Coming Home

A lot has been going on. I moved back to Asheville (very stressful) but I am really happy about it. My boyfriend helped me a lot which was really nice. After all the mean packing got done we went to Great Falls, VA to check out the crazy waterfalls on the Potomac (see picture).

My new job is really exciting and exactly what I should have been doing the whole time. Happy non-profit flexible job! My office is in the upstairs of a cute house across the street from a great coffee shop. There are two types of lavender next to the sidewalk to the porch as well as a hydrangea. Those are basically my two favorite plants/flowers. The lavender is blooming right now so you can smell it when you walk by. From the window of my desk I can see the blue ridge mountains. It has been my fantasy in life to live in a room where you can see those mountains. My senior year of college I could kind of see a ridge line- so I guess that counts, but I finally have the real deal with this office. Unbelievable. I miss talkin' trash and recycling but energy conservation is all related.

My new apartment is super cute and really cheap. I live downtown and can walk to everything I need. I am around the corner from Greenlife Grocery for instant food gratification and I just discovered today that the closest ATM to me is from a credit union and DOESN'T CHARGE ME A FEE TO USE IT?!?! Magic happens in Asheville. Anyways, my room is pretty small but that is ok with me, it is basically only for sleeping and dressing and storing. It is a 3 bedroom apartment in a big house that has been separated into apartments. I am still searching for a bed (hard to do without a car) so I have a palate on the floor which is fine for now. The biggest improvement overall I think are all the windows in my life now. There are windows in my office (my old office didn't have windows, it was awful), there are WINDOWS IN MY ROOM that look over a wooded lot. Since the room is on the second floor of the house it feels like I am in a tree house!! Lots of trees. I can hear birds, even identify some of them! There is a church close by that rings bells on the hour. At 12:00, 5:00 and I think 6:00 it plays crazy bell songs for like 15 minutes. I'm in love. It's exactly what I wanted / needed.

New roommate K is totally awesome, as well. She and I went to college together and it is really such a good situation. She has a cat, Queen, that lives with us too. I am allergic to cats, only if I pet them and love them like I want to though. So we live an awkward existence- I talk to Queen a lot but if she gets too close I have to shoo her away. I hate doing that but so it goes. I call her the following names:
Queen
Queenie
Queen Bean
McQueen
Little White Cat
Little Cat
Bad Cat

I thought for a while that Eloise (from one of my favorite children's books of all time) had a pet dog named Queenie but after some research it turns out her pug is named Weenie. Queen is 15 years old! She acts younger than that, though. She takes a long time to sit down. She is very small and quiet. She tries to go out of the door of the apartment anytime you open it, though when she does actually get out she is too scared to go down the stairs to properly escape. Our relationship is complicated and sad because I do love her but I can't pet her, so she is still kind of mystified by me. She is a very friendly cat.

Since moving back I have been riding my bike to and from work every day. The first few days were kind of hard- I had to reacquaint myself to the hills around here. Now I am pretty comfortable with them- I think a lot of it is just getting into routine. I am in the process of getting a car, sadly, because the program I'm doing requires it. I'm telling myself it won't be so bad because I can drive home for the weekend if I want, or drive to Pisgah to go hiking, go to DC, go to my favorite grocery store on the planet Amazing Savings (they don't have a website! Figures...) or go to anywhere I want.

This morning, my first real Saturday since I've been back, I got up extra early to check out a yard sale on my street. I was hoping for a bed- they did have a futon, which I considered, but I really don't like sleeping on futons. Instead I got a MSR Whisperlite Internationale Backpacking Stove, something I have wanted SPECIFICALLY for years- they were selling it for $20! Ha! This stove rules because:
#1 It's a Whisperlite, the stove I am used to using since my very first backpacking trip
#2 It's SOOOO LIGHT
#3 It's constructed really simply so even an engineering dummy like me can take the thing apart and fix it if it's screwy
#4 The internationale version of the Whisperlite can run off of lots of different kinds of fuels, not just white gas. This sucker can even run on JET FUEL if you happen to have it when your plane crashes and you have extra jet fuel. EXTRA SPECIAL!!!!

I also got a Minolta Dynax 5 SLR film camera for $25. I just need to get some batteries! What a steal. All my SLR's die (I probably have a graveyard of at least 4 or 5 in my room in my mom's house) so when I see a cheap one I like to snatch it up and use it until it dies, too. It's cheaper than getting the old ones fixed, that's for damn sure. So hopefully some happy really nice pictures soon. This camera even came with the instruction book and still had the original receipt! Crazy! Maybe this one won't die. I can hope.

I also made french toast for breakfast, something I haven't done in a long time. I should cook things that aren't stir-fry more often. haha. NAAAHHHH

Being back in Asheville has felt like coming home. I am really pleased with everything so far.

this wilderness needs to get right out of my clothes and get into my bedroom.

I was walking home from where the bus lets me off (I was returning home from the Freeminds Book Club "Friendraiser" at Marvin*) when as I approach my stoop I see a cute dog walking around. No leash, no owner, just walking around. It came up to me and I pet it and it was really sweet. It looked like a puppy but kind of a big puppy. Really nice dog. I walked up the stairs to my door and the dog followed me! I sat down and pet it and talked to it and it didn't have a collar but it was obvious that this dog had been socialized with people. So cute!

It ran to another stoop where a woman was on the phone, she yelled to me "is that your dog?" and I said "no" and she said she was calling animal control. That made me so sad- I sat and pet the dog for some more and tried to take a picture to show it to my boyfriend. I came inside so that I wouldn't be so tempted to keep it. I was SO CLOSE TO BRINGING THAT DOG INSIDE. I want a dog so bad! And I'm pretty sure animal control puts animals to sleep if no on adopts them really fast... so I'm feeling really sick about it now... but I'm pretty sure that since it is still a puppy and it's so friendly and cute that someone will adopt it quickly. aw. I came inside and spewed that whole story to my roommate and almost cried.

I'm at a time in my life where I really want a dog for the companionship and consistency (since both of those things are kind of up in the air right now) but I live in a small apartment, I don't come straight home from work all the time, I can't come home for lunch to let it out, I travel spontaneously... the list goes on. Bad idea to bring a pet that needs a lot of love into the mix. I am still considering getting a hamster, though. They don't mind being alone and you can leave them for a pretty long amount of time and they are ok. Really I want a dog, though.

*Marvin is a really cool bar near U street in DC. It is a Marvin Gaye tribute bar. I can't even believe that exists and the fact that it does exist and that it is VERY CLASSY AND NICE just floors me. They served chicken and waffles and ribs at the fundraiser..... my first chicken and waffles! Marvin is is specifically devoted to a period in Marvin Gaye's life when he moved to Belgium to kind of "regroup" so they serve Belgian beer (my favorite!)

Yard Sailing y el Dia de los Muertos

Today I went to more yard sales with T. We had enormous luck for most of the day- rich people yard sales and items from around the world- my favorites! I got a lot of Christmas presents. It's always good to start working on Christmas presents before you are strapped for cash in December with no ideas. That's the pits. So it was a successful day. It really was a beautiful day (unlike the monsoon that was yesterday) and I wore the exact right thing to enjoy the weather to the fullest. It's days like this that I really dislike my apartment for its lack of windows. The price we pay for living in one of the nicest neighborhoods in DC is that in order for us to afford it we are in a basement apartment. Our windows aren't even windows- they are "light wells." I refer to it as the "time warp" because you never know what time it is when you are inside- it's like a mall. During the week it's fine because we're gone during the day- it's the weekend when I would rather just go out all day while it's light and not be stuck in the time warp.

At the yard sales I found a Holga camera (scenester, I know!), some yarn for household purposes, a great picture frame, a drawing of a fat hippo, two baking sheets, a muffin tin, two cake pans, and a hippo cookie cutter (what's with the hippos today?) and other various christmas present type stuff. Oh, and a great looking Anthropology book: The Anthopology of Media. I love smart yard sales! I couldn't resist that book even though it looked like a text book- it had recycled art on the cover. T and I also cruised the outside parts of Eastern Market, a way cool part of DC near my house that has vendors on the street selling antiques, vegetables, jewelry, international stuff, different things. Yard sales are so fun because the price no longer reflects the actual price of the item- however much it may have cost retail. It takes on a price of the amount of space it takes up vs. how much money the people can actually make off of it. A delicate balance but the winner is always the shopper- if he or she has the space.

Here is a picture of the awesome bumper sticker I got at the Democratic headquarters in VA last week:

I am constructing a shrine / memorial to my dog Sam who died in April. I am still grieving a lot about it because we had her for 16 years- a large part of my life. Since I studied Day of the Dead so much last year for various projects and classes, I've decided to construct a shrine in the theme of Day of the Dead to Sam. Day of the Dead is a holiday celebrated in parts of Latin America- I studied it in Mexico. It is actually Days of the Dead, because it lasts for I think 3 days. It happens every year around the end of October and the beginning of November. The idea is that during that time all the souls of dead people come back to the place where they were buried to "check up" on their family. The families all come home and create lavish feasts and shrines to their dead, cooking their favorite food and offering it to them. People stay up late celebrating the lives of the people they loved- it's a big party that goes on and on. It reminds everyone that the dead are still with us, they never leave for good, and that you are always connected. I read somewhere that it is believed that if you don't put on a good feast and shrine for your dead person they will be offended because all the other dead people will have all their nice feasts and things- and you would never want to disappoint your dead person! They're dead!

So anyways, I'm making a shrine to Sam for Day of the Dead, even though she is not buried here. I think she'll probably come by to see me even though I'm so far from home. It's really hard to build the thing because I'm still so sad about it. I've got a lot of pictures of her and her collar, some special nuts I brought back from Mexico that were used in another ritual, and today I got an icon of Mary at a yard sale. I seriously cry every time I spend any kind of time thinking about it, but it is comforting to know that Sam is still around. I really want to believe in ghosts and Day of the Dead because I want her to still be near me. I'm pretty sure I heard her ghost at home over the summer once or twice. I think a lot of why it was so hard to be at home this summer was because I was trying so hard to avoid thinking about Sam. It's so easy to distract yourself when you're busy- not so much when you have nothing to do at home. Sometimes I am happy and content that Sam is around "spiritually"- and I am happy that she isn't old and weak and having a hard time. But usually I'm just devastatingly sad. Being an only child and she being my one dog that was always around is just really hard. I've never grieved anyone that was this close to me so I guess this is my "learn to grieve" part of my life.

I guess I should also say that I am completely serious about all of this stuff. I am not sure I should even be writing about it on the internet but I'm lonely right now and just need to write. I've never missed someone or been so sad about something in my life.

So ANYWAYS. This weekend was very laid back, but kind of lonely. I'm looking forward to being busy again so that I won't be alone with my thoughts for very long.