Crash, Burn, and then Crash again: Why I reget most things in my life?

John just took me out for ice cream as an attempt to cork my muddled feelings towards my eldest brother. It turns out that, after a long, taxing, uncomfortable conversation with him, we will not be staying with him and his wife in Seattle. Instead we will be staying at my more laid-back middle brother Noel's pad. He's out of town for the summer, but is going to let us crash. So where I would normally bake myself into oblivion after such a hassle, John fixed everything for me. Grape and caramel are always the solutions to happiness.

So yeah, sorting that out has been a pain, but a little ice cream and sweetness sorted everything out.

Seattle? Again?

So, yeah. Septimus was declared stable enough to be transferred up to Seattle, where he will undergo intensive inpatient rehabilitation. Pretty sweet for him, though I doubt he realizes it yet due to the extensive drugs still running through his system. For me, I just keep questioning my sanity in actually, willingly, booking my flight to the northeast and calling my eldest brother (and by-far the most perturbing) to say that John and I would be spending the rest of the summer term with him. Please, lob me over the head now.

On the plus side, I just found out that sometime in the next year's future The Strokes will be releasing a new album. So, at least I have to wait for in the future.

Still in Colorado, waiting.

I am still in Colorado, waiting. For the most part, I have still been spending my day times hanging around waiting rooms, cafeteria nooks, and dormant hallways, as a way to pass the time I am not spending visiting my unconscious drugged-out brother. When I am not a hangabout, I am sleeping via pill on the lumpy bed at one of John's relatives holiday cabins in the mountains. I suppose I shouldn't complain about since, staying at the cabin in the woods makes it so I don't have to pay for a hotel bed that wouldn't rank much higher on the comfort scale.

On the plus side, I am getting some great mountain time in that I would have otherwise been without. This weekend, I'm going mountain biking with some old college friends, and well, I'm hoping sometime next week to get out on the water. Otherwise, I will be stuck on the inside in the perfectly filtered sterile air of the hospital. Dreary, I know.

A flight and a kayak.

So yeah. It has been a . . . say. . . frustrating four days since my last post of photographs and wishes of music festivals. Later that evening, I received a phone call from informing me, that as my brother's emergency contact, I was being notified that he was in critical condition after sustaining injuries during an automobile accident, such that he was airlifted to the nearest trauma center in Colorado. Naturally, all of this news hit me at once, namely, because I hadn't spoken to Septimus in weeks, only vaguely remembering him mentioning that he would be Colorado in early July. So, there I was, only half unpacked from my latest adventure, running madly about the house throwing my suitcase contents back in place, while John, the dear, booked us the next available flight.

A plane ride and a rental car later, I'm sitting in an ICU waiting room being bored to death. Septimus has made a turnabout towards recovery, my other brothers in Seattle keep calling, harassing me about not being responsible enough to notify them, which was done purposefully to prevent an unwelcomed "hospital reunion" that my frazzled nerves would not have withstood.

So yeah, I might not make it to Pitchfork this year and well, I'll be crossing most other adventures off of my to-do list. Of course, I know it might not seem sisterly of me, but I might try and squeeze in some white-water kayaking while I'm here, something I think my brother might appreciate.

A brief overview.

Here are a few photographs to sate your curiosity:

I might post more later . . . or I might not. I'm leaving for Pitchfork in like a week, so I might get a bit caught in the rapidness of my life, as I always seem to do.

Back from the West.

Well, what can I say? I arrived back home two days ago deeply tanned, sunburned, and completely worn down. It took me yesterday (and most of today) to recover. Trip was awesome. Hiking was strenuous. Camping was exciting. John drove (mostly) and I picked out the soundtracks of our journey. Took a lot of photographs that if I ever get around to it will be posted . . . at some point. Wore out my hiking boots such that I'm going to have to go and have them resoled. Anyways, I just thought I'd, you know, let you know I'm not dead.

An ending that, naturally, comes with a vacation.

Wow. In another week, one more semester, in a long succession of semesters, will be complete. Classes will have ended. Finals will be over. I won't have to worry about another office hour for nearly three months. Also, for once I'm not devoting the whole of my summer break to work. I'm going on vacation, an actual vacation, where all I do is mope about relaxing and drinking frilly mojitos. The thought of it makes me jitter with anticipation. I know I travel quite a bit anyway, for work or family or holiday, whatever reason sharing a thought out agenda, but there's something about going somewhere without strict purpose that brings joy to my heart. I don't know exactly where or how I will be vacationing (as of the moment, I'm thinking a southwest road trip) but the one known is that I won't be collecting field samples, spending gratuitous time with members of my family, or sitting through boring lectures. Another known and obvious plus, John will be on holiday as well, so he gets nominated to do most of driving. Woot.

Potted plants and the necessity of cleanliness.

Well, the house is a mess. I haven't been cleaning, which I suppose has been caused by the spurt of freedom that I have been having from work as of late. Who knew, the price of time is complete inhibition with respect to household cleanliness? But I think the first step is having realized that I have kind of let everything go a little bit, so now I can move on, pull out a broom and sweep the mess away (metaphorically). The sad part, for me at least, is that everything hasn't completely fallen away and become messy or dirty; but instead, has fallen into this sort of cluttered disarray, where at first glance, everything seems okay, but in reality and at further inspection, there are these microcosms of chaos unlcean.

Now naturally, I am going to put most of the blame on John, who has come into season, bringing out the spinning wheel and clay from his workshop, to make all sorts of pottery. Now, the other side to this tale that I am less eager to tell, is that he's making the pottery at my bequest, so I don't have to spend exuberent amounts of money on this year's plant pots and containers. I somehow got it into my head, after reading far too many gardening and DIY magazines, that this year's gardening feat would be potted flowers and plants rather than the normal veggies and fruits that I go for (don't worry, I've still got plans for them too though). I started up all these different sprouts in the greenhouse, and I'm going to plant them in pots . . . that until John fires them, do not exist.

He's already started throwing them on the wheel and is planning to fire them sometime this weekend. Over the summer, while I was away in Europe, he added an entirely new installation to his workshop, so that he could unpack quite few of his old supplies that have been packed away since the move, however long ago.

Anyways, I'm excited. I get to start planting again, and well John gets to twiddle around with his gadgets in the workshop, win-win. Well, I suppose I should get to it with the cleaning and all. I'll think I'll work my way into it, starting by finding the table underneath all of my paperwork.

It's cloudy and raining, so naturally all I want to do is muck around outside.

As I was walking up the stairway to the front door this afternoon, I slipped on the flagstone stairway and fell down it. I've had this problem before, as falling seems to be my natural state, so during the fall I removed the large, thorny bushes at the bottom of the stair way that always seemed to stop my fall and provide sufficient thorny pain. However, after removal, I never though past what would stop my fall once I past the former bush threshold. This morning, I found out.

I tumbled down the twenty-so steps of the staircase, rolled about a meter to the former home of the thorny bushes, and began to pick up speed as I slid down the steep muddy hill in front of my house's entryway. When I finally came to a mucky stop at the bottom of the hill, I was covered in grass and mud could look up the spans of the hill seeing the now wet and disheveled spattering of my belongings. Thankfully most of my paperwork was dropped before it could be throw down the hill with me.

So now, I've showered, cleaned up all of my belongings, and turned on the Silver Jews. Over the weekend, or whenever chance comes that it has dried up a bit and is no longer raining, I'm planting new bushes, or at least something that will act to stop my falling motion. Maybe trees?

Sleeping in the Stacks.

I realized something today that I found oddly disturbing. In the five years that I have been living, breathing, and existing in the state that is my graduate student life here on campus, I have never been to the campus library, not a single one in the nearly 20 on campus. So yesterday, I left the office walked up the hill to the library door and walked through it to go and curl up in a forgotten corner somewhere. I was somehow transported through time back to the days when I was and undergraduate in Illinois and I would crawl into the stacks for the daily pleasure of naps and the smell of old worn books and dust. It was unnatural how easily I fell back into that routine.

The spot I found was on the fourth floor, east wing, among what I can only assume to have been the section on Asian literature, because all of books seemed to be written in Mandarin. I curled up and got cozy in the worn desk that I would assume hadn't been used by another person in a few months due to the fine layer of dust coating it. Then I put on some music, something aptly appropriate from my younger college days, Ted Leo & the Pharmacists. Then, I, almost poetically as if being drawn from the past, fell asleep.

Unnerved by Shifty Glances.

Tomorrow I will finally be free. For the past week, I have been playing, rather uncomfortably, the role of hostess for John's parents. They have been staying with us for the week and will thankfully be leaving early tomorrow morning to go back to St. Louis. It's not that I don't or didn't enjoy having them stay with us, but honestly they kind of put me on edge. John, the assimilated son of Scandinavian immigrants, doesn't understand my unease, because to him his mother is just as any other mother. However, in reality, when he is away a work, and I am impressed on with the task of entertaining, she spends her waking hours berating me in broken English on the exact nature of our relationship. Then, after a hard questioning, she relays her take on our conversations to his father in foreign tongue, while they both exchange shifty glances in my direction. And of course, naturally, John just smiles and laughs when I relay these occurrences to him in the privacy of night after the elderly Hagebaks have gone to sleep. It's unnerving, to say the least.

Back to the Homeland.

John and I are catching the flight home tomorrow, and naturally, I'm kind of not looking forward to it. Going back to a life, filled with greater levels of stress and anxiety than I have experienced the past week, somehow causes great pain in the pit of my stomach. Maybe I just expecting the eventual work-overload that will inevitably befall me in the closing months of the semester. For now though, I will live in the moment, anticipating the great joy of airport. I can only guess how many mixed passages I will read while leaning over strangers shoulders. Forecast for tomorrow: a blend of economic newspapers, dishy magazines, and the elusive, ever popular, romance fantasy.

A Side Note for the Week

I'm still out in California. I spent the last four days hiking the trails with John and revitalizing my spirit with the salty breeze. Yesterday, I received a call from my brother, Septimus, urging me to leave the hiking trails for the last few days of break and coming up to Seattle to visit. With strong persistence and the ever eager John on his side, Sep got his way and tomorrow we'll be catching a flight north to stay with my brothers for a few days. Hopefully everything goes well and maybe, if I'm lucky, it'll be nice enough to hit some of the northern trails.

Why life isn't such a bummer: Waking up early, the fruits of baking labor, and a hike in northern California.

For the first time, since the beginning of the school year, I am ahead of schedule. I have finished my work in the laboratory, outlined all my references, and in a whole have finished working on the research I have devoted my soul and being to for the past 12 months. It feels great. I was able to sleep in this morning. Albeit that I only woke up 30 minutes later than I would have typically, it still felt great to wake up in a state of being where I didn't have to rush and fumble to make myself feel more up to living.

I kicked it all off with a big bowl of fruit this morning, after which I indulged myself in the fine art making puffed pastry treats. I haven't had the opportunity to bake much lately, besides the rather unappealing custard tarts I burnt beyond recognition sometime last month (which was a devastating first for me having never burnt so much as a cookie in my life). I pulled myself out of the pit of baking despair, however, to produce some beautiful berry filled turnover treats. I was actually riding such a buzz that I also, to John's surprise and pleasure upon arriving home, made some delicious strudel.

Anyways, if I manage to keep up with life, the blog revival might occur. For now, spring break has arrived and I'm off to northern California to go hiking in the ocean side hills. Woot?

A short-lived revival.

Well, my revival was short-lived. After the new year began (wow, it feels like forever ago) I went back to the grindstone of work and life and work and work. And well, now? I've actually just recovered from a bout a stomach flu, which left me debilitated in bed for nearly a week and a half. It was kind of nice, besides the vomiting and fever and well, vomiting. Anyways, I don't exactly know how long I am going to be on hiatus this time, but I'll be sure to pop in again within the month (hopefully). I don't know, life's kind of bringing me down right now, so, we'll see about the revival.

Alive-again with Lutefisk and Scrabble.

Ah. My blog has not found death, rather, it has suffered through a debilitating illness for a lengthy period which it eventually conquered and has now risen, with the hope of being alive once more. My life during this period has been a blur.

I started the semester living in a freshly painted bright blue house with three other house mates and have ended it in a slightly less freshly painted bright blue house with the count back to its normal two occupants, John and myself. Dmetri, of whom I really haven't mentioned, is leaving the house to live in Seattle. Had I been a more avid writer, I would have mentioned him more, but he was a nice fellow that enjoyed cleaning and playing with my cats. Both of those traits being personality pluses.

I've finished most of my summer and fall research, and am now sinking into a writing fit, in which I think I will stay for quite a while. I really don't want to talk about it. Work makes me frustrated.

After the ending semester, I flew to Montreal for my yearly visit with my friend Gin. Montreal was nice, and since I improved my French so much over the summer, the inhabitants were much less snobby. Afterwards, I caught a flight back to Chicago and met up with John to go and visit his family. They were delightful as ever, with weather preventing many of the more obnoxious relatives from being there. I ate lutefisk to my fill and pondered over whispered Scandinavian conversations, that even when translated by John afterwards were left . . . wanting.

And now, in the present, I am curled up on my sofa with cocoa and marshmallows waiting for John to arrive so I pop out the bottle of wine and challenge him to a stirring game of Scrabble. Outside the weather has been cantankerous, which has caused me to feel as if I haven't moved or done anything productive in the past week.

For now, I'm read and think of high scoring Scrabble words.

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.