Today I realized how much I'm going to miss the fruit markets when I return to the United States. I've always been a fruit lover, and the markets here are a little slice of heaven. You can buy a giant bag of strawberries for two dollars, or a bag of kiwis for the same. And the pineapple...oh the pineapple. At home, I've always been content to buy the precut cylinders from the supermarket since it was just easier. But since coming here, I prefer to buy a fresh pineapple and cut it myself. I've gotten to the point where I can walk up to the counter and pick out the perfect pineapple based on its smell. I relish the act of cutting a fresh pineapple. And I also am fascinated with the tops. I don't know if it was growing up watching cartoons of girls dancing with fruit baskets on their heads, always topped with a pineapple top, but I have always loved pineapple tops. I almost find it hard to throw them away...as odd as that sounds...

To switch to a completely different topic, have you ever noticed how many forms of identification we have these days??? I recently received my student bus pas --which allows me to take the bus for less than half the price of everyone else (about 25cents in comparison to about 75cents) --and it made me stop and think about just how many pieces of identification I have. This is what I found...



And that's just what I have here...granted I've got most of my important ID cards here --including my u of m card...I couldn't seem to bring myself to leave it at home-- but I still have about four high school IDs, a Hospice Center ID, and lord only knows what else. Doesn't that seem a bit ridiculous to everyone else??? I guess it just goes to show how high our security has to be these days. But if you look at some of the photographs we have on our IDs, they all seem a bit different. Take for example one of the guys I live with. He has just about the same number of IDs as I do, and in every one, he looks completely different. And I'm not talking just a haircut and a different shirt...he looks like a different person. I actually thought he had a nose job at first--which he didn't--but that just proves my point. When he went to use his bus pass one day, the bus driver almost refused him because she didn't believe that it was him in his picture. And the photo was taken only about a month ago!!! So I guess where I'm going with this is the thought of photographs and identifications capturing different personalities...or something like that. I recall I reading I did for one of my art history classes that talked about photographs capturing and stealing your soul. I'm not so sure I believe that, but I do think that photographs seem to take something from each of us. Not necessarily a part of our souls, but possibly part of our identities. The photographs on all of our identifications seem to represent the many the different faces we wear throughout life today. If you compare my school photographs to my photograph on my Hospice ID, I appear far more refined and put-together in the latter (aside from my u of m ID which is a senior picture). Does this represent who I am at Hospice compared to school??? Of course I look different and dress nicer at Hospice, but do I change my personality and my entire identification to become who I should be when I'm at hospice??? Probably... I would like to think I'm relatively the same, but I do change bits and pieces to fit the mold of where I am.

So to get back to the photographs in all of our IDs...over the years, the number of IDs we have has increased, and I think the number of faces we wear has increased as well. It's almost as if we all have dozens of fake identifications and personalities, and the photographs on the IDs are housing them until we pull out that ID to use. --Any of this making any sense???-- So maybe I was wrong and the photographs aren't taking something from us, but adding something to us when we use them. They really are a kind of mask housed in a small piece of plastic that can be opened and used when needed...

Hmmm...good luck deciphering all of that...Here's a picture of my bus pass to end things...I look quite stearn...which I normally do when I'm on the bus --the crowded morning busses aren't exactly pleasant--...so maybe that helps prove my point...