Erratica
The pilot has now switched off the Fasten Seat Belt light, which means passengers are now free to move about the cabin. However we do ask that when you are seated, for safety reasons, you keep your seatbelt securely fastened. Flight Attendant Melinda will be bringing the refreshment cart through the aisle momentarily to provide you with half a drink of your choice and a tiny, tiny bag of something that is very nearly edible. Don't worry, there isn't enough in there to bother you. A general air of accomodation and a lack of outright personal hostility can also be had during the service for a small fee. Actual cheery personable-ness is... well, you can't afford it. We will be reaching our normal cruising alititude of 800 feet, after which we will maintain this, our normal course, for the next 11.5 months. Hold on to your asses, people. And try not to agitate the motherfuckin' snakes.

Over the period in which I was Flake-a-saurus Rex, I've had time to do things I've been meaning to do. I took up watercolors, I learned some Italian ("Eh! Fuck-a you, amigo!"), did a little more work on my full-body henna tattoo celebrating the works of Jamie Lee Curtis and I solved all of the world's hunger problems. Unfortunately for that last one, I had it written down on a napkin in my pocket of the pants my kid threw up on. Can't remember it for the life of me. Something to do with Hot Pockets.

I also had time to get some reading in. I finally finished Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. I'd been putting it off forever, but you don't disregard direct orders from Oprah or her secret police "Book Club."

From reading that book, I learned that time SEEMS like it goes forward, but really it goes in a circle. One day your grandmother turns into a fetus, wind blows your house down and ants eat the baby you fathered with your aunt. Mostly it made me wish I didn't have any aunts.

Oh, if you haven't read it, there are some spoliers in the above paragraph.

What I took from that is that even though I've been mostly gone, while I've had to cringe while some tasty looking news cycles have passed me by (blow up Somalia! first female Speaker! Lindsay Lohan's appendix!), the news cycle would provide for me when I was ready. Things don't fade off into oblivion. They are simpy arcing around to make their way back in an elegant elliptic of repetitive monotony.

Except for that Gerald Ford thing. I think his condition is permanent.

The news cycle taketh away, but it also giveth. It giveth like muhfucka. It giveth like a Thai hooker in exchange for a Bratz doll and a sammich.

Here I am on a random Thursday, my first day back, and I get to follow a bunch of craziness. A whole international hullabaloo streaked with a bloody soupçonne of rigamarole.

I've read the transcripts, seen the reports, digested some of the analytical reportage and I find myself torn. Instinctively, you want to send everything you have out there in support of the ones you've already sent, to face up all comers with a scary, scary accumulation of all the firepower you can reasonably muster. But that's the rub, isn't it? Can we reasonably manage anything else? The cost alone is what gives me pause. Are we really going to throw this much into something that has yet to prove its own viability? I understand completely the impulse to flood the field with an overwhelming array of personnel, but at what point is the price too high to pay?

It seems to me that the idea of looking at a failing situation and throwing an unprecedented amount of time, energy and money at it is sort of like having a baby to save a marriage. Well, maybe that's a bad idea because that always, always works.

I just don't know what to think about it. I guess what tips it for me is the outside chance I might get to see Posh Spice at the Home Depot Center.

What? Did you think I was...? No, I was talking about David Beckham signing with MLS team the LA Galaxy for $250 million.

Iraq? No. Skipped all that, I'm afraid. All that blowing up and dying and killing and stuff was a bit much, frankly. And over the holidays, too, well, very depressing. It was almost enough to put me off my nogasake.*

Ha. And now let me get the comment section started off: "Three weeks of making us wade through monkey pictures and all we get is a goddamn soccer post? Fuck you!"

It's the same ride we were all on before. Only, much like traveling, it's a lot more fun in retrospect than it is when you're actually in the middle of it. The same can be said for Thai hookers and One Hundred Years of Solitude.


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 9.2007


Pops



PS- Stupid IE crashed about 3/4 of the way through. Most of this had to be rewritten from memory, which means much of it is a pale copy of what it was. It sounds bad, but it's probably for the best. There was way too much genius in the original for normal humans to consume. I'd hate to have you all sobbing at work. I mean for your non-standard reasons.


*= one part egg nog, three parts sake. I watch a lot of TV.
- posted by Pops @ 9:59 AM