Circa Survive

I’m writing this in a very ordinary Travelodge room in Philadelphia with my phone telling me it’s 9:20am the clock on my laptop telling me 2:20pm and my body telling me I’m on another planet entirely.

The plane journey was good, didn’t feel like 8 hours. I sat next to Scott who had been touring with a band called "Circa Survive" and was coming home after a 6 week tour including King Tut’s in Glasgow. I talked about the trip, worked on my presentation watched “Avatar” and decided against watching “Percy Jackson and the Olympians”. My son, A, has just started reading the book and I thought I’d like to watch the film with him. I gave Scott the blog address.

Standing up to leave the plane the woman sitting directly behind me for the whole flight said “I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation. Are you a research scientist?”

She introduced herself as an Immunology graduate just back from a conference in Croatia. I talked about Protein Losing Enteropathy as a complication of Cardiac Surgery. She had a friend who had just had a baby with Hypoplastic Right Heart Syndrome. A’s condition is a variant of Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, though to be honest I don’t know how similar the conditions are. We must have talked for two minutes before she went through USA citizen immigration and I queued for visitors!

If I’m going to be honest I’m a bit down this morning; I’m hoping this is not a picture of the whole trip (no offence Scott!). I’ll have a nice chat “about survivorship” with Dr Rychik but have no way of knowing if in the next office is someone else who would be interested, knowledgeable and motivated to work on this. I guess I should print some business cards today!

P.S. Ate in Chinatown last night. The TV was playing a Chinese Language channel with someone singing a song that sounded for all the world like “The Laughing Policeman” in Cantonese. It’s a strange old world out there!

P.P.S. Now posting this from Starbucks on the corner of 6th and Walnut, Philadelphia, PA and feeling much more positive. God bless Wi-Fi Caffeine and the US of A.