An Editor’s Journey

Reproduced, for your reading enjoyment, is a portion of associate editor Michael Cornnell’s travel diary, chronicling his trip to Dallas and back.

AT 4 A.M., Feb. 2. I dragged myself out of bed way too early. Three hours’ sleep is not a good way to start a four-day trip that’s bracketed by two five-hour flights. Yet I found myself doing just that. Again.

As I clumsily dressed in the dark, I felt the depression and anxiety sinking into my stomach. I suppose I've become a bit of a travel-phobe, especially since my last business outing to Las Vegas.

The work aspect of the trip went fine, possibly even great, but the actual travel part of the trip was horrible.

Last time, my bags were inordinately heavy, awkward and took forever to get through security. My room was nice, but I didn’t bring any amenities with me, so I had to scramble for a razor, as well as toothpaste and shampoo that didn’t smell like pomegranates and gasoline. I had a ton of work to do, but since my room had no Wi-Fi, I couldn’t access my files and was left doing some quick transcriptions and flicking through the miasma of cable TV.

Understandably, my travel anxiety, already higher than normal because of all the plane crashes in the news, was greatly amplified by memories of my last business outing. However, though I was a little panicked, I’m also an advocate of always trying to learn from mistakes. I had made plans, clever plans, to make my trip substantially easier than the one prior.

6 a.m.—Easy pass

I arrived at the airport, and a new emotion began to creep into my psyche, replacing the fear and nervousness—confidence. Recalling the disaster that was my last trip through security, I’d not only packed much lighter, but also smarter. I chose to invest in some far superior luggage, a sweet rolling duffel and laptop bag (the Continental Rolling Duffel and Ez-Pass Computer Brief, respectively) from Golden Pacific, based out of City of Industry, Calif., in the hopes it would make passing through security less like trying to fight a swarm of bees.