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| Sunday, May 25, 2003 "Two for Matrix, please." "Sure. Can I see ID?" Why would the little teenage girl need my ID? And then it hit me. I was getting carded for an R-rated movie. I was speechless. I flipped open my my wallet and let her look for my birthday. She silently realized that I was 10 years older than her. "It's a compliment!" Marisol managed to say after laughing at me. Danny said the same thing. Uh huh. Being dressed casually without makeup could not have made that much of a difference. It must be the tan. Friday, May 23, 2003 I’m such a dolt when it comes to geography. I read the headlines about Wednesday’s earthquakes in Algeria but didn’t realize how close it is to Spain. I found the following on BBC’s message board: “Waves from the earthquake have arrived in Ibiza and Menorca (we're due North), and have been so strong that they have damaged vessels in the harbours here. Can't imagine what it must have been like in Algiers. Send them what help you can.” It happened less than a week after we left Ibiza. Scary. I haven’t been in an earthquake for over 10 years. Going through one in another country would’ve made me jittery at the very least. It’s eerie to think of how close I was two recent tragedies. There were the coordinated bombings in Casablanca, Morocco within a week of my visit to Ceuta, Morocco. And now this earthquake. A few days and a couple hundred miles. Dad says I'm a good luck charm; good thing I’m lucky for myself, too. The only reason I read an article on the quakes is because it headlined the rescue of a baby 36 hours after the earthquakes hit the area. Thousands of others could be trapped underneath the shoddily built crumbled buildings. Apparently, structures from the French colonial period (150 years ago) are standing strong while the newer ones fell like a house of cards. It makes me sick to the stomach imagining the horror of being trapped underneath shards of glass, splintered planks of wood, dusty chunks of concrete… would it be better to be trapped with someone who’s injured and frantic or suffer alone? I wonder if the contractors are feeling any sort of remorse or if they’re convincing themselves that they would’ve built better buildings if people were willing to pay for them. Wednesday, May 21, 2003 I'm half-heartedly adjusting to my usual routine in Chicago but got a fun little surprise this morning. Jaywalked across Michigan Avenue when I noticed a guy on a Segway zipping around in front of my building. What a cool toy! It defies the imagination by tricking you into thinking that it's a natural extension of the body. It appeared to know where the guy wanted to go as he was making his decision. It was agile enough to make tight turns and was absurdly small. If I buy a place in downtown Chicago, it'd be hard not to be tempted to buy this toy. |