unat '04--Day Six (To the Skies!)

unfocused north american tour '04 Day Six: Lubbock, TX to Albuquerque, NM to Seattle, WA to Anchorage, AK (Western Airport Inspection)
Today's Mileage: 2,886 mi.Total Mileage: 3,721 mi.
Time in Transit: appx. 19.5 hrs. Total Time in Transit: 28 hrs.
Quote of the Day: "You're a Winner!"—Anonymous
News of Note: "County Commissioner Denies Sexual Harassment After Publication of [Unwanted] Love Letters to Assistant."—Albuquerque Journal(so why do I feel so dirty?)

I have a love/hate relationship with airports. I love their people-watching potential and the way they somehow facilitate easy conversations with strangers. I even enjoy the hyper-expensive food and drink. However, they have the fatal flaw of having airplanes in them. Airplanes I must board. An additional question: Am I the only one that thinks the TSA screening process resembles a dishwashing station at a busy restaurant?

•LIA: The hour in the Lubbock "International" Airport is distinguished by the fact that this is the only airport (including SeaTac, fer chrissakes) that I am forced to purchase evil Starbucks coffee. Also, the TSA guy lies to me ("I'm not searching you because you're on a one-way flight. We just pick people at random." Riiiight.). In Lubbock, I meet a very kind couple from Lubbock. "Rich" and "Joan" are a retired USAF couple that are going to visit their three sons in the Seattle area.

•ALB (two hour layover): On approach, I can pick out my elementary and middle schools in Tijeras (along with other childhood landmarks) and note from the air that my home town's gentrification appears complete ("Resistance Is Futile, You Will Be Assimilated"). After landing, I stroll out onto the top level of the parking garage to look around. Sandia Crest is shrouded in cloud and the West Mesa's line of McMansions resemble a shooting gallery. In the diner (while I enjoy a microbrew at 10:30 in the morning with my eggs), I must have seen more than ten presidential campaign ads in the span of an hour. Oh, to live in an Electoral College-swing state. I leave the diner (and my boarding pass) and return to the gate an hour early. There I have another nice sit-down with Rich and Joan.

Eventually, the inevitable "what do you do?" question surfaces and without thought I answer "a writer." This is a potential moment, a glimmer of possibility in those aforementioned expectations for this trek. Why? Because of my weak personality, that's why. Despite my protestations, I have spent the last eighteen years of my life attempting to define myself to others through 'what I do,' especially since the return to college and subsequent post-graduation unemployment. "I'm a [former] brewer/talk show host/restaurant manager/beekeeper/whatever" is always at the forefront of my response rather than the truth. Yet the one thing I've been doing for the last three months, writing, is consistently omitted from that response. Questions accompany this watershed moment: Do I really see myself this way? Is the fact that I have no need to impress these people that I answer this way? Or is it the only way I have left? When (If) I return, will this be a track to follow? Questions, mind you, not answers.

We queue up for boarding, and I realize that I've left that boarding pass behind. I get my mad dash through Albuquerque SunPort (a la O.J.). It was thrown away, of course, by the bus-lady (logically, they don't see many boarding passes in an airport diner). Turns out I don't need the damn thing anyway and we're off to...

•SEATAC (EIGHT hour layover):

Hour One—Call Cisco and whine about having seven more hours in SeaTac. Find a place to put your bags (Ken's Baggage Claim).

Hour Two—Try to find a way out of the labyrinthine, under construction SeaTac Airport (It's called a 'sidewalk' Mike, but if you'd rather wander through the rat maze of the parking garage, so be it. Reach "Roasters" Draft House tucked among the airport hotels.

Hour Three—Hang out with Pat, the bartender; Rob, the airline mechanic auditor and Hugh, the guy that just dropped his wife off. Tell a few stories. Hear a few. Enjoy an India Pale Ale (the boys and girls over at Snowqualmie make a fine IPA, by the way). Discover today's QOD. Apparently, business cards are the big thing at an airport draft house. Most of the tables have laminated business cards all over them, hundreds of them. Last night, someone used their cell phone to call every one of the numbers on the table and informed the appropriate voice mailbox that its owner had won $1000 from the restaurant. By two p.m. (PDT), Manager Bill had fielded ten calls from the "lucky winners" wondering when they could collect their grand.

Hour Four through Eight—Head back to the airport (much easier, now that I know the way). The tiny food court is empty as I write much of this. One table is full of retired germans telling gokes. Another table holds a young man stretched out in deep slumber (I worry about this guy. He was here when I left two hours ago. Did he miss his flight?). After a ten-dollar bowl of chili, I finish David Halberstam's War in a Time of Peace (at last) and try to nap.

PERSONAL AD--To the girl in four-inch heels and painted-on jeans in the SeaTac loading area, 9/21, late afternoon. Thanks for the plumber's crack. Y'know, the one your tattoo pointed to? Kinda icky, sweetie.

ANC: 12:30, Alaska Time (thus, I left Lubbock nineteen hours ago). I'll have to remember to write a check to Six Flags for the ride Alaska Air just gave me. Which was compounded by the droning of the freaky swinger girl in the seats behind me trying to hook up with the guy sitting next to her. Also icky. Andy, whose hair and beard are trimmed but still resembles that of John Walker Lindh is waiting. All luggage clears the journey. We drive across Anchorage to a friend's house where I bed down in the recycling/trash area of their kitchen. Blessed sleep. And the next (final and longest) leg to go.