I pull my tablet out of my roller back pack, as I’m sure the gate attendant is going to tell me that I have to do a jetway tag of my bag. They never believe me that the thing fits easily under the seat on the Canadair 200/700/900 series regional jets. However, he passes me through on the early boarding, as it looks like I’m finally going to get home after a couple of long days in what is normally my favorite city, Chicago. His bad attitude doesn’t exist as I had it amplified in my mind, which tells me I’m running out of reserves quickly.

Since I don’t do cocaine or amphetamines anymore, I am running on pure adrenaline and caffeine, with a slight undercurrent of lorazepam, as I fall into the seat on the plane. First class on this leg, so I almost instantly get more coffee, as if my thinking about it was enough for it to happen. The flight attendant is really tall, which I oddly associate with the idea that the coffee may be stronger as a result. The final threads of synapses connecting and dying with exhaustion and a manic pulse for 36 hours no doubt.

Hunter S. Thompson once said the difference between traveling with Nixon and McGovern was like the difference between traveling with the Pope and the Grateful Dead. It seems apropos of a comparison between O’Hare airport and Midway airport in Chicago, with Midway more along the lines of the papacy in its relative calm. At my gate, I’m instantly annoyed by one of those people who walk around wearing their neck pillows-it’s as if they have discovered some secret fountain of pillow wisdom in their smugness around those who just head flop around during flight naps. They have to show off their special pillow for all to see in action, as if we don’t know how it works. Go buy some $20 headphones for $60 bucks at the same kiosk, you schmuck.

Of course, my bag is separated from me, off on his own trip, probably hitting on some Coach bag way out of his league. He never sleeps, so I imagine he took the 1:14AM flight home, probably waiting at the bar for me at the Fargo airport. Wow, I am losing it as I imagine the folds of my brain collapsing.

I quickly flip mental channels, thinking of how getting to Fargo yesterday was doomed from the start. Almost upon my arrival at the airport, flights were being cancelled right and left due to bad weather other places and what O’Hare calls “air traffic control issues”, which is code for “we don’t have nearly enough goddam controllers to handle this shitstorm of stacked up planes” which I imagine to be like turtles all the way down at this point. As each flight cancels, smiles turn to blank stares, then a full gate of hapless people start flying down the large hallways to the “service desk”- it’s almost as if the expanse was designed for this purpose. I saw one lady run of out of a shoe, screaming something unintelligible back to her husband, which really seemed out of proportion for a flight reschedule, especially as many of us were getting rebooking texts on our phones after a minute or so.

South Chicago turns below me as we ascend heading toward my final destination of Fargo. Maybe I will take a nap. I’ve given up on trying to make my original meeting in Florida, as a flight there was 2 days away. One of the neck pillow people is asleep next to me- maybe I can slip it out by creating a diversion, like breaking their foot with my cane. Another time, perhaps.

The trick is not to find the new normal, but to celebrate the inherent strangeness of everything

The caravan shuttled forward into what was the approaching dusk at our present location 41.2565° N, 95.9345° W (they call it “Omaha”). Our species sees the same colors, but not all on this detail do- their loss I guess, but they all serve below deck anyway.

Comfortably in the jet stream, Venus layed out ahead above the horizon of this planet, another rest stop on our long journey. We’d harvest some sulfur and carbon from the atmosphere there, that would fuel us for awhile. It’s always hot there, so the less time the better, but the view back at this planet is glorious. I wonder if they ever think about it- I don’t know, we have yet to make contact, although the commanders have discussed it.

We’ve been called here for a disturbance, but it was indeterminate; not risking to be uncloaked, the orders came down to move on. With the multiple translators linked now, there’d be no mistakes or accidents. We’ll return, maybe they’ll still be here then- some aren’t.

Ride the Planet Caravan.

For the last few months, I’ve put my mind to use on solving the perpetual laundry day dilemma- what happened to the missing sock(s), almost always one from a matching pair. Although this phenomenon is noted with missing singles from multiple pairs as well, my solution can also solve this issue as well.

For decades, the proposed loss has had some fantastical explanations- did they disintegrate into lint, and go out through the trap? Do they collapse into their own gravitational field and become dark stars? Do they simply escape? Many of these answers point to the dryer as the culprit, but probably only because it is the last link in the chain. Analysis of every step was necessary to find the solution to this perplexing issue.

Some of the answers are reflected in modern laundry circumstances.

First we should consider all of the steps a pair of socks go through. For this purpose, we’ll consider a pair of socks to be 2 that are normally worn together by the user, so they don’t necessarily have to match. So, they are worn by the user (however many times or days is up to the user, and doesn’t affect our analysis), make it to a laundry receptacle (“basket” “chute” “bag”), into the wash, often to a dryer, back in a receptacle, and put away (although for many, this step is optional). As well, if a different person or persons handles each step, that adds variance. The sock can be lost anywhere along this chain of events. So, anyplace a sock can go missing would have it’s own event horizon.

1. First, of course, they may not make it to the basket at the same time, and this appears to be a huge source of variance. In this scenario, they are not actually lost, they are just off-cycle. To solve this, I use a small basket only for socks, far reducing the chance that the pair won’t make it to the washer and dryer at the same time, keeping them synchronous.

2. Next, I visibly confirm that each member of the pair makes it to the washer, and on to the dryer. These are both areas of lost sock inventory- sometimes, they make it to the floor and under the washer or dryer. Once in the washer, as it turns out, gravitational force can play a significant role in the wash, not the dryer. Typical front loading washer can have up to 375 G of force in the spin. Here’s a place where I often find the wayward sock crammed into a very small small space in the bin.

3. Finally, let’s consider static- a spinning dryer bin creates a significant charge, not unlike a Van De Graaf generator. Socks may be trapped somewhere in the bin, but more often than not, they end up in a sleeve or pant leg encased in a few megavolts of static, or less likely, inside another sock. In this scenario, they aren’t really lost, but are again off-cycle until their more often than not accidental discovery. This almost always happens after the sock is given up for lost, and a new pair is purchased to replace the displaced pair.

I believe this accounts for all of the circumstances where a sock can go missing within a single dwelling. Obviously, if you take your laundry out of your home, that adds other loss event horizons along the travel route plus laundry steps above (transport to car, ride in car, transport to laundrymat, all events above, and reverse of this cycle). Better minds than mine may have further analysis, but hopefully this first world problem can be avoided with the solution proposed above. Or, you can just buy cheap socks and throw them away after each use.

(First written 2014)

I woke up before 5 am for an early flight out of Grand Forks- that’s really the only option if you want to make a day of your destination, especially if you’re heading to the Eastern Time Zone.  I muddle my way through the TSA check-point, but they are courteous and helpful with my obvious minor disability- heralded by walking with a cane and the-less-than-obvious-to-them-Severe Coffee Deficit.

Almost immediately after some small talk with my row companion on the plane, I fall back to sleep- not the sleep of a nap, but that of continuing the previous night’s brain wave journey.   I wake up suddenly, disoriented with my headphones still on blasting 1985’s “Let It Be” by The Minneapolis band the Replacements as the plane hits the runway in that city, rolling with the back blast to earth terrestrial speed.

Laced with Ativan and coffee, the four hour layover contributes to the feeling of time suspended through the remainder of the morning.  Later again on the connecting flight, I know there is a snow storm between here to there today. In retrospect, I can see on the flight tracker we’ve flown around it, as I really napped this time.  I turn my watch ahead to Eastern Time and strangely, this somehow orients me ahead of my late afternoon meeting awaiting at my Florida destination.

My travels around the upper Midwest are any time day or night and also year-round. At the end of the summer, we went to Nebraska to see family and catch the total solar eclipse, which was a fabulous experience. The 2 or 3 minutes of mindfulness generated by this event were noteworthy, putting us all in a zen like state for the duration.

Driving home to North Dakota, I spent a lot of time thinking about the universe and the motion of all things celestial- apparently, solar eclipses are unique to Earth in our solar system. The other planets and their moons don’t line up, or are the wrong distance for the events to be visible from the planet’s surface, rendering our event even more unique. Combined with the occasional aurora borealis and some recent readings, my head has been filled with thoughts of all things of the universe.

As a result, I have had several dreams about space travel since, but the one I keep coming back to is this:
I was on a sophisticated spaceship that had a complex security and operational system that revolved around morphology and biopsychosocialtechno profiles and interfaces- you had to go through the profiles in a specific sequence for security clearance. Many non-human intelligent species inhabited the craft.

Many visions of the future are apocalyptic. I don’t think this one is, but surely technology is part of what’s next; I find that exciting, and wish good fortune for the thousands of generations to follow. Dream on, celestial dreamers.

solstice nightfall frame

aurora skies in turning

winters shadows past

Slipping from the mothership into the terrestrial vehicle seamlessly through the transport, it had been cold and lonely in space in my return journey here- some thousands of years, but only a few minutes here and now. “What are our coordinates?” I asked, and she said “mile marker 77”, so I assumed it was earth, 47.0522° N, 96.9345° W. 

Everything was in place, moving across the prairie into the gathering darkness.