Thursday, August 28, 2008

Sweet sorrow

cat

I'm in limbo right now. Chilling in SF, except I really haven't been chilling at all. I've been running around like a crazy person. Mostly I've been working at Castle In The Air
and then catching up with friends. I need to do all sorts of stuff like buy a backpack, and book a room in Fiji, but I've gotten so sad about leaving that I haven't dealt with any of it. I did manage to change my address with everyone I could possibly imagine would need my address. Unfortunately, I missed Netflix on the first go around. Those people are way too efficient. Ironic because I finally got my act together to send back the movies I've had since May 2007. (Remember, I promised this wouldn't be a blog about how much I have my life together.) I think this down time before the trip was a bad idea. It's left me with far too much time to wonder: whose idea was this anyway?

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Cold Showers

it seems my habit of taking extremely hot showers is making my skin itch. i know the best things in life are always bad for you. suntanning. bacon. tobacco. crack cocaine. french fries. but seriously folks - now i can't even take hot showers? this is apropos of exactly nothing, except i have a blog now, so i think i'm supposed to rant.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Moving #2

Moving stings. Specifically, bashing my knuckles open on my apartment building's stucco walls while carrying heavy boxes stings. Plus cardboard box cuts (paper cut's big, evil, bully of a cousin). However, having friends like Malina, John, Kyle and Sara warms my heart. They all devoted part of their Sunday to helping lift heavy things. Kyle was mostly on the disabled list, but that didn't stop her from creating an awesome spreadsheet that tells me which lender to use for the next round of student loans. (Which also sting.)

We managed to fit everything into a single storage crate, which was a fairly spectacular feat of engineering. Except my dresser and my bike. Luckily, the dresser was a free gift from Craigslist which went back on the street to continue spreading the love, and the bike has hopefully found a home for the quarter with an entering Anderson student. Ah, community. Meanwhile, the virtuoso forklift driver is here now to pick up the crates, so we'll see if he comes knocking on the door telling me I over packed and the floor has dropped out of the unit.



I'm feeling nostalgic about leaving LA. The weather here has been gorgeous! Saturday's picnic turned out beautifully. We got to the beach a little before sunset, and enjoyed our feast as the sky turned colors. It definitely got cool quickly once the sun went down, but nowhere near the bone-chilling temperatures of San Francisco. I hate to admit it, but the weather here really is noticeably, quality-of-life-improvingly better. Oh well, time to drive to SF. Actually, first it's time to see if all my stuff fits in the little car while leaving me enough room to drive to SF.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Moving is teh suck, but I has a new camera!

In an unsurprising fit of procrastination, I'm choosing to figure out how to upload photos rather than keep packing. Behold the crates my life will fit into:
I'm also procrastinating by making panzanella (bread salad was what I called it until yesterday when I went looking for a recipe) for the beach picnic Malina and John invited me to this evening. Below are the heirloom tomatoes [Celia likes gratuitous links]


that I bought at the Santa Monica farmers' market this morning. This is the first time I've been to the Saturday market. It's a lot more utilitarian, less of a scene than the Sunday version. I'd prefer it, except the bread guy gave me attitude when I wanted a baguette.




Anyway, time to go back to packing. This is what my room looks like right now:

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Dispatch #1

I have very mixed feelings about starting a blog. It seems like there's all sorts of etiquette to worry about, like who to link to, or what template to use. Not to mention security concerns -
will the entire internet have access to my life now? Plus, isn't posting the details of my life for everyone to see a little exhibitionist? All these concerns notwithstanding, it seems blogs are here to stay and it's time for me to accept that. And although I am in no way a sophisticated consumer of the medium, in the past several months, blogs have become an increasingly important procrastination tool for me. Thanks in part to Jeremy and Rakefet, and Tom. And also to Orangette, where I was referred by my friend Malina.

It was actually this last that sparked the idea of finally blogging myself. I am about to leave for three months in Sydney, Australia.
My family and friends (that's you, I hope) are all spread out, and I've been trying to figure out how to stay in touch. When I studied abroad in college, I used to spend hours in internet cafes, composing endless, poetic, heartfelt odes, usually with two results. Either I would send the email and then return daily, even hourly, eagerly anticipating a response, only to hear back "sounds great, I'm fine". Or the computer would freeze just before I could hit send, and then I'd wind up writing "I'm great, hope you're fine". So rather than repeat past trauma, I'm hoping to post my adventures and photos here. Check back regularly.

Hopefully, this will work as a way to stay in touch, although you are all going to join Skype as well if I have anything to say about it (I'm CeliaSF). I also plan to use this as a propaganda tool to convince you all to come visit. However, I can promise that this will not become an advertisement for how perfect and precious my life is. Because as much as I admire the food that Orangette cooks, and the beauty of her romance with her husband, reading about it this Tuesday night just made me mad. Besides, my life is just too messy.

I leave LA on Monday, August 25, 2008. I return on Sunday, January 4, 2009. All that happens in between will hopefully wind up here. Which means I need to go buy a camera. Any recommendations?