Logan Airport, Boston

08.23.2008

Logan Airport, Boston

The airport's such a good place to people watch.

There's a family next to me with two little kids: a 2-ish year old girl with wonderfully curly hair wearing a cute little brown outfit with pink polka dots and a lion on the front, and a 3-4ish boy with beautiful red hair and a cute plaid shirt. The kids are running around, but not obstructively, and their mother keeps taking pictures of them with their digital camera.

I've already developed a sort of bond with the girl across from me. The reason? My threadless shirt. I love the underground bonding that threadless encourages! Anyway, she seems like the kind of person I'd be friends with if we met somewhere out of an airport (I think the airport is probably the single most incontinent place to try to make friends. Everyone's coming from and going to different places! You'd never see your new friend again.). She's got almost-wild frizzy almost-curly brown hair, chunk funky glasses, and a non-showy, simple striped tee. She's wearing those Tiva sandals that I've always found hideous, but they blend perfectly with her look. As soon as she sat down she pulled out a book and started sketching the two kids running around our aisle. She kept looking over at them, smiling, and I kept looking at her and looking at them, doing the same.

The boy who sat down next to her looks out of place. He's wearing dark, almost black jeans, brown loafers, black socks (what?), a dark navy polo, and a black jacket. He's well put together, but so unfortunately coordinated. I wonder if he's on the last leg of a trip and is using up clean laundry, or if he doesn't have a clue. Or perhaps he doesn't care either way. Anyway, he's a cute, young 20s, well groomed boy...thoroughly engrossed in a Harvard Business Review Emerging Markets. He's only just begun it, so I had my doubts he was interested when he first sat down, but he hasn't lifted his head much...Puzzling.

The girl across from me keeps making comments about ads on the TV above us. "Oh [so-and-so from the Mac ads], I think he's from this area. Yeah, my friend from Brookline said he spoke at their graduation." "Hmm, runny nose, not so bad. Lowered semen levels, that could be a problem." These are made even more amusing to me by the fact that I've managed to tune out the TV and am not hearing the ads she's referring to.

Sitting here watching people like I am here makes me wonder if there are other people-watchers observing me. What do they think of me? Really poufy, red eyes (there were far too many goodbyes today for my liking), cute threadless tee (cookie loves milk!), comfy (but starting to wear thin due to frequent use) gauchos, and...I don't know. There's only so much I can observe about myself, I suppose.

I keep seeing people I think I recognize for a fleeting moment. I thought I just saw James walk by, my BTA3 TA could have just passed my row, and the girl a few rows back looks like she could be in my sister's singing group. There's something about being in a new, crowded place that does that to you.