this and everything this guy does rocks my world.
enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj-x9ygQEGA
Friday, October 30, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Dear library
Dear Glasgow Libraries,
the fact that you don't have the books I want for procrastination- such as post-rapture radio, or deep economy- irritates me. Expect the cold shoulder all day today.
sincerely,
Kirsten
ps- I'm not going to buy them. I think you should.
the fact that you don't have the books I want for procrastination- such as post-rapture radio, or deep economy- irritates me. Expect the cold shoulder all day today.
sincerely,
Kirsten
ps- I'm not going to buy them. I think you should.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
birds twitter too
I heard a lecturer
He said that it is very important
to listen to bird songs
everyday
He said it was important
because we have developed
to know that when birds are singing
things are safe.
It’s when they are silent
that there is danger
So when we listen to the songs
it will brighten our mood.
All this to say
that I sort of miss
how you chirp chirp chirp
my name
Or how you tweet and twitter with laughter
when we tell dirty jokes
And the way you hop and skip along the ground
when you want to show me something
or want my attention
And even how you peck at me
like you are looking for seeds
until it is not so funny for me
but you collapse in giggles on the ground, laughing at your own cleverness
So it turns out that all those flighty things
like your little bird song
make me feel safe
and like singing too
And though the silence is clean
it can also be empty
and dangerous
tl;dr version: gross.
He said that it is very important
to listen to bird songs
everyday
He said it was important
because we have developed
to know that when birds are singing
things are safe.
It’s when they are silent
that there is danger
So when we listen to the songs
it will brighten our mood.
All this to say
that I sort of miss
how you chirp chirp chirp
my name
Or how you tweet and twitter with laughter
when we tell dirty jokes
And the way you hop and skip along the ground
when you want to show me something
or want my attention
And even how you peck at me
like you are looking for seeds
until it is not so funny for me
but you collapse in giggles on the ground, laughing at your own cleverness
So it turns out that all those flighty things
like your little bird song
make me feel safe
and like singing too
And though the silence is clean
it can also be empty
and dangerous
tl;dr version: gross.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
George the taxi driver
In one of the sweetest and most beautiful acts of kindness that I have ever experienced, a taxi driver asked me if I needed a ride.
My 1.5 mile walk at 2am was fairly safe- in well lit areas and big streets where there were still lots of people milling about and dancers both seeking and leaving clubs and bars, through the safe part of town. There was one spot, just one little stretch that is a little iffy. I have to walk by Kelvingrove park, which during the day is a beautiful expansive park filled with dogs off the leash and children running around corners while their parents walked leisurely behinds or looked away. But at night, due mostly (I think) to the fact that there is not one light inside the park, it becomes dangerous. “Don’t walk through Kelvingrove at night” I was warned (many times, mostly by other Americans who had done their research before coming on crime hotspots). I wasn’t going to walk through it. I was going to walk next to it. Right by it. Because otherwise I would have had to go very far out of my way, and even though the street running beside it was the only poorly lit street in the West End, it wasn’t that long. And it wasn’t really that dangerous.
I had noticed that particular taxi driver a few meters back, when he was dropping off scantily clad and spikey heeled girls in front of a club. We had smiled at each other. He motioned for if I needed a ride, I shook my head no and kept walking.
As I walked onto the road that passed by Kelvingrove, doubling the roads former occupancy of one large man walking alone to two people, the taxi driver pulled up next to me.
“Hey, get in the car and let me drive you to the end of the street,” he said “I’m not picking you up, there’s no fee, I won’t charge anything. Just let me drive you past the park. To the end of the road.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, hop in.”
“Thank you.”
His name was George. George the taxi driver. He went on to tell me that he just wanted to make sure I was safe. “The other roads are fine,” he told me, “and you can always trust us taxi drivers. We’re a good breed. I’m not trying to scare you, but you always hear about things happening, particularly at the first of the school year.”
And then, at the end of the road, past Kelvingrove and in the light again, he dropped me off. I shook his hand and said thank you. And I am struck by this act of kindness, because that was his job, and there was no reason to not charge, and I was going away from where he would get work, and I was making a silly decision and yet he still went out of his way, for no other reason than I was a person and he wanted me to be safe, and he could make a difference. No big deal. It was spectacular to me.
He turned around.
We waved.
And I have been thinking about him, and this seemingly small gesture which is very, very big to me, and I wonder if I can be more like him. If I, like George, would go out of my way to love people in real life, not just in theory. In real ways, without anything in return- even if I have every right to expect something in return.
In ways that say, “No charge, I just want you to be safe.”
tl;dr version: I rode in a taxi.
My 1.5 mile walk at 2am was fairly safe- in well lit areas and big streets where there were still lots of people milling about and dancers both seeking and leaving clubs and bars, through the safe part of town. There was one spot, just one little stretch that is a little iffy. I have to walk by Kelvingrove park, which during the day is a beautiful expansive park filled with dogs off the leash and children running around corners while their parents walked leisurely behinds or looked away. But at night, due mostly (I think) to the fact that there is not one light inside the park, it becomes dangerous. “Don’t walk through Kelvingrove at night” I was warned (many times, mostly by other Americans who had done their research before coming on crime hotspots). I wasn’t going to walk through it. I was going to walk next to it. Right by it. Because otherwise I would have had to go very far out of my way, and even though the street running beside it was the only poorly lit street in the West End, it wasn’t that long. And it wasn’t really that dangerous.
I had noticed that particular taxi driver a few meters back, when he was dropping off scantily clad and spikey heeled girls in front of a club. We had smiled at each other. He motioned for if I needed a ride, I shook my head no and kept walking.
As I walked onto the road that passed by Kelvingrove, doubling the roads former occupancy of one large man walking alone to two people, the taxi driver pulled up next to me.
“Hey, get in the car and let me drive you to the end of the street,” he said “I’m not picking you up, there’s no fee, I won’t charge anything. Just let me drive you past the park. To the end of the road.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, hop in.”
“Thank you.”
His name was George. George the taxi driver. He went on to tell me that he just wanted to make sure I was safe. “The other roads are fine,” he told me, “and you can always trust us taxi drivers. We’re a good breed. I’m not trying to scare you, but you always hear about things happening, particularly at the first of the school year.”
And then, at the end of the road, past Kelvingrove and in the light again, he dropped me off. I shook his hand and said thank you. And I am struck by this act of kindness, because that was his job, and there was no reason to not charge, and I was going away from where he would get work, and I was making a silly decision and yet he still went out of his way, for no other reason than I was a person and he wanted me to be safe, and he could make a difference. No big deal. It was spectacular to me.
He turned around.
We waved.
And I have been thinking about him, and this seemingly small gesture which is very, very big to me, and I wonder if I can be more like him. If I, like George, would go out of my way to love people in real life, not just in theory. In real ways, without anything in return- even if I have every right to expect something in return.
In ways that say, “No charge, I just want you to be safe.”
tl;dr version: I rode in a taxi.
Friday, October 9, 2009
library time (in three seperate parts)
Yesterday I spent 6 hours at the library looking for two articles, any two articles, on the same topic so I could compare them in a paper. I didn’t find anything (anything=anything mildly interesting to me). I couldn’t find anything I wanted to write about. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to read about. I couldn’t find two that were similar. And I found that the more I read, the less I cared.
I pictured myself giving up and walking away from the madness, the words running together. I imagined standing up, triumphal music in the background and saying I don’t care about this! as I raised my hands slowly in the air. My fellow students would join me, dropping their books and walking out, slowly, free from the constraints of words running together into mush. There would be wind blowing and not one of us would be thinking “how is there wind in a library?” because we were that overcome with emotion and music and the lighting would be perfect. And we would be free. Free. And we would go outside and the crisp autumn air would cut into us- cut through the bookhaze, cut through the hours we spent on facebook procrastinating and we would look at each other and realize that we were here and we were free and we didn’t need to look at a computer screen to fellowship because there were real, live people right there- and there would be a man who was crying because he hadn’t been outside the library in 14 years because he had forgotten that there was a world outside and he would tell us in tears how he had been living off vending machine food that he got by tying a string to a pound coin he had found and putting it in the machine then pulling it out and we would all surround him and pat his arm say soft and comforting things and maybe a girl started crying too because she spent more time talking online or texts than she did with real people.
Then inspiration would hit and we would all take off running towards Kelvingrove park and not stop- even though we are all out of shape and panting, and maybe some of us would carry each other piggyback for fun- until we reach the top of the hill that has no trees and we would look out on the city. Then we would probably look at each other because in an instant we would all know exactly what had to happen, what we needed to do, what we all needed to do, and then, in that instant, as though we were one person we would all jump and start rolling down the hill. We would roll like toilet paper, and from very far away I bet you could see that what was left of our worries would lie on the slope in long stripes and make a pretty waterfall of terrors that passed and unraveled and turned out to be nothing but decoration for a hillside, but none of us would roll like Princess Buttercup in the Princess Bride because she rolls in the dumbest way possible and you could really get hurt that way, except maybe one person, as a joke and maybe that person says “as you wish” as they go down too, just to make sure we all get the reference and don’t think they are dumb for rolling like that. And then all that was left at the end of the hill would be bare humans without their worries wrapped around them as padding. When we got to the bottom we would sit, and look back on what we had done. Maybe some of us would be puking I bet because it’s a pretty far roll and a pretty steep hill, and not everybody has a strong stomach, but the rest of us don’t mind. And maybe some people liked it so much they ran up for another go and rolled down again and again, and the rest of us cheer them on. Probably we would be laughing because we are free and still feelin’ good but also because now it looks like we’ve doubled in size and we are only a little upset when we realize it’s just our vision is all messed up from the rolling.
And we would sit there until night so that we could look at the stars and we would think about nothing else but that we were there and together and free, even if it was just one day, and that we were real humans. But when night came, I bet we couldn’t see the stars because our eyes were so bright and also because we live in the city and so then there would be high-fives all around and I bet then everyone would go home and tell our friends or family or spouses about our terrific day meeting new people and rolling down hills and about the toilet paper landscapes and I hope at least some of the people we tell are really excited for us, really happy for our day, and that they listen with rapt attention and at the end just say “thank you” and nothing else.
____________________________________________________________________________________
It’s not that I don’t care about human rights (I like to think) it’s just that you can only read so many papers talking and talking and talking about how things are wrong, oh so wrong in the world, and about paradigms and feminist vs andocentric perspectives and what the underlying received wisdoms are before you start to not care anymore. I mean, it’s all talk anyway.
I find this funny because I used to be one of those people who would think about something like a hypothetical stream that was filled with pollution and wreaking havoc on a village and turning the babies into fire breathing babies and the children now have blue spiky hair that helped them up climb trees (up trees, but not down) and there was a group of dirty old men who had somehow gotten laser vision from the polluted water and would sit on the porch and look at women through their clothes and shout out ratings and also everyone was sick and dying and it was very sad and scary and most people go there and say oh no! we need to help these people and start making the mothers carry fire extinguishers and gave teachers ladders and scissors to climb up trees and cut hair and gave the old men a stern talking to and a chess board to distract them, and maybe some other people would come and say hey! That’s not helpful, these people are still sick and dying, why not deal with the sickness, and they started giving them medicine for it, but also doing drug research to figure out how to get rid of it instead of just treating the symptoms and then there were people who are like, you should also teach them not to drink the water because that’s what’s causing their sickness in the first place and start building wells and water purification centers. I was always the one who was like, yeah- do that- do all that, but also figure out who is polluting the water and where it’s coming from and how we stop it and who else is affected by it- which I always thought was very clever of me. Look at me being all solutions oriented! I’m so clever! But now I find that none of us asked if they even wanted help, or that all these people who have gone to help just GAVE the help instead of teaching it and thus created dependency etc. and that some people are protesting outside of the UN buildings because they feel it’s a unique culture of mutations- even though those mutations come at a price- and you shouldn’t change it even if they want it to be changed because you’re just westernizing them, and that nobody is asking how they would like it to be solved and then I realize that in addition there are only a handful of people (really, just a handful) who even really WANT to help, who even care enough to actually do something and we spent so much time talking about it and looking at pictures and video montages made to switchfoot songs with pictures of young parents walking around with third degree burns and children stuck in trees and half the town in hospitals and sit there on youtube just FEELING instead of DOING that in the end we have wasted years and millions and are so exhausted from listening to a group of 5 young people present on what they did in a week long missions trip where they passed out nutrigrain bars and heating pads and they tell the funny story about how one of the boys dared the other one to stick his toe in the water and he did ohmygoshcanyoubelieveit and he swears it felt tingly and they all cry-even the boys, oh my- when they tell us about the hospitals all full with people and we are so proud-just so damn proud- that we feel like we’ve done something too and wasn’t that exhausting, helping all those people, and so in the end after all that work talking and arguing and feeling we just figure we’ll send them some bottles of Aquafina and be done with it, since House is on tonight and I just love watching that show.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
And I kept asking myself that at the library “Well, just find an article about what you care about. What do you care about?” and I couldn’t think of anything. I’m serious. I couldn’t think of one issue that I particularly cared about. All I kept thinking was “I like people. I care about people. And communities.” And then I would respond, “yes, well that’s all fine and good, but it’s not particularly helpful for this assignment. Are you even listening to me? Get off Gmail and listen, you have to get this done.” “Uh huh.. . sure… “ I respond, clicking vaguely and typing words into databases… “let’s see what the word ngoization brings up.” Or “Oh! Let’s see what human rights fads will get me… that sounds interesting.”
And I realized, as I later explained in some length over tuesday’s post-class beer to Dave- a classmate who is very quickly endearing himself to me by his ability to convincingly act enraptured as I talk at length about topics that are really not that interesting and often unthought through- that I think the problem is I am not issue-oriented. I am community oriented. I think. Maybe. Or I’m just flaky. It’s a toss up. Either/or. I care about a lot of issues. I care about all the issues that might affect a community. For instance, I was reading a phenomenal book (I highly recommend this book to everyone, it’s a very easy read and possibly the best nonfiction book I have read recently) called Selling Olga: Stories of Trafficking and Resistance and came to a part where it was talking about a town from which girls often moved to work as sex workers and I started thinking about all the other issues in that town. What about poverty, hunger, unemployment, environmental problems, class issues, crime, inequalities, illness, various other forms of unfreedom? How do they interact? How do the problems overlap? Can the solutions overlap too? How can infrastructure, microfinance/microbusiness, sustainable agriculture, education (especially education), legislation, awareness, community rehabilitation, clean water, and accountability change the way that community looks? And I think… oh for pete’s sake, Kirsten, just pick one, because community oriented doesn’t really make a masters thesis, and furthermore, I’ll never know enough about all those things to be effective at any of them.
In the end I went back the next day and found two articles on the participation in voting in rural China. They are two articles, and they are on the same topic. I found them by searching the word “grassroots” and the both popped up in the first 12 suggestions so I took it. C-c-c-c-cop out!
update:
tl;dr version (part one): I frequently procrastinate by daydreaming of splendor.
tl;dr version (part two): Pollution= blue hair, fire breathing babies, dirty old men with laser vision. OR sometimes I get frustrated with things.
tl;dr version (part three): I like people. I don't like studying.
I pictured myself giving up and walking away from the madness, the words running together. I imagined standing up, triumphal music in the background and saying I don’t care about this! as I raised my hands slowly in the air. My fellow students would join me, dropping their books and walking out, slowly, free from the constraints of words running together into mush. There would be wind blowing and not one of us would be thinking “how is there wind in a library?” because we were that overcome with emotion and music and the lighting would be perfect. And we would be free. Free. And we would go outside and the crisp autumn air would cut into us- cut through the bookhaze, cut through the hours we spent on facebook procrastinating and we would look at each other and realize that we were here and we were free and we didn’t need to look at a computer screen to fellowship because there were real, live people right there- and there would be a man who was crying because he hadn’t been outside the library in 14 years because he had forgotten that there was a world outside and he would tell us in tears how he had been living off vending machine food that he got by tying a string to a pound coin he had found and putting it in the machine then pulling it out and we would all surround him and pat his arm say soft and comforting things and maybe a girl started crying too because she spent more time talking online or texts than she did with real people.
Then inspiration would hit and we would all take off running towards Kelvingrove park and not stop- even though we are all out of shape and panting, and maybe some of us would carry each other piggyback for fun- until we reach the top of the hill that has no trees and we would look out on the city. Then we would probably look at each other because in an instant we would all know exactly what had to happen, what we needed to do, what we all needed to do, and then, in that instant, as though we were one person we would all jump and start rolling down the hill. We would roll like toilet paper, and from very far away I bet you could see that what was left of our worries would lie on the slope in long stripes and make a pretty waterfall of terrors that passed and unraveled and turned out to be nothing but decoration for a hillside, but none of us would roll like Princess Buttercup in the Princess Bride because she rolls in the dumbest way possible and you could really get hurt that way, except maybe one person, as a joke and maybe that person says “as you wish” as they go down too, just to make sure we all get the reference and don’t think they are dumb for rolling like that. And then all that was left at the end of the hill would be bare humans without their worries wrapped around them as padding. When we got to the bottom we would sit, and look back on what we had done. Maybe some of us would be puking I bet because it’s a pretty far roll and a pretty steep hill, and not everybody has a strong stomach, but the rest of us don’t mind. And maybe some people liked it so much they ran up for another go and rolled down again and again, and the rest of us cheer them on. Probably we would be laughing because we are free and still feelin’ good but also because now it looks like we’ve doubled in size and we are only a little upset when we realize it’s just our vision is all messed up from the rolling.
And we would sit there until night so that we could look at the stars and we would think about nothing else but that we were there and together and free, even if it was just one day, and that we were real humans. But when night came, I bet we couldn’t see the stars because our eyes were so bright and also because we live in the city and so then there would be high-fives all around and I bet then everyone would go home and tell our friends or family or spouses about our terrific day meeting new people and rolling down hills and about the toilet paper landscapes and I hope at least some of the people we tell are really excited for us, really happy for our day, and that they listen with rapt attention and at the end just say “thank you” and nothing else.
____________________________________________________________________________________
It’s not that I don’t care about human rights (I like to think) it’s just that you can only read so many papers talking and talking and talking about how things are wrong, oh so wrong in the world, and about paradigms and feminist vs andocentric perspectives and what the underlying received wisdoms are before you start to not care anymore. I mean, it’s all talk anyway.
I find this funny because I used to be one of those people who would think about something like a hypothetical stream that was filled with pollution and wreaking havoc on a village and turning the babies into fire breathing babies and the children now have blue spiky hair that helped them up climb trees (up trees, but not down) and there was a group of dirty old men who had somehow gotten laser vision from the polluted water and would sit on the porch and look at women through their clothes and shout out ratings and also everyone was sick and dying and it was very sad and scary and most people go there and say oh no! we need to help these people and start making the mothers carry fire extinguishers and gave teachers ladders and scissors to climb up trees and cut hair and gave the old men a stern talking to and a chess board to distract them, and maybe some other people would come and say hey! That’s not helpful, these people are still sick and dying, why not deal with the sickness, and they started giving them medicine for it, but also doing drug research to figure out how to get rid of it instead of just treating the symptoms and then there were people who are like, you should also teach them not to drink the water because that’s what’s causing their sickness in the first place and start building wells and water purification centers. I was always the one who was like, yeah- do that- do all that, but also figure out who is polluting the water and where it’s coming from and how we stop it and who else is affected by it- which I always thought was very clever of me. Look at me being all solutions oriented! I’m so clever! But now I find that none of us asked if they even wanted help, or that all these people who have gone to help just GAVE the help instead of teaching it and thus created dependency etc. and that some people are protesting outside of the UN buildings because they feel it’s a unique culture of mutations- even though those mutations come at a price- and you shouldn’t change it even if they want it to be changed because you’re just westernizing them, and that nobody is asking how they would like it to be solved and then I realize that in addition there are only a handful of people (really, just a handful) who even really WANT to help, who even care enough to actually do something and we spent so much time talking about it and looking at pictures and video montages made to switchfoot songs with pictures of young parents walking around with third degree burns and children stuck in trees and half the town in hospitals and sit there on youtube just FEELING instead of DOING that in the end we have wasted years and millions and are so exhausted from listening to a group of 5 young people present on what they did in a week long missions trip where they passed out nutrigrain bars and heating pads and they tell the funny story about how one of the boys dared the other one to stick his toe in the water and he did ohmygoshcanyoubelieveit and he swears it felt tingly and they all cry-even the boys, oh my- when they tell us about the hospitals all full with people and we are so proud-just so damn proud- that we feel like we’ve done something too and wasn’t that exhausting, helping all those people, and so in the end after all that work talking and arguing and feeling we just figure we’ll send them some bottles of Aquafina and be done with it, since House is on tonight and I just love watching that show.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
And I kept asking myself that at the library “Well, just find an article about what you care about. What do you care about?” and I couldn’t think of anything. I’m serious. I couldn’t think of one issue that I particularly cared about. All I kept thinking was “I like people. I care about people. And communities.” And then I would respond, “yes, well that’s all fine and good, but it’s not particularly helpful for this assignment. Are you even listening to me? Get off Gmail and listen, you have to get this done.” “Uh huh.. . sure… “ I respond, clicking vaguely and typing words into databases… “let’s see what the word ngoization brings up.” Or “Oh! Let’s see what human rights fads will get me… that sounds interesting.”
And I realized, as I later explained in some length over tuesday’s post-class beer to Dave- a classmate who is very quickly endearing himself to me by his ability to convincingly act enraptured as I talk at length about topics that are really not that interesting and often unthought through- that I think the problem is I am not issue-oriented. I am community oriented. I think. Maybe. Or I’m just flaky. It’s a toss up. Either/or. I care about a lot of issues. I care about all the issues that might affect a community. For instance, I was reading a phenomenal book (I highly recommend this book to everyone, it’s a very easy read and possibly the best nonfiction book I have read recently) called Selling Olga: Stories of Trafficking and Resistance and came to a part where it was talking about a town from which girls often moved to work as sex workers and I started thinking about all the other issues in that town. What about poverty, hunger, unemployment, environmental problems, class issues, crime, inequalities, illness, various other forms of unfreedom? How do they interact? How do the problems overlap? Can the solutions overlap too? How can infrastructure, microfinance/microbusiness, sustainable agriculture, education (especially education), legislation, awareness, community rehabilitation, clean water, and accountability change the way that community looks? And I think… oh for pete’s sake, Kirsten, just pick one, because community oriented doesn’t really make a masters thesis, and furthermore, I’ll never know enough about all those things to be effective at any of them.
In the end I went back the next day and found two articles on the participation in voting in rural China. They are two articles, and they are on the same topic. I found them by searching the word “grassroots” and the both popped up in the first 12 suggestions so I took it. C-c-c-c-cop out!
update:
tl;dr version (part one): I frequently procrastinate by daydreaming of splendor.
tl;dr version (part two): Pollution= blue hair, fire breathing babies, dirty old men with laser vision. OR sometimes I get frustrated with things.
tl;dr version (part three): I like people. I don't like studying.
the rain
I am convinced that the majority of the people in Scotland have ceased to notice when it is actually raining or not. I’m being serious here. Most of the people, I’m sure, after living in Scotland, completely lose the ability to discern whether or not it is actually raining. Since this amuses me thoroughly, I test it by stating the obvious. “It’s raining.” I say when it’s raining, turning to my nearest companion. They look at me with somewhat bemused smiles, “Yes. It’s Scotland,” is invariably the reply. But then when it isn’t raining I say, “It isn’t raining.” And I see faces turn towards the sky. If it’s sunny, they will look at the sun with a bit of surprise. If it’s cloudy and not rainy then little lines start appearing between slightly furrowed eyebrows, hands come out palms up to feel for drops, “Well, no…no, not currently it’s not. But just wait a wee bit and you’ll see. Don’t get too used to it. This is unusual.” They say this, despite the fact that I have seen the sun nearly every day, throughout the day, albeit usually in bright bursts followed by more rain, like deep gulping breaths between being repeatedly dunked in a pool. I even find myself thinking “Oh, it’s rainy,” and then having to check. “Is it? Is it really raining, Kirsten? Or do I just feel like it’s raining? Oh… no… it’s actually quite clear just now.”
I have some theories for why this might be. Most of the explanations lie in the fact that Scotland is not so much a place as an entity; an entity which loves just a taste of madness, madness like salt should flavor food-just enough to make the experience richer, but not enough to overwhelm the palate. The explanation lies within the fact that Scotland herself is a quirky little bird of a country, and intent on forcing those who live here to let go of caring about unimportant things like what side of the sidewalk to walk on or whether or not it’s raining, and concentrate on things that are real like highlands and stories and dancing and getting drunk.
The types of rain here are vast, and each of them is designed with the specific and mischievous intent of making those who spend any amount of time here at all either decide to go absolutely batty or simply let go, content in the knowledge that everything is, after all, what it is.
The first and most common type of rain is the way Scotland has of simply being wet. The atmosphere can be a thick cloud of “rainy” type air more dense than what could be called a fog, since everything instantly begins to gleam when it ventures outdoors, and it doesn’t really obscure vision like a fog- it could legitimately be called a drizzle if it were moving in any way that was even a little consistent with gravity or wind. But you can still feel it, because it has individual drops, and if it’s cold enough outside the drops sting you in the face a little. I’ll call it a frizzle. This state of wetness exists for the sole purpose of mocking those who try to defy it with an umbrella and (also) those who are silly enough to purchase blow dryers.
The first time you come across this weather, you think to yourself, “Ok, I’ve got this. I am prepared. I have rain gear. I have dealt with rain before. No biggie.” You aren’t worried, because you are a silly and naïve person with no idea what you are getting yourself into or the forces you are coming up against. You will break out your rain coat, your wellingtons, your brand new umbrella, and rush to wherever you are meant to go. You avoid puddles and walk under trees-but not the edges of trees because those drip!- and do whatever possible to increase your rain avoidance. You are fully confident in your ability to avoid becoming wet. As you walk you pass a pitying glance at the people who got caught in the frizzle with no suitable rain gear. You arrive, take off your jacket, and realize that you are soaking. Your clothes are soaking through your rain coat (how is that possible?). Your hair is stuck to the side of your head. Your face is dripping with what you hope is water, although it could be snot because you have just realized that you think you are sick, and that your face is numb. Your socks are wet. Your hands are pruny. On the bright side, it’s occurring to you that you feel like you just drank the ocean and won’t need another glass of water for months.
The second time you experience it, you break out some semi water proof shoes and a water proof jacket and run from overhang to overhang. There you are, looking for the dry places. Hugging the walls of buildings. Cutting through buildings when possible. You stand in the bus stops and curse the wind when it blows, cutting into you. You arrive sopping wet. You know why? Because there is nothing you can do to stop it. You can be in the comfort of your own home in a freaking ziplock bag and get still wet when this type of rain comes. If you’re ever in Scotland taking a bath and suddenly feel cold and as if the water just got wetter, you know what the weather is outside.
The third time you experience the frizzle, you throw on a few layers for warmth, and so you have something to take off at your destination (the frizzle sees skin, in addition to clothing, gravity, wind, hair, cars, international law, hope, and buildings not so much as a barrier but as a challenge and happily goes right through your skin to cool your entire body down to the same temperature as the surrounding air in a matter of nanoseconds) and walk to your destination.
The fourth time you experience this weather, you notice that the people around are out in about the same numbers as in dry weather (I’m not exaggerating here at all), walking at the same pace, standing outside, talking to each other. You slow down. If you see someone you know you stop and have a chat. The most amazing thing is, when you arrive… you are slightly damp. Yes- your hair is absurd, but your cheeks are a lovely shade of pink and you aren’t soaked- because Scotland likes to screw with you. The only difference from dry weather is you don’t see people reading while outside, since the frizzle eats books like candy. I once took out a book in the frizzle and watched it disintegrate before my eyes as tiny shrieks came out from the wet pulp sitting in the space in my hands where a book had been just moments before. I stared at it, not comprehending how anything could change so fast, and wondering what would happen if the crazies found out about this power of Scotland and harnessed it for evil.
If books are candy, then hair is like oxygen for frizzle. People with straight hair don the “drown rat” look. People with curly hair come in with the “new escaped from the insane asylum” hair do. I once saw a bald man have a bad hair day here. Scotland’s generally wet drizzle instills life in hair. This life, however, is a wanton, naughty child which cackles and plays and takes on a personality of its own, often completely different from that of the owner. I have seen shy people who would prefer to fly under the radar of the general public walk in with hair sticking every which way in a beautiful, partly curled look which drew every eye in the room and was the envy of artsy people across the globe who spent fruitless hours at the mirror trying to achieve the same effect. I saw people who spent hours expressing themselves through their hair sigh as they caught a glimpse of themselves in a window and pull it up in a discrete pony tail. My hair prefers to fluctuate between looking wavy with soft ringlets (this generally happens on the way home when nobody will see me) and looking as if I haven’t washed it in quite some time, or my personal favorite, looking like I am in late elementary school by developing the bump on the back of my head that is typical of prepubescent girls. I don’t understand why this particular look is typical of girls age 8-10 and people with severe bedhead, but it also apparently is typical of a certain 23 year old Masters student in Scotland.
One of my classmates put the experience perfectly, “You get all done up in the morning only to arrive at class late, out of breath and looking like crap from the rain, since there isn’t anything you could have done about it and an umbrella won’t do a bit of good. Then you start looking around and realize that all of your classmates look like total crap too with their hair a mess because they walked through the rain too. Then your teacher arrives and her hair is ridiculous too and you realize that there isn’t a damn thing anyone in the world can do to stop the rain and you all look ridiculous so nobody cares and it’s great.” And it is. It’s great. Because it just really doesn’t matter at all. I don’t own a hairbrush. I am free and easy and I love it here. Originally I was going to buy one, but then I decided, why bother? And it really hasn’t made the least bit of difference. Of course if Lauren visits, I’m stealing hers and saying she forgot one, but that’s just a matter of principle.
I remember the first time I saw someone walking through the frizzle and realized that they were not happy to be walking in the rain. They weren’t unhappy to be walking in the rain. I’m not even sure they realized it was raining. I was floored when I realized that nobody seemed to mind the frizzle at all. Nobody seemed to notice. Nobody seemed particularly bothered by something so trivial as a little bit of rain that couldn’t be avoided- after all, it is Scotland. Then I started looking around and think to myself, “It’s only the tourists that are using umbrellas. We are the only ones who know that it’s raining… That or we’re the only ones who think an umbrella will do any good.” So there we are, walking with the umbrella, with all the Scots look at us thinking to themselves in their indecipherable but adorable accents, “ah yes! Isn’t that cute? They still believe an umbrella will help. They still think an umbrella will save them from the frizzle.”
The second type of rain is rain. Real rain. The kind that comes down, plop! And you can hear each one. Good, decent, respectable rain. The kind that bounces off the top of your umbrella and rolls down the sides and jumps off the edge onto the ground where they form puddles and have parties and drink tea and sing songs and jump up to see who can hang on to the back of cars bumpers the longest and obeys all laws of gravity without the little raindrop police having to come by and put them in little raindrop-sized handcuffs and cart them off to rain drop prison. This is the kind that makes the Scotts (generally) bust out their umbrellas. This usually happens at least once a day, although it can happen more on rainy days. It doesn’t last long. Additionally, even though it is decent and innocent and good plopping rain, it often canoodles with the frizzle- so that just one or two vagrant teen age raindrops will come down SPLASH! on your face when you’re walking sans umbrella, or a 3 minute shower will come when it was frizzling and you were already wet but you weren’t expecting to be so soaked and I had no idea- really I didn’t- no idea at all that rain had the capacity to cackle at you as it comes down, but I swear that’s the sound the part rain/part frizzle makes when you are hiding under [insert nearest inadequate shelter here]. It mocks me, but it also sings to me. It tells me “look and see, see how shiny I make things? See how green I make things? See how new I make old things look and how old I make new things look? Look at me! Look at me! Pay attention to me! I can come down! I can make noise!” And yet I haven't seen a proper storm. I hope they'll come eventually.
I’ve always liked wind and rain. They are so present tense.
The third type of rain is not so much rain, as the way Scotland screws with your head by being brighter when raining than during the in between rain periods. I know everywhere in the world experiences the raining while sunny phenomenon so don’t get all “Oh look, she’s making a big deal out of nothing. It rains while it’s sunny here too. ‘Ooooh look at me, I’m Kirsten and I get confused by rain and sun together. What is this black magic that it can rain while sunny?’” My point is that it frequently gets a little brighter while raining and then gets darker in between, which begins to screw with you after a while because your subconscious starts to associate it being just a little brighter with rain and maybe also with that time when you were five and would play in the sprinkler in the sun and then it makes you think that it is always rainy or always sunny or in some sort of limbo state of neither rainy nor not rainy because rainy and sunny aren’t really opposites anymore like they taught you or maybe the weather is like Schrodinger’s cat and it is both raining and not raining and Scotland is the proverbial box.
I also haven’t seen any worms on the sidewalk. I wonder if they have worms in Scotland. Or maybe the worms know how to swim so they don’t need to come out when it rains to keep from drowning. I always thought it was sad that they had to come out to save themselves and then sometimes the ground was still too wet to go back home, but the sun was too hot and they died and I felt so sorry for the worms with nowhere to go and nothing you could do to save them. In the third grade my best friend Debra and I used to try to save them by building little houses of sticks and grass on the sidewalk to shade them from the heat until they could go home and carry them into it, but other girls thought it was gross and the boys thought it was dumb. But I always hated trying to avoid stepping on them and not just because sometimes you accidentally squished that huge a worm on the sidewalk after a rain and a bit of it stuck to your shoe and got all over you when you took them off and you were sure the sharks could smell death on you-since fish eat worms and sharks are fish- and they would come eat you, but because I just felt so sorry for them. Also they smelled. Maybe, also, Scottish worms wear little sweaters because it can get very chilly sometimes and they don’t have much body fat, though probably it is not so cold underground since there isn’t the wind such, but they might still want a nice scarf or something.
The last type of rain that is of note in that it very likely to drive you completely insane until you decide it doesn’t matter at all is the spritzing. This is a small squirt of light rain that comes periodically because someone has a squirt bottle, lies in wait, and sprays you a few times as you walk past. It doesn’t last very long, but it happens nearly every time you go outside, particularly if you want to look nice. It could be the sunniest, most beautiful day out and you will walk out and feel a little spritz. Sometimes the entire sky will join in the spritzing party and spritz a little here and there, throwing it like confetti or candy at a parade for two to three minutes until it gets bored and goes off to look for some town up near Orkney or some tourists on the top level of a bus that it can rain on. When you walk out the door, you will feel a short spritz, usually in the face or on the back of the head. Don’t take offense, in reality it’s a sort of greeting, like telling you “Welcome outside! We missed you! Here, have some rain!”
If you turn around quickly enough you will see a short, happy little Scotsman from the Ministry of Rain with a squirt bottle aimed at the back of your head who thinks water is the greatest thing there is or ever was, but they are highly trained in ninja-like techniques, so it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to spot one unless he’s a rooky. They also come by about every half hour and squirt your windows when you aren’t looking so there are always some droplets on any window at any given time, no matter what; leaving the impression that it always just rained a little. Again, this is because Scotland cares/is screwing with you and never wants you to feel as if it isn’t either raining or having just rained and is about to start again after a short intermission for bathroom breaks and chips and such. The spritzing is long enough to render your hair completely ridiculous and short enough to make an umbrella completely useless since even though an umbrella could stop the spritz, it lasts for such a short period of time that by the time you have it open the little Scott with the squirt bottle has moved on, shaking their head at you and saying in his laughing Glaswegian accent “An umbrella? This is just the wee spritzing service. This isn’t hearty rain. Let’s not be selfish. This bottle has to last for more people than just you.”
I’m having some difficulty with the whole umbrella issue anyway. I have always felt that, as a moral issue, umbrellas ought to be large. I don’t do that little flimsy purse umbrella nonsense. I feel like an umbrella should be able to shield one person completely from the rain, and at least two people easily if they are willing to snuggle just a little. However, the problem with having a big umbrella is that the sidewalks in here are very small. I didn’t realize this until I was walking with my umbrella up and had to lift it up over people so that we could pass. There just isn’t room for a big umbrella on these sidewalks. I’m not entirely sure what to do about this.
I also am a huge advocate of the big umbrella because it is less likely to turn inside out on you when the wind begins to blow. One of the exceptions to this love of the big umbrella was a purse sized umbrella that I had as an undergraduate. It had Monet’s water lilies on it and was broken so that when you pushed the button to open it, if you didn’t hold the top, the whole thing would go shooting forward a few feet forward leaving you holding that little handle part at the bottom. It was fantastic. But when you put it back together it worked wonderfully and it never turned inside out and it was beautiful.
I hate when umbrellas turn inside out. Not only do I hate it because I am suddenly exposed to the elements when I was not expecting it, but I feel like it is a personal betrayal of trust. I feel like I have been cheated on. I trusted the umbrella to shelter me, to keep me safe and warm and dry and then it flips inside out and all of a sudden there I am, awkward and trying to convince it to come back to me while everybody watches “Please, baby, I know you want to run away with the wind. I know being stable is boring… but… but… I NEED you, please go back to how you were” and the worst part, the part I hate the most, is that you know, you KNOW with that sick feeling in your gut that once it happens the first time it’s going to happen over and over and over again, any time the wind blows. From then on your umbrella is totally unreliable, but you can never bring yourself to buy another one because, well, you already have an umbrella. And who buys umbrellas anyway, until you’re stuck in the rain somewhere, which explains why we always get the cheapest ones. You may have guessed this already, but my umbrella cheated on me. I can’t really blame it because the wind here, as it was on this day, can be ridiculous. The little traitor is sitting in the hallway right now thinking about what it has done. Obviously I’ll forgive it and use it again with no hard feelings, but I’m not sure if I can really learn to trust it, since its integrity was compromised so early on.
update:
tl;dr version: sometimes it rains, sometimes it doesn't. it's hard to tell which is which.
I have some theories for why this might be. Most of the explanations lie in the fact that Scotland is not so much a place as an entity; an entity which loves just a taste of madness, madness like salt should flavor food-just enough to make the experience richer, but not enough to overwhelm the palate. The explanation lies within the fact that Scotland herself is a quirky little bird of a country, and intent on forcing those who live here to let go of caring about unimportant things like what side of the sidewalk to walk on or whether or not it’s raining, and concentrate on things that are real like highlands and stories and dancing and getting drunk.
The types of rain here are vast, and each of them is designed with the specific and mischievous intent of making those who spend any amount of time here at all either decide to go absolutely batty or simply let go, content in the knowledge that everything is, after all, what it is.
The first and most common type of rain is the way Scotland has of simply being wet. The atmosphere can be a thick cloud of “rainy” type air more dense than what could be called a fog, since everything instantly begins to gleam when it ventures outdoors, and it doesn’t really obscure vision like a fog- it could legitimately be called a drizzle if it were moving in any way that was even a little consistent with gravity or wind. But you can still feel it, because it has individual drops, and if it’s cold enough outside the drops sting you in the face a little. I’ll call it a frizzle. This state of wetness exists for the sole purpose of mocking those who try to defy it with an umbrella and (also) those who are silly enough to purchase blow dryers.
The first time you come across this weather, you think to yourself, “Ok, I’ve got this. I am prepared. I have rain gear. I have dealt with rain before. No biggie.” You aren’t worried, because you are a silly and naïve person with no idea what you are getting yourself into or the forces you are coming up against. You will break out your rain coat, your wellingtons, your brand new umbrella, and rush to wherever you are meant to go. You avoid puddles and walk under trees-but not the edges of trees because those drip!- and do whatever possible to increase your rain avoidance. You are fully confident in your ability to avoid becoming wet. As you walk you pass a pitying glance at the people who got caught in the frizzle with no suitable rain gear. You arrive, take off your jacket, and realize that you are soaking. Your clothes are soaking through your rain coat (how is that possible?). Your hair is stuck to the side of your head. Your face is dripping with what you hope is water, although it could be snot because you have just realized that you think you are sick, and that your face is numb. Your socks are wet. Your hands are pruny. On the bright side, it’s occurring to you that you feel like you just drank the ocean and won’t need another glass of water for months.
The second time you experience it, you break out some semi water proof shoes and a water proof jacket and run from overhang to overhang. There you are, looking for the dry places. Hugging the walls of buildings. Cutting through buildings when possible. You stand in the bus stops and curse the wind when it blows, cutting into you. You arrive sopping wet. You know why? Because there is nothing you can do to stop it. You can be in the comfort of your own home in a freaking ziplock bag and get still wet when this type of rain comes. If you’re ever in Scotland taking a bath and suddenly feel cold and as if the water just got wetter, you know what the weather is outside.
The third time you experience the frizzle, you throw on a few layers for warmth, and so you have something to take off at your destination (the frizzle sees skin, in addition to clothing, gravity, wind, hair, cars, international law, hope, and buildings not so much as a barrier but as a challenge and happily goes right through your skin to cool your entire body down to the same temperature as the surrounding air in a matter of nanoseconds) and walk to your destination.
The fourth time you experience this weather, you notice that the people around are out in about the same numbers as in dry weather (I’m not exaggerating here at all), walking at the same pace, standing outside, talking to each other. You slow down. If you see someone you know you stop and have a chat. The most amazing thing is, when you arrive… you are slightly damp. Yes- your hair is absurd, but your cheeks are a lovely shade of pink and you aren’t soaked- because Scotland likes to screw with you. The only difference from dry weather is you don’t see people reading while outside, since the frizzle eats books like candy. I once took out a book in the frizzle and watched it disintegrate before my eyes as tiny shrieks came out from the wet pulp sitting in the space in my hands where a book had been just moments before. I stared at it, not comprehending how anything could change so fast, and wondering what would happen if the crazies found out about this power of Scotland and harnessed it for evil.
If books are candy, then hair is like oxygen for frizzle. People with straight hair don the “drown rat” look. People with curly hair come in with the “new escaped from the insane asylum” hair do. I once saw a bald man have a bad hair day here. Scotland’s generally wet drizzle instills life in hair. This life, however, is a wanton, naughty child which cackles and plays and takes on a personality of its own, often completely different from that of the owner. I have seen shy people who would prefer to fly under the radar of the general public walk in with hair sticking every which way in a beautiful, partly curled look which drew every eye in the room and was the envy of artsy people across the globe who spent fruitless hours at the mirror trying to achieve the same effect. I saw people who spent hours expressing themselves through their hair sigh as they caught a glimpse of themselves in a window and pull it up in a discrete pony tail. My hair prefers to fluctuate between looking wavy with soft ringlets (this generally happens on the way home when nobody will see me) and looking as if I haven’t washed it in quite some time, or my personal favorite, looking like I am in late elementary school by developing the bump on the back of my head that is typical of prepubescent girls. I don’t understand why this particular look is typical of girls age 8-10 and people with severe bedhead, but it also apparently is typical of a certain 23 year old Masters student in Scotland.
One of my classmates put the experience perfectly, “You get all done up in the morning only to arrive at class late, out of breath and looking like crap from the rain, since there isn’t anything you could have done about it and an umbrella won’t do a bit of good. Then you start looking around and realize that all of your classmates look like total crap too with their hair a mess because they walked through the rain too. Then your teacher arrives and her hair is ridiculous too and you realize that there isn’t a damn thing anyone in the world can do to stop the rain and you all look ridiculous so nobody cares and it’s great.” And it is. It’s great. Because it just really doesn’t matter at all. I don’t own a hairbrush. I am free and easy and I love it here. Originally I was going to buy one, but then I decided, why bother? And it really hasn’t made the least bit of difference. Of course if Lauren visits, I’m stealing hers and saying she forgot one, but that’s just a matter of principle.
I remember the first time I saw someone walking through the frizzle and realized that they were not happy to be walking in the rain. They weren’t unhappy to be walking in the rain. I’m not even sure they realized it was raining. I was floored when I realized that nobody seemed to mind the frizzle at all. Nobody seemed to notice. Nobody seemed particularly bothered by something so trivial as a little bit of rain that couldn’t be avoided- after all, it is Scotland. Then I started looking around and think to myself, “It’s only the tourists that are using umbrellas. We are the only ones who know that it’s raining… That or we’re the only ones who think an umbrella will do any good.” So there we are, walking with the umbrella, with all the Scots look at us thinking to themselves in their indecipherable but adorable accents, “ah yes! Isn’t that cute? They still believe an umbrella will help. They still think an umbrella will save them from the frizzle.”
The second type of rain is rain. Real rain. The kind that comes down, plop! And you can hear each one. Good, decent, respectable rain. The kind that bounces off the top of your umbrella and rolls down the sides and jumps off the edge onto the ground where they form puddles and have parties and drink tea and sing songs and jump up to see who can hang on to the back of cars bumpers the longest and obeys all laws of gravity without the little raindrop police having to come by and put them in little raindrop-sized handcuffs and cart them off to rain drop prison. This is the kind that makes the Scotts (generally) bust out their umbrellas. This usually happens at least once a day, although it can happen more on rainy days. It doesn’t last long. Additionally, even though it is decent and innocent and good plopping rain, it often canoodles with the frizzle- so that just one or two vagrant teen age raindrops will come down SPLASH! on your face when you’re walking sans umbrella, or a 3 minute shower will come when it was frizzling and you were already wet but you weren’t expecting to be so soaked and I had no idea- really I didn’t- no idea at all that rain had the capacity to cackle at you as it comes down, but I swear that’s the sound the part rain/part frizzle makes when you are hiding under [insert nearest inadequate shelter here]. It mocks me, but it also sings to me. It tells me “look and see, see how shiny I make things? See how green I make things? See how new I make old things look and how old I make new things look? Look at me! Look at me! Pay attention to me! I can come down! I can make noise!” And yet I haven't seen a proper storm. I hope they'll come eventually.
I’ve always liked wind and rain. They are so present tense.
The third type of rain is not so much rain, as the way Scotland screws with your head by being brighter when raining than during the in between rain periods. I know everywhere in the world experiences the raining while sunny phenomenon so don’t get all “Oh look, she’s making a big deal out of nothing. It rains while it’s sunny here too. ‘Ooooh look at me, I’m Kirsten and I get confused by rain and sun together. What is this black magic that it can rain while sunny?’” My point is that it frequently gets a little brighter while raining and then gets darker in between, which begins to screw with you after a while because your subconscious starts to associate it being just a little brighter with rain and maybe also with that time when you were five and would play in the sprinkler in the sun and then it makes you think that it is always rainy or always sunny or in some sort of limbo state of neither rainy nor not rainy because rainy and sunny aren’t really opposites anymore like they taught you or maybe the weather is like Schrodinger’s cat and it is both raining and not raining and Scotland is the proverbial box.
I also haven’t seen any worms on the sidewalk. I wonder if they have worms in Scotland. Or maybe the worms know how to swim so they don’t need to come out when it rains to keep from drowning. I always thought it was sad that they had to come out to save themselves and then sometimes the ground was still too wet to go back home, but the sun was too hot and they died and I felt so sorry for the worms with nowhere to go and nothing you could do to save them. In the third grade my best friend Debra and I used to try to save them by building little houses of sticks and grass on the sidewalk to shade them from the heat until they could go home and carry them into it, but other girls thought it was gross and the boys thought it was dumb. But I always hated trying to avoid stepping on them and not just because sometimes you accidentally squished that huge a worm on the sidewalk after a rain and a bit of it stuck to your shoe and got all over you when you took them off and you were sure the sharks could smell death on you-since fish eat worms and sharks are fish- and they would come eat you, but because I just felt so sorry for them. Also they smelled. Maybe, also, Scottish worms wear little sweaters because it can get very chilly sometimes and they don’t have much body fat, though probably it is not so cold underground since there isn’t the wind such, but they might still want a nice scarf or something.
The last type of rain that is of note in that it very likely to drive you completely insane until you decide it doesn’t matter at all is the spritzing. This is a small squirt of light rain that comes periodically because someone has a squirt bottle, lies in wait, and sprays you a few times as you walk past. It doesn’t last very long, but it happens nearly every time you go outside, particularly if you want to look nice. It could be the sunniest, most beautiful day out and you will walk out and feel a little spritz. Sometimes the entire sky will join in the spritzing party and spritz a little here and there, throwing it like confetti or candy at a parade for two to three minutes until it gets bored and goes off to look for some town up near Orkney or some tourists on the top level of a bus that it can rain on. When you walk out the door, you will feel a short spritz, usually in the face or on the back of the head. Don’t take offense, in reality it’s a sort of greeting, like telling you “Welcome outside! We missed you! Here, have some rain!”
If you turn around quickly enough you will see a short, happy little Scotsman from the Ministry of Rain with a squirt bottle aimed at the back of your head who thinks water is the greatest thing there is or ever was, but they are highly trained in ninja-like techniques, so it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to spot one unless he’s a rooky. They also come by about every half hour and squirt your windows when you aren’t looking so there are always some droplets on any window at any given time, no matter what; leaving the impression that it always just rained a little. Again, this is because Scotland cares/is screwing with you and never wants you to feel as if it isn’t either raining or having just rained and is about to start again after a short intermission for bathroom breaks and chips and such. The spritzing is long enough to render your hair completely ridiculous and short enough to make an umbrella completely useless since even though an umbrella could stop the spritz, it lasts for such a short period of time that by the time you have it open the little Scott with the squirt bottle has moved on, shaking their head at you and saying in his laughing Glaswegian accent “An umbrella? This is just the wee spritzing service. This isn’t hearty rain. Let’s not be selfish. This bottle has to last for more people than just you.”
I’m having some difficulty with the whole umbrella issue anyway. I have always felt that, as a moral issue, umbrellas ought to be large. I don’t do that little flimsy purse umbrella nonsense. I feel like an umbrella should be able to shield one person completely from the rain, and at least two people easily if they are willing to snuggle just a little. However, the problem with having a big umbrella is that the sidewalks in here are very small. I didn’t realize this until I was walking with my umbrella up and had to lift it up over people so that we could pass. There just isn’t room for a big umbrella on these sidewalks. I’m not entirely sure what to do about this.
I also am a huge advocate of the big umbrella because it is less likely to turn inside out on you when the wind begins to blow. One of the exceptions to this love of the big umbrella was a purse sized umbrella that I had as an undergraduate. It had Monet’s water lilies on it and was broken so that when you pushed the button to open it, if you didn’t hold the top, the whole thing would go shooting forward a few feet forward leaving you holding that little handle part at the bottom. It was fantastic. But when you put it back together it worked wonderfully and it never turned inside out and it was beautiful.
I hate when umbrellas turn inside out. Not only do I hate it because I am suddenly exposed to the elements when I was not expecting it, but I feel like it is a personal betrayal of trust. I feel like I have been cheated on. I trusted the umbrella to shelter me, to keep me safe and warm and dry and then it flips inside out and all of a sudden there I am, awkward and trying to convince it to come back to me while everybody watches “Please, baby, I know you want to run away with the wind. I know being stable is boring… but… but… I NEED you, please go back to how you were” and the worst part, the part I hate the most, is that you know, you KNOW with that sick feeling in your gut that once it happens the first time it’s going to happen over and over and over again, any time the wind blows. From then on your umbrella is totally unreliable, but you can never bring yourself to buy another one because, well, you already have an umbrella. And who buys umbrellas anyway, until you’re stuck in the rain somewhere, which explains why we always get the cheapest ones. You may have guessed this already, but my umbrella cheated on me. I can’t really blame it because the wind here, as it was on this day, can be ridiculous. The little traitor is sitting in the hallway right now thinking about what it has done. Obviously I’ll forgive it and use it again with no hard feelings, but I’m not sure if I can really learn to trust it, since its integrity was compromised so early on.
update:
tl;dr version: sometimes it rains, sometimes it doesn't. it's hard to tell which is which.
sidewalk mayhem
I almost feel bad about giving my mom a hard time about it. Almost. But it was something to laugh about, so it’s not all that bad- right? of course right. It turns out all the North Americans are ill at ease about the seeming inability of the Glaswegians, and general Scottish public, to pick a side of the side walk to walk down. I think I have a harder time than most because in the two months I spent in Uganda I could never quite get a hang of walking down the left- no right!- shoot! It was the left- side of the sidewalk. In the end I spent a great deal of time running into people, or having head shaken at me condescendingly, or doing that thing where you both stand and move to either side at the same time and it’s super awkward and usually men think you are flirting with them when it happens and then it takes you minutes of explanation that you REALLY didn’t know which side of the sidewalk to be on and, no, you don’t want to give them your number because, no, you weren’t flirting with them and no, you are not interested in dating/marriage/just coffee thank you very much I’m already a bit late to whatever meeting I just made up in my head.
But all of us (us being the North Americans- myself, the Canadians, the other US citizens- though not the one whose father was English, even though I did not notice this problem in England, and believe me- I would have noticed) hate the ridiculousness of the refusal to choose sides. This is Scotland, for heaven’s sake, not Switzerland, just pick one and walk on it. And all of us notice it. Maybe this is because in the back of our minds we hear our grade school teachers’ voices
“All right class, now let’s walk quietly down the hall. Stay on the right side. Oh and Billy, honey, please keep your finger out of your nose. Thank you dear. Hands to yourself. Everybody knows which is the right side, don’t they? Good. Let’s sing the happy working song as we go…”
And it always seemed clear that walking down a hall was like driving. So, since the Brits drive down the left, shouldn’t they walk down the left as well? And yet as I walk down the left side of the sidewalk or hallway, there I am, face to face with someone approaching me on the same side. At first I brushed it off as an international not as clever as I to have figured out that WE (“we” of course, refers to the Scottish and the enlightened foreigners- the elite, if you will, clever enough to integrate themselves almost instantly upon arrival) walk on the left side. Until I realized. It. Was. The. Scottish. Too. I asked a few Scotts about this phenomenon over beers.
The answer?
Every time, it was a shrug of the shoulders. “I don’t suppose it matters really, just dodge whoever comes your way.”
“But if it were standardized nobody would hit each other and you could walk in straight lines (increasing efficiency)”
“Yes, I suppose it would be shorter not to weave back and forth so much dodging people. Honestly I’ve never thought about it before… I probably won’t ever think about it again either.”
Two Canadians (at the table with me) and one American (um… that would be me) sit dumbstruck. This is crap. I want answers! I want to know which side! And for heaven’s sake I want it taught in schools, I want a public awareness campaign, bake sales, Mothers Against Crooked Walking meetings- so that the Scots can finally understand why it is important that I know which side of the sidewalk I’m supposed to walk on. I have to write a paper about which Human Right is most important to me; I am seriously considering the right to walk in a straight line instead of having to dodge people too noncommittal to choose.
“Actually, though, we walk on the right side of the corridor,” he clarified a bit later. Corridor=hallway, in case you were wondering. Oh goodness, this does complicate matters. They drive on the left (which it turns out was so that you could dismount your horse without being in the middle of traffic, so that makes sense historically), but then they walk on the right side of the hallway? Oh sweet mercy. What can expect of a society, of a people, of a culture and an education system that refuses to form a uniform way of walking down the sidewalk? They are, all of them, live wires. Loose cannons. If they are willing to weave back and forth haphazardly on their way going down the street, how will they vote? What will they eat? What will they drink? What will they wear? How will they act? How will they love? How will they fight? How do you know what to expect from a people that are fundamentally unpredictable?
The next day I am still wondering about these crazy Scots. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a habit oriented person. I don’t sleep on the same side of the bed every night. I get antsy if I stay do the same thing every day in a row. I don’t really care if itineraries are followed or not. I would consider myself a “go with the flow person.” But that phrase- “just go with the flow” is one I have heard more odd times than I would have expected. While having my carpet redone, a few days after moving in, I was sitting on the couch of the room while the carpet was being put down IN THAT ROOM.
“Where do you want me to go?” I asked
“Well, just now you’re fine right there. Just go with the flow.”
And later, during orientation, I asked another student what there was to do. Of course the response was the same- a few suggestions of bars and clubs and things, then “just go with the flow.” The really amazing thing about that response being that he wasn’t blowing me off at all, he really wasn’t.
I’ve heard it at least twice more and I’ve only been here a week and a half.
The other strange thing about this crazy culture where people genuinely never consider why you might want to all walk on one side of the sidewalk instead of bumping into each other and where it’s not really necessary to move off the couch in the room that’s being recarpetted “just yet” because they aren’t going to be to that particular section for another 5 minutes or so- is that they run surprisingly on schedule.
It’s not like Africa time- a very, very lax way of dealing with time tables and schedules- where a bus leaving “at 2” might leave at 2 or 3 or the next day and will invariably contain live chickens that are sitting on your feet and squawk when you go over bumps. But every tour I have been on, every bus I have gone on (so far), every train and class and lecture has run within one minute of its scheduled time. That’s better than many European countries I went to. So I wonder how it is that they decide what is and is not important. Apparently swerving like a madman all over the sidewalk to avoid traffic isn’t given a thought, but clearly there is time subconsciously added to account for this inefficiency when determining how long it will take to get somewhere.
update:
tl;dr version: People walk on both sides of the sidewalk, causing them to swerve. I like these swervy people.
But all of us (us being the North Americans- myself, the Canadians, the other US citizens- though not the one whose father was English, even though I did not notice this problem in England, and believe me- I would have noticed) hate the ridiculousness of the refusal to choose sides. This is Scotland, for heaven’s sake, not Switzerland, just pick one and walk on it. And all of us notice it. Maybe this is because in the back of our minds we hear our grade school teachers’ voices
“All right class, now let’s walk quietly down the hall. Stay on the right side. Oh and Billy, honey, please keep your finger out of your nose. Thank you dear. Hands to yourself. Everybody knows which is the right side, don’t they? Good. Let’s sing the happy working song as we go…”
And it always seemed clear that walking down a hall was like driving. So, since the Brits drive down the left, shouldn’t they walk down the left as well? And yet as I walk down the left side of the sidewalk or hallway, there I am, face to face with someone approaching me on the same side. At first I brushed it off as an international not as clever as I to have figured out that WE (“we” of course, refers to the Scottish and the enlightened foreigners- the elite, if you will, clever enough to integrate themselves almost instantly upon arrival) walk on the left side. Until I realized. It. Was. The. Scottish. Too. I asked a few Scotts about this phenomenon over beers.
The answer?
Every time, it was a shrug of the shoulders. “I don’t suppose it matters really, just dodge whoever comes your way.”
“But if it were standardized nobody would hit each other and you could walk in straight lines (increasing efficiency)”
“Yes, I suppose it would be shorter not to weave back and forth so much dodging people. Honestly I’ve never thought about it before… I probably won’t ever think about it again either.”
Two Canadians (at the table with me) and one American (um… that would be me) sit dumbstruck. This is crap. I want answers! I want to know which side! And for heaven’s sake I want it taught in schools, I want a public awareness campaign, bake sales, Mothers Against Crooked Walking meetings- so that the Scots can finally understand why it is important that I know which side of the sidewalk I’m supposed to walk on. I have to write a paper about which Human Right is most important to me; I am seriously considering the right to walk in a straight line instead of having to dodge people too noncommittal to choose.
“Actually, though, we walk on the right side of the corridor,” he clarified a bit later. Corridor=hallway, in case you were wondering. Oh goodness, this does complicate matters. They drive on the left (which it turns out was so that you could dismount your horse without being in the middle of traffic, so that makes sense historically), but then they walk on the right side of the hallway? Oh sweet mercy. What can expect of a society, of a people, of a culture and an education system that refuses to form a uniform way of walking down the sidewalk? They are, all of them, live wires. Loose cannons. If they are willing to weave back and forth haphazardly on their way going down the street, how will they vote? What will they eat? What will they drink? What will they wear? How will they act? How will they love? How will they fight? How do you know what to expect from a people that are fundamentally unpredictable?
The next day I am still wondering about these crazy Scots. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a habit oriented person. I don’t sleep on the same side of the bed every night. I get antsy if I stay do the same thing every day in a row. I don’t really care if itineraries are followed or not. I would consider myself a “go with the flow person.” But that phrase- “just go with the flow” is one I have heard more odd times than I would have expected. While having my carpet redone, a few days after moving in, I was sitting on the couch of the room while the carpet was being put down IN THAT ROOM.
“Where do you want me to go?” I asked
“Well, just now you’re fine right there. Just go with the flow.”
And later, during orientation, I asked another student what there was to do. Of course the response was the same- a few suggestions of bars and clubs and things, then “just go with the flow.” The really amazing thing about that response being that he wasn’t blowing me off at all, he really wasn’t.
I’ve heard it at least twice more and I’ve only been here a week and a half.
The other strange thing about this crazy culture where people genuinely never consider why you might want to all walk on one side of the sidewalk instead of bumping into each other and where it’s not really necessary to move off the couch in the room that’s being recarpetted “just yet” because they aren’t going to be to that particular section for another 5 minutes or so- is that they run surprisingly on schedule.
It’s not like Africa time- a very, very lax way of dealing with time tables and schedules- where a bus leaving “at 2” might leave at 2 or 3 or the next day and will invariably contain live chickens that are sitting on your feet and squawk when you go over bumps. But every tour I have been on, every bus I have gone on (so far), every train and class and lecture has run within one minute of its scheduled time. That’s better than many European countries I went to. So I wonder how it is that they decide what is and is not important. Apparently swerving like a madman all over the sidewalk to avoid traffic isn’t given a thought, but clearly there is time subconsciously added to account for this inefficiency when determining how long it will take to get somewhere.
update:
tl;dr version: People walk on both sides of the sidewalk, causing them to swerve. I like these swervy people.
the michell
three of you have already read this.
My mother’s favorite thing about Glasgow was the Michell library. Nearly every morning, and usually at least one other time during the day, a visit was paid to the library- ostensibly to use the internet since mine wasn’t running yet- but usually to eat at the café (“Look! They have a café in the library! Isn’t that great?”), or listen to the musicians playing (“Oh my gosh, Kirsten, can you believe that they have a string quartet playing in the library? I think that’s wonderful”), or look at the art (“You have to come see this art”).
I came home from a tour of the University of Glasgow’s library during orientation week and sat down, ripped off my shoes, and promptly began rubbing my sore feet- which were beginning to complain more quickly each day from walking miles up and down hills in $10 sneakers from Target that were ripping on the sides. I looked up to see her smiling. Glowing.
“So… what did you do while I was gone?”
“I visited my library”
“You love that library”
“I do love it. It’s a place of wonder and imagination.”
“Oh, wow, mom.”
“And magic.”
“Ok, don’t go overboard”
“No, it is! It’s magical! It’s inspiring.”
“Ok, but seriously.”
“I took a picture of the bathroom,” she said as she walked out of the room into the hallway.
I sat up as this processed and looked at her retreating form.
We had been in The UK for almost a week now.
“You haven’t taken any pictures of the apartment. You haven’t taken a single picture of the city.”
“I know, but it was so wonderful…”
“OR ME, mom, you haven’t taken any pictures of me, but you took a picture of the BATHROOM of the library”
“You’re going to come with me and let me show you how wonderful it is, aren’t you?”
update:
tl;dr version: my mom is funny. the library is cool.
My mother’s favorite thing about Glasgow was the Michell library. Nearly every morning, and usually at least one other time during the day, a visit was paid to the library- ostensibly to use the internet since mine wasn’t running yet- but usually to eat at the café (“Look! They have a café in the library! Isn’t that great?”), or listen to the musicians playing (“Oh my gosh, Kirsten, can you believe that they have a string quartet playing in the library? I think that’s wonderful”), or look at the art (“You have to come see this art”).
I came home from a tour of the University of Glasgow’s library during orientation week and sat down, ripped off my shoes, and promptly began rubbing my sore feet- which were beginning to complain more quickly each day from walking miles up and down hills in $10 sneakers from Target that were ripping on the sides. I looked up to see her smiling. Glowing.
“So… what did you do while I was gone?”
“I visited my library”
“You love that library”
“I do love it. It’s a place of wonder and imagination.”
“Oh, wow, mom.”
“And magic.”
“Ok, don’t go overboard”
“No, it is! It’s magical! It’s inspiring.”
“Ok, but seriously.”
“I took a picture of the bathroom,” she said as she walked out of the room into the hallway.
I sat up as this processed and looked at her retreating form.
We had been in The UK for almost a week now.
“You haven’t taken any pictures of the apartment. You haven’t taken a single picture of the city.”
“I know, but it was so wonderful…”
“OR ME, mom, you haven’t taken any pictures of me, but you took a picture of the BATHROOM of the library”
“You’re going to come with me and let me show you how wonderful it is, aren’t you?”
update:
tl;dr version: my mom is funny. the library is cool.
hello. welcome.
I have a blog.
Despite my snotty reply to Bryan when he asked if I would ever have a blog (“I did start a blog... except I call it a journal and it doesn't have a url and I'm the only one who reads it, but sometimes I post comments to make myself feel better. also I ‘upload’ pictures using my pen... then it becomes a webcomic.”) and then, not even 3 seconds later, here I am… blogging. So Bryan has retribution and I am not nearly as cool and aloof as I would like to be.
So yes. The title, purpose, and um… rules, so to speak. I am, unfortunately, a hopeless narcissist. In my defense, I kind of like to think that we are all of us narcissists, but that may just be me projecting. I think blogging is sort of narcissistic. Hey look at me and read what I have done! I’m sorry for blogging and for being self absorbed.
(I’m not really sorry)
(but I sort of wish I was which is almost the same thing)
In case you were wondering..............
The curious part comes from the fact that I have always like the word, something I described once to a coworker named Franz- who, incidentally, I still think I should have been best friends with growing up. I think it would have been good for both of us. I hold a grudge against whatever force it was the stopped that from happening. Anyway, I showed him a fantastic blog called curiousexpeditions and was saying that I like the word curious. He asked if I liked the word inquisitive too.
Inquisitive is ok. I like inquisitive, but it implies so much more academic of an approach, doesn’t it? Inquisitive sees an electric socket for the first time and asks what it is, looks up how it works. Curious sticks a fork in it to see what happens. Incidentally, I actually did this once, when I was old enough to know better, at least 7 I think. We were getting the light switches fixed by the stairs at our old house and the electrician left to get some water or something just as I walked down the stairs. Finding myself alone with bare wires and having heard that you shouldn’t touch them “because I said so” I did something potentially disasterous but, I think, totally natural- I touched one. It hurt. Really badly. I had a tiny burn on my finger that I didn’t show anybody and I have never told anyone that story until now, which should tell you something about the dangers of blogging.
Inquisitive go on a tour of a European city. Curious goes to Switzerland, picks a direction and walks in it until we find a little village having their annual village yard sale where we end up buying a guitar and sneaking it onto airplanes to get it back.
If someone says, “this smells bad.” Inquisitive asks what it is. Curious grabs it and sniffs too, says, “oh gross!” and then asks what it is.
Curious tends to get in trouble, but it’s a lot more fun that way. And I am enticed and beckoned by the call of adventure and sit enraptured at the feet of all things interesting, particularly stories- which hold such a strong allure for me that I can say with conviction that stories are one of the greatest things in the world.
Inquisitive sifts through information to find what’s important and relevant. Curious delights in all information and is insatiable, and adventurous, and delves deeper, and looks at trees and rocks and wonders about everything and allows itself to be amazed. It brings up images of Alice in Wonderland, and it often gets in trouble or lost, because it is hungry and willing try things and look at things and listen to things and I like to think that I am particularly curious about people. Humans. And thus, my curious, narcissistic life among humans.
Finally, I am a walking dichotomy of hugely vain and wildly insecure about my writing. Be nice, mostly because it’s totally ok to wage war against you if you aren’t (I’m in human rights and international politics, I know these things), and I haven’t the slightest qualm about hiring a hit man to kick you in the shins. Maybe I’ll grade it so you can skip to the good parts. Maybe I won’t. Finally I want you to laugh because I love you and I love when you laugh.
update:
tl;dr version: hi!
Despite my snotty reply to Bryan when he asked if I would ever have a blog (“I did start a blog... except I call it a journal and it doesn't have a url and I'm the only one who reads it, but sometimes I post comments to make myself feel better. also I ‘upload’ pictures using my pen... then it becomes a webcomic.”) and then, not even 3 seconds later, here I am… blogging. So Bryan has retribution and I am not nearly as cool and aloof as I would like to be.
So yes. The title, purpose, and um… rules, so to speak. I am, unfortunately, a hopeless narcissist. In my defense, I kind of like to think that we are all of us narcissists, but that may just be me projecting. I think blogging is sort of narcissistic. Hey look at me and read what I have done! I’m sorry for blogging and for being self absorbed.
(I’m not really sorry)
(but I sort of wish I was which is almost the same thing)
In case you were wondering..............
The curious part comes from the fact that I have always like the word, something I described once to a coworker named Franz- who, incidentally, I still think I should have been best friends with growing up. I think it would have been good for both of us. I hold a grudge against whatever force it was the stopped that from happening. Anyway, I showed him a fantastic blog called curiousexpeditions and was saying that I like the word curious. He asked if I liked the word inquisitive too.
Inquisitive is ok. I like inquisitive, but it implies so much more academic of an approach, doesn’t it? Inquisitive sees an electric socket for the first time and asks what it is, looks up how it works. Curious sticks a fork in it to see what happens. Incidentally, I actually did this once, when I was old enough to know better, at least 7 I think. We were getting the light switches fixed by the stairs at our old house and the electrician left to get some water or something just as I walked down the stairs. Finding myself alone with bare wires and having heard that you shouldn’t touch them “because I said so” I did something potentially disasterous but, I think, totally natural- I touched one. It hurt. Really badly. I had a tiny burn on my finger that I didn’t show anybody and I have never told anyone that story until now, which should tell you something about the dangers of blogging.
Inquisitive go on a tour of a European city. Curious goes to Switzerland, picks a direction and walks in it until we find a little village having their annual village yard sale where we end up buying a guitar and sneaking it onto airplanes to get it back.
If someone says, “this smells bad.” Inquisitive asks what it is. Curious grabs it and sniffs too, says, “oh gross!” and then asks what it is.
Curious tends to get in trouble, but it’s a lot more fun that way. And I am enticed and beckoned by the call of adventure and sit enraptured at the feet of all things interesting, particularly stories- which hold such a strong allure for me that I can say with conviction that stories are one of the greatest things in the world.
Inquisitive sifts through information to find what’s important and relevant. Curious delights in all information and is insatiable, and adventurous, and delves deeper, and looks at trees and rocks and wonders about everything and allows itself to be amazed. It brings up images of Alice in Wonderland, and it often gets in trouble or lost, because it is hungry and willing try things and look at things and listen to things and I like to think that I am particularly curious about people. Humans. And thus, my curious, narcissistic life among humans.
Finally, I am a walking dichotomy of hugely vain and wildly insecure about my writing. Be nice, mostly because it’s totally ok to wage war against you if you aren’t (I’m in human rights and international politics, I know these things), and I haven’t the slightest qualm about hiring a hit man to kick you in the shins. Maybe I’ll grade it so you can skip to the good parts. Maybe I won’t. Finally I want you to laugh because I love you and I love when you laugh.
update:
tl;dr version: hi!
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