An Uncomfortable Truth

I haven't learned much in writing class, but there's been a steady parade of entertaining guests. Today's guest had just written a Times piece that made me laugh, but there was nothing funny about the close-to-home Graham Greene line he quoted at the end of his essay.

"As the years pass writing will not become any easier, the daily effort will grow harder to endure, those powers of observation will become enfeebled; you will be judged, when you reach your forties, by performance and not by promise."

-Graham Greene, The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen

Cambodia Photos

Yancey and Andrea went on a long trip to Southeast Asia. They sent back beautiful photos, including lots of them petting baby elephants near Bangkok.

I can't upload their photos (for one thing, there are hundreds but for another, they are not mine) but I scanned in some of my own photos from Cambodia in 2001 and from a trip a year earlier in 2000. I have loads more of the rest of the region, but one place at a time. Though I didn't get to pet any baby elephants. Not in Thailand, anyway.

Looking through the photos makes me pine for mango and sticky rice on the street near the Viengtai Hotel, and for green curry served in a coconut in Siem Reap. I want to outsmart Bangkok traffic and argue with touts by the lake in Hanoi. I'd love to stumble onto someone I know unexpectedly on Khao San Road again, or hail a kid on a moped to take me to get pizza by the river in Phnom Penh. Or ask Mrs. Thuy in Hoi An to sew me up a replica of a dress I wore in 1992, but make it cover my knees this time.

Instead, I will send a few more pages of next month's comic to the printer, trudge through the cold to the deli for lunch, and fight with a corrupt font.

Top-Secret Project

Sorry I've been quiet on the blogging front.

I'm working on a top secret gift.

Cameos

The 3-D children's atlas has shown up in a few unexpected places, setting off my Google Alerts.

TrustyPony mentioned it, and a spot called A Book Blogger's Diary.

Words to Dream By

Here's a Chinese proverb that was quoted in Alison Wright's book, Learning to Breathe: One Woman's Journey of Spirit and Survival. So true...and yet...in the end, it's just a proverb. I've had so many romantic coincidences in my life, and in the end, they just dissolve into poetic nothing. I want to believe. But I don't.

An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle but it will never break.
—Chinese proverb

Linky Tuesday

A couple of interesting links today:

Max from GoNOMAD.com has been blogging as he travels around Iran. His trip there is what inspired me to scan in and post the photos from my 1998 trip across Iran. Read about his adventures on his own blog.

Meanwhile, World Hum writer Frank Bures has taken a trip to Uganda. I had to giggle as he waited for hours for the bus to fill up at the end, and then a tire blew out en route from Gulu to Kampala. ("Flat of the day," thinks the voice of experience.)

A Cold, Hard Look

Pernille's blog linked to an excellent post over the weekend.

The post writer offers a dose of reality on pay-to-volunteer programs and explains why overseas programs won't take just anyone. Put another way, think of it like this. Could anyone walk into your workplace and do your job? It doesn't change just because it's in another country. Aid and development work takes training too, and not everyone can do it. As for "I'll do anything, even sweep floors," well of course there are plenty of people who are willing to sweep floors, and many of them already live near the office.

After-Thanksgiving

I took the PATH to the Amtrak to the Metro yesterday, to get from my home in JC to where I met my mother, sister, and the Other Marie for an afternoon, before I took the Metro to the Amtrak to the PATH to get back home just after midnight.

My mother posted a photo of me and the Other Marie on her blog.The Other Marie has her eyes open in that one.

One of the day's highlights was when a certain person that I know pulled her wallet out of her coat pocket in Staples and as she pulled it out, a Tampax flew up in the air and landed on the floor at Staples. The cashier, a dignified older man, didn't miss a beat and stared straight up like he hadn't seen it, though my mother and I were collapsing in giggles while the other person grabbed the Tampax and shoved it back into her coat.

Staples Alexandria Duke Street cashier: All class.

Giving Thanks for Not Having to Blow Up Giant Frogs for a Living

Actually, the idea of blowing up giant Kermits for a living sounds kind of appealing. I don't mind the idea so much.

I went to the Macy's balloon inflation on Wednesday night. I've almost gone many times, but it's usually too cold to brave the streets after dark the night before Thanksgiving.

It was a mob scene, with the mob mostly being made up of wee children.

Guinea Fowl with That?

For years, I thought this was a photo of l'il me with my color-by-number acrylic painting, my turkey drawing, and my pilgrim hat.

But I just took a close look, and it is clearly not a turkey. This Marie-art is a guinea fowl. So my Thanksgiving photo has gone off-course a bit.

Which means somewhere, there is a turkey photo. Maybe next year.