I got back from Miami today after four days of passionate conversations about the authenticity of travel (and travel writing) and whether or not Mates of State actually sing a cover of These Days and what to name our cheese babies. I was also lucky to share breakfast sandwiches, beaches, swimming, a sweet backyard pool and a bright green stuffed ferret that looked more like a jalapeño pepper than an animal with some of the best housemates I’ve ever had south of the Mason-Dixon line.
(I also went to We Media Miami 2009, which you can read about here and here. A huge thanks goes to them for sponsoring part of our costs to attend the conference, which challenged the way I think and communicate about new media as a member of the “Dream Generation.”)
Jeremy wrote earlier about how blessed he feels to be working with Global Voices, and I want to echo his love for the organization and the amazing people that constitute it. I am so happy to have found this community, and jumping back into writing for them has made me happy in a way few things apart from the blogren do.
Because I come from a classic American family, I spent many Thursday nights of my childhood watching Friends, the only sitcom of which I have ever owned a DVD (Season Four Highlights, not that I know it by heart or anything).
Perhaps that is why my image of sexy was, from the time I stopped loving Full House’s Jonathan Taylor Thomas until Edward Norton stole my heart in Fight Club, constructed largely around Joey Tribbiani.
Joey could make anything naughty. Seriously, anything, as evidenced in my beloved Season Four, when he talks about Midwestern cooking. It’s about 2:30 into this clip:
Grandma’s chicken salad. Told you. As my celebrity crushes have shifted from movie stars to hip-hop moguls to scruffy travel writers, that phrase has stuck in my head as the epitome of sex.
Until now.
The Lawrence-based website BoomerGirl.com is marketed to boomer-aged women, currently in their mid-40s to early 60s. It won an EPpy award this year for Best Newspaper-Affiliated Web Site with fewer than 1 million unique monthly visitors. BoomerGirl’s popularity rests in its cheeky advice about love, looks and “living out loud,” but all these things pale when compared to Español con Ramon:
Meet Ramon. Ramon is BG’s “exclusive and oh-so-sexy Spanish teacher,” who is dedicated to teaching you, the middle-aged woman, one useful phrase each day. These phrases, posted with accompanying audio clips, include gems like “Este paquete es muy grande” (this package is very large) and “Dónde está la fotocopiadora?” (where is the photocopier?).
I’m far from middle-aged, but Ramon’s sultry voice speaks to me. I’ve been playing it over and over this morning, the words evoking some deeper longing for sun-soaked beaches and illicit getaways with my garden boy.
Last night, around 7:30 PM, I set foot in Kansas for the first time in 381 days (I checked). I like flying across the United States — I watch the cities break into checkerboard farmland and the greengoldbrown of the fields reminds me that even though I’m not a farmgirl, I’m definitely a Midwesterner.
Today was a lavish Lawrence-based binge: biking through my parents’ neighborhood, walking downtown, having lunch with an old friend at a new restaurant, being a rock star with my little brother.
Robert Louis Stevenson said, “I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” Still, sometimes it’s just nice to be home.
Since I last wrote, I finished work, slept in a geodome, climbed a volcano, wore a tie to a goat race (where I met Andrew Mwenda) and left Uganda. Yikes.
I haven’t been home (by which I mean lovable Lawrence, KS, home of indie scenesters and dozens of locally owned coffee shops and more banks per capita than anywhere else in the United States*) yet because I’m hanging out with old friends on the East Coast. So far my culture shock has consisted of my amazement at drinkable tap water and skinny jeans.
Right now I’m sitting in the Edwin Ginn Library pretending to be a student at the Fletcher School. Fletcher is currently heading the list of graduate programs I’m considering, making this particular moment simultaneously exciting (I could be here in a year!) and terrifying (I could not be here in a year!).
The future for me consists of grad school applications, making espresso for thirsty, caffeine-addicted grocery shoppers, and traveling around the country catching up with people I haven’t seen for a year. I’ll be blogging, but it remains to be seen how much of Jackfruity will be dedicated to Uganda and how much will expand to include other parts of East Africa, general comments on technology and development, and the occasional cupcake recipe. I also hope to start a new blog focused on the former Soviet Union. (I’ve gotten as far as the name and the template, but content-wise, I’m a little short right now.)
I’ll be paying close attention to what happens to Uganda Bloggers Happy Hour at the end of this month — I hope someone else will make it near and dear to their heart and keep UBHH alive, but the dearth of Ugandan participants last month (27th Comrade being the lone exception) makes me doubtful.
The plan is to return to Uganda within a year, mostly to say hi to friends and chill out in the equatorial sunshine, but for now: so long, and thanks for all the matooke.
*So widely rumored to be true that I didn’t bother looking for a source.
Unless specifically otherwise attributed, all content reflects nothing more than the author's own opinion, experience and predilection for referring to herself in the third person.
