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.

Floods, Finals, France: My past, present, and future (despite the unbearable cheesy-ness of that line).

I have been unabashedly busy since my last post a week or so ago. I realized only Wednesday last week that it was the last week of classes, which threw me into a tizzy to finish grading all the backlog of papers I had yet to grade. Then I realized that my entire schedule for the next week (this week) was going to be all out of whack due to final examinations. Thankfully, I'll be down with proctoring and etc. by Wednesday, so I can devote my time to more pressing matters, because despite my fervent planning and scheduling, I lapsed and forgot that in 6 days I'll be on a plane flying over the ocean and staying there for 8 weeks. Yeah, I'm feeling a little stressed out. 

Thankfully, however, the rain has stopped. For the entire week, last week, my days were hindered by the intermittent downpours of spring rain, causing both the front and back lawn to flood (my greenhouse had at least 12 inches of water flooded in the bottom of it). Then afterwards, when the sun would deceivingly poke out from behind the clouds, the temperature would spike to above 80 degrees and the air would become thick with  muggy humidity and buzzing bugs. 

Well, anyways, I have to go into the lab tonight, again. I have to start shutting everything down, for the most part, during my leave over the summer holiday. I would rather that I not get stuck Thursday or Friday night dealing with it, because that would most undoubtedly ruin my week. 

The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.

It's raining, again, which is not exactly . . . cool? 

I want to run around outside with out getting mud on my socks.

But I can't. 

Obviously. 

So, now, I am going to stay inside and load up on carbs.

And sugar. 

And berry-goodness.

Because I've made some pretty awesome pancakes.

And it would be a shame to let them waste. 

Formidable dark clouds, Norwegian jazz, and the splatter on window panes.

After yesterday's post, I began to hear the tornado/storm sirens going off from the outskirts of the city. The formidable dark clouds approached, thunder boomed, and I ran frantically through each room of the house shutting all the windows so that I wouldn't have to clean up a mess of rainwater when the storm passed. Today, it is raining again, minus the thunder and lightning bolts; instead, just kind of that lazy Monday rain, a downpour just enough to make the sky hazy and distant, but not so torrential as to make one afraid of stepping outside. 

Its kind of nice, in that serene, quiet kind of way. The house is silent, settled. John's bumbling about in his studio, listening to Norwegian jazz . . . Arild Andersen  or something or the other. . . I can hear the resounding melodies of the bass. I can smell the thick scent of oil paint, linseed, and canvas, maybe a splash of turpentine, drifting its aroma from the room. It's enough to give you a headache, so I hope he opened a window. 

I'm in the dining room/kitchen. I can hear and see the splatters of rain hitting the window panes of the kitchen ceiling. I'm debating whether I want to chop up a couple tomatoes and make a marinade. Pasta sounds delicious right now . . . or steak . . . which is weird. I usually never consciously want steak. Must be the jazz, it throws off my moods. 

Picnic!

The cleaning is over. Now I'm settled in with a nice bottle of wine, grapes, and cheese, sitting outside on the patio, and watching some most disturbing stormclouds make their way across the horizon. They'll be here soon, and I'll have to go back inside to the smell of bleach and clean, unless I want to get wet. 

I should probably take the cheese in before it rains. It'd be a shame if it was ruined. 

Cleaning before a trip to France.

I've spent the bulk of the morning cleaning. I'm leaving for France in less three weeks now, and I woke up this morning with the feeling that I shouldn't leave the house in disarray when I go and I won't have any other time from here to then to clean it. Of course, John will be around over the summer, but I kind of feel guilty leaving him to live in a mess. Anyways, I should go, I've mixed up a bleach solution and am going to sanitize all the surfaces in the kitchen. Then, I'm going strip down the wood floors to buff, polish, and wax them. Fun!

The air smells like onions, wild onions.

The air smells like onions, wild onions.
I don't really like the smell, maybe because I don't really like onions.
It's the texture . . . the kind of slimy, kind of crunchy, feel.
I suppose I should shut the windows then, to get rid of it. 

But afterwards, what will happen when the odor leaves.

I'll no longer be able to waft in the smell of magnolias and redbud blossoms. 

Fragrant tulips and the smell of green grass along a fresh cut lawn. 

Ah, maybe I'll just deal. 

The Perfect Hiking Tunes.

This is what I've been listening to lately, especially while hiking. It has that feeling, you know, mellow and good for the soul. Try it out sometime.

There must be some way out of here, said the joker to the thief. There's too much confusion, I cant get no relief.

Well, I'm not in the best of moods. I just got back from backpacking down south and am thoroughly sunburned. Being the type of person I am, forgetful and all, I forgot my bottle of sunscreen (and incidentally my bottle of aloe as well), and as it would happen I was camping/hiking in a region seemingly devoid of life, so I thought naught of driving the 20-30 mile distance to get some. I should have made the drive, thinking now, as I aspect the spreading red whelp-like areas covering my shoulders, arms, legs, and feet. Luckily, I thought to bring a hat, so my face was spared. 

The hiking was great. I took the break as I chance to be alone, without worrying about being bothered by colleagues at work or John at home. After my last post on Wednesday I went back into the lab, finished my work for the week. Then, quite rashly and without plan, I left town. I didn't need to pack because I still had all and any gear in my car, from the trips down to the Gulf (apparently though I removed the sunscreen from vehicle, how thoughtless). This rashness of course sent John into a tizzy when I never came home, but he's gotten over it. 

I just had to got out of there. Leave town for a bit to grab a hold of my bearings. The hiking did the job. There's something about standing cliff side, overlooking a ridge that puts life into perspective. Of course, there's also something about sleeping on the rocky ground and playing at being neighbors with the local wildlife that puts life into perspective as well. 

Anyways, I should go and catch some sleep. Tomorrow I need to get around to caring more about the will of things in the garden. If the weather turns out nice, by the middle of May I'll be planting in beds the beginnings of my strawberry patch that I've already started from seed. Also the greenhouse is yielding for me some tomatoes, peppers, a variety of herbs and spices, and not to mention a fortitude of berry plants. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited. 

There is always time for pie.

I've been able to to post the frequencies of my life these past couple of weeks (I'm not including my last post into the mix, because quit frankly it was a spattering, to make myself feel as if I've been keeping up to date). Work has become more busy. I spent the last two weekends (Thursday-Sunday) on down at the Gulf (of California) doing field work and then for the weekdays (Monday-Thursday) in the lab, running samples and punching data sets. I'm not complaining per se, but it's exhausting. Throw in a bunch of students and homework problems, and I'm left with no time at all to compose my thoughts. Today, at least I got a break to leave early and have spent the afternoon in the garden, tending to my seed sprouts, listening to bearable music, and making strawberry tart (and naturally then, eating a bit). 

It looks yummy, huh? Well, that's because it is. Ha. 

Bitch, please!

I've been a tad bit busy the past week, with you know life and all that jazz. I'll give you the scoop on it all later, for now I need to catch up on some much needed sleep. I'm running on two hours and that just doesn't sit well with me. 

Oh, and I realize I still need to post another mix for the month. I'll get around to it sometime. 

I can't think of fitting title, so here you go:

I've been listening to The Pogues nonstop since last evening. I finally had enough sense to remember to pull the final season of The Wire to the top of my Netflix queue, and it reminds me of The Pogues . . . mainly because they're frequently part of the show's soundtrack. Anyways, I watched the show back on HBO (before the series ended) and have been having this strong urge to play through the entire series for a while now. It must be something about the whole gritty Baltimore crime/drug drama thing that gets to me. I suppose it really fits that void of "danger and questionable activity" in my far too wholesome life.

Oh, well. I suppose I should go . . . long day and all that jazz. I don't have work until 3, so I'm going to mill around until then I guess . . . maybe go in early, to get a head start. Wait, no I won't. 

"Too Cute" : Why I never thought I would find myself writing those words.

I went on a sort of a baking frenzy this weekend. I was in one of those modes and after very little coaxing by friends baked up all these goodies for a birthday party. They're mostly cupcakes of different varieties, along with the cake . . . and I even splurged whipped up a tray of marzipan candies (yum)! The party went over fine. It was for my friend, Anna, whom thought that maybe the idea of formal birthday party was a little childish for someone her age, but I told her quite firmly to suck it up. We should all enjoy the spoils of childhood, even if we're in our late twenties (or acting even more middle-aged). Of course, I naturally just enjoyed it because dessert decorating to overly fun . . . and well, I don't know many people with children for whom I could bake decorated treats for, so I substitute  for proper adults that have no sense of idyllic joy. 

I suppose the photos really brighten up the page. Sheesh, everything looks so . . . cute. It's as if I need to add a couple photos of some kitties and puppies to really complete this post.

Yeah, I don't think that that is going to happen. 

Staring up into the solar system, all the stars are fixed up in the sky. I just want to sparkle for a moment, before I just fizzle out and die.

The week is almost over. The weekend is almost here. 

Please, feel my most joyful exhalations. 

It did not rain today.

Make yourself comfortable, for me, I took off my shoes, changed into some cotton clothing. Surround yourself with the most inviting of smells. I put on a put on a pot of strong fragrant masala chai, stirred ingredients of fruit and pastry into the perfect scone, and watch it bake, filling the room with warmth. Add the final touch, put your mood on play. Today, I was feeling a little Tegan and Sara "Under Feet Like Ours," as it had the feeling of female strength and acoustical rhythm. Then, lie down on your back and close your eyes for as long as needed. Hopefully, when you open them again you will be relaxed, calm, and content. 

I keep having the feeling like I haven't been listening to anything worthwhile lately, probably because I've been stuck in the attitude that I haven't done anything worthwhile as of late. However, today, for once, I did not have that feeling. I don't know if exercise served it's purpose or otherwise, but everything came together, the world stopped spinning, and it was just about the best feeling in the world. 

My dog was lost but now he's found.

My nap/supposed "deep" sleep didn't last long. I was awoken by John who in a stated of confusion and sheer orneriness (I'm doubting the validity of this word, but the root of it describes so well), woke me. He was not alone. Our neighbor, whom I've never met before, was with him (and looking quite frightening as well, dressed in thick boots and carrying a large shovel). Apparently he wanted to chat (quite angrily) with us about our dogs and thought the presence of his large forbearing shovel/(murder weapon) might intimidate us. 

The hilarity in the situation is that, after being lectured for about an hour and half without pause or opening to say a word about our obnoxious animals, I had to politely (or politely as I could), "Sir, this is a grave situation indeed, because we do not own any dogs. Or any animal of the sort. We must be having a ghostly situation here, or you're just crazy. Now please leave, before I have to threaten you with my shovel." I think I angered him. But, really, the man was a little out of line. I mean if I really did own a canine, after he said he was going "beat it dead," I think I would have been a little more irrational. 

Anyways, Seattle. It was . . . more enjoyable as the week progressed. Still rainy, still a little boring for my taste, but overall okay. I saw my father, and he obviously didn't look so hot, with the whole about to die thing going on. I saw my brothers, all four of them (Septimus, Julian, Noel, Peter) and stayed with them, alternating throughout the week. They really made me think about and appreciate why I left with my mother, when moved from Vancouver to Chicago when I was a young teen. I don't have much in common with them, I think. 

I'll post more photographs of the actual city later. For now you'll just have to enjoy photos of my family and their far too luxurious homes. I mean really, what's the deal? Why do I feel so lower-class when I'm around them? Oh right, maybe because I am, in comparison.