Yesterday we were flying from St. Louis to Cary, NC, and I’m not as good as Melody and you others at packing my knitting on the plane. How am I going to get that sweater that needs sleeves into a carry-on with two laptops, a camera and all my other important essentials?

I had got down to using one laptop on trips, because I look like a total mess at the security points when they make me unload all those electronics. But I suspected Russ might commandeer my PC in preparation for his slide presentation, so in a panic I put the Mac back in at the last minute. Instead of handwork, I decided to practice drawing people and found it so engaging I almost missed the line-up call at my Chicago transfer.

This guy was sleeping next to me and he had a tough-looking face I wanted to draw. But I was afraid he would beat me up if he saw me drawing him in his sleep, so I hid my sketchbook really quick when he woke up. I liked a girl’s legs with a backpack on her lap. And there was a man sitting across from me using his fingers to read his book. But he left before I could draw his head, so I put someone else’s on his body.

I wish my sketch books looked like this guy’s. I just finished reading his journal Everyday Matters and it was really lovely.

Oh, I almost forgot, most of the time on the plane I was reading Confessions of a Shopaholic, something a lot of us can relate to. It was really fun – sort of in the vein of Bridget Jones’ Diary.