5:37pm
My plane, a Boeing 717, is "taxi-ing" down the runway, very shaky. I almost forgot to put cotton in my ears. My nose is pink and scratchy from sleeping two nights at Paula and Andrew's house - three cats. My head's clearing now, away from all that fur.
I love how my heart swells and skips a beat at take off, I feel six years old.
Violent Femmes' "Please please please do not go" is playing over and over in my head. I wonder what stuff I just left behind in Georgia. We're climbing up, the sky is dark and foggy to my left and across the aisle I can see the deep red and orange horizon through the window.
Out my window, I can see a cul-de-sac, porch lights in a 1/2 round, like a glowing bite mark on the ground. I'm right behind the wing. Did you cry on your first lift off? I did, then I stared into the clouds til my neck ached and began to blur my vision.
We're 33,000 feet up in the air right now. I always touch the outside of the plane when I step on board, so that my hand print will be in the real air, thousands of feet up.
The plane is making me a little nervous, feels like the pilot is putting on the brakes, so high, landing soon.
I'm on my way back to West Palm now, almost 9pm. An old black Spanish man helped me with my luggage and made sure I was getting on the right train. As he stepped up to board his train headed for Miami, he smiled at me and said, "Goodnight, Princessa", tipping his hat, like a movie.