Up around 5:30, tried to go back to sleep, but not really. Went out around 7:45, knocked out 500 words of something on the harmony section of the intro (too technical!!), then switched to Ch. 1. Came back at 10, took two potted cyclamen up to the 5th floor neighbor who’ll look at them while we’re away, finished packing. Called car for LGA at 11. Had a second TSA patdown in private, for reasons I’ll never know. Did in-flight crossword as usual. Flicked through the movie selection, ended up watching most of an episode of Insecure, which wasn’t made for me, and 2 of a silly horror anthology called Room 104. Switched to music (couldn’t listen to my own on b/c I only brought I Phone headphones with the old plug; the adaptor is in the bag I checked). Mainly listened to Kendrick Lamarr, Damn; but also sampled an Annie Ross album w/ Gerry Mulligan (swinging “I Feel Pretty”), a Geri Allen/Charlie Haden/Paul Motian date, some Debussy. (Much better choices, art-wise, than the movies.) Started in on Lawrence Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness. “To insist that only those elements of slave culture were African which remained largely unchanged from the African past is to misinterpret the nature of culture itself.” (5; the entire paragraph is very good).

Flight had taken off late enough to get us into DFW late enough to miss our connection; we were put on standby and (after standing in that line) had 90 min. to kill; called Dad to apprise him; ate. Got on the flight, though it didn’t look good for a while; not sitting together. Did an easy sudoku (the others were filled in), read Levine to 55, the introduction to Stuart Jeffries’ Grand Hotel Abyss (on my iPad), and the first few poets in a Jan. 2017 Poetry I brought along. (Sheryl Luna and Ishion Hutchison, both on the cryptic side; Carl Philips, 1 more discursive poem, ending image too pat; Tommy Pico, kind of a breathless pile-up, like [one dimension of] O’Hara for the Instragram age; think he was in one of those Preludes as well?]) Landed around 10 PST, picked up bags, got a cab to my parents. Dad and Mom both up; Jessica on caregiver duty. Chatted a little while, not long; went to bed and read another ch. of GHA (on Benjamin’s Berlin Childhood, clear enough but the author tends to repeat basic points too many times) before turning out the light around midnight.