Are We Really Doing This?

I don’t have a life-long dream. I wish I did. Something to strive, work and wish for. I have goals, but they’re mostly petty – and achieving any of them would not make me immensely proud or happy.

Last Tuesday I got on a plane early in the morning so I could ride two buses across Greece (for six and a half hours) reaching my destination in the Ionian Islands. There, in a port in a town called Preveza, waited a boat that would take me on a week long trip. On the boat the bf and a friend he met in a Cruisers Club were waiting. I should mention the friend was also the yacht owner, a brand new 32-feet home with sails.

My Own Private Odyssey

Facebook, being actually useful and not just a procrastination device for once, has laid an incredible opportunity at our door – apartment swapping for two weeks with a couple from one of the greatest cities on earth. So this upcoming Friday, we’re going to London for two weeks, just in time for the massive tourists’ money-pumping machine that is the Olympics.

Anticipating high volumes of people practically anywhere you go, and being the planning-freak that I am (four years as PMO can’t be this easily forgotten), I started research as soon as I was sure we were going. This was a few months too late for my taste (my NYC trip was planned three months in advance) but I was still able to find a couple of gems.

I didn’t expect to encounter a barrier more formidable than time – customer service. A misnomer if there ever was one. The following is a tale that has kept me up at night feeling discouraged and miserable. But have no fear – the ending is a happy one.

Four Weddings and a Wedding

At the moment I’m house-sitting for a couple who was worried someone might steal all their worldly possessions while they are getting hitched. And I’m sitting here wondering when I turned into a person who doesn’t like weddings. I used to adore them, getting to enjoy and share another person’s happiest moment to date (presumably). Nowadays, they’re so frequent, it’s all becoming a blur. An expensive, alcohol-infused blur. Unless someone really put an effort into certain aspects, it’s basically a cookie-cutter wedding. Which seems disappointing and, to be honest, sad. You plan and plan, and pay so much attention to detail, but in the end you fail to produce anything that’s memorable.

The only weddings I genuinely remember are the extremely excellent (and therefore way way over most people’s conceivable budget) or the very poorly executed.

This is my attempt at writing a guide to enjoying a wedding, no matter what’s the wedding’s like. To all my friends with upcoming nuptials, please don’t take offense.  

It Still Needed More Assembly

I wanted to love the shit out of The Avengers.

“I don’t see how that’s a party”

I wanted it to become the baseline movie that every other comic movie will be compared to and copied from (“it was good, but it wasn’t no Avengers”). Basically, I wanted it to be the kind of movie I will want to go see a dozen times in the theaters (but will eventually be stopped at about three screenings by my rational mind).

Family Ties

I have spent an entire weekend in the company of my bf’s extended family, resting and relaxing near the beach. His grandfather is on the verge of celebrating his 90th birthday – so the clan has gathered, to eat, drink and reminisce. The guest of honor can no longer remember most things properly, so the main event, oftentimes felt as though they were telling him the story of his own life, him sitting there not being able to contribute nor tell if the stories are accurate to not. The atmosphere could have been maudlin, but it was anything but. Literally.

This is New

Today is my 28th name day. Usually, when you have arbitrarily assigned dates to commemorate they bring forth a yearning for introspection. Last year, my birthday was, in all honesty, situated in a time of change. I had been discharged from the army, I had moved into an apartment with my boyfriend (sans roommates), and I was on a new and exciting academic path.

On the surface, this year felt like baby steps, nothing monumental happened, nothing extraordinary to write home about. But when I dug a bit deeper I realized that when people ask me how I am, I can answer truthfully that I am well.

They Found a Way to Make Dystopia Worse

Some Hunger Games “fans” were outraged upon seeing that one of the more beloved characters of the first installment, Rue – a twelve year old tribute from District 11 (you can guess what happens to her, so I don’t have to spoil it – although the book has been out for about four years, and it’s about a bunch of kids killing each other, but I digress) – is portrayed by Amandla Stenberg. Why? If you said because she’s african-american then you’re right on the money.