THE SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK NOOS

Flight Attendant: “Would you like another wine?”
Noodle: “Oh, god, yes.”

5 minutes later
What the hell am I doing?

I’m sitting here watching the wing of this 747-400 Megatop moving wildly up and down as I bounce about in my seat. I like turbulence. Usually. But this time, as I watch the wing, it’s so bad that it seems to me the wings must surely be flapping steadily, as though they were attached to an actual bird. That in reality, there are no mega-engines on this stomach-heavy piece of tin. Just oversized, metal, flapping wings. It’s very unnerving to watch a massive engine moving around like that. Is this plane made of Mechano? Oh, and of course there’s the whole wing shimmy factor. Don’t get me started on that.

Noodle, pay it no mind. Just because I’m sitting at a window behind the wing, doesn’t mean I have to look out the window at the wing. And now that I think about it, it’s not the lurching around, the spilling of wine, or the combobulation of my stomach contents that’s causing me grief anyway. It’s the thoughts. Damn you brain! How dare you think!

We’re 50 minutes out of New York and suddenly it hits me. Some of you will be thinking, “Well, it’s about time, Janeen. Really, we thought you’d crack long before this.” But honestly, it’s taken this long to sink in. I’m doing something incredibly stupid. Oh, hang on farm girl. You’re 50 minutes out of New York—you’ve already done it.

Here I am, friendless, jobless and not quite penniless, about to land in very strange topography. These foreigners are bound to have a completely different mindset. I’m used to maybe 50 percent of my pals getting my jokes…now I have no pals (in the immediate vicinity I mean). I have excised the pals like troublesome boils. THE PALS ARE GONE! The joke-getting odds are about to drop to one percent. Read the rest of this entry »