TUESDAY, 20 JUNE, 2000, 37,000' OVER TEXARKANA

God, my ass is toe-tuh-lee asleep right now. Why is this country so unnecessarily large? I’m looking out the plane window at Arkansas right now and seeing a whole lotta nuttin’ goin’ on, and I’m thinkin’ to m’self, “Self, (comma), all these bits could be cut out and pretty much no one would miss them. Then the two coasts would be closer together and my ass wouldn’t be asleep right now from sitting in a succession of midget-sized æreoplanes all the live-long day.” If I ran the country… Anyway, California was lovely, if not hectic. Mom had these weird cabinets and closets that looked teensey-weensey, but as you started to pack them up, expanded to near infinity like that hallway Jo Beth Williams runs down at the end of “Poltergeist”. As a result, I’m sore and exhausted and cranky, and gee! gosh! can’t wait! to “get” to go to work tomorrow. Kee-ryst, the Marquis just needs a fucking two week vacation with no plans nor responsibilities. He’s such a grumpy gussy! Very unattractive attitude, that boy. Looked like there was gonna be trouble at the æreoport this morning, too. I wasn’t in their computers and it was an oversold flight to Dallas. “Nuh-uh,” I thought, “not this again. We played this game coming out west.” So I went to a competent-looking check-in woman (bumpy flight made me originally typo that thus: “competent-looking chicken woman”) and when she started to give me alternatives to flight times and departure and arrival æreoports, I held up a hand, put on my most charmingest, smiliest face and dripped saccharine from every syllable: “After three canceled flights, delaying my already short trip a day, a bump to another airline and subsequent lost luggage on my trip out here, don’t you think it would be an appropriate gesture to see if there’s any way to get me home without incident?” Sugary sweet and beaming eyes. Internally, I was revving up my bitch-motor, but I am grateful to report that it was not necessary. The woman agreed and even managed to find comfy extra-leggy spaces for your extra-leggy Marquis. Okay, reading pissy travel stories is dull, I know, I apologise, but I just have to get this one other thing off my chest. So I’m in Dallas for an hour, outside enjoying my smokietreat, smelling the Texas air and thinking it sorta smells New Orleans’y, and I’m going back into the æreoport to board my plane to Philly and I have to go through the metal detector again and of course it goes off because I’m wearing my punkrock 3-tiered metal studded belt and it sets off æreoport alarms, car alarms, store security alarms, fire alarms, you name it. “It’s the belt,” I explain to the dim-looking security dude. “Does this all the time. Just scan the belt with your … raygun … or whatever it is.” “Can you take the belt off sir?” Boyfriend obviously had not a clue as to the pain and time consumption it takes to apply and manipulate punkrock accessories. “Um, no, not really because it’s too wide and takes about 25 minutes to get back through the loops and…” “Just take the belt off and walk through and that should take care of the beeping,” he replies. “Yah, of course it will, but the problem is that the belt takes 20 minutes to get back on and…” “Just take the belt off sir and everything will be all right.” So I spend ten minutes yanking and ripping this damn thing off my waist, pants all fallin’ down like I’m some cranked-up hip-hop suburban teenage date-rapist. Put the belt in the little tray. Walk through. No beep. “See?” grins the security dude, “I told you it would work.” He seems pleased and wants a response from me akin to, “Aw, thanks, you’re right. I never would’ve thunk it.” Instead, I attempt to match his sweet helpful smile and, after mildly shaking my belt in the air a couple of times, I reply through a mouthful of smiley-wiley teeth, “Dumbass.” Then I go hide out in a toilet stall for 20 minutes getting my godamned belt back on.