Weakest blog post ever (apologies in advance)

A couple of months ago, I attended a conference in Seattle (RSA for all of you rhetoric folks in the know). It was fabulous, and I really enjoyed the city. For the trip home, for reasons I still do not understand, unless I was interested in doing some sort of autoethnographic study about enduring sleep deprivation in various airports, I scheduled flights that would have me either waiting at an airport or in the air from 8 pm at night until 2 pm the following day. So, during those hours, I periodically journalled in a cheapo notepad I had bought (for $15) at one of those airport newsstands. Here are some of the results of that inspirational burst of unbridled freewriting energy (and keep in mind that I was literally doing this to keep myself awake and also dozing in and out of consciousness while I wrote):

What I guess is funny about this, and the reason I felt it to be worth retyping, is the increasing sense of desperate fatigue and annoyance with the people around me.

5/27/08

We begin boarding in 30 minutes. (and then a bunch of bla bla bla about how much I enjoyed dining at the Cheesecake Factory and the hot fudge sundae I inhaled without shame)

All the little shops and restaurants at the airport are closing now--I just want to get out of here. Everyone looks so tired. I tried to find out how close we are to Alaska--many people seem to be flying there from Seattle. I wonder if it's a place worth seeing.

(and then a bunch of pontificating about a book I am considering writing a proposal for)

6 minutes until my restroom break and then we board--hooray! (at this point I had taken to scheduling breaks for myself, trying to convince myself they were like mini field trips down the hall)

We'll get to Dallas early and I'll have 4 hours to bum around and scrounge up some breakfast. We board at 10:20. I'm so happy to be on my way back home.

(more pontificating about my book project, which was really starting to sound fabulous in the midst of the crushing boredom)

This [the airport] is a good place to people watch. You see people kissing each other goodbye, and your imagination can't help filling in a story there, bickering with each other, and sometimes just running their chubby bodies down the aisle to catch their planes.

6:30 am

I have almost 4 hours till my plane boards. This day is killing me! But at least I'm in Big D now. And it's a short hop to Houston.

I don't think I've ever really "killed" time before like I am right now. I am waiting these minutes out with a maniacal determination--why don't they have few little beds in airports? Or at least blankets and pillows? They know we're tired. And I'm starting to feel cranky too. But I have to maintain my sanity so I can greet my dad.

I'll find some coffee and something to eat at 7. Then before I know it, it'll be 8.

I drank some weirdo "passion fruit" tea at the Cheesecake Factory yesterday--it smelled like perfume and tasted like it too until I dumped in some Sweet'N'Low. Scary stuff.

Too tired to think any more, but I've enjoyed freewriting.

8:20 am

Why do all these stupid first class people get to get on first? And what makes them first class? Money? I just wish I could lay down--this flight is only a little over an hour.

Board in 80 minutes

I'll tell you one thing--I'm about sick to death of airport restrooms. I've been travelling since a little before midnight and I am finally on the last leg of the trip. I need some food and some comfy covers to snuggle/hide under for a while. Come to think of it, I have a whole summer to hide. Woohoo! This will be a good year.

Board in 35 minutes

I'm homesick for Dallas. I need a week there. Just took a pic of myself with the cell phone--bleccchhh! I look like a toad--with bags under her eyes.

My peeps will be p.o.'d that I took not a single picture while in Seattle. I'm sorry, but when I'm having fun, I'm concentrating on having fun, and not on going to great lengths to remediate that fun through a camera lens so that you can tell that I was, indeed, having fun. I guess I have a very Garfield perspective about some aspects of life. [clarification--Garfield the cat is my hero, and thus, when I notice myself adopting a particularly cynical or sarcastic view of something, I have to give him some credit--we can discuss the disturbing pathology of someone who admires a cartoon character later...]

[And now for the last gem, which was apropos of absolutely zip and was probably written on the plane ride back to Bum-out from Houston...]

There is nothing grosser than bar food. Really. Most of it is fried chunks of who-knows-what--maybe cheese--maybe meat--but what do the patrons care? It's a BAR--it's not about having a good meal--it's about getting tanked.

[And for clarification on that last "blurt"--I almost never go to bars unless I feel it is some kind of social obligation--this brief rant referred to one such outing in which several acquantances ordered an "appetizer sampler". "Appetizer Sampler" translated basically means "a bunch of stuff cooked/fried within an inch of its life and thrown on a plate--we're not even sure what all of it is, so out of pure laziness and to eschew identifying it, we're calling it a "sampler.'" I was all agog at this cornucopia of nastiness--it was like a train wreck on a platter, and no, I did not partake.]

So there you have it: airport blurting, a completely useless genre, which I have invented.