Eustachian Tube Dysfunction

My name is Mike. I am almost twenty years old, and I do not like to travel on airplanes.

I was on this plane, crying in the bathroom

Now, usually when people say that they don't like to travel on airplanes, the first thought is to assume that they are afraid of flying. And of course the natural reaction is for friends, loved ones, and total strangers at the terminal to offer statistics about plane crashes, give rudimentary physics lessons detailing the unlikelihood of a plane crash, and give away a few of their "Magic Night-Night Pills".

I don't really think that's fair. There is a multitude of reasons to despise flight, and that multitude transcends irrational fears and superstitions. For those that fly often, and without trouble, it can be hard to empathize with those who struggle with serious flight issues. Issues like motion sickness, claustrophobia, pressure headaches, not having your puppy with you, severe Eustachian Tube Dysfunction (really plugged up ears), and, last but not least, mild Eustachian Tube Dysfunction (kind of plugged up ears). 

I'm not claustrophobic and I don't have a puppy, but I would gladly take claustrophobia (and an adorable little puppy) over motion sickness. Because at least then I would have some dignity. But as it stands now, I have three options on a turbulent flight: puke in a bag at my seat, disobey the seat-belt sign and angry flight attendants to puke in a tiny, dark bathroom; or, if I'm lucky, make it to the airport without puking, think I'm fine, realize I'm not, and puke in a slightly less tiny, slightly better-lit bathroom. 

And that's not even the least dignified flight issue I have. My real issue is that at high altitudes, my ears cannot adjust to the pressure difference, and I am left with extreme pressure build-ups and pain in my ears (severe Eustachian Tube Dysfunction). This is worse than nausea, because it leaves me incapacitated in my seat, clutching my head like a crazy person. Now, if you're a child on an airplane, and you're holding your ears tight as though you expect your head to explode, it's understandable. But when you've got a high school diploma on your wall back at home, it becomes hard to explain to your fellow passengers. Especially through all the tears.

But all of that being said, I am almost twenty years old, and I am, in fact, afraid of flying.

I will admit to that, and I will admit that the fear is irrational. But I will try to explain it anyway. 

Normally, I would enlist my best pal, Microsoft Powerpoint, to assist me in this explanation, but sadly he was busy not being installed on my computer. So I will instead take advantage of the visual aid...skills...of my other friend...a really great program, super helpful at everything...beautiful illustrations...Microsoft...Paint.

Right. Hi Paint. How are the kids?

Oh dear lord. Okay, where was I? Ah yes, flying.

Now, I know you guys already have your "Physics For Dummies" books out and you're ready to sit me down and teach me the basics of flight, the principles of lift, and push your glasses back up your nose as you assure me that air travel is perfectly safe. I get that. My brain knows that. That's not the problem. The problem is that my eyes don't know that. 

Let me explain what I mean. My brain knows how a plane is able to stay in the air. My brain knows that, in virtually all situations that are not takeoff and landing, there is literally nothing within a five million foot radius for the plane to crash into. So those aren't things that scare me. 

My brain knows other things. My brain knows that a plane lives and dies by its wings. Because really, as long as a plane:

A) has its wings, and 
B) hasn't been snapped in half by Megashark,

then the worst thing a 747 can do is turn into a glider. A $20 million glider to be exact. But if something happens to the wings...

Okay Paint, you're fired.

Tough. If the wings go.....well, I guess Paint was right in that situation. He was still a jerk though.

ANYWAY, my brain has this vital knowledge, that the wings MUST stay intact for the plane to succeed as a plane. Luckily, it also knows that if there's some turbulence, the wings will bounce up and down, a LITTLE bit.


MY EYES MISSED THAT MEMO.


So when I'm sitting there in my window seat, Eyes see the wings start to bounce a little more than usual and they naturally proceed to FREAK OUT. They send panic signals to Brain, along with questions, but Brain can't answer them because he's preoccupied with the pain from my Eustachian Tube Dysfunction. So Heart hears all this racket, decides it's go time, and starts beating faster than Chest can handle. Next thing you know, I've entered full-on panic mode.

This is the part where you ask, "Mike, why don't you just shut the window?" Because, you idiot, what if something bad really does happen to the wing? Then it would be my action-hero duty to storm up to the cockpit, bang on the door, inform the pilot, save the day, and start scheduling my book deals and dinners with Barack. This is also the part where a rationalist would casually inform me that the best thing to do is to remind myself that airplanes are statistically the safest way to travel, and that just because it looks like something bad is happening, doesn't mean there is any actual danger. 

But how am I supposed to convince myself that more bad things aren't going to happen when so many already have? That's like trying to convince yourself that zombies aren't real as your best friend Dave stands in front of you eating brain-on-a-stick.

That's the kicker. The reason I hate flying. The reason I get terrified. Because when all those issues I mentioned earlier, the ETD, the headaches, the puppy lacking...when all of those things take me out of my element, all it takes is a little spark of fear to put me in my panic shoes. All while I'm stuck in a box that until we either land...


...or are eaten by Megashark.

It's an actual movie guys, I hope some of you already knew that.

A Tale of Two Cities...and the Discrepancies in the Quality of their Respective Learning Institutions Circa 2001 at Approximately the Third Grade Level, Give or Take an Academic Year or Two (With Guest Commentator, Otherwise Referred to as My Girlfriend (Who is Real)), Part 1 of 1 (Text Edition, Movie Rights Still Currently Under Negotiation (Take Your Sweet Time, Pixar))

Here is a joint entry, a belated Valentine’s Day gift for all of my viewers. Five million? I think I’m at five million, I haven’t checked in a while though, it could be more.  This is a post co-written with my girlfriend. Here she is:

She did that herself, if you want to buy this piece it’s for sale for $8000.

Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh that’s right, nothing yet. My very real girlfriend and I were recently comparing our elementary school experiences and we found some startling discrepancies. Let’s see if you guys can figure out which one of us went to school in the hood. I’ll throw in a disclaimer: these come with about 10 years of memory rust, and “the hood” was neither dangerous nor scary, it was just…well you’ll see.

When my girlfriend’s third grade teacher decided to take her class on a field trip, she took them to the IMAX theater downtown. Nowadays IMAX screens are commonplace; you’ve probably seen one at your local cinema. But circa 2001, IMAX was a big deal, especially for kids. The opportunity to watch dinosaurs and race cars come to life on a giant 3D canvas was enough to make us lose our marbles. So that’s exactly what they did: they took her and her classmates on a bus downtown to the IMAX and they had a grand old time. Many marbles were lost that day.

Now I’m not trying to say my teachers were bad, cause they had their hearts in the right place. When my third grade teacher wanted to take us on a field trip, she did too. To McDonalds. We hopped on a bus, who knows, maybe the same bus my girlfriend went to IMAX in, but instead of driving to dinosaurs and race cars and adventure, we drove straight to the belly of obesity. I have to say I was confused, even at my young age. I thought we were at least going to learn how a kitchen worked in the fast food world, but they didn’t even let us go in the kitchen. We just sat in the booths and the manager talked to us and we learned nothing about dinosaurs.

Pictured: Not dinosaurs.

Well I’ll be fair, I got the IMAX trip too. But a bus for that one? Too easy. My teacher, school administrator, principal, and whoever else was in charge decided it was acceptable for our third grade class to walk a mile and a half, single file, through the hood, past the local liquor store to get to the light rail station. It’s a good thing our chaperone count stood at a staggering one: the teacher. Leading us from the front. At least the light rail ride was fun, if you disregard the odor.

Maybe that’s too specific of an example though, I mean you can’t expect two schools’ field trips to be exactly the same. (“True that”, my girlfriend says. See guys she’s REAL I swear) Let’s see what else there is…

When my girlfriend’s PE class would get rained out, her teacher would bring the kids in for a jolly old round of board games, and Mancala. A lot of Mancala, apparently.

Which is this, apparently.

When my PE class got rained out we did laps around the inside of the cafeteria. We made sure to say hi to the lunch lady when we passed her.

Speaking of rain, when it rained during lunch at my school, OH BOY I hope you liked the movie they played in the cafeteria to keep kids quiet. If we were loud? No more talking for the rest of lunch, for any of us. They’d lock us in.

Well what did my girlfriend read about in school? As she claims, “We read stories about diversity…I liked them, they were colorful” See, she learned lessons about people getting along and creating better communities.

At my school we read bittersweet tales about underprivileged minorities struggling with everyday life. We learned that, even if we tried to get along…that doesn’t always happen. Or ever happen, it seemed. I was, and still am, amazed at how few happy endings there were. I think at such a young age it came off less like a lesson of diversity and more like a message to be nice to minorities because otherwise they are doomed in life.

My girlfriend went to the computer lab once a week.

I went once a month.

At my girlfriend’s library they read and checked out books.

At my library we organized them.

They made us organize the library.

My girlfriend got free bookmarks.

I got child labor.

Did I mention these are in the same school district, 15 miles away from each other? No? Well they're in the same school district, 15 miles away from each other. 

I don't know how to end this post so here's the first Google image result for "IMAX Dinosaurs"

Stream of Consciousness (Or: Something Very Different)

Hello I thought I'd write a blog post in stream of consciousness, I am literally writing the things that come into my head as they come into my head keeping in mind a vague topic which I have not yet picked but will when my brain thinks of it, as a rule I am typing things as soon as they come into my mind and I will only backspace to fix typos which I have had to do many times because I make a lot. I decided my blog post will be about breakfast foods and all their glory. My favorite is the bagel but I don't like it with cream cheese well I do that was a lie but sometimes when you're typing as fast as you can and just typing what comes to mind your mind lies to you and that's what happened there. Bagels are good but waffles can be better but it really just matters what you put on it because that's where the flavor comes from you know. See: Pancakes, IHOP, syrup, etc.

I am a huge fan of the basketball and I don't know why I said that because I don't like basketball that much and it doesn't even come close to the subject of breakfast food so back on topic I like cheese too I just bought a new kind of cheese at the store. My whole life my fridge has been home to American sliced cheese but now Colby Jack has joined it and the two can team up and fight crime together I hope. My dream is that one day I am a chef in a famous restaurant that serves only breakfast food but that is not even remotely true dude. I don't actually have any real dreams other than to be happy and to enjoy good breakfast when I wake up.

Did I mention my thoughts on eggs? Rule of thumb for eggs (and potatoes): NO CHEESE. Melted cheese makes both of these normally good food products lousy and inedible and make me nauseous NEVER PUT CHEESE on eggs or potatoes. Is there a food that has all three, because if there is and it exists in this country I might have to emigrate to Europe. On second thought it's probably more likely that I emigrated to Europe in a past life. That sentence made no sense but I thought of it so I had to put it. What I meant to say was it is probably more likely that the egg-cheese-potato food exists in Europe than America because Europeans are crazy like that.

By the way I set my goal to myself when I started just now to type as much stream of consciousness thought as I could in ten minutes and now I'm on minute eight. Reading it (not really reading because that would defeat the purpose, but looking above where I am typing now and seeing what I've written as a block of text) it is evident to me two things: One, I am not making any progress towards making sense, which is a very convoluted way of saying my thoughts have come out very cluttered, and two, I forgot what I was going to say oops lol. One minute left oh man how am I going to tie up the loose ends and conclude my thoughts on breakfast food and save the world from the potato bomb in the toaster? Wow that last sentence was really weird I hope you guys don't think I'm weird, also I just remembered that apparently I have readers in Russia and Germany and I wonder how crazy this is all going to sound when they read it there, because I'm assuming that they translate things there using like google translate which isn't always accurate so I think I did good job of confusing them. Time's up!


And end stream of consciousness. Now I can reflect/explain. I wrote the above as it came into my head as a way of procrastinating for studying for finals. I was literally typing as fast as I could, but I had to keep backspacing to fix my typos because it would be very annoying to have to proofread it for typos afterwards. What's more, it's very hard to STOP writing in stream of consciousness apparently because I said I was stopping but my mind is still in that mode. Man I'm not making any sense. I think I failed miserably in my effort to explain my thoughts on breakfast food but I did make VERY clear my dislike of cheese on eggs and potatoes, which is probably more important. A quick calculation says I typed 646 words at a rate of roughly 65 words per minute, but I was typing pretty much at full speed and usually that's closer to 110 words per minute. Probably means I made a lot of typos. Anyway, my reason for doing this is that I've always wanted to just write and write everything that comes to my head and write for as long as possible and see what happens, but because it is getting late I decided to impose a time limit. As it turns out that just added an element of panic. What's more, I learned how hard it is to keep your mind focused on one subject. I'm a little jittery now from all that excitement. I think I'm going to lie down.

PS: I'm formatting this after-the-fact to include paragraph breaks (for your sake), but I didn't do this as I typed it. I didn't do any editing/proofreading beyond that.

My Personal Statement; or "The American Dream (A Love Story)"; or "How I was Blacklisted from the UC Davis Admissions Office"

Hi Davis. 

What’s up guys? This is my personal statement. You guys asked me to write about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that was important to me. That doesn’t sound like fun, so instead I’m going to list my favorite foods. French toast, spaghetti, lasagna. Corn on the cob, that's pretty good.  Bacon. Oh man don't even get me started on bacon. Eggs too. Hmm. You know what, this isn’t quite as fun as I thought it would be. I guess I’ll go back to the prompt. What was the prompt again? Oh yeah, you asked me to write about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that was important to me. Then I said that sounds boring. Good times, right guys? Well, here we go.

Nope can't think of anything. Goodness, how many words does this have to be? A THOUSAND??? Well I've made some progress, now I can use the rest of my words on the other prompt. What’s that prompt about? Ah who cares it’s probably boring. Let’s talk about YOU Davis! Tell me what you’re capable of! What are YOUR most important experiences? Come on Davis, let me know what makes you sparkle!

Please excuse the sarcasm, it's not that I don't want to get admitted to your college. I don't want to get admitted to any college. I've learned everything there is to learn about everything that matters. I can solve a Rubik's cube one-handed. I know how to add and subtract single-digit numbers. I can consistently insert my Capri-Sun straw into the hole in one single attempt. I've ascended Mt. Olympus, declared myself a god, and conquered all of humankind. Figuratively, of course. I've got everything it takes to be a knowledgeable, well-rounded individual and a functioning member of society. So it pains me to say that, as much as you've intrigued me and tempted me with your programs in agriculture and water studies, which I'm sure are absolutely out of this world, I really don't think there's much left you can teach me.

But all kidding aside, I’d make a good student at your little college. I don’t qualify for much financial aid so you guys will get even more of my money. I've taken up tennis, and maybe if I become decent at it I can join your intramural squad. I think that would really enrich your value as a school and as an international tourist hotspot, as I'm confident my stellar backhand will attract tennis enthusiasts from across the globe. I’ve got good grades too, if that's important. Oh and I floss my teeth daily. Well, nightly. You know what I mean. I know hygiene is probably important to you because your school is on a farm. 

It's been a pleasure talking to you guys and I hope you enjoyed reading my personal statement as much as I enjoyed not writing it. Please direct all your questions, responses, praises, and prayers to my personal secretary, Stefán, who has, unfortunately, gone missing.

Seriously, where did he go?

Love,

Michael

P.S. You know you want me.

Fifth Blog Post

This is blog post number five. It comes between my fourth and my sixth (work in progress). In a broader scheme it comes between my third and seventh, and, even broader, between negative infinity and infinity.

Numerically, the number five is represented by 5. It is equivalent to the number of inmates you would have in a prison if you started with seven but then you had to shoot two of them for trying to escape. It is roughly equivalent to the number of cans of root beer you would have if you drank 17 percent of a six pack. If letters were numbers and numbers were letters, this would be blog post number "E"; however, if this were the case, no one would be reading this because most people read in letters and not numbers. 

If an Earthquake hit the west coast right now, and it registered a 5.0 on the Richter scale, that would be equivalent to the number that most closely represents this blog post. If you wanted to play dominoes, but you only had five of them, you would not be able to play dominoes, but you would be able to provide a visual representation of how many blog posts I have written as of this one. If my blog posts corresponded to the presidents, in order of their chronological appearance in office, then this post would best be described as James Monroe.

If you read this post in the year 2017, then the number corresponding to this blog post will match its age in years. If you wrote the number 5 backwards, but then looked in the mirror, you'd see the number of blog posts I have written. If four cats suddenly appeared in your bathroom, you would only need one more cat to match the number of blog posts I have written. If you take your age, and then subtract your age from it, and then add five, you will come up with the number for this blog post. If you met up with five of your best friends, you would only need to ask one of them to leave to make the size of your group equivalent to the size of my blog, in an alternate dimension where people are equal to blog posts.

Long story short I don't want to study math.

Ideas I Don't Have

As I sat at my typewriter poised to churn out yet another triumphant masterpiece of American literature, another modern classic, another groundbreaking anthology of human strength, weakness, and glory, a thought popped into my head. Not just a thought, a realization. A realization so profane to me that it shook me to the core, rotted my spirit, and made me lose faith in all that is good in this world. That realization?


I've got nothing.


"Nothing?" you say? Yes, nothing.

It was a new feeling, suffice to say. I've never been anything less than perfect in any single way, so I wasn't sure how to cope with these new emotions. I ended up spending the next four hours screaming at the moon and ripping phonebooks in half. How could I possibly have nothing to write about? There's so much in this universe to talk about. There are so many marvels in this world: beautiful landscapes, remarkable people, chimps that know sign language. Surely I could find some way to insult them. 

Show-off.

Not on this night. This night there's just nothing in the tank. Sad, I suppose, to think that I've started this little writing project and three entries in I'm plumb out of things to say. Not sad like, your-puppy-got-stuck-in-the-washing-machine sad, or sad like if your baby ran away because you forgot to feed it. No, a man's dream dying is much sadder than either of those things.

But little things like that have never stopped me. If I don't have any ideas to write about, then I'll just write about the ideas I don't have.

So without further long-winded introduction, here are the ideas that I don't have, that I will not be  writing about.

I am not going to write about chapstick, because I feel that all vital information regarding chapstick can be found on the chapstick itself.

I am not going to write about dogs, because dogs generally do not speak. This makes it difficult to quote them, and without quotes my writing would not be reputable.

I am not going to write about hot dogs, because applying heat to canines does not make them any more interesting or quotable. 

I am not going to write about lunch, because lunch is the least important meal of the day and, as a result, the least amusing. The number of jokes to be made about lunch is very close to zero. In fact, there may actually be a negative number of jokes to make about lunch, but the research isn't in from the lab yet so we can't be sure. I would be much more inclined to do a piece on breakfast, or even dinner, but even then I would be preaching to a very small choir. Of fat people.

I am not going to write a full account of the history of Russia, because Russia's really big and that would be a very long blog post. Additionally, Russia has never written a full account of my personal history, so I feel no need to return any favors. If Russian novelists did see fit to make a written account of my life, I would probably feel obliged to write about Russia. The ball is really in their court.

I am not going to write about advanced spelunking techniques, because my level of expertise in the world of cave diving is intermediate at best.

I am not going to write about vegetarianism, because screw vegetarians. 

I am not going to write about the moon landing, because I do not write about fictional nonsense.

I am not going to write about James Cameron and the snubbing of Avatar for Best Picture, because I am still too upset to write about this subject and The Hurt Locker was NOWHERE NEAR THE BEST MOVIE OF 2009 IT DIDN'T CHANGE ANYTHING IN THE MOVIE INDUSTRY AND AVATAR CREATED A WHOLE NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT CGI I AM SO MAD RIGHT NOW WHERE ARE MY PHONEBOOKS?!?!


Ahem.


I really think that's all that needs to be said on this matter. The moral of the story here?

Don't write with writer's block.

Wasting Time

Want to feel depressed? Try this. Next time you're trying to fall asleep, think about the day you just had. Think about the ups and the downs, the decisions you made, the obstacles you faced. All the events that unfolded before you, and all the ways you responded to the world. What did you do that was different, special? Now when you're done meditating on your day, ask yourself one important question: How much of this will I remember next year? Or next week? Tomorrow?

Well I lied, that was three questions actually, but important questions nonetheless. On any given day, none of us do anything worth noting. We work, or play, or study, or read. We interact with each other, minimally, just to make sure we're still human and that our loved ones haven't been kidnapped and replaced by robotic replicas. Then we sneak in a couple meals, an hour or two of TV, and drift off to sleep, ready to do it all over again in the morning. How often do we make permanent, life-altering decisions? The kind that really shape who we are, or the world we live in? The kind that, you know, define us as people? Maybe four, five times in a decade. 

I have no data to back this up, but I've got a pretty good memory, and I certainly can't think of many moments that make me look back and say, "Wow, I wonder who I would be today if that never happened?" or, "Wow, I'm sure glad I made that decision!" More often, it's "Wow, I spent the whole day doing playing online Scrabble?" or "Wow, I need to get a life!"

Life? What's that?

And the more I think about that, the more I wonder if other people are going through this. But that's an easy one. Of course they do.

Because we all waste our time. All of us.

Again, exaggeration. There are people who are hard-driving and committed to their goals, who waste no time getting to the top. The kind of people who give up social contact and leisure and Oreos to chase their dreams, and constantly devote themselves to success and self-betterment in the face of adversity and defeat. Then again, have you met these people? Not a smiley bunch.

Someone needs an Oreo

The reality is, 99% of us have our vices, our weaknesses. TV, video games, poetry slams, you name it. We've got things we invest our precious lives and even more precious time in, without realizing how little they help us develop as human beings. And then we'll look back in 20 years, 10 if we're lucky, and laugh at ourselves for ever thinking it was a good use of time to concern ourselves with such petty nonsense.

But until that glorious day comes, we don't just accept our time-wasting, we justify it. We tell ourselves it's okay to watch just a few hours of the game show network, because, after all, we've had a tough day at work and we just want to unwind and escape the working world and all its dull monotony. By staring at a box.

If we stare long enough maybe our lives will become as interesting as theirs

I'm guilty too. I'm not ashamed to admit that I like baseball. But I am a bit ashamed to admit that I devote three to five hours of my day to a sport I've never played, following the stories of athletes I've never met, holding stock in a team whose accomplishments are in no way tied to my own. A bit. But hey, shame is the price I pay to get the most out of my time-wasting!

I actually came to most of the realizations that I'm writing about when I finished playing a video game recently. Near the end of the game, there is a sequence in which you lose all the items you have worked so hard to find, and you must finish with only the most bare essentials. And it upset me. Why did I work so hard if it was all going to be taken away from me? What a waste of time.

Because this wasn't already a waste of time

And then I realized, they never took it away. I never had it. It was all make believe, and here I was, getting worked up that the same people who gave me imaginary armor and weaponry had the power to take it away. It was not the game's fault for taking it from me. It was my fault for investing myself in things that aren't even real. Things that won't help me. Things that don't matter. Am I this vain, this materialistic? That I cannot bear to lose objects that exist only in a fantasy land, simply because I feel entitled to them? No, I'm not materialistic. I just can't be bothered to do anything more important than waste my time worrying about such nonsense.

I'm not saying that we need to keep track of every second we waste and make up for it by going 90 on the freeway, or that every waking moment needs to be a blinding fury of assembly-line productivity. And I'm not implying that we can't have hobbies, that would be ridiculous and unreasonable. What I am saying is, maybe our hobbies shouldn't be things like Tetris or frequenting the Craigslist personal sections, but things that matter. And maybe, just maybe, if we could overcome our fear of going outside and talking to people, we'd see that they're not so scary after all. Says Mike from the safety of his keyboard.