In the uneasy chair

Here I am at the Orlando airport (no sign of Casey Anthony!) where an adorable little blond girl who looks about three years old is begging to be taken to Starbucks. We're surrounded by gift stores touting Disney toys and Sea World t-shirts and Space Center hats but all this toddler wants is a trip to Starbucks. Orlando: a whole different world.

Or maybe it's just Airportland that's different--Atlanta, Minneapolis, Dallas, Milwaukee, or wherever big airplanes gather to ingest and spit out passengers. In John Henry Days, Colson Whitehead's much-traveled protagonist calls the international airport environment Terminal City, as if travel were an incurable disease.

Not many people are capable of being at ease in an airport. I see parents trying to reign in the exuberance of children who've had a few too many days of constant Disneyfication, and to my left a large section of seating is bubbling with teens in yellow t-shirts touting a soccer team. In the center of the concourse two guys are tossing a football back and forth and trying to avoid trampling travelers who lead luggage by a leash. No one sits still except one old guy snoozing in his chair, drool dribbling down his chin, his neck assuming an angle suggesting an urgent need for chiropractic care.

Scheduling conflicts brought me to the airport three hours before my flight, but as airports go, Orlando is not a bad place to spend a few hours. I have a book and the Atlantic's summer fiction issue and the airport offers excellent free wi-fi. I briefly considered getting a haircut while I'm waiting, but do I really want to be confined to an airplane seat while little bits of hair slide down the middle of my back? That would be one uneasy chair.

So instead I'll sit and watch and take my ease in Terminal City. I'll open my book and jump into some fictional world until the restless airport life resolves into a persistent low hum, Terminal City's version of the music of the spheres.