What a Way to Go

Every time I fly, I hear the flight crew tell me that tampering with or disabling the restroom smoke detectors is a federal crime. I've never been a smoker, so I don't understand the overwhelming urge to start tearing apart the tiny airplane lavatory just to get a few drags on a cigarette. In fact, I like to spend as little time as possible in that awful little closet. And I'm a little unclear on exactly what happens when I flush the toilet in the airplane. It makes a godawful slurping sound that makes me think the waste goes right from the plane to the bowels of hell. I always make it a point to hold onto any loose objects when I'm flushing -- that thing sounds like it could suck down a small child. Generally, I dislike using airplane lavatories and try to avoid them at all costs. I like to take the window seat on airplanes and as a result, I hate getting up during a flight. Getting some people to get out of their airplane seat is quite an operation sometimes: remove hearphones ... close laptop ... put up seatback table ... clear lap ... unbuckle seat belt ... stand up in aisle ... etc. I'd rather just hold it.

But why all the talk about airplane lavatories? This morning on a flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta, a sixty-one year old woman was found dead in the airplane's lavatory as the plane prepared to land. This is a very sad story and I am in no way making the light of this woman's death. (The preliminary indications are that she died of natural causes.) This is just one of those stories that makes you pause. I wonder what this woman was going through when she headed for the restroom. Was she feeling ill? Or did it all just come as a suprise? Sixty-one is young in this day and age. This was just another reminder for me that when your number is up, it's up. You never know when your ticket is going to be punched, or whether you'll be able to return to your seat with your seatbelt securely fastened and your seatback in the full, upright position. Rest in peace, Delta passenger.

It ... just ... makes...me ......... uncomfortable

Got a surprise phone call from a college buddy today, direct from Hong Kong, where he now lives. Although he was always was stone-faced and sort of laconic, as a big time banking executive, he's even more so now. When I get phone calls from him, I imagine him leaning back in a big leather chair tapping his finger tips together like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. After every question I ask there is a several second delay, as he ponders his response. I used to think that this was the delay from the satellite signals, but it happens when we're both on the same continent too.

Silence of any kind makes me uncomfortable. I've wondered if this is a New York thing -- do New Yorkers hate silence or do they just not have much experience with it? I run into this problem with people from the midwest sometimes -- amazingly they seem perfectly comfortable sitting in a restaurant not talking. Nonetheless, I think silence is becoming foreign to us. At my nephew's confirmation a few months back, a bishop from the remote south pacific came to preside. He remarked on how everyone walked around carrying a water bottle, talking on a cellphone and listening to their headphones -- we don't do silence much anymore.

But even in the days before the ubiquitous ipod, I found myself uncomfortable with silence. I once ended a date after ninety minutes after a series of exchanges like this:

Paul: "So how long have you lived in Atlanta?"
Date: "One year and ten months." [silence]
Paul: "Oh, so where did you move here from?"
Date: "Dawsonville." [silence]
Paul: "So, that's where you grew up?"
Date: "Yes" [silence]

We were eating Chinese food that night. I remember trying to decide what would be more painful, trying to keep this conversation going or taking the chopsticks on the table and just driving them into my eardrums. I opted for calling the evening early instead of deafening myself.

I am not really in a position to criticize too much, however. When I was teaching history a few years ago, more than a few of my students commented on ... the ... long ......... pauses ... that I .... insisted on inserting into my ................... lectures. When I told the woman I was dating about these comments, she exclaimed, "oh yes, that drives me crazy!" There's a tiny delay in the relay between my brain and my mouth sometimes. I guess I'll try to cut down on the awkward pauses in my public speaking if my friends stop calling me from Asia acting like Monty Burns.

My Mouth Waters Just Thinking About It

Eddie's Pizza in New Hyde Park, NY is one of the dining jewels of the New York suburbs. My family started going to Eddie's in 1964, and we've been savoring every morsel of the delightfully thin-and-chewy, yet crispy-still pizza every since. Whenever the ex-patriot Long Islanders in my family return to visit my parents, a visit to Eddie's is almost always on the agenda. Unlike mass-produced pizza indistinguishable from the cardboard box it came in, or the over-the-top yuppie pizzas of today -- do we really need sushi on a pizza? -- Eddie's is straight up good eatin'. Now that I'm living in Atlanta it is an example of the authencity of the northeast that I miss. My father's favorite fact about Eddie's is that it has the distinction in the Zagat restaurant guide of having the widest gap between the quality of its decor and the quality of its food. Atlanta's Olive Garden and "Johnny's New York Style Pizza" will never measure up to the Italian eateries which I ate in growing up. (I still remember the sports radio guys in New York cackling about a Creative Loafing -- Atlanta's version of the Village Voice -- survey in which Atlantans named the Olive Garden as their favorite Italian eatery.)

I was reminded of Eddie's today because my nephew had created an "Eddie's Pizza Lovers" group on Facebook. He had asked me to join a while back, but I had no idea that he was the creator of the group. As of today the Facebook Group has 128 members -- a very good following I think. As one of their chief promoters, he should get a free pizza the next time he goes to Eddie's ... but that'll never happen. From the comments on the message board, I see facebookers who have moved from Long Island are thinking about Eddie's longingly the way I do. I'm even salivating as I write this. I'd trade chicken and waffles for a sausage bar pie and syrupy ginger ale to wash it down with anytime!