hold on just a second don't tell me this one you know i know this one i know this song i know this one i know this song

So. I'm currently floating on the aftereffects of one of the best weekends of my entire life. Seriously. It was like a non-stop party. And not the kind that makes me claustrophobic and sends me dissolving into a corner. It was, however, the kind with many much musics (not to be confused with many much moosen).

Friday night was populated with salsa, cumbia, bachata, and my personal favorite merengue. Lesson 1: always say yes to a night at the salsa club even though you went to bed at 4am the night before. Lesson 2: sometimes it may be best to keep your mouth shut and not let on that you speak Spanish. Lesson 3: eventually the inebriated Nicaraguan who wants your phone number will settle for your hotmail address, and everyone goes home safe and happy.

Saturday night saw epic performances by Ra Ra Riot, Andrew Bird, and Death Cab. As you can probably imagine, I went mostly for Andrew Bird. And he did not disappoint. Nothing short of phenomenal, in fact. Since none of the little video that I got is good enough (i.e., I was too impatient to hold up the camera for more than 30 seconds and/or the microphone picked up my neighbors' chatter better than the music) to bother uploading it, you'll just have to trust me on the amazingness factor. Or go see him for yourself. I highly recommend the latter.

Just say the word, Andrew, and I will run away with you and your sock monkey and your victrola.

We sang happy birthday to him. While he was on stage, we got a wee bit of rain. Then this happened:

And then there was Death Cab. And they were awesome. I've never listened to them particularly obsessively (as I have with many others), but I found myself singing along to most of the songs they played. Tons of fun. (There's a good deal of video from the show already up on youtube; just search for "death cab july 11 berkeley" or some such similar string, if you so desire.)

After the concert we watched this wonderful documentary called Young at Heart. Cackle-and-guffaw-out-loud funny, and beautiful in so many ways.

Here's a taste:

You should watch it, too.

Then there was Sunday, highlighted by barbecued goodness, a new friend, a special visit from an old friend, and a motorcycle ride. Not to mention the freakin' gorgeous Palo Alto weather.

Plus, I got to talk on the phone to Claire, Joseph, Mom, Dad, and Vanessa.

Can life get better? I submit that it cannot!

look

Last Sunday I walked three and a half miles in the rain.

Somewhat drowsy from skipped breakfast and a week of late nights, I experienced my surroundings as in a dream:

cheerful yellow daffodils alongside a shadowy asphalt river

pumpkin-orange doors centered on a silver-gray façade

blushing petals discarded in circular patches on delicious green rain-soaked lawns 

all shining dully in this translucent blue-gray light sailing on cool gusts of freshly washed air

and everything was so achingly beautiful.

And it occurred to me that I am in a stage in my life that is largely dominated by aesthetics.

(No doubt you'll have noticed, if you have been following my recent musings here.)

And I don't think that's a terrible thing.

The aesthetic quality of any entity is an essential part of its being. I'm not saying that everything should be judged solely in terms of aesthetics; indeed, this would be limiting almost to the point of ridiculousness. Ignoring aesthetics entirely, on the other hand, would be just as tragically laughable.

Within biological systems, aesthetics play a key role in perpetuating any given species. Aesthetic beauty holds amazing potential to inspire the beholder, and artistic creation—which exists not without the aesthetic—can easily mimic the divine. Aesthetics are not everything, to be sure, but certainly they merit our consideration. 

At the moment I have nothing more profound to say on the matter, except that we ought not overlook that which is here to be looked at.

12: weather, the storm

It's not really 11:59 pm. 

Not in this time zone, anyway. The timestamp lies, as I try to convince myself that I am succeeding at this February blogging project, even though I fell asleep on the couch at 9 pm and didn't wake up until six hours later.

It is raining now, as it likely will be all weekend. It sounds lovely, the steady flow of droplets melting onto the driveway, dancing on the roof, snapping against the window, the sweet streams singing in ensemble all around. Now a crescendo, and it is all accented by the occasional pop from the radiator, generously sharing its warmth as I sit here huddled in my old hooded sweatshirt that I bought on clearance for $3.97 at least seven years ago, that has seen at least five states and two, soon to be three, countries, that boasts a little hole in the elbow just from wear and that somehow makes me love it more than when it was intact. 

Yes, rain like this all through the long weekend, they predict, and wind, too; storms all over the bay area and beyond. I'd rather have snow, I think, you know that dry, powdery Utah snow that isn't too miserable to go out in, but that won't happen here. Snow in the Santa Cruz and Santa Lucia mountains, they say, but I, as do most people in the region, live in a valley.

And it doesn't matter, anyway, because forty-nine people just lost their lives in a fiery plane crash, and when people are dealing with storms like that, who the hell cares what form of precipitation I prefer? I get the feeling that neither the music of rainfall nor the hush of snowfall would do much in the way of comforting those forty-nine families or the town of Clarence Center today.

07: liquid collisions

Yesterday was cold and rainy, which made today's warmth and sunshine all the more delectable for the contrast.

Late Friday afternoon, I sat in my office mulling over the week's interactions. Misdirected messages and confusion; apprehension and disappointed expectations; impossible requests and bizarre phonecalls.

I had just spent the previous half hour or more talking and laughing (laughing really hard at some moments, indeed to the point of tears) with my coworkers, and then I turned back to my desk, intent on crossing a few more items off my list before day's end.

The rain was pouring outside my window, talking at me in its lively percussive dialect with just a touch of melancholic tone. I looked out into the purplish-grayness and watched with mesmerized eyes the multitude of micro-explosions glinting in the late blue light, as post-invisible droplets ricocheted off the shining black pavement and shattered into oblivion. 

The sweetwater puddles quavered in concentric circles, and I was momentarily transported to my childhood home, where I gazed at the stream in the backyard, flooded in a downpour and rippling continuously at the impact of millions of raindrops. Each one, when it hit the surface, expanded outward in an ephemeral series of infinite rings, and I studied them, attaching the image to the name—concentric circles—that Mom or Dad had just taught me, a six-year-old at most.

There is something at once cozy and romantic, challenging and primeval, about the rain. I am learning to appreciate it more, and to feel less hostility towards it, than I used to. 

Still, today's return to this kind of eternal-spring weather was an idyllic treat, and it made showing my parents around town, partially on foot, much more pleasant than it might have been in splashier conditions. I won't mind too much when the rain comes back another day, though. 

(photo credit: rhettmaxwell)

a year ago today

I was in Arizona. I stood in the glorious desert sunshine outside the temple, and from within its doors emerged the newlyweds. My best friend and her husband were positively radiant. It was a joyous occasion for them and for the many people who love them. It was also a moment of catharsis for me. I can't really explain it—or at least, I don't want to here—but needless to say, I was more than a wee bit emotional. All I have to say is that it's a good thing my mascara was waterproof.

A year later, she has finished her master's degree and he is halfway through his; together they have survived a Chicago winter and now they are braving the season in Toronto. (I guess love keeps you warm.) And I miss them terribly.

Happy Anniversary, Claire and Joseph. May you share infinitely more happinesses in the years to come.

Love,
me

skywatch friday, week 12

the rainy season is upon us.



[palo alto caltrain station]

skywatch friday, week 11

"And they said, Go to, let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name..."

[stanford, ca]

see more skies, both ordinary and spectacular, at skywatch

alias

I saw this on a couple of friends' blogs, and it looked like fun. And since I am somewhat frenetically trying to make up for a long dearth of verbal blog posts, it seems fitting to throw it into the mix now:

1. Rock Star name: Cleo* Marguerite** (first pet + current car)
2. Gangster name: Dulce de Leche Snickerdoodle (favorite ice cream + favorite cookie)***
3. Detective name: Green Golondrina (favorite color + favorite animal)
4. Soap Opera name: Ann Columbia (middle name + city where you were born)
5. Star Wars name: Davem (first 3 letters of your last name + first 2 letters of your first)
6. Superhero name: The Orange Tamarindo**** ("The" + 2nd favorite color + favorite drink)
7. Nascar name: Huck Rex (grandfathers' first names)
8. TV Weatherman name: Sheer Shanghai (5th grade teacher's last name + major city starting with the same letter)
9. Spy Name: Spring Daffodil (favorite season/holiday + favorite flower)
10. Cartoon Name: Blackberry Scarfie (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”)
9. Hippie name: Granola Bar Redwood (what you ate for breakfast + favorite tree)
10. Rock band name: The Wandering Blizzard ("The" + favorite hobby + favorite weather element)

*my neighbor's cat when I was little. I've never had any pets of my own.
**actually the Stanford shuttle bus, named after Leland Stanford's favorite horse
***in my opinion, this is seriously flawed gangster name methodology
****okay so maybe this is my second-favorite drink, but the orange hot chocolate just didn't have a very nice ring to it

skywatch friday, week 9

[stanford, ca]

watch the skies from your desktop - see more skywatch posts here

skywatch friday, week 6

[stanford, ca]

Last weekend I moved down to Palo Alto. It's almost always sunny and clear on the peninsula. I love the sunshine and pleasant weather, but on the other hand there may be something to lament in lack of variety. Chrome 3d's southern Finland skies, for instance, make for rather more interesting photos. Browse the celestial views to your heart's content at skywatch.

there's something magical about california

Maybe it's the landscape. Or perhaps it's the people.

Maybe it's the weather. Or something in the water.

Maybe it's simply the novelty of actually living here after I was so tired of my old town, the shock of my leap-of-faith move having worked out so well and so quickly, the thrill of starting fresh and making a new home and a new life for myself in a place that I love.

Maybe it's a little bit from all of the above, with a sprinkling of something else that I haven't identified.

Whatever it is that causes it, at least a couple of times a day I find myself suddenly re-cognizing the fact that I am here, and that I don't have to catch a flight back home in a couple of days, because I live here now. It's like waking up from a really good dream to find that it was real, after all.

another reason why i love this city

Yesterday I decided to go explore Golden Gate Park. I really wanted to see the bison, but I'll have to go back another day for them because I didn't make it that far. I was on foot, and I had come on foot from the library downtown, and the park is huge. Inside the park are several museums, conservatories (the plant kind, not the music kind), lakes, sports fields, playgrounds, specialized gardens, picnic grounds, and so on. Oh, and of course the buffalo paddock. Seriously. Buffalos (ok they're really American bison, but who can tell?) in the middle of the city.

All throughout the park there are roads for motor vehicle traffic and countless paths for walking and biking. Few places can make me feel so content as a woodland path carpeted with pine needles. And the smell! A mingling of redwood and eucalyptus and I don't even know what other fresh greenery. Oh, it's lovely.

A side effect of having discovered for myself this marvelous place is a really (in many ways) brilliant sunburn. My face got sunscreened in the morning but my arms, unfortunately, were neglected. And you know, even when it's very sunny, you don't realize that you're getting burned when the air temperature is only about 75 degrees. It's a few hours later that it hits you. And then you run over to Safeway at 10 at night because you know you won't sleep well without some concentrated aloe vera gel, only to find that they're all out and you have to settle for an inferior aloe-tinged lotion.

If you are at all familiar with my photographic tendencies, you know that I have a particular penchant for photographing flora. Tree trunks, flower blossoms, curiously-shaped succulents, weeds gone to seed, you name it, and if it belongs to the plant kingdom, I'd love to take a picture of it. And Golden Gate Park is a fine place for introducing your camera to some lovely plant specimens. Take a look:

on the eve of departure

things I will miss about this apartment:

• my beloved cottonwood trees!
  
• en-suite half-bath
• living at the end of a cul-de-sac
• living within walking distance of Albertsons & Cafe Rio
• birdwatching on the balcony, even though the railing isn't super stable and the couch is probably thirty years old and the new flooring still smells a little like glue ten months later...

things I will not miss about this apartment:

• the unfathomable shower setup
  
• the ugly dark blue carpet and the ugly textured walls
• seasonal ant infestation
• bent window screens that let flying bugs in
• the crappy, er, vintage kitchen: hole in the roof of the microwave, crooked burner on the stove, weak garbage disposal that gets clogged way too easily, fridge without a light, ugly linoleum floor...
• having to buy all new light fixtures because the ones provided were miserably inadequate
• scary electrical outlets that work only if the plug is hanging at a certain angle (not a normal right angle)

things I will miss about Provo:

• carefree midnight walks
• Wasatch mountains as backdrop
• Costa Azul turned Costa Vida, affectionately known simply as Costa
• giant sycamores in the "downtown" area
• Harold B. Lee Library
• wandering near the trainyards, again, without feeling threatened
• hearing train whistles at all hours of the night
• free New York Times on campus
• being able to walk to church
• four distinct seasons, even is autumn is brief and spring is schizophrenic
• low humidity - oh, how I prefer a Utah summer to a Maryland summer
• low cost of living (minuscule compared to SF bay)
• intellectual perks of being in a university community
• El Gallo Giro & Delipan - but the Mission District should make up for it. Taquería, here I come!

things I will not miss about Provo:

• it takes two hours on public transit to get to a decent-sized city
• infrequent and untimely buses (though they could be worse)
• minimal architectural interest
• singles stake leaders who think it's their job to make sure we don't leave Provo without getting married first
• the smell of Fast Food Row (Bulldog Blvd) on my walk to/from campus
• the electric fireworks at "The Corner"
• hearing or overhearing that so-and-so got married and whats-her-bucket got engaged, half a dozen times a day if out and about on campus
• no curbside recycling! to be fair, it is available for a mere $5/month, but not at the apartments I've lived in because of the way they are managed. it's sort of a pain to collect recyclables and cart them down to the dropoff site in south Provo. not that it's not worth it. recycling makes me feel happy.

things about San Francisco that I'm looking forward to:

• exploring the city
• seeing sights like these
• living near this guy
• SFMOMA and other major museums
• architecture
• convenient public transit
• La Taquería (best tacos north of the border)
• and the rest of the Mission/Little Mexico
• the hills
• views of the bay and the ocean
• plastic bag & bottled water bans (hooray!)
• liberal politics and plenty of treehuggers (okay maybe that's a stereotype but I hope it holds true!)
• artsy atmosphere
• did I mention the Mexican food? and Thai, and Indian, and Vietnamese...
• the prospect of meeting a cute, smart Stanford boy. hey, my sister did. and we all know that the only reason I'm going to California is to get married, right?
• um, it's San Francisco. duh.
• oh, and it's not Utah Valley. finally!

things about San Francisco that I'm not looking forward to:

• high cost of living (and no job yet!)
• no more midnight walks
• the hills (walking up them)
• hmm, yep, that's all I can think of.
  

California, Californiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, here we coooooooooooommme!
(that's for you, BreeAnn, Claire, Anna-Lisa)

[untitled aeolian verse]

step outside into the realm of potential
where just enough rain to dilute the smoke rolled down the mountainside
--wet pine needles exhaling their delicate fragrance
over the lingering hot breath of burning timber--
leapt from the sky in a brief joyous shower
but the clouds don't look playful
so you know there must be more
this is false calm, a mid-storm limbo
poorly disguised, you think,
inhaling energy-saturated air
propelled into your lungs on cool infrared breezes
picking up speed now a steady wind
and the electrical im-
pulses through your veins and you
you are the stormy sky
what will you do with what is stored inside you it
can't stay cramped in there forever and
the sky is black now camouflaged the silhouette of the mountains
but you look over your shoulder at where you know
you think they are just in time to see
the violet light of a horizontal lightning bolt
a brilliant display of
drawing a blank

musings under a toasted indigo sky

I just came in from a midnight stroll around the neighborhood, a much-needed respite from I don't even want to count how many hours spent sitting at my desk staring at the computer screen today.

A collection of observations and conclusions, old and new:

* One of the things I love most about the west is the way the hot summer days cool down--a lot--to wonderfully pleasant summer evenings.
* The only thing that denies a western summer evening the status of ideal summer evening is the absence of fireflies. At least I've never seen fireflies in Utah, though there are reports of sightings. Anyway they're certainly not as abundant out here as they are in Maryland where I grew up. They're a part of me and still very much awe-inspiring.
* The goal of the midnight walk is better achieved at an hour somewhat past midnight, when things have really quieted down. There are still a lot of cars on the road at 11:30 pm, but not so many at, say, 3:30 am, when I ventured out for last night's meander.
* As much as I love the pulse of the big city, something in me really values the luxury of wandering around the neighborhood at any hour of the night without worrying about personal safety. I wonder how much I'll miss that in San Francisco...?

the c-city tour

Hi. It's been a while. The last few days have been occupied primarily by running amok, and before that I was doing some traveling. The major stops on my journey, incidentally, all begin with the letter C.

I arrived in Chicago on Friday the 20th. Claire picked me up from the airport (where they have installed, on both sides of the escalator rails, new tv screens letting you know that Mayor Daley welcomes you to Chicago, as if there weren't enough signs already), and then we went to Costco. By coincidence, it has become something of a tradition to go directly from the airport to Costco whenever I fly somewhere to see Claire (April in Chicago, preceded by last December in Phoenix). Claire and I spent the weekend packing up her stuff and moving it into a storage closet downtown. We got to see lots of the more "savory" parts of town as we ran errands to drop off things at Goodwill and Comcast. Claire took me out to dinner for my birfday, and then we got to deep-clean her apartment. The last time we did that was at G-5, when we topped off the all-night cleaning marathon with a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts. Yum. In Chicago we took a break from cleaning with tacos from Pepe's. The guy who took my order asked me if I had Mexican relatives. Sure, isn't it obvious?

On Tuesday the 24th we left Chicago and drove to Cleveland. That meant several hours along the Indiana and Ohio toll roads through the flat and lovely midwest farmlands. The Indiana toll road runs east-west near the northern border with Michigan. At one point I mistakenly told Claire that we could stop for gas and food at the Middlebury exit (near Shipshewana, which is really fun to say, try it. I annoyed Claire by reading it aloud every time I saw it on a sign). We found a gas station, but other than that there was pretty much nothing there. We looked. We drove down the road into Michigan (near Mottville) for a few minutes looking for somewhere to eat, and we found no such place. However, on the corner where we turned around there was a hand-painted campaign sign staked in the ground. Unfortunately I wasn't ready with my camera, but I did take a good mental image so that I could draw up this representation:


Just imagine a sheriff with a name like that! I wouldn't mess with him.

Anyway we got back on the toll road and eventually made it to Cleveland. Claire's brother and sister-in-law and cute cute nephew live there. It was a quick visit, but a nice one. We ate lots of yummy pizza at Dewey's (not to be confused with this other Dewey's) and we saw a really great tv show on the kids' channel. No kidding. It's funny. Watch it.

The next day we flew to BWI, just a few minutes away from our final destination of Columbia, my tree-covered curved-street hometown. We came here for my sister's wedding, which my mother decided to plan and cater almost single-handedly. The days leading up to the big one (yesterday) were rather chaotic and stressful, but it all worked out and everything was beautiful and delicious, accordingly. But boy was it hot outside. Oh, the humidity! when it's summer on the east coast.

From our base in Columbia we'll spend the next week exploring the area, visiting my favorite museums on the mall, checking out the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and maybe catching some fireworks on Friday. Cheers for now, and may you be well wherever you are, from Cincinatti to Casa Grande, from Colorado Springs to Córdoba.

today was a beautiful spring day

I slept through half of it, and I spent the other half inside the library.

Hey, Nice Weather,

Wait for me!

I would love to come out and play, but for now I am a slave to the thesis and to the nocturnality that seems to come along with it.

Just please don't rub it in my face that I'm missing out, okay?

Thanks, and I'll see you soon.

Your friend,

me

today was a good day

It was sunny and over 50 degrees. Veritable skirt weather.

I passed my prospectus defense for my thesis. There is still a lot of work to do, in very little time, but hey, I spent the first two months of winter sleeping off a series of illnesses, so I shouldn't need to sleep much for the next three weeks, right?

I tried a new candy bar: white chocolate with coconut. Heavenly.

I bowled a 123. I got to use my favorite ball, fluorescent-watermelon-colored with a Team Mickey logo. Not because of the Team Mickey logo, per se, but just because it seems to work well for me. It glides nicely and doesn't spin too much when I don't want it to.

I got some good work done at the library. The second story that I am translating is going very smoothly so far.

My stories are on tv. They make me laugh.

And José González sang to me all day long. He's my newest musical love. You should listen to him.

winter's last hurrah? ...maybe until april, anyway

This morning, the sun was shining in a clear blue sky, and it appeared as though we would have another spring-in-February day like yesterday and the day before yesterday, when we had high temperatures in the forties. The National Weather Service advised us not to be fooled, however, as they expected a major cold front to sweep into the area around noon, bringing with it gusty (gutsy?) winds and three to five inches of snow by midnight.

I was somewhat disappointed when twelve o'clock, one o'clock, two o'clock rolled around and no snow had fallen over Provo. The sky had become overcast, that sort of frothy white overcast that comes before a snowstorm, so I had not lost all hope. As I walked to the bus stop a little after three o'clock, a little breeze had picked up and the air was thick with that pungent storm-coming odor (that's ozone, they tell me).

By the time I got off the bus at Bulldog and State, about ten minutes later, the wind had picked up, the temperature had plummeted, and it had begun drizzling. At the intersection, I had to cross two streets to get to Quizno's at the opposite corner. When I got there I found a handwritten paper sign taped to the door that said "We are closed now. Thanks." It might have even said "Thnx." I can't remember. Anyway, uh, no thanks. If I had known it would be closed I would not have gotten off the bus. Once the streetlights had changed in sequence to let me cross the street again to head north up State Street toward home, it had begun snowing. Horizontally. Boy was that northern wind cold and gutsy. Thanks, Idaho, for passing it down.

A few hours later I headed back to campus for orchestra rehearsal, and though the snowfall had been steady, it was also light, and the ground had warmed up so much in the last few days that the only accumulation was a sparse dusting on a few patches of sidewalk. Nothing had visibly changed when I walked inside the fine arts center about twenty minutes later. I was still feeling a little let down by this storm that was supposed to exhibit "blizzard-like conditions" and result in significant accumulation.

Two hours later, I emerged from the basement rehearsal room and found what I had been hoping for all day. You know that soft hush, that sort of silence that you can feel wrap around you, that fresh snowfall lends to the world? That was what I noticed first, and that phenomenon never ceases to amaze me. Then I saw the bright white snow that carpeted the ground. I didn't take an accurate measurement, but I'd say it was at least two inches. As I crossed the bridge over Campus Drive, looking toward the mountains, I got a good look at the sky. It was that nighttime snowfall color, that eerily beautiful, electric dusty pink.

It is days like these that the idea of studying meteorology gets to me again. But at this point I think that it is one of those things that sometimes seems appealing, but that I will avoid diving into fully for fear of losing sight of the fun, like maybe ignorance of the specifics is key to the wonder.

It is still snowing. And I am still smiling.

bring it on, jack frost

We are expecting some wintry weather out here in Utah-land. I have been checking the severe weather alerts regularly, in part because I am concerned about the road and atmospheric conditions since I am supposed to fly out on Thursday, and in part because I am mildly obsessed with the weather. Every time I get to the end of the National Weather Service statement, I read "gusty southwest winds" as "gutsy southwest winds". I think that that's just what we need: weather with a bit of spunk. That's right, cold front, you show 'em who's controlling the thermometer around here. Snow clouds, do your thing and don't you let anybody try to stop you!