It's nearing the end...we're on the plane from Berlin to London and things have taken an interesting turn. Long waits on tarmac and in buses, no sleep, and no sightings of her royal highness since our initial ascent into the skies has the denizens of the Rihanna plane feeling restless.

Mary HK Choi: AHHAAHAHAH it’s pandemonium on the plane. We’ve just left Berlin after a rooooough time in Paris and the Fuse guys in front of us just sabotaged the Official Rihanna documentary by chanting “B Roll” in unison and it was genius. Playboy dude just asked them to recreate it for HIS camera but they aren’t having it because that dude is “just trying to scoop an angle!” It's every man for himself. I wish they hadn’t given us German meat chips for our 4:00 AM plane snack because it’s making me punchy. I also love that we have twelve drink tickets pooled between us because drinking would make us barf. We may be teetotalers after last night.

[Pause to reorganize the mountain of chocolate and cornichon sitting on our tray tables. Also so Maud can lick meat chips off her fingers.]

Maud Deitch: I tried to get people on Twitter to place bets about when they think we’ll actually take off for London, but nobody’s biting. I think when we have to build our own feudal society from the rubble of the plane after the revolution, bookie is a pretty decent position to be in. I, personally, think we’ll leave at 4:45 AM, which is exactly 4 hours and 45 minutes from the time that the original itinerary said we would arrive in London.

MHKC: Normally, I’d agree with you but the delays have gotten longer and judging from the previously established trajectory we’ll be leaving at 11:00AM. I’m also beginning to think she’s a figment of my imagination. This is SUCH a good argument for holograms. As in, I wish we were all holograms.

MD: OH MY GOD THEY’RE COMING AROUND WITH SOMETHING WRAPPED IN FOIL I THINK IT’S SAUSAGE [NOPE, MORE SANDWICHES] THAT MEANS WE’RE NEVER GETTING OFF THIS PLANE. Also it now smells like a movie theater concession stand on the Rihanna plane and the people next to us just rolled up to their seats with tumblers filled with whiskey and then one of them promptly spilled it into his seat back pocket. Maybe Rihanna was buying lingerie for all of US in Paris while we were foraging for delicious, clearly-labeled, microwavable, chicken fajita burritos and instead getting ricotta cheese jammed into a tomato-flavored crepe. HAR HAR HAR.

MHKC: God, I wish some of us WOULD eat something. I mean, for all the ribbing and good-natured complaining and the joshing about that one Australian guy with the harmonica that we’re cheerfully plotting to behead, some of us are the problem. As frequently as they don’t feed us, they keep plying us with alcohol. Some of us may have been on a tear since yesterday. And it's been another all-nighter. SOME OF US DON’T HAVE INSIDE VOICES. #ISITYOU. #PRETTYSUREITSYOU. I have had ear plugs in consistently for the last two days.

MD: OK, so I think it’s worth noting that I, a person who cries ALL THE TIME, have only cried once this whole week and it was yesterday on the bus from the airport in Paris. I tried to hide it but whatever no shame it was THE WACKEST bus ride of my life. I know I’m here to work and not to, you know, live, but it took 11 hours to take a 2 hour flight. Which meant that rather than sitting down for a normal meal like normal people and having a civilized glass of wine FOR MY FIRST TIME IN PARIS, we were SHOVELING 18 kinds of lox into our maws in the 20 minutes we had between showering and getting ON THE BUS AGAIN. I HATE THE BUS.

MHKC: We have eaten such a strange amount of lox. And coleslaw. French people are obsessed with carrot coleslaw. God. Speaking of French people. The club last night was SO SPECIFIC. It reminded me so much of that one sex club scene in Requiem For a Dream where Jennifer Connelly has never looked more beautiful and I have never felt more suicidal. I thought I was TRIPPING BALLS when I saw Omarion roll up.

“Maybach O” was not really what I’d expected to see while having a stroke but apparently someone else saw Craig David, so who knows. The bodyguards were just doing their jobs but the weird circles of famouses were colliding into other weird circles of famouses and it’s too bad we all died. Right there in that club. As champagne swilled over our still-warm bodies. The worst part? I think it was cava? :(

MD: Every time I see that story reported there is another famous person added into the cut. Last time I checked Bar Rafaeli was also there and sure, Bar Rafaeli was there. I have no idea what’s truth and what’s fiction anymore. I do know that I made the mistake of putting my coat onto one of the banquettes that I didn’t realize would turn into a peasants-free zone, and it turned into an ORDEAL to get it back. Omarion saved me, though, by literally THROWING a girl in some probably-fake Loubou Tributes off of my coat and handing it to me gingerly. Thanks Omarion, if I ever see you again I’ll buy you a glass of sparkling wine from the California region.

MHKC: So yeah. The Trianon, where the Paris event was held was pretty cute. It’s running together with the spot in Sweden a little bit but her outfits are anchoring each day as discrete experiences. She was wearing thigh-high boots and a satin tee and is DEFINITELY the hottest person I have seen in real life. I know that’s the crux of the problem, that we’re not getting enough access, but she really is still a crazy impressive specimen of freakshow goodlookingness. Even with the technical difficulties and the truncated schedule, Paris wasn’t bad. Wow. We’re all just yelling for different things now (chocolate/less AC) as if this airplane has developed sentience and voice-activated wish-fulfillment to compensate for our taxing our lives have become. Things are rowdy as hell.

[The flight actually takes off and the press corp starts yelling in an insistent, unhinged manner]

[Things devolve rapidly]

MHKC: HOLY CRAP. The Australian with the harmonica is STREAKING ON THE PLANE as we scream “save our jobs” and “access” and “interviews” and “just one headline” at the abject lack of Rihanna time. #FREETHERIHANNA150 #OCCUPYRIHANNAPLANE #WHEREHAVEYOUBEENALLTHISFLIGHT #AREYOUHIDINGFROMUS

Whoa. Gabe’s out (Def Jam Pr God and Fashionable Man). He just mouthed “What the f*** is going on.”

I am so tired. Everyone is in my shot. I am in my shot. This is life-altering.

MD: The Stockholm Syndrome is so strong everyone went silent the moment Gabe and Gabriella came out and told everyone to sit back down. Suddenly racked with terror that we’re going to get into trouble.

MHKC: Oh, no, Gabe is all the way down the gangway. I am putting the computer away. Shhhhh…

[Back]

MHKC: Awwww. This is so sad but the kids in the Rihanna Navy are singing Happy Birthday. Some poor bastard is having a birthday across god knows what time zone line in this yelly, freezing plane that still shows that one Delta safety video that’s apparently been taken out of rotation everywhere else in the world that features that ginger Cylon with restelyne trout mouth and aggro eyebrows and that wagging finger that causes nightmares. It is so, so cold. I think we’ve died again. With meat chip breath. This is sad for our families.

MD: It feels essential to reiterate that it’s 5:45 AM. Although I don’t actually think it matters because time stopped back when the sun exploded somewhere between Toronto and Stockholm. I hope the Def Jam reintegration center has better food than the plane.

MHKC: They probably do. To be fair, and I’m not being a conciliatory a-hole but the label reps have actually been great.

MD: Oh god so true. I’m having cava flashbacks to 3 AM in the club in Paris when I earnestly told someone that meeting Gabriella and Gabe had inspired me to change how I live my life. Gabe just smells so incredible (not to be creepy or anything).

MHKC: Totally creepy. Relax, his scarf is Balenciaga. “Some day, before we die, I’ll tell you my version of the story.” — Gabe.

Man. Cool blog post. I wish we had Internet.

[HOURS ELAPSE]