The Cigar-Tube Almost (But Not Quite) Talking Blues.

RoadWhat
RoadVille

I got an E-mail from C early yesterday morning.

At the time I was locked up, once again, in yet another science-geek bunker.

Turns out she wanted to know where I was.

Not which bunker.

But, instead, which city.

****

Today, after bashing ourselves over the head while arguing, biting and trying to gouge each others' eyes out over 56 grants, only 8 or 9 of which will be funded, we were let out of the bunker early.

Which means I had a couple of extra hours in downtown Montreal.

So I headed down to the old town and the port.

And all I did was wander around not really thinking about much of anything.

Which, of course, is part of the disengagement that is so easy to bring on when you to somewhat strange, yet comfortable, cities all alone.

And now I'm sitting in Dorval Airport in the middle of my own private melancholy while all around me the madness of people and families and business guys going everywhere off in a thousand directions swirls.

****

Now....

I'm not entirely sure who I heard talk about it first.

I think it might have been that evil dastardly wordsmith Mr. Sedaris.

Regardless, there really does seem to be something to the melancholy that can overcome you in airports and/or airplanes.

I'm not sure what triggers it really.

Although, of course, I can (and pretty much always will) hazard a guess.

I think it might have something to do with the compression of it all.

Because, essentially, you're one place one moment and an instant later you're a world away in every way imaginable (i.e. not just the place, but the setting, and the people and state of mind too).

And in the middle of that instant you plug the buds into your ears and even something as ridiculously cliched as, say, an old Bob Seger song on the Sirius thingy can make your eyes well up like a geyser in the middle of a Cohen Brothers film.

OK?

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This isn't the bit I was thinking of...But here's a very good take from Mr. Sedaris on airplane travel and just about everything else imaginable, including serving spoons and fathers who hate dinner table laughter.

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