Self-Insight

So. Thoughts since my big life changes.

I feel happy. I am challenged. I am working toward a bigger goal, something worthwhile. I am learning so so so much each and every day. I'm feeding my brain with a lot of new thoughts and information. Spending more time outdoors, in sunlight, exercising so much. My body feels great, my soul feels great.

So in the future I need to really remember that these are things that contribute to my overall well-being. Not  overlook or settle or anything like that. Make them a priority, wherever I find myself, whatever I end up doing with life.

Hopefully I'm learning to be in tune with myself and to recognize the absence of these qualities to life.

That is all.

Pure Conventional

For some reason I was thinking about another student intern I worked with at my first internship. He lived in the same city where I went to school (and also attended that same school). The office was about 20 minutes away so we drove together, had a lot of conversations.

One, I recall, about a woman he had been dating. He told me they had broken up. He found out her dad was gay. This was not acceptable to him for his partner. He could not agree with her family lifestyle. I couldn't even explain how baffling I found this. It is not like SHE was gay even. I could understand that. I can't date you, because you are gay. That makes sense to me. But her father? Not like she can change who or what her dad is. He was just very, very conservative.

Another time, more toward the end of the summer. I was talking about how I was going to miss everyone, asked him if he thought it would be more appropriate to give everyone hugs or shake their hand to say goodbye. "Well," he said. "That depends how you would like to be remembered. Do you want to be remembered in a professional manner or more like a little kid?" That also baffled me somewhat. Is the world really so black and white? I remember thinking. Ultimately I ended up staying on to work part time during the fall semester, so it wasn't even an issue, but still. A glaring contrast in perspective, I suppose.

Somehow, even though you wouldn't think he would be any fun at all, he got quite into things like survey of the week which we (okay let's be serious here: I) would post on the little counter by our intern workstations. Which is your favorite Muppet? What is the most food you have ever eaten at one time? Red Sox or Yankees? Or, the time we snuck into a polo match which was supposed to be some sort of posh business development thing, but I guess we had misunderstood that part of it. We ate the fancy exotic horderves too with wild rice and capers and chit-chatted with ladies and gents.

So I guess it goes to show, nobody is pure conventional or pure fun. I wonder if he would still be opposed to a gay dad now...?

Crazy

Yesterday was my last day of work. Very bitter sweet.

I have been ready for awhile to move on to a new phase in my life, but it was so so tough to say goodbye to everyone I've come to know over the past five years.

We had a little going away party, and (here is the craziest, nicest thing I can imagine, which I wasn't expecting at all), my coworkers chipped in and got me a going away present: an ipad!!!! I was a little bit almost in shock and so touched by such a gesture from everybody that I hopefully didn't just sit there dumbfounded saying something like "oh my gosh WOW" and was able to get out a gracious thank you. But really, what a blessing to work with people who care so much that you succeed, even when you are leaving them, sending you on your way with such a thoughtful and useful gift.

I was eager to see what it was all about and playing around with it last night... there are so many features... for example, I can download apps about the different systems of the human body (muscles/bones, organs, etc) and there are models at different levels of magnification, I can zoom in and rotate around, use it to study and see how everything is fitting together. I'm sure there are other uses I haven't even discovered yet. Wow. I just keep thinking that to myself. Wow. And every time I use it I will remember how blessed I am with the people from this part my life who care for and support me.

This next week is serious overload.

• Today I have to bike over to BU where I'm taking Anatomy and Physiology, pay my tuition, get my textbooks, etc. 
• My first day of the course is Tuesday. I have six hours of lecture and four hours of lab. 
• I'm registering for an online developmental psych course as well.
• Saturday I take the GRE. 
• And tonight, my friends the Danes are coming into town and will be here through almost all of next week. 
• My roommate is graduating from his master's program and his girlfriend and family will be in town. 
• I still need to work out the lease for this coming year with my two new future roommates. 
• Now that I have more free time during the week I need to get back in touch with the people I was shadowing for observation hours and see if we can set up some more regular times I can come in. 
• And I want to do some last studying for the GREs. Maybe take another practice to build up my endurance. 

It is weird. A week or two ago I felt so many conflicting emotions, like inside of me was where crazytown was happening. Now that I've actually officially begun my new path, I still feel like things around me are a bit all over the place, but I'm strangely calm in myself, where I'm headed. Purposeful.

I'm sure that feeling will come and go, but, for now, I run with it.

FYI not in funk anymore

I've been out of the funk so that's good, but pretty busy, so no blogging. I will have to post some pics or update at some point, but not now.

It's a generally good busy though.

Trying to squeeze every last juicy-sweet drop out of this summer before it disappears!

New(t) Project

I've been feeling this weird 'manic' energy lately. It's funny, Bubber was mentioning feeling it and I realized OMG ME TOO. A strange power and creativity and diminished sense of risk that we jokingly attribute to our famous ancestor on the Italian side.

Art by Jane Gough.

So yeah. Manic/creative energy. I'm channeling it into starting an Etsy business. To begin with at least, it will be primarily a card and wall print store. Mediums:

• Watercolor
• Pen and ink (and colored pencil)
• Block printing
• Paper collage

I'll make stuff with those mediums (I've got some pieces I can maybe use already, or at least are examples of what I will do), create high-quality copies/prints of the original work and sell them at a pretty reasonable price.

• Thank you cards (pack of 6) - $10-12
• Greeting/wedding/birthday card - $2.00-$3.75
• Prints for nursery, bathroom, kids rooms, other places - $5-25 depending on size and quality/detail of the piece

Also I'll probably sell originals at a bit higher price, maybe like $20-120 or something (again depending on size and quality/detail of the piece). So that's the idea for now.


Tell me: would you pay that much for something handmade? Also, would you be interested in any other types of products?

Some watercolors. I'd probably sell this kind of thing as prints. Maybe it could work as a card too.

And of course butterflies I posted before and that kind of thing. Next up we have papercraft cards. They are pretty, but I'd either have to find some way to easily mass produce them or do color prints of them - but that would lose some of the texture, so this one's still up in the air. 

Some pencil and pen drawings. Cards of these kinds of drawings would probably be cheaper.

    

Ink block printing I sent as Christmas cards last year. If I could do a really nice one with no mess-ups I'd make color copies of it, but otherwise I could sell prints themselves for slightly more.

Of course I'd take a bit more professional photos too. And I ordered a small paper cutter for straight lines - heheh.

July

On nights like tonight, there IS no cool side of the pillow.  No cool spot on the sheets, because the bed, the sheets come pre-warmed for you from the day's penetrating heat. 

You lie in front of the fan spritzing your entire body with water every three minutes or so.  And you fill your water bottle with ice, snuggle with it.  Eat a mango popsicle at 12:00 midnight, because what else are you going to do?

What else are you going to do?  SLEEP??? 


Not likely, friend. 

Fish Nation Army

Michaela likes dancing along to this.

Candle

Bulbs shining from within, exactly nine windows.
Nine points of light, and I raise the candle to make ten.

Stars in the night
Souls in the deep

Each gleaming from a neighbor's apartment, near,
but not so near at all.
We'd have to descend and ascend to even touch.

Lashes droop and everything fades, blurs,
through slitted eyes, everything but those lights.
Images disintegrate.
Words multiply and divide.
Fractals of meaning. Apart. Ment.

Shafts between worlds, universes.

And from the same source stream the light and the shadow
All of us light and shadow
Dancing off of glass
flickering, skipping
somersaulting.

There, across the gulf, reflected in the pane, in the pane, in their pane, in their pain
Is my flame.


And everything just aches into one.

What the What?

At about quarter to midnight, I am roused from dreamless sleep by the sound of the buzzer. At the top of the stairs our neighbors' grown daughter is peering down as far as she can see.

I have some sort of vague recollection of sirens (?) maybe.

Anyway, Beth - or someone - is trying to get in, and I have to let them in. At the bottom of the stairs I nearly run into three firefighters who have just come up from the basement. In retrospect, it is an awkward encounter, although at the time I am barely cognizant of this fact (or anything for that matter). See, it has been SUPER. HOT. here lately. I have been resorting to drastic measures to fall asleep. Ice pops. No pants. Snuggling with the kitchen tiles and cool metal pots. So this night I have only just barely managed to drift off when the doorbell wakes me from my slumbers. "Did you ring the buzzer?" I demand of the bewildered firemen. They say no and try to maintain eye contact without looking at the rest of me. I am suddenly aware that I'm not wearing any shoes.

I mean pants.

I adjust the sheet (which, luckily, I have brought) around myself as though that is what I always wear when lounging about the apartment. Yeah, just your casual loungewear. They ask me if our power is out too. I say no, anyway, I have to get my sister. I step around them, bedsheet trailing behind and they tramp up the steps in full firefighting gear, axes, hats, heavy coats, boots... all in a day's work.

UGH. Turns out there is nobody at the door. Go figure. I catch up with the firefighters and try to explain how someone rang the bell and now there is nobody there and I just can't understand it. "Oh... maybe someone was confused and rang the wrong bell," one firefighter suggested helpfully.

We climb up the stairs. Three burly men and the oh so delightful Prancibald. On the second floor they file into the apartment that must have called them there in the first place. It is the recent grads who moved in just last week. They must have caught something on fire with their stove. I wouldn't put it past them. I mean, for RILL? One has her face covered in some sort of opaque cleansing substance and her eyes and mouth are making the same wide, round shape as she stands back from the doorway to allow the firefighters to enter.

"Seriously, get your life together," I think, scornfully, as I return to my apartment and shut the door. Yes, that is right, recent grads. The pantsless, barefooted wonder thinks you need to get your lives together.


Take that.

g-chat

My friend Ellie has spent the summer working on Long Island. I present you this recent online conversation.

E: my mom is coming!

i am waiting for her!

but she is taking so long! and i'm impatient

me: she will be there

make up a story

about a little girl who dropped her cloth doll in the ocean

and then a baby shark found it

E: you always have excellent advice.

If she says it, it is true.

Beauty is Healing

Raven, raven, raven
Oh, tell me why do you dress all in black?

I was so pupped out today after work. I didn't even go to dance class. Instead, I gathered up some special items... blueberries, rye bread, almond butter, an old journal from a couple years ago, that exceedingly impractical glass water bottle I've been lugging all over creation lately... and climbed to the park at the top of the hill to Just. Be. Still.

The air was cool and damp. I spread my belongings under a large oak tree with soft whispering leaves. And tried for a few moments to figure out if these droplets were rain or just very low-lying fog.

It didn't matter, I concluded and wrapped myself up in that brown woolen blanket and breathed and listened and felt and nestled. After a few minutes, I opened the old journal. It struck me, really, how much calmer, more centered I've become, even in the couple years since I wrote that. How much more clarity with which I see things, how much more comfortable I am being myself. What a broken little songbird I was...

As I was leaving, three adults and approximately five kids of different sizes and shades were in the process of launching a rocket driven by vinegar and baking powder or soda or whichever it is. I took my time gathering everything up, in hopes that I would get to witness the launch, but it was taking a long time and I didn't want to be a creeper.

I walked back down the hill with water sloshing around inside that great glass container with every step. As I opened the front door to our building, I noticed how it had grown dark. A sacred dark.

Oak tree, oak tree, oak tree
Oh, take me down where roots begin.

I Bought Lots of Vegetables

Tonight, I made some kale/red cabbage stir fry and ate SO MUCH of it. I am imagining this food is so powerfully good for you... probably because I think I read somewhere that brilliantly-colored food has tons of vitamins or something. Plus, somehow it just FEELS good to eat... like my cells and blood vessels are saying THANK YOU, THANK YOU, KATIE.

Or maybe I just love vegetables?

Here's what I did, in case you want to try to make it yourself (super easy):

1. Cut up the onion into little pieces, cut the red cabbage into slightly bigger pieces, and rip the kale into like medium-sized (?) pieces - maybe like 1/4 to 1/3 the size of your palm...?
2. Cook the onions about halfway in some canola oil.
3. Add the cabbage and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes, and cook until the onions are done.
4. Add the kale and soy sauce and a little bit of water. It is ready when the kale turns a deep green color and is a TINY bit withered. You'll probably have to stir it to get to that point, because otherwise the kale stays on the top and doesn't really cook. This part will happen pretty quick.

You could also do it without the red cabbage. I just had it, so why not use it?

Also, don't overcook either the cabbage or the kale, because it won't be as good. You'll want it to be a little bit crispy.

I used 1 large onion, 1 bunch of kale, and 1/2 head of cabbage. I probably could have stood to use about twice as much kale, because it was a small bunch, and because it cooks down significantly. When you add the kale, it will look like too much, but just add it anyway, and there's a good chance it might not even be enough.

That is all.

One Little Baggie

A couple friends and I went to the beach Saturday (o blessed day!), and there, on our way back to the car, lying in the parking lot, was a sack of dog poop that had been run over. It was squirting out on one side, as though re-pooped by the bag, and the thin layer of poop that remained inside the plastic managed to perfectly preserve the intricate contours of the treads. For some reason this delighted and amused me. Immensely.

I pointed it out to my two friends. Believe it or not, they did not find it as amusing as I did, possibly because their senses of humor are not nearly as subtle OR refined as mine.

What can I say? Squished poop just made me tremendously happy.

So happy that I wished I had brought my camera so I could have posted a photo on One Little Joy.

So happy that just now, two days later, I am still thinking of it on the way up the hill from the train and can tell I am smiling to myself so very broadly. So broadly, in fact, that strangers are looking at me and thinking I am probably in love. Or at least very deeply in like. But, no, silly strangers, I am just thinking of squished excrement.

So happy that, when I pass a poop sack that some irresponsible pet owner has left lying around on this low stone wall, I have the urge to grab it and oh-so-discreetly toss it in front of oncoming traffic. You know, to see if I can reproduce the entire beautiful experience again for myself. But I restrain these impulses.

Because, as you all know, I am the literal embodiment of discipline and self-restraint.

About Time

I just washed ohhh... approximately 63 pairs of underwear.

the Half-pup Prince

I can't wait until the film version of this:
is released in theatres here... only a few more days!

Help me!

I have these song lyrics bouncing around my mind:

caught somewhere between the earth and the sky

Does anyone know from which song that line comes? I tried google, no luck. It might just drive me crazy. Or I might just forget about it.

Anyway, the first half of the week I went camping down the Cape with my immediate family, two cousins, one cousin's daughter, one cousin's husband, and one aunt. It rained pretty much every day and we almost couldn't leave my parents' house because the bottom of their car was dragging.

There was a lot of stuff in the car. Also, Em had flu Type A
(whatever that means) and was quarantined. She had to wear
a face mask in the car and sleep in her own tent. Poor pup!

She was feeling better by the second or third day though.

But finally, finally we got there and set up camp. It was fortunately not raining at that point. Of course it ended up being fun, despite the minor disasters and crying/fighting and rain. I played some more mandolin (I'm getting tons better) and had several good and constructive conversations with assorted family members.

When it wasn't raining, it was misting. Or foggy. There were a
few hours of direct sunlight too.

Campfire fun.

My little* brother and I dug an extensive network of trenches throughout the campsite to channel rainwater away from the tents. This probably makes me lame or a nerd or awesome, but that may have been my favorite part of the whole trip. I felt so purposeful and happy, just digging and digging there with the little trowel, redirecting the water away from the beds of my dear family members following simple universal laws. So, all in all, I say 8.5 out of 10 for family campout this year.

An extensive network of trenches (it was not raining at
the time of this photo, so you cannot see it in action)...

Now this evening I am off to pupwood to visit Julia.

Happy Independence Day! I sort of want to watch that Will Smith movie now for some reason...


*My six-foot tall, going to COLLEGE this fall, little brother...

Nearly every day

I loved Rachel's idea. So here are my items.

• Eat vegetables

• Touch something green and alive with my bare skin

• Play mandolin or add songs to the song book

• Say something kind to somebody

• Spend 45 minutes outside

• Restore order to one thing
  

• Hug someone

• Draw a picture
  

or a doodle

or write one word really beautifully

Also:

• Sleep

• Go to work

• Eat breakfast

• Remember keys, phone, and T pass
  

Train Operator

Over the intercom came the sound of the driver's hearty voice:

Park Streeeeeeet - have a nice day.
Sunshiiiiiiiiiiiiine is on its way.

And the meteorologists seem to agree with him. If their forecasts are accurate, I think a lot of people in Boston will be crying tears of joy tomorrow. I honestly cannot remember the last time I felt the sun.

You know somebody is in a good mood when he makes the effort to RHYME.

Local

Beth and I went to Allston street fair, and it was amazing.

We saw the local band Bad Ash, which had the #1 most sincerely awesome drummer in the nation, and all the hipsters showed up in their best skinny jeans with their largest gauge earrings and their trucker hats and suspenders and cigarettes.

Oh and we got free organic salad greens. Seriously now, what more could anyone ask for?

Alive

I was walking in the park during lunch break Thursday, sort of replaying some bad things that happened this week, when a thought came into my mind, "I am alive." This realization was followed by a couple others "I can walk. I have an entire, beautiful body comprised of billions of cells. I am aware of things. What a miracle. Alive."

Think about that for a moment.

You. Are. Alive.

What are the implications of that statement? Just think about it. It will blow your mind.