excerpts from a journal

on the way:

-i was not randomly selected
-visa not expired and signed in all the appropriate places

taking off from minneapolis to CIA (cancun int'l airport)

-humourless flight attendant "this is flight so+so from minneapolis to cedar rapids, iowa" hahaha

-at which point everyone laughed because of course who are these deranged who would want to go to iowa for god's sake?! (really?!)

here cut cut cut

ok:
-taking off

-i am ravenous and my stomach wakes the boy next to me

-it hits me that they're selling food on this flight and that the extinct free food was a delicacy compared to the meager sandwich i am now purchasing while mumbling and shaking my head

-i think god i miss lebanon

-i am sitting next to a woman and a boy. she is svelte, tall and wears a coloured patchwork of a dress. she is solving sudoku and looks intellectual with her thin glasses and reserved look.

-i want to ask her why she is going to mexico with her son. maybe she is running away from her husband. or maybe he's an archaeologist and he's waiting for her in some crumbling Mayan pit.

-or she's meeting a lover - but no her son is with her that wouldn't work

-he looks like a pauvre type and remains undisturbed by all my fidgeting

-let's see: scenario for the patchwork lady:

she is..fortyish. fun-loving. eyes brimming with spontaneity. divorced and a single mother. she's a chef and someone (william zagat?) has just tasted her beet and chevre and written about it. NOW she is on her way by special invite (economy class invite) to the Int'l Culinary Meeting held in Playa this year. she's the JK Rowling of the cooking world and her beet-chevre will be her Harry Potter. or so she hopes.

she comes from an obscure little town in - where - where ?aliens may have landed at some point - but now even aliens have lost their lustre and the town remains obscure. william zagat's hubcap had flown away 4 miles from the town. he stopped by to replace it and stumbled upon her beet-chevre. go figure! zagat himself. the rest was history.

now she's wondering if her concoction will taste the same in front of the culinary squad. mexican beets. god only knows..

-btw he's saying there's turbulence ahead. i tell myself i no longer have my plane phobia but that nagging niggling feeling is back. god i don't want to know if there's turbulence ahead just let me enjoy the present and deal with the bumps in their own time

-and now the waiting..