My Point...And I Do Have One

in there that reads: “Return to Seat.” “Return to Cabin.” Why do they think that needs to be lit? Because we’ll relax in there for a little while? “Miss, bring my peanuts in here, please. This is
beautiful
. The water is so blue, it reminds me of the Mediterranean. I don’t ever want to leave.”
    You have no concept of time when you’re in there—it’s like a casino: no windows, no clocks. I could be the only one to get up out of my seat to go to the bathroom—everybody else is sound asleep when I go—but after I’ve been in there for what I think is thirty seconds, I open the door and everyone in the plane is lined up, looking at their watches, making me feel like I’ve been in there forever.
    And now I’ve got to explain the smell that was in there before I went in there. Does that ever happen to you? It’s not your fault. You’ve held your breath, you just wanna get out, and now you open the door and you have to explain, “Oh! Listen, there’s an odor in there and I didn’t do it. It’s bad. You might want to sprinkle some club soda, if you uh …”
    I think my only hope of escaping my mind-numbing fear is to sleep; to sleep and perchance to dream. The only trouble is when I fall asleep on a plane, I always have a nightmare.…
    I’m in a department store walking through the area with the makeup counters—then all of a sudden I’m a penguin on ice skates—Florence Henderson is cooking macaroni and cheese in my kitchen and my brother has gained 200 pounds and is being fed by three Haitian women wearing disco clothes and in the background the Bee Gees are arguing over what outfits to wear for their big comeback
.
    Then I turn into myself again and Bruce Willis calls me up and asks me to go out with him and drink some wine coolers. So, we’re
sitting in an outdoor cafe in Italy called Louis’. He’s telling me his life was meaningless until I came into it. I tell him I’m not ready to make a commitment. Just then I give birth to three sets of twins: they’re nine years old, one has false teeth, two are great dancers. The rest move to South Dakota for schooling
.
    Now I’m dancing with Lewis and Clark (my two children) and an iguana who’s making eyes at me (he’s not that good of a dancer). Bruce punches him in the nose. The iguana turns into Sean Penn, who knocks Bruce unconscious. Sean and I start walking, and he tells me his life has been meaningless up until he met me, then we see one of those photo booths, four for a dollar. He urges me to pose with him. So we get in and have our pictures taken. He covers his face for all of them. He asks me to keep them. He beats up the machine
.
    I fly back to the States alone. The pilot announces, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ll be landing in ten minutes. Ellen, I just want to say my life has been meaningless until you came into it.” We land. I go to the baggage claim, and my bag comes out first. I think to myself, “Ellen, you must be dreaming—that’s impossible.…”
    “Fuck, we’re going to crash!!”
    False alarm. The plane just landed. I guess I’m alive. Oh well, that wasn’t so bad. But what about that dream! I don’t know what it means. I’m pretty sure it’s sexual.
    Maybe it just means I shouldn’t be flying.

ellen’s new
hobby

J OURNAL E NTRY
    I need a hobby. Something to pass my time—a goal I can work toward. I’ve tried knitting, square dancing, social work. I need to have passion about something. Here I am, sitting at my kitchen table, staring at my pancakes and coffee, feeling the emptiness of a life with no meaning.
    It’s like I’m sitting in a car but the engine is idling. I’m not even on the road—just off to the side. I see the others swoosh by me. I can recognize the shapes of the cars but not the direction they’re going. I’m alone, all alone in a car on the side of the road.
    My dogs are staring at me, trying to give me hope. “You can do it, Ellen,” they say. “Get out of the house, find your path and follow your heart.” I want to find it so bad, I do. But all I can do is turn on my TV and watch
Regis and Kathie Lee
. I can answer those trivia questions. Maybe they’ll call me and put a pin in my city. I want a pin; I want to share a hot-air popcorn popper with number 35. That’s who I would pick.
    I just saw a flash of a woman with dogs on the screen. She races or something; she used the word
Iditarod
. I looked it up in the dictionary, but it wasn’t there. I was so