August 9, 2003
- 10:49 AM [Texas time]

(transcribed and posted August 11)

Monica's jinx came true - here in the cramped business lounge Korean Air shares with British Airways in the DFW airport I have no internet, or for that matter computer access. I'd counted on catching up on the meal American Airlines had cheated me out of here but all that's available to me are goldfish crackers and coffee. So here I am, amidst arrangements of beautiful and august but quite useless furniture, consuming packet after packet of goldfish crackers and ever so primitively writing this out by hand in hopes that I'll have time to type it up in Inchon where I'm guaranteed internet access...

I know America to be teh country where everything comes in large sizes. (Your McDonald's large fries are an international joke) In Texas in particular - the Dallas airport is monstrous. I had to take a train from one end of the airport to another and from there walked for 40 minutes from gate B1 to B35.

The US just happens to be a large country. It's rather depressing, the thought of being so large a distance away from this large country in which all of you are scattered throughout, but it has its positive sides I suppose. For one thing, it's reassuring to know that I'd be welcomed to guestrooms and famous restaurants if ever I land myself in some crazy part of the country one of you happen to be in. (who knows, I may finally get to taste a genuine American Thanksgiving dinner!)

I still have half an hour left till boarding time, so I will ramble on as I've been doing a la morning pages and tell you how beautiful you all are.

You are beautiful.

You are so beautiful and so dear to me that I, in my desperate longing to see you again, see you and our shared memories everywhere. Boarding my Austin-Dallas flight after saying goodbye to Susan then Aimee (Aimee was the first TASPer I met - and in the amazingly symmetric nature of the world she happened to be the my last TASPer...) I saw a face with a cynical smirk and my heart leapt, for one brief moment seeing Alex Yablon in the seat diagonal to mine. In every girl with red hair I'd looked for Kelsey. When I passed one of the may stamp-selling-machines (what are they called?) in the Dallas airport I remembered an incident exactly six weeks ago at the same airport when a boy, who now in my memory seems to have a remarkable resemblence to Alex Borinsky, asked me to excahnge a newer dollar bill for an older one that the machine would not take. I stepped up to the machine and looked for all the stamps you had given me.

Trying to find my way in the airport I came across an advertisement on the wall. Like Jacob's mosquito it screamed in white letters against a yellow background:
"Friends, Romans, Doormen -
Lend us your ears!"

On my train ride from terminal C past enormous areas of construction sites to termanl B of the airport I had a 10-month-old girl sit next to me. She stuck her tongue out at me (like the annoying girl in Bell Jar) and smiling I stuck mine out in response. I continued lolling my tongue out at the infant until I realized I was being watched by everyone else in the train with me, so had to laugh sheepishly and apologize. But when I looked down at the baby with her large hazel eyes I couldn't help but be reminded me of the poster Olga had put up above her desk:
"the more I think the more confused I get," it had read.
Jamie had seen it last night and had called it hideous.
"its head is too big," he'd remarked before following it with a comment on its resemblence to Winston Churchill...

(You see, I want to see you this badly - I'm taking the most irrelevant events of my extremely monotonous trip back home and trying without success to piece them together in a way relevant only in TASP logic...)

Five minutes till boarding. By now I've read and reread the messages you've left in my yearbook and memorized the characteristics of each. Alex Borinsky for example crosses his t's only when he feels like it. Jacob substitutes all of his vowels with a small, barely noticeable squiggle in the cursive of his words. Leaning or crooked letters is an impossible concept in Monica' writing. When Jamie reaches a second e in a word containing multiple e's, the latter e is significantly larger and darker than the former.

Boarding. It's as cold as Eunice's description of Minnesota here - even colder than our seminar room.

*break*

Never mind, my flight has been delayed yet again; I'm stuck for more hours in this barren, cold, internetless place.

*this is where I realize if I go on I'll be sulking the whole time and giving the already "rambulatory" first blog a bad tone and no one will want to contribute to the blog page after that, and stop.*

August 11, 2003
- 2:24 AM [Philippine time]

Sorry the first blog has to be like this. I'm still trying to figure out how this whole thing works... if this first blog is an eyesore please post more until it gets pushed back into the archives.

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [10:38 AM]

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