Traveling Masochist

I am nothing without my eccentricities, neuroses, and annoying knowledge about very little of general interest. Also, I am nothing without timing and that little itch to keep poking myself in the eye, figuratively, just to see if I can stand it and if it'll hurt the next time I do it. I know these truths about myself because today, as we're climbing to cruising altitude out of Pittsburgh, I open my current book, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" which thus far, I've been enjoying immensely as it's sardonic, snarky, and full of black-humor about death only to come to chapter five: Beyond the Black Box: When the bodies of the passengers must tell the story of a crash. It's is EXACTLY a chapter about the bodies in plane crash disasters. A smarter person or at least one with less interest in causing themselves distress and non-medicated anxiety would simply put the book down or skip the chapter and go on to read about car crashes or crucifixion research or whatnot. To give myself some credit, I actually did utter a 'good grief' and consider it. Then I thought, "Fuck it, I'm in the air already...might as well find out if I have a chance of surviving." Succinctly, I do not. If the theoretical explosion doesn't impale me with life-rending shrapnel or the actual fire doesn't melt my lungs, then the fall from 35,000 feet most assuredly will do me in. And really there wasn't even comfort as the disaster-expert explained that were you still conscious after an explosion and dissembling of the plane in the air, someone probably wouldn't really even know what's going on...though to be sure, there has never been anyone alive afterwards to say for sure." Not helpful but I read the whole chapter anyway just because I like to torture myself in these small ways for no good reason.