Cinderella's Castle

I have a pretty cool family. Whisk me away to Disney for a weekend because life is stressful, cool.

It hasn't been super smooth sailing since I moved into my new apartment in August. I got mono, our apartment complex was poisoning us with carbon monoxide for two months, we flooded due to bad draining, etc... So my aunt e-mailed me out of nowhere and asked if I wanted to go see the Spectacle of Dancing Lights at Hollywood Studios, she was trying to get me away from home for a weekend to see something I hadn't seen before.

Little did she know, I'd already seen it. But this is the last year Disney is putting the show on, and I desperately wanted to see it again. It wouldn't have mattered if I had seen it 12 times, I would still have jumped at the opportunity to go. It's Disney. And as clichéd as that may be, it is synonymous with joy in my book.
But it was November and she had work, and I had school, so we got a one day park hopper pass and barreled through the parks as fast as possible. Starting in Magic Kingdom, wandering around, seeing all the decorations, and spending some time in the New Fantasyland, which I had yet to visit. Then to Epcot, where the food and wine festival was taking place. I had a Frozen Szarlotka (read frozen apple pie with vodka) at Poland's booth, and beer at Belgium's. We hopped the boat to Hollywood Studios and finished the night with The Tower of Terror and Christmas Lights.

Magic Kingdom may be the epitome of the parks, but The Tower of Terror is the epitome of the rides at Disney. And you can argue with me until you're blue in the face if you want too, but you'll end your argument out of breath and wrong. I would (and have) ride it four times in a row and ask for more. My aunt was surprisingly open to this idea, but not all about going through the 55 minute wait time twice. So we limited ourselves and headed over to the light show.

The Osborne Family Spectacle of Lights has been an annual show for 20 years, and they've decided that it's time to go. I'm sure whatever they put in it's place will be great and whatever, but it's not the lights. You may think it's difficult to enjoy Christmas lights with 3,000 strangers jammed down a New York city street set, but only shows your inner lack of Christmas joy. Everything about that show is magical, but mostly the whole street programmed to various Christmas songs.

All of this was to get to the point that I love Disney more than most things, and if I had to get sick, poisoned, and flooded to get a vacation there, I'd do it again.

Where To Find Me When I Marry Into Money

This week was spring break in Austin. The schools plan it around SXSW so that people can get away from town if they want to, and I wanted to. 

But Hannah, it's your first time in Austin for SXSW. Don't you want to see what it's all about?

Not really. I recognize that SXSW is a really great showcase for musicians and there are a ton of shows you can go to for free, but large, drunk crowds of people singing along to bands I'm vaguely familiar with isn't top on my list of priorities. The interactive part at the beginning of the week was really cool and offered some interesting things that I did sign up for, but that doesn't last nearly as long as the music does. So I left town. 

I went to New Orleans with a friend for a couple of days, narrowly avoiding St. Patrick's Day and the drunken revelry and hiked hotel prices. This was the third time I had been and her first. We went with a loose schedule made up of a few tours, restaurants that we wanted to go to, and other things we would do if we had time. I've wanted to go down since I moved to Austin and learned that it was only 8 hours away (much closer than the 15 that it was from Indiana). 

So we left obnoxiously early in the morning and made it right in time for check-in. We went on three tours (ghosts and vampires, garden district, and what was purportedly a saints and sinners tour but turned out to be a disenchanted chick reciting facts that I had already heard), ate (mostly) great food, and did a bit of drinking. Much to the relief of anxious mothers, we were not kidnapped, drugged, raped, or offered candy from any strangers in vans. The garden district tour was, by far, my favorite tour. I hadn't spent any time there before, and the adorable old grandpa who showed us around told us all sorts of secrets he learned from his gardener. We passed Sandra Bullock's house, John Goodman's house, and Anne Rice's old house, as well as a 15 thousand square foot house that sold for 2.4 million. I decided I could probably raise that on Kickstarter or IndieGoGo. 

My favorite part of the trip though, was probably the psychic we went to on the last night there. I'm not the strongest believer in much of anything, and you're not going to find spirit crystals anywhere on me, but I do think that some of it is valid. The reader was amazing and super pleasant. I struggle with people who come off as too airy and "may peace and well-being light your path..." and she didn't at all. Long story short. I'm going to start meditating and working to make that woman my best friend. I'm sure it will work perfectly. 

Look for me in New Orleans when I'm made my millions, or married into money, because that's where I'm setting up camp.

Strangers On a Bus

I like to think that I’m a pleasant person. Maybe the people close to me wouldn’t think that, but I’m definitely nice to strangers and people I don’t know very well. It takes some getting to know me to become familiar with the snarky parts. I smile at people on the street if we accidentally make eye contact, which got me some weird looks in the Midwest but seems more acceptable in the South. I will strike up a conversation with the guy in front of me in line at the bank if he seems friendly enough, and I will give directions to people wandering around looking lost if I can help. I think it comes from working at restaurants for so long. It was my job to make small talk with people and to be able to accurately guess what kind of conversation they wanted to have.

Part of being able to read people is knowing to leave people alone if they have headphones in, are reading a book, or look otherwise engrossed in whatever they are doing. For the most part, I will leave people alone unless they make a move that seems like they are inviting conversation. It’s common courtesy.

It seems that a lot of people lack that common courtesy. I take the bus around the city pretty regularly, and always have headphones in. I’m normally reading something too. I don’t want to be bothered. It’s generally early in the morning, which is not a time I like to be social, and I usually have something I should be working on. So it’s surprising to me when I get a tap on the shoulder or elbow nudge to let me know that someone is trying to talk to me. Maybe my bag is unzipped, or I dropped my thermos. There are perfectly normal reasons to interrupt someone, but it normally isn’t.

The nudge for attention tends to be from a conversation seeker that I have never met before. Someone that I am now trapped on a moving vehicle with for the next half hour or so. “How are you?” “I like your hair.” “That’s a cool Mickey tattoo.” “I had a premonition I would see someone crocheting on the bus this morning.” (I was knitting. It was cold. I needed a scarf.) These are how the conversations normally start and I try to reply with something polite that doesn’t lead to further conversation, but it never works. I am asked more questions, regaled with excerpts from their life and what they are planning to do with their day.

I don’t want to be rude. I’m not sure if I could in all honesty. I’m going to be stuck with them until I get to my stop, so I try to sit it out, replying as rarely as possible. However, whoever’s stop comes first, and god forbid we get off at the same one, the encounter normally ends with them trying to get a hug. And that’s where the line is drawn. Very thickly. No thank you. You didn’t mean to make it awkward? You did, but it’s fine. But standing and staring at me won’t help your case. I’m not in the habit of mushing my personal space with strangers unless absolutely necessary, and there are no voluntary touches. I don’t like it. I don’t know you. Please go away.

I thought that not making eye contact would help my case, but I was incorrect. Indiana did not prepare me for large populations on public transportation.