birthdays

So I didn't achieve everything from my list. But in the last couple months since I posted last, I did check off

4. Go to the Celestial Seasonings tea factory in Boulder.
     (went with Nick, Sonora, and Phil - the peppermint room was amazing.)
9. Make a pitcher of lemonade from scratch.
     (made Brazillian limeade with fresh limes and sweetened condensed milk)
11. Read, at the very least, eight new books.
     (Dodger, Spook, Stiff, Packing for Mars, Bonk, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, and I'm currently reading The Demon-Haunted World.)
16. Watch a sunrise.
     (saw it while waiting for the bus one morning before work.)
17. Have a picnic.
     (had cheese and bread and pickles with Kara out on her porch.)
19. Take a road trip (even if it's only an hour long).
     (went to Steamboat Springs to see an ice castle with Nick, Sonora, Phil, and Teri.)
21. Make something beautiful and sell it.
     (sold a bunch of mugs from my etsy shop over the holidays.)



 Still doing the job search thing. I had an interview at the museum for a more sciencey position. It would be amazing. Fingers crossed on that one.

Backyard camping & Jiffy Pop

"I don't know how to say this without sounding like a stoner ... but I seriously love all you guys."

Nick said it best.

Last weekend, we went backyard camping with Keefe, Kelsey, Kirk (who are siblings and have been friends with Nick since he was in high school).  It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like: we pitched a tent in the yard, filled it with sleeping bags, cooked s'mores on the grill, and woke up when dawn shone through the green nylon sides of the tent.

Oh, and we made JiffyPop on the stove. So that's number 14 off the list.
14. Make JiffyPop on the stove.


It was one of the best nights I've had in a long time. There was laughter and general shenanigans and shared nostalgia.

The cat in the video above managed to escape out the screen door and ended up in the neighbor's yard.  Kirk had to climb over the fence and retrieve him.  We felt a mix of sheepishness and daring.

The marshmallows didn't get very toasted over the grill, but they were definitely gooey and made delicious s'mores.  I had one for breakfast the next morning.

Poor Keefe is a restless sleeper and flails around a bit - it's partly sad, because you know he's not getting any rest, but it's also partly hilarious.  We had to all press pillows over our faces to stifle our hyper, late-night hysterics.  Nick was going crazy with laughter - I haven't seen him laugh that hard since college.  It was great.

In all, it was a fantastic night.  Hopefully I'll have many more such adventures this summer.

p.s. I'm going to be in Chicago for an interview - expect a post about that particular adventure soon!

Check one more off the list (whoops, two more)

Video posted by youtube user bebopsam1975

10. Sit outside to watch a thunderstorm.

Done and done.

It stormed all evening yesterday. Lots of lightning (that video above is amazing, don't you think? the way the lightning branches out, questing around for the easiest path through the air?). There was actually a tornado warning.

Nick and I were in the middle of making dinner when it happened. We had some pasta cooking, so Nick stayed with it while it finished and then headed downstairs. We sat eating our dinner and then headed to bed once the warning was over. Well, I sat up and worked, but Nick needed to sleep so he could get up at 4am for work.

I love sitting in the dark, watching lightning light the curtains. As a kid, I was terrified of thunderstorms - it was the thunder, loud and unexpected. I hated being startled, and would wait until right after a loud crash of thunder to dash to my parents' bedroom, my pillow squashed over my hears.

Now, though, nighttime storms just make me feel quiet and centered. I love falling asleep to the lights and sounds of a storm.

I was lying there, listening to the rain. It was about midnight. The storm seemed to be picking up again, another cell passing overhead. The wind roared up, and the rain turned into hail. I could hear it bouncing off the roof and occasionally against the windows. It was unbelievably loud.

Nick woke up, and we went to look outside. It was torrential. We stood with the front door open, looking out into the darkness. You could hear heavy drops hitting the ground, mixed with marble sized hailstones. I kept trying to see if the lightning strikes revealed moments of blue sky, but all that registered was each brief flash of white.

The air smelled unbelievably clean. You've probably heard of petrichor, the smell of soil and dust after rain. This was different. The ozone produced by the lightning scrubbed the air clean, and the hailstones had pounded the evergreen shrubs in front of the house, releasing the sharp verdant smell of resin and sap. I wish I could have captured it. It smelled wild and fresh and dangerous and fierce, like the shattering, life-giving storms on ancient Earth.

Nick said, "Man, imagine being a plant in prehistory and experiencing this. I'd be like, 'Eff this, I need to evolve some bark, because every time it hails, I'm freakin' deaded.'"

We stood and took in the wind and downpour and thunder. And then, more philosophically, Nick said, "It makes you feel pretty small, doesn't it. We've gotten good at predicting it, but there's not much we can do about it when it happens."

Small, and fearful, and joyful. It's strange, and good, to be reminded that we're not in control. There are bigger forces at work, ones that are mindless and ungoverned. It's frightening, but also a bit freeing.



On a completely unrelated note, I actually managed to cross off another item from the list.

13. Learn to cut Nick's hair.

I watched a lot of how-to videos and then had at it. It wasn't a huge success, but it also wasn't a giant failure. I'm not sure if Nick's willing to submit to my amateur skills again, but he said he was impressed by and appreciative of my determination.

It's quickly turning into picnic weather - number 17, here I come.

One down, twenty-four to go.

18. Go for an evening bike ride.

A couple days ago, my friends Bryan&Amy (who, incidentally, live in the apartment above mine) called me up and asked if I wanted to take a bike ride down to a local ice cream shop called Liks.

Obviously I said yes.  I mean, come on, I might be lactose intolerant, but it's handmade ice cream in, like, a zillion flavors.

 We took off when it was still light out.  We took back roads through quiet neighborhoods.  We've had a lot of rain here lately, and all the budding trees decided at once to unroll their leaves.  It was all golden and green and warm.  There's nothing like riding your bike in late, late afternoon to bring you straight back to childhood.

We sat out on Liks patio, where I enjoyed my supernormal stimulus of a s'mores cone.  There was a black lab tied to a nearby bench who was happily snuffling up all the scents the warm evening breeze brought him.  The light went from gold to orange to a dusky blueish purple.

We rode home in semi-darkness, as the light leaked away over the mountains, and it felt like being at summer camp.  There was the same kind of reckless happiness.  We pedaled hard, zipping down hills and racing past sleepy houses, grinning.  We joked about clothespinning playing cards to our wheels and wearing denim jackets, forming our own neighborhood bike gang.

This might have to become a weekly thing.

25 before 26

It's a ridiculously beautiful day today.  Perfect, almost-cliched spring weather.  It makes me want to take a walk, one that lasts all day and brings me to new places.  It makes me want to load up a wagon and find a frontier to brave.

The weather's also got me thinking about the future.  Springtime always puts me in mind of swelling blossoms and ripening fruit and summer storms.  Spring's an anticipatory season.  It looks to what comes next.

What am I going to do with my one wild and precious life?

It's still something I'm trying to figure out.  Do I want to open a weird, enthusiastic coffeeshop?  Do I want to work in a bakery and come home smelling like cookies?  Quit everything and be a writer?  Get into the publishing business?  Go back to school and become a professor?  A museum curator?  A librarian?  An astronomer?  A speech pathologist?





For now, I think I'll try to set some short-term goals.

Before my next birthday, I'm going to:

1. Get a story published.
2. Put together a manuscript.
3. Find a grown up job that offers stability and benefits.
4. Go to the Celestial Seasonings tea factory in Boulder.
5. Write and shoot a short film, just for the hell of it.
6. Take silly pictures in a photobooth with Nick.
7. Stay up late to watch at least two meteor showers.
8. Try to make dolmathes.
9. Make a pitcher of lemonade from scratch.
10. Sit outside to watch a thunderstorm.
11. Read, at the very least, eight new books.
12. Make popsicles.
13. Learn to cut Nick's hair.
14. Make JiffyPop on the stove.
15. Go to at least two street festivals.
16. Watch a sunrise.
17. Have a picnic.
18. Go for an evening bike ride.
19. Take a road trip (even if it's only an hour long).
20. Busk at least one afternoon.
21. Make something beautiful and sell it.
22. Make something beautiful and give it away.
23. Finish Emma's alphabet book.
24. Invent a board- or card- game.
25. Stay up all night having an adventure.

Well, that's one year planned.  Now I just need to figure out a lifetime.

Ready.

Set.

GO.