I’m going to arrive at AmeriCorps PSO training a fucking walking biohazard. In Louisville, I biffed it hard in the parking lot outside the airport terminal and scraped a few layers of dermis onto the curb. I hobbled in, blood staining a little circle through my pants on my left knee, right next to the already ripped part of my jeans. The lady at ticketing was a mother of 4 and fished an industrial-sized bandaid out of her monstrous purse. I was incredibly grateful and offhandedly noticed she never asked for my ID before checking my bag. Note to future Caucasian female terrorists with skinned knees, big brown cow eyes, and pathetic looks on their faces—we’re fucking IN.

Dignity is of little to no concern to me and upon discovering that no one had seen me fall in the long-term surface lot, I immediately texted everyone I know who would be awake at that hour and let them know of the tragedy that had befallen (npi) me. Further evidencing my pathological need for attention, once on the plane I waited for the fasten seat-belt sign to turn on and then sliced my knuckle open on a manila envelope. This was both the first time I’ve ever used the attendant call button on purpose and the first time the phrase “bloodborne pathogen training” had crossed my mind since leaving UofL. Claudia, the flight attendant, seemed a little wary at first at having to walk all the way to the tail section, but by the time she’d returned from the first aid kit, she was all smiles and handed me two bandaids. So now I’m up to one on the knee, one on the knuckle, and I’m keeping a close eye on the third which, by my calculation, I’ll find a use for in the next 20-30 minutes.

I’m writing this on the tarmac. Let me rephrase (man, for one who claims to so indignantly despise linguistic ambiguity, that one sure was a doozy…): I’m writing this post into my journal while sitting in a plane that is parked on the tarmac. It’s becoming increasingly obvious how often flight attendants use the phrase “at this time,” and I keep experiencing the unsettling sensation where one feels the shifting and moving of plane engines under one’s ass, is sure one is moving, and then looks out one’s window to discover one has remained motionless. You know what I’m talking about? When you’re sure you’ve started to creep forward and you look out the window and with a lurch of the stomach, see the landscape at an absolute standstill? Unsettling, I tell you. Fucks with my already disturbed sense of proprioceptive awareness.

In the air now. How about that!? It’s like an old-school live tweet of my plane ride except the amount of time it takes to scribble out an arrogant missive about proprioception means we’ve skipped over the most interesting part. It’s not entirely coincidental that I’ve neglected to describe our take-off in detail. I hate to fly and I’ve always heard that you’re most likely to die at take-off and right upon landing. So my little tangential digression was really just a half-hearted attempt to distract myself from my own mortality. Wooooo!

I wasn’t always afraid to fly. It doesn’t seem that long ago that Jay and I threw our arms up in delight to ride the turbulence. It’s not JJ Abrams or terrorism that’s done it—more just my overactive imagination and general pessimistic sensibility. I get really fatalistic now on airplanes and calmly go over the last thing I said to everyone I love. It’s more depressing than harrowing, really.

Another new anxiety-driven compulsion is the desire to chat with the staff. Claudia and Arturo seem like cool people and I’ve always been curious about how you get into flight attending. Love of travel? Love of polyester? Love of airborne pathogens? I recognize that my wanting to have friendly conversations with the flight attendants is symptomatic of 3 larger issues. First being my need to distinguish myself from the herd. Second, to make it abundantly—and redundantly—clear that I am the kind of person who recognizes and appreciates folks working in service industries. And third, that I fucking gab away when I’m nervous. The same kind of verbal nervousness comes over me during bikini waxes. During the waxes at least, I hang onto the excuse that life as an aesthetician totally fascinates me. I mean, wearing neck scarves and handing out peanuts is one thing, but ripping out pubes for a living? How the hell do you land yourself into that line of work?

So they’re beginning the refreshment service now and it’s beginning to dawn on me that I’m literally mere hours away from starting a whole new chapter of my life. I believe I’ve mentioned this here before, but it’s a rare and unique thing to be present and aware of a life-changing event as it happens. More often, we take note of these occurrences after the fact—‘that sure was something, eh? Things just wasn’t the same after that,’ kind of thing. Not now. Now I can actually feel myself shifting into a new gear. No more desk job, no more solitary one-bedroom, no more appetizers and drinks with my entree at North End Café. I’m about to start a new phase of mooching off my family, applying for food stamps, and for the first time in quasi-adulthood, doing something with my life that I’m proud of and excited about.

Landing in 20 minutes.