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A Guy's Moleskine Notebook

Thoughts and reflections on works of fiction and literature. Pondering of life through pictures and words. Babbling about gay rights. Travelogues and anecdotes.

  • [1] Annie Proulx: Brokeback Mountain
  • [2] Arthur Golden: Memoirs of a Geisha
  • [3] Yu Hua: To Live
  • [4] Alan Hollinghurst: The Line of Beauty
  • [5] Colm Toibin: The Master
  • [6] Carlos Ruiz Zafon: The Shadow of the Wind
  • [7] William James: The Varieties of Religious Experience
  • [8] Charles Higham: The Civilization of Angkor
  • [9] Graham Greene: A Burnt-Out Case
  • [10] Dai Sijie: Mr. Muo's Travelling Couch
  • [11] Alan Hollinghurst: The Swimming-Pool Library
  • [12] Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita
  • [13] Colm Toibin: The Blackwater Lightship
  • [14] Alan Hollinghurst: The Folding Star
  • [15] Ross King: Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling
  • [16] Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Brothers Karamazov
  • [17] Jonathan Franzen: The Corrections
  • [18] Colm Toibin: The Story of the Night
  • [19] John Banville: Shroud
  • [20] Leo Tolstoy: Resurrection
  • [21] Peter Hessler: River Town, Two Years on the Yangtze
  • [22] Ian McEwan: The Atonement
  • [24] Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Love in the Time of Cholera
  • [25] Ignacio Padilla: Shadow without a Name
  • [26] Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose
  • [27] Richard Russo: Straight Man
  • [28] Fyodor Dostoevsky: Notes from Underground
  • [29] Alan Hollinghurst: The Spell
  • [30] Hermann Broch: The Death of Virgil
  • [31] James Baldwin: Giovanni's Room
  • [32] Ken Kesey: One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
  • [33] Xingjian Gao: One Man's Bible
  • [34] C. Jay Cox: Latter Days
  • [35] Harper Lee: To Kill A Mockingbird
  • [36] William Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew
  • [37] Daniel A. Helminiak: What The Bible Really Says about Homosexuality
  • [38] James Baldwin: Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone
  • [39] Kenji Yoshino: Covering - The Hidden Assault of Civil Rights
  • [40] Italo Calvino: If, On a Winter's Night A Traveler
  • [41] Arthur Phillips: The Egyptologist
  • [42] George Orwell: 1984
  • [43] Michael Warner: The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and Ethics of Queer Life
  • [44] Andrew Sullivan: Virtually Normal
  • [45] Henry James: The Wings of the Dove
  • [46] Jose Saramago: Blindness
  • [47] Umberto Eco: The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
  • [48] Dan Brown: Da Vinci Code
  • [49] Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go
  • [50] Ken Follett: The Pillars of Earth
  • [51] Leo Tolstoy: War and Peace
  • [52] Michael Thomas Ford: Alec Baldwin Doesn't Like Me
  • [53] Jonathan Franzen: How To Be Alone
  • [54] Jonathan Lethem: The Fortress of Solitude
  • [55] Matthew Pearl: The Dante Club
  • [56] Zadie Smith: White Teeth
  • [57] Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Double
  • [58] Jose Saramago: The Double
  • [59] Andrew Holleran: Dancer from the Dance
  • [60] Heinrich von Kleist: The Marquise of O & Other Stories
  • [61] Andrew Holleran: In September, the Light Changes
  • [62] Tom Perrotta: Little Children
  • September 30, 2006

     

    Going Away Checklist

    My trip to Asia is lurking over the horizon--exactly 10 days from today. Mitigation of the homeland security alert renders it possible for passengers to bring personal care and hygiene items that are 3 oz or smaller. In addition to clothing and gifts packed away in the checked bags, here is the list of the hand-carry essentials:

    Travel Documents
    __Passport
    __Identification
    __Visa for China, Cambodia, Laos
    __E-ticket
    __Online check-in (available 48 hours prior to departure)

    Money

    In my Timbuk2
    __Laptop
    __iPod + charger
    __Moleskine notebook
    __Reading material (most likely Heinrich von Kleist and Yellow-lighted Bookshop)
    __Digital camera + memory cards
    __Eye shade + Ear plug (to discourage seatmates from making casual conversation)

    Toiletry Tote
    __Facial wash
    __Toothbrush
    __Listerine
    __Hand lotion
    __Sun block (SPF 30)
    __Lip balm
    __Small towel

    Just In Case
    __Snack (we all know how reliable and edible airline food is)
    __TUMS (Asia has no TUMS, I learned my lesson)
    __Over-the-counter medications
    __Mask

    9 Comments:

    Blogger digital t-square said...

    What part of China will you be visiting? I did that one day trip to China from HK. We ended up in Guangzou. I want to go deeper into that region and visit my ancestoral village, Toisan. Do you really need TUMS when you can get po chai pills or baak fah yeoh?

    10/01/2006 6:03 PM  
    Blogger mattviews said...

    Digital,
    I'm going with my father to our ancestoral village too, in Nanhai, near Guangzhou.

    I didn't know baak fah yeoh can remedize heartburn?!? Po Chai Yuen smells soooo gross but I know it works.

    Anyway I'm still stocking up on tums! :)

    10/02/2006 5:59 AM  
    Blogger Robert said...

    Po chai yuun and baak fah yeoh! Digital's so funny! hahahah! Anyway Matt, what the hell is the mask for?? Will you be heading to some Chinese headmaster bondage ceremonies?? Owait, it's for on the plane. :-)

    I also heard that one can purchase the 'travel' size toiletries at the airport.

    Happy Monday.

    10/02/2006 7:22 AM  
    Blogger mattviews said...

    Roberto...

    Hehe...you never know if there will be another (knock, knock, touchwood) SARS outbreak like that in 2003, since then I've always leave a couple of the masks in my suitcase just in case.

    I have to bring the microbead facial scrub since I'll be stuck on the plane for 14 hours--that's way too long to be deprived of any body cleaning LOL.

    I'll e-mail you later.

    10/02/2006 7:56 AM  
    Blogger Jef said...

    What kind of mask? Freddy Krueger? Masters of the Universe? You'd think Homeland Security would be more concerned with that.

    I love the phrase "toiletry tote."

    10/03/2006 9:49 AM  
    Blogger mattviews said...

    Jef,
    LOL the 3M N95 standard respiratory masks that filters out aerosol-sized airborne viruses. :)

    10/03/2006 2:19 PM  
    Blogger mattviews said...

    Now I'm busying with compiling a list of people to whom I'll send postcards. The list gets longer every year! ;)

    10/04/2006 4:49 PM  
    Blogger The Traveller said...

    I love China! Take lots of tissues, they always come in handy and you can never find any where there should be some.

    10/05/2006 3:37 AM  
    Blogger mattviews said...

    Good point Traveller. I also stay away from public bathrooms the stench of which you can smell from a block away. Kleenex, Tempo, I've got them all!

    10/05/2006 8:46 AM  

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