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Dear Doing Touristy Things

4 Aug

Dear Doing Touristy Things,

My family has something against doing tourist things. I haven’t identified what it is, but I offer the following evidence:

a) I’ve been to Hawaii almost every year of my life. Usually for about a ten day stretch. For the first 17 years, we went to Oahu almost every time. I didn’t see Pearl Harbor until I was 16.

b) I went to Paris with my mom. Instead of going up the Eiffel Tower, we took a nap under it.

c) I’ve been to about 4 US National/State Parks and most of those were by accident. Or school field trips. On one such trip I petted a tarantula. An odd amount of our science curriculum was devoted to arachnids.*

d) I don’t know what state the Grand Canyon is in. I keep looking it up and forgetting. Arizona? Utah? Montana? That state between Utah and Montana? (Ok, so this has more to do with my sketchy inability to retain geography.)

e) I’ve never been to Seafair. Well, ok, when I was 22 I went on my sister’s friend’s boat to watch the Blue Angels show. I spent the whole time feeling vaguely like I was going to throw up– there is an insane amount of boat traffic during Seafair– which wasn’t helped by the 3 people who were so hungover they were puking off the side.

f) I had to take myself to see the nation’s Capitol this year. We went once before and my parents swear that we saw the memorials and the reflecting pool and the mall— by saying “No really, I remember it very clearly. We drove by them. But it was too hard to find parking so we didn’t get out of the car.”

Anyway, the first time I can really remember touring was in Rome when I was eleven and the morning after we got off the plane, this very sweet woman named Francesca took us on a tour of the ruins. I hated her on sight. It only got worse as the day went on. She probably had a very slight accent but in my memory she sounds like a trash compactor with a retainer. I had no idea what she was saying, and that b**tch dragged us through the entire city to stare at piles of rocks while traffic whizzed by. Just when I thought we were going to get some relief she started in on the museums.

I was pretty sure that we’d been touring for about fifteen hours at that point, and I distinctly remember lying down on a bench in a museum that claimed to be air-conditioned and feeling my bones melt into a gelatinous heap. I was convinced my parents could not possibly have paid someone to torture us in such a way— although I’m not sure what alternative explanation I thought existed. She clearly hadn’t kidnapped us, and my mom and dad kept talking about how fantastic she was– so maybe I just thought the heat had brainwashed everyone.

Clearly I was the only one responding in a rational manner by wilting dramatically and demanding more gelato. (I stand by this stance. Whenever it’s over 90 degrees the only sensible thing to do is lie on the floor in front of a fan. I don’t care if you’re in Italy. And that faint push of warm air they call air conditioning? Yeah. And they say Mussolini was a bad era. It’s shocking to me that the oils don’t melt right off the canvases.)

Ok, now it sounds like my family doesn’t do tourist things because I’m a whiny pain in the ass. I assure you that isn’t true. I mean, the part about that being why we don’t do tourist things. I can’t really dispute the whiny pain in the ass status after that story. Although I have gotten comparatively better at not dripping gelato on my shirt. Comparatively being the key word.

In other news, Pearl Harbor was a really moving experience.

Hope your summer touring is all sunny-side-up. And free of throw-up.

MM

*Edit: that was Discovery Park. That’s part of the Seattle Parks and Recreation system. Huh.

Dear Packing

16 May

Dear Packing,

Does packing for a long trip make anyone else want to set fire to everything they own and go live in the woods with one pair of jeans and one flannel shirt?

Or, alternatively, buy a whole new wardrobe when you get wherever you’re going if such a thing were economically and ecologically feasible?

No? Just me? Ok. Carry on, then.

Love,

MM

PS– The trip in question is me, going to Seattle, for a month, where apparently it is still winter even though the calendar belies such views. And yes, I plan on packing the sun in my carry-on if God and TSA will let me.

Dear Ambulance

11 May

Dear Ambulance,

It makes me really nervous when you park outside my house.

So maybe next time, when you go get Subway, you could keep that in mind?

Love,

MM

PS. I really want a cookie now. Thanks a lot.

Dear Osama bin Laden on Facebook

2 May

Dear Osama bin Laden on Facebook,

As Mark Twain said, “I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.”

I loved Obama’s speech— loved that he took credit for the mission and made it clear that it was not only under his watch, but also was completely controlled by him and the result of his good decision-making, loved that he reminded us peace with Parkistan was integral to the success of the mission, loved that he drew firm distinctions between Osama bin Laden and the rest of the Islamic world. I loved the silent, still walk-away down the hallway. It’s about time the Democrats figured out how to talk about their achievements in clear-cut ways with bold statements and dramatic visual rhetoric (nerd alert).

But I don’t particularly like jingoism. Ever. It makes me nervous. I hate chants of “America, fuck yeah!” I always feel like the tar and feathers can’t be far behind.

But I also don’t like this quote from a Salon article that’s all over FB: “When we lose the sadness part — when all we do is happily scream ‘USA! USA! USA!’ at news of yet more killing in a now unending back-and-forth war — it’s a sign we may be inadvertently letting the monsters win.” I mean…anyone else see something spectacularly wrong with using the word “monsters” in the middle of this lesson about compassion?

Anyway. It’s important to acknowledge the significance of completing something we thought was important enough to dedicate the efforts of two presidents and countless soldiers to. I’m just not sure Facebook is meant to be all things at all times, you know?

I do like this friend’s FB post: “Phew, now I can get back to living my life to its fullest, without fear or compromise, head down and charging through the world with my medium sized American cock swinging between my legs!”

….Thanks, Shane, for saying all that needs saying.

So. I’ll see you in two days, Facebook, when you’re back to information about relationship statuses, the weather, sports, and what people are eating. And by the way— can you make a page that’s solely relationship status updates? Because that– that I think we can all get behind.

MM

P.S. Shoutout to the fact that Obama’s special report cut into the Celebrity Apprentice! Oh, The Donald. You’ve had a hard week, haven’t you? Maybe take a vacation. Someplace without internet or telephones. Maybe you should just go stand next to these guys. You just *might* look better in comparison. No promises.

Dear Night Owls

9 Mar

Dear Night Owls,

My dad once told me that nothing good happens after 1 am. I can’t remember the exact context of this conversation– no doubt I was lobbying for a later curfew– but I do remember how adamant he was. Nothing, he said, absolutely nothing good happens after 1 am. There is never any reason to be out then. Go home.

At any rate, it’s never really been a danger with me: I’m what you might call a sleeper. That’s right. Not a night owl, not a morning person. I am all about the cozy comforter and soft downy pillows and overly realistic dreams about people I knew long ago.

But what I’ve learned is this. Nothing interesting happens before 1 am. I mean, yes, after 1 am there are fights and people get arrested and people are more likely to driving more drunk than they should be and those are not good things.

But take this example: Two years running now, I have gone to a friend’s birthday party and missed the action. Last year I left around 12:30. The party was winding down, the drinks had been drunk (the people were drunk), there was hardly anyone left, and whoever was left was all sleepily smoking cigarettes in the sideyard. AND APPARENTLY THERE WAS A DANCE PARTY AFTER I LEFT. WHAT THE HELL. I LOVE A DANCE PARTY.

Ahem. This year, I stayed until 1:15. Note: that is after 1:00. Just to be sure. I yawned and rocked back and forth on my heels and generally almost fell over from tipsy tiredness. I watched those suckers smoke their cigarettes, I stuck around long enough to have a friend yell at me, unprompted, that BOYS WILL BREAK YOUR HEART THEY JUST DON’T KNOW HOW TO LOVE DON’T DO IT.

Let’s be honest, the party’s usually over after that conversation.

But still I stayed!

I stayed and watched a friend lie down, or maybe fall down, on the sidewalk, and refuse to get up until someone else reached down and brushed his teeth with a finger for a solid two minutes. Yep.

Three more people left. The vodka in my friend’s purse was gone. Someone was eating the raspberries off the top of the cake.

The birthday girl took out the recycling. The party was over. Dead. Finito. I walked home with three of the few remaining people, just to ensure that the critical mass was shifted my way.

AND I MISSED THE DANCE PARTY. AGAIN. WTF.

In Rome, there was rather an extreme case of this. My roommate and I would be out eating dinner until ten or eleven, walking and eating gelato until midnight, and then, everyone tired and headed for bed, we would call it quits. The next day we would find out that the undergraduates had all met up at, like, what must have been 2 or 3 in the morning, gone to a gay club or a bar made entirely of ice, and been drinking, I don’t know what, maybe absinthe? Unicorn blood? And making out with Italian men.

That still seems made up to me. I refuse to believe it exists. Who LEAVES THEIR HOUSE AT 2 AM TO START THEIR NIGHT?

I’m such a terrible party-er. People need to learn to get drunk quicker so they can get their scandal in by midnight so I can see it and still get home to bed. Don’t they know it’s about me?

Love,

MM

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