Travel Day 2
Thursday was my favorite day of the conference -- the speakers were interesting and the networking was minimal, and afterwards, we had a little bit of time to explore before our flight. The second half of the day turned out kinda lame, but I did get to see the new World Trade Center tower.
I also met this bird.
And then I found a Drummond on a WWII memorial.
Buuuuutttt...then I waited forever in the airport, my plane delayed. At least I got some more writing in.
9/19/2013 On the way home from NY. Stuck at the airport -- flight delayed.
It took us forever to find an electrical outlet at the Newark airport. We walked past terminal after terminal, peering behind seats and (surreptitiously) under people's legs, but no outlets.
Our flight was delayed; only by 20 minutes at first, but that's a bad sign. We had 3+ hours for things to get worse.
We ate at the Garden State Diner -- I had a grilled cheese called The Happy Waitress and Maggie had fries and corn beef hash like her grandpa used to eat. Our waiter either hated us or knew we had lots of time to kill; he left us alone for long stretches of time. An hour and a half passed.
Later we finally found an electrical outlet a few terminals away from our own. We settled in for the long haul, Maggie trying to sleep on the floor, and me opening up this document but thinking I probably would watch whatever movie I had on my computer, instead. You had to pay for the internet -- $7.95 for 24 hours. That seemed like a waste. I can browse the airport website for free, though, so I read up on the history of the Port Authority and the plans for the new World Trade Center.
Here I suddenly switch to present tense for some reason, probably because a scene in front of me is grabbing my attention.
Across me is a man in his late 40s, kneeling next to a woman in a wheelchair. He's telling her he called social security for her and she'll be getting social security checks, and he's got the last 6 months of her bank statements for her. He's wearing a plaid shirt and a blue and gray hat on backwards -- at first I thought it was a bandana -- and gray, ripped jeans, and he has long, brown and gray hair. There's something very sweet about the way he's talking to her -- very patient and slow, repeating things for her till she understands. She's on oxygen.
He goes up to the stewardess and tells her the old woman washed her hands in the bathroom on the plane, and her ring must have come off with the paper towel. He wants to go back on the plane to look through the trash. "No, sir, we can't let you back on the plane." He says if she brings out the trash he'll look through it, or she can. "Are you crazy? I'm not looking through the trash. That's not my job." "Well it's not my job either, but I do it." He says they're not leaving without the ring, but the woman's oxygen is running out.
Today walking towards the 9/11 Memorial, I passed a food stand. The worker was on his knees on a flattened cardboard box, praying towards Mecca in the middle of a hot, New York day, tourists passing by on each side and cars blaring their horns in the background.
I understand why writers feel a pull towards New York. The constant buzzing, the noise, the fact that every corner has someone whose face and story and fashion and language are completely different. I'm not saying anything hundreds of writers haven't said before, but it speaks to me, too. I don't know if I'd want to live here, but I see it. It lights something inside me that stays dim most of the time.
A woman in an orange vest sticks her head out of the door to the terminal, and the flight attendant whose job isn't to deal with these things asks her in short, stunted English if she can put the trash from the restroom on the back left into a plastic bag. A male flight attendant comes over to translate into Spanish. "He says he'll go through it if you bring it out here," they say. "Oh no," says the orange vest. "Don't worry about it. I'll check."
The male flight attendant is leaning on the counter, now, talking to a bunch of female coworkers. I can't hear exactly what he says, but I can make out bits. "You don't have much cleavage, Lucille, but Jana..." One of the women catches me looking at them and chides him. He glances over at Maggie on the floor. "Oh, she's asleep," he says, waving his hand in the air. "People can still hear," she whispers.
They don't find the ring. The women and her son, or friend, or nephew, or whoever he is, leave, an attendant in a white button down pushing her wheelchair down the concourse.
Our plane is delayed by 2 hours now, and I Google "What to do if your flight is canceled." I start to long for home the way you do when your parents leave you behind at summer camp, the same feeling I got when I kissed Michael goodbye at the start of this trip. I want my own house, and my own bed, and my own husband.
I also met this bird.
And then I found a Drummond on a WWII memorial.
Buuuuutttt...then I waited forever in the airport, my plane delayed. At least I got some more writing in.
9/19/2013 On the way home from NY. Stuck at the airport -- flight delayed.
It took us forever to find an electrical outlet at the Newark airport. We walked past terminal after terminal, peering behind seats and (surreptitiously) under people's legs, but no outlets.
Our flight was delayed; only by 20 minutes at first, but that's a bad sign. We had 3+ hours for things to get worse.
We ate at the Garden State Diner -- I had a grilled cheese called The Happy Waitress and Maggie had fries and corn beef hash like her grandpa used to eat. Our waiter either hated us or knew we had lots of time to kill; he left us alone for long stretches of time. An hour and a half passed.
Later we finally found an electrical outlet a few terminals away from our own. We settled in for the long haul, Maggie trying to sleep on the floor, and me opening up this document but thinking I probably would watch whatever movie I had on my computer, instead. You had to pay for the internet -- $7.95 for 24 hours. That seemed like a waste. I can browse the airport website for free, though, so I read up on the history of the Port Authority and the plans for the new World Trade Center.
Here I suddenly switch to present tense for some reason, probably because a scene in front of me is grabbing my attention.
Across me is a man in his late 40s, kneeling next to a woman in a wheelchair. He's telling her he called social security for her and she'll be getting social security checks, and he's got the last 6 months of her bank statements for her. He's wearing a plaid shirt and a blue and gray hat on backwards -- at first I thought it was a bandana -- and gray, ripped jeans, and he has long, brown and gray hair. There's something very sweet about the way he's talking to her -- very patient and slow, repeating things for her till she understands. She's on oxygen.
He goes up to the stewardess and tells her the old woman washed her hands in the bathroom on the plane, and her ring must have come off with the paper towel. He wants to go back on the plane to look through the trash. "No, sir, we can't let you back on the plane." He says if she brings out the trash he'll look through it, or she can. "Are you crazy? I'm not looking through the trash. That's not my job." "Well it's not my job either, but I do it." He says they're not leaving without the ring, but the woman's oxygen is running out.
Today walking towards the 9/11 Memorial, I passed a food stand. The worker was on his knees on a flattened cardboard box, praying towards Mecca in the middle of a hot, New York day, tourists passing by on each side and cars blaring their horns in the background.
I understand why writers feel a pull towards New York. The constant buzzing, the noise, the fact that every corner has someone whose face and story and fashion and language are completely different. I'm not saying anything hundreds of writers haven't said before, but it speaks to me, too. I don't know if I'd want to live here, but I see it. It lights something inside me that stays dim most of the time.
A woman in an orange vest sticks her head out of the door to the terminal, and the flight attendant whose job isn't to deal with these things asks her in short, stunted English if she can put the trash from the restroom on the back left into a plastic bag. A male flight attendant comes over to translate into Spanish. "He says he'll go through it if you bring it out here," they say. "Oh no," says the orange vest. "Don't worry about it. I'll check."
The male flight attendant is leaning on the counter, now, talking to a bunch of female coworkers. I can't hear exactly what he says, but I can make out bits. "You don't have much cleavage, Lucille, but Jana..." One of the women catches me looking at them and chides him. He glances over at Maggie on the floor. "Oh, she's asleep," he says, waving his hand in the air. "People can still hear," she whispers.
They don't find the ring. The women and her son, or friend, or nephew, or whoever he is, leave, an attendant in a white button down pushing her wheelchair down the concourse.
Our plane is delayed by 2 hours now, and I Google "What to do if your flight is canceled." I start to long for home the way you do when your parents leave you behind at summer camp, the same feeling I got when I kissed Michael goodbye at the start of this trip. I want my own house, and my own bed, and my own husband.