This morning I rode a subway through postwar Iraq (because the war’s over, haven’t you heard? Whew! We triumphed. Mission Accomplished. Thanks be to God!) to a baroque Ukrainian theatre for some vaguely post-Soviet equivalent of the Emmys. In my dream I walked alone among many achingly beautiful strangers who I was certain would suddenly lash out at me. My show ticket gripped under white knuckles and my purse smothered under arm, I timidly followed several dark and handsome young men in blue jeans and polo shirts down past the rubble of a bombed-out subway tunnel to a platform resembling the Hollywood & Vine station (because the same American company who had tunneled through Hollywood had built this Iraq-Ukraine express)– all tense and edgy because these strapping young bucks might at any moment recognize me as an Ugly American and hand me over to their terrorist friends. Arriving in Ukraine proved no relief from this anxiety. The faces of the ushers and the audience at the theatre were elegantly painted porcelain with deeply mesmerizing marble eyes. I searched longingly for dear Anya, but she was not there. Moved by a wave of beautiful and sad humanity, I nonetheless hunched low in my seat as the show began and was barely able to enjoy the heavenly girls choir, for I dreaded my inevitable kidnapping as the unwelcome American intruder. This is what I get for reading AP news briefs right before bed.