I'm overhearing a girl read "dead baby jokes" out loud while chatting on a webcam with a boy. FML?
I would just like to note that she's, ahem, a Mac user.
On a recent visit to Barcelona with a friend, I was amused to find that many businesses really do close shop for several hours in the middle of the day. The happy and friendly residents of the city tend not to go out for dinner until nine or ten in the evening, and it’s customary to head out for a drink some time around midnight. My friend and I were told by the hotel staff that no one goes to dance clubs before two in the morning. Armed with typical American skepticism, we assumed that this meant that the clubs don’t really get hopping until about two in the morning. Cut to: Two American tourists standing alone in a cavernous dance club at 1:45.
To the swarthy and sexy residents of this seaside city, it seemed only logical that the hours between midnight and two were for socializing at bars. Then when the bars close at two, if the urge to dance is stronger than the urge to retire, off you go. And so it went, usually until about six in the morning.
After several nights of such debauchery, my friend and I found ourselves in conversation with the manager of our hotel. Naively, we asked him, “How does anybody get any work done if they close the businesses in the middle of the day and go out partying every night until the early morning?” The look of pity on his face spoke volumes. He smiled and confided in a most delightfully resigned manner, “You know, in America you are all in this mad race to be number one. And you know what? You win! You can be number one. Here, we would rather enjoy our lives.”
The statement was simple, but the truth it touched upon was a significant one. The frantic race to be number one is a sad and desperate compulsion. Whatever happened to just playing the game? Don’t parents teach that to their children? When did the rules change? When did it become a disappointment for an Olympic athlete to win a silver medal? Is happiness reserved exclusively for the one individual who places first, and everyone else is expected to shrink back in shame and disappointment? Who’s the genius who came up with that perspective?
Michael Flocker, The Hedonism Handbook: Mastering the Lost Arts of Leisure and Pleasure
I was looking over some old photos (good god I've taken so many in the past few years) and they never cease to bring a smile to my face. And looking at photos from Japan makes me totally want to revisit. There's no way I could live there indefinitely, but a few months would be wonderful. The food was so good.
P.S.
Not only does the lesson rhyme, it's also oh-so-true. Whenever my impatience makes me rush, I inevitably forget something that I otherwise wouldn't. This is annoying when I'm traveling, but simple inexcusably terrible when I'm shooting a wedding because I'm internally kicking myself afterward for letting people rush me unnecessarily.
Lesson learned. Take. Your. Time./affirmative nod/
