Back?

Today I feel awake. Go figure. Thoughts on moving:

There are a billion and one random little things that a home needs, and on my first supply run I managed to think of about half of them. Some notable items overlooked: kleenex, cheese grater, butter, garbage and recycling bags, measuring cup, kitchen knives.

Living alone is, it turns out against all reason, a bit lonesome on occasion. However, shopping for household items alone is slightly more lonesome, even though it does involve actually going out among other human beings. Weird. Right now this is mostly because I'm not working, so everyone I know is gone during the day and there's only so much unpacking and shopping to be done to keep me busy. Even so, I suspect the greater solitude is something I'll have to get used to. We'll see how it feels once I get back from the trip and start working again.

I am a little bit nervous about leaving for three weeks right after moving in. This is partly because it interrupts the process of settling, so I have a harder time committing to anything new just yet (like a job), since I know I'm about to disappear for another month. Also, I'm paranoid that something important will happen while I'm gone, like I'll get some critical piece of mail, or the landlord will need to talk to me, or the place will explode, or.. something. It almost feels like I've started thinking the apartment itself needs my presence and attention, and fret over leaving it alone. Ew.

The landlord seems to have repainted the entire apartment just before I moved in. This was nice of them, except that even after running my window fan for the last five days straight, the place still smells like paint. On the one hand, I don't notice it anymore except when I first get back from being out, but on the other hand, that might not be a good thing.

I had dinner at the French Meadow last night with Anna and her friend Molly and Molly's boyfriend Joe. They're about to move to New Mexico and I was hoping to snag their couch, but it turns out they're taking it along after all, although I might score some shelves. So, if anyone owns a large-ish vehicle and wants to go couch shopping with me this weekend, gimme a ring.

On that note, I've been called in for emergency raspberry picking duty; my parents' vines have gone berserk, it seems. I was also instructed to recruit reinforcements, so if anyone wants some free raspberries, also gimme a ring.

Ta.

zzzzz

I moved in last Sunday. I have been slightly overwhelmed with the stresses and excitement of settling in a new city, outfitting a new apartment, catching up with old friends, and so on. Somehow I thought this would make me overflow with eloquent phrasings of interesting thoughts, but instead I've come under something of a stupor. I sat down and opened WordPad many a time in the last week, expecting to write profusely, but no words came. I can't seem to wake up.

There were some hiccups in the plan to get cable internet installed right away, so I borrowed a wireless adapter and have been freeloading on a nearby network called "JuliaRules". She certainly does. But now it's beautiful outside and I want to go biking, but I have to wait for the cable guy. Alas.

Beginnings and Endings are for Chumps

I'm moving to Minneapolis on Sunday morning. Woot! Oy.. Alas. Erm?

I've spent the last few days packing. Which is to say, I've gone in spurts of an hour or two over the last few days, filled in with errands and games and Firefly/Serenity, because it turns out packing my whole life away doesn't actually take three full days. More like 6-8 hours, which I couldn't bear to do at a stretch. So, the pile of boxes in our living room has been growing in bursts, and my room now feels very slightly more empty. Not as much as I would have thought (or hoped?), I guess because I never did all that much to make it my room. No decorations to speak of, no posters, only a couple of pictures, no plants. The most prominent thing in my room has been my computer, which will of course remain in place until the final moments of loading. After all these years, it still amazes me how integral the machine is to my life.

I went for my last big Madison bike ride today, on a trail that more or less rings the entire metro area. As always, I pushed myself too hard and had to spend half an hour recovering when I got home, but it was a good ride. The day was beautiful and sunny, but mercifully cool. I'm glad I finally got around to adding the water bottle holder, too; without that I think I really would have collapsed. I noticed something funny, though: almost all of the 20-30-something guys I passed on the trail would make eye contact and greet me with a nod or a wave or even (dare I say it?) a "hello," but the women ignored me completely. I even made a point a few times of looking over and waving at a passing gal, but every one of them was eyes-forward, completely unwilling to acknowledge my presence. Now, maybe this says something unflattering about me personally, but I prefer to believe that this says something interesting about our society in general.

I mulled over it for the rest of the ride and I have some ideas about what that is, but I want to hear from you all first. After all, since (to my knowledge) nearly my entire readership is female (and I can count them on one hand), you should know better than I, right? So tell me, how often do you greet or otherwise interact with a male stranger? How often do you snub male strangers who try to greet or otherwise interact with you? Why?

In other news, thyme is my favorite herb.

I watched Serenity on Thursday (or was it Wednesday?). At first I didn't like it as much as the series, but I think I regard them equally now. Different, but both excellent. Joss Whedon is, in point of fact, a very good storyteller, and when I finished watching the movie I started it all over again with the commentary on. The details of how so many people played into the production -- actors, cameramen, lighting techs, sound editors, security guards -- made me want to go into movies somehow. I fear a lot of the gigs would kind of suck, but boy would I have loved to work on something like Firefly or Serenity.

Ha ha ha, bless your soul

I remember when, I remember
I remember when I lost my mind
there was something so pleasant about that place
even your emotions have an echo in so much space
and when you're out there without care
yeah, I was out of touch
but it wasn't because I didn't know enough
I just knew too much
does that make me crazy?
does that make me crazy?
does that make me crazy?
possibly
and I hope that you are having the time of your life
but think twice, that's my only advice
come on now who do you, who do you, who do you
who do you think you are?
ha ha ha bless your soul
you really think you're in control
well, I think you're crazy
I think you're crazy
I think you're crazy
just like me
my heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on a limb
and all I remember is thinking I want to be like them
ever since I was little
ever since I was little oh it looked like fun
and it's no coincidence I've come
and I can die when I'm done
but maybe I'm crazy
maybe you're crazy
maybe we're crazy
probably

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5VCWJVvE0Fk

In the Clouds

I have a fascination with the lost subtlety of adages. It seems to me that our common wisdoms have come to be regarded as merely common, rather than wise; we recite the words to eachother, but we've forgotten their meaning. They are like paintings in the hallway; passed every day with a glance, largely ignored, but every so often they catch your eye and you stare at the thing, seeing splendour and subtlety and nuance that you'd never noticed before. Likewise, every now and then I'll be lost in thought, groping for the truth of something, when I realize suddenly that I've arrived at a conclusion I've heard spoken a thousand times, but never understood.

It's the repetition that kills them, I think. Taoism holds that Truth (of the cosmic, objective, capital-T variety) is ineffable, that it cannot be expressed in the words of any human language. I think that's true, but it's worse than that; not only is Truth inexpressable, but the act of trying to express it actually makes it harder to understand. When our great thinkers come to understand something and try to share it with the rest of us, we have a tendency to boil it down to a sentence or two, something we can remember easily, as if such ideas could possibly be so simply put. Then we recite them, over and over, a hundred times in our lives, until the meaning is dead and we have only the words. The meaningless, empty, dead words, less than shadows of the Truth they were spawned from.

Today, my thoughts were on the increasingly sorry state of American politics. Elected officials don't seem to think they're subject to law anymore, corruption and deceit are taken as a matter of course, and we've all become apologists even for the ones we choose. "Yeah, he kind of sucks, but he sucks way less than that other guy." How did we get here? Have our leaders always been this selfish, manipulative and short-sighted? Have we always held them to such a low standard? Did we actually used to uphold some kind of higher idealism? How did we lose it? How do we get it back? I got to thinking that maybe this was all inevitable. We may not have been garaunteed this particular course of self-destruction, but I wonder if this country was always bound to fall apart somehow, eventually. Maybe all empires fall, by virtue of having been an empire; Mongolian, Roman, American.

And then I remembered the adage: power corrupts. It tends to make us think of individuals: parents, bosses, politicians; people who have power over other people, and sometimes have a hard time resisting the temptation to abuse it. But there are kinds of power other than authority, and kinds of corruption other than abuse. Physical power can corrupt a young boy's respect for others, turning him into a bully. The power of luxury can corrupt our sense of duty to the world and to the future, leading us to squander our resources. Maybe America's influence over the world -- economic, military, political, social -- has corrupted her as well. Our growth as a nation and a people has been incredible, but maybe it has also been cancerous. Maybe it will devour us yet.

I tried to imagine what could hold the corruption of power at bay, and all that came to mind was love -- for who we are, for who we want to be, for what we want to accomplish and share, for our cultural friends and neighbors, for strangers, our ancestors and descendants, for life. Life, most of all; life, in the unified, collective, Rasta sense of the word. "Love life," says Slug. Love it like your mother. And Le Guin: "Love doesn't just sit there like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new."

And some unnamed voice of the collective mind: "Your heart is a muscle the size of your fist. Keep loving. Keep fighting."

Video Killed the Radio Star

I made the trek to Minneapolis this weekend to tour apartments. I was nervous at first; nobody answered my phone calls and I was worried they wouldn't until Monday, when I was long gone. But, I did eventually settle on a place near 23rd and Harriet (if there was a 23rd and Harriet; between 22nd and 24th on Harriet would be a better description). It's in the middle of the building, but faces south onto a house, so it gets plenty of light. Hardwood floors, not huge but big enough I think.

Somehow amid the frantic driving and walking across town to find and tour apartments, I also managed to see most of my friends up there. I went bowling with Mark, Andrea, Jessica, Kristen and Garrison; I forgot how hilarious it is when I bowl, I'm all or nothing, strikes or gutters. I ran into Andy and his mom out working in the back yard; that dude is rocking one serious farmer tan. I ran into Emily on my way to Calhoun Square to buy books; the poor girl could barely croak, her voice was so weak. I had dinner with Caitlin and went to Caffetto; turns out I am proud and stubborn, who knew. I met Bill, if it can be called that; I tried to be friendly but I'm afraid we intruded on his solitude. Or something. I had lunch with Michelle; driving in St. Paul during the Grand Old Days is a horrible idea. I had ice cream and with Ivy and then dragged her along on some tours; she was a wonderfully good sport, as always.

I'm looking forward to living in Minneapolis again, I do love the city. Of course, this does not relieve me from the unavoidable nervousness of moving to a new city, even if it's an old city.

More later.