Pale rose, grainy color palette

Brasileirinho - Ted Falcon, Andrew Finn Magill, Nando Duarte

Why are sidewalks always rock hard, ugly pavements?

There are so many cool things you can do with them.

You can make them into miniature trampolines make you bounce with every step. Not everyone can afford therapy anyway. Why not manufacture a hop into their step—literally.

People complain about how the world in not created for the individual to be happy. But why not create it as such if we know that’s not how the world is right now?

Sidewalks that are designed to put a little hop to people’s steps.

Stoplights, but they’re pink and are in the shape of ice cream cones instead.

People on every street corner whose only job is to give out compliments.

I, of course, will be the one walking with her cutest pair of high heels. Not the overtly sexy stilettos. No, we have to save those for the climax where I finally attend the ball wearing Kate Hudson's How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days dress. I’m talking about the cute, strappy, Mary Janes that go click-clack and go really well with an upbeat, merengue background score . The ones that tell the world that this heroine is cute, but quirky. Smart, but sometimes aloof. Optimistic, but human enough to get bogged down when reality knocks.

She is imperfect...

She is three-dimensional...

She’s me!

She also has no idea what the fuck her GPS is telling her to do and has been walking down the wrong block for about forty minutes now.

It’s what I want to be. The heroine of a quirky coming of age where she realizes her true direction in life within an hour and half. And she’s so sure of it that she can nonchalantly walk down a sidewalk with her ukulele because it’s symbolic to how she knows what direction she’s going now, and she knows it’s the happy ending because the end credits are rolling. Or she doesn’t, and it’s okay. But of course we have to believe that she believes that it’s okay. All we see is that she’s learned her lesson and found peace in it. We don’t see the months of turmoil afterwards that’s just a cycle of “it’ll be fine” and “I’ve fucked up my life for good.”

We romanticize stories about independent woman who are just attractive enough to catch the attention of the guy every girl and gay man wants but not so attractive that she doesn’t have a personality (what internalized sexist bullshit). They are either so successful in their career that they need the extreme version of the right guy to make her happy or she’s working for some sort of independent book or music shop as if to say that her existence has far more depth than the rest of ours. And the aesthetic is so damn irresistible that you start to imagine your life directed in a pale rose, grainy color palette that reminds you of something nostalgic.

But life doesn't have a color palette because life contains no consistency. One moment your life is directed by Luca Guadagnino, and life feels floral with summer dresses and passionate kisses by the lake. A few moments later, it's a scene shot with a shaky camera technique and "Sheer Heart Attack" playing in the background. So maybe we should be glad for the ugly, solid pavement that's always there for us to walk on. Sure, it may not be fun trampolines, but it sure does provide us with comforting consistency that is so hard to find these days.