a year in review
The last few minutes of 2010 are slowly ticking away as I sit here in my apartment in Culver City in front of a space heater waiting to go to bed. I don’t know why I feel like I have to stay up to wait the clock change over to midnight, but I always feel like something magical happens at the awaited midnight hour—though the only time I ever have knowledge of this is when I was in 2nd grade and my family had moved to Honolulu for the semester right after Christmas and even though I had gone to bed early, I remember waking up at midnight when the fireworks went off and I crawled out of my room to see them exploding over Diamondhead. Pretty awesome. But other than that, it’s just this moment where I feel that much older and a little bit ambitious.
This year went by faster than any year I can remember and that’s because I can distinctly divide it into two parts: Traveling and Los Angeles. Matt and I left for Istanbul at the end of January and spend a few days there before flying down to Egypt for a week, then back to Istanbul, and then off to London and Ireland. Matt went back to Maine and I flew back to Turkey for another 3 weeks.
I joined Matt back in Maine for a few days in mid-March before we both flew to Omaha. Two days later we were on our epic trip out to California with stops in Colorado and New Mexico. By April 8, we had already moved into our apartment.
The fact that there are 8 months separating me from that move in date seems unreal. Truly unreal. Eight months ago I couldn’t even tell you where Culver City was and now I could give you directions in and out of this place and all around Los Angeles. It’s truly been a year of exploration, both personally and abroad. Trying new places, trying new things, and moving new places. This coming year, I’m sure will bring just as much joy and mystery as this past one. And I just have to wait another 21 minutes to find out.
the blog of christmas present
December 25, 2010
I woke up like most years, warm in bed. But unlike last year and so many years in the past, I woke up not to a white Christmas, but to a bright one of 62˚. I’ve spent the last 5 weeks struggling with the concept that Christmas is approaching. Spending my first Christmas in Los Angeles, a place where the overcompensation of decorations, lights, and carols seems somewhat out of place amongst a city of sunshine (mostly) and palm trees.
After a quick breakfast, Matt and I walked down to the closest theater to finally see Black Swan. There was not much traffic as we walked down past the Sony Studios lot into the heart of Culver City. Our theater was filled with elderly people who all decided before the movie that it was necessary to make last minute calls on the cell phones they barely knew how to lose.
After the movie, it was back to the apartment for an afternoon nap. Dinner was followed by a screening of Elf and holiday treats.
Presents were opened last night in the company of both our families (at different times) through Skype. My parents had the candles on the tree lit, in our typical Christmas Eve tradition. After saying our goodbyes, I gave Matt his gift (see picture).
Now Matt and I are back on our computers in our typical nighttime fashion. Christmas is over.
the blog of christmas past
December 25, 2008
I just had the best Christmas ever.
I’m at the Jungle Mantra Lodge outside of a Bandhavgar National Park in India. I slept well, despite only having arrived very early that morning. We enjoyed a delicious breakfast on the veranda, which was followed by a Catholic mass given by an Indian Priest. This was the first (and so far only) time in my life I have ever attended mass on Christmas. We then sang English Christmas carols to the alto saxophone with a family from England.
After the service, we were taken on a tour of the land and treated to another delicious meal before departing on our first safari ride. We didn’t see any tigers, but we did see lots of spotted deer (chetal), jackal, boar, and many types of birds.
We came back that night and sat around the fire and drank chai tea. It was an active and new Christmas spent in a place entirely different than anyplace I had ever been before, among family and strangers. I don’t know why it was better, but it just felt complete. Time to sleep, as we have to be up early for another safari trek!
maine. july 2009.
st. augustine, fl. november 2010.
blue spring state park. november 2010.
the binder. full of all the transcriptions for the grey area documentary
March 27, 2009
I’m on the Amtrak going to Syracuse. When I travel, I tend to take as many forms of transportation as possible. So far this trip, I’ve taken a plane, subway, bus, streetcar, car, and now train. Most of this is due to the fact that I try to save money in as many ways as possible, so I generally take the cheapest route between two places.
I’m glad to be out of the small station. After handing the ticket seller my ID, he asked what I was doing up here and told me I was Cornhusker. He said he always wanted to go to Nebraska to hunt pheasants. My uncle talked to him about hunting, before he too was obviously a bit annoyed by the incessant discuss of hunting. After my uncle left, I sat down to enjoy more of The Commitment. Somewhere between wedding expos and gay sex, the ticket operator came outside of his booth to ask me what I do in Nebraska. After briefly explaining, somewhat that I own my own business, (Seriously, I don’t even now what I do.) he stood quietly for a couple moments before plunging into a conversation that went something like this:
Pheasant obsessed ticket seller: There aren’t many pheasants around here anymore. I used to see them around the station. They are being killed off by some disease.
Me: Oh yeah?
He’s silent for awhile as he stares off towards the other side of the small room. I look down at my book not really knowing if I should try and say something about pheasants. But really, what do I know about pheasants?
Pheasant obsessed ticket seller: I have a couple of those camtracker cameras and so does my nephew. He won second place in a competition once for a bunch of coyotes that too down a deer. He should have one first place. You should have seen it.
Me: Wow. That’s really awesome.
He stares off towards the other end of the room again and I glance back down at my book. I started to wonder if I was supposed to indulge this man with stores about hunting. Maybe I should have made up a hunting trip. Luckily at this point, a customer walks in the room and I can finally start reading my book again.
I really didn’t know what to say to this man. It seemed odd that he was working at this station. His voice was husky, obviously from smoking too many packs of cigarettes in his life. His uniform seemed off, as if it was a struggle to get on every morning. He must sit in his little booth and dream about hunting pheasants. He seems more like some sort of mobster, like maybe he wanted all his life to be someone amazing, but was too afraid to try. So he got his job at the Amtrak Station, and despite being far from his actual dream of being a professional pheasant hunter, he felt safe underneath the highway, in the little building that is barely noticeable. I really should have talked more, but that’s just not my forte.
This morning my grandma asked if I write down stuff about my trip. I tell her I try to blog. Try being the key word. Traveling is something that is really important to me and I definitely try to write down my thoughts and experiences about what I see and what I do. But sometimes I just get tired—tired from my trip and just plain tired of writing. There are plenty of times that I feel lie I have writers block about writing about just writing. Like my brain can’t even physically comprehend what I am seeing or doing. This happened a lot while I was in India. I think partially because there were times that I really honestly could not write about some of the things I saw. There are images seared into my brain that I can sometimes talk about, but I’m scared to write about. Not scared in the way that I feel like I’ll get into trouble for what I’m writing, but scared in the fact that once I write it down, it will all be real. Also, I really like my photos to show some of my experiences. I have 8000 photos from India. That has to show way more than what I could ever write about.
There are also things I want to write about—like getting old. My grandma has always been old to me. Even though we’ve both aged 22 years together, we’ve both gotten older together and my perception of her aging has kept right up with my own aging. I really only saw her twice a year while growing up, so her chin hairs, gray, thin hair, and thick glasses are something I always remember being there, whether or not they were. When I took my grandma out the other day and she had trouble getting in and out of the car, she kept saying how her grandmother and mother always told her not to get old. “Dorthy, don’t get old,” they would say. She said she would always say, “What am I supposed to do?” My grandma said she knows what they meant now. Getting old is no fun. I’m turning 22 in a couple days. I don’t want to get old.
So I’ve been on the train for about 2 hours now and I’m starting to pine more and more to be able to live out one of my biggest dreams—to get on a raft ( I don’t really care…kayak, canoe, inflatable boat) and just get on any river or stream and just take it wherever it goes. I want to get really, really lost and just see where I end up. I’ve had this dream for a really long time. Whenever I drive cross-country, I always pass so many rivers with very distinguishable names. They have names like the Little Raccoon River and the Skunk River. I don’t really know if those are right, but I always know when I pass them that I’ve been there before. I also don’t really know why I want to get so lost. I was lost once in the forest at my cabin. It’s a really dumb story and it’s actually a bit embarrassing. I got angry at my family (as I was angry a lot that summer, I really don’t know why), so I stomped off into the forest, not really meaning to get lost or to go that far. I meant to curve around and make it back to the road, but I guess that didn’t happen. I remember seeing a coyote and deciding not to go the way it was going, so I went a different way, which was probably a big mistake. I ended up not being able to find the road, despite being able to hear it. I went running through the marsh in only flipflops (I wasn’t planning on getting lost). My feet were scratched, I was completely disoriented, and now more than ever, completely angry at myself. I eventually saw a red truck through the trees, which belonged to the people who owned the land next to our plot. I followed their driveway back to the road and started walking the half mile back to the cabin completely defeated and devastated. But I feel like if I planned to get lost, it really wouldn’t be so bad. And besides, I’d be like an explorer. Yeah, I have fantasies about that as well.
A man across from me on the train drank a little bottle of wine during most of the train ride. Now he is sleeping. I don’t think wine would be an appetizing addition to a train ride, but maybe I just don’t know these things or maybe I’m just not old enough yet to appreciate the misappropriate, but amazing times to indulge myself with alcohol. Either way, I hope I don’t get the belly that he has or have to read The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots. Not even joking. If I had to read that, I would definitely want to finish off a bottle of wine and fall asleep.
s&w
