How to Profile Passengers on Your Southwest Flight

somewhere along the ABQ-LAS flight path

i've been flying on Southwest Airlines (SWA) since the '00's, when it was the scrappy upstart airline and i could buy a ticket home from Chicago for a sweet $39. These days, SWA is known for its entertaining flight attendants (they sing or tell jokes, depending on who you get), low(ish) fares, and its infamous open seating policy. 

For those of you who either refuse to fly or use your own private jets, open seating means you are not assigned a designated seat when you buy your ticket. Instead, you are placed in groups with the other passengers based on when you check in. You then board with your group and choose your seat from any seat in the cabin that is still available when you enter the plane. Basically, it's no different than boarding a bus or train.

Over the years, i've advanced beyond basic window vs. aisle questions (window to snap photos or sleep, aisle for frequent bathroom access) to a list of rules that helps me decide who i'll sit with by making snap judgments about people based solely on their appearances. In other words, i profile the other passengers in hopes of securing myself my ideal flight experience: quiet (noise level) and undisturbed (by other passengers). The following are my rules. I even made an acronym out of them: W.A.L.K. (Women, Activity, Layers, Kids). If you board these flights hoping to find your new best friend/soul mate, do the exact opposite of what i say here.

somewhere along OAK-ABQ flight path

1. Sit with WOMEN. No need for entitled masculine energy clouding my trip. In my experience, men are more likely to push jovial small talk on me (are they bored or do they just really love the sound of their voices?) Their bodies invade my already cramped space, elbows spilling over my arm rest, knees spreading wide as if repelled by each other. If you do have to sit with men, try to follow Rule #2.

2. Look for someone who's brought a long-term ACTIVITY: books good, magazines/newspapers bad. Inflight magazine/Skymall, extra bad- they're desperate for entertainment. Choose someone already plugged in- headphones, tablet, e-reader, other electronic gadget- they're not interested in chit chat. Portable battery pack- jackpot!

3. Consider smells, like body odor and foods. People dressed in LAYERS are your best bet for covering up B.O. Men in tank tops are the worst. Avoid passengers with fast food bags or large drinks that can spill all over everything (remember when plane seats had cupholders?).

4. Stay away from KIDS. (I say this with a heart full of love and compassion for my friends with kids. You are all wonderful parents, and when your kids act up on the airplane, it is not an indication of the quality of your parenting.) Give yourself at least a couple rows of distance from small kids; kids sitting behind you kick your seat, and kids in front of you can be squirmy, jostling your tray table or knocking their seat back into your head as you bend down to get something from your bag. Multiple kids in the same row often fight or whine. Bless their little hearts. On flights, i prefer babies to kids- there's a good chance they'll fall asleep and be a quiet lump for most of the flight. 

OOJ: North Bay

view from my seat on an OAK-ABQ Southwest flight last weekend

OOJ: Waffles and Chocolate

new and improved breakfast! trader joe's dark chocolate mint creams on top of a whole grain frozen waffle- minty chocolate goodness in every bite. be jealous.

OOJ: Dried Rose

Zozobra 2014

Zozobra 2014, Santa Fe, NM 

it's pretty brilliant, actually. choose someone to accuse of being the source of an entire community's anxieties and problems, and immediately, poof: relief. no need for self-reflection or accountability, just burn a poor mofo at the stake and rejoice. so simple, so clean. too bad for me that i am that chosen one.

whoever came up with the idea is a marketing genius. first, they renamed me: Old Man Gloom, Zozobra- by now, i doubt anyone remembers my real name. then they created an entire celebration out of the burning of me: kettle corn, lemonade, firecrackers, live music, a parade. come one, come all, pack a picnic and bring the entire family out to watch a man go up in flames!

i get it, i see the appeal. life is much simpler with a living, breathing (though soon i'll have neither of these qualities) villain- that's me. people are overwhelmed by their fractured lives, their competing passions and responsibilities. they exist in a constant state of uncertainty, guessing at the "right" decisions, clumsily making plans for the future when no one of us is even guaranteed a future to begin with. add on top of that the daily tragedies that show no sign of ceasing- accidental death, paralysis, an unexpected diagnosis with a timeline- and it's easy to see how the troubles can pile up. in many of these situations, there is no obvious villain, which makes it all even harder to swallow. 

that's where i come in. because even a fictitious reason like me is preferable to the truth: that more often than not, things simply happen, with terrible results. call it what you will- fate, bad timing, natural consequences, some higher being's fucking Plan- but i have nothing to do with any of it. i'm just the guy they picked, the one who never fit in to begin with, and who therefore was an easy sell. pin your troubles on me and send them up in flames.

the crowd has been gathering for hours, the last rays of daylight fleeing the scene. a man in a suit appears and, like a bad actor, melodramatically bellows a list of accusations against me, ending with the predictable outcome: "GUILTY!" he repeats it too many times (hey buddy, less is more). the crowd screams; the people look joyful. beachballs are unleashed above their heads. a woman in glittering red spandex with feathers sprouting out of her head dances on the stairs in front of me as the band resumes their festive beat. from my vantage point, i can see everything: kids on shoulders, couples taking selfies, the vendors, the hooded figures carrying torches making their way towards me, and the infinite darkness beyond them all. 

SOD: J. Cole, "Be Free"

It's been a summer of sorrow for both ABQ and the U.S. that has once again forced us to recognize that residents in this country are not equally safe and protected. Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, MO, has been feeding the news crawl for weeks now, but here in ABQ, public attention has been on violence against homeless individuals. In June, Nancy Myers was killed by a driver who appeared to have aimed his truck straight for her while she was sleeping on the sidewalk at night. Then, in July, two local teens beat to death Allison Gorman and Kee Thompson, two homeless men sleeping in an empty lot, while a third teen stood watch. Both incidents seem to have been unplanned, triggered merely by the sight of people sleeping outside and a twitchy impulse to harm another being. 

Last night, i walked under a bridge near the train station at around 10:40 pm in downtown ABQ. i passed two individuals curled up in sleeping bags on the far side of the street, their heads tucked down out of sight. i believe that people who live on the streets have tremendous internal strength, resiliency, and ability to mobilize resources, but from where i stood, at that hour, they looked soft and vulnerable. It's incomprehensible how someone could make the decision to attack another who posed absolutely zero threat.

Just as it is incomprehensible when police shoot individuals who pose no more threat beyond the color of their skin. Here is today's Song of the Day, J. Cole's "Be Free", written in tribute to Michael Brown.

Postcard from Taos

view of Rio Grande Gorge from the trail to
Manby Hot Springs (Arroyo Hondo, NM)

three weeks into my Taos Ski Valley "residency", and i have disappointingly little to show for it. i've barely touched the many pens, blank paper, art supplies, and music scores that i brought. so far, this is all i've learned:

1. i don't like living in a place that has only one way in/out; i feel surprisingly trapped. though TSV is undeniably beautiful in the way that ski resorts are in the summer, it's a curvy 30-minute ride down the one road into town, and if anything happens on that road to block it, you're stuck on one side or the other until the block is cleared. TSV itself (in the summer) features one bar; one tiny cafe; one tinier "grocery" store named 'Bumps' (quotes around the word "grocery" because it's basically a liquor store with junk food and a couple lonely apples rolling around in a basket); one coffee stand; and a couple ski shops (why are they even open now???). which means that any time i get a break longer than 3 hours, i'm flying down that one road off the mountain like a bat out of hell. 

2. nature is not inherently enlightening. as someone who was raised among shopping malls and fast food chains (and who now prefers living amid the pavement, people, and commotion of cities), i've always thought there was something mystically superior about people who lived "in nature". i suspected that their decision to live in remote areas indicated a more highly developed sense of being, in the same way that i suspect that people who only read The Economist and listen to NPR podcasts must be superior to me, with my love of British fashion mags and commercial pop/R+B music (even though i know it kills my brain cells). i now realize this is complete bullshit. people who live in TSV all year round are as ridiculous as any fool off of any city street. 

3. because nature is not inherently enlightening, i have not become a more evolved human after living here for a few weeks. i have not solved any of my own problems, much less society's. i haven't had any revelations. i am not more patient and kind to others. i am as judgmental as i was before i arrived (see my comment on ppl who live in TSV). at first, i was disappointed with my lack of self-improvement. but now i'm content to admire the trees (which i swear are closing in on us, inch by inch); enjoy the thunderstorms; and thank the universe for DirectTV.