Just some lovely things for a gorgeous day where lots of things went right, made even sweeter by the fact that yesterday was a miserable day, where nothing did.
Just some lovely things for a gorgeous day where lots of things went right, made even sweeter by the fact that yesterday was a miserable day, where nothing did.
A few lovely things for this very cold San Francisco day.
A little bit of loveliness, because it’s Friday.
One of the great things about the university I attended was it’s multiculturalism. There were students there from over 100 different countries, so we were learning just as much from the other students as did from the teacher.
In one of my international communication classes we had a lot of interesting discussions about the ways that different cultures communicate differently, not just in terms of speaking different languages, but also non-verbally, and in the way that we hear sounds.
Babies in different countries cry differently, based on the language in the country where they are born. When asked what sound a dog makes, the students from North America answered with some version of “ruff ruff”, while a girl from Thailand described it as a completely different sound.
While it is possible to generalize words from one language to another, there are many words from other cultures that have very precise meanings that there is no English equivalent for. I always love to learn about words like this, even if I can never remember them later.
Life in SF has basically ground to a screeching halt today, because of Batkid. It seems like everyone knows about it, but maybe that’s only because I’m in the Bay. It’s a pretty great story no matter where you live.
A little boy battling leukemia told the Make a Wish Foundation that his only wish was to be Batkid, and to help save Gotham City. San Francisco rose to the challenge, with more than 12,000 volunteers helping to transform the city into Gotham, complete with bat signal.
Batkid has been all over the city today, battling the Riddler and the Penguin, saving damsels in distress and also the SF Giants mascott, Lou Seal, from certain death. He’s been riding around in the batmobile, AKA a black Lamborghini with bat adornments, accompanied by Batman, and Batkid’s little brother, who gets to be Robin for the day.
Batkid has been sick since he was 20 months old, so most of his life has been spent in hospitals getting treatment, and today he got to be a superhero. Wishing to be Batkid is pretty creative, as far as wishes go, and all of these people rallying to help make it happen is really amazing.
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| The bat symbol in a building across the street from my office |
You can learn more about batkid here.
A few things that have been stuck in my head lately:
“Film noir gave us a term for the low-maintenance cheap-date type of woman, as personified by Ingrid Bergman and the other cool blondes. They were, in the gruff parlance, Class Acts. A Class Act does not bombard you with whimpering phone calls to the effect of why are you out with your mates watching the footie when you could be choosing sisal floor mats with me?
A Class Act does not take a split badly, or if she does, does so without so much as a peep. A Class Act is the silhouette disappearing into the night that you will no doubt remember-but will never talk to again. A Class Act will spend a lot of time alone, drinking spirits. A Class Act will never emerge from a local church in a shower of petals. A Class Act will never be a mummy, yummy or otherwise.
A Class Act will never have a husband who visit prostitutes. Forget I mentioned it.”- Secret Diary of a Call Girl. Love that book.
“Summer left and no one said a word.”- Matt Nathanson
“You are arguing that the fragile and rare thing is beautiful just because it’s fragile and rare. But that’s a lie, and you know it.”- The Fault in Our Stars
“Fuck that, I say if I’m beautiful. I say if I’m strong … I will never apologize. I stand here and I’m amazing for you, not because of you. I am not who I sleep with … I am not my weight. I am myself.”- Amy Schumer
“There is something absolutely divine — I mean, literally, the breath of God — in the ability to put someone else in your heart, to think of them first. But from the time of the greatest pornographer who ever lived, Shakespeare, we’ve demanded that love be something more. No, fuck Shakespeare — since the Song of Songs! And what happens is, the utter grandeur and magnificence of what love actually is gets overshadowed by this disappointment that it’s not the way we fantasized it should be.”- Jim, 55
Love this.
Watching this video really makes you want to book a trip. I was kind of on the fence about a trip I was thinking of taking next month, there are always reasons to say no and just stay at home, but I decided to go for it. I read somewhere that if you’re having trouble deciding what to do, you should do what you’ll wish you would have done when you’re 80 years old.
When I’m 80, hopefully playing bingo and skinny dipping every day, I think that it is much more likely that I’ll regret staying at home more than I’ll regret a crazy, expensive weekend in Vegas with my favourite girls, so why not?
loveliness. 