The Everywhereist

Last month, we popped down to Portland for the weekend, with our pal Chrissy in tow. We’d been meaning to head down to PDX together for a while – our friend Skye had moved back out west after living in Baltimore for the last two years. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d all been in the same place at the same time. I think it was a few years ago, at least.

It was a brief but fun trip. We wandered around, without any destinations or plans. I didn’t even bring my camera.

That’s right: I didn’t take a single photo. Not a one. But Chrissy did. She was only armed with her phone, but the results are pretty damn great. She snapped this one of her and Skye, which I adore:

Yes, it was taken on Instagram. Quite, you.

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I have a confession of sorts. It might be that last week, Rand and I zipped back to Europe, and went to Dublin for the second time in six months, and then to London for the umpteenth time since I started this blog.

Sitting in a tapas bar in London, I ruminate on whether or not there is pee on my coat.

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I know some of you are reading that and thinking, “Girl, no. I cannot spend another three weeks reading about the ins and outs of Anglo-Irish conflicts,” and to those dear folks I say, fear not. The thing is, this trip kind of sneaked up on me, and I didn’t really make any plans or do anything while I was there that is worthy of a blog post. I mostly just shopped, and ate sticky toffee pudding, and had more than my fair share of travel freak-outs. Including a particularly teary and noisy one that happened after I sat in what may or may not have been a puddle of urine in a Dublin cab. 

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Warning: before writing this post, I spent waaaaay too long listening to NPR, after which I devoured some poetry, and then chased the whole thing with a few swings of prose. The result is … whatever the heck is going on below. It has nothing to do with travel. Sorry.

Rand and I have a shower in our bedroom.

I mean, in our bedroom. Not in a bathroom in the bedroom. No. It is IN the room. At the end of the bed.

Pictured: the end of our bed, and our shower.

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It’s about as ridiculous as it sounds. In the two years that we’ve lived here, we can’t really make sense of it. The doors are glass, so you have absolutely zero privacy if someone is in the room. When one of us has to wake up early for whatever reason, we’ll shower with the lights off, so that we don’t wake the other person.

Have you ever showered in the dark? It’s really weird, and yet strangely familiar. I’m pretty sure it has to do with some pre-memory of being in the womb.

And then I start to feel guilty for not having called my mother in a while.

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On the drive to Bushman’s Kloof from Cape Town, our bus overheated.

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I don’t really know how to begin telling you about Bushman’s Kloof.

Words don’t usually fail me. In fact, I often have them in excess. They dribble out of my mouth at particularly inopportune times. Like when I’m telling a story at noisy party, and I find myself shouting the gory details in order to be heard (my stories always have gory details, you see), and at that precise moment because of what I can only assume is a decades-old-curse that was placed on my head, the entire room sort of goes silent.

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I occasionally wonder if I’m alone in the things I find humorous. I’ve laughed – often hysterically – at stuff that other people don’t seem to find funny.

Parenthetically, I REALLY got a kick out of it when this gentleman brought me a bib after I ordered crayfish.

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I usually figure that those other people are in bad moods, have lousy senses of humor, or are plagued with that affliction of sanity that I seem immune to.

And that’s okay, because while they can be better expected to pay their bills on time and be held accountable by a court of law, I feel like I get to squeeze a little more joy out of life.

Consequently, here’s some are some more signs that I saw in South Africa that brought me a great deal of joy. I hope you like them as well. Don’t fret if you don’t. It probably just means that you are a more productive member of society than I am. The sort of person who doesn’t eat frosting for breakfast.

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This is Joel.

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I have found that there are times when I am traveling with a group that someone needs to use the bathroom.

That’s probably not all that surprising, huh? You are probably thinking, “Um, yes, that happens to all of us, genius.” But I’d hope that your takeaway is that I am real and approachable and relatable and not just a stater of the obvious.

Even if, you know, I try to be relatable by totally stating the obvious.

“Cupcakes are awesome. Travel is great. EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE ROMANCE.”

Wow. I think I just summed up my blog (and my life) in three sentences. I feel weirdly satisfied. And also kind of empty. I should probably eat a cupcake.

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Whenever I see someone who has succumbed to something incredibly touristy – whether it be the people running around Disney World with those invisible dogs on leashes, or anyone drinking beer out of a boot – two things go through my head:

• That is so incredibly cheesy.
• I … I kind of want in on that.

The only exception is when I see white, middle-aged women returning from the Caribbean with dreadlocks. I want no part of that, except to possibly pull them aside and, as I vigorously try to unplait their hair, counsel them against whatever other bad decisions they are about to make.

“Not even Bo Derek could pull this off,” I’d hiss. “AND SHE’S BO-FRIGGIN’-DEREK.”

It would be a public service.

But other than that exception, I find myself torn between being annoyed by the gimmick while I’m simultaneously seduced by it. And sometimes, despite my reservations, I fall for it.

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