Blogging from my deathbed

At least, that's what it feels like. I've come down with a cold and today, joy of joys, it has settled into my chest. The worst part of living alone is having to get your own glass of OJ when you're sick. Or having to go to the store for OJ, because you've just come home from a long trip and have nothing in the fridge except some pity curry your mother sent along. Which, incidentally, cannot be eaten on toast for breakfast. Mostly because I don't have any bread.**

Still, I solider on. Wrapped in a fleece blanket, surrounded by used tissues, and hacking up a lung, I blog. Not for my own sake, of course not. For yours. I hope you appreciate it. Below you will find a transcript from my little red moleskin journal, which I so dutifully carted around India. Editorial comments can be found in {brackets}, since I never get a chance to use those otherwise. Parentheses pale in comparison.

January 6th, almost 7 AM
Qatar Airways Flight 240 (approaching Trivandrum)

Final descent finds me at the window, pressing my nose to the glass {plastic, whatever}. I don't want to miss the first moment when land, The Motherland, comes into view. I fancy I can see the splashing of dolphins off the coast. {At this point it becomes obvious that twelve hours trapped in a flying metal box have gone to my head - I was seeing the crests of waves. Honestly, I can be so melodramatic.}

When I can see the shoreline, it looks almost impossibly straight. No bays or coves, here {what did I expect, fjords?}. This time of year in Virginia, deciduous trees color the overhead view brown with their naked branches. Here, true "evergreens" - palm trees - dominate {*barf*}. The blanket of treetops is interrupted less frequently and in no regular pattern. You are as likely to see a river or quarry cutting into the landscape as human habitation. What buildings there are are {?!?} nestled among the trees, seeming to have grown from the ground themselves.

It's not until we've almost landed that I can see the pollution, the dinginess, the piles of rubbish in unlikely places. It's enough to make Virginia look antiseptically clean in comparison. It is easier to love India from the sky, from a distance. It's only once I land that the difficulties begin. {*eye roll*}

Pretty depressing, huh? Well, the next post will be more interesting, if only for the fact that it mentions people other than me. Now I shall leave you with my Lost Luggage haiku:

Doha Airport crew,
You said it would be here.
Why did you lie? Jerks.



**Mom, if you are reading this, it is nothing but filthy, attention-seeking lies. I am in the pink of health and certainly not starving to death. Put down your car keys and go back to bed.