Erica Jong

I used to be deathly afraid of the roller coaster drops that accompany certain flights. No more. There was a time when I was flying around so much and gripping arm rests so often that I decided that I just had to stop caring. Accepting possible death in order to truly live -- or something like that.

The key to flying without fear is just to ignore it all. Blast music and relax. There's worse ways to die than screaming your lungs off as you drop 20,000 feet to Earth. Not too many worse on my personal list, but a few. I once read that more people are killed annually riding donkeys than airplanes. The math on that makes no sense to me but whatever, it helps.

Despite the high winds buffeting our plane and the fires spreading over much of Southern California, I was more afraid of what it says about our society that our flight was jam packed with Raiders fans who day tripped up to Oakland for the game. I'd really like to distance myself from sports since it seems like the true opium of the people but I have three fantasy leagues to run and people depend on my recapping skills. I have a devoted and rabid fan base of at least five people. At least.

Nothing makes me feel more unproductive than sitting around on a Sunday trying to figure out who's going to change the world by catching (or dropping) yet another touchdown. Having said this, I've got more sports knowledge than the common bear and it disgusts me when I have to small talk to a self-professed fan who says shit like, "Yeah, so when Vince Young played for the Vikings..." Seriously? Why are we even talking right now? It makes me highly suspect about them as a person. Does this sort of craptastic fact retention seep into other areas of their life? It must right? Can I possibly trust anything else that comes out of their mouth?

Anyway, I thought for sure that if we died tonight it would be as inglorious a death as I could have imagined. Falling out of the sky with a bunch of crazed football fans while clutching onto Shopaholic Ties the Knot (I'm reading it for research, really). Death by donkey, burro, or ass was starting to look pretty respectable in comparison.