People in airports

are almost always a mess, yours truly included. I don't just mean a literal mess, although that happens too--airplane air is not kind to your hairdo; you have circles under your eyes from time changes; your clothes are rumpled--but everyone's emotions are closer to the surface. Mothers that probably don't snap at their kids all the time snap left and right, probably because they are tired and feeling extra-protective far from the safe confines of home. Impatient guys in sharp suits and ties get on their cell phones and you can hear their impatience rampage out of control in their prickly, jagged voices; they punch at their blackberries like they're trying to displace someone's ribs. Couples bicker and sigh loudly at one another, or else make out or lay all over each other on the airport carpet, while normally mild germophobes eye them with overt disgust and outrage and something like fear. How it manifests in me? I, normally a bit soft-hearted, cry at the slightest thought of anything remotely sad. Or happy, for that matter. Once, watching Lilo and Stitch on a flight to Hawai'i, I literally sobbed--sobbed--for five minutes straight. It was embarrassing.

Today they played Wall-E on the plane. I was so distraught and brought so close to tears at all the touching/suspenseful/wistful scenes that I had to keep taking my headphones off and switching back to reading my book. Then my book, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, would get touching or suspenseful or wistful, and I would have to switch back to Wall-E. Then I would have to switch again, and again. Then I would get stressed out and try to study instead of reading or watching the movie. Then I would miss Jam Guy and the way he nobly motivates me to study, which would make me think about how thankful I am for his presence in my life, which would make me distraught and close to tears again. In the end I wept helplessly over all three love stories.