In Flight

I cannot stop with the stories about Malaysian Flight 370.  Airline crashes are one of my weird obsessions (we all have them, don't judge). I can endlessly wikipedia hop through stories of various crashes and hijackings, any time I find an article about how to best survive a plane crash I read them six or seven times - doing everything I can to memorize them.

Despite all the flying I did last year and the multiple trans-Atlantic flights (including clocking 20 hours to and from South Africa) I have been on, I still get dread panic sick as we take off and land. And everytime I hear of a plane falling out of the sky in mid-air, I must read everything about it in some weird twisted way of trying to convince myself that it will not happen to me.

So I'm reading The New Yorker, The Washington Post (clutch graphics, bro), The New York Times and (no joke) Popular Mechanics.

I am not sure why I do this myself. I twist with worry about people who I do not know in a situation I cannot control. It is the most impractical way to spend my time, but its like a drug. Why, why, why does reading about these terrible things become a thing I cannot stop doing before I go to bed? In the long run, I cannot imagine it is beneficial, but neither is crack and yet - that's a thing people do.

If you are like me and find strange, sick enjoyment in reading about terrible flight drama, my favorite college professor, Jenefer Shute wrote a pretty great book, Free Fall about a (fictional) plane crash and how it affects the people who survive. Anytime something like this happens, I find myself drawn to the book.

Also, Popular Mechanics (once again) has a great article on Plane Crash statistics.

I am happy to spend the next month or so on the ground.