The second season of Russian Doll is on Netflix, but first I’ll watch the first season again. I don’t have a strong recollection of the show, but I recognize the twist in rewatching a show about repeating the same evening. Like Groundhog Day, but not.

I originally binged the show on my second return from Hong Kong in 2019, during an in-flight endless twilight with windows down and lights dimmed, trying to stay awake or at least jumble my circadian rhythm to flip back the circle of the world from night to day, or day to night. On my first flight out I could look out the window and marvel at the vast white expanse of Siberia. On this second return back, along a shorter geodesic to Vancouver, I was in a middle seat and could only see the media I had downloaded: films and series set in Hong Kong; Russian Doll. But now I remember little of the show because I was half-dreaming while hurtling through the stratosphere.

Not that my memory is always that great anyhow, especially when it comes to programs that I watch on my own, sometimes while performing other tasks, and then barely discuss afterwards. This month I watched Stranger Things again, because the fourth season will be out next month. I noticed more on this second watch: the excellence of the acting, the attention to detail to the time period. I also realized that Suzie’s insistence on singing the “Neverending Story” duet with Dustin caused just enough of a delay for Hopper and Billy to meet tragic ends. I suppose that was obvious in retrospect.

I had a dream, last night or maybe it was the night before, where I went to write something on my hand, because I had a pen (of course I had a pen, even in my dreams) but I didn’t have any paper. I needed to remember something important.

There was already something written on my left hand, in a different color ink — black, I think, when the pen was blue. The writing was on the back as well as the palm, with just enough space to cramp in my thoughts. (That’s not right: cram in my thoughts.)

I wrote what I wanted to remember but today I look at my hand and there is only the blank canvas of my skin. It could not have been important after all, this thing I thought I needed to remember.

…

I occasionally have other dreams where I retain some awareness I am inhabiting a dream world distinct from the waking world. In one dream years ago I pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming and in the dream I didn’t wake up, so I thought it was real. That’s my only memory of that dream: that I convinced myself I wasn’t dreaming.

In another dream, something so funny happened that by laughing I woke myself up. I have also woken up smiling, or crying, or calling out for a dog who sometimes I see alive in dreams.

On a break from college I woke up startled in the late afternoon and mistook the red sunlight streaming into my window as the blast from one of the nuclear bombs that were exploding across the Ohio Valley.

And I have dreams like this recent one. In such dreams I am thinking that I need to remember a poem or an idea, so that I can carry it out from the dream world, to examine it in the light of day.

… 

No one understands why we need to sleep and no one understands why we need to dream. Freud and Jung and various religions? Really, no one knows.

Today the ground is warming up. As it dries, the mud releases subtle particular scents. Having lived many places over the decades, I recognize different smells after rainfall. This is not the sharp chamisa and juniper of the high desert in Santa Fe, or the washed urban grit of Manhattan. This smells like home — or at least it smells familiar, close to the red clay of my childhood home down the Ohio, related to the rich loam of my beloved alma mater in the Finger Lakes.

It is 78 Fahrenheit at the moment, a good 20 degrees warmer than Las Vegas. What an unusual inversion. This is the first time I’ve seen it.

Throw open the doors, put up the storm windows. This afternoon, summer is here.

I enjoy flying. In 2019 I flew twice to Hong Kong, as well as Princeton (via Newark), New York, and Madrid. However, I grounded myself in early 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. For over a year, I barely even drove anywhere. Except for a quick trip to Washington County for a propane heater, I did not venture beyond the city limits of Pittsburgh until June 2021, when we enjoyed a weekend with extended family in West Virginia.

After everyone in the family was fully vaccinated, I started to spread my wings. Last July we drove cross-country. In August I flew back from Las Vegas, and traveled there again in October and December. We did cancel our winter flights to Barcelona and from Lisbon because we thought it might be difficult returning to the US if we tested for the infectious omicron variant. Still, I have now flown every month in 2022: from Vegas in January; Chicago in February; Ole Miss (via Memphis) and Vegas again in March; Atlanta in April. I anticipate being in the air at least once more this summer.

While I do enjoy flying, I enjoy having flown even more. Despite TSA PreCheck, security theater can be annoying. Despite lounge access, connections in large airports can be stressful. Despite online maps, navigating unfamiliar public transportation systems can be taxing.

So it’s good to come to Pittsburgh International. Yes, it’s a familiar airport but this is not me being a homer — PIT is modest-sized, rarely crowded apart from TSA, the moving sidewalks and other facilities always operate smoothly, the corridors are spacious, and the lounge couldn’t be more convenient. Although I might wish it were closer to the East End (the 28X takes an hour) and that it had a greater number of cheaper flights, overall this facility is tied with Albuquerque as my favorite airport in the country.

So why does Pittsburgh need a new terminal? 

Yes, this construction supports jobs. But what are the actual benefits as a passenger? The “terminal modernization program” website lists:

• Increasing the main security checkpoint area
• Reducing the time it takes to get from curbside to airside by 50 percent
• Increasing area for concessions and retail
• Increasing covered parking by 3x the amount of current spots
• Reducing the time it takes to get from International Arrivals to curbside by 67 percent
• A dedicated Ground Transportation Center
• One Meeter/Greeter location for less confusion
• Only one level change from curb to gates

A billion dollars for this? The security checkpoint doesn’t need to become larger — it just needs to clear people faster. The time from curbside to airside is already rapid — from the moment I deplane, even from the farthest gate it’s less than ten minutes to the bus stop. We don’t need more concessions and retail; the stores there get little foot traffic. We should be creating better access to the airport by public transit, not building more covered parking. The level change from curb to gates is already virtually unnoticeable. And so forth.

I’m unconvinced that “smart” baggage handling designed by Carnegie Mellon researchers will improve anything. Instead, I fully expect the technoglitter will prove as useful as pixie dust, and will in fact lead to less robust systems. While I try to avoid checking in luggage, I can report the baggage claim process is pretty fast. After all, we are talking about a small airport with few flights. I’d rather wait five more minutes for my bag, if I know that the system is reliable.

The airport as it stands was built to be a hub for US Airways, which soon afterwards abandoned the city. In some ways, the airport mirrors the city itself. Both have the infrastructure and amenities to serve a much larger population, which is an advantage for those of us who remain.

The new facility will have fewer gates, in a frank admission this airport did not become a hub and will not become one within my lifetime. The groundside terminal will be moved to nest within the crux formed by four wings. I suppose this will eliminate about a quarter of the gates.

Those gates weren’t being used anyway; again, the airport was built to be a hub, so it has way too much capacity.

But really now, what are we gaining for a billion dollars? Quicker transit time from curbside to airside (but this was already quite short), the elimination of the people mover (which, granted, might be difficult to maintain), and a greener facility with its own microgrid. 

I get it: there is economic incentive to create something new, even when the old system works perfectly fine for passengers. A flashy Big Project feeds egos, establishes reputations, and creates “lasting legacies.” Look at this Big Thing I Made (never mind the actual builders on site).

Higher education is riddled with similar incentives, producing similar results. If it’s not a new building with someone’s name, it’s a glossy new general education curriculum that can shine only after eliminating a program the students actually prefer.

At least the rendering of the interior depicts a bigger space, with better sightlines for Calder’s Pittsburgh. One billion dollars and, at long last, the city provides a suitable setting for that work of art.

Last week after listening to “La Reina del Baile” (ABBA’s Spanish version of “Dancing Queen”), I sought out other versions of the song. The Real Group and Frida performed a fantastic a cappella version for the Queen of Sweden’s 50th birthday.

Being unfamiliar with The Real Group, I looked for more of their music and saw they had covered “Nature Boy”. How wonderful, I thought, that they covered a song by Big Star, although I found myself preferring the more raw vocals of Alex Chilton.

Until that day, I didn’t know Chilton was not the writer of “Nature Boy”. I was also completely unfamiliar with any other versions of the song, most notably Nat King Cole’s original. I didn’t know it was written by someone named eden ahbez, who around that time lived under the Hollywood Sign.

In that moment of revelation I felt like the boy who heard Andy Williams’s Greatest Hits on 8-track, thinking he must have written most of the songs on that album. As a boy, I assumed every musician of the time was writing most of their own songs.

This remains the gold standard for me: singers and bands should write the music they perform, just as poets should read their own words, and stand-up comedians should write their own lines, and scientists should present their own research. But I can’t fully justify this. After all, I certainly don’t expect orchestras or conductors to compose their own music, or writers to be the readers of their audiobooks, or actors to pen their own lines, or undergraduate students to develop their own theories.

Why this distinction? That’s just the way it is, sometimes performers create the work they perform, and sometimes they don’t is hardly a reason.