Mid-Air musings

(Author's Note: This was writen yesterday while in the air between Tokyo and Bangkok. As I describe in this posting, I was quite groggy and not really with it at the time I typed it, so please excuse lapses in coherence or spelling or that kind of thing - Dude.)

This past Saturday, my lovely cousin Kala, one of the most faithful readers of this here weblog, got married to her longtime boyfriend/fiancé, Darren Larsen. Congrats to them! The ceremony was beautiful, and the party afterward was raucous and fun – the first wedding on the Luebke side of the family since one heady day back in ’82 when my Aunt Carol and Uncle Dan took their vows, and I was 5 years old. Got to see lots of relatives, including my recently engaged younger brother, Angry Johnny (jrluebke.blogspot.com) and his fiancé, Amber, who flew in from the Bay Area just for the wedding and subsequent party. So it was a great time for all.

However, due to having to fly my second-least favorite airline (United – Northwest, or as I like to call it, Northworst, beats “The Friendly Skies” (the most brazenly false advertising in history perhaps) by a cockpit) out of Fargo ($300 cheaper than the next best price,) all did not end so well. The reasonable 10:30 am flight I was originally on was cancelled, and I was forced to take the 6 am instead. Keep in mind this is 6 am following a night at the wedding reception, where there were many people I hadn’t seen in a long time and the first wedding on this side of the family since the first term of the Reagan Administration. So I had to cut myself off early to avoid being booted from the plane for sobriety issues. On top of that, my ever-loving parents (God bless ‘em) had to drive me to Fargo, and we had to leave at 3:30 a.m., as it’s a one hour drive from my Grandma’s house. Not much sleep for anyone that night. Wasn’t too happy about that.

As I type this, I’m about 34,000 Feet in the air and somewhere over the East China Sea, on my way from Tokyo’s Narita Airport to Bangkok’s Don Muang Airport. This flight is never pleasant, especially the O’Hare-Narita stretch. It was especially unpleasant today as I was a.) without sleep (come to think of it, I’ve been without sleep every time I’ve done this flight) and b.) unable to get an emergency exit seat, where I can actually have sufficient legroom. Even when I do have an emergency exit sleep, I cannot get comfortable on a plane, except for those rare times when I have a whole row to myself (only happened once thus far). The seats are only about two inches wider than my butt, making comfort harder to come by than good sushi in North Dakota. In addition to that, since I was sitting in an aisle seat, I had the added annoyance of having people’s butts brush against my head when I was actually managing to doze off (guess I shouldn’t have let my head sag to the right in my semi-conscious state.) Furthermore, every time anyone in the row behind mine got up to use the Loo or whatever (which was frequent,) they grabbed the top of my seat to help themselves up, further making sleep an impossibility.

When one does manage to put together a peaceful enough stretch to actually slip into a state of sleep, it doesn’t get too much better. At times, I’ve managed to lose consciousness completely for one or two hours. However, I always end up waking up because of a butt-brush or chair grab or something. When this happens, the first thing I do is to look at my watch, hoping that I’ve slept a while, and that there are only one or two hours left. But that’s never the case – there are always between seven and nine hours remaining, it seems. It’s as disappointing as checking Twins scores has been this season thus far, especially when they’re on the road.

This agonizing 22 hours that I am in hour 18 of right now in the above-described conditions begs an important question – why do I keep doing this to myself? Every time I do it, I promise myself I will never do it again. However, that is always short lived – just a few minutes in Bangkok, Tokyo, or any other places in Asia are a bold reminder of why it’s worth it. It’s often been said that “it’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” Well, when it comes to making a trans-Pacific flight to Asia, the opposite of that is true. The end justifies the means. Although I’ve never experienced it (and never will, for that matter,) it’s akin to childbirth with an extra-long period of being in labor. Not a pleasant process, but one well worth the trouble.

That’s why I do it, and that’s why you all should make the flight and see it for yourselves, too. When you're going to Asia, it’s not the journey, it’s the destination. Hail progress!