I’m in the Jacksonville airport now. I just dropped off Becca and T on their way to Pittsburg for a week. I’ll be back in Melbourne by the time they get back. I’m sitting here in the lobby waiting for her to call and say that her plane is boarding. I used to like sitting at the gates and watching people. Here and the beach… but I don’t do that anymore. I don’t have that kind of idle time. Maybe things were easier when we were younger. When we had less responsibility and even less to be responsible for.
I forgot how soothing it was to sit and watch other people go on with their busy lives and I have nowhere to be. Teresa and Becca, that guy over there with the high-water pants, that woman with her fat butt sticking out of her low-riding jeans. The kids running around seemingly unsupervised, the old lady being pushed in that wheel-chair. They all have somewhere to go and a schedule to keep. Not me. Not right now. I’ve got the weekend off and I’m spending it minute by minute. I’ve got to be at work 8am Monday and nowhere in between. Right now, I’m watching couples embrace and kiss at the concourse exit and couples cry and kiss at the concourse entrance. Security guards that don’t know how to do their jobs and people selling Cinnabon. None of them notice me. I sit here typing away and it seems somehow less conspicuous than it did years ago when I was scribbling in a notebook. Everyone’s got a laptop now.
Well, laptops are so last week. You’re not keeping up unless you’ve got a Blackberry. It used to be pagers, then cell phones, PDA’s iPods and laptops. Now one machine the size of your hand will do all that for you. Do we need to be THAT in touch? I love it when I get away for a week without cell phones and computers. As living things evolve and adapt to their surroundings, I’m waiting to hear a bird chirp like a Nextel phone.
Ohhh, celebrity watch: Senator Bob Graham is sitting 2 seats away from me. How many people now a days can recognize their local government representatives? I would bet that 90% of the people in this room my age and probably well over 50% of all the people in this room think he’s just a nice old man in a blue suit, even if he were introduced by name. Sad.
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