after one long season of waiting

Well, I seem to have made it back from Portland in one piece, despite the best efforts of deer and fog last night, and Minnesota and Wisconsin and their snow this morning (never, ever am I moving north of here). I have a giant-long, tl;dr recap entry I'm working on, but it's going to take me forever to finish, so in the meantime, have some pretty pictures, mostly of Cape Kiwanda.

Ah, Oregon. So lovely (though I'm not the biggest fan of the almost omni-present damp). I'm definitely going to have to go back, though when I do I'm going to miss my native guides a lot. They were, after all, the entire point of me visiting in the first place, and without them I probably would've found a way to get myself washed out to sea, or fallen off some topography or accidentally been indentured to a food cart or something. zolac_no_miko, look_alive, and shichahn: you guys are awesome and I love you. So here is a picture of everyone looking appropriately epic. ♥s and also HNUUUURGH BORK BORK BORK.

I am absolutely digging this 60-degree weather we're having. Last week (and even this weekend) I thought I was going to have to give up my bike for the winter, and now I've had two absolutely lovely nights of biking home without even needing a jacket. And it's a good thing, too, because otherwise I would be pulling out my hair.

Even the city is giving me advice now:



I spotted that as I was crossing the bridge over the Metra tracks by the Art Institute, and I figured, okay, it's the Blue Cross building, they're probably telling me to quit something. (Yes, despite that seemingly-strategic lamp, it does actually say "QUIT.") Smoking? Eating junk food? But... apparently no. Unless the array of blue lights above it is actually meant to represent a blue Tetris block and it's telling the city to stop playing Tetris?

I'm going to choose to interpret it as a Sign, because today we had two people give their notice, and both of them were of the rare, sane variety, who actually do work. We still haven't replaced people who left in August. I don't think there's a single department in the office that isn't behind right now, and I don't know how they're going to cope with losing two competent, well-adjusted people. (I'm almost certain I'm going to lose all my help, and I would crawl under my desk and cry except there's no room because of all the files at my desk.) I haven't filed something on time in more than a month... and I used to be the only one who was ahead. Now I spend all my time fighting with other legal assistants and attorneys to get their work done and have no time to do anything I'm actually supposed to be doing. Stupid nightmare job.

One positive upshoot of the current situation, though, is that I've been listening to a lot of music lately to drown out Ego Girl, and I recently wore out my crappy old $15 headphones. So today I invested some of my overtime money into a set of actually-good headphones (it actually occurs to me to be embarrassed as to how much I just spent on headphones). But music... guys, music has bass! And dynamics! And... and... I forgot how much I was missing by just listening to things on crappy headphones and crappy laptop speakers. (I thought I wouldn't like in-ear headphones, but it turns out they're not as creepily claustrophobic as noise-cancelling ones and the general effect is that the music is right there and all the outside noises are behind it. I rode past a helicopter on the lakefront tonight and could still hear my music, but I could also hear other cyclists coming up behind me at times when there was no helicopter. Fancy!)

I realized I never finished up the last days of London, and since I am incredibly bored this afternoon (I've read, I've written, I cleaned and made soup and made bread and I'm still bored) I guess it's time to finish that story.

( Hopefully there aren't too many details that have been lost between then and now )

And finally, to bring this whole story arc to a close, since I ran out of space so quickly on Flickr, I've dumped practically every picture I took into a couple of scrapbook galleries: London and Paris. I haven't pared them down to just the pretty ones, nor have I edited any of them, so beware that there are a lot, and not all of them are good. But that's how trips work, so I don't think I'll be editing them anyway.

So, now that I'm no longer as likely to pass out in front of major landmarks... today was a lot more manageable. I found neighborhoods that made a lot of what I saw yesterday make more sense. Here I am, making my official retraction on Paris being "homogeneous." Here I am also saying I think the part north of the river is kind of pants. But that might be because it's Sunday and most everything was closed. That's absolutely no excuse for how far I walked in search of a bottle of water, though. Maybe I'm just really, really bad at this but it should not be possible to walk miles without coming across a store that sells cold bottles of water.

Of course, there are more pictures today. You know the drill.

( And then, further attempts to stay awake. )

So, what I learned today: Just because an area is interesting to me, or historical, does not make it "touristy." Touristy is very definitely independent of what I think of something. It is actually possible to turn the wrong corner in Paris and end up somewhere you don't want to be. And slowly, slowly this city is clicking into place for me, and even though I am still severely out of context here, it's starting to make sense in and of itself. The architecture is relentlessly (almost disconcertingly) consistent, but at least there are neighborhoods that aren't sorted entirely by what they are selling.

tl;dr I walked, and then walked some more. And then there was some walking, and a bit of walking and more walking. Also impressionists and walking, Oscar Wilde and walking, medieval relics and walking, and walking with walking and hipsters and tourists.

I did this last 3 years, 7 months and 11 days ago... let's do it again! (Okay, if I'm going to be completely forthright, I saw apple_pathways do this and went "Oh, that's always fun, and I do need to clean out my bag!")

( Let's see what's changed since college! )

All in all... I'm surprised that it's not messier. It think the turn-over rate for my bag is much higher than it was for my backpack, though, because I constantly have to pack light. Normally my lunch container is in there as well, but mine suffered a bit of a microwave mishap today and I had to toss it. If I'd done this in the morning, it'd also contain a couple of peaches or plums. Also not pictured is my iPod, which usually rides in the raptor bag since I can't seem to listen to it while riding anymore.

Notice how every mundane object this time around gets an explanation, whereas most things in the old post had a story? Sigh. Adult life just isn't as much of an adventure, I guess. Or I'm doing it wrong. (I'm completely open to that interpretation, but there don't seem to be any instructions, so I'm doing the best I can under the circumstances.

I figure it's only fair that I share the main conversation point I've had with other people lately: ( Is that a tattoo? (Contains abstract bruise) )

One of the girls at work and I were trying to use it as a rorschach test, but no one else would tell us what they saw in it. Most of them went "Agh! I didn't know it was that bad!" (This is the side of my arm, so when I'm walking around normally you pretty much just see the mostly-healed yellowish part of the bruise.) Personally, I see a duck with a colourful Nefertiti headdress. She saw the Pillsbury doughboy, but she also neatly disregarded all the coloured parts and focused on the x-shaped part at the bottom. (Also, in case you were wondering, it really doesn't hurt all that much anymore.) I've also had a few people confuse it for a tattoo, and I've had to tell the story an awful lot, since it's a hard bruise to ignore. (There are still people at work, though, that seem to have missed it. In fact, someone just noticed it today. For him, I abbreviated the story to "Yeah, I got hit by a car, it's all right" and then carried on with the question I was asking him. I did this mostly because I knew he'd give me a fantastically confused look, though).

I also found ( this ) on my way back from work today. I came across it standing up huge and obvious in the grass, all by itself, in front of the building next door. I hope it's a Sign. I also hope it's not too sad that I picked it. I always feel bad when I do things like that (I also have this problem with Christmas trees, and pretty much all cut flowers), but I figure, the grass was kind of long, so it was probably going to get mowed soon... so sitting in a glass for a few days and then being pressed in quality literature will hopefully be a better fate for it.

I settled down today and (pretty much) finished moving in. And you know what that means!

( Pictures! )

Because someone indirectly asked, I present to you: Back Porch Garden Progress!



The pictures start there. There aren't many, because some of my plants are in a bit of a non-pretty phase and I just transplanted a lot of stuff into one of my hanging baskets (and then I RAN OUT OF DIRT. Stupid dirt). But you get the gist of it. This photo also now includes the bonus story of my dad having manure delivered to the house.

(Also, guys, CitiMortgage has achieved new levels of stupid that I didn't even think existed.)

Profile and introductions to various writerly activities still not written. I'll get around to this after I've burnt away more of this anger at my stupid alma mater. Until then... I have some more pictures of my lovely window garden now. My peas have gotten huge. And I have a tiiiiiiiny tomato sprout, finally. Along with more sunflowers and basil than I'll probably know what to do with. (And a stormtrooper poaching elephants.) By the way, that sweet potato? I bought it for Thanksgiving.

Aaaand since I have nothing else useful to say, here is a meme via flutingfrenzy.

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

( Chicago )
( live music )
( mandolin )
( Hughes )
( LJ RP )

My dad recently got into flickr. Most of the stuff he's posted has been novel for its "wow, this is old and on actual film" quality. But this set makes me want to write a pseudo-steampunk novel about Youngstown's further-burnt-out dystopian future. Screwing with my mind even more, those photos are from 1998. My mind immediately rebelled against how old they looked, and then I remembered... 1998 was more than ten years ago. Yikes. (It's also amusing to think of my dad still being chased out of places by the police while I was in 8th grade).

I didn't give much thought to Beirut's new EP, but upon second-listen, Zach Condon's vocals over electronic music is just as haunting and (now that the Balkan sound is a little broken in) somewhat more novel. Also, man, guys, I feel old because I'm officially at the point that some of my favourite musicians are younger than me. Sure, Zach is only a year younger, but it's all downhill from here.

In regards to the BSG finale... I think I cried mostly because the show was over, and I was going to miss the characters. ( But... ) That aside, though, I have a feeling re-watching the finale at any point in the next few months would just make me notice everything that didn't quite line up and ruin what afterglow I have. Someday I'll go back and re-watch the whole series. And I'm totally glad I was keeping up with the show as it was going along, rather than only finding out now. I'm kind of disappointed that most of the set pieces being auctioned off are way out of my price range.

P.S. It looks like my dear favourite St. Vincent is riding high on SXSW propaganda (well, I still put value in a favorable mention in the NYT). I wish I'd talked to her long enough two years ago that she'd remember me, so I could give her a hug if I go see her in June.