Saturday.

Last night was a whirlwind of circumstances. I'd rather not go into details, let's just say that I bumped in to a few people that I didn't expect to bump in to. While the night went off without a hint of awkwardness I feel as though I'm being lured into some sort of atypical rift of the Twilight Zone. I was fortunate enough to see a friend that I really admire, and a friend that I've crossed blades with once a few years back. With the former, we've already arranged a time to see each other again, but the latter still makes me uneasy. Perhaps I'm just not too sure about where our relationship can go from here. Either way, it made me start to think about the power of circumstance. If I had done anything else that night, I could have seen one, and not the other, or perhaps seen neither one of them, or perhaps even seen them both but under completely different circumstances. Perhaps I'm thinking about this a bit too much, but what can I say: I love Philosophy. I also love the scene from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, in which they spend a small portion of the movie describing the significance of circumstance.


While that film isn't one of my favorites, I don't mind watching it, simply because of the desired nostalgia of living in the past. Of course, while I was not born a second before 1989, I still feel a connection to the past. Perhaps I feel like that was when I should have been born. While I admire the technology that the human race has crafted, I envy Marty McFly and his time-traveling automobile. So I figured why not get one of my own? These passed few weeks I've been seriously considering the purchase of one of Italy's classics: A Vespa.

Vespa advertisement. (above & below)
All credit due to the owners of these photos.

While I don't think that as soon as I hop onto the back of one of these things, the wheels are going to produce embers on the pavement behind me, and I'll instantly appear in 1955, I do think that I'll feel the nostalgia. A motorcycle is one thing, and while a lot of people might think it's more 'manly,' I think it's nothing but machismo. The Vespa isn't meant to show people how well endowed you are, it's meant to get you from point A to point B. Zipping through traffic at 20mph over the speed limit isn't what the creators of the classic were hoping for, but instead something that lets you admire and appreciate the surroundings that you live in. In my opinion, The Vespa is something that many people would consider futile or perhaps even repugnant, but when what many people don't seem to understand is...

Audrey Hepburn on the back of Gregory Peck's Vespa (above)
Two women sporting bathing suits and a Vespa (below)
All credit due to the owners of these photos.

... women love Vespas.