crushes_on_places epitome of incomprehensibility Prompted by raze's idea on today_yesterday. But it's true! I had a huge crush on all of Antarctica from the ages of five to seven (literally, because I would open my parent's large and already outdated National Geographic atlas and stand on top of the continent). Currently I have a crush on the Library of Congress. Until today, I didn't know it was an actual place. Yes. I am not always a mass of braininess. But it sounds like such an interesting place to visit - interesting maybe more in concept, perhaps, but I'd like to see it. It's one of those legitimately American things, something I couldn't imagining springing up in Canada, but it has international cachet as a vast collection of books. It used to try to have every book published, but well before 1900 they realized that was impossible. Still, they have a heck of a lot of 'em. I was looking up call numbers for books from the L of C website today - that in itself is pretty dull, but it's humbling to think that the call number they assign a book will be copied by small university-affiliated libraries all the way over here. And I'm not usually impressed by mere quantity, or by patriotism, or things like that. I'm hipsterish in my preference for small bookstores over Chapters & co. Individual atmosphere wins over carbon-copying, but Chapters is also an interesting browsing experience - I bought Madeleine is Sleeping, as well as a The Ledge, a contemporary Irish novel, there on discount - what is wrong with me now, being so gosh-darnedly positive? But my point is that the idea of this huge library impresses me, almost as much as Antarctica. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does. 140716 ... e_o_i ...And did you know that the lowest recorded temperature in the Library of Congress is -87 C, with the windchill? And that, on its edges, Penguins live and thrive? (In the more frightening tales, you will find a Random House in this wilderness...) 140716 ... unhinged i have the biggest crush on seattle. i have to work like an asshole to afford living here and its making me nuts but this place is beautiful. i saw the most beautiful sunset over the space needle, the 99 bridge, the cascades. every day i smile because there is so much beauty here. 140716 ... raze mine would probably be prague. i've never been there, but i get the feeling we would click. 140717 what's it to you? who go blather from