Now in Technicolor

I bought this cardigan at Banana Republic in June or July and wore it for the first time today:
Standing up on the metro this morning, I looked down to see the woman seated next to me wearing the same cardigan, only hers was gray. So it looked something like this:

Given how many embarrasing things happen to me on a regular basis, it might be surprising that I consider wearing the same outfit as someone else to be in the top three of most embarassing situations ever. Even though I shop at mainstream places like BR, I still spend time each day deciding what to wear and I don't like looking like someone else. Even if it is the technicolor version.

But alas, my attempt to invent teleportation on-the-spot by closing my eyes and wishing, failed. Instead, I just had to laugh. Of all the cardigans in all the metro cars in all the world...

Fountain Friday

Freedom Plaza Fountain
Washington, D.C.

Today's fountain is special because after three years in D.C. and many, many days spent in the Penn Quarter-Metro Center-Downtown area, I came to a fountain never seen before. Whether it's brand new or just not usually on, I've only known Freedom Plaza as that place in front of the National Theatre where the skateboarders go. But last weekend, on an absolutely beautiful day, I was headed in the opposite direction when I saw plumes of water in the distance. Like a moth goes to a flame, so goes a Bonnie to a fountain. I immediately changed my course and sat in its shade and read for awhile.

A Comedy of Errors in 20 Steps

Step 1: Receive 16x20 collage frame as a gift.
Step 2: Fill frame with pictures.
Step 3: Move to Arlington.
Step 4: Have brother break glass in frame.
Step 5: Hang frame with broken glass on wall for year.
Step 6: Move in to D.C. and leave frame in box for two years.
Step 7: Move again and decide to hang frame.
Step 8: Travel to Rockville to purchase new glass for frame.
Step 9: Break glass in half on metro.
Step 10: Decide to use glass anyway.
Step 11: Recycle original broken glass.
Step 12: Drop glass.
Step 13: Cut thumb.
Step 14: Freak out.
Step 15: Stop freaking out.
Step 16: Look down.
Step 17: See cut on foot.
Step 18: Freak out
Step 19: Stop freaking out.
Step 20: Laugh hysterically.

For whom the bell tolls

Today I read an article in the New York Times about a sidewalk bookseller, Charles Mysak, in New York City: In Bookstore's Demise, No Joy for Sidewalk Seller.

A four-story Barnes & Noble is closing in the same area as Mysak and the article explores his determination to maintain his sidewalk business, despite lackluster sales for both him and booksellers in general. There's something beautiful and heartbreaking when someone or something is feverishly trying to hold on to a tradition, practice, or lifestyle when changes are whirling around them. It can be bad, of course, but sometimes, it's just good.

As mentioned many times before, I love love books, especially used books. This man's story has been in my head all day. Checking my email accounts. Watching a movie in HD. Downloading new songs on my iPhone. Turning it all off to curl up with one of my latest used books. He has a passion for knowledge and a devotion to the written word in an age where faster, smaller, shinier is deemed better more often than not. Says Mysak:

"It is apparent that we have a real serious issue, that the life of the mind has been in decline for some time now. ... Ignorance and indolence is the primary problem. If you take care of the mind, everything else follows."

I want to go find his stand and buy out his stock and give books to random people on the street. If they'd rather read it on their iWhatevers, they can pass it along to someone else. Until it finds someone who wants it as it is, who wishes things could be just a tad more simple. Not better, not worse, just simpler.

Fountain Friday

Hochstrahlbrunnen Fountain at Schwarzenbergplatz
Vienna, Austria

Vienna was not one of the favorite cities I visited when I went to Europe, for a number of reasons. This fountain, however, has stuck in my head. Another one that was very loud with a cold spray, but so regal and memorable. It's located with, but not considered a part of, a controversial monument to the Red Army. But the fountain was built in 1873 to celebrate the first water pipeline from the Alps to Vienna. What better way to celebrate water than with a fountain.

One Day I Will:

• Write a post sans bullets.
• Talk about my new apartment.
• Finish decorating my new apartment.
• Take pictures of my new apartment.
• Do two hampers worth of laundry.
• Pay for doing said laundry thanks to no longer having a W/D in my apartment.
• Post about how life stresses are making me regress.
• Stop getting so worked up about certain political viewpoints and events.
• Read every book on my shelf before buying new ones or placing them on hold at the library.
• Probably not stop getting worked up about certain political viewpoints and events.
• Hang up the clothes I don't wear after trying them on in the morning instead of throwing them on the floor or in the hamper to be sorted later.
• Conquer insomnia.
• Eat something before I leave the apartment so I don't get faint on the metro.
• Figure out how to keep my shoes on so I don't lose one three times in one morning on the walk to the metro.
• Not lose said shoe in a crosswalk, for the third time in my life.
• Just be thankful that this stunningly long short-week is over and a pretty-weather weekend is taking its place.

Fountain Friday

U.S. Capitol
Washington, D.C.

It has been a long and exhausting week, so not much energy to write. This picture was taken three years ago on my first trip to Capitol Hill after moving to the area. Last weekend I moved away from the Hill after calling it home for two years. I'll just have to find a new fountain and home to love.

Fountain Friday

University of Texas

Austin, Texas

There are very few things I dislike about UNC. But one of them is that there is only one fountain on campus. One. (Which will be the focus of a future Fountain Friday, of course.) And sadly, it's not quite as majestic as the one I found at the University of Texas. (Even though it wasn't even fully operational. See: outer ring.) But it was a beautiful Carolina-blue-skied day with the sun low in the sky. The fountain just completed the perfect picture.

Inside the mind of a pack rat (aka I am my father's daughter)

In preparing to move for the 15th time in eight years, I'm trying very hard to shed some of my unnecessary belongings. The problem, however, is that I'm a pack rat. A huge one. And not only that, I'm also terribly sentimental; a terrible combination. And, therefore, I'd like to say...

Hello, my name is Bonnie, and I'm a sentimental pack rat.

From a key chain I've had since I was four, to every gift either of my nieces or my brother has ever given me, I keep it all. I try and I try to trim the fat, but it's like things jump from my "trash" or "donate" piles back into my drawers and boxes and refuse to let go.

And it's not like I really have a choice, it's genetic. My father has the affliction, and so did his father, and for all I know, my grandfather's father could have had it, too. And I do strongly believe in family tradition.

But tonite I really buckled down so that I can do away with one small rolling cart and two small shelves. (Though small, they're a start.) While cleaning out the rolling cart, I came across this:


Yes, a tiny Fn key from a laptop. (Though I know this is a function key, I prefer to call it Fn key, because in my head it sounds like "effin key." I am so mature.) A quick glance at my current laptop, Francisco, and I see this:


Clearly not a mate. And since this is only the second laptop I've ever had, I can only assume it belongs on my college laptop, Javier, and I honestly don't know where he is. So this is easy, pick up the Fn key and toss it into the trash bag six inches away. But...

What if something happens to Francisco's Fn key? It happened once, it could happen again. What if I toss it, put the trash bag in the garbage can, and the city picks up the garbage. Then I come home, open my computer and...wait, something's happened to the Fn key! Thank goodness I have that spare. OH NO!! I can't believe I threw out the Fn key!

Forget that I don't know how to re-attach a laptop key. Forget that the fonts don't match and that would drive my OCD crazy. Forget that the IBM key might not work on a Dell. That Fn key isn't going anywhere but to my new apartment.

Fontana Friday

Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi and Fontana dei Nuttono
Rome, Italy

Well, this is embarrassing. I started to write about a fountain I visited in Rome, and that was seen briefly in a scene in Eat Pray Love, and realized that I don't technically have a photo of it. I have a photo of my feet in it and a photo of one of the "quattro fiumi," but not a photo of the actual fountain. Oh well, I'm writing about it anyway.

After a long day of sightseeing in Rome, and about a week into our three-week European Adventure, my friend and I came to the Piazza Navona. The comforting and cooling waters of the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi called to our limp and lacerated feet. Taking our cues from others doing the same, we parked said feet in the cold, cold water as we Italian-watched and basked in the beautiful Roman sun. And then the Polizia came and kicked us all out, forcing us back on our tired, but now refreshed and wet, feet.