Time Flies Like an Arrow, Fruit Flies Like a Banana

As I sit here on board flight MU 586 back to the motherland, I am overcome by a strong sense of nostalgia and sentimentality. However, it is not any of those things that have driven me to pen my thoughts this time…no, it is out of sheer boredom that I have found myself once again conversing with the likes of my keyboard and enjoying the refreshing glow of my LCD monitor.

While I personify the rest of my macbook, others around me are beginning to close their eyes, pull out books and magazines, or standing anxiously waiting for the vacuum flush of an airplane lavatory. It’s times like these that grant me a moment of reflection, a moment where I can shake off the momentum of the arrow and simply enjoy the sweet nectar and the revitalizing properties of potassium as it balances out my potassium-chlorine channel.

Almost as instantly as I boarded and sat down in my tiny little seat, crammed like sardines in a flying metal tube surrounded by jet-fuel 30,000 ft above the ground, I am bombarded by the reasons why I was so happy to leave Shanghai…THE PEOPLE. Don’t get me wrong, the city isn’t full of obnoxious, better-than-thou loogie spitting idiots, but it sure as hell seems like it. And this flight, direct from los angeles was no different. Mixed in with the individuals and families who are simply trying to get back to visit family and friends are the “locals” who will disregard the social order and respect of others and flip off their shoes, releasing wretched aromas into a poorly circulated ventilation system; who will disregard airline regulations and recline their seats even those sitting completely forward; who will snap at innocent bystanders only trying to put their luggage into the overhead compartments, slightly blocking the aisle, only to hypocritically perform the same task moments later. And my only solace to such entrapment on such a flight was the glimmering hope of being able to plug my computer into a socket and bury myself in my love affair with my hard-drive and flash games…unfortunately, as if to rub salt inside an already raw wound, the powers to be that have governed my motions throughout the inception of this trip, have decided to make my socket not comply with the electricity hungry salvation.

Seeing as how I’m ¾ of the way through this page and have not yet written down a single reflection of times past, I realize that I have forayed onto a tangent…away from the initial intention of nostalgia and sentimentality. And as I try to draw myself back to the original train of thought, I find myself drawing a blank instead. I had thought about poeticizing the last six months of my life that have taken on such a different face than I had expected when I first stepped out of my bubble and onto the nascent steps of my future…but I seem to have lost that voice of explanation amalgamated with reflective ambivalence. So I shall leave you all with this question:

“As I pass you from the window to the aisle, do I give you the crotch or the ass?”