Sunday, July 03, 2005

I'm not dead yet.

Well, it's probably just a matter of time, but as of yet, the death in me is decidedly minimal. As many of you may not be aware, and as many more of you may not care, I'm now posting from the small out of the way state of New York in some tiny, almost forgotten town, also ironically called New York. I flew in on the red eye flight Thursday night and arrived Friday mourning. I did not sleep on the plane. I have never been able to sleep on planes. Consequently, I found my self awake for a good 40+ hour stretch off of a nice little 5 hour nap that I had taken Wednesday night between the ours of 1:30 am and 6:30 am. I was completely un-caffeinated during that entire time. And yes, un-caffeinated is not a word according to several accredited dictionaries. I'm still going to use it though because one of the major benefits of being a self proclaimed English major is that I now have the license to add words to the English language whenever and where ever I see fit.




The frequency with which I post and comment is going to be lower than you have come to expect. For this I apologize, but hey, I'm on vacation. We'll see how you do when you're on vacation. Just a few thoughts as I began my vacation that I wanted to share. These are probably going to be some of the most insightful things you'll ever read, so I imagine you'll want to commit them to memory or at the very least, have them tattooed in an easily accessed/viewed area on your body. Please take a second to clear your mind of other useless details like your social security number, your drivers license number, your birthday and anything else that will pale in importance to the following few paragraphs.


I had some time to kill at the airport while waiting for my flight. (I spent the first half hour trying to convince them to just take off now because I was already there so why not get a jump on the schedule? My logic was so sound and practical I still haven't been able to figure out why I was refused. Never the less, I was refused, thus I had said time to kill.) I went into one of the many gift shops located inside the airport. Mostly they were filled with overpriced items you could buy to prove to people that you had actually visited LA. I needed no such proof for this journey, so I spent little time perusing the selection of shot glasses and bottle openers. (What exactly is the implication with that? When you remember this place you visited once, you are immediately going to want a drink? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?) No, instead my attention was diverted over to the magazines and newspapers. I thought I might like some light reading for the plane ride. This is where I was thrown off a little. Across the top row of magazines, there was an unusually large and diverse selection of porn to choose from. "Yup... got a long flight ahead of me... just thought I'd catch up on all my porn..." I was brought up in a Christian home and at a Christian school that taught me to have tremendous shame and guilt involving anything of a sexual nature so I don't really see myself ever purchasing said porn and certainly not at the airport. I wonder about the kind of person that wouldn't have a problem making such a purchase. I think I would be slightly uncomfortable sitting next to them on the plane. (when I said slightly, I was exaggerating in the negative, which I believe they call understating.)


At this same airport, I found a similarly baffling item up for sale: Luggage. I claim to be one of the biggest, if not The biggest, procrastinator out there and even I don't come to the airport with just an armful of clothes and hope in my heart that they'll have some suitcases for me to buy. I see them a lot at airports though and it kind of makes me sad that there is a market for it and that the market is doing well enough to justify the sale of luggage in almost every major airport. You want to know what's wrong with this country? People are buying luggage at airports, that's what's wrong with this country. Well, that and tanning salons... (sorry to get all political on you like that, I usually try to stay away from politics in general, but this one really hits close to my heart.)



I have also decided that any time you sit next to a person on a plane that is filled with questions about you, but refuses to answer any similar questions in return is highly suspect. It's not often you meet someone that is so willing to talk about your life and so completely unwilling to talk about their own. Here's what I know about the kid that sat next to me, he's not from New York, but he lives there right now. He's only staying for a few days on this trip though and after that he's going somewhere. That's it. That's all I could get out of him. I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong. I did try flicking his ear until he answered my questions, I'm telling you, this kid was up to something. He clearly had training. At this point, I'm not even willing to rule out the fact that he may have been trained by ninjas. He was that good. I don't often say stuff like that, so you know that has to mean something coming from me.



I suppose there are a few other things to tell about my trip so far, but lets face it, I don't have much quality posting ability, so I'd better stretch this out for as long as I can. When it's over, I will have been in NY for 10 days, but when I'm done posting about it, hopefully it will seem more like 10 weeks. Until next time, my happy thought is the Aquabats performing "Super Rad" live and in concert... good times... good times indeed...

14 comments:

neena maiya (guyana gyal) said...

Have a great vacation Jon!!

Oh man, airport is the place to people watch. Folks act weird, like they're on show or something.

Gee, thanks for making me laugh this good Sunday morning.

omar said...

Enjoy NYC! Tell Diddy I said what's up.

Excellent observation on the airport luggage sales. Now that I think about it, I have noticed it before.

cadiz12 said...

glad to hear you're alive and flicking, jon. yes, anyone who asks and refuses to share is probably a serial killer. good move.

the luggage stuff is for those poor souls whose luggage is maimed and/or broken by surly baggage handlers.

dude, take any chance you get to sneak in a nap.

cadiz12 said...

i'm number 1500. do i get a prize?

well at least there's something good about the dungeon.

glo said...

Sounds like an eventful airport wait. Glad you had a child to annoy on the way over...

And I find nothing wrong about revealing nothing. As everyone knows, I'm quite the shy, introverted little thing.

Bill C said...

What sort of info did your seatmate get out of you? Not that you need be concerned about stalking, harassment, identity theft, or any similar consequences of social interaction with taciturn strangers.

Mostly though I'm wondering who gave the first ear-flick, and how far the physical aspect progressed.

Jon said...

G.G: Yeah, I like to people watch a bit myself... always interesting to me. That's why I don't mind getting there so early. I plan on enjoying my vacation :)

Omar: Diddy says, "Hey." I thought he would have something much cooler and hip to say, but no, just 'hey.' Luggage... I'm still on the fence about that one. Cadiz makes a point, but I don't know about the execution of it because at all the airports I've been in, you would have turned in your bags already, so you wouldn't know they were damaged and when you get them from the baggage claim, it's also too late because you can't get back to where the shop is without a plane ticket... I'm just saying...

Cadiz: yeah, this kid was a little suspect... he made a few phone calls while we were on the tarmac and he was speaking in French... Highly suspect...

see above for luggage explanation...

I'm on vacation... no time for naps...

And a bronze ninja statuette with your name engraved on it is on the way... should get there about the time Omar's plaque does... you sure are piling up the awards...

G-Lo: Yeah, events took place alright. I wasn't doing the annoying though...

Yeah, I can never get info out of you... I don't even know what state you were born in...

RJ: I already told him too much, I'd better not release my credit card info here too...

I, of course, gave the first ear flick... I'm an instigator like that.

glo said...

Hmm. Ear flicking sounds annoying to me....guess that just makes me overly sensitive.

Oh, and if I weren't now aware that you don't like revealing info to the shy like me, I would probably ask if you liked sports...

cadiz12 said...

ooh, a bronze ninja! i love my awards. omar, seems the post office may have misplaced my plaque.

that makes sense about the luggage. maybe it's for people who buy extra carrying cases for all the crap they're buying on vacay?

glo said...

Still begs the question of how they got it to the airport and, in most airports, through security.

Syar said...

"(What exactly is the implication with that? When you remember this place you visited once, you are immediately going to want a drink? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?)" & "Yup... got a long flight ahead of me... just thought I'd catch up on all my porn..." = ROTFLMAO

excellent post. i've never noticed airports selling luggage, but maybe that's just in my country. have fun in ny!

A said...

I totally know what you are talking about!! I see the logic bright and clear but I have yet to understand myself why they never just start moving as soon as I arrive. Oh and I've particularly noticed the complete absence of any sort of welcome when I do.

omar said...

OK, your vacation is over. Where you at?!?

cadiz12 said...

yeah. i second that.