[I wrote this on a recent flight to CA. It's still in its early stages and will undergo several more revisions. Comments are welcome.]

“Now boarding Group 4. Groups 1, 2, 3, and 4 should now feel free to board.”

Mark looked at his boarding pass. Again. It said “Group 4” this time, too. The reassurance was nice. He stepped into line behind an Asian family on their way home from Disney—or who had peculiar taste in hats—and in front of an Asian family with no particularly distinguishing characteristics—except their lack of mouse ears. 

Mark stood alone between the two Asian families, left hand in pocket, half-wishing he understood more of what they were saying than the few random oddities like “waffles” and “pop-up blocker,” half-focusing on his group number. He handed the attendant his boarding pass. She smiled and scanned it.

Bleep. E-pproval. 

“Welcome aboard, Mr. O’Conner. Enjoy your flight.”

He nodded, smiled-of-sorts, proceeded to the jet way. 

“17B,” he recited aloud, just before giving into the urge to check his seat assignment for the nth time. Sure enough, with the stoic expression of a cast iron bust, the boarding pass affirmed his seat assignment: 17B.

“Can I help you with any baggage, sir?” The flight attendant was eager enough but overly sweet—a Hershey kiss contra a grandmother’s fudge.

“No, thank you,” Mark replied, bowing his head slightly. She was cute, he noted, and young—but unnaturally blonde: a damn shame and deal breaker.

“You can pick up your bags at baggage claim area seven when we land, then.”

“I didn’t check any bags,” he said, walking past her and down the narrow aisle. He looked back briefly, noting that confusion did not make the girl any less cute—nor any less blonde.

He reviewed his boarding pass. 17B. Not that it mattered. Aside from the Asian families and a handful of sun-seeking-seniors, seats were filled only with a second quarter loss for American. 

Mark found his seat, removed his suit jacket, and placed it gingerly in the overhead bin. He sat in the aisle seat, his hand quickly finding its way back to his left pocket. He leaned out slightly to watch the remaining passengers board but saw no one—a row to himself and the rows in front and back of him, too. It was good thinking space. He fiddled with his seat back, flipped through a magazine, read the safety card, then repeated these actions.

The right half of his seat belt fell toward the aisle and he leaned out to grab it. Black flats suddenly came into focus, and in those flats, two feet attached to two legs, long legs, which led to a pale blue dress—the kind you’d see on a member of the royal family or first lady or, at the very least, a railroad executive with something to prove in an industry dominated by the less fair sex. But this woman was none of those people, and the dress, clutched at the waist by a simple black belt and held up by a single shoulder strap, suited her better than any “celebutant.” Mark’s eyes made their way to her face and held there out of desperation, caught in the quickening undercurrent of the greenish blue seas just north of her understated nose. Everything about her face projected confidence—from the hue of her blush to the missing tension from the corners of her mouth. Yet her posture read excitement and her demeanor cautious optimism—or, at least, guarded benevolence. Mark’s lower lip dropped slightly and in place of words gave way to overwhelming silence. 

“17A,” she said.

Mark hesitated, thinking that was his seat, but stood urgently after a quick glance at his boarding pass. He gestured her in and she nodded a “thank you” reserved for just such awkward social chivalries. Mark stood for a moment-too-long, watching the purposefulness of her movements and contemplating the stark, inappropriate contrast between her simple black belt that emphasized everything that was perfect about her body and the black lap belt she proceeded to buckle. He was tempted to rip it away like invading ivy from a flourishing oak. Instead he sat down and buckled his own ivy belt and placed his hand back in his pocket.

“I asked for this seat,” she said suddenly, staring out the window. Mark thought her words might shatter the glass as they did the silence, and his head subconsciously tilted with intrigue. She continued, “I like to sit over the engines, to think that such incredible power is mere feet beside me, and to know that I’m remarkably safe.”

Mark was stunned and didn’t know what to say, so he evaded. “I’ll move once they close the cabin door,” he spouted, not because he wanted to but because it would be suspicious if he didn’t offer. 

The woman turned from the window with serious inquiry. “Why?” she asked. 

“So you’ll have more room.” He attempted a smile but aborted mid-grin.

“Are you saying I’m fat?”

“What? No. You’re… Of course not. I’m just…” He stopped when he noticed her laughing. This time his smile came through as planned. 

“It’s up to you,” she said, looking to her cell phone. “I’ve got plenty of room…Mark.” 

He removed his hands from the seatbelt, relaxing cautiously, then tensing again as he realized what she said. His puzzled look was her cue.

“Your tie clip. It has your name on it.” She pointed but Mark’s eyes wouldn’t break from hers, so she touched the tie clip with two fingers and pushed it into his chest. Mark noticed.

“Right,” he managed to stammer. “It was a recent gift. I forgot I was wearing a tie.” He loosened the knot in a not-entirely-stereotypical fashion. “Who wears a suit on a plane, anyway?”

“Apparently, Mark does.” She withdrew her fingers and, per the captain’s request, turned off her phone before returning to the window for take off. They sat in silence for longer than Mark could stand until he could find words that didn’t sound entirely superficial.

“Business or pleasure?” he asked, instantly hearing their superficiality. 

“Why do you separate the two?” she asked honestly.

“It’s just something people ask. I don’t know.”

“Do you ask it?”

“No.”

“Then why ask it now?” There was no violence in her voice. There was innocence and curiosity and a digestible amount of sweetness, but she wasn’t attacking and Mark never felt as such—just relieved.

He decided to do something out of the ordinary—at least out of the ordinary for the past few months. And he decided to do so because he was sure it would work—this time. He decided to tell the truth. He wasn’t an accomplished liar. It had been too long since he engaged in such frank use of language. No word play. No massaging the point. No meaningless qualifications or empty rhetoric.

Simply: “Because I want to keep talking to you.”

She adjusted in her seat, turning toward him and uncrossing her legs. “Then let’s talk, Mark.” She rested her face on her hand and waited patiently for his words. But when they came, some patience was swept away in a wave of triviality. 

“Where are you headed?” he asked.

“California. And yourself?”

“The same. Why are you going?”

“Vacation. You?”

“Of sorts. What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a stripper.”

“No you’re not.”

“What does it matter?”

“It doesn’t.”

“Then why bore us both?” 

Mark paused then said the first thing that came to mind. “Truth or dare?”

She grinned and sat up straight. “Truth.”

“What’s your favorite book?”

“No. Ask what you’re interested in knowing.”

Mark thought only briefly. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Right to the point, Mark. Much better. There’s hope for you. And no—not any more. Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“Who’s Beth?”

Mark leaned back with the look of a man who had been surprised by a gunshot to the chest. “What?”

“Beth. On your boarding pass, by the group and seat number, you wrote, ‘Goodbye, Beth.’ Who is
she?”

Mark’s smile didn’t disappear, but it lost its edge. He blinked a few times and looked down like a boy being playfully teased by the neighbor’s daughter, his fingers tapping nervously in his pocket. He raised his eyes to hers and answered—not sadly but as a matter of historical fact, as a stenographer’s recording of a procedural request:

“She was 17A.” 

Mark waited for her to speak, to inquire further or at least nod knowingly, but she waited equally long for him to offer something further, an explanation or, at least, a nod of an acknowledged past. He had neither to give her nor to give himself, so he said with gusto, “Truth or dare?”

No smile from her this time or hints of empathy but a look of acceptance and a willingness to play along for now. “Truth,” she said.

“Why are you vacationing in California?”

“Do you really want to know that?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It’s not your turn to ask questions.”

She looked annoyed, but it wasn’t annoyance that she felt. It was more like reverence but without the exaltation, surprise but without the wonder, respect mixed with a specific type of desire. Whatever it was, she liked it.

“I’m making a pilgrimage.”

“A religious one?” Mark asked nervously.

“Spiritual. Not religious.”

“To?”

“To an author’s house. She’s dead, and I’m going to pay my respects.” She did not make light of her statement.

Mark paused. “Who?”

“You never heard of her.”

“Probably not. Why are you going? Why does she deserve your respect?”

“Because she wrote something that made me smile during a time in my life when I thought I’d never smile again.”

“What did she write?”

She giggled dismissively—serious but without reproach—and turned away briefly. “Mark, I just met you. It’s way too early for that. I’d as soon sleep with you.”

And with that remark, the attendants with the beverage cart passed them by.

Mark took the moment in a direction that most men wouldn’t. “Then tell me why it made you smile,” he demanded. “I want to know the secret to making you happy.”

Her giggles subsided and her nose unwrinkled. The reflected sunlight from the wing made a valiant effort of highlighting her auburn hair—though, Mark concluded, it demanded spotlight. She never stopped smiling yet exuded the seriousness of an oncologist, the tone of an evangelist, the love of a mother:

“Have you ever felt something so deeply that you can barely recognize that you feel it—something so intimate that your mind knows better than to let you defile it with the pop-trend du jour? It’s there, constantly, as influential as any guardian or sage, yet when you try to examine it, it vanishes, like a shadow upon twilight. 

“It’s that feeling of knowing what’s beautiful about yourself and, then, the world; your evaluation of everything simultaneously; your subconscious collection of what’s important and what’s not, what’s private and what’s public, what’s sacred and what’s profane. It’s your reason to get up in the morning and go to a job you don’t particularly want so you can put yourself in a position for one you do; your motivation for running those last 100 yards no matter how your lungs feel or how loudly your heart protests because you want what the mirror will show tomorrow; your desire to continue dating no matter how many times your heart is broken precisely because you know that one day it will be indestructible; your dream and confidence that eventually you’ll attain itall—the job, the body, the lover…the world.

“And you sometimes get a real glimpse of it, that intimate feeling, and you’re reminded of its reality—when you hear your favorite band or watch your favorite movie or see the rare worthwhile painting. Because it’s more than just art you’re experiencing. It’s you. It’s that…feeling…that spark—some call it your soul. It’s that reflected back at you by someone else who ‘gets it’—a moment when you experience yourself outside of yourself, as an entity, as a unique, infinitely priceless part of the universe at large, as a thing worthy of your love.

“What she did, the author who I’m proud to honor, she wrote something that expressed everything I’ve ever wanted to say about myself but couldn’t find the words, or images, or sounds to do so—everything I’d ever for a moment considered part of that thing I call ‘me.’ I looked into her words and saw what everyone calls the Face of God. But as Its face, I saw my own.”

Mark clenched his fist in his pocket, a futile effort to resist the intimate question. Their eyes kept pace with their emotions—synched and with gregarious fervor. He confronted the exigency with notable strength but lost, finally asking, “What did she say that made you smile?”

Her eyes broke with his for the first time in what-felt-like-days and her smile turned into the smirk of a supremely confident youth, one who has no cares in the world not because she cares about nothing but because she knows precisely what’s required of her at every moment. Her eyes darted back to his. Her lips moved with the precision of an architect’s compass. 

“Her words are her own. But in my words: she said that I didn’t have to be ashamed of it—that self-feeling—that, more so than anything I could find in the world or in other people, it was good. It was to be worshipped.”

Mark couldn’t help it, so he gave in to his smile and giddiness. She smiled back, bigger than the last.

“Truth or dare?” she asked as a moment’s exchange of inviolate joy.

“Dare,” said Mark, with all the panache of a 17-year-old at post-prom. 

She lifted the armrest between them, unbuckled her belt, freeing the blue dress from undeserved restriction, and leaned toward Mark—it was less than a moment before he completed the circuit with tilted head and eyes slowing closing. His vision gave way to sensation. She was there, he knew, because he felt the fire she set raging through his cheeks and his chest to the tips of his fingers. He tasted her mouth and felt her teeth tug on his bottom lip. They were hearing each other and breathing each other and, with unashamed intimacy, becoming another. It lasted a while, a year, three seconds, who cares? It was.

Their lips made a desperate cling as their faces departed and taste reluctantly abdicated to vision. Her greenish blue eyes projected the strength of tempered steel and her lips the desire of a lifetime of seeking and, at last, having found.

“Was that your dare?” asked Mark, already knowing the answer, in a tone that had all the makings of a whisper but with the vigor of a valedictory address.

He brushed the hair back from her face with his right hand and relaxed his left in his pocket. She confirmed, “Of course not.”

Mark leaned forward again with the intent of concretizing her words. She placed her hand on his left arm, not to stop him—it did—but to emphasize what she was about to say.

“I dare you to show me what you’ve been holding in your pocket—whatever it is that requires your grip and attention.”

Mark sat up purposely and without hesitation. He had already decided what to do with the contents of his pocket, but her dare—her rightful request—only affirmed his choice. He withdrew his clenched fist from his pocket and slowly extended his arm toward her. His fingers opened to reveal an unassuming black box.

“It’s…” he started, but she shook her head.

“I know what it is…what it was.” Her hand ran down his arm and to his fingers, where she assisted him in closing his hand around the box. Mark brought his fist to his chest and, as a flight attendant walked by with an open bag for garbage, he reached across his body and deposited what was left of the past year where it properly belonged. 

“Please bring your seat backs forward and fasten your seat belts. We’re preparing to land.” The cute-yet-blonde flight attendant flashed a smile at Mark and a friendly-ish grin at his seatmate before walking to the back to tell a pre-teen to cease his texting.

She looked down briefly to comply with the flight attendant’s orders, but before she could finish buckling, she felt a warm hand on her cheek. She looked up in time to see the determination in Mark’s eyes.

“I…I know it’s wrong,” he said, not believing a word of it. “But…”

“You’re boring me again with your proletariat morality.”

He kissed her for the second time in so many moments. She could feel his smile. She smiled back into his lips. When it ended his hand stayed in place, his thumb rubbing gently against flushed skin.

“Where are you sitting on the connector flight?” she asked, leaning her head into his palm, really only needing to know that he would be on the next flight. “I’m in 18C.”

“29F,” replied Mark, drinking from the calmed waters of her once riptide eyes. “It’s a window seat. I’ll have it changed.”

* * * * *

They walked off the plane together—neither with bags but possessing more than they boarded with. They stopped momentarily to help an Asian family take a picture and proceeded to the ticket counter.

The gentleman working behind the computer eagerly obliged their request for seats together, assuming the couple had been split up by improperly purchased tickets or the random happenstance of computer error. He was more than willing to play their personal Cupid.

“Name, sir?” he asked, more chipper than usual.

“Mark. Mark O’Conner.”

“Thank you, Mr. O’Conner, and your wife’s name?”

They both turned to her, Cupid with a toothy grin, Mark with a “husband’s” gentle leer. She looked to Mark, put her right hand in his left, and turned to Cupid.

“Mrs. O’Conner,” she said.

That first step toward where I've been, away from yesterday, and the burning of flesh and spirit--the renewal and reward of a self-igniting, self-actualizing phoenix--into a dimly lit future. This limitless night holds for me what it does for everyone willing to brave the darkness--the potential, the actual, the desire and drive--and with it an uncertainty that dances in the periphery, illusory yet attractive as Soma and a bed. Bundled and ear-budded, ready for the work, unprepared for the effort, I descend stairs with Brand New Eyes, ready to hear the world for what it is, desiring, on several levels, escape from moments and from impending immediacy and from whatever comes after "next." So I begin to run.

Wondering where I'm going and knowing just as quickly--but also where I would go if my legs had the strength to carry me and my lungs the capacity for forever. Texas, out of habit, comes before I complete the thought, and my entire Life streams through my consciousness--reliving my decisions, affirming my mistakes, re-coming to terms with it all. And just as fast as the lone star was born, providing guidance for a boy lost at sea--or, rather, a boy building his raft while drowning--its brightness peaks in super nova, and I round the corner east--toward Virginia, toward what is/n't.

Inhale the stale night; exhale a burden. Nothing about me goes untouched--each breath a notice from my lips to fingertips that it's worth it to live and to live as such: desiring, achieving, experiencing the end result of that gloriously finite second when the nerve endings in my face send sensations racing toward my consciousness and their reception heralded with a not-so-common-man's fanfare. Bio-chemically no different from the touch of a leaf to my shin, this sensation could not be more different--more intimate, more fulfilling, seemingly more immediate. It's the culmination of my achievements, both concrete and personal, manifest as clear and vivid a reality as Descartes could ever hope for. In the moment, I affirm what is right with me and the world and look momentarily into the indefatigable soul of Benevolence.

Sprinting. I hadn't noticed until now. Nor realized that I had long ago stopped thinking about running. One ear bud down, I ease up, away from a maybe and think of Gump's mindless journey with disdain. Then: To California. To inspiration and a font of genuine happiness. To a fellow traveler who, at times, allows me to nap through it all and, at other times, insists that I drive. To brotherhood (if it means anything). To value. And as quickly as the thought comes it merges with another, and the wind carries me toward Chicago--anything but my kind of town--toward an expatriate past and an evolutionary future--more awe-inspiring than anything I could have fictionalized. "Look what they have accomplished," I whisper in silence. "And think of everything they will conquer." It's a smile, that whisper, but it's not directed merely at them...

An owl asks and my pulse responds, "Me, me." Directed at the accomplishments of last Tuesday--or Wednesday or Friday or Sunday--and at the life-tasks I will check-as-done after tonight. At the magnitude of what has happened in my life because of my realization that it could and because I demanded of myself the strength to do it. At the validity of the process. At the seemingly impossible made inevitable. At satisfaction and contentment. At risk and reward. At the means, ends, journey, and result. At everything that's beautiful about running toward life instead of away from death.

And that's where I finish--apropos: with a sense of achievement. The final steps must have been painful, but I honestly don't remember them as such--only as worthy of having been taken. The last step toward where I might someday be, toward tomorrow, and the burning of flesh and spirit.

"We were born for this."

Yes, Hayley, we were.

Leaving this increasingly Lilliputian world, past the sparrows and malcontent pigeons, their ambition no greater than the immediate and no more inspiring; past flailing kites and the haiku-worty breezes that propel them; past ragged stone peaks and sharpened steel spires, the pinnacle of nature and the as-yet-best of man; past the escaped stuffing of the Earth, as it blots the ground with shifting splotches of shade and fills the sky with Stay Puff splendor; past it all and into a possibility space, where humans used to only dream of looking and now do so with Diet Coke in hand; I can't help but wonder: What next?

They passed me on the elevator, no doubt on their way to the top, a murder of aspiring laywerettes whose heals all made the same flittering rap on the buffed lobby tile. Each had her hair in a respectable bun with faux chopsticks protruding above her air--two antennae intercepting unwelcome transmissions. Her suit was gray and her's light gray--while her's was grayish gray and the one to her right: dark gray with gray trim. They chattered so lightly--their words like gnats buzzing at the entrance to my ears yet lacking the confidence to invade. "Like"s abounded and "Totally"s weren't left out, yet most of their words might as well have been the whir of a boxfan or the hum of a florescent bulb. It wasn't until the elevator door made its triumphant pass that I noticed the silence in the lobby. How comfortable I was with it! Sartre said that "Hell is other people" and from the tone of this post you may be inclined to think he and I intellectual brethren.

And you would be wrong.

For the last week I've been in Las Vegas--working.

Please, don't feel sorry for me in the slightest. I've had plenty of chances to explore the city, and the work I'm doing is pleasurable and exciting.

In fact, I'm working at our organization's annual conference--an intellectual expo--that has reminded me what I loved about (the best parts) of college: Serious ideas, engaging people, and partying until the sun comes up.

OK, so that last part is icing on the social cake. Nonetheless, this conference experience has reopened my eyes to the power of thinking and the joys that come with the action.

Honestly, I never forgot how much I love learning. I read constantly and always try to better myself. But, admittedly, I could (and should) be doing a lot more reading and philosophizing. (Yep. It's a word.)

So starting next month, I'm going to tackle my (literal) stack of books to read by giving up television--for a year. It's not that I don't value television, nor am I arguing that other people should give up television. But after this conference, it seems like a higher value to me to limit my pop culture intake for the sake of my academic interests--especially since I want to go back to grad school at some point.

There is intellectual value in television--don't let anyone tell you otherwise. But there is objectively more intellectual value (for me) in using TV time to read and integrate some serious literature and philosophy. 

I'll still take in the occasional movie or YouTube clip, but this dedication means I'll miss the next seasons of House, Big Bang Theory, and ::sigh:: the NFL.

Oh, and I expect you (yes, you) to keep me honest. It takes a village... 

Marked by the moon, your cheek provides canvas--as the distant light hurriedly dispatches across millions of empty, meaningless miles, evading innumerable obstacles and potential respites for the improbable prospect of finding its purpose in your smile. A fair illumination, despite Romeo's envious satellite, the light draws just attention--not just draws attention--both to your highlighted beauty as well as your presence beyond the rays.

You are here. Like the sun is here--in reflection, in spirit.

A hand transgresses the darkness--as casually as the light is swift--lifting the beam from your face and with it the burden of perception. Notice the difference and ask the question. Take to heart what only you know is the answer. Contrast the hand with your vanished smile, with what is no longer made "object" by a gaze, with the intentions of 10,000 ignorant veils.

Realize, then, that the hand is mine.

Reaching through the tired light toward your cheek, gently gliding as the fingers brush your skin, feeling the intensity of your smile and the clarity of your comfort and the softness of your character, the hand stalls at your lips--stationary but for the pulse, a moment of hesitation, of self-doubt, of "what if," of "what not," of "why not," of "who cares," of reaffirmation. But the time is too great. And its greatness too fleeting. And the light intensifies--painless but bright--until white pervades the spectrum and makes absence the rule.

[...]

Persuaded by the sun, two eyes hesitantly open. Reluctant to acknowledge what the mind has already concluded, a hand reaches out. And where your smile once teased the light into action, a palm finds a pillow--cold to the touch. In the wake of your absence, the hand recoils slightly, feeling foolish and excited and anxious and, among other emotions, everything else.

You were there. Like the light was there--in conception, in love.

But the light remains and with it the "burden" of reality--of realizing that the attainable comes from, not with, the ability to attain, of accepting, not expecting, defeat only if it is just and only if it is real, of running toward life instead of away from death.

There is something to be said about the light. It is actual. It has potential. It is persistent. The hand guides the body to its back then to its opposite side, away from the pillow. Two eyes blink into focus, fixated. They look beyond the immediate, perceiving the possible:

"Good morning," she says.

Over the past 2.5 years, I've lost about 150lbs. (Please hold your applause until the end.) Friends who haven't seen me for awhile often ask, "What's it like to lose all that weight?"

Some cliches stick around because they're apt. And my gut reaction to this question is typically an old favorite, "It's like losing a person"--an overly clingy person who doesn't understand rules of personal space. And who eats a lot. Primarily, though, I tell them that the mental benefits have equaled or outpaced the physical, and that's saying something. They're usually taken aback by my answer, so I explain:

Weight issues are self-esteem issues--barring the recognized medical conditions that cause weight gain--but perhaps not in stereotypical use of the term. I don't mean to imply that everyone who is overweight dislikes themselves or thinks they're not worth the effort to get healthy (though this description certainly does apply to some people.) On the contrary, modern culture has introduced a message of "body pride" into out lives that has given people a reason to ignore their health.

The message goes as such, "Be proud of who you are. Therefore, be proud of your body." Though mainly targeted at women, the implicit intellectual message resonates among all genders because it's simply an extension of the general "pride" that people are supposed to feel about their race, sexuality, and ability/disability.

Leaving aside whether people should be "proud" of traits they can't control--unashamed, yes, but proud?--the danger here is equating genetic lottery with volitional choice. People begin to take a passive mentality to their weight. "It's just the way I am," they argue. "I can't help it."

But body mass is not determined. Choosing to eat unhealthy foods is not the same as your sexuality or skin color, etc. You don't have free will to turn off your sexuality, but you do have it to put down that third cupcake.

Unfortunately for our current culture, we have a difficult time accepting that we're the master's of our destiny. Add weight to a lengthy list of attributes that we take as beyond our capacity to control. How many times have you heard: "I'm just bad at math," "I just can't learn foreign languages," "I just don't have a knack for musical instruments."

Sure, some people have a natural inclination toward those or other abilities, just as some people have better metabolisms than others, but we're all thinking, reasoning, problem-solving human beings, and if we focused our effort on any of the aforementioned skills, we could master them--at least to some degree. That's the beauty of having free will.

Understanding that something is possible is the necessary first step to achieving it. The next is determination--which in the case of weight loss, comes from an unwavering sense of genuine self-esteem, a rational ego that loves life and loves what the world has to offer. But that's a topic for another post...

I rode the metro with an astronaut yesterday--at least I think he was an astronaut. He was wearing a flight suit, and the patch on his arm had a little shuttle in front of an Earth. He exited at the Pentagon stop. Yes, I'm sure he was an astronaut. Otherwise that helmet would have been pointless.

I stopped by a lake today on my way home from lunch. I thought, "Just what I need--a serene lake." So I walked to the shore and sat on a picnic bench and went looking for "the Serene." Oh, I found it. Don't think I'm going to say it wasn't there, that this whole trip was for nothing. No, no. I thought that at first, too--as I sat there staring at the lake. "This doesn't 'do it' for me," I thought. "It's water. I get more excited when it comes from my faucet." The guy at the bench next to me seemed to like it, though. He had his hands behind his head in a very satisfied manner. He stared at the water with a vague smile. He found the Serene in the lake, in its undulating splashes on the shore below. Well, at least I think he did. Granted I never asked him. He might have been as bored as I was, just sitting there thinking about the gorgeous  girl in the biking shorts that just rode by. He noticed her. You couldn't convince me that he didn't... His smile did change, though, when a speed boat went by. It went from vague to vanished (his smile, not the boat). His hands went down to his lap and he slowly got up to leave. I think. I wasn't staring any more because I was too busy drooling over this boat. It must have been going 50, 60 thousands miles per hour. "You don't know." I wanted to meet that guy, the owner, and convince him to share his vessel. I wanted to cut through the water and disturb those ridiculous-looking birds--the ones with the really thin beak and flat head. I wanted to relate with the person who looked at this lake or whatever body of water it was and said, "Your waves are pathetic." And so, you see, I did find the Serene. It just had more horsepower that I was expecting.

I was walking up the escalator yesterday, because that's what people do in DC even when they're 30 minutes early for work, and I passed a crazy woman entering the metro. I know she was crazy because she was wearing a silver dress, loads of eye shadow, and not much else while singing at the top of her lungs--something about her uncle. And since this wasn't college, I could certify her insane. Here's the thing. I might have been the only person who noticed her. Again, that's what people do in DC; they actively donotnotice things. Most city dwellers are similar, I imagine--from New York to Chicago to Dallas to LA. There's so much crazy that if you took time to notice it all you'd waste those 30 minutes and end up being late.

I will ride the metro again next week--to and from work, five days a week--and if I see that astronaut again I think I'll introduce myself. Or how about this: I'll at least say good morning to the person who sits next to me--especially if that person is an astronaut. Or a speed-boater. Or a crazy, singing, silver-dress-wearing psychopath. Or that girl from the bike path.

Especially if it's that girl from the bike path.

Trying your best to Express disinterest, your face betrays your motives--those glasses may reflect my momentary gaze, but they more clearly reflect a waning commitment to solitude. It's more difficult to ignore, to pretend that the lives around you are less interesting than another Toy Story review, than to admit "defeat" and say, "Good morning."

Your eyes, anchored in ink, splash across potential conversations, returning from each micro-escape to the AP's latest nuance of the oil spill and the reality of filtered reality. "How did you break your foot?" "Where did you get that tie?" "Who are you listening to?" "How long have you played the trombone?" "What do you enjoy most about DC?" "Is that a Skagen watch?" "Have you heard the latest about BP?" Ad finitum. Or at least until Metro Center. 

Make it explicit, that desire for benevolence, and I will prove you right. Discard what you've been taught about the nature of man, and I will show you true friendship. Ask the universe about the just and the beautiful, and I, as one embodiment, will answer, "They exist."

Like more than 1.5 million people yesterday, I spent not-an-insignificant portion of my day in a line--about 3.5 hours, realistically--queued behind fanboys, fangirls, and the occasional grandmother who thought she was waiting to have her driver's license renewed. No fewer than 300 people were patiently standing, sitting, or curled up in the fetal position when I arrived at the Pentagon City Apple store to pick up my reserved iPhone4.

I walked the length of the horde, which stretched roughly half way around the circular complex, and took my place at the rear.

"This is the reserve line?" I said with an inflection of disbelief. The guy in front of me just stared blankly. We exchanged silence. He asked gingerly, demonstrating that he wasn't a native English speaker, "iPhone?"

Here I found myself in an interesting predicament.
1. I didn't know if this was the correct line.
2. I speak 1.5 languages--the .5 being Pig Latin.
3. The guy in front of the guy in front me had his headphones in.
4. So did the girl in front of him.

I decided to wing it. "This is the line for reserved iPhone, I think." He tilted his head a bit in the universal "quizzical look" gesture. He replied, "No reserve."

Here I found myself in an interesting predicament.
1. Did he mean that he didn't have a phone reserved?
2. Did he mean that this wasn't the reserve line?
3. Was he making a statement about America's energy policy?

Finding no way to remedy this situation, I began reaching for my headphones when a woman approached quickly, speaking a language I didn't understand--read: all of them. She walked up to the guy in front of me, and they exchanged (seemingly) angry words. She pointed at the store. He pointed at the store. She pointed at her watch. He pointed at me. I waved. She pointed at the store again. They walked away hurriedly.

Score. One spot closer to magical goodness. (Or was that the iPad...?)

Then I waited, last in line, by myself, hungry and somewhat parched. I brought nothing but my bag from work--inside which the most edible item was a book on social media. After twenty minutes of fascinating standing--I'd describe it but I don't want this post to become as pointless as most of the scenes in Lord of the Rings--the line finally moved. I picked up my bag, threw it over my shoulder, and walked forward six steps. Then I took my bag off my shoulder, put it back on the ground, and resumed standing. Repeat ad nauseum.

This post-modern line dance continued for what seemed like 2.5 hours but was actually closer to 2.3. The highlight / worst part about the standing was when people started showing up behind me. At first it was exciting--new people wearing headphones to avoid conversation! Yes! Then hunger hit hard, and my active imagination hit overdrive, scheming and planning ways to barter with the folks around me so I could get some food.

Plan 1: Pay the guy-in-front-of-me's girlfriend to get me a Subway sandwich much like she did for her now-not-hungry boyfriend. I would politely ask if she would accept $20 to run down to the lower level to retrieve a six inch ... and that's when I realized that this was going to be impossible. Here's what I wanted: A six inch tuna on wheat with provolone cheese (untoasted), lettuce, onion, banana peppers, jalapenos, cucumber, salt & pepper, and a dash of light mayo; regular baked Lays; and a Minute Maid Light Lemonade. Having nothing to write with, I abandoned plan 1. 

Plan 2: I turned to the kid behind me who was, luckily, writing in a journal! My keen powers of perception picked up on his checking his watch and touching his stomach. He was obviously hungry. This was going to be a cinch. I decided that I would announce my hunger to him in a I'm-trying-to-make-conversation sort of way. When he inevitably responded, "Me, too," I would offer to give him money and save his place in line if he ran down to Subway and got me a six inch tuna, etc. Because I tend to get Machiavellian when my blood sugar drops, I assumed that he would say, "Why don't I give you money and you go instead?" To which I would reply, "Because, good sir, I have nothing to gain from your leaving the line since you are directly behind me. It's in my self-interest to save your spot while you get me food. On the contrary, I'm in front of you, and if I were to leave with a mere $5 of your money, it may be worth it for you to move ahead one space and disavow our prior agreement upon my return." Or something like that.  

But as I was refining my rhetoric, the kid behind me turned to the guy behind him and asked, "Hey, do you mind if I go get something to eat?" That guy, whose headphones must have been on a rather low volume, simply replied, "Sure, no problem." The kid left.

Plan 3: Do exactly what that kid did.

But by the time I collected by focus, an Apple representative, who may well have been royalty judging by the celebration of her arrival, made her way through the line. But instead of weaving pleasant tapestries, she sung tales of woe at the store and displeasure at the Kingdom's feudal laws. [End silly metaphor.]

Apparently, the mall had a strict policy that would not let Apple stay open after hours. And there was much groaning. They would not be able to get us our phones this evening. But the fair Apple maiden did not leave us empty handed. In place of iPhone, she granted us favors of Holy "Extended Reservation Vouchers." And there was a little bit of rejoicing--more so, less groaning. [OK. I'm really done now.]

Walking back to the Metro, shiny new voucher in hand, I thought this is what pre-historic man must have felt like, devoting time and braving the elements to hunt game only to end up with a coupon for future stores of mammoth rump.

It wasn't all bad, though. At least I made some new friends--foreign-language guy (and his sister/wife/girlfriend), guy in front of me wearing headphones, kid behind me wearing headphones and writing in his journal, and who could forget you, Apple maiden. You were the fairest of them all.

[P.S. -- I did get my shiny new iPhone today. (Thanks, Keith-the-Apple-guy.) It works beautifully. I used it to find a barbecue recipe for mammoth.]