People Watching: A Story Idea

Here's an opportunity to give me your input. If I turn this into a story, in which direction would you have it go? Read through to the end, and let me know how you see things progressing.



You are sitting in a bar on a busy Saturday night. You see a girl, about 25, with a beautiful, heavy brow ridge standing at a lacquered wooden bar table. Next to her is a handsome 40-year-old man in a tan corduroy sport coat. The sexual chemistry between them is clear; she is twirling her hair and fingering her collarbone, but you wonder about the age difference between the pair. On the other side of the table is another woman and a man, but you can only see the woman's face; the man's back faces you. The woman is around 35, and she's somewhat pretty, but her manner is more forceful than her looks. She presents herself to the world as a beleaguered mom, someone who is too busy being practical to even consider the notion of happiness. The man is outfitted in dark jeans and a sweater layered over an Oxford shirt. By his clothes, it's clear he's rich.

Minutes pass, and the alliances shift. The two men know each other well - maybe they're brothers. But there's a huge age gap between them as well, because once you see the hidden man's face, you can see that he's 27 at most, no older. The two women make small talk, obliged to chat with each other until their men cover all the bases. The sport-coated man and beleaguered mom leave together.

The younger couple stays. The beautiful young man returns from the bathroom and leans in close to his date. As he does so, she leans almost imperceptibly backwards, not wanting him to realize that he is turning her off. He is too pretty for her tastes, not manly or virile enough. A friend their age arrives. He is not as good-looking as the pretty boy, but he has a full beard, and it is well trimmed. He's more casual, not so refined in his manner or reined in as he moves. The girl turns her body towards this new arrival. When her date speaks, she merely turns her head his direction. She lays a flirtatious hand on the bearded man's chest. Another moment passes, and she's stepped in front of her date, her back to him, standing between the two men. The three of them leave the bar together.

There's your scene. Considering the cast of five, where do each of them end up by the time the night is over? Where are they all in a year's time? Feedback is appreciated!

Does Melanie Laurent Ever Comb Her Hair?

No, she does not.





I have seen quite a few films lately starring this hot French starlet. If you've seen her at all, it was probably in her role as Shoshanna in Tarantino's Movie Inglourious Basterds.





The films I saw and loved are Et Soudain, Tout le Monde Me Manque, which I thought was a sweet story with a great deal of heart. But maybe I was just excited because, for the very first time, I understood the French! The next one was the Mike Mills film Beginners, with Mlle Laurent and Ewan MacGregor.





In one of her quotes in the film Beginners, Laurent says, "My mother told me that Jewish girls cannot be beautiful. They can be cute or interesting, but not beautiful." Clearly, this is quite ridiculous. Beauty is a relative concept, and any person of a given ethnicity can receive a particular genetic package that their inherited society deems beautiful.





I like Laurent for the complex characters that she plays. There is always an internal struggle, and a facade which she uses to hide the inner turmoil. She pulls off this interplay with grace and charm.





As an additional fun fact, her father is Pierre Laurent, the voiceover actor who dubs the character Ned Flanders in the French version of The Simpsons!

Lily & Charlie Form a Union of Hearts

Click to play, and you'll see a slideshow of the Union of Hearts ceremony, the main celebration at Lily & Charlie's 3-day wedding extravaganza!

Free slideshow personalized with Smilebox

Enjoy!

What's Behind Dress #1?

One of my best friends is getting married in T-minus two weeks, and I'm in the wedding. And I don't have my dress plans finalized yet. Here is what happened:




In a preliminary email, she said: "I have decided that we are going to be wearing NAVY/DARK BLUE!!" We got to pick our own dresses. Awesome, right? Well, I went with royal blue. Everyone else bought navy. CoOoOol.




I got a call from my friend where she said, in essence, "I'm so sorry, but everyone bought navy. Do you think there's any way they'd let you exchange yours for navy?" Nope, not a chance. They give you 10 days to make changes, and I bought it about a month ago. So she offered, "Could we buy you a new one?"




Turns out, it's not necessary. Because my mother, my amazingly thrifty female parental unit, just bought a navy silk dress from the secondhand store for $1. It needs a little work - we'll need to take it in at the bust, take out the shoulder pads (which my mom charmingly refers to as hotpads - that's right, 'cause they make you look hott), and raise the hem a little tiny bit. But, as you can see, it's a dress with potential! Two dresses for the price of one - that right there's a good deal, if I say so myself!

Time Capsules

Just a short while back, my mother and I decided to crack open a bottle of cherry kriek to share. The beverage had been rolling around in the fridge awhile, and I thought it was time to give its poor little soul the satisfaction of being drunk. The only problem is, these things are bottled pretty absurdly.

As you can see, they have a specific method of sealing the bottles. Our brand, Lindemans, presented us with an even greater challenge. First, there was a foil wrapping. That was easy enough to remove. Next was a screw-off cap. Also, not too much of a challenge. Then came the cork. I have trouble with corks; see my earlier post. We searched the house high and low for a corkscrew, which was not to be found. You know how sometimes you bring your corkscrew with you to a party and forget to bring it back home? Yeah, that's probably what happened. Good for the hosts, bad for the corkscrew-bearing guests!




Then I remembered I had a Swiss Army knife in my French package. The package is a great big orange box I shipped to myself right at the end of my stay in France - I had way too many things to take back in my suitcase, so I went to the post office and bought a couple of 5-kilo boxes to keep the things things I wouldn't need while traveling. I didn't open the boxes up when I got home because A) I obviously didn't need to use its contents on a daily basis and B) it's already packed neatly in a box, perfect for moving!




I didn't truly want to open my Pandora's box, but we had come this far, and I wasn't about to try to dig that cork out with a knife. So I dove in. It's like a time capsule, seeing all the things that were a part of your life a few short months ago. A book I haven't finished (almost there!), letters I received, hiking boots I wore to school on rainy days, gloves, and more. Of course, the stuff won't fit neatly back into the box - I had a heck of a time getting it all in there in the first place - but if I had to open the thing, it sure is interesting to see what I don't really need, but just had to keep!

A Chihuahua?! - A Service Dog Joke

At Bristol's Rhythm and Roots Reunion on Sept. 17-19, there was a lot of complaint about the new no-dog policy. "They let dogs in last year!" was the common refrain.

In our family, we often joke about affixing a service-dog vest to our ill-behaved Chihuahua. When my dad suggested it, my mom let loose with this joke:

Two dudes are out walking their dogs one afternoon. One has a Labrador Retriever, the other a Chihuahua. They decide that they'd like some drinks and want to stop at a bar.

"Well, Jim, we can't stop for drinks because we have our dogs," says Frank.

"Follow my lead," Jim says. Jim puts on his Oakley sunglasses and walks into a restaurant with his Lab.

"Sorry, sir, but that dog can't be in here!" the bartender says.

"But I'm blind! This is my service dog and you have to let him in."




"Oh, I see. No problem, then," replies the bartender.

The second dude, Frank, puts on his sunglasses and walks in with his Chihuahua.

"Sir," says the bartender, "Dogs are not allowed in here!"

"But sir," says Frank, "This is my service dog and I am blind!"




The bartender looks Frank up and down, doubtful. "A Chihuahua?" he says.

In disbelief, Frank says, "They gave me a Chihuahua?!"

Rhythm & Roots

This isn't my timeliest post ever, but so it goes. Two weekends ago, September 17th - 19th, Bristol held its annual Rhythm & Roots Reunion, a Southern music festival that is anything but country.

The music festival is held each year on downtown historic State Street. It hosts a range of performers that run the gamut from bluegrass to Cajun to rhythm & blues. The lineup is absolutely wild, and it's impossible to see everyone you'd like. It's a pretty inspired event, if I may express my personal humble opinion.



This year, some of my favorites were Langhorne Slim (whom I already liked, but like even more after seeing him perform in person) and the Red Stick Ramblers. I also found out that John Oates used to be one-half of the duo Hall and Oates, not Holland Oats, as previously thought.



If you hurry, you can still listen to a playlist of many of the featured performers on the Rhythm and Roots website, here. Next month, I'll try to post twice!

Note: As ever, my photos came from the wonderful archives of Wikimedia Commons.

Jobless U.S.A.

I got back from France three months ago, and at the time, I breathed a sigh of homecoming, and thought to myself, "I'm not going away again for awhile." It's not that France was bad, exactly, except for the teaching part, but it's just nice to be home, to be surrounded by familiar comforts and a culture I know.

But. This job market sucks. I've applied to approximately 20 jobs at this point (I know if you are unemployed or close to me in age, you're thinking "only 20?" I think, however, that pre-recession, the sentiment would have been more along the lines of "20 jobs, and not even one callback?" It's frustrating to put in at least 1-2 hours per application - because you want to do it right, because you know you have to do a good job to even have a sliver of a chance - and get absolutely no feedback, besides an automated "We have received your application. If your candidate file meets or exceeds our requirements, a member of our hiring team may contact you."




It seems as if I am shooting little time capsules into outer space. I learned that for half of the positions you see posted, the institution already knows exactly who they want to hire, but they have to post it as part of policy regulations. Well, thanks for that. I'm glad I spent 45 minutes editing my cover letter for someone who will never read it.




So, I got to thinking the other day that maybe I should think about teaching abroad again. If I work with the same program, Teaching Assitant Program in France, I'll be at an advantage this time around because I know how it works, I'll know not to teach elementary-aged students again, and I know what familiar comforts are available in France.




Or, I could broaden my horizons - I could get my TEFL certification and go to Germany, Spain, or South America. If I'm brave enough, I could even attempt to hack it in South Korea or Japan. Because, goodness knows, it's a job, and there's a need, so it should be easy enough to find one. What's more, it'll help me solidify my dream to continue traveling internationally throughout my lifetime. What better way to gain international experience than by living abroad in a situation that pays you to do so?




What do you think? Should I be patient and try to stick it out in the U.S., or should I set my sights on another international adventure?

Note: All the photos above, with the exception of the cat, whose name is Horatio and belongs to my cousin, were taken from Wikimedia Commons.

The Real Wedding of the Century

If you think Will and Kate's was the wedding of the century, forget it. You just didn't hear about Lily and Charlie's wedding because they are not the type who care about publicity. That's right, theirs was the wedding that was unlike any ceremony to come before or after it.



Charlie is my cousin on my dad's side, and a few months ago, he called a hiatus on his round-the-world bicycle tour due to an injury. Lily was the lovely Australian gal he met during his jaunt around Europe, and the one he found he couldn't be without. Lily, happily, felt the same way.



In due time, Charlie and Lily's friends and family were summoned to Madison, Wisconsin, to celebrate the union. What made it so different, you ask? To start, we met at a park where dozens of bicycles were assembled. Lily and Charlie made their entrance to the wedding party by rowboat, and then about a hundred of us biked 5 miles from the park to a campground. Our bicycles were bedecked with flowers, hauled trailers, and Lily and Charlie often biked hand-in-hand. It was fun to see the double takes of cyclists and pedestrians going the other direction, shouting their congratulations, and offering their hands for high-fives.




The wedding took place at a campground, and it was pretty thoroughly green - there were no paper plates to be found. The spread was complete with ceramic plates, mason jar drinking vessels, and an improvised dishwashing station. We all camped for two days and attended three separate rituals, the most important of which was the Union of Hearts ceremony. Guests were asked to bring water and fire tokens, which they tossed onto the fire with goodwill wishes for the new couple. The water, taken from various lakes and dams and rivers around the world, was boiled into a tea, which Charlie and Lily drank. Brave souls, if you ask me.




The guests were a free spirited bunch - one of the attendees didn't even know Charlie or Lily. His name was Leander, and he was a German scholar, who lived in Brussels but was working on a local currencies project in Madison. One of the friends Charlie had made in Brussels had received the invitation, but was unable to come, so he passed it along to Leander. As I told Leander and Anthony, another guest, I have never been to a wedding like this before, and I will probably never see another one quite like it again.




Eat your hearts out, Will and Kate.

Wit and Poignancy

I'm currently in Michigan visiting my Uncle Mike and Aunt Esther, and today they took us to see Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park. I expected some pretty-ish botanical gardens, but this place was AMAZING, far surpassing my expectations. It is so amazing, in fact, that I decided I want to work there, but it turns out they're currently not hiring. Talk about raining on my parade.




The gardens are lovely, the children's area is a wondrous creation of imagination-capturing waterworks and installations, and we only made our way through about half of all the available areas around grounds. There is more to see - I have to go back!





They have temporary sculptures and permanent ones, sculptures which are in touch with history and up-to-date with modern, abstract trends. Inside, there are greenhouses and topiaries, with bright tropical birds and Victorian marble cherubs.






One of Esther's nephews got married in one of the greenhouses a couple weeks back. I'm glad he didn't get married in the Arid Room, full of cacti, succulent plants, rocks, and sand - the symbolism is all wrong. I want to get married in this place (not the Arid Room, of course, but some other room - maybe the Victorian room, although maybe that's a little corny, with the cherubs and all). First, I'll probably have to find someone who's willing to be the groom.





At the end of our visit, we checked out this really cool exhibit by Laura Ford, a Welsh sculptor who has a seriously large oeuvre and who's been exhibited all around the world. The pieces on display at Meijer Gardens definitely showcased her social conscience, crying out against poverty and violence. There were also some pretty funny pieces as well. Indeed, the brochure byline declares her art to be chock-full of "Humor and irony. Wit and poignancy. Personal experience and social conditions." I think the byline also suits the whole of Meijer Gardens just perfectly. The cast-bronze piece below is entitled "Rag and Bone."




All in all, it was pretty cool stuff. If you ever find yourself in Grand Rapids, it's a must-see. Don't miss it!

As a note, I am camera-less at the moment, so all the photos in this entry came from Wikimedia Commons.

Ode to Toads

We've been having a bit of trouble with our toadlets this summer. My dad, a fan of toads and all they do for a healthy garden (such as eating mosquitoes and slugs), frequently captures toads, brings them into the house so Mom and I can take a quick gander, then re-releases them into the wild of our front yard.

Did you know that toads like to come out and bask in the rain because they do not drink water but soak it in, absorbing moisture through their skin? Our problem is this: we've had some rainy weeks, so the toads like to come out on our front walk. And then we step on them.

This is especially the case with the little ones: they're easy to miss, and they can't withstand the pressure of human weight. So I've had to peel a few baby toadlets off the sidewalk, and consequently, we don't have very many adult toads this summer.




I guess we'll have to endure the mosquitoes this year. Or maybe my next post will have to be "Hats Off to Bats."

A Quote, a Memory, a Fact

"Strange how a teapot can represent at the same time the comforts of solitude and the pleasures of company." -Author Unknown

I recently organized the tea table at my parents' house. We've got lots of tea here: black tea, green tea, white tea, tisanes. My mother, an avid fan of Earl Grey, is the proud owner of no less than 13 boxes and canisters of Earl Grey teas, of varying qualities. I love tea, so this overstock is not a problem.

Last Sunday afternoon, I was cutting up T-shirts at the Unitarian Universalist Church. We were drinking tea to keep hydrated. Upon inspection of the tea selection, I chose chai. The scent brought forth unbidden a memory of two winters ago, when I would be snowed in at my house and I would drink cups of chai tea with my roommate Dylan and our friend Astrid. I drank a lot of chai tea last winter too, but somehow the aforementioned scent didn't provoke images of me downing caffeine before I would walk out to the bus stop in the pre-dawn darkness to go teach English to a bunch of mostly ungrateful little snots. I'm sorry, I didn't really mean that.




In France, I read a book about British culture that informed me of the hearty antioxidant powers of tea. These antioxidants do a lot of the same good work as fruits and veggies: "All teas from the camellia tea plant are rich in polyphenols, which are a type of antioxidant. These wonder nutrients scavenge for cell-damaging free radicals in the body and detoxify them, says Weisburger. "Astounding" aptly describes tea's antioxidant power, he tells WebMD. "Whether it's green or black, tea has about eight to 10 times the polyphenols found in fruits and vegetables."

Tea has power. It is good for the body and good for the soul. Tea, in my mind, is a wonderful thing.

New Jersey Venturin'

I had a busy weekend. I just took the GRE last Tuesday, and before I had the chance to commence the job search, my mom commandeered me to take a trip with her up to the Princeton University Art Museum in New Jersey. The objective was to check out a retrospective art exhibit on the work of Kurt Schwitters, a German collage artist who did most of his work in the 1920s and 1930s. Of course, it is only after the fact that I know all of these things about Mr. Schwitters. On the way up to New Jersey, we were having lunch at Chili's when Mom asked me, "So, how much do you know about Kurt Schwitters?" to which I replied, "Who's that? Is he the anchorman on TV right now?" She just smiled knowingly, and eventually I figured out it was the artist whose canon we were going to explore in New Jersey.

This was before the tire blowout. That happened on the interstate, while I was napping. Hardy girls that we are, we managed to change the tire ourselves, unscrewing the rusted-on lugnuts and all. I also accumulated two tick bites, which I am watching carefully for signs of Lyme disease and babeiosis.



Note: This is not my leg. I didn't take a picture of the ticks; I just got 'em the heck out, so this image is from Wikimedia Commons.

We rode on a spare tire the remaining 200 miles to New Jersey, which made me paranoid as all heck. At first, we thought we'd take lesser highways so that we could keep it slow, but then we took a wrong turn and journeyed 20 miles out of our way, demonstrating just how complicated navigating the network of minor highways would prove. We got back on the interstate and vowed to take it slow. Just in time to drive through narrow roads with lots of construction. Drum roll, please... just in time for a torrential downpour.




You know how most torrential downpours last for, say, 10 to 20 minutes? Well, our downpour did just that. Then, it took a 5-minute break, and immediately recommenced to downpour, for another 20 minutes. Rinse and repeat for two hours. I was clutching my seatbelt for dear life, while Mom sat bolt upright in her seat and gripped the wheel, keeping her EYES ON THE ROAD. During the short breaks between the driving rains, I could feel all the adrenaline signals quieting and collecting at the base of my skull, clouding up, accumulating to form a nice tension headache at the back of my neck.

After we'd passed through the storm and the rain finally stopped, I noticed all the fireflies. There were so many! The brush outside looked like Christmas trees, all lit up and twinkling. In open spots, the fireflies looked like those enormous fireworks that you see every 4th of July - the noisy ones that look like sparklers flickering in and out before fading, rather than the colorful ones that look like blooms. I kept my mind on those fireflies. They calmed me after all the adrenaline and stress of the previous hours.




I'm happy to say that our trip was much less eventful after that. We made it to Princeton by 1:30 in the morning, 13 hours after starting out. The voyage had been meant to last only 9 and a half hours, but at least we made it safely. During the rest of the trip, I got to admire the work of Schwitters, Monet, and Russell, I attended the bridal shower of one of my good friends, and reconnected with a former co-worker. Despite the adversity that the beginning of the trip threw our way, I can say with confidence that it turned out to be time well spent.

Note: All of these photos came from Wikimedia Commons.

5 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Berlin

The Untimely Post strikes again! I've had this as a draft on my dashboard for nigh on five months. Procrastination: 1, Ambition: 0. So let's begin at the beginning. Starting with #1:

1. Berlin Architecture.

History is thoughtfully told through the architecture and memorials of Berlin. Planners and designers always consider the question of Who is telling the story, and why? Subsequently, the memorials to the victims of World War II and the Berlin Wall have a prominent place and role within the city. By contrast, the perpetrators of these events get almost no voice at all. For example, you might wonder: Where is Hitler's last bunker? The answer is that it is unmarked, covered by a parking lot. Additionally, Hitler's ashes were scattered into an undisclosed location, possibly a body of water, so that he would have no final resting place.



Berlin's Holocaust Memorial


2. Berlin's finances.

Berlin is bankrupt. The city's financials are in a constant state of massive debt. Therefore, the city doesn't have the funds to buy up its many abandoned lots and buildings in order to develop them. On the flip side, this means that real estate is cheap, and Berlin is one of the cheapest international cities you can live in, although it is currently gentrifying.



Abandoned factory in Berlin

3. Berlin graffiti.

Due to the aforementioned debt, Berlin is a city that is hugely popular with artists and other folks who have little money, generally speaking. Consequently, there is a HUGE underground art scene. Graffiti is in fact illegal in Berlin, but you'd never know it by looking.




4. Berlin baumhaus.

Berlin is host to many interesting residents. One of them, a conscientious objector, a Turkish man now in his 80s, has been living in a "tree house" which he built himself since before the Berlin wall came down in 1989. When he built it, the land belonged to East Berlin. However, due to a construction anomaly in the wall, the Eastern forces couldn't claim it. It sat on the Western side but didn't belong to West Berlin. Thus it was a sort of no-man's land.



(If you look towards the right of the frame, you will see the tree growing up and out through the house.)

Fast-forwarding, a few years after Berlin reunified, city planners wanted to build a highway through the property. The neighboring Christian church came to the rescue, producing a dusty deed proving that the land was, in fact, theirs. Once the matter was settled, the church left this Muslim man to live there in peace, and he's been residing in this home ever since.



Old Berlin Wall

5. The Berlin Wall.

The history lesson isn't over yet, kiddos. One of the reasons the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 was due to a simple PR mistake on the part of Günter Schabowski, an East Berlin official. Schabowski was a man who enjoyed drinking and cavorting, and was infamous within his party for not showing up to meetings on time. Thus, on the day that Schabowski spoke at a media conference to discuss how East Berlin would react to immigration changes in the USSR, he improvised. He hadn't read the official briefings, and said that changes were "As far as I know effective immediately, without delay." This change included allowing border crossings into West Berlin, which up until that point, had been forbidden on a "shoot-to-kill" basis. Once he'd said it, the government couldn't backpedal, and East Germans began to gather at the wall, demanding to be let through. The guards had no choice but to acquiesce, and the wall began to come down rapidly. If not for the remarks of Mr. Schabowski, the East Germans might have had to endure the wall for years to come. For a longer version of the Wall's demise, check out Wikipedia's entry on the Berlin Wall.

The Berlin Wall today

Note: The source of these facts varies. Most of these stories I learned from two Berlin tours: Alternative Berlin and Sandeman's, with a little help from Wikipedia. If you're ever in town, check out both these tours - they're free and they're awesome! Also, all the photos, with the exception of the graffiti photo, came from Wikimedia Commons.