Amusing/Disturbing Signs from Abroad

Location: London, England

TennesseeLand? In London? Whaaat???

(Btw, there are no TennesseeLands in Tennessee.)

Location: A rest-stop in Scotland

Winner of the 2010 Loo of the Year Award

My lucky day.

Location: Scotland

The fact that I did not see any children in this area leads me to believe that the children to beware are either A.) invisible, B.) ninjas, or C.) nocturnal vampires. Thankfully, I left the area unscathed.

Location: Dublin, Ireland

Reads: "Litter is Disgusting. So Are Those Responsible."

Telling it like it is.

Location: Belfast, Northern Ireland

Reads: "All I did was spit my gum on the street...Now he won't speak to me! Litter. It's not a good look."

They are serious about littering on that island. "I use bins" is a pick-up line.

Location: Hostel Food Cupboard in Dublin, Ireland

Jonathan Swift's hometown taking "A Modest Proposal" to a new level.

Location: Belfast, Northern Ireland

What else did I expect to find on my one night in Belfast? The 7th Annual Nashville Songwriters' Festival, of course. And let me tell you, you don't know nostalgia until you're thousands of miles from home, and without warning, a stranger picks up a guitar and sings in that unmistakable twang "take me back to Tennessee."

Location: Dublin, Ireland

I thought I left these signs on the roadsides of the Deep South in Bible Belt, USA.

Location: Derry, Northern Ireland

Who knew?

Location: Plane somewhere in Europe

Please explain the logic of all airline stewardess wearing heels and then having to exit the plane barefoot in an emergency.

Location: St. Ives, England

Induction into English drinking culture begins early.

Location: London, England

Where are you? I'll listen.

Location: London, England

Apparently, beauty costs more than 20p.

Location: Berlin, Germany

Too school for cool.

Location: Berlin, Germany

This is terrifying. I will never buy your product. 

Location: Berlin, Germany

Shucks.

Today Might be a Good Day to Say Something

Two people have to tell each other, “I love you.” They can only speak of potatoes, and they can never use the word “love.” This was a creative writing assignment. It was an exercise in subtext, in conveying without explicitly stating, in finding that palpable dusk where art’s grace resides.

But what is grace in art is fear, avoidance, sidestepping, and in-articulation in life, a reality that became very clear while writing a 25-minute, naturalistic one act for my playwriting class. Rarely do we say anything outright; we have euphemisms for that. And rarer still do we say the words that we want most to scream. These are the words of that first “I love you” or “I hate you.” These are the words of confessions. These are the words that live in the vein attaching our heart to our tongue that we do not utter aloud, even to ourselves. Instead, we go around them, under them, over them, but so rarely do we go through them. Because these are the words we cannot retract and from which we cannot turn back. So until push comes to mighty shove, we keep these words buried, no matter how fiercely they burn. We know we can live with them; we have been living with them all along. What we do not know is if we can live with the undetermined version of the life they will create.

When we finally say these words, it is not because we want to; it is because we have to. A wise woman, my Mother, once told me, “You will never act until you can no longer live with the way things are.” When it comes to life’s pivotal lines, we choose to live with them, burying the words day after day, no matter how madding or painful that burying may be, refusing to act until some external force acts upon us, pushing us to the point where the fear of not saying those words overrides the fear of releasing them. The classic external force is the plane pulling away from the terminal and the lover running to catch her love at the last minute to say the three words that she has wanted to say instead of all the words she has said in their place.

Plays can only bear the weight of a few, if not just one, of these pivotal lines, because on stage, as in life, these lines must be earned or else they fall flat, totally ineffective except for a physical cringe or a roll of the eyes from the audience. Earning these lines takes time, requiring a play to build enough pressure to crack the character, force out the line and then to bear the weight of the line once it lands.

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5 Food Groups of the English University Student

If you are what you eat, then the English university student is drunken starch.

1. Alcohol

I swear the English have evolved super-human livers or else they would all be dead before leaving university. They consume more alcohol than oxygen.

2. Tea

2-6 Cups a day is standard.

3. Toast

It’s a snack. It’s a meal. It takes a literal minute to prepare. Serve slathered in margarine or Marmite.

4. Pasta

It’s cheap. It’s easy. It’s filling. It’s a university student’s only real meal.

5. Chips

Americans, think thick-cut fries. Every grocery store has a frozen row of them. Restaurants serve them with every meal, including breakfast. They are smothered with any substance that can fit inside a plastic container, glass jar, tin can, or shaker. They are served piping hot and turn stone cold within a minute of landing on the plate. No matter how many you get, you always want more.