And the Sun comes up like Thunder

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet. --Kipling

Kipling may have been a bit of a racist, but he hit the bull's eye when it comes to time zones. After two weeks of living on Southeast Asia time, I now find myself suddenly standing on my head: Noon is midnight, and midnight is noon. My stomach is thinking about lunch when the night is darkest.

Tomorrow I go to work. I suspect I'll be dreaming of a soft bed about the time lunch is served.

Today's confused traveler navigates between East and West by existing -- you can't call it living -- for about 24 hours in a comatose gray zone, a twilight zone of the soul, a state we can call Airline World. In Airline World -- which encompasses airports as well as the airplanes themselves -- it's never a.m. or p.m., light or dark -- it's always "fluorescent light time." It's neither sleep time nor meal time. No one ever really sleeps, and meals are always available and are always being served.

In Airline World, one dwells in neither East nor West, but in a global culture of blandness and boredom. An airport in Bangkok is different from an airport in San Francisco only in its superficial (and institutional) decorative touches. A flight on Vietnam Airlines differs from a flight on Alaska Airlines only because you're forced to hear one or more additional translations of the same old AirlineSpeak flight instructions whose English versions you've long ago memorized. "Welcome to Siem Reap. Please check about your seat and in the overhead compartments for any personal belongings you may have overlooked. We will be deplaning through the left forward exit. Thank you again for flying with us today. We hope to see you again soon. Have a nice day in Siem Reap or wherever your travel plans may take you."

But your existence for 24 hours or so in Airline World is a necessary evil if you're ever to make the transition between East and West, the twain of which -- as Kipling has reminded us -- never meet. While your brain is stepped down into a low energy state, sensing only gray vision and white noise, it is being reprogramed to confront the world outside your airport of arrival. Not just to confront the disorienting change of time zones, vital to you as that will be, but to adapt your life to the changes in customs and world views as well. I suspect that Airline World allows some earlier-installed software to run inside you, resulting in the conversion:

IF new time zone is GMT minus 5 -8, THEN DELETE "smiling at strangers."
DELETE "living in the present."
DELETE "sensing and expressing esthetic pleasure in small beauties of life."
DELETE "attempting to appreciate cultural differences."
RESTORE "USA Daily Life Craziness software package"

So here I am, 12 hours after arrival in Seattle, and 12 hours until my first post-vacation work day begins. My computer brain has completed all the above deletions, leaving me in a state of passive grayness that obviously prevents me from writing a coherent blog posting. But still unrestored and uninstalled is the Daily Life Craziness package, the set of conditioned reflexes that creates my illusion of meaningfulness and self-importance, that enables me to live life from day to day with what is laughingly called an integrated personality.

Finally, ignore all the above jet-lag-induced ravings. Denny and I had a great trip. Southeast Asia is a beautiful part of the world, populated by beautiful and graceful people. I have much still to ponder about my brief two weeks of travel in the area. Some of my ultimate observations will probably trickle forth into these pages from time to time. Meanwhile:

"Had a wonderful time. Wish you'd been there. Nice to be back."

Photo: Tonle Sap lake, near Siem Reap, Cambodia. Taken 12/2/07.