On Friday I�m leaving on a jet plane. Well, for a couple of weeks anyway.

I love to fly. I know a lot of people hate it, and while there are several things - most notably my chronic sinus problems and caused-by-flying bad back � which should make me do the same, I just don�t.

I was first carried on to a plane at the age of 5� weeks. Since then I have flown, on a rough guess, an average of around 4 trips a year. So I fly regularly without having to do it so often that I get truly sick of it.

I�m an efficient flyer. For interstate trips it�s carry-on luggage only if at all possible. I just plonk myself down in my seat with a book and either read or snooze through the whole trip, occasionally looking up to glance at whatever TV program they�re showing. And because they include the sports broadcasting radio station on the in-flight entertainment, I can often listen to the cricket or the football as well.

Friday, however, I�m heading off on a 14 hour flight, which requires dealing with checking baggage and multiple security checks, though I�ll still plonk down in my seat with a book and a set of headphones once I get through all of that. International flying always provides me with more of a dilemma though.

First, I do have to confess that I�m a little spoiled. Of approximately 14 international flight legs in the last 10 or so years, 2 have been first class, 9 have been business class and only 3 have been economy. That being said, the degree to which planes and services have been upgraded during that period means that economy class now is pretty much what business class was 10 years ago, so I have no real complaints about flying economy. And regardless of the class, the dilemmas are the same.

The core of the problem comes down to movies verses sleep. Movies automatically win the first round with me because I don�t sleep well on planes. As a general rule I can�t sleep on my back even when in the comfort of my own bed, and so achieving it in a semi-up-right position is extremely difficult. If I�m tired enough I manage it, but otherwise not. Which is why I appreciate having my own TV in business class, and the constant screening of movies in economy, because it gives me something to do while everyone else is sleeping.

But at some point you�ve got to sleep, and I inevitably end up sleeping through the good/interesting movies and being awake through the bad ones. Which is why I can give you a pocket review of Crossroads (the movie is awful and predictable in so many ways but Britney herself wasn�t as appalling as I had expected), but have still never seen Patriot Games.

And then there�s the food. Contrary to popular opinion, not all airline food is horrible. I�ve certainly experienced some appalling stuff in my time: American Airlines, I�m looking at you. And Nathan did once get a pretty bad case of food poisoning from airline food, and my regular airline, Qantas, does tend to serve only cookies on interstate flights, all of which inevitably contain nuts. But those instances aside, the main meals on Qantas are pretty good, and I can never turn down food on a flight even when I�m not hungry. I�ve never yet slept through a meal on a long-haul flight.

I think this may have grown out of an incident as an 11 year old when I caught a bug of some sort during the early stages of a 24-hour-plus flight to London, and became violently ill. Vomiting all over the place on a plane is just not a pleasant experience. And this was back in the days when everyone could still smoke on planes, and the smoke just made me feel worse. Every time I got on a plane I felt sick. Even though the food had nothing to do with it � I hadn�t actually eaten anything on the plane when I got sick � I didn�t eat a single meal of any kind on a flight for two and a half years. I finally had to give in and start eating again the next time we went to London and I couldn�t go more than 24 hours without eating.

I think I�m still making up for those two and half years now. And of course, wine comes with dinner now, and who�s going to turn that down? Or the little cans of bloody mary mix? Certainly not me.

So when someone asked me the other day whether I got jet-lag flying to LA, the answer had to be �no� � after all it�s a relatively minor actual time difference between here and there, only 5 hours at the moment � no actual jet-lag, but I�m usually completely stuffed anyway, because between the food and the movies and my book, and the back and the sinuses, I�m lucky if I�ll sleep 2 hours on the 14 hour flight. And that will be during Lost In Translation. I have no doubt I�ll be awake for Dickie Roberts � Child Star though.

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On that note, there may or may not be another update between now and when I leave � depends on how crazy work gets, and how much I need to procrastinate when writing the third draft of my book.