Passages from Where'd You Go, Bernadette
I just finished Where'd You Go, Bernadette, and the letter from Bernadette to her daughter was too hilarious not to share (she goes to Antarctica and disappears, and her daughter and husband go there to find her). Here are my favorite passages!
The Cinnabon wasn't going to eat itself, so I sat. Trams came and went as I pulled apart the puff of deliciousness, enjoying every bite, until I realized I'd forgotten napkins. Both my hands were plastered with icing. My face, too. In one of my vest pockets was a handkerchief. I held up my hands, surgeonlike, and asked a lady, "Please, could you unzip this?" The pocket she unzipped contained only a book on Antarctica. I lifted it out and wiped my hands, and, yes, my face, with its clean pages. A tram arrived. The doors jerked open and I took a seat. I glanced down at the book, now on my lap. It was The Worst Journey in the World, by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, one of the few survivors of Captain Scott's ill-fated attempt at the South Pole
OMG THIS BOOK MENTIONS CHERRY!!! *DIES* I was so not expecting that, and was totally freaking out LOL. But..she WIPED HER HANDS on The Worst Journey in the World??! How could she? *sniff* lol. And Cherry wasn't one of the only survivors, only the guys that made it to the Pole died..
It rarely snows because Antarctica is a desert. An iceberg means it's tens of millions of years old and has calved from a glacier. (This is why you must love life: one day you're offering up your social security number to the Russian Mafia; two weeks later you're using the word calve as a verb.) *snorts* LOLOL
Down here, you're either an Amundsen guy, a Shackleton guy, or a Scott guy. Amundsen was the first to reach the Pole, but he did it by feeding dogs to dogs, which makes Amundsen the Michael Vick of polar explorers: you can like him, but keep it to yourself, or you'll end up getting into arguments with a bunch of fanatics. Shackleton is the Charles Barkley of the bunch: he's a lengend, all-star personality, but there's the asterisk that he never reached the Pole, i.e., won a championship. How this turned into a sports analogy, I don't know. Finally, there's Captain Scott, canonized for his failure, and to this day never fully embraced because he was terrible with people. He has my vote, you understand
Wait..Scott was terrible with people?? His expedition members spoke highly of him..weird..
I had to go [to the South Pole]. If for no other reason than to be able to put my hand on the South Pole marker and declare that the world literally revolved around me (LOL)
On the screen was my Wikipedia page. In a window behind it, Artforum dot-com. (On a side note, the Internet here is faster than I've ever seen, because it's military or something. The motto should be Palmer Station: Come for the Ice. Stay for the Internet.) (Heeeeh :P)
More relevant was the cover sheet, which set forth the psychological profile of candidates best suited to withstand the extreme conditions at the South Pole. They are "individuals with blase attitudes and antisocial tendencies," and people who "feel comfortable spending lots of time alone in small rooms," "don't feel the need to get outside and exercise," and the kicker, "can go long stretches without showering." For the past twenty years I've been in training for overwintering at the South Pole! I knew I was up to something (LOL)
Day 15. A song your parents played on road trips when you were young. Hmmm..we actually played games or listened to tapes (yep, I'm old :P) or something..
Day 16. A song you have seen performed live: "When the Lights are Down" by Kamelot, which had me dancing and headbanging..that was fun lol
Day 17. A song you remember dancing in public to: Umm..I know there are others besides others I've mentioned, but I can't remember which ones..
Today's trivia: The arrangement of spikes on the end of some dinosaurs' tails is called a thagomizer
The Cinnabon wasn't going to eat itself, so I sat. Trams came and went as I pulled apart the puff of deliciousness, enjoying every bite, until I realized I'd forgotten napkins. Both my hands were plastered with icing. My face, too. In one of my vest pockets was a handkerchief. I held up my hands, surgeonlike, and asked a lady, "Please, could you unzip this?" The pocket she unzipped contained only a book on Antarctica. I lifted it out and wiped my hands, and, yes, my face, with its clean pages. A tram arrived. The doors jerked open and I took a seat. I glanced down at the book, now on my lap. It was The Worst Journey in the World, by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, one of the few survivors of Captain Scott's ill-fated attempt at the South Pole
OMG THIS BOOK MENTIONS CHERRY!!! *DIES* I was so not expecting that, and was totally freaking out LOL. But..she WIPED HER HANDS on The Worst Journey in the World??! How could she? *sniff* lol. And Cherry wasn't one of the only survivors, only the guys that made it to the Pole died..
It rarely snows because Antarctica is a desert. An iceberg means it's tens of millions of years old and has calved from a glacier. (This is why you must love life: one day you're offering up your social security number to the Russian Mafia; two weeks later you're using the word calve as a verb.) *snorts* LOLOL
Down here, you're either an Amundsen guy, a Shackleton guy, or a Scott guy. Amundsen was the first to reach the Pole, but he did it by feeding dogs to dogs, which makes Amundsen the Michael Vick of polar explorers: you can like him, but keep it to yourself, or you'll end up getting into arguments with a bunch of fanatics. Shackleton is the Charles Barkley of the bunch: he's a lengend, all-star personality, but there's the asterisk that he never reached the Pole, i.e., won a championship. How this turned into a sports analogy, I don't know. Finally, there's Captain Scott, canonized for his failure, and to this day never fully embraced because he was terrible with people. He has my vote, you understand
Wait..Scott was terrible with people?? His expedition members spoke highly of him..weird..
I had to go [to the South Pole]. If for no other reason than to be able to put my hand on the South Pole marker and declare that the world literally revolved around me (LOL)
On the screen was my Wikipedia page. In a window behind it, Artforum dot-com. (On a side note, the Internet here is faster than I've ever seen, because it's military or something. The motto should be Palmer Station: Come for the Ice. Stay for the Internet.) (Heeeeh :P)
More relevant was the cover sheet, which set forth the psychological profile of candidates best suited to withstand the extreme conditions at the South Pole. They are "individuals with blase attitudes and antisocial tendencies," and people who "feel comfortable spending lots of time alone in small rooms," "don't feel the need to get outside and exercise," and the kicker, "can go long stretches without showering." For the past twenty years I've been in training for overwintering at the South Pole! I knew I was up to something (LOL)
Day 15. A song your parents played on road trips when you were young. Hmmm..we actually played games or listened to tapes (yep, I'm old :P) or something..
Day 16. A song you have seen performed live: "When the Lights are Down" by Kamelot, which had me dancing and headbanging..that was fun lol
Day 17. A song you remember dancing in public to: Umm..I know there are others besides others I've mentioned, but I can't remember which ones..
Today's trivia: The arrangement of spikes on the end of some dinosaurs' tails is called a thagomizer