Syllabus #17

It's back to school time in the American South.  Nancy Kerrigan speaks for all of us:

Why?  Why?

First round's on me this week, guys.  You're welcome.


I listened to parts 1 and 2 of the You're Wrong About podcast's deep dive into the Tonya Harding story.  The Nancy and Tonya story was only a small part of the meth-addled nightmare of Tonya's early life.  It's always morbidly fascinating and makes me feel horribly nihilistic to learn about a person who is at the absolute pinnacle of their field yet their personal life is a disaster.  Not only must they be unable to enjoy their achievements, but like, if even that wildly successful person is actually a mess, what hope is there for the rest of us?


The Dutch custom of "dropping" sounds brilliant.  Why don't we do this here?  In my work, I encounter so many kids who suffer from learned helplessness, and this sounds like a solid antidote.  Granted, if I was a parent I wouldn't send my child out into the night forest in an area where they could get eaten by a bear or something.  What's the worst thing that could happen to a lost child in the Netherlands?  They run out of stroopwafels and get a splinter bumping into a windmill in the dark?


How do we feel about boozy condiments?  I have a lot of questions.  Can you get drunk on chips and salsa, or is this merely a flavor gimmick, like Jack Daniels barbecue sauce?  If it's the former, and if I were a parent (be glad that I'm not), and I had to host a kids' party (I'm so glad that I don't), I would definitely put this out on the snack table and let those little monsters get weird and get sleepy.


This was at once delightful and validating.  19th century literary elites - they're just like us!


Speaking of delightful, this NYTimes work diary by Smitten Kitchen's Deb Perelman.  Her recipes are unfailingly reliable and delicious.  I read every post of hers, even if she's sharing a meat based recipe I know I'll never make.  She's the only food blogger I know of who can pull off writing a whimsical narrative segue into her recipes.  The only one!  Everyone else may as well just share the recipe and get on with it. 


There but for the grace of g*d, go I.   Andy and I visited Yellowstone about 9 years ago, and I will never let him live down the fact that he drove away from me and left me stranded in the middle of a stampede of horny bison.  Ok, ok, in the interest of marital harmony, that sounds bad but there were mitigating circumstances and nobody got hurt. 

We were stuck in a line of traffic because everyone got out of their cars to ooh and ahh over a few bison in a meadow.  We followed suit, but then traffic began to crawl forward, so Andy got back in the car while I stayed outside to take more pictures.  He got a few car lengths ahead of me when a whole herd of bison crested a hill on the other side of the road and came barreling down the hill towards the meadow to join their pals so they could get it on because it was rutting season.  All I could do was huddle next to another car and watch in amazed silence as scores of these giant hairy mammals lumbered across the road in front of me, bumping into my car and the others ahead of it in the process.  The experience was truly a gift, in that I got to witness an amazing natural spectacle that few people ever see up close, and also I have that argument-winning Ace in my back pocket until the end of time.

It seemed like a good idea at first

Reach out and touch someonebison

Sacre Bleu!  Parisian Heat Wave Jesus Turns Wine Back Into Water!


I love a pickle as much as the next guy (way more, if we're being realistic) but I don't know.  These ones don't really do it for me.


Preach!  We are the proud owners of a $25 off-brand rice cooker from Target purchased over 10 years ago, and it's hands-down our most used kitchen device and our longest-functioning shared possession.  It may even predate Ajax, who is adorable but useless.   He poops in a box that I have to clean and certainly doesn't help me make dinner multiple times a week.  Moral - get yourself a rice cooker, and maybe skip the cat.


And then we can end on a serious note, because this is something none of us should be ignoring:  the humanitarian crisis at the border.  This is just one person's experience, but it really encapsulates how badly people in these facilities are being mistreated and neglected and how overzealous CBP's actions are.  This has to stop, and if you are able to donate time or money to any of the following causes, it would be the least you can do as a person with a conscience.

Charlie Work

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - Charlie Work

I quit drinking for a few months earlier this year. 

I'm not trying to impress you. It was a choice, not a struggle. Anyway, I was very smug about it the whole time, so I don't need more validation.

I’m also not going to make the claim that I "got sober." Getting sober is an accomplishment that takes effort and determination, and often a fair amount of support, because alcoholism is a disease.  I'm saying I quit because I’m kind of a perfectionist and I don’t like doing things I know I’m not good at. I quit softball and gymnastics and figure skating and basketball and field hockey and playing the trombone and going to art school because I was embarrassingly bad at those things. By quitting, I was accepting what everyone else could already see. 

It's like they say, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. I wish "they" would be more specific. If you can't have more than two drinks without waking up at 3 AM in a panic that you lost your wallet (you didn't) and said horrible things to people (maybe, but you do that all the time so what's the difference) and then wake up the next day feeling like your head is being crushed in a vise and your stomach is full of live eels, then get out of the bar.

--

There are certain types of people who buy into a wellness lifestyle and can't shut up about it. Crossfitters, vegans, people on the keto diet, people who choose elective sobriety, etc. None of those choices are inherently bad, unless you obsess over them and bore the shit out of everyone in your life by talking about it incessantly. You buy into one of those lifestyles, and you're like, I am so evolved. I respect my body too much to poison it with [meat, carbs, alcohol, the inability to flip over tractor tires or whatever the hell they do in Crossfit].

But you know what I realized after I spent 5 months basking in the glow of smug superiority? Obsessing over a lifestyle like that is just elective surgery for your ego. It's like getting butt implants. You might look awesome, but it's not medically necessary to take such drastic measures to live a happy life. If it works for you and makes you feel good, okay, I guess, but don't act like the rest of us are dopes for not doing the same.

Unless you are actually an alcoholic, in which case choosing sobriety is more like getting an appendectomy right before the thing bursts. You're getting rid of something that wasn't necessary in the first place and was actually making you really sick. You're on a different journey, and I respect you.

--

I realize that choosing not to drink has been a trendy lifestyle statement this year. Mocktail recipes and sober dance parties abound. That wasn't my original motivation, though feeling like I was finally doing something on-trend did buoy me through some Friday afternoons where a stiff drink would have been just the thing to take the edge off the work week.
My real motivation to take a break from the sauce was my dog, Charlie. Not because I love him so much that he makes me want to be a better person. Hardly. No, watching him struggle with his own drinking problem was like looking into a mirror and seeing a hairier version of myself. Or at least, the side of me that is annoying and obsessive, the side that tends to chug any beverage, regardless of its viscosity or alcohol content. The side that is prone to projectile vomiting.
Charlie has a real and true drinking problem. Put down the phone, you don't need to get the ASPCA involved. We're not filling up his bowl with Hurricane 40s. For his own good, we only give him tap water, but he's a fiend. Once he starts drinking, he’s incapable of stopping until every last drop is gone.  He's like a freshman pledge at a frat party. This dude's drinking like he's got something to prove.
Whenever we put a bowl of water in front of him, we have to count to 10 and then cut him off, otherwise he will drink until the bowl is empty. You might be wondering why that's such a problem, so let's address that. Doggies gotta hydrate, right? It’s a problem because he’s just like his mother, who can’t hold her liquor. He can’t hang. He sucks down the whole bowl, staggers three feet, and all the water just comes pouring back out of his face into a giant puddle on the floor.  I don’t understand how this even happens, anatomically speaking. I’ve asked the vet if there's any chance he could be part pelican, and is just storing all the water in a giant pouch in his gullet. She said no, you just have a disappointing dog. He was basically trashpicked, so that’s fair and she’s not wrong.
Also, you might be wondering why we don't just...put less water in his bowl. That would make sense but it wouldn't actually help him change his habits and learn to practice moderation. That's like patting yourself on the back for resisting the temptation to eat an entire pint of Ben & Jerry's, when in reality you just didn't have any in the apartment and you were too lazy to put on pants and walk to Kroger. If you can fill up your whole freezer with a pint in every flavor and still fight the urge, then we can talk about willpower and self control.
So when he gets a drink, we count to 10 and then start yelling at him, “Charlie that’s enough!” Sometimes he listens and sadly mopes away from his bowl, but other times he’s so focused that he ignores us and keeps drinking. So we keep yelling “Charlie that’s enough!” until he jerks his head out of his bowl and yells at us like everybody’s drunk Dad. “I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough!!” And then he makes a bunch of hollow promises and asks why you don't love him. Or maybe that’s just my drunk dad. He’s dead now so it’s fine.

That really took a turn, didn't it?

The Time I Ruined Everything Forever

If by everything, I mean a mural design contest.  And if by forever, I mean probably actually forever.

My apartment building has a "dog park" on the 5th floor of its parking garage.  I put "dog park" in scare quotes not because I think I'm using a novel or unfamiliar term, but because it is a dog park in name only.  Far from being an ample, grassy outdoor space where doggies can frolic, it is merely a piss-soaked strip of astroturf where people take their dogs to pee when it's raining.

Within a few months of its completion, the giant canine outhouse already had to be ripped up and sanitized once from all the urine.   I assume they installed some sort of drainage system before they re-opened it.  In the city of Nashville, though, you can't really christen a place without putting up a proper mural, because if you can't geo-tag it and get the likes, does it even exist?  Thus, earlier this summer, the leasing office sent out a barrage of emails announcing a mural design contest.  The winner would have the chance to help paint their design on the concrete wall behind the dog park.

So you're saying we can design and execute a mural...on the inside of a parking garage, where only residents and dogs peeing and/or humping other dogs will see it...AND we don't get paid?  Hold my beer while I sketch somethin' up right quick!

The stipulations were that the mural needed to fit a space 50' wide and 13' high, and should be family friendly and related to pets and Music City.  Look no further, I got this:

Guitar-shaped fire hydrants and cats taking a selfie IN the mural?  Can you EVEN?

I squandered about an hour of my life sketching and inking this masterpiece and proudly turned it in to the office.  The contest deadline approached and they sent out several increasingly frantic emails beseeching people to enter the contest.  They promised to post the entries to social media and let residents vote for their favorite.

The deadline came and went over a month ago and there has been crickets.  First I assumed maybe they were just so overwhelmed by how amazing my design was that they were rendered speechless and declared it the winner, no contest.  Obviously.

Now that I look back at it, though, I think I maybe the dog shitting and making eye contact, front and center, was a little too much.  I could have softened the impact by moving him a little away from the foreground.  But that's totally fine if they thought that!  I'm open to criticism!  You think Leonardo DiCaprio didn't ask for a little feedback before he finished painting the Sistine Chapel?  The genitals on all the nudes were way bigger and more distracting before his assistant spoke up.  That's just the nature of the industry!

Without any follow-up communication about the contest, I can only assume that I was the only person who submitted a design.  Not surprisingly, the people in the office were clearly too mortified to put my design on their social media, so they are going to pretend like the contest never existed.  If I was just a little bit more of an asshole, I would go to the office in person and ask about the status of my entry, just to witness the verbal gymnastics it would require to tactfully explain to me what I have known all along, which is that my design was a completely unacceptable dumpster fire that made a mockery of the contest itself.

Am I disappointed?  Hardly!  My takeaway from all this is that if I just keep tapping my bottomless reservoir of poor taste and throwing my creative efforts behind things I am marginally or not at all qualified to do, it will eventually pay off.  This just wasn't my time.

*Duh, I know it wasn't Leonardo of the DiCaprio or Da Vinci variety.  Everyone knows it was Donatello.

Syllabus #16

The most cheerful of gauntlets

Anybody else feel like after the age of 30, your life became one endless loop of that Talking Heads song?  You just look up and keep asking yourself, for better or for worse, how did I get here?  How is it time for another weekly Syllabus post?  How is it that next week I have to go back to work already?  Didn't summer just officially start a month ago?

I don't know how people who aren't tied to the temporal ebb and flow of the school year conceptualize time.  I feel like I have to be acutely aware of seasons and celebrations, and yet the passage of time continues to surprise me, like I'm a baby without a developed sense of object permanence and life is constantly pulling the got-your-nose trick (which, btw, is some bull.  shit.).

At any rate, here's what has delighted, inspired, or provoked me over the last week:

I was avoiding FaceApp out of vanity, but now I feel validated.  I don't need to sell my soul to nefarious Russian cyber-lords to appreciate the toll the coming years will exact on my face.  I have a mirror, I'm good.

I stumbled on this podcast episode that talks about Jim Varney and the origins of the Ernest P. Worrell character.  The Ernest conversation picks up around the 1 hour mark.  I heard parts of Ernest Scared Stupid were filmed in East Nashville, but I didn't know the Ernest character was originally developed by an ad agency and used in TV commercials in Nashville.  Apparently Jim Varney was a native of the area and big fixture in the comedy scene here in the 70s and 80s.  It will probably not surprise you (but might make you feel slightly uncomfortable) to learn that around roughly 1991, I had a movie poster of Ernest Goes to Jail hanging over my bed that I would kiss every night.

Speaking of National Treasures, Terry Gross interviewed musical satirist Randy Rainbow, who writes and performs musical theater parodies about our lunatic executive branch.  What a brilliant lyricist.


There are so few sincerely delightful, uncynical things existing in the world at this moment in time.  Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers is the hero America needs right now.  He's far, far greater than the hero we deserve, which is something more akin to a drunk uncle who bails you out of jail when you're arrested for passing too many bad checks.


This Nashville Mural Tour video.  Wanting to see the murals, I completely understand.  I support one's desire to take pictures of them.  Where you start to lose me is the obsession with having your picture taken in front of the murals, and you can just GTFO if you think Imma wait. in. line. for the privilege.  Hard no.


I love this jawn.


Cheapskate/OCD hobby alert.


I just started reading Howard Stern Comes Again.  I will admit I've never really listened to his radio show and my car has about as much Sirius XM capability as a rotary phone has for sending dick pics.  That being said, I've always had a vague respect for him as a fellow aficionado of shock value.  I'm thoroughly enjoying the book so far, and this excerpt from his interview with Jerry Seinfeld really resonates with me:

Howard:  Do you ever dream of the day where you could go with your wife to a Chinese restaurant and sit there and not think about the chopsticks?

Jerry:  As long as I shoot myself in the mouth with a bullet.  What fun is life if I'm not making jokes all the time?  It's a torture I love.

That's it for this week!  May all your days be filled with whatever kind of torture you love. 

A Murder of Schnauzers

*No schnauzers or other animals were harmed in the production of this thought piece*

**Also, this is not a thought piece, it's just me blowing smoke up your collective ass**

Scientists have proven that crows are masters of holding a grudge.  They remember the faces of humans who have wronged them, and will squawk aggressively at them years after the initial offense.  What's more impressive is that an individual crow can transfer their grudge to other crows, much like a middle school mean girl. Woe is the person who offends a crow, because it won't be long before the whole murder has turned against you.

I'm about to break ground on some new research, based on the hypothesis that crows aren't the only animals that can telepathically transfer a grudge to other members of their own kind.  Based on close observation, I have reason to believe that schnauzers also possess this ability.

Hear me out.  I'm going to break this down according to the scientific method:

Hypothesis:  Schnauzers possess a crow-like ability to hold a grudge and transfer that grudge to other schnauzers who didn't witness the original offending incident

Precipitating event:  My mom's dog, Linus, has valid reasons for hating my dog, Charlie

Experimental group:  Another identical miniature schnauzer

Constant:  My dog, Charlie

Control Group:  Other random dogs

Exhibit A:  Linus

Exhibit B:  This lovable creep

My mom's dog, Linus, harbors a deep and unyielding hatred for my dog, Charlie.  Linus isn't a dog's dog.  He's like a precocious child who gets off on attention and praise from the adults around him and wants nothing to do with the drooling idiots in his peer group (which means my poor mom is now 2 for 2 on having to deal with smart jerks).  Needless to say, it did not go swimmingly when my mom and I tried to introduce our dogs.

In the spirit of full transparency, we went about this introduction in the dumbest way possible, by bringing Charlie into the house while Linus was outside, so the poor guy returned home from a walk to find this hulking interloper all up in his space.  Why did we do it that way?  I have no idea!  Linus lost his gahtdamn mind and of course Charlie did, too, out of sheer terror.  It was a strange sight, to see a 20-pound miniature schnauzer do the canine equivalent of pulling out his earrings and screaming, "I don't like people playing on my fucking phone!" while sweet, dopey, 50-pound Charlie did his best to keep up by howling out what I have to assume were the dog equivalent of unintelligible excuses and apologies.

We managed to separate the dogs before their verbal altercation led to physical bloodshed, and both dogs are committed to avoiding each other until the end of time.  I thought that was the end of it.  The dogs would remain estranged and we would never speak of this again.  Water under the bridge.  Charlie continues to turn himself inside out with excitement at the sight of other dogs, and continues to have zero inhibitions about humping any dog that is trusting enough to stand still in his presence.

Charlie is the polar opposite of Linus.  He a dog's dog, for sure.  He takes it to an extreme that makes my heart bleed a little, though.  He's like the sheltered, over-eager kid on the playground who wants to share his Pogs with everyone, but all the other kids are like, dude, what century are you living in, we're over here on the seesaw making prank videos for our monetized YouTube channel.  He is so desperate for approval but so clueless about how to attain it, that other dogs sometimes find him off-putting.

Sometimes, when medicated, Charlie can hold his shit together and act casual when he sees another dog.  It's hit or miss as to whether there will be more than a tug on the leash or a pitiful whimper of FOMO when Charlie crosses paths with other dogs.  We live in an apartment and neighborhood lousy with dogs, and there are no particular dogs that have a beef with Charlie.  One day they may bark at each other, another day they may ignore each other completely.  There is an asshole dog on our floor that snarls and bodyslams his front door whenever we walk by, but he's an equal opportunity dickhead and doesn't limit himself to hating Charlie. 

The sole exception to this pretty average dog behavior is what brings us back to the experiment.  There is a miniature schnauzer named Kingsley living at the end of our hall that looks identical to Linus in every way.  That doesn't sound remarkable for two dogs of the same breed, but mini schnauzers vary widely in stature and fur color, so I stand by my position.  His owners are lovely people so I don't blame them for this in the slightest, but this dog has it out for Charlie for reasons none of us can understand.  The first time they crossed paths, the dog went full Hannibal Lecter.  There was clearly either a mental imbalance or a deep and unspeakable vendetta behind his rage.

We all have our bad days, though.  Of course next time would be different.  Except it wasn't.  Unbridled hatred, the likes of which would make a human with high cholesterol stroke out in a blaze of glory.  And the third time, more of the same.

Just yesterday, Charlie and I were coming around a bend in the street on our way home from a walk.  I spied Kingsley's owner coming towards us from a distance, but due to the curve of the road and a low retaining wall in someone's front yard, the dogs couldn't see each other.  I proactively crossed the street to avoid a throw-down that would make the Sharks and the Jets look like Mr. Rogers and Raffi.  Charlie was none the wiser, and trotted along happily, his view of the other side of the street mostly blocked by parked cars.  Kingsley, on the other hand, looked over his shoulder and locked eyes on Charlie blithely strutting away and, dear reader, I've run out of colorful metaphors for being pissed off.  He just lost his shit, alright?  Totally lost it.

I'm no Cesar Millan, but there is obviously there's no possible explanation for this behavior other than schnauzer telepathy and collective grudge holding.  It's the only rational explanation.

I'm publishing my preliminary findings here, but keep in mind this study has not yet been peer reviewed or replicated.  I would like to pursue this inquiry further before I submit the article to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which will surely accept it for publication.  If you are an animal behaviorist interested in running your own independent trial, please contact me in the comments and we can arrange for you to take Charlie away to a place where there are other schnauzers he has not yet had a chance to offend.

Syllabus #15 - A Clean Slate

¡Bienvenidos, amigos!

When we last convened, the first round of Democratic primary debates had not yet occurred, so I didn't know just how on trend my español efforts would turn out to be.  I'm truly a visionary.

So here we are after a brief sabbatical.  You are well rested and ready to resume our semi-weekly, sporadic bull sessions.  Here's a picture of a flower to center you before we begin:

Two out of three Mississippi gubernatorial candidates follow the Billy Graham rule, refusing to be alone in a room with a woman who isn't their wife.  Because all women are evil temptresses who will stop at nothing to get their hands and mouths all over that turgid misogynistic D.  State Rep. Robert Foster "refused to allow a female reporter at Mississippi Today go for a day-long campaign ride-along without bringing along a male colleague."

I dunno much about cooking or Billy Graham's woo-woo evangelism, but that sounds less like a recipe for godliness and more like a recipe for gang rape (serves two but can easily be scaled up to feed a hungry crowd!).

I personally follow the Harvey Weinstein rule, where I refuse to be the only female adult in a room with any male(s) past the point of puberty.  I also had a bunch of chunky turquoise rings welded into a set of brass knuckles so I look like a quirky lady just back from a spiritual retreat in Taos but I'm ready to knock your teeth out at the slightest provocation.

Do we really need to get rid of the Forrest Day law?  The click-baity title drew me in because most reasonable people would say Obviously Yes Of Course We Do.  However, the argument here amuses me - keep the law but change the interpretation vis a vis the language, "according to the public sentiment."  Let's recognize him alright, but not as a hero in service to his country.  Recognize him for the barf-gargling human toilet he was.

An ode to Daria.  I feel like I should reach out to the author and be friends, but that might be too much sarcasm and cynicism in one place.  I, too, heavily identified with Daria, and was often accused of being Daria in the flesh.  That probably served me well in more ways than I can fully appreciate.  The author has a point - Daria was almost always right about things!  I might as well have worn a WWDD bracelet instead of looking for answers in all the wrong places (see:  youth group).

I also had a little crush on Jane's brother Trent, but who didn't?  He reminded me of a young, cartoon Jeff Goldblum.   Moreover, Trent is the only person in the history of humankind, animated or corporeal, who can pull off a soul patch.

Proof

I always knew the sound of my particular voice is grating and intolerable, but it turns out that to wild animals, at least, all human voices are equally off-putting.  I wish I had known about this phenomenon when I used to trail run by myself in Utah.  There was a gorgeous canyon about a mile away from our house, and I could sometimes manage a solid 12 miles on a good day.  Those 10 miles in the canyon would have been peaceful and perfect if it weren't for my intense paranoia about a mountain lion attack.  It probably didn't help that I read The Beast in the Garden shortly before I started the trail running hobby.  Every snap of a twig or rustle in the bushes was obviously the last sound I would hear before having my face ripped off.  If only I had known I just had to act like a weirdo and talk to myself.

Speaking of things that are an affront to nature:  Slate asks, "Who would buy this thing?"  The thing being a 'minimalist bag' made by French designer Jacquemus, retailing for $258.  That is not a bag, it's a necklace, motherfucker!  And it's back ordered! Who???

Outside of the internet, I've been reading Real Books.  I recommend them all:

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide by Tony Horwitz

No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July

Feminasty:  The Complicated Woman's Guide to Surviving the Patriarchy Without Drinking Herself to Death by Erin Gibson


Your homework:  Pet a cute animal, take a picture of something that makes you happy, and give a stranger a sincere compliment.  That sounds a little crunchy, but none of that is optional.  Homework is 40% of your grade, guys.

Someone Who Loves Me Went to Ecuador and All I Got Was This Diarrhea

The someone who loves me is me.  And also Andy.  The rest of that title is accurate.  I mean we also got a lifetime of memories, two weeks of Spanish instruction, and a couple alpaca sweaters.  A scarf.  A poncho.  You get the idea.

But if you ever make it to South America, you simply must get a little bit of tap water in your mouth by accident.  Just once, just to try it.  I promise you it will change your life.  It's a poor man's ayahuasca.  You will shit a lot, and you will gain profound knowledge about yourself and the world.

For example, I learned that scented toilet paper is a gift from sweet baby Jesus when you are required to deposit your used TP in a tiny trash can in your tiny bathroom that already smells like the hot breath of sewage emanating from the shower drain connected to the 500 year old plumbing system.

I also learned that you should always stuff your pockets with toilet paper because you never know where you'll be when the urge to exorcise your demons strikes you.

I learned that there are two reasons to feel patriotic towards America.  Two and only two, so listen good:  Robust plumbing and foods with fiber.

This is Ben Franklin, right?  Whatever, he's the Founding Father of my colon.

In the shiny new Quito airport.  The irony being that they didn't have to tell me twice, and yet, thanks to a combination of visual literacy, Spanish language instruction, and general English literacy, they effectively told me thrice.

I took a picture of this big exceptional American toilet in the ATL airport right before I ripped the industrial roll of toilet paper off the wall and flushed the whole thing just because I could.

Let me now step away from the ranks of the spoiled and entitled asshats who travel to less developed or economically prosperous countries and shit all over them (literally, figuratively, or both).  I appreciate the enormous privilege we enjoy in this country every time we brush our teeth or flush a toilet, and so many other actions, comforts, and freedoms that range from the superficial to the essential.  Unless you live in Flint, in which case, I'm sorry.  I would choose the runs over lead poisoning any day.

Ecuador was lovely.  The landscape was outrageously beautiful and varied.   The people could not have been more kind and eager to share their culture and country.  Except this one waitress in a tourist-trap Mexican restaurant who definitely belonged in an early 90's Jersey diner, calling everyone toots, taking orders with a Virginia Slim hanging out of her mouth, and slinging plates of scrapple down on your paper placemat where you've been doodling wieners with the crayons (which you pronounce 'crowns' because Jersey).  That escalated quickly.  We're so far off course at this point the GPS is telling us to proceed to the route, but the analogy had to be made because that B was surly.

But I digress.  Everyone else was so nice!  We had a great time and learned a ton.  Our Spanish teacher told us jokes about hypocritical priests, and made us write dialogues to go with sexy cartoons.  Sometimes there were priests IN the sexy cartoons!  It was wild!

Here are a few of my 700 favorite pictures:

No touching

"Grandaddy Junk Dealer" is what I want on my tombstone

Artist's studio in the Museo/Casa of Oswaldo Guayasamin

It's good to know where your meal is coming from

Same, guy

Jumbo Flow sounds like exactly the kind of thing I want for a snack

Wash down my Jumbo Flow with whatever candy is packaged inside this plastic toilet

Cotopaxi National Park

Pujili market

Otavalo market

Didn't realize Goatse merchandise was available outside the US and Canada