Minding My Junk Heap

I've been attempting a novel for several years now and have thus far been unsuccessful. It's hard to find the time, even harder to make the time. All the reading I do is only hindering any progress. The more I read, the less I want to write--so many have done are are doing it better than I can ever hope to. Which is true and bullshit at the same time. I know that. And while I'm not sure I'm ready to commit to seeing a novel-size work through to its completed end, I'm still pondering plot lines, dreaming up characters, and sketching out scenes. What follows is a short scene I had planned for story about a music journalist whose life was about to be unraveled by crisis and death. But after writing about 10 pages, I lost enthusiasm for the protagonist and his story. I recently rediscovered the aborted novel during a recent purge of electronic files, and decided it was worth saving a few scraps for my virtual dumping ground. What follows is 1,200 words that was written in one hour-long burst with no editing. Yes, I'm being self-indulgent by posting it, but what are blogs for?.

And so it goes:

I had no candles to blow out. For my thirty-fifth birthday, there would be no cake. There wasn’t even a special birthday dinner. Just a miserable meal that I thought had been wiped from culinary existence: rubbery Salisbury steak, wilted iceberg lettuce salad with French dressing from a plastic packet, bland au-gratin potatoes. Served up with on plastic tray, with plastic flatware no less (The airlines still considered the butter knife a deadly weapon. If you ask me, the hard plastic chopsticks—which passengers lucky enough to have pre-ordered the sushi were using—were just as dangerous). Evidently the airlines never got the memo. You couldn’t even find this shit in a hospital cafeteria. And you especially shouldn’t find this microwaved crap on a flight to Japan. What about sushi? I don’t care for it, but the taste of raw—and since we’re on a plane—most unsavory sushi actually sounded appetizing. No wonder American airlines are all going bust, they’re still living in the iceberg salad days of the 1960s—when the jet was coming of age. Salisbury steak. It was the butt of the South Park joke ten years ago. Eradicate it like the plague. And while you’re at it, do something about meat loaf, too.

But that’s just like me—misplaced anger. I’m getting all worked about the dinner menu of Flight 187, just so I don’t have to think about my birthday.

This suited me fine. I didn’t mind so much about turning 35. It sure beats being 25 again. I regard my mid-20s-era life with same esteem I reserve for post-1967 Beach Boys or post John Cale Velvet Underground, or Side 2 of Love’s Da Capo, for that matter—disappointing, uninspired, flagging, not as bold as the first half. Then again, at least it’s not 85, where death would most certainly be moving into one of my spare bedrooms for an imminent rendezvous, whereby I’d be stalling death recanting my accomplishments or glory days to the surrounding walls. Maybe I could lull it to sleep and by a few more uneventful years doing the equivalent of whatever the hell passes for TV some 50 years from now.

Still, I had plenty of time to contemplate the ramifications turning 35—we were barely two hours into a marathon 12-hour flight to Tokyo. It was 8 p.m. by my watch—or, who the fuck knows Tokyo local time? It was going to be long, hot flight. The airline, derogatorily slanged Northwerst, must have thought Japanese people still come in tiny packages because on this 747—the biggest one the fleet, the 747-800—the seats were no more than limp dick’s length apart. I’m not reading, though into the pocket of the seat in front of me I’ve stuffed some old issues The New Yorker, a Spin (just for Chuck Eddy’s column), and the punk rock oral history Please Kill Me, to get me in the mood for my next few weeks of work. But I can’t read on planes. Whatever it is, the thin, recycled air, the subtle yawing or rocking of the plane, or the intense lack of open space, when I crack a book mid-flight, the yawns command the eyelids close. And there’s nothing more uncomfortable than dozing off on a plane. That miserable half-sleep, half-dream state where every couple minutes your body starts joking around with you, twitching you awake and then dozing you off. Twitch. Doze. Drool. Snore-snort. Twitch! Excuse me, you say to your seatmate. Forgive my foot, and my hands—they misbehave when their owner is out to lunch.

My ears only complicate things further. As a baby, toddler, child, adolescent, I was prone to recurring ear infections. Something about my ears manufacturing too much fluid—wax—for my too tiny drainage tubes. Think of it as grease clog in your sink. The result in the short-term was constant earaches and strawberry-flavored antibiotics. My parents wouldn’t spring for the corrective surgery or the insertion of ear tubes, which could have compensated for my biological shortcomings until my body could catch up and grow bigger drain pipes. But for some reason my ears never improved. You can imagine then what it’s like to be flying with an ear infection, or double ear infection, something I’ve routinely experienced. The pain comes primarily during landing, though takeoff is no pleasure. As soon as the pilot announces the plane’s descent, you notice you can’t hear him/her loud-and-clear in the cabin anymore. Congratulations, your ears have begun to plug. You soon deafen to any sounds outside your head. Try talking to yourself—it feels like your voice is actually in your head. It’s muffled, but you know it to be yours. Think of the shock you’d feel if it wasn’t—going deaf and crazy at the same time—like Beethoven! As your inner ears fill with fluid and plug shut, the pressure builds…and builds…and FUCKING BUILDS until you’re going OW!!! THIS FUCKING KILLS while writhing in the most excruciating pain. You feel like you’re head is going to burst off your neck like a champagne cork. And twice, I’ve ruptured my eardrums. You know you’ve ruptured an eardrum when blood comes dripping out of your ear hole. And the deafness you experience—or I should say the hearing impairment—especially if your ear’s already infected will last many days to come. Of all the pain I’ve experienced in the first half of my life—and I’ve broken bones, dislocated joints, lacerated lots of body parts—nothing compares to the pain of bursting an eardrum. Incidentally, your eardrums are actually made to rupture, and they eventually repair themselves. But until they do, it’s no fun.

I now wear specially made earplugs that regulate the pressure on flights. They’re not like those you find in the airport gift shops; no I had my ENT doc (that’s lazy speak, which is what I call it when people speak in initialisms or acronyms, for ear, nose and throat doctor) make custom, flesh-colored plugs. Meaning: they look ridiculous, especially since the skin-tone coloring actually better resembles a hue of pantyhose. Is it control top 20? Nevertheless, they work. And for them to perform at their optimum best, the wearer must don them the entire flight—not just a takeoff and landing. And so I wear them, imagining me to look like some douche bag suit with two Bluetooth ear phones grafted onto each side of my skull. But I can’t afford not to wear them. My trip would be pointless if I couldn’t hear. I’m the lucky writer who’s been chosen to tag along with the Texas neo-psychedelic band Holy Three and chart their international ascent across the Land of the Rising Sun.

Anyway, I can’t read, I can’t sleep, and with these large gobs of rubber in my ears I can’t listen to my iPod. Even the movie headphones are useless. Which is a mighty shame: Northwerst has a trio of Jennifer Aniston movies lined up for tonight—and you can hear the audio in Japanese or English! I’m praying for severe turbulence, if only to impart a little variety during the drone to Japan. Hey, it’s not like a bumpy ride will send the plane spiraling down toward the almighty drink—most crashes occur on takeoff and landing. I should know, I follow plane crashes with the same enthusiasm I devote to music. Some terrific jolts would at least make this a birthday worth remembering.