I'm well over the halfway point, and at 20 days, 48 flights and 30 different airports, I'm starting to get a little tired.
Wait… no, little's not right. I'm just trying to convince myself there. I'm really tired. Not tired of the trip, or flying, or anything like that, which surprises me. I fully expected that by this point I'd be fostering an unhealthy animosity towards all things related to aviation, picking fights with ticketing agents and leaving half eaten sandwiches in seatback pockets. But somehow it just hasn't happened yet.
It may be because I've been spending more of my flight time asleep. By this point I've found ways to maximize the hours I'll get in airports at night, but even on a good run, you're lucky to grab more than four at a time. Even small airports don't really shut down until midnight, and by five in the morning things are going again. Add in cleaning crews, non-stop announcements, being woken by airport police, and the general discomfort of sleeping on floors and benches, and I'm finding that a little peace and quiet is hard to come by in this environment.
So, in response, I've taken to sleeping on planes more. At first this worried me, as I was concerned that I'd have fewer people to write about. A person like Shauna doesn't come by often, after all. But through either fate or someone in the ticketing office, I seem to keep having encounters with loose screws.
Some are short stories; barely enough to exceed a Twitter update. Take the lady with the Romanian accent across the aisle from me, who sat silently watching the same JetBlue commercial run over and over for an entire ninety-minute flight. Without headphones. Or the man who stormed into the baggage claim office, demanding to know the "first and last name of EACH and EVERY ONE of you. You're all HEARTLESS. You LIE!" Joe Wilson rhetoric aside, his anger felt more comical than anything, as if he were auditioning for a play. I later found that he was upset not because the airline lost his luggage but because he wasn't able to find his girlfriend at the baggage claim.
Others have been very pleasant to be around. Patrick and Sophy, two readers in the Washington area, drove down to Baltimore to see me and to act as my taxi to a race on airport property. I heard about the race while doing the initial planning for the trip, and thought, why not? I ran track and cross country in college, so even after two and a half weeks of straight flying, four miles shouldn't have fazed me.
The race took place at a cargo complex across from Baltimore's terminal, a somewhat dilapidated building that was really little more than a warehouse. A few hundred people showed up, and as we all lined up into self-assigned groups for the start, I tried to determine which one I would fit in best. I settled for a point midway through the seven minute milers, reasoning that while I had no problem knocking out a much faster pace in my prime, I would be moving a little slower due to the nonstop traveling. Besides, that way I could gradually move up through the pack.
I don't recall the precise moment when I later realized how optimistic I had been, as most of the race was painful, painful blur. I think it was at some point between being passed by a topless seventy year old man and a group of preteen girls. By the second mile, I had taken to clamping my hands to my ears while passing the mile markers so I wouldn't hear my time.
My vain attempts to distract myself from the mounting pain in my legs by talking with other racers were met with cold stares. "They don't really like to talk to other people around here," Sophy later explained. "They think it's suspicious." Considering what it must've looked like to see an unkempt man wheezing up a hill while trying to make conversation, I guess I can't blame them.
In retrospect, it wasn't really the flying that did me in so much as the thirty-five pounds I've put on since college. And while I didn't finish with a good time, recognition from the race director or even one of the plastic medals they give to the low-placing runners to boost their self-esteem, I was still able to walk away with the gait of a man learning to walk on a new set of artificial joints. I now stagger around the airport like a drunk, groaning whenever I hit an incline.
I spent the night in JetBlue's baggage service office at the insistence of a local manager. It had a door that could lock and an air mattress sitting around for me to borrow, so it seemed like a welcome change from hiding underneath a darkened staircase.
With its plate glass windows looking out into the claim area, the baggage office became a zoo exhibit, with me as the central attraction. Several flights arrived after I moved in, each one bringing a new crowd of travelers to see me in what I realized actually was my natural environment. A few actually took to tapping on the glass. By the time I was finally able to get to sleep, eleven people had stuck in their heads to figure out what I was doing, with many more approaching close enough for a better view. Three offered to share the bed with me. I made up a different story for each, ranging from sociological experimentation to taking on the guise of a confused foreigner who mistook the office for a small hostel.
As night gave way to day, I was on my way to the next destination. Boston, Pittsburgh, Rochester… they all start blending together. I frequently look up to realize that I'm completely unaware of where I am. My memory only holds a 24-hour window on my schedule, and the fact that I'm missing my phone (along with its attendant calendar) adds to the confusion.
It makes for good stories, I suppose. I kept a news team in Rochester entertained by my confusion, funny gait and sleepy absentmindedness. You'd think that all of this would embarrass me, but really, by this point I'm all maxed out.
This afternoon I'll head to New Orleans, a city that I've been infatuated with for some time now. It has nothing to do with the revelry of Bourbon Street or the culture of the French Quarter, although I'll admit the food does play a role. I can't put my finger on it what it is, to tell the truth. But I'll gladly welcome anyone who wants to visit me there. After that, it's up to Chicago, which took three hours of schedule shuffling to accommodate.
In the meantime, if you see a guy in a black jacket and red backpack shuffling around the terminal, looking confused, take pity on me. A simple three letter airport code will work just as well as a hello.
Follow Terminal Man’s travels on Twitter @Flyered and check out his itinerary on Google Maps. You can also track his flights on Monday to New York and New Orleans, and those on Tuesday to New York and Chicago through FlightAware. And check out his previous posts here.
