More Information from Airports

What you need to know offhand:

1. I'm at the airport
2. I'm wearing a tie that cost me $3.00
3. It is between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. on Christmas eve
4. etc

Now, I was here (the same airport) three whole days ago, but I did not get to fly home. This is because of a Mistake (or, perhaps, a series of smaller mistakes, the likes of which don't need to be Capitalized). I overslept for a flight that was scheduled to leave at 7:45 on the Monday of this week. I woke up in my bed at 6:26 a.m. that day in front of my computer in a room in which all the lights were still on. I had not planned on falling asleep that night. My reasoning was that, were I to leave for the airport at the time I'd set for myself [5:15 (the math on this is: flight at 7:45 - 1h for security/bag-checking, - 1h to get to the airport via public transportation - 0.5h just-in-case-time = 5:15)] the least-unpleasant approach would be to not fall asleep at all in the first place. The math on this one: staying up until 4 a.m. is almost never terrible, but waking up at 5:15 a.m. - no matter when one falls asleep - is almost always awful.

So, why did I get into bed at all? Because it was really cold, and I have an electric blanket, and I am equally capable of operating a computer in bed as I am at a desk. But then the unthinkable happened, and I fell asleep. In bed.

Now, I was aware of and prepared of this possibility - I had set 3 alarms: one for 4:45, one for 5:00, and one for 5:15. All my bags were packed. I was wearing flight clothes. I was all set. Except that none of these alarms woke me up, and I regained consciousness at 6:26 a.m.

Listen: I can say, with some degree of certainty, that no human has ever so effectively exploded out of a house with a 40-pound roller-board in tow and so gracelessly rocketed down sidewalks that were all in various states (ranging from passable to intolerable) of snow-covered. I walked into the airport terminal at no later than 7:12 (the math on this, just in case you're not doing it in your head: 46 minutes from my bed to the terminal. In snow. From a dead sleep. That's Olympian. But it wasn't enough. It would be another 18 minutes before I reached the front of the baggage drop-off line, at which point I was informed that I was too late the check a bag, and also too late to be on the plane regardless. Sorry. Please go to the line on the right for assistance.

Ok: to the best of my memory I have never, while flying alone, missed a flight. Ever. In over a decade of solo air travel. So, I don't think I'm exaggerating when I liken this experience to Man being cast out of the Garden of Eden. While once I had lived in a perfect world, a world where I always got to where I was going, rarely considering any sort of alternative, a world where airline employees treated me with not-contempt, and where every boarding pass was used and no paper was wasted., now I lived in a wasteland. A Completely Ruined Hellhole.

Oh, the stinking, unbearable shame in having to make my way to the long line for the idiot-moron-degenerates of air travel. The line that, in addition to serving innocent souls whose flights had been canceled also existed for monsters like me who'd missed their flights, and - worst of all - the sort of slug-brained beings who were incapable of checking in for their flights before reaching the airport. Who are these people who don't check-in early? There was a family with about 9 huge bags spread over two huge carts, all dressed in holiday sweaters, forming an impassable human wall within the line. Despite their plans to travel to Bermuda, a trip I can only assume they had planned in advance, they did not bother to check in online, where checked baggage is cheaper and the whole process is less painful. Also, what were they even doing at the counter for domestic flights? Last time I checked (just now, because I wasn't sure) Bermuda is not part of the United States, not even a little bit. They got to go to Bermuda, and, when I got toe the front of the line, was told that I got to go to Cincinnati. In 3 days' time. At 5 in the morning.

So Here I am, finally. And here's what the line for security looked like from somewhere near the middle:


Anyway, Merry Christmas, you'll probably hear from me again before the year is out.

Where Am I Right Now?

An Airport, of course. An Airport is the worst place to be starving at 9 in the morning.

Now you Know

What did We Find at the Airport?

It is too much for words, so I am not going to try to use them to describe the majesty. Please, behold:








Alright, take a moment to really absorb what's depicted above.

Okay. There are a number things worth noting, and a few questions:

• A cactus with sunglasses appears on every completed page
• The cactus with sunglasses is not the narrator
• The credited author is Willowbelly Conbreast. Willowbelly Conbreast!
• The Gliding Spider Wheelchair: organic or not?
• While obviously incomplete, the book is stapled and numbers 30 pages
• What is the significance of the Canoe Ride?
• In the first non-cover illustration the narrator appears to be holding open his coat, which contains scissors, a hammer, and an unidentified object that could be either wrenches or a plasma lamp.

I encourage any and all readers to share their thoughts/speculations/reactions about/regarding/to this remarkable find. Thank you. YOU'RE WELCOME


p.s. - or - I can't stop thinking about this.

We googled everything in this text - Willowbelly Conbreast, gliding-spider-wheelchairs, hidden shows at bonfires, Eh·o'nites, canoe ride uncertainty - all to no avail. We picked apart every page looking for clues, debating aspects of every illustration, and questioning the motives and reliability of our narrator. I know that this story has remarkable potential, and I hope that by some internet miracle we are able to establish contact with Mr. or Ms Conbreast. If such hopes go unfulfilled, however, can I in good conscience continue what has been started?

Here is That Picture of a 3-legged Cat

...That I took with my phone almost three months ago.



It is one of the friendliest cats I have come across, and it belongs to one of the many Sarahs I know. That is a book of short stories by Etgar Keret nearby.


Here is a special bonus picture of what O'Hare International Airport looks like when you are in a pretty serious hurry.



Someday: probably many entries just about airports and just about cats (no more about both, though).

A Brief Report of the Happenings of The Place

Here is what’s going on at The Place just now. I guess maybe you don’t know what The Place is because of a number of reasons. Essentially, which is to say basically, which is to say literally The Place is where I live. Other people live there too. The main things that go on at The Place is that everyone watches movies and nobody does dishes. I am also pretty ashamed of how we live here – there is not much furniture and I think there are maybe 2 beds out of the 6 bedrooms, which isn’t exactly an impressive fraction by any means, even if you reduce it. That’s not the main important thing right now.

The main important thing right now is that we’re losing a member for the next 5 months. SN is, in less than 15 hours, boarding a Ghana-bound series of aircrafts. This means that a lot [some (two?)] people cried tonight and everyone hugged even though we all smelled terrible because of the weather that I realize I have not told you about. I am sad about it too, I will miss her, but I don’t really do a good job at expressing these things. I will show my dedication by accompanying her to the airport – an act of support universally recognized because airports are universally pains in the asses to get to and awful to be in. Also: I showed up in a recent dream of SN’s wherein she experienced a brutal nosering-related injury and I was reportedly seen with some Trouble from the past. I didn’t know which part of the dream to be more concerned about, though the description of what happened with the nosering was much more troubling, at least on a visceral level. Apparently the dream was hyper-vivid because of drugs taken in order to prevent malaria, which I guess is a problem in Ghana. I hope I never have to worry about malaria or its treatment-related sleep-side-effects.

Another thing is that everyone gives me a hard time because I lock my door. I don’t think that this is strange; I have been in the habit of immediately locking doors behind me for the last 10 years, the only exception being my old house’s front door. I secretly suspect that everyone else secretly suspects that I am doing untoward things behind the locked door of my room, but this is hardly ever the case. The simple truth of the matter is that I desperately need to be able to physically keep people away from me sometimes. The knowledge that one is alone and can reasonably expect to remain as such until one chooses not to be is deeply reassuring. Everyone wants control over his or her surroundings. My surroundings are The Place.

Those are the main things going on at The Place. We have four porches, but we only really use one. Ants come up from the floorboards sometimes.