humans are funny

Author: laurenne

  • Dear olives, bow ties, and ham drawings: I love you!

    Madrid is alive. With people. With culture. With men who have sexy accents. With retired couples who hold hands and take walks at night. With loitering teenagers. With street musicians. With people and more people enjoying dinners on patios throughout the city.

    It’s metropolitan, and everyone walks with purpose through the maze of the city, around behemoth government buildings and through the cozy cobblestone streets. But that’s not all that I love about it. There’s also: the smell, the fresh bread, the people, the accent, the olives, the plazas, the way everyone talks with such emotion, the fact that you order a wine and they automatically give you a tapa, the possibility to see Javier Bardem around every corner, the sangria, the tradition, the bow ties worn by waiters at traditional cafes, the churros and chocolate, the theaters, the beautiful beautiful coffee, the park, the men playing futbol in the park, la musica, the cheery voice on the metro that tells you what stop is next…

    but especially the people. I was sitting alone in a plaza smiling, of course, because I was observing the magnificence around me. A hunched old man walked passed me, turned towards me on his cane and said, “Que cara tan bonita tienes! Tienes cara de muñeca.” (What a pretty face you have– it’s the face of a doll.) The fact that we were both enjoying the other’s presence almost brought me to tears. Ah, Madrid. Estoy enamorada.

    How could you not love a city where they draw cute little hams to advertise their meat section:


    Or where old people sing their hearts out and play accordions!:


    Or where random drag queens congregate:


    Or where they sell horchata with big farts (adding -on to a word in spanish means ‘big’):


    Or where you can get a free fake mustache with the purchase of any two wigs:

  • I am different this time. I swear.


    I left India feeling lighter. Refreshed. New. I knew I was a cliché, but that’s the thing– I didn’t care. I felt like I had shed the load of caring about what others think. Thankfully, this was discarded along with my need for make-up, new clothes, and all material goods. In my previous life, I always swung on the fence between hippiedom and yuppiedom. It seemed dreamy to have a nice house and comfortable car, but in India I finally confirmed that it feels nicer to not have. To me, being able to travel with one pair of pants beats worrying about a mortgage.

    Phew. Glad I realized that. No more brand names. No more high heels. Done.

    Then British Airways lost my backpack.

    “What’s that you say? You say the airline usually reimburses about one-hundred Euros per day?”

    Immediately I became one of those shoppers with glittery packages. The moment I bought the first tight-fitting jeans, my seal was broken. Like an addict looking for a spoon, I was on a rampage. I happened to be in Spain during their semi-annual countrywide blowout sale, and my hands couldn’t flip through the discount racks fast enough. I had to have that dress. And those shoes. And pajamas. And of course a purse. And look at that– a whole store filled with stuff I wanted to buy in India but didn’t. I fluttered through dressing rooms and beeped through register transactions.

    When my backpack finally arrived three days later, I am ashamed to say that nothing I bought fit into it. I then had to buy a suitcase to carry all my new purchases.

    I hung my head in shame.
    But then I put on my new heels!

    Just this once. I swear. I need to feel feminine for a short time– then back to stinky shirts and baggy pants. I hadn’t realized how grimy I’d felt over the last eight months. It’s nice to remove leg hair, wear jewelry, and put on deodorant once in a while. I’d forgotten. Our minds and bodies have the ability to get used to anything. What you thought was crazy before just becomes your life, and there you have it. Strange. I bet I could have acclimated to sleeping on a bed of cockroaches if I’d really wanted. Maybe next I will choose to get used to… being unemployed and living with my mother until someone invites me on another 9-month holiday.

  • What’s the matter with you people? Why aren’t you staring at me?

    I feel misplaced and awkward sitting here sipping a perfectly frothed café con leche, wearing a pair of jeans, and watching passersby loaded with Coach bags and packages from glittery department stores. It feels like just yesterday I was peeing into a hole, caught in a monsoon with my backpack on, and bribing rickshaw drivers to take me to the airport while trucks splashed me with mud and mean Hindi expressions. Oh, wait… that was yesterday.

    Just a few stamps in my passport and divided trays of food and here I am in clean, expensive Madrid where nobody sleeps on the train station floor and showing shoulders isn’t considered sin. It’s like I’ve traveled through space; how can such different worlds exist on one planet? How do so many people from either world not know what it’s like to be in the other? How long will it take before sitting here sipping a coffee amidst shoppers and sangria feels normal? Do I even want it to feel normal?

    A bus stop in India where I jumped out, peed in a hole and bought a pair of samosas.

    A metro stop in Madrid. What is this place? Where’s the garbage? And the goats?

  • I’m in the West!

    Holy mackerel! Everything is expensive.
    Holy mackerel! Everything is so clean.
    Holy mackerel! Everyone is so white.

    Holy mackerel! Everyone is a slut!

  • Hasta Luego India-o


    Two months have speedily swept by as I ran across India. The sub-continent is too big to traverse in even a matter of years. The people I’ve met here, the generosity I’ve experienced, and the culture I’ve seen have bowled me over, kicked me while I was down, lifted me up, and fed me rainbows. It’s an extraordinary place, and it’s touched me more than any other in the string of nine countries I’ve just visited. I will most definitely be back.




    Some valuable Indian lessons:

    1. Chopped raw onions on any dish magnifies the taste by one-hundred.

    2. India is a force with whom not to be reckoned. Even though the streets are dirty and taxis have to yield to cows, they know what they’re doing. It’s chaotic, but it works. They even have their own set of numbers: 1,00,000 is a lakh 1,00,00,000 is a crore.

    3. Femininity is just a nose ring and some nail polish away. Really. I saw women spitting, squatting, yelling, sleeping on the dirty train station floor, or hauling bricks with a bunch of donkeys. And they never lost their dainty splendor in their bright colors and dangly gold trinkets.

    4. Never take the first price or option. Always get a second opinion. Always think about it hard. Always bargain. This will help me throughout life. If I had learned this before Papua New Guinea, those damn villagers wouldn’t have taken me for all I was worth.

    5. It is possible to say no and not feel guilty. You gotta do it. If I hadn’t learned to say no, I would be coming home with fourteen adopted Indians (two of whom are over forty), several plots of land, bolts and bolts of silk from someone’s uncle’s shop, and stakes in several businesses that are bound to be taking off any day now.

    6. Positivity is free and hidden everywhere you go. You must find it. When you’re on that 23rd hour in a train, sweaty, with baby cockroaches playing in your bed, you better realize that you’re in India experiencing the world! It’s much better than sitting in a cubicle. If you don’t find the positive everywhere you go, life can be pretty hard. It’s all up to you.

    7. Anything is possible. Anything. Especially in India. If you landed in a spaceship from the year 2356, and you needed to repair your ship’s Glantongerd-345 (because everyone knows Glantongerds are usually the first to go), you could walk into a shop that looks like a garage and hold up the Glantongerd. Even if no one there could help you, someone would know a cousin’s friend’s brother-in-law (which is ‘sala’ in Hindi!) who could. Without hesitation, he’d throw you on his motorbike, bring you to the correct garage-looking shop, and watch with you as a dark-skinned guy in a sweaty tank top welded a new part for you in about five minutes. For three bucks, you’d walk out of there with your shiny new Glastongerd and a horoscope prepared for you by a blind lady who predicted you’d return to India in the year 2356.

    In that spirit, here is a video that epitomizes my theory. Eight months out of advertising, and I can still break down anything into a commercial: