkin’,” from his CD Modern Times.  Here’s

 a short clip.

Favorite Reality TV:  Mythbusters

Favorite Commercial: I’ve scoured the internet but can’t find a clip or a still of the latest Cheez-It ad.  The ad is mostly just silly, but the little girl in it, I’d guess she’s about seven, has great comic timing.  Some people at a picnic table are wondering how the crackers got so cheesy.  Though there are only three of them, the girl raises her hand as high as it will go, hoping to get called on.  Cut to stupid sequence involving giant ball of cheese.  Cut back to little girl: “Cheese it,” she says, crinkling her plastic cup for effect, raising an eyebrow. Gets me every time.

Favorite Moment of Real-Life Absurdity:  Wandering through a six-story building looking for the office where I have an interview.  I’m clad in my smart beige suit and demure pink accent jewelry, briskly wandering the halls looking for Suite 540.  I round a corner and nearly collide with a very tall Darth Maul. 

Favorite Snack:  Yogurt-covered pretzels

Favorite Beverage:  Diet Squirt over Ice

Favorite Uplifting Story:  Scott Adams’ account of regaining an ability he’d thought was lost forever.  Link via Nerdygirl.

Favorite Paper Product: Scratch paper.

Favorite Health-Related Product:  Chewable vitamin C.