It Might Get Messy

And it could always get worse. But what doesn’t really help (me, at least), is knowing that “other people have the same problem”. It’s a cliché of cancer therapy that the victim should “join a group”. Not being much of a joiner, I always ask why. The answer “so you’ll know there are others facing these issues” isn’t satisfying. I mean, I wish I didn’t have to face these problems. I REALLY wish other people didn’t have to face them. 

On the other hand, in an admitted twist of functional logic, it does make me feel at least a little lucky to know that things could be a hell of a lot worse. Take my checkout kid at the market today. She and the customer ahead of me had an animated discussion about the kid’s paralyzed right leg. When I asked what was up she said “Oh, that was my pediatrician, I haven’t seen her in a while. I had polio and it paralyzed my right leg, so now I’m in special classes to learn to drive with my left leg only. Do you have your discount card with you?” I looked at her and thought: a) polio? In the 2000s? What the hell??”, and b) “man, I may still be working my way out from under cancer but at least my leg’s not paralyzed.” 

But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here to talk about flying. In airplanes. There just HAS to be some better technology within reach. For crap’s sake, air travel still means stuffing people into a tube made of riveted quarter-inch alloy, accelerating the whole show to 400 miles per hour, and, as Led Zeppelin put it, “taking your chances on a big jet plane”. 

And what does this rant have to do with cancer? Just this. Whenever I fly now, my mouth and throat tissues swell up into big painful poofy blobs, kind of like a miniature or toy version of “The Thing” on steroids. It’s incredibly uncomfortable, makes even the attempt to eat solid food look hopeless, and smears my speech past the precision that the hour-per-day of conversational Arabic allows under normal, i.e. non-flight circumstances.

One theory is that the low-humidity environment of the aircraft causes my mucosal expansion. Personally, I’m inclined to think it has more to do with the low pressure conditions at altitude and the inherent instability of radiation-damaged tissues. Either way, it’s something of a pain in the ass, since functioning as a professional scientist in today’s world rather depends on air transit. 

Depending on destination, salvation is sometimes available in the form of hormone-free, organic, pasture-fed (is there any alternative to the latter?) chocolate milk sold by the half gallon in Whole Foods markets across North America. 

Such was the case on the most pleasant trip to the East Bay region of California last week. While I didn’t quite get the atmospherics aligned—I took the Thanksgiving Driving CD instead of Dead Kennedy’s classics with East Bay Ray on keyboards—I had a great time, a successful colloquium, and got to see that Beth and Maggie are settled comfortably in a gorgeous home within walking distance of downtown Walnut Creek. Damn, life hardly gets better than that, huh? 

I’ll have to fly back out to see them as soon as possible. Stopping for a couple jugs of Whole Foods chocolate milk on the way in from the airport, of course. 

My writing life seems to be pretty much back under control. Meaning there’s sustainability commentary on my professional blog at http://www.aehsfoundation.org/, same at http://sustainablebiospheredotnet.blogspot.com/,  a little natural history over at http://docviper.livejournal.com/ , and some holiday celebratory kickoff book review material up at http://theresaturtleinmysoup.blogspot.com/ . That’s right, my friends. The entire weblog enterprise is back up and functioning like a well-oiled…well, occasionally lubricated…ok, barely scraping by on rusty moving parts…machine. But at least it’s back up and functioning. Love to everyone, especially those I saw this week for the first time in a couple of years who thought I was either dead or permanently incapacitated. You can’t imagine how fantastic it was to get to talk to you, slurry as my speech might have been. Rock and roll, everybody. Remember to party hearty—world’s gonna end on 21 December, so we got a LOT of livin’ to do by then!