I spent $5 on a pen. I literally paid five whole dollars (plus tax) in an airport gift shop surrounded by trash magazines and #1 bestselling paperbacks for a feeble green click-on click-off pen that had Florida in italics on the side, just so that I would write. A writer without a pen. I guess I deserved to pay such a price for such an infringement (note: as in my life everything is measured by Starbucks, do you know that $5 is like two grande bolds?! or a venti soy latte?! or a grande iced coffee!?) But the pen was necessary as I had 5 hours to wait in the West Palm Beach Airport for my flight back to New York. I read all of my reading material and called all the appropriate people and balanced my checkbook and braided and unbraided my hair and then needed to write, as there was nothing left to do. I don’t typically write with a pen and paper (hence, no pen) and struggled to get my hand working up to the same speed as my brain. After the carpal tunnel set in I gave up and simply sat and watched people as the passed. Families with screaming children (note to all parents everywhere: please get your kids under control), couples crying goodbye or kissing hello and I sat and watched and counted down the hours, for there were several.
I thought about how I insulted a member of 80’s hair band White Snake at a bar when the roughly 55 year old man (Michael?) with bleached hair looking somewhat cracked out asked for my phone number and I didn’t know who he was. Who born in the 1980’s knows who White Snake is? I was what, 5 when they were supposedly big? Please. Even then I was listening to Prokofiev at 6 and Coltrane at 10. I wasn’t the best girl for him to pick and when he looked at me slyly and asked “have you ever met a rock star before?” I thought to tell him the story about when I was running down Newbury Street early one morning two years ago and literally ran into Steven Tyler, almost knocking him over. That’s basically meeting, right? Instead I gave him a fair rendition of a withering look and simply said “no, and I’m still waiting.”
Can one really be a groupie to a band one has never heard of?
I also thought about how earlier that morning, midway through my cup of French Roast at brunch, the waiter, young, tall and somewhat oafish was holding my half-eaten plate of egg-white omelet when he looked at me and said “Can I just tell you that you’re really very beautiful.” I sat and blinked, the cup poised in my hands ready for consumption and felt my cheeks go red. What is with this place? People here are just incredibly open and honest. Maybe there’s something in the water. Embarrassed and flattered I mumbled a thank you. He nodded and walked away and his declaration had caused the rest of the diners to look over, I suppose to gauge for themselves how accurate his statement really was.
I don’t know what the consensus was, but I know I liked it there.
Anyway, I’m back in New York now and back to reality where there are no beaches or friendly cab drivers, where Just Wants To Get Laid Man is everywhere and Sensitive Man is a lot harder to find. Where perhaps has-been band members still lurk in dark bars and I still won’t know who they are. As great as getting away is, there’s no better sight than Manhattan at night from 10,000 feet, and as you look down on the colossal city with its lights shining below you, you think to yourself that vacations are great, but it sure is good to be home.
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