Bored on an Airplane
I’m pretty damn excited as I sit here on the plane- “Shipping Up to Boston” a friend who’s well-versed in Irish music would say, so it’s in my head, even though I’ve never heard the song. Culture is funny like that. The tail of the plane is still touching the LAX dot, and it will be many hours until we land in Logan. The young men sitting next to me are hunkered over their Switch, and of course I’m envious as they enjoy Super Smash Brothers (or whatever the new one’s called) and Mario Kart and Untitled Goose Game. But me, I’m getting to write something that I’ll post on Livejournal sometime, and somehow that old-skool thrill is absolutely delighting me.
I’m back on eljay during a war when we should all be boycotting all things Russian for a very specific reason. I had been recording a lot of my feels on a Pages document, just like the one I’m currently using. I just kept writing, for years, knowing well it’d make good raw material for a “how to survive a devastating divorce” graphic novel someday. Then, a few months before I replaced that iPad Pro, it vanished. Of course I didn’t have a backup, it was pretty much the only thing I was doing with my iPad Pro, besides taking pictures of my cat and various food I was proud of. Everything else was farting around the internet. So even though it was a tiny text document which I could’ve put on any or every Google Drive, DropBox, whatever, I didn’t. Then it was gone.
But what gets put up on eljay stays on eljay. Even if I were making money, I couldn’t pay for a subscription, it’s immoral while the war is on. I feel like I should be typing “insert hippie anguishing about the war on Ukraine” here, but I don’t have many feelings about it. Fuck Putin, wish the world was sending troops to support Ukraine but I’m glad the US and other countries are sending giant buckets of money. Much more pertinent to me is the leaked document from one of the boring old white men on the Supreme Court that’s a draft of a statement overturning Roe v. Wade. It’s not a surprise, but the rage I feel as a tiny handful of people prepare to do something that’s going to kill a large number of Americans is difficult to put words to. It’s a vast sea, but in a way it’s a relief. Ah, anger- there you are. My decayed husk of a marriage fills me with sadness, loss, loneliness, depression and anxiety certainly, but curiously little rage. Far less than Coyote expected, and his perception of me was of this horrific monster who would absolutely lose their shit if he so much as hinted he was leaving me.
I still have dreams, blessedly infrequent ones now, but nonetheless dreams that we’re still together or he wants a deeper connection with me. He doesn’t, and why should he? He’s with his perfect match, a fellow introvert who is perfectly content to stay home always and a lover who connects much better with his sexuality. It still boggles my mind, how much my life has changed since May of 2019 and how little his has. He moved across a driveway, into the room that’s a mirror of the one he shared with me for our last year. I had to move across the whole damn country, to a place with no support network except for two old frail people who probably sometimes regret that egg-and-sperm dance of nearly 50 years prior.
So now I’m headed back, for the first time since October 2019, for the first time since the ashes of the Capital-S Summer were cooling all around me and I was risking homelessness and more frightened than I’ve ever been. So many people my age don’t have any living parents: mine only exist because of how committed they are to healthy eating, and the good health care that naturally comes to those of the Upper Middle Class or whatever. I don’t know, it’s hard to tell exactly where my parents are, class-wise. They’ve never been splashy with their money, but the fact that they can retire in the Bay Area and see as many doctors as they do, that speaks to something.
We’re flying over Utah. WHEEEEEE!
Anyway. If I do manage to get out, that’s it, over, done. My only chance to rest and recover will be used up, I won’t get to fuck up like that again.
Now we’re just over halfway there, and I am tired, cranky, uncomfortable, restless. I’m too hot, can’t change to shorts because my suitcase with all my clothes is packed through (for freeeeeee though!). I can’t sleep because some sadist designed this airplane so that there’s a row of seats that don’t recline and lucky me, I’m one of those six passengers. I have to be a lot more tired to be able to crash out at 90 degrees, though I might try soon. I just watched a movie, it was good but I wasn’t focusing much in the last hour and another movie or show would probably be even more ineffectual at making the time pass. I still have a lot of unread New Yorkers, but I don’t think I can focus enough to read. I’m kinda hungry, but the food that appeals most requires digging into the bottom of my bag and juggling lots of other stuff. Then again, Swedish Fish are pretty great. Exactly 91 minutes left, so, not going to start another movie now. Yawn. I’m gonna crash hard tonight! So glad I napped before leaving my parents’ place. One thing I’m better at in my old age (ha, ha) is listening to my body. It wanted sleep, so sleep I did, and when I first stirred I noticed Ramsay curled up with me. My parents are letting him sleep with them while I’m away. I told Ramsay to take good care of his grandparents, I hope he listens for once. Luckily they’ve finally both fallen for him, though it took a long time with Mom and she’s more annoyed by his rule-breaking (and pot-breaking!) than Dad is.
Thought I had earlier that I should put on FB sometime: if you get the chance to befriend your parents, I highly recommend it. Has to be done after the age of 40, or whenever your adolescent bullshit is long in the past. I’m never going to be one of those call-every-day types (should I ever live apart from my parents again), but I genuinely like them both now, and that’s not a place I thought I’d ever be with my Mom.
It’s nice to glance up and see 7 more minutes has passed. Inch by inch, or rather lots of miles per minute, I’m getting closer to Boston and my hired bed in Salem. We’re just at the thumb of Michigan’s mitten now, soon a bit of Canada to cross and then we’ll be in the Northeast proper, flying over the full width of New York State and then the same again with Massachusetts.
Almost home. *sniffle*