While writing on a plane.

Today, I have ridden on a subway, a bus, a car, and now a plane.

I woke up early, glued on some false eyelashes, and sang some songs for people sitting behind a table who do not know, nor care to know my middle name. Which is fine. There’s a big difference between the people who hire us and the people who love us, and it doesn’t do good things for our psyche when we start confusing the two.

I had what I consider to be a good audition, but now–10 hours after the fact–it’s easy to doubt. To wonder if it really went as well as I imagined it did. Oh well, I guess I’ll see. And there sure isn’t anything I can do about it while flying somewhere above…(this is the part when I pick a state between Atlanta and Los Angeles…any state between Atlanta and Los Angeles…)…um, Colorado? It’s probable I’m somewhere above Colorado right now, yes?

My pop handed me a book right before I left today. “For the plane,” he told me. Not entirely happy with the fact that it was hardback and weighed more than I wanted to carry, I protested. “Oh, Jess, it weighs a pound. You can carry it with one hand,” he said, and that was that.

And now I’m two hundred pages into a book on survival. Survival of all sorts of fantastical and dangerous scenarios. Knitting needles puncturing hearts. A fall off the Golden Gate Bridge. A brain bleed on the side of a mountain in sub-zero temperatures. A mountain lion ripping someone’s face off. A cyclist hit by a cement truck (which seems to be a trend, for some reason–watch out for those cement trucks!). And of course, lots of plane crashes.

You better believe that this time I listened to the safety instructions, read the safety manual, and made sure to know that I am exactly three rows away from the emergency exit aisle. Apparently, all of that stuff really matters. So does having a plan. As does exiting the plane within 90 seconds of a crash. Also–your chance of being killed in a plane crash is 1 in 60 million.

So, sigh of relief.

Also, short legged women and overly tall men have a harder time escaping a plane in under 90 seconds. Since I am neither a short-legged woman or an overly tall man, I feel pretty good about this statistic.

Side note: the captain. Nope, the pilot–yes, planes have pilots and ships have captains. Anyway, the pilot just said over the intercom that we’re flying over Dallas right now (hi, Mandy!), so I was wrong about Colorado, I guess.

Another statistic in this book (which is not written by a particularly religious man, by the way): people who attend a religious function regularly tend to live seven years longer than those who don’t.

Interesting.

Also: the number 3 is very important. Because, so says this book (The Survivor’s Club, Ben Sherwood. There, now you know):

The Rule of 3 States that You Cannot Survive:

3 seconds without spirit or hope
3 minutes without air
3 hours without shelter in extreme conditions
3 days without water
3 weeks without food
3 months without companionship or love

So yes, the book is fascinating. So is the fact that I was in NYC this morning, Philly this afternoon, and will be in LA in a few hours.

Okay, now I’m back to reading why the best place to have a heart attack is in Vegas.

Go figure.