Hmm, a thought, or so to say a death.

I realize that I've been a little out of touch with this blog lately. Well, not lately, mostly since the summer, when everything in my life became so hustled and busy. Now, it is the end of the semester and I've been at my wits end trying to get everything graded and completed. In two more weeks, I'll be on a flight to Montreal to wash away my troubles with good company and unbelievable amounts of lutefisk. And maybe then, if everything works out, I'll pick up writing again. For now, this blog will remain dead.

Household Cleaners, Spare Spaces, and a Missing Honda: Why I am giving up on welcoming strangers into my home.

So, after I came back from Europe in the summer, I got a little crazy and decided to rent out a couple of rooms in the house put less pressure on myself for the upkeep. Before it was just John and I, but we have since added two more people. The first was Dmetris, who moved in all the way back in August. He's a new grad student on campus and was looking for a place to stay, and I offered, naturally, after knowing him for only a couple of hours. This judgement has worked out on my part because, he's a wonderful housemate (even better than John) and acts as a live-in cleaner, for when I do not have the time to pick up after myself.

Since this decision worked out so well and because we had another available room, I decided mid-September to take on another housemate who needed a place to stay. She has not worked out so well and of course last night I was tasked with the awkward position of telling her she would half to move out by the end of the month. Of course, John and Dmetris has been pushing me to give her the boot since the beginning of October, but I thought if I delayed it they might forget about it and I wouldn't have to feel so badly about booting someone to the curb. However, things just got to a point where I couldn't deal with her anymore.

At first it was just the little things that bugged me (and I suppose the others as well). She was a little confrontational and combative, which made everything a struggle. I mean the second night after she moved in she threw a tiff about my cooking habits, relaying quite adamantly that I should prepare meals the whole house would enjoy, not just to satisfy the whims of my taste buds. It was kind of irksome.

Then, she started "borrowing" things. First, it was just pencils, paper, books. She didn't ask, and since they were such menial things I didn't bother to say much. Second, it was clothes, scarves, and coffee mugs. She didn't ask, and since they didn't were just aesthetic things I didn't bother to say much. Third, it was flash drives, printers, and laptops. She didn't ask, and I got a little angry. I mean any reasonable person would, when they go into their office and realize someone has taken off with their laptop without leaving a note. So, I gave her the "leave-my-personal-belongings-alone-speech" and she pretended to listen and agree.

So, Saturday, I wake up. For the day, I'd planned to go the market with John and then we were going to head out west a little for a day of hiking and picnicking to enjoy the splendor of the arrival of fall. I get everything packed up, hiking boots, picnic basket, yummy delights. Then we leave, or at least we were about to. As we walked out the door, down the front steps, and along the pathway, I realized something: my car was missing. Frantic, thinking my nearly new Honda Insight has been boosted, run through the list to possibilities, while interrogating a sleepy Dmetris about its whereabouts. Then we get a phone call. It's her. She's been in an automobile accident where she reared-ended someone at a stoplight, and of course, she wasn't in her vehicle, but mine.

Let's just say, she got booted immediately once the tow truck brought her and my slightly dented car home. Then I had her cut me a check for the damages. Anyways, thats what I dealt with this weekend. Afterwards, on my semi-anger driven buzz I made some excellent spinach quiche, put on some Sonic Youth, and made a day of it.

Eating brussel sprouts and cleaving my eye with a meat tenderizer: Why I've become a shut in for the day.

AH! I need a break, really.

It seems I've broke out with another outbreak of shingles in my eye. I first noticed it Friday morning when I was putting my contacts in and I felt this abnormal scratching pain from the contact of the lens with my retina. I didn't think much about it, I just popped the contact out and wore my glasses. But then, the next morning, on Saturday, I woke up to find a rash of sores beginning to form underneath my eye and along my eyelid. Right now, let's just say, my eye is not a pretty sight. I look like I've been smacked in the eye with a meat tenderizer and then went for a roll in cornflakes . . . kind of gross really.

So, in light of this, I've taken the day off of work, school, and life. I'm going to become a vegetable, until I feel like I can deal with everything. In the meanwhile, I've put myself on a diet of Vitamin C, since apparently it helps the healing process. But no, I will not be drinking orange juice and etc. I hate oranges. I'm going more of the broccoli and brussel sprouts route . . . and I'm cutting tea out of my diet, since it inhibits absorption.

I've totally set my self up for a great day nonetheless. I put on The Hold Steady at about nine this morning and don't plan on changing it anytime soon, unless of course John comes home and I'm forced to change it to fit his mood (which in any case equals jazz). Tomorrow, I might go into work, if I'm feeling up for all of the comment about how awful I look. But for now, I'm feeling, I don't know, shut in?

The Gap in Time.

It has been awhile . . . what can I say? I've been spending so many of my nights piled to the top with work and problems, that I sort of forgot to post anything new. It will probably remain this way for the bulk of the future. I just thought I would drop a line and let you know I'm not dead.

Picked tomatoes, turkey sandwiches, Gilgamesh in the garden, and a housecleaner named Dmetris.

These are the views, as of late, from my life:

Quite quaint really, huh?

We have been bringing in quite a haul of tomatoes this season. It's seems we can't pull them off the plants fast enough, and better yet, we aren't having the aphid attacks my gardens are normally so predisposed for, so most of the veggies look healthy and bug-free. Now that the semester had begun again, and work is beginning to become the bane of my existence, I've been spending as much time as possible outside.

Gilgamesh, my cat, has naturally been making up for all the time we spent apart over the summer holiday. She now has picked of the knack of following my everywhere, standing directly behind me when I pause from walking, and mewing quite loudly when accidentally topple over her because of this. My other cat, Kawacatoose, seems to still only care about one thing: food.

I should go now, I have a class to be at in a couple of hours and I want to get some lab work in before that. I'm hoping that in a couple of weeks the rush of the beginning of the semester will have faded and my life will have gotten back to a more paced schedule.

On a side note, I'm also hoping the temperatures will begin to drop soon. I feel like I'm melting outside.

Love is like a bottle of gin, but a bottle of gin is not like love.

As some might have realized, I've been on a Magnetic Fields kick. I've had the "69 Love Songs" (Parts I, II, and III) on nonstop for the past two weeks. There's something about the drone of the lyrical . . . romance that fits my state of being for the past weeks. In two days, the new semester begins and it is back to the grindstone for me. I've marked out my schedule, however, to suit a person of my stress level with nice compact breaks for power naps and sack lunches. We'll see how it works out. I resumed running lab work from all fieldwork over the summer last week, which began to allow my stress and workload meter rise.

I've straightened out everything here at the house, though, or at least straightened it enough out of the odd pit that it fell into under John's sole care during the summer. He spent most of his time in the studio, without bothering for much of anything while I was away. So, after I readjusted to time differences (finally) I began to wipe up the coats of dusts that covered everything, pulled all of the brambles out of the garden, and even repainted the outside of the house, an act done on whim. It's now a . . . fanciful blue, mellow like the sky.

Anyways, I should go. I took a pie out of the oven a while ago and am now hankering for a taste.

Yeah! Oh, Yeah!

Some day soon, I might feel like writing something a tad bit more substantial. But for now, I'd rather not.

Home. Naps. Greenhouse Plants. Tomatoes.

I have been home for almost two weeks now, most of the time during which I have slept in some form or the other. It's seems that after a summer of working, traveling, and being abnormally busy, I've become prone to napping every couple hours. There are two more weeks until classes and work resume again, so I'm just kind of loping around. Between naps I have been trying to remedy the garden situation that has become weed-ridden and overgrown in my absence.

I'll write more about the trip, Pitchfork, and photographs later. For now, I'm going to get my socks dirty by running outside and mucking around in the mud/dirt. I'm going to transplant all of the plants I have growing amok in the greenhouse right now into their rightful positions in the lawn. My beefsteak tomatoes are becoming too big for the plants and are about to force it to break apart and die. Woe is them.

The needle has landed.

I am no longer venturing Europe. As of late yesterday evening I arrived back in Chicago. John was nice enough to pick me up from the airport, so I didn't have to get a lift from a taxi. I have to say it feels weird being here, especially that for the first time in weeks, I'm using English in gratuitous amounts. Anyways, I haven't written in a while, Graz was lovely. Bad Ischl was nice as well . . . as were all the friends I spent time in the company of. For now, I'm going to spend the rest of the weekend enjoying some great music and festivities at Pitchfork. I'll write later with more words and photographs.

"I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations, nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine."

Computer crashed and burned. Don't know why or how, but I'm going to have to have the IT guys look at it when I get home. I'm only thanking the heavens that I didn't send my Toughbook home express shipped with all of my other stuff. I guess it is always great to have a backup. By the way, Graz is lovely. Bad Ischl will be even better.

"There's no reality except the one contained within us."

I reached Graz yesterday. I'm staying with friends of mine and will be here for about another week before I leave to stay for another week in Bad Ischl. Then it'll be a hop and a skip over to Salzburg for the beginning route of a long flight home . . . and then Pitchfork! which I am completely excited for right now, among other things. John phoned earlier to tell me that the bulk of my belongings that I shipped home (quite expensively) via express delivery have arrived finally. I was worried about it the entire time I traveled through Italy . . . thinking about the costs of having to replace the bulk of my wardrobe and many of the other essential life items that I brought with me to France.

Well, I've put the Drive-by-Truckers on and am going to go and mull in a bath, then I think Katharina (the friend I'm staying with) and I are going to bake a quiche. There's something about the rolling beat of southern-rock that makes me want to bake a quiche . . . and Kathe, she's a baking frenzy. I suppose that's why we get along.

On the Road.

I'm on the road. I left France one day ago and have been travelling since. I spent most of the day in Genova, along the coast of Italy. I was not looking forward to leaving the sea, so I stayed as long there as I could. Tonight I'll be staying in Milan, and then tomorrow I'll be heading back to the coast . . . I'm thinking Trieste. By Wednesday, I'll be in Graz, Austria . . . hopefully.

"Things are the way they are because they were the way they were."

Apparently, this a week of accomplishments. Surpassing yesterday's achievement, today, Wednesday, three days before I pack up all my gear and leave France, I successfully managed to boot up field equipment that has been obstinately refusing to work properly for our entire time here. Even more, is the fact that I spent a reserve of funds replacing the faulty equipment, when nothing was really wrong with it in the first place. Yeah, kind of disappointing.

My other accomplishment for the day, is that I successfully, only hours ago, gave the worst presentation of my life. Most would not think it an accomplishment, but I feel I need to be a tad bit more enthusiastic about it, to make myself feel better. I mean, I was speaking in French and about something that I didn't really know much about (because it was forced upon me at the last second) and halfway through there were some major technical issues . . . so, I had to perform from memory thereon after.

I'm going to go and stew for now. Field work is over, for me at least. So I get to run figures and data sets (woot) . . . which basically is code for: I'm going to put on a pot of tea, some tunes, and take a long bath before everyone comes in from the field an starts up another . . . ruckus.

"I like reality. It tastes like bread."

I have just now, successfully, programmed the wireless connection between my laptop and my portable printer. I forgot the attaching cable en route to France, and have, with only a few days remaining, accomplished what I've been trying to do for the entirety of these six weeks. Go me.

There's burnt "something" in the quiche pan downstairs. I think it caught on fire.

The burning thing . . . somebody left something in the oven far too long. I write "something" rather than what it was because, it caught fire and was charred beyond recognition. I'm going to guess a quiche of some sort. The odd thing is that I'm the only person in the house right now . . . so whoever put it in there left the premise, completely forgetting about their . . . something. This talk of foodstuffs puts me in the mood to post the two most yummy things I've had lately.

Delicious, right? That's what I thought. I'd whip something half as good right now, but I have to first figure out how the rid the house of the smell of burnt something . . . without making the smell worse. Maybe I'll just close the bedroom door (so I don't/won't have to worry about it) and make someone deal with it (and the severe pan washing the quiche pan will have to undergo) in the morning . . . yeah, maybe.

Firecracker, firecracker, I will not complain at all, I will never be tricked by you.

I've been listening to Voxtrot all evening. It's something about the dulcet tones . . . calming, somehow. Anyways, we're leaving the French coast in ten days. It saddens me, to know that in such a short time I'll be leaving the blue coastline that was my home for the six weeks or so of a summer. Well, I should sleep and dream peacefully . . . and of course post more photographs.

I smell something burning . . . which signals to me that it is time to leave. One of the housemates is probably about to burn us all down. Really, I don't know how these people ever survive in their normal day to day lives, especially seeing how they've acted since we've been here. One would think they'd have already accidentally already brought ruin upon themselves. Sheesh, really . . . ha.

What are words compared to photographs?

8 Chinese brothers, well, there's a reason why the last is smiling wide and sitting higher than the others, stinking with charm.

I've spent the weekend on the coast of Corsica. It was a nice break, being there in sparse company without the pains of the entire group of my housemates. I realized during my stay there, rolling on the beach and enjoying the blue of the sea, that my stay in France is almost over. Our study in the sea is almost complete, with the team wrapping up most of the sample collection next week. Then it'll be a short time before I pop my belongings back into their suitcase for the trip back to my other more permanent home. I'm, of course, not going to be travelling straight home (I love the joys of adventure far too much) and will be voyaging through Italy to Austria for a bit to visit friends made during the years I lived there. It makes me excited to know that I'll actually me able to talk again in person to the people that I've been maintaining solely a electronic relationship with since I moved back to the US. 

Anyways, I'll post more photos soon. I'm not quite in the mood for it today. I've been playing Wilco nonstop lately. I suppose it reminds me (somehow) of how I'm barely going to make it home for the Pitchfork music festival in July. I kind of can't wait for it. My flight home after a short tour of Europe (mainly just Austria) will land me in Chicago the day before the festival begins, upon whence I'll be meeting up with John and all other sorts of old college friends to stay in my mother's old residence (mine now, I suppose) that I rent out to said old college friends upon the agreement that I can live there for five days each year. 

I should stop writing, I hear quite a ruckus starting up downstairs. Hopefully, it's nothing. I think after being cramped up with so many people for such a period has made some of the housemates . . . stir-crazy. They have now become short-tempered and quick to pick fights. Hopefully, it's only a short term change. I couldn't deal with them if the change is permanent. 

La parole nous a été donnée pour déguiser notre pensée.

I have a feeling this will be the first post of many. Maybe not, if I begin to feel lazy, in the future. I only yet realized that by the end of the week I will be halfway through my stay here. So, I suppose I should capture every moment . . . well, maybe not. Anyways, I should go and sleep, or at least try to despite the awkward desire of my body to stay awake. For once I am not glad I am not at home, for John called today to say that it had been raining nonstop and that the lawn was flooded once more, including a bit of puddling in his darkroom in the basement . . . he sent pictures . . . which were quite devastating. I mean really, who enjoys looking at flood damage? For now, the house it quiet (a first really) and I think I will put on some more tea and heat up some toast. Maybe then sleep will greet me. 

Coffee, Tea, and some Bonnie "Prince" Billy.

Bonnie "Prince" Billy makes me unbelievably happy. 

Pictures are still on hiatus. I have 900+ to sift through. 

It might take a while, obviously.

I've put on a pot of tea that is boiling over. 

I better go and save it from disaster. 

Greek pizza is baking in the oven and it smells wonderful. 

Yum. 

Why I feel so . . . disheveled and disarrayed.

I know I haven't been writing much lately, since I always seem to have my hands full with the menial busywork that has become my life. Of course, naturally, France is still beautiful and the sea is still . . . well a big sea, but as it turns out living with a group of my colleagues isn't exactly like living at home. In my own house, my subtle disarray is made up of contained, tumbled book and folder piles. However, here, nothing is contained. I spend my days out at sea in the field and in the lab, and at night I spend them trying to tame the wild mess that has become our once quaint villa. It is unbelievably nerve-wracking.

Well, anyways, I am uploading my photographs now and will get around to posting them later. For now, I need to sleep. I won't have any work, but paperwork to do tomorrow, because some of our equipment isn't working in the field and their going to spend most of the day recalibrating and configuring it. I opted to not help out, which was probably selfish and spiteful of me, but who cares?

My new home for the next six weeks: The French coast.

I feel like I haven't slept in nearly three days . . . which is probably due to the fact that I haven't slept in nearly three days, with exception for those variable 30 minute to a hour power naps that I've been surviving off of. The last I wrote it was the beginning of finals week, nearing the end of the semester. Now the semester is over, I've packed up life and gear needed for my six week stay on the coast of France in Villefranche-sur-Mer. After finally arriving, spending most of the day moving into the small coastal villa my colleagues and I are renting for the summer, I feel completely drained. The house is quaint, too small for the eight people that are now living in it, but homey. I'll post pictures as soon as possible. Since I still haven't bothered to unpack most of my luggage, my camera is still lost somewhere in the middle of one of my suitcases.

Tomorrow we'll get to work, survey the site, compile materials, etc. Our study site is quite few miles away, offshore, so it will be quite a ride out on the boat to get there. Anyways, France is lovely, as usual. My French is still quite rough (even after all of those vigorous lessons), but nonetheless I'm the best speaker so I have to translate for my coworkers quite a bit, which is going to become a hassle. For now, I'm going to put on a pot a tea, and settle in for a nice long nap . . . the dark circles settling under my eyes are most unbecoming.