Airports

This morning, I was "alerted" on the news that Zagat had released it's compiled list of airline winners. You can find it here. Somewhere on that page, you can download all survey statistics, which is sort of what caused me to think and sort of what launched me to write today.

Also, there may be vodka involved. *shrugs*

So, pre-vodka (as I am very conscious of early morning limits), I was watching about this list of top airlines and this list of top airports. You can only find the latter if you download the stats.

My favorite airline, Frontier, didn't make the cut any where.

My favorite, airport, Vegas, didn't either.

I have found Frontier (a regional line, thus the non-mention, I'm sure) to have the best value and experience. McCarren was mentioned, but only after other, less drool-worthy airports, like Midway.


As much as I don't like to admit it to people I've met over the last two years, I was once in a long distance relationship. Only once.

Prior to that, I traveled via airplane exactly once in my life- during a family vacation in which we embarked upon a cruise ship to the Carribean Islands. The popular ones.

When I began the LDR, things changed. I boarded many an airplane in 18 months and became quite the novice airline reviewer.

The thing is, I don't always remember much about the airports, only that I only noticed what was happening in them relative to my LDR.

I remember which cities I've boarded airplanes from:

Detroit
Denver
Las Vegas
Chicago
Salt Lake City
Austin

I can't recall how many times I flew or how many times I picked him up. I remember that the arrivals were magical and the departures cursed.

I remember how every time I heard "Welcome to Detroit" I held back the tears of someone who was FINALLY home. Unrelated: in an interview, Sarah Silverman told her interviewer that depression feels like being homesick- even when you're at home. But, when I heard the words "Welcome to Detroit," I was HOME.

I remember the joys of seeing him come down the escalator in Vegas and kissing passionately and how I tried to steal away on departure day while he was sleeping so he wouldn't come with me to the airport. It had been that miserable of a trip.

I remember being so afraid I would miss my departure in Salt Lake City because of traffic and how I had to get home, how I couldn't wait another second. I remember losing my favorite cashmere cardigan at the gate. I remember texting one of my best friends at the time and her offering to procure me some weed and laughing out loud. Still I cried the whole way to Austin, then to Denver, then to Detroit, then for days, all for some idealized version of a person that didn't exist. For a poseur.

There are so many things about what held me to him that I don't understand and don't want to.

I told myself I would never again enter a LDR, but I think I was wrong. Were I to find myself a single gal again, I just might remember all of the good things about it. I might remember that I never had to change the way I lived for another person. I might remember how it felt to always long for someone and never long to go away from them. I might remember how it felt to be with a perfect human being because you didn't have day-to-day evidence that he wasn't. I might remember that I could still be alone every single time that I wanted to, I could be a slob if I wanted, my life was still about me and no one else.

Best of all, I could be driving with the Detroit skyline ahead of me, and then behind, and know I was home. Even if it wasn't a physical structure that contained me.