The search (words) for Quiet Laughter

Top 20 Photos of 2013 (late as usual)

Hey, I'm Latin. Sorry--that was racist and discriminatory, and pejorative, too, for good measure. You're absolutely right, not all Latins have the elastic sense of time I do. Sorry. I accept full and personal responsibility for my tardiness.

But, uh, better late than never. Right?

I joined The Kuantan Blog's Top 20 Photos bloghop, which means I'll be sharing the best 20 photos I took in 2013 over the first twenty days of January. The idea is to work up to the best photo for 2013 on January 20th, but I'm not sure how good I'll be about keeping the quality increments the other days--it's hard! And, of course, it's totally subjective.

Still, I hope you'll bear with me, and that you'll enjoy the show. Some of the photos are good (for me) in terms of composition or light or general photographical achievement; others because of what they represent, the moment they captured. I look forward to sharing these snippets of my year, and even more to your thoughts.

Without further ado, the first six of the Best Of 2013 Collection. Yes, six, because, like I said, I'm late.

#20: A globe at Amsterdam's Scheepvaartmuseum
(the National Maritime museum). I love how the back edges of
the glass case made a sort of frame for the globe, and how the
reflections (it was glass, not mirrors) play up.
(July 2013, Amsterdam)

And... My heart stopped.

I'm not a fan of technology. Sure I love my laptop, and my (relatively easy, given I live in an island) access to internet. I love electricity, and downloading whole TV series otherwise unaccessible (I live in an island). I love downloading books, too, although e-readers, like a pragmatic lover, still leave me somewhat unsatisfied. I love my phone, and how easy it is to stay in touch with people: Whatsapp, Twitter, Facebook, G+.

But I hate how phones have come to rule our lives. I hate how people jump to them whenever a random piece of trivia comes up: "Who was President in 1964?" "What's the name of that singer that died in...?" "Oh, man, that movie with the guy with the big nose--no, not the French one."

Given the above, it feels contradictory--hypocritical--to admit the first thing I do as I wake up is check my phone. Email. Blogs. Facebook. As I brush my teeth, get into halfway decent clothes (i.e., no pajamas, but close) to go check on the dogs and make my tea. And as I'm doing this, as I'm scrolling through whatever email came in as I slept, whatever notifications Facebook sent me, I'm thinking about hypocrisy, about how it's become so urgent, this needing to know, and why I can't wait the ten minutes it would take to go boot up my computer and do this in a screen that doesn't require so much damn scrolling.

And then there's days like today. Actually, no. There's never been a day like today, but--