I usually write my columns at my desk. I’ve done some in hotels, and some fragments in coffee shops or other such places; I even wrote part of one at a party once, and a whole (albeit short) one while sitting in my car on Bainbridge Island waiting for a ferry. Also, I usually write my columns dead sober, though I have done a little editing and preparation of news columns while slightly drunk or waiting for an edible to kick in (they’re legal in Seattle, remember? And I’ve discovered I like them, so there.) One column in the past month I edited, illustrated and scheduled while quite stoned (no, I won’t say which, and I’ll bet you can’t guess because I did an excellent job if I do say so myself). But today I’m doing something new on both counts: I am writing this on an airplane in flight, on crappy, slow wifi that Alaska Air charged me TWENTY FUCKING DOLLARS FOR even though it’s horrible compared to the wifi I got for free on JetBlue in May. And I’m doing it while under the influence of 10 mg of Valium and 4 of Zofran, because that’s the way I roll when I have to fly. My first test of this new meds combo was when I flew to LA in May, but that was a smooth two-and-half-hour flight; this is a FOUR and a half hour flight across the Rockies, and let me tell you it is NOT SMOOTH. Normally, I’d be crying and puking right now, but I’m actually OK despite the frequent rumbling and shaking. The Valium seems to be controlling my nerves and the Zofran my stomach, so let’s hope that continues. My computer’s clock says it’s 13:31 (Sunday) right now as I type this, but it’s 15:31 in New Orleans and presumably 14:31 below us in Colorado (though by the time I figured out how to take this screenshot on my Chromebook we were at the border of Colorado, New Mexico and Texas and therefore crossing into Central Time. I would’ve used my usual screenshot program, but it’s been goofing up lately & I don’t know how to fix it.)
But anyway, when I was at the airport earlier talking to Allena Gabosch (who’s on the same flight as Vignette, Jae and I, though in different row) I told her that I’d finished my blogging through Thursday, and I had a brainstorm: what if I wrote one on the plane? Since I’m dopey as hell right now (though the first Valium’s probably wearing off since I took it at 10:00 PDT, I only took the second one just before I started to write almost an hour ago), I thought the results might be interesting. Speaking of results, I am still not panicking from all this bumping (the seat belt sign just went back on), nor am I sweating, flushed, queasy or any of the other symptoms that let me know I’m about to be very sick indeed. And yes, I would knock wood if there were any in this plane. But if things keep going like this on subsequent flights, I might actually be air-mobile again, which is pretty cool.
This is not to say I actually LIKE flying; it’s a wholly awful form of transport and I hate being on a freaking bus in the sky, even when the plane isn’t bouncing around like a ping-pong ball. And if that weren’t already bad enough, I despise having to deal with the blue-gloved morons. Today I had the misfortune to be behind an eedjit who believes the propaganda about security theater (I told him statistics proved him wrong but I wasn’t going to argue), then my luggage was “selected” for “extra screening” because it contained “a large amount of organic matter” (a dozen copies of Ladies of the Night). That explanation sounds entirely bogus to me; do people with lots of cotton or woolen clothing get “selected” as well?
Anyhow, my brain seems to be getting fuzzier (getting only three solid hours of sleep last night followed by two intermittent hours probably has something to do with it. That and the Valium) . And I somehow screwed up the map that was showing our remaining time to New Orleans, though obviously we must be over Texas because it’s almost 16:30 Central Time and we’re supposed to land in something like 75 minutes. And once we land we need to Lyft down to our hotel on Canal Street, where we’ll be meeting Kaytlin Bailey for dinner (and I hope Grace is there by then). So I guess I’ll finish up and try to figure out if I can upload this selfie I took a little while ago. When you read this I’ll be getting ready to return, so maybe I’ll make a comment when I’m on the flight back. And I hope not being sick. And noticing that I use a LOT of parentheses when I’m doped up.
