Friday Flix #1. Carrots.
Friday photos at work.
Scarf, vintage. Cardi, F21. Jeans, BDG. MaryJanes, All Black, via Anthropologie.
Feeling like rubbish emotionally today. I rushed out the door this morning, and so therefore chose an easy outfit without realizing it wasn’t very stylish other than the shoes. Hence my iPhone images heavily edited in Picnik/Flickr.
The other day I posed some questions that I didn’t answer myself.
{ What is/are your favourite thing(s) to wear when you feel like shit? }
I make a point of making sure I’m wearing mascara on curled lashes and a bright shade of red on my lips to make me feel better about my face. A bit of black eyeliner can’t hurt, either. I also make sure I’m wearing a strong, statement-y type of shoe of some kind, because if there is one thing to instantly improve and transform an outfit–you know, other than posture, it would be a pair of shoes. Like what a great pop of colour on the lips does to transform an otherwise blasé face, a pair of shoes dramatically changes the tone of one’s clothes.
My ideal outfit in ideal weather would be a flouncy skirt, belted high, a comfy t shirt, sheer stockings, funky heels or flats, a beret and a cardi. Or pant-like leggings (I hate thin legging-leggings), a button down shirt/striped knit shirt, scarf, beret, big cardi, funky shoes.
Alas, this never works out. 1. because I live in MI, where we have weather, and 2. because I don’t own enough inventory of the above to make it a usual uniform.
{ What is your biggest pet peeve? }
Failure and bad self image. I also hate it when I walk about with socks on and step in something moist, water dripped onto the kitchen floor from dishes, water from a cup we used to water the plants, the spot where we cleaned up dog vomit. I don’t like it when people put in the toilet paper so that the paper falls from the back instead of the front. And I don’t like it when people willingly give in to ignorance, because it takes too much effort to be aware and informed and involved. I.e., refuse to listen to the news, read only tabloid magazines instead of news sites or papers, watch only reality TV, refuse to make an effort to go green because it takes too much brain power to remember to recycle, etc.
And when I forget to wear my wedding ring. I did that today. D’oh!
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In other news:
Let’s all say a prayer and give a farewell to our dearly departed friend, Yulanda Yee of Little Thoughts.
I have had a few exchanges with her through email, and we had agreed that we should meet up for delicious food the next time I was in Toronto. That chance never surfaced, because Yulanda passed away last Thursday after a brutal six month long battle with Lymphoma cancer. From what I learned through email and from her journal, is that she is an incredibly strong person, emotionally and mentally, with a fierce love for family and friends. She never once felt defeated or depressed about her disease, and always felt her chief concern was making sure her family was alright. She knew that pain was simply part of her condition, and she never let it corrode her self-confidence or awareness and love of the world. She had a delicate, feminine style and grace that I’ve always admired. Her pictures were always styled beautifully and simply, but with an elegance many other bloggers cannot match.
She was one of the brightest lights in the blogosphere, in my opinion and she will be missed dearly. Please pray for comfort and peace for her family.
Waxing Poetic, Waxing Lyrical on Twitter: Weather Forecasts Indicate Better Writing
(NaBloPoMo Day 3)
So sometimes I wax a bit lyrical on Twitter, and other times not so. For the most part, Twitter serves as a place for me to photo-whore; connect with other writers, style-bloggers, and runners; and retrieve and retweet informative, important news from other Green Activists…
**
But sometimes, the medium is useful for getting out bullet thoughts and miniature writing ideas. It’s easier to grab a handy micro-computer than root through a satchel for a pen and paper.
And you know what? Some of my best writing lately has ended up in Microblog form, probably because I hardly do any other form of writing.
We are all in this together. In a ship without a sail, toiling the ancient seas until we reach our distant home shore. #ManicMondays
Lazy, pathetically drifting snowflakes on sad wind currents.
Dear 2:30AM, you and I and whatever the hell this is needs to be over. You and I are not healthy or each other. We need a break. Goodbye.
11:38 PM Jan 29th from Twitterrific
Yes, ma’am, I am that madame! Who donned skin colored socks & skin colored shoes. It looked bad–but cold or warmth, what would you choose?
5:53 AM Jan 29th from Twitterrific
Peach clouds hang, downy, under clear cellophane skies. The wind at our backs, we trudge along, heads bowed, seeking warmth and shelter.
5:42 AM Jan 28th from Twitterrific
That same impetuous biting wind that shakes the tree boughs propels me along the salt chalked sidewalks under a dull metal sky. Ah, winter.
3:06 PM Jan 27th from Twitterrific
Cookies and tea do much to improve many situations.
39:17 AM Jan 27th from Twitterrific
Snow has stopped its weak & pathetic dusting, & the sky is a dappled sea under brushed steel clouds. A brilliant day in the neighborhood!
8:18 AM Jan 27th from Twitterrific
Most of the more “poetic” imagery comes as a consequence of the grey blustery clouds or salty, white-washed streets that result from crappy winters here in the Great Lakes Region. You’re stuck in a fabric cubicle jungle across from a window that only lets in weak, dull light. It gives you pause. And much time lost in sad rumination culminates in strong imagery. A much needed catharsis.
Most humans are, without question, affected by the changes in weather. Some of us are so strongly tied to the loss of golden sunlight that we develop Seasonal Affectedness Disorder (SAD).
On the greyest of days, I find myself even thinking in such language. But such is the way of silver skies and cutting wind and shining, cold diamonds on your windshield. We hole up in our warm blankets and pyjamas at home, cursing the sky and the wind currents and the dead trees, and thoughts fly into our brains a mile a minute.
If you get a rare golden day, with tolerably warm-enough weather, get out of your comforting little hole and run around under the clear skies, under the silver clouds, drinking in the brisk air. You never know what sort of change you may feel in your body, mind and soul.
Outfit architecture: sweater, BR; striped dress shirt, random boutique; belt, skirt, Forever21; stockings, Tarzhjay; Oxfords, Payless (yes, you read that right); Headband, GoJane.com; watches, Anne Klein, Random boutique. Yes, I AM wearing two watches.
Before Her Greatest Hits Were Written. RIP Kim Daul.
The snarky, impassioned, artistic and eccentric model passed yesterday in her Paris apartment of apparent suicide.
Image Credit: I like to Fork Myself and Fashion Gone Rogue
To say that her death has shocked and distressed the fashion and fashion-admirer world would be an obscene understatement.
The beautiful, leggy, chameleon loved literature, electronica, photography and art. She painted, photographed shows behind the scenes, wrote her own columns in Korean fashion magazines. She modeled for the likes of Chanel and Yohji Yamamoto. Her mysterious and piercing stare gave her a larger than life presence in her many fashion spreads. Off duty, she was by turns audacious, flamboyant and impetuous, and by turns introspective, pensive and even at times morose. She had a flare for voicing many frustrations and insights of the fashion industry many would not voice themselves, and she had no fear taking to task critics who could not understand her perspective. She was a rare, clear voice in an industry which does not always show case the mind and vocality of its citizens.
She will be missed.
More Reading on Kim:
Refinery29
NYMag
Huffington Post
Image Credit: I Like to Fork Myself & Fashion Gone Rogue.
Super Bitchy Monday: Your Car’s Fat, Ugly and Old, and It Looks Just Like You.
I’m not necessarily in the worst of moods today, actually, but there are a few things that riled me today: mostly when one of my favourite bloggers wrote a bitchy letter to an old friend, it kind of awakened this Last Frakking Nerve feeling I’ve been wanting to fry.
Dear American Public,
Yes, it is your fault that we’re in this hot fucking mess.
Yes, there I said it. It’s the American public’s fault.
GM’s going to bust, and you’re going to bitch about it, but guess what? It’s your fucking fault they failed. Wanna know why?
You had this stupid ass fucking insatiable need for monster cars that performed harder, went faster, made more noise and were bigger than everyone else’s on the block. No, I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about your greed and lust for monster machines that out-performed the modest and tiny vehicles across the pond. So, because of your thirst for power, GM and Chrysler and Ford invested in machining technology that created bigger cars and used more precious fuel. And now that you’re clamouring about GM not deserving any bail out money because they failed to understand the need for more consevative fuel consumption, you’re full of crap and you should shove it up your H2’s tail pipe with the 9MPG and 9Point IQ you’ve got. It’s YOUR FUCKING FAULT.
You bought their shitty cars, so they continued to make them. Until you decided to go trendy and smaller… Couldn’t you have been a bandwagoner sooner? Shit.
AND, you elected Reagan, who effectively pressed the delete key on all of Jimmy Carter’s aggressive fuel conservation and green initiatives literally as soon as his ass hit the leather chair in the oval office. So… uh, yeah. Your fault.
AIG? Well, let’s see, I’m not an economist, but if you elect a bunch of beaurocrats who like to re-write oversight policies so that financial institutions like AIG and Bank Of America and Countrywide could invest and deal with risky business ventures, then yeah, I can say again, the financial pickle the US is in, is mostly a lot of the public’s fault.
Well, maybe I’m reaching on that one.
Probably.
But about this here housing credit crunch…. this is some people’s fault. Not just from predatory lenders on innocent people who just wanted to buy a house. Not all borrowers were innocent.
Some people who were fresh outta college and making $34k a year decided that they could get a $400K loan on a house and some how they’d be alright.
Some people decided to draw out all the equity on their house and use it to buy other houses, digging themselves into an exponentially higher amount of debt all under the name of “investment.” Well, digging yourself in debt by using–in effect–a credit cash advance from your home isn’t an investment. If you use equity, it might have been a credit and an asset at one point, but using it to catapult yourself into higher debt that you shouldn’t be able to buy isn’t an investment–it’s just debt buying debt.
And you think that the credit industry is in a crisis because of fraudulent lending practices and ponzi schemes? Partly, yes, but partly, no… it’s your fault. It’s your fault you thougth you could get away with buying something you could never in your entire life pay off, just because you believed what a bull-shit mortgage banker told you, and you didn’t read the fine print, or because you thought that somehow you were smarter than the system. Let me tell you, you’re weren’t, and you’re still not. Don’t whine to Mr. Obama to bail you out when you decided against better judgement to buy a house that was way beyond your pay grade!
If you buy a house worth $600 grand, and your combined household income is only $80K, and you have 2 dogs, 2 kids and 3 vehicles, you are living out of your means. If your house is worth $600 grand, and your combined household income is only $60Km, and you have 2 kids, 2 dogs, 2 SUVs, satellite TV with 200 channels, and you eat every meal out at McDonald’s and shop at Wal-Mart, you are living out of your means, and you have no sense of employee ethics, health or protecting the environment, in which case we should never meet and never be friends.
It’s your fault! Some people who are so pro buying American forget that buying American and being Pro-America, means that we need to demand better service, better machinery, better technology, better fuel economy, and better all around products from American companies. Buying American doesn’t mean bigger, better, faster, stronger. It means saving, conserving, preserving and diversifying. Being Pro-America doesn’t mean we subscribe to the status quo, but demaning better ideas, thought OUTSIDE the box, better initiatives that quell consumption, and infusing those initiatives into avenues that create jobs, and cut down on excess! Being Pro-America means we have to get MEAN and demand from our elected officials what the beaurocrats are too fat and stupid to get done.
I’m Pro-America, and I’m fucking angry. Why do people think that just because I’m angry, I’m anti-American? I want America to go back to the way it should be–that is, the way it never was before this economic crisis!
Fuck you.
Oh yeah, and if you think tailing me and revving your engine behind me on 13 mile road in that ugly fucking box of a BMW fuel consuming, UNGREEN SUV is going to get you to your destination faster…You got another think coming. By the way, I looked in my rear-view mirror, and I saw a behemoth that looked like it’d gotten caught in the power lines outside the power station near my house: frizzy, fried, and fucking fat. Your car looks like Gary Busey, bloated, boxy, stupid and oh yeah, it looks like like you.
I heard the Dollar is on it’s way back up, so shut the hell up and go buy something not made in China, and carry it home in a reusable shopping bag.
Oh yeah, and the next time you’re driving with a phone to your ear? Hang up and fucking drive. You’ll be a better driver for it.
Love,
Mae
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PC. Treehugger, and Jutiagroup.com
News Source: NYTimes.com
AUDBLOG: January 20 2009: My Thoughts on the 44th Presidential Inauguration: Big Deal
On this most historic of occasions, I finally felt awakened to my own patriotism. I had my AHA moment in which I was struck with a feeling of gratitude, joy and “Americanness.”
Here I share with you, via audio essay, “President Obama: A Big Deal.” (Essay will open in a separate tab or window.)
(Pics from my Citizenship Ceremony last October, as referenced in the essay)
Quite nervous.
My proud “hubby” and me.
Finally getting my certificate of Naturalization.
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For the transcript of the essay: Click “more”
(more…)
Nerd In Chief
President Elect to be “Nerd-in-Chief” in Spider-Man Inauguration Day Comic Issue.
…There is a long history of presidents appearing in Spider-Man comics, from Franklin D. Roosevelt through to George W. Bush, who has appeared on several occasions.
But Obama has the honor sooner than most because he made a point of saying he was a fan, Quesada said. “We thought ‘He gave us a shout out, let’s give him a shout back.’”
Obama told Entertainment Weekly magazine in August that his favorite superheroes were Spider-Man and Batman because “they have some inner turmoil.”
–Reuters, 01-09-09
FUN TIMES! According to a Friday article in Reuters, the President-Elect will be featured in a the Marvel Comic for a special Inauguration Day issue.
For a Liberal, pseudo-comic aficionado, and complete geek myself, I find this to be rather amusing and freakin’ sweet all at once. It’s great to see that not only are cross genres of intellectuals and collective African Americans (not mutually exclusive of each other!), but the Nerd Genre (race-free, of course) are all celebrating this historic occasion.
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2009 – Resolution to Everyone: Don’t Be a Mofo:
Audblog: “Don’t Be a Jerk!”. *Explicit Language Warning!*
EFF YOU, YOU JERK! – New Years Resolution #1: Don’t be a jerk (Aud Blog Entry)
I went through some of my old archives and vlogs and what not… so, to begin the new year, I will post an audblog.
I wrote a diatribe about how everyone in America is an effing jerk, and how not to be one… I think to begin your year, you should resolve not to be a fucker. And without further ado, here is the verbal essay, “Don’t Be A Jerk,” which I recorded two years ago, reading an essay I wrote in 2004 on a now defunct blog.
MY VERY FIRST AUD BLOG!!
“Don’t Be a Jerk”: An Audio Blog Verbal Essay
Author’s notes: **Explicit Lyrics WARNING**
This file is 5MB and is 13 or so minutes long. It will open up in a separate window or tab, and play in that window. I’m quite fond of this piece, honestly. So if you have time to listen, lease do so where you can do so privately… work = NOT a good place to listen to an essay with some swearing. You get me.
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In other news:
(i have a math test tomorrow to see if I have to take basic math for the graduation requirement, and I think I might fail the effing thing.
I think i am so screwed, I can’t think straight or punctuate properly.
efeffeffffffff!)
Taking Action for a Change
I’m sick of the government effing students and uni’s over because of dangerously low budgets. I think it’s high time these people stop spending so much on things that don’t benefit the greater welfare of the populace; such as the prison system and corrections industry. Sure, we need safer streets, but if the governmental bodies spent half the money they spend on prison systems on Education, we would circumvent having overcrowded prison cells and corrections facilities. Pundits and educators have all agreed time and time again the education is the key to preventing crime. Education is our way out.
With Michigan being one of the poorest states, with our economy relying heavily, if not solely, on the automotive industry, we are poised to be the biggest loser in this economic climate. Bright, educated minds are the thing that might be our saving grace. How in the world can government even entertain the idea of cutting finances to education, even in these desperate economic times? Cut back on bailing out these banks, they fuct us in the first place!
Well, I wrote the Governor this morning.
I think all states stand to lose money budgeted to their education sectors, so you should stand up and make your voice heard. Google for where you can write your local officials, and your governor to try to pressure them to reconsider budget cuts to the very needed education system of your state.
E Plurbis Unum
Out of many, we are one.
Yes we can.
Yes, we did.
What an amazing day!
**pic stolen from Luxenoir.
Important: VOTE TOMORROW
Regardless of party affiliation, tomorrow’s Federal Election Day is one of the most important, if not the most important in this Nation’s history: a Black man is running for a Major Party with great possibilities of becoming the First Black American President.
During the Primaries, we saw the first major possibility of a White woman as the President, which was particularly important to me as a woman, and a newly sworn-in American.
And while I can’t vote tomorrow, it doesn’t make the day any less significant to me. Though my voice can’t be heard on election day, Mr. Obama’s very presence in this election means that Americans are changing, that the racial attitudes and climates are changing, are moving toward a Great Dream only words from Reverend King could express. It means that people of brown and yellow and red skin, like myself, have possibilities in this country. Obama’s presence in this race, and his very possible presidency mean that we of colour don’t have to dream anymore, but we can act, we can choose, and that those acts and choices will be answered with reality.
**Graphic Credit Obey Giant.com (Shepard Ferry)
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I have to stress to my California readers: Vote NO on Proposition 8, which seeks to reverse the momentous and paramount Equal-Marriage law in California. This Proposition was funded and driven by a large Mormon voting base, and if you believe, like me that Religion should NEVER play politics, you should vote NO on this evil, discriminatory Proposition.
To my Michigan readers: VOTE YES on Prop 2, which will go far in aiding people who Cerebral Palsy, MS, Cancer, paralysis, Alzheimer’s, and many other terrible diseases victimise. Embryonic Stem Cell Research does not harm lives, because the embryos donated to stem cell research are discards and unwanteds from in vitro labs for people who cannot conceive naturally. In most cases these embryos have been frozen in deep freeze storage, and their chances to become a living human being were already forfeited. These embryos do not come from live births. These embryos were bred in a petre dish, by scientists, and never at any time was a human life harmed–or averted.
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And regardless of what you believe, or what I believe, you should always uphold your rights and duties to the United States by exercising your right to vote in a Federal Election. So Vote tomorrow.
And for those of you voting for Obama, please send my wishes, too. Because I can’t vote in this one, though I now can in all future ones! Happy Balloting!
Snapshot of the world: Sobering Numbers On the Environmental Situation
Open your eyes. In a recent email I received from one of my many “Green” sources today… It is sobering….
A Look At Leading Environmental Indicators
–The Seventh Generation Index
If every picture tells a story, every statistic paints a picture. And usually it’s worth a thousand words. With that in mind, we’ve collected some facts and figures that we think say a great deal about where we are today and where we need to go tomorrow. Introducing the first Seventh Generation Index, a snapshot of leading environmental indicators that paint a portrait of the state of our world.
* Number of people employed worldwide in the renewable energy sector: 2.3 million
* Percent increase in production of solar cells last year: 51
* Number of people expected to be employed in the solar energy sector alone by 2030: 6.3 million
* Number of minutes of sunlight hitting Earth needed to meet global energy needs for a year: 1
OH MY GOD: * Size of the patch of desert needed to meet all U.S. energy using concentrated solar power: 92 x 92 miles
* Percent of global energy needs that could be met by wind power: 3,500
* Cost to build wind power generators to meet 20% of U.S. electricity needs: $1.2 trillion
* Amount of money spent on foreign oil in the U.S. every year: $700 billion
* Number of volatile organic compounds emitted by six common deodorizing and laundry products: 100
* Average number of new chemicals being created each day: 5
* Percent of total U.S. energy use dedicated to producing food: 19%
* Percent of total U.S. energy use that would be dedicated to producing food if everyone was vegetarian: 13%
* Average number of coal-fired power plants being built in China every week: 1
* Percent of air pollution in the western U.S. that originates in China: 15
* Percent reduction in U.S. atmospheric sulfur dioxide levels since 2000: 14
* Percent reduction in U.S. ground level ozone levels since 2000: 9
* Percent drop in total toxic releases in the U.S. from 2000 to 2005: 39
THIS IS SAD AND DISGUSTING * Number of floating pieces of non-biodegradable plastic per square mile of ocean: 46,000
* Number of days it takes new plastic developed by Mississippi scientists to biodegrade in seawater: 20
* Percent of U.S. household waste currently being recycled: 33
* Percent of U.S. household waste that could be recycled: 75
* Cost per ton of garbage collection in the U.S.: $70-$200
* Cost per ton of curbside recycling in the U.S.: $50-$150
* Number of jobs created per 10,000 tons of waste incinerated: 1
* Number of jobs created per 10,000 tons of waste landfilled: 6
* Number of jobs created per 10,000 tons of waste recycled: 36 – HELLO!!
We could save money, save the planet and give people more jobs if Americans could learn more how to recycle and if the government and other agencies bolstered the alternative energy industry. What is wrong with this country!
We could change so much if we just learned to focus these things in the right direction. See what you can do in your daily life to change what is going on with the world environment.
– Garbage in our oceans!
Related Articles:
The giant garbage patch twice the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean:
Plastic Ocean: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, CDNN news
Continent-size toxic spew of plastic fouling swath of Pacific Ocean, San Francisco Chronicle
Giant garbage patch floating in Pacific, Physorg.com, Science and Tech news
On God
We were wondering last night if God was not the shape that Christians see “him” as, but something beyond our comprehension, and wouldn’t it blow the Christian mind (the closed ones that don’t understand that God is beyond human ken) if God actually happened to be a cosmic sneaker?
God is bigger than our ability to understand. If it were a giant sneaker, I wouldn’t freak.
I can’t even call it God all the time. I call it the Greater, or the Benevolent, or the One or something. Because it is bigger than my scope of understanding. All I know is that it made me, it made my energy, it gives me energies and it loves me. I can’t give something so full of energy and beauty a gender, that would be limiting it.
But it definitely must be disappointed in what’s going on down here. Once we focus our energies to better, more philanthropic deeds and actions, the world will right itself.
Blue Box Sanctuary #3
hi. it’s been awhile, hasn’t it? just needed a break from the grind of the daily audits and reports. it’s pelting torrential rains, waters of biblical proportions gushing down from rolling darkness.
it was really dark when i woke up. it almost didn’t feel like 7 am. and i almost didn’t feel like coming to work. why? on such a dark and stormy day, my energy drained even before i roll out of the bed, it doesn’t feel like a day that will start on its own.
last night one of my ”resolutions” worked out. so far the habit ball has been on a roll. i went for a 5k run at midnight on saturday, and last night, while the news reports threatened a downpourn and i raced off to the gym where i did a solid 5k on the treadmill at a decent clip. i even stretched and everything. i’ll be runing again on wednesday night after my therapy sesh and before dinner. i have at least a 9.6 mile goal for the week. i figure a good 3 weeks of 5k’s and then i can graduate to 4mi per run. come summer + should be fit enough for a good 10k trail race. i plan on doing an offroad challenge in july. maybe a few street races before that.
spoke to my brother, and as always he has the resolution to stop procrastinating, but he decided he would think about it later.
i wonder when he got so cavalier about life. why would he not want to control his entire future by getting a firm grasp on it now? you shape your life by every action you take right now. life doesn’t happen Later. there is no “later.” your later only becomes your Now eventually. why not worry about recreating your life now?
last night, the gym was packed full of chubby resolutioners. walking slowly on the treadmill. clumsy on the weight machines. struggling on the rower. fumbling with the keypads on the ellipticals. i wanted to giggle at first. but you know what? they were there! they were running and burning out. their jiggly bellies and man-boobs were flopping through cotton t-shirts. but they were there, trying to control their lives right now, seize command of their errant lifestyles and bring it back to where they want to be.
i think i’m being harsh on my bro. he said he’s trying to get into a radiology program. i really hope he gets it.
me… what am I planning on doing? i could be graduating by this time next year. wish me luck.
school, school, school.
i have to write about my time in nyc over New Years. but i think i’ll do it later. :)
Why?
Why would 33 people die? What could drive someone to that kind of anger or rage?
Why did I feel even more heartbroken when I found out the killer was possibly of my race?
Let us pray for the families and students involved in the Virginia Tech Massacre.
From the Journal, day 1
Disclaimer: I was notified by my other internationally traveled friends that an intense feeling of anything Non-American is superior is usually a strong side effect of the first time abroad. Please be understanding. I would not be living here if I didn’t have some amount of appreciation for the country no matter how broken our government is.
10`06`06
AMSTERDAM, Holland–
The men of Europe are not afraid to don bright colours; SURF USA shirts and pink Puma flouresce in my view, quick vivid splashs that fade away into the kaleidoscope of different faces. Lime green blossoms on that jacket, shocking cerulean accents flash on that fanny pack, then they disappear.
The people of the world are fashionable. Most of the travelers here are well-dressed even in rumpled travel clothing. I have seen so far only two pairs of flip-flops, but they were shucked onto the feet of skinny cut-off jean-wearing Eurotrash, and they were still far more stylish than the Lycra lacking 100% cotton sweatshirts that swim on these fat American travelers.
In this airport, there are way more nationalities and ethnicities in one place I have ever seen, milling, meeting without bonding, interacting, but not socialising, exchanging curious stares or intrigued side-long glances without being forthrightly intrusive as I have known many North Americans to be. It is a beautiful thing to see so many races in one place coexisting harmoniously even if for only milliseconds between flights or while money exchanges hands. Perhaps you will say it is because everyone is intent on reaching their destination that they do not have time to be offensive to each other.
Maybe you’re overly enchanted with being away from the US, Mae, maybe that’s it. Maybe… maybe no. Maybe the bigger picture is just more within my view now that I’ve distanced myself from the paint.
There are many, many different Asian ethnicities as residents of Amsterdam who are employed at Schipol Airport…so many I can’t even name… this is not usual in any US airport.
Even in this Airport, I can see that Europe is a magical world. There is electricity in the recirculated air flowing through here. It prickles my skin and touches the microscopic hairs on my perspiring forehead. There is a bird chirping in Lounge 2. The sparrow is hopping over the tiles in the food court we are in, looking for hand outs. I don’t know how he got in here. Magic.
I am hot, so I take off the thick wool-blend military sweater jacket I bought at Banana Re-public for the inclement Autumn weather of the UK. There is wizardry afoot in this place. My left nostril has cleared finally (though there is still some pressure in its corresponding sinuses), but none of the many smokers here bother me as much as anywhere in the US would. I don’t know if it’s the air, or maybe that I am happy to be surrounded by so many diverse peoples.
One thing that does bother me, though, that has nothing whatsover to do with traveling in Europe and its seeming superiority to the US is infants on planes. It’s one thing if the infant is the perfect angelina born to my favourite blogger, Ms. Zulieka Parsons, who can fly economy class in a pressurised cabin thousands of feet in the air, mesmerise fellow passengers with her Nordic Sea Foam eyes and cherubic face, and tolerate the duration of the flight peacefully with a smile. She is a very talented baby.
I on the other hand have never had the luck or pleasure of flying with such a heaven send as baby Z. It seems though it is my forever fortune to fly with screaming infants who cannot be sated or quelled by their parents, four year olds who talk a mile a minute with the vocal volume to match (who cannot be silenced by their parents or whose parents cannot be bothered to care that their offspring are bothering fellow passengers), or other children whose noses are encrusted over with yellow mucus, kicking my chair or stairing down from the seat in front of me, trying to flick their boogies in my hair. Ugh. I am not nurturing by nature to things that emit noises that go straight as an arrow to my throbbing ear drum.
N thinks that I will be the mean parent.
I bother to look up from my writing and discover that N has left me and the table. I don’t know where he went.
