Airport ghetto

This morning I lost another 10 or so games in a row on FICS, the free internet chess server, bringing my current streak to something around 25 losses in a row, and my rating perilously close to 1300, which is only an arbitrary number, but feels, to me, like a devastating invalidation of everything I hold dear. A couple times, after an especially frustrating loss--a near-guaranteed victory that I managed to steer into defeat or a loss on time when the win was assured--I actually cursed at the screen, a kind of agonized groan-yell-rapid exhalation of breath through gritted teeth. I am a varied swearer in daily life, but in chess, my chosen sound is "fuck." More like FUCK, or, for full typographic verisimilitude, FUUUUUCK, usually while gripping some morsel of hair. I am up for a conversation as to whether this should best be seen as a venting or a stoking; I can see the argument for either. Occasionally I have yell-cussed loud enough to be heard by people not in my immediate vicinity. I imagine the two girls who lived next door to me in the co-op might know my shameful secret. If I were reasonable, the act of swearing at my computer would be some kind of light-bulb moment, where I took a good long look at myself (maybe in the mirror, maybe just metaphorically), and asked whether I really felt this was a good way to spend my time. But I play on. And now, I can see, in some hazy future, the moment when I can conduct this sad scene without the slightest twinge of self-consciousness. May I find the strength to stay my obscenely clicking finger.

I'm excursed, officially voyaging. At check-in, the big, red suitcase my dad had fatalistically wished goodbye for good from the both of us weighed in at 53 pounds, and I had to take out my medicine kit to get it on the plane. At security, all the attendant liquids I'd stowed in the medicine kit illuminated the watchful eyes of the screeners, and my sly attempts at ingratiation got me nowhere with the man who unpacked them. In an attempt to show my "coolness" with the process, and distance myself from the irate masses I said "You must piss a lot of people off." He said he did, but that the government had made a law, and that the terrorist has no face, and so he has to treat everyone the same, which is fair. "The terrorists are doing bad things with liquids," he said. I asked what security did with everything confiscated and he told me they throw them away. So long toothpaste. So long moisturizing cream. I hope you're moisturizing the angels in heaven now.

My battery is slowly draining, something I think my dad made me overly paranoid about--as though I'll find myself device-less and terminally bored with something like 20 hours of travel left to go and all my ambien metabolizing futilely in my system. Before I opened my computer I looked around for an outlet for awhile, but all the available outlets were being used. One outlet even had a surge protector attached to it, nearly filled up. (I'm exaggerating, it was half filled). After some searching, I found one, and an open chair near it, but after about a minute I was interrupted by a man carrying fast food. He told me I had to move, the outlet was his. Staging my own Larry David moment was tempting, but I just unplugged, gave him a knowing, ambiguous smile that I meant to communicate something like "I know you don't actually deserve this, but I will regardless move on," and moved on. Only 2 hours 47 minutes left, horror!

Having exhausted the frivolous events of my morning and early after noon, I should probably stop now. I am excited to read and sleep my way through many flying hours, and awake, reasonably rested in a new country.