Traveling again. I nearly never do that.

Over the years, traveling has been fermented, and then distilled, and then cask aged into the worst possible version of itself. Until tomorrow, that is, when it will no doubt top itself again. I stood in my socks with my hands over my head and was x-rayed to see if I was carrying an RPG or shampoo or anything else that might be handy to travel with. I had to fight the urge to Cool Hand Luke it and say, “Takin’ it off, boss,” when the security docent told me I’d be frisked if I was still wearing a sweater. I was likewise admonished that tissues in your pocket would elicit the same patdown. There doesn’t seem to be any governor on the throttle to silliness in an airport anymore.

When it was finally determined by the authoritays in polyester panstsuits that the lean and hungry expression on my face was solely due to me simply being lean and hungry for reals, I was duly vomited into the concourse world that I’d inhabit for the rest of the day. I’m unsure whether the janitorial staff, Homeland Security personnel, or the Center for Disease Control were summoned to inspect and dispose of my tissues. I wish them well, but my sleeve might have other opinions.

Anyone worried about the closure of all of America’s malls is misguided. They’re all still there. They just land planes in the middle of them now. The 1970s version of the thousand-yard zombie stare outside the JC Penney’s has morphed into the stumbling female texting missile vectoring aimlessly down the concourse outside the terminal stalls selling inedible food, tchotchkes, Lionel Messi shirts, and regular messy shirts, all spangled with more logos than a race car, but that’s about the only difference.

I can’t imagine what people think they look like. I’m getting older, and bring my own consort, but I still like looking at pretty girls wandering by. But they don’t. The girls take nature’s bounty and squander it until Father Time removes the opportunity altogether. On the flip side, a handsome, well-turned out man is a hen’s tooth in an airport. America wants to look like death row inmates, call girls, or manatees, with a dermis like the back of a deck of cards, and will brook little variation on the theme.

One gleans impressions of whole cities from airports, which is unfair, I’ll admit, but I’m no monument to justice. You get a vibe as the plane banks low over the tangle of streets and the middens of houses. Philadelphia is… not attractive from the air. Inside the airport, it’s also pretty grim. Americans can be kinda snooty about the rest of the world, but don’t look very closely at their own environs. Philly needs a makeover. Perhaps a pillar of fire, or a coat of fresh paint, at least, but I fear it’s not going to get either.

We flew to Philly in a jet I couldn’t stand up in. I nearly had to crawl into the hull from the jetway. The stew was the usual female linebacker they hire these days, and with me sitting next to the puny aisle, I got more pummeling and hip checks than any hockey game I’ve been in. The crew murmured unintelligible microphone instructions to save ourselves with seat cushions if that bitch Becky was the pilot today, or something similar, who knows? But we scooted up into the assorted cirrus and plopped down uneventfully on the various tarmacs, followed by dudebro pilots clearing their loudspeaker throats and dutifully telling us the temperature outside, a place we would never go.

Miami next. The plane was bigger. I almost fit in the seat, in the same sort of way a baby almost fits in a mother. The plane banked low over the corduroy ocean and the barrier islands appeared. It was like a cloud city in Flash Gordon compared to Portland and Philadelphia. The buildings were split fairly evenly between Minecraft/Hot Wheels designs, and the thirty story air conditioning vent motif popular down where Castellano scents the conversational breezes. The remainder of the buildings appear to be giant stacks of dinner plates, with the occasional Deco wedding cake mixed in. Portland, Maine was tan snow. Philadelphia was gray pavement. Miami was turquoise, and downright cheerful-looking from the air.

Things began to look up while boarding for Merida, Mexico. The general look of the passengers was more stylish. The women wore their inky hair in simple plaits, and their clothes fit properly, and looked well-chosen for traveling. The men dressed athletically, and were well-groomed. A gaggle of college age kids were traveling together, laughing and passing in and out of their group like minnows. They refreshed our appetite for the human race. They were medical students from Florida, going to meet up with medicos from Merida. They were going to go out into the landscape and see if they could learn something, and maybe help some people. One of the girls, with pearls for teeth and aggie eyes, told me about their hejira while we were parked on the runway waiting for the air traffic controller to rise from their slumber, or sober up, or whatever. She demonstrated the true benefits of her youth by immediately falling asleep after takeoff, bolt upright in the plane’s torture chairs. She’ll go far as a resident with a talent like that.

[To be continued]