Face of Flying

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: This is going to be an extremely female-oriented topic, so I apologize in advance to our many male readers. As anyone can tell after hanging around here for even a short period of time, the Reds are travelers.  I probably fly the least of anyone - not having had a book out in mumble mumble years, and I still easily average four or five round trip flights annually, between conferences and family visits. 

In the past several years, travel has come to intersect with my increasing, shall we say, dedication to skin care. I was blessed with good genes, and didn’t have to bother with much more than scrubbing away make-up and slapping on sunscreen - and even that wasn’t until moisturizers with SPF became common in the early 90s. (I remember getting my first 30 SPF face cream as a gift from a friend - they were expensive back then!)

However, time marches on, and I’ve discovered that since menopause, my face has a tendency to resemble ancient animal skin parchment unless fed a steady diet of retinol, vitamin C, Niacinamide, moisturizer, etc., etc. And flying tends to exacerbate every issue, right? First off, it’s stressful. Crowds, security, standing in line for Starbucks, wrestling your luggage into the bathroom stall. If you’re on business or book tour, you inevitable have to get up at 5am after a not-so-great night’s sleep. Maybe you’re wearing a mask because who knows what germs are traveling alongside you? Then it’s two or four or six hours in a tube with a humidity level as low as 10%. The average humidity level in the Atacama Desert of Chile, widely considered the driest place on earth? 15-40%. Uh huh.

So I’m trying to follow the suggestions of flight attendants I’ve read. Drink two bottles of water per hour of flight time? That’s easy, especially with a collapsible travel bottle. Mist your face? Okay. Go without makeup? That’s a no from me, especially when traveling on business. Avoid alcohol? No problem, I don’t like to drink on flights anyway. Avoid caffeine? Oooo. That’s going to be a REAL hard one for me.

I did like the idea of thoroughly washing your face and putting on a fifteen minute mask (or masque) once you’ve reached your hotel. I LOVE those Korean face masks.

How about you, Reds? What’s your go-to skin care when traveling, generally, or flying specifically? 

RHYS BOWEN:  Flying without makeup, especially when I’m on book tour and I’m going to be met by a driver then at a fancy hotel? Not going to happen. I do drink water but not so much that I’m up and down to the bathroom. I mist my face. But I also accept that welcome Prosecco when I board. I like to relax. 

As for the perfect skin care routine, my skin has become so sensitive recently that most products aggravate it. So it’s the most simple moisturizer and occasional mask. I have been given lovely sets of Lancôme and Clinique but hardly dare to use them

HALLIE EPHRON: “Welcome Prosecco”??? What? Where? How did I miss that?? 

My “skin care routine” is usually one step, flying or not: I wash my face once a day. When it’s super dry inside I use a moisturizer because it feels good. Vaseline on my lips. Sun block if I’m going to be in the sun. 

Beyond that, my go-to skin-care solution involves trying not to look in the mirror. Time marches. 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I use Dove sensitive skin soap, morning and night, without fail,  and sometimes a bare trace of Vaseline for moisturizer on my eyelids and face if it’s a little dry. I have not put a mask on my face in my entire life. My face has not been in the sun without massive sunscreen for 30 years. No makeup on the plane? Ah.Yikes. Nope. Not unless I am on the way home and no one will see me. (And wearing a mask is such a boon in those circumstances.)

I rarely drink on a plane, but will never (crossing fingers) give up caffeine. (Except I will not drink airplane coffee. Yuck.) And in hotels,  I try to sleep on my back so the decoratively piped hotel pillows don’t leave welts on my face. (And I burst out laughing about wrestling the luggage into the bathroom stall. EVERY time. My suitcase is like..one  impossible inch too big.)

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Weirdly, I never thought too much about my face being dry on planes. It’s my eyes, the inside of my nose, and my lips that really suffer. Lots of dry-eye drops, and lip balm, always. I wear my usual make-up, a tinted moisturizer. 

Should I admit that I don’t normally wash my face? I have to use a foaming eye cleanser morning and night, so my face gets warm water then, and if I’ve worn more makeup than usual I’ll take it off with a bit of that. I also use loads of Clinque humectant face care stuff; a spray mist, a gel moisturizer, and either a sunscreen moisturizer or a night one, all in layers. Absolutely no soap!

I cannot imagine how anyone can drink two bottles of water per hour on a flight unless they intend to barricade themselves in the plane toilet for the duration!

 

LUCY BURDETTE: I don’t think too much about skin and planes either, though I don’t drink alcohol or caffeine while flying and do try to hydrate. Skin care: I use an enzyme wash, then Olay with SPF 30 in the morning and my favorite Alaskan lavender skin moisturizer at night (Alpenglow.) I bought some of that at a farmer’s market in Homer, AK years ago and have been ordering it ever since. I’m very lazy about makeup, but if someone would tell me how to remove mascara efficiently, I promise I’ll try harder!

JENN McKINLAY: I’m like Debs - it’s my lips, nose, and eyes that get dry when I fly. So, Aquaphor (a Beiersdorf product) as lip balm, for sure. It’s like Vaseline but has a healing agent in it. Saline nasal spray and eye drops as needed (my seatmates love me - lol). I do drink water and airplane coffee but no alcohol. I don’t wear makeup except for mascara when I travel, and for my skin I apply Eucerin Q10 (another Beiersdorf product) which is my daily moisturizer. Overall, I’m pretty low maintenance. 

 
JULIA: How about you, dear readers? Any go-to tips for putting your best face forward? Or, if that's not your thing, share what you use to make travel more comfortable for you.

 

Photo of woman in plane by Pexels (freerangestock.com)

Things I Want To Learn by Jenn McKinlay

JENN McKINLAY: I am a restless soul. I'm not sure why, but I seem to always have something on my horizon that I become consumed with, something that I feel I must learn how to do, and it takes over my brain like any proper obsession does until I master it sufficiently enough to be satisfied. This doesn't mean I become the best at it or even very good, but I learn enough to quench the thirst.

Growing up, I was fascinated by chess but I never had the time to learn and was intimidated by what seemed very complicated rules. When the hooligans were in elementary school, there was a chess club. Naturally, I signed them up! Because then they could teach me! I'm not a fabulous chess player but I learned the rudiments and I've beaten them a time or two. 

This was not one of those times:

Hooligan wins the Wizard Chess!

Lately, I have circled back to wanting my pilot's license. I was eager to learn in my twenties. Side note: My dad got his glider pilot's license at the age of sixty and went on to fly for another ten plus years. While learning, he started me on lessons with a log book and everything. But then motherhood came along and it didn't seem prudent to be 10,000 ft in the air with no engine while the babies were below. But now the Hooligans are getting ready to launch and I am doubling back to the things I want to learn. I've conquered knitting, volleyball, pottery, yoga - again, not a master at anything but curiosity assuaged - and I have a friend trying to explain quantum physics to me (we're still working on it), but the pilot thing...yeah, it's becoming an obsession...again.

Jenn the pilot...maybe. 

What about you, Reds and Readers, what's on your horizon that you want to master? Or what did you set out to learn that you feel you've conquered or at least satisfied your curiosity? 

The Meaning of Dreams

RHYS: Do you dream? Well, of course they say that everyone does. But do you remember your dreams? My husband doesn't and swears he doesn't dream. But I've always had particularly vivid dreams--some scary and some spectacular as in the days when I dreamed I was flying.
In the old days dreams were seen as portends--remember good old Joseph and the seven fat cows and seven thin cows?

It was only recently with Freud and the advent of modern psychology that it was realized that dreams are a portal to the subconscious mind. I took a course on dream psychology when I was at university and I was absolutely hooked. Of course Freud saw all dream symbols as related to sex but more modern thought has found that there are universal dream symbols all over the world. Appearing naked in public, being in a runaway vehicle, being chased by a monster are common to all humans.  Also symbols like the house. If you dream you are in a house, that house often represents you and how you view yourself.  If it's a palace, you think well of yourself. If it has dark rooms you don't want to go into, there are parts of yourself you are afraid to reveal.

Of course we also have dreams where the mind is in freefall and images are just random and silly but in the earlier part of the night we will have our significant dreams. If they are recurring, it's good to analyze them. Some are obvious like my recurring dream of having to pack too many suitcases in a rush or miss my flight. I've been in a car that runs backward down a hill. I've been standing in the wings ready to go onstage and realize I don't know my lines.  All famliar?

If you can't make out what the dream is telling you, write it down or tell it to someone else. Usually you will use language that explains the dream. Example: an English friend told me she has this recurring dream about being in Marks and Spencer's (the department store) and wanting to buy things but it's almost closing time and the racks are almost empty. I told her that was easy to solve by the words she chose. She had told me she wanted to go to art college but her father wouldn't let her. Now she was considering going back to art school. But had she left it too late?  It clue was that she was in a place where you get MARKS (the English word for grades)  Fun, huh?

This fascination with dreams led to my new Molly book, THE EDGE OF DREAMS, that came out last week. The story hinges on Freud's recently published Interpretation of Dreams being able to help solve a baffling crime with a young girl who survived a fire, remembers nothing, but is plagued by vivid nightmares. If they unlock the symbols in her dream they will know what happened.

So fellow reds and readers do you have recurring dreams? Have you be able to unlock their meaning?

HALLIE EPHRON: Oh Rhys, that is completely fascinating. What a splendid premise.

I dream that I'm packing and I can't possibly get everything packed in time and get to the bus station or train station or airport. No mystery what that's about. Anxiety. I also have yard sale dreams. Those I love. No idea what they mean.

RHYS: I have the same packing dream, Hallie. But yard sale? Could that mean that you're doubting the value of what you have to offer? Are your books good enough or perhaps a hidden gem? Or could it be that your husband LOVES yard sales so the topic comes up frequently?

LUCY BURDETTE: I can't wait to read this Freud book, Rhys. As a psychologist, I KNOW that dreams are important. I can recall many moments (as both a patient and a therapist) when a dream unlocked the door to understanding and clearing away a knotty problem.

The most frequently recurring dream I have these days is expecting guests and spending what seems like hours trying to figure out where they could all possibly stay. I don't suppose that has to do with living in Key West during a winter that was awful for so many others?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  I used to have the ready to go on stage and don't know lines dream. Then one night, in the dream, I said -"This is a DREAM. So I'm not worried. And anyway, I DO know the lines. Well enough, at least."  Never had it again.
I do still dream I can't get somewhere, and can't figure out why. Last night I dreamed there were lots of spiders and we had to wear plastic suits to protect ourselves. (Lucy, Rhys, anything?)
  My favorite is my house dream. I have it all the time. I'm in my own house, but it's not my current house, or any real house, but it's absolutely mine, and there's a door in the back of my closet (not to Narnia) which I ALWAYS forget about. I go through it, and there's a whole room of beautiful  wonderful stuff, all in narrow mahogany drawers, like map drawers. Scarves, and shawls, velvets, and paisley wools, and pearls, all beautiful wonderful things. I think--why do I always forget this is here? And I am so happy! Sometimes, in the morning, I groggily think I should go look for it. It is incredibly real.
But then, so were the spiders.
(And I am reading your wonderful book right now!)

RHYS: Not sure about the spiders. I think we all have our monster/creepy things dreams but you're obviously good at protecting yourself with the plastic suit. I'd just have run away screaming. But the house....you are quite content with the person you are. Fulfilled. Excellent.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I have the house dream, too, Hank, and if I recall aright, Lucy told us that meant a sense of many possibilities. Either that, or we want to move...  I often have dreams where I'm about to get information I need from someone, or from a book, and then I wake up and am incredibly frustrated that I can't recall what the answer was.

RHYS: I was taught that the house means our perception of ourselves.

JULIA: You know who has interesting dreams? Ross. He has these action-adventure dreams that sound, when he recounts them, like a Bruce Willis movie. I'll hear him making noises and twitching, and wake him to discover I just saved him from a pit of crocodiles he had to cross to rescue his captured platoon. Not even lying.  It's too bad he has no facility for fiction - clearly he has the imagination to be another Clive Cussler.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I have house dreams, too! I will be in a house that is nothing like anywhere I've ever lived or any house I've seen, but I know it's MY house. I'm always going into new rooms and finding new things. These dreams are so vivid that I feel shocked when I wake up and it's not real. I would suspect that my subconscious is telling me I have interesting and unexpected things left to discover--tailor-made for a writer:-)

Julia, Rick has the same kind of action/adventure dreams. He said they almost never contain anyone he knows, and that it's like watching a movie. Wonder if it's a male/female thing?

RHYS: So please share your interesting dreams with us--recurring dreams, dreams you've been able to interpret and dreams you've never managed to figure out. I'm going to give a copy of THE EDGE OF DREAMS to the most interesting comment of the day!