the radio is on and houston knows the score can you feel it we're almost home

I keep hearing about Wilkes-Barre on the short-attention-span Airport CNN (I never knew it was pronounced like Barry). The correspondents are standing up to their waists in muddy water and saying the river has crested and the waters are receding.

That explains things a little. Nobody's saying anything about Newark, but the two days I tried to get on the 11:36 Asheville-Newark flight were the third and fourth straight days it had been cancelled, and my mind summons up the ridiculous picture of jetliners taxiing around in feet of water, like a big dirty airplane wading pool. I also get the picture of windshield wipers going crazy and the Virgin Mary hiding her face in her hands on the dashboard of a big pretty red white and looks-like-a-big-tylenol plane. Neither picture has any grounding in reality, all I know is this is the third day I've tried to make the trip and things aren't working out so well.

Flying standby feels a little bit like playing Russian Roulette. I mean, I don't know for sure, I've never played the latter, but it's an issue of uncomfortable odds either way.

I had this brilliant idea yesterday. I was tired of the futility of trying to go through Newark, so I thought I'd get to Chicago via a 6:30am flight to Houston instead. Ha! My sister had told me to get savvy with pbt's (passenger boarding totals), but it's my first time and I'm as naive as a schoolgirl. I've been in Houston for 7 hours now and I'm watching Chicago-bound-airplane number 6 load up with no room for me.

If I looked like Reid and had a funny accent you could be excused for mistaking me for Tom Hanks in The Terminal. It's not a terrible airport to be stranded in, though. I could do worse. It's a little crowded, but then it's June, and as long as I'm not hanging around dismal B terminal the atmosphere is pleasant enough. Not much to look at out the windows - it's flat here and not much else - unless you like looking at airplanes, and fortunately I do.

After I was denied boarding on airplane number 5, it was time for lunch. A food court was easy to find since there's one around every corner in this airport and this airport has plenty of corners. Without giving it any thought at all, I settled on Wendy's, but the singularly long line turned my brain back on again: I saw the folly of my ways and found a barbecue joint which, while surely corporate and synthetic, at least isn't found in every airport everywhere. It occurred to me at this point, somewhat disturbingly, that this is exactly why the homogenization of Western culture is going so swimmingly. Different is better, almost invariably; but familiar is easier, complacency is being in the groove (in a totally non-groovy way). In the choices I (usually) make in life and in the opinions I spout, I consistently rail against such blandification, yet here I was going to eat at Wendy's. Anyway, barbecue. It wasn't bad, a sliced beef sandwich, a nice tangy sauce, and a sweet cole slaw like you might find at a Methodist church picnic. I asked the lady for sweet tea, and she said "Okay, we have unsweetened only." Both disappointed and amused, I said "Man, in Texas!" No reaction, none at all. "Uh, Coke, please."

I'm sitting across from gate E12 now, as one does. It's a strange place to perch, actually; this row of chairs is backed right up against a moving sidewalk, so behind me is the constant thrum and thump of the mechanics of that particular beast, and people and their conversations pass behind and in front of me. "Sweetie, if you're going to stand on it, you have to move to the right...[trails off]." And how. Better get out of my way when I'm on that thing, I'm hardcore, I'm from the East coast, sweetie.

It's an atrium of sorts in here. Just up and to my right are three storeys of offices overlooking this grand arcade, and just beyond that is a narrow, oval-shaped atrium, ringed at its lowest level by an installation of video screens all sequenced together in a flow of abstract images that are peacock-like right now, but I've seen flags and balloons and tulips and multicolored static as well. It's about as arresting a piece of art as you're likely to find in an airport, enough to make passersunderneath literally stop and stare.

Moments ago a girl from the local corner foodcourt stopped by with a tray full of cheesesteak sandwich samples. She didn't call them cheesesteaks, though, but instead of trying to comment on the culinary irony which seems to abound at Houston/George Bush Intercontinental Airport, I just took a sample and thanked her. It was pretty good, too. If I don't get on airplane number 8, I may have a larger helping of the same for dinner. And then I'm going to get on an uncrowded Asheville flight and go home. Disappointed, to be sure, but having not had such a bad day.