Jennifer Jeffrey, Writer & Editor

Random Photo Friday: Inside the Elevator at The Scotsman, Edinburgh

One of my sisters and I traveled together to Scotland a couple of years ago. We hopscotched all over the country, from Glasgow to the Isle of Iona and back, and stayed in something like 7 different hotels. We had a fabulous time.

Some people are tough to travel with, but this one - she's a peach. She never lost her cool, even when my arms were shaking as I tried to get used to driving in the UK for the first time (on the wrong! side of the road, in the wrong! side of the car), and when I reversed into another driver on a busy road near Oban. Oops. (Hint: Always reserve rental cars with a credit card that offers collision coverage. You'll be ever-so-glad you did.)

Near the end of our trip, we drove into Edinburgh and stayed at The Scotsman Hotel. After days in the (gorgeously green) countryside, we were thrilled to be back in a big city.

"I love cities," I said to her, as we climbed into the elevator.

"Me too," she smiled.

We spent a good chunk of our time in Edinburgh in the hotel pool, which was located on the basement level. It was a huge, stainless steel rectangle in a soothingly dim room, surrounded by walls of trickling water. Float, submerge, float. Yummy.

I chose this shot for today because I loved the smoky, over-exposed colors, and the foggy glow of the lights on the elevator ceiling.

Happy Friday, peeps.

I, for one, am NOT going to be at my desk this weekend, and you shouldn't be either! 

This is How All e-Commerce Sites Should Operate

It seems to me that if a girl is going to share her stories about bursting into tears at her local coffee shop because of a rude counter girl, then she should also share stories about customer service experiences that make her happy.

It's only fair, don't you think?

I've mentioned Mpix on this blog before, months ago, but they made my heart flutter all over again this week, and so I just had to create a quick post to say: if you're looking for a kick-a** online digital printer that delivers gorgeous, high-quality prints of your favorite photographs, look no further.

See that line beneath their logo that says: "Shoot Today. Upload Tonight. We Ship Tomorrow."?

They mean that.

Isn't my nephew gorgeous?

So often when I order something online, it takes sooooo long to arrive. I get pouty and frustrated. I lose interest. I can't count the number of times my Amazon order has been delayed for weeks. A three-week wait for a paperback?! Come on. Don't they know the rule that the faster the customer gets her stuff, the more likely she'll be to order more of it?

But Mpix. That crew is on it.

They're easy to use. They send stuff out fast. They package it nicely so that the corners aren't bent and your prints are flat and creamy. I'm partial to the Kodak Professional Metallic paper they offer; it creates this crazy-fantastic depth of color that reaches out and caresses your eyeballs.

I'm gushing, I know. But I think it's only fair.

Everything I Need

There are many moments and days when I let myself slide into that tepid bathtub of thoughts about what I don't have. When I let my mind linger on what I've lost. When I imagine that there is a hole inside my heart as wide and deep as Forever.

Then are there are moments - like this morning - when I realize that I have everything I need.

My latest epiphany arrived in an email from a client. She was commenting on a draft I had sent her the previous day. In just three sentences, she managed to pinpoint something about the copy that had been bothering me, but that I, being too close to it, couldn't see.

She wrote: "I am unable to articulate this very well but I will do my best to describe via examples. I know it’s difficult not to use (specific phrase omitted) here and there to complete sentences but if we could, I’d like to limit them as much as possible. Rather than telling our customers how great we are, I’d like to give them evidence, specific examples, and “clues” so that they come to that conclusion on their own."

Her feedback was so completely right on that I had to sit back in my chair for a moment.

I thought: I am surrounded by teachers. Wise, wonderful teachers. And as soon as I had that thought, a hundred other examples jumped into my head, of people - clients + friends + random strangers - who have very recently said this or that and it JUST SO HAPPENED to be precisely what I needed to hear at that exact moment.

I get so wrapped up in the details of my life sometimes that I lose perspective. Then someone says the right words, and presto: clarity.

I lack nothing. I just forget that sometimes.

** Photo above: The sky above a certain bench on a trail in the Marin Headlands, where you can sit and gaze out at the wide, vast, marvelous ocean. Not as wide and deep as Forever, but just large enough.

The Garbage You Can't See

Random garbage on a San Francisco street

Today, on Earth Day, I find myself thinking about garbage. About how much garbage I create, how long it lasts, and what my garbage says about me.

I didn't think about garbage until my family moved into the farmhouse.  Prior to the move, we lived in the suburbs, where garbage trucks drove by one day a week and picked up the trash. It was so simple; you put your garbage in a can and wheeled the can to the curb, and it magically disappeared.

When we moved to the farm, there was no more can. No more truck. No more magic.

Instead, we had The Pit.

Before we bought the farmhouse, we rented it. The people we rented it from had dug a deep hole in the ground a few yards from our house; a couple of times a week, they drove over with their garbage sacks and threw everything inside. The Pit horrified my parents. My father, the scientist, knew that things didn’t stay inside of a hole forever; they leached out into the soil and contaminated the ground.

We children were fascinated and repelled by The Pit; we would walk within a few feet of it and try to catch a glimpse of the rat family who lived on the brim. It had a sweet-sour stench on hot days. When people came to visit us, we went to tremendous lengths to keep them away from that side of the house. It was a source of silent shame.

As a result, we became rather obsessive about our garbage. We used multiple bins to sort it out: glass, paper, tin. Food scraps of every kind went to the animals; paper garbage was burned. Tin was flattened, and glass was reused. We tried very hard not to throw things away.

When we finally bought the farmhouse and covered over The Pit, we all breathed a sigh of relief, but we knew: it was still there. Moving, breathing, breaking down. It didn’t go away.

Now that I’m back in a place where the garbage truck comes to pick up the can once a week, I sometimes forget about The Garbage Problem. Then I read an article like the one in the January ’08 edition of National Geographic that shows a warehouse filled with discarded plastic computer monitors, and a photograph of a man in New Delhi pouring molten lead smelted from circuit boards from one pan into another. The caption reads: “His family uses the same pots for cooking.”

Talk about a buzz kill.

What was it I thought I had to have? A new cell phone? A faster laptop? It can wait.

Tea wrote a moving post on Tuesday about how she feels uncomfortable writing about food amid a worldwide food crisis; like the Food Issue, the garbage problem is deeply sobering. Just as my family knew that The Pit would affect our tiny little ecosystem, all of us instinctively understand that our garbage  doesn’t magically disappear.

I know this. You know this. But writing about it and talking about it is a bummer; we'd all rather think about something else, like ice cream. Or chocolate.

But somehow, acknowledging the garbage - talking about it, smelling it, watching the rats scurry over it - is strangely liberating.

I'd rather live in a world where the nasty, smelly stuff is talked about. Hidden, it is toxic. Hidden, it seeps into waterways + dinner plates + arteries and rots us from the inside out.

Exposed, we can figure out a way to clean it up.

Happy Earth Day, everyone.

Links:

The National Geographic Photo Essay on High-Tech Trash

The Recycling Question: does it make sense to recycle?

Greenwashing the Planet

Random Photo Friday: Kevin Bacon on Stage

Kevin Bacon is in a band with his brother. They're called The Bacon Brothers.

They're actually quite good.

And Kevin - he's fun to watch. He puts his whole self into performing. His brother has a better voice, but together - it works.

He has a pretty good life, I think.

Oded Ezer, You're My Type

Photo collage from Oded Ezer's website

I am so captivated by the work of Israeli typographer Oded Ezer that I keep going back to it:

• The gorgeous photos of his 3-dimensional type treatments that grace his website.

• Typosperma, part of his Biotypography work.

• His fabulous Flickr set with his experimental type shapes (check the Dadist interpretation of "Helvetica"- awesome!)

Speaking of Helvetica: I'm watching the movie. Again.

Have you visited Bembo's Zoo yet? The Peacock and the Zebra are my favorites.

A different kind of type: Zhang Huan's Family Tree.

Thursdays are good for daydreaming about Type.

Dating Advice for Girls with Pets: a Public Service Announcement

A friend of mine called yesterday to chat about his adventures in online dating.

"I know you're not ready to get back out there," he said, "but when you are, here's a tip: don't post pictures of your dog online if you want to get a date."

He went on to tell me about a perplexing trend he had noticed on a certain matchmaking site he belonged to (eSanctimonious, perhaps? I can't remember) in which women posted photo after photo of themselves with their pets. "It's the opposite of hot," he sighed. "They're all reading 'Eat, Pray, Love,' and they're all holding a cat or a miniature dog. Bleh."

One woman sent him an e-card emblazoned with a photo of her cat Fluffy wearing a pair of bunny ears, inscribed: "Fluffy wishes you a Happy Easter!"

"What was she thinking?!" he groaned. "I hadn't even met her in person yet, and her CAT wishes me a Happy Easter? Dumb, dumb, dumb. I deleted her immediately."

I know that Internet dating sites have helped countless singletons find their happy ever after, but I'm 110% sure they're not for me, so after I finished wiping away the tears of laughter over my friend's story, I said: SO THAT MEANS I CAN POST PICTURES OF MY DOG ALL DAY LONG!

"You go, girl," he replied.

"Because the only other thing I can think of that would be as much fun as dating - online or off - would be handing my heart to a butcher and asking him to run it through a meat grinder a few times."

"Yeah, posting pictures of Petra might be a good idea," my friend replied.

"And then asking the butcher, if he wouldn't mind, to hold a blowtorch to it for a minute or two, to make the raw, pulpy bits nice and crispy."

"Start posting those pictures immediately," he said.

Not that I'm planning on turning my blog into Photo Shrine to Petra, but I could. Hypothetically.

But YOU! If you're Single in San Francisco, and you're thinking about sending out a flirtatious e-card signed "With Hugs &  Smooches From Fluffy and Me" - you might want to scrap those plans in a jiffy.

And swap out "Eat, Pray, Love" with "He's Just Not That Into You."

Couldn't hurt. Might help.

Weekend Report: Watching, Reading, Eating

WATCHING: La Vie En Rose.

When Marion Cotillard won Best Actress for her portrayal of Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose, I felt slightly miffed on behalf of the American more experienced actresses who had been nominated: Laura Linney. Cate Blanchett.  Julie Christie!

Then, over the weekend, I saw the movie. It was gorgeous. Cotillard the movie star was virtually invisible; all I could see was Edith. Fragile, belligerent, talented, love-starved Edith.

From a scene on the beach in California in the '50's, where a reporter is interviewing Piaf:

What advice do you have for women?

Love.

What advice do you have for young ladies?

Love.

What advice do you have for girls?

Love.

x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x

READING: What is the What, by Dave Eggers.

I've had this book on my must-read list for months. Now it is breaking my heart, one masterfully-written page at at time.

From page 199 (paperback edition):

Death took boys every day, and in a familiar way: quickly and decisively, without much warning or fanfare. These boys were faces to me, boys I had sat next to for a meal, or who I had seen fishing in a river. I began to wonder if they were all the same, if there was any reason one of them would be taken by death while another would not. I began to expect it at any moment. But there were things the dead boys might have done to aid their demise. Perhaps they had eaten the wrong leaves. Perhaps they were lazy. Perhaps they were not as strong as me, not as fast. It was possible that it was not random, that God was taking the weak from the group. Perhaps only the strongest were meant to make it to Ethiopia; there was only enough Ethiopia for the best of the boys.

x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x    x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x

EATING: Kumquats. Whole: seeds + skin + all. I can't get enough of their bitter-sour-sweetness. I know I should slice them thinly and toss them in a salad; infuse them into something exotic; make them into a glaze and brush it over a hunk of meat. But they taste too good naked to fuss with them, so I don't.

And with sincere apologies to anyone who thinks that I am Very High Minded All of the Time, I can't help but wonder:

Don't kumquats sort of resemble... boobies?

 

Random Photo Friday: Melancholy Girl with Guitar

She was sitting on the sidewalk, strumming her guitar.

It was about an hour to sunset. The golden twilight cast a shadow on her guitar, silhouetting it against the garage door behind her.

She looked up at me with sad brown eyes, hair curling around her forehead. She said it would be okay if I took her photo.

I asked if I could email her a copy.

"No," she said dreamily, and bowed her head again, strumming. Lost in her thoughts. Beautiful melancholy girl.

A Break up Story

Time: A weekday afternoon. 3-ish.

Place: Ritual Coffee Roasters on Valencia Street in San Francisco.

Me: In a mid-afternoon slump, slightly blurry, jonesing for a caffeine boost.

At the counter: A girl, 18-ish.

x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x

Counter girl: What would you like?

Me: A cappuccino, please.

CG: For here or to go?

Me: To go.

(a pause)

Me: Oh, and can I ask a favor? Can the barista stir a tablespoon of raw sugar into the espresso before adding the foam? Because, you know, when you add the sugar afterwards, it gets caught in the foam, and… (stops, slowly, as a sour expression of distaste spreads over counter girl’s face)

CG: Umm, we don’t… do that.

Me: You don’t do what, exactly?

CG: We don’t add… anything… to our espresso. We don’t believe in ruining it. We believe that our coffee shouldn’t have… things…added to it. Philosophically, we just don’t believe in it. So, no.

Me: Oh. Okay.

Barista (overhears and leans over, frowning): Sugar makes the espresso bitter, and we’d really rather not ruin it. (shakes his head, clearly displeased) I mean, I’ll add it if you really want me to, but… (furrows brow, sighs)

Me: No, that's fine. Just make it the way you make it.

Barista: I mean, if you insist.

Me: No, really. Just make it the way you make it.

CG walks away and whispers to her associate at the other end of the counter. They giggle, glancing in my direction.

I turn away. I have never felt this ashamed in the act of ordering coffee in my life. Ever. I feel like a heel, a rube, a bumpkin.

And there, in the middle of the busy room, tears rush to my eyes. I am simultaneously furious at them and furious with myself for letting it affect me so much. My brain clamors with judgment as my ego rushes to its own defense: how dare this greasy-haired girl with ill-fitting pants treat me like a disease? Who are these people, anyway? I want to walk out, forget that I ever stepped through the red-flag-waving door.

But I stay, willing the tears to subside. (Why? I don’t know. It takes me far too long to walk away from bad situations.) The barista finally slides my drink across the counter with a final disappointed glance.

I pick up the cup and walk out.

In the relative safety of the sidewalk, I try to figure out what just happened. Was it me? Was it them? Did I really just about have a breakdown over... a cappuccino?

All I know for sure is this: I am never. Going back. To Ritual. Again.