The cat has begun

The race is on. Tension is mounting. The plane is jerking. The flight attendant is speaking, quickly, by rote, eyes rolling in boredom. I have space. Three seats and a window. On the first leg of my return, I had three seats and an aisle. The woman in front of me slept the whole time, wrapped in a blue blanket up to her neck like a mummy.

This plane is much smaller than the first one. Only five exits and one is through the back of the plane. There are two flight attendants. One looks like a flight attendant and the other sounds like one but doesn’t look like it. She has short hair and blue eyeliner. I only like to write if nobody can see.

The only thing separating me from the jet is a window and about four feet of space. It’s very loud and it vibrates my seat. I am sitting four aisles from the back of the plane. The flight attendant with short hair and blue eyeliner is sitting by herself in the back of the plane, between the two toilets, the red exit handle leading to the tail just above her head. I can’t remember whether she’s wearing trousers or a skirt. We’re taxiing towards the runway and it’s extremely loud. I don’t think I could hear if someone was talking to me. My seat is vibrating. The jet revs up high and climactic and then comes down. I wonder if planes have gears.  There are eighteen rows on this DC-9, series 10. Five seats to a row not including first class, which is four rows of four seats each, two per side. I’m on the side of the plane which has three seats. Fifty-one minutes to Chicago. Then I guess I’ll go home. I want champagne. I want to french kiss a beautiful girl. The pilot says flight attendants prepare for departure. There is snow on the runway. It’s sixteen degrees in Minneapolis. Minnesota is called the land of a thousand lakes. I want to drink champagne and french kiss a beautiful girl from Minnesota.

The wing has a sticker on it which says ‘No Step.’ My feet are hot. I just finished a Pizza Hut personal pan cheese pizza. Now I’m thirsty. The other flight didn’t have champagne. I wonder if this one does. The flight attendant said they only served champagne on Hawaii flights and she didn’t know why. She guessed it was because people were celebrating. We’re in the air now. There is white snow everywhere and it looks dull. When we flew over the Cascades this morning, there was white snow on mountain peaks and it looked exciting. I’m going to take my shoes off now. I don’t take my shoes off until we’re in the air because what if it crashes? It would be terrible to escape a burning plane in the snow in socks. I could say all the same things I always say about the earth from the sky and subdivisions and squares and roads and houses in rows, so I won’t. At this time, portable electronic devices are permitted, except for cellular phones, televisions and radios. I have to fart. My ears pop at the exact same time. I don’t know what I’ll do when I get home although I suspect I’ll want to drink champagne, listen to music and begin to redecorate and rearrange my apartment.

Today is my birthday. I want to go out to dinner with my friends and then go to a bar but I didn’t call anyone since I was gone for two weeks. I was in Chicago for about nine hours, but that was just bizarre. Stephanie and I split a Privata vegetarian burrito, but I didn’t eat it. That night a spider bigger than a chair walked down my wall and I had to turn over and close my eyes to make it go away. I saw the Pacific Ocean in Oregon and the North Cascades in Washington. I touched a sea anemone, a sea cucumber, a sea urchin and starfish in the touch tank with Mike, Kirsten and Hannah in Bellingham. They knew a lot of people and some said hi to Hannah. She didn’t want me to hold her, but she let me read her six books before the nap that she then decided not to take. She gave me a hug and said Bye Bye Greg. Before that we had burritos and I got vegetable and Kirsten got chicken and they were mixed up. Hannah loved the quesadillas. 

In Portland, I had Indian food with Adam and the vegetable pakora were good, but the garlic naan was soggy and my potato and cauliflower dish was mostly onions. The next morning we drove to the coast and had breakfast in a diner on the side of the road. I ordered a vegetarian omelette which was mostly onions. The orange juice was sour and even though it was large it was little. When Adam and I got caught in the rainstorm on Cannon Beach, we found shelter in Mo’s and I ordered a Mo’s Special Mocha with Irish Creme but all I got was Mo’s Mocha with whipped cream. Portishead was on Saturday Night Live but I fell asleep. Jewel was on David Letterman but I forgot. 

I want to Marco’s Supperclub with Rachel and Nathan and Jake last night. Marco was at the door and I gave him the Hello card from Tom the Chef at Baylor’s. They don’t have champagne. The flight attendant is wearing pants.  I gave her a two dollar tip. I have two cocktails,  both vodka and orange juice.  Instead of champagne. Maybe the alcohol will go to my head. I had pizza at the Minneapolis airport. The plane is slowing down. It’s only fifty-one minutes to Chicago. We’re flying over Madison, which is unusual. The pilot says normally we don’t. The wings make shadows or they reflect the sun. We’re above the clouds. Up up the sky is blue and then dark. All around is streaky, wavy heavenly body white. Before we even ordered, Marco sent out some portabella mushroom egg rolls. We ordered a bottle of Alsatian pinot blanc and had mussels and antipasto. Then we got a cabernet from Oregon and had tuna, duck, pork and portabella mushroom steak with risotto and butternut squash. Marco sent out a bread pudding and a creme brulee. We left a forty dollar tip on a hundred and thirty dollar bill.

My ears keep popping. I took Advil cold and sinus so my head wouldn’t hurt but I forgot not to drink. The sun is bright in my eye. It’s twenty-eight degrees in Chicago and I heard it snowed. I wonder where my car is. It’s my birthday and I am going to have fun. Flight attendants prepare for landing. When I get home I’m going to have champagne and I’m going to paint the closet around my new furnace a certain color and then I’m going to paint characters that look like this:  

but better. I’m going to copy them from somewhere and make it look like a black shadow life size. The alcohol of course has gone to my head and my face feels hot. I just sneezed. I wonder how I’m getting home from the airport. I’ll check my machine to see if Stephanie called. I can take the train. The flight attendant in pants walked past me and smiled. We’re only fifty miles from O’Hare. The ground looks brown earthy and farmland like. From up here states don’t seem to matter and who can tell anyway. From the maps you get the impression that states and countries have lines drawn around them which you could see from the air. But that’s not true. 

We’re turning now and the light plays off the plane and in my window in diamond fleeting crevice opening patterns. I wonder if it’s clear that when I say ‘the bottom of new york city’ that I mean underneath and I mean ass. People say that smells like ass. I asked Andrea and Adam if they licked butt and they said that was gross, that they licked but not butt. Adam said love is devotion and friendship and compassion and cooperation in mundane times. It’s not passion. Mike and I didn’t discuss love. I don’t think he needs to discuss it. Some people don’t need ‘how are things?’ because things are as they are. My Dad said thank God we don’t have a complicated family and I didn’t know who he was talking about. He was also glad that he didn’t have a bad marriage in which one partner restricted or held back the other. Jamie asked me how he can not end up like Dad. Who do I have to ask a question like that? It scared me when my Dad was threatening my Mom and Roy asked me what we should do. I said you should know, you’re the . . . adult. . .

Today I’m twenty-seven years old. It’s my birthday and I’m going to have fun. As always, there is so much more to say. Like meeting my Mom’s boyfriend Barry and beating him in ping pong. Like traveling with Jamie for twelve hours in the car and seeing the ice storm, the empty ferry terminal, the bridge in the Adirondacks to Vermont, the National Guard with its machine guns, the government offices closed because there was no power. How 200,000 people still don’t have power and may not for a week or two or more. Like going to Brooklyn on the subway with Amanda and seeing Dave and Mia at Patria and going to Arthur’s with their friend whose name I forget. Like dinner with Dave and Brett and Jakki in a Brooklyn restaurant and watching Amanda get changed and seeing her thong underwear and not making my birthday plans. Like taking the bus at seven in the morning to see my mother in New Jersey and then going out to eat breakfast with Maxine in my brown corduroy pants and my new black leather jacket and buying Mom a new wardrobe and spending all of my money before I even got to Seattle. Like traveling at 540 miles an hour just minutes away from O’Hare and feeling the landing gear come down and realizing that I’m coming home to Chicago, that this is where I live and we’re speeding up and slowing down, the houses on the ground getting closer and closer, the snow becoming clearer and whiter and ladies and gentlemen, we know you have a wide range of choices of which airline to fly. We thank you for choosing Northwest Airlines and hope you travel with us again in the future. On behalf of the pilot and the crew, enjoy your stay in Chicago and have a nice day.