Shoulder Section, Medium Rare

I almost entitled this entry "Et in Philadelphia Ego Sum," because here I am in Philadelphia. Then I decided that would be pretentious and I should forget about the whole thing, altogether. So I put it here. Better to be pretentious in the text than in the title. Right.

Friday afternoon, I left work and went to O'Hare airport around four o'clock for my seven-thirty flight, thinking that if I didn't arrive early, the forces of irony (and there are forces of irony, make no mistake about it) would find a way to delay my flight. But naturally, since I had thought ahead, I had my boarding pass and was through security in roughly twenty minutes, which left me about two-and-a-half hours to kill. So I wandered around O'Hare for a while, exploring the terminal for food options.

I also made my traditional trip to Japanese Heaven, a light display in the throughway between B and C sections of Terminal 1. I can't quite describe it to give it justice without going on for several pages, but it's a darkened tunnel, lit in pastels from compartments behind the walls. Above you, as you travel on a moving walkway, a display of neon blue squiggles and day-glow orange diamonds usher you forward, through the color spectrum. Around you, electronic musicbox music tinkles lightly, underscored by recorded feminine voices, sweetly chanting, "Please look down, the moving walkway will end shortly." At the end of the tunnel, when the lights have moved you through the blues, into reds and oranges, and then back into the blues, you find yourself at the foot of another escalator, this one with white light pouring down through it from the terminal above. Where does it lead? You won't know until you go up it, will you? The feeling of the place is so very pseudo-anime Tokyo and incredibly dream-like. I can't help but imagine it's what happens to Japanese people when they die.

After I visited Japanese Heaven and had gotten something to eat, I wandered back to my gate and discovered my flight was delayed for another two hours. I blame myself for this. Every time I fly, I have to make it a point, if I can, to have a Cinnabon. This time, I skipped it in favor of my health. And the result was another two hours in O'Hare. By the time I reached Philly, four hours later, I was beat. My dad picked me up at the airport and whisked me off to the shore, where I promptly fell alseep.

When I woke up the next day and walked out on the patio, the sound of the surf greeted me, along with a cool salty, fishy breeze. I had forgotten how awesome and rejuvenating the ocean is. I spent the last three days basically submerged in it, bobbing up and down, letting the waves pound me, or riding them when I could. And it's amazing: if you want to feel small but powerful, insignificant but interconnected, spend some time in the ocean. Because no matter how strong you are, no matter how willful, the ocean is always stronger and more persistant. But at the same time, you are no less strong than anyone else, and when you touch the ocean, you're touching everything else. You're touching distant shores. You're touching the birthplace of life. You're touching the primordial blood. It's beautiful. It's unspeakably beautiful.

I should also add that bobbing up and down in the water and letting the waves pound me was remarkably meditative. I came up with, as I always seem to do when I'm in the water, several ideas for short stories. I've become fascinated with the notion of a "floating court," which is a palace of royalty whose location isn't fixed. There's got to be something I can do with that.

Now I'm back in Philly, dominating my dad's laptop. My shoulder is slightly burnt from the sun (just the right one...the left one is still pale), and my face has some color in it. Of course, it had color before. Horse-glue white is a color.

Off to more vacationing. Ciao.