The Thing About Seattle

I’m still in love with the city. And it (might be) starting to love me back. I’ve found my way into an office for two days of the week, and it’s banal and lovely.  Music on, computer on, no need to interact with humans. The commute is half the distance, the people (when I do talk to them) are friendly enough, and looking out the 12th floor windows is lovely. Better pictures will come from a better day, but for now, here is what I see in Phase 6 of Seattle: Office Temp Girl.

David: I have to say, enjoy your time right now. You’re lucky. Moving breakneck speed through school left me out of school and flailing, with out a college fund help me through the periods of questioning. Take photographs, travel, do all the things that your mind can soak in. And travel. Travel. Travel.  I love Seattle, but I would love nothing more than to be able to pick up and visit Europe for a bit, see Venice before it sinks, say hello to a dashing Scotsman living in England, wander through a castle… if you can, do it. Don’t let anything hold you back.

Still/Bright

I’m in happy kind of stuck. I’m an unemployed post-grad only child living at home, living off of an inflated allowance drawn from my still healthy college fund, and living truly spoiled for the first time in my life. To see friends and talk to friends, I drive through the streets of Long Beach, I drive to Cerritos, I drive to Redondo, I stop in Riverside, I circle Pedro. I drink and smoke and think things like, “I don’t know, I don’t think I’m being too bad to myself.” I take pictures wherever I go in a ‘reaching for non-fiction’ sort of way, I daydream about doing graffiti then do graffiti, I make mixes, I avoid writing, I put off starting on my grad school applications, then I put it off again. I don’t look for a job, but I wait and hope for my Hollywood job prospect to flesh out- working art department.

I try not to think about the ‘why’s’ of what I’m doing- the flaws and gnarled roots that I’m empowering- thinking there could be something I am learning here, too, and that perhaps foolishness can be a lighter shade reason. I try not to think of the time that I’m loosing or how rapidly I’m approaching NYU’s December 15^th deadline. Try not to think of the stories I could be writing and want to be writing. I think about fun.

Far off in my mind, I think about submitting photo and drawing portfolios to galleries- finding out where the weird ones are then think up arrangements and arguments to appeal to their cruder natures. I see myself reading the books on my shelves and growing eight feet taller. I watch more movies.

I see myself stopping this bullshit and listening to my arm.

Philadelphia skyline at Dusk

Philadelphia skyline at Dusk, originally uploaded by ducksRfriends.

I am so used to the skyline from my office, I forget how breathtaking it can be from West Philly- the city just sits there and sparkles. My co-worker and I went to a networking event at the Cira Center on Monday. What with this time turn back, we usually end up leaving the office after dark. But the event started around 5, so we got to enjoy a good chunk of sunset. Quite lovely. The sparkling reminds me of one of my favorite exhibits of all time, “Fireflies on the Water” by Yayoi Kusama. Photos don’t really do it justice… I saw it at the Whitney, during the 2004 Biennial Exhibition. The Whitney site says that they’ve acquired it, but I don’t know if its still on display. How I would love to have an empty room to make one of these in my house… walking into it felt like floating in the center of the galaxy.

lights

fall means pumpkins and apples and spice

pumpkin applesauce oatmeal muffins

Ahh, the smell of baking pumpkin. The weather has warmed a bit here in Philly, but we’re still solidly in Autumn. And nothing quite says Fall like warm muffins smelling of spice. This recipe is rather good, and the applesauce keeps them pretty moist. The recipe is from this site, but I added some fresh nutmeg and used only whole wheat flour. I didn’t look up how to make the oat-brownsugar-butter topping, but just mixed a bunch of all that together, and put it on top. I think I would like the sugar-in-the-raw suggested, but I didn’t have any. I do have quite a lot of pumpkin left over now, though…. perhaps some pumpkin bread will be on the way this week…. any recipe suggestions??

And how is Fall going for the rest of the BoC folks? I feel like I’m hogging all the autumnal posts!

(**update** Day two, and these muffins are awesome…. really moist, a good amount of spice and pumpkin flavor, I think the nutmeg really helped, and the sweet topping sets off the healthy taste well. Perfect for throwing in my bag for breakfast at work. Highly recommended!)

Fog rolls in

Fog rolls in, originally uploaded by ducksRfriends.

Sun sets in Jersey, a full Saturday behind me. CD release party on Friday night. Almost a highschool reunion, except they weren’t people I attended classes with. The crowd was missing a main player, but apparently he’s been out of the loop for two years. I guess I have been out longer, but far less dramatically.
Every trip to Jersey is relaxing and exhausting, all rolled into one. The train takes forever, being home is lovely, but T’s hearing is going so the quiet country has a backdrop of History Channel. Still, to sit on the porch unraveling a shawl to reclaim the yarn, rocking in a wicker chair- one day I will have my own porch to watch a sunset from. Till then, this will tide me over.

Rainbow after doom

Rainbow, originally uploaded by ducksRfriends.

Dark clouds over the horizon, doom rolling in from the West. Soon pouring rain, in a rather apocalyptic way. By the time I left the office the storm had gone, leaving behind a big orange glow and a nice rainbow to hang over my shoulder on the ride home. This can be a pretty cool city sometimes.

Halloween is coming…..

Eastern State

Its getting close to Halloween, which means Terror Behind the Walls at Eastern State Penitentiary. The prison is right across from the coffee shop I go to and buy tea and kashi marshmallow treats before I go dance. The weather here is great, and sitting outside watching the costumed folk is rather entertaining. Goth looking guys on stilts, sneaking up and leaning down just behind people; ‘bush’ costumed people, hiding in the shrubbery (with awesome fuzzy looking ‘greenery’ costumes **UPDATE** I think they are Ghillie suits **) and jumping out at passerbys; your general ‘creepy’ prisoners and guards wandering around and leering. I’m not a huge fan of things jumping out at me, but it makes me feel in the Halloween spirit. I can’t wait. Lizard costume, here I come.

The End of Summer

The cold attacks suddenly- your skin lets out a pierced cry and all at once you notice the climate has shifted more drastically than you really want to believe- it is already too late and you have already past the last minute.

Clouds become covers and day light becomes timid.

The colors that made the meadows explode have lost their water and the shadows stop giving you breaks.

The brightness, the heat, the blur, the buzz, the life~ the touch that says ‘Go’, that moans ‘Now,’ that grabs ‘You’~ it all shifts into night.

New distances reveal and establish themselves- the distance you’ve always had with everything, the distance between you and your ideal, the distance between you and security, and distance itself/energy itself/time itself, and all other heavy gravity barriers everywhere.

‘Here we are.’ they say. ‘Get ready for the hurdles.’

From this point on you’ll have to wear more clothes.

Your simplicity steps aside for the comforting gibberish of hollow complication.

Your summer is a ‘was,’ your high is a ‘was,’ and now your road is wide open to any fresh God damned struggles.

Your private sphere of being starts being told to feel more natural than your public, telling you that you have grown so much more worldly and true within the summer celebrations, but that living isn’t supposed to keep speeding like that- that there is such a thing as being spoiled with too much sun and that it is only inevitable, only right, and only human for skies to darken and for leaves to fall- for you to follow suit and become closer with the ground.

And you keep listening and listening and turning and turning, and sometimes you forget that you are listening, that you are turning, that your ears and your feet and your family and friends are all with the world, the world you’ve built for yourself on top of the world the rest of us have built for ourselves, and sometimes you forget that every cue you take is a choice, every easy and hard option available to you the whole bullshit way, and that it may not be up to any of us to call a season over.

Lettering

For the last two weeks or so, life in LA county has been smoke filtered~ the sun has to dilute itself through black jackets of burnt materials and looks like the old king of a new world.  I look up and wait for the atmosphere to empty~ wait for a sky of clarity, one that isn’t so close to my face or lungs~ but the climbing tree of fire breath has only grown, has only layered~ smooth, circular gray faced walls under fresh bursts of cauliflower white .  The fires aren’t even in our county, they’re around the San Bernadino mountains, and yet every So. Cal. resident who has gone outside, found a clearing and looked north has seen it~ a fat, sprawling, post-consumed pillar leaning over unopposed and leering at us.  It has become a character of the summer~ a gas giant.  It is another day-to-day marker of death, randomness, fragility and domination for us to be close to.  Another grim reaper that grabs our wrists with bony fingers and orders us to look and feel~ orders us to calculate/explain our stories and paths after another assertive proof of the cold cause & effect seriousness of our world has stepped into our light and started coughing for attention.  Its low, brown arms are thin newspapers that wrap around our coasts- its particles, its ash and body remnants, create an occupied wind that hazes the air and sticks to our cars.

A few night ago I was driving home along the coast when I passed a brush fire in nearby Palos Verdes.  Photographers and spectators were parked all along the sides of the two lane road and, as I drove by, snapping a few shots for myself, I could have sworn that the orange lines that burned and jumped across the tan hills were words- lettering.