Remember when you were a kid and you'd be all like "YAY! SUMMER! No school, no job, no responsibilities! I can hang out with my best friend EVERY SINGLE DAY and bum around the skate park and be broke but not give a flying crap because, man, it's summer and we can just we can just watch Almost Famous in Danielle's garage every night."?

Awesomely, I can still conjure up those memories. I can't really remember the feeling, though. You know, the feeling of not being busy and liking it.

Summer has been the busiest season of my life consistently for years. This one is no exception. Trying to balance sanity with the demands of work/school/money/family/friends/moving to a foreign country is going to be, um, well, the word "challenging" is probably an understatement. I need to stop looking for flats before we have a moving date because watching all of the good ones disappear might be more masochistic than I can even handle.

Fortunately, I got to play with Declan this weekend. My cousins are the cutest frickin' kids. I have to say: I'm very lucky to have my family. Both sides are supportive and amazing, and I'm going to miss the heck out of afternoons like this.

Hopefully next weekend is as bright and beautiful as this one was. Littlest bro (bottom picture) danced at Folk Life today. He was awesome! And Daniel's making dinner tonight! I like it when that happens. See? I'm keeping it positive. I may have a few mental breakdowns in the coming weeks, but it's nothing D and I can't handle. PLUS!!!: getting a haircut when we go down to PDX for Matthew's graduation. It's gonna be SHORT AGAIN. I'm stoked. Don't know if you could tell. Pictures will be provided eventually (as I've said before: blogging from P-town? it rarely happens).

Food time! Over and out.

hum drum update doop

Man, deadlines are so helpful. I'm just gonna throw that out there. I love deadlines. They are like jumper cables for your brain. Vroom vroom.

In other news, I updated my comic recently. You can view it here. Daniel and I took the weekend off--almost entirely for reals!--and went hiking with some peeps, hung out at Remedy, etc. And I spent about 6 hours of Sunday making a comic, because, you know, weekends. It was actually quite relaxing, and provided some much-needed flexing of the drawing muscles. I've even been feeling the itch to paint a little bit, but that's way more labor- (and prep-) intensive, and I don't really have the time for it right now. Writing is consuming my life. (Note: that is a good thing. A very, wonderfully, spectacularly good thing.)

I do wish that we could find an apartment. We can't technically look right now (I mean, I am certainly allowed to bum around and check places out on the interwebs, but not for keeps) because moving dates are up in the air, etc, but with the summer months approaching, I'm starting to get a little antsy. Hopefully it's silly of me to think that the summer Olympics will at all impact our ability to find a nice, affordable place to live (*cough*in the area we want*cough*), but... there it is. Who knows. Regardless, I'm getting excited about finding a new home--some place we can cozy up in for three years--one with new walls for our art, and new drawers to put spoons in. I'm going to miss our Seattle home (our building is the prettiest!), but a fresh start is becoming more and more an exciting notion. (I'm even looking forward to going through all of my clothes and trinkets, deciding what things to store and what to give away. All I need is the time to do it! snort.)

Writing's been going well this week. I should be able to spend the next few days polishing before I send my beginning-of-a-thing off to Workshop Assignment Land. I'm fairly nervous about the residency and how my writing will be received*, but most good workshops are full of warm individuals who want to help you improve, so that's exactly what I'll hope for. I am pretty darn excited about my study proposal for the term, so hopefully that works out. So much Magic Realism.** I am obsessed.

Speaking of lovely, bookish things: I put Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red onto my proposed reading list. I read it once in undergrad and thought it was breathtaking, so I'd like to read it again. I opened it up today and re-read the first intro chapter--sometimes words, or pairings of words, are so beautiful that become emotionally overwhelmed. In fact, it wasn't until I picked it up that I had any success with writing today.*** Whatever it is that I'm working on is not nearly as beautiful (at least at this point), but that does not cheapen the inspiration.

Also, Daniel is reading A Moveable Feast. He totally loves it, and his new crush on Hemingway is downright adorable.


*TERRIFIED, ACTUALLY.
**novels AND nonfiction analysis. oooOOOOoooh!
***1000 words by 7pm! And at 5pm I only had 54. 

getting back on the [work] horse

There's this trend I'm noticing where I pretty much don't blog when I'm staying at my parents' house. This is likely because the days there are all GO GO GO and squeeze-in-a-nap-when-you-can-'cause-wake-up-time-is-6:30am*. Now Daniel and I are back home, still exhausted, but happy to be in our own little place again. The cat's happy to be home, too. She and Watson almost became friends. Almost.

So, basically, life is crazy. In Portland, I: went to the eye doctor; purchased glasses for my broken, nearsighted face**; bought an e-reader***; put lots of public domain books on said-reader; bought too many clothes at Target; bought more clothes at H&M (why do I even let myself go to these places??); got my hair did; replaced my lost ID****; hung out with a bunch of friends, but was sad that I didn't get to see all of them; watched the dog/chickens/guinea pigs/brothers; didn't sleep enough.

Today we got back home in the a.m. and were able to get a little bit of work time in, but tomorrow is the day to really swing back into it. Already, I've had moments of near-panic (quelled by...magic?) wherein I discover that I HAVE DEADLINES AGAIN. Big, important deadlines for work AND school. What the heck is happening.

I think the hardest part so far is trying to establish some kind of routine. Since I got my "real" job, we've been traveling non-stop (the last time we were home, it was for 18 hours--between getting off a plane from Ithaca and then driving down to PDX. I do not recommend it), so my poor, organization-deprived brain has been scrambling to figure out the difference between Work Time, School Time, and Down Time. It feels a little like asking my netbook to run twenty programs at once. My eyes may be flashing frantic ERROR alerts as we speak. Anywhoo, I bought a binder this evening for to keep track of a bunch of my financial stuff, and new staples for the stapler, and caraway seeds so I could make black bread tomorrow. I'm still working through how to best organize my time, but I think 24 hours at home and a rudimentary filing system (1 binder and some dividers. very professional) will do wonders.

So, want to see the insane swimsuit I bought at H&M? I have no idea why, but I saw this from across the store and I just knew we were meant to be. It makes me feel like a Bond girl.

Swimsuit - from H&M

http://www.hm.com/us/s/02YQ2O

Fully lined swimsuit with long sleeves, front zip and partially open back. Zips on sleeves.

www.hm.com

this is obviously not a picture of me. I am a sickly ghost-color, and not nearly as leggy.

Alright. I've got a date with Kait and the library tomorrow, and bread to make before that, so I'mma peace out and go sleep for many, many hours.


*not because anyone will intentionally wake you up at 6:30--but that's when the zoo awakens and, unfortunately, I don't sleep as soundly as my brother Matthew 
**I should be getting them tomorrow! YESSSS
***a li'l Sony e-reader. It runs on Android, so it's just like using my phone! And it handles PDFs spectacularly. Also, you can hand-write notes in the margins. Pretty great, considering all of the traveling I'm about to be doing and the mountains of research I've got looming over my head.
****WHICH COST ME $40 BECAUSE NON-DRIVERS ARE ABUSED. (replacing a driver's license is $26.50, but a regular ol' state ID is $39.50. RIDDLE ME THAT, BATMAN)