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So I am flying out to Baltimore to-morrow. Noon flight Southwest A Airlines out of Midway. It means that I have to get up at 5AM. I have to get up at that time as the commuter train that heads into Chicago leaves at six, I then will have to transfer over to the Orange Line. This will get me in the security queue in plenty of time to get to the gate.

It is a two hour flight.

On the other end I’ll await the light rail from Marshall Airport change to the metro at Lexington Market then to the M-3 at Old Court Road.

I hate flying. I am not afraid of flying. I hate flying. It isn’t all the travel to fly I could have paid more and flown out of Milwaukee giving me a couple of hours more sleep – my thriftiness showing through again. After all if I lived along the Great Northern, down the Burin or in Burgeo more time would be spent getting to the terminal than on the plane. It is what the Airlines control that make it so haeful.

This isn’t helped by the Hamilton-Paterson piece in the Granta devoted to travel in which he mentions that Planes are not a green way to travel and that airlines infantasise the passengers.

It is not only that I don’t buy the fact that the world is safer because I take off my shoes, that keeping my mouthwash to under 3 oz will assure me arriving at my destination.

It is the clinging to primitivism that has me anxious whenever I have to fly. My clinging to film as my recording preference has me worrying the closer I get to the check point. Even though I use lead bags – and wonder why no one wonders what is in them – empty my cameras and try to make things go as easily as possible. I am never sure until I can see the results of the trip that nothing was damaged.

It is U.S. security’s suspicion that touching the bag in the process of examining it, will somehow taint the results has me cringing when they pick up my bag and I see my cameras edging their way out of their compartments. Asking them to be careful only aggravates the situation. That isn’t true in smaller airports people are great it is the self important ones where one encounters all the problems.

Unfortunately there is no other option. Outside if the east coast, trains are more ground based cruises – more important to be going than to actually going anywhere why else would one see cars passing the train when a railway parallels a road.

Coaches, while faster than trains, cost more than flying.

So I give up to my fate, try to pack well remember to strip as snake my way through the queue – belt off, watch off, keys and coins in courier bag, remember to pick up laptop, try to keep my eye on my possessions as they pass through the machine while I have to wait for the person who forgot about his telephone, his keys and what ever else he ignored. Watch attempting not to lunge as they almost drop a camera, as they make sure they searched every hidden pockets knowing that the end there is a cold soggy pizza to be had or an overpriced piece of fruit to fortify myself on the food free flight.