Urban Explorers

Although Les tells me he has known about Urban Explorers for years (which means I knew about them at one time, too, but have managed to forget it somewhere along the way -- my brain is kind of small and doesn't have a lot of extra space, so I have to abandon unused information to make room for new details), I am just (re)discovering this interesting group of people. They break into abandoned buildings, underground passageways, and other places otherwise reserved for "authorized personnel" only, explore these forbidden areas, and often photo-document what they see.

I just spent a few moments Googling for photos of Vanderbilt University's underground tunnels, which I read about in an old article in the Nashville Scene. Although I didn't find what I was looking for, I did turn up photos from the adventures of other Urban Explorers.

I really liked the photos on this website so I thought I would share them on my blog. The pictures that had the greatest appeal to me were the ones from abandoned office spaces. I think that's because I work in a typical office and know what it should normally look like. Therefore, seeing binders all over the floor or shelves of unused supplies or a copier that hasn't been turned on in months is a strange glimpse into my own personal Bizarro World. And, being the nosey kind of person I am, my mind can't help but speculate on what I'd find in their filing cabinets or on the speed dial buttons of their phones.

It seems like it would be very eerie to walk around a building that is unused but still full of machinery, office supplies, and furniture. I would imagine that you would get a bit of a post-apocalyptic feeling, as if you were the only person left in the world.

However, potential creep-out aside, the real reason I wouldn't be a good Urban Explorer is that I'm too "goody two shoes" and too afraid of getting caught. Still, I can enjoy living vicariously.

Happy Birthday, Poe!

I just heard on NPR that today is Edgar Allen Poe's birthday. I thought, "Wow! Who knew? I should totally go home and read some Poe! I have a BA in English Lit after all -- reading Poe is what I do!"

Then I thought, "Who are you kidding? You're never going to go home and read Poe! You're going to be reading Bartimaeus instead. Poe is too depressing for bedtime reading, and you never really liked his stories that much anyway!"

Then I thought, "Seriously, who has time to keep track of the birthdays of famous dead people? I can't even keep track of my car keys!"

So, Poe, I won't be reading any of your works today, and I didn't even know it was your birthday, and I guess it doesn't even matter to me that much, but I hope it was happy.

Honorary Family Member

My husband got a new program for our iMac and, in the process of learning how some aspect of it worked, he stumbled upon this family's website. I love their videos and now would like to be an honorary member of the DiLoreto family. If you have a moment, please check out "MTV" and "Beach Dancing." I laughed and laughed. Even the grandparents are SO fun!

If you're not out of your seat while watching these home movies, you obviously don't have your volume turned up loud enough.

Shake it!

New Invention Request: Cereal Sieve

I just poured myself a bowl of cereal, emptying out the box. As I got to the bottom, it was mostly dust, with a few tidbits of real cereal. Herein lies my dilemma: If I dump the entire contents of the box into my bowl, all the cereal dust will create a sludgy effect which is really gross. If I leave the last five tablespoons in the bottom of the bag, I feel like I'm wasting cereal.

I tried to use a standard spaghetti strainer to get rid of all the dust, leaving only the bigger bits behind, but somehow the cereal dust ended up clogging up the strainer holes, and it really wasn't very effective.

Any brilliant ideas?

Series Photos

Series photos are something that I enjoy but have not created for a few years. If you looked through the personal photos of my college years, however, you would find at least three or four different photo series in my collection. My favorite is a series I did with an exclamation mark sticker I pulled off of a CD case. I have a whole roll of film of various people holding that sticker. It still makes me laugh.

I was delighted when my husband found this web page, documenting a series of over 900 photos where people are covering one eye. It reminded me of a similar series of photos I had on my wall in college . . . I had just happened to stumble across three photos in music magazines of people itching one eye, and I lined them all up together.

It looks like the blogger has his email posted at the bottom of the page, and I bet that if you took a photo of yourself covering one eye, he would post it on his blog. Pretty cool!

Bathroom Queue Ponderings

As I was standing in line for the restrooms at the end of the last Nashville Preds game, a few thoughts crossed my mind. In an effort to put a toe over the line into "too much information" land, I thought I would share those thoughts here.

1. It is great to be a woman at a sporting event. For once, the guys restroom line is as long or longer than the girls. Ha, ha!

2. Seriously, what are women doing in those stalls that it takes them so long to come out again? The mind reels. Especially since they come out of the stalls and then primp in the mirror for another five minutes. Our lines may be shorter but the time per person is extremely inefficient. Hurry up!

3. In Taiwan (where I lived for six months), they really know how to queue up for the restrooms. Each person stands in front of a specific stall door, thereby eliminating most of the line that usually bottlenecks the entrance to the restroom. It makes the line look a lot shorter to people entering the restroom, making your restroom visit less discouraging (at least initially). Queueing in front of a specific stall also eliminates those moments of indecision when two stall doors open and you're not sure which one to go for first. On the negative side of this restroom strategy, if you pick the wrong door to stand in front of it could be really annoying. I keep meaning to try and organize it sometime, but I think the people in the restroom might be totally freaked out by it. On the plus side, the line might actually get shorter as people flee from my freakiness!

I was trying to find a link to a study I once read about where "scientists" measured the amount of time women took in the restroom vs. men. It was at least twice as long for women. Instead, I found this link to a research project someone at the University of Chicago Law School was doing on men's vs. women's restrooms. Since it's topical, I thought I would include the link here.

Wax Me 16

One of my hesitancies about getting my bushy eyebrows waxed in the first place was that I worried they would be waxed unevenly, making me look like some kind of a freak (as if my own plucking was perfectly symmetrical or as if having two furry catepillars above my eyes didn't make me look like a freak!). And I must admit that I usually come home, look in the mirror, and do some additional grooming after I get them waxed. This last waxing, however, I looked in the mirror and noticed that my right eyebrow was much more arched than the other one, making me look like I was raising one eyebrow in a sarcastic manner.

This immediately took me back to my teenage years, when raising one eyebrow sarcasticly was something that happened many, many times a day. My friends and I would practice single eyebrow raising in the mirror, and see if we could raise our left eyebrows as effectively as our right ones (ambidextrous eyebrows?). I remember someone even giving me this compliment once: "You can really raise that one eyebrow really high! Wow!" Obviously, my eyebrow-lift exercises were paying off!

Of course, I fixed the left eyebrow so that it looked similarly sarcastic, thereby neutralizing the right one. And then, just for kicks, I tried to raise just one of them sarcastically. I'm not that good at it any more, but my left eyebrow is definitely the stronger of the two. Maybe some more exercises are in order. Just in case.

Waste as Art

All of us have probably seen art made out of garbage at some point in our lives (if you haven't, you might need to get out and visit a contemporary art gallery a little more often). Although it sometimes make you feel like you're being tricked by people cleverer than you into believing anything is art, a lot of garbage-as-art can really be beautiful, emotional, and overwhelming in its meaning.

One of my recently discovered trash artists is Chris Jordan. His series on consumerism and waste is really powerful. Check out his photographs here. Be sure to read his artist statements because I think they give even more meaning to the photos (as a good artist statment should!). His series on waste not only makes me even more driven to be a good recycler, but also makes me reconsider the long list of things I want to buy.