A Strange Place

Here are a few things that are rolling around in my brain:

Accumulation and accretion, with the world just getting more and more full of things. And then, the passing on, too.

Desire becoming reality, and other things also becoming real – with my growing perfume collection, I am sampling many scents, and sometimes feel as though there’s something real there. When I taste wine, I often get very physical words coming to my mind – wine for me can be round, soft, or tall. I’m not getting that the same way with perfumes, but I think that if I smell for long enough I’ll be able to articulate things a bit more. I’ve been enjoying the strangeness of them, the leather and sweat and smoke. My favorites are the ones that surprise you over and over again, making you think that there’s a corner somewhere close by that you’ll turn and find something real. The one I’m wearing right now, though – Patou 1000 – I lean in to get a deeper draw, and it smells like someone peed on me. Weird. I can’t get enough from 5 inches out, but right up close, whew! Yet, I’m going to put a bit more on before I go out.  Wherever that corner is, it’s a strange place.

Plus, trying on all these perfumes is probably just a little bit of an intensification to that who am I and what am I doing here feeling that I haven’t been able to shake, even when for a little while, I thought I might have that answer. Today I was useless, and far from figuring out any answers, I just avoided the question altogether. Thought I was making some progress, but still pretty lost on the whole subject of what to put the majority of my energy into. I can’t help but think, though, that at some point this question will be answered, and that a bit of psychic reworking never hurt anyone in the long run. Watching a lot of the videos at the99percent.com has/hasn’t helped.

The conversations that we have with ourselves – I saw Moon last night, and that little phrase kept rattling around in my head.  It’s a must see, and I felt like it was perfectly resolved, despite what many of the reviewers said at the time.  It made me very sad, but then, I also felt very appreciative afterward.  I imagine that’s a part of what I liked about A Serious Man, too.

I’m heading out, and already running late.  I’ve been thinking of several of these things for a while, now, though, so had to get a little ramble out.  No doubt you’ll hear more about perfumes, accretion, and life courses soon, whether or not you wanted to.

Oh, and props to the President for a sweet speech on Wednesday, and for finally having what NYT liked to the Prime Minister’s Question Time, (the reference to which seems to have disappeared from this article) which I have always hoped would happen in our own country.

Back in the Saddle Again

Off to a great start.

I can still run a mile in under seven minutes, and without too much difficulty, in fact. I’ve worked out 2 days in a row.

I’ve flossed my teeth 5 nights in a row.

I am warm underneath my soft new comforter.

The perfume that I ordered from the internet without having ever smelled it smells wonderful all day. The haircut that I got right before school started looks good up or down, styled or unstyled.

I led the undergraduate studio in rearranging their desks and they did a fantastic job. They all, or almost all, contribute something, even in the large (16 person) discussions.

The teaching in my studio is much more to my liking so far this semester. The project is an urban building, in Portland; it’s home to an imaginary nonprofit that coordinates other nonprofits such as Doctors Without Borders and Architects Without Borders.

I had another chat with Tad and Stefan.

I got my first Netflick, the Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and will watch it soon…

I rearranged my studio so that I have fewer peripheral distractions and more pinup space.

I have Human Context of Design and Environmental Control Systems, two classes that cover the exact topics that I find most interesting in architecture: the social/behavioral/relational aspects of architectural space and the sustainable/regenerative possibilities of architectural systems.

Oh, and – it’s on Dan.

Flix and Pics

A little update from my corner of the world: you can now be my friend.

Oh, you say, I wasn’t before? Not like now. Now, we can share our Netflix queues!

http://www.netflix.com/BeMyFriend/P7iQZYMc8ejtfHix4RGP

Isn’t that exciting. You can see that I have 9 foreign films, a documentary, and a drama. Guess I’ll be watching my movies alone.

Actually, as sarcastic as I may sound about how we can achieve this new level of friendship, I’m really excited about Netflix. Can’t wait to get my first movie, and I’ll probably end up moving things around a bit. I was trying to decide how much of The UP Series I might put on my queue…

Speaking of friends, I had a good New Years as far as that arena goes. I seriously debated driving down to San Francisco from Portland to visit with a bunch of friends from Oberlin, but then as the day approached I backed down. I wanted to see those folks, but I didn’t want to drive all day just for one night of partying. Turned out New Years Eve was a bit of a wash – I enjoyed it despite having a small crew, but had gotten rather excited about the prospect of a few extra folks to join in the carousing and was a bit disappointed when they didn’t show. But, I sucked it up and called them the next day to invite them to lunch, and started a great tradition. Or, rather, I continued a great tradition. It turned out that everyone did want to get together, so I whipped up a little good luck lunch, complete with Hoppin’ John, Money Cabbage (although I left out the coins because I wasn’t sure of the proper sanitization practices) and Mac and Cheese, the glorified baked kind. Ok, the Mac and Cheesemight not be a traditional good luck food, but it went well with the meal, and it gave me a good excuse to use the recipe that Debbie baked in Florida from Smitten Kitchen.

In the end, with all the food, we ended up eating at about 3:30, talking for several hours afterward, then playing a game of Taboo. Guests left post 10 with most of the dishes unwashed. I’d say a very successful event!

I turned sick after that, and am sort of not quite better but not much worse. Just a head cold, but something I’d like to kick before the semester starts. On the upside, house is much cleaner for all of the staying in it I’ve been doing.

Yes, you can assume that I did have a lovely Christmas (or, shall I say, lovely Christmases) and that the end of the Florida trip went well – no problems in the airport, all my new items fit into my luggage, and they’ll let me come back next time. And, in addition, I had a lovely few days in Portland visiting my cousins Herman and Ruth and actually getting to spend some time with them.  Ryan visited briefly on his way between a gig in Seattle and going home to the Bay Area, and the second night we went out to the Doug Fir, which was, as Ray would say, a trip. Who knew that kitsch log cabins could be so hip and relaxing all at the same time. I’d have guessed one or the other, but thought the two attributes to be mutually exclusive in that setting. Shows you what I know.

So, one last weekend before my nose is re-glued to the proverbial grindstone. Will I squeeze in all of the relaxing/dealing with real life that I want to before I am once again robbed of my free time?

A short list, as a bonus. Movies I think it would be worthwhile to own on DVD:

Afterlife
Dancer in the Dark
Triplets of Belleville
Amelie (although everyone else does)
Babe
The Straight Story.

Maybe you have something to recommend for me via Netflix…

PPS, I added more photos to my Flickr page. More to come this weekend.

Wish I were getting more (Science of) Sleep

OK, super fast post:

Science of Sleep was amazing, especially since we went to The Sweet Life whose web site looks dorky, but which is actually so frickin good and really hip. We went as a goodbye to our temporary housemate, Karen, who’s going on a Mission to Salt Lake City this winter.

That set a good tone for the past few days. We had a pin-up yesterday in Studio, and I’ll have to get some photos up soon of my two proposals, although I already started to rip into the one that I’m going to adapt for Friday. I’ve done lots of diagramming, which has been good fun, and my next diagrams are going to be of the flows of water, air, light, and heat on the site. It’s a good chance to get some of that environmental responsibility in.

Sunday disc doesn’t seem to be working out for me – it’s just too hard to tear away from the studio at that time. So, I’m going to have to make an even more determined effort to catch another workout time.

Saturday night I went to my friend Jake’s house and played “He Said, She Said” with a small group of folks. It’s one of those write a phrase, fold it over games. The format is

[Male Name]
Met [Female Name]
At [Location]
He Said “[Quote]“
She Said “[Quote]“
And the consequences were [consequences]

Very simple, but absolutely hilarious. We were rolling around with laughter. It is important to limit the names to people that everyone in the group knows, but other than that, anything’s up for grabs.

We had our first exam today in Building Construction, and we’ve got lots going on – precident studies, cube building, and ever more projects for digital media. You can see my Photoshop explorations at my other website. They’re not quite as outrageous as a lot of other people’s, but I think they look pretty good, and a bit more realistic, if not in scale then in how they’re blended.

Ok, that’s some updates as to content of life, even if not any serious musings. I’ll get some photos of work up soon, and perhaps even add more photos to my Flickr account. Oh, and maybe one day I’ll respond to your comments – thanks, btw.

Brief Interlude

It’s Sunday morning, before 8 o’clock, and everyone’s still sleeping at South Main. The house is an absolute mess, and I sort of want to start cleaning up, but I kind of don’t, so I’m writing a few thoughts.

The party last night was fantastic: apple pie, a lot of dancing, and great face to face time with people I very much wanted to see. Only a few moments of heartbreak in the otherwise Very Fun Time.

We also did a good job yesterday with the yard sale, selling two couches, a bed, a trampoline, a chair or two, and a lot of books. Hopefully we’ll sell a few more books today, but it looks like we’ll be missing the early morning crowd.

I saw Ian’s comment and just wanted to say that when I first read The Diamond Age, it totally changed the way I thought. The idea of such a complete work of art is so seductive, and part of the reason that I’m going to school for architecture is my hopes that I can build something half as interesting as the Primer. Also, just to note that what Stevenson describes with the new computer system is the exact way that bit-torrents work, and that the drummers really bring a new meaning to the term collective unconscious. It was sad to finish the book so quickly, but I think it’s one of the few books that I have that I read again and again – I should start keeping track, but I’d say that’s at least the third time I’ve read it.

In other media, the movies just keep getting better. I walked out of Little Miss Sunshine thinking that it trumped all of the movies I saw in Florida; I walked out of Half Nelson thinking that it trumped Little Miss Sunshine. I think Half Nelson hit home for me in part because Ryan Gosling reminded me so much of Mike Levin, one of my favorite teachers in high school (although that in no way implies that Mike was a heavy drug user). I agree with the critics that both Gosling and Shareeka Epps were excellent. As always, more thoughts on both of those films, but I think that, in fact, writing about movies isn’t my strong suit, so I’m going to bow gracefully out of that pursuit.

I am going to do something which I’ve never done before, however, and that’s point you, dear reader, to an interesting piece of news.  This article was brought to my attention by Degs. No surprise, really, but fun to see something that we in the game already knew to be true. I wonder if this will lead to a whole new kind of rankings game in which colleges try to support their Frisbee teams in order to boost their appearance to the populous…worse things could happen.

So, I made it to Vermont, enjoyed my very chill time in Massachusetts, and I’ll probably write up a little summary at some point, with a big influx of pictures on Flickr since I won’t be uploading anything else till then. Right now I feel like I have so much to do here, so many people to see and spend time with, that I’m really regretting that time is short here. But, I’m hoping that the short time will bring major intensity.

Speaking of which, I’m now really excited to go back to school in the fall. Yay, that was the idea of going away for vacation, and it worked!

September 10, 2006Replies 4

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Being Here

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Final Countdown

My last few moments as a free woman. Today I didn't go see the black sheep and alpaca, which was my original plan for the day, but I did spend some quality time in the kitchen, which is always fun to do on those 98 degree days. I wanted to make bread one last time before I no longer had 5 hours of uninterrupted baking time, so I very lazily made some challah.

That and a couple of phone calls pretty much made up the day. Connecting with Colin and Josie made the day worthwhile, so it didn't really matter what else I did.

A few notes: so far I've gone swimming twice in snowmelt water up in the rivers around here. I feel very proud of myself for getting out to the rivers, and even prouder for going in. It's not like Florida, I'll tell you that!

I didn't get to listen to the lectures, but a) I'm about to go into high-gear lecture listening mode, and b) I did get to watch the Green Butchers last night. Green Butchers was really fun; stomach turning, visually playful, and stocked with an acute sense of weirdness. I especially liked the ending, which seems like the perfect Hollywood ending gone absolutely stupidly out of whack. I would highly recommend it if you, like me, enjoy strange Scandanavian films.

Oh, and I wanted to say, thanks to everyone who has commented as yet. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to/want to comment back, but I guess I'll know eventually. Chef Yang disappeared because I thought he was spam - he was too witty for me. So, dear readers, keep up the good work and perhaps someday I'll get bold enough to engage in a dialoge, rather than just my current pleasant noncommittal yammerings.

Well, I'm off to bed to fitfully toss and turn in anticipation for my big day tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Exit Interview

It's 10:42, and I'm planning to go out to a movie. Do I feel like that's a silly idea? Yes, but I'm full of silly ideas right now, and not sleeping enough is one of my favorite new silly ideas. But to get to the real crux of the matter, I had an exit interview today for work. In my world, it's awesome to get an exit interview in the first place, and what's even more awesome was how well it went. I talked about what I liked about work, and what I didn't like, and realized that there was much more that I liked than that I disliked.

It started out with my bosses asking me how I felt that I was different than at the beginning of the year. Basically, my answer came down to the fact that I've attained this whole new plateau of independence - I was already independent when I started, and, in fact, I've always been an explorer and self-starter, but now I don't need as much reassurance along the way that the path that I've so boldly started down is acceptable and that I'm doing things some perfect way. I attribute this in large part to the friends that I have right now, whose friendship has taught me that I am most valuable as myself, and not as some unattainable "awesome friend." Although who wouldn't want to have an "awesome friend?"

Anyway, it's nice to realize that you are your own person, and also that all of the work you've done has been appreciated. I'm hoping to write up a list of accomplishments, and if I do I'll post them here...

Part 2:

I just stepped out to watch The Da Vinci code, which, having not read the book, I enjoyed in that way that you can enjoy mediocre movies. Way too many flashbacks, and the guys (Seth, Colin, and Stephan) were saying it was cast poorly, plus fairly predictable, but fun nonetheless. I suppose it's analogous to the book, i.e. great story plotwise, but not that great delivery-wise. Even the plot is see-through if you put any thought into it at all, though.

It's fun to go to late night movies, but it also makes for late nights. So, perhaps I had more to say about exit interviews and training your replacement (which I did Wednesday), or about winning games at your local small-town frisbee league (which I'm so proud of Brattleboro for having this year). But, I can actually hear my bed calling to me, "Rachel, come sleep on me," and if you're to the point of hallucination, you should generally go to sleep. So off I go, like a good little girl, resting up for this weekend's fun.