La Vie En...

So I was stalking my journalism professor the other day and looking at her blog. My favorite teacher is currently in Jordan and Turkey with a group of 20 students on a Middle East journalism dialogue. I was reading the students' blogs too, soaking up all this imagery and living vicariously through their hot summer adventures.

And then today, motivated by a conversation with my dad, I was looking at some Peace Corps information. I was skimming through the photos of these far-off places and looking at the requirements and doing a fancy little tango with the idea of "what if..."

And then I got thinking about Paris next fall and looking up Rosetta Stone (because I fail at French) and thinking about how "exscary" (exciting + scary) it will be to fly someplace even further away, but how amazing it will be to eat pain au chocolate every morning and Nutella crepes and gain 20 pounds.

I tend to think that I've got every second of my life planned out because much of it is. Color-coded with stickers. But the parts that I don't have planned--like what I do after I graduate (Peace Corps, law school, grad school, job?), how I'll manage when I'm abroad, where I'll be in 5 years--fascinate me.

I was looking at all those pictures, all the imagery and beauty of the world and I'm giddy with it. I'm high on beauty. I'm fascinated by the potential and by my opportunities. I'm swimming in this pool of color and sound and glory and it's all so sensual. I want to roll around in it and smother myself with all the beauty that surrounds me. Is that insane? (I don't care).

I see these pictures and hear these stories and can't help but think about everything I haven't experienced yet, everything that can't be planned. I think of all the undiscovered food and music and festivals and cobblestone paths... I think about the smells and the breathtaking views and the people in the world that I have yet to meet. I think of all the beauty I've experienced and the excesses of beauty that I've yet to experience and I'm absolutely giddy with happiness. It's fascinating, this.

I'm giddy with beauty. And it's like I'm seeing the world through acid-spiked glasses. Everything is colorful and overwhelming and quintessentially sublime. La vie en acid. Now isn't that something.

Bermuda, Bahama, Come on Pretty Mama

Yesterday was legitimately Hurray for Buttons Day. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to celebrate that. Soooo I’ll talk about something else.

I got back from the Bahamas on Saturday and spend Sunday with the lovely Laura Max before she left to return to Boston. The trip was fantastic… morning coffee and relaxation, five hours at the pool or beach, afternoon shower and Law and Order marathon, dinner, bed, repeat. And rum, lots of rum.

We ate conch (pronounced “conk.” Insert sexual joke here.) fritters and fried conch and various fruity beverages. We swam in the gloriously beautiful water. We rode jet skis. We shopped. We read. We talked. We laughed. Oh, and we also discovered guava jam, which is the definition of heaven.

We also burned. I started the week with sun poisoning and ended it with a prickling-ly painful sunburn. But it was splendid. Book review to come on Kim Barker’s Taliban Shuffle, which I spent my afternoons devouring.

In all, I feel refreshed and relaxed and spoiled rotten. It was so good to spend time with my family and catch up on all the months we manage to spend apart. And I couldn’t have asked for a better travel partner in Laura. She is my big sister in so many ways.

Yes my face looks something like a war zone what with all the peeling. But I’m tan. Nothing makes me feel prettier than ditching my porcelain complexion and looking like a Californian for once.

Enough gloating. Picture time.

Laura loves the close-ups.

The water wasn't photo-shopped. Incredible.

Book nerds :)

We had to take a photo at Senor Frogs.

Jet skiing!! So much fun :)

The original Woof (center) and my momma.