The Fog of Flying

HASSAN AMMAR / AFP / Getty

I'm flying across the international date line, but I've lost track somewhere along the line of whether I'm heading east or west. My stomach tells me that it's 3 a.m., but the watch that I'm just turning backward says it's really 6 p.m. Drew Barrymore seemed to have accompanied this same piece of chicken some days ago, and the people in the next row might be Asian-Americans or just Americanized Asians. The Far West is to the east of me now and the Far East is to the west.

It's at just this moment that I realize that...

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