On the Southwest flight from Indianapolis to Ontario (no, not Canada; southern California - nearest airport to my parents' in Claremont) via Las Vegas, I read a bunch of things I had bought for myself in Indy. I bought three novels (one hardback) and two magazines for pots of money; but then again, while in Bloomington I really didn't spend much money. (I mooched off Jenny an awful lot for one thing - sorry, Jenny! if you're wondering where that next-to-last brownie went, I have to confess!)
Anyway, I bought the blasted things and on the way to Las Vegas I read the entire most recent #1 Ladies Detective Agency, all of a Psychology Today, and part of another book which had a terrible title but which I rather quite liked (my usual test: would I have been happy to write this book? and the answer: resoundingly yes). Anyway, after I finished the Psychology Today I tucked it into the seat pocket in front of me and left it there; while we were on the ground in Las Vegas for 35 minutes I moved seats, further frontwards, but figured I'd leave the Psychology Today where it was.
So then while I was sitting in my new seat (we couldn't move till after the friendly flight attendant had counted all of our six heads that were staying on the flight for the next leg) (don't worry, more people got on; the second leg was as 100% full as the first one) - anyway, I"m sitting there in my new seat and I'm thinking: that article I read in Psychology Today, about which personality types relocate more and less and why and how - I'd like to maybe blog about it or in some other ways refer back to it. But do I want to go back to my old seat and pull it out?
Meanwhile, all the flight attendants are swarming the seats and cleaning and pulling out stuff and tidying and tossing and all of that - they are, as they often remind us, the cleaning crew. And sure enough, the very pleasant man who'd been in charge of my row of seats (and who did the head count) pulled out my Psychology Today out of my old seat pocket (so much for leaving it for the next person, which I thought I was doing) and came forward with it - I'm still thinking: so, do I reclaim it now before he throws it away? And then he walked down the aisle with it and said: does anybody want a Psychology Today. I hesitated (what personality type does that make me?) and nobody else said anything either and he said something along the lines of (oh, I don't have to make it up, I see I wrote down his exact words:) "Anyone for a Psychology Today? I didn't think so - it isn't exactly a hot seller."
!!!!!??????
So then I really couldn't confess and reclaim anymore. I let my Psychology Today (which, by the way, I had found in the Men's Interest section of the magazine rack - why?) be consigned to the dustheap of history, and so I have to tell you from very vague-ish memory (this I didn't write down) - essentially, if you're a friendly and happy person, you stay put and don't keep moving away town to town. I thought this was very, very, very interesting indeed. All my dear friends who have ended up not moving away from Bloomington: you hear that!?
(Also, just by the by: inside the Psychology Today there were a few references to their online site and I thought: why do I read so very few and always the same things online I wonder? at the newsstand I'm interested in all sorts of things; online I go to the New York Times, Huffington Post, Salon.com, Slate, and maybe sometimes Divine Caroline and Digg.com and very occasionally Youtube (I don't go there so very often for one reason because there's almost always somebody nearby who will be disturbed by the noise . . . !) - I know why I don't go to the New Yorker online even though I've been made aware of it, it's because I don't want to spoil the print version for myself. But it's a real question: why am I stuck in these very few sites? Even when I have all the time in the world to surf the web, which is of course not by any means always?)
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