he sees you when you're sleeping

On my flight home last weekend I sat next to a French scientist carrying a textbook titled Comment utilizer votre nouvelle iPad. She wasn’t interested in talking about France or Marseille, which was too bad. She was interested in talking about Grenoble being the birthplace of white coal, which was complicated and involved the evaporation of charcoal. She said she was in Portland for a “science meeting.” I asked her how it went.

“Oh, you know how science meetings are."

(I don’t.)

“Isn’t it unusual," she continued, "how you travel to the other side of the world for a science meeting, but you’re with the same people from Australia that you met while studying whales in Antarctica last summer?”

(Yes, a lot of things about that are unusual.)

After trying to get information about whales out of her for a while, we came back to seeing friends on her trip. I suggested that the world was small, and as a scientist she confirmed it.

“Yes, the world is small. But we are all so spread out.”

This last bit was especially true because she had unfolded her flight blanket out so far it covered one of my knees. I didn’t mind at all, actually I loved it, because the plane was freezing.