i'm sitting in terminal c at raleigh-durham airport. i hesitate to say international, but it probably is. the plaque commemorating its opening says 1987, but i could tell that anyway, from the pink neon greeting and 45-degree angles everywhere.
my plane was late. tracey's is later. i'm beginning to think i should have taken the afternoon off and gone straight to wilmington rather than this brilliant plan of driving from rdu.
this place is dire. it's interesting to read the articles back home decrying how many local companies are being bought by faceless conglomerates in north carolina or cincinnati. you get to thinking of it as this southern juggernaut where everything is as big and clean as a spanking new wal-mart and costs half as much. i mean, big, international corporations are headquartered here, and this airport is bush-league. for one, one can't get a bite to eat at 8pm (tracey's voicemail had hopes of a veggie burger that will likely go unfulfilled, because the food options in the slightly-less-crappy terminal flew their meat flag proud, and because they're all closed, and because this terminal is an embarrassing shithole. i mean, really, if you're flying in to do business with one of these companies, i have to think you're pretty damned underwhelmed.
the flight attendant on my flight had an ass that consumed every inch of space between the seat backs, all the way out to the tapered upper portion. it was impressive, like some character from a miyazaki movie or the triplets of belville. suffice it to say, it made it hard to type.
an interesting thing about people using their cell phone on headsets is that they're wholly oblivious to their surroundings. clearly this isn't any new revelation, but i watched one such gargoyle totally usurp another's conversation space, without missing a blab. they always talk just like lumberg, too, even if they're women. it's horrifying, really. anyway, the usurp-ee proceeded to flee the interloper, as if from an example of newtonian physics, and proceeded to move her conversation to the chair where i was sitting. i mean, mere inches from my knee. it was great. i paused monday's episode of 24 and moved.
i love airports.