2004-03-31 - 8:30 p.m.

But I never see Bronson Pinchot

Have you ever been in a large airport, and found a section that is completely deserted? I don't mean a part that's not in use at all. Just momentarily deserted and empty. It's odd.

Yesterday I had a three hour layover in Charlotte. Unlike my layover in Pittsburgh where I was able to find a nice semi-convenient place to get online, in Charlotte there was no place I could get onto a phone line without making a major production out of the whole thing. So I just looked for a place where I could suck some electricity so I could at least write a new entry, even though I'd have to wait to upload it. I know - life is rough.

So I wandered way down past the gate where my flight would be. Sometimes an airline will go hours without having any flights scheduled to depart from a group of gates that are all together. This creates a little dead zone where it's actually quiet, and there are rows upon rows of empty seats. When I have a long layover, I look for a zone like this and spend most of my wait there, before going to my departure gate. I found a huge dead zone, and inside that, a group of four seats next to an electrical outlet. I set myself up, took up three of the four seats with myself and all my stuff, and disturbed no one.

Those zones are funny though. You can be sitting there reading, listening to music through headphones, whatever; then you hear a low noise. It starts as a quiet conversational buzz and rises. Next thing you know, one of the gate doors opens, and all the passengers from a newly arrived flight come pouring through the door. They spill out in one long stream, followed by a few stragglers and then the flight crew. Then they're gone, and it's quiet again. Departures fill a gate area with people for a long time, but an arrival in a deserted zone just creates that temporary influx of life that quickly passes by and goes on its way.

It always makes me think of the Stephen King short story, "The Langoliers." Not necessarily a good reference to have sitting around in your head during air travel, but then again I usually sleep on planes, so I'm not worried. But there's quiet, then a few low-key anticipatory noises and a sensation that something is about to happen, and then - new people. I always wonder, if I'd looked up a moment earlier, if I would have seen them appear out of thin air and not through the door to the jetway.

my mood -

the mood of the whole world wide bleepin' web -