My father’s handwriting is difficult to read, difficult to understand. He has trouble communicating. I could never copy his signature at secondary school. It’s like a closed circuit. A kind of island handwriting?

The word loneliness is unlikely to be alone. In the name Lonely Island it naturally forms an adjective, a fitting one for any isolation.

I’m on a plane to the Oaxaca Book Fair. At the airport, I bought a guide to the common birds of Mexico City. According to that guide there are two common kinds of swallow. One, the barn swallow (cuicuitzcatl, in Nahuatl), has a black mask, a red face and a yellow body. A subdued yellow, like the body of my Bic pen, which, by the way, has a black lid. The covers of my notebook are red. When I write in this notebook and leave my Bic pen between the pages, it makes the three colours of the common swallow of Mexico City. If my notebook began whistling a Juan Gabriel song, it would be my ideal notebook.

I’ve got the guitar. My notebook is my guitar, though it’s not always in tune. Maybe when I reach the hotel I can write a song about how similar birds are to open books.

I’m eating a delicious plate of chicken with mole sauce and handmade blue tortillas. I think Oaxacan food deserves its own small island, with a national anthem and flag.