Trimming my fat.

I hate airplanes. They're all fart-filled vessels that have the potential to randomly explode, implode, crash, or be terrorized.

I often surround myself with good people; I think most of my friends and family have cleaner souls than my own, so usually I can trick myself into believing that God would not allow a plane crash with THEM on board. But this time I was boldly making the trip alone, and I saw no one who looked particularly Heaven-bound on my flight. This trans-atlantic jaunt was to be my vacation and my reawakening as an artist, or so I said, but really, I was going to see a Scotsman who made me laugh. Needless to say, I doubted that the artless Catholic God (with wrinkly, grey-haired balls) that I had been taught to so cherish felt that these were good enough reasons to save me or any of the sorry alcoholic bastards around me in economy class on Virgin Atlantic from our impending doom, so I had been a little overenthusiastic sedatives and wine. The fact that I have to always sedate myself before boarding – and my eagerness to sedate well ahead of even leaving for the airport - means that something always gets forgotten or left behind. Where were my tourist guidebooks? I imagined they were still rolled up in my comforter back on East 14th.

Now, circling some European park, I missed the early morning bustle of my neighborhood. I missed the haggard, smoking Beth Israel nurses cursing the stolen DVD peddler who had spread his stuff out quite nearly over the entire sidewalk, and I especially missed the dark skinned man who carried a child’s boombox playing mariachie music who yelled “Glory! Gloria!” while frantically waving his little hands over the Korean bodega’s flowers, as if to but a fire out. I missed respectfully avoiding my neighborhood’s freaks. I was, instead, surrounded by a very pristine, grey landscape. Very white people were everywhere, even drinking outside of a pub, but they did so with a hard to fathom sort of dignity.

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