It is about 11:30pm when I return to the hotel room in Tokyo, Asaka district. The day has been long and since I started out tired to begin with, I worry that sleep will not come easy. The restless night of the over-stimulated and over-tired may await. It then dawns on me that my son has turned five today. Or was it yesterday? Or is it tomorrow. Or both. I settle on both. Aidan is 17 time zones away and is 5000 miles away, with Yang in the Bay Area. He is probably awaking now, his first day of five.

I skim through my email, making sure there is nothing that can't wait. It can all wait. But there is so much in the "all" that it takes me some time to get through it. I think of Aidan at my parent's house, that whenever we see a western style house in Beijing, Lydia will say "grandma house". And I think of that house, and will always think of that house, as my home. Yet, I am mostly comfortable wherever I hang my hat, such is the learnings of the seventh of eight. I wonder what Aidan and Lydia will think of home. If they will define it as a single place, this apartment in Beijing or our new apartment in Beijing or a house that we will eventually settle in back in the States. I wonder where my home will be. The longer I stay here the less this land is foreign and the more foreign my land becomes. Yang has been dealing with this for 20 years and I guess when it comes right down to it, there are plenty of worse things to deal with.

I finish the email and climb into bed. On the J Sports channel in the hotel ESPN SportsCenter comes on at midnight. And it is the real, American SportsCenter. Not the watered down, soccer heavy asian version. I am super excited to watch it. The lead story is Shaq's debut with the Suns. I watch it intently yet my entire body relaxes. I am fast asleep before the 2nd set of highlights begin. I am at home.