Travel.

Just got back from two weeks in Australia. I must be getting old, because the thrill of travel no longer overwhelms the torture of airplanes. Don't get me wrong - I'm still the kind of person who loves to fly, providing the flight is a few hours long. I love sliding efficiently through security checks, because I pre-separated my liquids and emptied my pockets that morning. I love pointless shopping to kill time, and grabbing a beer at the airport bar. I don't even mind relaxing with a book for a few hours in-flight, free of distractions. I have a little ritual of buying a magazine and gum to get me through the Kindle-free stages of takeoff and landing.

However, a 15 hour flight, especially in the midst of a 28 hour travel cycle with bookended short flights and layovers is finally too much for my broken little neck to take. I've taken these before - namely to move to Korea so I had a full 4 months resting time between flights. But usually I break them up - say, with an overnight in Jordan en route to India. And before now, I always lucked out with a stretch of 5 middle seats to lie down on and sleep through it.

Not this time. I hereby declare that was my last 9+ hour coach flight. From now on, I either get those fully-flat business seats, or I do another day-long layover. Although, destinations in the U.S. are beckoning. Road trips have a sudden appeal. I'm always in a passenger seat that reclines way back and with Vinny in the drivers' seat, and we stop whenever we feel like it because we're New Yorkers and the Boston-DC corridor is full of small towns with no serviceable vegan food but plenty of rest stops. Ditto for our 3 week, 3200 mile California trip, where even Death Valley gave us enough lookouts for pulling over.

Next week we go to Natick, for a wedding. We're already planning our Sunday stop at Mohegan Sun, a ritual from my Harvard days when we made this trip monthly. We'll book it though the smokey casino with sad dumpy folks glued to the slot machines and make right for Todd English's Tuscany. Beats rest stop Sbarro any day.

Started a new case, getting to know new people. I don't have TV, do yoga, don't eat meat, listen to classical music, and opera hate reality TV and American newspapers, don't have a car, recycle everything, and loathe the suburbs. And just when they have me fitting perfectly into a little stereotype box, I start waxing poetic on the burlesque stylings of Angie Pontani, the comic genius of Beavis and Butthead, and the mad flow of Royce da 5'9".

Facials

Indulge yourself!  You have to live in your skin every day, so why not splurge on making it look as good as possible?  Well, sure, only a few basic treatments are proven to work.  But why spend $100 on a treatment that clears your pores, when you could spend $420 to have someone stick a rock on your head?  I mean, if the spa says the topaz will "balance your energy field" who are the scientists to say otherwise?  Besides, the facial is designed "remind your skin of its cellular wisdom".  Not the regular wisdom retained by a mind composed of firing neurons, but the kind that, um, mitochondria have? Who knows, maybe there are tiny little brains inside your skin cells that all those fancy "scientists" just haven't found out about.

But don't ask for any proof that this stuff works, or clinical trials.  You should just trust the people asking you for $420.  I mean, why would they lie?

But really, while you're there, you should really invest in the $990 "Spa Sapphire Transformation."  I mean, "your soul will be transformed." Your soul!  I dare you to prove otherwise, which might be a challenge seeing that we have never proven a soul exists.

Best of all, you get to indulge in all this luxury on the continent of Africa.  After all, what else is there to do in Tasmania.  I mean, they have some animals and trees and stuff, but you didn't fly a thousand miles to see gorillas and tigers.  You did it so someone could put a stone on your head. And sure, that money could buy a few hundred children badly needed shoes, but isn't it better to set an example on how to treat yourself right?

But if you can't get to Africa, don't fret! There are plenty of unproven, luxurious-sounding hoaxes treatments to be had right where you live.  You can have fish eggs smeared on your face for a mere $1000 at the Ritz Carlton in New York or have it done in San Francisco for a mere $750.  Or head on down to Palm Beach to have your face smeared in metal for $550.

Can't get to these cities?  Don't fret!  In any major city I am sure you can find a fancy spa to blow oxygen on your face for around $200.  Of course, oxygen facials have zero evidence to indicate they improve skin.  Well, we use anti-oxygen creams for a reason - some forms of oxygen release free radicals that damage skin. But if you're buying, they're selling.

Stay tuned for updates on other useless facial ingredients.  We have seaweed!  We have tourmaline!  We have bird poop!  And we even have faux semen! Don't miss it.

Pencils and Playing Cards

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In the market for some $85 poker cards? But wait! For only $10 more you could get a pencil instead! That's right. One whole pencil. Well, they're a bargain, really, compared to the Louis Vuitton pencil, which rings in at $255.  But it's so shiny!


 Don't worry.   If you're broke, you can just buy it in silver for $185.  I mean, everyone needs pencils.  It's a practical purchase.

The broody men left bereft by wives with high-flying careers who refuse to have babies

Story and commentary posted at Childfree News. Note that I am going to begin cross-posting a few things from my CFN blog, but keep the content there so the comments are all in one place. I'll only be cross-posting a few select blog posts which contain as much commentary as quotations.

$34,000 backpack

We all know that if you're going to spend $34,000 on a bag, it had better be practical. Why bother with a chic Birkin, when for only 15 times the price you can also cart your textbooks to first period?