Four Hours in Iceland: Notes on Exhaustion, Brain Drain and David Sedaris
- loopy, jet-lagged scribbling journaled on layover at Keflavik Int'l Airport -
20 Sept. 2K17
1:45pm - 5:45pm
8dg C. (outside, duh)
How many degrees Fahrenheit are 8 degrees Celsius?
What is the Icelandic currency, and how much is it worth? When "nachos" cost 650kr, what does this mean, to me?
Beer and Brennivin is what this pub, Loksins, offers. What is Brennivin? (In fact, a vile schnapps-like fuel that tastes like Scope. Blech!) My Internet connection is failing; ergo, I cannot research any of this
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No Voltaire-styled, Twain-pithed or New Yorker-length posts here today. Simply a bit of fabulous, a smattering of so many things I love, all rolled into one savvy and styling auto advert: Rococo style, 18thC. sartorial flair, classical ballet, Baroque opera, a thumping techno beat, silk mules and, if you know my writings well, anthropomorphic animals in Vogue-worthy vestments.
Bravo, Kia Soul! Your funky, furry, Hail Fellows Well Met might get me into a Soul yet: black, to be sure. To boot, this is just the kicking beat I need to light that Sun King-caliber firework under my tapestry-festooned panier to keep working on Book IV of my Savannah of Williamsburg Series of historical-fiction novels: Savannah of Williamsburg: Washington's Folly and The French & Indian War, Virgina 1755.
Amusez-vous bien, mes amis!
Scribbling and bibbling is not something I decided to "try my hand at" one day. I did not think to myself amidst a sunny sojourn along La Côte d'Azur, "Hey, Magnolia. You should take a stab at writing." It's just what I do. I imagine I was keeping a journal in utero, à la Stewie Griffin, until that blasted Man in White came and removed me from my quiet study.
If I was prone to Glee-style melodrama, I would flip my curls and toss my chin, proclaiming loudly, "I have to breathe, don't I?! Well, dammit, Janet! I have to write!". Thank Jebus I am not thusly prone. Many of you know of this early proclivity, with the emergence of Book Bird, my very first, "published" tale, hardbound by the Parental Units when I was a wee thing, at the age of six. Before that, loads of notepad novellas, written on Garfield stationery and bound nicely with yarn or staples and sporting my very own cover art: "The Bear and the Bees", "The Cat and the Mouse" and, the already legendary, "Jennifer Will Be a Pink Fan Forever!". (Perchance, I shall share these someday.)
If I was a Tombstone gunslinger, I'd have a leather journal in one holster and my Waterman pen in the other. "Draw!" "I'd rather write, Pardner!"
Now, I am almost as famous for my proclivity to scribe as I am infamous for my laziness. There forever looms the certainty that I shall become very bored at a moment's notice and drop that which is my current endeavour. To that end, kudos to Moi for actually finishing and publishing four novels! In fact, I'm feeling very bored this very minute and just may pour a glass of wine and see what's in my Hulu queue. Cross your fingers for some "Real Housewives"! BRB!
I'm back. No "Real Housewives". Yet, there was some "Hotel Hell " (Chef Gordon Ramsay! Hubba-hubba!) and there's always time for a "30Rock" and "American Dad" break. Now, where was I? Oh, yes ... journals.
So, I start off big, with the honest intentions of filling each and every leaf of those gorgeous, blank books I take such pleasure in selecting, and oft decoupaging, themed just so. Some are for travel, some are for working on specific books and some are mere notepads, jotting down everything from Nordstrom wish lists to the Drake Equation.
Journals, especially travelogues, are very similar to the lush, Irish cable knit sweaters I used to knit as a young girl, only to "finish" them some two hours later, claiming, "Look, Daddy! It's a doll rug!" or, the painstakingly sewn, Ralph Lauren-pattern suit I once made in high school. I worked my bony fingers to bloody nubs all summer long: three months of tedious darts, French stitches, princess seams and hand-rolled silk edges, not to mention using bonkers-expensive wool and vintage buttons. Upon its near-completion, you guessed it, I grew bored. Oh, so bored. I ended up safety-pinning the entire hem and refused to iron the fold lines out of the whole thing. So many of my travel journals are beautiful tweed suits with safety-pin hems. Now, you get to fix the hems of a select few travelogues!
How do you think my trips ended? What do you think happened? I'll post a series of these unfinished scribblings over the next few posts and you write the ending! There's even an entry written by a friend with whom I travelled to the U.K. and France one summer. Some of you may know of Miss Nancy: Gloomy, Funny Laguna Girl. Whilst she would essentially, quizzically break up with me years later -I suspect it was politically motivated- I have to give props; she was, probably still is, a damn funny and gifted storyteller. Not nearly as gifted as I, though. Heh heh heh. I wonder if she's still sporting her Goth-lite look?
Nance took over a section of my journal at lunch one day in Edinburgh. It's quite humourous and, in fact, whilst I did finish that particular journal, all the way to its end at LAX, she left her entry somewhat open-ended. Hey! You could finish her entry! Nance, if you're out there, you could finish it, too! Have a read and finish Nancy's Scottish saga! I'll just add one of my own next time. Voila!
Excerpt from Jennifer Susannah Devore's Travel Journal
8 June 1994, Noon (apparently)
Guest Writer, Nancy Owen Freeman
After a couple of hours in and about the grounds of Holyrood Palace, we headed up the Royal Mile, an historic mile-long street which connects Holyrood with Edinburgh Castle. Today, it is lined with antique shops and specialty boutiques and a certain French restaurant called La Crêperie. I'll let Nancy write the ensuing entry.Nancy's entry -We wandered in not exactly famished, but definitely prowling for a brie and a little mineral water. I plopped down at a corner table relatively quickly, Jennifer however wandered aimlessly turning this way and that trying to summon a hostess with her umbrella. She still had trouble grasping the self-seating theory observed in most English & Scottish restaurants. After a pleasant barmaid emerged and confirmed that we could sit wherever we wanted, Jennifer joined me.
Moments later, after the barmaid had simply removed the large chalkboards with the day's menu from their hangers outside, and leaned them up against the table opposite us for selection, a rather tall shadow fell over the table.
I looked up from the menus and was greeted by what I can only describe as a 6'2" adult "Petit Prince" from the children's novel by Antoine St. Exupery. He had a tastefully sculpted, blond afro, blue eyes and strangely appealing spaces between his teeth. All this sat atop a tall, thin frame, which flowed about the pub with puma-like grace. He was in short, a most delectable Frog.
"Hallo", he began, in an arousing baritone that in no way resembled his prepubescent, fictional twin's soprano squeak. "Bonjour," Jennifer replied. "Ah, bonjour," he returned with a little raise of his eyebrows, a gesture made purely to torment me in my geographically imposed celibacy. He and Jennifer chatted back and forth in French, she finally ordering for both of us since I had slipped into a fuzzy stupor. A surging tide of suppressed hormones was mercilessly tossing me about in the sexual vacuum I had become accustomed to living in over the past 2 years. The disorientation had left my vision blurry and my palms itchy. I was as articulate as a kiwi fruit.
He slinked away and in the somewhat lengthy time it took for him to bring our appetizers, I regained tentative control over my motor functions and told Jennifer how much he resembled an adult "Little Prince". Her eyes bulged in agreement and she threatened to tell him what I'd said when he returned. Just then he flowed back to the table laden with plates of assorted cheese and a basket of French bread.
- Pardon the interruption. I would just like to let whoever is reading this journal know that Mrs. Jennifer Susannah Noelani MacPherson Girstle [sic] Devore is a pathological cleptomaniac [sic]. A conclusion I have come to after just moments ago witnessing her philch a "First Class" head rest cover from the train seat. The second one she has snatched on our trip.-
Back to our story. After he placed our food on the table, Jen proceeded to tell him, in French, about how I thought he looked like "Le Petit Prince, all adult". He giggled and said in his thick Frog accent, "Oh no, he was naive ... " after taking a few steps away from the table he tossed an insidious little grin over his shoulder and finished with, "I am not." At which point I became a complete puddle and Jen had to squeegee me out the door.
What happens next? Where did Le Petit Prince go after his shift? Where is he now? Where is Nancy? Is Le Crêperie still writing menus on chalkboards? Think it over and leave a brief ending or, write out something longer, then copy and paste it in the handy-dandy, JennyPop Contact Page! I'll post the best ending, with proper attribution, of course. (Keep your amendments clean, folks. I may be part-Edwardian upstart, but I am also part-Victorian dowager.)
As of late, the adventure-lit of Edgar Rice Burroughs has captured my interest with a pleasant focus. The travel narratives of 19thC. adventurers have forever suited me well: Mark Twain, Richard Henry Dana, Charles Darwin, Henry James and Thomas Jefferson with his 18thC. accounts of Italian and French sojourns. To that end, contemporary travel essayists fill a healthy portion of our nearly 2,000 volume library: Bill Bryson, Peter Mayle, Hunter S. Thompson. Perhaps these travel writers and novelists have fueled my Wanderlust; perhaps I am drawn to them because of said-lust.
Motivated by this year's themes for San Diego Comic-Con -for which I am anxiously awaiting press passes for the purposes of reporting from the convention floor for GoodtobeaGeek.com, as my alter ego/pseudonym Miss Hannah Hart, ghostdame- I have dipped my feathered quill and now sit pensively, pondering my submission to the official Souvenir Book, my inky nib aloft and hesitating just inches above my parchment. My theme of choice? The 100th anniversary of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes.
I utilize this casual canvas, similar to my previous post wherein I gathered some Savannah of Williamsburg thoughts -how to formulate my fourth book in this series- as a sounding board to crystallize some free-radical ideas in my noodle. It seems to be working; I feel the gears moving, like one of Dr. Lucia Devereaux's steampunk contraptions sputtering to life. (If you read Hannah, you'll know of Dr. Lucy.) Some of you may know I was published in the 2010 Comic-Con Book: lead story even for the 60th Anniversary of Peanuts segment! My task at hand this time is considerable. These Tarzan geeks are tough competition.
Now, being the weird combination of she whom reveres original fairy tales -Grimm (Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel und Gretel), de la Fontaine (The Grasshopper and the Ant, The Tortoise and the Hare), de Ségur (Blondine), etc.- yet also adores the Disney reiterations thereof, my Viking and I ventured to Disneyland to get my noggin revving and skittered amidst the branches of Tarzan's Treehouse in Adventureland. In fact, the attraction used to be the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse and far superior ... to the Tarzan Treehouse, not superior to the Robert Louis Stevenson book. Ha! It was a subtle homage of vintage suitcases, silver hairbrushes and antique china to the durable and genteel, accidental survivalists from the mind of the man from Edinburgh. Happily, some of the props have remained in place.
Once again, merci pour écouter, thanks for listening; I think I have some ideas brewing. I imagine, alongside reading more of Mr. Edgar Rice Burroughs, a few more trips through the treehouse may very well be in order.
Update to Post: I did indeed come up with an article for Comic-Con 2012 and it was published in the annual Souivernir Book. Read it here!