Getting to Amsterdam. Or, gearing up to fake normalcy while aviating.

I love to travel and hate to fly.

From the outside, though, I'm pretty sure I look like a totally normal human traveler.

My bag is in my trunk and my car is parked up the street from my office. So I can't obsessively add and remove things from my bag up to the very last minute.

I just have to run over to CVS and get necessities like prenatal vitamins and M&Ms, Snickers, and such.

My travel days are super unhealthy. I avoid eating vegetables, so as not to produce a noxious, toxic cloud of evil on the plane. I eat a lot of sweets in case the plane crashes.

I'm sure this hugely fucks with my blood sugar and really helps calm me down not one bit.

But what can you do, especially when you can't turn to pharmaceuticals? Breathe and breathe some more, probably.

And then I'll drive to my parents' house and leave my car and Betty will take me.

So I'm set.

While I absolutely can't wait to get to see Maude and her little family, I'm dreading the flight. I spend travel days with a swirly stomach. I get all twitchy and clenchy about getting to the airport with enough time.

I get in the plane and immediately think, you know, if we're going to crash, it would be so much better sooner than later.

Because how much would it suck to spend the last hours of your life stuck in a big metal box with a bunch of strangers? Much better to just get it over with before all that.

I also prefer to travel with someone I love, or at least like, because of course I don't want to die alone. Especially if you're plummeting to your death over the ocean.

I've been told this is a terrible, selfish approach.

And now! Now to ice the cake, there's swine flu!

When I had just gotten past freaking out about geese and airplane engines.

I give geese dirty looks every time we pass them now, though. I've disliked them since childhood, when a friend had very mean bitey geese in his yard.

And then to realize that those fuckers can just fell a plane? Puts them high on my Loathe List.

But back to the matter at hand. The networks are all swine! flu! frenzied! and I'm trying not to be. I realize that statistically speaking, it's highly unlikely.

The problem, though, with not being a math person, is that you tell yourself this, but the numbers don't actually mean anything to you. So until someone breaks them out - you know, in the same way they told me that at my age I was more likely to be killed by a terrorist than get married - it doesn't really hit home.

But then I have to figure, well, hell, I did actually get to my age and beyond, and managed to get married and knocked up even.

Which I was going to say meant that statistics were working in my favor, but actually, it's the opposite of the prediction and so really, what does this mean in terms of being felled by one thing or another?

Assuming all goes well, and we avoid the geese of death and various and sundry possible airplane defects and the path of the predicted pandemic, I'll land tomorrow morning in Amsterdam and waddle on my merry way off to Maude and Dan's.

I've asked Nick to guest post tomorrow (and, of course, into eternity, if need be). But current plan is to survive the trip and have fun and get Maude to take my tummy shot on Friday and just generally have a great time.

Days like today, I'm sure you're glad you only know me in cyberspace. No?

Anyway. Hugs to all of you!