now flagged as a suspicious character, apparently

Long residence in Egypt and an extensive travel history is apparently starting to catch up with me.

*Heathrow (which I realized today is a far more horrible airport than I’d thought)… The Heathrow computers wouldn’t accept my passport when transferring to Terminal 5. The guy asked me if I had an American “Green Card.” I have quite a bit more than that, including the passport I’d already given him, but finally he let me through after a pretty long wait. He and his partner actually thought I was Egyptian.

*Philadelphia. Even worse. For the first time ever I got sent to the special room for suspicious people. It might sound funny, but when it happens when trying to enter your own home country, the first reaction you feel is indignation.

On the outside of the room it says something like: “We will treat you with honor, respect, and dignity.” But the first thing that happened was that a snarly young guy with a buzz cut barked a vague command at me, and when I asked for clarification he gave a sarcastic answer as though I had just asked the dumbest question of all time. And then he answered my question anyway. The second guy was nicer, but was giving me one of those Blade Runner “replicant” tests, staring into my eyes while asking very rapid questions about my life.

Someone once told me that if you get flagged once like this, it will happen every time after that. I hope not.

a vote for great bookstore moment

From Alex in Hong Kong:

“i would pick patti smith wandering into a greenwich village used bookstore and accidentially picking up rimbaud’s illuminations or was it the drunken boat?

‘mais, vrai, j’ai trop pleure! Les aubes sont navrantes.’

she walked in a teenage mother with a deadend job and came out a punk artist-in-waiting. somehow the work of one demented teenager set the soul of another teen on fire, separated by a century & a continent.”