Business Lounges in JFK

A quick glance to my right, where my iPod - last seasons must have accessory that even this season is proving to be hot and possibly hip - is charging after a prolonged period of procumbence tells me that the time is 02:59 and I am listening to Polaris by Zero 7. Neither is in actual fact a statement of subjective truth, as it is not 02:59 in NYC, and I am not listening to Polaris. In fact, I challenge anyone to listen to the track, which in all fairness is a modern remix of some 70's funky lounge sounds with some slow jazzy beats and modern synth sounds. It is the epitamy of the bland, nameless branded music that gets played in 90% of trendy wine bars, piped in the background to not offend, to cover the awkward silences as the beautiful people realise that good looks really are only skin deep.

Luckily for me, I am neither in a trendy wine bar, or possessed of the sort of good looks that require me to worry about the thickness of my dermis. Rather I am sitting in the business lounge of American Airlines in Kennedy Airport, Brooklyn. This particular lounge is a hybrid of a late 80's prairie dog cubicle and 70's disaster movie airport lounge, with 7 foot high partitions around my laptop cubicle that are tastefully fitted out with sombre green panels, a dark bluey green carpet, and a dim desk lamp. Surronding me are the animated corpses that pass for international business travellers in all countries, sitting ram rod straight, gesticulating to one another with half empty gin and tonic in hand and free pretzels in half full mouths, sitting in judgement on todays news, on the downward close on euronext, and on the trial of sharing the air with economy passengers. Somehow I feel like an inflitrating fart that has been slowly slipped out by a senior traveller to the sudden embarrassment of all who are proper.

Prior to the ascent into the dizzy social heights of the lounge I disrobed from my business uniform of suit and dress shoes, and threw on a tee shirt, cardigan, chinos and flip flops. My casual attire has engendered a distinct frostines in the butch and chunky woman sitting on the sofa in front of my cubicle, and she has assumed the look of a guard, placed there to ensure that I do nothing to pierce the bubble of unreality that has built in the room. Somewhere beneath the cod like jowls that hang from her jaw I am sure I can see a slight twitch of tension. Could I break and burst through like a toddlers sticky finger in a soap bubble, freeing them from the banality of their lives, shocking the orange UV lamp tans from their skins like a surgical lazer through a bad tattoo, or is the effect of caffiene once again building up in me?

I swear that it is difficult to tell not only where I am, and what I am doing, but also what I am. My notepad, which has accepted my scrawl for the whole day with a patience that can only be called saintly, tells me that I awoke at 5am in Chicago, and left for O'hare at 0545. I arrived in NYC at La Guarda at 11am NYC time, having already done 3 hours work at the airport and on the plane. Apparently the inbred security guards felt that my luggage needed to be brutalised like a kissing cousin, as they violated my luggage lock, and rummaged their paws through a weeks worth of skids and stains. I wonder if they wore rubber gloves as they stroked and stoked their way through 5 days of Calvin Kleins or if they slipped off the glove like the perverted doctor in "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle" so that they could part open the flaps of my case with their bare flesh, and worm and wiggle their digits into the used warmth of my pheremonal baggage interior, hoping to catch a whiff of scent to store away in their bestial memory for careful and selective later use?

So, a quick one hour journey through Queens, and into downtown manhattan brought me to my work at Goldman sachs, where I put in another 6 hours. A manic trip, in yet another manic taxi, complete with cloned indian taxi driver who seems to have learnt English perfectly, apart from the phrases "please turn up the aircon" and "please turn off the radio", and finally "please stop talking on your mobile whilst driving" ensued, with once again the whole discussion vis a vis tipping being a priviledge to reward good service, not a right confered at birth, and enshrined in the sacred texts of each major world faith, and most minor sects too erupting at payment time.

Suitably disgorged from my carriage I made my way here, to my green cubicle, where I dare not sleep in case I miss my flight. Once I am on the plane, and have had my dinner (at 2000 EURO a ticket, I am damn well eating the product that is put in front of me), I will get my alloted 4 hours sleep before we touchdown at Heathrow, where it will be 11am. From there a mad dash to my London office via the delightful Heathrow Express, and the less delightful Tube will ensue, after which I am slated to have meetings until 4pm. Once the second hand clears 1601:01 I escape to Canterbury until Sunday - when I will return to Amsterdam.

With all the above its a wonder I am not a complete basket case writing non-sensical ramblings into a psycho-babble therapy log to a group of imaginary readers - heh, but come'on that would just be crazy!