For the sake of symmetry, let’s get some statistics out of the way: 2311 miles from LA. 36000 feet. London local time: 4:51 pm. LA local time: 8:41 am. Ground speed 553 mph. Outside air temperature: -57 degrees Fahrenheit.
NOW. Down to business. This is to be the first unpublished blog for two reasons: first, I want to include my entire trip in the final post, and I would be unable to do that right now; second, I want to bask in the unchecked glow of the self-righteous irritability invariably inspired by long air travel. [As you can probably guess, I failed in my resolve to make this my first unpublished post.]
I’ve watched two movies so far. Frost/Nixon, which was good. It was interesting to see the inner workings of television and debate, and how mind games play a huge part in the proceedings. The historical aspect of it also interested me a lot; and disgusted me. Next, Seven Pounds, which was AWFUL. You know that part at the beginning of many movies where you don’t know what going on for about five minutes, and you gradually figure it out? Ya, that ‘confusing beginning part’ in Seven Pounds lasted about 90 minutes, or roughly 17 TIMES longer than most movies. All we find out is Will Smith is really sad and likes to hang out around hospitals. The moral implications of some of the interactions bothered me as well. At one point he called someone on the phone and badgered them, demanding they “tell me how it really makes you feel!” to which the man responded in the typical way, “Uh, what? You’re crazy, uh, wanna buy some meat?” (He was a meat salesman.) From this exchange, Will Smith deduced the man was a good person. What! It bothered me because in Fight Club, there are similar exchanges which result in the subject cracking and being shown the error of their pathetic, tepid life. But no, not in this movie. It seems Hollywood could at least do us the service of providing a united moral front. Later, Will meets a woman with an ill heart. She is quoted saying she doesn’t think she deserves another heart because she is unremarkable. Will Smith replies by saying he shares a similar degree of self-loathing, and because of this, they become friends. What the deuce?
The idea behind the movie was all right (Will Smith kills himself and gives his body parts away) but it was such a terrible movie! Another two viewings would be required to tie up all the loose ends, and I’m not about to do that because I have no desire to darken my considerably bright aura. Also, he completely blows off his brother and essentially ruins his career! And just runs off to kill himself! What a crappy movie! The whole reason he’s so sad is he killed his new wife by texting and driving at the same time. I think the real strength of this tale would be revealed in bar-story form, where it would be told as, “Dude, I knew this guy once who got in a car crash and his wife died, and then he just went crazy, started finding sick people and stuff, and he would just go up to people and do nice stuff for them for no reason, and then after like a month he just up and killed himself with a jellyfish and gave all his body parts away! No, ya, really! A jellyfish! No seriously, my brother was friends with his one of his brother’s roommates, and he said….” See how awesome that would be? But as a movie, it’s just banal, and stupid, and laughable, and dingy…It makes me feel like moaning in disappointment, which I will do now. Ehhhhh……
In other news, I’ve learned that six hours on a plane is my essential travel barrier between quiet tolerance and restless irritability. Loquacious irritability, maybe, as evidenced by the past movie rant. I hope the lady behind me can’t read what I’m writing. I was seated in economy in a middle row with five seats. Three are filled: the two on the end and mine, next to the left end. Leaves two seats; my companions and I can do some sweet stuff with two extra seats, right? Wrong. The lady who is sleeping on my shoulder right now chose to move to the seat next to her, then lean over the armrest into the other open seat. So, now I’m sitting in the middle of the middle seat, unable to lean against the armrest. The lady has like nine of those little blue pillows too. I’m going to draw a picture to accentuate my point and release my irrationally fierce anger.
There. That feels better. Actually, this is hours later. I had a nice conversation with the woman in that seat. She taught me how to make pad thai. She was pretty cool after all.I watched Gran Torino. It is a good movie.
Now I’m in San Francisco for a couple hours before my flight to Klamath Falls departs. I talked to a guy who owned a company which insures banks on the flight from LA to SF. He was pretty friendly. Everybody always wants to tell me how cool they are though. It wasn’t until after the conversation that I realized he was a story-topper. He kept telling me about all these smart people he knew and slipping in the fact that he owns a business with one hundred employees. I guess it’s not necessarily bad attribute, I’m just not the type of person who tries to impress people I meet. He was just a tad rude, not answering my questions. He seemed honest though, which I respect. Haha, he was talking about how some engineers have no social skills and they’re really hard to talk to. He knew I was an engineer, but he didn’t know that I don’t have social skills. Hehe, sucker, I got him good. But he was all right, we talked about the difficulties of balancing a family with work. He said it was very difficult, and I fully believe him.
I had to bite the bullet in London and pay an excess baggage fee for the third of my three bags. It was 128 pounds, or roughly 200 dollars. Absurdly expensive. Working the most lucrative job I’ve ever had, it would still take me two full days to make that much money. For fifty pounds of luggage. Four dollars per pound (weight pound, not money pound). Or, twenty minutes of work per pound of luggage. That’s a nice way to think about it. I carried my luggage, one pound at a time, across the Pacific and back to Oregon over a two-day period. Sounds awesome.
I spent my first American dollars in four months on a sourdough bread bowl and a bottle of water in the SF airport about half hour ago. It felt good, and strangely enough, a quarter looks really foreign to me right now. But it feels good to have American money again. Any American thing I see now just makes me feel so good inside, haha. It’s just a giddy feeling to come back to someplace so familiar to me.
I fly over Eastern Oregon to reach Los Angeles before returning about seven hours later.
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