Friday, Dec. 16, 2022 - 4:02 pm.
My first flight (out of three) to my home country is in a few hours. I think I haven't been as stressed with this trip as with previous ones, considering this is the third trip in one year. I'm all packed, as usual carrying more weight than I'd like, and almost ready to go.
I'm looking forward to being in my home country, as much as I despise it. I mean, I look forward to seeing my family and some friends, plus seeing all those familiar streets and whatever. Other than that, the social-political climate it's terrifying. Here's hoping it will be a nice, uneventful trip.
Helen will pick me up at the airport. She'll be in our home country during all of my stay, except for a few days around Christmas. I look forward to seeing her, but perhaps not as much as the other way around. I say that because she booked her trip home just for me (or that was the case, until she also needed to get her gallbladder out ASAP).
In any case, I want to hang out with her. She also functions as a manager/literary agent of some sort, and she insists on doing it for the love of art (mine) even though I can't pay her. She gets paid in other ways, I suppose. But I'm grateful for her taking this role. It feels nice to have your creations being looked after with so much care.
Speaking of which, there seems to be a boom in microfiction, and this week I received two anthologies that feature a couple of my very short stories (one's just two lines). Funny thing is that I wrote some of those stories in 2004, others in 2010. People like this format now. I'm a visionary, I tell you.
I don't want to extend my time writing here, but I wanted to mention that yesterday my eldest docling (my PhD student) and I went to the launch of a LGBTQIA+ office in the municipality. It's a HUGE deal for this conservative region, having this kind of thing. I drove us there and learned a lot, even shed a tear or two. Hopefully my little lab can work with this office in the future.
I shall go finish getting ready to wait for my transfer. It's a bit difficult to talk about going to my home country. I want to say that I'm going home, or that I'm going to see my family, but also, this is my home and Andrew is my family as well. It's lucky that I have two of those then, eh? Though that usually means having to make a choice, splitting my heart in two and have it break because I can't be in two places at the same time.
Andrew will be home soon too so we can hang out for a bit and then say "see ya in a bit". I hope to drop a line or two in this dear diary while I'm over there.