Today could’ve been a disaster. My flight home from Belfast was scheduled for 11:15am, and the client had arranged for a car to pick me and another editor up at our hotel at 8am. However, the awful weather in the northeast wreaked havoc on Continental air traffic, so the inbound flight was delayed by 4 hours.
I saw this online when I got up in the morning (miraculously not hung over, despite wine at dinner and 4 pints of Guinness till 1:30am), but we were stuck having to either tell the client’s car service to blow off because we didn’t need it till later, or go to the airport “on time,” and wait there.
Because the client’s office wasn’t open till 9am, we elected to stick with the driver. And we spent SIX HOURS in the airport until boarding. Fortunately, I kept my power adapter in my carryon and still had wifi access through the BT service I bought on my first day in town.
So I hung out, chatted with the other editor, met up with a NJ-based employee from the client company and chatted with him, goofed on the internet, listened to music took care of e-mails, bought some souvenirs, read most of Philip Roth’s new novel, and still had two hours to kill before a seven-and-a-half-hour flight. Sigh.
But then something amazing happened. I looked out the window as we approached Newfoundland, Canada, and saw this:
And I thought, if we left on time, there’s a good chance the angle of the sun would’ve been so different that this would’ve made no impression on me. Instead, I managed to get a photoset of some amazing sights. And I get to share it with you, and that makes all the delay and aggravation worth it.
What I’m saying is, try to find the beauty wherever you can, even when you’re tired and pissed off over the misworkings of the world. In fact, do it especially when you’re tired and pissed off over that stuff.
Enjoy the pix. I promise I’ll get the set of Belfast Itself up sometime soon.
I looked out the window as we approached Newfoundland, Canada…
As opposed to, say, Newfoundland, Venezuela?
Sorry—gorgeous pix!
I’m sure Palahniuk has a short somewhere featuring a pilot on the polar route who’s bored of the gobsmacking scenery and gets off on finding ways to increase the greenhouse damage caused by jet exhaust.
I’m guessing you specified Canada since I don’t believe Newfoundland is a standalone according to AP?
Gorgeous and amazing, Gil. Thank you!
Hey, Jecca: Given that you’ve seen me in casual/vacation attire, it should be pretty clear that I have no style at all, AP or otherwise.
Hey, Eric: Never read any Palahniuk, after trying about 15 pages of Fight Club. He any good?
As I wrote back in November when Transformers was the in-flight movie on my west coast trips, “There’s an establishing aerial shot of Capitol Hill and the Washington Monument. And then the words ‘Washington DC’ appear on-screen.”
Survivor was my first Palahniuk after Fight Club, and I found it superior to FC in that the self-loathing is much more subtle. I then ordered whatever else of his the library had. That was a couple of years ago, so I’m not current.
I found Lullaby uniquely horrible (in a good way), but I was a new parent at the time, so YMMV.
Choke is very funny and tight, and you should definitely read it before the movie comes out.
Haunted has some very good stretches, but the unevenness is probably what prompted me to take a break from Palahniuk.
There’s still only one St. John’s, right?
Except for that basketball powerhouse. The one in Annapolis, I mean.