Joanna Newsom and Robin Pecknold

This is where I was on Monday night, serenaded by lovely music perched high up in the balcony of the Fox Theater.  Now, it's Thursday afternoon and five and a half hours to a genetics final, seven and a half hours and a train ride away to the start of my summer.  Many things happening, many many things!

Going under

Today, diving into a three-in-a-row finals week with my lucky hat in tow, and once the busy-ness and tumult is over I will resurface.

Halloweenie

Winding down after a weekend of being wild, pumpkin patching and pumpkin carving and pumpkin seed roasting, free tacos and not-free Thai food, splicers and lots of Maxies but no monsters but nonetheless downtown in the most popular costume, long bus waits, big birthday cardigan-and-steak celebrations and lots of cheesecake, hurtling into another week of entropy.

~*iiT"z FRiiDay niiGhT*~

...and you know what that means!

FREAKIN' WEEKEND BABY I'MMA 'BOUT TO HAVE ME SOME FUN

(sitting on the couch drilling thermodynamics from the very core cozy insides of my new wouldn't-my-dad-be-proud? 49ers sweatshirt while Pup kills zombies, but I'm thinking of everyone all of a sudden I miss everyone and wishing well weekends to all so nice to go... slow)

That I was planning, uh, I mean wishing, uh

Talking about funny cycles and life's continuing and puzzling serendipity--thinking about braids and how they never work right suddenly years of willing makes them happen very simply and easily one morning at work without washing hair and the warm weather outfit I thought out last cold night could actually be worn on sunny today or ending explosions to fall into Faint nostalgia in the music project with songs about babies while learning about pregnancy when I get a text from Ted (hi Ted!) asking how my alphabet's progressing or calling about my veggie box at the same time being called about my veggie box and retrieval with no camera but Pup's which doesn't have its couple cord so I had to take a picture of a picture just to say we got

gala apples

black mission figs

starkrimson pears

black grapes

green chard

napa cabbage

sugarpie pumpkin

green beans

summer squash

sweet peppers

red radishes and

garlic in our next two week's box! Things are working out quite all right today.

Catching up: at home

Catching up: on sleep, on homework, on eating apples and carrots and salads and water, on work, on would I like to draw clover leaf patterns (yes!), on would I like to meet sometime next week (yes! yes!), and on blogging.

Why do I keep saving banana slugs?

Second one in two weeks! This little guy was precariously sluggin' along the path from Kerr Hall to Kresge while I walked home from Female Physiology, and he near fell prey to painfully oblivious shoes many times before I could rush quick enough to trap him between the caution tape of my legs and help him up onto my arm for a short and slimy journey to wooded safety.

Slow With Horns/Run For Your Life

Life moves in the strangest cycles--like the laziest days and days of nothing much to do but lay languidly on too-small sofas while Pup cooks salmon for the first time without his mom and take lethargic bike rides to nowhere in particular to eat up long days of waning sunlight, then suddenly everything happens at once.

That was yesterday. Cue torrential rain and and a lot of running around, soaking wet jeans and too scared to carry my laptop the short walk to work. Locked early morning in the lab creating a spectral profile for allura red dye in commercial mouthwash and, not wanting to swim back to the apartment for the short hour before heading off to the greenhouse, cozy time in the Science Library and good, too, because our never-done-this-before lab T.A. and weird wording in our lab manual made me skip over needing to have measured the inner diameter of the cuvette, so I could easily run between lab and heatered-armchair all while understanding Beer's Law a little better than I expected to. Greenhouse at noon then, somehow serendipitously, treading the flood waters on the roof of another science building three and a half hours later, at another greenhouse holed up with delightfully dorky botanical researchers, sitting in front of a microscope drawing clover calyxes with ballpoint pen on notebook paper because maybe the paper that's published on clover taxonomy needs my illustrative powers and if not that maybe I can work in the lab doing data entry on tiny, crunchy bits of dried out plants while claiming some sort of stake in the Plant Sciences department because I'm always talking about the future the future I can't wait to get to the future, right? Straight away to work running through calf-deep puddles to see Pup on the balcony quickly because Tuesdays are usually reserved for between-class naps but not when waves of rain are carrying me all over campus. And if work felt like the end of my day--and it did, coming home to peacefully prepare vegetable curry and sit on the couch for more Chemistry--it wasn't.

Because Monday's botched first rain was rectified with a more organized run on Tuesday, and one which Pup and I accepted as correct despite the crazy rain of all day not carrying on to the 10:10 start of festivities and not cold enough to stop me from running around campus in nothing but rain boots last night and jumping into the OPERS pool surprisingly warm with churning bodies doing backflips and walking tightropes on buoys singing land of the free, home of the brave, we even ran through Wiesel and I got to high-five the girls that live in the room that I ran naked out of last year. An hour of running up and down hills screaming and flailing and laughing so out of breath all the way to drumming and dancing and finally back home for a shower and collapsing in bed and I don't know that I even had a chance to rest all day until then. Waking up with sore legs which is either a testament to my work-out or my out-of-shape, sore toes as a testament to next year I'll wear tennis shoes, and sore back and belly as a testament to how funny life is learning about the menstrual cycle one day and bed-ridden exhausted from it the next. So grateful for slow day today; despite the Cambrian Explosion in Biology I took my sweet time slugly across campus to a short Chemistry review section for the impending midterm, let out early to flop over the side of the couch with Pup's proud-of special-tea before turning in very early for a rest and a recharge. Slow day tomorrow, and slow train home on Friday because I don't think I was built to go here to here to here running around so quickly, I'd rather sit sunk into seats and have locomotion move me so my legs can take a break and my mind can do all the work because for right now I'm studying but this weekend holds pumpkin patches, wild things, art shows in cemeteries, and determining numbers of molecules with familiar stoichiometry. And the slow cycle starts again.

Weekly statistics

322 Cambodia slides, done, in about 23 hours and our first produce box:

half a pound of red plums

one and a half pounds of valencia oranges

two pounds of gala apples

one pound of baby bok choy

one bunch of arugula

one pound of sweet peppers

one two-pound acorn squash

one head of romaine lettuce

one bunch of parsley

two pounds of yellow onions

two pounds of russet potatoes

Now, ending a long week with a stocked fridge, a fixed sink and socket and heater, scheming Halloween costumes, finally lying on the couch with a goodnight bowl of cereal and a Dexter season two marathon before drifting off to sleep.

Put the "cation" in "education"

I always feel like I have to add some sort of disclaimer when I start to go on and on about Chemistry, because I liked it (and Mr. VanMuyden) enough in high school to take on an unheard of sixth period my senior year to work in the little room just to the right of the classroom, in gloves and goggles, sifting shelves for solids and calculating molarities, putting "acid to water like you ought'er" and almost getting knocked out by some potent HCl once after pouring it out before remembering to turn on the fume hood. Yeah, I like it. I still like it. I'm just anticipating being done with it, maybe wishing I got a couple other assignments in my other class so I wasn't constantly immersed in Chemistry. I have very little homework for my two Biology classes--an open-book, online quiz here, a trip to the greenhouse there--but in my last quarter of Chemistry ever, professor Bogo is making quite sure that he squeezes the last bits of potential energy out of me before I can make it to the ornithology, paleontology, botany, and mycology classes of my dreams (once I tackle two more quarters of Biology, two quarters of Physics, and one of Biostatistics, of course). What I mean to say is that, as I sat in the Humanities lecture hall today being lectured on reaction rates and sitting pen to open planner making my weekly to-do list, the homework section read "chem lab report," "chem prelab," "chem homework," and the "chem practice test" for the "CHEM 1C MIDTERM" I have penned in big block letters on Friday, October 16.

So that to-do list is what I have to do today after I get out of work at four, where the smell of slide cleaner has become less pungent but where it seems like someone has left the heater on because it has been eighty degrees in this little room for the past two days and no amount of open windows, doors, or oscillating fans has brought the temperature down any. Upon entering today, I quickly stripped off cardigan, scarf, leggings, socks, and threw my hair up off my sweaty neck before doing anything else. And I'm still at it with the Cambodia slides, but I'll be thinking of Chemistry, and not that, soon enough.

Meanwhile, trying to figure out how to change the address that automatically pops up when I start typing "Google"--I'd prefer to leave google.ca in Canada along with the fact that I couldn't watch any shows online while I was up there which made the long days even longer. Not like the Netflix (and the second season of Dexter, which we started last night) that we have streaming from the Xbox Pup brought, and the whole other game world inside of it that Pup just texted me from to say that's he's currently doing very well at Halo, just thought I'd like to know.

Four days, fifteen hours, two hundred scans

Getting back into the routine of work, the routine of school, is headache-y sprayed with photo emulsion cleaner. Right now, I'm facing down a massive box of Cambodia slides and it's slow going--13.3333 images an hour. Glad for the weekend, and no work on Fridays. Dreaming about homemade chicken satay and peanut sauce, grocery shopping as an ends to that mean, hopefully a bike ride to the Natural History Museum and if I just happen to pack a blanket, a nap on the beach might be in order. Long day, could definitely use that sleep right now!

Get money money, take money money, get paid mommy, come on, come on

Went (right) to the mailroom after classes to pick up a package full of kitchen essentials--pumpkin carving kit!--and my new nose ring courtesy of my mom, then (left) to get back up in that scanning lab for my first day back to work where I hope to whaaat get money, get paid, haay.

Quick recap of today: Dandy Warhols singing about how we used to be friends while thinking about senior year and sighing, but good news is I made it through Dan Deacon if only by deleting a few of the more annoying albums, and found out that I'm gonna have a pretty breezy quarter for once in a Chemistry class with a high pass rate instead of a high fail rate, even if it is "cutthroat Chemistry" said the guy behind me in section today while Rosa Nguyen heartlessly and super-fashionably cut the class down to just those that can fit before the fire marshall has a fit, more sighing, but relief replaced nostalgia, because I didn't have to fight my way in and so lucky I got enrolled when all over I hear freshmen complaining about not being able to crash 1A and worrying for Pup while he tries desperately to crash 1A oh no!, but he's gotta get it Mr. Sophomore standing, and I stood in a cramped triple freshman dorm, so weird to see the way you've become, so happy that the way I've become feels better than it feels to hang out with you, even for half an hour, and so glad to have a single and no annoying roommates, just five sweet apartmentmates who were miraculously all in the same room last night, so how about those jack o 'lanterns?

Thinking about duets, now leaving to pick up Pup for our first dining hall meal of the year.

CASFS Harvest Festival

Today was corn, cows, secret passageways, and beautiful bunches of dried safflower, wheat, and millet hanging from the ceiling of the seed house--the Harvest Festival at the farm. Pup and I got there a little late, so we missed the apple pie bake-off and the tea garden tour, but we got to explore on our own anyway and end with a chocolate chip cookie each sitting on a hay bale listening to a mandolin rendition of "Red Clay Halo." Best of all was the discovery of a customizable, year-round, organic, farm fresh produce service that delivers once a week, once every two weeks, once every three weeks, once every four weeks to the farm for $31 a box that two roommates have already wanted to pitch in for, and veggie-hating Pup would even be willing to try out if we switched out a few leafy greens for corn, carrots, and asparagus. I'm very very excited!

Week one of classes, a total of two day's worth, were not quite as subversive as the anarchy-promoting sit-in students occupying the balcony above Joe's in the Quarry may have hoped, but just as fascinating as I had hoped. Between Bogo, Baldo, and Zavanelli, I'm looking forward to a quarter of geeky science and no laughing even when we're being lectured about the speed of ejaculate, and nice to know the sophomores around me are less sophomoric this year than when they were finally-free freshman who cared more about tequila than textbooks.

And apartment living is just as nice as I had hoped.

Boardwalk Frolic

Cosmos, day one

Planted flowers today in my new apartment dorm room, in a purple cup nested in the plastic take-out container emptied of its leftover tom kha from Sabieng to keep water from spilling out all over my third-story window ledge. I am not so much type-talkative now; suffice it to say, it's nice to be here despite how not used to apartment living I suddenly feel. (Getting acquainted with the idea of grocery shopping without my mom, mostly, but nice to go grocery shopping five minutes to closing time at Costco with Pup and Chelsea and Jared and very much enjoying the company even if the only flour and baking soda we can find weighs more than the four of us combined and even if our purchases ended up being twenty pound of tortillas, five mountains of shredded cheese, sixteen tons of triple chocolate brownie mix, thirteen miles of tin foil, Pup's pizza pockets, and the type of beer you sip, not chug.)

More later, when the not-so-instant cosmos sprout, when my Viva Pinata garden has more carrots and bunnycombs, when my walls are covered in more flowers, when my cast iron pan is overflowing with dino kale, when these friendships keep sprouting after nights of Indian food and brownies and sitting in our cozy little living room together on squeaky plastic armchairs around a spotty woodgrain coffee table scheming cat art and crocheted blankets to decorate and match our ambered-glass lamp and our fat and beautiful plate and our tomato salt and pepper shakers and everywhere little jars of sugar and salt and flour.

For now, falling asleep next to Pup (finally!) while he sings Beatles songs in the babiest voice while he dreams about Halo ODST.

Blogsploration

I spent my first five weeks of summer in this exact configuration, it feels like. Tiny dorm bed with the smell of the foam mattress pad seeping through, down comforter warmed by the sun with all the feathers fallen off to queen sides from long twin mattress, endless red lines squiggling like coral or the unimaginable human brain I studied in my Intro Psych course, but focusing most of my attention on my Komtrak Inspiral notebook and the several pieces of colored paper I cut from one large square, filling in lines and dots with my Pigma Micron 02 pen and no thinner and no fatter, colored with Crayola and Prang while I dream of Prismacolor to come, while my head is a mess of perspective and vizualization and mapping techniques and reflection and shine and the basic planes of the head I just wanted and want to stipple into oblivion and draw everything everything everything with a broken Meyer lemon branch by my side smelling so sweet and still unripe.

But onto other things, now. Out of summer school, I'm rushing around Northern California, trying to see everyone and everything before seventeen days in Los Angeles and Canada.

And with that exploration comes this one, and this one wild word to follow. We'll see.