scrawls.

scrawls

still cheaper than therapy*

20.8.04

airports and anonymity and new york.

there are people who don't like airports. they're sterile and have filtered air and are all the same and you can't smoke in them and none of them have any personality and are all gray and blue and white with the same neon tunnels and high clerestories and uncomfortable row seats and sbarro's after sbarro's after sbarro's. and i know this. and to get into an airport you have to take off your shoes and get funny looks from the person behind the x ray machine and park somewhere terribly far away and lug all your stuff around and sit in those awful little airplane-seats and they try to give you a pillow because you look sleepy, but who knows where that pillow has been, and you're thinking i didn't turn down the air conditioner and what if the dogs chew on the DVDs and i hope i brought enough underwear and aw, hell, i'm not going to read ulysses anyway, and you're never hungry but there's nothing to do so you go to the bagel place or the burger place or the bar and think for a minute about the time d and a were going to model u.n. or something and got drunk in the airport bar and missed their flight entirely, and the time a and z went to canada and got stuck because they didn't have passports and they had to call the school, and wondering how the weather will be and how the trip will go and if there'll be turbulence in the air and if there'll be turbulence at home later, and you look at the people going by and make up little stories for them - always melodramatic, tragic, exciting: she's having an affair; he's moving to tokyo; they're in the witness protection program; he's in the brazilian mafia; he's a 44-y-o virgin; she's going to be an award-winning journalist when she's done with this story; he secretly loves Disney memorabilia; she said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy - and you wonder if it's a universal thing to make up stories for people and if it is what are the stories they make up for you? and you sit a little differently and tug on your shirt and pretend to be reading and think if they're making up stories they can probably tell i'm only pretending to be reading.

Labels: reflection

scrawled @ 17:46