the (tom)boy who could fly

remember that movie? you know the one from the 80s where the autistic boy eric is totally obsessed with flying? this one:



well i wanted to be him. i actually wanted to be the boy in every movie i saw when i was little…

kevin mcallister



bastian



david freeman



… you name it. but 'the boy who could fly' inspired me. so much so that i used to climb onto the roof of the house as a 7-year-old, edge my way along the tiles to the tallest point, and stand there with my arms outstretched like he does in the movie. the neighbours must have thought i was special… or actually, i think they were worried about the level of parental supervision at home.

i was too cluey to think that jumping off the roof with an umbrella would result in a soft landing. instead i’d focus all of my attention on my internal ability to just take off… yep, those were they days when i believed in mental telepathy and would stare at the toothbrush trying to make it move.

sadly, the closest i got to flying was in my dreams where if i sprinted fast enough i was able to take off and fly for about 30 meters. this didn’t work when i was awake. but i was a good sprinter as a result and cleaned up at school sport.

as a grown up my flying experiences haven’t been nearly as exciting. these days i fly quite a lot between syd and melbs for work, gigs and just catching up. i’ve had such a bad run with flights recently. two weeks ago i was stranded in melbs cos virgin blue had a computer meltdown and a bunch of flights got cancelled. the airport was like a disaster zone with sweaty, tired bodies sprawled out on the carpet looking miserable late on a sunday night… and the chirpy staff were trying to make up for it by handing out free krispy kreme doughnuts and cheese burgers (for kids only – which didn’t go down too well with some folks). you should have seen the stampede for free junk food. scary, scary shit.

to fill the time i pulled out my laptop and started watching that homoerotic spartan battle movie '300' which was the only thing i’d downloaded that i hadn’t watched yet.



because we were all sitting on top of each other i felt weird when the grunty sex scene came on with nannas and grandkids either side of me. awkward.

but it wasn’t all bad. i was put up at crown that night in a very flash hotel room and work flew me back first thing. fyi… i AM wearing undies in this pic:

and then more flight dramas this weekend care of tiger (i know, i know… it’s my own fault). the bastards called me an hour and a half before we were due to depart on friday afternoon to say my cunting flight had been cancelled (i paraphrase) with the next available one the following morning. roooaarrr.

and because everyone knows that melb is awesome on the weekend there were bugger all flights available on other airlines, and the ones that were, were like $400 one way. bollocks. so it meant i couldn’t perform my comedy act on 'fake lesbians' that night and had to make a zillion phone calls explaining what the shit had happened. grrr.

but not all my flying experiences have sucked. i used to get paid to think up tv shows and was flown to an international development conference every year to mingle with other creatives. no shit, that was my job. do you hate me?

anyways, one time i was on a flight to berlin with my development team and that sooky movie 'the notebook' was playing.



i hate this movie. i hate movies that go out of their way to make you cry. tragic dog movies are an exception, however.



just hearing that song makes me cry. such a good dog.

so 'the notebook' was playing and we were all watching it and i was getting annoyed. i looked to my left and noticed that one of my workmates was dabbing her cheeks with a tissue. to my right, my boss was tearing up. when i took my headphones off i could hear someone getting really choked up. i looked to the seat in front and my male colleague kristian was pretty much bawling – his face was bright red and his stripey shirt was wet all down the front.

at this point i started crying – crying with laughter. from a previous blog entry you will know that i cry when i laugh – i’m emotionally back to front – so my eyes starting pissing out salty water and the four of us were there crying hysterically over the bloody notebook. the other passengers must’ve thought we were on crack.

then my workmate went to fetch more tissues from her bag in the overhead locker and accidentally knocked some kid’s big plastic toy dinosaur, which then fell on another passenger’s head. that was it. we were gone. crying/screeching/snorting/choking uncontrollably.

i wish all flights were this good.

so in the words of the narrator from 'the boy who could fly':

“we’re all special. we’re all a little like eric. maybe we can’t soar up into the clouds. but somewhere deep inside… we can all fly.”

now sing along:

up in the air i fly

zoom, zoom, a-zoom a-zoom zoom

up in the big blue sky
zoom, zoom, a-zoom a-zoom zoom

zzzoooooom, zzzooooom,

zoom, zoom, a-zoom a-zoom zoom.

you feelin it?
(sub)urban tomboy x