creativity

I was lying in bed last night thinking about how while commercial website stuff is easy as pie, sometimes I have a really hard time being creative 8 hours a day at work whenever I'm assigned to do a travel guide. I mean really... there's only so much you can do to make 13th-century history "come alive," a dusty archaeological museum seem like a "can't miss" or a Spanish language course (the one commercial page and therefore whole purpose of each 100-page guide website) sound as exciting as a wild night of debauchery on the town. I myself prefer to limit my vacation to non-educational activities like eating, drinking, snapping a few photos and being a haughty American tourist.

So somehow that led me to thinking about how I used to write stories non-stop as a child. At the time I thought I was destined for awards... that my novels would line bookstore shelves... that people would cry over the heart-breaking dramatic scenes and chuckle at my witty way of describing amusing encounters between the well-developed and devilishly attractive characters. The words flowed from my magic marker onto the construction paper like fudge onto an ice cream sundae.

Back in the care-free days of Flanders Elementary School, we even got to publish our own "books." Basically, we scribbled the stories down in our still-in-the-works chicken scratch. Some volunteer mom would type these stories up, leaving the majority of each page blank so that you could grace it not only with your literary opus, but also with your artistic talents. Then, you picked out the fabric that would be on the cover and voila! A few weeks later you had, in your hands, a published hardcover book to bring home and show off.

So then I tried to remember what stories I had written... which is when I realized that my imagination was a bit on the strange side, even at the tender age of 8. Here's the plotline of one of my childhood stories. I remember my teacher actually sat down like, hmm Betsey this isn't really your best work, are you sure you don't focus on a different story? But I published it anyway. What can I say, I was dedicated to my craft.

Basically, it starts out with a woman who, to my recollection, has no name but is in the hospital because she's pregnant. She realizes she has to go to the bathroom, so she makes it there and is doing her business when plop... the baby falls out into the toilet like a turd. I was clearly a bit confused at the time regarding certain parts of the anatomy and their corresponding functions. Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes... I actually employed the word "plop."

She names her beloved newborn bundle-of-joy Diana, and after a few days they go home to embark on their lives as a family. Diana has a happy childhood, it would seem, but then one day she wakes up and her leg hurts. So her mom brings her to the hospital, where they discover she has a broken leg. So they give her a bright pink cast and she's all pumped because people get to sign it and such. Then, you turn the page....

...and the one line reads "The next day, Diana died." (I'm pretty sure this is when my teacher started raising her eyebrows.) So they have a funeral and her mom is a wreck. Then she decides to get four cats. The end.

Who smells a Nobel Prize for Literature in my future?

crosswalk woes

So I have dreams a lot when I sleep... and not of the unicorns or lottery-winning variety, either. Ironically, the earliest dream that I can remember involved my entire family getting eaten by alligators that circled in a dark pit located just inside the door to the local Cumberland Farms (ironic because they had gone in to buy Powerball tickets). I was 8.

My most consistent dream is being in a train that goes over a cliff due to a collapsed bridge. Freefalling. It's the dream I have every time I get into that "just falling asleep" stage when you randomly jump back awake.

Well, last night I had a dream that I was in the USA but trying to get back to Spain. For some reason the possibility of a plane flight didn't come into play, and yet a magical crosswalk did.

Basically, an otherwise white-striped, run-of-the-mill crosswalk in (whatever city I was in) took on the ability to transport people to other countries. All you had to do was pinpoint the exact moment at which this phenomenon would transpire, and then cross the crosswalk running at full speed... and bam! You'd end up in the destination of your choice. Kind of like Back to the Future.

However, I missed "the moment" because the crosswalk light didn't turn green in time, and I began running frantically back and forth across the crosswalk until I had to get dragged off the street by on-lookers. The crosswalk light had turned red again, and there was oncoming traffic.

WTF?

puppy love :o)

Oh and by the way, my apologies to Alfonso but I've fallen head over heels in love with Clyde.

Collective "awwwwwwwww."

i'm bored

The other day, I was involved in - and by "involved" I obviously mean in the passive, "just listening while I eat" kind of way - a conversation in which I'm pretty sure the general consensus was that the workplace in the United States is more laid-back than in Spain. Something along the lines of how, in the US, it seems that employees have more dress down days or don't have to go as fancy-shmancy to work to begin with. IIIIIIII disagreed (in my head), but decided to mull the idea over in the event that my mind was severely biased or otherwise warped. Nope, still disagree.

So then yesterday I came across an article in the NY Times talking about the American obsession with work, this time regarding taking vacation (or rather lack thereof). Two lil tidbits:

Simplified a bit, it runs as follows: a nation of remarkably productive, often well-paid workers who are becoming increasingly reluctant to pause from their labors and refresh their souls — a nation whose cash-drenched corporate employers typically don’t pay for much time off (less than two weeks annually, on average), a nation whose globe-gripping federal government is the only one in the whole industrialized world not to legally require generous periods of paid kick-back-and-hang time — is a nation that’s socially screwed up, particularly in comparison with European countries like France, which orders its citizens outside to play for the entire month of August and a few other weeks spread through the year.

The most widely cited diagnoses of our allegedly harmful undervacationing can be found by searching the Internet, the same Internet that even the dwindling number of full-vacation-takers are purportedly using to elevate their stress levels by logging on from beach resorts and national parks — where, according to concerned observers, they would be better off restricting themselves to restorative, out-of-cellphone-range pursuits like brisk morning swims and sunset nature walks. That fewer of us are doing so, it’s said, is a symptom of either anxious overcompetiveness; upward-mobility addiction ; the breakdown of the family...

The article then lists the following stats:

Legally required paid annual leave around the world, by days:
France: 30
Sweden: 25
Spain: 22
Australia: 20
Germany: 20
UK: 20
Canada: 10
Japan: 10
USA: 0... ZERO... ZILCH... NADA!

I'm sorry, but I can't see how any industrialized country that can legally bind you to your cubicle every single day, all year-round and expect 150% productivity can ever be called "relaxed." In fact, one of the reasons I'm drawn to Spain in the first place is the overwhelmingly relaxed atmosphere, at least by comparison. People enjoying life, meals that last for hours, people-watching from the hundreds sidewalk cafés, Sunday strolls, staying out all night (despite my geriatric ways of late) because you can and, yes, more vacation days to let you kick back and remember that there is more to life than alarm clocks, clients, reports and pesky coworkers.

So sure, Madrid is undeniably a big, bustling city, and granted I don't have, nor am I interested in, some hot-shot corporate job... but to me the vibe is a billion times more laid-back than anything I've known. Hell, it's more laid-back than the Student Center at Holy Cross. Does New York City, Washington D.C. or even Topeka, Kansas empty out overnight for an entire month during the summer? Negative. American cities are non-stop, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Right now in Spain, however, as Spaniards are off traveling, sleeping, hanging out with family and frolicking at the beach for a month, the capital city of Spain is so quiet that at night as I'm reading with the window open I can hear the chiming of the crosswalk light from a block away.

fun with inboxes

Now I love opening up my gmail and seeing that I have an email or two just waiting to be torn into. Oh, and by "something" I mean something other than the New York Times "Today's Headlines" that I signed up for or Myspace friend requests from 17 year old boys in the Dominican Republic who I don't know. Now if that something, on the other hand, happens to be an email from Emily Pereira, well... it's pretty much guaranteed to be an entertaining read.

During our Holy Cross year in Sevilla, Emily was always the comedic relief of the 8 of us... and undeniably everyone's favorite little Portuguesa. Now in D.C., I can only imagine that she's the life of the party at the State Department, where she's " ridding the world of AIDS from my position as assistant to the ambassador." Well, I don't know how many parties are to be had when you're dealing with AIDS legislation and such all day, but... you know what I mean.

Emily and I email back and forth EXTREMELY irregularly, meaning we'll go for months at a time without a word and then bust out a string of emails trying to out-funny each other. So after not hearing from her for ohhh 5 months I get a gem of an email that, before going into the usual string of funny anecdotes and life updates, starts out with:

little miss betty, where have you been?
out in the barn, playing with the hen?
are you still in spain, you crazy nut?
wearing pointy high heels and a layered hair cut?

by,
emily pereira

Hell, any email that starts out with a poem and ends with a "you are my soul sister girl. my souuull sister" is the way straight to my heart. Well, that and maybe pie.