Home | Posts RSS | Comments RSS | Login

Travel Blogging, Day 2: Failure

Friday, November 13, 2009
I slept from 8:30pm to 12:30am. The rest of the night I spent lying in bed completely awake, thinking about increasingly weird things, slogging to the toilet five times, staring out my window at the tiny pool, photographing said tiny pool, laughing at tiny pool photos, and then going back to weird thoughts.

I know I'm supposed to be travel blogging...but, I'm not very good at doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Besides, I have nothing travel related to report. I'm so insanely tired. I can barely read my computer screen - I have the font set at "85-year-old cataract patient". It took me 5 minutes to remember the difference between cataract and cardiac. My coffee did nothing. It looks stormy out. And, it's Friday the 13th. I could likely be struck by lightening - or a truck. I think it's best if I just stay in the compound and do exactly what I did yesterday afternoon: read (if my eyes will focus) and stand in the tiny pool.

OK, it is thundering loudly and absolutely pouring out. I'm really not going anywhere. Excellent excuse. Thank you, Mother Nature.

So, since I have nothing better to do, I will share with you some of the odd thoughts from last night. A look into the inner workings of my brain: an exciting and scary tale for Friday the 13th.

I was wishing that I had a USB port in the side of my head so that I could download thoughts from my head directly into my computer. I thought someone should really invent that. I could invent that. I have great inventive ideas. One of which is the corner dishwasher. Think about how great that would be for tight fits in small kitchens. It would look like a lazy susan, with circular turning dish racks and a 90-degree folding door. I've actually given this a lot of thought. The thing that excites me the most is not the fame or fortune that will come from revolutionizing the dishwashing industry, it's the factory. The factory will be designed to look like a giant corner dishwasher. Similar to the basket factory that looks like a giant basket. That exists, right? I remember it from Architectural History class. Or, maybe I dreamed it while asleep at the back of Architectural History class. I can't remember. Anyway, I even have drawings. (Do I have drawings for the $450,000 piece of bare land I've been siting on for 2 years? No. Do I have drawings of a giant corner dishwasher factory? Of course.)

From there I thought about how the more tired I am, the more brilliant I believe my ideas to be. I still remember an all-nighter a friend and I pulled in high school. We were entering the State Championship for some science fair. Our project was on cryogenics. I can only assume my friend teamed with me because I'm fun and creative, not because I had any knowledge or interest in the science behind cryogenics. My only interest was in actually being cryogenically frozen - the sooner the better. (An interest that lasted until the Austin Power movie came out and ruined it for me.) Anyway, it was 2am the day of the fair, we were tired, and we hadn't even started our display. At first we were worried. How would we ever finish? Then, around 4am our lack of progress became hilarious. How funny would it be that we had the worst display on display? Then, when we finally loaded the project into the back of my mom's car at 7am, we were convinced we were brilliant. How could we not win? Of course, once the sleepless haze wore off, we realized the display was crap.

This was around the time last night that I turned my attention to the tiny pool. Why was it so tiny? Was it someone's brilliant 4am idea? Did the architect write the wrong scale on the construction drawings? Did the owner see a photo in a magazine and not read the notice that said "actual size"? Did they run out of money halfway through pool construction? As I stood in the tiny pool yesterday afternoon, I realized I had exaggerated its size only slightly. It's about 8'x12' and the 'deep end' is 4' deep. It did feel really nice, though. And, there were monkeys playing in the trees, so the experience includes entertainment.

All of which brought my thoughts back to travel blogging. In the tiny pool, watching the wildlife, I was acutely aware of the huge cement wall that separated me from the 'real world'. If I wasn't out there, why was I here at all? I could have stayed in Portland, renewed my 24hr Fitness membership and stood in the shallow end of their pool each afternoon...saving time and money. Maybe they'd even paint monkeys on the wall for me. Brilliant idea.

2 comments to Travel Blogging, Day 2: Failure:

christine said...

Oh my god. I think I also dreamt of a basket shaped basket factory while asleep in the back of my History of Architecture class. There's only one explanation: It must be part of the Collective Unconscious.

K said...

It does exist! Check it out:

http://consumer.discoverohio.com/popups/media.aspx?projecttype=3&id=9f96d927-ea18-4144-9511-ebcf009ac3d0