You know, I have similar feeling after 9/11. I know hate to fly, with a passion. I get sweaty palms on takeoff and and my heart skips a beat on every bank and turn. It sucks, as a kid I loved to fly, it was the most exiting thing in the world (at one time I wanted to be a fighter pilot). But not know....

I have a very poor sense of self preservation. Flying, hanging off cliffs, boogy boarding in raging jungle rivers, swimming alone, no boat, 3 miles offshore and so on -- regular activities for me. I'm probably just nuts.
My brother saw the whole 9/11 horror from his balcony. He won't fly to see me any more, I have to go there to NYC. I purposely did not watch it on the TV. Too scary to watch my old neighborhood like that.
I'm sorry to hear about the package disaster and I am sure your trip will be safe and sound.
Enjoy. I think the skinhead population at YKos is miniscule.

hey thanks. the package is wasted, but the contents are okay, so all is cool on that count. yeah, i feel your brother on the noflying. if i could get next to knocked out for it, i would!

yes, i dont think the skinheads are being represented at Ykos. one would hope. that would be awkward.

i'm not like that. rollercoasters blow my lid off. you sound like fuckin steve mcqueen. no shit. i'd like to trade minds with you for takeoff and landing, cool? we'll do a vulcan mind thing, lunch.

I've said before that I'm sharing your mood these days. It might come from different places (who knows???), but I think alot of times we underestimate how much the weight of evil hangs in the air and becomes a burden we all carry.

But yesterday I accidentally clicked into a diary that was written over a year ago by Madman in the Marketplace that I had hotlisted titled Ugly Storm Building...Can We Reclaim the Dawn?. Here's a bit of it:

It’s not just about protests and marches and legislation … change grows from stories, from our ability to use our imaginations to see the world through another person’s eyes. Change and a better, stronger nation can grow from compassion, compassion which we can attain by listening to the stories told by people different from ourselves, stories that we can imagine ourselves in, if only we take the time to imagine a different beginning for ourselves and a better future for us all.

I want to tell you that your "stories" have strengthened my compassion. Sometimes I know it doesn't feel like enough...but you spread it around well.

Oh, but Nez, I do not like boats or roller coasters, I have some motion sickness thing, not bad, but somewhat. When I still smoked pot I had no problem, but having no weed in me, motion sickness.
I am the oldest of 6 brothers {1 sister} and we had quite a few emergency room visits when young. I think the family averaged 2 or 3 a month. Plus, I had to fight all the younger brother's fights, so that contributed to fearlessness and probably brain damage from frequent head shots.
I am up for the mind thingie, but I have warned you about the debility. Let me know when.
My brother also says he will try the flying again any day now, he just needs strong anti-anxiety drugs and he will be right there.
But he doesn't buy the ticket.
Best to keep your mind on another topic, but with all of the insane things they put you through in airports now, I can understand the apprehension.
I have to remind myself a lot not to make sick jokes while they inspect me and my stuff before boarding. I have to go through the international airport treatment too. I fly from overseas.
When I think of all the contraband of every stripe, arms, drugs, natural psychotropics, and rare plants that I moved across borders on commercial flights {$89 each way, buy ticket at airport} in the 80s, it is hard to believe that it was so easy then.

I send you some calming breezes and Hasta Manana, I am off to the woods for tonight.

thank you both, RC and NL. your words are a comfort.

Nez, I will keep a good thought for you to have the most boring travel experience possible. You said "if I could get next to knocked out for it..." and if that means that under no circumstances would you take anything for the ride, please forgive the rest of this comment. And I do get why people are wary of prescriptions drugs, I in fact like that people are wary that way, but I also have to say that Xanax-for-plane-rides saved, I don't know, fucking everything for me. I started going to NYC for work three weeks before 9/11, and afterwards I went every 4-8 weeks for the next couple of years. I was freaked out by flying even before that, but for various reasons was against taking a sedative for it, just tried other calming stuff. I would not ever have voluntarily gotten back on a plane after the 9/11 massacre. My rational mind knows why that's illogical, but the whole of me rejects flight 100% anyway. Xanax makes it so that I am not only not-hysterical on a plane, but I am chatty and delighted with the whole thing. I take a big dose of it (for someone my size - when people tell me it does nothing for them, it always turns out that they aren't taking enough), and I still am fully functional during the plane ride and after my arrival wherever I'm headed. Aside from a couple of negligible (to me) side effects, it is the most gentle drug experience I've ever had.

Anyway, I have much empathy for my fellow flying phobes, and so am a bit of a zealot about anything that could help...

Bon voyage and I will look forward to your dispatches from the Kos.

no, it would calm me down nicely. i have no qualms about that. i just have no access, so must make do.

I developed dislike for the skinhead crew back during my punk days - skins and punks just didn't mix well. Between friends getting stomped by skins and a friend of mine who runs a punk/goth record store whose store was broken into by skins, I figured I could live w/o that bunch. The haircut doesn't bug me - it's the combo of the haircut, clothes, and tattoos that comprise the skin "uniform" that will turn me off. First thing that immediately comes to my mind is an old DK tune ("Nazi Punks Fuck Off"). So it goes.

nlinstpaul - right on! I keep thinking of this notion of making another world possible, and that includes telling new stories, creating new narratives. Collectively and individually, that is what we're doing - in fits and starts maybe - and it's been most cool to be part of this crew of word weavers.

I always wonder each time I fly if I've finally made the infamous "no fly list".

yeah i was wondering if i could call ahead and ask. or if that would just get me extra stupid attention.

I used to have a lot of problems flying post 9/11 (every single time I had to go through the extra security check - it's supposedly random but I don't believe it), but the past year or so they've eased up on me, I think. I was afraid that I ended up on the no-fly list (trans people occasionally end up there) but I haven't. Whew!

i agree with you on the "random" thing. math is not a favorite area, but laws of random numbers/averages would preclude you (as well as me) getting pulled out for a more thorough search every time. that is not random. depending on how many times you were pulled out, the odds get very very very low that a 100% rate of this occurring.

anyway, i'm glad they eased up on you. here's hoping it all goes nice and smooth. in these flying situations, i often let my nerves crank up more than i'd like. or proves necessary. ah well. life in the times of dubya's terror fits.

Compa, You will be fine. Flying is scary now but unavoidable in our global society. At least that's what I tell myself over and over and over. Have a nice trip!

What you wrote here about the stress of being alive and writing and relating to the internet these days really spoke to me - inspired me to go ahead with a train of thought I've been carrying for a while now.

Write on, Nezua. You rock.

I hope Yearly Kos is awesome - worth the flight, the parting from your daughter, and all other travels & travails.