Nil by Mouth

Are There Any Window Seats Left?

I rarely write at my PR gig, but I keep having an hour here (waiting for meeting), 15 minutes there (yesterday before I went to see my shrink), and I’ve been spending too much time in the office to be able to do any writing of quality at home. The new Plan involves racking up some serious hours this month, and doing something completely insane in April or May. I mean really insane. Trust me – it’s off the insane-o-meter.

I haven’t had enough opportunities to talk trash to friends or people I corner in line at Subway so here are some thoughts from the week so far:

1. Haiti Yesterday from the wire stories on www.my.yahoo.com I read that Cap-Hatien in Haiti came under Rebel control. Synergistically enough, American Airlines is offering a Weekend Getaway special to Port-au-Prince for the low low price of $249.00. I like the way my self-determined content is all working together here, except that $249.00 seems awful steep to be dropped in the middle of a war zone. Under normal circumstances a ticket from NYC to Haiti, which I think is still on the wrong side of “would you like an armed robbery with that road closing today?” can’t be more than $300-350. When there is full-on civil war and the American Embassy has marines surrounding it (“Let them kill each other – but lord keep them away from the rubber passport stamps!!”), that price should be more like $19.99. Also I heard on the radio there is a man collecting some sort of leaving-the-airport tax with an automatic weapon and a really nasty stare. The tax is all the money and jewelry on your person.

2. Global Warming More good news in the form of this article on global warming in The Guardian. In a nutshell:

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

All I could think was, I really rather that shit happen now, when I’m 27, and not when I’m 40-something. There’s the obvious: that I have more spunk to rob and loot in my current sprightly and elastic body. But more importantly, I have no children to feel guilty about, I haven’t invested in any real estate I’ll feel compelled to defend, and I’m not on multiple regimes of hormone, inflammation, cancer, digestive, and emotional pharmaceuticals. You know Duane Reed will be the first place looted to bits, and I’ll be the one with the arnmload of ludes.

3. Schizophrenia On a related note, at the Pharma PR gig one of my projects is a pitch for the latest in schizophrenia medication. Like nearly all my projects at this place, I got a nagging fear that I have whatever illness the drug I’m pushing is meant to cure.

Yesterday I asked my shrink what the chances were of me having schizophrenia. I could see her strain under the pressure of having to take even my most ridiculous utterances seriously. I couldn’t keep a straight face. She cracked too. I haven’t started to hear voices, or have hallucinations, and there’s no little man giving me a running commentary on my life yet, but I feel like it could be just around the corner. And it wouldn’t be so bad because there are whole new families of anti-psychotic medications that don’t have the burdensome side effects of yesteryear.

I was a lot worse when I was working on Irritable Bowel Syndrome, by the way.

• Feb 24