My friends and I sat in the shade of this. It's an excellent place to observe people appreciating the artistic exhibition. And by "appreciate" I mean the singular reaction we saw was every few minutes a person would come up and touch the neck with their palm to see what it is composed of and then knock it with their fist to see if it was hollow. Humans, be they young or old, all have the same reactions to giant sculptural heads in public parks it seems.The gorgeous weather has zapped me of all creative energy. (Yep, that's really the excuse I'm going with.) I had no ideas of things to write about today. At least not until my daily blog stalkings uncovered a previously unknown blogger convention of having periodic confessionals where the blogger reveals inane truths about themselves as a I writing exercise. I frequently feel the need to divulge minor failings of my character, but as I was raised without Catholic guilt, I've never had an appropriate outlet. Thus, today I'm purging myself of minor truths that may or may not qualify as actual confessions.
1) I enjoy hearing people lying on cell phones. When I hear someone telling someone they have to ring off because they're "about to enter a subway" when I can plainly see they're waiting in line at Shake Shack in no danger of losing reception, it makes me oddly happy. I feel like I'm somehow an accomplice of this stranger. That I know something about them that they keep from even their beloved cell phone contacts.
2) Although I'm in no way suicidal (and not trying to channel Christopher Walken), sometimes when I'm a passenger in a moving vehicle, I feel the urge to open the door and roll out into traffic. When this happens, I lock the car door so that I don't accidentally do it.
3) It says on my resume that I speak "social Afrikaans" when in reality I speak only enough Afrikaans to hit on someone. I can ask "Are you single?" (Is jy beskikbaar?) or tell someone they have a cute butt (Jou boukikes is ongelooflike), but beyond that my overall communication skills are lacking. I blame my Afrikaans teacher for this as her teaching style was to provide us with ways to get Afrikaans boyfriends and girlfriends as she insisted that was the best incentive to learn. I'm counting on it never coming up at a job interview. Or that the place I'm interviewing has a relaxed sexual harassment policy.
4) My month-to-month calendar is nearly always half a month behind. I usually only notice when I try to determine a specific date and then wonder when they moved President's Day to April.
That seems like enough hard-hitting honesty for today. I hope you all feel you know me a little better. It's nice to feel purged on this lovely Friday. Also, feel free to leave any small confessions of your own in the comments.
This post makes me smile. I never learned to say "Jou boukikes is ongelooflike"!
ReplyDeleteThat's because you didn't have Wanda Winterbaugh! I don't know if I got the spelling of "boukikes" right, but it's pronounced bow-keys. You know, in case you ever find yourself beskikbaar in SA.
ReplyDeleteI have a confession. I always read your blog and then later think of a good comment but then don't comment because you've made a more current entry and it's too late for my comment to be amusing.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, that picture looks fake!! Like someone photo shopped the head into the park.
ReplyDeleteSecond of all, LOVED the confessions. Sorry it's taken me forever to read this post (I've been neglecting blogger-land as of late). I think confession #2 is my favorite. I would never have thought that you had that urge. #1 was funny too.
Ok so my confession is that being around old people makes me feel uncomfortable. They always remind of me of death because most likely they're closer to it than I am. I instantly feel guilty about feeling this way about our older and wiser generation, but it's true.
Oh and I always make sure that the child safety lock isn't on in when I'm the passenger of a car. Just in case I need to jump out in an emergency. So kind of the opposite of your #2. Hehe.
Carolyn--you can always make comments even if it's not the most recent post. I enjoy them at any time.
ReplyDeleteRachel--Yours probably makes more sense. I'm seldom in cars where the child safety lock is on, but the idea of it always freaks me out, mostly because I'm usually in cabs. Being trapped in the back seat of a cab is how horror movies start.
Is that giant head a permanent fixture, or just temporary? I like it a lot.
ReplyDeleteThe giant head is a temporary installation. They do a different one every summer. It is really cool though. It might still be up when you come in September.
ReplyDeleteYou're a keeper, Susan. The mystique of "My writer friend in New York City" grows more every day! And I do the car thing too.
ReplyDelete