4:37 AM:

Okay, for perhaps the first time in this trip (amazingly enough), I seem to be seriously behind. Too much going on, and I haven't quite processed it all yet. Quickly, then...

Houston was brief but nice, in the absence of advance knowledge of the immediate future. (It is admittedly hard to work my way past the events of the following days to the state of mind I had about the region at the time. I'm doing my best, though.) It was also more or less the inverse of my stay in Dallas: I went from calm, stable, and working on my personal statements, to "worry, worry, super-scurry, call the troops out in a hurry." (Okay, maybe not so much on the worrying, but I think the person I stayed by -- to be known herein as "Heath," 'cause that's his name -- will appreciate the Nena reference.) We hit the ground running and pretty much didn't stop until I checked in for my flight to New York, barring a somewhat abridged sleeping period on Wednesday night.

Oh, yeah, I never did explain the flight thing, did I. See, Plan A was like this: take the bus from Chicago to Houston. Stay in Houston for a few hours, meeting two net.friends along the way, then take Greyhound to Dallas. Stay there for two nights, then take a 37-hour Greyhound trip to New York, the longest leg I'd take via bus.

After I missed the first bus to Houston, I called Heath to figure out what to do next; if I simply took the next bus and stuck with the original plan, I'd be there roughly two hours; hardly enough time to do more than say hello and goodbye. We went through some schedules (ironically, figuring out the options was easier to do if he searched online and reported the results to me over the phone than they'd have been if I'd tried getting information from the resources in the fully-staffed major Greyhound station I was in at the time), he checked on a few things, and came back to me with an offer: it seemed his parents had an unused frequent-flyer open ticket on Southwest Airlines that was good for a one-way trip anywhere and was due to expire next week. They were never gonna use it in time anyway, so would I like to take a flight to Dallas the following night, allowing enough time as originally scheduled for the Houston trip? I thought this over for a bit and then asked if Southwest flew to New York. It did: not New York City, but Albany and Long Island, the latter of which proved to be a short shuttle-and-train ride from NYC. Rampant schedule revising followed, leaving me with more time in all three cities and a much more pleasant trip back to New York. (Despite my overstuffed carryon luggage getting the full Texas-style security treatment, and my checked luggage getting slightly damaged along the way.) It was a really nice unexpected windfall, and I'm still grateful for it.

Otherwise, we met one of The Usual Suspects -- also one of my readers, apparently; hi, Mel! -- at a bar in Galveston, where we schmoozed pleasantly for a few hours. I think this was the first time I've met somebody from online who knew more about me than vice-versa, actually; I'm more used to being on the other side of the curve. Mel proved to be an interesting person, perfectly in line with the way I envision all my readers; Heath displayed impressive proficiency with darts; and I also had a bit of fun playing the jukebox ("I'm Too Sexy" being my first selection. I'll spare you the rest of the playlist). It was nice.

But a bit tiring, especially when followed by getting up early to check out the Space Center the moment it opened, the better to get some quality touristy-type activity in before my early-afternoon flight. We skipped the tram tour, not having enough time, but it was fun; we played around a bit in the kiddie section, I saw the somewhat expanded (for easier access) version of the Space Shuttle cockpit, played around with a "dock the shuttle" game, and saw part of a demonstration on "Living In Space" (including the previously-alluded-to "space toilet" bit) before we tore ourselves away and rushed off to the airport. So, Houston portion of the trip on the whole: a bit manic, a bit tiring, but never a dull moment.

From there to New York, as I've said, but I really need to get some sleep now. It'll keep.

3:00 AM:

When I was very young, back in 1980, I had a poster hanging in my room featuring this new rocket ship NASA was about to try out. It was called the Space Shuttle, and I got up early to watch the first launch of the thing. It was very cool.

So I was at the Space Center in Houston this past Thursday, and in between finding out lots of interesting information about space toilets (there's no gravity-- I'll let you work out how this complicates things), I happened upon a time capsule video booth. Without really thinking about it, I selected 1986. Perhaps a minute later, I shut the video off, because I realized that the Challenger explosion was coming right up, and I really didn't want to see that again. I didn't even want to think about that. In fact, when I'd been looking over the wall of flight crew photos earlier, my eyes had skimmed over a wide swath in the middle, just to stay on the safe side.

And now this.

There's more to report on my applications and my trip, but I'm really not in the mood just now.