Saturday, November 8, 2008

Ana huma, huma hunaaka.

I'm not the type to ask but I asked. "OMG Wheeerrree did you get your bag?"
It was a one-strap Kashmiri embroidered tote, identical to the ones I collect each time I go back, and apparently hailing from the Austin City Limits Music festival circa 2006 where it sells for 10 times what it costs in Lal Chok. The woman was dressed entirely in black leather.
"You know it's funny because I wasn't even going to wear it today it totally clashes with my outfit."
"Yeah I know, it does. It's pretty though. It looks Spanish." I'm not sure why I said any of those things.

At the terminal I struggled to load facebook and stream The Office and eat a bagel at the same time. If I don't publish my mood to all my old friends from high school how can I be sure I'm really feeling it?

"[random russian gibberish from man nearby]"
-What?
He looked remotely desperate and I thought maybe he was asking for my bagel.
"Russian?"
-Oh, no, I'm not Russian.
"Aremenian?" -No
"Turkish?" -No
"Greek?" -No, I get that a lot though. I mean, when I'm in Greece. I mean, when I was in Greece that one time.
"You really really look Greek."
-Then why did you guess all those other things?
He started yelling to his wife to make sure she remembered to order his coffee.

The world is getting bigger and more self-aware.
These relationships will slowly help me develop a nationality that encompasses both where I'm going and where I've been. I just want to be truthful.
Then the problem of finding a word for it.
I might have to move a century back to find the point of origin. There. That.
Them!
Say it enough times.

There is something particular about the waiting area in the Buffalo Airport, since it can be assumed that for the most part, only some emergency or devastating news or familial obligation can bring people to Buffalo from some other place on a night like this. And somehow it drains enough out of you that even moments away from boarding the plane back home, most of us still look like we want to die. At least we have eachother's drained, deflated faces to look at and think about how messy her hair is and how strange her nose is and how you want that bagel she's got and why didn't you think of that before you passed through security?