Why is it that airplane bathrooms highlight and magnify facial blemishes better than any other environment?

Do you think the owner trims these? Or does he or she hire someone to do it? If so, is there any art direction involved?

My choice of glasses frames has paralleled my taste in hair styles.  When one side of my hair was short and the other was long in sixth grade, I had two pairs of colored metal frames – one of which had classy tinted pink lenses too.  At the start of college I went through a chin-length bob, and felt it appropriate to pair it with some frames that came with snap on sunglasses.  As a first year design student I became acutely aware that my frames were out of date, and switched to a pair that I could only tolerate for a week.  The heft of high performance plastic needed for the frame style and my prescription was too heavy on my nose.  Santa Cruz had rubbed off on me.  I wasn’t about to tolerate oppressive eye-wear.  Roar! I’ve since settled  into a brown and teal pair that may or may not auto-tag me with: design, designer, internet4eva.

Recently, I wore these glasses into an airplane bathroom.  Never again! They can’t leave the gate on time but they can perform pore-enlarging, blemish accentuating magic in those cramped, human-scented closets.  I saw intricacies of my face that have never before been explored, and it dawned on me that I like living in semi-blur. “Hello, you.”  I think people with perfect vision might also be super organized.  Let’s talk about these hedges that belong to a neighbor of my sister in Menlo Park, CA.  Three tiers of organization in hedge trimming, and not one Jumanji animal!? Congratulations on your eyesight.

This morning a waitress at the sub-par breakfast place near our house recognized us. This first, non-acquaintance public recognition is alarming. It indicates that I live here now. I like remaining blurry because it allows me to escape, but I love focusing in because humans are bizarre.  Is design about the balance?

I run into my clutter all the time, but it’s not all Windex and streak free shine on the other side either.  Just last week I wore my glasses to the salad bar at work and full-on smacked my face into the sneeze guard.

I’m willing to hedge my bets on the blur-life.  What do you think? Has your eyesight shaped your outlook?

The California Department of Motor Vehicles sent me a notice to my new address in Michigan letting me know that I needed to submit a change of address form for the same new address.

I have trouble picturing the genius at the other end.  I wonder where he or she goes for lunch, what type of footwear he or she has selected for the day, and how many other decisions he or she is arbitrarily deciding based on a game of ‘we have too many of these forms, let’s send some out arbitrarily to draw down the pile.’  How can the genius send me an address change form that clearly, I’ve submitted already, if the notice is coming to the new address?  Are all of his or her life choices based on similar logic?

“I have a whole container of baking powder in my cabinet. I think I will turn on my car.”

“My face has a nose.  I should drink salt.”

I’m currently caught in DMV purgatory.  My rusty, trusty 1996 Jeep is stuck in a loophole.  I went to register my car at the Michigan DMV, which, fantastically is called the Secretary of State – SOS!   For some reason, I don’t have a copy of the title to my car.  I don’t know where it is; I looked everywhere. It’s just not here.  Unfortunately, this four by six scrap of paper with dot-matrix printed personal information is the only thing that proves vehicle ownership.  How is this possible? My Jeep has an unmistakable ‘barrRUUUUUUga’ call that only it can make upon acceleration.  My friends know I’m coming because they can hear me three blocks away.  It has a folded up towel crammed into the crack of the driver’s seat to provide the perfect amount of lower lumbar support.  The left side of the hood is more rusted than the right, and I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: my car turns on a dime!  Why is it then, that all proof of ownership resides in that scrap of missing paper?

I sent in the correct form to California to get a duplicate copy of my title over two months ago.  The genius had no problem cashing my check within a week, but three weeks later I still didn’t have a duplicate scrap of paper.  One evening I decided to play chicken with the DMV and I called the automated version of the genius that told me the wait time for my call was over 20 min. and I should consider calling back.  I wasn’t going to fall for that trick- oh no.  I put my phone on speaker, sat on the couch and watched two and a third episodes of Modern Family before the voice of the human genius squeaked through the line.  After typing in my personal information to his or her futuristic computer, I was told that my case needed to be handled through the DMV headquarters.  YES! Genius base camp.  Bring. It. On.

I called the number that the genius gave me and it went straight to a busy signal.  I tried again. Busy. BUSY! Who has a phone that has a busy signal? Could it be that the genius’s were trying to fake number me? Would they dare? Game. On. I Googled the first three digits of the broken genius base camp phone number and searched the results until I found my way to an inner phone directory for genius base camp.  The number I’d been given wasn’t listed.  I decided to try a different tactic.  I called the number for a group that I figured didn’t get many customer calls but would have to be nice to me: human resources.  I launched into my story about needing my duplicate scrap before the genius cut me off to let me know I’d mistakenly called human resources.  He or she would transfer me to the right department.

Ten minutes later, I was on the phone with a human genius at genius base camp in the correct department that told me that everything was alright with the processing of my duplicate scrap, he or she could see it all right there in his or her futuristic computer, but it would still take another few weeks to arrive. He or she ended the call by asking me how I got the phone number.

The information about everything being all set: lies. All lies.

On Monday, I checked my mail and a fat fat package from team genius was waiting.  Instead of inserting my duplicate scrap, they inserted all of the forms I’ve sent in already, a second duplicate address form, and a document written in genius code telling me that in order to get my duplicate scrap I needed to appear in person in California. I live in Michigan.

Incomplete - see above? To what? The bar code? Worst design ever. Worst experience ever. I do not know what to do. Please help.

Why is there a budget crisis in California? Let me see. At a minimum, four geniuses have interacted with my file in one way or another. Nobody helped me.  My case isn’t complicated, but not one genius is empowered to solve my problem and move on to a new one.  A direct quote from a co-worker when I worked for the government in Colorado applies here too: “It’s my job to make the problem, not to fix it.”

California is paying state employees to be the opposite of creative.  As Joey Tribiani famously stated before launching into a set of lunges wearing all of Chandler’s clothes: “Opposite means opposite!”

The alternative to appearing in person is to do the process through an insurer.  I went to my insurer in Michigan last Thursday. As perplexed as me, they called my former insurer in California, and it turns out he passed away.

I need your help.  My CA registration has now run out, my car is currently illegal to drive, and I can’t head to the SOS for a Michigan version without a copy of my title.  Can you send  or tweet this post on to one other person? If the person you send it to knows even the slightest bit of information on how to get me closer to a copy of my title, you’ve helped.   I need to get to someone on the inside, and I need my title. It’s rightfully mine. I’ve paid my dues for needing the duplicate copy, and I’m at my wits end.

Someone, somewhere, will be instrumental in putting the scrap of crap back in my hands.  Whether it’s through a connection, a song, a flash mob, or picketing Arnold’s offices, I don’t know.  To this person: as a reward, I will buy a MI vanity plate with a message of your choosing. I will install this plate on my Jeep with pride, and then turn donuts on a dime on the streets of Holland, MI.

Palindrome visits Grand Rapids on the Going Rogue Bus.

Where is Alanis Morissette when you need her?  From the windows of my apartment I can see three retirement homes, three buildings run by the rescue mission, and one scrap yard.  If the perpetual haze of West Michigan would have lifted this week I might have been able to see Sarah Palin, twenty miles away in Grand Rapids.  I was bombarded by local media channels informing me of the arrival of this exhausting “politician” for three straight days.  I tapped a note into my phone about her arrival and the embedded spelling program auto-corrected Palin to Palindrome.  Imagine the intellect embedded in a flurry of palindromes rolling up on a bus to taut a new book!

Instead, a direct quote:

“My husband is hunting and I have no responsibilities so I will head to Barnes and Noble at Midnight.”

Yes, I was peeled to the local news: hunting, husbands, responsibilities – the people camped out to see the woman that’s ruining female for me are a people-watchers dream.  The local news rolled its Econovan up to the Grand Rapids Barnes and Noble and interviewed these intellectuals for a few days in a row.

Found in the bathroom of a restaurant that I can also see from my window.

Lately, I’ve been interested in WOODTV 8.  As social media channels allow me to self-tailor the content I consume to my needs, interests, and surroundings, the traditional local news has a chance to relate to its communities along relevant axes.  The demand for hyper-local news appears to be higher than ever.  If there is going to be a wooden shoe convention on my street this week (yes, it happens), I want to know about it.  If there is going to be a tomato throwing party on your street this week (it could happen), I don’t care as much.  But, the local news is getting trashy, turning tabloid.  Why can’t it respond, iterate on the same boring model that repeats the same sentence five times in a row for apparent gravitas?

I’m staring out the window now, looking at MY missions, rest homes, and scrap metal. Is there a story there?

I wish, madam, that you had written ‘rouge,’ not ‘rogue.’

As I walked to my local coffee shop today, I counted.

I’m partial to one side of the street in downtown Holland, MI.  I’ve tried the other side, but really, I have no interest in it other than looking in at the seniors eating bagged lunches at the downtown retirement home.  Brown paper lunch bags are fantastic in their own right, but I also slow my gait and people-watch the elders as they watch me.  I like the messaging that’s packed into a senior citizen.  They’ve seen everything come and many things go and, with each one you may or may not have a gold mine of experience, a fortune cookie message that you might save in your wallet or leave on the table.  I don’t know what age you have to reach to employ the Q-tip hairdo, but if it’s bold enough to tackle my straightness I will embrace the halo of white fuzz as my own.

That's it?

In the meantime, I usually walk on the non-retirement side of the street.  I counted 40 storefronts between my house and the one coffee shop that makes me feel like people live here.  Out of the 40 storefronts, eight of them are empty. For effect, I’ll repeat this fact in a different, generalized, and therefore slightly inaccurate form that highlights the economic downturn: twenty percent of the stores in downtown Holland, Michigan are empty.  The feel of a barren corridor of previously Papyrus font-laden establishments is particularly enhanced on Sunday, the day when nothing is allowed.  I went out to breakfast this morning and found myself excited as we pulled up, simply because the place was open.

My norms might be shifting and I will be the first to tell you I’m a bit delirious, but I still know a winner when I hear one.  On the radio station that used to wake me up with sub-par humor but has switched to all Christmas music, all the time as of November 1, I heard a radio contest this week where the winner was to be awarded one dozen frozen pigs in a blanket.  One dozen, frozen, pigs in a blanket – might as well throw in a whole chicken and can of hairspray.

The potential joy of the arbitrary will keep me listening to the Christmas music for another 40 days.  Pigs in a blanket can overcome pa-rum-pa-pum-pum.  Why is the unexpected refreshing?  Why does it take the unexpected to show us the obvious?  What is the most unexpected item I could put in a brown paper bag?

The last time I was in Florida I was puking.

On Tuesday I had the best Mexican food I’ve had in Michigan in Florida.  A conference for work brought me to the strange land I like to call Orlandio.  I haven’t been anywhere exotic lately so I survive on the thrills of extra “i’s,” the occasional “la” preface and rolled “r” for special effect. I asked my hotel clerk for a good restaurant within walking distance and she described something that sounded like an Applebees.  More excited for the walk than the food, I almost set foot out the door when she clarified that though it was technically with walking distance, I would have to cross a highway, four lanes in each direction.  Details.

I turned to my friend Yelp for some good Orlandoian cuisine recommendations.  Surely I’d find a hidden gem that I could brag about tomorrow.

When IHOP comes up in the top five restaurants in your area, it usually signals that it’s time for some self-reflection.  Instead, I decided to investigate the person that took the time to leave a thoughtful review of said IHOP.  Incidentally, Carlos took his family there on Christmas one year, and they all got candy canes.  He’s also rated several other IHOPs (many have food on par with each other) as well as an A&W (they have good root beer), a Ramada Inn (the jacuzzi is watched over like a hawk by the receptionist), and 94.9, the local radio station that hosts the Delilah show (she’s got all the lovers tuned in).  Carlos can you hear me? You are fascinating. I won’t find a place for dinner by reading your nearly 400 reviews, but I will find myself re-energized by humanity.

Halloween Mexican decor in Holland, MI. Note the healthy ceiling tiles.

In the depths of Yelpers lacking the texture of Carlos I found Garibaldi Mexican Cuisine, and thought it would be fun to go there alone, eat alone, and be the only person in the restaurant.  The self-reflection bit started to kick in and I was wishing Carlos had come along.  Driving back to the hotel I was struck with the state of Orlandio.  Crap stores shaped like giant shells selling crap.  Back to back overbuilt establishments hawking cheap plastic trinkets and 4/$5 tshirts suck up against one another form corridors of crap.  It’s daunting and disheartening but also reaffirming and recharging.  As designers we have a responsibility to make meaningful products out of quality materials. The crap parade has to end.  I’m surrounded by cheap signs flashing at me in the night with weird emo songs coming from the radio.  If I was in a movie this would be the opening scene. I’m a stranger, lonely in a run down city at night.  And then, “PLEASE TAKE A RIGHT TURN, FOLLOWED BY A…CONTINUE TO FOLLOW THE ROAD.”

Hertzina (I call her that because my dad calls her that) is the GPS.  She talks to him.  Tonight she’s talking to me. The voice that jars the rest of us out of our self-stardom fantasies soothes my dad.  He’s liked computer voices for as long as I can remember.  “Good morning, Paul,” says his laptop in a warm tone only a robot can deliver. “Good morning,” he replies.

The rows of strip malls remind me of an overworked field that needs to lay fallow for a year or more to regain some nutrients.  Naturally, this brought me to stop at a Friendly’s.  The smell inside was almost unbearable, but I had a black raspberry cone anyway. I was living the life.

In 2004 I was also in Florida, and also semi-detached from reality.  I arrived in the panhandle (that’s in the central time zone FYI) the day after Bush won re-election.  I didn’t understand how as I hadn’t moved to Michigan yet and didn’t realize that Republicans existed, and proceeded to probe the issue with the people that worked the Navy base that we were using to set up our equipment.  Post-election probing doesn’t work.  I went to sea on our research boat and deployed instruments that took microscopic pictures of the sand on the bottom of the sea bed.  The waves picked up and I started puking over the edge.

I bet Carlos was at IHOP.