When I Grow Up

A few months ago, I finally got around to something I'd been meaning to do for literally years - join Toastmasters! I love planning presentations and writing speeches. I enjoy having serious discussions in meetings of various participant sizes. But I hate standing up in front of people. There's something about the standing and all those eyes on me that makes me nervous. Even just sitting makes the nerves completely disappear - for five years I taught a course with a colleague. The number of participants ranged from 5 to 35 and I would spend three long days lecturing my co-workers on modeling. But I was never nervous - because my colleague and I sat down at the front of the room behind a desk, in stead of standing in front of some Powerpoint slides.

So I finally got around to something that should help, or at least mediate, the nerves. While my time already feels stretched, with a semi-abandoned blog and a never-ending to do list and a calendar that's never been busier, I realized this could be a two-birds type of a thing - Toastmasters and the blog! So here is my first speech. I'm giving it this week, so constructive criticism is welcome but if it's too extreme (this is complete garbage, Nicole), please keep it to yourself.

For my Toastmasters Icebreaker and to introduce myself, I decided to use a question we’re all familiar with - What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up? When we’re little, it’s a question that inspires us and leads to daydreams and fantasies. We can be whatever we want to be! Then we get to high school and college and first jobs and the question starts to become real and a bit daunting as it leads to university choices and major selections. For me, the answer has evolved from ‘doctor’ to ‘software engineer’ in a way that, I promise makes sense, and that I will now share with you.

When I was a little kid, in that fantasy, day-dream stage, I wanted to be a doctor. It was a profession I was somewhat familiar with. A doctor got to help people, contribute to society. Save lives and explore science, technology, and medicine. It seemed like a challenging, interesting, and rewarding profession. For several years, ‘doctor’ was my answer to the question What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up. But then I hit middle school and started to appreciate a different perspective. Helping people and saving lives was great. But what about the people you couldn’t help, the mistakes you might make? What if I failed to diagnose something or made the wrong call during a procedure? I could hurt someone or worse. That seemed like a lot of responsibility to a middle schooler. Fortunately, at this time, my parents finally got cable and I discovered Law and Order and my solution – pathology. Pathologists only work on deceased individuals and tissue samples! You can't hurt a tissue sample or a dead body. So I would be a pathologist. I could help the living by diagnosing the dead, provide solace to the dead's family, and maybe even help put a bad guy behind bars (Hello, Law and Order).

But then I transitioned to high school and started to look into pre med college programs. That question, What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up, started to take real shape. It wasn’t just a fantasy any more, but manifesting in high school curriculum and college prep decisions. Suddenly finishing high school, then four years of college, then medical school and residency, seemed like a lot. I pictured myself at age 30, ancient and still studying, still not contributing to the world. I took a step back and re-evaluated and came up with a compromise - biomedical engineer. I could still help people by working in the medical field. I could still explore science, technology, and medicine; still be challenged and rewarded. But, it only required a four year degree!

And then I did it, I enrolled in a biomedical engineering program. To me, an engineering major made so much sense. The job title is right there in the name of the degree ‘engineer!’ There was a clear path, unlike something like English or History. But then, my freshman and sophomore year, I started to see the older students graduate. And the world seemed to open up again as they went into government or industry, taking on any variety of roles in RnD. Or going into an MBA program and business. Field services and sales. Law school and patent law. Or, yes, even med school and medicine. I thought I had started to answer the question What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up by picking a college and a major but that didn't seem true when I saw what my older classmates were doing with their degree. Then it was my turn as I reached my senior year. I graduated college in early 2009. Which was about the worst time you could graduate college. My classmates all took one of two paths – continue in the safe, protective bubble of academicia for a few more years in an extended degree, or take whatever job you could get in industry. I chose the latter. For the prior two years, I had interned at a medical device company as a systems engineer. I had enjoyed working at the company and was proud of the stuff the company made but there weren't any systems positions open at the time. There was, however, a software engineering entry level position open, if I was interested. I remember interviewing for the position. The hiring manager asked me if I was passionate about software, if it was where I saw myself in the future, even though it wasn't as related to biomedical engineering as something like systems engineering. The adult versions of What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up, basically. I smiled and nodded, thinking that I was graduating in two months and had student loans and the economy was tanking, so sure, I could be passionate about software.

I got the position and started as a software engineer. And luckily, it was just the right position for me. I had an incredible manager and mentor who helped guide me in my role, someone who still helps guide me in my career today. I enjoyed the products and the team, my role in the development process. And I really did become passionate about software – it’s place in the product, the architecture and design, the interfaces and interactions, and of course, my favorite, the user experience. Software engineer wasn’t a job that I knew existed when I first answered that question, What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up, several years ago. But I’m so glad that’s where I’ve landed. And today, as I continue to learn more about software development and the industry, I realize that I’ll never stop asking myself that question or that my colleagues and I will ever stop asking of each other. The exact wording of the question may change and the answer certainly will, but it's a question we should never stop asking.

Purse Power

I've never been a person who lives out of my car. I have friends who do - friends whose car becomes their office, as they shuttle from hospital to hospital, selling medical devices and assisting doctors in surgery, or as they drive all over New England, patching the foundations of water-logged houses. Suddenly their cars are full of work orders and inventory documents, email print outs and boxes of devices and work tools, littered with Starbucks cups and fast food wrappers. Occasionally the cars are cleaned on some ambitious weekend, only to be trashed by the end of a busy work week a few days later.

That's not me. I have a cube where I can park my email print outs and inventory notes, thank you. It's also where I have an assortment of a dozen post it options, all in various sizes and colors, and four different beverages at the moment - still water, sparkling water, Coke Zero, and Starbucks. The closest I've ever come to a messy car is beach stuff, something that I'm still getting used to, still figuring out my routine, as this summer will only be my second near a body of water. And even then, it's a minor assortment - beach chair, beach blanket, both neatly tucked away in my trunk, just in case there's a last minute trip to the beach after work or on the weekend.

But otherwise my car is spotless. There are the requisite papers in the glove compartment, along with a pen and two different first aid kits. In the arm rest, there are a handful of CDs and my sunglasses. In the compartment beneath my shifter, there's my work badge and cell phone, when I'm driving. The messiest thing about my car is the USB cable, forever dangling out of the armrest, waiting for my commute home. It doesn't matter how often I have the phone plugged in while I'm at my desk, it always needs a charge on the way home.

So my car is neat. Which means anything I take with me, I take with me. There's never a gym bag, hanging out in the car in case it gets used. There's never an extra set of clothes, in case I end up at the boyfriend's house or get stuck somewhere because of the snow (still figuring out New England, both summer and winter!). If I get food in the car, every bit of it leaves the car with me afterwards, wrappers and cups and all.

But lately it seems like a lot of stuff comes with me. I've got my purse, my work bag (both personal and work papers and folders, usually the work laptop, in part so I can check my email and in part in case I have to work from home the next day), and, as part of new year's resolutions, I've added my gym bag. And these are basically daily accouterments, to be packed the night before, lugged to my car in the morning, then lugged to my cube, then lugged back to my car, and finally home again. Each day, I have this almost suitcase full of stuff that has to accompany. When did this happen? When did I become this person? I could probably live off the stuff in my three bags for a week or so, if I really needed to. But again, when did this happen?

The gym bag is fairly new. And it's not a gym bag, it's actually a Victoria's Secret tote, that I picked up for free when I was purchased three new bras. Someone saw it and asked me if I was okay advertising I shopped at Victoria's Secret. Well, sure, everyone needs underwear. And the tote is great, just the right size for my gym clothes, shoes, bag of assorted hygiene products, and, when there's a chance of staying over at the boyfriend's, a change of clothes and also a bag of makeup. It also fits in the Planet Fitness lockers just right, which is not unimportant. And speaking of Planet Fitness, those things are everywhere! I've never belonged to a gym before, previously relying on my apartment or work to supply a treadmill. My new personal challenge is to see how many I can go to. I'm on my third month of membership and so far, and I've been to six different locations. Six! There's the one by work, the one by my apartment, the one by the boyfriend's house, the one by the theater I have season tickets to, the one by the restaurant my book club always goes to, and the one by that random restaurant when I had an hour and a half to kill. So many locations! This isn't an advertisement - I'm sure this is true of other gym franchises. But it means I should always have my bag, stocked with fresh clothes, fresh socks, and the necessary hygienic products (deodorant, body wash, shampoo, face wash, and moisturizer, plus towels). It's a lot of stuff but my prior method of 'just hope you fit a workout in somewhere' wasn't really working either.

Then there's the work bag. Taking the laptop with me every night is required in a variety of ways. To check email and potentially work from home, sure, but also peer pressure. Everyone else in the office takes his or her laptop home. There's this moment of condescension when I come in empty-handed or someone notices I didn't take my laptop home. Oh isn't that nice for her. She must not be as dedicated as I am. But I am dedicated! Sure, most nights the laptop just sits there, sometimes it doesn't even leave the bag. But it's there, just in case. Then there's the other work stuff - laptop charger, post it notes, pens, work documents, in case the urge to be productive strikes at 8 PM while I'm watching John Oliver with a glass of wine. Is a week night complete without these things within an arms' reach? And then there's the personal stuff in that work bag - umbrella and planner, my own personal folder of my documents - things I need to deliver to the doctor or landlord when I get around to it, mail I need to go through eventually, to do lists and notes for book club. That random coupon I need to use sometime, extra paper for notes when the moment strikes. 

And finally, the purse. Three compartments, one for medical/hygienic stuff, one for wallet and passport (until I get my driver's license in the mail), and one for miscellaneous - Tide marker, phone charger, Anker, mints. Sprinkled throughout is the usual purse detritus - six different lipsticks plus two chapsticks, pens, note cards and envelopes from Target, pads and tampons, gum, hand sanitizer, hand lotion, TUMs, Midol, my prescription medicines, my boyfriend's prescription medicines, nail file, nail polish, compact mirror, mini hairbrush, hair tie, pens, headphones, Kleenex. All of these things I carry with me everywhere and all of them seem necessary. Occasionally I have to minimize, like when I'm traveling and switch to a much smaller cross body purse or if I'm going out in the evening and switching to a small clutch. It's basically Sophie's Choice as I look through my purse, determining which items aren't absolutely necessary, feeling guilty when the Tide marker or Anker doesn't make the cut, abandoned in a half-empty purse for the day.

A month or so after the gym bag was introduced to the equation, I decided I couldn't take it any more, I had to regroup and minimize the crap I insisted on carrying around with me every day. And I had a great, brand new company backpack I had gotten when I joined the company almost exactly a year early. It had sat in my closet, unused but oh so useful, with it's many various pockets and compartments.

First, I tried combining the work bag and gym bag into the backpack. It didn't work. There were too many varieties of things, too many pieces of clothing and shoes and stiff folders. It just didn't go together. I would need to keep my gym bag separate. And really, it would be easier - the gym bag varied, depending on when I was going to the gym (in the morning means I need to shower and apply makeup afterwards, in the evening means look like garbage afterwards, go home, and take a shower) and what I was doing later in the day (Theater? Okay, put the shower stuff and makeup bag back in the gym bag. Boyfriend's? Now throw in an extra set of clothes.). The gym bag was too in flux to co exist peacefully with one of my other lifelines.

So the purse and work bag it would be. And the thing is, they fit really well together. There was one large compartment with a laptop space that fit most of my work bag stuff, rather neatly. There were two small compartments that had many little pockets inside for all the pens, Kleenex and other purse debris I listed above. I had just made the physical switch, emptying all of my work bag and purse contents into the backpack, finding a home for everything, when I realized I couldn't do it. I couldn't say goodbye to the purse.

First, it just wasn't practical. Yes, every day I took my work bag to work with me, then home afterwards. But out to dinner? To the mall on the weekends? No way. I would need just the purse for that, so I imagined a life in which I was constantly moving purse things from the backpack to the purse, not just on weekends but also any time I did anything but work on the weeknights. Practically, it didn't make sense.

But a purse is part of my identity. It's my opinion that there are two types of women - those with stuff and those without it. Sure, most cube-bound women have work bags. And most have wallets. But there are those whose purse could subsist a small country for a day or two and those who just have enough to complete a Starbucks order. There's not a lot of in between.

A few months ago, I went to New York City for the day with a friend. That involved six hours on a bus, in total, plus a bunch of running around the city and a Broadway show. She arrived at my apartment an hour before the bus with nothing but the clothes she was wearing and a wad of cash, credit cards, and IDs, bound together by a rubber band and shoved in her jacket pocket. I was shocked such a person, regardless of gender, could exist. Meanwhile, I had my sensible cross body purse, perfect for a day of running around the city and hopping from one subway to the next, filled with a book and headphones for the bus, copies of the Broadway show tickets, phone charger, wallet, and the usual - Kleenex, lipstick, sanitizer, etc.

I didn't use to be one of those women. When I was younger, the only time I carried anything at all, besides homework to school, was on mall weekends, when we would drive an hour and a half to the closest shopping area and spend the whole day going from one mall to the next, trying to find something to spend our money on. And then, I might have had a wallet but probably just had a couple of twenties, my life savings, shoved in a pocket.

When I turned 16, I bought my first purse, mostly as a place to put my keys. And for awhile, that was all it had in it. Wallet and keys. I went through four or five purses in high school, all some variant of jean material, all from Wal-Mart or JC Penney. I wasn't really a purse person, either in caring of the thing itself or in its contents. Occasionally I would add a pen. But most of my life was still in my school backpack. The purse only a necessity because of the car keys. Car keys and wallets don't fit in women's pockets like they do men's. Recently, when in Europe, I chastised my boyfriend until he switched his wallet from his back pocket to his front pocket, to avoid pick pockets. I was shocked - his front and back pockets can fit a wallet, can fit a phone? The jeans I'm wearing now only have fake pockets on the front and the back can barely hold a phone, let alone a stuffed wallet.

In college, the pattern continued. I had a backpack, who needed a purse?

Then I graduated. And I spent 300 bucks on a Coach purse. Coach isn't the fanciest brand out there and I'm sure their stuff is way over priced, but it was my first big paycheck, the purse was cute, and it's still hanging in my closet.

And then gradually, I became a purse person. It started out casual. My planner, which had previously guided my life and lived in my backpack, moved to the purse. Then so did the associated pens. Then I became a person who needed chapstick and Kleenex and various medicines with me, always. In the years since, the purse list has just kept growing. Adding headphones and chargers and notebooks and mirrors and hair brushes until I can't fathom just shoving a credit card and an ID in my pocket and going out the door.

I'm a purse person. Attempting to switch to a backpack made clear how far I've come, how far along this path I am. There's no going back. If my commute changes, I may have to switch to wheels for the work bag (I actually already have this very nice briefcase that has wheels and a handle, purchased by my last company in a fit of generosity from my then-boss). Because now I'm also a gym bag person and a work bag person, too.

I need to de-clutter, potentially.

Tomorrow's the Oscars, so let's do this.

Nothing like being too late to the party! This year, for the first time in awhile, I've seen a big chunk of the nominated movies. I'm aided by the fact that the films seemed a bit more spread out this year and I was more interested in the films. I mean, I think I saw Get Out before getting around to Moonlight and I am still meaning to catch up on La La Land. 

But this year! I'm genuinely looking forward to this Sunday's show, even though  I feel like I don't have a serious horse in this race. I'll be happy if a myriad of films win. Yay!

Here are the Best Picture nominees, then the other films I saw/have opinions about from other categories.

Call Me By Your Name - I understand there's some serious love for both the film and the lead actor. I will get around to seeing this and Timothee Chalamet will win an Oscar eventually (though he seems very sweet on Instagram).

Darkest Hour. Another one I'm totally going to get around to. I mean, the Churchill museum in London really turned me around on this guy. Still side eyeing the inevitableness of Gary Oldman winning Best Actor, given the Me Too-ness of it all and what similar accusations did to James Franco. It seems like a very 'Career Achievement' Actor Oscar. In general, the four acting nominations seem so locked up, I just want to see a surprise. Though I love Janney and Rockwell and am warm on McDormand.

Dunkirk. This was a movie I was 'meh' on seeing. I've had brief periods of Christopher Nolan fanboy-ness, particularly his Christian Bale films and Memento. But this one just didn't pull me into the theaters. While home for Christmas, my brother picked up this movie and Logan Lucky from the Redbox. I was mostly waiting to get around to the second film but we agreed to watch this one first. Luckily, my brother has a decent TV. Because this is really one I should have seen at the theater. A well-done, tight, and extremely stressful movie. A podcast I listened to called this the movie Nolan has been building up to for decades and I agree. There are so many pieces he's honed from other films at work here - the intricate time layers (Inception), a muffled Tom Hardy in a mask (The Dark Knight Rises), stranded pretty boys (Interstellar), and a frazzled Cillian Murphy. It's just an excellent piece of story telling and a unique way to really get a grasp on the enormity of Dunkirk (for fun, I recommend revisiting that incredible Atonement scene afterwards. Or just revisiting Atonement in general). Some other podcast pointed it out (my fondness for a film is directly related to how many podcasts I listen to about it afterwards) - we never really see the Germans. This is a very British film that this American loved. It was nice to see WWII that wasn't USA-centric. And yet another podcast actually predicted, due to the preferential ballots, this film will probably be the one that takes home the top prize, being the one least divisive. I'm here for the surprise, so sure. But also, with Best Picture, I try to think about the historical take and Dunkirk seems pretty unimpeachable a pick. This is always going to be a very good movie from a very good director. Speaking of which, I know Nolan will get one eventually and I'm fine with the inevitability of del Toro, but he's so accomplished and this was quite a feat. And finally, while we're on the topic of preferential ballots, can we please do that for President next time, so swing staters can vote for their Jill Steins and their Bernie write-ins first, their reasonable candidate second, and not fuck over our country?

Get Out. This is the one we all really want to see win, right? Personally, I really want to see it pick up a win in Best Screenplay. Another podcast pointed out how much the script has seeped into our culture. Got the keys, babe? Welcome to the Sunken Place. Etc. It's a very of the moment film (though, as one Oscar voter put it, we gave the black movie the aware last year) that I think history will look back kindly on, if we're going to look at Best Picture from that lens. I mean, it's already been out for more than a year. And the longer it sits with me, the more powerful the story is. It's also just an immensely watchable movie. I bought it on Amazon and have it perennially downloaded on my tablet. It's my go to movie, whether to zone out the crying baby in seat 12B or to fall asleep to when I need a break from Netflix or just something known and comforting. Maybe that doesn't mean it's Best Picture material, but it's the movie I'll have memorized and still have on rotation in a decade. But seriously, Best Screenplay, at least.

Lady Bird. Maybe you have to be a woman of a certain age, but I loved this film. I watched it with a relatively new boyfriend and afterwards we shared our own high school stories that the film invoked. And of course there's the honest, complex relationship between the daughter and the mother that is rarely so well-captured. I bought this one on Amazon as well and will be watching it with my mom and sister before the latter's graduation in a couple of months. As for its odds, probably not picking up Best Picture. I would love to see Saoirse Ronan win this. She's an incredibly accomplished actress for her age (second shout out to Atonement here!) and will absolutely pick one up soon, so let's please try to figure out how to pronounce her name already. Metcalf is also excellent in a complicated role. I'm of the mind that Allison Janney can do no wrong but I wouldn't be mad if Metcalf ran away with Best Supporting Actress. Otherwise, I'm guessing Lady Bird walks away empty handed. Let's just look forward to watching this again and whatever Greta Gerwig does next.

Phantom Thread. I recently watched this out of boredom - I had gotten back from a trip and had one day left before going back to work and the real world. Instead of doing anything productive, we watched this, mostly to cross it off our Oscars To See list. And wow, I'm so glad that we did. It's a surprisingly dark and funny movie, more about relationships than the tortured genius (Thank God, we only need one mother! a year). The performances are all fantastic, especially Day-Lewis and Manville, who steals the thing. The clothes are beautiful and we should riot if it doesn't win Best Costume (the fucking fish suit in Shape of Water shouldn't count!). While I hope Day-Lewis isn't really retiring, this is one to go out on. May we all be as confident and full of ourselves as Reynolds Woodcock, when necessary. And I can always just go rewatch The Age of Innocence for the dozenth time. Paul Thomas Anderson continues to inspire and confound me. And I'm going to have to watch this again. I've never seen cooking poison or sewing clothes filmed so beautifully and which such love. While Get Out seems of the moment, I have heard rumblings that this couldn't have come at a worse time. I disagree. If anything, the film seems to prop up the gender inequality and Me Too ideals, as Reynold's genius is only propped up and possible by the work of a myriad of women, from his controlling sister to his dainty muses to the women who sew or buy the clothes themselves. And then there's the power struggled between his sister, his muse, and himself that anchors the whole thing. But really, go see it. Best Costume really seems like it's only shot at taking anything home (too divisive for Best Picture and really, there are better ones out here), unless those Gary rumors convince enough people to give Day-Lewis a going away present. As for me, this will be a film I think about a lot and revisit when I'm feeling melancholy, along with PTA's other films (except The Master, which I still don't get).

The Post. Another one I'm really, totally going to get around to. Mostly this just impresses me with how quickly it got made, though I think there were less subtle stories to tell if you want to just jab at Trump's 'fake news' bullshit. But I'm sure when I do get around to it, it will be a well-made, perfunctory film that makes me want to go watch Spotlight again or finally read All the President's Men.

The Shape of Water. I've heard this is a love it or loathe it movie. For me, it was a shrug. Sure, there was something fantastical about it, akin to the mood del Toro created for Pan's Labyrinth (and that film's a strong 'love it' for me). Sally Hawkins and Richard Jenkins were all doing lovely things (I like Octavia Spencer as much as the next person but I don't understand why she got a nomination for her very small role here and I also look forward for opportunities for her that don't involve cleaning up after white people in the 1960's). But the romance with the fish thing never really clicked for me and the ending seemed too scripted. I mean, give it some technical awards and del Toro should probably already have an Oscar already, but Best Picture? Of the year? If it wins, I'm blaming preferential ballots.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. I watched this on a nine-hour flight, so I might seem a bit jaded. Woody Harrelson made me cry, though Abbie Cornish just confused me with that accent. And sure, Sam Rockwell and Frances McDormand have earned their Oscars. But I don't get the hype on this movie. Again, well-made and perfunctory, yes, Best Picture, no. It's a movie that will be on TNT once a month in a few years but one I'll probably skip when I see it. A podcast compared it to Crash. I don't think it's that tone-deaf and tortured and maudlin, but it's not inspirational either.

And those are the Best Picture nominees. Of the bunch, I would probably go with Get Out but I'm fine with Dunkirk taking it. And now, for the other stuff.

I, Tonya. Okay, I loved this movie. Maybe it's the age I was when the whole thing really happened or my love for Margot Robbie and Allison Janney, but I really enjoyed this film as a whole. There's no way Margot is winning but hopefully this leads to more interesting stuff for her than leading guy's pretty girlfriend. And unless Metcalf has a stronger following than realized, I'm looking forward to seeing Allison win.

The Disaster Artist. I watched The Room for the first time, then went and saw this. Real talk - The Room is terrible for a lot of different reasons, but I don't know that the cult following is warranted. Maybe the hype was too high by the time I finally saw it? You can have your Tommy Wiseau, I'll take Rocky Horror Picture Show or the like instead. As for The Disaster Artist, sure, it's fine. The film is a fun inside joke made by a bunch of friends who seem to have a lot of affection for Wiseau. And if not for the recent round of allegations, it probably would have gotten Franco a deserved Best Actor nod (though only the nod is deserved, he isn't the best on any lists).

Logan. Well, comic book movies can be that? It's exciting to see a film like this nominated here. And hey, it was a really great script! Sure, Call Me By Your Name is going to win, but this is really a case where the nomination is the award itself.

The Big Sick. It's not quite When Harry Met Sally but almost. I want those characters as my parents. Just a great story, all the more heart-warming by being true. It's only nominated for screenplay and my guess is it doesn't win (every other nominee in Original Screenplay is also a Best Picture nominee). But hey, it was probably my third favorite screenplay of the year, after Get Out and Lady Bird.

War for the Planet of the Apes. Those goddamn apes have never won an Oscar, which is a tragedy. On the same flight I watched Three Billboards, I also fell down a Planet of the Apes rabbit hole, watching parts of Dawn (for the fifth or sixth time, at least), then Rise and War. I'm just impressed by all of it - the restrained action, the tidy story-lines, the complex characters, whatever Andy Serkis is doing, and the CGI. Seriously, those goddamn apes are a marvel. So give them a visual effects here and we'll pretend it's for all three films.

Brand Loyalty Gets You Down

When I was in high school and studying psychology and marketing (in a very high-level, shallow way that only happens in college-credit-type public high school classes), I scoffed at the idea of brand loyalty. What mindless sheep!

Then I went to college and started buying my own shit. And companies know - college is when the habits start! For the first time, you're the one standing in the hair care aisle at Wal-Mart, trying to pick out a shampoo out of the thousands of brightly colored bottles in front of you, all vying for your attention. It's no longer just picking among the plethora that Mom always has laid out in the shower, all to varying degrees of emptiness. No, suddenly, for the first time in your life, you're making the decisions. On personal hygiene products and food products and paper products. You're answering the all-too-important question of 'when is store brand okay and when do you need to splurge and go for the real thing'?

And then you make that decision - Crest! Tide! Equate! - and there's no looking back. Companies know college is when you make the life-changing decisions and unknowingly become a Dawn-for-life person. One afternoon, in a hurry at Kroger, trying to get back for that recruitment event or study session, you pick up that one brand of deodorant and suddenly it's thirty years later and you've never experimented with another brand of deodorant and can't imagine ever using anything else, despite how many times your wife insists it doesn't work that well and hasn't for at least a decade.

So in college, we were inundated with brands vying for our eventual loyalty. College students aren't picking out cars yet (though this does happen later - I have a friend whose family is 'Honda only'). So Volvo might not have been knocking down our doors but everyone else was. Any event that had vendors, suddenly people from P&G were popping up with Tide samples and Crest toothpaste tubes. I lived in a sorority house and it wasn't uncommon to get boxes of shaving razors or face wash samples. Get 'em while they're young! Not habit-forming young, like cigarettes, but consumer-loyalty-forming young.

And, boy, was it effective. Thanks in part to this onslaught in college, I've been using the same razor brand, the same deodorant brand, and the same soap brand for the past decade. My first apartment after college was near a Target, so now I insist on Method brands for all hand and dish soaps. Thanks to a friend in college and a fun marketing campaign in middle school, I was on a Herbal Essences kick until about five years ago, when my stylist informed me I could no longer buy hair care products at Target. Since then I've experimented on various fancy stylist-approved shampoos and conditioners, never really sticking to one thing. Brand loyalty is a lot easier when it's at Target, to be honest.

And then there's the really important brand loyalty because it works, like toilet paper. Cottonelle or death. 

But sometimes brand loyalty backfires.

Starting in middle school, I always had an agenda book. A weekly planner, whatever you want to call it. Middle school through college, this was school-provided. About the size of a large paperback, the agenda book had a week spread across two pages, another page for each month in the back, a section for addresses and phone numbers, a section for notes, and then miscellaneous other things, depending on the institution. Maps, important phone numbers, state capitals. Measurement conversions, time zones. Etc. I became increasingly reliant on these books over the 12 years they were school-provided, to keep track of appointments and homework assignments but to also remember important milestones - this was the night I stayed up all night writing fan-fiction, this was the day I finally went to lunch with the cute kid from band. etc. It became something of a crutch. Or maybe it's more like a a strong need or urge - must document daily life in planner book! If it wasn't in my agenda book, did it even happen? And I would actually use this documentation. Years later, I could answer the question, what were you doing February 12th, 1998, because it was written down! What I consider agenda worthy, what daily events are important enough to record, has changed over time, but it's been 20 years since middle school and I still record things every day in my agenda book. Important things that happened at work or at home, when someone's birthday is or my next dentist's appointment. But there's comfort in knowing that in ten years, I can tell you what I was doing on November 11th, 2017, because it will be in my agenda book. Maybe it's just wondering when I read that book or maybe it's part of the Mueller investigation, but I know it's there.

After I graduated college, I was packing to move to South Carolina. And I packed my agenda book from my senior year, my last provided planner. I looked and the book ended in June of that year. There were only a few weeks left! And I realized, this would be my last institution-approved agenda book. There would be no more. I was on my own. That afternoon, I happened to be shopping with a friend and we went to Barnes and Noble. And there they were, agenda books! I found one that somewhat mimicked the school books' timeline, covering 18  months - January to December of one year, then until June of the next. And I liked other things about it - glued spine instead of ringed, about the same size as the school books (aka, fits in my purse). And just like the school books, the week was split across two pages, which was crucial to maintain my recording habit, which I didn't think I could break. There were the usual's in the back, plus a few random odd bits of information (who needs zodiac signs in a weekly planner?). And there were other things - I liked the variety of covers, going with an off white background with a large abstract flower in the front. I liked the method of keeping your page (instead of the popular and simple ribbon, each corner had a tearaway piece; you would tearaway to the page you were on). On a bit of a whim, I picked up this agenda book. I didn't know I would be creating an important new tradition.

It's 9 years later. Every year about this time, November-ish, I go to Barnes and Noble. I find the calendars and I find my brand of weekly planner. The only thing that's changed from year to year is the cover. And so I go and peruse the cover options. Usually there are four to six options, with one or two repeats from prior years. Occasionally I would even go to multiple Barnes and Nobles, to check out the options. And then I switch from one year's agenda book to the next, carefully copying over important dates and the phone numbers and addresses in the back. I make a note in the old book - switch to new one on this date! All my agenda books, from middle school to college and then the Barnes and Noble after that, are carefully placed in drawer in my home desk. When I think of things I would grab in a fire, I think of these books, among other things. Because if these books are lost or destroyed, where's the record of my life? How will I know when my dentist appointment was, when I finally got around to watching The Apartment? What I did for my twenty-third birthday or where I went for dinner my last night in Portland?

But here is the problem on depending on companies. They let you down. I knew it would happen eventually. I would go to Barnes and Noble in my annual pilgrimage (though I do go more often, really) and my brand of planner would be nowhere to be seen. I wondered how long I could rely on Barnes and Noble to keep me stocked.

This year, I went to my local Barnes and Noble. The calendars are always a challenge to find, never quite where you think they should be. And I only go once a year, usually to a different location, after all. Finally, I find them. Look through the shelves and then I see it, my brand, in just the right size. There are three cover options, including one that I used a couple of years ago. I pick up one of the two new covers, to see the interior color scheme. And that's when I realize it. Barnes and Noble has finally let me down.

On the left, the new format. On the right, the old format.

After 9 years of Barnes and Noble and 12 years of school weekly planners in one orientation, Barnes and Noble changed the game on me. Gone are the horizontal days of the week. Instead, I now have this boxy, quarter page thing. What the hell, Barnes and Noble? I knew this day would come eventually. The brand would stop producing agenda books and I would have to find something else. But this? This was a new type of betrayal. Why mess with a good thing? Were they really losing market because of the page organization?

I'm not helping matters - I bought one anyway. And I'll use it, I just need to figure out how to reorganize my daily notes. And I still have everything else good about the book - the extra pages in the back, the tear away corners, the perfect size.

Brand Loyalty. They can usually depend on us, but can we depend on them?

You Can't Make Promises But You Can Make Me a Drink

In the past three years, I've bought three physical albums - 1989, Hamilton, and now reputation. Real talk, I was not at all impressed with the pre-album singles, but as soon as the CD came out, I started to hear rumblings around the internet. And I couldn't help myself. I went to Target and bought the thing. Also, Taylor, when is it going to be available on Spotify? Google Music? Amazon Music? Girl has an Android and needs to listen to this on my run!

But the CD has been my background music, my car music, and will be my running music as soon as I can get the thing on my phone. And I have serious thoughts and opinions on each song. But before I get to the individual songs, some overall thoughts on the CD. She really picked the worst songs for the singles so far. What was her marketing team thinking - were they that invested in the phrase 'the old Taylor can't come to the phone right now because she's dead?' And the videos haven't been great either, with the video for '...Ready For It' an expensive mess and the one for 'Look What You Made Me Do' only salvaged by the final ten seconds. The pre-release made it hard to be a fan. I found myself defending her, not a great situation when you you expect to be in an excited, anticipatory bubble. And it's hard to talk about Taylor without talking about her politics, or lack thereof, as her feminism embrace seems more about her brand than anything meaningful. When Breitbart is quoting you, time to speak up.

But hey, we're just here to blindingly talk about songs. One thing that surprised me in this era - how much she talks about sex and drinking and actually curses. She says 'shit' at one point! Multiple songs references drinks and wine and getting drunk. Wow, we've come a long way. And while previous albums flirted with sex, thinking especially of those breathy pieces in 'Wildest Dreams,' the album is at its most obvious here. I want to say something about Taylor growing up, but girl is 27 years old (almost 28). That ship has sailed but nice to see she's finally getting around to acknowledging it.

Finally, in addition to her videos, Youtube has some fun 'making of' videos (I was going to link to her Youtube user account but not all are listed under her) for some of the songs. It's an insightful peak to the behind the scenes stuff of making a song. I wish more artists did this, to be honest.

And now for the songs. I'm ranking them here, best to worst. Vulture did her whole catalog. I didn't really jump on the Taylor bandwagon until Red and don't have as opinions of the bulk of her country songs, but, sure, Vulture, sounds good!

1. This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things. Parts of this song are obviously about Kanye. Others maybe an ex-boyfriend or Katy Perry or Karlie Kloss. Who cares, as long as we have the song! This is the song 'Look What You Made Me Do' was trying to be. It's nice to see her occasionally embrace the vindictive, petty persona, especially when it's so fun. And she embraces the childishness of her famous feuds here, with the silly title and the condescending tone she takes throughout. The ridiculous rhymes in the fake toasts, the Gatsby references, the faux-friendliness to the frenemy at the heart of the song with the sarcastic affection, I'm here for all of it.

2. I Did Something Bad. Here it is, her first on-record use of the word 'shit.' So grown up! But seriously, why wasn't this the first single? The 'witch' references are clunky but the rest of it is such a great pop song. It belongs on the radio (if I listened to the radio).

3. Don't Blame Me. Vulture compares this song to Hozier's Take Me To Church. I get it, at a stretch, though I probably prefer the latter? That being said, it's still my number three on the album and the lyrics 'love made my crazy / if it doesn't, you ain't doin' it right' have made me reconsider my own personal love life. Taylor maybe isn't the chick to take advice from but she can write a tune.

4. Delicate. I do enjoy this song. There's something relaxed and casual about it. I'm going to listen to it one rainy afternoon while drinking wine and watching a fire and it's going to be lovely. On quibble - where did Taylor's confidence go? She asks him 'if it's okay if she says all that' and assumes he must actually, truly really like her for her because her reputation is so shitty and he still lowers himself to be with her. Girl, where's the firebrand from "I Did Something Bad?" Get some of the gumption back, you're Taylor Swift! This does have my favorite lyric of the entire album: 'Can't make any promises now, can we babe, but you can make me a drink'. Damn, that's a lifestyle.

5. Getaway Car. This is, to me, the odd man out. Something of a story song, her take at Bonny and Clyde, 'New Romantics'-adjacent. I don't know much about Bleachers (though I like fun.) but the internet tells me this is a very Bleachers-song. I may not like his girlfriend, but sometimes Jack Antonoff can put together a tune. Maybe Lena Dunam can do the screenplay.

There's a clear break here - the first five songs I really enjoy. And they're songs I'll seek out, purposefully skip to. The ones I really need on my phone. The next couple of songs I'll allow if the CD randomly ends up on them. They're not my favorite but they're listenable.

6. So It Goes. This is predictable and fine, as casual as the romance it's about. Quick aside - I think this is the first album primarily written about an ongoing romance? In general, revenge and broken hearts are more her strong suit. There's not a 'Blank Space' or 'Never Getting Back Together' here.

7. New Year's Day. Okay, sure. It's no "All Too Well" but, then, what is? Again, it's the mid-romance song versus the pangs of regret and heartbreak.

8. Call It What You Want. This one is clearly the best of the pre-releases. As always, some of the lyrics are very clunky while also displaying some questionable romantic choices (trust you like a brother? chain around your neck because he really knows you?) and a few odd deviations (personally, I like the nods to some disappearance from society where she can be truly happy but it doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the love song), but overall I like the mood and tone, the vibe, of the song. There's something effortless and cool about it. Not the best, not the worst.

9. Dress. Please don't be about Ed Sheeran, please don't be about Ed Sheeran.

10. King Of My Heart. Before listening to the album, I heard some shit about this song and was ready to not like it. But really? It's not the worst! There's something easy and light-hearted but also inevitable about it. How did this song not already exist in the world? Some of the lyrics are cringey (the way she pronounces Jaguar alone...) but when it comes on, I'm not mad.

11. Gorgeous. The next-to-least-worst of the pre-releases in Gorgeous. I've seen pictures of her new boyfriend and I don't know that I would write this particular song about him, but I'm happy she's happy! There is a bit 'everything and the kitchen sink' to this song, starting with the baby intro. I'm going to assume they enjoyed making it as much as Taylor enjoys her new boyfriend's face.

12. Dancing With Our Hands Tied. This song is here because I have no real opinion on it but I don't actively dislike it like the next three. This song is the equivalent of those Hallmark Christmas movies. It's something to put my eyeballs on (or in this case, ears) for a period of time but as soon as it's over, I can't tell you a single detail about it, but I can probably guess at the main points.

Now we're to the next part of the CD. These are the ones I almost always skip, unless I'm driving and the highway traffic is precarious or I'm holding a Starbucks cup in one hand. Really not your best work, Taylor.

13. Look What You Made Me Do. The last ten seconds of the music video and the 'Cause she's dead' bit keep it above numbers 14 and 15. But seriously, this was the first single? Vulture had this as the worst Taylor Swift song ever in their list. And honestly, when I heard it the first time, the day after it's release while brushing my teeth, I would agree. But since then, it's grown on me. In part because of my incessant listening for the first few weeks because hey, new Taylor is still new Taylor. Now I can mostly just skip it when it comes on and move on with my life.

14. ... Ready For It. Ew. Just ew. The rapping is terrible. I cringe every time she says 'so this is how it's gonna go.' And somehow the bloated, meaningless music video just makes it worse.

15. End Game. Ed Sheeran raps on this one. That's all you need to know. And it's the second song on the CD! I'm not well-versed enough in Swift's entire catalog to say if this is her worst song ever. But of the one's I'm familiar with? Yes. Very, very much yes.

Airport WiFi and Bars

According to pictures and parents, I flew for the first time when I was nine months old. The second time was 21 years later. I was in college and in a sorority. I had just been elected, in a process more complicated than the Presidential Electoral College, as Vice President of Administration, which meant that I got to represent the chapter whenever the President was unable to. Or didn't want to. Which was the case my junior year of college, when we had a big national event in Memphis, TN. The chapter (meaning dues from myself and my sisters) would pay for my flight and my hotel room, which I would share with a complete stranger/sister from another chapter. I was nervous about flying for the first time (that I would remember). But I was also living with college seniors and a handful of them had spent the year flying around the country to interview at various companies. So they had tips and insights into the flight itself. Carry-on suggestions. Indianapolis airport recommendations. My first (memorable) flight!

I remember literally nothing about it. I don't remember the airport - since then, Indianapolis has built a brand spanking new airport. That airport has become a second home but the first one is only a fuzzy memory of a memory. I kind of remember poorly designed terminals and a sad pop up Starbucks. I had a connecting flight (that's right, no directs from Indianapolis to Memphis, I'm fairly certain I could have driven in a quicker time than those two flights took) and somehow all four flights, the two to get there and the two to get back, were fairly empty. At one point, I had a whole row to myself, stretching out over three seats. How luxurious! Since then, I've flown first class domestic. I've been in the upper deck of an international business class Lufthansa flight. But 21 year old me was impressed with the whole row in Coach.

For the next few years, I tracked my flights. I would write them down in my agenda book. Including the layovers. There was the flight to Memphis. A few more flights that year to interview for internships. The next year, I flew around the country for job interviews. I spend half a year living in South Carolina, another year and a half in Oregon. Then I was back in Indianapolis. Flights home were no longer necessary but I started traveling a lot for work - San Francisco and D.C. and Boston and Las Vegas, then Frankfurt. And then I was living in Germany, flying around Europe. Landing in Frankfurt Airport will always be a little bit comforting, a little bit exciting.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped recording my flights. They became too frequent (here is where my friends in marketing roll their eyes - I've got no idea about frequent flying). But for me it's been a significant change. No more special notes in my agenda book, listing all the flights I've taken in my life. I don't save the plane ticket boarding passes any more. I'm making my way through the ranks of the various frequent flyer programs. But yet there's still something exciting about it. My little body traveling across the country and sometimes beyond, shuttling through space. The importance of me getting from one point to another. I let myself be impressed with my traveler skills - the deft and speed with which I traverse the check in and security process. My cute and well-packed luggage. My comfortable yet reasonable Clark sandals. I let myself be momentarily smug over my fellow novice travelers, helping them when I can. Because I'm still the little girl from the small Midwestern town, who didn't really fly until she was 21. Who didn't leave the country until she was 27 and then it was to live in Germany. So okay, be a smug traveler for a second. Enjoy your first class bump thanks to those frequent flyer programs. I'll allow it.

But travelers, in frequent and not, let's talk. A few years ago, I read a Slate article that basically said reclining in Coach is bullshit (domestic flights only, obviously). The article described how the recline does not give the recliner any real advantage but it does significantly fuck over the person whose space is being reclined into. Since then, I have studiously not reclined. I thought that we, as a society, had agreed. The recline isn't worth it. It's rude to the unlucky bastard behind you. Don't do it. Don't recline. Don't be that asshole.

And yet apparently not everyone read that Slate article. When did we get so selfish? Is this Trump's America?

As I type this, the asshole in front of me keeps pushing his seat back, forcing my laptop to cram a little further into my lap, as he's trying to squeeze in an extra millimeter of personal space. No one else in my vicinity is reclining. Everyone else has agreed - hey, let's be decent human beings. Jesus Christ, dude, give it a rest. Everyone else is making do with their allotted space!

Then we land and things get worse. As always, getting off the plane is the biggest chore. As I mentioned, I genuinely like flying. The time to yourself, both at the airport, post security, and on the plane. To nap. To watch movies (via the plane, if it's fancy, or via Netflix or Amazon on your phone/tablet - thank you to the gods for downloads). To read a book. To get a few things done. On this flight, I actually missed work. I pulled out my work laptop but couldn't think of anything that was either safe to display to my neighbors or didn't require WiFi, so I reorganized my document folders. I rarely feel this way while I'm in the office but I temporarily want to be a serious career woman, a workaholic, who can't go a day of PTO without checking her email or a plane ride without updating a PowerPoint.

Man I really wish the WiFi was working here so I could check my email.

But we're trying to get off the plane. It's taking forever, because it always takes forever. The woman next to me is seriously stressed out. She's huffing and puffing and picking at her nails. Every few minutes, the husband tells her to calm down. As soon as we landed, someone from the rear of the plane ran to the head of the newly formed lined, passing at least a dozen rows. Because when you're at the airport, your time is always more important than anyone else's.

This morning, at 4 AM when I was in line at security, I got a Twitter news notification. The President of the United States called a pregnant widow, whose husband had just died, killed in action while serving this country. And he told her, hey, your husband knew what he was signing up for. I guess it's still sad. Another resource on Twitter - 1 in 5,000 troops die today. This is not something they sign up for.

Trump's America. Reclining the goddamn seat in every way imaginable. Also Trump's America - dating your entries by shitty thing he tweeted that day.

Editor's Note - this was sarcasm. I honestly love flying. I love going to the airport. There's so much potential - all these people, going exciting places, places they absolutely have to be. Sure, most of the time it's for business. I just did a quick mental calculation - in the past few years, I've flown an average of 8 times a year. And probably 5 or 6 of those have been for work. So mostly the airport is full of overworked business people who are shuffling from one meeting to another, whose trip will be comprised of similar-looking conference rooms and impersonal hotel rooms, trips where the only sight seeing or souvenir buying will be done at the airport. But hey, someone is probably going home to meet a newborn grandchild or attend a wedding. Someone is going to rendezvous with a lover and propose. And I’m going to go hang out with friends and drink that Rhode Island wine I've got stuffed in my checked bag, as long as those new wine skins hold and I don't open up a bag full of wine-soaked clothes in a couple of hours.

Fifteen minutes later. I'm in the airport, drinking a mimosa and eating breakfast food. Only breakfast food for another two hours. I thought time didn't exist in airports? I'm not hungry and it's 8:30 AM. But what the hell else are you supposed to do in an airport? It's Charlotte and I've already seen vague 'freedom' and religious references and two Chik Fil A's, so I think I'll skip shopping. Fox News is on most televisions. Side note - the airport is honestly nice. Newish and big and open and easy to get from one gate to another. There's a restaurant with a bar within a few gates of every place, so A+ there Charlotte! We may have literally nothing in common culturally, but I like your style.

I am honestly bummed my flight is coming up so soon. I like airport bars. Time stands still as people hang out. No rush, just waiting for a flight. No one is going to judge what you're drinking or what you're eating, because who the hell knows where you're coming from or where you're going. There's a level of anonymity that only exists in airports. A game I like to play anytime, anywhere is 'no one knows where I’m coming from'. There's no bigger level than the friggin' airport.

A woman just came in next to me and gave very specific instructions for a glass of Prosecco. I would like to be this woman's friend. Another woman sat down on the other side of her and ordered rose. These are my people. I'm eating breakfast food even though I've been up for 5.5 hours at this point but it's 8:30 in the morning and that's the only option. My actual breakfast a few hours ago - Combos and a Smart Water at the gate of my first flight Excuse me while I drink my over-priced mimosa and my breakfast food that I don't really want. Because I'm an American in a goddamn airport.

I wasn't hungry but I ate every bite of those friggin' french toast.

Something About Floating

Note: I promise I still have so many entries about my time in Europe last year (I think me writing about it might espouse the time actually spent there). But this week there's traveling for work and other things that keep me preoccupied with real life. Still, could not resist throwing in my two cents on this guy. Travel Tuesdays resume next week!

I saw It this weekend. Initially, my plan was to tack on my thoughts during the weekly roundup: Hey, here are some interesting articles on It. Also I saw it last week and liked it. But then that alone started to get too long. So, screw it, here are my thoughts on the latest Stephen King adaptation.

First, a warning - I love Stephen King. I love the worlds he creates, the familiar characters and King-isms that imbue not only his works but a generation he's inspired. I cannot be objective about this film. I wrote a whole thing about it. Also, I was first introduced to Pennywise, long before picking up a King novel, via that TV miniseries from the '90's. I rented it with a friend when we were probably 10 or so, right before I started reading the books. The show itself was as daunting as the book - two cassettes! The only other movie I remember doing that was Titanic. And that's Titanic! The series terrified me. And somehow, in the thirty years since, the character of Pennywise has become ubiquitous. And while I think this latest iteration of the clown might even be better, as far as evil creatures go, I can't imagine anything replacing the iconography of Tim Curry all dressed up from the miniseries. I mean, do we have Bill Skarsgard smoking a cigarette under an umbrella? No, no we do not.

But onward! First, I enjoyed the film. It was a fun, and scary, 2 hours and 15 minutes. As an adaptation, it seemed to capture the spirit and themes of the novel without getting dragged down with the specifics. And look, we're beginning prime scary movie season. I just want to be scared. And that certainly happened. In a way, the film has two parts - the typical coming of age stuff that is more Stand By Me than The Stand. And then there's the scary stuff, big spectacle after big spectacle as the clown inhabits the things the children fear most. And I know I wanted to be scared, but I vastly preferred the former. The scenes between the kids, just being kids, are so excellent. There are some complaints going around the internet that this is a piggyback, cash grab off the success of Stranger Things. Honestly, okay, fine. Netflix, give me ten episodes of these kids running around Derry, getting in rock fights with bullies and jumping into the quarry. So many scenes were just perfect, like the boys' total awe at Bev in her underwear after the swim, the quick rally around Ben once they discover him. I wanted so much more of that, just them embracing that magical time in the lives of children that inhabits so many pieces of culture, especially from Stephen King himself. And while the scenes and interactions between them were excellent, the kids themselves shined. Sure, there were tropes and the movie didn't have time to get much beyond single traits (there's the black homeschooled kid, the one who stutters and has a dead brother, the Jewish kid not really into it, the hypochondriac, etc.). But even with that, this may be the best acting and chemistry I've seen among a group of child actors in a long time. Even Stranger Things didn't have it this good. For actors, I really appreciated the kid who played Richie, the one holdover from Stranger Things. It will be interesting to see where his career goes from this. But my favorites were Eddie and Bev. Eddie's humor and earnestness, his need for affection and acceptance from his friends, plus occasionally going toe to toe with Richie for bawdy humor, he was continually a welcome surprise. Bev had this cool exterior, all winks and New Kids on the Block references. And yet she was so vulnerable and so ready to help anyone else who might need her. In general, compared to the child actors from the TV miniseries, the teens were a dramatic improvement, but maybe none more so than the actress who played Bev. Again, can't wait to see what she, or her cast-mates, do next.

And then there's the other half, the scary part. And sure, it was really scary. The clown was excellent. While I have nothing but affection for Tim Curry, this version, in part due to technology and budget, was much more magical, much scarier. It was difficult to tell what was Bill Skarsgard and what was CGI. But Pennywise should be this magical, larger than life thing. I mean, he can turn into a spider whenever he wants! As for the scares themselves, there were some impressive ones. The painting coming to life, the awesome scene in the garage where Pennywise comes out of the screen. All terrifying. I jumped, I gave sharp intakes of breath. But still, when this movie comes out and I watch it again on HBO Go or Amazon in a few months, I won't be looking forward to the screams but just the kids being kids, throwing rocks and reading about Derry.

And now all the stuff that really bothered me. But I mostly liked it, promise.

First up, my heart for a gray character. Everyone in this show is either really bad or really good. That's it. There's one scene where the gang is riding the bike and they hear the bully beating someone up behind some trees. Without hesitation, they drop their bikes and run to help. Could we at least have a moment's doubt? Or have Eddie take off his fanny pack so it's protected? Something to show these guys are anything but good. I know, I know, later they have doubts about the mission, but no one guys so far as to actually not participate. But there's all the other characters. Eddie's Mom, Bev's Dad, and Henry's Dad, all just complete and total assholes whose kids would probably be better off raised by the direwolves from Game of Thrones. The pharmacist can't be a complex guy who wants the best for Eddie but also has to follow HIPAA. Nope, just your run of the mill pervert. The most galling, though, might be the bullies. There are two sets of bullies - the girl bullies and the boy bullies, the latter much more prevalent. And they beat up, to extremely disturbing degrees, our heroes. Why? I don't know. The one guy's dad is mean to him and that's really all we get. The Stand, a literal battle between good and evil, had more moral ambiguity.

And now I have the nittiest of nits to pick - the score. I feel like great movie scores are usually unseen. They assist the director in what he's trying to achieve without getting in the way. The score here bangs you over the head - you're supposed to be charmed by Derry, now you're supposed to be emotional over the dead kids. And now you need to be scared! BE SCARED! INCEPTION NOISES, INCEPTION NOISES. That was the score, basically. Watching it on mute with subtitles might have been more successful.

Finally, I saw this as someone who has read the book, seen the miniseries, and read most of the other books that take place in the same world. I know the history of Derry better than I know the history of my own hometown. So I can't answer this honestly, but did they explain everything well enough? With horror, I think you can go one of two ways - put out some horrible evil and just leave it. It's evil, who knows. Or you can try to explain it away. In The Descent, for example, there are creatures. They want to eat you. The end. Even looking at Stephen King, the salesman who shows up in Needful Things is clearly very evil and very old, but the book doesn't give you his backstory. Or there's something like Nightmare on Elm Street that gets plenty of backstory. It, in the novel, gets plenty of backstory. There isn't a definitive description of where the creature came from but you get an idea of how long it's been around and what it's done, how the creature influences the town and impacts everyone living there. This seems glossed over in the film. I kind of wish they had either gone all in or not at all, with Mike and Ben's attempts at explanations seeming half-hearted. Maybe this is something that will be explored more in the next film.

Which brings me to my final concern - did they make a huge mistake in splitting the film apart like they did? The book and original TV series constantly go back and forth, from present day to childhood (though I do appreciate moving the action up twenty years; a little bit of Amblin for everyone), as the adults rediscover the memories they repressed as kids. And there was something really effective in that. One concern I had while watching the movie was a certain sense of 'and then this happened.' Each child gets their run in with It, seemingly at random and without connection to the larger plot. This isn't an issue in the book, as each character is introduced as an adult and remembers their encounters with Pennywise. So much of the greatness of Stephen King books comes from what he gets right about people, not the horror. And in It, he effortlessly demonstrates the power and strength in childhood, how kids can do things grownups could never imagine. And I worry that the second part of the film is going to miss that, as it's just a bunch of adults, as we struggle to remember the characters from a film that came out two years ago, that got us there. Or will the second part of the film be a mess of new material and recaps of the first film?

And here is the one thing I think the TV mini series may have gotten right - splitting it (because you do have to split It into two movies - thanks every YA franchise of the past seven years preparing us for that) when the adults return to Derry. Or does that make it too incomplete a story on its own, too much a setup for the next film? Outside of that "Chapter One" business, this latest movie could probably stand on its own, in case the studio decides not to proceed with another film (though given the box office, there's probably gonna be an other film, maybe even more than one). And the TV mini series definitely is a two-parter. But everything else is terrible. First, the actors. Neither the adults or the kids are particularly great. There is one seen between child Eddie and child Bill that was particularly cringe-worthy. I could almost imagine some PA off camera, mouthing the words, or a director instructing the kids how to move their faces to convey an emotion. There was no charm to the TV series. It felt like a chore, watching it. Where the most recent movie had its own wings, feeling like a true adaptation, the TV series feels like a copy of a copy. It reminded me a lot of the first two entries into the Harry Potter series, where the child actors aren't that confident or good yet and the director feels obligated to hit all the points from the novel, but forgets the heart and spirit that makes the books so enjoyable and important in the first place. Recommendation - don't watch the TV series. If you really can't wait for the next movie, check out the Wikipedia to see what happens to everyone or just read the goddamn book. Personally, I'm grateful to have a very busy week ahead of me and two book clubs already or I would be reading the thing for the second time right now.

And I am looking forward to the next film, my above-mentioned reservations notwithstanding. Until then, Vulture takes a look at who might play who. There seems to be a general consensus that Amy Adams or Jessica Chastain should play Bev. Personally, I'm fine with either, though I am concerned about the very different age ranges of the actors being considered. I can only suspend my belief so far and it's totally taken up by an evil clown for this series.

But maybe don't listen to me because It made shit ton of money this weekend, especially impressive given its R-rating, an overall crappy box office summer, and hurricanes pretty much everywhere. Side note - Reese's new movie didn't do that well. I'm disappointed - it looks cute, reviews were good, I like Reese, and we don't have many movies like that. But also I only had time and money for one movie this weekend and of the two, there was no question which one I was going to see. As for It, my personal perspective is just, it's been awhile since there's been an adult movie to really see in the theaters. Outside of comic book movies, what was there to be excited about this summer? And of course, it's a known property with a lot of affection. But really, at a time when this country seems more divided than it has been since the Civil War, when hurricanes are destroying lives and islands and reigniting the climate change debate in ugly ways, we really just needed to come together over a clown murdering kids.

But it's only getting better from here. The film mother! had a trailer before my screening of It (as did Disaster Artist, which looks amazing and may finally make me watch The Room) and I don't know if I've ever seen a trailer as aggressive. It promised me I would never forget where I was when I saw the film for the first time and suggested I pick up my tickets after watching It at the box office. I could see it in the same theater! It seemed a little desperate but guys, I'm already going to see it, chill. And then it's Oscar season and also Halloween season, as I try to stuff in as many scary films as I can. Gotta make up for all those times I didn't go to the theater this summer.

Finally, as long as my list of complaints were, I really had fun with this movie. It was the right amount of nostalgia and pulpy terror and just kids hanging out during the summer. But mostly, it removed that bad taste from The Dark Tower. Thanks for giving the King fans a movie we can celebrate.

September 8th, Weekly Roundup

It's Friday. There have been two, almost three, once in a lifetime hurricanes, and fire across the West coast, since my last weekly roundup. Good thing none of this is man-made. Donate and volunteer where you can! Please do something more than 'pray' and send 'good thoughts.'

Good wine, great bottle. Let me go read Moby Dick.

Here we go.

Look, the Trump administration is a total shit show. And yet the person I find myself focusing on is Ivanka. Her faux feminism bullshit, her pretend liberal optimism. She is peak bitch eating crackers for me, emblematic with everything wrong with our brand-based culture. And then this NYT Op-Ed fell out of the heavens and beautifully summed up it all.

Let's talk about a real feminist and an honestly-intelligent woman for a second, Reese motherfucking Witherspoon. I've liked her since I saw Fear a really long time ago but I appreciate her hard work, her commitment to her woman-led films, and the work she puts into her brand. I think I'm being semi-hypocritical here - Reese wears Draper James as often as Ivanka wears those sheath dresses from China. But one is using the word 'Daddy' and turning an eye to the end of DACA and exit of the Paris Accord while the other is staring in a movie written and directed by a woman. And on the cover of Glamour talking about how woman should embrace ambition. I know which brand of feminism I prefer.

In other 'the world is terrible' news, a college professor is wearing a bulletproof vest to class as his students may be carrying guns. If we all start doing this, maybe we can make the NRA chill? No, they'll probably just start selling bulletproof vests. It looks like the Bill of Rights is missing the 'right to go to public spaces without being shot' amendment.

That rant came out of nowhere. For some good news, NYC is offering free public lunch to all students, the largest organization in this country to do so. Because feeding kids, who can't agree to that? 

End of politics, if you want to skip past all that. But before you go, Fiona warned us twenty years ago that the world was bullshit. She continues to be my emotional mouthpiece. And continues to be not wrong.

In a totally unrelated note, when I moved to the East Coast from the Midwest, my commute went from about ten minutes to about forty-five minutes (this week I had my max ever - 1.25 hours!). And in general it hasn't been the worst - time to plan my day in the morning, time to decompress from the day in the afternoon. Time for podcasts and audio books. But also time for road rage. And the worst might be those jerks in the left lane, going an absurdly low speed. And here's why that is really, really bad!

I'm flying in a few weeks, my first time home since moving. And since I have done so much wine tasting here, I want to bring home wine for friends and family. Here are some tips on that! I'll let you know how it goes.

I haven't posted here since the GoT finale (to sum up - I can't believe we're going to have to wait two years for the rest of the story). Here are some links. First, Pajiba points out all the really pretty scenes. And not totally unreleated, Vulture asks the really important question - were they supposed to be hot? And then, the fashion of Westeros. Dany's fut coat alone...

Finally, It premiers this weekend and my recent entry unearthed Stephen King feelings, so here's his films, ranked. And sorry Uncle Stevie, but I gotta agree with the brilliance of Kubrick's The Shining. Forget top King adaptations or horror films, it's on my top film list, period.

Stephen and Stine

The latest adaptation of It debuts this weekend (and given the title, it can be tricky to talk about... luckily, in written form we have italics). The podcast Fighting in the War Room covered the debut of the film on this week's episode and kicked off the episode asking the question - what pop culture thing (book, movie, etc.) had a major impact on you as a kid? 

I remember watching The Princess Bride over and over again or getting so upset about a cartoon called Scruffy that my parents had to hide it from me (I recently found it on Youtube and it does not hold up) or never missing an entry to 'TGIF' on ABC. But two guys loom over my childhood more than any others - R.L. Stine and Stephen King.

Growing up, I was always a Reader, capitalization intended. I was also introverted and extremely shy, so this was a match made in heaven. I remember going to family dinners at restaurants and opening a book as soon as I was finished with my food. When visiting relatives, I usually sat in a corner and read. At school, I finished my homework early and then read the rest of the period. I also got to class early and sat at my desk and read until class started. Today, I'm a bit more social but still belong in the Readers' club. I enjoy doing things on my own, especially eating out at restaurants. There might not be anything as decadent to me as a good meal at a nice restaurant with an excellent book. Last year, while traveling, I was mostly by myself. So on a long subway ride or a train from one European city to the next or a meal by myself, I had a book .Sure, there was people watching, but eventually that gets old and you open a book or power up the Kindle app. There's always a book going on my Kindle, for those moments I'm stuck in a long line or end up doing something by myself when I was expecting a friend. There's usually a physical book in my purse, just in case. Your bumper sticker reads "I'd Rather Be Fishing." Mine reads "I'd Rather Be Reading."

I like to read. I like to reread books. I'm the guy in the Twilight Zone, overwhelmed by all the stuff out there there is to read and how little time I have. That doesn't stop from rereading my favorite Edith Wharton novel for the fourth time.

In elementary school and middle school, reading was quantified. There was a program - each book was awarded a number of points based on complexity and length. You were evaluated at the beginning of the year and given a range. Here are the books you can manage. Then you would go to the library, pick out a book in your range, read it, and take a quiz to ensure you understood what you were reading. If you passed the quiz, you were awarded those points. Each semester, a student had to acquire so many points. Depending on the teacher, the points were displayed in some fashion. And usually there was a scoreboard for the whole school, to see who had the most points.

I didn't care about reaching the limit, I cared about having the most points. I would go for books that were more dense, but shorter and worth more points. This led me to read books like Frankenstein years before I was capable of understanding the thing itself. Occasionally, we would leave our school library and go to the public library. These books weren't labeled, so we would have to ask the teacher how many points a book was worth. I remember picking up The Diary of Anne Frank, because it was a thick book and I recognized the cover, and asking my teacher. She told me the number and it was ridiculously high and I remember grinning, thrilled at the prospect. Obviously I had no idea what was in store for me or I wouldn't have been so chipper.

In sixth grade, I was in an advanced math class. That meant that each morning, while my fellow students took sixth grade math, I went downstairs with the older kids and took Pre-Calculus. Afterwards, I went back up to my sixth grade classroom. Most of the time, they had about fifteen or twenty  minutes left of class. I would sit and read. One day, I asked if I could take a quiz on the book I had just finished. A few days later, I did the same thing. It became a joke, I was going through books so quickly. It became something of a stress for me. I felt pressured - at least once a week I needed to take a quiz in those spare fifteen or twenty minutes, to maintain my reputation as a book worm, to get a laugh out of the class. 

I don't remember if I ever had the highest points in the school but I usually had the highest number of points in my class.

But the best books weren't part of the points program. Because these books weren't really school-friendly. I don't remember picking up R. L. Stine but at some point I did. First, it was the Goosebumps series. When living in Portland, I went to Powell's and discovered their collection of the books, the covers and dripping font bringing back my childhood more than any Barbie or American Girl Doll ever could. I remember devouring the books, making friends with a boy in my class named Josh, the only thing we had in common being these books. But what else did we need? Stine's publisher had a contest, to meet the author, and I submitted my name, sure I would win. Girl's First Contest! I had every book and it had the shelf of highest honor on bookshelf, above the childish Boxcar Kids and Babysitter's Club series. Real talk - I purchased one of my favorite entries while I was at Powell's and read it that afternoon. I don't recommend revisiting them. Honor your childhood. As I got older, I embraced his Fear Street series with aplomb. The cheerleader books and historical fictions were my favorite. The books were always written about high school age kids, but clearly meant for those a few years younger, occasionally gory, violent, and sexy without ever crossing a PG-13 boundary. One summer, my friend and I re-enacted our favorite covers of the books. Country kids gotta do something when school's out. But in the grand scheme of things, R. L. Stine was just a gateway drug.

Because this is about Stephen King, really. One summer, looking for something to read, my mom's friend gave me Rosemadder. She had just read it, enjoyed it, and even though there were some mature parts that might be too old for me, but I could probably handle it. Here is where I gave my Diary of Anne Frank grin again.

Real talk - Rosemadder isn't great. I tried to reread it recently and couldn't finish it. But it opened up the Stephen King world and for that I'm grateful. Stephen King is a great author to fall into, because there's so much there. A few years ago, when I started reading the Game of Thrones books, I was nervous because the length was so finite. Five books. Lengthy books but still, just five. Stephen King has the opposite problem. Go to your local book store, check out the Stephen King section, and try not to be overwhelmed. I have an entire bookshelf dedicated to the guy.

And, to be honest, I felt cool reading Stephen King. In seventh grade, I was still taking math classes with the older kids. And I was still doing my reading thing. One day, after finishing a quiz, I opened up my Stephen King book (I think it was Green Mile). An older girl dropped off her quiz and came by my desk. She asked me if I was reading Stephen King, surprised. When I told her yes, this is his name on this book, she was shocked, and a little pissed, as her teacher wouldn't allow Stephen King in her (the teacher's) classroom. And she (the classmate) was older than me! Similarly, one of my classmates would always talk to me about Stephen King. He didn't read him but his mom did. So I would have this weird pseudo conversation about his mom, if she had read the book yet or not, what she thought about it. And I thought I was cool, reading Mom books!

I plowed through most of Stephen King in middle school and high school. Since then I've revisited several of his books, most recently The Stand. And I have to say, reading them in middle school and high school, while not a waste of time, wasn't the most useful time to read them either. Sure, there's plot and pulp there for someone that age, but the character work and the pop culture references were all definitely lost on me. Some of the books hold up great (The Stand absolutely did). Others, not so much. I finished Insomnia earlier this year and wasn't that a slog. For some reason, I remembered The Dark Half quite fondly but a couple years ago reread it and did not understand high school me's fascination.

In high school, I did a book report on his Bag of Bones, one of my favorite novels of his. Site note - I tried to list a favorite in this entry and it's possible. There's the epics like The Stand or The Green Mile or Needful Things. There's the perfect short stories, like Skeleton Crew or Different Seasons. And then of course every entry into The Gunslinger world, including offshoots like Hearts in Atlantis. Don't make me choose. In college, I took a course in popular literature. Between Jurassic Park and The Firm was Night Shift. Today I have no problem speaking up in meetings but in college the shyness and introversion were too strong. I rarely spoke up in class unless I was singled out or the teacher was about to give up. Not when we were discussing that Stephen King collection, though. I seemed to surprise both my teacher and myself with my sudden diluge of opinions and ideas. Later that semester, I was also the only one who really spoke up in defense of chick lit, a discussion that was basically the (male) professor and I comparing Bridget Jones and Sex and the City. That summed up my pop culture focus in college - Stephen King and Carrie Bradshaw.

There's something comforting about Stephen King. Most of his books have a similar graphic, with the strongly colored spines and the sparse cover. It's usually the same writer's image, that picture taken by his wife Tabitha. There's probably going to be an introduction by the author, where he'll call you Dear Reader and sign it Uncle Stevie. And there are the Stephen King tropes - magical kids, tragic childhoods, abused women. Mystical New England settings and the varied histories of Derry and Castle Rock. It will maybe be scary but there will definitely be backstory you didn't need and the ending will probably fall just short of the landing. But there will also be great characters and occasional, surprising humor.

Reading Stephen King is like coming home. I don't have any good uncles. I have ones who are assholes, ones who never seem to have time for their family, or ones you don't want to be alone in a room with. I have two aunts that are always getting divorced and remarried, so I have uncles who come and go. But since picking up Rosemadder twenty years ago, I've had Uncle Stevie and I couldn't have asked for anyone better. He's influenced the person I am, the way I see the world, the voice inside my head, always narrating. And maybe it's just pulp and fun but I've never been so glad to find it.

In Brugge

The title is a half truth - we're covering my trip to Bruges in spring of 2016 and my trip to Brussels in the spring of 2015. Seeing as it's the end of the summer of 2017, we'll see how this goes.

First up, Brussels. Brussels was my third weekend in Europe (after Amsterdam and Versailles). I was saving a few places for long weekends and visitors but I still have no idea why Brussels was so high on my to-see list. The EU? I mention this because I was still mostly a travel novice when I went to Brussels. Basically, I didn't know what the hell I was doing or what I would really enjoy yet.

I think I might have stayed in the European-est of hotels, still too scared to try a hostel at this point in my expat life. I arrived on a Friday night, quickly giving up on finding the hotel on my own and taking a cab. And good thing because even the cab driver struggled to find the place. The hotel was a very narrow building, the front desk something jammed in the corner of a crowded entryway, every still surface covered in traveler's brochures. The hotel clerk gave me my key - an ancient brass contraption that was not allowed to leave the building - and pointed me towards my room. I then crawled up a very steep and very narrow twisting staircase. At one point I went through a door and I believe changed buildings. Everything was dark carpet and faded wallpaper. Finally I made my way to my room, a twin bed shoved against a radiator in the corner and a very confusing bathroom against the door. The thing was in the attic, so the ceiling sloped and I had to be careful not to bang my head. 

And this was my view! Taken Saturday morning, the angled window in the roof looked out over a square that had some type of flea market starting very early on Saturday.

And here is the Peter Pan statue in Egmont Park. I didn't realize this at the time but this is actually a replica of the original in Kensington Gardens in London. Unfortunately, I just discovered this while putting together this entry. I'll add it to my list of things to check out next time I'm in London. Until then!

This statue was donated in 1924 to recognize the two countries' friendship during WWI. It became a Belgian historical monument in 1975

Palais Royal. Today, it is the office of the king - the royals no longer live there. The palace is beautiful but I was more taken with the park across the street, Brussels Park, a lovely, green open space festooned with scultpures.

More pretty green spaces - Parc du Cinquantenaire. The place is expansive, overtaken by a massive U-shaped complex. It was built in 1880 by King Leopold II to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Belgian Independence. Today, in addition to eye balling some interesting architecture and gardens, the complex also offers an art museum and a military museums. I didn't have time to check out either but I did enjoy walking through the park itself.

EU parliament building. The EU buildings were not physically far from the two parks listed above but I don't know that they could be any further apartment artistically. Brussels is the capital of the EU. Walking around the cold, glassy buildings, I was surprised to see lots of guys with big guns. After traveling around Europe, it's not so surprising any more. To be honest, guys with big guns were all over Europe. When I visited anything related to the EU or United Nations (Geneva, Strasbourg, Brussels), there were guns. When I visited anything remotely touristy after a terrorist attack, there were guns. Basically a Wal-Mart in Alabama.

And now maybe the prettiest view in the city - Jardin du moat des arts. After gutting the neighborhood, one of the Leopolds ordered the landscape architect Pierre Vacherot to design a garden to class up the place during the Universal Exposition in 1910. Intended to be temporary, the green area was popular and was recreated in its current form between 1956 and 1958 by Rene Pechere.

When visiting the area, I saw this place marked in my guidebooks but didn't think much of it. Coming from the concrete and sculpture square just behind the gardens to this view was dramatic. It's a lovely space and I took a stupid number of pictures from various angles.

And for some reason, Brussels most famous naked kid - Manneken Pis. The statue is in a corner of a crowded area, between restaurants and shops. I was worried I wasn't going to be able to find the thing. It turned out to be not a problem at all - just look for the crowd. My initial reaction - wow, that's a really tiny statue. And so many people!

Though officially naked, the little guy is usually clothed in some fun outfit to commemorate an event or occasion. There is a museum nearby to let you check out his extensive closet.

And now my favorite part of Brussels - the Grand Place. The city's central square is incomparable, with elaborate visages and beautiful guildhalls. I was there on a Saturday. In the pictured building, a bridge and groom came out onto a balcony and waved and everyone cheered. I thought it was a royal wedding or at least a celebrity. That is, until another couple came out twenty minutes later. Apparently this is a wedding option in Brussels - go wave on the balcony in Grand Place. All you need is a flexible time table and a lot of cash.

But really, the Grand Place is a great place for people watching and taking in some beautiful architecture.

In Brussels, I had my best fellow tourist story and my worst. First, my best. I sat and ordered Belgian Waffles for breakfast/lunch in the beautiful square. I sat there for a long time, looking at beautiful buildings and people watching. There were two women next to me, maybe ten years older than me, American. They were both living somewhere in Europe (I think the Amsterdam area) and chatting about work and shared colleagues. I wanted to be them. They helped me order a mimosa (some occasions just require a mimosa) and were everything I thought I wanted to be. Two single ladies, having a casual weekend in some European capital, like they do all the time.

Waffles! Okay, I had to. I was in Belgium! And they were delicious.

Galeries Saint Hubert. First mall and birthplace of consumerism. The place was built in 1847 and is still selling tourists cheaply made, over-priced goods. 

If there's not an elaborate cathedral, is it really a European city? I actually didn't get a chance to go into this one, just grabbed a pic on my way through with a tour.

And now for my worst tourist experience. I wasn't sure what to see in Brussels and was overwhelmed with chocolate options, so I booked my very first European viator tour.  On the tour were a group of American college students. There were maybe six of them. And find a foreigner and ask them their worst opinion of Americans and I'm pretty sure these kids are what they would describe. Loud, obnoxious, complaining about everything. They yelled at each other from one end of the bus to the other and bragged about how late they were out the night before and how drunk they got and all the other cool places in Europe they were going to go that summer. They bitched about everything. It was exhausting. I tried to hide from them and prevent them realizing I was also an American while making sure everyone else on the tour knew I wasn't with them.

But the tour, annoying Americans aside, was worth it for two reasons - chocolate and Atonium. Atonium is the most out of the way spot in Brussels and I wouldn't have been able to get there on my own, I just didn't have time. If you want to check out the site, plan ahead. The structure is a leftover from the 1958 World Fair. It represents an iron crystal lattice, enlarged 165 billion times. You can go into the structure and, according to my tour guide, it offers great views and excellent exhibits.

Chocolate Manneken Pis! As I said, I also did the tour for the chocolate. I had Belgian waffles, now Belgian chocolate. Our tour took us to Zaabar, where we watched them make a batch of chocolate and tasted as many flavors as we could manage. I spent an obscene amount of money on various flavors under the guise of 'souvenirs.'

After a long day around Brussels, I went back to my hotel, thinking I would just grab dinner somewhere near the hotel.

There were no restaurants. The two places recommended to me by the guy behind the crowded hotel desk were closed. After an increasingly-desperate search, I ended up at this bar a few blocks away. There was food advertised but they had stopped serving. So after a lovely brunch earlier in the day, I ended my trip with a beer and a bag of potato chips. But this guy was my dinner companion so it certainly wasn't the worst.

The Brussels train station. You'll know you're here when you see this piece of work just outside the station.

And now, Brugge! When I visited here in 2016, it was one of my first weekend-long trips after returning to Germany. It had been a city on my 'almost' list in 2015, a city everyone talked about as beautiful and picturesque, like you stepped into a different time period. So sure, let's check it out. I left early Saturday morning. In 2016, unlike 2015, I had a tablet. And guess what movie I had bought and downloaded via Amazon Prime? In Bruges! I'm nothing if not thematic.

And quick aside here - that was a lovely film. It reminded me of something like Pulp Fiction, but with more heart and Collin Farrell. Very violent and heartbreaking. I recommend the film in general but absolutely see it before you go to Bruges.

And my next aside. Bruges was honestly a really lovely town. It wasn't crowded when I went but I also went in February. I've heard from other people, and my own guide, that it can be quite touristy at times (blame the movie), so be prepared in case that happens.

Pictured above is the Markt, city center. I had lunch at the restaurant with the Italian flags! The food was just okay but the people watching was A+. The square was busy with people, street performers, and horse-drawn carriages. Near the square were several shops, selling whatever a good tourist might need.

I have no idea why people want to come here. Like Amsterdam, I have hundreds of these. Every turn, another beautiful canal with interesting buildings.

Ah! My eyes!

This canal and beautiful stone bridge could be anywhere in Amsterdam, Hamburg, or Bruges. Luckily, the architecture is unique in each city. This is definitely Bruges.

This building near my hostel was my favorite. The purple let me know I was almost to my home for the evening.

Hostel break! I stayed at a hostel somewhat removed from the touristy spots (but still walkable). It was a great hostel. Somewhat confusing, another building within a building type of a thing, but the vibe was homey and I skipped dinner in Bruges to go back to my hostel and hang out and eavesdrop on fellow travelers. Everyone was friendly and helpful.

Windmill near my hostel.

This hotel is close to the touristy center of the city. I took a boat tour and the tour guide happily pointed this place out as the location of Collin Farrell's big jump scene from In Bruges. I appreciate cities that have a sense of humor about their place in pop culture.

Swans. Here is where I note that swans were everywhere. No, really, they were everywhere. And they were assholes. Watch out for the swans.

I took a boat tour and I recommend giving it a try. It's a great way to see the city. Also, there were some canals that don't have any pedestrian vantage point and the only way to see them is from a boat. This horrible shot is the lowest bridge in the city. And it's no joke - everyone had to duck, including our driver/tour guide.

Beer and chocolate, because why not. This is near the Markt center, at a bar that had hundreds of beers available. A nice place to sit and enjoy the canal while doing the most touristy thing you can in the city.

A lace map of Bruges. A friend visited Bruges a few months after me. In preparation, she looked through my pictures with me. When we stumbled upon this map, she become obsessed. I showed here where it was on a map and she added it to her list of things to see. And then, after three days in Bruges, never found it.

Honestly, I have no idea how this is possible. The map is something I practically tripped over when walking from the train station to the main tourist square. And then I passed it at least three more times during my two days in Bruges. So, it's there. And should be easy to fine. It is exactly as described - a map of the city and it's major spots, made of lace. Go check it out, why not.

I went to two museums while I was in Bruges, an art museum and a chocolate museum. The art museum was interesting and had a special exhibit on witch art. This terrifying black and white piece was at the entrance to the exhibit. Not pictured is the chocolate museum. Because it was terrible. The place seemed hastily thrown together, an obvious cash grab to lure in tourists. But hey, it was cheap and gave me something to do while I waited for my boat tour.

Finally, more beer. One of the local breweries offers a tour. The tour itself was fun, getting a behind the scenes peak at the process. Even better was the view from the top of the brewery, an excellent vantage point for all of Bruges, and the free beer afterwards.