Eating Oily Things In In-Between Spaces

Oh my gosh. I am eating the most disgusting mountain of onion rings at Gate C of the Denver airport. Didn't think I'd be back in Colorado so soon, but all of a sudden here I am. Fresh out of Chicago, a completely different person.

This is how I look in Chicago.

I have been having a few drinks. Bloody Mary's and Beers and things, you know. The overall effect is that I am greasily delighted with myself right now. Something rather sinister about my joy is that I've been reading Lolita for the last couple of hours and Humbert Humbert's salivating style has started to influence my innocence.
What do I mean by that? Let's leave it for now, and glory glory in the oil! ...and the bitter beer.


I am not sure, in fact I'm probably making this up (almost completely) but it seems that the drunk man sitting at the bar was the captain on my recent flight. He is talking about how the flight from Chicago to Denver was dangerously overweighted, and slurring every other word. Compatriot! I thank the jewel covered heavens (which may reside incidentally in Paradise--did you know!? See the following paragraph) that I am safe on the ground with my table of delights.

Oh speaking of delights (because I must!) There was an exceptionally delightful trip to a sweet shoppe last night (the second visit of my trip) whose menu taught me a whole new wing of poetry that is expressly based on the gorge-ousness of dessert. The menu was strewn with lines like "Heaven in Paradise (as if one is less than the other --but together they are pure exhalations of delicious ecstasy)" and "Whipped to your Fantasy and Bananas." An amazing fragment sentence describing the whipping cream topping a sundae --I guess --- but perhaps it's describing something else: a tropical island scene with frothy waves lashing sexy sun-drenched legs --"and Bananas!"( capitalized!).

Less sexy day at the beach, but utterly delightful

Our table collectively ordered two relatively modest sundaes (we forgo the George á la George $60, 70 scoops) entitled "Jumbo." The deserts came in large (and very plastic) white shells. It was as if some creamy and melting versions of the Venus de Milo had floated over to our table transforming us into the chubby Cherubs by association.

This whole meandering seems to deal exclusively with consumption, but there is yet an important element that must be mentioned. Each fabulous encounter with extra-necessary edibles takes place in a scene of the in-between.

The AIRPORT is Fantastically in between and Bananas!

People work here, but they work in a functioning nowhere. If a place is defined by the people interacting with it, the Airport is a face with features continually displaced, renegotiated, and confused. It's rough attempts to assert it's own identity through shops that summarize the city in which it sits (ex: the gift shop full of Obama and Mirrored Bean memorabilia in Chicago) are foiled at every turn. Every thing is too clean, too expensive, too expertly dressed. My beer is glaring at me ("Yes, you are too expensive, and much too well dressed even if you were brewed right here in Denver Colorado!").

I imply that dessert was also consumed in a non-space / in-between space. Which is untrue. But I was in something of an in-between space. Chicago exists more permanently for me than before, but only slightly. It is like a very nicely constructed movie set that might blow over now that I've gone. There's is more to this tipsy ramble. But I have a flight to catch.

To be continued...

Chicago as movie set, and all the actors.