New York: Cold T5 at JFK and Airplane Tears

I'm in San Francisco on a three-day working trip, burrowed away with Nathan on what he's calling "Project K." Two things. First, Terminal 5 at JFK, as Rob Verger pointed out earlier this week in his World Hum posts on spending 24 hours at JetBlue's terminal at JFK, is kept very cold. After an hour waiting for my flight out west, I was already feeling the tug of chilled, annoyed sinuses.

The flight to SFO was fine, if a few minutes late. I jumped off the plane and made it to Yank Sing for lunch with Phil and Betsy, who just moved to San Francisco this week.

While still in flight, however, I found myself afflicted by a very unusual condition: the unemotional crying jag. In the middle of listening my way through the new Sounds album—more specifically while a very appealing track called "Midnight Sun" was playing—I started to inexplicably tear up. Why is it that tears come so readily in flight? Every now and then I come across an acknowledgment that other people experience this phenomenon, but I've never seen any explanation of it. Anyone?