Blog fuhrer, Johann Sebastien Scalzi offers the following as the requirements for the new millennium, er,Weekend Assignment #70: Books for a Trip "You know, something to keep me from banging my head against the plane wall as I'm bored out of my skull at 36,000 feet above the chilly North Atlantic. I'm open to fiction and non-fiction, and I like to read from all genres. I don't mind something challenging, but this should be a book for enjoyment; I'm not planning to study for a test or anything. Please don't recommend a book that's sold over, say, 5 million copies, because that's waaaay too easy. So no Harry Potters or DaVinci Codes or the Five People You Meet in Heaven or most primary religious texts or stuff like that. You know what I'm talking about, here."
"Extra Credit: If you have any special tips or techniques you used for dealing with long trips, I'd love to hear them."
Dear John,
I do hope that all is well in Scalziland – there's been too few entries devoted to your lovely wife lately. Do give her our best. And isn't Athena sprouting like a weed? She's going to be a heart breaker when she gets older, no doubt about it.
I envy you the time and resources that allow you to go off to Worldcon. Oh, to be young and solvent once again. Back in the day, I did a fair amount of traveling hither and yon (don't screw around in yon, by the way – it's a hanging offense). In addition, many years ago I injured my back, crushing a disk. So sitting still on an airplane or in a train becomes excruciating for me very quickly. Add the prospect of jet lag and a Rembrandt just doesn't appear, you know? So, I used to drink myself into oblivion but these days they throw Johnny from the plane without a parachute if one gives so much as the appearance you are having fun, let alone are actually inebriated. I can't in good conscience recommend that as a proper course of action. Instead, I'll suggest you indulge in a couple of guilty pleasures... Charlaine Harris and Keith Laumer.
It used to be one could wander freely without incurring the enmity of one's fellow passengers. Since the destruction of the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon, moving about on a flight is likely to get one a plastic dinner “spork” up the bum if one isn't careful. Or a stopover in Bangor, Maine, where the police and FBI frog march one's arse off the plane at gunpoint to the cheers of your “fellow passengers.” Neither a pleasant way to spend a vacation. Not the kind of exercise recommended for avoidance of DVT's, either (Deep vein thrombi (thromboses?).
Nowadays, I make a lot of trips to the loo. These are legitimate trips and not just for exercise as I take lots of HCTZ to prevent me from blowing up into a balloon of retained fluid. The only good thing about diuretics is the absence of blockages by kidney stones. While in the head, I do stretches. I lean on bulkheads. I go up to the bulkhead with the magazine racks and do mini-pushoffs to circulate blood to the thoracic region. So I usually request an aisle seat, despite my preference for looking out the window at the fire on the wing after the lightning strike (such pretty colors as the metals burn). That means I fidget even more, trying to find a comfortable position. Drives the others in the row nuts. But, it also means that I can stretch out momentarily into the aisle, I get to legitimately get up and down multiple times to let others in and out and I get easy access to the head because the need WILL arise, unlike the South (heheheh).
All of which probably goes into the TMI file. But there's a method to my madness. Or a point, at least. I bring trade paperbacks that have print large enough to see without holding the bloody book six inches from my nose, they fit in the pocket of my blazer or jacket, they are too big to be mistaken for a gun bulge because they peek out of the top of the pocket, rather than lurk at the bottom. They are lighter. They cost less, so loss is annoying, not ANNOYING. And I can bring two, if I'm flying more than a few hours away. I read in the loo. I read while standing up, stretching my back and upper hind legs.
The Charlaine Harris oeuvre I prefer is her Sookie Stackhouse (Southern Vampire) series. Wait! Don't go off like that, boy. Listen to your elders just a gol darn minute! This stuff is funny. She builds fun characters and puts them into amusing situations and lets them run amok, more or less than real life, depending on how vibrant your life truly is. Start off with the first in the series Dead Until Dark – you'll have it finished in three hours, four if they interrupt you with a meal (you did remember to only bring packaged goodies in your carry on – candy bars and the like, right?) Pick up the second one, Living Dead In Dallas for the trip back, assuming you aren't so inebriated or so badly hung over that you can't read...
Restless after eating, exercising, stretching and reading? Seen all the movies? Tired of listening to your Ipod and the screams of the two year old three rows back? That hacking cough of the 300 pounder beside you got you worried (probably me hacking up a cancerous lung)? Then it's time to switch from “Coldplay” and “There Be Giants” or whatever crap you've been listening to (just kidding – put down the knife), switch down to the Mozart and Chopin, and crack open Keith Laumer: The Lighter Side.
Eric Flint has compiled a marvelous collection of short stories from Laumer's most prolific period and all of the stories are unaffected by the extreme anger and bitterness that overtook Keith after his stroke in 1971. I think you'll find them just the ticket to awake the wonder within, while easing the aches and pains of one Scotch too many from the night before...
You be good now. Remember you are there for business, not pleasure. And for land's sake, don't get caught!
wil
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