I picked up Ali Smith's Hotel World as I was waltzing out of town, alone on a long trip for work, first to take a flight to Nice, and later to take a train across La France to the Atlantic coast side of things. (To be honest, no waltzing was involved, just sweating and banging my shins on stuff).
In any case, I cracked open the slim Hotel World as soon as I nestled down into my purple velour seat upon the TGV, which was literally rattling from the Côte d'Azur towards Paris. From then, I was captive: I couldn't put it down, even for the hour I was in Paris (I'm a dummy), nor could I stop reading as my train continued to hurtle down south, through endless sunflower fields.
We have emerged from under our cloud of GREY. And now we're ready to bathe ourselves under a cloudless sun as we contemplate TIME ZONES, and particularly the ever-lengthening days and the warm promises of an impending summer.
Maybe it's because we both hail from warmer, drier climes, only to find ourselves living on a soggy island (Barbara) or in a cloudy, landlocked corner of Northern Europe (Lydia), but here at Olympia Monthly we believe ourselves to be both connoisseurs and fans of sun and warmth.
So as semi-professionals in the business of sun worshipping - and to kick off our issue on Time Zones - we present you with a list of our favorite sunshine(s), ranging from the strong and animal, to the charmingly weak and vegetal. In no particular order, each with a personal photo album.
Some people love the spring. But I'm afraid I'm sort of frightened of it. The wind, the rain - the whole sky moves constantly, leaving me mostly ill-dressed and sort of uncomfortable. I'm used to thinking of it as long-lingering winter chill rather than a harbinger of the summertime, freedom from coats, irrepressible SUNSHINE. But I think I'm starting to get better at coping with the clouds.
