I'm exhausted. I'm dying to go home and put my ass in bed and my head on a feather pillow. This is only partially because of the slow death march alcohol fueled spring forward shortened debauchery of Saturday night. It's mostly because I could never catch up on sleep on Sunday. I'm guessing I slept about 3 hours on Saturday night. That's a generous estimate. I tried to sleep in, but I was sleeping on a futon on the floor of the living room. So when anyone else in the house is up and light is streaming through the picture window, you're up. I tried to get out of Tahoe in the early afternoon so I could go home and sleep, but traffic sent me back to house. I tried to nap back at the house, but a few others were turned back by the traffic and I couldn't get to sleep. When I finally did go home, all I wanted to do was sleep, but I made a huge mistake and turned on the TV. That's when I saw Robert Kaplan being interviewed on CSPAN's Book TV. I had to watch.

Kaplan is one of my heroes, a god in the extremely exclusive pantheon of travel writers that includes Paul Theroux, Bill Bryson, Eric Newby, Bruce Chatwin, Jan Morris and Robert Byron. I first discovered him when I was staying at small guesthouse in southern Cambodia just after 9/11. They had a copy of The Ends of the Earth and I ate it up. Good travel writing always has a context. It's not simple reporting of place. For Jan Morris, it's language. For Bill Bryson, it's humor. For Paul Theroux, it's literature. And for Robert Kaplan, it's history. If you are at all interested in the history of the world around us, and appreciate great travel literature, you will love Robert Kaplan. That is, you will love his words. If you see an interview with him, you will understand quickly.

The Book TV In-Depth series is excellent. They sit down with an author for a 3 hour interview. So when they say in-depth, they mean it. I caught only the last hour or so. I was mesmerized. Kaplan was brilliant. He seemed to have his finger on the pulse of any place any of the callers asked about. But, and this was really disappointing, he came off as a humorless, know it all dick. I lost a lot of respect for him after seeing him take questions. People would call up with really complicated questions and before they could get to the end, Kaplan would interrupt them by saying, "I can answer that". Then he would go off and pontificate about this country or that region. His information was fascinating, but the style left a lot to be desired. He was like that kid who sits in the front row of class, and shoots his hand in the air the second the teacher asks a question. Sort of like Tracy Flick from Election. The man is obviously brilliant. No one is going to deny that, but where's the damn humility? It's not like this guy is in his 20s. He's almost 50. It was strange. I hope that it was his relative inexperience being interviewed like that, the guy travels constantly, that lead to nervousness, that lead to hyperagressive responses. Anyway, I was tired. I probably should have just put my ass to sleep.