Wednesday, July 29, 2009

the far side of the moon

I was just looking at my travel journal and I remembered this one night in Rome that Krysten and I laughed so hard we cried, and I'm certain, bothered our neighbors. (Sadly, they were not the Swedish teenagers that stayed in our hallway in Florence, but that's another story for another time.)

We were home from dinner, full and let's be honest- a bit tipsy, and lying on our respective beds with our feet propped up on the headboard, discussing various things about life, and for some reason, I thought it a good time to wonder, "if the same side of the moon always faces the earth, do the people on the other side of the earth see the other side of the moon?" We talked about this for a long while, and made lots of "planets" with our hands and tried to spin and rotate around one another in the most discombobulated of manners, and then the following interchange occurred:

Krysten: hey, maybe we should go outside and see if it looks different!
Jamie: we're only like, 7 time zones away-- it's not really the opposite side of the planet.
Krysten: well won't we be able to tell if it looks a little different?
Jamie: do you have the surface of the moon memorized? anyway, it's only a crescent right now.
Krysten: I hate Rome.

I. laughed. so. hard. I think I almost choked. The answer is no, btw. We looked it up.

We then went on to discuss time zones and that place in the world where it was suddenly like a whole day different, and how it would be really inconvenient to say, make a lunch date for Tuesday and then accidentally cross the line and get stood up on Wednesday, and then she pointedly told me that that place (much later remembered as the "International Date Line") was probably in the middle of the ocean. More hand motions, more laughing, more tears, more choking.

I'm glad I have a friend who likes similar topics of conversation as I do, and also shares my sense of humour. I'd also like to extend thanks to Wikapedia, who answered so many of our questions that week, and also gave us the suggestion to wash our feet in the bidet (which despite only being in Italy, are named after the French word for "pony." Ew.)

Saturday, July 25, 2009

c'est prego!

Last post May 10th? I'm so ashamed.

I've been subtly urged to blog more often, but with the onset of twitter and facebook, I don't make myself. Which is a shame, because I miss doing it. I'm certain most of my readers have probably wandered away by now, but for the three of you still left (Alecia, Krysten... maybe only 2 of you, actually), may I ask a favour? Comment. It's really the only way I can judge if people are reading. (I gave up on statcounter long ago, when my numbers dipped to sad double-digits.) I wish I just wrote it for me and didn't care if people were reading, but I don't and I do. So let me hear ya!

So, I'm back from vacation. I blissfully ignored the real world as I tromped across Europe with my gal-pal Krysten, and thus came back to a bit of stress. Money, work, life. Facebook always asking me what's on my mind. A LOT, Facebook. Leave me alone. (But, thanks for hosting my photos for all my friends to look at.)

I'm trying to get back in the swing of making my own food, working out, not having Krysten 2 feet away from me at any given moment. Thursday I spent on the couch resting up, and yesterday I headed out for a day of San Francisco. It's not Europe, but it's something pretty special. I met Scotty and KJ for lunch at Split Pea Seduction (always a pleasure), and then went solo to the Chagall exhibit at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. I love Chagall and have been wanting to see if for a while. There was also an exhibit called "Jews on Vinyl" and it was SO cool. I listened to music for about an hour, and then went to see Harry Potter. I love going to the movies alone, and I enjoyed the film. Then I went to Lulu for dinner with some old work friends from Dallas, and THEN went to the wine bar for more Scotty and KJ time. What a lovely day!

This morning I've been stressing about money, listening to a mostly spot-on playlist made for me by a special friend who has good taste (how you picked my all-time favourite Elton John song out of his entire library is a little amazing. kudos, btw), went to yoga, cleaned the bathroom, just normal stuff. It's been nice to have the house to myself for a couple of days while I recuperated. Roommate comes home tonight and regular life will be back in force.

So there ya have it. I'm back, and I will try my best to update more often! However, since I blew my wad on vacation I might not have anything to say more interesting than "I ate rice and beans and watched TV today." :)

Oh, one more thing-- in other news, I am strongly considering moving to Austin. I adore San Francisco but I'm a Texan at heart. I need to see how a couple of things pan out, but it's in my head and now it's out there in cyberspace.