My Annual Trip to ESPN.com

SPOILER ALERT: If you are a product of the late 80s and early 90s, the following may haunt you for what could possibly be days (the love you remember feeling as a child is about to be dispelled and replaced with a wrenching fear of the xylophone setting on any standard keyboard):

Halt. I am Reptar.

I mean, is this guy right or is this guy rhight?

I miss the Dodge Street Hy-Vee. I don't know what it is about that place. I think it was the lighting and the pre-packaged sushi. It definitely wasn't the fact that they carded you for grenadine. I'd like to be kidding, but I'm not. About my lamentations, not the grenadine, though both are true. Grocery shopping isn't pleasant in Vietnam. Short women run their carts into you like you're some sort of white-demon magnet and the cereal selection is seriously lacking. If I had to list my havens in Waterloo, Iowa (home excluded), Wal-Mart at 3 AM would most likely make it into the top 5 and sturdily rests in the top 10. If I had a billion dollars, I would buy my own space and turn it into a grocery store that dished out non-expiring Special K coupons and didn't allow talking or bubble violations. Then I would run for mayor and the scholarly breakfast easters, agoraphobic, mime, and deaf/mute communities would be MINE. If items were being discontinued, there would be a bright neon sign that said, "BUY THIS NOW BEFORE IT EXISTS ONLY IN YOUR HIPPOCAMPUS AND SELECT SPECIALTY RETAILERS ON THE WEST COAST". Except for on the orange peelers (are those a thing?), if they ever face extinction, just to be ironic.


I've always thought about leaving Vietnam and riding a motorbike to my next stop, preferably in Europe. Then, I realize that that's crazy and I'm completely a-okay with my unaccomplished life:

Keiichi “Kei” Iwasak's route taken on his bike. 37 countries and 28,000 miles. 160 Yen in his pocket (or $2).  He has since been robbed by pirates (PIRATES) and arrested in India, nearly died after being attacked by a rabid dog in Tibet, and narrowly escaped marriage in Nepal. He makes his living by doing magic on the street.

Compared to that guy, I suck. You probably suck, too, though. In my defense.

11 HOURS TILL THE SPELLING BEE 11 HOURS TILL THE SPELLING BEE 11 HOURS TILL THE SPELLING BEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, guys. I'm going to sit down with my notebook and pause the video after each word, take my guess, and calculate my average. When it's too depressing, I'm going to start thinking about how I'm betting looking and have more friends than all these twelve-year-olds, though this paragraph begs to differ. My favorite contestant last year was this guy:

There are more benefits to wearing footie pajamas to school, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy, though it's anathema to my chafing condition.

The word he went out on was 'bobbejaan'. If you ever sneak into ESPN's archives and find the footage from last year's bee, his number is 253. It's priceless, not on YouTube, and you won't regret it. ...God's going to give me an ugly, dumb kid to teach me a lesson, isn't He? 

In other news, I was sitting in a cafe the other day when I remembered how beautiful I used to think that spot was; I had stopped noticing. I love traveling, but does living somewhere 'foreign' take away the beauty and novelty of it all? Does the brevity of a situation determine its beauty? Can that be said about life? Are things only appreciated if they are brief and fleeting? If we lived for a longer amount of time, how would that change things?

It's also weird how happiness is completely subjective and random, you know? I got a package and a letter the other day, and I was about glowing. If we wanted, sadness could elicit the same response. Nothing is stopping us but us. I mean, it helps if you have Special K with Red Berries in the fridge and chai powder in your cupboard, but you get it. Do you know how obnoxious it is to heat up 2 oz of water without having a microwave? I'ma have to wait until my velleities to make an iced chai graduate to legitimate yearnings.

 My maid also works at a bakery and just brought us ENGLISH MUFFINS. Since I a) have a maid and b) have English muffins, here's something to make you feel better about your life:

Source: The University of Texas / The Texas Tribune

 That worked, right?

 My three least favorite books in the world are 'Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry', 'Heart of Darkness', and Twilight #4. I felt like this post was lacking a conclusion.


xoxo