Scenes from a Terminal.

[tedwords]

Written from Reagan National Airport yesterday, while waiting for my plane...

I think I ate my lunch a bit too quickly on Monday.

I’m not certain that I could be held at fault, though. I mean, it was a stressful situation: I was just about to receive my award in front of my adoring fans, after all (i.e., three hundred other PR people honestly more interested in their meals than the stream of people accepting awards that day). At the same time, I was trying desperately to appear presentable to my ultimate boss, the man who holds the keys to my career. He’s really a nice, easy-going guy, but since I am, after all, basically a sack full of insecurities and neurosis, I spent the hour on eggshells, trying to appear charming, trying to appear relaxed, and above all, trying desperately not to dribble crab cake on my pants.


To make things worse, the waiter staff was headed up by a man who would have been Mussolini’s ideal for a train conductor. He ran his staff with an iron fist, firing out staccato orders to every point in the banquet hall, timing each step of the dance—salad, main entrée, dessert—with the deadly precision of synchronized swim routine. As a result of my valiant attempts to charm, to pretend to be relaxed, and to try not to spill, I ended up with half a crab inside my stomach. I watched, with longing, as his better half was whisked away from me and ushered into the ether. Oh, well. The dessert was delicious, although my boss left to go to the bathroom at that point, and I caught the eye of the person next to me, who regaled me with tales of his gastric bypass surgery. “I shaved off 185 pounds!” Holy shit, man. That’s more than I weigh, now.

All of this had an adverse effect on my poor sensitive stomach, unfortunately, and by the time the afternoon classes ended, around 5:30, I was frankly feeling as though I was at the tail end of an all night bender. I begged out of the cocktail reception and dragged myself into my hotel room, where I fell onto the bed, trying to catch a few minutes of sleep.

After about an hour of that, I changed into a pair of shorts and decided to take a walk around Washington DC, thinking the fresh air might do some good. My hotel was located on Connecticut Avenue, and I decided to simply pick a direction, and see where it took me.

It was a great decision. I loved walking from block to block, passing rows of brownstones and small little cafes, watching with the interest the people that I would pass, the women taking their dogs for an early evening walk, the babies being pushed in strollers, the handsome young college students with strong legs jogging down the street. In fact, after about an hour of this, I realized that I had absolutely no idea how to get back to the hotel.

Ah, it didn’t matter. Even though I possessed the sense of direction of a mentally-retarded bat, I had a vague idea where Connecticut Avenue was, and even if I was a little bit off, I could surely ask. And so, forty minutes later, I returned to the hotel, drenched in sweat and feeling great. I ordered up a small salad and some soup, and settled in for the night, intending to lie in bed and read Mrs. Dalloway.

But for some reason that I can’t explain, by the time the Caesar’s salad arrived, I had abandoned Virginia Wolfe for the two-hour premiere of America’s Got Talent (I know, I know, somewhere Virginia Wolfe is rolling over in her watery grave).

If it makes her feel any better (which it wouldn’t, I’m sure), let me say this: what a load of doggy doo this show is! In fact, you even feel as though you’ve stepped in doggy doo by the time that the show’s over.

“America’s Got Talent” isn’t even the poor bastard stepchild of “American Idol,” in my opinion. It’s the poor bastard stepchild that’s been flushed down the toilet and then pureed in a blender filled with rotten tomatoes and skunk cabbage. It’s literally nothing more than an updated version of the Gong Show, with three judges sitting in judgment of what has to be the worst that America has to offer.

Any hopes that Sharon Osborne might liven things up this year were quickly exploded, when she staged a mock fight with a fellow judge and walked off the set in a huff, leaving the fate of a ten-year-old cheerleader and her Mama Rose mom unclear. It was clearly all just playacting, however, with all the dramatic appeal of a WWF match. Five minutes later, Sharon was back on stage and dancing around with her pet pooch, which clearly recognized was wallowing in the stench that this show was giving off.

My favorite moment has to have been when the three judges starting waxing poetic about how “America is all about family.” This is a fine sentiment (although it’s certainly debatable...it often depends on whether you fit a rigidly determined definition of family). However, it seems an odd statement, given that two of the judges are Brits. The most American of the bunch is David Hasselhoff, and I’m not certain that’s saying much.

Anyway, I’m sitting here now at an internet café in the airport, waiting for my flight to come. I’m sharing a table with a very handsome Canadian who tried to get me involved in some sort of pyramid scheme. I didn’t bite, but he is fun to look at.

###

Just before boarding, we learned that our flight would be delayed by at least an hour and 45 minutes. We were ushered onto the airplane, like sheep, and told that we would be waiting on the tarmac...and like it, dammit!

The cause for the delay is a patch of thunderstorms striking the entire east coast. We were moved to a section of the airstrip that overlooks the Potomac River.

Over the next hour, we watched the thunderclouds roll in, slowly. Right now, we’re in the midst of the storm. The pilot just told us that it should take another twenty minutes for the storm to subside. The airport has been closed, and incoming planes cannot be ushered into the airport.

Like a storm, Monday evening, around eleven , I was overcome with a wave of...well, I guess you would call it despair. It came over me suddenly, possibly brought on by having wasted two hours of my life watching “America’s Got Talent.” But it gripped me, as tightly as a bearhug, as I thought about all that I needed to do and to accomplish, all the promises I had made, all the dreams that I had to accomplish, and would I get to where I wanted to be?

Finally, I jumped out of bed, unable to bear it any longer. I made a vow, then and there, that I would make more of an effort to focus on the important things, and eliminate some of the frivolous, time-wasting things out of my life. Then, satisfied, I moved back to bed, spread the pillows out, and managed to grab a few hours of sleep.

In the morning, I climbed out of bed, stumbled forward, and stared at that written vow, which I had thrown carelessly onto the other bed in the room. It’s my handwriting, my list. With my fingers, I can trace the words, feel a trace of the emotions that linger, trapped within that blue ink.

But it’s just an echo, like the memory that this cloud storm will be, one hour from now, as I turn my thoughts to our upward ascent and the fear that will undoubtedly gnaw at the base of my belly, as it does, each and every time I undertake a foolhardy ascent into the air.