It's rush hour.

And Reflection is like that semi that's trying to merge into my lane in front of me, and I really want to let him, because I'm a nice guy and all, but I'm late for my flight and going to go ahead make the justification that keeping this one vehicle out of my path is necessary. Nice guys finish last.

Is this irony? The other cars in my life represent all the stuff I have to do. There's other eighteen wheelers. And the lane I'm in is my life today. And because of all the other cars already in my lane, I really don't want to let this streetcar named Reflection merge into my lane at the moment. He's one of those double-tractor-trailer units and everyone knows how long they take to get over. Metaphor explained:  I don't come to conclusions easily, especially when they're about me.


Earlier I said I was late for my flight. I guess that makes the airport the proverbial "end of the day". Where am I headed? Eh. Maybe if I'd taken the extra few minutes to let Reflection in, I might've given my travel plans an adequate amount of thought. Time to throw darts at the departure board.

That reminds me of my man Jimmy Buffett. In "Changes in Latitudes" he says that reading departure signs in some big airport reminds him of the places he's been. I have a couple of exceptions in mind, but I think for me it would be mostly the opposite; that list of departures would remind me of the places I haven't been.

James goes on to talk about how he thinks about Paris when he's high on red wine. That would be somewhere I'd like to go. I watched the movie Midnight In Paris recently. I know I'd be nowhere near as appreciative of all the culture as Owen Wilson's character was, at least not at first - just for lack of knowledge. I might decide to move there, like he does, and meet a nice French girl, and come home from work for a two hour lunch everyday, and find the holy grail, and hate on America even though they saved France on multiple occasions... I want to see if I fit into Paris's legendary romance.

Or French Polynesia. That was my plan in high school. Head out to French Polynesia and become a pearl diver. Their economy basically runs on pearls like ours runs on cheap Chinese-manufactured goods. Actually that's a bad analogy seeing as the key to the cheap costumer goods is that they're made in China - i.e. imported. French Polynesia exports the pearls...I guess I can't make an analogy after all because the United States doesn't export anything anymore.

Better plan - if what I want is a beach, maybe I'll lucky and my plane will crash on a beautiful, mysterious island and I'll just get Lost.

In conclusion I decided to avoid the real meat of this post by going off on a tangent instead. I think in doing so, I actually got some of the potatoes. Where am I headed? To the airport. For what purpose? To catch a flight. Where? I don't know yet. Why? Don't know that either. Maybe I'll do some reflection once I get there.

The airport is both the destination of a journey and the beginning of its own journey; I suppose I could get stuck in the airport like Tom Hanks did in Terminal, in which case I will be a little disappointed.