On a train from Milan to Verona, Italy.

I brought with me my stack of unread W magazines to keep me company on the many train rides we planned on taking throughout Europe.  Sadly, the magazines are from 2009.  Yes, they're about two years old because I've never truly had the opportunity to read them until now.  

Although a bit outdated, the magazines are still great.  I love W.  It's one of my favorite publications because while it is always fresh and forward-thinking, it's also classic, somehow.  The photos are consistently gorgeous and the stories, where most other magazines tend to fall short, are also typically well-written and worth the read.  Almost every issue has an article featuring some unknown yet amazing individual - a person who has lived a life most mere mortals can only dream of.  I always read those articles even though I have never heard of the individual before because their lives are always beyond fascinating.  W features articles about models, muses, playboys, royalty, artists, criminals, crazies, and beyond -- an entire gamut of personalities.

As a result, after reading each issue, I find myself coveting a life of glitz and glam (but not necessarily fame) that is depicted in the stories I read.  Each person is too magnificent and I want to be magnificent, too.  And this is why, I suspect, no matter how happy I am or how pleased I am with the current state of my life, there is always a part of me that is perpetually dissatisfied because I am forced to acknowledge that destiny does not have in store for me an existence other than that of the ordinary.  I am ordinary.  This saddens me.  And it's no surprise to me that the stories that resonate the most are the ones of the women who have shunned obtaining what I consider today's measure of success:  a good career, a loving husband, adorable children.  These are all items I covet, but as I read stories about women who have found and defined  their passion for love in an atypical manner, with different, ever-changing, beds and fleeting, powerful, relationships -- I wonder why it is I am so common and have only sought such common goals.

And then I look to my left and see an old Italian couple getting ready to depart the train.  I wonder how many years they have been married as they stand up and the wife helps her husband with his coat, pulling his shirt down neatly around his pants because it rose as he tried to put on his coat.  Next, she assists him with sliding on his small red backpack, gingerly guiding his arms through the loops.  There is a sincerity and commitment in their interaction that is silent, but profound, and I couldn't help but notice it, couldn't help but adore them.  With this simple image, I am reminded of why it is that most days I am common and only during fleeting moments do I have the desire to be magnificent.   Because common people are smart:  having a love like that must be good for the soul and everyone wants it 'cause it's bloody hard to achieve. 

Life.

Trying to write this on an iPhone.  Not sure how it looks but oh well.  It has been hard keeping up with the news while on the road.  Everything is in a foreign language.  But Daniel and I were talking about those who survived the tsunami and how they must have a newfound lust for life.   I wonder what that must feel like, to survive a tragedy, how that might affect my perspective on life.  He said he almost died at gunpoint due to an attempted car robbery.  


"Do you have a lust for life then?" I asked. 
"Yes," he replied. 
I scoffed. "How come I haven't seen it?" 
"Because you are it."

Smooth talkers sometime win, I'll admit to that.

Often.

Often I find myself looking at Mr. "Quest for Vagina" and I wonder how it is that I’ve ended up with him.  Admittedly, he is an atypical representation of the men I have dated in the past.  He was only supposed to be a friend.  Definitely a fun.  Maybe a fling.  But that should have been the extent of his impact on my life.  Clearly, the best of intentions can easily crumble in the face of fate.  Somewhere in my willingness to be more carefree and tolerant, he was able to capture that fleeting window of opportunity and transform it into something meaningful, lasting. 

Often I find myself remarking on the asymmetry in our relationship.  By now I’ve secured probably more info than I need to know, but not nearly as much as I want to know, about his life and past.  This is in part due to my naturally probative nature and his natural desire to share; yet, he knows little regarding my past.  He has never bothered to ask, and I’ve never felt compelled to voluntarily divulge.  While I can recall names, facts, and figures about his life, and while I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve raised my eyebrows, shaken my head, looked utterly aghast at the ridiculousness of his tales or the outrageousness of his antics - he only has a high-level understanding of where I’ve been.  Regardless, he still knows me better than I’d like to admit.

Often I find myself marveling on his observant nature.  There have been times where the pat of my hand or the stroke of my fingers have been slightly different, contrary to what he is normally accustomed to, and he will hone in on those slight differences until I confess to the causes.  He knows my scent, when I’m moody, when I’m amused, and he is smart enough to know when to nurture my crazy tendencies, my romantic tendencies, and everything in between.  I know that by being with him, I am committing myself to a lifetime of never being able to get away with anything – and I mean nothing – because I'm too awful of a liar and he’s too acutely aware of even the slightest deflection in my tone.  It’s peculiar to know that there’s another human being in this world who truly sees me and can see through me.  Maybe this is a blessing, maybe it’s a curse, I’m not sure, but I’m positive it’s a reality. 

Today is March 1.  This month marks a major change in my life, one that will bring about … who knows?  That’s the beauty in it, I think.  As excited as I am for what is to come, the conservative part of me is grateful that I have him to rely on during this time.  He is my security.  Life has, magically, worked out better than I could have ever planned.  I’ll bet that doesn’t happen too often, and I’m even more grateful that not only do I have the good fortune to experience it, but also the sound sense to appreciate it.  As volatile as the future may be, every day he is becoming more of a constant - my needed balance. 

a change.

I quit my job.  Whoa.  :)

So I think I'm gonna go travel for a bit and y'know, blow dry my hair in the middle of the  night in a hostel's kitchen again.  'Cause I'm not really sure how often I'll have the privilege to live like that.  Let's see where the future takes me.

p.s. I'm not really THAT yellow.  Bad lighting from a phone camera.

be a girl who reads.

While it's not perfect, I like this piece.  Thanks, Kim, for the initial recommendation and you can find it posted here, as well.

* * *

YOU SHOULD DATE AN ILLITERATE GIRL

By Charles Warnke
January 19, 2011

——————————-

Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her.

Let the anxious contract you’ve unwittingly written evolve slowly and uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common ground like sushi, and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets stale, or the evenings get long. Talk about nothing of significance. Do little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed. Ask her to move in. Let her decorate. Get into fights about inconsequential things like how the fucking shower curtain needs to be closed so that it doesn’t fucking collect mold. Let a year pass unnoticed. Begin to notice.

Figure that you should probably get married because you will have wasted a lot of time otherwise. Take her to dinner on the forty-fifth floor at a restaurant far beyond your means. Make sure there is a beautiful view of the city. Sheepishly ask a waiter to bring her a glass of champagne with a modest ring in it. When she notices, propose to her with all of the enthusiasm and sincerity you can muster. Do not be overly concerned if you feel your heart leap through a pane of sheet glass. For that matter, do not be overly concerned if you cannot feel it at all. If there is applause, let it stagnate. If she cries, smile as if you’ve never been happier. If she doesn’t, smile all the same.

Let the years pass unnoticed. Get a career, not a job. Buy a house. Have two striking children. Try to raise them well. Fail, frequently. Lapse into a bored indifference. Lapse into an indifferent sadness. Have a mid-life crisis. Grow old. Wonder at your lack of achievement. Feel sometimes contented, but mostly vacant and ethereal. Feel, during walks, as if you might never return, or as if you might blow away on the wind. Contract a terminal illness. Die, but only after you observe that the girl who didn’t read never made your heart oscillate with any significant passion, that no one will write the story of your lives, and that she will die, too, with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of her capacity to love.

Do those things, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent as a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much. A vocabulary, god damnit, that makes my vacuous sophistry a cheap trick.

Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. A girl who reads perceives the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and the entrenched habits of someone whose bitter cynicism will run on, run on well past any point of reason, or purpose, run on far after she has packed a suitcase and said a reluctant goodbye and she has decided that I am an ellipsis and not a period and run on and run on. Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived.

Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.

Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the storytellers. You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the Woolf. You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. You, who make my life so god damned difficult. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.

caelan's snow day.

Ugh, she is growing up way too fast.  Now she's walking and running and playing in snow!  I can't believe it.  I miss her much, with her uber-cool neon Nike kicks.  :(

lightweight luggage.

Anyone have suggestions for lightweight carry-on luggage (approximately 20") that is 7 lbs or under?  The only one I've found thus far that I actually like is Tumi's Voyageur, which costs $495.  Pretty sure I don't want to spend that much. 

This Orla Kiely one is also adorable and slightly less exorbitant at $315, but it's not really classic enough for my taste.  Help!