convey l’essence
17:36 on Friday, July 18, 2003 • Responses off
On Sunday I’m getting on a plane to go home to Chicago for a month. Some may question my desire to convalesce in a city where temperatures break 100°F at least a handful of times in August, and where the humidity is consistently high enough that it’s hard not to feel like you’re living in a really big, really used sneaker.
You have to understand, though, that practically speaking, I’ve been cooped up in my house for about 4 months now, and the idea of being cooped up somewhere else—anywhere else— is appealing in ways beyond measure. And the view from where I’ll be staying…well, let’s just say it doesn’t get much better.
I’ve managed to use my mileage plus to fly first class on the return trip to California…I’m on the waiting list for the trip to Chicago. I’ve never flown first class before. I think once I flew business class, which at the time was really just coach with 2 more inches of leg room. David Sedaris once described flying in first class. He said that whenever he flew coach—which was his entire life—while boarding, he’d walk past the people in first class and noticed that first class passengers never look up. Then he flew first class, looked at the coach passengers boarding, and realized why it was so unpleasant to look at people flying coach. He said “looking at them made me feel…dirty.”
I’ve been told to request wheelchair service and to not bring my own icepack, but rather to bring a plastic bag which the flight attendant can fill with ice. I can imagine not being allowed to bring an icepick, but an icepack? What, am I going to bring down a plane by making seat 4A really cold?
Whatever. At least now I can fly securely, knowing that the pilots in the cockpit now carry guns. Because we all know that a safe plane is an armed plane.
Between stuffing pieces of Uno’s Pizza, Taylor Street Italian Beef sandwiches, and pierogis down my piehole, I’ll be posting regularly and uploading photos from Illinois, starting Monday. See you then.