Picking Up The Story Somewhere Other Than In The Beginning...

I'm stranded at The Newark Airport. My flight that was supposed to leave around four p.m. got delayed , first, to five something and now it has been moved to six fifty three pm. It wouldn't be so bad, but this older lady sat down near me, about fifteen minutes ago, and started calling everyone that she knows. I think how, if it was me that she was calling, I wouldn't pick up the phone. This woman has got all this idle time for all this idle conversation, I'm learning way more about her and her family, her friends, and her business associates than I want to. I'm also learning what kind of benefits she gets at her job, how old several of her aunts are, and how one of her cousins is considering opening a travel business, among many other things.

It is a kind of painful thing that I am enduring. I could move, but face it, where do you find quiet in an airport terminal? I intentionally didn't sit near this two year old kid, in one section of this gate. I picked the spot that I'm sitting in because there was just this black guy asleep in a chair over here. I figured that he could not be too much bother, then this old biddy grabs one of the seats between me and the sleeping guy. He's awake, now, and is chatting on his cell phone, too, but he doesn't have a big mouth like the old lady between us.

I got in trouble for being a big mouth, myself, yesterday at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. My son, Graem, was trying to shush me up. He knew that I was being too loud on the cell phone; then one of the guys in the museum outfits showed up, waving at me.

"I'm sorry," I said, "I'm loud."

"Yes," he said, "Your voice does carry. You can't use a cell phone within the exhibits," he continued, "everywhere else it is ok."

The guy was cool. It is nice when someone can let you know that you are acting out of line without being a prick about it. I mean two wrongs don't make a right, do they? A security guard or an usher yelling at you or dressing you down doesn't make a bad situation good, now does it? Some people are just dickheads and they are constantly on the lookout for an opportunity to exercise their dick-headed-ness.

The loudmouth old biddy is now rooting through her phone book to find her next victim. I'm glad as hell that my number is not in that book. I'm glad as hell that she is not the type of old biddy who tries to strike up a conversation with people in person. That would suck.

Some guy in an airline uniform just showed up and got behind the counter. He keeps getting asked when we are leaving. I'm glad that I have a laptop with me and that the battery was fairly well charged when I arrived. I did a bunch of boring photo transferring, when I first sat down. I probably would never have gotten around to doing this, if I had not wound up stuck in the Newark Airport waiting for an airplane to Atlanta. Many of the photos that I am transfering from one folder to another, are of really famous paintings by really famous painters that I got off the walls of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and MOMA(The Museum of Modern Art.)

At first, I was calling MOMA, MOMO. I had trouble pronouncing the city of Secaucus, also. Yesterday, I asked the conductor of one train if his train went to Sassseeequakus.

He said that he didn t think so, because he had never heard of it.

My son and I hooked up, yesterday, at Washington Square Park(near NYU) and took a cab from near the park to the museum. The cab driver made the ride incredibly pleasant. He was not one of those seemingly angry cab drivers who either doesn't know English or knows it and doesn't care to use it on you. From his feelings on the firing of Don Imus, to tales of the bands that he used to book at the bar that he owned for decades, to polite inquiries about my son's plans once he graduates from high school in June, this man made a long cab ride pass by quickly. I decided to have him drop us at The Dakota, instead of The Met, since he said that we could walk to The Met from The Dakota. We got out and I held my son close to me and said a prayer for John Lennon. We took a couple of pictures and then went over to the Strawberry Fields Memorial that they have built to remember Mr. Lennon by. Somone had spelled out the word "PEACE" within the circular memorial. There was a long haired young man who hadn't bathed in awhile sitting on one of the benches facing the memorial. He was asleep. A guitar case leaned against the bench near his head. My son asked me how long ago was it that John Lennon was killed. I said that I thought it happened in 1981. My son then remarked that it was amazing that there was such a great interest in the man this many years later.

The long walks that I have taken over the last half a week in New York City have brought back the arthritis in my knees that caused me to quit training jiu jitsu with Jakare, several years ago. For awhile, I was on this pill that the Doctor prescribed, but the pill turned out to be poisonous or dangerous somehow, and was removed from the market. Vioxx, I think that it was called.
I would love to live in New York City, sometime. I guess that I would have to have a living situation where I don t have to walk a lot, or maybe this knee pain that I am feeling, today, will be temporary and will go away. Ideally, I m thinking that I'd like to go to grad school in New York, and either pursue a Masters Degree in Creative Writing or an MFA in Poetry. This would all occur in about five years, when my daughter, Scout, has finished high school.

Who knows though? Who really knows what is going to happen from one minute to the next. Many of the people here at Gate A10, at the Newark Airport are grumbling and complaining because their flight has been delayed several times. I am just thankful to be traveling and all I hope for is a safe arrival back in Atlanta, whatever time it turns out to be.

Allegedly, there are snow and wind and water storms that are making history in this area of the nation, today. It is very weird that such weather is hitting the Northeast in mid-April, is it not? Perhaps Al Gore, is right: global warming is going to get us. Of course, then, Mr. Gore needs to turn off more than a few lights in his mansion, to help the cause.

We finally got in the air. At one point, after we had been loaded into the plane, the Captain came on to say that there were 23 planes ahead of us, on the runway, and that it would take another 45 minutes to get in the air. There was a great deal of turbulence during take off, and now, after the Captain has finally turned off the seatbelts must be worn lights, the plane is still shaking a bit. There is a nice sunset going on outside the window across the aisle. I have a window seat, but my view has been of a darkened sky.

As soon as we were allowed to, I ambled back to the bathroom. Somebody must have been shooting up or dieing in the bathroom on the right, because they never came out the whole time that I was waiting to use the pisser, and when I got there, there were two people in front of me in line. Some people are just inconsiderate, or maybe this person was deathly ill, and was puking their guts out in there. In that case, I wouldn't have wanted to follow them into that bathroom.

There are two stewards and one stewardess on this plane today. One of the stewards is an older guy. He looks German. Or Czechoslovakian. The other steward is a black guy, probably from the same country as Idi Amin. This man is mean. He snapped at me to turn off my laptop, as we were about to get ready to get ready to get ready to leave. I then watched him bark orders at other passengers in an unpleasant manner. His temperament would better suit him for a job as a prison guard. Where do the airlines find these people who they hire to bring us one soda and one small bag of pretzels on a flight? The older German-looking man was doing some sort of a weird dance, at the front of the airplane, before liftoff, as the mean man spoke over the pa on such subjects as how to put the oxygen mask on, if it falls down in front of you and how to pull your seat out and use it as a flotation device should the plane crash into water. The German-looking guy looked like he was on LSD, as he did his weird little interpretive dance, he really did. I think that some stewards and some stewardesses feel like they are somehow on stage as they take care of us, as we fly from city to city. And in some ways they are. Can I please have some more peanuts?

There was a bit of a wait, once we landed in Atlanta. I could see airplanes in front of us slowly pulling up to gates. I said goodbye and thank you to the mean man, as I walked off the airplane. He smiled at me and said, "have a good day." Maybe his job stresses him out and causes him to act mean. Maybe he is nice when he is not working. Anyway, he and the other crew members got us safely to Atlanta from Newark and that is really all that matters, now isn't it?

I was looking my love's phone number up on my phone, which now worked, again, as I walked down the hall from the airplane to the baggage claim area, when suddenly this beautiful woman ran up to me, grabbed me, hugged me and kissed me. We had not seen each other in two weeks; it had felt much longer, though, so this embrace felt like I was being smothered by a brand new woman. What a hot piece of ass I am blessed with to call mine. I can't wait to get her in the sack.

My bag never showed up on turnstile no. 2, where the sign said it would be. Love headed to the forms office of the airline to fill out a missing luggage form. While she was doing this, I took a walk over to turnstile 1, where my bag was not supposed to be and there it was. I'm calling the trip officially over here. Special thanks to The Miller Family. Staying with them was more comfy than staying with The Hiltons or The Marriotts or any of them other expensive hotel folks. Plus the fancy hotels don't have the incredible chilli, pasta salad and rice krispie treats that Breigh Miller cooks. Kennedy is a truly lucky child; and I am a truly lucky man. Visit New York sometime soon; you won't be disappointed.










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