burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

This morning was the first time riding my bike that I'd wanted to be able to drink water on the way. Oh, summer.

Getting ready this morning I was like, "What am I forgetting? Oh, right, an outfit for today." I picked a purple short-sleeved shirt and just picked up the "purple" tights I wore yesterday. Now that I'm actually wearing the outfit I think should have worn my gray tights (even though there's something wrong with the waistband on them or something).

On the the way home, I biked through patches of cooler air -- which I think we legit patches of cool air, not just escaped AC, since the first experience was coming over the River. Yay, impending cooler weather.

***

"Joy Sadhana is a daily practice in the observation of joy."
-mylittleredgirl [more info]
Thus says God to these bones: "I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am God." (Ezekiel 37:5-6, NRSV, alt.)

( Read more... )

Grar.

I have got to stop overestimating my ability to Just Deal with summer weather, because I had a moment this morning of wanting to cry, which I'm sure was due in large part to my not having gotten enough sleep last night (which in turn occurred because I decided that my room was comfortable enough that I could shut the door and run the fan and I'd be fine ... and then I wasn't exactly fine but I didn't actually do anything about it). Though after I got up this morning, I felt well awake once I'd been up for about 45 minutes; and I did my cardio gym fairly easily (which pleasantly surprised me).

I am practicing radical detachment...

***

I opened up this window about when I got in this morning (once I'd read all email that had come in to my work inbox over the long weekend) and am feeling better now that various things have gotten sorted (you're shocked, I know).

Also, I got a 3.86% raise.

So, apparently last Thursday was a break in the hot+humid weather but that break wasn't to last.  Friday it was back to yucky weather, which has continued.  Sunday morning felt reasonable, but coming home from Sunday evening church after the rain my jeans felt soggy.

TV weather at the gym this morning predicted humid until Thursday.  :(

I was complaining to Katie, "Why is it only going to get nice just as I'm leaving town?"  She pointed out that it's probably a good thing I didn't go to Maine this weekend that just ended [see, e.g., Bloomberg].

But when I got home from dinner tonight, the front door was open, because my housemate had decided it had cooled off enough that we could have fresh air and fans rather than AC.  So that's good.

***

I'm still making my way through the 50books_poc archives, and I was intrigued by Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima, so I plugged it into GoodReads, and the description begins "Inspired by historical events, this powerful book is the story of the monk who burned the Temple of the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto," and I thought, "Hey!" because this weekend while I had no energy for anything I finally started reading Palimpsest (which sadly is not as amazing as I had hoped it would be) and there's a part about the Golden Pavilion -- "It had burned in the fifties, the whole thing.  A monk had been obsessed with it, had loved it, and had set it on fire one cold night.  He had wanted to burn with it, but the smoke was not enough, and he outlived the object of his adoration.  When they learned about him in school, Sei thought that she understood him, the need to be rid of a thing, and also to scream with it and in it and breathe it until you choke" (p. 100).

I slept in this morning, went to an ATM and to the corner store, promptly changed out of my clothes and back into my nightshirt once I got home.  'Cause I was warm and sticky.

On the plus side: my new BoA debit and credit cards came in the mail, which was faster than I'd expected ("within ten business days").

What have I eaten today?
- raisin bran
- an apple
- Annie's alfredo mac&cheese
- baby carrots
- banilla yogurt

I seriously miss the two-panel preview display of the YahooMailPlus inbox.  Srsly, what happened?

Yesterday I was feeling like I'm really kind of over this warm weather (though I was willing to wait until September/after Labor Day to complain, 'cause before that it's still legitimately summer) 'cause being warm and damp when I arrive at the T/gym after walking just doesn't make me happy.  But it got down to almost 50 last night!  I was quite pleased.

( gym )

***

After the CNN hype yesterday, I had kind of wanted to watch Michelle Obama's speech last night, but I'm so out of the habit of actually sitting down in front of a tv (fall tv starting is gonna be WEIRD).  Yay Google.  Huffington Post -- summary, video, and text  [and the text of her brother's speech, which preceded hers -- and the CNN transcript of Ted Kennedy's speech]

***

Cailin was saying that she feels like most of our peers don't listen to classical music, and she doesn't actually expect it to die out, but's interested to see what happens.

***

I had coffee with LauraRuth at Mr. Crepe.  Near the end (she had to leave to go have dinner with her girlfriend) she asked if there was an agenda for this meeting or if I'd just wanted to say hi.  I said I'd just wanted to say hi -- and that I'd learned not to have an agenda in mind when having coffee with clergy, that especially the first time I have coffee with clergy it turns out to be a getting-to-know-you thing even when I went into it expecting that we had an agenda for our meeting.

She did actually have a couple agenda items of her own.  One was that she and Keith were gonna be meeting tomorrow to discuss the Rest & Bread service, which they've been doing for 3 (!) months now, and she wanted my input because I'm so thoughtful and considered and because I "think liturgically."  I had to laugh at that one, though I did talk about how I'd learned that actually I am attached to certain ways of doing things (e.g., Benediction = "Now may grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, be and abide with you always.") and as I've been in various churches, I've picked up preferred scripts for different parts of the service.

The second agenda item came out of a conversation.  She asked where I was from, and I told her, and she asked if I'd moved to the city for school and I said no, I went to school out in Western Mass. and she asked where? Amherst? and I said no, Smith, and she smiled, and I laughed and said, "Yeah, I went to a super-queer, ragingly liberal college -- which was awesome -- and came out of it with a hatred for the American Left."

She asked what "pot" I would put myself in if not "progressive" or "liberal."  I said that if forced to pick a political party I pick (small l) libertarian, and that certainly I am aligned with the progressives/liberals on lots of things, but as I often say, I hang out with the liberals because they make me "less uncomfortable" than the conservatives.  She asked me about that and I briefly explained my Smith experience and my issues with "inclusive" churches -- the latter which conversation I had just had with Sean and Carolyn on Sunday night.

She said she asks because they (First Church Somerville) are trying to put together a vision statement that doesn't use the word "progressive" or "liberal."  (Her distance from the term "liberal" is a class thing -- that she hears the word "liberal" and thinks of people who believe that just because they say the right words they've done good in the world, like just by saying you're anti-racist you've done anti-racist work.)  Thinking about it on my way home, it occurred to me that the answer is obvious: just talk about your guiding principles (justice, peace, whatever), with possibly secondarily listing the issues of primary importance.

At one point she asked me how old I was and said I seemed older than 25 (she didn't quite say "old soul" -- which I was glad of, because I think that implies more gravitas and wisdom than I have -- but it was that sort of idea) and I grinned and thanked her.  As we were saying goodbye, she said she really enjoys being around me, which I was kind of touched by.  And I got multiple long hugs :)

***

Had the first of my haul of gelatin-free yogurts tonight.
Whole Soy & Co. Raspberry yogurt = quite acceptable.

***

( excerpt from IM conversation with Joe )

***

( excerpt from IM conversation with mjules )

( gym: Mon-Tues. )

I bought hook earphones from RadioShack, and they feel _less_  secure than the regular earbuds I had before.

***

Walking home from work Monday evening, there was actually a nice cool breeze.

Sunday I didn't fall asleep for quite some time (I wasn't uncomfortably hot, just awake), despite having gone to bed late and gotten up relatively early the two previous nights/days.  Monday night, though, around quarter past seven in the evening I felt tired.  So I went to bed around 7:30.  I was sort of expecting that once I got to bed I'd feel awake again, but I actually slept.  I woke up around 10 and again was worried that now I'd be up half the night, but no, I fell back asleep easily.  It cooled off nicely overnight, and I actually woke up at 4am cool enough that I turned off my window fan.  (My bed is right up against the window.)  I slept fitfully for the next couple of hours, but still.

Walking to work this morning wasn't as bad as it was yesterday morning.  (Though arguably the rest of the day has been worse.)

Heading out of the house this morning, when I groped for my keys in my bag, I pulled out my "Ask. Tell." dogtag necklace, which I had misplaced months and months ago.

it's not a release
it's not a reward
it's the blessings

insta!rec: (Iron Man movieverse) "Follow Your Shame" . . . beautifully fucked-up Pepper and Tony

***

In yesterday's heat I remembered that in the past we've had iced coffee as part of the regular coffee delivery in the summer but I hadn't seen anything from Catering asking if we would want that this summer.  So I searched and found last year's "SUMMER Regular deliveries" e-mail (dated May 30): "Please let me know if you would like to continue your regular coffee deliveries through this summer. If so would you like switch to iced coffee? We can start delivering iced coffee as soon as June 18th. Please respond as soon as possible."  I replied to that message with, "Will there be an option for iced coffee service this summer?" and got back a response of, "No problem!"  I thought, "Um, okay," since that was kind of vague -- but I figured at the earliest it would be next week's order.

Well, this morning there was iced coffee :)  Katie was v. v. pleased.

( gym: Wed.-Fri. )

***

I feel like I've been on summer vacation since Wednesday.

Friday was the now traditional "Light Lunch" followed by an afternoon off.  Peter and Greg walked over to lunch with us.  I picked up a small whoopie pie for dessert, and Nicki was asking me what the filling was, like was it flavored, and I was like, "Um, it's a whoopie pie... it's just cream."  Katie reminded me that we'd had a conversation before about how whoopie pies are a New England thing.  (Greg didn't know what they were, but we're used to that 'cause he spent a good chunk of time in Israel.)

Cate joined later, and some I ended up telling her about due South fandom.  I don't think I'd really realized before that CKR was in due South and that's where everyone initially knows him from.  (Yes, apparently I think of The Canadian Actor Mafia as its own fandom.)  I've never seen due South, but I was recalling that I did sporadically watch some tv show with Mounties when I was younger, and really, how many tv shows about Mounties aired on broadcast American tv in the 1990s?  Dad, do you remember anything about this?

Speaking of fandoms I'm not in...
via monkeycrackmary: Steph in Africa (on scans_daily)

Anyway, we hung out for a couple hours and then went our separate ways.  I did a couple errands -- though not as many as I should have.  We reconvened for dinner at CPK at the Pru.  Cate was running late, but we still had our food (I got the mushroom pizza.) with enough time to eat and not feel rushed.  (We ended up getting to Park St. like right at 7:30 -- minor T delays was something of a theme with me that afternoon -- but ASP never starts on time, so we were okay.)

That morning, I bumped into Layna on my way to the T and Allie at the T, and on the Green Line to Prudential I saw Meredith.

***

ASP's 4th season wrapped up with King John, which neither Cate nor I had ever seen/read before.  (And I didn't look at the synposis, opting to just go with the flow of the play)

Turns out it was really good.  Both the play and the production.  It was very modern -- people in suits, drinking martinis, brandishing pistols, etc. -- and that made SO MUCH SENSE.  And the play itself is interesting and engaging (and okay there were a few bits I could have done without, but that's usually true of me and lots of the comedic bits Shakespeare sticks in the histories).  I told Cate afterward that it was probably my favorite of the season, definitely made me excited about giving them money for my subscription for next year.  She commented that the other productions this year had schticks, like the all-female Macbeth, the Henry V with only five actors, and she was like, "See, when you have a multi-gender cast of more than half a dozen, you can do great things."  I commented that while this one also had a "schtick" (the contemporary, shades of mafioso, setting) it was more of a theme -- we agreed that this was like Titus, which was the play we saw last season and which was also awesome.  I also said that they didn't overdo it, which she agreed, and she commented that ironically, she thought if they'd done more with the schtick in their production of Tempest this season it might well have worked a lot better for her.

( spoilers )

***

As I expected, I had mixed feelings about the apartment I looked at this morning.  It's a two-level two-bedroom condo.  The woman living there is looking for someone quiet, and part of me is like, "I'm never home, and when I am I'm mostly just playing on the internet," but part of me worries that I would be on edge, worrying.  The two bedrooms abut each other, and she mentioned that for example, "If I make a late-night phone call I go downstairs" (the upper level is the two bedrooms and a full bath, the lower level is a living room and eat-in kitchen and half-bath) and yeah, that kind of quiet consideration feels maybe excessive.

It's got a nice basement I could use to store some of my boxes (though yes I know I should purge before I move) plus washer-dryer.  She has RCN wireless internet; I would need wired Internet and would like cable tv.  The bedroom is good-sized (11x14... my current one is about 11x11) and with a good-sized closet.

There's a nice little playground across the street, including checkerboard tables with attached seats.  It's something like a 15-minute walk to Harvard Square, and I could pick up the 86 (direct to my campus) like five minutes from the house.  It's near a Market Basket, plus the FoodMaster by Inman and the Union Square Farmer's Market and it's a 5-10min. walk to the 87 to Porter (Shaw's).

She rents from the absentee landlords (they're in California, but apparently there's a local repairperson who's good... and the condo was built in the 1980s and is in good shape) and was talking about a month-to-month lease, which makes me nervous, though it also provides flexibility should I decide it wasn't working out and wanted to move (and I do trust that if she decided to move -- she's been flirting with the idea of buying a place herself, but doesn't think that'll happen any time soon -- she would give me plenty of notice).

I'm not under pressure to decide SOON, which I appreciate.

Part of me feels like I should just wait until July, when the bulk of the August 1 openings will be posted.  And part of me thinks I should actually check out July 1 openings 'cause if there's something that's a great fit then it would be worth double-paying rent for a month.

***

I went to Gusti's graduation party (at the Nave Gallery at CHPC).  The official start time was 4:30, so I left my house at 4:30.  (I live about a five-minute walk away.)  It was really nice that so many of Gusti's communities were there (people from her neighborhood, people from CHPC, people from school -- including her undergrad [she just graduated from HDS]).  I actually chatted with people I didn't already know.  *proud of me*

SarahD. was talking about Adam Sandler's new movie (the Zohan one), which apparently includes Israel-Palestine issues.  I now feel like I need to see this movie.  (She also mentioned how she walked out of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.  I was so pleased.)

***

I was chatting with mjules after I got home, and it's good to have someone who knows what you're talking about when you wtf at "The Devil Is Bad" by the W's (Track 8 on Disc 1 of WOW 1999 The Year's Top Christian Artists and Songs).

Track 12 is the Supertones' "Little Man," which brought me back to the Supertones concert Tim took us to back when I was in high school, which I had totally forgotten about until now.

***

I was okay in the heat today, and my apartment still feels decent.  I am very pleased by this.  (Though I expect it will get worse as the days continue to high near 90F and it only cools off to like 70F overnight.)

Thursday

( gym )

Kathleen came in and said: Now tell me the truth, would you really prefer it to be 30 degrees and snowing?  (9:45am, weather.com said 66F.)
I asked: For today or forever?  Later in the conversation she said what about 3/4 one, 1/4 the other.  It's a difficult question, honestly.  I do really like a lot of spring (and autumn) weather, including a lot of what gets considered "perfect" by the average person -- and if it were that kind of weather all the time, I'd have to listen to a lot less complaining about the weather -- but I'm attached to this four seasons thing (though if summer wanted to mellow out and never go above 80, I would not complain).

The FA's went to wagamama for lunch for Kyle's last day.  Prof.B asked me to take minutes at the Unit strategy meeting, so since I am not a huge fan of wagamama, I agreed (though I did feel a little bad at blowing off Kyle).  Taking minutes is hard.  It's inefficient to write down everything everyone said, but it's not always intuitive at the time what stuff is relevant.  And not having the background that everyone else present does, there were a few times I probably should have asked for clarification so that my jottings made more sense for when I had to type them up later.

Friday

I did ~25 min in the weight room.

Last Singspiration of the (tenth!) season.  ( Read more... )

After we got home, my mom and I were talking about my apartment situation, and she talked about the first apartment she lived in with my dad after they got married, and somehow she told the story of wanting to put me (who was under a year old when they lived there) in a Moses basket in the tree outside the window... and shut the window.  I loved the contrast of this with the story I often talk about of her holding me closer when I was a puking child (to comfort me), rather than holding me away from her since I was gross.  She said parenthood is complicated :)

Saturday

I walked over to the library around noon, and it was warmed than I'd expected.  I chatted with Joanne for about a half an hour and then Terry and I went and got lunch down by the airport.  (Taso's -- much busier than when I went with my parents six weeks ago.)  When we left, the sky was greyer, and I just knew a storm was coming.  And indeed, there was a (brief) downpour not long after.

When I got back to Somerville, though, there was no evidence that it had rained, and it felt so humd (weather.com 4:45pm: 65F, 87% humidity, dewpoint 61F).  There is so much I need to do, and humid warmth just sucks any desire to do anything (especially any physical exertion) right out of me; this does not bode well for the summer.  (paper_crystals, I thought of you, since we are such polar opposites in this.)

Around 8 (maybe earlier) it was cooling off and breezy.  8:18pm I thought I heard thunder, and soon after I could hear from the sound of the cars driving that the ground was wet, and I could smell the rain (which I love).

I did laundry shortly after getting home, and while it was going I replaced the exterior shower curtain.  Undoing all the rings on the curtain that was already up was quite an effort.  I also found that they were dusty, which surprised me, so I took a wet paper towel to them.  I ended up accidentally bringing down the curtain rod, so I just took all the rings off and washed them.  Thankfully the rod went back up easily.

One thing OriginalRoomie appears to have taken with her which I wasn't expecting was the dish drainer.  (I was surprised she didn't take her toaster.)  I was tired, though, so after I did laundry, rather than walk/bus to Tags/Target/Sears, I did some work on GoodReads and ripped CDs.  I need to procure one tomorrow, though.

The house echoes so much more without all this other stuff in it, though in some ways it's less empty than I'd expected.

I woke up a little after 9 this morning and thought, "Seriously?  But I only went to bed like 7 hours ago."  I didn't get up, but I clearly wasn't deeply asleep because about twenty minutes later I woke up to my phone vibrating on my bedside table.  It was Terry.

You may recall that last Saturday I was supposed to have lunch with Terry but he had a family emergency.  I called him on Thursday evening, and he couldn't talk because he was at a wine auction.  So I was glad to actually get to talk to him, even though phone conversations are never optimal for us as a mode of interaction.

I'd been planning to just come back another Saturday for a rescheduled lunch, but I have so much stuff to do that I think I'll just leave it until the next time I'm scheduled to be out there -- which is the last weekend in May.

+

This week, my hair hit that point of desperately needing to be cut.  [The last time I got it cut was late December -- I'd been thinking about growing it out, but have firmly decided against that.]  I walked in to Salon Femia, where I've gotten decent cuts before.  I had a different woman this time, and I'm not sure that when I said I wanted something wash-n-wear that that really registered.  'Cause the end product I thought, "My hair does not naturally have that much volume, and I'm kind of freaked out."  It's calmer now, and I think it'll look fine with regular wash and air-dry.  She also gave me side sweep bangs, which are a mix of cool and annoying, but I'm not too stressed about that.

+

65F at 12pm?  It felt significantly warmer than that.  It is nice to see people outside, cleaning and playing.  This warm weather saps my energy, though.

+

I went to my mom's friend Susan's Passover seder tonight.  (Apparently this is her fortieth year hosting this seder.)  Every time someone mentioned that this was my first seder, I felt like those "Baby's First [Whatever]" books.

I was actually surprised at how familiar it felt.  At CAUMC Maundy Thursday service, Trelawney does the Jewish blessing when she lights the candles at the table; I know the Exodus story, of course; I read The Devil's Arithmetic when I was like 9 (I remember doing a book report on it in 4th grade) so I have some familiarity with the four questions, the hiding of the matzoh portion, the opening the door for Elijah; relatively recently I looked up what exactly the Four Questions are (it had come up in conversation somehow), and in the process I read the bit about the four different kinds of children; the bitter herb and the sweet are familiar from some sort of cultural osmosis.

One thing I was (pleasantly) surprised by was the bit about how we shouldn't rejoice at the destruction of our enemies (the ancient Egyptians or whomever) because they are God's children, too.

I totally want to edit their Haggadah, though, because if you've never been to a seder before there are places where you're unclear on what you're supposed to be doing (it reminded me of church bulletins -- and there were times when people like Susan would stumble over what we were supposed to be doing, which of course drove me extra-crazy), plus just typographical errors.  And sometimes there's just the transliteration for the Hebrew, which some of the Jews at the table stumbled over (said if it were the actual Hebrew they could read that no problem), so the Hebrew should be added in all the places it's absent.

The actual discussions during and after the meal didn't drive me too crazy -- despite politics featuring prominently.  It was kinda trippy that there were over a dozen people, many of them older, so people would hear bits of conversation and ask questions which had totally been answered like a minute earlier -- much like the last time we FA's went to Border Cafe and Cailin was talking to me and MaryAlice chimed in, saying exactly what Cailin had said earlier (in that instance it was because the environment was so noisy).  I commented as much to my mother, and then the same sort of thing happened and I just about died laughing -- I don't even remember what about it made me so punchy.

The seder started around 7pm, and around 11pm most people were dispersing.  My mom had driven in, so rather than my waiting for a 66 or doing the long route of Brookline Villlage (Green Line) to Park to Davis (Red Line), she drove me part of the way home (we ended up at Central Square, and I said she could just drop me there rather than having to mess around with going through Harvard Square).

I took the 66 from Harvard to get there, and I've rarely taken it past where it hits the B Line, so it was interesting paying attention to stuff.  As soon as you pass Now Entering Brookline or whatever the sign says, there are a whole bunch of Jewish stores and temples and stuff, which entertained me, like an unspoken subtitle to the Welcome sign.  (I also hadn't realized just how many restaurants there are on the Brighton Ave. stretch.  Nor that there are a million burrito joints everywhere -- the plethora of burrito joints is kind of a joke in davis_square, and there are an increasing number in Harvard Square though I tend to forget that since I don't actually live in Harvard Square, but it still threw me to see places on Brighton Ave./Harvard St. apparently selling primarily burritos etc.)

And glad to be so.

Un-glad at the announcement when we touched down at 8:06pm that the outside temperature was 86F.  At that hour?  So not on, people.  Of course this isn't helped by the fact that I just spent 2+ weeks in temperatures much cooler than I had anticipated (to the point where I often thought I literally didn't have any shirts with me that were long/thick enough -- but this is me, so we know that wasn't a big problem).  Also, it feels rather like July to me since I've spent so much of this summer out of town, but we really are only a week from September (horrors, I know).

In better news, the construction of the building on Broadway has advanced sufficient that the sidewalk is open to the public again, and the renovation of my front lawn seems basically finished as well.

Anyway.  For a trip into which so little advance planning went, my Europe trip actually went really well.  (That said, I'm never doing this little advance planning again.)  I promise I'll do a brief writeup so that people can get the highlights without having to slog through my epic detailed narratives.

As far as my body's concerned, it's nearing on 4 in the morning (alternatively, I've been up since 3am in this time zone) so this entry has taken far too long to write and I should really clear the unpacking off my bed and fall over.

Oh, I had more Internet than I'd expected this trip, so I've been keeping up with the flist (albeit skimming), which is a relief.  I'll leave comments tomorrow, but if I miss anything crucial feel free to poke me.

Love.