So...
 |
| Terrible half of Duke football + no trick-or-treaters + cheap, cheap wine = misery by candlelight |
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Happy Freaking Halloween
Tonight's #Write30 topic is: "Your current relationship status; if single, discuss that too."
So...
...it's complicated.
So...
Friday, October 30, 2015
The Taste of Despair
There are certain ways I know that I'm getting older. The songs I loved in high school now play on the "classic rock" radio station. I forecast rain by the ache in my right hip. And random, insanely weird hairs pop up overnight on my face.
Seriously, nobody ever tells you that last one, girls. But it does. So when it happens to you, call me. You are not alone.
But probably the saddest thing about getting older is my intolerance of things I used to love. Chief among them? Cereal.
My family loved cereal. Loved it. No matter how many cans of generic brand green beans we had, the one luxury name-brand item we were never without was cereal. My dad would get a giant mixing bowl, fill it with a combination of Sugar Crisp and Frosted Flakes, dump a quart of milk and a chopped banana, and go to town. My mom took her Sugar Crisp straight. My brother: a Honeycomb man. And I... well, I was ride or die for Toucan Sam.
I loved Fruit Loops. I'd let them sit in my bowl just long enough to soften and not slice open the roof of your mouth but not so long to lose all texture in a mushy glop. The sugar shards would slide off the loops into your milk, dissolving slowly and giving it a glistening skin. And while each spoonful of loops was a delight, we all know it was the milk we were after. You'd hold the bowl to your lips and tip it back, guzzling the sweet, sweet ambrosia. I felt powerful and strong. (I assume that the children who could down all their milk in one long pull were the same kids who would later excel at things like keg stands and tequila shots.) You could go all morning off the energy from just a couple of spoonfuls of leftover Fruit Loop milk. In fact, scientists should probably start thinking about it as a fuel alternative.
I dabbled in other cereals occasionally -- Apple Jacks, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Peanut Butter Captain Crunch, of course -- but there was no real commitment there. When I went away to college, a good 3/4 of my meal allowance was Fruit Loops. Breakfast, lunch, dinner... it did not matter. Avoiding the judge-y gaze of the cafeteria ladies, my suite mates and I would fill Ziploc baggies full of them to smuggle out to class. Should we ever have lost our way from a drunken frat party, chances are we could've found a trail of red, yellow, and orange loops to guide us home again.
I don't know the exact time I stopped eating Fruit Loops. One day, I did, and the next day, I didn't. Like so many of our important choices in life, the whys and hows go unnoticed, unknown. But whatever day it was is the day I guess I grew up.
"Once you're grown up, you can never come back." -- Peter Pan
A few years ago, while working at camp, we changed food distributors. Lo and behold, a mountain of single serving, sugar soaked wonder rained down upon our kids. Being the boring grown-up that I was, I'd grab my Total Raisin Bran, or if I was feeling especially spry -- some Honey Nut Cheerios, to settle in for breakfast. And then one day, I saw a bowl of Fruit Loops, sitting on the cereal bar, lonely and left behind. Suddenly every neuron in my brain was firing with latent childhood thrills.
I pulled back its single-serving lid to gaze upon its wonder. And what did I find? Purple. Blue. Green.
Blasphemy.
No matter. I poured my soy milk and began to wait in the anticipation of joy that only reclamation of youth can bring.
I grabbed my spoon. I dug in. I lifted the first spoonful to my mouth and tasted -- and I tasted -- and I tasted... what was this? This sameness?! Where were the vibrant tastes of my innocence? This cloying sweetness coating my lips, making me feel like I'd just rubbed a powdered sugar-Vaseline compound across my teeth? I couldn't even finish the bowl. It was too painful.
I had tasted despair.
And it tasted exactly like adulthood,
Seriously, nobody ever tells you that last one, girls. But it does. So when it happens to you, call me. You are not alone.
But probably the saddest thing about getting older is my intolerance of things I used to love. Chief among them? Cereal.
My family loved cereal. Loved it. No matter how many cans of generic brand green beans we had, the one luxury name-brand item we were never without was cereal. My dad would get a giant mixing bowl, fill it with a combination of Sugar Crisp and Frosted Flakes, dump a quart of milk and a chopped banana, and go to town. My mom took her Sugar Crisp straight. My brother: a Honeycomb man. And I... well, I was ride or die for Toucan Sam.
I loved Fruit Loops. I'd let them sit in my bowl just long enough to soften and not slice open the roof of your mouth but not so long to lose all texture in a mushy glop. The sugar shards would slide off the loops into your milk, dissolving slowly and giving it a glistening skin. And while each spoonful of loops was a delight, we all know it was the milk we were after. You'd hold the bowl to your lips and tip it back, guzzling the sweet, sweet ambrosia. I felt powerful and strong. (I assume that the children who could down all their milk in one long pull were the same kids who would later excel at things like keg stands and tequila shots.) You could go all morning off the energy from just a couple of spoonfuls of leftover Fruit Loop milk. In fact, scientists should probably start thinking about it as a fuel alternative.
I dabbled in other cereals occasionally -- Apple Jacks, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Peanut Butter Captain Crunch, of course -- but there was no real commitment there. When I went away to college, a good 3/4 of my meal allowance was Fruit Loops. Breakfast, lunch, dinner... it did not matter. Avoiding the judge-y gaze of the cafeteria ladies, my suite mates and I would fill Ziploc baggies full of them to smuggle out to class. Should we ever have lost our way from a drunken frat party, chances are we could've found a trail of red, yellow, and orange loops to guide us home again.
I don't know the exact time I stopped eating Fruit Loops. One day, I did, and the next day, I didn't. Like so many of our important choices in life, the whys and hows go unnoticed, unknown. But whatever day it was is the day I guess I grew up.
"Once you're grown up, you can never come back." -- Peter Pan
A few years ago, while working at camp, we changed food distributors. Lo and behold, a mountain of single serving, sugar soaked wonder rained down upon our kids. Being the boring grown-up that I was, I'd grab my Total Raisin Bran, or if I was feeling especially spry -- some Honey Nut Cheerios, to settle in for breakfast. And then one day, I saw a bowl of Fruit Loops, sitting on the cereal bar, lonely and left behind. Suddenly every neuron in my brain was firing with latent childhood thrills.
I pulled back its single-serving lid to gaze upon its wonder. And what did I find? Purple. Blue. Green.
Blasphemy.
No matter. I poured my soy milk and began to wait in the anticipation of joy that only reclamation of youth can bring.
I grabbed my spoon. I dug in. I lifted the first spoonful to my mouth and tasted -- and I tasted -- and I tasted... what was this? This sameness?! Where were the vibrant tastes of my innocence? This cloying sweetness coating my lips, making me feel like I'd just rubbed a powdered sugar-Vaseline compound across my teeth? I couldn't even finish the bowl. It was too painful.
I had tasted despair.
And it tasted exactly like adulthood,
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Thursdays
Every other Thursday night, I visit my girls. We find a restaurant in our beautiful city that none of us have visited. We settle at the table. We eat. We talk. We drink. And we laugh. My God, we laugh.
Thursdays are my favorite days. I feel most alive, most myself, on Thursdays.
Because on Thursdays, I come home.
Thursdays are my favorite days. I feel most alive, most myself, on Thursdays.
Because on Thursdays, I come home.
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
The Church of Conroy
When I fall into love with a book, I fall all the way. Quick. Deep. Immediate. Books are the only place where I do not use caution. The only time I cannonball instead of tiptoe.
On the other hand, I feel just the same when I find a book that does not wow me. I'm not a believer in "sticking it out" when I open a book and lose interest. Life is too short to trudge through a book you do not love.
I am a confirmed believer in the Church of Pat Conroy. I worship at the altar of his salt-soaked images and Southern charms. He is a mystic, a natural wonder, a sinner, a saint. He is a man who has been broken, and it is within his books that he searches for his cure. Each sentence is a blood-letting -- obscene and beautiful and raw. Each ending -- a prayer for his truth to be done.
My first visit with Conroy was The Prince of Tides. Although I've read it now at least a dozen times, there are moments I cannot help but hold my breath. Moments I cannot walk through all at once. Moments I cannot look away.
And while I loved this effort, it is his book, Beach Music, that I find myself carrying through my life. It is elegant and haunting in its unfolding. It is a love letter to forgiveness, both that which try to give to others and that which we withhold from ourselves. It's been a few years since I've read it, partly because I give each of my copies away before I can finish.
I'm a firm believer in the idea that a writer writes what he knows, and Pat Conroy is no different. his personal demons appear in all of his stories. After studying his life and reading some of his interviews, this much is clear. Pain is the ink within his pen, and it has yet to run out. But there have been moments that it feels as it might.
“American men are allotted just as many tears as American women. But because we are forbidden to shed them, we die long before women do, with our hearts exploding or our blood pressure rising or our livers eaten away by alcohol because that lake of grief inside us has no outlet. We, men, die because our faces were not watered enough.” -- Pat Conroy, Beach Music
Before the release of his last novel, South of Broad, I had read an entry whereupon Conroy talked often of both his failing health and his desire to write a few more novels. It was of little surprise that what came next was the only book of his that I did not love. In fact, I quit it on several occasions. It felt desperate in its connections. His villains more hateful. His heroes to heroic. It felt rushed and hollow. It was as if every terrible thing that could ever happen could be wished away by magic, and this is the antithesis of everything presented before. It was a jumble of knots and crossed paths forced into a straight line, and straight lines simply will not do.
“No story is a straight line. The geometry of a human life is too imperfect and complex, too distorted by the laughter of time and the bewildering intricacies of fate to admit the straight line into its system of laws.”
I did eventually finish South of Broad, and I have read it once more since. But the same copy I rushed out to buy on its publication date is the same that still sits upon my shelf.
The only member of its church who has never ventured out of its own pew.
On the other hand, I feel just the same when I find a book that does not wow me. I'm not a believer in "sticking it out" when I open a book and lose interest. Life is too short to trudge through a book you do not love.
I am a confirmed believer in the Church of Pat Conroy. I worship at the altar of his salt-soaked images and Southern charms. He is a mystic, a natural wonder, a sinner, a saint. He is a man who has been broken, and it is within his books that he searches for his cure. Each sentence is a blood-letting -- obscene and beautiful and raw. Each ending -- a prayer for his truth to be done.
My first visit with Conroy was The Prince of Tides. Although I've read it now at least a dozen times, there are moments I cannot help but hold my breath. Moments I cannot walk through all at once. Moments I cannot look away.
And while I loved this effort, it is his book, Beach Music, that I find myself carrying through my life. It is elegant and haunting in its unfolding. It is a love letter to forgiveness, both that which try to give to others and that which we withhold from ourselves. It's been a few years since I've read it, partly because I give each of my copies away before I can finish.
I'm a firm believer in the idea that a writer writes what he knows, and Pat Conroy is no different. his personal demons appear in all of his stories. After studying his life and reading some of his interviews, this much is clear. Pain is the ink within his pen, and it has yet to run out. But there have been moments that it feels as it might.
“American men are allotted just as many tears as American women. But because we are forbidden to shed them, we die long before women do, with our hearts exploding or our blood pressure rising or our livers eaten away by alcohol because that lake of grief inside us has no outlet. We, men, die because our faces were not watered enough.” -- Pat Conroy, Beach Music
Before the release of his last novel, South of Broad, I had read an entry whereupon Conroy talked often of both his failing health and his desire to write a few more novels. It was of little surprise that what came next was the only book of his that I did not love. In fact, I quit it on several occasions. It felt desperate in its connections. His villains more hateful. His heroes to heroic. It felt rushed and hollow. It was as if every terrible thing that could ever happen could be wished away by magic, and this is the antithesis of everything presented before. It was a jumble of knots and crossed paths forced into a straight line, and straight lines simply will not do.
“No story is a straight line. The geometry of a human life is too imperfect and complex, too distorted by the laughter of time and the bewildering intricacies of fate to admit the straight line into its system of laws.”
I did eventually finish South of Broad, and I have read it once more since. But the same copy I rushed out to buy on its publication date is the same that still sits upon my shelf.
The only member of its church who has never ventured out of its own pew.
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Ink
I hate needles. I'm a big ol' wuss when it comes to the idea of them. It's not so much the pain although I, admittedly, am a pretty big wimp about that too.
Actually, it makes me a little nauseated to think of a needle piercing my skin. There will be blood. There will be pain. Then there will be vomit. And if there's anything I like even less than needles, it might be vomiting.
So it should be pretty obvious that my body is tattoo-free. Because tattoos = needles which = vomit.
I feel sick just talking about it.
But the weird thing is that I'm completely enthralled by those tattoo shows like Inkmaster and Miami Ink. It might be similar to the fact that I constantly watch the Food Network even though I don't cook or that I obsess about Project Runway although my most favorite outfit is pajama pants and a t-shirt. I totally dig people who have talents that are worlds away from my own.
I'm also fascinated by other people's tattoos. Maybe it's just good artwork that attracts my attention, but it's probably more their story. Tattoos, like scars, always come with a pretty good story. I love to investigate other people's stories, unearthing who they are, piece by piece.
And how do you choose? Knowing that this will be on your body forever. That it will change and shift -- in both form and meaning -- as your life changes. How do you stay in love with something like that? What happens when you don't? You can have it removed, but is it ever really gone?
Some people don't care. The experience is the experience, and whether it's good or bad, they are fine.
I am not these people.
Some people hem and haw and change their minds a million times, but in the end, they understand that if they don't like it, they can transform it.
I am not these people.
Still others wander through a store, picking things up, putting them in their cart, and deciding that maybe you don't really need it after all. Then they wander away only to return, pick it back up, and wander around some more. Rinse. Repeat.
These are my people.
Even if I could get drunk enough muster the courage to get into the chair and risk vomiting on a total stranger, I don't know that I could ever choose a design.
I window shop though. I click on a picture. I stare for a while, turning it over and over in my mind, wondering if could go through with it, only to put it back down and wander some more.
But these are a few I pick up often. They are, of course, all book-inspired because I think there's something beautiful about loving a line so much that you carry it with you always. And there's poetry in taking the ink from a page and printing it upon your skin. Mainly, though, it's because I'm a nerd.
But I'd be a nerd with a cool-ass tattoo. And maybe a little vomit on my shirt.
Actually, it makes me a little nauseated to think of a needle piercing my skin. There will be blood. There will be pain. Then there will be vomit. And if there's anything I like even less than needles, it might be vomiting.
So it should be pretty obvious that my body is tattoo-free. Because tattoos = needles which = vomit.
I feel sick just talking about it.
But the weird thing is that I'm completely enthralled by those tattoo shows like Inkmaster and Miami Ink. It might be similar to the fact that I constantly watch the Food Network even though I don't cook or that I obsess about Project Runway although my most favorite outfit is pajama pants and a t-shirt. I totally dig people who have talents that are worlds away from my own.
I'm also fascinated by other people's tattoos. Maybe it's just good artwork that attracts my attention, but it's probably more their story. Tattoos, like scars, always come with a pretty good story. I love to investigate other people's stories, unearthing who they are, piece by piece.
And how do you choose? Knowing that this will be on your body forever. That it will change and shift -- in both form and meaning -- as your life changes. How do you stay in love with something like that? What happens when you don't? You can have it removed, but is it ever really gone?
Some people don't care. The experience is the experience, and whether it's good or bad, they are fine.
I am not these people.
Some people hem and haw and change their minds a million times, but in the end, they understand that if they don't like it, they can transform it.
I am not these people.
Still others wander through a store, picking things up, putting them in their cart, and deciding that maybe you don't really need it after all. Then they wander away only to return, pick it back up, and wander around some more. Rinse. Repeat.
These are my people.
Even if I could
I window shop though. I click on a picture. I stare for a while, turning it over and over in my mind, wondering if could go through with it, only to put it back down and wander some more.
But these are a few I pick up often. They are, of course, all book-inspired because I think there's something beautiful about loving a line so much that you carry it with you always. And there's poetry in taking the ink from a page and printing it upon your skin. Mainly, though, it's because I'm a nerd.
But I'd be a nerd with a cool-ass tattoo. And maybe a little vomit on my shirt.
 |
| simple but powerful |
 |
| From The Tempest |
 |
| "If people were rain, I was a drizzle and she was a hurricane." One of my favorite descriptions ever. |
 |
| And, of course, a little Atticus Finch |
Monday, October 26, 2015
It Might Still Be a Little Tiger Beat-ish.
I am fascinated by human behavior. There's nothing I love to do more than just watch people and try to decide who they are by how they behave. And I'm not talking "hang out at an airport and make random stories about strangers" (although that's fun, too). I'm talking about whatever you do throughout the day, whatever you say, I'm storing it away in my brain in a little file marked, "YOU". Actually, my brain files are marked with your names, but the file folders are all bent and piled up randomly and the names on the tags have probably been marked through a couple of times because sometimes people don't get to stay in my brain, but I believe in recycling.
Yes, I am watching. Yes, I am judging and questioning and filing for future connections. I'm like the NSA but less secretive about it. Or more secretive. Or whatever. (Hi, NSA! *waves gratuitously*)
Anyway, I watch because you're fascinating.
So to choose just one person as the person I'm fascinated by is dang near impossible. There are many beautiful and kind people in my own everyday life I could write about (and probably already have on here). There are a few celebrities that I adore, but I don't really have any personal connection with them. And that feels just a little to Tiger Beat for my taste.
So maybe there's someone somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. Someone famous enough to give me a little thrill when she retweeted me on Twitter but still seems like someone who's not so uppity that we couldn't split a Reese's and hang out at an airport watching weirdos and making up stories.
I've been a fan of Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess) for a long, long time. I cannot remember where I first found her writing, but whomever it was that pointed me to her should probably get several dollars a month from me. A "Thank You for Being Awesome" fee, if you will.
There are several things about Jenny that I love, but the fact that she and I barely missed each other at a tiny little state school in Central Texas always makes me feel like we could've been actual, real-life friends. Granted, I would've had to have been brave enough to talk to strangers first, but maybe it could have happened. If we were in the right class or had I run over her foot with my car.
I love that she swears unapologetically because swear words and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are my two most favorite vices. I love that she gives all of her animals, both real and taxidermied, clever and completely appropriate names. (I'm a big Hunter S. Thomcat fan.)
She's delightfully odd with a penchant for dead animals in costume. Even creepy-as-shit dead animals. I love that she hails from a delightfully odd family who adore her in all forms.
Jenny is kind and thoughtful, even when it's only by accident. And she spreads that kindness somehow with just a few words and the feeling that it's just the right thing to do because someone needs to do it.
She takes on challenges even when she's unsure. She finds a way even when she has to build it herself. Even when that challenge is just getting Wil Wheaton to send her a picture of himself collating paper.
And now they're FRIENDS, by God.
She fights back with 15 foot tall metal chickens. Who does that? Badasses. Badasses fight the good fight with chickens named Beyonce.
But more than anything, Jenny fights, period. She fights for the voiceless. She fights for those that cannot get out of bed. She fights for those who would rather hide under their desk than stand on stage. She fights for anyone who is coming apart at the seams. And then she rallies the troops to help sew them back together.
She fights for them because she is one of them. And she's not ashamed of it.
Because the most fascinating thing about Jenny Lawson is that she is just Jenny-fucking-Lawson. Warts and all. I consider myself to be honest, but, in truth, most of my life, I've been what I've now deemed, "Dinner Party Honest". You know, just honest enough to be respected, but not so honest that people aren't "WTF?" when you sit next to them at a dinner party. I'm still not that honest, but I'm on the road.
I'm a people-pleaser at the deepest core of myself, and what pleases others most of all is for you to be happy -- to be good -- to be even-keeled. So, for most of my life, I tried to be happy and good and even-keeled, even when I felt like I was cartwheeling down the side of a mountain and then hauling myself back up by my fingernails.
Reading Jenny's work told me a couple of things: A) I wasn't alone and 2) There can be joy and laughter in even the most absurdly awful moments. And it's okay -- more than okay -- to grab that joy by the throat and squeeze the Hell out of it. Give it a Copernicus-level strangle.
But more than anything, it told me that being whole isn't about hiding your cracks from others; it's about letting them show and treasuring those who helped pick up the pieces. Because none of us pick those pieces by ourselves. None of us. Nor should we.
In the time that I've followed Jenny's blog, she's raised thousands of dollars, bought dozens of weird-ass but incredible dead animals, written two best sellers, and empowered hundreds of thousands of men and women around the world.
And she retweeted me once (which is really just like a modern-day grown-up version of taping a Tiger Beat photo to your wall, but I don't give one damn. Tiger Beat Twitter for everyone.)
And it made me furiously happy.
(I've linked all of these within the post above, but I know how lazy some of y'all are about clicking on the link. So I made it easy on you. Enjoy. And if you don't, you're moving to the bottom of my brain files. Maybe.)
http://thebloggess.com/2010/05/the-traveling-red-dress/
http://thebloggess.com/2012/01/the-traveling-red-dress-revisited/
http://thebloggess.com/2012/01/the-end-and-the-beginning/
http://thebloggess.com/2013/12/accidentally-doing-good-things/
http://thebloggess.com/2011/06/and-thats-why-you-should-learn-to-pick-your-battles/
http://thebloggess.com/2012/02/her-name-is-juanita-juanita-weasel-unless-you-can-think-of-something-better/
http://thebloggess.com/2011/07/would-you-like-to-buy-a-monkey/
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Deana Doesn't Live Here (And Probably Won't Ever)
All my life, I've been a Texan. I was born in the Panhandle. I spent two years in college in Central Texas. For the past 16 years, I've been here in North Texas.
Texas is big. I could move a dozen more times and still never leave. But I won't because moving's a hassle that I can only manage every decade or so.
As established in my last post, I haven't been all that many places. So the thought of living somewhere I've never visited leaves open, literally, a world of possibility. Therefore, in no particular order, I present the places I think I might live if I ever got up the energy to buy a lottery ticket and then win (so I wouldn't have to worry about getting a job or setting up a new bank account).
1. Italy
Pros: Pasta, vineyards, history
Cons: I don't speak Italian, people seem very loud and dramatic, historic grime, I'm not so church-y.
2. Chicago
Pros: Getting day drunk at Wrigley Field all summer
Cons: Crime, cold weather, all that neon green relish on the hot dogs
3. A tiny village in Ireland, or on a farm, or near a castle
Pros: Pubs, green space everywhere, no language barrier, Irish whiskey
Cons: Potholes, corned beef and cabbage, incessant Irish music, Guinness beer
4. Cape Cod
Pros: The ocean, small town feeling, I like drinking Cape Cods
Cons: I don't know anything about Cape Cod really, but it seems like it would smell very fishy.
5. Seattle
Pros: Creativity, all types of geography, liberal and intellectual atmosphere, Eddie Vedder
Cons: Seasonal Affective Disorder like whoa. Also: hipsters.
6. Charleston, SC
Pros: Food, literature, all the sweet tea you can swim around in, the sea, finally took that damn flag down.
Cons: It seems... moist. Like all the time.
On second thought, I think I'll just stick to the 817 for a while longer.
* Also, since I've never actually been to any of these places, all of my thoughts about them are what I've seen on television, movies, and the internet. Or maybe, once, I read it in a book. So forgive me if my dumbass American is showing.
Texas is big. I could move a dozen more times and still never leave. But I won't because moving's a hassle that I can only manage every decade or so.
As established in my last post, I haven't been all that many places. So the thought of living somewhere I've never visited leaves open, literally, a world of possibility. Therefore, in no particular order, I present the places I think I might live if I ever got up the energy to buy a lottery ticket and then win (so I wouldn't have to worry about getting a job or setting up a new bank account).
1. Italy
Pros: Pasta, vineyards, history
Cons: I don't speak Italian, people seem very loud and dramatic, historic grime, I'm not so church-y.
2. Chicago
Pros: Getting day drunk at Wrigley Field all summer
Cons: Crime, cold weather, all that neon green relish on the hot dogs
3. A tiny village in Ireland, or on a farm, or near a castle
Pros: Pubs, green space everywhere, no language barrier, Irish whiskey
Cons: Potholes, corned beef and cabbage, incessant Irish music, Guinness beer
4. Cape Cod
Pros: The ocean, small town feeling, I like drinking Cape Cods
Cons: I don't know anything about Cape Cod really, but it seems like it would smell very fishy.
5. Seattle
Pros: Creativity, all types of geography, liberal and intellectual atmosphere, Eddie Vedder
Cons: Seasonal Affective Disorder like whoa. Also: hipsters.
6. Charleston, SC
Pros: Food, literature, all the sweet tea you can swim around in, the sea, finally took that damn flag down.
Cons: It seems... moist. Like all the time.
On second thought, I think I'll just stick to the 817 for a while longer.
* Also, since I've never actually been to any of these places, all of my thoughts about them are what I've seen on television, movies, and the internet. Or maybe, once, I read it in a book. So forgive me if my dumbass American is showing.
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