Grumpy mood...

Grumpy mood...

I'm writing this at about 8am from the Gate A7 at SBN. I'm enroute to Orlando for three days for a conference.

For the last 18 hours I've found my mood going down hill, and I finally realized why when I walked into the airport moments ago and started running into the TSA. I guess reading March in My Name has got me thinking more about security.

I had been thinking my mood shift was due to going on the road again - which certainly contributes to it - but two weeks ago I jumped in the car and drove up to Madison and I found myself looking forward to it. So why was this bugging me?

Air travel sucks to begin with. Planes are packed. Actually they're overbooked. The ticket agents and gate attendants are over-worked and over-loaded and have little control over much of what happens. And as a traveler I sometimes want to start mooing like a cow being herded out to the slaughter house.

Then you have to take your shoes off.

Maybe there is a good security reason for it, but let me call it what it is: demeaning. There is an old woman waiting a few rows away. She is probably my mother's age - well into her 80s. She had to take her shoes off. There other people in the area look like me - oh there are different ages and colors and genders. But we're all alike. None of us have a nefarious scheme up our sleeve. No plan to blow our plane out of the air. No intent to wrestle the flight attendant to the floor and commandeer the cockpit enroute to Chicago to crash it into the Sears tower.

I'm sick of air travel. Oh that we had fast trains that were better on the environment.

Tony Hellerman writes about purging ceremonies practiced by the Navajo when they've faced deep evil. Maybe I need a ceremonial purging when I get home.

I'll get over this.

"The Transportation and Security Administration reminds you we continue to operate under a threat level of Orange... Unattended baggage will be confiscated... Fear this..."

Update - It is just after 6pm. My 2nd flight was only 30 minutes late. On arrival I caught the Disney Magic Express bus that took about an hour and a half to get to my hotel. I got everything set up for tomorrow, and then went for a short run. But since there is no such thing as a running trail within 5 miles of my hotel I ran on the narrow, shoulder-less roads around Disney. Remind me sometime to tell you how it reminded me of a conversation a few weeks ago with friends about men spitting in public places.

Regardless, even a short run does wonders for my mooooo...d.

Actually Disney World is the perfect background for my current book: Kathleen Norris - The Cloister Walk. I recommend it (the book, not DW).