🫖 Howdy, turkeys. This is my weekly essay for everyone. Today it’s some reflections and two lists, for kicks. If you so please, feel free to like, comment, share, or upgrade to paid! Paid subscribers get access to my recommendation column, and I’m working on some audio features coming sooooon. Thank you so much for reading! 🫖
I rolled around on Friday evening in solitary feminine decadence. I drank an entire bottle of natural wine, splashed around in a hot bath, ate many snacks and watched a TV show with no artistic value. I saw no one and this struck me as a good thing. I woke up on Saturday looking, quite frankly, angelic. I felt surprisingly great, too. Must have been the hot water and lack of sulfites.
…
I like to travel in style, which is to say that I glare at people who cough and think thoughts like, “Get those rugrats away from me!” Mom took a sip of water, which helped me to believe that she merely had a tickle in her throat. The kids were behaving. Son was engrossed in a game on dad’s phone. Daughter was testing some intriguing new ways to sit on the airport chair. Dad was eating a turkey sandwich that I wished I couldn’t smell from five yards away.
To my right, husband believed that he had lost his kindle. “It’s gone,” he said with a mournful sense of acceptance. Instead of taking a seat, wife chose to intermittently hover and pace. She couldn’t relax until boarding began. Before so much as stepping foot on the plane, I already knew my lips would be chapped for a week.
Waiting for the lavatory, I stood up straight to gauge how close I measured to the airplane ceiling. I often joke that I have height dysmorphia. I think I’m taller than I am. The origins of this delusion can be traced to the abnormally tall men in my family and the one time a 5’1” friend called me “big boned.” Whilst traveling, we were always an extra-legroom family. The tall family in church, but not the tallest family in church (the Trumans). It’s taken a few solitary journeys to realize that I’m a pretty average-sized person. I fit where I’m put.
The plane identified as a “small regional jet,” (sexy!) which is to say that it featured twenty rows, and required particularly portly carry-ons to be checked gateside. There were probably fifty people on their way to Milwaukee.
…
My mind went to Annette. Thirty years ago, she boarded a plane with thirty other people. She woke up in the rubble in the forest in Vietnam. Her fiancé was already dead when she came to consciousness. Everyone else died long before rescue came. She survived for eight days, body broken amongst twigs and bugs, by drinking rainwater and retreating into a dissociative state—a beautiful place in her mind. She was at one with nature and at peace with death. But she was saved. Back to her body, and back to the city.
I heard Annette tell her story twice: once at rehearsal on Sunday, and once during the show on Tuesday. Monday was the thirty-year anniversary of the crash. After rehearsal, my colleagues entered a frank discussion. Would the sum of horrors in Annette’s story be too gruesome for the audience? “She could leave out the part about the maggot crawling out of the dead man’s eye,” someone suggested. It’s true that careful crafting is what makes an effective story. But, this struck me as a sordid part of my job. This woman was strong enough to live it. Were we not strong enough to hear it?
Annette was really nervous in the green room. She offered me a french fry and I made her a cup of tea. She asked where my sweater was from and I let her peek at the tag to check the brand. She thought that it was really cool that I get to meet so many interesting people through my job. I agreed, and floundered to produce more small talk. It’s a unique imbalance to know the most impactful story of a person’s life before even knowing how they take their tea.
…
I like how people don’t abide by the rules in the sky. Red wine from a can at 2 PM. A Diet Coke at 10 in the morning. I decided on tea. But then, 9D didn’t get charged for wine, so 10A was quick to blurt: “White wine, please.”
Boredom is important, and an airplane is a good place to be bored. Though, it’s not as easy as it used to be. Not long ago, I bought a black hole disguised as a purse. Chock full of distractions. A book, noise-canceling headphones, lip balm to apply three times midflight because why not? One burning whiff of peppermint, and I was involuntarily rifling around for my new pack of gum, ever the Pavlovian dog.
I read, listened to music, and indulged in a deep scroll through my photo library. By way of some iCloud machinations, my phone has a narrow archive of images from July 2018 to April 2019. Being a tourist in my own memories always makes me feel empty and full.
Yes, please:
Daring winter hats.
Leaning your chin on your hand.
The art of Florine Stettheimer.
Feminine vocal crutches (i.e. “like,” “sorry,” “you know”).
Paying attention to the way your friends’ voices sound. Consider the cadence, the pitch. Later, let them speak in your mind.
The ‘burbs.
Accepting compliments gracefully.
Midday showers.
Real, in-the-sky rainbows.
No, thank you:
Literal music videos.
Complaining about how it’s getting dark so early. Get used to it, babies!
Greeting people with “How are you?” How can you expect them to answer such a beast of a question before the conversation has even warmed up? Alternatives: “What’s popping?” or “How was breakfast?”
Loosely-defined indie sleaze.
Unprotected sex.
SARS-CoV-2
Texting that surrounds a phone call (i.e. explaining why you called or apologizing for not picking up). Just leave it be!
Loosely-defined indie sleaze :-/
“Living in a Memory,” The Growlers
“Friend of Nothing - Acoustic,” Together Pangea
“NYC - 25,” The Olivia Tremor Control
“Losing My Edge,” LCD Soundsystem
“God of Wine,” Third Eye Blind
🫖 Fare thee well! Thanks for bearing with me week after week. I hope you’re having a good time. I am :) 🫖