I was walking back to my office from a meeting this afternoon, and it was raining pretty hard.
Winter is here in the Pacific Northwest. The first floods of the season are predicted — not in my county, but other farm counties like Snohomish and Whatcom, where I will be this weekend.
With the time change, the sun is way low on the horizon, getting close to setting, when I am leaving work.
My camera can’t fully capture the drama of the dark dark heavy clouds on the right and the clear sky on the left with the one wispy golden cloud in the middle. But I tried.
If I could write, this is what I would write about: A sunny morning with the mountain out and Seattle misty and shining across the water; Neko Case challenging the unknown in my ears; a gull swooping and riding the wind in front of the boat.
(song: “Challengers,” The New Pornographers [listen!])
Dogs are snoring, and so is G. I am up late (but not that late) because Ten Things I Hate About You is on, and because I had a cup of coffee at about 3:30, and because my Friday night bourbon is accompanying me. (Julia Stiles has amazing hair in this movie.) I have an early morning tomorrow of meeting with a photographer, and I want to go running beforehand. Lots of relationship newness around me right now, both televisory and IRL, and I am a bit weirded out by my soon-to-be-legally-declared absolute future lack of newness, ever.
Also, I love the part where Bianca kicks the stupid kid’s ass at the prom. Especially the “that’s for my sister!” There has also lately been sistering. I love my sister. We keep trying to define it but it doesn’t work. She’s the best. I’m so happy that she’s in my wedding. I think I am at least as happy to have such an excellent sister as I am to have a wedding at all. Because, really, I could take or leave the wedding itself, and he knows that. But the sister, she is essential to the functioning.
Did I mention the bourbon? Hello, rambly time.
Lots of things accomplished lately and lots of things to do upcoming soon. Work + side projects + planning + damn hell ass house needs cleaned + sleeping? what is that?
Garden has been suffering for lack of sun, but it is supposed to be clear and bright and like 70 degrees this weekend, so maybe I will get some more ripe tomatoes for the saucing, and some more corn for grillin’.
PS. Colin Firth, call me up any time! OK? OK!
PS2. I am 26! Yarrr!
PS3. Johnny, I didn’t mean it about Colin. You know I think you’re actually the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, including Scarlett and that girl who used to work at Le Panier.
PS4. I love the name Bianca. If I ever get an all-black dog, I will name her Bianca. Just for fun.
(Song: “Aïcha,” Khaled)
Spring seems to have arrived in Seattle while we were in Reno last weekend, and it’s made me realize it’s almost a year since we moved into this house. It’s been sunny and warmish and gorgeous, with blooming tulips and lilacs and green growing things, and the light has been coming into the house at a particular angle and of a particular color, like it did when we first moved in about 11 months ago. It’s making me strangely nostalgic, yet motivated.
So I’m especially glad that it was slow at work this week and I got to leave early yesterday and take all of today off, staying home and doing yardwork. Dogs laid around in the sun and watched me crawl around in bushes and get stabbed by holly leaves. I weeded and trimmed and I installed fence and my new compost maker, and then I decided I didn’t like its location and now I have to move it.
It’s also especially good that it’s nice right now because G’s brother and sister-in-law as well as his dad and stepmom are here, so we have lovely weather for walking around beautiful Seattle and looking at colorful vegetables and sparkly water and also cute shoes and fancy clothes. We also have weather and, now, room in the backyard, since I pruned, for the inaugural barbecue of the year: halibut cheek tacos. Turns out halibut cheeks don’t grill so well, but I’ll still post it on Kitchenisms soon.
(Song: “Spring Street,” Dar Williams)
I feel silly for having a whole category called “weather” — what kind of person writes about weather often enough to have a whole category? — but today I thought about how it exists because of use warrant, since I created it when I was tagging old posts from when I used MT, but it also exists because of days like today. Days like today are days when one is walking to school, excited to wear real shoes like old holey green Converse instead of pink sparkly wedding flipflops (which Mom and I called “bops” when I was small, for the noise they make: bop! bop! bop!), and as one is walking to school one is appreciating the overcast haze and the little bit of chill, and one realizes the extent to which the weather influences one’s mood.
Today’s chilly haze (or is it hazy chill?) on my walk to school made me feel nostalgic — can one be nostalgic for temperatures? — for the falls past: falls when I walked to school and listened to songs and thought of happy things and sad things, which were often the same things; falls when I cooked giant batches of soup and fed it to my friends and watched TV snugly in my apartment; falls when I jumped in puddles barefoot and soaked my jeans up to the knees because I underestimated the depth of certain potholes, giggling, and later angrily kicked water at delinquent boyfriends from the same puddles when my feelings were hurt.
Fall is when I decide to change my life, almost invariably, but today was fall and I do not want to change.
(song: “Murder or a Heart Attack,” Old 97s)
three unrelated paragraphs day:
i feel like it hasn’t rained in forever but it is finally raining today. i had forgotten that i like waking up to rain-sound. unfortunately the lovely greyness of today also made me very lethargic so i didn’t get as much homework done as i had hoped. this is the Term of Keeping On Top Of My Shit because taxonomy class is one big group project, my independent study is one big group project with one other student and the instructor, and the distance class has some busy work every week just so the instructor knows we’re all still there.
had some therapeutic shopping girl time (what has happened to me?!) today with blythe, whose schedule almost never meshes with mine. i went in search of a HARDCORE BRA!!1! for the bridesmaid dress and returned with a hardcore bra, new underwear, three pairs of argyle socks, and two stripey shirts (one with shiny!). exciting.
my new organizational system involving actually using my calendar book and also using notecards seems to be working (knocking on wood - it’s only been one week). i had a list of several things to be done during the week, and i did them all! i didn’t forget anything during the week either. i think this will be good for keeping on top of the little things in all three of my classes, as well as the programs i have to plan for work. look at me, i’m playing grown-up!
(song: “raining in hattiesburg,” kasey anderson)
look what i did!
the snow gods have heard my call for Sunday Snow Day and have allowed me not to have to go to work!
if only i could get the i-don’t-want-to-do-my-reading gods to listen.
(song: “outro (with bees),” neko case)
in direct opposition to ‘most everyone else ever, as far as i can tell, i am pleased that it appears to have decided not to snow, at least today. on the other hand, i was kind of excited about the idea of a snow day, so i’m declaring sunday to be Snow Day even if it’s not; this calls for pajamas and woolly socks and hot chocolate and video games.
saturday would be designated as Snow Day (too/instead) if i didn’t have to do residency for my distance class. i am resentful of having to spend all saturday afternoon on campus, but i’m looking forward to the class - government publications! - and since it’s distance, this is the only time i will ever have to sit in a classroom for it, so i suppose i can suffer through the afternoon.
last night i stopped by the college inn after class, which is uncharacteristic (i’m usually at kai’s), and there ran into a bunch of folks who i don’t see very often, as they’re mostly on the information track of the library and information program … that was fun. i’ve been feeling antisocial lately, both self-imposed and due to circumstance, so it was nice to run into people.
there is reading and listening to do for residency this weekend but i am in denial! i must go find another way to procrastinate!
(song: “don’t follow me, i’m lost,” bobby bare jr.)
last night as i walked home from john & laura’s house, it was cold and windy and the air smelled like a wood stove. it was comforting and wintry and i was happy.
it was also winter on saturday night as i stood outside the art museum in the middle of the night in the rain. they had a really great exhibit all summer, but i didn’t make it there to see it until the night before it left. fortunately the museum stayed open all night on saturday, so sho and phoebe and i got there at about 11, and proceeded to stand in line for an hour and a half.
the exhibit included a few well-known pieces - caf� terrace at night and some portraits of the roulin family. the ones i liked best, though, were ones i had never heard of and can’t find online. one was an early drawing called “corner of a garden,” and one was an oil painting called something like “garden in the asylum in saint-r�my.”
the exhibit was more than just van gogh, of course, and i enjoyed the rest of it though i am not so much one for cubism. there were quite a few mondrians, a couple of which i also liked a lot.
being at the art museum at 2 in the morning made me feel kind of grown up and hip - i’m really glad i made it before the exhibit left, even though i had a sore throat the next day from standing in a downpour in sandals at midnight.
i have just returned from retrieving the last of my furniture from its various locations all over seattle. my desk, dresser, and chair were at scott’s, and now they are here, so now i get to put clothes away. it’ll be fun!
(song: “american girls,” counting crows)
